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.

Since 2022, I have delivered more than a dozen workshops for startups participating in the Japan Market Discovery Program—an initiative run by German Accelerator and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE).

Japan remains one of the more complex markets to enter. Understanding its unique business culture is essential for successful market entry. Through concise yet interactive sessions, I aim to equip startup founders and teams with the cultural insights needed to approach Japan strategically and confidently.

The workshop covered:

• The importance of groups over individuals
• Hierarchy and expectations in customer–supplier relationships
• Relationship-building as the foundation of business
• Collective decision-making processes
• The role of indirect communication

As always, the session sparked engaging discussions and thoughtful questions. It is always inspiring to work with ambitious teams preparing for international expansion. I wish all participating startups great success on their business and cultural journey into Japan.

If you’re preparing to enter the Japanese market, feel free to get in touch.

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.

The one-day session, held in German, was characterized by a highly positive atmosphere and lively discussions. The training focused on real-world tasks and challenges faced by the participants, ensuring practical relevance and immediate applicability.

By exploring the cultural context behind these challenges, participants were encouraged to develop their own solutions to everyday intercultural situations.

The workshop with Joseph Schaules, Director of JII, was held in person as a pre-conference workshop at SIETAR Germany’s FORUM 2025 in Erfurt, Thuringia, last November. The Deep Culture Approach enables intercultural educators to perceive culture through a neuroscientific lens. It was deeply enlightening to gain a better understanding of how my brain works and how deeply culture is embedded within me.

Having become a member of JII, I’m excited to be involved in extensive exchange with intercultural educators on Deep Culture topics in the future.

Here is a detailed column about what this workshop did to me https://www.sesera.net/en/cultureshock_1/

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.

A big thank you to Eidam & Partner for organizing the training.

How interculturally intrieging this business trip turned out to be – Please read my column:

We would also like to thank Eidam & Partner for the successful collaboration in organizing this learning journey.

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.

Program Overview

• Participants: Employees assigned from Japan in April 2025
• Period: Late June – End of July 2025
• Format: In-person (1-day sessions)
• Language: Japanese
• Number of Participants:
  　・Group sessions for general employees (6 participants × 2 sessions)
  　・Individual sessions for senior managers (2 participants)

Training Highlights

• Small-group workshop format with chairs arranged in a circle to encourage open discussion
• Q&A session with a German HR representative (1 hour in the afternoon)
• Pre-training surveys enabled tailored program design based on individual needs
• Online pre-interviews conducted in advance for senior management participants

Participant Feedback:

“Gaining insight into basic German ways of thinking and core values has helped me prepare mentally for working here. It was a truly valuable experience, and I am very grateful to Ms. Nishiyama for this training.“