Disarming and love: the book

In the early 1990s I was asked to write a book that was called Disarming Anti-Japanese Prejudice.  It was a guide for Japanese doing business in the U.S. and was commissioned by a Japanese golf book publisher. At the time Japan bashing was an annual event. The book was published in English in 1996.

I wrote the book, which had a particularly prescient chapter on American sexual discrimination laws.  I warned the readers that Japanese corporations would be sued on this issued because of racial bias that viewed Japanese bosses to be especially aggressive towards female employees.  I said that any affair between a Japanese boss and a lower level non-Japanese employee should result in a one hour rush to take the boss to the airport and send him back to Japan, permanently.

The book needed promotion in Japan and one person solicited for a book cover endorsement was Shintaro Ishihara, who co-wrote the Japan that can Say No.  He read a few chapters and found the one concerning sexual harassment.

Ishihara, who was by then, Mayor of Tokyo, said: "I can't endorse this book.  It tells us to send the manager home to Japan and leave the other employee behind.  What if the two of them are really in love?"

Two years after the book was published in English (not in Japanese) Mitsubishi Corp in Normal Illinois was hit by one of the biggest EEOC sexual harassment law suits ever filed.  Mitsubishi settled for $34 million.