Funding for Frontline is provided by this station and other public television stations nationwide.
And by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
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 or in business, the Japanese play the game their own way. In baseball, they play for ties.
A tie is a wonderful thing in Japan because nobody lost. No face was lost.
But in business, they play to win.
They want the business. If they don't get all of it, they don't consider it fair.
Tonight, American Game Japanese Rules.
From the network of public television stations, a presentation of KCTS Seattle, WMET New York, WPBT Miami, WTVS Detroit, and WGBH Boston.
This is Frontline with Judy Woodruff.
Good evening.
Last year, the Japanese sold almost $90 billion of their products in the United States,
while American companies were able to sell less than $30 billion of U.S. goods in Japan.
In recent months, much has been written and argued about that trade imbalance,
about America's struggle to succeed in Japan,
about the quality of American products and Japanese trade barriers,
about problems with American innovation, marketing, and education.
But as tonight's film will show, there are other factors that complicate the relationship between our two countries,
factors that have little to do with economics.
Tonight's program was produced by Ofra Bichel.
It is called American Game Japanese Rules.
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.
It was a great opportunity.
There were a hundred cameramen, there were 50 reporters, you know, we just walked off a plane all the way 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 know, you would think we were the Beatles walking right through the airport.
Crazy American baseball.
Crazy American comes over here, you know, the crazy guys, you know, 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 and baseball?
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 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.
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, he'll make, he'll strike out, you know, and everybody walk off the field, they're happy.
A tie is a wonderful thing in Japan.
You know, in the United States, being a professional athlete, when I played a tie, it's like kissing your sister.
I mean, I just as soon not have that happen.
You know, 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.
Americans, 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 of games.
So if they're up by 10 games, well, by the end of the year, they'll maybe they'll be up by two.
You know, that looks OK.
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, nobody, they can't stand to be embarrassed.
They just crawl under a rock, you know, and it's just not the Japanese way.
In Japan, they have, 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 it, 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.
Over 120 million people crammed together on a few islands.
Where 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 managed 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 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 one and a half to three and a half 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 up because you guys have done all the right things.
You've got the investment. You 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.
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.
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 and 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.
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 US and in Japan, where he now controls over 60% of this specialized market.
Fusion Japan, it seems, is a success story.
Great. 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, 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.
Please wait a moment. 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?
Okay, I understand. 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, 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, if 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 player of 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,
a great deal of home runs, and the umpire, I wouldn't say the umpires,
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'll start calling pitches as 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, they 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.
You know, 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.
And he might be able to, if they would do it the old-fashioned way, let's just play baseball
and see how many you can hit. But all of a sudden, pitches over your head are strikes.
Pitches 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. We believe in 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 there 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.
Yeah, 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. And they may claim it.
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 product, our technology.
There are two applications that came out. One is Mitsubishi's application. That is this point lighting system.
Then the other application, it's a Fusion one. That is the line light system. 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.
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 discrepancy between the two companies.
But in this case, Fusion is not a big company as compared with Mitsubishi. So Fusion cannot afford 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.
And in the United States, it's the patent to be given to somebody as broad, very broad, just like umbrella patents, which can include many applications in one patent.
In Japan or West Germany or other EC countries, as you know, we have quite a different system, patent. It's a very narrow application of the technology.
So it's not a problem with Mitsubishi Electric or it's not a problem our attitude. It's a customs, systems that now in Japanese patent system.
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.
Keith Pavetti and Kyle Murphy of the Trade Department.
When a foreigner is involved, then its basic rule is either everybody makes money or nobody makes money.
What is it that you're looking from us? Are you looking for a sympathetic shoulder? If you're looking for that, you got it.
But I, frankly, you can get that anyplace. What more can we do for you? What do you think would be a good approach?
Okay.
You know, 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, 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 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, no wife.
Wives stay 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 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.
Yeah, when you first come over here, you're just full of confidence.
You know, I hit 330 last year, and I really felt like I belonged to the major leagues to get a shot to play in the major leagues last year with the Chicago Cubs, and I didn't.
And I really felt like I could come over here and really show these, you know, well, not really show them, but I just felt like my ability was good,
and I felt 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 was 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.
He was only allowed to play the game, and I was not allowed to play the game.
I was just trying to go, you know, this is brutal. Watch this stuff.
You were a perfect example. Yesterday was a classic. It was great.
I'm going to go over 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.
It just gets to the point, though, when you want a good interview and you want to teach the people back home and show them things, which would be interesting.
What's it like over in Japan?
The bottom line is that when you get to the baseball part, it's different with the wives. That was easy. Their wives don't ever come.
One wife might come to the game, and that would be it. They'll never let their wives come to the game. That's interesting and fun.
But when you get to the point where you're talking to me about strategy and about the baseball underneath, you're talking about some weird, strange, crazy things.
You experienced it yesterday. I'm supposed to be one of the best players on the team. They take me out in the third inning. They brought me over here and paid me out.
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. You people are stupid.
I'm going to tell you you're stupid. I went through that. You go through that, you get disappointed, you get down. I came home with the door.
My wife looks at me. My face is dragging the ground. I go, what are we doing over here?
We've 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.
It gets to the point, how much is it? Is it really worth it? It's $200,000. That much money.
You know, I'm on the outside. At least before I came over here, I'd go, yes. Heck, I can do anything for that much money. 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 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. And that's kind of, you know? You know, it just, ah!
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.
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 ballplayers 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 bribe. Her name is Debbie.
It all began at church. I was 16. 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.
That's the beginning.
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.
See, I told you the computer is going to flunk out.
What was your first impression of her?
When we got off the car, we shook hands and she was a young girl.
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 she think the marriage was going to last?
Well, to tell you the truth, I thought it would be pretty difficult.
The neighbors too, remember?
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.
Even in her greetings and 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.
Going about her chores, Debbie seems the perfect Japanese.
I try to be, you know, 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.
And 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, you know, 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 theirself. They can't say things they really want to say.
They're always careful not to really, you know, insult you.
Oh, 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, a 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 would be of a stronger personality, you kind of take care of each other like.
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 was hard. It was hard at times. 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 really Japanese.
Of course, racially, I'm 100% 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
and afterwards the cultural differences take over and those far outshadow whatever you look like.
Peter Skahira 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 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? This year?
Only last year. No vacation.
Why do you work so hard?
We are fighting man.
I don't like to lose.
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 doesn't have no idea of first and second. It's the 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.
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.
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 came 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, do you think, or is it difficult for Aoyama Jun?
Not Aoyama Jun. Any member? Same question.
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 close society.
They'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.
I think when the bottom line comes, they're always going to be that way.
This spring, after 11 seasons in Japan, Leon Lee's contract was not renewed.
The Japanese also decided not to pick up Steve Hammond's option.
They have both returned to the United States.
But Rick Lancelotti is still in left field, batting clean up for the Hiroshima Carp.
As for Don Spiro and Fusion Systems, they are still trying to negotiate a settlement with Mitsubishi.
So far, unsuccessfully.
Thank you for joining us.
I'm Judy Woodruff.
Good night.
Next week on Frontline, a girl from Minnesota becomes a star of porn films.
She enjoyed the recognition.
She enjoyed the money.
Colleen Applegate did not like doing sex on film, period.
She chose to do it.
She could have stopped.
A young life ends with a gunshot and questions.
Watch Death of a Porn Queen on Frontline.
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