Tear down the walls!

Since our move to #Fukuoka in December 2016, we have been asked by a lot of startup entrepreneurs, VCs, local Fukuokans, people we have met in the many shops, cafes, restaurants we went to and even Fukuoka City Hall officials, "Why did you move to Fukuoka?" And their second question on hearing our answer of the first is usually, "So, how do you like Fukuoka?"

The first question is easy. We are here in Fukuoka because our research over 2 1/2 years and our 5 visits here during that period have convinced us that Fukuoka City is indeed one of the Top 10 Most Liveable City in the world. Plus it is a hell lot cheaper in which to live than Singapore (that will be my rants for another day).

The second question took a bit more time for us to come up with a good answer. It actually took us back to our journeys to the various cities we have lived in since we started working more than 2 decades ago.

Our first move was to Hong Kong in 1994. Those were fun times. We were young. We were newly married and Hong Kong was in the last few go-go years under the Brits before the Chinese took over in 1997. More importantly, everyone, especially the Hong Kongers, were partying like there was no tomorrow. We made a lot of good friends.

These great friends we made in Hong Kong continued to stay in touch with us. We had a mini-reunion in Tokyo last year and it was really loads of fun. We got a few more wrinkles now. And probably a few more strands of white hair. But to be with our friends from Hong Kong, to be able to speak Cantonese again, to recount all the craziness of our younger and wilder days. We felt like we are with our families again. We felt that we belonged with Hong Kong.

And then there were the few years we spent in Shanghai back in 2004.

Shanghai was NOT like Hong Kong. The Shanghainese don't speak Mandarin or Putonghua. They speak Shanghainese... which when I am half-drunk, sounds a lot like Japanese. But, the Shanghainese are also very cosmopolitan people. They actually opened up to the outside world a lot earlier than Hong Kong. So, even though we really didn't speak the local dialect, we never felt like outsiders. The Shanghainese were curious about us and they were equally open to our curiosity.

Fast forward to 2017 in Fukuoka. Our first couple of weeks were rough. We don't speak Japanese. We don't know the city. We knew only a few friends before landing here. There were times when I got really frustrated and turned to Devin to say, "Screw this. We don't need this. Let's just go home and enjoy the rest of our lives hanging out at the beach." But, every day, there were little pleasant surprises. Small little acts of kindness from total strangers. Serendipitous discoveries just around the block which made us want to just keep plugging away.

When we sat back and thought about what had made us hung on and toughed it out, we realised that it was really the people of Fukuoka. And we got to meet a lot of them really because of the way we chose to live these few months as we are launching our startup here. Had we stayed in a hotel, we would have met a bunch of fellow foreigners. The only locals would be the people serving us. Yes, we will have the luxury and comfort of daily housekeeping, butlers, 24 hours room service and a health club in the same building. But, we will probably also be living in total bubble without any true interactions with Fukuoka and Fukuokans.

But we chose to live in local neighborhoods with the real locals. And we got to do that by renting apartments on #Airbnb.

Our hosts were all locals living in real local neighbourhoods like Otemon, Akasaka, Sekijomachi, Taihokumachi, etc. They live in Fukuoka and have different reasons to put up their apartments for short-term rentals to guests like us.

Our hosts not only opened up their homes to us, they opened up their hearts to us too. All of them have left notes in their homes to highlight their neighbourhood cafes, restaurants, convenience stores, laundry, bakeries, and everything else to make us feel at home. One of them even dropped by on Christmas Eve to leave us a bag of chocolates as she was worried we will miss our friends and families back in Singapore.

We were on Line, WeChat, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp with all of them whenever we needed help. Sera explained to me how to sort out the garbage (it's harder than rocket science as far as I am concerned). Kenichiro brought me pots and pans plus some cutlery when we told him we wanted to cook in his apartment. Edith introduced us to her favourite real estate agent to help us look for long-term accommodation. Through these fellow entrepreneurs who are earning a side income from renting their homes to us, we slowly felt like we belong. And the more we have that feeling, the more we want to stay for good and make Fukuoka our home.

But it was more than just our hosts who made us felt we belong. The many people who touched our lives in the last few weeks were from our neighbourhood restaurants, the local bakers, the butchers and grocers down the streets, the next door coffee roasters and the downstairs barber. And who can forget the corner Lawson, Family Mart and Seven-11 that kept us well-fed and well-stocked at all hours of the day. (For more details of all these great places in Fukuoka, check out my Instagram account.)

Yes, we now feel #webelong.

When I saw this video from Airbnb this morning, it struck me that short-term apartments are not just for refugees. 

#startup #entrepreneurs need them too.

When you are launching a startup in your home country, from your bedroom, garage or living room, that's easy. When, like us, you stupid enough to try to launch it in a strange country where you are an outsider, you need to get a roof over your head real bad. And it's not easy without a resident visa to get a long-term apartment anywhere in the world. Japan is no different. The landlords are cautious. The banks are even more careful. And who can blame them with all the xenophobia and nationalism going around the world right now? But with home-sharing and short-term rental platforms, entrepreneurs with wanderlust like us get to live like locals. Call it our beta testing of our own lives. Will we like Fukuoka? Who knows until we try? But if you live in a Hyatt or a Hilton, even if you venture out of the hotels for all your meals, would you really know?

Trump and the America that elected him are not the only crazies out there. There are many countries out there that are suddenly emboldened by the idiocy of what we are seeing coming out of Washington D.C. They now think that, "Hey, maybe it is alright for us to build our walls too."

They may not build a brick-and-mortar wall but there are plenty of countries out there which are now building trade-walls, firewalls, regulatory walls, immigration walls and a whole loads of other walls to keep out the foreign barbarians and anyone who dares to challenge the status quo. But for innovation to happen, disruption must first be allowed to happen. When the first human jumped on a horse and rode it, he completely ruined the chances of his fellow humans to outrun him. Does it make sense to pull the brave soul off the horse and shoot the poor horse? And what about the first guy who figured out that steam-powered engine that pulled the cart along was a much better way to move about than an animal which need to be cleaned and fed all the time and could tire after a long gallop? We now have human driving cars to bring us around town. But should we stop the computer whiz-kids who are trying to figure out a way to have algorithms drive us?

To all these isolationists, xenophobes and protectionists, I just want to share this really old video from another Republican President who first gained fame on TV.

Technological innovations can only make our lives better. Yes, there is no doubt there will be losers in this relentless pursuit for the next new thing. But, the solution is not to build more walls to keep out the new challengers. We need to figure out better ways that technologies can help all of us get to a better place, even the incumbents who are displaced and lose out as a result of the technological innovations. That's the solutions. Not more walls.

#teardownthewalls