Shoshaman: A Tale of Corporate Japan: 3 (Voices from Asia) - Softcover

Arai, Shinya; Mulhern, Chieko

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520071425 ISBN 13: 9780520071421

Publisher: University of California Press, 1991

Synopsis

Acknowledging no god but the corporate good, the shoshamen-high-powered professionals within Japan's integrated trading companies-serve as the unrelenting cogs of an economic machine. Or do they?

Shoshaman takes us inside the world of Japan Inc. to explore the daily lives of the people who inhabit it. Written by a senior executive in a major sogo shosha, this absorbing novel reveals, as no textbook can, the strategies required to win the race to the top. It also makes painfully clear the ethical and psychological choices that such a race demands. The cast of characters is as varied as the corporate world itself, from the devoted Ojima, who has been passed over by the company, to the spirited Masako, who strikes out on her own. The hero, Nakasato Michio, finds that the road to success is long and perilous, as he tries to satisfy his ambitions while remaining faithful to his values.

First published as Kigyoka sarariman in 1986 and made into a prize-winning television miniseries in 1988, the book has been acclaimed in Japan for the verisimilitude of its characters and situations. It offers a clear understanding of what it is like-in human terms-to survive and perhaps succeed within the confines of the Japanese corporation.

About this title

About the Author

Arai Shinya is Executive Vice President of Summit Inc. and a Director of the Sumitomo Corporation. His fiction, published under the pen name of Azuchi Satoshi, includes Downstream Industry (Shosetsu ryutsu sangyo; 1981), retitled in paperback as Supermarket (Shosetsu supamaketto; 1983). Chieko Mulhern is Professor of Japanese and Comparative Literature at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is the translator of Pagoda, Skull, and Samurai: Three Stories by Koda Rohan (1985) and the author of a historical novel, Amethyst Ring (Aoi suisho; 1985).

From the Back Cover

Shoshaman takes us inside Japan's integrated trading companies to explore the daily lives of the shoshamen, the high-powered pro-fessionals who make them work.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Shoshaman: A Tale of Corporate Japan

By Shinya Arai

University of California Press

Copyright © 1991 Shinya Arai
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0520071425
April

Suddenly a high-pitched voice cut across the calm of the promotion ceremony about to begin. Ebisawa Shiro, president of Nissei Corporation, was on his feet and the general manager of personnel was ready to make his opening announcement to the assembled employees.

In the front row of the hundred men in dark suits stood Nakasato Michio, general manager of project development, who was to be appointed to Management Grade One today. He glanced toward the entrance and instantly recognized the intruder as Ojima. He and Ojima had entered the company the same year.

Planting himself in the doorway, Ojima called to the president in a voice wild with agitation: "Hold everything, please! Before you hand out those appointments, I want you to answer my questions."

Tension froze the room. Even the personnel staff were rooted to the spot staring at the intruder, unable to understand what was taking place before their eyes.

"I should have been invited here today. For twenty-five years I have served Nissei with devotion and loyalty, carrying out all my assignments perfectly. No one else could have done them better." His voice faltered momentarily. "My performance record is unblemished. Therefore I deserve to be promoted to Management Grade One today. But I have been passed over. Why? Please tell me why. Can Nissei betray its most loyal, devoted employee?"

Personnel Manager Yamabe Seiji rushed up and whispered something to Ojima, taking him by the shoulders. Shrugging off Yamabe's hands, Ojima raised his voice again.

"True, Section Two of Iron and Steel Import and Export, my department, suffered massive cutbacks. And ten months ago I was as signed out to our subsidiary, Nissei Steel Sales. But I am not to blame for the decline in steel export. Why should I be punished for it? Keeping my full faith in Nissei Corporation, I have lived only . . ."

As Ojima's cry rose in pitch, Yamabe shouted to cut him off. Harsh voices joined in, yelling "Shut up!" and "Get out!" The murmur of voices rippled through the once quiet room. As if anticipating physical violence, some of the promotion nominees moved to stand vigilantly around the president.

Nakasato noted the expression on Ebisawa's deeply lined patrician face framed in silver-white hair. No trace of fear there. Absolutely unperturbed, cool and dignified, invulnerable in a crisis—exactly according to his reputation, thought Nakasato admiringly.

Ojima's screams were no longer making sense. Two staff members and several other men surrounded Ojima, helping the personnel manager push him through the doorway.

"I . . . I trust . . . trust in Nissei. I do trust . . ."

Trailing a cry behind him, Ojima disappeared with his unwanted escorts behind the heavy wooden door.

"We shall wait," President Ebisawa said softly. He sat down in a front seat as if nothing untoward had occurred.

"Gentlemen, please stand by," announced an alert personnel staffer who caught the president's remark. The commotion quickly subsided, and a solemn atmosphere pervaded the room.

Nakasato straightened his back and assumed a calm expression, but his mind was still reeling from the impact of the incident he had witnessed.

Nakasato and Ojima began their life at Nissei in the same year, even assigned to the same room in the orientation camp for new employees. Ojima seemed rather serious, of good family, with a business degree from a prestigious national university. Nakasato rejoiced in his good fortune at finding a suitable friend among colleagues at the start of what would be a lifetime career together.

At the same time, he was aware of a certain psychological distance separating him from Ojima. For one thing, Nissei Corporation was the whole world for Ojima.

"I was a high school student when I first heard of Nissei," Ojima confided in Nakasato. "A sogo shosha , an integrated trading company—it has the entire globe as one huge market! It's the core of the internationally renowned Nissei Group. Working for Nissei Corporation's been my only goal in life ever since. At last, today I can call myself an employee of this same company. I'm not dreaming, am I? A Nissei man now. Can you believe that!"

As if to convince himself, Ojima slapped his body all over and lightly pinched his cheek.

"I feel pain all right. This must be real. Hard to believe it but still real," cried Ojima jumping to his feet. He began to pace the narrow tatami-matted room of the bachelor quarters. It had been the last night of the new-hire training camp.

"To tell the truth, I've got another dream. Can you guess what it is?"

"Let me see . . . ," Nakasato pondered as he poured cheap whiskey into their glasses. "An assignment overseas?"

"Sure, that's a dream, but it goes with the territory. Now that I'm a Nissei man, that dream's as good as granted."

"The presidency, then."

"Too big for me."

"Oh. The board room?"

"No, no. I'm not talking about the company. Another kind of dream altogether."

"You mean a hobby? Going around the world, visiting foreign museums, or something like that?"

"You've got a one-track mind. Can't you think beyond 'overseas'?"

"Then what is it?" asked Nakasato halfheartedly, tiring of the subject.

"It's a woman. I'm in love and want to marry her. If I can manage that, my life's dream will be fulfilled."

"Completely?"

"Yes, 100 percent."

"Are you sure there isn't more to life?"

"Aside from the usual, like good health and so on, I need nothing more. To work for Nissei, marry the woman I love—that's all. A magnificent dream, I'd say."

Nakasato drained his glass in silence. He could find nothing appropriate to say, completely out of touch with Ojima's perception.

Nakasato was certainly happy to have been accepted into Nissei Corporation, but not without apprehension. What sort of assignments would he be required to carry out? Did he really have a natural aptitude to succeed as a shoshaman? He knew nothing of the human relationships at the office. Suppose he found himself caught in a feudal hierarchy that operated on a collective mentality as some of the college sports teams did? Landing this job meant no guarantee of happiness for him.

Love was not much different. During college, Nakasato had involved himself with his share of women, but only one at a time. He thought he was honorable enough but never believed that marriage with any particular woman would fulfill his life's dream. On the contrary, he'd even thought that he might be better off staying single to pursue his dream. He found it hard to picture himself as satisfied as Ojima claimed to be by a job with Nissei and marriage to a woman he loved.

Three years after their talk in the training camp, he got an invitation to Ojima's wedding. While Nakasato served in the sober Accounting Department, Ojima had been exultant in Iron and Steel Import and Export, the glamorous mainstay of Nissei's primary operations. Then he married the woman of his heart's desire. The bride was beautiful, radiating a sensuous charm that overwhelmed the young Nakasato. On his way home from Ojima's reception, Nakasato made up his mind to get married as soon as he could.

The two men continued to have little association with each other. Not that they fell out of friendship—they simply went through the usual stages in life and career where each was much too occupied with socializing among business associates and newer acquaintances to find time or inclination to discuss world views with friends from youthful days. Over the years, their personal contact involved only occasional greetings in the office corridor.

Then, on this day, Ojima forced his way into the promotion ceremony, made an unprecedented speech, and was hustled out. It was

impossible to fathom his thoughts, but his words were straightforward and clear enough. Ojima felt he had been unfairly passed over for promotion to the managerial top rank and crashed the ceremony to state his complaint.

What could he possibly get out of such a drastic action?

"Mr. Nakasato Michio."

A voice broke into Nakasato's train of thought. The presentation had begun. He stepped forward to stand before Ebisawa.

"I appoint you to Management Grade One," pronounced the president softly, holding out a piece of paper. Nakasato received it, bowed, and returned to his place.

Relief washed over him. Making Management Grade One in the first round of competition for his class virtually guaranteed him a reserved seat on the express to senior management. Basking in the glow of his peers' envy, Nakasato had entered the last stretch of a career track, its glorious finish line in sight.

What a close call! Nakasato shuddered, recalling his recent trip to the United States. Was I lucky to escape the fate of being sidetracked into a post away from Nissei's mainstream! If I expect to be the first in my class to make it into senior management, I must position myself in the head office as near as possible to Ebisawa Shiro, who is handing out appointments now. I must avoid a sideline assignment, no matter how significant, to say nothing of hanging my fate on an American restaurant chain! The important thing is to stay put in the nerve center of this high-rise building, where I can be noticed by the important men running the headquarters. That's where Ojima failed. Hapless enough to be caught in the scale-down of the steel department, he was assigned out to a subsidiary, and his career course began to go awry.

No sooner did Nakasato's thought return full circle to settle on Ojima than he was seized by a frightful notion—Ojima may kill himself! How else can he make amends for today's fiasco? No. There is another possibility: was it a last act of defiant protest before quitting the company? Not likely. Past observation had taught Nakasato that a man about to resign is not inclined to remonstrate with his company at great cost to himself, for he needs a favorable reference from his former employer to show at his next place of employment.

Yes. Ojima does intend to kill himself!

The sudden conviction nearly jolted Nakasato into action. He wanted to rush out that instant and do something. And yet he might be reading too much into the situation. Nakasato debated with himself. After all, a man who'd claimed complete career and personal fulfillment in work for Nissei Corporation and marriage to his beloved could not possibly choose death to end it all. Nakasato felt somewhat comforted by this thought, but the relief was short-lived. By a reverse logic, the same philosophy could just as well drive Ojima to suicide.

Thus Nakasato pondered for the duration of the ceremony. When at last he bounded out of the executive conference room, he found Yamabe, probably in a similar state of mind, hurrying down the hallway.

"I roomed with Ojima in the new-hire training camp," Nakasato said.

"That fool!" the personnel manager spat out, ignoring the younger man's comment, apparently still enraged by the incident. A majority of Nissei's personnel managers had been dignified and discreet; Yamabe was one of the few with a sharp tongue.

At the personnel office, Nakasato learned that Ojima had shaken loose the men restraining him and run off.

"I'm worried about him," Nakasato blurted out, but Yamabe brushed off his concern.

"No need to be. A man who gets hysterical over a delay in his promotion hasn't got the guts to commit suicide."

Yamabe's brusque words nonetheless betrayed that the possibility of Ojima's suicide had also crossed his mind. At that moment, the tall form of the General Affairs section chief dashed into the room, his face drained of color.

"A man dived under the subway train at Otemachi Station. Looks like it was our Ojima."

Yamabe clicked his tongue and signaled for Nakasato to leave.

Within an hour, the news of Ojima's suicide had spread throughout the Nissei building. During lunch Nakasato heard here and there such spontaneous exclamations as "Whatever happened?" and "How dreadfull" but they did not last long. No measure of any

kind had been taken to make it a forbidden subject, but the employees seemed reluctant to speak of the incident. Since the company was not to blame in any way, it never became an issue to require official handling.

The death of Ojima faded into oblivion, a flash of lightning, leaving no trace whatever.

Continues...

Excerpted from Shoshaman: A Tale of Corporate Japanby Shinya Arai Copyright © 1991 by Shinya Arai. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520071425
• ISBN 13: 9780520071421
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256