When new Japanese employees come to work at J-List it’s an interesting learning experience for them. First of all, they’re amazed at our customers, and the collective passion they have for Japan and its various forms of popular and traditional culture. Japanese know that there are fans of anime and manga around the world, but encountering customers who have more knowledge about a subject like Gundam mecha than 99.9% of Japanese fans amazes them. Another thing they’re surprised at is that not all of our customers write perfect English in their emails, since we have customers from all over the world. Japanese have a strange compulsion against making errors when using English, and assume that everyone outside Japan uses the language perfectly. After a few weeks of replying to imperfect emails from customers in Europe or Asia who are themselves using English as a second language, they relax about their own language skills. I think that working at J-List is good for our Japanese employees for another reason: it helps them see their own country from the outside, through the eyes of foreigners who really love Japan, and that gives them a new way of thinking about their own country.
Japanese who work at J-List get an interesting view of Japan from the outside.
