Simple Lessons I Learned
Atsuko Jenks
I grew up in the Japanese education system in the 60s and 70s, which emphasized doing well in tests and behaving with respect and modesty in all aspects of school life. We were rarely encouraged to express our opinions. We were always encouraged to show how perfectly we learned from the textbooks by scoring high on tests. I was one of the best students because I knew what teachers’ expectations were and perfectly performed to these standards. Every morning and afternoon in every class, I copied what the teachers wrote on the blackboards and “learned” them. School was monotonous, disciplined, quiet, and boring. We didn’t have proms or dances, we didn’t have senior pranks, homecoming, or student body elections. The student government was nominal, and I don’t even remember who the president was, but I do remember who the top ten students were in final exams, because their names were posted on the wall, and they were recognized in all school assemblies.
When I arrived at the GSB in September of 1983, I was in shock during our entire first quarter. None of the classes were like the ones I was used to. Classes were anything but boring – they were stimulating, and absolutely intimidating and overwhelming. What is class participation? And why should it comprise up to 40% of your grade in most popular classes?
This was the first time in my life when I felt that I was at the bottom of a group, just trying not to drown. I was expected to participate in class discussion and say something insightful, which was not part of my earlier education. One evening in October of 1983, on my expensive long-distance call to my mother in Japan, I just cried, simply cried. I could not explain anything to her. I don’t know exactly what a nervous breakdown feels like, but I was probably experiencing one without knowing what to call it. I didn’t even have the vocabulary to explain how I was to my kind, widowed landlord who occasionally asked me how things were going.
How did I survive? It was the donuts. I discovered that in America, people ate donuts in the morning with coffee without any sense of guilt! Sugar and caffeine always kept me going.
More importantly, I had my classmates who, without knowing, saved me from my daily anxiety. “Mike-san” McTeigue, Steve Krausz, Henrik Brandt, Kathy Dewenter, Hiromichi Kimura, and of course, my husband Tim Jenks. I owe my survival at GSB to these classmates, to their subtle expressions of caring and small day-to-day acts of kindness. They cared, and they paid attention.
“Mike-san” McTeigue would ask a question in a class which made me (and some other classmates) feel so relieved because the professor was not making any sense to us. Kathy Dewenter, who had spent many years in Asia, would stop by at Fast Gas to say hi and check in. She often ended up explaining what had just happened in the class. She was naturally skilled in explaining complex concepts in simpler English for students from foreign countries. She was an accidental self-appointed tutor for me and a few other classmates from Japan. It did not surprise me at all when I learned that Kathy was spending much of her remaining precious time on her students at the University of Washington Business School while battling cancer. Steve Krausz would casually sit down with me for lunch just to chat, which made me feel comfortable being there and being part of the GSB community. Hiromichi was always filling the role of my big brother. Later, in our second year, Tim and Henrik became my regular dinner buddies when they shared a house in Menlo Park, where we enjoyed cultural exchange in onomatopoeia over dinner. Do you know what roosters say in Danish or Japanese? And, of course, there was the Hug Club, thanks to Mike-san.
My classmates’ empathy and acts of kindness kept me going: they made me feel that I belonged, and I felt that they cared. I realize how I lucky I was to be surrounded by emotionally intelligent classmates who knew that some classmates, especially those who come from different cultural backgrounds, needed just a little more attention. I also learned a huge amount by throwing myself into a completely new environment, not knowing anybody in the community, not knowing even the most basic system and customs of the society–I didn’t even know how to write a check (no checks in the Japanese consumer banking system) or order at McDonald’s drive-thru (never needed to drive in Tokyo). I was clueless in many aspects of life here in Silicon Valley. Life before Google was tough. However, such a clueless foreign student could actually turn into a contributing citizen of America because a small group of people paid attention and generously embraced her in their community.
Without a doubt, the best thing that happened to me after GSB is my family. Tim and I raised two thoughtful daughters, Saya and Hana, who really care about the family and the community. They have been stuck with their parents under COVID-19 lockdown–happily, so it seems, at least most of the time. They readily make avocado toast for their parents in the morning and go run errands so that their parents in the riskier age group do not have to go into stores. The lockdown gave us so much more time to sit at the dinner table together – probably more than any other time since our daughters left for college. We discuss everything, from flattening of the curve, recent podcast discoveries, Tim and my business challenges, distant relatives, boyfriends, U.S.-China trade war, Obaachan (or grandma) in Japan, record unemployment, the stock market, movies, Black Lives Matter, and Half Moon Bay beach trips with our dog Mia. We cook at home more together but decided to pick several local restaurants to support by ordering for take-out. We are keenly aware that without them, our lives would be less joyful, and their businesses are at imminent risk. Taking notice of those who need our support in our community and showing a little bit of empathy have now become part of our consciousness. We often feel helpless because we have so many more people to pay attention to. Teachers, artists, nurses, caregivers at nursing homes…How did we become a society of only for the strongest and the fittest in Silicon Valley – the wealthiest region of the wealthiest country? We are a world-famous region of success, innovation and wealth where many teachers can’t own decent houses. We are the home of global social media behemoth while we don’t even know our neighbors’ names. “This has to change. How can we?” became our frequent topic of our family conversation.
When we moved to England in 1994 with a newborn baby Saya, we moved into a small village called Marlborough situated on the Old Bath Road which connects London and Bath. This proper English village was centered around the High Street with a church on one end and another on the other. Everything was within walking distance: a local clinic (for free immunization), a small market, the Polly Tea Rooms, Boots the Chemist (pharmacy), a hardware shop, a butcher, banks, the post office, a couple of pubs – everything you need day-to-day. I routinely took walks with baby Saya to a nearby park with a river running through where she spoke one of her first words, “Duck!” It was certainly a quaint little village where everybody knew everybody else and the walkable paths throughout the town were brick-walled dating back to the 16th century. Just outside of the village was Marlborough College, a boarding high school at the site of former Marlborough Castle originally built by the Normans in the eleventh century.
I popped into the church with baby Saya one day and found that there is a baby play group gathering, Edward Bear Club, at the church every Thursday. When a Japanese mum with an American accent, wearing white Nike sneakers and Gap jeans showed up at the Club, all the local mums were so welcoming that Saya and I became part of the community right away. It is an interesting contrast to our Silicon Valley communities where we have so many choices that our involvement in each can easily be diluted. Our standard operation in Silicon Valley is to shop around to find better deals as opposed to commit ourselves to a choice we made and work through tough times. Life in Marlborough was more predictable and limiting in opportunities in a sense, although it gave us plenty of time to enjoy the community, the nature and the historic sites in rolling hills of Wiltshire in the South Western England, the home of white horses, Stonehenge, and Salisbury Cathedral. This quaint village of only 8,000 people was equipped with a modern and accessible community center with fully heated swimming pools and activity rooms. While there weren’t any plush private gyms or athletic clubs, this facility was well-maintained and open to the public. All the mums and babies of Edward Bear Club frequented this community center.
We found the same high level of public community facilities when we moved to Munich in 1996. Our second baby Hana was born at the local hospital a year later. City-run public swimming pools were abundant, big, gorgeous, clean, and affordable. Streets were clean, the public transportation network was extensive, convenient, and safe. Bike trails through the forest could take us from where we lived in south of Munich all the way to Englischer Garten, with several stops at Biergärten along the River Isar. We biked and we walked on weekends because most shops were closed on Sundays and because that’s what people did. We walked to the neighborhood bakery for fresh bread, to a vegetable market, a butcher, and konditorei for our daily needs. My shopping vocabulary in German became proficient because of this routine practice, and I could even carry short conversations with friendly and familiar shopkeepers.
Since I graduated from the GSB, I have spent many hours, days, months, and years, supporting Japanese businesses to figure out how to do business in Silicon Valley. At first glance, Silicon Valley is overtly friendly, but in reality, this is not a place where empathy or concern for others is the priority. The business environment is harsh and cut-throat. You might be included in the community if you have a great business idea which will enormously scale or if you are coming into the community with huge funds to invest. As a result, the reputation of Silicon Valley among my Japanese clients is as the place for wealth and power plays. People flex their powerful network and try to find entrepreneurs who will bring in returns to their investments. Not much else. No culture, no art, no humanities. The best tourist spots are Apple’s spaceship campus, Facebook’s “Like” sign, and Stanford campus. That’s the impression they bring back home. When these expats go back to Japan after three years, they don’t carry back many fond memories about the communities where they belonged because they never really develop the sense of belonging while they live here. Do they ever meet anybody in the community to have conversations? Do they ever meet just the regular neighbors who live here? How about neighborhood bakers, cafés, or a cobbler? They rarely get to know them. We who live here don’t get to know our neighborhood merchants, nor do we talk to them just to say, “Good morning.” We are usually too busy to care about them. We are following Twitter, Slack channels, Instagram, emails, Microsoft Teams, LinkedIn, WeChat, Snapchat, texts, and more texts. We have so little time to have a conversation because we must respond to all of our digital connections.
Last week, I was talking to one of my Japanese expat friends and he said, “People are so much nicer now in the neighborhood under shelter-in-place. I’m probably nicer, too. When I take a walk and see some neighbors, we say, ‘Hi. How is it going?’ to each other, which never happened before. I’m delighted when I see regulars on my walk and I hope they stay healthy. Honestly, I never took a walk in my neighborhood. It’s actually kind of nice. I never even knew that there is a beautiful park about three blocks from here. Since we are in this problem together, I think I finally feel like I belong here.”
As I started to write this for this book, I looked back and reflected on lessons learned. They are relatively simple. Pay attention to and act with empathy toward the people who came from different cultural and social backgrounds. Live in foreign countries for a while, if you have a chance. Trust that empathy empowers the helpless (and the clueless like I was) and permeates into the society, which is a much better way than excluding and demeaning them. Welcome newcomers to your community with compassion and offer to help.
Slow down and treasure the relationships you have and the value of the community that you belong to. Take a walk in your neighborhood, notice the trees, landscapes, dog walkers, grandparents and children. You might even find a beautiful park nearby. Know your neighbors’ names and what they do. Take the time to say hi to your neighbors and ask, “How are you doing?”