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1 A Japanese Rip van Winkle

in America

ONE morning in 1950 while sitting in my office discussing a measure which, at the suggestion of the Occupation authorities, was to be undertaken by the local Japanese government, I was summoned by my superior. Carefully collecting my papers together, I mentally tabulated all our ideas on the measure at hand and went into my bureau chief's office. I was prepared to relate as best I could the analysis of the measure and the means by which I thought it could best be put into operation. My chief, with a document in his hand, motioned me to sit down, which I did.

Looking at the document which he held, he related its contents to me: "On the basis of our careful recommendation, the General Headquarters has approved a mission to the United States which you are to head, and has already determined the time of departure of your mission." He went on to explain that some fifteen representatives of various offices in prefectures, cities, towns, and villages would make a three month's tour of the United States and visit various specified cities. We would carry out intensive research in each locality, which it was hoped would enable us to bring back to Japan useful knowledge of the workings of state and local governments in the United States. By means of such tours, even though of short duration, my superior went on to say, General MacArthur desired that as many Japanese officials as possible should observe representative government in action. We were to observe democratic principles and practices as Americans used them. He gave me a list of the offices which were to be represented and stated that in a day or so I would meet the delegates chosen to represent those offices. He congratulated me on having been assigned to head the mission and teasingly told me that he was slightly jealous for not going in my place.

Have you ever been taken back with surprise or "rocked," as my English friends say? I expressed my deepest gratitude as well as I could and gathered my papers awkwardly from the chair and floor to which they had fallen. I was indeed surprised and overjoyed at the appointment, and the details of the measure I had so carefully prepared floated away in my excitement.

I left his office and departed for home, without a word to any of my associates, even though they eyed me inquiringly. I was deeply happy that I was going to the United States once again, regardless of the mission. Today, I am happy that I went, and I shall continue to be the rest of my life.

I was so anxious to start that it seemed to take an eternity for the members of the mission to assemble! As the other members arrived on successive days, I discovered that they too were excited and anxious to take off. Just as my superior had informed me, these fellow delegates came from all parts of Japan. There was Governor S. from Kyushu, the southernmost island of the country, who was anxious above all else to learn the workings of state assemblies in America. Mr. K., who had served many years as a prefectural governor both in Japan and Korea, wanted to know how excise-tax revenues were collected in American municipalities. Mayor S. of a town in Aichi prefecture was eager to study garbage disposal and fly extermination in various rural municipalities in the United States. Then there was Mr. I., until recently Vice-Minister of Education in Tokyo, who was interested in school districts of America, a subject about which the Japanese were almost totally ignorant.

Before we had too much time to express our impatience, we found ourselves actually flying along 20,000 feet over the enormous expanse of the Pacific. The conversation of my immediate companions and the little chats I had with the others aboard gave me pause for serious contemplation. Here we were speeding to the United States, and none of my companions had ever been there before. "What did they expect?" I wondered.

On board the great Pan-American clipper soon after leaving Tokyo, we were each given a carton containing various kinds of food, including a big piece of roast chicken! My fellow passengers asked me in whispered tones whether this constituted the whole day's ration. What a surprise we had when we were told that that was to be our breakfast and that we would be fed similarly at each mealtime! Having been used for so many years to meager food supplies, especially during the war years, we naturally reveled in this American extravagance. What we used to get occasionally at first-class restaurants in our country and thought was a sumptuous repast was but "chicken feed" in comparison.

In my travels to various countries while I was an official with the Foreign Office of the Imperial Japanese Government, I was often profoundly shocked by certain customs of the people in those countries. I was jerked around more than once by the structure of their language in terms of mine. It is my opinion that what some of my foreign friends regard as merely trivial become more often than not the monumental hurdles in otherwise peaceful journeys. These minor customs, methods of speaking or thinking or acting, so frequently become the turning points of truly great issues that all of them deserve more than a casual survey. As for myself, I have studied them as best I can.

Thus, though coming to the United States with a group of my countrymen on an important mission, my thoughts and interests turned to the little habits and customs of daily living. I could picture our group being most curious and even amused by what we observed and also could see that, even though my companions spoke and understood little English, they realized that they themselves would be the cause for many an American to chuckle.

While thus musing, I resolved, in touring about America this time, to draw as many comparisons as I could. My companions had already given me evidence of a similar desire on their part, and throughout the entire journey, I was never surprised to see them making quick but lengthy entries in their fattening notebooks. Our primary concern would be: How do Americans do things? Moreover, for us Japanese the question does not cover just a few things, it includes everything! But we had little time for philosophizing! We were landing!

As our giant trans-Pacific clipper roared over the Bay region of California in the early morning and headed toward Travis Airfield, memories came back thick and fast of my residence in San Francisco a decade before.

Thoughts of Tokyo, left behind only thirty-seven hours before, were rapidly receding into haziness, and others raced into our excited minds! I had thought Tokyo was a prosperous metropolis, whose war scars had finally been obliterated; some foreign visitors have called our city the "oasis of the troubled Orient." As a matter of fact, as we took off from Haneda Airport and soared over the twin-city area of Tokyo and Yokohama two nights before, I had been impressed by the myriads of glittering lights beneath us, which presented a veritable fairyland! I flattered myself that my country was well on its way to recovery and imagined that neither San Francisco nor New York would look different from Tokyo when viewed from the air at night. My illusions were rudely shattered, for here below me was this great city, whose powerful incandescent lamps lit up imposing skyscrapers and showed block after block of homes and buildings in clear relief. Tokyo is a compactly built-up area with seven and one-half million people. But how dim Tokyo seemed in comparison!

Soon after our arrival at the California airdrome, one of the first sights to greet our eyes was the constant stream of motor vehicles on the highway leading to San Francisco. What a sight to behold! That wriggling stream was a never-ending procession of shining limousines and monstrous vans racing along on the six-lane highway. It was stupendous, breath-taking, and almost unbelievable.

Tokyo today abounds in automobiles—we have more cars on the roads now than we had in the most prosperous prewar years. Narrow and straggling Tokyo streets have almost become untenable with some 60,000 passenger cars. The city of Tokyo has a population of some seven and a half million, so the ratio of automobiles to population is one car for every 125 persons. In contrast, we were told that the ratio in California was one car for every two persons. A dusty concrete and macadam road links Tokyo and Yokohama and constitutes Japan's Route 1 national highway. Compared with this cavalcade, however, it seemed like a mere country lane.

As I rode into San Francisco, all the buildings seemed massive and awe-inspiring. True, we have eight- to ten-story reinforced-concrete buildings everywhere in Tokyo, Kyoto, Kobe, Osaka, and Nagoya, and still more are being built. But how undersized they are in Western terms! Our ten-story buildings are no higher than a four-story building of the same kind of steel and concrete structure in America. Ours are smaller in scale in almost every respect, especially in the height of the rooms. Likewise, sidewalks of the city streets in the United States are perhaps three times wider than those of the Ginza, Tokyo's Fifth Avenue. Also, the streets are less crowded, and people seem to breathe more freely in the United States. In suburban districts, especially, this sense of space is particularly in evidence. Nowhere in Japan can be found such spacious lawns as are seen on American university campuses. Even the patches of small lawns which surround most middle-class duplex homes are seldom, if ever, duplicated in the urban areas of my country.

One day while in San Francisco, I went to see the house in which I and my family had lived some ten years ago. How spacious and spick-and-span the house looked! Having been plunged right into the abundance and affluence of America from war-torn and congested Japan, the contrast was indeed striking. I could hardly believe my eyes. Yet, as I thought, I realized that I too had been part and parcel of this beautiful city and of that fast-moving motor traffic a decade ago!

Walking through downtown San Francisco I was amazed at the number of elderly men and women I met everywhere—in parks, stores, and restaurants. In my country we seldom come across elderly persons in such places. Especially in the principal thoroughfares, like the Ginza in Tokyo, we see among the crowd no one but young children and youthful men and women, who parade on the street as though rejoicing in their exuberant youthfulness. Japan is preponderantly a nation of youth. The birth of a million and a half babies each year maintains this disproportion of youngsters. On the other hand I was immediately impressed by the extraordinary longevity of Americans compared with a decade ago, when I had walked or motored about the United States. Are the advances in medicine and nutrition responsible? We Japanese age rather quickly because of severe living conditions, and for many reasons old people seldom have enough courage to come out in public and mingle freely with younger folks.

We had heard so much about the New York subways during the morning and evening rush hours: how the passengers were "jammed like sardines" into the trains. All members of my group took immense delight in riding the subways both in Chicago and New York. One evening at about 5:30 we happened to be in the heart of downtown Chicago and saw thousands of office workers making for Randolph Station. Apparently it was the same crowd of commuters that we see in Tokyo in the evening, eager to board the trains to get to their suburban homes, following their pigeon-like homing instinct. The prospective passengers came from all directions in the neighborhood, and the huge subway station seemed to be hardly able to absorb this ever-increasing crowd. I had fully expected that the trains would be filled to capacity and that I would be lucky if I could find a strap to hang onto in the car. What a surprise I had when I boarded the train and found that nearly everyone had a seat and that the train departed with only a few passengers standing.

New York subways were of course more crowded, but how comfortably I could travel even at the height of the rush hour, compared with what we were forced to go through in the Tokyo and Osaka subways. Our subway trains are so jammed that the proverbial American sardines applied to Japanese conditions is a decided understatement. You have to fight your way into a Japanese car. Waiting for the next train is no solution, as an even bigger crowd will be found both on the train and on the platform, and the situation becomes worse the longer you wait. Station crews on the platforms are often seen pushing people from behind into the car, just as the automatic electric door is about to close! Young children are often trampled down and many start crying and groaning, but no one can possibly pay any attention. Passengers tread on your toes. Your shoes are often ruined. All are jostled about. Breathing is hard in the jammed car, so permeated with indescribably foul, warm air. It is an infernal sight. As a matter of fact, the Japanese refer to this state of affairs as kotsu-jigoku, or "transportation hell." Though the situation has greatly improved since the end of the war, such extreme congestion still occurs during the rush hours, especially with the rapid increase in urban population.

The average Japanese seems to be under the impression that all Americans go about very fashionably dressed. In the postwar craze to copy everything American, our people go to great lengths to imitate American styles and dress and do so rather ostentatiously. We were therefore quite bewildered to find that both American men and women were not particularly fussy about their clothes and that they were rather modestly dressed. How this contrasts with the Japanese situation, where many of us even go broke in our eagerness to be fashionably dressed; our vanity seems to know no bounds in this respect!

In the matter of eating, too, the average American is more sensible and budget-conscious. Many Japanese visitors to the United States since the war, despite the thinness of their pocketbooks, wish to dine at the very best restaurants. Not knowing Duncan Hines, they merely go to the most expensive hotels in the hope of getting an epicurean meal. They were in many cases frankly disappointed. Ubiquitous self-service cafeterias are a unique American institution. One member of my group wondered if a similar cafeteria system introduced into Japan might not be a success. I expressed my opinion against such a venture. In a country like ours, where labor is cheap and plentiful, the people would rather be waited on in restaurants than stand in a "chow line." Moreover, the standard of living being so much lower in Japan makes it impossible for us to prepare or display as many dishes to choose from as are shown in American cafeterias. In point of fact, no one in my country, in spite of the widespread craze for things American, has to date introduced an American-style cafeteria, let alone an automat. However, we do have laundromats, though not many.

Although gone only half as long as the great New Yorkei, I was a real Rip van Winkle in the sense that in coming from war-ravaged and impoverished Japan, coupled with a decade's absence, I rediscovered America—so gigantic, so prosperous, and so dynamic! It was this contrast which struck me more than anything else. Everything in this earthly world is relative, however. I remembered that five years before, when I returned to Japan from Soviet Russia, I was agreeably astonished to find Tokyo so very modern compared with Moscow, though Tokyo was a badly-battered city then. As I gradually readjusted myself to the new environment of America, I came to the conclusion that America had not changed very much during the last ten years, as far as its physical aspect was concerned. New York was pretty much the same as when I last saw it nearly ten years before. I could not see any salient changes other than that Sixth Avenue had been renamed the Avenue of the Americas; that a TV station had been installed on the tower of the Empire State Building; and that the U.N. Headquarters building had been completed on the East River embankment, where it rises imposingly.

Washington, D.C. may have changed perhaps a little more. I noticed that almost every section, except the N.W., is now being inhabited by colored people. As for automobile congestion, one cannot park his car anywhere on any street without the risk of getting a ticket! Changes such as these, however, are not necessarily confined to the capital city, for we observed them elsewhere. Except for the phenomenal growth of suburban housing areas in many cities we visited, there is no building change throughout the United States comparable to that taking place in my country, for the reconstruction of bombed-out cities of ashes and rubble has to be lived through to be believed.

On the other hand, I observed the tremendous social changes which have taken place among the American people during the last decade. I noticed a profound change in their outlook on life and even in their philosophy. Isolationism is definitely a thing of the past, even in the remote midwestern states. Americans are thinking of the defense of their land in terms of Berlin and Korea. They are keenly alive to their responsibilities as the leaders of the Western democracies.

Millions of Americans must have visited Europe and Asia both during the war and in postwar years, either on tours of duty as servicemen or in other capacities. This visiting is a very significant fact. I noticed in most bookstores throughout the country "self-teaching" books on French, Spanish, or German, and even Russian and Asiatic languages, prominently displayed for sale. Such an array was not in evidence in prewar days, as far as I can remember. Americans today are more tolerant and more understanding of the problems of other peoples of the world. As for my own country, I reckon that no fewer than half a million Americans have either visited or stayed in the country since the end of the war. Members of my mission were often agreeably surprised at being "accosted" in Japanese by strangers in remote country places. They were friendly, hospitable, and helpful people and explained that they had been on Occupation duty in Japan. I began to think it was not safe to swear in my own language anywhere in the States!

A certain famous French writer once said that "we cannot hate the man whom we know." I believe there is much truth in that statement. I have in the past twenty years resided in many different countries of the world. Once I was assigned, against my wishes, to a country for which I had no particular liking. Perhaps I had a prejudice against the people and did not enjoy my sojourn in that country. However, after I left, and the years rolled by, the unpleasant impressions I had gradually faded. I now have only fond memories of that country and its people. This philosophizing is perhaps human nature. This type of reaction is the same, I should venture to say, with many Americans in regard to my country.

To know the people and to study their idiosyn-cracies is the first step to the understanding of a nation. If, prior to World War II, half a million Americans had visited Japan, and if even one-tenth of that number of my countrymen could have paid a visit to the United States, I am firmly convinced that there would never have been a "Pearl Harbor." However, there are no doubt many foreigners who will never have the opportunity to visit my country and associate extensively with the Japanese, and others who, though honoring us with their presence, nevertheless may find themselves perplexed by many apparently incomprehensible aspects of Japanese living. It is my sincere hope that both groups will derive some benefit from the following chapters, in which I have tried to shed some light on the less well-known facts about my country's people and their customs.