When Tokyo's Fuji Bank placed an advertisement in the U.S. edition of TIME early this year, it became the first Japanese concern to do so since 1937. The event was solid evidence of the large strides toward commercial and industrial recovery now being made in Japan. It was also a tribute to the efforts of Robert H. Garey, Pacific publishing manager for TIME-LIFE International, and Harold Yoshiomi Hirata, TIME'S Tokyo advertising salesman, who have long been urging Japanese businessmen to seek world markets for their products.

Though the Fuji Bank is the first to offer its services to readers on the U.S. mainland, TIME'S Pacific edition last year carried advertisements from 42 other Japanese concerns, whose products range from chemical fertilizers to sewing machines, photographic equipment, steel tubing and surgical instruments. Like most U.S. advertising salesmen, Hirata is often called on by his clients for a wide assortment of advice. They ask about everything from export methods and the use of English terms to the problem of how to reach the proper market for their products. In providing the answers, Hirata finds that his broad background in both the U.S. and Japan stands him in good stead.

Hirata first came to the U.S. mainland in 1929 to attend the University of Michigan, where he was flyweight and bantamweight boxing champion and 118-lb. wrestling champion. After his graduation in 1933, he went to Princeton University for his master's degree in politics, then studied law for a year at the University of Chicago. In 1935 he joined an international law office in Tokyo and a year later transferred to the Nippon Electric Co., where he worked in the law and documents department.

Hirata was in Hawaii in 1941 when he received a cable from Nippon Electric saying that his services were urgently needed in Tokyo. He set out for

Japan again in a ship which turned out

to be the last vessel to leave Hawaii for

Japan before the outbreak of hostilities

on Dec. 7. Hirata spent the war years

working for Nippon Electric and also

acting as a custodian for the Japanese property of

several U.S. companies. In December 1945, he joined

TIME'S Tokyo bureau as a news researcher. Later he switched over to the busi ness office and eventually became TIME'S first Tokyo advertising salesman.

In the early years of Japan's re-introduction to democracy, Hirata and Garey found a few old customs difficult to deal with. Although many Japanese businessmen were eager to resume their prewar world trade, most Japanese firms budgeted only a nominal amount for advertising and often treated this simply as a good-will fund. An advertising salesman would be politely received by a minor official, and, with typical courtesy, would be given a small ad or a modest fee, known as ashi dai (taxi fare or, more literally, feet fee).

At one stage in their efforts to reach top officials in Japanese firms, Garey and Hirata found themselves being occasionally shunted off to a somu-bucho (general affairs manager), who usually makes no major decisions but is entrusted with the responsibility of keeping anyone from approaching the president. Hirata recalls the time when the somu-bucho of one company ushered him politely into his office, then, while Hirata talked to him, quietly fell asleep.

Today Japan is far from asleep in recognizing its potentialities as a bustling democracy in the Pacific. Cordially yours, James A Linen

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