Cabs, Fever and Peril

In marketing their are two strategies that are generally available, market penetration (price based competition) or differentiation (product based competition). Let's for my own laziness call them strategy 1 and strategy 2 respectively.
In marketing strategy 1 applies when you and your competition are all selling essentially the same product, say plain flour, there aren't many ways that plain flour is different from eachother so competition tends to compete on price, and the company that can move the most product (most market share) at the lowest cost (through efficiency in production) wins, it also strategically falls on penetration type strategies, like price rollbacks, two for one offers and so fourth. Due to the relative ease with which a consumer can switch brands and still fulfill their needs. Type 2 strategies can also to some extent apply to flour, when you compete with say, wholegrain flour against plain flour, but I don't want to get into the details of flour.
Take instead automobiles, there are heaps of ways two cars are different from eachother whilst still addressing the same consumer need. These are style aspects, performance, comfort, economy, price, colour, accessories, service levels etc. there are about a thousand ways car companies can compete with eachother based not on price but the uniqueness of their product.
There is a model that is relatively simple called 'Porter's five forces' which gives a good insight into what exactly makes a specific industry profitable or not, so which strategy you opt for isn't necessarily always going to be more in favor of one over the other.
But I hope you can see, that type 1 strategy involves winning greater market share by sacrificing your margin, in essence. type 2 means achieving greater profitability by eching out a 'niche market' it may be settling for a small share of the market, but a profitable one (one hopes)
That's the theory side of todays lecture done.
Let's talk about women in Japan. To some extent this applies equally to men in Japan but I am a fan of women, so I will focus on them. I also find their story more tragic.
My friend Liam asked me if I still held the view that '90% of Japanese women are attractive' the answer in short is yes. Particularly if you add the qualifier 'relatively' before 'attractive' there are also some god forsaken slappers here aswell.
Add to that my encounters with other outsiders here, particularly english teachers and newcomers getting effected by what is known as 'yellow fever' I myself apparantly suffer from this, as after dating Misaki for 2 days, I was labelled as having yellow fever despite dating otherwise white as country bumpkins up to that point.
Anyway the point is that a lot of foreign men particularly come to worship at the Japanese alter. They meet a girl who is affluent, skinny, well dressed, nice smelling, made up, manicured, soft silky hair, short skirt wearing, walking in heels and sporting a handbag, who is kind and considerate, submissive and sexually exciting if not 'stacked' to put it crudely.
Sounds in a skewed male perspective, close to perfect right? right. A foreigner can't help but walk any street in Japan and oogle glamourous girls displaying their slender legs, long eyelashes and cherry lips. They talk in cute baby voices.
Furthermore, being a white guy is super attractive in Japan, our faces being non-asian are considered by Japanese's own standards of beauty have all the best qualities 'narrow face' and 'tall nose' and bonus points for 'blue eyes' and 'gold hair' sadly, being hairy isn't also a big winner, seems not to be anywhere in the world. So this all sounds like a masculine paradise.
But here be the catch, try and pick one.
There is a method for this, being an outsider is so isolating that generally if you manage to actually strike up a conversation with a strange woman is getting not just your foot in the door, but probably right into the bedroom.
Such an appetitie to foreigners has in the past led Japanese commentaries to labl Japanese women as 'yellow cabs' being a racial reference to their skin colour and also a reference in how easy they are to pick up. There is a book called yellow cab about the women of Japan that make themselves available to foreigners.
At any rate the reality is, that you re spoilt for choice, you are not walking through a guitar or bike store, picking between models, type, application, colour, features, parts and accessories though (I realise how bad comparing women to consumer durable is but it gets worse) you are instead walking down the bread aisle of a country supermarket, you may aswell pick, the nearest or cheapest one.
Let me step bck a bit and clarify it more, my friend Bryce (I don't know how kosha this is but fuck it) over one summer, and possibly also this summer, fell in love with the violin player of Martin Martini, and went to numerous shows to stare at her. Similarly at the Peeping Tom concert I fell in love with Butterscotch, the beatboxer who was wearing a shirt labelled "I shoot I score" a parody of the gun lobbyist slogan "I shoot I vote" but skewed to basketball.
Falling in love is such a strong presumption, and truth be told, I doubt either Bryce or I actually did, but what we did do was fall in love with something, Bryce inferred a lot that made the violinist in his eyes 'special' and 'attractive' as opposed to the other women in the room. I too inferred that Butterscotch a) enjoyed humour b) enjoyed rap c) enjoyed basketball d) was a fan of mike patton and my eyes told me visually at least she was appealing, their was also otherthings in her style such as the choice of earings, hairstyle and shoes that set her apart. And furthermore one can't disregard her actual talent in performing, she is a fucking good beatboxer.
she actually noticeably does something that gives her depth and character.
Skip to anther african american Chris Rock, when he describes the fallacy of a soulmate as 'you're never going to meet a women who likes Seinfeld and the Wu Tang Clan" it is this combining of a million different ways women or for the fact anybody differ from eachother, that instantly cut out about 90% of the women/men when you walk into a bar. You rule out the 'princesses', the 'duffs' and the 'feminazis' and focus on the tomboys. Or any other combination or labels that take ones fancy. This is usually the second round method for picking or differentiating between the attractive women at a bar/party/office etc. You are also presumably looking for things to talk about.
But in Japan if you rule out the 'princesses' you've ruled out 90% of the market and are left with nothing. Why? why why why why why why why? Well because Japanese women have more or less gone for 'market penetration' a foreign guy by contrast by differing from 90% of the men on the market reap the full rewards of a 'differentiation' strategy. I constantly hear about my 'unique' character, or how 'cool' I am, or how 'funny/interesting' I am, unfortunately I can't return the compliment to many the exceptions are almost exclusively the people from Japan I have met that have been living in a foreign country for a period of time, plus Madoka who strikes me as truly independant.
What causes this is a learned behaviour reinforced largely through bullying throughout ones entire life in Japan and an education system that teaches not knowledge but 'how to be japanese' s such the Japanese do have a mental uniqueness. When shown a picture of a fish, most citizens of the world will comment mostly about the colourful fish in the foreground paying little attention to the background or context in which the fish is in. Only when prompted by changing the surrounds of the fish do mot people comment on this. For the Japanese it is the opposite. Japan systematically looks for external reference by which to measure themselves. The psychological study I lifted out of 'shutting out the sun' or 'dog's and demons' for instance is meant to infer this preference for external reference. I can also affirm that Japan has no native concept of 'self esteem'.
As such when an individual get's bullied, the fult lies not in the bully for harassing or terrorising a person, but instead the victim is lead (even by their parants) to reflect on what they have done to attract the bullies attention, eg. why do I stick out? and from the parents perspective 'what are you doing to get picked on all the time? why can't you be normal?'
That's by far and away too much detail to substantiate the commodification of Japanese women, but that is just the point. Louis Vuitton is recognised as an exclusive brand in Japan, a sign of affluence, of success. And as such almost 1 in 2 women own some item of Louis Vuitton, Japan represents 30% of Louis Vuitton's global revenue. It is infact hideously common in Japan to own Louis Vuitton.
Groucho Marx's "I woud never join the kind of club, that would have me as a member" would be baffling here, as with TopGears rules for the Coolwall, that if any of the hosts of TopGear or football players buy a car it is instantly uncool.
Such notions would be incomprehensible because Japan holds stock in their being a 'correct opinion' or a universal truth, they trust that Louis Vuitton is exclusive, it will remain so even should everybody own one.
Similarly everything deamed attractive or kawaii (cute) can achieve over night up to 100% market penetration in Japan. Just think about that bar/party/office I talked about earlier. That means if a new brand of jacket is described as the in thing, the girls in the bar regardless of being a tomboy, princess, academic, feminazi, clubber, goth, etc all are wearing that Jacket, with a little superficial differentiation. But if that was true, you wold no longer have tomboys, princesses, academics, feminazis, clubbers, goths etc. everyone would be suppressing their outward expression of who they really are. What would you label the remaining phenomena? Japanese.
Furthermore it gets worse, in having everybody look the same, well you would at least know that deep down they were different, but women in Japan also don't get much opportunity after highschool to actually do things differently, not only do they look the same, they also do the same. They don't really get much opportunity to express themselves in any outward way.
Of course they are deep down different, and I can confirm that this can be done, namely try and date them outside of Japan. Furthermore whilst a lot of what makes Japanese women attractive to a lot of men, submissiveness, good dressing, polite, nurturing etc. you can't actually enjoy this if you do want a meaningful relationship, because it is all those things most relationship books and doctor phil talk about such as listening, cooking, cleaning, splitting bills etc. that allow you to really know (and impress) a girl from Japan.
To some extent coming to Japan from my experience this time, makes you realise that girls 'like' Miki are a dime a dozen, handbags so to speak. However this is only half true, Miki has also conformed to the universal Japan fashion of the day, but this just means she looks like all the other Japanese women. Were as she was much more unique in Australia, possessing her own distinct repertoir of Mikisms such as 'I habe a question' 'sewiouswy' 'jelry (jewellery)' 'it's become my favorite' 'that-a why' and so on, ad infinitum.
But as the little prince discovered from the fox, so too have I learnt that overall "It is the time you have spent with your rose that makes your rose so important"