Don Maloney (author)

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Donald J. Maloney (b. 1928 in Yonkers, New York) is an American author on Japan.

Maloney graduated from the Syracuse University School of Journalism in 1948. In 1970, Maloney was assigned to Tokyo by the Harris Corporation (then of Cleveland, Ohio) to engineer Harris' entry into the Japanese market. He negotiated a 50/50 joint venture between Harris and Marubeni Corporation of Japan, and served as Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer of Marubeni-Harris Printing Equipment Company.

He was a member of the Tokyo American Club, American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, America-Japan Society, International House, and the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.

Maloney is probably best known in Japan for his humorous newspaper columns published every Sunday in Tokyo's English-language daily, the Japan Times, entitled Never the Twain...? which dealt exclusively with the experience of an American expatriate living in Japan. In 1975, a collection of his articles from 1970-1974 were published in Japan: It's Not All Raw Fish, ISBN 4-7890-0028-1, even used as course material by North Carolina State University; followed by Son of Raw Fish. His accounts of life as lived by a foreigner striving in Japan included episodes involving "Wife Sarah," his four kids-two boys, two girls-his Japanese neighbors and all the shopkeepers, coworkers, policemen and folks from every walk of life were grist for his knee-slapping editorial mill. The family Maloney lived next to Yomiuri Giants manager and former superstar Shigeo Nagashima, providing Maloney with a virtually bottomless pool of column material.

An example of Maloney's self-deprecating humor-

"All foreigners should total up all the money they are spending each month on Japanese lessons. Drop out of school and send the money to the 'Maloney Final Solution to the Language Problem Fund.' The Fund will use the money to teach English to the Japanese. And since you will have free time, you can hire yourself out to the Fund as an English teacher, earning extra money to boot."

He is presently commissioner for the City of Holmes Beach, Florida.