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| Micky, his son Len and his wife Kasumi. Photo credit: Micky Haxhiislami |
Born in Peja in the Summer of 1964, Mithat Haxhiislami, the youngest child of the family, who others call him Micky, managed to travel to many countries during his life, and became an entrepreneur in Japan.
In an interview for KultPlus, Haxhiislami recounted his journey, from 1989 until today, the reason for migrating abroad, his marriage, but also for the successes which today, more than ever, have become an integral part of his life.
KultPlus: You have been living in Japan for 18 years now, for all these years you have learned and even lived together with this culture. Can you tell us some of the specifics of this culture that have impressed you since the first time you went to Japan?
Micky Haxhiislami: Exactly, January 19, 2003 marks 18 years since my family moved from London to the Japanese capital, Tokyo. Thanks to the past 14 years in London, as another big metropolitan city, and thanks to my professional success there, I have not had a hard time getting quickly involved in Japanese life, although still, this country is special and the only one as such on this planet.
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| Micky and his wife Kasumi. Photo: Micky Haxhiislami |
The main specifics of this culture that have left me very impressed are: respect for each other, especially for seniors; respect for employers and colleagues; estimating maximally the time; the highest level services in the world; the quality of any product you buy, and the awareness of citizens for the protection of the environment and the cleanliness of their cities/settlements.
KultPlus: How difficult was it for you to get acquainted with Japan and the culture of this country?
Micky Haxhiislami: For me it has not been difficult at all to adapt to this culture, since years ago I visited regularly Tokyo every year, and I am quite familiar with life there. Also, my personality, great attention to every detail, and the maximal appreciation of time, two typical main Japanese habits, has helped me immensely to easily cope with the culture of this unique country.
KultPlus: But who was Micky Haxhiislami before he went to Japan? What are the professional and personal paths he followed in his homeland and what is the reason you emigrated abroad?
KultPlus: You have been managing the Facebook group Albanian Vintage Photography, people, cities, culture and history for some time now, can you tell us how you came up with the idea to create such a group where Albanian culture and history is promoted?
Micky Haxhiislami: In fact, the idea has been born from my childhood, Merkur Beqiri, in April 2011, and since then we together manage the Facebook page in question, now well known as "Albanian Vintage Photography, people, cities, culture, and history ”, which deals mainly with posting old photos from all Albanian lands. This site now gathers more than 35 thousand members and hundreds of thousands of followers every day from all over the world, not only from Albanians, but also from many other nationalities who are curious to learn about the very rich past of our nation. Today on this site we managed to create a rich archive with more than 100,000 old photos from all Albanian lands. I urge your readers to become part of this great community and to continue to learn about the past together. Remember that without knowing properly the past, we cannot build our future prosperously and sustainably.
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| Micky, his son Len and his wife Kasumi. Photo credit: Micky Haxhiislami |
KultPlus: How difficult is it for you to manage this group, but also to provide the information you publish every day?
Micky Haxhiislami: This now has just become my routine, and I do not face any difficulties in managing it and collecting photos and relevant information, as it also nourishes deeply my soul, but in terms of time, which I appreciate extremely much, I spend every day at least 1 hour. But I consider this investment of my time as something very valuable, as we have made a kind of revolution in educating all generations about the history of our very rich past through photos accompanied by brief information, about which we knew very little before.
KultPlus: You already have a business of your own in Japan, explain to us your journey how it came to the opening of this business to this day?
Micky Haxhiislami: As I mentioned above in January 2003 I decided to take another big challenging step in my life, I rushed to the far east of my lady Kasumi's hometown, the Japanese capital, Tokyo, where I immediately founded my private company, which mainly deals with the sale of innovative Japanese, healthcare products. Then, in February 2004, I received an offer from the CEO of Japan Medical Co. Ltd., as the manager of their international department. This allowed me to learn in-depth how to work for a private Japanese cigar company.
KultPlus: What is the name of the business you already have in Japan?
Micky Haxhiislami: On September 1, 2010, I transformed the department in question into an independent company called Intermedico Japan Co., Ltd., which I still lead today. This company specializes mainly in the production and sale of medical, healthcare, and cosmetic products. Our main goal is to successfully discover, introduce, and sell in the international market new and unique Japanese products that protect and enhance the quality of life. Simply, we deal with the hardest work, building the culture of taking drugs, from the oral to the transdermal.
Since 2004 we have built an excellent partnership with our factories, which are located in Japan, China, Thailand and South Korea. At the moment our products are on sale in more than 40 different countries of the world.
KultPlus: One of your products/brands is called "FRECOPAD, iREST & iFACE" which are now on sale in many countries around the world, you have brought them to Kosovo, Albania and North Macedonia. How are these brands/products being accepted in Albanian lands?
Micky Haxhiislami: Our most successful product is the "refreshing compress", or as it is called in English 'cooling gel sheet' or 'cooling patch', under our private brand 'FRESCOPAD', which is now sold in millions of pieces every year around the world. This product is placed on the forehead and is totally without any side effects and completely effective against high temperatures, fever, headache, migraine, toothache, sports injuries, as well as for removing the discomfort from the heat during hot summer days and nights.
We also have many other innovative products/interiors such as cosmetic masks with ice cream for the face (iFACE), under-eye (iREST), eye (iKOOL), chin (CHINUP PATCH), heel (HEELCARE), etc., which are also very effective and without any side effects, as well as those for heat therapy such as WARMEX that are placed on the underwear, as well as those THERMALPAD which are placed directly on the skin, at the source of pain.
This year we established our company in Pristina, with the name "Intermedico Japan Europe LLC", in order to cover the European market from Kosovo with our proven products in many countries around the world. Initially we started with our 3 most successful products / brands: FRESCOPAD, iREST and iFACE. Although we were immediately confronted with the pandemic, the most difficult time in the history of mankind, still the sale of products is slowly rising, and we feel quite happy about it, especially considering that in most cases we have the purchase of repetitive from the same customers, that means a lot. Of course we need more sales, but after we signed the contract with "Post of Kosovo", the purchase of our products for personal needs is now possible in more than 37 countries around the world, something we have never done before is done now since as a manufacturer we only worked with large distributors, and we did not deal in retail at all.
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| Micky with his business partners in China. Photo: Haxhiislami |
For more information about our products, we ask your readers to visit our website www.intermedicojp-eu.com where they can become more familiar with their benefits, both in Albanian and English.