Country 4, in east Asia, was extremely poor. A smell problem was one of its two jugular vein issues, meaning we had to solve it or entertain no hope of building adequate mutual respect between our numerous American communities and the host nationals. In the inimitable GI vernacular, "The whole country smells like crap." When the ideologically naive and innocent American soldierboys voiced that denunciation, the hate-generating disrespect that they exuded also seemed to fill the air.

Why did this country smell so bad to Americans?

The answer: The local farmers used human waste on their acres and acres of vegetable gardens. These put forth heavy, choking odors into the air.

Consequently, this human waste issue presented another of the more challenging and almost unmentionable cultural detective issues.

What can you say? How would you manage it? What can you do?

Now, please, again, if your thought is that intellectual foolishness that says, We just have to accept others' differences, please close the book and send it back to me. I'll refund your money. The book has already, in your hands, been a failure. That repulsive human-waste fertilizer issue is still out there in many countries of the world. You may run into it in a few new Asian communities around San Francisco and elsewhere. So I ask you again, as a tough-minded cultural detective: What can you do in addition to hoping that some beloved comedian does not appear and use the issue in his local humor? (That happened to me just when I almost had the vocal attitude under control. It is OK to handle these touchy issues with humor-but only after they are understood and under control.)

ONE SOLUTION

It is time to focus your attention precisely on the cultural detective's most sophisticated task. You have to recognize the corrective answers if you happen to run across them. In fact, unless obscured in history, the answers, too, (as well as the problem) are often right under our noses.

Now, regarding the smelly fertilizer issue, recollections from my boyhood days in the family greenhouse, called back the fact that Dad always piled the animal manure in compost piles to let it dry out some in order to reduce the smell. I checked that recollection in the limited available local library resources (in English) and found some confirmation.

The farms that were causing the main problem for us were those along the one main highway that Americans traveled plus the few farms right around the Little Americas near the large cities in Country 4.

Mr. Jan Oh, my driver, chief interpreter, introductory oral researcher, and unofficial bodyguard started out with me, to find out if those relatively few farmers involved might agree to compost their human waste fertilizer more thoroughly if we Americans paid the costs.

The first farmer was willing, but the social amenities, necessarily included in the arrangements for such a sensitive interview, took us almost all day. The project looked like an endless task.

On the second day, Mr. Oh stopped the car by the side of the road to go in and arrange with a second farmer to meet and talk with me. I opened the novel I was then reading knowing I could get through half the book before Mr. Oh returned. Before I had finished two pages, Mr. Oh opened the car door laughing and shaking his head. "What's the matter?" I asked.

"Well," said Mr. Oh, "he insisted that I bring you a message. But first, I might mention that you will want to remember this experience to use the next time an American makes the familiar mistake of telling you that all Asians only tell you what you want to hear."

"Sounds like he might have said no," I observed. Still smiling, Mr. Oh explained: "I had just finished the introductory comments about the importance of good relations and the mutual struggle against communism, and turned carefully to a mention of the smell - the fertilizer. He stopped me from speaking further by holding up both hands the way some Americans do." "All right, all right," he said, "now I understand; now I know what you want. It is not new to me. I saw you drive up. I thought that was a "big nose" [American] with you in the car. I see them driving by here all the time with those long noses in the air or making a great show out of holding them. Well, please, I want you to go back out there to your American friend and tell him these exact words for me. Tell him and all of your American bosses that I have five children to feed. Tell them that I can't afford any other kind of fertilizer, and I don't want to take chances with any other kind. Tell them that if my crop fails, these children will starve. One year their bellies swelled up with hunger. Tell them that after that terrible winter, every time I come out of this house in the morning and I smell that stuff, it just smells great! I suck it down into my lungs and say to myself: OH! THAT JUST SMELLS GREAT! In fact, you know, when I don't smell that wonderful smell, it makes me sick. Now go! Tell him; tell them. We cannot talk further."

Mr. Oh waited for my reaction. (What would you have said?) I was not sure. This rejection was unexpected to say the least. Finally, I scouted around through my camping materials in the car and found a nice gift and asked Mr. Oh to deliver it with some words of thanks to the man for being so truthful.

I went home and related the story to my wife. "Good for that farmer," Peggy said. "I think he is right." I told the story to my two oldest sons. Their responses were similar. I tried an American Army sergeant, a chaplain, a psychologist, and an Army major. Every one of them laughed at me and sided with the farmer. I strongly suspected that the search was over. We had an effective answer. Why? Because it was based on the powerful, behavior-controlling life-value; it was reasonable.

It was successful, always. We used it with at least 100,000 troops over a period of two years. It never failed to persuade a group in general that it was time for us to toughen up about the smell issue.

In our presentations, we added these few bits of information, from our massive research, to reinforce the rationality of using the human waste rather than risk starvation for the local children: Our American ancestors used tons of human waste on our own crops right up until 1914 when the Germans invented chemical fertilizer. We mentioned that there was a group of Americans right at that time experimenting with processing their own waste materials through a chemical process for food, if needed, for their own survival, and asked the troops to guess who it was.

Someone, in a large audience, always guessed or knew that it was the astronauts. Of course, we concluded those sessions with the affirmation that when it is a matter of life or death some of our brightest, toughest, most heroic Americans agree with the old farmer: If necessary for life, fill your lungs (or stomach).

How effective were these materials? After the story became well-known in the American community, it was not unusual for me, when visiting some outdoor military function, to observe a few GIs playfully ridiculing the smell, and then to be delightfully pleased to see one of the young men boldly, in a humorous but effective putdown of the others, step out front, hold up his arms, fill his lungs, pound his mighty chest, and declare: "TO ME, IT SMELLS GREAT!"

I think this task of general conflict resolution is too subtle to be performed effectively through written lesson materials. One must conduct the educational programs orally, with enough crowd participation to keep it lively and thoughtful. To recover our respected status abroad and healthy strength at home, it needs to be taught in all of our schools. It provides a civilized counter-attack against the rising horror of cross-group hate crimes.

How effective would it be in general, for America, on the overseas front? In answer, I would judge that all industrial nations, on a scale of 1 to 10, would rate about a minus 7 to minus 10 regarding good overseasmanship just now. Our competitors, Germany and Japan, respectively, would earn around minus 10s or worse. As the first to be educated in the universal values, the results for America in world trade, alone, could be quite significant. Most important, we would offer the first sound, universal, secular, moral leadership.

Let us try another smell case that involves Americans in a surprisingly interesting way.