In 1986, I worked for a Japanese real estate broker in New York City that helped Japanese companies buy or rent American properties. Japanese salespeople in the office brought me customers and re­quirements. I then would find the appro­priate property. The Japanese handled all the customer rela­tions while I dealt with the property owner, the legal aspects, and the bar­gaining.

By this point, my Japanese was pas­sable. I had been studying for over five years, and practiced regularly at my New York Go Club, which was devoted to the Asian chess-like game called Go. I could chat with the Japanese members regularly and study by reading books on the subject. I also had been taking language lessons at the Japan Society on 49^th Street near the U.N.

The sales pitch is an advanced language skill so I left it to native speakers. On the other hand, our Japanese salespeople were less knowl­edge­able about U.S. real estate laws and practic­es than I was. We comple­mented each other.

One day, a salesperson called Junji Miyake asked me to help him find a warehouse for a Japanese compa­ny. The company, which made quality industrial products, was ex­panding and had formed a joint venture with a U.S. based Japa­nese trading com­pany. They incorpo­rated, hired secre­taries, planned their new busi­ness schedule, and sent one of their VP’s, Frank Casey, to us to find a warehouse. We had not only the U.S.-based employees to please, but the Japanese home office as well.

I took Junji to Fairfield, New Jersey, home to Ricoh, Sharp, Toshiba, and many other Japanese companies, and found six suitable spaces. Fairfield was booming, and unlike many neighboring towns, had a pro-busi­ness planning depart­ment. Also, it wasn’t swampy or wet, sometimes a problem at New Jersey sites.

Japanese executives love hard copy, so we prepared an exhaustive list of properties, including buildings in four other towns for comparison. The following Sunday, we took two of their people on a tour of New Jersey in­dustrial spaces. We showed them six places and ended the tour in Fair­field, which they quickly real­ized was where they wanted to be. We told them we would get them all the pertinent data on their three favorite locations in Fairfield and drove them back to New York.

Over the next week, we collected the necessary data—floor plans, offering prices, tax rates, ceiling heights, and so forth—and prepared a detailed report. Two weeks later, we met their top executives, including the trading company man, Frank Cas­ey, and drove in a convoy of three cars to Fairfield.

Frank was not only a nice guy. He also was quite sophisticated about Asian business. He had majored in Chinese His­tory in college, and spoke Mandarin as well as a smattering of Japan­ese. A blonde guy about 35, he affected double-breasted suits and talked about golf a bit too much for my taste. He knew the Fairfield area, and approved of the choice. Most important, there were other Japanese companies in the area, and the expatriate employees wouldn’t feel totally disoriented. He mentioned that the company was anxious to get into operation, and that they needed the facility badly.

“Then we better hurry up,” Junji said with determination, as if his pace was holding up progress and he was promising to do better.

“Don’t let the landlord know there’s any hurry, please,” I told him.

“You know, you guys are a good team,” Frank said, grinning, “sort of Yin and Yang.”

Upon seeing the three sites, it seemed that their most dif­ficult choice was which one to rent. One was an older building, another was new but lacked windows in the office area, while the third was a bit expen­sive compared to the other two. The dis­cus­sion went back and forth without resolu­tion. They said they would study the written materials and decide.

During the next few weeks we called them several times, but they kept saying they were deciding. Frank was becoming impa­tient with the famous Japanese penchant for decision by com­mittee. Upon retur­ning to the office one day, I had a message from him so I rang him back.

 

“Hello, Frank? How’re you doing?”

“Michael? Fine, but I’ve got some funny news for you.”

“Funny?”

“Yeah. You know the company headquarters is in Kyoto.”

Kyoto is the former capital of Japan. Because it was the capital for a thousand years, it has the hallowed feeling of Bethlehem. But because it is now just another city of 1.5 million inhabitants, it can be quite commercial and even crassly so. I wondered which part the company fell into by way of classification? “Hmm. And…?”

“And the President is a devout Shintoist. He sent the floor plans and descrip­tions to this for­tuneteller.”

“No kidding.”

“The fortuneteller sees which way the building faces, adds up the numbers in the address, and like that.”

“Like feng shui?” I asked, mentioning the Chinese Taoist pseudoscience that concerned itself with the direction that buildings face and whether that direction was “lucky”.

“Yeah, and—he turned them all down.”

“He what?”

“He said not to do any of them. I can’t believe these guys. I hired employees. We’ve got deadlines. I need the space.”

“Wait, so you mean we’re back where we started. Like no idea where to go or anything.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Can’t you get them to change their minds?”

“I tried. They won’t budge.”

“Listen, Frank, I’m a real estate broker. I don’t broker the cosmos, I don’t do the infinite. Go fuck yourself. Maybe Junji will stick with them, but count me out. I’ll tell Junji to call you. You’re saying there’s some guy in Japan who’s never been to Ameri­ca who thinks he knows more about Jersey real estate than I do, by what, by throwing yarrow stalks or by messing around with the entrails of a sheep? It’s nuts!”

“Yeah, I know. Look, I completely understand your position.”

“You know, renting real estate is not like trading bananas or sneakers, where you can turn down one shipment and wait for the next one. There’s a limited number of properties and you can’t refuse all the good ones and hope a better one will come along. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Sorry,” he said.

We rang off. I was stunned. I went upstairs, found Junji, and told him. He went ballistic. “I can’t believe these people!”

“Frank is miserable.”

“You know sometimes, when a company wants to back out of a deal, they say nonsense like this. But these guys need this place. I can’t understand it.” He swore and picked up the phone.

I went out and bought a book on Kai-un no Uranai, or Fortunetelling for Shop Openings. It was a sort of low calorie I Ching, with a bit of native Japan­ese paganism in the stew, a busi­ness­man’s astro­logy. While I don’t mind the odd bit of superstition—I knock on wood for luck and throw salt over my shoulder if I spill some—I do insist that the word of God at least be amusing, even if more like a ghost story than literature. After all, I had read most of the Bible in the original Hebrew, so you could say that my taste in bullshit was very refined and sophisticated.

The company leased temporary office space near Fairfield, just big enough for their current employees to begin work. A month later, Junji asked me to come out and show their execs around a place he had found for them in a town next to Fairfield named Lincoln Park. I suggested that he could do it alone and keep all the commission, but he insisted I come. On the way to their office, Junji and I were alone in the car. He told me that their execs really loved this building. I asked him how far it was from the Passaic River.

“Oh, not very far,” he said, as if that would make it conve­nient for some reason of transportation or scenery.

“Is it wet?”

“What do you mean, wet?”

“I mean, when the river floods, does the building flood?”

Junji was astonished, “You mean that river floods?”

“Yeah, flood, you know, lots of water, uh, kouzui, like Noah’s Ark.”

“Uh. Oh.”

“Junji, I told you Lincoln Park was a flood zone. Every five years or so they have pictures in the newspaper of people rowing boats to get home.”

“Really?”

“Some of the houses get com­pletely covered by water. Oh well, let’s hope this particular building is dry.”

We collected Frank and his boss and drove them down there. Upon seeing the driveway, my worst fears were confirmed. It looked to be about three feet above the water line. If I told them, I’d blow the deal.

But was I obliged to tell them? Didn’t I show them three perfectly good properties? Didn’t they turn them all down based on the flimsiest premise? If they really did consult an uranai-shi, a fortuneteller, let him be responsible. If they were merely looking for a cheaper deal, well, they had found one. My con­science was satis­fied. I had tried.

We rented it to them without a hitch.