Shoshaman: A Tale of Corporate Japan (Voices from Asia) [Paperback]

Shinya Arai (Author), Chieko Mulhern (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 18, 1991 | Series: Voices from Asia (Book 3)

Acknowledging no god but the corporate good, the shoshamen--high-powered professionals within Japan's integrated trading companies--serve as the unrelenting cogs of an economic machine. Or do they?
Shoshaman takes us inside the world of Japan Inc. to explore the daily lives of the people who inhabit it. Written by a senior executive in a major sogo shosha, this absorbing novel reveals, as no textbook can, the strategies required to win the race to the top. It also makes painfully clear the ethical and psychological choices that such a race demands. The cast of characters is as varied as the corporate world itself, from the devoted Ojima, who has been passed over by the company, to the spirited Masako, who strikes out on her own. The hero, Nakasato Michio, finds that the road to success is long and perilous, as he tries to satisfy his ambitions while remaining faithful to his values.
First published as Kigyoka sarariman in 1986 and made into a prize-winning television miniseries in 1988, the book has been acclaimed in Japan for the verisimilitude of its characters and situations. It offers a clear understanding of what it is like--in human terms--to survive and perhaps succeed within the confines of the Japanese corporation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This novel by a Japanese business executive studies the soul of the shoshaman (salaryman) and the Japanese corporate milieu. Nakasato Michio is a top manager at Nissei, a huge Japanese corporation, when he suffers a mid-life crisis and begins to reexamine his values. Nakasato encounters Hozumi Masako, a woman he had been in love with 15 years earlier, and is stunned to find that she had borne his child. Hozumi has made her youthful dreams a reality as a successful entrepreneur, while Nakasato feels he has wasted his promise and turned into what he had dreaded, an unimaginative shoshaman whose only world is the company. Although the characters are well drawn, the dialogue at times is stilted and formal. Here is a sample of Nakasato and Hozumi's pillow talk: "When you first told me about your plan to remodel the supermarket meat-packing room into a modern food-processing plant, I thought it was a truly wonderful idea."p. 82 While the business novel is a popular genre in Japan, in this country Shoshaman will primarily interest readers who want to understand the Japanese corporate mentality.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Language Notes

Text: English
Original Language: Japanese --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (April 18, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520071425
• ISBN-13: 978-0520071421
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #411,935 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Shows subtle Japanese behavior, April 27, 2009

By 

D. Stevenson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Shoshaman: A Tale of Corporate Japan (Voices from Asia) (Paperback)

Shosha Man shows the subtle ways the Japanese culture works. So much of the culture is reading between the lines, and this book really shows
the honne and tatemae (the inner and outer self) of the Japanese salaryman.
It lets the reader feel the unsaid between boss, employee, coworkers, and lovers, and shows how the different status levels come into play. I recommend this book for anyone who knows some of Japanese culture and wants to explore deeper.

4.0 out of 5 stars A depiction of the struggle between Entrepreneur & Salaryman, September 5, 2000

By 

Andy Orrock (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Shoshaman: A Tale of Corporate Japan (Voices from Asia) (Paperback)

I read this 'Japanese corporate novel' nine years ago, and it has sat on my shelves since that time...I've not thrown it away because I was so smitten by it.

The translation - despite the threat of dull subject matter - it lively and fresh. And despite the changes in the Japanese situation over the last decade (remember when we thought Japanese global economic domination was an inevitability?), the applicability of the novel remains fully in force today. It gets to the heart of every Japanese 'salaryman' & their internal struggle with their acceptance of that lifestyle vs. their deeply internalized entrepreneurial yearnings.

The breakthrough achieved by the book's protagonist, Nakasato, and the misery that befalls his one-time officemate Ojima, might seem mundane on the surface, but surely strike the average Japanese worker like a tremendous blow to the chest.

Really top-notch stuff and far better than any dry non-fiction, treatise in delivering insight into the Japanese business mind.