Following my two-hour online workshop session, the guest speaker shared her real-world experience of entering the Japanese market. Her insights were refreshingly honest and deeply aligned with what I’ve observed over the years. Here are a few takeaways that are worth sharing more broadly:

1. Trust exists in both Germany and Japan—but it means different things.
In Germany, trust is often built on facts, numbers, and reliability. In Japan, those are necessary, but not sufficient. It’s important to clearly explain why your product belongs in the Japanese market, going beyond the data.

2. It’s never just business—it’s relationships.
Japan is deeply relationship-driven. Entering a partnership may take time, but once established, these partnerships tend to last. Perhaps the most important advice:
“Be a natural person, not a salesperson.”

3. Progress feels slow… until it isn’t.
Things move slowly at first—sometimes frustratingly so. But once trust is established, the long-term benefits can be substantial. Patience isn’t optional here. It’s strategic.

4. Word of mouth is powerful.
When people in Japan start talking about you, it matters. Reputation spreads quietly, but effectively. And it can work strongly in your favor… or against you.

5. Give time and space.
One of my favorite lines from the session:
“Give them lots of time and space—and it will come back to you.”
Not every silence means disinterest. It can signal careful consideration.

6. Effort is visible—and expected.
Another quote that stuck with me:
“SHOW EFFORT! Keep showing up. Keep following up.”
Consistency builds credibility. Presence builds trust.
For many German startups, success in Japan isn’t about moving faster—it’s about moving differently.

If there’s one overarching lesson:
Trust in Japan is built through persistence, presence, and genuine human connection—not just performance metrics.

In the end, Japan doesn’t reward speed. It rewards those who take the time to build trust the right way.

How we define art varies across cultures. At a temple in Kyoto, Japan, I encountered bonseki (盆石), a thousand-year-old form of tray landscape art. Using sand and carefully placed stones, the artist creates a fleeting scene—one that is typically shown to invited guests. After the event, it is gently wiped away, and the tray is ready for the next creation.

At Tokujō-myōin Temple, the abbess Yamada Jōkō explained that bonseki was once practiced by the aristocracy as a way of welcoming guests. These scenes were often accompanied by a poem composed specifically for the occasion. Guests were not merely observers; they were participants, invited to interpret the subtle meanings woven into both the landscape and the words.

In much of modern Western culture, impermanence is rarely associated with art. Art is often seen as the expression of individual creativity—something fixed, preserved, and displayed for a broad audience. It is expected to endure.

Bonseki, by contrast, exists only for a moment. Each piece is a one-time creation, its meaning unfolding within the shared space between host and guest. Once erased, it survives only in memory.

In today’s fast-paced world, we rarely allow ourselves the time to truly experience something so transient. Yet bonseki reflects a kind of richness—one rooted not in permanence or possession, but in attention, presence, and human connection. It reminds us that, in another time, people valued these quiet, intentional moments enough to make them central to their lives.

Today, bonseki is practiced by only a small number of people in Japan. The specialized tools are increasingly difficult to obtain, as the artisans who craft them grow fewer and often lack successors. Like the art itself, the tradition feels fragile—at risk of fading away.

And perhaps that is what makes bonseki so powerful.

Its beauty lies not in preserving it, but in experiencing it with others. It matters to us because it is shared – because it exists for someone else. In the end, bonseki leaves behind no object – only a memory. And perhaps that, in itself, is a kind of treasure.

Last year, I experienced culture shock in Brazil—and honestly, I wasn’t expecting it.

It was my third visit to the country. I had traveled there extensively before, backpacking in different regions. I speak Portuguese well enough for daily life, and through the Brazilian martial art capoeira—which I have practiced for years—I have built many personal connections. I was convinced I already knew Brazilian culture. On top of that, as an intercultural consultant, I thought I would be well prepared for anything.

I went to Rio de Janeiro for a capoeira event and decided to stay in the Centro district for over a week. Although my Brazilian friends advised against it, I wanted to explore a different part of this vast city. Very close to Centro begins a favela, a slum district. Many homeless people lived on the streets, the atmosphere felt tense, and I had to be constantly alert about where I was walking. One block in the wrong direction and you could end up in a neighborhood where you might get into trouble. At night, loud music from bars filled my hotel room and disturbed my sleep.

After only a few days, I became sick. Even after returning home to Germany, I felt exhausted, depressed, and strangely unmotivated for weeks. I couldn’t understand what was happening—until I took the Deep Culture Masterclass.

This course, led by Joseph Shaules from Keio University in Japan, introduced the Deep Culture Approach, which looks at culture through the lens of how the mind works. I learned that our brain usually runs on “autopilot,” guided by unconscious processes that make everyday life easy. In a foreign environment, this autopilot is constantly interrupted. Our cognitive mind has to work overtime to interpret unfamiliar signals, behaviors, and risks.

In Centro, my familiar mental patterns were confronted with a very different cultural reality. This constant mismatch overwhelmed my system and showed up as tiredness, illness, and low mood.

Foreign experiences are powerful, and culture shock is not a sign of weakness but a normal human reaction. Understanding this turned out to be an enormous gift for my future work in helping others navigate cultural challenges. After all, my culture shock became a gem.

And the biggest takeaway for me is simple: I now know that I don’t know—and that realization has fueled my curiosity to keep exploring culture and mind in depth.

Joseph Schaules is director of Japan Intercultural Institute (JII), a non-profit organzation supporting education, research and career development for intercultural professionals. Their Deep Culture Masterclass, which normally takes place virtually, is highly recommended. JII also produces an excellent podcast on Deep Culture.

Pilsen stands for a global standard in Pilsner-style beer. While in the city, I joined an award-winning 100-minute brewery tour at Pilsner Urquell, where this world-famous beer is produced. “Urquell,” meaning original source, refers to the brewery’s origins in 1842 — thanks to a beer expert from the southern German state of Bavaria — and the tour highlights how the beer is still brewed here in exactly the same way today.

Employing around 1,000 people, the largest brewery in the Czech Republic belongs to the Japanese Asahi Group since 2017. The tour ended with a tasting of unfiltered, unpasteurised draft beer in the cellar — probably the best beer I’ve ever had. The brewery has a building, where experimental microbreweries are housed, with one of them producing a beer with Yuzu-flavor- truly a Czech-Japanese cultural fusion!

 After the tour, I headed to a tea house in the old city. Yes — a tea house! Being a big tea lover, I had heard that the Czech Republic has a unique tea culture. In larger cities, you can find so-called tea houses serving many varieties of tea, including Japanese, Chinese, Tibetan, South American, and European. Much like a coffee shop, you sit down and enjoy a tea of your choice, alone or with friends — but Czech tea houses are often far more relaxing, sometimes even offering water pipes.　

The tea house I visited had a large seating area where you take off your shoes and sit on cushions on the floor. It was a cultural blend of Asian, Oriental, and Bohemian influences. The room was dimly lit, and the atmosphere was extremely calming — indeed bohemian in the artistic and unconventional sense. There was no pressure whatsoever to order more or to leave after a certain time.

In another corner of the room, a couple was kissing, giggling, and flirting the whole time. Nibbling on Middle Eastern sweets, halva, I sank into the round, fluffy cushions, turning the pages of the book in my hands. My kukicha from Japan was excellent. It was a moment of pure bliss.

What an enriching experience it was to immerse myself in cultures surrounding two beverages that could hardly be further apart. These are only my first fragments of Czech culture — and I’d love to explore many more.

Travel moments like this continue to inspire my intercultural curiosity.

Being short-changed is rather a common experience I encounter while living in Germany for the past 20 years. Whenever I point that out, they normally say: “Oh, I made a mistake.” Interestingly, I’ve never received too much change by mistake—only too little. It made me wonder whether unconscious bias might be at play.

I assume what is causing this “mistake” is a stereotype of Asian females being submissive and obedient – an assumption that we don’t complain and raise our voice even when harm is done. While waiting in a queue at a supermarket cashier, for example, people sometimes try to cut the line and sneak in before me.

“You’ve obviously seen me waiting here. You’d better go to the end of the queue,” I reply in such situations. Well, not quite submissive. I refuse to reinforce this stereotype of Asian females. No, I ain’t a submissive Asian female.

What happened as a result? Over the course of 20 years, my character grew tougher, in order not to be taken advantage of.

When I visited Hong Kong last year, it struck me what an armor I had been wearing in Germany to protect myself. In Hong Kong, I did not stand out as a racial minority. I blended into the majority even though I was still a visiting foreigner. No one tried to take advantage of me for appearing different.

According to Wikipedia, Asians in Germany or German citizens of Asian descent make up 2,0 percent of Germany’s total population of some 83 million. Being part of a racial minority group means being confronted with certain stereotypes projected onto race, gender and nationality.

Yet, I have also profited a lot from living and working as a minority, particularly as Japanese. Because of the widespread perception towards Japanese culture being totally “different” and “exotic” I was able to establish my own business as a cross-cultural consultant in Germany. Being different is my strength here. Being a minority can be helpful.

How to find strength while living as a minority?
It’s about balancing healthy self-confidence with the armor we sometimes need to wear. Armor is useful—it helps push back against blanket generalizations. But it’s just as important to take it off now and then, to rest, to breathe, and to simply be.

A few years ago, a Canadian friend sent me this video over a Japanese Kindergarten child attempting a vaulting box. He was utterly speechless and asked me, “What is going on here?” > The Video

In the video, a child tries to vault over a stack of boxes of considerable height. He fails once, twice, three times. His eyes fill with tears. Still, the teachers send him back and he keeps trying. Then, something remarkable happens: his classmates form a circle around him and begin chanting together, “You can do it! You can do it! You can do it!”（できる！できる！できる！）The impossible becomes possible: the boy finally clears the vault.

There’s a backstory, too. All children in this kindergarten perform the vault at their graduation ceremony. But due to his mother’s illness, this boy’s family had to move towns earlier than expected. A special ceremony was held just for him. His motivation was to show his strength to his mother—to symbolize his hope that she, too, could overcome her illness.

Yes, it’s moving. Try your best. Never give up. The irreplaceable power of peer support. You can do it—even if it seems impossible.

This video, from 2016, captures something quintessentially Japanese: the “Gambaru” spirit. Gambaru (I’ll do my best) and Gambarou (Let’s try our best together) are phrases deeply woven into the fabric of Japanese life. They’re everywhere—in school, at work, during natural disasters, even in casual conversation.

Rooted in 2,500-year-old Chinese philosophy Confucianism, values like diligence, perseverance and moral duty are still held in high regard in Japan. Children are raised to push themselves, support one another, and never give up—ideals that still shape classrooms and boardrooms alike. Trying hard is valued higher than succeeding effortlessly.

But there’s a darker side.

According to Japan’s Ministry of Education, nearly 300,000 schoolchildren refused to attend school in 2022, making up 3.2% of the student population—a record high. The leading cause is bullying. In a culture where “trying your best” is a moral obligation, what happens if you can’t? Children who fail to meet expectations may be seen as weak, lazy, or selfish. The same gambaru mentality that lifts one child over the vault can isolate another who’s unable to keep up.

It’s complicated. The spirit of gambaru can be both empowering and oppressive. It can lift, or it can crush. So what should we take from all of this?

We — Japanese children, teachers, parents, and adults—must start freeing ourselves from the belief that we always have to make it, just like everyone else. Struggling does not mean failing. Not fitting in doesn’t make us inferior. We need to create room in our minds for rest, difference and failure. Being able to give up can also be a strength.

As someone who has lived in Munich for over 20 years, I was asked for my perspective as a long-term foreign resident. While the televised segment highlighted only one part of my interview—how newcomers can feel excluded due to Germany’s blunt communication style, especially in Bavaria—I believe the core issue lies deeper: the country’s strong prioritization of rules.

Foreigners are immediately faced with Germany’s inflexible bureaucracy. Even registering one’s address can involve long waits and excessive paperwork. It’s not uncommon for residence permits to take 7–12 months to be issued, even when the employer fully supports the process. Germany’s slow digitalization means most procedures are still paper-based. During this waiting period, expats receive only a provisional permit, which may restrict their ability to travel internationally, leading to anxiety and a feeling of being in limbo.

This rule-first mentality also surfaces in public transport. There are no ticket gates or staff at stations; tickets must be purchased in advance based on the correct fare zone—something that’s often hard to figure out. Although mobile apps have improved things somewhat, even locals find the system confusing. Once, after 10 minutes of effort, I bought what I thought was the correct ticket, only to find it slightly underpriced during a random inspection. Though I was ready to pay the difference, the inspector insisted on issuing a full fine with no flexibility.

Such rigid enforcement, while intended to ensure fairness, often comes across as cold and impersonal—especially to newcomers unfamiliar with the system or language. Germany’s rule-bound structure can feel daunting, yet in one-on-one interactions, many Germans are in fact sincere and kind. That’s why, as expats, perhaps the key is learning to separate the system from the people and approach the experience with openness and adaptability.