JAPANESE HOSPITALITY RECIPE

Hospitality, in general, is an effective way of expressing one’s own love and affection for the guests, be it personal or business… Hospitality, in its ethical essence, is emotionally everlasting and reaches far beyond other sentiments of humans. It is certainly not evaluated by the comforts of the stay that are provided for the guests or the quality of food or any other extravaganza that people usually try to hook on, to impress upon. But the real expression of hospitality is to make the guests to feel accepted as one among the host, to feel respected and safe throughout. Good hospitality is one the most important reasons why people remember few occasions of their life, so memorable.

Hospitality is in practice with its own prime significance since ancient times. All mythologies addressed and emphasized the importance of hospitality in every aspect and sincerely suggested that it wasn't wise for any kingdom to be inhospitable! Being inhospitable, historically invited invasions and brutal attacks on the violating dynasty. In Indian tradition, there is a strong belief that God would visit one's home in any form and at any time. So even any unexpected visitor is to be treated, as one would treat God, by welcoming the guests warmly and taking care of them.  

In the past few decades more emphasis has come about in business hospitality. Attitudes and attention to hospitality in business have changed significantly. With the aid of modern technologies, the hospitality expertise by itself has been greatly developed and improved to cover all aspects of modern business. Most of the successful business men and companies explore the latest strategies and emphasize the importance of hospitality in all aspects of their business. Ofcourse for certain businesses, ‘Hospitality is everything’.  For human individuals, hospitality is neither an obligation nor a duty but a way of engaging life and to be lived with.

My previous occupations in UAE happened to be with two large organizations, employing more than few thousands of personnel, belonging to about 40+ different countries. And my present one is equally demanding to have continual improvement of hosting varied business people of different industry verticals. This exposure has given me an interesting opportunity to learn and understand the diverse cultures and the corresponding business protocols, customs and etiquette. Some business colleagues still introduce me to other friends in the maritime industry as a specialist in successfully engaging Japanese guests and continue to call me as Mannan San [The Japanese way of addressing people]. The purpose of this blog is to register and share my personal experiences of invigorating business encounters with hundreds of Japanese professionals of globally renowned projects engineering, contracting and logistics business groups. I hope that this would create an awareness about specific areas of importance of hospitality to successfully hosting Japanese guests, visiting Dubai [or any other country] from overseas or when one is travelling to outside as a guest to Japanese clients.

> Being punctual on time is of foremost importance, to begin with. It is the most commonly known tenet, to be sincerely practiced when dealing with Japanese clients. Be prepared to receive your guest at the reception of your offices, possibly 10 minutes before commencement of your scheduled meeting time. There can never be an excuse for you, to be late, resulting in any sort of 'sorry' stories and you are half defeated by being so. 

> Present visiting cards with both hands. Make sure the name is facing the recipient with a clear sign of humbleness and tell your own name aloud when the guest tries to read it. Carry enough cards, more than that of the number of guests as you may be requested to share more than one card to each member of the team, during the course of the meeting. 

> Always address by the second name by adding a suffix 'San' - a respectful way of addressing Japanese ie Hamada San, Okada San, Yoshihashi San...It is not usually expected to combine Mr and San together as the latter is very honourable than any other.

> Carry a lot of patience during business conversations, adapt a meticulous slow pace and select simple expressions. Remember repeatedly that you are hosting a guest who is never going to draw a single Yen or a Dirham business for you, if your business proposals are not understood in full in all aspects. Your eloquent command in English becomes immaterial in business discussions here. Avoid prompting any terms or even a verb ( doing word ) if the guest is finding it difficult to choose the right one. There are as well many Japanese business people who are pretty fluent in English, which is ofcourse a super bonus for the host. 

> Avoid abbreviations, whatever, completely. If you continue to use any, your session would be politely interrupted by the senior most member of the visiting team to clarify and explain the meaning for such abbreviations. You could be lucky, if you actually remember...

> If you are visiting your [Japanese] client offices and if the host gets into the office, shoeless, do the same. You may be offered  a pair of sponge padded slippers, to use within the office. There are many Japanese offices at Dubai having this practice. Remember to place the shoes neatly in the allocated place.

> If you are scheduled to give a technical presentation, completely customize the existing one and use simple worded statements supported with relevant pictures [showing handling procedures, etc] as much as possible. Keeping an array of pictures and other supporting documents handy, might be helpful.

> Get yourself prepared to talk about any portion of the contract terms or even a single term that you have used in your presentation / business proposal. There can never be a room for usage of an inappropriate word, under the pretext of common industry practice. It is not unusual to have a detailed discussion, running into hours, on a single word or sentence that is used in the proposal and you are expected to give complete clarity on this, failing which you would be risking to lose your authority on the topic. Nothing can be given for granted, irrespective of your own or your company’s past experience. 

> During the discussions, if you are asked to comment about the possibility of completing of any component of the scope of job [equipment arrangements, handling, delivery at project site, traffic permissions whatsoever] avoid responding by saying “NO PROBLEM”, though you are very much habituated to say so. For Japanese clients ‘No Problem’ means, there is a real problem.

> If you want to have an answer for your business proposal, you have to ask only to the senior most member of the team in their ranking [not by age]. Asking other members, even though you know him better than others, would be misconstrued in different way and is an insult to the team leader, so this embarrassment has to be avoided.

> For Japanese business community, whether it is a long business day of marathon technical discussions followed with late evening dinner or an early morning project inspection visit in the following day, every minute is counted for business. You are expected to be alert and active throughout the session, even it runs for several consecutive hours. Your business sessions are most likely to get stretched beyond the office working hours and even after you have witnessed all your colleagues, leaving the offices and it becomes empty, maintain the tempo as if you have just started the session. Any act of relaxation might be taken as a sign of losing your seriousness for the business.

> Remember to say the Japanese word ‘Arr-i-gah-dhoe’ (Big Thank You) whenever you are appreciated by the visiting team for any of your work, assistance rendered and or performance. It really makes wonders and brings you to a more comfortable platform for serious business discussions. Avoid friendly gestures during business sessions.

> When the time comes to say ‘Bye’, though shaking hands is commonly accepted, you can certainly leave a strong good impression with a traditional Japanese ‘Bow from the Waist’. As per Japanese tradition, if you are greeting a person who is in higher status or older than you, it is you to bow deeper and longer, showing your respect. The proper form is to bring yourself to ‘Attention’ position with straight hands at the sides towards the knee, stiff back and neck, bow from your waist, with eyes averted from the guest. There are several types of bows in Japanese culture, the Respect Bow [Keirei] expects you to bow with 30 to 45 degrees angle. Imitating the guests and counter-bowing in the same respectful way could be a good option to get trained. In reality, the angle of your bow of respect for your Japanese business client, might probably be determined by the size of your tummy…!!!

THE JURASSIC (GEOLOGICAL) IMAGINATIONS

The word ‘Jurassic’ is the most popular Geological term in the world, I believe. Credit goes to the academy awards winning director, Steven Spielberg and his team for their tri-sequels of movies - ‘Jurassic Park’, which received overwhelming appreciation from viewers of all age groups, across the continents. There were about 1000+ products, promoted in line with this hyped movie, almost all containing the word ‘Jurassic’. But it is very interesting to note that the majority is not aware of the fact – JURASSIC is infact a geological term / period which denotes about 145 to 195 million years ago during which the life of the unique Dinosaurs, flourished and dominated the (Flora and) Fauna of Earth. There were about 700 species of Dinosaurs and all of them became extinct during ‘Cretaceous’ (about 145 to 65 million years), the geological period which followed the Jurassic. As per the fossil records, this era also had few species of dinosaurs with feathers (Archaeopteryx), considered as the first birds, in the ladder of evolution. Obviously the word ‘Jurassic’ is well known, far more than any other geological terms including the word ‘Geology’ by itself.

I always wonder, how people imagine and visualize about what they have never come across. We, humans are often trying for overcoming the state of not knowing about certain things of what we see, we learn and all above that, what we IMAGINE! We do have many imaginations for which the reasons are usually not made available, even if we try. We neither keep any records nor discuss about these imaginations. As per neuroscience studies, some people possess the ability to let their minds, imaginations integrated so well, with which they can acquire the skills to look things in a different view and create something new be it an art or an invention or even an idea, whatever. They can as well explain to what they have mentally explored with their imaginations.

On March 6, 2012, the self fuelled, just 4.5 billion years old, self firing power engine of our solar system, the SUN erupted with one of the largest solar flares. This flares are like an outburst of its own power which are categorized as the second largest flare, ever recorded by space scientists. Just to imagine… The Sun is a star at the center of our solar system that powers entirely the space environment of all celestial bodies around it, including our tiny home, the Earth. The approximate distance of the Sun from the Earth is 148 to 150 million kilometers. The light, with a speed of about 300,000 kilometers (186,000 miles) per second, repeat 1 Second, travels from the Sun to reach Earth in about 8 minutes and 19 seconds. If we imagine the sun light as a beam of light, being switched on from a giant torch, the light that we get on the Earth has infact started travelling from the Sun, about 8 minutes and 19 seconds ago. And the imagination can only have a beginning here…

The Sun is about 109 times bigger is size that of Earth and has a diameter of about 860,000 miles. The Sun fuses about 500–600 million tons of hydrogen each second and generates its energy by converting hydrogen into helium [nuclear fusion]. It is actually plasma which is neither a solid nor a gas. The energy produced through this process of nuclear fusion by the Sun, produces all of the heat and light that we receive here on Earth. Modern technologies have continued to prove that there are millions of star systems out there in the space, like the Sun and the 8 planets (not 9 now) that we know – Pluto has been taken out of the planets list and is no longer a planet of our solar system.

Imagine a disk, around which there are several of such star systems with millions of stars (each one is like The Sun or even bigger) which can form a Galaxy. The closest  star system that we can see is about 4.4 light years away from Earth. One light year (about 10 trillion kilometers) is an astronomical unit of length, the distance that light can travel in one year - imagine 365 X 24 X 60 X 60 X 300,000 kilometers.

The picture above is of one such galaxies, known as NGC 628, it is between 30 and 36 million light-years away from us and has a diameter of about 100,000 light-years. It is estimated that this galaxy is home to about 100 billion stars, imagine about 100 billion Suns.

And the imagination does not end there, such galaxy is just one of around 200 billion galaxies in the whole universe, as per observations made so far. It may not be an exaggeration to say that looking the planet Earth from another galaxy is like seeing one particle of sand at the boundary while standing in a middle of a desert.

“Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.” - Ayn Rand, Novelist

The planet Earth by herself has many mysterious beauties which would trigger some wild imaginations. The open wound made by Meteors crashing onto earth, altering the landscape forever, wind and rivers blowing and flowing for millions of years, changing the topography of Earth and each one of them would give some appealing and inspiring imaginations. Being a Geologist by graduation, I had several opportunities to visit some unusual places of geological importance, in India. It is ecstatic to eye-witness the serenity of mother nature, the supernatural calmness of forests, the batholithic range of mountains, the relict mass of twisted, rocky outcrops standing proud at the empty horizons, crowned by another boulder with an unusual design... The mother Nature never missed to give a series of explosions of imaginations without any warrant, for me. I am blessed...

B.Mannan

Dubai, UAE

THE ART OF HEAVY LIFTING AND HAULAGE

Despite my strong quest for good (music) sounds, the spine chilling, rhythmic sounds made by a configured set of slow moving, heavy lifting modular platforms, commonly known as hydraulic axles, loaded with a mammoth single load weighing hundreds of metric tons, have always mesmerized me. By virtue of my occupation, I was privileged to be part of some highly skilled heavy lift project engineering teams, managing the whole events right from receiving the super heavy lifts or over dimensional loads under the ship’s hook to delivery upto the designated project site including placement onto the foundation. These deliveries getting executed within a stipulated period of time would eventually transform the construction of any project to attain its shape, as to what we see any industrial plant.

I was reluctantly compelled, at times, to spend few consecutive days & nights at major seaports in India, waiting for the nominated heavy cargo to come out of the performing vessel’s deck. It used to be a competitive test for my patience. But the subsequent challenging journey alongwith the haulage team, traversing through hundreds of kilometers, had always been a tiring delight. The whole team had to literally jog in pace with the moving mass of machinery. Whenever the heavy lift specialists team performed a critical maneuvering enroute, I repeatedly managed to ensure myself to be standing near the load, not only to learn the tactics of heavy lift haulage but also to hear that mesmerizing, rejuvenating sound. Each and everyone of the technical crew had to play their part of responsibility in making the heavy load to be on the move. The actions also included lifting of live electric wires with high levels of accuracy to get the heavy load pass through. The support teams had to preplan and arrange necessary permissions from concerned authorities for removal & refixing of overhead signboards, block the traffic on a national highway, delay a train for while at the nearby station, shut down H.T electricity, reinforce the roads wherever needed and at times construct bye-pass to avoid going over a weak bridge, all for allowing the heavy load to reach its designated destination. These set of actions usually done with a very minimal verbal communication, reminded me of seeing a war movie, sequencing the mobilization of military equipments to the frontlines, always with an element of surprise…

The concept of Heavy Lift Project Logistics has been relatively perceived as simple but in contrary is highly complex. In Heavy lift logistics, every single movement is regarded as a project which is unique on its own requirement and it is an every time challenge with a difference. It demands precise pre-planning, highly specialized information, personnel and equipments. It stipulates designing & execution of innovative transport solutions to perform complex tasks, possibly in a remote and volatile terrain.


Whatever the man made objects fabricated on this world, be it a massive reactor, oil field jackets, rig modules, mid section of a ship, each weighing about several hundreds or even thousands of metric tonnes, the project logistics team lifts and shifts them exactly to the place, where it is expected to be, as per the engineering design of the project.

While there could be hundreds of project shipments getting executed around the world by fellow professionals, would like to recall here, the unprecedented events happened, when "Kursk"- sank in the Barents Sea[2000 A.D]. "Kursk", the largest attack submarine ever built, lost herself under the sea due to an unexpected and unauthorized explosion. The disaster response system of the mighty Russian Navy by itself launched a Rescue Mission to save 118 sailors, reportedly manned the submarine. Unfortunately no progress was made available. Within few days of the accident, the mission status was changed. A Salvage Mission was ordered by the high command. The nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine, equivalent to a four storied high building, with displacement of about 13,500 to 16,500 tonnes as per her design, slept under the sea at a depth of about 108 metres. She was kept safely guarded by another armed submarine. 

The Russian Navy politely declined to accept any technical assistance offered by other nations and contracted two Dutch based Heavy Lifting, Haulage, Salvage companies (Mammoet and Smit International) to perform the salvage. What happened after that was a carefully monitored and recorded history of military logistics. Equipped with several months of precise planning and preparations in consultations with the Navy, the Heavy Lifting Engineering teams arrived, positioned their equipments at the place of the accident, executed their plans, lifted "Kursk" from the bottom of the sea and handed her over to the Navy. The mission was accomplished = The Art of Heavy Lifting and Haulage.

Note: The Kursk Salvage project is taken just to compliment the heavy lift professionals. The expertise and powers of the Navy are unquestionably supreme and to be respected.

For academic interest - [Project]Logistics was originally a military term used to describe the organization of moving, lodging and supplying troops and equipments. It was clearly somewhat broader in scope than transport, since it covered everything needed to deliver the troops and equipments to the right place, at the right time, and the right condition. Modern business [Project] logistics is based exactly on the same concept, aims at delivery of what the customer / project owner wants – providing the cargo at the right time [Time Utility], at the right place [Place Utility] and in the right quantity [Possession Utility] and ofcourse at the right price [Cost Utility]. To make it complete, the sequential cyclicality of the multi modal transport system is inescapably needed with perfection. Any failure will make even a very well established, strong organization, unwittingly, become embroiled in situations of irreversible commercial and reputation loses. Ofcourse, the element of risk bearing is commonly out of proportion due to the multiplying uncertainties in the present economic scenario. 

B.Mannan
Dubai, UAE

KILLING THE PAIN WITH THE DESIRE TO ENJOY IT

Ever since I created my blog, I was seriously contemplating on choosing a topic that I would wish to cover or register my thoughts to begin with.

And I got one today… My 12 year old son got hurt by hitting himself with a sharp edge of dining table and came to me with a slightly lacerated toe of his leg, noticeably bleeding a bit. As a father, I could sense his expectations, which was to attend him immediately with any first aid or a sympathetic gesture, atleast. For unknown reasons, since my childhood days, I am habituated to either seriously pretend as if nothing happened or react bit late when it comes to a painful, bleeding injury be it of my own or for others and so thus my reaction was very casual. I had a quick look at the injury and just suggested him to peel off the injured skin and asked him to attend to that by himself but with the help of a moderate cry and fuss, he managed to get the expected attention from his mother and both of them came to me upon getting the wound, dressed up. It was so obvious that I had to explain the reason for my usual casual reaction for such events.

After making them comfortable, with an objective of preparing him to be mentally strong, I tried to enlighten my son with a little explanation about how the nervous system works to sense any pain. The explanation covered about the central nervous system, sensory nerves sending signals to the brain via the spinal cord and the process of sensing pain.

When there is an injury to the body, different sensory nerve fibers respond to different damages to tissues and send signals (associated with light touch or heavy hit on the tissues)  through the nerves into the spinal cord and eventually to your brain. The brain immediately processes the signals and sends information back to the nerves, which help to perform some basic decisions as remedial actions on its own and such decisions are our spontaneous reflexes. This complicated process happens within fractions of a second and in a view, pain is just an outcome of sense of our body like any other. With reference to different impulses given as inputs, the brain actually determines how sensations are interpreted in comparison with your past experiences and or your emotion at any given time which can change the intensity of pain. You can see by yourself how different your emotions can determine your responses to pain and is the reason why you cry at times for getting injured (say falling down from a bicycle) and laugh for same levels of injury in a different environment.

I wish to recall another context here. During the beginning hours of my last trucking camp at western ghats hills, India, we found few small sized leeches on one of the team mates which resulted in examining all others. Few team members, who originally started to check others but eventually managed to find some leeches on their own body, desperately tried to remove them, ended up with some bleeding, became suddenly hysteric and expressed  serious concerns as if they encountered a very serious life threatening problem. They also sincerely suggested to either immediately change the place or abort the camping programme itself. While the shocked members were continuing their cry, I noticed a couple of other experienced friends who were literally laughing and enjoying the whole event, played with the leeches and insisted to remain camping there, as the beginning itself was thrilling for them. It was evident for me that humans react differently and take different decisions for a common situation, highly influenced by their own emotions and experiences.

After listening to above explanation patiently, my son was looking unconvinced but certainly developed some interest on the topic. I concluded the explanation with a suggestion to sincerely try and consider pain (of an injury) like any other sense and asked him to imagine as if he had a desire to enjoy the sense of pain. After instructing him to close his eyes, I even tried to demonstrate this process by touching his injured toe, giving a strong pressure on the other leg, twisted his ears and a gentle touch on his shoulder, asked him to sense and feel the difference on each but with a desire to enjoy all in the same way with which he could overcome or kill the pain. He assured me to try for 'KILLING THE PAIN WITH THE DESIRE TO ENJOY IT'. I suggest the readers to try it by themselves…

B. Mannan
Dubai, UAE

Note: Have practiced enough before suggesting this to my son, I guess. During my childhood and adolescent days, I had torn my toenails by playing barefooted football matches on rocky roads, flung from motorbikes, several times and on one occasion, after having met an accident together, successfully rescued and took my friend for emergency medical treatment before getting myself admitted for a fractured hand...  

Mannan's Debut

Dear Friends,

This might be different way of reaching out all of you...

I have just become a blogger ( Mannan Projects ) and will begin to register and share my thoughts.

Invite your comments.

B.Mannan
Dubai, UAE