Woody Woodpecker's Animation Celebration
Osaka Japan - 2000

Upon arrival in Osaka, the strangeness of Japan was overwhelming at first. The rabbit warren of streets surrounding my hotel fascinated me. I spent the first night just wandering for hours through the narrow passageways, going into stores and shops that gave no clue on the outside as to what was on the inside. Even though I got many a surprised look from the store employees and customers when the goofy-looking foreigner came in, I later came to learn that the city of Osaka was quite an international city, so foreigners were not that unusual to the locals.

Later on I learned however, that the same was definitly not true anywhere outside of the city.

In little rural towns I was the certainly the main attraction. After I had been there for a few months, I could understand enough Japanese to know that they were constantly talking about the Gaijin ('outside person)' in their midst, everywhere I went.

The crew from MAST...

When I met the Japanese crew at the jobsite for the first time, I discovered, as I had feared, they spoke absolutely no English, and there wouldn't be a translator for some time. The only Japanese I knew was "Ah So". That's was it. Heck, I wasn't even sure how to say "Hello" yet. So I had to figure out how to speak Japanese...and damn quick... along with all the cultural quirks of Japan! It was a bewildering first couple of weeks, but we made steady and rapid progress...

Despite the rather casual dress you see in this picture of the guys, they were the most efficient, talented, organized, hard working bunch of men I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Every day featured either uproarious laughter, a practical joke, or language-induced confusion galore.

Even the management of USJ came around often to find out why we were getting along so well and were so far ahead of schedule compared to all the other Japanese/American work teams installing other attractions.

Other American vendors and Japanese crews were having problems. Some incredibly obnoxious American supervisors thought they knew everything and demanded that it be done their way, while the proud Japanese crews had their own ways of doing things, and dug in their heels in protest. There were ill feelings at many of the attractions, with near mutinies at some.

I thought the problem was that many of the "supervisors" who came to Japan were often the suit-wearing upper management types, or even the company owner, taking this plum assignment for themselves, but it was painfully obvious that they had almost no knowledge of how to get along with the "working man". In their little domains back in the states, they were "King", and they thought that their every utterance was divine truth, to be obeyed instantly by the workers. Well, that just didn't fly with these guys at all. I don't blame the Japanese at all for telling those obese American supervisors to get stuffed. I would have felt the same way if the situation were reversed.

However, this type of problem did not occur with our project. I wouldn't let it. It was mutual love, honor and respect between us from the get-go.

But I will admit this...

Initially, I thought that I was really going to show them "how it was done in Hollywood". You know, show them "the right way" to do things.

HA! Man, did I ever get my ass handed to me in a hurry! They blew my theory right out of the water. Their skill level and near instantaneous comprehension of complex tasks was something to behold. They put the average Hollywood technician to shame. These guys were not the average Japanese "Joe-san Six Pack", but were the cream of the crop amongst their peers. After the first week I could only sit back and watch in amazement as they would do things with simple hand saws and planes that I could only imagine doing with power tools..and they would do it twice as fast and better!

© 1986 - 2010 Steve Turnbull
last updated September 19, 2024