TOKYO, Aug. 31, 2022—In the most recent brief, I quoted the the Japanese government’s National Institute of Science and Technology Policy report that Japan’s ST academic level had fell off the global top 10, to 12th. Perhaps by coincidence, I had a hands-on experience about the rapid degradation of Japan’s once-world revered skills over the repairing of my car brakes.
My Honda SUV, a heavily-used X-years old having run on unpaved rough roads, had right front-brake disk rotor wears, so both right and left disk rotors and brake pads needed to be replaced. I thought it was a pretty straight mechanical job that a novice auto mechanic can accomplish in a couple of hours. So I took the car to a Honda dealer, and after waiting for nearly two hours, they gave me an analysis and cost estimate paper. It was clearly a part of private-sector bureaucracy inherited from the Japanese government bureaucracy, which seeks to put down everything written on paper. In fact, the dealer prepared an invoice for a small bolt or nut priced 30-40 yen for my car a few years ago, a classic private-sector bureaucracy at work by wasting so much time and sacrificing productivity.
They said that, in addition to replacing the rotors and the pads, the car’s disk calipers – the arms that hold the pads – also needed to be replaced because the car is so old that the pistons in the calipers are most likely rusty and oil could leak. The cost of parts and labor was 120,000 yen and it would take nearly two days. ‘It’s a major repair work!,’ the dealer’s chief mechanic told me.
Okay, I told them, without asking them to do the work because I wanted to cross-check, like seeking a second opinion when your doctor diagnoses you for a blood pressure-rising illness, wether there’s a less costly, quicker way to do it. So I perused for generic brand-new disc rotors, pads and so on, while consulting my old auto mechanic (now retired) friend. He said that we can fix the car by ourselves. I ordered the parts from Rakuten, a local Japanese Amazon-like vendor for a total of 16,000 yen.
The parts were delivered to me the day after next and I took them to my friend’s house. We jacked up the car and replaced the parts in a cool, less than three hours, including the job of honing the brake caliper cylinders and pistons. The car was fixed perfectly. So much of the dealer’s hullabaloo that it was a major piece of work!
That experience made me hark back decades ago to the days when employees of Japanese manufacturing companies, from Toyota to Panasonic, were toiling day and night to craft products or fix mechanical problems of what’s already are on the market. Essentially, they were making products from scratch and dissecting products to fix the problems, like disconnecting switches on the television sets or leaky car oil pans. In those days, replacing parts were the last thing that did in fixing problems.
But now, like buying new fridges, washing machines, television sets, and microwaves when they cease to function, or smart phones and PCs when models become outdated, repairing products has almost become extinct. And that is dangerous for ST advancement because many things still are manufactured with human hands and hardly anything virtually. Human brain evolution occurs in interaction with the real world, not really in a VR world.
That China, and behind it, many Southeast Asian countries are making a rapid catchup with the United States, Europe, Japan and other OECD economies, certainly owes to their technology thefts, particularly IT, from the developed economies. But that doesn’t explain the whole thing.
After the first batch of automobiles were imported to Japan in the closing period of the 19th century, Japanese entrepreneurs experimented making their own, and in 1904, one Torao Yamabane test-drove Japan’s first steam engine-powered car. It took less than 10 years for the accomplishment since the import of cars from Europe, the achievement made when there were no computers, sophisticated machine tools or any other contemporary technology. It owed, I believe, to the real, hands-on errors and successes of the people resolved to make cars of their own. Thirty years later, Sakichi Toyota, founder of Toyota Motor, began mass automobile production. His also was one of trial and error.
Fast-forward to 2022 Japan, young entrepreneurs draw schematic designs and business plans on-line mobilizing IT, VR, 3D printer and other techs. Their targets are raising capital and earning big bucks. But workshops across Japan are mostly devoid of real chats and shouts. They can be seen on-line over Zoom, SNSs and other fora. Would that be enough? Look at Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and other countries, where workers in un-A/Ced workshops are refreshing used white electrical goods and cars from rich countries into what look like new products or converted to be used for other purposes. They have skills to work on real products.
My neighborhood, a machine buff who owns a 20-year-old Range Rover, Mercedes 12-cylinder S, Toyota Crown, Toyota Prius, and a half a dozen exotic vehicles and motorcycles, repairs and refits them all. Not only he has a passion for machines, he also doesn’t trust Japanese mechanics. He recently replaced all his house water piping himself, a feat that took him almost half a year to achieve. He sounded very proud.
I heard a couple of very young men talking about their work over lunch at a restaurant the other day. They were saying something about becoming a city government employee, running for a city assembly, and whether to start a ramen noodle shop. Clearly, the conversation was how best to make money. They did not talk at all about how to achieve something important for society or the country or the world.
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Insight Into the Future