We finally arrived at Haneda Airport, Tokyo, at about 2am after what turned out to be a 6 hour delay in Hong Kong. In those days of prehistoric communications we'd failed to notify Robin Pocock, who'd been designated to meet us, of our late arrival, and he didn't therefore welcome us with exactly open arms when we finally emerged at the old Haneda Airport terminal building at something like 3am.
We were to stay for what remained of that first night in the New Grand Hotel, Yokohama. As we drove through the silent streets my fears were somewhat confirmed as nothing whatsoever was written in English; there was nothing even in western script. Robin warned us that we were so late getting to our rooms that we'd probably enjoy a sweaty night as the air-conditioning would soon go off. I'm not sure quite why. It's possible that the hotel wanted to save money and thought nobody would notice if they went to bed at a normal hour. Of course if he hadn't told us this I wouldn't have given it a thought as I was so tired. But as it was I found myself wide-awake waiting for the dreaded switch-off moment and hardly slept at all - not the best start to my new career!
The year was...well I won't tell you exactly, but it was precisely 100 years after the Meiji Restoration. That is, 100 years after the Emperor, who had been dozing for a couple of centuries in Kyoto, the old capital, found himself recalled to 'power' in Tokyo when the Shogun proved unable to deal with the sudden invasion of 'foreign devils' who had penetrated Japan's isolation about 15 years earlier.
One of the first things the Japanese did was to isolate the foreigners into three what might best be called compounds, the most important of which were on the sites of what have become Kobe and Yokohama. It is perhaps no coincidence that these two small settlements of 100 years ago have grown into two of the world's major ports, and hence P & O, together with other old British companies such as HSBC and Jardine Matheson, still kept their Japan head offices in Yokohama a hundred years later even though with the opening up of Japan after the 2nd World War everyone else was moving into what had become the world's biggest and most vibrant city, Tokyo.
Japan was a strange mixture of old and new. John Farmer, the other newcomer and I, were told we'd never find the office and that we'd be picked up at 9am sharp by the office driver. "He'll be late, I'll bet you" said John, who had had experience of the Third World. He was wrong - the driver came spot on time. That was the first surprise; the second was that that Japan had no street names! No wonder we wouldn't have been able to find the office. Addresses without street names were very strange, and appeared to be based on a system of concentric circles. Taxi drivers never seemed to know where they were going, and I found later that you had to give them a map to have any chance of getting anywhere; even then you never really knew if you hadn't gone wrong. "Was that really the 4th turning on the right?" you would wonder. Without a street reference you had no way to check. On the other hand if you liked Bach or Mozart it was quite pleasant getting lost - taxi drivers seemed to love western classical music and played it all the time. Mind you, even in those days you could clock up quite a taxi fare so you didn't dare relax too much.
Anyway the driver knew where the office was, and so began our new life. The staff bowed deeply to the 2 new expat managers, although I was a bit disappointed that nobody was wearing a kimono. John was assigned to some frightfully important position in Yokohama almost immediately, while I was to be transferred to Kobe, and next time I'll relate how I got there. Meantime I was stay in the hotel: John told me later the street name thing bugged him for days: he and his wife could never find their house without help, and goodness knows how they coped with shopping. There was almost nothing recognisable in the shops, and, incredibly polite and charming as the shop assistants were, nobody spoke English. I expect a few other of the British wives were roped in to help. We had around 6 British managers in Yokohama and 2 in Kobe, out of a staff of several hundred.
I'm sure you're wandering what happened to the poor old Shogun. He was called Mr Tokugawa and the Tokugawa Shogunate had ruled Japan for centuries. I'm sure in most 'emerging' countries there would have been bloodshed at this sudden change of regime, but not in Japan: apparently the Shogun just quietly retired to private life. Took a house in the suburbs, I expect, and lived happily ever after.
We were to stay for what remained of that first night in the New Grand Hotel, Yokohama. As we drove through the silent streets my fears were somewhat confirmed as nothing whatsoever was written in English; there was nothing even in western script. Robin warned us that we were so late getting to our rooms that we'd probably enjoy a sweaty night as the air-conditioning would soon go off. I'm not sure quite why. It's possible that the hotel wanted to save money and thought nobody would notice if they went to bed at a normal hour. Of course if he hadn't told us this I wouldn't have given it a thought as I was so tired. But as it was I found myself wide-awake waiting for the dreaded switch-off moment and hardly slept at all - not the best start to my new career!
The year was...well I won't tell you exactly, but it was precisely 100 years after the Meiji Restoration. That is, 100 years after the Emperor, who had been dozing for a couple of centuries in Kyoto, the old capital, found himself recalled to 'power' in Tokyo when the Shogun proved unable to deal with the sudden invasion of 'foreign devils' who had penetrated Japan's isolation about 15 years earlier.
One of the first things the Japanese did was to isolate the foreigners into three what might best be called compounds, the most important of which were on the sites of what have become Kobe and Yokohama. It is perhaps no coincidence that these two small settlements of 100 years ago have grown into two of the world's major ports, and hence P & O, together with other old British companies such as HSBC and Jardine Matheson, still kept their Japan head offices in Yokohama a hundred years later even though with the opening up of Japan after the 2nd World War everyone else was moving into what had become the world's biggest and most vibrant city, Tokyo.
Japan was a strange mixture of old and new. John Farmer, the other newcomer and I, were told we'd never find the office and that we'd be picked up at 9am sharp by the office driver. "He'll be late, I'll bet you" said John, who had had experience of the Third World. He was wrong - the driver came spot on time. That was the first surprise; the second was that that Japan had no street names! No wonder we wouldn't have been able to find the office. Addresses without street names were very strange, and appeared to be based on a system of concentric circles. Taxi drivers never seemed to know where they were going, and I found later that you had to give them a map to have any chance of getting anywhere; even then you never really knew if you hadn't gone wrong. "Was that really the 4th turning on the right?" you would wonder. Without a street reference you had no way to check. On the other hand if you liked Bach or Mozart it was quite pleasant getting lost - taxi drivers seemed to love western classical music and played it all the time. Mind you, even in those days you could clock up quite a taxi fare so you didn't dare relax too much.
Anyway the driver knew where the office was, and so began our new life. The staff bowed deeply to the 2 new expat managers, although I was a bit disappointed that nobody was wearing a kimono. John was assigned to some frightfully important position in Yokohama almost immediately, while I was to be transferred to Kobe, and next time I'll relate how I got there. Meantime I was stay in the hotel: John told me later the street name thing bugged him for days: he and his wife could never find their house without help, and goodness knows how they coped with shopping. There was almost nothing recognisable in the shops, and, incredibly polite and charming as the shop assistants were, nobody spoke English. I expect a few other of the British wives were roped in to help. We had around 6 British managers in Yokohama and 2 in Kobe, out of a staff of several hundred.
I'm sure you're wandering what happened to the poor old Shogun. He was called Mr Tokugawa and the Tokugawa Shogunate had ruled Japan for centuries. I'm sure in most 'emerging' countries there would have been bloodshed at this sudden change of regime, but not in Japan: apparently the Shogun just quietly retired to private life. Took a house in the suburbs, I expect, and lived happily ever after.
