A Meeting With Dr. Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO)

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Dr. Margaret Chan (Ref.1) visited Tokyo after attending a meeting at the WHO Kobe Center.

For about thirty minutes 4 staff members of our Health Policy Institute who specialize in Global Health  joined me in exchanging opinions about Global Health with Dr. Chan. I’ve had many chances to see her in the past (Ref.1,2), but I was particularly thrilled to see her this time because it had been such a long while since the last time we had met. Dr. Nakatani, one of the Assistant Directors of WHO, accompanied by an official from the Ministry of Health, also joined us.

The topics of our discussion covered issues such as Global Health, the meeting at the Chatham House, the number of increasing patients suffering from chronic diseases, social determinants of health, the Davos Meeting that will be held next January, and so on.

I think this meeting with Dr. Chan, the top female leader of WHO, was an exciting experience for our young staff.
 
Providing opportunities for young professionals to interface with the leaders of the world in person is very important and meaningful.  It is a very stimulating experience, one that will encourage our young generation to set higher goals for themselves.
Asking questions such as ‘What’s the point in trying to become the best?’ is irrelevant here.  People work harder when they see higher goals.

These important interactions serve as the seeds of ASPIRATION within the hearts of youth. 

Dr. Muto’s Challenge: Building Ageing Community Healthcare

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In Japan and other developed countries, the conventional healthcare system is facing its limit because of continuing expansion of the aging society, chronic diseases, and the limited public funding for healthcare(ref.1). 

I have been speaking on this issue for some time (the most recent articles  (ref.1:in Japanese)include), I’ve made policy recommendations, urging people to take action, but things are not moving as I hoped, because, I suspect, of oppositions from the conventional interest groups.

However, there are some people who are starting to take action in their own way to make change.  One example is Dr. Yu Muto.

Dr. Muto spent 10 years or so as an established medical doctor. But he left his career in hopes of achieving higher goals. During this departure, he worked outside medical practice for a couple years.
After this experience, he launched an innovative, urban-style community medical practice.

I was deeply impressed to hear Dr. Muto after he started this clinic.  He said, “I left medical practice to search and explore my life work.  As I resumed my work as a doctor in this city of an aging population, I now feel from the bottom of my heart that this is truly what I have wanted to do.” 

Dr. Muto and I had a dialogue (in Japanese) recently, and it is on his website. 

His words reflect his truest feelings. He is following his dream. This is the beginning of something wonderful.  I congratulate him wholeheartedly and will support him in anyway possible.

Learning by Taking a Leave of Absence and Going Abroad: An E-mail From Ghana

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Do you remember a student I introduced on this site some time ago who took a leave of absence from school and went to Ghana?(ref.1).  The purpose of his visit was to participate in an AIESEC program in Ghana. AEISEC (Japan Office) is a student-run organization from more than 100 countries that focuses on creating youth leadership development, offering young people opportunities to be global citizens.  This particular student sent me an e-mail from Ghana. After staying in the capital, Accra, for about 10 days he described what he saw, felt, and learned as being much more than he expected.

After sending me this message, he traveled to the northern parts of Ghana and stayed there for about 3 weeks. He returned to Accra and sent me another e-mail.  I could sympathize with his long silence, since I too, while traveling in Ghana(ref.1,2), had a difficult time finding internet access, even in first-rate hotels.

His e-mail was as below:
●I spent some time at a rural village located in the northern part of Ghana and am now back to Accra.  I chose to go to this village because I wanted to learn more about Ghana, and a farming village seemed to be a good place to see the poorest part of this country.  There, I started to observe distant affects from our development aids which I would not have known had I not gone to this place in person.

●I assumed this village to be highly dependent on the aids from the NGO, since I was told that this village was poor, even by Ghana’s standards. However, they were apparently self-sufficient people.  They hunt chickens running around in the village, grow corns, yams, vegetables, beans.  They are not at all in hunger.  When they need cash, they get them by selling things to passengers on the buses that stop by their village occasionally.  Men do not seem to have particular jobs, they love to play board games, or just hang around all day.  Women, on the other hand, appeared to be busy farming, cooking, doing laundry…

●There is a primary school in this village, but since only two teachers are taking care of all 6 grades, their workload seems to be very heavy.  The fee for school seems low, but even so, some children were not attending.  Financial excuses were not so much the explanation for not attending school as the need of parents for domestic labor (mostly doing laundry).  As a foreign person, I worried about their lack of education, since I had been taught that, ‘if you don’t learn English, your perspective of the future will be very narrow, and you might end up staying in this village your whole life’. But this anxiety seemed to be pointless to them. For them, they probably figured understanding the local dialect would be sufficient for their long tradition in living a self-sustained, local life in their village.

●The most shocking of it all was to feel that the activities of the NGO that was so instrumental in my travel, was not so appreciated by the villagers. This NGO is run solely by the money of its founder.  The salaries of the local staff also come from the founder’s pocket money.

●This NGO is working to support developments through agriculture, and is currently focusing on rice planting.  Their plan is to get the villagers involved in this effort.  So, they are donating used tools, giving text books and providing uniforms to village school.

●I was impressed with the volume of the donation and support, but, strangely, no one in the village seemed to be truly thankful of the NGO.  Rather, their attitude implied a stance of ‘It is not because we are in need, but because they offer it us that we accept their aid’.  Maybe this lack of appreciation is due to the fact that this NGO is run by its owner’s pocket money and so the support is given according to the needs that he perceived from from an outsider’s viewpoint.  In other words, he gave what he wanted to give.  In a way, he did not try to understand the true needs of the villagers, or try to support them as one of the foreigners.  Actually, whenever I talked to local NGO staff or villagers and said ‘I think our NGO is doing a great thing!!!’, all I got in return were smiles, not agreement.

●Through this observation, I strongly felt the difficulty of giving support to the people with respect to the values they live with.  It is easy for us, people in developed countries, to point out the ‘needs’, as we see, of the developing countries.  The lesson I learned was that whenever we seek to build relationships with developing countries, we must always be careful not to become ‘preachy’.

●Another thing I noticed by staying in Ghana is that African people do not think ‘being different’ is a bad thing.  In Japan, if someone can not do things as you do, the most commonly heard comment is; ‘You can’t do even this?  What a shame.’  If someone is not capable of doing things that you can do, then you take it as their failure because you think they should also be good at what you do.  In short, we see what is different from ourselves as being not good. However, during my stay, the Africans were very kind to me.  They always tried to find cool tree shade for me, and cared much about my appetite.  ‘You are Japanese, you come from where food and climate are so different’, they said, and treated me, a foreigner, with respect to the differences that I hold.  They never made me feel bad because of I was different from them.

●So, as for the ability to accept different values, and the ability to build relationship with respect to those differences, I came to think that Japanese is far behind African people.

I was happy that this student sent me such a long e-mail to share his thoughts with me.  Although I trust that many ODAs are aware of such issues and they take them into considerations before putting their plans into actions, there is still much to be done in terms of understanding the value of local people, and the way they feel about our aid.

Regarding the activities of ODA, Dr. Toshiharu Yamamoto provides lots of good information and also points out many local issues in his blog.  Here, I found many observations similar to the student. In my mind, what really counts is whether or not you have been to the country, whether you have a sense of that place, and whether you will take actions.  It is by these measures that you will be judged in the future.

Going to the area and having first hand experience during early stages of your life, such as this student did, can be very helpful in the process of building your career.  Of course, you could choose to go through tons of research before you go and I wouldn’t deny the importance of ‘careful planning before taking actions’, but quite often, excessive prudence ends in inaction ? that is, with nothing being done.  It seems to me that the power of putting things into action, as this student demonstrated, is hopelessly lacking in Japan today.

There is more value than you think in lessons you gain through actions, and I recommend actions particularly to the young generation.  Understanding the local situation by being on the site and having your senses refined is not something you acquire overnight.  I am confident that this student will continue to grow, because through this experience the way he sees the world has changed, his point of view has become much broader, and without doubt this will work positively in his search for his dreams and in his efforts toward his goals.

A week after his return to Ghana, this student sent me an e-mail saying, “In just one week I came to feel that I became friends with so many people, that I am connected, and the world is going to change.  I am filled with so much wonder.”

With telecommunication technology ?e-mails, cell phones, and websites ? you can sense the powerful connectivity.  Indeed, today, this world is one world.

Speech on Healthcare Policy

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My reports are somewhat delayed than usual, but I have returned home on October14th from a slightly long travel which started on 5th.

Next day in the morning, at the Denmark Embassy in Tokyo, I gave speech on ‘Healthcare Policy for the Aging Society’ to the audience of about 30 or so of legislators and other members of Denmark’s delegate visiting Japan.  I was told that  Ambassador Melbin  (Ref.1) and the audience enjoyed my speech.  (by the way, around April or so, I went to see the Ambassador to talk about the World Cup; and, of course, the Japan-Denmark match….)  The discussions in Seattle turned out to be very helpful in preparing my speech.

After leaving the Denmark Embassy, I headed to Haneda airport to fly to Matsuyama.  The Panasonic Shikoku in Matsuyama is focusing on healthcare and they asked me to speak on topics on ‘Healthcare Policy for the Aging Society’.

I was being so focused on this theme for these days, so I was able to learn much from these events, and also was able to develop new ideas.
 
Developed countries share common challenges; ‘1. Continuing growth of the aging society, 2. Chronic diseases as a major disease burden, and 3. Public funding for healthcare being hard to increase’.  I have written about the framework of my ideas in many occasions, and my view remains essentially the same as of today.  What I think is uploaded in recent On-line article of Nikkei (in Japanese), so please have a look.

These are without doubt one of the top priorities of political issues today.

 

The 100th Anniversary of the Swedish Hospital in the beautiful City of Seattle

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Recently, I have posted a series of reports from Seattle. The distinguished Swedish Medical Center (SMC), one of the oldest organizations in Northwestern America, invited me to participate in their 100th Anniversary celebratory Symposium (Ref.1)at the Bell Harbor Conference Center.  Since I have been interested in their activities for quite some time and the proposed program was quite impressive, I thought this was a good opportunity to experience SMC first hand. The overall theme was local health care systems, particularly in the Northwest regions of America. Experts in various fields joined to speak about their experiences so that they might apply their findings to the ailing American health care system.

The Symposium opened with these videos (Ref.1). I had the pleasure of being seated at the same table as Ms. Lisa Cohen, the Executive Director of the Washington Global Health Alliance and who appeared in the latter video. We spoke and found we had several friends in common. I enjoyed our conversation immensely and discovered that apparently she began her career as a journalist.  

Each person was wonderful in his or her own way. Aside from those in my field of medicine and health care, I was particularly impressed by Mr. Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric. There were also two congressmen from Seattle who appeared in the panels, Dr. Jim McDermott (Ref.1,2) and Mr. Jay Inslee(Ref.1). Their speeches were very inspiring and innovative.

I found the lectures so intriguing that I ask the organizers of the Symposium to let me know when the rest of the lectures are available on the web.  I would very much like to share them with my friends and the visitors of my web site.   The photos from the Symposium is uploaded on the web already.

There were many debates and conversations had throughout the Symposium, and though there were many things discussed, there were twelve ideas that seemed to be more or less ubiquitously agreed upon. 

Because the Symposium was located along the waterfront of downtown Seattle, I was able to take short walks between sessions. Luckily, the weather was bright and sunny. I enjoyed the views of the Puget Sound, and of the Olympic Mountains. I also stopped by the original Starbucks in Pikes Place Market. I also stopped in at the Seattle Aquarium and saw a variety of fish (I happen to quite like aquariums).  Also, as reported in my previous postings, I met several Japanese students (Ref.1,2) who took leave of absence from school and are currently studying in Seattle. Over the course of two evenings we had a wonderful time together during dinner.   In closing, I found Seattle a beautiful and tranquil city.

From Singapore

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Click here for photos of Marina Bay Sands Resort

I left STS Forum in Kyoto early in the morning of October 5th, made a brief stop at my home, and arrived at GRIPS early in the afternoon.  There, I had a good conversation over various topics with Dr. Han Seung-Soon, the former prime minister of Korea, whom I have met in Seoul just recently.  Then, I took a train from Tokyo Station to Narita Airport, arriving at Singapore at around midnight.

IMG_0008 (2)

Next morning was a board meeting of A*STAR . The discussion was heated from beginning to the end until the meeting closed after lunch.  This board is working quite vibrantly actually.  Budgets are allocated to make Singapore more competitive in science, technology and research, to build new opportunities ? very constructive and active.  A*STAR is also planning a collaboration with Universities in Iran, in order to develop further exchanges of talented students.  Another project is the Liberal Arts course that has a full boarding system which will be offered in collaboration with Yale University.  In short, they are so dedicated to nurturing global talents.  It is a common sense, so to say, that ‘Nurturing Human Talents is the Base of Building of a Nation’ (in Japanese), but it seems quite different in a country who knows where. The problem is that adults, the grown-ups, are ‘closed minded’, and that will make it difficult for our nation to address problems we are expected to face in this rapidly ‘flattening age of globalization’.

Late in the afternoon, we visited the ‘Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Resort’.  First thing to do was to see the fantastic view from the top of the building, looking down the course of F1 autorace track that took place just recently, Marina Barrage  where I had been not so long ago, and right beyond the ocean lies Malaysia and Indonesia so closely.  The premise is a combination of three 57 stories high buildings, with hotel, condo, major convention facility, casino, etc. and a 150 meters swimming pool on the top of the building. The view is just breathtaking.  Elevators moves up and down in high speed ?very fast- but motions are almost unnoticeable.

Its grand scale, however, is not the only thing that impresses us.  Prices are also soaring high; Hotel, Condo (still some vacancy…), Casino (sheer admission cost 85 dollars), and practically anything.  After the tour, I had a nice cheerful dinner with other members of the board.

I recommend that you visit this Sands Hotel and Resort if you have an opportunity.

After returning to the Hotel, I spent about 2 hours with Professor Ito, who has been working vibrantly at Singapore for about 10 years, Professor Yamamoto, new member of NUS faculty, and Dr. Steve Chu, a member of the board of UCLA.  I have known Professor Ito since he was at Kyoto University, but he moved to Singapore after retirement from Kyoto, and was awarded President’s Science Award this year.   I congratulate him for this great achievement.  We are so proud of him.

Why don’t more professors of Japanese universities broaden their world and go out to spread their field of activities instead of sticking around universities even after their retirement, I wonder?  Recently, it seems that many accomplished professors stay at universities taking advantage of their uiversities being Independent Administrative Institutionization (Dokuritsu Hojinn).  This would cause less room availabilities, and I feel sorry for young people.  Yet, more ‘adults’ and ‘professors’ complain that youths today are not passionate about going abroad.  This is a problem.  Mind you, young people are quite aware that their seniors are not being consistent in their words and actions.

Tomorrow, a car will pick me up at 5:15 am to take me to the airport.  I will fly for Toronto from here.

 

Participating in Variety of Projects, and Once Again, About Armchair Quarterback

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On September 28th and 29th, Asia Innovation Forum, as you have read in my website last year, was held again.  It is its fourth year and several small ‘satellites’ were set up.  The sizes of the rooms were smaller, in fact that contributed to making the discussions to be more engaging and participatory, and people seemed to like them.

I joined in the last two panels on the 2nd day (in Japanese).  Panelists in the first panel (in Japanese), besides myself, were Dr. Ishikura and Ms. Ishiguro whom I worked with a week ago at the ‘Marunouchi Career Juku’, as I have reported recently, and with Ms. Kaori Sasaki and Ms. Magsaysay Chou, a business leader from the Philippines.  Here, I was again the only male panelist as was the case at the ‘Juku’ last week.  However, this time, the audience consisted mostly of middle aged or senior men and I somehow could feel the difference clearly from a week ago as I participated in the discussions.

The latter panel was hosted by the same host as last year, Mr. Kusunoki, welcoming Mr. Idei (former CEO of Sony) of Quantum Leap, the organizer of this Forum.  I stayed rather quiet this year.  Many views were presented to answer the question ‘One Thing That Would Bring Changes to Japan’, and many panelist pointed more than one Thing; but I had nothing else to say besides ‘Recommendation to Take Leave of Absence from School’, that would give youths broader choices for their future career.  Traditional system of Japan Inc failed to change for more than 20 years even after the burst of bubble economy in 1990, because of the strong opposing power of the establishments. Whatever things that are said have been said many times in the past, but nothing changed as of today.  I sincerely wish to give hope to youths who have long future ahead of them.  To my regret we have seen hardly any changes during these 10 to 20 years, regardless of many policy recommendations made in terms of legislation or budgets.  What matters is ‘execution of plans’!  I think this problem has become basically ‘a battle between generations’, ie, ‘the past vs the future’ generations.

We may need to think differently when we plan our next Forum.  Since Mr. Idei is a wonderful leader in the business sector, together with him, let us craft plans with even stronger impacts for the next year.

On October 2nd, I joined in the ‘Global Agenda Seminar’ (in Japanese) (Ref.1), hosted by Dr. Yoko Ishikura.  Our guest was Dr. Kano, who now works at the World Bank in Washington DC – such youth like him working in global arena has power to easily connect with the hearts of young people who join this very interesting Seminar.

After the Seminar, I headed for Kyoto in the afternoon of October 2nd to participate in the STS Forum.  This Forum gathers so many leaders from all parts of the world, so I enjoy seeing many friends as well as their interesting panels.

Reports will be uploaded on the web sites of each event, so please keep eyes on them.

My schedule is quite tight, I have to admit, but on the other hand I am also concerned about how slow Japan is in its changing.  I think the Democrat Party administration has to face numerous difficulties lying ahead of them.  They are not yet experienced enough in handling the process of politics and legislative processes.  Will it take another 1 to 2 years for them to work effectively?  Also, it is not good that each minister comment on recent China- Japan problems separately and not consistently as one Cabinet.  Diplomacy must have a good, stable leadership in the government.  Even if the ministers think they are speaking to Japanese only, their comments will quickly be translated and be sent out to the people of the world, in particular, to the governments of nations which are interested in Japan affairs.  Current style of press coverage of these Ministers will serve only to give impression that Japanese government has no governance.

I have once written about the effect of ‘Armchair Quarterback (Okame Hachimoku)’  (in Japanese) in my web site, and in that sense, the mail magazines (in Japanese) and twitter (in Japanese) by Mr. So Bunshu are very thought provocative.  Mr. So has deep knowledge about the way people think and feel both in China and Japan, reflecting his own background and real experiences in both countries.

 

From ‘Healthcare System’ Reform to ‘Health and Healthcare System’ Reform: My Basic Idea

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Healthcare system reform is a huge political issue not only in developed countries but also in emerging or developing countries and in global society.  This is because of the rapid changes taking place in the structure of major diseases based not only on the progress of healthcare technologies but also on the enhancement of life expectancy, changes in social structure and in lifestyle.

In addition many societies share the problem of aging population.  Since public funding for healthcare expenditure is already pretty much to its limit even in developed countries this is another big challenge.  Also it is clear that income inequality within and across the countries continue to expand in this global world.

So, Japan is not the only nation that faces problems related to healthcare.  However, there are some reasons particular to Japan that make system reforms particularly difficult here.

This is one of the main themes that we work on at the Health Policy Institute, Japan.

However, in view of such major changes in our society, it is clear that healthcare system must be structured with more attention to social aspects.  In other words, we must take into consideration ‘Social Determinants of Health’ (Ref.1) in our policy, thus we must create not ‘Healthcare (Medical, in principle) System’ as it is but rather ‘Health and Healthcare System’. Otherwise I suspect that winning public support for policy or its implementation would be difficult.

Here, I will introduce to you my recent interview (in Japanese) reflecting such thoughts.

Same perspective is also expressed in my book ‘University Hospital Reform (Daigaku Byoin Kaikaku)’ (in Japanese).

‘Learning on Web: Open Education and Revolution of Learning’, A ‘Must’ Book

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Dr. Iiyoshi  whom I have introduced to you last year (blog, Ref.1) (in Japanese) and Mr. Umeda  （blog） (in Japanese) who is sending out messages from Silicon Valley such as his book ‘Going Through the Web Age (Web Jidai Wo Yuku)’ (by the way, he is also a great writer on shogi game (Japanese chess game))recently co-authored and published ‘Learning on Web (‘Web de Manabu)’ (in Japanese). The book offers lots of ‘eye-opening’ information, very rich in content, and I recommend strongly to all educators and people who are interested in learning or (their) children’s education.

‘Learning on Web’ gives you the idea and sense of how education, starting with the epoc-making OpenCourseWare of MIT (included in the Top50 websites in recent Times magazine), has become ‘Open’, how amazing the speed and power of the trend of the ‘Web age’ is.

As I have been pointing out repeatedly even in many public ‘occasions’  (Ref.1, 2), Internet is a tool that ‘empowers individuals’ with an impact comparable to the printing technology invented by Gutenberg in the 15th century.  Internet enables individuals in broader area to access and/or ‘share’ to broader audience.  It expands globally regardless of country border or time.  Conseqently, new ‘inquiries’ will be raised by many more people, ‘questioning of the (traditional) authorities’ will follow.  Thus, this change continues to move forward but never backwards.  Nations, companies, institutions which fail to adapt itself to this change, or attempts to oppose it will inevitably have to suffer more damages.  I regard this as the essence of ‘globalization’.

iTune, iPod, IPhone, and iPad are some good recent examples.  Just by thinking what industrial sectors resisted, or how these products changed society or the global world, and what eventually became of those resisting power, you will well understand what I mean.
  
In other words, this ‘Learning on Web’ is not only giving information on the new world changes of education to educators, but also reminding them of their responsibilities and questioning how they performed.

However, if you see this book as ‘empowerment of individuals’, ‘Learning on Web’ is asking actively to all students (recipients of education) and learners (who are willing to learn) what kind of education they want, introducing them to new educational opportunities and tools for learning, possibilities of discoveries that make them better and grow.

Also, I sense in this book a concern for Japan which appears to be resting in isolation from the change of the world.  I imagine that this is because that the two authors have been away from Japan for long years, have built their careers outside Japan as an indepedent individual, and therefore are increasingly becoming frustrated and even sorry  (in Japanese) for closed Japan which remains incapable of changing in this rapidly globalizing world, and also reflect their deep love, ‘patriotism’ (not ‘nationalism’) for Japan.

I recommend this book to all people, a ‘must’ reading to all grown ups who are concerned with education.

By the way, the outline of this book and the points they intended to make are given in the blogs of Mr. Umeda and Dr. Iiyoshi  which I have introduced to you above.  Many of the resource sites introduced in this book are shown in a list in this blog. Even if you do not have the book ‘Learning on Web’ at hand, these blogs will help you visit many valuable sites.

It is wonderful to know that there are so many, many people who are devoted to education and nurturing people of the ‘world’.

 

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Hayman Island, ADC Leadership Retreat -2

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Please click here for the photos.

The 2nd day at Hayman Island was beautiful.  We should be outdoors in such day.

However, the program was quite packed.  I was scheduled to be at the ‘Kailis Oration’ (Session 6) (cf. the program).  This opening session of Day 2 was again hosted by Nik Gowing.  It was an exciting session starting with questions raised by Bjorn Stigson, the photos linked above which I appear are of this panel (also included are the 2 photos of Nick Stern (facing backwards), myself, and Bjorn Stigson after the panel).

Clyde Prestowitz, whom I met in Tokyo a few weeks ago, is also participating in various discussions starting today.

For lunch session, I joined session 9.5, a panel surrounded by beautiful greens.  Somehow the discussion focused on the issues of Australia.  My colleague William Saito was also on the panel with me.  Chris Selth said that there were few targets for VC, was quite critical in that sense pointing out how dependent Australia was on its rich natural resources for its economic growth…. Then followed the plenary lecture by Richard Wilkinson  (right after session11).  I think that producing such type of academics as Dr. Wilkinson represents one of the strengths of British academic community.
 
Another session was ‘Cybersecurity’ (session 12.2) hosted by Nik Gowing.  William Saito did a very good job here.

On the 3rd day, 29th, I was especially impressed, among many, by Stephan Bungay in session 16.3, and Bror Saxberg of Kaplan (I felt that the power of the US lies in the fact of having quite a volume of extraordinary, brilliant and ‘crazy’ people like him) in session 17.3 ‘Education futures’ whom I have introduced to you in my last report , and my old friend Jeff West (another brilliant and ‘crazy’) in session 20.3.   These sessions were all very moving and thought provoking.

There were of course many other sessions that I would have liked to join, but as you see from the program, doing so was not easy.

My last appearance in the afternoon was with William Saito at ‘Japan -Perspectives on Change’ (session 19.3).  Australia, the host country, has just gone through the federal election which ended in an unexpected result and people here were talking about it excitedly.  On the other hand our story is; ‘Japan?  Well, we had 5 prime ministers in these 4 years.  Maybe the 6th is coming soon?’ ? isn’t this a bit sad?  I tried to include many comparisons and metaphors to make my points of Japan clearly understandable to non-Japanese intellects; perhaps, I somewhat succeeded since after the session I was told by several people that my discussion was ‘very persuasive, clear, and easy to understand’.  I do think that the current (and even the last 50 years') situation of Japan is difficult to understand if we do not present them in a sound logical manner, focusing to the basic issues and from outside perspective.
 
The closing ceremony ended by a very moving speech by Michael Roux, the host.

We enjoyed a nice dinner reception in the evening.

I would say that this 3 days’ retreat was a very nice event of a good size which made it possible to share much more intimate time, even more than the World Economic Forum in Davos (which I posted for many years), with truly wonderful participants to exchange different and common views and share new ideas. I was able to see my old friends, make new friends, see ‘great’ people such as those whom I have introduced to you in my report postings ‘1, 2’ and Gita Wirjawan  (Ref.1) of Indonesia.  I learned a lot from each of them.  Also, I was lucky enough to be asked to join in many good sessions in earlier phase (opening panels of day 1 and day 2) so many new friends noticed me from early of this three days Retreat  I sincerely thank Michael Roux for his invitation and thoughtsfullness.