<Begin Segment 14>

BN: So after Loyola, you pretty much went straight to USC?

AK: Well, since I didn't go to Marquette, I decided to stay here. The main thing that was going on was I was looking for work, because I was still living at home and I wanted to not have to pay out, pay out, pay out, and that was mainly coming from my folks. So I talked to a friend of ours who was at American Honda. I also applied -- and I don't know how I found out about this, but a position with Mitsui and Company limited, and there was another position, too, but there was just what was going on and so forth. The one that I looked at at Honda, they had just filled. The one at Mitsui and Company was interesting because a Caucasian guy was running it, and it was our U.S. foreign aid policy being translated in terms of monies that the U.S. government would loan to the government, let's say in India, Pakistan at the time, and they would then re-grant that money, but everybody's getting interest, to employers in those countries. These companies would buy steel, but the condition is you have to buy U.S. steel. So it was, yeah, we're loaning, giving foreign aid to these neighbors who are then making money off of their companies, but they have to buy U.S. products. So I'm working for a Japanese company that's stationed in Tokyo or headquartered in Tokyo, out of an office in Los Angeles where this office should actually be in New York because it's closer on the East Coast to Bethlehem Steel, Amco, any of these guys, U.S. Steel. So anyway, I get this job, and the guy who used to run the program is training me. So it was pretty straightforward for two years, I was doing it, millions of dollars. Mitsui would have representatives in these countries who are looking for customers. We would not be able to purchase the products at the price that these people are willing to pay and so forth, so we'd have to buy in bulk, and then we'd have to think about the shipping. So it was an intricate process, it was twenty-four hours because when they're sleeping, we're awake, and we have a three hour time difference with the potential seller. So it was interesting. But this was the time of the Kennedy shooting, so I remember being in that office when Kennedy got shot, and these Japanese people didn't know what to do. So we all went to the general manager's house and so forth.

But doing this, we did a lot of interesting things, and I had steamships in harbors burning up, I had people abandoning ship and having strikes or caught in a typhoon, steel that's rusting, so we have these claims and everything. Some of them are ruses, others are ways that you do business. There were companies on the East Coast that would sell you the steel at your full market rate, but actually give you a deal. So you would get a third party to send you a check, this third party check would equal the amount of the difference between the market rates, there's all kinds of shenanigans going on. So this is the time of the Telex, so everything is like teletype, and so you would print up these tapes, and then they'd run these tapes through the machine. Otherwise, if you talked on the phone, or you tried to communicate on the keyboard, it would cost lots of money, but it was fun.

I would be at meetings with my manager, general manager, because I was co-chair of a town hall section on trade or something, so he would see me there, and they couldn't figure me out because, "You're a Sansei, you don't really speak Japanese, you're maybe the hope that we have for our young people in Japan doing business and all this kind of stuff, we're watching you play golf very well, you don't do this, you don't do that." So it was an interesting experience with a Japanese corporation.

BN: And how long did you do that?

AK: Couple of years. And I had an assistant general manager who was, again, a jerk. One of the episodes that's interesting, around a year out or so, was he came in, called me to his office, everybody in a big room with all the desks and everything, and they knew he was furious. So he was there to fire me, to bawl me out and do all this kind of stuff. I told him, I did this, I did that, and I did that, "I quit." And he turned around and he said, "No, I'm going to give you a second chance." And the people in the room later, they laughed. And they said, "It's haji for him. He'd be embarrassed if the person he hired failed. So for you to say you quit or leave, brings shame on him more than on you." So they laughed, and we got sort of along after that, but he couldn't figure this out. And the fact that I'm going to the same meeting with this general manager, and I'm the backup, or second in charge to the event that's taking place, where's the separation?

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.