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joemaamah said:

It's kind of off topic for the forum discussion, but there's a story behind 'hentai' and the Japanese engineers. I was subcontracting on a job the Japanese company IHI had for a pressline that stamped out body panels for Ford F150 pick up trucks. The Japanese sent over a team of young guys to write the automation software for the machinery. IHI hired me and a few other Americans to do the user interface software, since they had no experience working with Ford specifications.

One day I had a deadline. I was staying late and had to use the restroom. The IHI guys all worked together in a huge conference room, and I am sure they thought everyone else was gone. As I walked by the room, there were like 8-10 guys all gathered around a magazine on the table. It was a girlie magazine, not porn, about like a Victoria Secrets lingerie catalog.

I didn't say anything at first, but on my way back from the restroom, they were still ooohhing and awwwwing and drooling on the table. I really don't know why, but as I walked past I shouted out "HENTAI!" They all jumped, and I think a few of the shit themselves LOL.

The next morning, one of them, a guy named Jun who I became friends with, came up to me and asked me how I knew that word. I told him I was an anime fan. This was the mid '90s, and apparently it was incomprehensible that a gaijin knew anything about that!

Anyway, from that point I became the "good gaijin." If the IHI guys needed anything they came to me first. I was welcomed enough into their circle that when the mail brought in the weekly Shonen Jump from Tokyo, I was invited to the communal reading and Jun did his best to translate for me. Good times.

Building those relationships were cool and profitable, too. The pressline had an unloading robot that needed controls, machine interfacing and a user interface. IHI hired me to do it ho-bid, just straight by the hour billing. It really turned out well. The IHI guys were amazed by it. It got my foot in the door with Ford staff engineering for future projects. It was something I became quite proud of as my career rolled on. I wonder if they're still using it or not?

So that's the hentai story. LOL