Frontline is a presentation of the documentary consortium.
Tonight on Frontline, the unwritten rules of life for Americans in Japan.
We have to play by the rules here, and they're very different.
In baseball and in business, the Japanese play the game their own way.
On the playing field, they play for ties.
In Japan, they're ecstatic when you have a tie, because nobody lost. No face was lost.
So that is a perfect day.
But in business, they play to win.
They want the business. They want all of it. If they don't get all of it, they don't consider it fair.
A revealing look at life in Japan through the eyes of Americans who live there.
Japan is a very closed society. I think they're very proud people.
I think a foreigner is an intrusion to that.
Tonight, American Game Japanese Rules.
With funding provided by the financial support of viewers like you,
and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
this is Frontline.
The American game is now over.
When we went to find out how Americans do in Japan,
the last place we expected to spend time was at a ball game.
But we soon found out that this is one place where Americans are stars.
Oh!
I really didn't know anything about Japanese baseball.
So we were very excited about the opportunity, because I wanted to get a chance to play,
you know, in the major leagues. This was the major leagues.
And I'd been in AAA, and of course the money was better.
And an opportunity to go somewhere different, you know.
That was the first time I'd ever played in a major league.
And I was very excited about the opportunity.
I was very excited about the opportunity.
There were 100 cameramen. There were 50 reporters.
You know, we just walked off a plane all the way in from LA, you know.
We looked bad, you know.
And they're clicking away, and they're making all kinds of noise and stuff.
And you would think we were the Beatles walking right through the airport.
The crazy American comes over here, you know, the crazy guy,
Gene, as they call us, and they do crazy things and do all the different antics.
And that's exciting for them.
What's the difference between baseball here and baseball in America?
Well, they play nine innings.
That's about the only thing they have in common.
After we put the uniform on, I'm not sure what we're doing out there.
I think that the biggest difference is they play for ties.
You know, that's unheard of back home.
You know, you play all day and all night to break a tie.
But over here, you play for ties, and you play, you have a time limit on a game.
It is three hours and 20 minutes.
And so they'll play for the one run.
They won't go for the win.
And you're amazed at the things you see, you know.
They'll have the bases loaded, and the clock's at 319,
and all of a sudden the pitcher will come up to play with the bases loaded.
And you're thinking, what in the world is going on?
They'll let him hit, and he'll strike out, and everybody walk off the field,
they'll be happy.
A tie is a wonderful thing in Japan.
You know, in the United States, being a professional athlete, when I played it,
a tie is like kissing your sister.
I mean, I just as soon not have that happen.
I just as soon not play a game.
In Japan, they're ecstatic when you have a tie, because everybody came out,
everybody had the big fight, you know, they had the big confrontation.
And on the day of the Games Day, they all fought together, but nobody lost.
No face was lost.
So that is a perfect day.
When they win the championship, well, they win it by a couple games.
So if they're up by 10 games, well, by the end of the year,
maybe they'll be up by two, you know.
That looks okay.
It doesn't look like one team blew out the other team and embarrassed them,
you know, and saving face here is everything.
You know, they can't stand to be embarrassed.
They just crawl into a rock, you know, and it's just not the Japanese way.
In Japan, they have a sense of sameness.
You know, there's the old saying, the nail that sticks up has to be hammered down.
So no any given team wants to really show up the other teams.
But I guess you could say it would break the harmony of the way the whole culture is in general.
A society that plays for ties.
A society which values above all else harmony.
And when you are here, you understand why.
We're 120 million people crammed together on a few islands,
and privacy and individuality have their own special meaning.
This is a culture that was cut off from the rest of the world for hundreds of years
and has managed to preserve its tribe-like quality.
In the streets, cars and people politely share the limited space.
And life is like that of a huge village with no street names or house numbers to speak of.
The villagers, after all, know their way around.
But we've come to find out how Americans fare in this society.
American businessmen Peter Ranick and Clark Kinlan
manage the Telecommunication Product Division of Corning Glassworks in Japan.
The Japanese, in most cases, don't want any outsiders.
They're totally happy with the suppliers they have, they have a relationship with,
which dates back many, many years, and there's a lot of trust and personal relationship,
which is important, which has been built up, which you simply as an outsider cannot have.
Just like in the United States, where the stereotypic American company
feels that the entrance of the Japanese into the market is that they're price breakers
and market share stealers and aggressive,
I believe that American companies are perceived the same way in Japan.
They are here to disrupt the harmony of the industry.
And as a result of that, there's a unilateral desire to prevent these Americans
that have the potential to disturb things from entering the market.
But, like other American companies, Corning must be present in Japan
if it wants to be a participant in the global market.
It must be there to monitor what the competition is doing
and make sure that the U.S. mother company has answers to the Japanese technological challenge.
And it must be there in spite of the fact that the rules of the marketplace
are different from anything Americans have been taught to believe.
If Japan was an open market in the truest sense,
where price and quality determine commercial success,
we believe that we should have a substantial market share.
However, that is absolutely not the case.
The Japanese market, it seems, is based on something different.
The Japanese system works very much on relationships
that you've developed over the years to make everyone feel comfortable.
But developing these relationships is not easy.
When you meet a new potential customer, they're concerned
because dealing with an American company is risky
in the sense that they are kind of breaking the mold.
This would be like you've always bought from your brother,
and some renegade comes in and says, I know he's your brother,
but I've got a better product.
Now, you're going to think twice about doing it.
You're going to try to give your brother every chance you can.
Almost every American businessman we talk to in Japan
told us of the cost of working in a culture
which values old relationships over quality and price.
Most of them won't discuss it in public.
Charles Cook of Monsanto, Japan does.
Monsanto has worked hard and long in Japan.
We're not making money in Japan.
We have been able to increase our share from 1.5 to 3.5 percent
over the past several years.
We are unhappy over the rate of progress that we've had.
We have essentially done everything that's been requested of us,
and we continue to tackle these issues, in some cases at great expense.
Mike Mahalek and Ray Brazil of the Economic Department of the U.S. Embassy are sympathetic.
But it is beginning to cause us to question what is required to pry this market open
to the extent that you read about in the papers
and to be consistent with internationalization.
It's really hard to know exactly what it is that is going to open it up,
because you guys have done all the right things.
You've got the investment, you've built a plant,
you've got all kinds of market promotion, you go in, you talk to media,
you join the producers' association, you've paid your dues.
Is the structure of this market such that what you're up against
is people that have been dealing with each other for 30 years or something like that?
Very clearly.
And in the sense that we use the term open market in the United States,
this market is in fact closed by virtue of some of those relationships.
And I think that if Japan wishes to continue selling,
it needs to find a way to provide the opportunities for foreign suppliers coming to Japan
that it expects to find when it goes to another country as a foreign supplier.
Don Spiro is a foreign supplier in Japan.
Spiro first came to Tokyo for the Olympic Games of 1964,
competing in rowing.
He was a world champion.
More than 20 years later, he's competing in another game.
A physicist turned businessman,
Spiro is now president of his own company, Fusion Systems.
Gift-giving of course is important in Japan.
We don't really have to give gifts to each other,
but on behalf of Fusion Rockville, I'm giving this to Peter for Fusion Japan.
It's a staff meeting with Peter Miller and Fusion's Japanese employees.
Peter Miller helped set up Fusion Japan and now acts as its president.
He is married to a Japanese and has made Japan his home.
Overcoming jet lag.
You're absolutely right.
On behalf of Fusion Japan, thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Okay, I have two other reports.
One is on the can business.
I thought you might want some samples of a can which has been produced for us.
The ink on metal cans like this is dried by a high-intensity lamp
invented and developed by Spiro and now widely used on industrial production lines.
He's done well in the U.S. and in Japan,
where he now controls over 60% of this specialized market.
Fusion Japan, it seems, is a success story.
Let's do it. Sell a lot of product and fill it up with product.
Wonderful. Good. Okay.
But there's a shadow cast over Fusion's future in Japan,
that of the Japanese industrial giant Mitsubishi.
In 1977, Mitsubishi Electric Company purchased one of our products,
and they did what is normal and routine, which is to study it carefully,
reverse engineer it, begin to file patents,
and the early patents look curiously like our product.
We have been here selling our products.
We have filed a small, but we think strong, stable of patents in Japan.
And then suddenly we look around, and everywhere there are patents
which represent perhaps a problem we don't know.
They're usually very, very small.
It would be as if you invented the automobile,
and then someone got a patent on a red one, and you said,
well, I don't know if I want to make a red automobile,
but it might be in my way.
And then if they patented hubcaps with wires on them, wire wheels,
you say, well, I can't do that either.
And pretty soon you start to feel like you've got a problem,
particularly if the company filing all those patents is a very, very big one,
and the one trying to do business is a very, very small one.
Despite the fact that Spiro is convinced that the technology was his in the first place,
he has made an offer to pay Mitsubishi to relinquish its patent applications,
which are endangering his business in Japan.
He has been trying to meet with them.
They say they're busy all week, and they just don't have any time to meet with you.
And it looks like they won't be able to meet this week.
No other explanation?
No other explanation.
He hasn't returned any of my calls this week.
Hey.
Hello?
When should I call you?
Yes, I understand.
Yes, I'm sorry.
Yes, I'm sorry. Excuse me.
I think the foreigner is in a very, very complicated position in Japan.
You know, he's here to win the games for the Japanese, but at the same time,
he's only allowed to do too much.
Because under the Japanese way of doing things, of that sense of evenness,
they don't like to see the foreigner do too well,
because then that makes the Americans seem much stronger than the Japanese.
They want you to be great, but they don't want you to be good.
You know, they want these incredible numbers.
But yet, they don't want you to stand out too far among the rest of the team.
See, if they let the Japanese player finish first,
let the American finish second, that would be great.
But if the American comes over here and just blows away the rest of the field,
you know, you're just getting too far out of hand.
You might see their players win week after week,
but you hardly ever see a guy gene over here have two or three good weeks in a row.
You will not win a player the week two weeks in a row. It will never happen.
So what they'll do is we go back to the expanding strike zone,
the famous expanding strike zone.
What they feel is that, for instance, if a foreigner comes over
and he's just hitting a lot of home runs, just a great deal of home runs,
and the umpire, I wouldn't say the umpire,
the league and people themselves would expect the umpire
to expand the strike zone, to balance things out.
They feel that this foreigner has to be very strong,
and if the pitchers would keep throwing the ball over the plate,
then he's going to hit a home run every time up, and that's not fair.
So what they do is they're going to have to be very strong,
so what they do is they'll start calling pitches this far outside a strike,
that far inside a strike, and their philosophy is they're being fair
because they're balancing it out.
Now, this guy is so big and strong, then he should be able to hit that pitch out there.
In our eyesight, that's unfair, but over here it's not unfair
because you're a foreigner, he's a Japanese.
That's just one thing you have to understand about the difference in the countries.
Players feel very restricted.
They say, what am I over here for?
I'm not allowed to play this game the way I want to play it.
I'm not allowed to do as well as I know I can do.
Oh, it's the worst.
That's why I said it's not that much fun anymore to play.
It's really frustrating.
You're beat before you walk out there, that's why guys like Bob Warner come over here
and they think Bob can hit 70, 80 home runs.
He might be able to if they would do it the old-fashioned way,
let's just play baseball and see how many he can hit.
But all of a sudden pitches over your head are strikes.
Pitchers that land in the dirt are strikes.
So you're going to swing at anything, naturally you're going to start coming down.
It always seems like we're in that catch-22 spot,
where we're not sure exactly why we're here.
So nice to see you again.
Spiro knows exactly why he's there.
He's there to meet new customers and build relationships with old ones.
But most of his time nowadays is spent with his Japanese lawyer
discussing Mitsubishi's patents.
They view those 200 applications as their technology.
And our view is that they really bought our lamp, reverse engineered it,
started from there, now they've made some innovations of a,
we believe a minor nature, of a new technology.
We believe a minor nature.
So our view is we're willing to pay them $100,000 for the privilege of using our own technology.
And their view is, Fusion is walking in here and saying,
let us have your patents.
So we do have a big gap to narrow.
And not being Japanese, I'm not sure how to do that.
It may be a little difficult for us to impose some kind of pressure on Mitsubishi,
because Mitsubishi might say that they have filed two patent applications
which are identical in technology to Fusion, just by coincidence.
By coincidence, shortly after they bought our lamp.
Yeah, that can happen.
They may claim, you know.
This is exactly what Mitsubishi did claim when they agreed to see us.
We never copied their technology.
As I said, by our own technology, by our own development,
we had developed our products, our technology.
There are two applications came out.
One is that Mitsubishi's application, that is this point lighting system.
Then the other application is Fusion's one, that is the line light systems.
And this one.
Then I think you can see the big difference between the two technologies.
What would you do if you were Fusion, trying to do business in Japan?
How would you deal with a company like Mitsubishi?
If I were Fusion, I would approach Mitsubishi Electric, as they did,
but would try to find out an amicable settlement, i.e. a patent license agreement,
going both ways.
Cross-license.
Cross-license is exchanging technology.
From their point of view, the typical business, business as usual in Japan,
is a company files lots and lots of patents,
and the other company that they're opposing has some patents,
and they cross-license.
And they really can't understand our behavior, and they don't accept it.
Senior executives at Mitsubishi have said to me,
Mr. Spiro, in Japan, this is how we do business.
What's your problem?
That's right.
Cross-licensing is a natural way of resolving the discussions,
the discrepancies between the two companies.
But in this case, Fusion is not a big company, as compared with Mitsubishi.
So Fusion cannot afford to grant a license to get into a cross-license with Mitsubishi.
If that is the case, Fusion will surely lose market in Japan.
You're absolutely right.
I think if we do that, then we will lose the business to them very quickly,
because they'll be able to make the same products we make.
And so our only alternative is then to go ahead and fight every one of these 100 or 200 patents,
one at a time as they come up.
You get to file the oppositions, and we'll work with you on the details,
and we'll just go about it as best we can.
And I think they recognize very well what you said,
which is that we don't really have the resources to make that kind of a fight very attractive,
maybe ultimately not winnable.
Why are they doing it?
It's business.
They want the business.
They want all of it.
If they don't get all of it, they don't consider it fair.
And Fusion is winning in the marketplace, and they don't like it.
They're tough competitors, and as they say in The Godfather, it's just business.
But at Mitsubishi, they don't feel like The Godfather.
They feel they've been following Japanese law to the letter.
In Japanese patent system, it's quite different from the United States patent system.
In the United States, the patent to be given to somebody is broad, very broad,
just like umbrella patents, which can include many applications in one patent.
But in Japan or West Germany or other EC countries, as you know,
we have quite a different system of patents.
It's a very narrow application of the technology.
So it's not a problem for Mitsubishi Electric or it's not a problem for our attitude.
It's customs, it's systems, right now in Japanese patent systems.
Different systems, different customs.
At the U.S. Embassy, they've heard it all before.
It's clear to us that Mitsubishi in this case believes they've done nothing wrong,
and as far as we can see under the formal rules of Japanese patent law,
has done nothing wrong, but the system allows or encourages this kind of behavior.
It's a very fundamental thing in their minds, I think.
There's no zero-sum game in Japan.
When a foreigner's involved, then it's basic rule is either everybody makes money or nobody makes money.
What is it that you're looking for from us?
Are you looking for a sympathetic shoulder?
If you're looking for that, you got it.
But quite frankly, you can get that anyplace.
What more can we do for you?
What do you think would be a good approach?
What we have here is basically a commercial dispute between two private companies.
And the question arises, why should this be of interest to the government?
Is it a public policy issue?
Well, in a sense it is, I think, because what we have is a set of behavior which is perfectly legal,
with perhaps some indiscretions at the edges, but basically legal within the Japanese system of law.
Where I think it becomes a matter of public policy is where these two systems of law create a situation
which is a systematic disadvantage to foreign companies trying to do business in Japan.
But even as he talks, Peter Miller knows Japan too well to believe that it is going to change
the rules of the game to accommodate American business.
This is not a place that plays by American rules, and this is what American business people have to realize
and come to terms with.
We're not going to change the rules of the game in Japan.
We have to play by the rules here, and they're very different.
Hello, that's a good boy.
Steve and Janine Hammond have been in Osaka, Japan for eight months
since Steve was hired to play third base for the Nankai Hawks.
When you're in a strange place, no matter where you are in the United States,
baseball wives, you tend to cling together because you don't know anybody else.
I miss not going to the game. I really enjoyed watching Steve play every night.
It's fun because you get to go watch your husband work, and I really enjoyed that.
So it's hard, you know, sitting around here some nights just waiting for him to come home.
I've never met a Japanese baseball wife.
The players here look at baseball as a business, and they prefer not to have their wives and families there.
So Steve's kind of kitted with the other players, you know,
bring your wife, and they, no, no, no, no wife.
Wife stays home. So I've never gotten to meet one of their wives.
What is it about?
Steve was a careful interviewee.
You know, you're asking from someone that has played baseball in America,
and it's different in that aspect.
You know, you've got to be careful what you say about Japanese baseball because that's my business,
and so that's what I do. And it's been fun, and it's been different.
When you first come over here, you're just full of confidence.
You know, I hit 330 last year, and I really feel like I belong to the major leagues
and I was shocked to play in the major leagues last year with the Chicago Cubs, and I didn't.
And I really feel like I could come over here and really show these, you know,
well, not really show them, but I just feel like my ability was good,
and I feel like I could go over here and really help this club,
and that I would be very successful here.
It was an important game for Steve, and he had practiced hard.
After all, he was the highest paid player on the team.
He paid $50,000 signing fee and $200,000 a year.
He was eager to show what he could do.
The fans were cheering.
Steve was ready. We were filming.
Suddenly, someone motioned, and without warning, Steve was called off.
He was benched. He was not to play again that day.
No reason was given to him or to us, even though we were filming him
with the management's consent for American national television.
You just want to go, you just want to go,
you know, this is brutal. Watch this stuff.
Yeah, you were a perfect example. Yesterday was a classic.
It was great. I started laughing, because I'm going, man, they're all over there.
I see you follow there with this camera. He's ready.
I'm on deck, and all of a sudden they go, wait, I'm going, oh, man.
Because I'll be honest with you, I can see you right here and tell you,
it's the worst in the world. It's brutal. It's stupid,
the way they play the game over here, but we all know it.
Horner knows it, Leron, Leon, we all know it.
And it just gets to the point, though, and it's hard,
when you want a good interview and you want to teach the people back home
and show them things and things like that, which would be interesting.
What's it like over in Japan, you know?
But the bottom line, when you get to the baseball part,
see, it's different with the wife. I mean, that was easy, you know?
Because their wives don't ever come. Their wives will never come to the game.
One wife coming to the game, that would be it.
They'll never let their wives come to the game. That's interesting, and that's fun.
But when you get to the point that you're talking to me about strategy
and about the baseball underneath,
you're talking about some weird, strange, crazy things.
And you experienced it yesterday.
I'm supposed to be one of the best players on the team, right?
They take me out in the third inning.
They brought me over here and paid me all this money,
and they take me out in the third inning.
You know, and I got to deal with that.
In the early part of the season, I couldn't deal with it.
Because I felt like, hey, I'm an American, I know how to play,
I'm good, and you people are stupid.
And I'm going to tell you you're stupid.
And I went through that.
And you go through that, you get disappointed, you get down.
I came home to the door. My wife looks at me, my face is dragging the ground.
I go, what are we doing over here?
You know, have we got to get all the money out here on the floor
and roll around in it to make us feel like, hey, we're really doing something here?
And it gets to the point, you know, how much is it?
You know? Is it really worth it?
You know, it's $200,000, that much money.
You know, and some on the outside, or at least before I came over here, I'd go, yes.
Heck, I can do anything for that much money.
You know, if I do good, it's $300,000.
If I do better, it's $400,000.
If I have a great year, it could be a half a million.
But you just get to the point where you just, they do these things to you,
and you just can't go with them anymore.
You just go, I've had enough.
It's like Dave said.
Dave said if he gets released and he doesn't play anymore,
he would like to walk into the office, get the manager and all of them,
and go right up to him and just tell him exactly what he thinks of him.
Would he do that?
No, but he wants to.
I mean, that's the kind of, you know?
You know, it just, ah!
You know, and so I'm sorry.
When you ask me the question, Steve, you know, what is it, you know?
I just go, it's the way they do it, and you try to make it,
but it's like, you know, underneath, I'm suppressing everything underneath.
I don't think you can make enough money in Japan.
I don't think you can because, as I said, speaking personally,
it was the single most difficult mental thing I had to do in my lifetime,
and I thought I had experienced, you know, enough things to where I could,
you know, handle most things.
I'd been in the service in the submarine corps.
I'd played professional baseball, accomplished a lot of goals,
felt good about myself basically and where I was, you know,
where I was mentally in handling most any situation.
Japan completely devastated me as far as I was concerned,
completely broke me down, threw my pride right out the window,
and I think that's a necessary thing here.
The pride, the United States pride in sport has to be thrown out the window
to a certain extent before you're going to be successful over here.
Leon Lee is one of the players who have been successful in Japan.
He has played here for over 10 years.
What did he do with his frustrations?
How did he manage?
What I did is I just basically became immune to it,
but that took away from me as a baseball player,
as a professional baseball player, as a professional athlete.
I gave up everything that really I was taught to do in order to survive in Japan.
If Leon, the ball players and the businessmen all find it hard to survive
under Japanese rules, who can play the game here?
And what does it take to learn to live with these rules?
It was five hours by train from Tokyo in the mountains where we met a young woman.
She came here 15 years ago as a bride.
Her name is Debbie.
It all began at church.
I was 16, and then I was living in West Palm Beach, Florida.
And one of my good friends, she brought two Japanese men with her to church.
I thought she was nice, and she thought I was interesting because I was Japanese.
I was a beginner.
We were courting through the dictionary.
My English wasn't good, and she didn't speak Japanese.
After we'd been going together eight months, he asked me to marry him.
I just wrote my parents that when I come back to Japan, I will bring an American bride with me.
Well, as soon as I got the letter, my blood pressure just rose.
How did she feel when she saw you?
She wants to know how...
Oh, that's right.
I told you the computer was going to fall out.
What was your first impression of her?
Well, she came in the early morning, and as soon as she got out of the car, my first impression was, she's so young.
And we shook hands, and I still just couldn't believe how young she was.
Did you think the marriage was going to be a good thing?
Well, to tell you the truth, I thought it would be pretty difficult.
I thought it would be difficult not to get married.
The neighbors, too, remember.
Well, I thought at first that was kind of weird, but then I realized that it was a good thing.
Well, I thought at first that I was kind of worried that she just wouldn't be able to live here because everything's so different.
But it looks like my worries were something I didn't need to have.
She's been here 15 years now.
Well, now she's a farmer's wife. That's all I can say.
There's nothing to worry about now. She's okay.
She's Japanese?
Even in her greetings, in the way she talks and things.
She's more Japanese than some Japanese people I know.
That's a great compliment.
I know. I'm turning red.
I'm going to go to the bathroom.
Going about her chores, Debbie seems the perfect Japanese.
I try to be as Japanese as possible.
It's easier on me. It's easier on my family, my sons, my children. It's easier on my husband.
You cannot take your American views, your American customs, and try to live in Japan. I think it would be very hard.
If the answer is to become Japanese, then how?
It would be not what you want to do, but what you have to do, what's expected of you.
I think as the years go on, you slowly get to know at this time what you're expected to do,
at this time what you're expected to say, at this time how far you're supposed to bow.
It's just that. It's not what you want to do. It's what you have to do.
Sometimes I feel very sorry for the Japanese in a way, because they can't express themselves.
They can't say things they really want to say.
They're always careful not to really insult you.
Konnichiwa.
How are you?
I mean, we joke, we goof. You know you have your jokes, but I don't ask too many questions about them,
about yourself, what you think, what you feel, because they just don't want to talk about themselves.
It's just not something you hear. It's not Japanese.
What is Japanese are actions, actions which they feel speak louder than words, actions that show devotion.
At Rice Harvest, they are all there. Husband, children, parents-in-law, relatives.
The family. The group.
The Japanese people are group-oriented society.
If you're an individual, if you're vulnerable, you're open, they can see you as you are.
In a group, the Japanese feel safe.
If you're of a weak personality, when someone else in a group could be of a stronger personality, you kind of take care of each other.
You take care of each other, and you are considerate one towards the other.
I don't worry about losing my face. I'm American. We don't have faces to lose.
But I'm also the wife of a Japanese man.
The Japanese man happens to have a Japanese family. He has a place in the society.
My children. So I have to be careful in losing face. It would not affect me, perhaps, but it would affect my family.
I'm American, and I'd love to visit America, but Japan's my home. My life is here now.
This is where I shall always live.
As they have for hundreds of years, the old villagers dance for their children and grandchildren.
Can I do it all again? I don't know, really. Maybe, maybe not.
I don't know. It's the only life I know, so I can't say yes. I can't say no. That's kind of a difficult question.
Definitely at this age I couldn't, let's put it that way. Well, how can I say? It's just too hard to change now, perhaps.
I was young. I was young when I came here. I just turned 18.
So I think it was easier for me to change my ideals, because I didn't have any, what should I say? I didn't have that many ideals down pat.
I didn't have that much of a person called Debbie. But now I don't know.
I think now I probably have trouble living in the American society. But I don't know. It's hard. It was hard at times.
I may not have, I may not be able to do it again. I don't know.
We have been with Debbie's family and friends for a week. They have been warm and welcoming.
Yet it had been hard for Debbie to fit in. What is it that makes this society so impenetrable to us?
Why is it so hard for us to enter this world? Is it that they're like one huge family?
Is it that one must have a Japanese face to enter?
People say to me when I meet them, they say, oh, you look just like a Japanese. I thought you were, you were really Japanese.
Of course, racially, I'm 100 percent Japanese, whatever that is. But culturally, of course, Japanese Americans are American.
Maybe I get a couple of points for looking Japanese, but I use those points at the very beginning,
because afterwards the cultural differences take over and those far outshadow whatever you look like.
Peter Tsukahira has lived in Japan for many years, first as a student, then as a businessman.
I think the difference between the West and the East, primarily the United States and Japan,
is probably the greatest and deepest cultural division in the world.
People come here and see the cars and the buildings and the electronic technology and think, oh, this is a nation like ours.
But once you dig a little deeper, you realize that this nation is coming from a different perspective entirely.
You could say you're looking at a flower bed and you seem to recognize the flowers themselves, the colors, the petals and the smell of the flowers.
But once you peek behind the flowers, the roots and the stems are all completely tangled and moving in a completely different direction than you thought.
In what direction do they move? Knowing the Japanese isn't easy.
We met a man among all the others, what they call in Japan a salaryman, a middle-level manager at a sales division of Yokogawa, a high-tech Japanese corporation.
He is 35 years old and his name is Aoyama Jun, one of the millions of people responsible for the economic miracle of Japan.
This is the world that threatens America, businessmen and politicians alike.
Japan Inc., the company that never seems to rest.
We spent several days with Aoyama Jun, watching and then talking.
He has been with this company for 13 years.
This is where he met his wife. Six days a week from 8 a.m. until midnight, this is his life.
How much vacation did you take last year?
Last year? Only nothing. No vacation.
Why do you work so hard?
We are fighting men. I don't like to lose.
There is competition with the other companies.
I want to try to get victory.
Victory for yourself first or for the company first?
Victory in general, I have no idea of first and second. It's the same.
Same?
It is the same. They work for the company, they socialize for the company.
Celebrating the fact that they exceeded a certain quota or that a colleague has just moved in or moved on.
And at the end of the day's work, with the company's consent and encouragement, they spend more time together, eating and drinking.
I don't know what to do with Mr. Komoe.
Why do you drink every night?
Communication.
We can talk, we can tell our mind, open our mind to each other. That's a nice situation.
Just to drink alone is not very nice.
So we get together, we let go, we can say what we think, we can be impolite, it doesn't matter.
We talk frankly, we sing, and it's good for us because that way we let everything out and we don't take it home to the family.
When do you see your family?
I try to communicate with my family once a week, only on Sunday, but this is very difficult for me.
I try to sleep, rest, but my family wants me.
Let's go out, sports or shopping. OK!
Do you feel that you work too much?
I think so.
There is something wrong if we work from 8 a.m. to 12 midnight.
It's true that there's a lot of work, but there are children.
I'd like to eat dinner with my children.
I'd like to take time off to spend time with my children in the summer.
What is your dream in life?
Dream in life? My dream?
What about you?
I have a dream.
Dream? It's hard to say what my dream is.
Sometimes I feel that I don't have any dream, but that couldn't be true.
I don't know exactly what my dream is.
We are a homogeneous society, so even if we have dreams or aspirations, that's not what matters.
What matters is that you do your best at work, and that has become the overwhelming value in Japan.
Working hard.
And as we went on talking, something suddenly became clear.
We come here as foreigners, and without realizing it, we intrude and we disturb.
Your question is very difficult, but very interesting.
What is your dream?
What is your goal?
It's difficult, but very important.
This meeting is very good for me.
Very difficult.
What is your dream?
Is it difficult for Japanese people, or is it difficult for Ayama Jun?
Not Ayama Jun. Any member, same question yourself.
It was very difficult for me.
But on the other hand, I feel that the fact that you could come and ask us such direct questions is simply wonderful.
We never had a conversation like this before.
How much holiday did I take?
That's my business.
It was very interesting to me.
It was really interesting to me.
I have very impact on your question.
We make an impact on them. They make an impact on us.
And whether we want to or not, we affect each other.
Two different cultures trying to play the same game with different sets of rules.
Can we play together?
Americans are always optimistic, so we believe we can.
We also believe that since it's our game, they'll soon come around to playing it our way.
But will they?
Japan is a very closed society.
We're very proud people.
I think a foreigner is an intrusion to that.
We're American and they're Japanese.
Two completely different games, two completely different personalities.
And I think when the bottom line comes, they're always going to be that way.
Four years after this film was first broadcast, Don Spiro's standoff with Mitsubishi continues.
Mitsubishi continues to file patents and Fusion continues to oppose a modest number.
Fusion still retains the largest market share.
The issues raised by Fusion's patent problems have now been incorporated into U.S.-Japan bilateral trade discussions.
U.S. negotiators maintain that these tactics do exist and are commonly used in Japan.
None of the American ballplayers featured in this film is playing baseball in Japan any longer.
Leon Lee finished out his contract with the Yakult Swallows and returned home to the U.S.
In 1990, he formed his own company to market and promote baseball internationally.
Not long ago, Leon spent several months as a technical advisor and had a small part in an upcoming movie with Tom Selleck called Mr. Baseball.
It's about an American player who joins a Japanese team, is forced to confront the strangeness of Japanese ways, and finally finds himself changed by the experience.
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Next time on Frontline, the deepening divide between the politicians and the people.
I think politicians are like lovers. They chase you, and when they get what they want, then they forget about you.
The Betrayal of Democracy, a Frontline election special.
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