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The Tiger and the River
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Heavy Industries
David Morris
10/01/2007
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Photograph by Adam Campbell
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Astride the metal horse conferred upon me by my hosts, I looked down from my vantage point into the valley formed by the crater
of a dormant volcano. But a few hours ride from the medieval city of Kumamoto in
Southern Japan, I was certain the ghosts within the walls of the city’s fortress
had followed us here. Situated in this crater, steeped in the paradox of this
country’s parallel sensibilities of reverent mysticism, obsessive technological
advancement, and often playful iconography, Kawasaki’s state of the art test
track, Autopolis, looked like a kanji—the fluid brushstroke that forms the
characters of the Japanese alphabet.
 Kawasaki’s aviation expertise manifests itself in the performance
of its motorcycle range. Photograph by Adam Campbell. (Click image to enlarge)
Flowing through each curve and turn, a quartet of riders flew
along the two-and-a-half-mile circuit, the drone of their engines like
bumblebees. I took a deep breath and contemplated the mountains of brilliant
green that echo the company’s chosen hue.
My mount, a Kawasaki ZRX, snorted as I fired the engine. My
leathers the armor of a samurai, I was channeling the meditation that precedes a
defining moment on the battlefield. We picked our way back down the hill’s
winding roads to rejoin my fellow warriors on the track and exercise Kawasaki’s
thoroughbreds under the watchful eyes of those who had called us to battle.
 A lucid dream persisted—a man dreams he is a tiger; the tiger
walks down to the river and sees his reflection. A leaf crossing the surface of
the reflection becomes a fish that leaps out of the water. Light dances on the
water, and the fish becomes a bird that soars toward the rising sun. The rays of
the sun become the Kirin of Japanese folklore, half-horse, half-dragon, circling
the planet and becoming a bolt of lightning. The lightning strikes the earth and
awakens the man who has been sleeping under a tree by the river. The man looks
into the river again and sees his reflection as a tiger. (Click image to enlarge)
The dream and its elliptical timeline could have been a scene
from a surrealist film by Teshigahara, or one of Tarantino’s tributes to yakuza
cinema. Instead, it was the convergence of sensations brought about by a grand
gesture from one of Japan’s most powerful industrial conglomerates. This gesture
sought to reach out and tell the world that this is a corporate family that
makes not only motorcycles, but seeks to excel in a variety of areas of human
endeavor; and that this excellence is rooted in a proud, noble tradition of
social values.
During a week-long visit to Kawasaki Heavy Industries, it was a
privilege to discover, and dialogue with, a company redefining the perception of
its identity. In concert with the self-promoted "good times"’ notion of the
company, the visit proved an illuminating experience of a 130-year-old global
industrial powerhouse that generates over $11 billion annually in revenue.
 Photograph by Adam Cambell. (Click image to enlarge)
Its scope includes, but is not limited to, aerospace,
shipbuilding, earthmoving machines, railroading (notably the legendary
high-speed Shinkansen bullet train), green energy generation, major engineering
projects, watercraft, all-terrain vehicles, and, of course, motorcycles. Aboard
Boeing’s 767 and 777 jets, few realize Kawasaki’s pivotal role in building the
fuselage and wings of these massive high-tech birds. Riding in the New York City
subway, the discreet Kawasaki Heavy Industries badge on the cars almost eludes
scrutiny. While some of its competitors in things two-wheeled claim the high
ground in technological expertise, KHI quietly and effectively continues to
enhance its portfolio of technical achievement.
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