At the risk of sounding trite, maybe all of us should stop and smell the roses more. We spend a lot of time tilling and sowing, but rarely do we harvest what we’ve sown. More on this in a future post.
We decided this is the year of roses. After decades of working without pause, our little family is taking a (literal) trip around the world. Star Alliance - a group of airlines including Singapore Airlines - offered a round-the-world ticket. The conditions are that you fly only in one direction, not more than a certain number of stops, not too many stops per country - and you get to circle the globe. I went ahead and booked this in January. I’d been hoarding miles since 2016, waiting for some magical moment when I’d use them. Time to harvest. Our 53 day round-the-world started this week. And the timing was magically perfect because just this week Singapore Airlines announced that it would discontinuing redemption of miles from May 1. We JUST made it!
I’ll keep reporting back if SIN>TOK>LAX>DEN>NYC>BOS>CPH>ARN>VIE>BKK>SIN with a 4-yr old was a good or bad idea 👀.
I'm going to try to continue the art habit as long as I can. First stop is Tokyo, where we were lucky enough to catch some of the waning cherry blossoms. Here’s what I made using a small travel watercolor set:
Here are five finds from Japan that caught my eye:
- SATO-SAN A civil code dating back to the late 1800s insists that couples select a single surname. Hiroshi Yoshida, a professor of economy at Tohoku University, has projected that if Japan continues with this , every single Japanese person will be known as “Sato-san” by 2531.
- BRING BACK CHIPS Japan was once a chip-making powerhouse. Then a few years ago Japanese chip designers began to outsource their production of sub-40nm nodes to Taiwanese foundries. Now, that the chip gold-rush is back Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TMSC) is transforming the small Japanese farm town of Kikuyo into a key node in Asia’s chip supply chain. TSMC’s American factories have been repeatedly delayed. And even though construction on the first factory began a full year later, the fab in Japan is already up and running and will be fully operational by the end of the year.
- BIG IN JAPAN According to Goldman Sachs the global appetite for K-pop, remains huge, the fan base will keep growing over the next few years. But the growth potential lies most in Japan:" it is already very fond of K-pop, it has a strong idol culture of its own and its pockets are relatively deep when it comes to paying for music. Another great example of culture and commerce going pan-Asian.
- DOMESTIC AI A lot of hand-wringing about AI is jobs it can steal. But in some cases, that might be welcome. Women in Japan do almost 90% of all housework and care work within couples. After marriage, they do almost everything. That has major consequences on their ability to earn, and do anything else for that matter. A country like Japan can benefit from automation in the home.
- GOT IT WRONG To outsiders, Japan - with neon signs, automated waiters and gadgets - can feel like the future. You’ve seen insta-captions like 'Living in the future' or 'Cyberpunk city.' But the reality, as I’ve often seen first hand, is far from this extremely neon-lensed picture. To understand the west’s technofetishization of Japan, you’ll have to dive into the culture that got exported back in the 80s.