Japoguês

Our professional environment in São Paulo during the 1970s and 1980s included two very well-known and highly competent Niseis: Eduardo Yassuda and Paulo Nogami. Both were very serious, with few smiles. It was even said that Yassuda never smiled (perhaps because he held many important positions, was a controversial figure, and had both followers and detractors).

On the subject of this legend, Nogami once told me that he had seen Yassuda laugh!

To give some context, it’s important to note that back then, things were different. People traveled infrequently, globalization was still in its early stages, and traveling was very expensive. The Japanese had not yet established themselves as a fully developed nation. Japanese products were often considered second-rate, and the number of Japanese people traveling was still quite small. Other Asians didn’t leave Asia at all. Now, back to what Nogami told me:

_ It was around 1975, and we went to Europe together on business, including a visit to LNEC (National Civil Engineering Laboratory). At the Lisbon airport, we took a taxi to the hotel. The taxi driver, a young man, drove us in silence. Yassuda and I were chatting. When we arrived at the hotel lobby, we could still hear the driver, very seriously, talking to someone else:

_ "How similar the Japanese language is to ours! I understood a lot of what those passengers were saying."

Miguel Fernández y Fernández, Engineer, Consultant, and ColumnistWritten in June 2017 (1,311 characters including spaces)