PSU Magazine Summer 1989

Akiyama Aiseikan Co. , founded in 1891, is an old, traditional Japanese company. Having an exuberant American rotate through their departments required some cultural readjustment for them all. Unbeknownst to Irwin, once he j oined a department word would circulate that it was now experiencing the "Randy ef feet," an uncharacteristic rise in com– munication prompted by Irwin 5· constant unjapanese- like questioning. 7he Cooperative &lucation Program sent three new students to Japan this May, with a fourth leaving in August, and a senior executive from Akiyama Aiseikan Co. is spending three months at Kaiser Health Research in Portland. The success of the program owes much to Irwin 's initial exchange. His flexibility, openness, and sense of humor were essential. But let him tell it for himself. By Randal ln vin S he pulled the gown on right over my suit, tied it in the back, slipped the plastic bonnet onto my head, and tied on a mask. Seconds later I was standing at the feet of an unconscious body. I was spending the day with the people at Akiyama Aiseikan's North Sapporo business office, when it was decided that I should meet some of the doctors at a hospital which they counted among thei r cl ients. And doctors perfo rm surgery. One of the nicest things about being thought of as a guest in Japan was that people were always showing me things. I had al ready gone on the road with the animal medicine department's regional representative and seen champion horses, prize-winning pigs and blue-ribbon cattle (some of which were experimentally im– planted with embryos removed from cows in Honshuu , transferred to the wombs of rabbits and fl own to Hokkaido) . I had visited branch or business offices where the management proudly showed off the newly remodeled store room or the soph isticated alarm system or, lacking anything new or technically intriguing, they would impress me with the best Exchange student Randal Irwin spent each morning at this desk while working for Akiyama Aiseikan Co., a pharmaceutical distributing company in Sapporo, Japan. English speaker in the office or introduce me to the best singer or pachinko player among the employees. But today I stood in an operating room that felt more like a converted garage. The fl oor was cement , the wal ls weren't white, and the impression was strengthened by the presence of a garage door for am– bulance deliveries. It was a sweltering August day made worse by the surgical outfit I wore over my suit , the giant lunch I had just con– sumed , and the lack of air conditioning in the hospital . When they opened up the patient , I felt the color drain not only from my face but from my enti re body, and all digestive activity went immediately into reverse. Having promised myself to watch from beginning to end , I blurred my vision so as to appear to be watching intently while actually not seeing anything until I re– gained my composure. The man was 73-years-old and had a fist sized cancer growing on his pan– creas... this I learned when one of the doctors reached just below the edge of the rib cage, pulled out a fleshy looking organ and , waving it slightly, said in perfect English, "This is the pancreas and this is the cancer." The other doctor nodded in agreement. I attempted a smile through my sweat- drenched surgical mask. The doctors disappeared as soon as the operation was completed . The woman who dressed me two and a half hours before helped me out of my sterile garments and I was lead to one of the do~tor's private office. I waited with a man from the Aiseikan office for the surgeon who had chatted with me about Portland , the weather, my scholastic background and my impressions of Japan while deftly remov– ing a portion of someone's insides. He never came, but eventual ly a nurse took us to another room in the hospital where he and many others were preparing for a lesson. It was a small room dominated by a large oval table. There was a cabinet in one comer from which some of the men retrieved their supplies bundled and tied in fabric. While I was introduced to the long-haired man whom they all called sensei, the men were untying their bundles, wetting their brushes and ink stones, and spreading their papers, weighting one end with slender stone slabs. These men, doctors, interns, salesmen, company reps, and neighborhood scholars, met twice weekly at the hospital to study Japanese calligraphy, the difficult yet (ac– cording to the members of the class) relaxing art of drawing the Chinese characters used in written Japanese. PSU 11