Learning skills by watching others work (Japanese)

Going to Brazil to escape debt (Japanese) Early life in Brazil (Japanese) Learning skills by watching others work (Japanese) Repaying Brazil by educating the technicians (Japanese) Delivering know-how to the next generation (Japanese)

Transcripts available in the following languages:

(Japanese) Replacing the bottoms of bacias (basins)—do you know bacias? Well, I replaced the bottom of it, but [in the beginning] I’ve never seen it done before. So then this black lady brought this huge, huge basin, and tells me to replace its bottom. It’s old, so I cut it, and used lead to solder it [the new bottom] on. Then the next day, a guy came to me all angry, saying, “The bottom fell out of the one you fixed, and I caught a cold because of it!” So I said OK, I’ll fix it again. This time I went to the local tinsmith, and glanced over at how he was doing things. Then I saw that he was incasing it, bending it over here, over there and everything. So I thought OK, I can do that, no problem. So I did it that way, and I learned it. Just like that, I learned how to do jobs without any prior knowledge or experience. I was able to gain those skills, one way or another.

Date:
Location: Brazil
Contributed by: Caminho da memória - 遥かなるみちのり. São Paulo, Brazil: Comissão de Elaboração da História dos 80 Anos de Imigração Japonesa no Brasil, 1998. VHS.

Brazil business

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