How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Joy. If all business days were like this ... but it was more than business, the success of his store. It was a chance to meet a young Japanese couple socially, on a basis of acceptance of him as a man rather than him as a yank or, at best, a tradesman who sold art objects. Yes, these new young people, of the rising generation, who did not remember the days before the war or even the war itself—they were the hope of the world. Place difference did not have the significance for them. (1.33)
It's kind of hilarious to have Childan thinking about it this way. Here's a guy who tends to stereotype the Japanese, and here he is wanting to be treated as an individual, not a member of the "yank" group. He even expresses a hope that there might be some future social unity among them all. This feeling doesn't survive Chapter 7.
Quote #2
With a large folder of bills-of-lading under his arm, Mr. Ramsey appeared. Young, smiling, he advanced, wearing the natty U.S. Midwest Plains string tie, checkered shirt and tight beltless blue jeans considered so high-place among the style-conscious of the day. "Howdy, Mr. Tagomi," he said. "Right nice day, sir." (2.19)
Can we all agree that Ramsey is laying it on a little thick here? As he notes later, he has kept up his ties with "native ethnic patterns" (2.27). But it kind of sounds to us as if he's copying the "high-place" Japanese who are copying American styles.
Quote #3
Was he absolutely properly dressed to enter the Nippon Times Building? Possibly he would faint in the high-speed elevator. But he had motion-illness tablets with him, a German compound. The various modes of address... he knew them. Whom to treat politely, whom rudely. Be brusque with the doorman, elevator operator, receptionist, guide, any janitorial person. Bow to any Japanese, of course, even if it obliged him to bow hundreds of times. But the pinocs. Nebulous area. Bow, but look straight through them as if they did not exist. Did that cover every situation, then? (2.51)
Childan is obsessed with social standing. (Remember in "Themes: Power" how he freaked out when Tagomi mispronounced his name?) Thanks to the POV (thanks, POV), we get a first-row seat to Childan's careful consideration of all the different social situations he might face. That's a guy who is dedicated to society's rules.