Episode #72 How To Meet And Connect With New People

How is everyone’s kafunsho or allergies to the cedar and cypress pine tree pollens going? Don’t worry, I am suffering with you if you belong to roughly half the population here in Tokyo who are affected. Today we are talking about how people in Japan are not connecting very well these days. They are not connecting to find life partners and have children and not doing a great job in business either. Let’s discover what the problem is and look for solutions. We will cover four key Human Relations Principles which will help when we meet new people for the first time and get the relationship rolling.

Japan’s fertility rate is ranked one hundred and eighty fourth out of two hundred and three countries. Japan also comes in low at closing disparity on the gender gap index, ranking at one hundred and ten out of one hundred and forty nine countries. In 2015 , Japan’s social policy spending for family rates issues was only one point three one percent, compared to three point seven nine percent or the UK and three point six four percent for Sweden. Public spending on education in japan was one hundred and fourteenth out of one hundred and fifty four countries. Sweden topped the list with seven point five five percent of GDP spent on education and Japan was at just three point four seven percent. In other news, Japan’s jobless rate hit a t wenty six year low at two point four percent in 2018 .The number of unemployed fell by two hundred and forty thousand to now total one million six hundred and sixty million people. Japan added one point three four million jobs bringing the working population up to sixty six point six four million. The ratio of jobs to job seekers was one point six one. Finally, The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry admitted it had published faulty jobs data for more than a decade and failed to properly worker related benefits of five hundred and twelve million dollars to more than twenty million people. The government had been boasting of salary increases as a major benefit of Abenomics economic policy mix. The revised figures showed that real wages had in fact dropped half a percent.

Business Japan’s ignominious end is being triggered by a lack of romance. This retarded romantic environment is whittling away vital procreation efforts, which in turn is creating shortages of corporate fodder for the captains of industry. The end of the world is nigh. Well that is what is being served up to us, following the Cabinet Office’s statistics, which show nearly forty percent of twenties and thirties singles, the prime marriage target group, are not wanting a romantic partner. Relationships are bothersome, according to forty six percent of those singles surveyed. Who knew?

Drivers for this end of epoch trend are long work hours for the young, insufficient leisure time, seventy percent of women quitting work to have babies and not returning to the workforce and less face time because we have mega screen time instead. The surge in part-time workers, means young guys not in the mainstream are the working poor. As young women say they will only marry someone with income of over five million yen or forty five thousand dollars a year, that is a bit of a downer for a big chunk of the part-timer youth male population. Companies are still reluctant to make part-time workers full time, although this must change, as we start to run out of workers. A couple of hundred thousand imported workers over the next five years, won’t make much of an impact.

In Japan, it is sometimes hard to connect the dots. Porno seems pretty big here. From the hard core train commute manga, to the free, extremely graphic internet videos, there is a lot aimed at men. Watching thousands of young blokes on television enthusiastically waving light sticks at a big eyed, long legged, micro mini-skirted, fulsomely endowered Hatsune Miku hologram concert boggles your mind. At one level this is tremendously disconcerting, but it does show there is a need there somewhere. Where is the consequent baby boom from all of this testostrone?

The traditional nakodo system or arranged marriage infrastructure is not as dominant as it was many years ago. So, how to get the heavens to coalesce and bring sweethearts together? Modern alternate internet based services are attempting to link young people, but it would appear to be difficult, if the fundamental interest is not there.

Modesty and shyness are cultural characteristics making it difficult for fostering romance. Part of the problem seems to be the inability to initiate a conversation with people we don’t know. I see it at networking events in business. It is rare to see Japanese business people walking up to complete strangers and strike up a conversation. They tend to stand around talking to their colleagues. They meet new people only when they are introduced to the new contacts of their existing contacts.

Now the puzzling part for me is that this is a business event, but nobody seems very motivated to create business opportunities. A friend of mine who has lived in Japan for many, many years was contrasting these networking events here with the ones he was attending in Hong Kong. Over there, everyone is hungry to find new business opportunities. They are very keen to meet as many new people as possible, to expand their network of contacts. Japan is almost the extreme opposite. Why is that?

Being shy is not a Japanese monopoly. I was painfully shy when I was younger. In our communication training courses, we often hear the same comments. “I don’t know what to say to people I meet for the first time”; “I don’t know how to engage someone in conversation”; or “what do I say after I say hello?”. Engaging others is a skill and it can be learnt. I am an introvert who has learnt to become extroverted in public situations. Trust me if I could do it, then anyone can manage it.

Dale Carnegie pioneered training in communication skills and here are some useful Principles we can all apply. Hopefully young people here will adopt some of these same principles and be able to find partners and raise families. We don’t want to run out of people in this country, over the next hundred years. Bosses, if you have single people working in your company, please teach them these life skills and help save the nation.

Principle Number Twenty One “throw down a challenge”. Make it a challenge to yourself to actually make the time to teach these principles to your staff. Also, throw down a challenge to them to walk up to complete strangers at networking events and introduce themselves. Here is how they can do it. They can have their meishi or business card in the right hand, half extended saying, “May I meet you?”. That doesn't sound hard to foreigners, but for most Japanese, that takes a lot of un-training of cultural norms to do that.

Having gotten that far, they can now apply Principle Number Seven: “Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves”. By asking questions, we can engage people we don’t know and through their answers discover points of commonality, agreement or likeability.

“What brought you here tonight?” is a simple starter to get things rolling. This is easy to answer and is not confronting for the person you are meeting for the first time. “How long have you been at your company?”; “What do you do at your company”; “Is Tokyo your home town?”. The list is endless.

We can use Principle number four at the same time: “Become genuinely interested in other people”. The key word there is “genuinely”, that means not engaging in fake interactions. As we discover more about the person, we find ways to relate with them and start a new relationship.

Also Principle number eight: “Talk in terms of the other person’s interests”. Take the focus off us, inviting them to talk. Often we want to talk about ourselves, but we should be patient and get our counterparty to do most of the talking. Give them the floor and let them keep going. When we do this, we already know what we know and now we can know what they know. The more we talk, the more points in common will emerge and that is like glue to create the relationship. Yes there may be gruff types who don’t want to talk to us, but we shouldn’t be put off by the crimes of the few.

The art of conversation is being lost thanks to our sordid hand held device fixation. The ubiquity of distractions, thanks to apps and social media, has isolated us all to an extent civilisation has not experienced before. We are together but alone. Look at how separated we are becoming from each other, as we all brazenly whip out our screens at every chance. Japanese singles and many businesspeople, could benefit from improving their abilities to strike up conversations with new people. It is trainable after all.

Action Steps

1. Don’t be afraid to talk to new people
2. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves
3. Become genuinely interested in other people
4. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests
5. Stop being controlled by your hand held device fixation