By Ali Syarief
A book is often considered the product of an author’s thoughts, experiences, and intellectual curiosity. Yet, sometimes, a book becomes something more than its written pages. It becomes a meeting point between cultures, a record of friendships, and an invitation for others to see the world from a different perspective.
This is what Why Japan Matters: A Foreign Perspective means to me.
Two individuals have offered particularly meaningful reflections on my work: Professor Tom Hogan, my Australian friend of more than three decades, and Dr. Suzanne Flynn, whose response to the book highlighted its informative and thought-provoking qualities. Their perspectives are different, but together they remind me why writing about another country matters—not merely to describe it, but to encourage a deeper understanding of its people, culture, and place in the world.
Tom Hogan: A Friendship Behind the Book
I first met Tom Hogan in Jakarta in 1990, when he was sent to Indonesia by Australian Business Volunteers to work with two groups of radio broadcasters. At that time, I was the Indonesian representative of the Canberra-based organization. I travelled from Bandung to the hotel where he was staying, and an enduring friendship began.
Over the following decades, our relationship developed through visits, conversations, and professional collaboration. Tom visited my home in Bandung, and I visited his home in Sydney. Together with our mutual friend Agus Riyanto of Telkom Indonesia, we conducted workshops in several cities and countries, including Singapore, Batam, Makassar, Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, and Bali.
Our collaboration reflected a shared interest in communication and intercultural understanding. Tom brought his expertise in radio broadcasting, organizational communication, and business communication across cultures. I brought my own experience and perspective on Japanese culture and how Indonesians could better understand and work with Japanese people.
I still remember one of our workshops in Bali. Tom spoke about How to Do Business with the Chinese, while I presented How to Do Business with the Japanese. We stood on the same stage, addressing the same audience, but approached intercultural business from different perspectives.
Tom’s foreword to my book is therefore more than a formal endorsement. It is a personal testimony from someone who has known me through years of friendship and professional collaboration. He describes Why Japan Matters: A Foreign Perspective as an important contribution to Japanese-Indonesian understanding and relationships, and gives it his enthusiastic endorsement.
His words carry particular meaning because they come from someone who has seen my work beyond the printed page. He knew the professional journey behind the book and had shared part of that journey with me.
Tom passed away before I could carry out my plan to visit him in Sydney on November 26. I had hoped we would meet again, talk about our experiences, and perhaps laugh about the many workshops we had conducted together. His invitation to stay at his home had made the prospect of meeting again feel wonderfully familiar.
That meeting will no longer take place. But his words remain in my book.
I now read his foreword not only as an endorsement of my work, but also as a lasting record of a friendship that began in 1990 and continued across countries, professions, and generations of experience. Some friendships leave us photographs and memories. Others leave us words that continue to speak long after the person who wrote them is gone.
Tom’s foreword has become both.
Suzanne Flynn: Discovering Another Perspective
Dr. Suzanne Flynn offered a different kind of response to Why Japan Matters: A Foreign Perspective. In her reflections, she described the book as informative and insightful. She also explained that it introduced her to perspectives on Japan that she had not previously considered.
What I find particularly meaningful in her response is the recognition that a book can contribute something even to readers who already possess considerable academic knowledge. A reader does not necessarily need to agree with every observation to benefit from encountering a different perspective. Sometimes, the greatest value of a book lies in the questions it encourages us to ask.
Among the aspects that interested her were my reflections on the Lex-Hippo experience and the stereotypes associated with Japan and Japanese people. These subjects matter because our understanding of another culture is rarely formed through direct experience alone. It is also shaped by stories, assumptions, inherited images, and the explanations we receive from others.
Stereotypes can simplify our understanding of a society, but they can also prevent us from seeing its complexity. Japan, like Indonesia, cannot be adequately understood through a handful of familiar images. Behind the public image of a country are individuals, social practices, historical experiences, and cultural meanings that deserve closer attention.
My intention in writing about Japan was not to present myself as someone who possessed the final answer to every question about Japanese society. Rather, I wanted to share observations and experiences that might help readers reconsider what they thought they already knew.
Dr. Flynn’s reflections encouraged me to see that intention from the reader’s side. A book written from personal experience can become a starting point for another person’s intellectual exploration. The author’s perspective does not have to be the final word; it can open the door to further inquiry.
That, to me, is one of the most valuable functions of writing.
Beyond Praise: The Value of Cross-Cultural Understanding
It would be easy to treat the foreword by Tom Hogan and the reflections of Suzanne Flynn simply as encouraging words about my book. I am certainly grateful for their responses. Yet their significance goes beyond personal recognition.
Their perspectives illustrate two complementary dimensions of cross-cultural work.
Tom’s contribution represents the value of long-term engagement. His knowledge of my work emerged through years of friendship, collaboration, and shared professional experience. His endorsement was rooted in a relationship that extended well beyond a single book.
Dr. Flynn’s response, meanwhile, illustrates how a book can introduce a reader to ideas and experiences that invite reconsideration. Her reflections remind me that writing about culture is not merely a matter of presenting information. It is also about creating opportunities for readers to question assumptions and encounter unfamiliar viewpoints.
Neither response should be taken as proof that every argument in my book is beyond criticism. Books about culture must remain open to discussion, disagreement, and revision. Indeed, genuine intercultural understanding requires precisely that willingness to listen, question, and learn.
The value of these responses lies in their recognition that the book has something to contribute to that conversation.
For me, this is especially important in the relationship between Indonesia and Japan. The two countries have their own histories, cultural experiences, and ways of understanding the world. Stronger relationships cannot be built solely through official agreements or economic transactions. They also depend on how people understand one another, how they interpret cultural differences, and whether they are willing to look beyond familiar assumptions.
Writing can help create that space.
When Words Become a Legacy
The older I become, the more I understand that the meaning of a book is not entirely determined by its author. Once published, it enters the lives of other people. Readers interpret it through their own experiences, question its arguments, discover ideas they had not considered, and sometimes find in it a connection with the author’s world.
A foreword, a review, or a personal reflection becomes part of that journey.
Tom Hogan’s words now carry an additional meaning for me because he is no longer here to add to them. His foreword preserves a fragment of our shared history. It reminds me that intellectual work is rarely an entirely solitary undertaking. Behind a book there may be friends, colleagues, conversations, disagreements, journeys, and opportunities that the printed pages cannot fully reveal.
Dr. Flynn’s reflections remind me of another truth: a book’s life continues through the questions it inspires in its readers. Its value does not end when the author finishes writing or when the first copy reaches a reader.
I began Why Japan Matters: A Foreign Perspective because I wanted to share my understanding of Japan with readers who might see the country differently after encountering my experiences and reflections. The responses of Tom Hogan and Suzanne Flynn have given me reasons to appreciate that purpose from two distinct perspectives.
Ultimately, the importance of a book is not measured only by the praise it receives. It is also measured by the conversations it makes possible, the assumptions it invites us to reconsider, and the relationships it helps us build.
Tom and Suzanne have each, in their own way, reminded me of this.
A book may begin with one author’s voice, but it becomes meaningful when other voices enter the conversation.
And sometimes, long after the writing is finished, those voices become the most enduring part of the journey.
