"Awful"

Wildly exciting to Japanese is each fresh leap by their industry in its hop-skip-&-skid race to overtake the West. Last week a full page advertisement in the latest copy of Japan Trade shrieked: DOUBLE STAR Long-Waited-For Thing Par Excellence ADVENT OF PATENT-LEATHER SHOES!!! The unsurpassed shoes newly born! ASAHI RUBBER WORKS

Clarioned the editors of Japan Trade: "NOTICE!!! The Japan Trade is a journal devoted to introducing Japan's status quo in every respect. . . . The recent development of Japan's industries is looked upon by the world as almost phenomenal. . . . This is why we have this time established, in our office, this sort of machinery under the style of the Trade Mediation Department. ... If interested in the trade with Japan, you are solicited." Advertised products include apparently exact Japanese copies of Eastman Kodaks, Thermos Bottles, Mazda Lamps. But Osaka's ingenious K. Mori & Co. have thought of something smarter than just aping a Waterman Pen. Proudly their advertisement touts

"Awful" Brand Fountain Pens

What the buyer wants, K. Mori & Co. feel, is a fountain pen so good that it will inspire awe. Even Japan's Imperial House is now being dragged into industrial promotion, though as yet His Majesty the Son of Heaven is sacrosanct. Latest pictures show the Divine Emperor's popular brother Prince Chichibu seated grinning in a Datsun (see cut). Screams a recent Datsun advertisement: "FIRST NO LAST." This peculiar sales argument is stated more fully thus: FIRST Motor Car Produced in Japan In Performance and Quality In Public Favor

In Economical Driving In Service

NO License Required Garage Worry

LAST In Price In Cost In Tax

Datsuns compete in Far East markets with the English Baby Austin, English or French Baby Ford and Italian Fiat Balilla. Datsuns, produced by the mighty House of Mitsubishi--second only to Japan's reigning commercial House of Mitsui--were something of a joke until a few months ago. Production then was less than 125 per month. Today Mitsubishi have invested $1,000,000 in brand new U. S. machinery, stepped production up to 500 cars per month. In Australia white salesmen moan as white prospects now buy from yellowmen 50 Datsuns per month, despite years of intensive Australian propaganda against the "Yellow Peril."

In Datsun advertisements the happy passengers are whites, even when the entire text is in Japanese. Prices f.o.b. Yokohama: Roadster, Yen 1,775 ($514.75); Phaeton, Yen 1,850 ($536.50) ; Sedan, Yen 1,975 ($572.75).* Advertised mileage: 50 per gallon. Speed: 45 m.p.h. Rueful Manhattan executives of Mitsubishi admit that there is not a single Datsun in North America (Chile has many), offer eagerly to supply a sedan (considered their swankiest model) for $660 at Mitsubishi Co. Ltd., No. 120 Broadway.

Most irresistible of Datsun sales arguments in Japan is the extreme difficulty of getting a driver's license. Residents of Japan, even though they may hold licenses in other countries and may be expert drivers, find themselves floored time and again by Japanese license examiners. With effusive courtesy the examiner asks the license candidate to explain the difference between poppet valves and sleeve valves, stating the merits and defects of each. Or to a would-be lady driver is put such a question as: "Exactly how does a differential work?" Six or seven tries--and as many failures--to get a Japanese driving license carry no stigma of dumbness among Tokyo socialites. The thing to do is either to bribe the examiner (dangerous) or buy a Datsun--for the driver of a Datsun needs, under Japanese law, no license.

*Delivered price of a Ford sedan in Tokyo: $1,100.

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