The business consultant, Nano Guerra García, was in Japan, where he gave talks on entrepreneurship to Peruvian immigrants.

How would you summarize your experience in Japan?

I have two feelings. One, the reaffirmation of my admiration for Japan. I had it since I was a child. I grew up in Residencial San Felipe and we had the Peruvian Japanese Cultural Center there. I remember when President Belaunde and then Prince Akihito planted the trees. I saw a different, ordered community. This (the trip to Japan) is a confirmation. That is, arriving in Japan and seeing a country where people respect others, a country that I would summarize in the word “harmony.” That, combined with another admiration for Peruvians in Japan, which is also another reaffirmation: verifying the entrepreneurial spirit that Peruvians have.

Business consultant Nano Guerra García: “I have found a kind of nostalgia market (in Japan). Most of those who have done business there have done business to sell to Peruvians.”

Do Peruvians in Japan want to return to Peru?

I would say that there is a good percentage of people who are thinking about coming, there is a lot of interest in what types of businesses to have. Not all. Others are interested in what businesses they can put there. Some did not go to the conferences. They are the ones who took advantage of the long weekend to rest or travel, which shows that what they want is, suddenly, to stay in the condition they are in. That does not take away their status as entrepreneurs. He who decides to migrate, he who decides to go out to face a new life, is someone who is not a conformist, he is someone who already has that seed of looking for something new, which is what the dekasegi had.

What did they ask you about Peru?

There was a need to see how Peru is, if so much beauty is true, if we are improving, if there are opportunities. Then the classic question: “I have money saved, what business can I get into?” And there have been other types of conversations with those who already have a business there: “Nano, what else can I do?” I have found a kind of nostalgia market. Most of those who have done business there have done business to sell to Peruvians. Then I'll bring you the Sublime, I'll put the grilled chicken for you. The nostalgia market, like nostalgia, is ending. The second generation no longer misses rice pudding because they have not eaten it every day. They have eaten in Japan, and they want ramen or foods from there more. Therefore, it is a market that is ending. These people must be told to conquer the Japanese, which is not that easy, or to conquer the other Latin Americans. I have found others who have known how to do business with the Japanese, and those seem the most interesting to me.

For example?

I have seen three cases. One from a Peruvian who arrived and started working directly with Japanese. What he did was “isolate” himself from his community. He learned Japanese from Portuguese texts because there were not many in Spanish. He has a consulting business. Two, a woman who works to provide companies with the equivalent of services. She does connect with Latinos, but she is the intermediary, the one who can get Latinos to get jobs. And three, a lady who has a restaurant called Miraflores, who has managed to bring the Japanese to her restaurant. Now he is opening a second restaurant and is successful in Tokyo with Peruvian food.

It is counterproductive for business for Peruvians to isolate themselves from Japanese society, right?

Of course. The nostalgia market operates in a world of nostalgia. The world of nostalgia works when you arrive in a community that welcomes you, and since we always like our comfortable zone, you stay there. I have been surprised to (find) dekasegi who speak very little Japanese. These are people who are in a simple, repetitive job, and then return to their community. Then it is more difficult for you to do business. Those who have done it are those who have known how to break the circle of nostalgia and relate to others. Is that harder? Yes, well, but the success or reward is stronger. You have to have a very strong self-esteem. Sometimes migrating, working as a worker, in a subordinate manner, hits your self-esteem. One of the key conditions for starting a business is having very high self-esteem. There is something to work on there. If I could develop a job with the dekasegi, I would say let's work hard on self-esteem.

What things from the Japanese State could we apply in Peru?

Japan has a State that intervenes a lot, but it is efficient. You receive a State that can get involved in various things, it can ask you for eighty thousand licenses, but it complies. It has a cast of accomplished, honest officials. I liked, for example, how the policeman is in the neighborhood. The police officer, living in the neighborhood, is controlled by it, he is another member of the community. The Japanese State is thinking about how to avoid the possible impacts of earthquakes. An earthquake in Tokyo would collapse the Japanese economy, so it is a State that says “we are going to start going (to other parts of Japan), to spread the risk.” It is a State that when you enter the road it gives you a ticket and when you leave it charges you what you used, it charges you what is fair.

What else did your trip to Japan leave you?

I wasn't one to go to many Japanese places here (in Lima), but I came back and told my daughter, who is a fan (of Japanese food), “now we're going to be able to go together,” because I've become an admirer too. of the food. I like it, I feel that it is a clean meal that I digest quickly. I give a lot of importance to healthy food.

* This article is published thanks to the agreement between the Peruvian Japanese Association (APJ) and the Discover Nikkei Project. Article originally published in Kaikan magazine No. 68, June 2012 and adapted for Discover Nikkei.

© 2012 Asociación Peruano Japonesa; © 2012 Fotos: Asociación Peruano Japonesa / Álvaro Uematsu