Discovering Japan

You can write about a country like Japan for years, discussing its economy, its metal resources, technology, scrap requirements, and more. 

But until you visit Tokyo, experience the street life, travel to the outer regions, talk to Japanese metalmen on their home ground, and see how people live, you can’t know Japan. 

I made such a visit in 1987, and it gave me a different perspective about the country.

It wasn’t supposed to be a business trip at all, just a tour involving 28 people from different parts of the United States. Surprisingly, the metal industry managed to assert itself into the tour.

My companion and I arrived in Tokyo late at night from Los Angeles to begin our tour and checked into one of the city’s remarkable hotels. 

The next morning we arose early and went to breakfast. Suddenly, another couple also walking down the hall came abreast.

“Are you on the Japan tour?” a white-haired gentleman asked.

We said we were.

“Do you mind if we join you for breakfast?”

We said we didn’t mind.

Sitting down, we introduced ourselves. The man stared at me.

“Si Wakesberg?” He appeared incredulous. “Are you by any chance the same Si Wakesberg who worked for NARI in New York?”

I looked at the guy, but I couldn’t recognize him.

Excitedly, he introduced himself, and I quickly learned that he’d been with Federated Metals in New York in 1959. I looked at this aged fellow sitting across the table, whom I had last seen 27 years ago, and didn’t recognize him in the least. He’d been a young, on-the-go executive, and people had said, “He’ll go far.” But for many reasons, some tragic, he’d vanished from the industry after working with me on NARI’s first metals seminar. He was now another person, retired and living in Texas.

The next day we began a bus tour of Tokyo. Our driver, a brash young Japanese who boasted that he’d lived in Brooklyn, spoke passable English. He informed us that while we had 28 people in our tour, there were only 27 present that day. One man, whose wife was with us, was attending an “American meeting” in Tokyo and would join us tomorrow.

His announcement echoed in my mind. I recalled that the International Magnesium Association was having its 44th annual meeting in Tokyo and wondered whether our missing passenger was attending.

At the next stop, I sought out his wife. “Is it your husband who’s at the meeting?” I asked.

She eyed me suspiciously. “Yes, why?”

“Would you by some chance be from Cleveland?” I asked.

Somewhat taken back, she said, “Yes.”

“Is you husband’s name Mike Slavitch, of Garfield Alloys?” I had spoken with Mike many times on the phone about magnesium scrap but had never met him. Sure enough, Mike was her husband. So, out of 28 people chosen at random for a tour, six people—three couples, including my companion and myself—turned out to have some relation to the metal business. An incredible percentage.

The next morning we were free to do as we chose, so I went to the magnesium gathering, seeking out Byron Clow, the association’s eminent executive vice president, who showed me around and introduced me to some of the speakers. 

I sat in on a meeting in which Tom Potter of Alcoa discussed “Interaction of Aluminum Recycling: Changing Markets and Magnesium Consumption.” I also heard S. Morozumi of the Japanese Magnesium Association talk about mag use in Japan. Yep, I couldn’t seem to get away from the metal business, even in far-off Japan.

At 4:30 p.m., as I stood on a street in the business section of Tokyo, the buildings suddenly disgorged thousands of men and women. My mind boggled at such immense crowds pouring out of doorways all around us. It made 42nd Street and Madison Avenue in New York seem like a peaceful village. The streets were vibrant all day, clean, prepared for the outpouring in the morning and evening hours.

The evening sky over Tokyo flashed with neon signs of IBM, Xerox, and Coca-Cola, indications of the penetration of American business in the mid-1980s. Still, they were overshadowed by huge neons for Sony, Sanyo, Mazda, and other famed Japanese names.

In the following days, our group ventured out of Tokyo. 

In Kyoto, we saw an ancient and wonderful culture that has survived wars and natural disasters. In smaller cities we found museums of Impressionist art and encountered remarkable Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. But the people we met wanted to talk about computers, robotics, economic expansion. 

It was incongruous to realize that the Japanese, who had to live in such small houses due to lack of space, were becoming one of the richest people on earth, ready to buy up real estate in the United States such as Rockefeller Center.

At a Mazda factory in Hiroshima, we saw a car completely assembled without a single human being around until the last moment. Hiroshima had been completely rebuilt since World War II—only one building from that era, in fact, was left standing as a reminder of the atomic blast. But a museum told the gory story and schoolchildren were being taken there to see and learn. 

Since my companion and I had visited Pearl Harbor the year before, our reactions were somewhat muted. But we rang the peace bell in Hiroshima, silently hoping that never again would a city be subjected to an atomic attack.

During our travels, we were also fortunate to meet Alfred Youngham of Overseas Metal Co. Ltd., an American who had lived in Tokyo for many years. He took us to his home where he had a wealth of classical records, and we listened to Beethoven quartets and talked about the copper market. He also directed us to the only synagogue in Tokyo (I think in all of Japan), which we visited—though we missed the American rabbi, who was on vacation.

We lunched with some old Japanese metal friends. They’d been stationed in New York for Mitsubishi and Sumitomo but were now back in Tokyo. It was nice to know that they hadn’t forgotten us.

On our last leg of the trip, in Osaka, we were guests of a well-known Japanese aluminum smelter who had contacts with our friend Jake Farber of the Alpert Group in Los Angeles. 

Osaka seemed to have the most wonderful hotels in all of Japan. One of the memorable traits of all these hotels: Although our tour only had 28 people and none of us were famous, every time we arrived or left a hotel, the entire staff turned out to bid us welcome or goodbye. It was a public relations touch that couldn’t fail to arouse admiration.

Though one can’t become an expert on Japan from one visit, one can take in impressions that last a lifetime. My impressions of Japan were of an industrious, hard-working, ambitious people who are friendlier than Americans realize but whose culture and history are still distant from ours. 

At that time—in the late 1980s—they were building a remarkably large economy in a small country. That they’ve succeeded in doing what they’ve done is certainly no surprise once you’ve been there and seen them on their home ground. •