At the Lazy 8 ranch outside Dillon, Mont., a handful of tired cowboys shuffle into the calving barn for lunch. Troy Seilbach hangs up his spurs. Charlie Carpenter opens a thermos of coffee, and Blue, a dirty mixed-breed dog with a heavy pant, positions himself for a fallen crumb from one of the cowboys' Baggies-wrapped sandwiches. Emblazoned on the lunchroom's white wall is a hastily drawn map of Japan.
The map is the remnant of the previous week's spontaneous noontime discussion, during which the two newest cowboys -- who hail not from Bozeman or Butte but from Tokyo and Ehime prefecture -- attempted to explain the geography of their native country. "Damn! 120 million people in a place the size of Montana," says Dillon native Jim Cherney, 28, as he looks at the map. "That's a lot of people."
"Lot of people," repeats Hidehisa Mori, 29. Mori, who says he grew up watching dubbed Clint Eastwood and John Wayne movies, proudly tugs at his black Stetson and sticks his thumbs over his rattlesnake-buckle belt. Only the Japanese-English dictionary sticking out of his shirt pocket spoils a perfect Marlboro-man look.
When the news came two years ago that the Lazy 8, a 77,000-acre property that stretches 40 miles south of Dillon to within roping distance of the Idaho border, had been bought for $12.3 million by a Japanese meat company called Zenchiku, there was much the same outcry that has accompanied more visible Japanese acquisitions like CBS Records, Columbia Pictures and Rockefeller Center. What made things worse was that the purchase was Zenchiku's way of capitalizing on a relaxation of trade barriers that was meant to help American cattle companies. For a while, as word of the sale passed through town, dark clouds of xenophobia hung over Dillon. But now that East has met West, cowboy to cowboy, tensions have eased. "Anyone want a rice cookie?" asks Mori as he and his co-workers begin to eat. "I'll trade some Hershey's Kisses," says Seilbach.
Mori and his compatriot, Kazuhiru Soma, are here as part of an apprenticeship program established by Zenchiku. In order to better understand how American ranches work, and for their American ranchers to better understand the kind of beef that Japanese consumers will buy, the company has begun sending over young sales managers to work for two years each as American cowboys. Beef is a delicacy in Japan -- selling for as much as $180 a pound. Since it is used in small amounts, the consumer prefers a high-quality, marbled meat filled with the intermuscular fat that America's health-conscious buyers avoid. Teaching breeders at the Lazy 8 about Japanese preferences is Mori's and Soma's job. Teaching "Harry" and "Kaz," as they are called here, about roping calves and herding bulls is the job of cowpunchers like Cherney, Carpenter, Seilbach and Dick Chaffin.
"The first thing that struck me about Montana was the sky," says Kaz, between spoonfuls of rice and seaweed. "There's so much of it, much more than Japan. For days after I arrived, I would wander out onto the ranch late at night and look up at the stars. So many stars!" The next thing that struck Kaz hit a little harder. Assigned to wrestle his first calf, the newcomer resorted to the only technique he knew -- judo -- and landed in the dirt. "I tried leg sweeps," he says, "only I had forgotten that they have four legs -- two too many."