Land of the Rising Mickey
Page 2 of 2

He certainly did spent a lot of money, both OLC's and, yes, much of his own. Despite the fact that he didn't want to be involved in the Urayasu reclamation in the first place, he eventually became single-mindedly dedicated to it's successful completion. That dedication ultimately lead him to sell his own home in order to finance certain expenses which could not be covered by OLC.

Party after party, drink after drink after drink...   In only the first month of negotiations, Takahashi ran up 800,000 yen (nearly 60,000 adjusted and converted U.S. dollars) on his OLC expense account.

Takahashi recalled, "Edo told me that cheap sake was good enough for them. But the fishermen were very choosy. They were hardly satisfied by such cheap stuff. I took them to expensive restaurants quiet often. It was crazy. They drank a lot, I mean A LOT. They didn't drink with little sake cups. They drank like fish, with teacups. It was hard. I got up from my seat in the middle of a party, I told them that I had to make a phone call, but I went to the bathroom to secretly throw up. Then I came back and drank again. I really drank a lot in those days."

At the end of that first month, Takahashi was contacted by the head of OLC's (Keisei Railway's, really) general affairs department. One of the responsibilities of that department was to get Kawasaki's signature on the various executives' expense account reports.

The head of general affairs was stunned, not only by how much Takahashi had run up on his account, but by the fact that nearly all of it had gone to alcohol. He refused to bring the report to Kawasaki and told Takahashi to do it himself.

Takahashi gladly complied. He was hoping this might be his chance... This early on, the only thing he wanted was to get out of OLC. Despite earlier reassurances from Kawasaki that he need not worry about money, Takahashi was hoping that this astronomical figure would upset Kawasaki enough for him to decide that Takahashi wasn't the man for the job.

Instead, Kawasaki signed the report without even looking at the total and said, "That's fine. Do whatever you want to do."

It certainly wasn't the answer Takahashi was looking for, but Kawasaki's attitude helped him to realize just how important he was to the project and how much he was trusted.

• • •

Takahashi had also gained the trust of the fishermen. Now that they felt comfortable enough with OLC and its intentions, they had just one thing on their minds - Money.

"Even though I took the fishermen to nice restaurants and had crazy parties every night, I couldn't make them listen. It was a matter of money. But, what is interesting is each fishermen's cooperative that had a party had 50 people there. If all those people didn't say "yes", even the leading members of the cooperative couldn't change their mind. So, of course, then everyone wasn't in agreement. Then I thought that if I got close to those people, I might be able to change their minds. I decided to persuade them directly", said Takahashi.

His strategy of selling the group leaders on the plan and then personally persuading the stragglers was effective, but it required a lot of work. The consensus at OLC was that negotiations would require two to three years. There were concerns that his method would require more time than that.

Instead, it was just another instance which demonstrated that Takahashi was the right man for the job. He hammered out a deal with the fishermen in only ten months. In March of 1962, a compromise agreement was passed (unanimously, of course) by the fishermen's collectives which called for a partial relinquishing of their fishing rights. In exchange, OLC gave each fisherman 500,000 yen (approx. $40,000) and 100 tsubo (3558 sq.ft.) of land.

Although the deal was for only a portion of the rights, it was an important victory for OLC. It demonstrated that they could work with the fishermen and it put them in a position to begin work on the land reclamation itself.

But the next phase of negotiations were, to say the least, more drawn out and costly. Although numerous other factors (such as a shake-up within OLC and a major dispute between the national and Chiba governments) contributed to the delay, it was eight years before a final agreement was reached with the fishermen...

For Takahashi it meant eight more years of dining bars, persuasion, and drinking... so much drinking that he found himself hospitalized in 1970 with a serious stomach ulcer.

But finally, in 1971, an agreement was reached. The fishermen each received 8,000,000 yen (approx. $640,000) in exchange for a complete abandonment of their fishing rights. With that abandonment a way of life which began as far back as 1000 years ago, came to a legally binding end...

At the same time a new chapter began, one which would circuitously lead to the first Disney park outside of the United States. Urayasu's dark image would be left behind, replaced by the "The Kingdom of Dreams and Magic" and prosperity.

Marc Borrelli

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-- Marc Borrelli

© Marc Borrelli and LaughingPlace.com. All rights reserved

-- Posted July 9, 2001.