Defiantly proud of her Kansai roots and identity, Haruko Minami has also long found herself drawn to trying to comprehend other cultures. Intertwined with this is a love for language and literature that has led her to work as a bridge between European companies and Japan, and become a self-confessed frustrated novelist.
“I’ve never lived anywhere else except between Kobe and Osaka. I’m Kansai-jin, not Japanese,” states Minami emphatically but with a hearty laugh.
The French connection
Visiting the Kobe Kitano Ijinkan Gai district of early foreign residences in the city in her first year of junior high was Minami’s first exposure to European culture. In her third year she angered her parents by buying a French language textbook when they wanted her to be focused on English for her high school entrance exam.
After Tiananmen Square in 1989, Minami says she, “Wanted to understand why France accepted Chinese foreign students who didn’t want to return home but Japan would not, what were the cultural differences?”
Her Francophile tendencies were no passing fad and she would go on to study French linguistics at Kwansei Gakuin University. And through the comparative literature assignments on her course, Minami came to fall in love with Japanese writers such as Junichiro Tanizaki, who though born in Tokyo, wrote and set his classic works in Kansai.
On graduation, Minami entered a traditional Japanese company, but life as a “tea-making and photocopying OL” was never going to be enough, and after a year and a half she began working for the Consulate General of Belgium in Osaka. She spent a decade in the commercial section, there learning some of the differences with Japanese corporate culture, and educating people in Japan about Belgium.
Difficult dreams
Quitting the consulate in 2007, Minami began working as a freelance interpreter and translator between English and French and Japanese, while pursuing her dream of becoming a novelist. Working again as a bridge between Japan and Europe, she also submitted her creative writing to numerous literary competitions, but without significant success.
During her time as a freelance interpreter, several clients complimented her on her knowledge of business and suggested she work as a consultant, advice she listened to. She took on consulting work for a number of companies, mostly European SMEs and start-ups which were targeting the Japanese market. Many of the same misunderstandings she had encountered since she began liaising between Japanese and Europeans continued.
“When they would say kento-shimasu [translating directly as ‘we’ll consider it’] the Europeans sometimes asked ‘What’s our percentage chance of success?’, but usually it means ‘absolutely no bloody way,’” recalls Minami, laughing. “Japan was a closed country for more than two centuries in the Edo Period and in some ways our closed mentality has not changed. I always say that even though I live in Osaka, I ride on the kuro-fune black ships,” says Minami of representing European firms.
She points out that people from the rest of Japan often feel that Kansai is closed in a similar sense because business there is based on very long-term relationships and so hard to crack for outsiders.
Swiss links
By way of her work, Minami joined the Belgian and Luxembourg chamber, through which she was invited to SCCIJ events in Kansai, as well as connecting with members of other European chambers. When the pandemic put paid to most of her consulting work, it was through those connections she was recommended to Swiss start-up Dayton Therapeutics, which was looking for a Japan representative.
Minami took on the role in March last year and her current main focus is searching for a Japanese partner to help develop and commercialise Dayton’s oral anti-cancer treatment Satraplatin for the local market. The innovative compound has milder side effects than other platinum-based drugs and has been redeveloped to treat blood cancers, explains Minami.
Original passions
Although her career has taken a varied and rich path, many of her core values and ambitions remain unchanged, including her love for her home region. “When I come back to Shin-Osaka Station or to Osaka International Airport , I notice that I can hear loud voices and funny conversations. But in Tokyo, even on the Yamanote Line, it is so silent.”
Nevertheless, she strives to keep an open mind and to understand different ways of thinking, “Even what is considered common sense is quite biased. Other languages gave me other perspectives.”
And she still keeps her dream of being published alive. “I haven’t given up on being a novelist. Even if it happens when I’m obaa-san [elderly lady], I’ll do it before I die,” she says with another big laugh.
Text: Gavin Blair for SCCIJ.
Haruko Minami's Swiss colleagues at Dayton Therapeutics.
