• CHAPTER 20 •
I was committed to my goal from Day One, but my experiences with the people of the affected area deepened my commitment. They became a part of my life, and I began to love them just as I do my native countrymen. That affinity drove everything I did from that point on.
As an extreme-crisis leader, it is important to understand how the crisis is affecting real, everyday people. Toward that end, I was fortunate to spend some time in a local bar in Tokyo called Little Texas and speak to real, everyday citizens for the first time. I came to understand what they were feeling, empathize with them over their worries, and truly listen to them across the spectrum. What I realized from the unique experience was that cultures may differ but people are people—and looking them in the eye as you listen with your heart can create genuine kinship. Particularly when you are working in a foreign culture, keep in mind that there is nothing like interacting with regular citizens—really hearing them share their thoughts—for gaining perspective on the specific challenges you face.
There are plenty of things to do in Tokyo, but I was fortunate to have trusted advisors in Suzanne Basella and Matt Fuller, who enthused about the cozy country bar called Little Texas. We’d talked about going several times, but were too busy in those first few weeks to do so.
By the time we felt we could get away for some much-needed R&R, I was exhausted. But Matt, Suzanne, and John Basella coaxed me, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to spend time with them.
A Texas flag at street level clued us in to the small basement dive below. Inside, the place was decorated wall to wall in Austin, Texas, paraphernalia. It was a rowdy room, packed with Japanese people who, inexplicably, seemed to love Texas. A Japanese band was on stage performing American country music. (When attempting to talk with its members between sets, I discovered they didn’t speak a word of English, but were singing phonetically by rote—and they sounded amazing! They informed us that they always close with “America.” They also confessed that they wanted to visit the States—particularly Texas.)
By the time I caught up with my friends, they were already in good spirits. The cost of a bucket of five decent light beers was fifty dollars, and the bar food was pricey, too, but it felt great to relax. A line-dancing teacher named Naomi had people up on the floor, most of them decked out in incredible “cowboy bling.”
When Matt and Suzanne informed people in our vicinity that I lived in Texas, I became the most popular person in the room. Dozens of people came over to the Texas “expert” to thank me, and I wasn’t quite sure whether they were thanking me for being Texan, for being a nuclear expert, or just for being American. Women came over and kissed me on the cheek or bowed politely, as if I were personally responsible for the good things America had done for Japan.
It was my first real-life interaction with non-TEPCO or government people, and it definitely broadened my perspective. The disaster had affected everyone in such a powerful way, and their behavior toward me underscored the genuine appreciation the Japanese seemed to have for anyone willing to come to their aid. It was clear that they didn’t fully trust their own government to handle the crisis and had pinned their hopes on the “professional” help we offered.
Our second visit to Little Texas, a few months later, was decidedly different but just as memorable. At a certain point, I became vaguely aware that the entire bar had begun playing a game of rock-paper-scissors. I began randomly throwing one of the three signs, not particularly worried about whether I was winning but wanting to participate. Suddenly, someone tapped me on the shoulder and told me that I was in the top ten.
At that point, I began paying a bit more attention, but I still wasn’t very invested in the game. After another round or two, the same fellow grabbed me and said, “You’re in the top five. You need to go up on stage and play!” I followed orders and when I got to the stage, four Japanese men were waiting for me—my competition, apparently.
We’d all had a few drinks and Matt and Suzanne were whooping and hollering for me. They were regulars, and Matt was a legend for his dancing. “Chuck, if you don’t win this thing,” he had said to me as I made my way up front, “you can’t come back to the embassy. You know that, right?”
Perhaps it was the beer, but I was feeling pretty confident. The grand prize was a set of longhorns and I was determined to win it. I decided that I would play paper. It sounds a bit crazy now, but I had a logical reason. I figured that the other men—being men—would want to show off their masculinity, and would all choose rock. If I was right, my paper would win the day—and winning seemed a lot more important in that moment than looking like a tough guy.
Just as I predicted, all four Japanese men threw rock, making me the new champion. The crowd went wild and so did I! I held those longhorns over my head in victory, and the applause was deafening.
It was one of the best nights of my life, but I can’t describe exactly why. I was out of my element—the center of attention in a room of screaming Japanese people—but somehow completely at ease. I’d wanted to win, the crowd had wanted me to win, and I hadn’t disappointed them. Looking back, I see it as emblematic of my entire experience in Japan. I was surrounded by people who believed I had a strategy—that I was wise—and they were rooting for me to succeed.
I thought a lot about that night, and it renewed my self-confidence. It may seem a little silly, since the rock-paper-scissors game is largely a game of luck, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have a strategy. It wasn’t a stretch to see my performance in the bar as an example of situational decision-making—exactly what I was being employed to do at the site. I didn’t save any lives that night, but I did acquire an impressive set of longhorns, which I proudly took home at the end of that long, amusing night. Even today, my Facebook profile is a picture of me celebrating the win with those longhorns over my head.
The third time I went to Little Texas with my friends was more heartwarming, if not as exhilarating. Matt had asked Rick Perry, then the governor of Texas, to make the owners of Little Texas honorary citizens of the state, and this was the night they were to receive “citizenship.”
It was a very special ceremony; Matt made several proclamations in Japanese about the unity and affinity of our two countries. Little Texas represented the common bonds that we shared, he said. In that bar, we were one people. When Matt finished, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. It was as if he had expressed in words what all of us had been feeling throughout our experience together.
Each time I heard that Japanese band sing “America,” I saw the emotional impact it had on everyone in the bar. You could tell that the Japanese people understood America, loved it, and felt as though we were connected in a special way. After my nights at Little Texas, I had a pretty good understanding of what the Japanese people were thinking and feeling, including their skepticism toward their own government and TEPCO.
Based on what I learned, I wrote a speech to present at the next Kantei meeting. I wanted to share my experiences and help the Japanese government officials understand a bit more about the attitudes of their own people. I ended my speech with a simple statement: “The Japanese people are counting on our joint leadership to resolve this issue. Together, I believe that we can.”
It seemed that few of the men in that room had experienced “normal” life as I had on my visits to Little Texas. (To be fair, most of them had been spending every waking hour working to resolve the crisis and had had little time for such things.) I wanted to do more than just share what I’d seen in the “real world.” I wanted to encourage the Japanese officials to get out of their offices and meeting rooms and into the communities themselves.
Solving a problem requires multiple perspectives. Hosono understood that, but he was exceptional. Understanding the needs and desires of real people can help to renew your passion for problem-solving and put a human face on large logistical issues.
In my speech, I mentioned how one can get an almost spiritual boost by speaking to those who truly need help. Enthusiasm and drive to resolve a problem are renewed, just as they were for me at Little Texas.
My visits to that basement bar changed my view of the Japanese people as fundamentally like us, with a love for their own country and for ours, and an appreciation for all we were doing to help them. Their deep-seated doubt about their own leaders threatened to spread like a contagion (as it had done in Hungary during the Paks crisis) and needed to be assuaged.
We saw a similar situation in the wake of Chernobyl. I believe that lack of faith in the government contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union: The people lost all confidence that their government could protect them. When that happens, the government’s authority and credibility disappear. We were headed toward that same situation in Japan after Fukushima, if the government didn’t proactively consider the needs of its people.
And don’t think that such a crisis of confidence could never arise in the States. After Hurricane Katrina, many lost confidence in their local and national governments’ ability to help and protect them. Losing a degree of confidence may not always take down a government, but it can certainly destroy the legacy of an administration. In Japan after Fukushima, Prime Minister Kan was the face of the government. He willingly took the fall for the accident and the poor response to it, whether this was justified or not.
As my experiences at Little Texas reminded me, measuring the pulse of the people can reinvigorate your work ethic and passion. Creating a strategy is impossible unless you take the time to understand the players. I came to believe that if government officials took the time to know more about the people they are sworn to serve, their approach would be better tailored to serve them.
When I walked out of Little Texas, I was more driven to work for the Japanese people—to protect them and honor them. I had laughed with them, hugged them, celebrated, and drunk into the wee hours of the morning with them. All of those seemingly insignificant things are important in Japan. They tied us together in a beautiful way.
From the beginning, I’d been committed to helping the Japanese recover, but my experiences with the people of the affected area deepened that commitment. They became a part of my life, and I began to love them just as I do my native countrymen. That affinity drove everything I did from that point on. I felt linked to that nation; they were, in a sense, my people, and that made it easier to help them.