Japanese

"In late March 1943, we set out from Shanghai. At the time of departure we only knew the general route; as for how long the whole journey would take, what means of transportation we would use, and where we would stay along the way, we had only incomplete and uncertain information that my father had inquired about. The first leg of the trip was the most reliable: taking a train to Nanjing, then transferring to a train to Xuzhou. Xuzhou was in Japanese hands at that time, but it was already very close to the front line where the Chinese and Japanese forces were fighting. After passing Xuzhou, the goal was Luoyang. Luoyang was in Chinese hands, so from Xuzhou to Luoyang we had to cross the battle line."

"This is how the Japanese conquered the US car market in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Remember that the Japanese invasion enjoyed only limited success until the twin oil shocks of the 1970s. As a result of the quadrupling of gasoline prices, many people bought Japanese, expecting to get very good gas mileage, which they did. If this had been all, in other words, if the Japanese had only met their expectations, we would have predicted that once gas prices subsided, people would go back to Detroit iron."