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TI: But going back, let me make sure I understand this, I was thinking when you said earlier, so you had the oyster seed cooperative. So you had Miyagi, and they were buying the seed in Japan. So didn't they own it, didn't they control it, and then it would go directly to your father?

EY: No. I don't know how they influenced the Japanese seed producer and Miyagi and Tsukimoto, the major people, but somehow they did. (Narr. note: The ownership of the seed remained with the co-op until it was delivered to the buyer).

TI: And they bought directly from them?

EY: And once they did that, after the war, the easiest place for the U.S. government, the military, to seek the oyster seed, was for them to go to Mitsui, because they were in there one year.

TI: This is interesting. So from a business perspective, in some ways, before Mitsui came in, your father almost, like, had a monopoly on it. I mean, that was the only kind of pathway here, and then Mitsui took that, and then they became the monopoly. And then after the war, because they were there, they continued that.

EY: The military, the occupation force, was able to go to them because the demand from here was, they said, "Gosh, we've got to have it, we've got to have it."

TI: So did your father ever...

EY: No, he never tried after that.

TI: So he never talked with Miyagi and Tsukimoto?

EY: He had a letter from Mr. Tsukimoto.

TI: And what did the letter say? What did he say?

EY: I don't know. I didn't even ask him. I had given up, I felt real sorry for my father, but that was the way. And not only oyster seed, but Mitsui caused all kinds of hardships for my father. And when they wanted to send somebody to the U.S., people would bring their Mitsui card and say, "Mr. Yamashita, I want to look at some things here. I want to see some pheasants, I want to look at some other thing." And my father would take weeks at a time to accommodate those people, or the government people that'd come around and say I'd like to... my father was on the ground floor, you know, so he'd take a week off and go and attend to that. And yet, and yet when it comes to helping you, nobody helps. They make demands, but they don't reciprocate. That's why my father, like when he was freezing some products and bringing it over here, the people, the cold storage people over in Japan said, "Gosh, Yamashita-san, I want to deal with you, but Mitsui or somebody else said not to give, lease any space to Yamashita." Then he would say, "Why?" and they would say, "Gee, I'm sorry. I want to deal with you, but if I do, then I'll be blacklisted by Mitsui, then I won't be able to survive."

TI: So this goes back to that earlier story when he failed at the frozen fish business. He said it was a trial, he didn't work, and part of it was that he couldn't get the cold storage space that was required to be in that business. And so Mitsui stopped them. So when that happened with the frozen fish, and then later on he's doing the oyster and you said your father would always help them, why did he do that? I mean, these were people that had hurt him before.

EY: There must have been a soft spot in his heart. You know, he.. in one deal involving some kind of a pulp, Mitsui turned around and came back to him and said, "Let's do this." My father said he spent several years trying to get this thing resigned so that it would be something that we could carry on to our benefit. Well, they said, "Let's do this together as a partner. You take a share and I'll have my share." But my father said, "I spent too many years, I'm not in a mood to share with you. I want to get the benefit of the time and effort that I spent." And so he lost the whole thing.

TI: Why? Because he didn't have enough money to keep going?

EY: Always Mitsui would have the influence, and they would have the strength. It's not necessarily company policy maybe, but the employees don't care about that. They're only worried about themselves, and they say, "Gee, if I do this, why then maybe I'll get an extra bonus," or this and that.

TI: So the attitude they took with the smaller companies was, "Either you work with us or we'll crush you"?

EY: That's right, that's right. That kind of thing, you know, will lead to some kind of failure. It's a bad thing for... people, when they make the effort to get something done, they like to be compensated for it.

TI: Well, I mean, that, I think, makes good business sense, too, to work so that it's a win-win, rather than, "I win, you lose."

EY: That's right, that's right. My friend, I don't know whether it's, how it all turned out, but my friend had an importing business, and he went to Senator Magnusson's office and asked him to make it possible to import the Japanese oranges. After maybe six years or something like that, he was no more in it. And I don't know if he was compensated for that or what happened.

TI: Oh, so you think maybe the same thing might have happened?

EY: That's my suspicion.

TI: He might have worked really hard, finally made it happen, and then the big company came in and just took it.

EY: Took it.

TI: Interesting.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2014 Densho. All Rights Reserved.