• U.S.

Business: New York City’s Overtime Tribe

3 minute read
TIME

THE nighttime population of Manhattan office buildings consists largely of porters, cleaning women—and Japanese. At 5 p.m., executives of roughly 400 Japanese company branches in New York say good night to their Americanoffice neighbors. For a while after that they busy themselves with desk workor go out to dinner. Then, at 8 p.m. they start an important part of theirjob: the long nightly round of Teletype consultations with headquarters in Tokyo, where the clocks read 9 a.m. and it is the next day. Small wonder that the folks back at the home offices call their 3,900 business representatives in New York chokazoku—or “the overtime tribe.”

They are the elite among the front-line troops of Japan’s export drive. For Japanese, New York is a prize foreign assignment because it is the corporate capital of the U.S. Besides, the skyscrapers, neon lights, choking traffic and pollution make it seem almost like home. “Tokyo cannot find a city nearer to it than York,” says Norio Ochi, director of the Japan Trade Center inManhattan. The average tour of duty is three years, and all but top executives must leave their wives and families in Japan for at least the first six months.

Every Japanese businessman overseas is partly an economic intelligence agent who is expected to pick up all the news about new products, processes and practices. The Japanese in New York are avid readers and clippers of U.S. newspapers, newsmagazines and Government publications. One favorite: Commerce Business Daily, which lists Government contract awards and subcontracting leads. Fairly typically, Shinichi Uozumi, president of Dentsu Corp. of America, a branch of Japan’s largest ad agency, gets up at 5 a.m. so that he can read for two hours before setting out on foot for his office.

Westerners who deal with the Japanese are struck by their practice of making business calls in groups. The Japanese come so well prepared for conferences that some Americans believe that they have rehearsed their speaking parts, like actors in a play. On almost all occasions, the Japanese courteously but firmly steer the conversation to commerce. They are patient and persistent bargainers. Even on a golf course, overseas Japanese businessmen occasionally jot down notes of a conversation between putts.

The chokazoku tend to be clannish. Two-thirds of them reside in Queens, many in the Flushing neighborhood. About 150 bachelors have crowded into a building on Manhattan’s West 103rd Street, where they rent rooms for $6 a day. For relaxation, the Japanese gather in the Nippon Club, which is across the street from Carnegie Hall, or in East Side piano bars for a drinking bout to let off tension. On Sundays, those who do not play golf with American business contacts play golf with each other, jabbering happily about business in Japanese. Says one of the chokazoku: “All week long, we kill ourselves speaking English. At least on Sunday, we want to speak our native tongue to our heart’s content.”

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com