Trading Attitudes

<v Al Austin>[Birds chirping] Mr. Serizawa has invested in a rice combine. <v Al Austin>He harvests the rice from fields belonging to many different farmers near the city <v Al Austin>of Shizuoka. It takes him most of the day to harvest this small patty <v Al Austin>and sack the rice. <v Al Austin>He charged the owner of the patty a thousand dollars for the day's work. <v Al Austin>The owner seemed pleased to pay that amount, thanking Mr. Serizawa when he had <v Al Austin>finished. The owner will now sell the rice for about <v Al Austin>1000 dollars, the same amount it cost him just to harvest it. <v Al Austin>But he and other Japanese rice farmers will go right on planting rice in the face <v Al Austin>of such puzzling economic conditions. <v Al Austin>What they're really worried about is America. <v Al Austin>They also think America doesn't understand Japan. <v Al Austin>Maybe not. I sure didn't. <v Al Austin>Hoping to separate the truth from the myths, I came to Japan not to <v Al Austin>talk to government officials, but to people directly involved in these issues. <v Al Austin>Salaryman, farmers, housewives, teachers, students.

<v Al Austin>It's confusing. Do the Japanese hold us in contempt or do <v Al Austin>they want to be like us? <v Al Austin>And if the picture we have of the Japanese as being tranquil and serene is <v Al Austin>accurate, why don't they relax a little? <v Al Austin>I had a lot of questions about Japan and maybe the Japanese were just as confused <v Al Austin>about America. <v Al Austin>Toshio Suzuki, a television reporter, and Shizuoka, Japan, said he <v Al Austin>pictured Americans as big, friendly people who drive big cars, live <v Al Austin>in big houses and complain about competition from Japan. <v Al Austin>I had always thought Japan was a busy, crowded, fiercely competitive place <v Al Austin>that was at the same time spiritual and a little mystical. <v Al Austin>Toshio agreed to show me around part of Japan.

<v Al Austin>And then he'd come to America and we'd both try to get some things straight. <v Al Austin>We would talk to everyday people, not the politicians, not the newspaper reporters <v Al Austin>and not the TV anchors on the 5 o'clock news. <v Al Austin>This program will show what each of us found. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] America is a very important country to we Japanese. <v Toshio Suzuki>We have been watching Americans on TV and in the movies. <v Toshio Suzuki>So we believe that we know America very well. <v Toshio Suzuki>But I wonder whether we know the real people of America. <v Toshio Suzuki>Everybody in Japan knows the term American dream, which means whoever tries hard <v Toshio Suzuki>will succeed. It's a positive and cheerful term. <v Toshio Suzuki> Our image in the U.S. is that of a huge rich country full of hope and opportunity. <v Toshio Suzuki>I don't understand why Americans are complaining about other countries, especially Japan. <v Toshio Suzuki>I mean, why should such a big country complain about us? <v Toshio Suzuki>You talk about is our image of America wrong or outdated? <v Al Austin>[Children singing in Japanese] The first thing I wanted to see was a Japanese school.

<v Al Austin>By every account. It's the key to Japan's stunning economic success. <v Al Austin>It produced a generation of whiz kids at technology and business. <v Al Austin>[Woman speaking Japanese] Mrs. Suzuki teachers, 45 second graders. <v Al Austin>More than would be in most American <v Al Austin>classes. They attend the school 5 and a half days a week. <v Al Austin>The school year ends on March 31st. <v Al Austin>The next school year begins on April 1st. <v Al Austin>It's the beginning of an unrelenting struggle for success that enlists every Japanese <v Al Austin>child and will increase in intensity until the child reaches college. <v Al Austin>These kids will outdistance American students in no time. <v Al Austin>By every measure. <v Al Austin>But at what price does childhood and fun end with the first bell <v Al Austin>of grade school? <v Mrs. Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] The first and second years are no so difficult for the children.

<v Mrs. Suzuki>They can do most of their studying in school so that their only homework <v Mrs. Suzuki>is reading. I want them to have a good foundation even <v Mrs. Suzuki>at this age, it is important for the students to learn good study <v Mrs. Suzuki>habits. They will need these good habits for later school years. <v Al Austin>When I talked with American teachers, they've expressed frustration with their jobs. <v Al Austin>Not so with Mrs. Suzuki. <v Mrs. Suzuki>When I meet friends that I went to high school and college with, I <v Mrs. Suzuki>am proud to tell them I am a teacher. <v Mrs. Suzuki>Being with the children makes me very happy. <v Mrs. Suzuki>The children in my class are in the second grade. <v Mrs. Suzuki>They play and have a good time. <v Mrs. Suzuki>But with the schedule of the school, the number of things they have to learn, <v Mrs. Suzuki>you increase. So they must have more and more homework in the 4th, <v Mrs. Suzuki>5th and 6th grade. <v Al Austin>At about grade 4 the system really starts to get intense.

<v Al Austin>I wondered if that was good. <v Mrs. Suzuki>It is necessary for the children for once in their life. <v Mrs. Suzuki>They must act very seriously and try very hard to achieve something <v Mrs. Suzuki>they need to. They have goals to achieve. <v Mrs. Suzuki>It is very important. <v Al Austin>All attention turns toward learning. <v Al Austin>Learning the endless number of symbols of the Japanese language. <v Al Austin>Learning English, science, math, studying, reciting, memorizing <v Al Austin>homework grows heavier. [Children chanting in Japanese]The <v Al Austin>lines between school and home blur. <v Al Austin>Students in all the schools wear uniforms. <v Al Austin>At today's Final Bell, students and teachers alike grab brooms and mops

<v Al Austin>and clean the school. <v Al Austin>Inside and out. <v Al Austin>Incredible as it seems to an American visitor, they all seem to consider it fun. <v Al Austin>The teachers believe it shows respect and adds to the feeling that they own their <v Al Austin>schools. <v Al Austin>This immense workload is one that many teachers and parents accept as something their <v Al Austin>kids must do to have a happy life. <v Al Austin>Masauki Umai, a professor at Shizuoka University describes his <v Al Austin>son's typical day. <v Masauki Umai>[Speaking Japanese] My first son is in the 9th grade. <v Masauki Umai>He leaves our house at 7:30 in the morning, comes home at 5:00, <v Masauki Umai>and eats at 6:00. He goes to cram school at 7:00, returning <v Masauki Umai>home at 10:00 where he studies until he goes to sleep at 2 a.m.. <v Al Austin>All of this so he can get a good job? <v Al Austin>I wondered how many American parents and students would consider a schedule like this. <v Al Austin>Lasted from the 4th grade through high school.

<v Masauki Umai>[Speaking Japanese] This hard time for my son is only <v Masauki Umai>a few years. If he has good marks and into his high <v Masauki Umai>school, he will be able to go to top university and ?inaudible? <v Masauki Umai>a good future. These years from grade school through high school <v Masauki Umai>are training time. So he must work hard. <v Al Austin>This is Cram School. <v Al Austin>Nighttime drills of math and science to prepare for the tests <v Al Austin>that will climax high school and decide which university the student will go to. <v Al Austin>Cram school is voluntary and costs extra. <v Al Austin>But most Japanese parents consider it a necessity. <v Al Austin>Those tests may determine a child's career for life full <v Al Austin>[Man speaking Japanese] Is it all too much?

<v Speaker 1>[Speaking Japanese] No. Everyone does the same thing. <v Speaker 1>So it's not too much. I want a good job for myself. <v Speaker 2>[Speaking Japanese] Sometimes it's too much. But what's important is that it will decide <v Speaker 2>my whole life. So it is very important. <v Al Austin>Mr. Saki's students are working on a problem in ethics, <v Al Austin>this kind of pondering and discussing is a rarity in Japanese education, <v Al Austin>which is filled with reciting and memorization of facts. <v Al Austin>Some Japanese, including teachers, have come to believe that this is a weakness in the <v Al Austin>system. <v Mr. Saki>[Speaking Japanese] I asked my students. <v Mr. Saki>What do you want to be in the future? <v Mr. Saki>The number one answer was, I don't know the number two answer was <v Mr. Saki>I want be a salaryman, a businessman. <v Mr. Saki>To be a salaryman, they want to go to high school, then university, <v Mr. Saki>and then to a company. But they don't know what they want to do in that company.

<v Mr. Saki>They don't have time to think about their whole life. <v Mr. Saki>The right school, the right company, that's our only goal. <v Mr. Saki>Japanese education has learned a lot from America. <v Mr. Saki>America was dream country when we were children. <v Mr. Saki>And we thought whatever America was doing was the best way <v Mr. Saki>now to then buy only what is written in the book. <v Mr. Saki>We haven't learned to deal with things not written in the textbooks. <v Mrs. Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] What we need now is how do you have an individual student think <v Mrs. Suzuki>for himself? We need individual thinking and individual <v Mrs. Suzuki>opinion. If we have group studies always, then the students <v Mrs. Suzuki>always think in a group when they become adults, they need to <v Mrs. Suzuki>be able to think on their own. <v Al Austin>We are at almost the same lament from a housewife in Tokyo. <v Al Austin>Shihoko Ogawa, who is worried about her 4 year old son as he nears school age.

<v Shihoko Ogawa>You are creating children with originality or <v Shihoko Ogawa>expressing themselves freely and things like that. <v Shihoko Ogawa>In Japan, our children are not very original. <v Shihoko Ogawa>They are not creative. <v Shihoko Ogawa>They are sort of forced to sit still and <v Shihoko Ogawa>memorize things and accumulate the <v Shihoko Ogawa>knowledge. A kind of, you know, the wisdom <v Shihoko Ogawa>from very other people. <v Shihoko Ogawa>They are not creating their own thing. <v Teacher>[Basketball bouncing] Nice try. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] Education is the mirror that shows the real image of a society. <v Toshio Suzuki>Schools in Japan and America will show us the basic differences between Japanese <v Toshio Suzuki>and American societies. <v Toshio Suzuki>Mrs. Chris Ritter is a first grade teacher in Perlis Grade School, located in a suburb

<v Toshio Suzuki>of Portland, Oregon. There are only 20 students in the class. <v Toshio Suzuki>Half the size of the Japanese class. <v Toshio Suzuki>And the children were studying in an open freestyle. <v Toshio Suzuki>I couldn't imagine that this would ever happen in a Japanese classroom. <v Toshio Suzuki>The Japanese teachers and parents would find this extremely chaotic. <v Toshio Suzuki>I wondered if there was a strict line between the class period and recess. <v Chris Ritter>Well, the behavior that they were eliciting at that point was acceptable behavior <v Chris Ritter>in a classroom of this structure. <v Chris Ritter>Doing their work on the floor, if they can see better and work more <v Chris Ritter>comfortably here where they're closer to the work that's <v Chris Ritter>acceptable. As a matter of fact, I initiated that I at the beginning of the year said, <v Chris Ritter>would you like to work this way or this way? <v Chris Ritter>How do you best work? It depends on their style. <v Chris Ritter>?inaudible? spelling to correct spelling today, okay? <v Toshio Suzuki> [Speaking Japanese] A mother of one of the students came to see the class. <v Toshio Suzuki>She began teaching another child. <v Toshio Suzuki>This would never happen in a Japanese classroom.

<v Toshio Suzuki>A Japanese teacher would get angry at her because her actions would disrupt the class. <v Toshio Suzuki>Here in Chris Ritter's class, it is accepted. <v Toshio Suzuki>Perhaps this is because America makes much of freedom and individuality. <v Toshio Suzuki>Still, I wonder if this may widen the gap between the bright and common students. <v Toshio Suzuki>In Japan, we believe it is better for every child to reach the same level of achievement <v Toshio Suzuki>[Man speaking Japanese] This <v Toshio Suzuki>is the inner city of Portland, Oregon. <v Toshio Suzuki>Drug dealers do business in the area. <v Toshio Suzuki>It is economically depressed around here and a rough place to live. <v Toshio Suzuki>Jefferson, a public high school is in this district. <v Toshio Suzuki>I recognize many differences between a Japanese and an American school. <v Toshio Suzuki>American students do not wear a uniform and they never clean their classrooms themselves. <v Toshio Suzuki>I was surprised to see a guard in the school to protect the students. <v Toshio Suzuki>I have never heard of such a person in a Japanese school.

<v Toshio Suzuki>We believe that school is a place to study, not a place to worry about your safety <v Toshio Suzuki>and getting into trouble. <v Linda Chrischansen>Nanny's words make Janey's kiss Janey kiss. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Man speaking Japanese] Ms. <v Toshio Suzuki>Linda Chrischansen has taught literature for 17 years. <v Toshio Suzuki>These students are juniors in high school. <v Toshio Suzuki>Blacks, Mexicans and Asians, students of many races were studying together. <v Toshio Suzuki>Japanese people would be stunned to see students eating and drinking in the classroom. <v Linda Chrischansen>For a lot of students, education, they see that education has not helped <v Linda Chrischansen>people in their neighborhoods get better jobs. <v Linda Chrischansen>So I think the lack of opportunity through <v Linda Chrischansen>education has become more apparent to students. <v Linda Chrischansen>So they're less willing to sit still and be contained <v Linda Chrischansen>for eight hours a day. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] These children are students of a private school called Katlin Gable.

<v Toshio Suzuki>Most of them come from upper middle class families or higher. <v Toshio Suzuki>One of the parents told me that a good education is very important to securing the <v Toshio Suzuki>American dream. <v Toshio Suzuki>Catlin Gable has a huge school yard and there are students from kindergarten through high <v Toshio Suzuki>school. The class size a Katlin Gable is very small. <v Toshio Suzuki>The average number of students is twelve. <v Toshio Suzuki>That is 1/3 to 1/4 the size of a Japanese class. <v Toshio Suzuki>This does not come cheap. Tuition here is $10,000 dollars each year. <v Toshio Suzuki>It may be worthwhile for parents to pay this much because 100 percent of the students <v Toshio Suzuki>go on to universities or colleges. <v Toshio Suzuki>And many of them go on to famous colleges. <v Toshio Suzuki>The school says it does not have a violence, drug or theft problem. <v Toshio Suzuki>They say that in most American schools, students use lockers, not open shelves. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Men speaking Japanese] They <v Toshio Suzuki>are teaching Japanese to the students.

<v Toshio Suzuki>They say they are trying to create business people who will someday play a role in <v Toshio Suzuki>international society, especially the Pacific Rim area. <v Toshio Suzuki>What school master Jim Scott says reminded me of something Japanese teachers also say. <v James Scott>We experience probably more than the public schools do, <v James Scott>more keen competition or expectations <v James Scott>among our parents and our students about going to good colleges and universities. <v James Scott>So we feel that pressure as well. <v Toshio Suzuki>Physics teacher, Mr. Lowell Herr, is very satisfied with the teaching in this private <v Toshio Suzuki>school. He was not satisfied with his salary, but he likes the educational environment <v Toshio Suzuki>of the school and the eagerness and ability of the students. <v Lowell Herr>I taught in a public school one year and I was going to give up teaching. <v Lowell Herr>I teach and I think one of the best places I can imagine in <v Lowell Herr>this country. I honestly don't think I would <v Lowell Herr>trade places with any other physics teacher anywhere else in the country.

<v Toshio Suzuki>But Ms. Chrischansen has a different view. <v Toshio Suzuki>She says that public school is necessary to American society. <v Linda Chrischansen>America is no longer. <v Linda Chrischansen>I mean, this is now a multicultural society and that there are more and more <v Linda Chrischansen>people of color in the United States, people who come from different backgrounds. <v Linda Chrischansen>And really, in order to succeed in the United States, in order to succeed <v Linda Chrischansen>and get along and work with other people, you need to learn how to <v Linda Chrischansen>understand the cultural linguistic backgrounds of people who <v Linda Chrischansen>aren't like you. <v Linda Chrischansen>And so continuing to close people off in these small pockets <v Linda Chrischansen>of advantage is is going to be detrimental for <v Linda Chrischansen>people in the long run for this children in the long run. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Ragtime music playing] [Speaking Japanese] Jefferson High School has established art <v Toshio Suzuki>classes like painting and dance. <v Toshio Suzuki>These classes attract students from outside the inner city.

<v Toshio Suzuki>The school wants to mix wealthy students with those who are poor. <v Toshio Suzuki>This is a great idea, but the problems of class differences cannot be solved with just <v Toshio Suzuki>this one attempt. America is not a simple society where everybody can pursue the <v Toshio Suzuki>American dream from an equal position. <v Toshio Suzuki>It is a complex society, culturally diverse, with many financial classes. <v Toshio Suzuki>Americans make much of freedom and individuality. <v Toshio Suzuki>However, each person's individuality is confronted by another's. <v Toshio Suzuki>I find many differences between American and Japanese education. <v Al Austin>Yoshio Mitsumori is a prized product of Japan's high powered educational <v Al Austin>system. His high school test scores were outstanding. <v Al Austin>So he was accepted in one of the best universities. <v Al Austin>This assured him a lifelong career with a successful company. <v Al Austin>Star Micronics. <v Al Austin>As an engineer, he helped perfect computer printers and a long list of other electronic <v Al Austin>devices.

<v Al Austin>He works 12 to 15 hours a day, 6 days a week. <v Al Austin>As with most Japanese, he gives no thought to changing jobs or companies. <v Al Austin>He has stayed put and now manages, other engineers searching for <v Al Austin>new products. <v Al Austin>He has even worked in America and compares the two. <v Yoshio Mitsumori>The big difference is we are doing by group. <v Yoshio Mitsumori>When I was in California working for the U.S. <v Yoshio Mitsumori>companies, I only need to concentrate. <v Yoshio Mitsumori>You know, I'm working for the R&D divisions. <v Yoshio Mitsumori>So then if I only need to concentrate R&D <v Yoshio Mitsumori>matters only. But when I return to Japan, you know, the two <v Yoshio Mitsumori>I'm working for the R&D, you know, product running divisions. <v Yoshio Mitsumori>Still I have considered the <v Yoshio Mitsumori>production schedule or production quality, ?inaudible? <v Yoshio Mitsumori>control or an affairs matter, marketing matters.

<v Yoshio Mitsumori>Everything combined. <v Al Austin>This working in a group means no private offices. <v Al Austin>Everyone works together to make even the smallest decision. <v Al Austin>Mr Mitsumori told me that if a single person wanted to make a decision on his own, <v Al Austin>it would be impossible. <v Al Austin>Even a company manager would never make a decision by himself. <v Yoshio Mitsumori>In Japan, we don't have any partitions, you know, even a big room. <v Yoshio Mitsumori>We can see that everybody's <v Yoshio Mitsumori>sometime and that is sometimes good, you know, because uh much easier <v Yoshio Mitsumori>to communicate. <v Al Austin>Americans have had difficulty selling products in Japan, according to <v Al Austin>Mr. Mitsumori. It's because Japan has so many layers of middlemen <v Al Austin>and because Japan thinks long term profit in the next five to 10 years <v Al Austin>instead of the next six months. <v Al Austin>He also gave me an interesting insight into their philosophy about profit.

<v Al Austin>He said that in Japan, a salesman who had a product that cost 1 dollar <v Al Austin>and sold it for 2 dollars, making a 100 percent profit, <v Al Austin>he would be considered a bad salesman. <v Yoshio Mitsumori>In Japan, if somebody heard of that. <v Yoshio Mitsumori>They say he's a very bad guy. <v Al Austin>It would be much better for everyone to make a little profit. <v Al Austin>Even with their spectacular success in business, Mr. Mitsumori echoed the <v Al Austin>thoughts of the teachers I had met. <v Yoshio Mitsumori>One very good thing is an American style systems <v Yoshio Mitsumori>always be creative. <v Yoshio Mitsumori>We can learn from the America what we have to do <v Yoshio Mitsumori>in the future. <v Al Austin>So it seems that both the schools and business see creativity as <v Al Austin>Japan's next step.

<v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] This computer software company called Mentor Graphics, it is a <v Toshio Suzuki>growing company. They have a good restaurant for their employees and a wonderful fitness <v Toshio Suzuki>center. It is a very beautiful work environment. <v Toshio Suzuki>Very few Japanese companies have these types of facilities. <v Toshio Suzuki>Mr Rob Bartel has been an executive with mentor graphics since its earliest days. <v Toshio Suzuki>The computer business is a fast growing industry in America as it is in Japan. <v Toshio Suzuki>I learned that if you want to secure the American dream, you had better stay in a high <v Toshio Suzuki>tech business like the computer industry, rather than growing rice or cutting lumber. <v Toshio Suzuki>Before coming to America. I thought that American businessmen worked much harder than <v Toshio Suzuki>Japanese businessmen. <v Toshio Suzuki>I was surprised when I learned that Mr. Bartel returns home at five o'clock every day. <v Toshio Suzuki>I asked him what he thought about balancing his work and his home life.

<v Rob Bartel>My father worked very hard. <v Rob Bartel>I think that whole generation was different than the generation that we have <v Rob Bartel>now. In this country, we've made perhaps a trade off <v Rob Bartel>where we've said it isn't worth it to us to have quite that many goods <v Rob Bartel>and services, but rather, we would prefer to have the <v Rob Bartel>incredible rewards and satisfaction that comes from raising <v Rob Bartel>children and being with them and watching them grow. <v Toshio Suzuki> After dinner, Mr. Bartal went to a local Cub Scout <v Toshio Suzuki>meeting with his children. It is very, very difficult for a Japanese businessman <v Toshio Suzuki>to be involved with his family. There is almost no chance. <v Toshio Suzuki>The biggest difference between Japanese and American businessmen is not the way they do <v Toshio Suzuki>business, but the way they live their lives. <v Toshio Suzuki>For the Americans, it seems that the number one priority is a happy family life. <v Toshio Suzuki>His work is simply a means to that life. <v Toshio Suzuki>I think it is true for Mr. Bartel.

<v Toshio Suzuki>I was very surprised that he said exactly the same thing that Japanese fathers say <v Toshio Suzuki>about their children's futures. <v Rob Bartel>It is relatively difficult to <v Rob Bartel>to be in the middle class or above <v Rob Bartel>in America with less than a college education. <v Rob Bartel>It certainly has been done. There are always the stories of multibillionaires that <v Rob Bartel>had 8th grade educations. <v Rob Bartel>But but it would be very disappointing <v Rob Bartel>for us to see our children decide not to go to college. <v Rob Bartel>Not so much because it would embarrass us or something like that, but rather <v Rob Bartel>because it would make the boys lives much less pleasant than they <v Rob Bartel>would be otherwise. <v Al Austin>High in the mountains of Japan, the life is slower, less hectic.

<v Al Austin>Farmers cultivate manicured hillsides with tea, vegetables and even <v Al Austin>trees. <v Al Austin>Hidemoto Suzuki climbs the steep hills side of the family forest <v Al Austin>in the mountainous woods an hour from Shizuoka. <v Al Austin>For generations, his family has made a living carefully, cutting and replanting patches <v Al Austin>of trees. Each day Hidemoto, works in the forest that will <v Al Austin>someday be his. <v Hidemoto Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] Ever since I was a child, I have loved the forest. <v Hidemoto Suzuki>I am very much interested in the forestry business. <v Hidemoto Suzuki>I know this work is difficult and frustrating, but I get much enjoyment from it <v Hidemoto Suzuki>and I know this is what I will always do . <v Al Austin>Hideomoto's father, Hidetsugu Suzuki, has seen many changes <v Al Austin>in his years as a logger. <v Al Austin>I asked him if he resented American competition. <v Hidetsugu Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] I think it is all right to import lots of logs and lots of lumber

<v Hidetsugu Suzuki>that only grows in America. <v Hidetsugu Suzuki>This is wood that Japanese wood farmer cannot produce. <v Hidetsugu Suzuki>The smaller wood products that compete with Japan's lumber, I would like to see left to <v Hidetsugu Suzuki>Japanese loggers. <v Al Austin>That sounded like the American car manufacturers who want to limit Japanese competition <v Hidetsugu Suzuki>[Speking Japanese] I don't have any bitter feelings. I can't sell product here if it's <v Hidetsugu Suzuki>not a good quality. So I make good logs and good lumber. <v Hidetsugu Suzuki>I want to export and sell my logs to America. <v Hidetsugu Suzuki>We don't have enough lumber in Japan to meet a domestic demand. <v Hidetsugu Suzuki>If we stopped in putting wood, the hillside over Japan would be bald in just few <v Hidetsugu Suzuki>years. <v Al Austin>What he said next surprised me. <v Al Austin>It isn't the competition that's hurting Mr. Suzuki or any shortage of trees. <v Al Austin>He can't find anyone to cut them. <v Al Austin>No one in Japan wants to be a lumberjack. <v Al Austin>As I learned when I talked with the students, they all want to make good grades and be

<v Al Austin>white collar workers. <v Al Austin>Mr. Suzuki needs five workers to harvest his trees. <v Al Austin>He can only find two. One of them is his son. <v Hidetsugu Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] We say this work is a three case. <v Hidetsugu Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] it means you dirty, difficult <v Hidetsugu Suzuki>and low status. <v Al Austin>So here in Japan, there is the problem of having lots of trees and <v Al Austin>no one to cut them. In America, the problem's just the reverse. <v Al Austin>Not enough trees and lots of unemployed loggers. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] Oregon is a very beautiful state and well known for its rich natural <v Toshio Suzuki>resources. One of the largest industries here is the timber industry with <v Toshio Suzuki>few barriers, American lumberman sell in international markets. <v Toshio Suzuki>I visited Vanport Manufacturing in Boring, Oregon.

<v Toshio Suzuki>Vanport has been very successful in producing finished lumber and selling it to Japan. <v Toshio Suzuki>This large tree was cut into small parts that will make up a Japanese shoji screens, <v Toshio Suzuki>90 percent of the products made here will go to the Japanese market. <v Toshio Suzuki>Japanese professionals taught the workers here how to select good lumber and control the <v Toshio Suzuki>quality. Vanport Lumber has a close relationship with the Japanese. <v Toshio Suzuki>5 planks are tied in a bundle, which is the perfect size and weight for Japanese <v Toshio Suzuki>carpenters to carry. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Traditional music playing] This house is standing not in Japan, but in Oregon, the owner <v Toshio Suzuki>of the mill, Mr. Hertrich, built this traditional Japanese house to teach <v Toshio Suzuki>the employees how American lumber products are used on a Japanese home. <v Toshio Suzuki>His approach is much like that of the Japanese companies that succeed in the U.S. <v Toshio Suzuki>market. <v Adolf Hertrich>You look at different values, different appearances,

<v Adolf Hertrich>different idea of what quality is. <v Adolf Hertrich>And so anybody who wants to be successful in your market. <v Adolf Hertrich>First he has to study. <v Adolf Hertrich>What is realestc demand in your market. <v Adolf Hertrich>What do people want to buy? <v Adolf Hertrich>Once you do this, it's not difficult. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] But many American mill owners are having a very difficult time. <v Toshio Suzuki>Some have lost their business, even though the United States has 25 times more <v Toshio Suzuki>land, then Japan. They are running short of trees in the forest. <v Toshio Suzuki>This sounded peculiar to me. <v Toshio Suzuki>Much of the problem surrounds a bird called the spotted owl. <v Toshio Suzuki>There are only 4000 of them left. <v Toshio Suzuki>Environmental groups fear that more logging in the old growth forests will cause the <v Toshio Suzuki>spotted owl to go extinct. <v Toshio Suzuki>The environmentalists say that 100 years of continuous cutting has destroyed <v Toshio Suzuki>90 percent of the old growth trees.

<v Toshio Suzuki>It is very difficult for the sawmills to get logs from national forests that have <v Toshio Suzuki>old growth trees. <v Gary Callahan>Oh, it's hard. Spotted owl and the economy <v Gary Callahan>and everything, you know, it's. <v Gary Callahan>It's hard on the loggers, you know, sort of a dying breed, all the mills <v Gary Callahan>and. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] Hull Oaks Sawmill is one of the oldest sawmills in Oregon. <v Toshio Suzuki>It is an old style mill and has no computer guided machines like Vanport Manufacturing <v Toshio Suzuki>Hull Oaks cuts lumber for the domestic market using traditional methods. <v Toshio Suzuki>It is not making as much money as Vanport manufacturer. <v Toshio Suzuki>This is the owner of the mill, 80 year old Ralph Hull. <v Toshio Suzuki>He's been in the business for 50 years. <v Toshio Suzuki>His mill is running with a steam engine built 100 years ago when no electricity <v Toshio Suzuki>was available. <v Ralph Hull>It was a good thing it was a positive thing.

<v Ralph Hull>We built, made lumber for houses. <v Ralph Hull>During the war we made lumber for warehouses and factories <v Ralph Hull>in military camps. <v Ralph Hull>It was it was a good thing. But today we're looked on wer're we're <v Ralph Hull>bad people. They say we're destroying the environment. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] 80 people work in this mill. Some of them have been here for 50 years <v Toshio Suzuki>since the mill was built. <v Toshio Suzuki>As I show you, this is the only industry in the town. <v Toshio Suzuki>But Mr Hall is having the most difficult time of his life trying to run the business <v Toshio Suzuki>in the last three years. Thirty five sawmills have closed and 5500 <v Toshio Suzuki>people have lost their jobs. <v Ralph Hull>I'm sad. We think people should be working. <v Ralph Hull>The United States owes about 3 times as much money now as the did 10 <v Ralph Hull>or 15 years ago. We've gone in debt.

<v Ralph Hull>And yet we have these environmentalists and do-gooders that <v Ralph Hull>don't want business to continue. <v Ralph Hull>We don't want they don't want to produce lumber. They don't want to produce a lot of <v Ralph Hull>other things. That's a lot of negative attitude. <v Ralph Hull>And to me, that's in a sense the reason we're going <v Ralph Hull>in debt so much. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] I thought American people were proud of having such vast land with <v Toshio Suzuki>rich natural resources. It sounds strange to me to hear that they have the same serious <v Toshio Suzuki>environmental issues as a small and crowded country like Japan. <v Toshio Suzuki>No one, including Mr. Hull, can stop the environmental movement. <v Toshio Suzuki>Mr. Hull's good ol America and his American dream have gone and will never <v Toshio Suzuki>return. <v Al Austin>Far from the isolation of Ralph Hull's ancient sawmill, most of Japan <v Al Austin>lives in cities, crowded cities.

<v Al Austin>What we call rush hour in America pales in comparison. <v Al Austin>Commuters endure the daily grind on the trains and a body crunching twice a day <v Al Austin>trip. <v Al Austin>But even in the middle of the crunch of bodies, you see practical solutions. <v Al Austin>A quiet moment in a temple is just <v Al Austin>a few steps from lunch. <v Al Austin>All that I had heard about Japan being obsessed with baseball or the sumo wrestlers <v Al Austin>seemed to take a backseat to this [Arcade music playing] Pachinko. <v Al Austin>Many Japanese seem to be addicted to pachinko. <v Al Austin>It consists of feeding beebees into a machine and beebees come back out <v Al Austin>in a bewildering ratio. <v Al Austin>Men, women, children, everyone they sit for hours. <v Al Austin>It's obviously gambling, but gambling is not allowed in Japan. <v Al Austin>Winners were exchanging buckets of beebees for cheap watch bands.

<v Al Austin>They then went somewhere else to cash in the watch bands for money. <v Al Austin>All very roundabout. But in perfect Japanese logic, you <v Al Austin>can still have a law against gambling. <v Al Austin>But the people can still win money like a casino in America. <v Al Austin>But different. <v Al Austin>It also seemed to me that Japan had another national addiction, shopping. <v Al Austin>In every city, town and village the streets are a continuous flow <v Al Austin>of people going from store to store. <v Al Austin>The department stores are like ours. <v Al Austin>You can find the usual things, things we have in America, but different <v Al Austin>too. <v Al Austin>And in America, I don't ever remember the salespeople and the managers greeting <v Al Austin>me like this. <v Al Austin>[Man speaking Japanese] Here was another example of the difference between our two <v Al Austin>countries and something that helps explain the near absence of unemployment in <v Al Austin>Japan, a service station.

<v Al Austin>To an American, it's ridiculously overstaffed and sort of puzzling. <v Al Austin>A service station that provides service? <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] I visited an American gas station. <v Toshio Suzuki>It was very different from those in Japan. <v Toshio Suzuki>In many stations, the customers fill up their cars by themselves. <v Toshio Suzuki>I had never seen that in Japan. There was no window cleaning, no polite bowing, no asking <v Toshio Suzuki>to change the oil in Japan. <v Toshio Suzuki>I usually choose the station with the best service, but there was no service here. <v Toshio Suzuki>They say American people are creative. <v Toshio Suzuki>Why don't they use their creativity in selling goods? <v Toshio Suzuki>Many people in America are out of a job, but it seems to me that they are not willing to <v Toshio Suzuki>do these small jobs. American people say that the Japanese work too much. <v Toshio Suzuki>But I think Americans would not like to work as much as we do. <v Toshio Suzuki>For London, there is a small supermarket in Portland called Anzen, which means <v Toshio Suzuki>safety in Japanese. The store was established by a Japanese immigrant from Okuyama, <v Toshio Suzuki>located in west Japan.

<v Toshio Suzuki>This immigrant sought the American dream. <v Toshio Suzuki>At the beginning of World War Two, the owner of the store was put into an internment camp <v Toshio Suzuki>and his store was taken from him. <v Toshio Suzuki>After the war, he and his son started the business again from nothing. <v Toshio Suzuki>Soon they will open another store in San Francisco. <v Toshio Suzuki>There has been a certain change in this store. <v Toshio Suzuki>The customers have changed. Years ago, most of the customers were Japanese and Japanese <v Toshio Suzuki>American. Today, they are in the minority. <v Speaker 3>I'm a chef and it's a fairly healthy diet, not <v Speaker 3>as fatty as most Western diets. <v Speaker 4>I wish I could speak Japanese. <v Speaker 4>You might be interested to know that right now I'm a 3rd grade teacher, <v Speaker 4>Sensei. And right now we have a unit studying <v Speaker 4>Japan. So we've been studying their culture and speaking <v Speaker 4>domo arigato and things like that. And so these are eight year olds. <v Speaker 5>The people I do business with, are people I've known for about 10 years.

<v Speaker 5>I don't have any friction with the Japanese. <v Toshio Suzuki>What kind of business? <v Speaker 5>We produce seeds and sell them too. <v Toshio Suzuki>Is it a good business? <v Speaker 5>It's a good business. <v Al Austin>The average Japanese and the average American salaries are now about equal. <v Al Austin>What makes a difference is that prices in Japan are much higher than in America for just <v Al Austin>about everything. The puzzling thing for me was that the customers in Japan <v Al Austin>don't just accept these higher prices, they create them. <v Al Austin>It's true that practically everything in Japan is expensive, but <v Al Austin>with some things there's more to it than just a high cost of living. <v Al Austin>That's particularly true with food. In this market, for instance, here's a melon <v Al Austin>priced at 4,000 yen. <v Al Austin>That's about 34 dollars. <v Al Austin>That's because it's so beautiful. <v Al Austin>You can get a less attractive melon here for as little as 15 dollars. <v Al Austin>Here's one, it's especially beautiful. <v Al Austin>It costs 82 dollars.

<v Al Austin>Appearance is very important in Japan, food must not only tastes good, it has <v Al Austin>to look good and people are willing to pay extra for it. <v Al Austin>Here are apples 4 dollars apiece. <v Al Austin>That's because the color is so beautiful and that color didn't happen by accident. <v Al Austin>For Mr. and Mrs. Momoru Saiki of Yamanashi, the hardest part <v Al Austin>of tending their apple orchard is the wrapping, unwrapping and rewrapping <v Al Austin>of each apple on every tree as they ripen. <v Al Austin>He outfoxes the sun and improves on nature so that the apples take <v Al Austin>on just the right golden color. <v Al Austin>Left on their own, the apples would have uneven color and no Japanese would <v Al Austin>want to buy them. Farming in Japan requires artistic talent. <v Al Austin>Although it was a hot day, Mrs. Saiki wore protective wrapping on her hands <v Al Austin>and face, a protection against suntan.

<v Al Austin>The Japanese consider a pale ivory complexion on women as important as <v Al Austin>the golden red on their apples. <v Al Austin>The psyche's also own 18 little rice paddies scattered all around <v Al Austin>their village. Even with government subsidies, the rice only amounts to <v Al Austin>a third of their farm income Mr. Saiki says. <v Al Austin>Even so, it is by far their most important crop. <v Al Austin>Rice is not just a crop. <v Al Austin>It's something more. <v Momoru Saiki>[Speaking Japanese] I have been a farmer all my life. <v Momoru Saiki>When I harvest and have the rice in my hand and look at it, I get a lot <v Momoru Saiki>of pleasure from what I have grown. <v Momoru Saiki>I get more pleasure from growing rice than I do from tomatoes or apples. <v Momoru Saiki>I think all Japanese farmers feel this way. <v Al Austin>I even heard rice describe to me in religious terms. <v Toshio Nagasaka>[Speaking Japanese] If you look into roots of Japanese culture, <v Toshio Nagasaka>you find rice. One thing I think symbolized this.

<v Toshio Nagasaka>The emperor is a symbol of the Japanese people and Japanese state. <v Toshio Nagasaka>In the spring, he plants rice. <v Toshio Nagasaka>In the autumn, he performs a ceremony of harvesting rice. <v Toshio Nagasaka>Now Japan is wealthy because we manufacture products and export <v Toshio Nagasaka>them to America and other countries. <v Toshio Nagasaka>So why doesn't the emperor go to an automobile plant? <v Toshio Nagasaka>Instead, he put boots on and he goes into the paddy field and plants rice. <v Al Austin>Every farmer we visited in Japan is disheartened. <v Al Austin>They say the Japanese farmer, especially the rice farmer, is in serious trouble. <v Al Austin>American rice farmers want to sell their surplus rice to the Japanese. <v Al Austin>[Man speaking in Japanese] Last fall, demonstrators, Japanese farmers demanded that their <v Al Austin>government continue to forbid imports of rice. <v Al Austin>They fear their government will give in to America's argument that if Japan can sell

<v Al Austin>cars to America, America should be able to sell them what we produce more <v Al Austin>efficiently food. <v Al Austin>Japanese farmers insist it's different. <v Toshio Nagasaka>[Speaking Japanese] Japanese farmers produce less, but still we have a rice surplus. <v Toshio Nagasaka>So I wonder why we would want to input America rice. <v Toshio Nagasaka>I understand Japan export cost to America and Americans have been hurt <v Toshio Nagasaka>by this. They think Japan should buy something in return. <v Toshio Nagasaka>The only thing they can sell to us in return is rice. <v Toshio Nagasaka>Because rice is staple food here. <v Toshio Nagasaka>And America had surplus rice. <v Toshio Nagasaka>I understand this, but as a farmer I can't accept it. <v Al Austin>And there's another reason the Japanese farmer is finding it harder and harder to cling <v Al Austin>to his farm and its valuable land. <v Al Austin>His children, polished in the Japanese school system, don't want to be farmers <v Al Austin>anymore. They want a piece of Japan's success story.

<v Al Austin>American imports may only hasten the end. <v Toshio Nagasaka>[Speaking Japanese] ?inaudible? Has a population of 3500. <v Toshio Nagasaka>These are 1000 families. <v Toshio Nagasaka>550 of those are farming families. <v Toshio Nagasaka>But none of these 550 families have a child who will take over the farm, <v Toshio Nagasaka>not one child. We worry about the future if things continue <v Toshio Nagasaka>as they have been the Japanese farmer will become extinct. <v Al Austin>But many Japanese believe the rice farmers enemy is not the American farmer. <v Al Austin>But simple reality, changing times. <v Al Austin>And that the farmers attempts to preserve the rice fields as something sacred are doomed. <v Al Austin>The land is simply too valuable to be used as farmland. <v Al Austin>100 million people, one third the population of the United States <v Al Austin>are packed onto islands with an area smaller than California. <v Al Austin>Seventy percent of the landmass is mountains and forests, with half of

<v Al Austin>the rest being farmland, some fields and paddies persisting <v Al Austin>inside the cities between overcrowded apartments. <v Al Austin>City dwellers resent having their taxes subsidize the fantastically uneconomical <v Al Austin>farms. <v Al Austin>The esthetic, environmental, historical and spiritual value of <v Al Austin>home grown rice may not be enough to save Mr. Saiki. <v Toshio Nagasaka>Farming has been good life for our family. <v Toshio Nagasaka>My wife and I are happy when we're working with our crops. <v Toshio Nagasaka>It it's sad that none of our children will follow us. <v Toshio Nagasaka>I don't know what will happen to the land. <v Toshio Suzuki>I decided to meet the rice farmers in California because the rice exporting issue <v Toshio Suzuki>is a source of friction between American and Japan. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] I met Dennis Gallagher, <v Toshio Suzuki>a rice farmer in northern California. <v Dennis Gallagher>How are you?

<v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] His father began rice farming here in a 100 acre field. <v Toshio Suzuki>Now he and Dennis own a twenty five hundred acre rice fields. <v Toshio Suzuki>That is 300 times as large as Tokyo Dome ballpark. <v Toshio Suzuki>When I compared this with the tiny rice fields in Japan, I was certain that Dennis had <v Toshio Suzuki>fulfilled his American dream. <v Toshio Suzuki>This big building that looks like a chemical factory is a dryer. <v Toshio Suzuki>It dries rice and stores it inside. <v Toshio Suzuki>It is 60 feet tall and full of rice. <v Toshio Suzuki>I had never seen so much rice in my life. <v Toshio Suzuki>Japanese people regard rice as a sacred thing. <v Toshio Suzuki>So I was afraid to walk on it. <v Toshio Suzuki>They say that the Gallagher's are Middle-Sized Rice farmers in California, but the field

<v Toshio Suzuki>looked huge to me. <v Toshio Suzuki>I found that the rice here is very different from Japanese rice. <v Toshio Suzuki>The grain is longer and less sticky when cooked. <v Toshio Suzuki>I don't think the Japanese would like this rice. <v Dennis Gallagher>I think we should be able to export some of our rice <v Dennis Gallagher>into Japan. And I think it should happen in that direction. <v Dennis Gallagher>I don't necessarily feel that we need to <v Dennis Gallagher>control the entire Japanese rice market, <v Dennis Gallagher>but just a small niche of it, 5 to 10 percent or something like that, <v Dennis Gallagher>which to me doesn't seem like a whole lot, you know, would would definitely help our <v Dennis Gallagher>economy. And I think it would be advantageous to the Japanese consumer. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] Dennis's father, Bob, told us that Japan must open its rice market. <v Bob Gallagher>Where they have all the capital coming in Japan and nothing, nothing in retaliation. <v Bob Gallagher>And so for, the Japanese government and people, <v Bob Gallagher>they should realize that it's not a one way street.

<v Bob Gallagher>It's got to be a two way street. <v Bob Gallagher>It's got not only United States but throughout the world. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] I met another rice farmer named Tom Jopson, who showed me how his <v Toshio Suzuki>rice was sold in the American market. <v Toshio Suzuki>The rice was packed in bottles and bags and eaten like a vegetable in salad or with <v Toshio Suzuki>steak. It was very different from Japanese steamed rice. <v Toshio Suzuki>I don't believe that American farmers could sell their rice in the Japanese market. <v Toshio Suzuki>Tom also explained the difficulty of pricing American rice for sale in Japan. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking English] How do you sell this rice? <v Tom Jopson>Japanese are very progressive people. <v Tom Jopson>They weren't dumb enough to import rice <v Tom Jopson>from the United States at a higher price than what world market <v Tom Jopson>prices or would that they could buy it from Thailand, they could buy it from Australia <v Tom Jopson>anywhere else in basically the world rather than California at a lower <v Tom Jopson>cost. So why would Japan import rice from the United States?

<v Tom Jopson>At a high price when they get import it at world market price. <v Tom Jopson>That was I could never understand why the American farmers would or California <v Tom Jopson>farmers believe that. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] There was an abandoned house near Thom's rice field. <v Toshio Suzuki>The owner of this house gave up growing rice and moved to Idaho when the price of rice <v Toshio Suzuki>fell suddenly 10 years ago. <v Toshio Suzuki>There are many factors that make the life of the American rice farmer difficult in <v Toshio Suzuki>America. The larger the rice field, the more money farmers must spend on machines, <v Toshio Suzuki>fertilizer and chemicals. The price of rice has remained lower than the farmers expected, <v Toshio Suzuki>and they now face a new problem environmental issues. <v Toshio Suzuki>Rice farmers have been criticized for using chemicals that hurt the environment. <v Toshio Suzuki>Tom is not as anxious to export Rice to Japan. <v Toshio Suzuki>When I told him that the Japanese farmers believed the California rice farmers must be <v Toshio Suzuki>rich. He laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

<v Toshio Suzuki>The old farming machines remain in his garden. <v Toshio Suzuki>They are symbols of the high costs and difficulties of farming life. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking English] If you hear your ?wow?, your daughter would like to marry rice farmer <v Toshio Suzuki>in California? <v Tom Jopson>I tell , tell her no. If she wanted to marry a farmer in California, period, I'd tell her <v Tom Jopson>no. Find some other guy in a different, you know, a line of work. <v Tom Jopson>I don't care what it is. But farming. No. <v Tom Jopson>Stay out of it right now. California. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] He told me that within five years the number of California rice <v Toshio Suzuki>farmers will be cut in half. <v Toshio Suzuki>Most farmers cannot obtain the American dream by growing rice. <v Toshio Suzuki>Perhaps the main frustration of the farmers is their inability to export their rice <v Toshio Suzuki>to Japan. <v Al Austin>[Women speaking Japanese] In the time I spent with the people of Japan, I discovered that <v Al Austin>it's hard to know what the Japanese think about Americans.

<v Al Austin>They obviously do think about us a lot. <v Al Austin>They adopt our fads and styles. <v Al Austin>Japanese schools require six years of English, which they use to advertise <v Al Austin>their businesses and products, sometimes with incomprehensible results. <v Al Austin>Recently, a Japanese business leader suggested that the reason Japan was winning <v Al Austin>the export import war against America was that Americans had <v Al Austin>grown fat and lazy. <v Al Austin>His comment embarrassed the Japanese we talked to. <v Shihoko Ogawa>I don't want American people just think that <v Shihoko Ogawa>Japanese people have this kind of arrogant attitude towards American people <v Shihoko Ogawa>because we don't. It's I'm sorry politicians, you know, <v Shihoko Ogawa>very big headed politicians. <v Shihoko Ogawa>They just say things like that. <v Shihoko Ogawa>I think we admire each other, you know where we can respect <v Shihoko Ogawa>the difference.

<v Shihoko Ogawa>The cultural difference and things like that. <v Shihoko Ogawa>Don't get very hysterical about, <v Shihoko Ogawa>say, Japan bashing or American bashing <v Shihoko Ogawa>issues and things like that. <v Al Austin>In spending time with the people of Japan, not the politicians. <v Al Austin>I saw them facing many of the problems we face in America. <v Al Austin>The success of Japan in becoming a power in world business has come <v Al Austin>with a price. That price is change. <v Al Austin>The old, sometimes comfortable ways are being pushed aside or something new. <v Al Austin>The question is, will it be better? <v Al Austin>The rice farmers, more than any others I met, are paying the price of progress. <v Al Austin>Everything around them is changing and they are powerless to stop those changes. <v Al Austin>Their farms are too small.

<v Al Austin>The land is more valuable for housing or factories. <v Al Austin>Their children want to work in jobs that are easier and pay more money. <v Al Austin>And the cheaper imported rice will make their crops worth less. <v Al Austin>And already hard life looks like it is going to get even harder. <v Al Austin>What I did not find in Japan were many of the problems we now face in America. <v Al Austin>I did not see homeless. <v Al Austin>I did not see unemployed. <v Al Austin>And I did not find hostility toward America. <v Al Austin>To learn all of this, I met with farmers and businessmen, loggers and <v Al Austin>schoolteachers. And of course, I met Toshio Suzuki. <v Toshio Suzuki>[Speaking Japanese] America is a society made up of diverse races and cultures. <v Toshio Suzuki>It is a flexible society that adopts anything for the good of society. <v Toshio Suzuki>I found that people on the West Coast are very interested in countries on the Pacific Rim <v Toshio Suzuki>like Japan and other Asian countries.

<v Toshio Suzuki>American people I met are not angry with the Japanese people use the TV and newspapers <v Toshio Suzuki>in Washington and Tokyo. You made me think that everyone was angry. <v Toshio Suzuki>America has problems such as homelessness, crime and class differences in education. <v Toshio Suzuki>It seems to me that America is losing its confidence. <v Toshio Suzuki>I think the problems of America today could be the problems of Japan tomorrow. <v Toshio Suzuki>Japan is accepting more and more people from other countries, so Japan's homogeneous <v Toshio Suzuki>society has begun to change. I am very concerned with, how Japan <v Toshio Suzuki>and America will cope with their problem. <v Toshio Suzuki>Thank you, ?man?. <v Dennis Gallagher>Yeah, it was nice. I really enjoyed it. <v Dennis Gallagher>It was ?inaudible?. <v Dennis Gallagher>If we can get both countries to work together, maybe this will all work for both of us. <v Dennis Gallagher>[Japanese children chanting]