The Imperial warehouses

THE SMITHSONIAN in Washington D.C. is sometimes referred to as America’s attic. While it is primarily the repository for items of historical value, it is also the storage place for objects that are more curiosity than treasure and part of the country’s cultural legacy only in the aggregate.

There is a group of buildings in Japan that serve a similar function, though they are not open to the public and not widely known. That’s the Gyofu, a cluster of wooden warehouses on the southern end of the Fukiage Gardens in the Imperial Palace.

They were originally used to store the spoils of war. Each of the five buildings in the group has a name that ends with the suffix –fu. In each of the five was kept the booty taken from overseas in military campaigns.

Specifically, the Shintenfu was the repository for items from the Japan-China war, the Kaienfu was for items from the North China Incident (the start of the second war with China), the Kenanfu stored the items from the Japan-Russia war, the Junmeifu held the spoils from the Siberian Intervention (1918-1925), and the Kenchufu was the warehouse for the plunder and souvenirs from the Manchurian and Shanghai incidents.

The Korosei Rock, a symbol of the relationship between T’ang Dynasty China and Bohai (a kingdom that existed in Northern China and the Korean Peninsula from 698-926), was taken from China to Japan during the Japan-Russia War and is still standing in the front garden of the Kenanfu (the building shown in the photo). All the other items from overseas were returned to their countries of origin after the war.

The buildings of the Gyofu still serve as warehouses, however; they are used for the storage of the possessions of the current emperor, some of the art donated to the country by the Imperial Household after the death of the Showa Emperor, and the implements used for palace ceremonies.

According to those who have gotten a glimpse of the interior of these buildings, they just have an open space with no dividing walls or shelving. All the stored items are placed seemingly at random inside.

Though the buildings are old, they were solidly built and are still in good shape. The people responsible for their design and construction were part of the Takumiryo, a group of builders and craftsmen in the former Imperial Household Ministry. That group was also involved with the construction of other parts of the Imperial Palace and the Tokyo National Museum.

The Gyofu are located in a part of the palace grounds where entry is highly restricted, so they are almost never seen by anyone without a reason for being there. But there is one exception: the Suwa teahouse in the East Gardens, a popular site for strollers that is open to the public. The building is actually the Kaienfu, which was moved to this location and rebuilt. It was decided to move it in 1968 when the plans for the East Garden were formulated because its distinctively Japanese appearance was thought to blend in well with the surrounding area.

It’s a shame the rest aren’t available for viewing by the public, but they are just storehouses, so they wouldn’t be the most appropriate place for public exhibitions. Then again, there’s no reason why the Korosei Rock should still be there. It should have been returned to China long ago.

The Chinese would like to have it back, of course, but to their credit, they seem to be asking for the return in the spirit of bilateral friendship rather than making strident demands. Here’s the Japanese-language explanation of the history of the object and the Chinese viewpoint on the website of the Chinese Embassy in Japan, as written by Xinhua. China sent a team to this country to examine the rock, but the Imperial Household Agency, perhaps the most backward government organization in the country, refused to let them see it. They gave the team photographs instead.

It’s an object of historical and cultural importance from China that belongs in China. Why should it be sitting on a plot of land in Japan that most Japanese aren’t allowed to see? Indeed, returning it would be of great benefit to Japan, if only for the positive publicity it would generate among the Chinese.

Keeping it there does not reflect well on the Japanese government. I suspect the Japanese public would agree–if they knew about it.

The Emperor of Japan’s working ranch

ROYAL FAMILIES THE WORLD OVER can’t seem to make do with just a single palace in the capital city—they also require a few extra castles or country villas scattered about the realm for their rest and relaxation.

Japan’s Imperial Family is no exception. In addition to the Imperial Palace in the heart of Tokyo, they have a palace and other estates in Kyoto, as well as villas in Nasu (Tochigi), Hayama (Kanagawa), and Suzaki (Shizuoka).

But few people are aware that among the residences of the Emperor of Japan is a working ranch known as the Goryo Bokujo, or what the Imperial Household Agency calls the Imperial Stock Farm.

Located about 13 kilometers to the northeast of Utsunomiya, Tochigi, the Goryo Bokujo is more than just a rustic retreat for the Imperial Family to get away from it all. It is a legitimate farm that produces the meat, vegetables, eggs, and milk consumed by the family members and served at palace functions. (Japanese readers: check the top on the milk bottle in the second photo.) It is also used to breed riding horses, carriage horses, sheep, cows, and poultry.

The carriage horses are used more frequently than for just a few formal occasions. All the foreign ambassadors to Japan meet the Emperor when they present their credentials, and they are given the choice of being taken to the Imperial Palace by limousine or by carriage. Most choose the carriage. (Wouldn’t you?)

The ranch is located on 252 hectares (622.7 acres) of land, an area twice the size of the Imperial Palace grounds. About half of the ranch is used for breeding the livestock and other animals. Its predecessor was a sheep ranch established in 1876 in Chiba on the present site of Narita Airport.

The Imperial Household Agency assumed responsibility for its administration in 1956, and when the plans for Narita were drawn up in 1969, the site was moved to its present location, which is a two-to-three hour drive from Tokyo.

The ranch’s various food products are collected three times a week for delivery to the kitchens of the Imperial residences and the other sites where they are used. Great care is reportedly taken in the food production. Visitors to the ranch have the bottoms of their shoes disinfected, and the ranch itself uses a minimum of agricultural chemicals.

And of course they use the food for parties held for dignitaries, celebrities, and other Imperial guests. The meats they produce get tossed on the grill for barbecues and yakitori at outdoor parties in the Akasaka Gardens.

All of which makes me wonder: What do the Emperor’s cowboys look like? And if they have a brand for the Imperial cattle, do they use the chrysanthemum crest?

Here’s the link to the Imperial Household Agency’s page for the Imperial residences (which also include two wild duck preserves). The agency’s website is on the right sidebar.

Maintenance on a building with 13 roofs

ANY HOMEOWNER living in a wood frame house will tell you that the repair and maintenance is too frequent and too expensive. Now imagine what it must be like to be the owner of a wood frame structure with 13 roofs!

That was the predicament in which the Tanzan Shinto shrine in Sakurai, Nara Prefecture, found itself. Part of the shrine property is the only wood frame, 13-story pagoda in Japan. Seventeen meters high, it was built in 645 by Fujiwara Jo’e, the eldest son of Fujiwara no Kamatari, as a memorial to his father after he died. (The present building is a recreation build during the Muromachi period, which ended in 1568.)

The elder Fujiwara was the founder of the Fujiwara family, which exercised enormous political influence on the Imperial court during the Heian period (794-1185). The family’s influence became so dominant that the last three centuries of this period are sometimes referred to as the Fujiwara period. Two of Kamatari’s granddaughters married emperors, which became a practice that cemented their influence over the Imperial family. His spirit is also the enshrined deity in the shrine.

The building was last disassembled and repaired during the Meiji Era (1868-1912). All the roofs of the pagoda are thatched with cypress bark, and since then the layers of mold had become so thick it threatened the structure’s integrity.

The repair work was finished early this month, in time for a festival to be held at the site in November.

The Japanese honor tradition and history as much as any people everywhere, but they’re also practical. This time, they reinforced all those cypress bark roofs with copper plate!

More on the Imperial tombs

FREQUENT POSTER ACEFACE, in regard to a recent post, made the comment, “Talk about synchronicity!” Well, here’s some more synchronicity.

Two days after I featured a post about archaeology and Japan’s Imperial tombs, today’s paper contains word that two tombs will be opened for inspection by archaologists early next year. (No digging allowed, just visual observation.)

I mention it here not because it’s especially newsworthy–there’s an archaeological report in a Japanese newspaper nearly every day–but because the account by The Guardian is a classic example of the yellow journalism that is the first resort of too many in the world’s media when the subject is Japan.

Try this for a first sentence:

Some of Japan’s mysterious imperial tombs are to be opened to archaeologists and historians for the first time early next year in a move expected to anger the country’s ultra-conservatives.

Now you know what it looks like to take a pinch of sand and present it as the entire beach. Ultraconservatives have as much to do with this story as a clinical account of Kim Jong-il’s venereal diseases. They don’t belong in the article at all, unless the objective is a malicious intent to slant the news.

I read the same story this morning in Japanese in my local paper–top of page 3–which includes more information with nary a mention of ultra-conservatives. Few in Japan, other than professional hand-wringers, give them more than a moment’s thought. But The Guardian knows that.

Some historians, however, put the agency’s reticence down to fears that close inspection of the burial mounds could reveal evidence that shatters commonly accepted theories about the origins of the Japanese imperial family.

Once upon a time, failed novelists went to work for advertising agencies. Now they satisfy their urge to write fiction by turning to journalism.

The “commonly accepted theories” to which The Guardian refers are commonly accepted only in the imaginations of people who fancy Japan as an imperialist caricature rather than accept the country as it really is.

If concrete proof were forthcoming of Korean blood in the Japanese Imperial line, it would be met with a collective yawn by 99 44/100 of the population. That The Guardian would even publish this piece as written is prima facie evidence of a disinterest in journalistic integrity. It’s as if they think that offering their readers the facts would deprive them of the fun of getting upset at primitive reactionaries.

And no, this has nothing to do with hunting for an anti-Japanese conspiracy. The Guardian (and the other usual suspects) merely need something to sustain the supply of red meat for their audience on the left. They’ll snap at the chance to satisfy their readers’ political blood lust while filling column inches in the International section and driving up their hit count. That’s how you kill three birds with one stone.

Presenting readers with an accurate view of the day’s events ceased to be the point long ago. Now it’s just about indulging consumer prejudices in their market niche to keep selling product.

By the way, one of the two tombs to be examined is that of the Emperor Meiji, who died in 1912. They’re not going to be finding any clues about a continental origin for the Imperial line from that site.

If I may make so bold, read my previous post if you want an overview of the issue in Japan today.

If you want to amuse yourself by getting indignant at a distance about a Japan that lives only in the minds of people who can’t handle or aren’t interested in the truth, read The Guardian’s article. If you must.

Let’s stop the pussyfooting: In the aggregate, this and other articles of the type are the equivalent of a contemporary comic book series resembling nothing so much as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

And you can quote me on that.

Does the Emperor wear Korean genes?

A DISPUTE OVER THE LOCATION of the burial mound of the Emperor Keitai, thought to have ruled from 507 to 531, serves as a backdrop to a much more interesting question: were the first members of Japan’s imperial family Korean and not Japanese?

Takatsuki in Osaka Prefecture claims it has found artifacts at a local site suggesting that Keitai is buried there, though it has been assumed the emperor was buried nearby in the city of Ibaraki. It is no easy matter to confirm the identity of a person interred in a mound of dirt 1,500 years ago, of course, but other factors add to the difficulty. One is that the practice of placing epitaphs in the mound identifying the person buried did not begin until the 8th century, and then was conducted only intermittently. Therefore, it is just about impossible to identify the occupants of burial mounds older than that.

Further, it is by no means certain that the Emperor Keitai actually existed. According to The Modern Reader’s Japanese-English Character Dictionary by Andrew Nelson (the standard Kanji-English dictionary for many years):

“Much of the early chronology before the introduction of writing is legendary rather than historical. Japanese textbooks now usually begin such a list with Emperor Kimmei (reigned 539-571). But legends often play an equal role with history in a nation’s literature, and it has been thought well to give the full traditional list.”

The Emperor Kimmei was number 29 according to this list, with Emperor Keitai 26th. The latter’s reign is given as (507)-531, and interestingly, numbers 27, 28, and Emperor Kimmei are considered the sons of Keitai.

Yet another factor is that the Imperial Household Agency, which is responsible for the management of the burial sites and perhaps the most conservative of any government agency in Japan, refuses to allow excavation of the sites except in special circumstances. They cite privacy concerns as one reason for their refusal, saying that the “peace and calm” of the late emperor must be maintained. They claim that excavations of the burial sites are “tantamount to destruction” of the tombs.

Some historians assert that the real reason for the refusal is that a full-scale, open excavation would show that the earliest Japanese emperors were Korean–either horse-riding invaders who conquered the native population early in the fourth century, or priest-kings. Foreigners in Japan like to circulate a rumor that the excavation of one important imperial tomb was trumpeted in the press some years ago, only to be hushed up when too many Korean artifacts were discovered.

The substantial contact between the Korean Peninsula and Japan in those days is not in question. The current Emperor Akihito admitted some Korean heritage during a press conference in 2001. He said he felt a close “kinship” with Korea because the Shoku Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan) records that the mother of Emperor Kammu (#50, 781-806) was from the line of King Muryong of Baekche. This article appearing in the Guardian at the time provides details about the press conference, as well as the lack of general coverage in the Japanese press, though the Guardian’s headlines and their unwarranted tone (”the silent fury of many Japanese nationalists”) exaggerate both the relationship and the story. (Just what is it with the childish–and churlish–attitude of left-of-center newspapers toward Japan, anyway?)

For its part, however, the Guardian fails to report that the reason the emperors are related to King Muryong is that Muryong is thought by many to have been born in Japan in June 461—specifically Kakara Island, part of Chinzei-cho in Saga Prefecture. The people on the island have been holding festivals for the past few years honoring his birth as a way to promote exchange between Japan and South Korea. The Baekche royalty wound up in Kyushu—some say Miyazaki Prefecture—because they had to flee the Korean Peninsula after winding up on the short end of battles with the other two major kingdoms in the region.

An article in the Japan Times provides an in-depth look at the issue, but unfortunately the newspaper has not put it on line. (Here is a companion piece on the same page.) It’s a shame, because they quote two of the few foreign archaeologists expert in this field casting doubts on the theory of Korean origin for the imperial line. Gina Barnes of the University of Durham in Great Britain admits the possibility while citing the lack of evidence:

“There is no direct historical evidence of a (Japanese) emperor born on the Korean Peninsula. There is considerable evidence of contact with peninsular kings and elites. But given other monarchical systems in which ‘stranger kings’ may be incorporated, such as the British Hanover line, which has produced the current queen, it’s not an impossible thought that the Yamato rulership incorporated foreign allies.”

Walter Edwards of Tenri University in Nara Prefecture downplays the Korean connection:

“Would we expect to find that the occupants of the earliest large tombs, the third-century figures who originally carved out the Yamato polity, to have been Korean aristocrats who came over and wrested power from indigenous leaders, helping raise a backward nation up to the level of early statehood? That is what is all too often implied by whisperings of ‘Korean bones’. That view I reject. The emergence of the ancient Yamato polity was an indigenous phenomenon.”

The debate about the Korean origin of the Japanese state extends to the field of linguistics. Though linguists place Japanese and Korean in separate language groups, there are clear parallels in the grammar of both languages. Both languages also extensively borrowed vocabulary from China. And there are some intriguing examples in Japanese of words or phrases that may have originated in Korea. (For a previous post on this subject, try this.)

John Douglas has a very good overview of the issue in this article on the website of the Association for Asian Research. Written in 2004, it is excellent for the most part, though there are a few flaws. He discusses the Emperors Sujin (#10) and Ojin (#15) as if they were real people, without bringing up the possibility that they might be legendary figures. Douglas also quotes Gina Barnes without mentioning her assertion quoted above that there is no direct evidence for a Korean-born emperor. Most regrettably, he can’t resist a snide and hopelessly outdated cliche about Japanese attitudes all too common among some scholars and observers:

“Even now, the slightest suggestion that Japan’s revered and unbroken dynasty of emperors might have Korean ancestors comes as an unspeakable heresy.”

Allow me to finish the sentence for him:”…to a handful of diehards.” One wonders how much contact some of these people have had with real flesh-and-blood Japanese alive today.

One thing is certain—archaeologists will not be able to make a determination one way or another until the Imperial Household Agency allows the tombs to be excavated and the findings publicized, but that is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

The 15th of August in Tokyo

AT NOON ON 15 AUGUST 1945 IN TOKYO, NHK Radio broadcast a recording made by Emperor Hirohito at about 11:30 p.m. the night before accepting the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and surrendering unconditionally to the Allied nations.

As this account in the Japan Times makes clear, however, that broadcast nearly didn’t make it to the air. The son-in-law of former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo issued a bogus order at about 2:00 a.m. for about 1,000 soldiers to seize the Imperial Palace and cut off communications with the outside. The aim of the cabal of about a dozen officers was to find and destroy the two records made by the Emperor before they could be broadcast to the nation later that day, overthrow the government, and install a new administration led by the War Minister to continue fighting.

The soldiers did occupy the Palace grounds, and about 40 or 50 entered the premises of the Imperial Household Agency. They hunted for the records for about 90 minutes without finding them. The discs had been placed there instead of NHK headquarters, which also was occupied, because it was thought to be a safer hiding place. One wonders how they knew to look on the Palace grounds instead of at NHK.

The coup leaders killed the head of the Imperial Guards after he refused their request to order the 4,000 troops under his command to join the revolt. Eventually, an officer of the Guards Division escaped and alerted General Shizuichi Tanaka, the head of the Eastern Defense Command (responsible for defending the capital) of the situation at the Palace. Tanaka convinced the Imperial Guard commander that the orders were not legitimate, and the commander confronted the coup leaders. They killed themselves shortly afterward, and the troops left the Palace grounds about 8:00 a.m., six hours after the plot got underway.

No Basis for Urban Legend

NHK’s official account of the events of the 14th and 15th, contained in their corporate history published on the network’s 50th anniversary in 1977, clears up another matter. There has been a persistent urban legend in Japan that the combination of poor radio reception and unfamiliarity with the language reserved for the Emperor led some people to believe that Hirohito had actually asked the people to fight to the last man. This cannot have been the case.

After the plotters were removed from NHK headquarters, the day’s broadcasts began at around 7:20 a.m., more than two hours behind schedule. There was an immediate and urgent announcement that the Emperor would address the nation at noon that day, and every citizen was urged to listen to the gyokuon broadcast. (Gyokuon is the Emperor’s voice, or literally, jeweled sound.) There were no daytime radio broadcasts in the regional areas of the country at that point in the war, so arrangements were made for a special hookup. This was to be the first time that most Japanese had ever heard their Emperor speak.

At noon, everyone in the country stopped what they were doing to listen. The recording was broadcast not only throughout Japan, but also over the NHK radio network in each of the colonized countries and territories in the Pacific. My mother-in-law’s family of well-to-do farmers were the only people in their neighborhood with a radio. She remembers everyone in the area coming to her house to listen.

Before the recording was played, the NHK announcer asked everyone to stand (to listen to the radio!) While it is true that the broadcast of the record was difficult to understand due to interference in some areas and the language used, there is no question that everyone understood what had just happened when the full broadcast ended some 37 minutes later. After the recording was played, the NHK announcer explained in simpler language that Japan had just surrendered, read the text of the Emperor’s broadcast again, and followed that with another explanation. After all that, it would have been unlikely that anyone would have thought the Emperor had asked the country to fight to the last man, and in any event, newspapers began publishing extra editions at 1:00 p.m.

They understood in Tokyo. A stream of people passed by the bridge leading to the Imperial Palace to bow in its direction. This continued for the rest of the day.

They understood in Seoul. This was Liberation Day for Korea, and the sound of fireworks and gongs were heard almost immediately. The colonial government broadcast a plea asking for cooperation from the citizenry until the occupation army arrived, and they apparently got it.

They also understood on the other side of the world. It was midnight on the East Coast of the United States. Those people listening to a late-night live broadcast of Cab Calloway on the Mutual Broadcasting Network were among the first to find out.

Linguistic Note

One tricky aspect for students of the Japanese language is the bushel basket full of personal pronouns available in the language, combined with the common practice of omitting personal pronouns entirely. When pronouns are omitted, people usually can tell who is talking about whom from the context, but even the Japanese have to stop and ask each other every now and again.

For centuries, there was a specific personal pronoun meaning “I” reserved for the exclusive use of the Emperor, with its own kanji character. Hirohito used the word that day in his broadcast. The word is chin.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Chinpo or chin-chin are two of the less refined expressions for penis (and the latter is used mostly by grade-school boys), though it is written differently. Anyone who has taught English to 10-year-old boys in Japan, pointed to the end of his jaw, and called it his chin knows to wait a couple of minutes for the hysterical laughter to subside.

I’m not an anthropological linguist, so I have no proof or knowledge that there was a connection between these near-homonyms centuries ago. Still, it does offer fertile ground for speculation.

As Sherlock Holmes put it, I have sometimes thought of writing a monograph on the subject.

Matsuri da! (43): Grab those fans while it’s hot!

THERE’S NO LIMIT to the Japanese imagination when it comes to creating motifs on which to base a festival. For verification, one need look no further than the Uchiwatori, which is part of the Gion Festival held on the first of this month by the Hirai Shinto shrine in Iga, Mie Prefecture.

Uchiwatori literally means grabbing uchiwa, or the non-folding variety of hand fans. Four five-meter-high bamboo poles are erected on the shrine grounds. About 100 uchiwa and paper flowers are attached to the top of the poles. At 6:00 p.m., 10 parishioners remove the stays keeping the poles erect, and they tumble earthward. The participants then engage in a mad scramble to grab the fans and the flowers.

As I’ve mentioned before, it’s not a good idea to get involved in one of these scrambles unless you’re serious about getting a piece of the action. Grandmothers will literally elbow you or shove you out of the way to grab their reward and not stop to apologize about it later.

The festival also features traditional dancing by miko, or shrine maidens, which is not without its charms, but the scrum to come away with one the fans is the big deal.

This is actually part of the festival of the Tsushima shrine, another Shinto shrine, which is located on the grounds of the Hirai shrine. Dating back to the Edo period, which ended in 1868, the Uchiwatori is held in supplication for relief from the summer heat and for avoiding illness.

As with any other aspect of life in Japan, when you pick up one thread, several others become apparent, and that’s true for this festival, too. The enshrined deity of the Tsushima shrine is none other than Susano’o-no-Mikoto, the younger brother of the sun goddess Amaterasu, the principal female deity in Shinto mythology and the supposed ancestor of the Japanese Imperial family. (The siblings didn’t get along well.)

Legend has it that he was walking along one day and encountered an elderly couple weeping. The couple had eight daughters, seven of whom had been eaten by the monster Yamata-no-Orochi. This creature is described as having eight heads and tails, bright red eyes, a bloody belly, and a back covered with moss and trees. It was so big that its body covered eight valleys and mountains.

That sounds like it might have been a hallucination from an ancient Japanese bout with the DTs.

Well, the couple were crying because Y-n-O was about to come for their eighth and last daughter. Susano’o obtained permission from the parents for her hand in marriage if he managed to save her, and that was an offer they couldn’t refuse.

Susano’o brewed some sake, refined it eight times, and built an enclosure with eight gates, each of which had a platform and a sake vat. They filled the vats and waited. Susano’o was no dope. Very few living creatures in Japan can resist eight free vats of sake.

Sure enough, Y-n-O showed up and saw his opportunity. The eighth daughter could wait—he wanted the grog. The monster sank each of his heads into a separate vat and got monstrously sloshed, falling asleep. In turn, Susano’o saw his opportunity and proceeded to chop him up. In so doing, he found the sword Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi in one of the tails.

This sword became one of the three objects that are the Imperial Regalia, symbols of the Japanese Emperor’s authority and legitimacy. A replica of the sword is kept in the Imperial Palace; the original is said to be kept at the Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya.

Now how’s that for pedigree? This legend, by the way, is told in the Kojiki, a sacred text of Shinto.

Nothing happens during the Uchiwatori as thrilling as slaying an eight-headed drunken monster to win the hand of a fair maid, but reports suggest it can get rough, in keeping with the spirit of the legend.

There is one thing I don’t understand, though–if the object is to keep cool, why get all hot and sweaty scrambling for a fan?

How not to be a diplomat

No one expects tourists overseas to have much of an idea about the history or culture of the country they’re visiting. Short stays are not conducive to intercultural communication, and in any event, the trips are usually little more than an expensive form of entertainment for the visitor. The traveler gets to see, photograph, and be photographed at different places of interest, eat local cuisine, and sometimes, find a hospitable partner from the host country for more intimate interaction, whether through charm, luck, or cash on the barrelhead.

It’s infrequently noted, however, that even most of those people who choose to live in a foreign country for an extended period of time seldom take advantage of their chance to accomplish much more than a tourist would. That may be because they haven’t taken the trouble to become proficient in the language, have a personal or professional agenda that prevents them from seeing beyond the end of their noses, or are just lazy and self-centered.

Their negligence becomes a problem for the rest of us, however, when these slackwits are assigned to a position of responsibility by their government, the news media, or a major corporation. People such as these must have a basic awareness of how and why things happen in the country to which they are dispatched. Yet, it is the unfortunate truth that these same people more often than not lack either the ability or the desire to see things as they are. This is particularly true in countries such as Japan, where things are often quite different than they are anywhere else, and which requires a bit more effort to understand.

Regrettably, this description fit Michael Wilford, Britain’s ambassador to Japan 30 years ago, all too well.