Orange County may be 5,500 miles from Japan, but it couldn’t be closer to home for the many Japanese executives stationed here.
As Japan’s biggest companies have set up and expanded in OC over the years, so too have executives and other workers from Japan. Orange County’s relatively low crime rate, good schools and orderly cities have made the area a second home for Japanese here. Many have taken to Irvine, which some even have gone as far as to dub Nihon-jin no gaijin-mura, or a “Japanese village.”
Some 5,000 Japanese nationals live in Irvine, estimates Lisa Kitagawa, an Irvine-based lawyer with more than 100 Japanese corporate clients. Irvine’s strong schools, neat streets and carefully etched business districts are selling points for Japanese companies and executives, she said. But it’s not just Irvine. Japanese companies and executives dot OC, from Cypress and Buena Park in the north to Santa Ana, Costa Mesa and on down to South County. While many Japanese executives sent here didn’t have much say in the matter, they give the place high marks. “The atmosphere in Orange County is great,” said Takashi “Tachi” Kiuchi, general manager of global communications at Mitsubishi Electric Corp., who spent nine years at the company’s Cypress unit up until 1997. He regularly visits OC, which he still calls his “home.” “People are friendly and are always receptive to whatever we try to do,” Kiuchi said of OC. “You guys are very nice to us.”
Part of the reason Japanese executives feel at home in OC is because of Southern California’s large Japanese-American population. U.S. Census figures and estimates put the number of Japanese-Americans and expatriates at more than 200,000 in Los Angeles and OC. The region is home to scores of Japanese restaurants, shops and even the Little Tokyo district of Los Angeles,all of which smooth the transition for Japanese expatriates by providing familiar settings for socializing. Japanese executives “love to come here for international experience, but of course they still enjoy being with one another, and not necessarily just in a business setting,” said Dale Kemp, senior vice president and chief financial officer with Irvine-based MBK Real Estate Ltd., which is owned by Tokyo-based Mitsui & Co. “They like to socialize and gather together on weekends.” Takahide Kaneko, president and chief executive of Ricoh Electronics Inc. in Tustin, said he feels more at home in OC than other parts of the U.S. On a visit to Ricoh’s toner production facility outside Atlanta in Gwinnett County, Ga., he said he found the area “country-like” compared with OC and experienced a higher dose of culture shock than he did here.
And then there’s Orange County’s relatively low crime rate. For Japanese executives unaccustomed to the level of violence in Los Angeles and other big U.S. cities, OC is a haven. While close enough to Los Angeles for practical purposes, the streets are a lot safer.
“After the LA riots, we were very scared,” said Kazuhiro Shinohara, manager at Hitachi Computer Products (America) Inc.’s Open Systems Solutions Center, which moved from Torrance to Irvine in 1995. “So we decided to move here.” Officials from Red-White Valve Corp., a maker of water and other types of valves owned by Mitsui & Co. and Tokyo-based Toyo Valve Co., cited security concerns as a major reason for shifting their U.S. office from Carson to Lake Forest back in 1990. “The crime rate is very nice,” said Gen Inomata, president of Tokyo-based Fancl International Inc.’s U.S. office in Irvine. The company, which sells a line of all-natural Japanese cosmetics, started operating here in 1997. Most of its customers are wives of Japanese expatriates working for companies such as Toshiba Corp. in Irvine or Mitsubishi Electric Corp. in Cypress. The well-planned business parks of Irvine and Cypress afford a sense of order, safety and comfort for Japanese executives. That’s in line with Japanese traditions that emphasize maximizing “comfort” and minimizing “chaos” through meticulous planning and attention to detail. “They have a high appreciation for the neatness and orderliness that Irvine provides as a model Southern California city,” MBK’s Kemp said. Irvine is home to Toshiba America Inc., Canon USA Inc., Mazda North American Operations, Asian noodle maker Maruchan Inc. and others.
Like Irvine, Cypress has attracted many Japanese companies, including some that have shifted operations from the South Bay area of Los Angeles into OC. Cypress initially had the advantage of more open space than neighboring cities in Los Angeles County. And Cypress also offers the type of the solid planning that Japanese companies look for when deciding where to set up shop.
“The Cypress Business Park was comprehensively planned,” said Alice Angus, Cypress community development director. “There was some known quality as to what types of development would go in, the types of uses, the quality of the structures and the landscaping. The fact that there was a master plan for this large area made it more appealing.” Cypress counts Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Corp., Fuji Photo Film Co. and Yamaha Motor Corp. USA, among others. Of course, geography’s played a big role in OC’s development as a hub for Japanese companies. OC is three time zones closer to Japan than New York or Detroit, and about five hours closer by air than the East Coast. Southern California also offers a more direct shipping route from Asia. A late afternoon or evening call allows for live conversation during Japan’s normal business hours. Ricoh’s Kaneko said he likes OC’s easy-to-navigate freeway network and its location near the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles as well as Los Angeles International Airport. The county’s easy access to Silicon Valley and San Diego are selling points, he said. Orange County also offers proximity to Tijuana and other Mexican border cities where many Japanese computer and consumer electronics makers have production plants serving the U.S. market.
And Japanese companies here are at the heart of Southern California,a huge test market for new products and trends. California is a place where many automotive trends start, particularly for crossover vehicles, according to Kim Custer, director of public affairs at Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America Inc. in Cypress. The region was the first place in North America to popularize the compact car in the 1980s and, more recently, sport utility vehicles. Southern California’s track record of setting fashion trends led Fancl Cosmetics to use the region for market research before undertaking any deeper incursions into the U.S. market, according to the company’s Inomata. n
Yoko Ito-Peterson contributed to this article.
