割安感がない理由、割高感がある理由。

2000年の頃からほぼ毎年、行っていた韓国。2015年からは義母の介護でしばらく行かなかったが、コロナ前の2019年7月、久しぶりにソウルへ。海鮮料理を中心に韓国料理を堪能。衣料品や生活雑貨のデザインは格段に良くなり、コーヒーションも渋谷・原宿よりも洒落ているのではと思えるような店が増えてきた。ただ、割安感はない。以前は日本よりも3割くらい安いという感覚であったが今は同じくらいに思われる。

同じくコロナ前の2019年9月に米国コロラド州とニューメキシコ州を旅行。ホテル代が高い米国の夏休み期間を外していったが、一般的なビジネスホテルでも料金は高かった。もともと日本よりも賃金水準は高いが、ここにきて差がまた開いた気がする。

以下は、日本経済新聞２０２１年６月２２日の記事。

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これまでグローバル企業は「安いニッポン」を考慮した値付けが多かった。動画や配送料が無料になる米アマゾン・ドット・コムのプライム会員。年会費は米国が約1万3千円、英国が約1万2千円に対し日本は4900円と4割程度だ。ネットフリックスの値上げは、グローバル標準の価格が各国の経済事情とはお構いなしに入り込んできたことを示す。賃金が上がらない国の負担は重くなる。その代表が日本だ。

経済協力開発機構などのデータでみると、日本で最高だった1997年の実質賃金を100とすると、20年秋時点で日本は90.3と減少が続いている。米国は122.2、英国は129.7、韓国は157.9だ。

米アップルの「iPhone」を購入する際の負担感を比べると、日本の消費者のつらさが
浮かび上がる。最新の「iPhone 12 Pro Max」（データ容量は512gb）は日本人の平均月収の約45%。一方、米国は25%にすぎない。iPhoneの性能向上に伴う単価の上昇が、賃金が伸びない日本に重い。
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私が「割安感」を感じなくなり、「割高感」を感じたのは、デフレの続く日本と韓国・米国との物価の差だ。賃金・物価ともに上がっているのだ。

そんなの海外旅行をしなければ関係ない！？

いやいや、輸入品の価格は上がっていく。よって、いずれ日本はインフレに。

日銀が目指していた消費者物価の前年比上昇率2％という長い間の目標が達成できる日がくるかもしれません。
またもや国の施策によってではなく外的要因で。

Ron McFarlandのPersonal Journey (10) - イスラエルからギリシャへ。異文化の中、変化する自分に気づく。

先ずは、Ronさんの最新の記事をご紹介します。Red Hatが運営するopensource.comへの投稿記事です。

A more sustainable future should be a more open future

Ronさんが、ヨーロッパを旅していたのは、1972年。
私は、浪人中で代々木ゼミナールに通い、悶々とした日々を送っていました。
小田原の田舎では、日常会話に外国の国名すら上がることはなく、今の、自分の立場が信じられません。
ただ、英語は一番好きな科目でした。
中学時代に当時としては画期的といえる外国人の英語を聴ける授業を受けたのです。
外国人の先生がいたわけではなく、「ソノシート」を使って、外国人の話す英語を聴くことができました。
当時の成田先生に感謝！小田原で一番田舎の「千代中学」万歳！！
お陰様で英語に興味を持ち、勉強を続けた結果、エンジニアとしては有効な差別化ツールになりました。

ロンさんの旅の続きです。
イスラエルからヨーロッパへ移動します。言語・文化の異なる国々を旅する中で変わっていく自分を発見します。

From Israel, I was off to Europe and on my own for the first time. Up until that time, all my international travel had been with friends and family. Now, I was totally on my own and heading for unfamiliar, languages, customs and territories.

I flew from Israel to Athens, Greece with my Euro Train Pass, guidebooks on cheap hotels and cheaper youth hostels. In Greece, I got the first real impact of how deep that regions’ history is. The Acropolis, in the center of Athens, fascinated me. Just sitting with an espresso looking at people going about their day gave me a great deal of peace all by itself.



Athens, Greece

From Athens, I took a ferry toward Brindisi, Italy with a night stopover on the island of Corfu. On Corfu, I enjoyed observing the simple life of local fishermen. I also learned for the first time that there are long lunches around the Mediterranean. People go home for lunch at 12:00 usually. They have a light lunch and then go to bed for about two and a half hours. They wake up at 3:30 or 4:00, open their shops and such and go back to work. Usually workday ends at 8:30pm or 9:00pm in the evening. Well, the dumb American woke this poor fellow up at 1:00 PM to make me lunch. That was also the first time I went into a fish restaurant and selected among many fish on a plate, which one I wanted.

The next day, I carried on to Italy, immediately got on a train and headed for Rome. On that train, I met three American girls who were heading for Naples. We had such a good talk on the train that we decided to meet up in Rome at the Fountain of Trevi two days later.

In Rome, I was running all day long and right into the night. I stayed at a youth hostel and went around the city with other people who were staying in the hostel. I was stunned by the art and architecture. When the three American girls came in, I was literally sleeping on the ground by the fountain. They started taking pictures of me lying there on the pavement. As soon as one girl tried to prop me up to take a picture of me with my arm around her I woke up. I should have just stayed asleep. I spent two wonderful days with those girls and played the role of their official chaperon and guardian.

Ronさん自身の気付きは？
When in Rome, I met up with an American Architecture student from Notre Dame University in the United State that was studying one year in Florence. He said, if I needed a place to stay, they could put me up, as most of his roommates where traveling. So, I had a place to go to in Florence. One interesting thing I learned about myself when on my own is that I’m more open to people and my surroundings. When I am with someone or even in a group, my attention is mostly on them and less on the surroundings. Being alone, I was opened to all kinds of things. It was a new awareness for me.

　

In Rome and Venice

Florence was to me even more impressive than Rome. The art and history left pictures in my mind that have not gone way in more than three decades. That was equally true in Venice where I went next.

From Venice, I took an overnight train to Vienna, Austria, which to me was the city of classical music. I went to concerts almost every day. When I was in the junior college in Sacramento, I was forced to take an art related class. I selected “Music Appreciation” and went to classical music concerts in Sacramento. In Vienna, I learned where most of that music came from.

Ronさんのヨーロッパの旅は続きます。

Ron McFarlandのPersonal Journey(9) - 初めての長期海外旅行、イスラエルとヨーロッパへ。ヒッピー？

しばらく私の雑談が続いたのでRonさんのPersonal Journeyに戻ります。

さて、今回からは、Ronさんのメキシコを除く、初めての長期海外旅行。当時のRonさんはヒッピー的な思考だったのかもしれません。

当時、日本人にも小田実の『なんでも見てやろう』に触発されて、世界一周を試みた人が沢山いました。
『なんでも見てやろう』は、フルブライト留学生であった小田が、帰国時に1枚の航空券と200ドルを手に、世界一周した旅行記。
日本人のグローバル化の第2陣いや第3陣ですかね。言い過ぎ！？無銭旅行の人も多く、現地で働きながら旅を進めた人もいたようです。
今より、衛生状態が悪く、不便な中、よく行ったものです。

Shortly after returning from Mexico, I traveled to Israel and Europe for the first time. Those were the days when college students would hitchhike from country to country with a pack on their back. So, I borrowed a pack, bought a discount air ticket and a 1-month Euro-pass train ticket, and I was ready to go.

米国人が英語を学ぶ？！
First, I flew to London and spent four days with Jimmy Chan whom I mentioned in Chapter #2. He was at the London School of Economics at that time working on a PhD in Mathematics. I remember taking a bath in the smallest bath I’ve ever seen in my life in his apartment in London. Also, he gave me good directions on what to see and how to get around on the “Tube” or “Underground” as they say. For us, it’s a subway. In those days my international English usage vocabulary was improving too. I learned what a “WC” was. I learned that “being pissed,” means being drunk not angry and many other important terms.





In London with Jimmy Chan, a lifelong friend

From London I flew to Israel to visit my sister, Bonnie. When I was studying in San Jose, Bonnie decided to save up her money and live on a Kibbutz in Israel to learn more about the Jewish religion and Hebrew. She went to work on a Kibbutz that specializes in teaching the religion. Kibbutz is Israel’s way of setting up protective communes. The Kibbutz’s set up businesses (mostly agricultural and manufacturing operations), have schools, dormitories, cafeterias, medical clinics, and a wide range of recreational facilities. There are sports teams, social activities and a wide range of studies. Depending on the type of business they are in, there are rich Kibbutz and poor Kibbutz. The one thing common among all of them is that the pay is very low, but you have all the necessities of life. Some Israelis love that type of life, some hate it. This concept has even been exported with Israelis going overseas, setting up businesses and asking their home Kibbutz to lend them contract workers. Here again, the overseas operation takes care of everything, but the pay is very low, quite often below minimum wage. The Chinese have done similar types of activities to get cheap labor in their restaurants in many countries outside of China.

On my sister’s Kibbutz, they produced grapefruit for export to Europe, milk (They had a dairy farm.), and grindstone. My sister worked in the clothing and seamstress section. She made towels and mended work clothes. Years later, I had seen them at exhibitions around the world as their grindstone operation has expanded into a wide range of grinding tool accessories.

Bonnie met her husband (Julian) there on that Kibbutz. He was from South Africa and worked in the dairy. So, Julian would wake up at 03:00 AM to go milk the cows.

私が見たハイテク軍事産業に支えられたイスラエルとは異なる側面
I was a month in Israel, about two weeks in the Kibbutz and the rest of the time traveling around the country. I had no idea at that time that I would have the chance to make repeated trips to the country for work. I saw the Golan Heights in the north and all the way down to Sharma Shek in the south. I found the country fascinating.





Sharma Shek and Jerusalem, Israel

グローバル化 - 打って出るか、待ち構えるか？

久しぶりにRon-sanから連絡がきたのでお伝えします。

Here is my second article on sustainable development. I discuss human suffering. I also give a presentation at the end of the article.

Ron in Tokyo

https://opensource.com/open-organization/21/5/sustainable-development-human-impacts

さて、私の話。

法人市民税納税の市の指定金融機関が「みずほ銀行」であったので、職場近くにあるみずほ銀行本店に行ったら、「予約はありますか」と聞かれた。よく見ると以前のようには客はいない。私を入れて6人。予約はしていなかったので、整理券を持って呼び出しを待った。

予約優先なので待つこと25分。ようやく窓口に行くと「会社の口座はお持ちですか」「いいえ、私個人の口座はありますが」「次からは会社の口座のある銀行に行ってください」とのこと。でも市の指定なんですけど・・・・・支払い済みの伝票を受け取る時、もう一度、「次はお口座をお持ちの銀行で」。

「そうか、みずほ銀行はリストラ中なんだ」と気づいた。本店といえども窓口の人は以前の五分の一程度の僅か二人。予約ベースのオペレーションにして業務を効率化。なるほど。2021年までに8千人、2026年までに約1万9千人分の業務を削減（＝人員削減とは言っていないが）と以前発表していた。税金の納税処理などやってられないのだ。

私には心地よい時間ではなかったが、超低金利・グローバルな競争の時代、このような改革は必須だ。遅すぎたくらいだ。

グローバル化対応の方法は2つ。打って出るか、待ち構えるかだ。これは企業だけでなく、個人も同じ。

「あなたの仕事はいつまであるのですか」「海外移転やAIによって置き換わることはないですか」。

「ない」のなら何故、何故、何故を5回くらい考えてみましょう。

「ある」になら、「いつ頃」を考え、やられる前に打って出ましょう。