[/floatr]Letter to the Financial Times From Mr. Takashi Ito:
Sweetening the taste of global capital
Sir, You hit the nail on the head when you said that Warren Lichtenstein of Steel Partners should have said he loved the taste of Bulldog sauce or Sapporo beer. Only a week ago, on June 8, the NHK education channel aired an episode of its popular cartoon Oden-kun. The story (hard to believe that this is aimed at small children) was about a foreigner trying to buy out a little oden stall (oden is a tasteless to the uninitiated Japanese roadside food) for big bucks, à la Steel partners. All are outraged when they find the foreigner dislikes Japanese food and has never eaten an oden. But there is a happy ending: the foreigner eats the oden for first time (after bullying the poor owner into agreeing that he will sell the stall if the foreigner eats an oden), and is overwhelmed by its deliciousness. With tears in his eyes he declares he could never take away this business, and leaves for ever in his stretch limo. The Japanese are no doubt in trauma over the way the world is going since cross-shareholdings were unwound. Not just in the boadrooms, but in playgrounds too.
