At RubyKaigi,

1. Andrew Grimm
RubyHiroba 2013

2. What’s “Niseko Syndrome”?

3. Niseko ski resort
 Ski resort in Hokkaido, Japan

4. Niseko has been Australianized
 Skiers are Australian
 Staff are Australian
 Food is Australian
 Even the geisha is Australian! (Sayuki)

5. Why go there?
 If the skiers are Australian, the staff are
Australian, the food is Australian, and
the geisha is Australian, why go there?
 Because the snow is Japanese!

6. Not stupid, just scared
 Some people would call this “stupid”
 I’d call it “understandable”
 Doing something different is difficult
 Doing something different is scary

7. RubyKaigi problems
 People socialize only with their friends
 Japanese only socialize, have lunch with
Japanese
 Non-Japanese only socialize, have
lunch with non-Japanese
 Japanese people without romaji
(alphabet spelling) on name tag

8. Strategies

9. Meet new people with friend
 Find an existing friend
 Meet new people with them

10. Find bilingual people
 Find someone bilingual
 Socialize with a whole group with his or
her help

11. Name tags
 Japanese people, please put some
alphabetical letters (romaji) on your
name tag
 If you don’t want your real name in
romaji, put a username (twitter, github)
in romaji

12. English
 Just learn!

13. Japanese
 Just learn! (A few phrases)