Description
I anticipated an interesting year in Japan when I was informed that I had received a Fulbright Research Fellowship for 1980-81, but
I had no idea that my plan to study police-community relations would turn out to be such a challenging and rewarding experience. At the outset, less than twenty-four hours after my arrival in Tokyo, I was informed that the National Police Agency could give me "about one week in September" for my research. However, soon after this news, which had been relayed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Fulbright office, I had the good fortune to meet a prestigious Japanese legal scholar who immediately contacted two members of the Tokyo Public Safety Commission and set in motion a series of introductions that proved invaluable in my efforts to gain support for my research program.
As I learned quickly, without personal introductions many projects are doomed in Japan. This problem is not peculiar to foreigners: the Japanese face it as well. A Japanese businessman will not approach a fellow businessman or a bureaucrat without proper introduction if he expects to be successful in his endeavors. Often the initiating party will go through a former classmate or use an acquaintance in arranging the meeting. This "go-between" may be able to lay the groundwork or actually arrange an introduction. The Japanese have a word for this: nemawashi, "to lay the groundwork for obtaining one's objective."
ISBN: 9780870118531
