Now before we can understand anything about the Japanese, we have to decide exactly who they are.
Well, to most Americans … the Japanese were Pearl Harbor, Tokyo Rose, Toys made out of old beer cans — American beer cans, Kamikaze pilots and hara-kiri.
If I read the papers right lately, some people in Southeast Asia look at the Japanese as a country that wants to devour them.
To some Australians, the Japanese are a greedy bunch who want to buy up that whole island continent.
Some Koreans apparently think the Japanese are out to violate everybody. They say their girls are selling their flesh to the Japanese tourists, I read, and their government has sold out to Japanese „compradore“ capitalism — whatever that term really means.
To the European Common Market countries, the Japanese, with a flood of TV’s, transistors, and Toyotas, are a serious trading and economic rivals.
To the mainland Chinese, they are Russia’s friends.
To the Russians, they are China’s friends.
To the Japanese themselves, if you look at the fruits of their PR and self-advertising campaigns, Japan is the land of beautiful shrines, gardens full of cherry blossoms, Mt. Fuji, raw fish and women in Kimonos carrying paper parasols.
Donald J. Maloney: Understanding the Japanese — If that’s Possible. JETRO Business Information Series 1974, S. 3-4
