KOBE   JAPAN

 

In 1973 I flew to Tokyo and took the high speed bullet train to Kobe to do a startup at a Kawasaki Steel rolling mill. The actual mill was built by Mitsubishi under license to Waterberry-Farrel. This is how back in the day the Japanese would acquire American technology. Some Japanese company would build an American or European doo dad under license. After the first few they would copy the design and change a few screws or bolts here and there and they would have another market to invade. We, the company that I worked for, built online non-contact gauges the would emit Beta rays from a radioactive source and sense how strong the radiation was on the other side of a sheet of rubber, paper or plastic right before the sheet was rolled up. The steel guys needed, like a bartender would say, something a little stronger  then a Beta ray to penetrate steel. On steel we used a Gamma source which is much stronger.

Once the gauge of the product was measured, our stuff would then automatically tweak the  producing machine to provide the proper thickness of the product. I started up machines all over “the eleven states” plus Mexico City, Melbourne Australia, Korea and Japan. When you do a six week startup, it is a short enough amount that you just get a vacation visa instead of a business visa. Which is a real pain in the butt. I went through customs at LAX so often that after a while they suspected that I was smuggling something into the country and pull me off to the side and peer into everything that I was carrying. After the first year or so, they got to know me and I was just another tourist again. When I came back from Mexico City the second or third, I was carrying a medium sized sealed up Tupperware container. The customs agent asked what was in the container. I told him it was mole sauce. “What the hell is mole” he asked. I politely explained  that mole was the national dish of Mexico and I inquired with the US Embassy if I could carry some back on the airplane and they said it would be OK. The agent squiggled up his face and asked the agent working the adjacent line “Hey Sanchez, do you know what mole is”? Sanchez replied that “mole is the national dish of Mexico dumb ass”. Sanchez then asked me if I would pop the lid off for closer inspection. After I popped the lid off, he sniffed it and said to me with our faces practically touching ”Hey that smells like some damned good mole”. It was really good and then he asked if he could stick his finger in it for a little taste. “Sure” I said. After tasting it he said to me again with our faces almost touching “That is damned good mole”. But I digress.

I had a great stay while in Kobe and stayed at The Newport Inn, a little charming place that had the bed made on the tatami floor mat and a large hot rock stuffed under the covers so I would me cozy when I came in. I was recently divorced and carried on in Kobe in the evenings and would get back at about midnight. Part of Japanese culture is that the managers go out on the town two, or three nights a week. When the bill is presented, the senior manager signs it and the bill goes to the company’s accounting office and the company pays the bill. These guys drink like sailors and come crawling home back to mamma san way after midnight. I asked them how the wives deal with this they all shrugged their shoulders and said the same thing. “She greets me at the front door with tea and a snack”. What a country. Japan is quite a country. On one of my trips I was at our trading companies offices in Tokyo and they made me a job offer to work for them. I was real tempted but I was newly divorced and I didn’t want to be living half way around the world away from my son.    

I met a girl in Kobe who was from Kyoto. Kyoto is one of my “magical places”. Incredibly beautiful. Cherry San and I would on the weekends take the bullet train north through a big mountain and get off at the first stop, Osaka. We would then either take a cab or a tram to Kyoto. We were walking past this big auditorium and there was a big poster out front advertising who was playing. I asked who it was and Cherry san said Blue Mood. I said “Do mean Moody Blues” and she said “I guess that’s what it says”. I asked her where we could buy tickets and she said that it was sold out. She then explained how she used to work there and that she would speak to the mamma san. We went in the lobby and there was good old  momma san. They chatted for a few minutes and then momma san reached into her apron’s pocket and gave Cherry san two tickets.