(FORTUNE Magazine) – AS A SEASONED journalist and traveler, associate editor Joel Dreyfuss greets new situations with aplomb. But even Dreyfuss, the Haitian-born son of a former U.N. official who has also called such places as Liberia and Paris home, felt out of his element when he recently took over our Tokyo editorial office. The small things were among the most telling: as a hardened New York straphanger, he was awed by the Tokyo subways' velvet seats and the practice of women staking out seats for their husbands. To get the interviews that yielded the cover story on unaccustomed economic weakness in Japan (page 20), Dreyfuss says he had to wear down ''incredible layers of bureaucracy'' at Japanese companies. Explains reporter Frederick Katayama, who assisted him, ''The big difficulty was the theme itself. The Japanese don't like to talk about negative things.'' Dreyfuss has had 15 years' experience tracking down sources, beginning as a reporter for the Associated Press. He has co-authored a book (The Bakke Case: The Politics of Inequality), been managing editor of Black Enterprise magazine, and covered topics from sports to culture for the Washington Post and USA Today. He joined FORTUNE in 1983. Dreyfuss says he jumped at the Tokyo assignment as an opportunity ''to live in a part of the world I haven't experienced before.'' Other members of the family are also learning to cope with the new environment. Joel's wife, Veronica, a former ABC press officer, and their 19-month-old son, Justin, accompanied him to Tokyo. Before leaving New York, Justin spoke his first word: ''Hi.'' He's a little confused now that people no longer wave to him when he says it. In Japanese hai (pronounced hi, more or less) means yes.

Associate editor Monci Jo Williams's progress report on Shearson Lehman Brothers (page 32) is the third installment of her running account of the 1984 Wall Street merger. Since breaking the news that Lehman was for sale, Williams has kept a watchful eye on the union. Many Wall Streeters continue to doubt its success, but Williams found you can't believe everything you hear in the Street.