This essay recalls the early days of my career as a businessman, acts of financial support to colleagues, and the origin of “The Turntable of Civilization” in Rome.
It culminates in an unsuccessful attempt to secure housing finance for a close friend, revealing the harshness of reality.

2016-08-12
This is a story from the time when I began walking the path of a businessman.
Before that, I gave approximately three million yen to a colleague at a listed construction company where I had worked, and some time later about two million yen to a superior who had started his own company, amounts that were less loans than gifts given in response to their hardships.
This was also the peak period of my life as a businessman.
That I conceived “The Turntable of Civilization” while staying in Rome, Italy, is something readers already know.
At that time, one of my classmates from my alma mater and a close friend was living in Rome.
He had been living in a rented house and concluded a contract to purchase a home in Rome, but not after arranging the necessary funds.
Converted into Japanese yen, it was a mansion worth several hundred million yen.
He was a remarkably reckless man, perhaps because he was what one would call a man of culture.
When I was asked to arrange financing from a Japanese bank for the purchase, I accepted immediately out of friendship.
At the time, my company was a top preferred customer at a leading branch of 住友銀行, so I first approached Sumitomo.
The matter was referred to a branch in our hometown, and I thought the loan would be executed, but it was rejected for the fatal reason that the applicant was a non-resident Japanese national not living in Japan.
I then suddenly called another classmate, also my closest friend, who had joined the largest bank in our hometown as a management-track employee, and, something I still feel sorry about, asked him if he could somehow arrange a loan for our mutual friend.
He immediately told me that this was a case impossible for Japanese banks, but still considered whether anything could be done.
However, it was ultimately an impossible case.
Having exhausted all options, I informed the friend in question of this fact.
“That would be extremely troubling. If the contract is not fulfilled here, the deposit will not be returned.”
He, who was living in a rented house with his family of four, had paid what little money he had as the deposit.
The remaining balance was sixty million yen.
To be continued.