The Japanese don't do things by halves ... they work very hard and they play very hard. And their hospitality is indeed, legendary. After four hectic but enjoyable days in Japan, the 18 audio journalists who were the guests of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (Panasonic) and Victor Company of Japan (JVC), can attest to the validity of these statements.
I was privileged to be a member of this group, who was invited to Japan for a week-long symposium on the CD-4 discrete quadraphonic disc. Last month I detailed some of the editorial group experiences in various JVC facilities in Tokyo and in Matsushita installations in Osaka. Now I will describe the second half of this fascinating trip.
After the welcoming luncheon at the Matsushita head offices, we were to inspect the company's radio and stereo factories. Now you talk about organization ... as our bus arrived in the courtyards of these facilities, the road to the main entrances were lined on both sides with company employees ... the men wearing blue blazers, the girls in white smocks, all madly waving blue and white Panasonic flags and shouting a lusty welcome! The radio factory manufactures a great variety of models and is said to have the largest annual production of radios in the world.
The stereo factory makes receivers and integrated amplifiers, as well as consoles and compact systems. Both factories are models of efficiency and cleanliness. There is much automation, but mostly contributory to the long lines of white-clad girls sitting at their benches working on various subassemblies. One of Panasonic's big advantages in these mass-output type of operations is that they manufacture many of the parts, including transistors and IC's (although not in the same factories) so they rarely have supply problems.
With the conclusion of these factory inspections, the technical phase of our visit to Matsushita in Osaka was over and our hosts were arranging fun and games and a bit of touring. That evening our group and about 20 or so Matsushita executives went to the Yamatoya restaurant, a traditional Japanese establishment. In a huge, exquisitely decorated private dining room, we were given a special Japanese dinner with our own personal geisha girls serving. I am sure our sophisticated readers know there are no sexual connotations whatever with geisha girls. They are meant to be decorative (which many are), and spend long years of highly disciplined training to achieve an ultimate refinement in social graces.
One incredible example ... I was served some beautiful red Emperor grapes and my geisha asked me (in her more than passable English) if I wanted some.
When I said yes, she picked out a grape, peeled it, then picked up a small silver fork, removed the seeds, and put the grape in my mouth!! Are you listening American wives? After the dinner, the geishas presented their highly-stylized ritualistic dancing, with however, a surprising finale in which all the geishas stood on their heads! The next day, Nov. 23, was Thanksgiving day in America, and by sheer happenstance was a somewhat similar holiday in Japan. Thus when we were driven from Osaka to Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, with its many lovely temples and shrines, we had a chance to observe the customs of Japanese families on a typical outing.
Needless to say, our audio group burned up a lot of film in this photographer's paradise. The Gold Pavilion and the Kinkakuji Temple are really spectacularly beautiful. I am one of those diehards who still take stereo slides (Ed Canby is another) and all those temples were just made to order for this medium.
After lunch, we left Kyoto for Odawara-Hakone, which is the area for Mt. Fuji. We traveled on one of the famous Japanese "bullet" trains, and it was quite an experience sitting in a comfortable aircraft-type seat and whizzing along at 125 mph. In Hakone, well up in the mountain country, we stayed in the sprawling, multi-level Fujiya Hotel. Just one year shy of being one hundred years old, it was built as a hunting lodge for the imperial visit of the Russian Crown Prince in 1871. (He never came and they had a war instead.) What a place! My bathroom was bigger than the average rooms in American hotels. Lovely grounds, with pools full of huge fat pink and white Japanese goldfish. No Thanksgiving turkey in the dining room that night, but there was fresh Malossol caviar, and brook trout, followed by Kobe beefsteak (this is from cattle which are raised just outside Kobe and are given rations of beer and are massaged by hand daily) washed down with a good Pommard. Not too bad a substitute for the traditional bird! The next morning by a combination of a boat trip across Lake Hakone and a drive higher into the mountains, we reached the overlook for Mt. Fuji.
Fortunately for us the weather had turned very cold and there were high winds, so that the cloud cover that usually obscures Mt. Fuji had blown away, affording us a really clear view of the magnificent snow-covered cone.
As you can imagine, there was much posing and photographing by our press group against the instantly recognizable backdrop of Mt. Fuji. Later on we were driven the 60-odd miles to Tokyo, and that evening we had dinner in a restaurant perched on the 39th floor of the World Trade Center Building.
I hope you will forgive this little travelog I have presented in the last few paragraphs, but I thought it might give you something of the flavor of this diverse land. It is also in appreciation of the fact that although our hosts thoroughly immersed us in, and impressed us with their technology, they did not overlook social and aesthetic considerations.
On Saturday, the audio editorial group, by this time a bit weary, assembled for their last "official" day in Tokyo. We were taken to the Akihabara area of the city where there is a concentration of over 400 stores selling hi-fi and other electronic equipment.
The area had roughly the character of the old Courtlandt St. hi-fi market in New York, but on a much larger scale.
One of the most unusual sights for this New Yorker, was that many of the stores had "browser bins" on the sidewalk in front of them, full of blank and (Continued on page 60) Later in the afternoon, our group met with some prominent Japanese audio writers and critics, for an interchange of ideas. Although hampered considerably with language difficulties ... both English-to-Japanese and Japanese-to-English suffered in interpretation . . . we had an interesting and in some ways surprising session. As you might expect, quadraphonic sound dominated the discussions. Without meaning to denigrate these gentlemen, it must be said that some of us felt that in spite of their closeness to the quadraphonic scene, they did not seem as "au courant" on the subject as we thought they would be. In particular, their knowledge of four-channel recording technology, both pop and classical, was fairly limited. However, even though it was obvious that these gentlemen had differing ideas about quadraphonic sound between themselves, in the overall sense they were totally committed to the idea of four channel stereo. It is too bad we did not have more time together, and especially a chance to listen to some quadraphonic recordings, which I feel would have established a better rapport between our groups.
As the grand finale of our Japanese trip, Mr. H. Momose, Chairman of the Board and Mr. Y. Kitano, President of JVC, hosted an elaborate buffet party for us at the Imperial Hotel. Wonderful food, beautiful flowers everywhere, the buffet table dominated by a 5 ft. high pagoda carved out of ice, and super service by some lovely geishas . . . all added to the camaraderie and good ambiance of the affair. Thus ended our trip to Japan. I think we all learned some valuable things, not only about quadraphonic sound in general . . . and CD-4 in particular ... but an appreciation of the Japanese character and their remarkable industry. We enjoyed all the social amenities offered so graciously, and the trip will long be a pleasant memory.
(Audio magazine, May 1973; Bert Whyte)
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