A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (59 page)

Yet even in those days, it was apparent that the Japanese were quite innovative. Their mechanical toys may not have been durable, but they were ingenious. A propeller-driven toy plane would fly round and round, suspended by a cord. I remember seeing a bamboo blade with a spiral launcher that could fly through the air. The Japanese also made toy pop-guns and balsa wood planes which actually flew. The ingenuity of these toys was rooted in the technological creativity and innovation which was the basis for Japan’s postwar emergence as a great industrial giant. Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda Motor Co. Ltd., was not a trained engineer but an ordinary bicycle mechanic, yet he developed an entirely new kind of engine for small motorcycles. When he first exhibited it in the UK, British engineers were quite astounded as the engine was finely engineered and resembled a watch mechanism. When Honda started to produce small cars, the British had a good laugh. Now, they said, the Japanese would know that making cars was not like making motorcycles. But in the end it was the Japanese who had the last laugh.

The sudden Japanese defeat of the British army proved that the Europeans were not the only ones with the capacity to produce guns, motor vehicles and even aircraft. The war broke the spell that the White Man had over me. I had not thought that an Asian country could ever defeat the Europeans. At that time I had not yet heard of the Japanese naval victory against Russia in 1904 at Port Arthur in Southern Manchuria. The retreat of the British forces in front of my eyes shocked me, but such was my faith in the White Man that I did not think what I was witnessing was the total defeat of the British—the beginning of the end of the Empire and imperial domination. I believed they would soon come back. My experience with inferior Japanese goods, no matter how ingenious they may have been, did not conjure images of a resurgent Japan setting new standards for the whole world.

Looking East did not mean simply looking at Japan and South Korea’s capacity for manufacturing, but rather what lay beneath their success. What were the social and cultural foundations of their newfound strength and competitiveness? One factor, clearly, was their work ethic, which consisted of working very hard and taking pride in their products. They were also very nationalistic. Among the practices that we could learn from the Japanese, I also thought, was how they organised their companies. They had their 
zaibatsu
, huge Japanese conglomerates that were set up long before other people began talking about conglomerates. The 
zaibatsu
 usually included a bank, which would finance the rest of the conglomerate. The bank officers sat on the boards and were involved in the running of the corporation’s various businesses. This close involvement is no longer permitted, but the practice served Japan well while it lasted because it provided an internal source of funds for use in rebuilding the huge pre-war industries. I was also struck by Japan’s approach to technological acquisition: first copying, then modifying and improving technology to meet new needs as they went along, and eventually developing original technologies and products of their own.

More than just a willingness to make sacrifices, Japanese workers displayed other qualities that were well worth emulating. Generally, the Japanese are so thorough and meticulous that one wonders why Japanese goods were so inferior in the past. Perhaps it took them time to apply their traditional meticulousness to modern industrial activities and processes. Whatever the reason, these days the Japanese abhor poor quality. They have integrated into their culture an insistence on the importance of creating and producing the best products. These do not just involve modern electronic devices; even when working with bamboo they produce superior quality goods, products of great aesthetic style, precision, taste and appeal.

For example, they slice bamboo into very fine pliable strands and then weave them delicately into baskets or containers of all shapes which can withstand rough handling. The bamboo sets used for their tea ceremony reflect their attention to minute details. The shape of the stirrer, for example, is retained even after repeated use. They give this same attention to their industrial products. Everything fits precisely, with the narrowest possible gaps between the parts. No wonder those British engineers with their conventional outlook and standards saw the precision of Honda’s motorcycle engines as more appropriate to watch-making than automotive engines. It was the same with all Japanese products and was not unique to one person or industry. This was a deep, pervasive and fundamentally cultural attitude—the core, so it seems, of an entire value-orientation.

I was able to convince most of the Cabinet members that a Look East Policy would be good for Malaysia, but there were some who were not fully convinced. The Deputy Prime Minister at the time, Tun Musa Hitam, did not care much for the policy. But when you are the Prime Minister, you have a lot of clout and the capacity to use it. As Deputy Prime Minister in Tun Hussein’s Cabinet I found that my ideas were not usually entertained but now, it was mine to decide. Though he was entitled to his view and to argue for it in Cabinet, ultimately Tun Musa’s lukewarm support did not affect the policy.

Before long the policy took hold. We used to send all our students to Europe—to Britain in particular—but now the Civil Service devised programmes to send them to Japan and Korea and provided tuition to overcome the language difficulties. Some of our local firms also sent their workers for work experience in Japanese factories and to acquire their superior work ethic. Proton sent a large number of workers and factory managers to work in Mitsubishi factories.

The moment the Japanese Government heard about our Look East Policy, they responded by offering our students places in their universities, and scholarships. The war was only recently over, memories were still fresh, and sentiment against the Japanese was still present among many Malaysians. So when I said that Malaysia should “look east”, I suspect Japan felt some relief that the Malaysian Government did not display the animosity it may have expected. To demonstrate my belief in the Look East Policy and in the spirit of leadership by example, I sent my son Mukhriz to study there, although I insisted that he should not be given a government scholarship. In the 1980s my son-in-law joined a Japanese firm, and he and my daughter lived and worked in Japan and learnt to speak Japanese fluently. Looking East was not just a theoretical stance or public policy on my part. I practised it and my family lived it.

I wrote earlier about how central the concept of shame is in Japanese culture. A people with such intense feelings about failure will do anything to avoid it. Like military defeat, failing in business or being branded producers of poor quality goods also creates a sense of shame. This is a deep, perhaps unique, anthropological feature of Japanese culture and character. Japanese employees, it is said, are reluctant to go home early as this may give their neighbours the impression that they are not being given enough work, or are not highly valued by their companies. A wife would be highly embarrassed to have such a husband.

The Japanese sense of shame is quite distinct in that it differs from what is common elsewhere in the world. They freely bathe naked in their communal pools of water from hot springs. Whole families do this together quite unabashedly. Whether this lack of shyness or shame in exposing one’s body is admirable or not, I cannot say, but I do not think we need to copy this aspect of Japanese culture in order to achieve their level of success. For the Malays nothing is more shameful than being seen naked. But producing poor quality products is not regarded as shameful.

The Japanese outlook on life is amazing to behold and can be discerned in many activities, large and small. Their perfectionism is perceptible even, perhaps especially, in their cooking. I like tempura, a Japanese dish of prawns, fish and all kinds of vegetables, dipped in very light batter and deep fried. It is eaten with soya sauce and ground radish, or fine salt.

Eating tempura is even more enjoyable when you sit at a tempura counter watching the cook at work. What fascinates me is how he goes about the process of cooking. He is never still. He shells the prawns, straightens them and arranges them side by side neatly in a plastic container or plate. He trims the different kinds of vegetables, cleans them, cuts them carefully to uniform lengths and lays them down in a row on another plate. Then he prepares all the other items for frying, and arranges them methodically.

Next he cleans the part of the counter he used until it is bright and shiny, with not a scrap of waste or dust visible. The deep frying pan is cleaned and polished. The batter is carefully mixed with perfectly measured amounts of flour and water, and the gas fire is turned on to give the right temperature. He then arranges the plates in front of the diners and places pieces of absorbent paper on each one.

The frying is precise—the batter must be a light golden colour. When done, he picks up the fritters with a pair of long chopsticks and drains the excess oil. Then he places them neatly on the absorbent paper on the plates in front of the diners. Next to each plate is a small cup-like vessel for the tail of the prawn to be deposited. The prawn heads that were laid aside before the frying are then dropped into the batter, picked up carefully and fried. When they are done, he picks them up one by one, placing one on each plate.

This is the joy of eating tempura—such a simple dish becomes so much more appetising because the cooking is done so meticulously, so tantalisingly before you. And the hefty bill is paid without demur. The Japanese have developed the cooking of food in front of the customer to a fine art, part cuisine and part entertainment.

I relate this because the Japanese tempura cook exemplifies the Japanese attitude towards work. There is always something to be done and they are never idle. The gleaming stainless steel kitchen and cooking utensils are washed and wiped after each use, so that they shine and appear not to have been used at all. Everything in the kitchen is arranged neatly. Waste is removed from sight immediately and the plates and absorbent paper are changed before they get unsightly. The cook greets his customers politely. When he has finished, everything on the table is tidied up and rendered spic and span once more. Then, with a polite bow, he takes his leave before going to serve other customers. When this fine approach to work is applied to the production of industrial goods, the results are no less appealing and are equally precise.

I believed that if Malaysian workers could be made to develop that Japanese work culture as an integral part of their habits and work routine, their work would yield products of comparable quality. Our people have the capacity and the aptitude, but they also need to have the culture and the right attitude towards their work.

When I appointed a Japanese CEO to Proton, he managed to implant some elements of the Japanese work culture among Proton workers. They would come to work early and form groups to discuss the work they had to do and the targets they should set for themselves for the day. They would begin work right on time. Sure enough, the quality of Proton cars improved considerably. The Japanese CEO turned the company around.

When reconstructing their country after the war, the Japanese Government worked very closely with the private sector. Often, civil servants would join the big Japanese corporations after retirement as senior executives. They would know their successors in the government offices personally and presumably could make easy contact with their former juniors in the civil service. Whether they used this to promote their companies or not, the fact remains that in postwar Japan, during the country’s period of phenomenal economic growth, there was close contact and cooperation between the Government and Japanese corporations.

Competitors in Europe and America were not happy with the success of Japan’s penetration of the international market. Japanese goods were rapidly displacing Western products and international contracts were going to Japanese firms. Looking for some reason to condemn Japan, Western critics singled out the close cooperation between the Japanese Government and their private sector. They applied a derogatory label to this, calling it Japan Incorporated, implying that the country was not observing good business practices, perhaps even implicitly likening Japanese industry to their own notorious organised crime syndicates, the Mafia.

Yet close cooperation between government and private corporations had been common in Europe for centuries. The British and Dutch East India Companies were strongly supported by their respective governments. Even pirates used to get the imprimatur of the Government. And when European companies were hampered overseas by local authorities, their governments never hesitated to invade and even colonise their trading partners to ensure security of supply for their trading companies.

Even today, European corporations get strong support from their governments. Their diplomats often speak well of these companies, and support them during bids for contracts. The pressure that their governments exert to open up targeted countries in the World Trade Organization is another example of their government/private-sector cooperation. Among other things the Western governments are now pressuring the governments of developing countries to open up government procurement to their companies. This is surely an example of government-private sector cooperation. Yet those Western critics maintained that the Japanese Government’s support of the private sector was grossly unfair and unethical. They strongly implied—but only when their competitors resorted to it—that the practice was incompatible with free trade and free competition. I studied Japan Incorporated and its workings to find out why Japan adopted this strategy and why it was condemned by its competitors. I concluded that there was nothing wrong with close government and private-sector cooperation. Private sector activities generate wealth for the country, create jobs, and fill the coffers of the government through taxes. In helping the private sector, the government is helping itself and promoting the economic development of the country. Best of all, while the government need not invest any capital, a percentage of the profit would still accrue to it.