As with all all countries, each Japanese city naturally has its own style and flair. Kyoto is the ancient capital of the nation, and people there have a unique attitude and linguistic dialect to match (hmm, that kind of sounds like Boston, doesn’t it?). Osaka is a business city where a standard greeting between acquaintances is moukarimakka?, which means “Are you making lots of money in your business affairs?” Yokohama and Nagasaki are port cities that were greatly influenced by their early contact with Westerners. Then there’s Nagoya, in central Japan, a commercial city famous for its competitive business climate that can break any company…or prove it has what it takes to succeed. Some of Japan’s most famous companies hail from Nagoya, including my favorite curry restaurant chain and a car company you may have heard of called Toyota. I’ve heard it said that in Nagoya, land is really expensive so people know they need to work hard if they ever want to own some, yet in J-List’s home prefecture of Gunma, it’s not that hard to buy land so people here are much less driven to succeed.
Toyota is a classic Nagoya company, driven to success through its environment.
