As the Sun Sets Slowly . . .

Fuji-san in the twilight of our final evening in Japan.

Every TV travelogue I watched as a kid ended with a cliché like this. The sun was always setting, usually in a “far-off, exotic land,” which included the land of the rising sun. Hmm. We might think of Japan in a travelogue sort of way, but we canjust as properly now think of Japan and its people as closer and more accessible than we once thought.  And not quite as different or exotic as we expected, though sometimes driven by different values or customs.

In Japan, people still read newspapers, love baseball, hurry to catch trains and treat one another with impressive respect. They are usually not loud (though there are exceptions) and not late.  On average, they walk a lot more than we do and complain less, at least publicly. They know how to help and operate well in large crowds but also taught us how to be silent, even among friends.

We also learned not to rely entirely on generalizations. Our tomodachi, among others, demonstrated that. Everyone is different.

We returned today, a few hours ago. Once through customs, everyone just sort of disappeared, either by filtering out to different (exotic) gates or by pulling luggage out the front door of Dulles International to awaiting family cars. Mina-san, omedeto gozaimashita. Congrats, everyone. And get some more sleep after our 14-hour ride in a passenger jet.

It was a good experience for those who did it with sneakers on the ground in Japan, and, we hope, with imaginations at work back in the States.  We hope Japan will always appear to you now as a real place with sincere people and an instructive history.  And we hope you will not make this your last visit, nor will this be the end of your curiosity.

We hope your friendships last and that you follow Osamu Suzuki’s advice that what really matters in life and business is building trust.

This was the beginning. Keep after it, scholars. Your research papers should demonstrate your knowledge. Sayonara.

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