Originally written in Traditional Chinese: Minerva Immersion Week 第 1 天：開學第一課，教的是怎麼在日本把話說對
Minerva Immersion Week, Day 1 (Oct 18): the first class was not about knowledge. It was about how not to step on landmines when speaking in Japan.
Context: Minerva undergraduates live in several cities. Graduate students are mostly working professionals, so the MDA is online; classes moved from Monday to Thursday to Friday to Sunday, once every three weeks. Immersion Weeks bring us together in London, Seoul or Tokyo, and even after graduating you can return for any city you have not yet visited. I have finished my MDA; Tokyo is my third and last.
First, cross-cultural communication. A consultant who teaches Japanese management at Hitotsubashi and leadership at Keio showed us where Western habits misfire in Japan. In high-context Japan, understanding is the listener's job, so "I don't understand" can sound like "you explained badly"; try "Do you mean...?" No questions after a talk means "well explained," not "no interest." Asking "Any problems?" gets "No." Instead, ask everyone to show a score from 1 to 5. Most show four, because of kaizen: everyone improving a little every day, with no finish line. Debating head-on in a meeting can feel like attacking the person, so have people write ideas on sticky notes: "You can respect me, but attack my post-it." And before asking a question, first thank the speaker for their effort, name what you learned deeply, then ask.
At lunch I deepened it with one method: within an hour of learning something, take it to real people. I asked every Japanese colleague two questions: which part resonated most, and what would you add? One class became five conversations. They added nemawashi, originally a gardening term for loosening a tree's roots before transplanting it; at work, aligning everyone one by one before the meeting, 360 degrees. Not the whole of Japan, never, but a complete starting point for understanding it.
Second, Minerva's network is real. That lunch was on the official schedule. At one table: MDA classmates and alumni, Japanese participants in World Wise, an HR manager at a globally known company, a political science PhD and professor with decades of experience in the US and Japan, and a local friend at CIC Tokyo, the innovation center founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He invited us to visit, and by the next evening classmates had scheduled it. This week, two or three organizations will be hosted by their founders in person.
In a Matrix vs Amoeba debate I argued: in a matrix most people have one function and a rigid job description; with AI, each person can take on more roles, no longer limited by traditional training or degrees.
The design is a full learning loop: a framework in the morning, real people at noon, the city in the afternoon.
MDA if you want a degree that changes how you think without leaving your job; World Wise if you lead a team. Links in the first comment.
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