ve in Panama with a sort of permanence, but nine out of ten do
not have families--even those advanced in years. Periodically some of
them take trips to Japan, though, if you watch their business
carefully, you know they could not possibly have earned enough to pay
for their passage. And those in the outlying districts don't even
pretend to have a business. They just sit and wait, without any
visible means of support. It is not until you study their locations,
as in the Province of Chorrera, that you find they are in spots of
strategic military or naval importance.

Since there were so many barbers in Panama, the need for an occasional
gathering without attracting too much attention became apparent. And
so the little barber, A. Sonada, who shaves and cuts hair at 45 Carlos
A. Mendoza Street, organized a "labor union," the Barbers'
Association. The Association will not accept barbers of other
nationalities but will allow Japanese fishermen to attend meetings.
They meet on the second floor of the building at 58 Carlos A. Mendoza
Street, where many of the fishermen live. At their meetings one guard
stands outside the room and another downstairs at the entrance to the
building.

On hot Sunday afternoons when the Barbers' Association gathers, the
diplomatic representatives of other nations are usually taking a
siesta or are down at the beach, but Tetsuo Umimoto, the Japanese
Consul, climbs the stairs in the stuffy atmosphere and sits in on the
deliberations of the barbers and visiting fishermen. It is the only
barbers' union I ever heard of whose deliberations were considered
important enough for a diplomatic representative to attend. This labor
union has another extraordinary custom. It has a special fund to put
competitors up in business. Whenever a Japanese arrives in Panama, the
Barbers' Association opens a shop for him, buys the chairs-provides
him with everything necessary to compete with them for the scarce
trade in the shaving and shearing industry!

At these meetings the barber Sonada, who is only a hired hand, sits
beside the Japanese Consul at the head of the room. Umimoto remains
standing until Sonada is seated. When another barber, T. Takano, who
runs a little hole-in-the-wall shop and lives at 10 Avenida B, shows
up, both Sonada and the Consul rise, bow very low and remain standing
until he motions them to be seated. Maybe it's just an old Japanese
custom, but the Consul does not extend the same courtesy to t