<Begin Segment 15>

AI: Excuse me. So when you say that the Chinese contractors were operating at a lesser level than perhaps... would you mean that the canneries that they worked with were, perhaps had fewer resources, the canneries were less well-capitalized, they were perhaps more run-down?

FM: I mean exactly that; that they were not able to function competitively at the level of retaining the best cannery relationships or contacts. And I attribute it to the fact that, as I say, societies have organizational traditions, organizational histories. And the Japanese, for whatever reason, because of the small island background, because of the fact that their rice farms are at the bottom of huge mountains and they do not have space to expand, and therefore, because the Japanese were closely clustered one on top of each other, that is, the Japanese rice farms, you know, they're so to speak one on... and when you get that kind of situation, you, in rice farming, you have to have cooperation. And Japanese rice farmers, therefore, learned to cooperate under these geographical conditions which the Chinese didn't have to suffer under. But that led to a different kind of organizational history than in Japan. The Japanese, strangely, had a history of having to deal, cope with situations in which competition was carried on, but, it had to be carried on as cooperatively as possibly. You know, the Japanese language, as I say, the, the honorifics, you have to be very careful as to how you use honorifics and, or not use it, depending on who you're relating to. And it's a, for a Nisei it's a terrible problem to deal with the Japanese language because it's so difficult. In fact, for the Japanese themselves, it's difficult. I remember that I had graduate students from Japan. And one time I invited them to a lunch where a Japanese professor came over from Japan. I thought it would be great to have the Japanese graduate students, you know, because I can't talk Japanese so easily, and so the professor and the two graduate students are together at lunch with me. And I keep trying, I kept trying to keep the conversation in Japanese for the benefit of the visiting professor. And my two graduate students would gradually shift into English. And I said later, "What's wrong with you two guys? Why don't you talk Japanese?" when I was trying to get some Japanese conversation going rather than... they said, "No, it's not possible for graduate students with a professor, at a lunch, to talk comfortably in Japanese. You just can't do it," they said. English, you can talk. English is different. I mean, the atmosphere is different, but Japanese, no. Which points to exactly what I'm trying to say, the honorifics and the care with which you deal with social relations in Japan is totally different from, let's say, relation styles in America. Now, this is not simply formality. This is a way of Japanese relating to each other so that they can approach, relate to each other in a fashion of cooperation that is not possible if you use it under the American style. American style would be, you know, it would be impossible in Japan because you're engaging in direct negotiation with each other as to what will be acceptable and what will not. You can't negotiate in this fashion in Japanese relations.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.