Room sharing

When I passed the university exam in Tokyo, my parents introduced a dormitory as one of the cost saving lifestyle. However, I said "No" because I couldn't imagine living with a stranger. Then, when I was junior in college, one of my part-time job friend asked me to share my room in few months. As a matter of fact, I didn't want to accept offer, because I was so busy with my job hunt and I didn't want to lose my private space, but I said "OK!" once and for all.

Unfortunately, it didn't take long time to realized my judgment was wrong.

I got stressed out  about losing my private time and space.

That's why I can't understand people who want to share a house with strangers.

As for room sharing, originally, it's really familiar in abroad.

Especially, in western countries, most of university students rent one flat or house and share each room to save money.

For instance, if rental fee is $1500, per-captia cost is $500.(in case 3 people)

Also, energy bill is one-third price. Yes, room sharing is so reasonable.

Additionally, there are other advantages in room sharing as well.

As for foreign students, room sharing gives them the chance to communicate with people who have different cultural back ground.

Also, as for woman, it's good for security and relief their loneliness.

And needless to say, when it comes to being sick or being in a disaster,

room-mates can help each other.

However, there are some disadvantage points at the same time.

As you know, human relationship is the biggest issue.

Especially, it tends to cause between people who came from different countries.

For instance, Spanish tend to have a lot of fuss at midnight and Germany guys are tend to strict for cleanliness.(Sorry, that's my general image) Also, if room-mate bring his/her girl/boy friend like every day, it tend to cause a trouble. So, room sharing means losing their private space and time.

Meanwhile, Room sharing is really unpopular in Japan. Most of my university friends lived in their own room, because there are a lot of nice and cheaper apartments for single. And some universities have their own dormitories. It was unpopular over a decade ago, but it's getting popular again, because room is getting nicer and adding new equipments like a high speed internet. Also it has 24h resident inspectors.

So, Japanese students don't need to find their room-mates.

And I think another reason is Japanese mind. As you know, Japanese people

tend to stick together in their closer relationship. However, they never talk with not closer people because of their shy personality Japanese.

In conclusion, I think "room sharing " gives young students the great opportunities to learn about community life and cross-culture.

In case you want to start a room sharing, considering each other is really important.

If you don't do that, your community life is not comfortable.

You shouldn't force your value on your room mates and you should try to understand other's value and cultural back ground.

Written in Aug 2011 and revised April 2012

Owning pets can reduce stress, but

I read an interest article on the internet about pets.

Researchers Randolph Barker at Virginia Commonwealth University said "Bringing your dog to work may ease your stress levels" He divided 76 employees into: those who brought their dogs to work, those who owned dogs but left them home and those who didn't have pets. For one week, the scientists measured levels of the stress.

 As a result, the average stress level scores fell about 11% among people who had brought their dogs to work. In fact, I have seen my co-workers bring their pet in our design studio sometime.

As you know, population of pet owner is increasing year by year in both the U.S and Japan. 25 million dogs and cats are owned by Japanese people and this pet population has already surpassed the population of kids under 16 years old.

In the U.S, 160 million dogs and cats are living with their owner.

In contrast, the birthrate is decreasing and it's 1.4 % in Japan.

Why do a lot of people own their pets? It's easy to explain.

There are two big reasons. First one is to relieve their loneliness by the late marriages and aging population.

In response to this booming, a lot of related businesses are increasing and getting popular like a pet hotel. Dog park and cat cafe are popular in Japan.

The second reason is for healing and relieving their daily stress.

In the city area, many people receive a lot of stress and they try to relieve it somehow. However, they don't have enough time to go to the gym to exercise or to have a relaxing time in their house. That's why people think owning pet is the best way to relieving their stress.

Besides, one web site saying about some interesting advantages of owning pets.

1, Pets can improve your mood.

A recent study found that men with AIDS were less likely to suffer from depression if they owned a pet.

2, Pets control blood pressure better than drugs.

Drugs can generally reduce blood pressure, but people who owe pets have lower blood pressure and heart rates than using drags.

3 ,Pets encourage you to get out and exercise.

As you know, dog owners do spend more time walking than non-pet owners, at least if they live in an urban setting.

4, Pets can help with social support

Walking with a dog makes people more approachable and gives people a reason to stop and talk, increases the number of people they meet, give them an opportunity to increase their network of friends, which also has great stress management benefits.

http://stress.about.com/od/lowstresslifestyle/a/petsandstress.htm 

I used to own some cats. So, I understand these reasons.

However, I have one concern at the same time.

If this pet booming continues in the future, birth-rate will decrease and a labor shortage will happened. Then, robots will give care to aged people.

Also, abandoned pets are increasing. In Japan, 271,592 dogs and cats were abandoned and 229,832 euthanize in 2010. People can buy pets easily, but some people abandon them easily.

Pets can relieve our loneliness and stress, but pets can't have a role in our future.

I agree with owning a pet, but I want to say "Don't forget that kids also have a strong healing  power and of course, kids relieve your loneliness.

Of course, parents can't abandon their kids easily.

In addition, your kids can live longer than you at least.

So, let's focus on not only owning pets, but also having a kids.

Written in April 5 and revised April 10

Japanese Supermarket

Tesco announced that they decided to retreat from Japan market last August.

They will focus more on China, India and Malaysia areas.

Tesco is the biggest retailer in U.K which has 5400 stores around the world and their sales reached 8 trillion yen. They also have 129 stores predominately in Tokyo area and they entered Japan in 2003 as a discount super market chain.

Carrefour, the French supermarket chain retreated from Japan in 2005 after just  five years of running business and sold their stores to Aeon group which is Japan's largest supermarket group. Walmart has also faced difficulty raising profitability of Seiyu group that Walmart acquired in 2002. Even Seiyu is much better known brand than Tesco.

Why foreign supermarkets were rejected by Japanese people?

I found a lot of opinions on the internet.

For instance,

1, Japanese consumers are strict in quality.

2, The refrigerator size is small and there is no space to stock huge stuff.

3, Too much quantity in each item.

4, The food culture is completely different from Western style.

As you know, Japanese people are looking for safety, delicious, fresh and cheaper price food in their daily life. Also, Japanese people don't have a big storage in their house. In addition, there are a lot of seasonal foods and local foods like sanma(Brevoort fish) in autumn and natto in eastern area.

So, if foreign supermarkets want to enter Japanese supermarket world, they have to adjust their business style to fit Japanese customers.

I can imagine that Tesco and Carrefour researched and bought some Japanese retailers to learn Japanese food culture and Japanese customers.

However, they were rejected finally.

I think Tesco and Carrefour's biggest mistake was that they changed their business style too much. As a result, they lost their own advantages and they became just one of the low level Japanese style supermarket.

Japanese customer don't want to go to such kind of foreign supermarkets.

Walmart should have changed Seiyu brand name to "Walmart"

Meanwhile, Costco is making their root in Japanese market.

Why did they succeed in Japanese strict retail world?

I think it's easy to say.

They didn't change American style business concept such as value for money and bulk buying. Then Japanese customers realized another value compared to Japanese style supermarkets.

Also, keeping their concept gave the emotional aspect(foreign atmosphere) to Japanese customers.

Japanese customers are looking for something new all the time.

They are fed up with ordinary Japanese style supermarkets.

The emotional aspect(foreign atmosphere) is key to success in Japanese supermarket world like Costco is doing now.

I'm sure that Trader Joe's could succesed in Japanese market if they wouldn't change their concept.

Too much learning about Japanese market and too much change in their business style must lead to the failure.

Written in 26 Mar and revised 4 April.

Trader Joe's

http://www.traderjoes.com/