Ichigen koji (76)

一言居士
- A person who has something to say about everything

The discussion of the (Imperial) system should be left to debate in the Diet…(but) when discussing the ideal form of the Imperial Household in the future, I would very much appreciate it if they asked for my opinion, or that of His Majesty the Crown Prince.

- Prince Akishino, second in line to the Imperial throne, during a news conference held on his 46th birthday

Most of the coverage in the media both in Japan and overseas focused on his comment that there should be discussion of the possibility of establishing a retirement age for the Emperor. The current Tenno is 77, has had health problems in the past, and recently spent time in the hospital for pneumonia. The overseas media is aware that the position is almost entirely ceremonial, but unaware of the amount of time required to serve.

This statement was not widely reported overseas, however. Those in Japan who play close attention thought the statement was rather frank for a member of the Imperial family. They suspect it might be an expression of frustration within the family that the political class makes the decisions on important matters related to the family without consulting them at all. The family is of course aware that some Diet members, including former Prime Minister Kan Naoto, are closet republicans who would abolish the system if given a chance.

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Exquisite music

MORE than 800 years ago, in 1196, the Buddhist priest Hozan Kengyo was sent from the Myo-on-ji Jorakuin temple in what is now Shiga to attend the opening of a new temple in today’s Hioki, Kagoshima. Hozan was proficient in the biwa, and he taught 12 pieces of religious music to the local priests. It was performed with eight instruments, including the biwa, flute, taiko drum, and shell horns.

The name of the new temple was the Nakashima Jorakuin, and the music Hozan brought with him was known as Myo-on Junigaku (myo-on means exquisite music). The Japanese biwa is derived from the lute by way of the Chinese pipa, but several different types have been developed in Japan since then. This temple is said to be the origin of the Satsuma biwa, which was used not only for performing music, but also for the mental and moral training of the local samurai. In the past, only blind priests could serve at this temple, and many of the chief priests were renowned for their musical talent.

Nakashima Jorakuin is affiliated with the Tendai sect, at one time the mainstream Buddhist sect in Japan and at its zenith when the temple was founded. Tendai was once associated with the Imperial court, and the Jodo and Nichiren sects are derived from it. A class of warrior-monks emerged from the sect after the 12th century, which applied pressure to the Imperial court and took sides in military and political disputes to defend what it considered to be temple interests. That ended when the warlord Oda Nobunaga almost completely destroyed their headquarters in 1571.

The main temple of Nakashima Jorakuin was moved to a location near the Kagoshima Castle in 1619. With the early Meiji-period anti-Buddhist movement to disestablish Buddhism and replace it with Shinto, and the damage suffered during American bombing missions in World War II, the temple was again moved, this time to Miyazaki. What remains on the original site in Hioki was the subsidiary temple, which has been reduced to one building and the graves of the chief priests. Kagoshima has designated it a prefectural historical site.

Kagoshima also designated the 12 pieces of myo-on junigaku music as an intangible cultural treasure of the prefecture in 1971. The repertoire was once performed by blind priests throughout southern Kyushu, but it is now heard only once a year and only at Nakashima Jorakuin, accompanied by readings of sutras unique to the temple.

That performance always falls on 12 October. Ten musician-priests came from Kagoshima and Miyazaki this year to play. Said a sixth-grade boy who attended:

“I think it’s amazing when I wonder how the people of the past, who couldn’t record music, were able to memorize a performance of nearly an hour.”

Here’s a two-minute YouTube clip from last year’s performance of music that has changed little, if at all, from a millennium ago.

What to do with the gods

THE SURVIVORS of the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami, as well as those residents near the Fukushima power plant forced to evacuate, must deal with the most basic of problems: securing food, clothing, and shelter. The immediate but temporary short-term solution to those problems is a matter of logistics. Resolving those problems will be difficult, but the difficulties lie in execution rather than conception.

The disaster has also created more subtle problems that do not admit of easy answers. The degree of logistical efficiency is irrelevant, and there are no satisfactory short-term solutions, either temporary or permanent. Those problems are not one of the physical survival of people, but rather the survival of the physical symbols of cultural identity.

Residents within a 30-kilometer radius of the Fukushima power plant have been evacuated from the area for an indefinite time. The people affiliated with and responsible for Shinto shrines in the evacuation zone are unsure whether they should take with them the physical objects representing the divinities in the shrines, known as shintai.

This isn’t a trivial issue for the people involved. They believe the spirit of the divinity at the shrine resides in the physical object, and they also think those divinities have protected the area for many years. In the Japanese perspective, “many years” usually means “several centuries” and often means more than a millennium.

The Association of Shinto Shrines, which represents more than 8,000 institutions, said:

“Shrines have been protected by the people of the community for many years. When the people who have been evacuated return, shrines, if they function, will become the spiritual center of life in the community through ceremonies and events.”

The association would prefer that the shintai not be moved. They understand that the evacuation could be for a long time, however, so say that preference must be given to local circumstances.

Another factor is Article 81 of the law governing religious corporations, which applies to the entities responsible for both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. That law states the corporations are subject to dissolution if their facilities have been destroyed and they are unable to replace them for more than two years, unless there are extenuating circumstances.

Common sense says that the extenuating circumstances are as plain as the nose on your face, but government bureaucracies are filled with people who develop visual impairments as a means to justify their existence. The Agency of Cultural Affairs, which has jurisdiction in the matter, says the extenuating circumstances clause could apply, but want to wait to make a final determination until after they conduct a survey. The local people say that’s unreasonable, and they want their institutions to be removed from consideration for dissolution now.

The ramifications of this law could have an effect not only on the shrines and temples in the evacuation zone near Fukushima, but also on those in Iwate and Miyagi unaffected by the radiation because they (and the priests) disappeared in the tsunami.

The problem at hand for the shrines near Fukushima involves the shintai, however. Some people think it would be best to have them stay and keep watch over the land while they’re away (they use the phrase rusuban in Japanese), but others think they should be evacuated with the population for use in festivals and other ceremonies. In some cases, the priests have taken custody of the physical objects themselves, but that’s not always possible. Some shintai are large, heavy rocks that can’t be moved without equipment.

There are 14 Shinto shrines within a 20-kilometer radius of the Fukushima plant and four more in the 20-30 kilometer belt. The situation is more difficult for those in the former group. Some priests left with just the clothes on their back, so they have no idea what shape the shrine itself is in, and some of them died or are still missing in the tsunami. Even those who were allowed to briefly return to their homes can’t go to the shrines because entry is restricted to residences.

Okada Masashi is the chief priest at the Naraha Hachiman shrine within the 20-kilometer radius. He said:

“All the officers among the parishioners at all the shrines will discuss whether to evacuate the objects before making a decision, but everyone is troubled by the options.”

The tutelary deity at the Naraha Hachiman shrine is the spirit of the Ojin Tenno, an emperor whose reign is said to have lasted from the late 3rd to the early 4th century. (He may or may not have existed, and it’s possible he has been confused with a different tenno now generally considered to have been a real person instead of a legend.) About 1,000 families are in the shrine’s district, but people from only 50 have stayed, all of whom are working at the plant. So has Mr. Okada:

“My role is to protect the tradition that has been handed down in this place. I will continue to wait until everyone returns.”

The shrine’s spring festival was held on April 19, but he was the only person to celebrate it. He said he prayed for everyone to return as quickly as possible.

Let’s hope his prayers are answered.

Naraha Hachiman Shrine

“…trusting in the justice and faith of the peace-loving peoples of the world”

China’s military expansion is a threat. Politicians desirous of peace should say what should be said.
- Haraguchi Kazuhiro, Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications

HERE’S a sentence I suspect few of us thought we’d ever read:

“Japan is building its first military base overseas since the end of the Second World War.”

But it’s true. And they’ve got an excellent reason, too:

Japan is spending $40 million to build a base in Djibouti (on the northern border of Somalia), for its military personnel supporting the anti-piracy patrol. Most Japanese military personnel in the area are at sea, in warships. But now they have a place ashore to for supplies (sic) and maintenance facilities. Japan also has maritime patrol aircraft in Djibouti. All this is to help protect Japanese maritime trade, which is considerable. About ten percent of the merchant shipping passing through local waters is carrying Japanese goods (either exports, or raw materials imports.)

Not only did few of us expect to read it, it’s likely that fewer still thought they’d read it absent any international hand wringing. Shouldn’t this have been fodder enough for the other nations of Northeast Asia, the commentariat class, and the academic foreign policy wanks to gum over for months while warning of resurgent Japanese militarism? Every time a member of the Japanese Cabinet drives within a block of the Yasukuni shrine, the Chinese and the South Koreans crank up the propaganda sirens, yet they haven’t objected to the MSDF base at all.

There’s an excellent reason for the absence of Chinese objections:

In the Gulf of Aden off Somalia in East Africa, about 12,000 kilometers away from Japan, Captain Takanobu Minami, commander in charge of antipiracy measures for the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) met Senior Colonel Zhang Wendan, deputy chief of staff of China’s South Sea Fleet, aboard the Chinese missile destroyer Guangzhou on April 28….According to Minami, the MSDF officials were led into a meeting room aboard the ship, where a small Japanese national flag and a Chinese counterpart of the same-size adorned the table.

It wasn’t a courtesy call:

The Japanese and Chinese officials talked about their escort activities in the region and exchanged information on pirates for about an hour over coffee, including what military formation the escort ships should adopt and what measures can be taken to protect vessels that are not capable of traveling fast. In exchange, Zhang and other Chinese officers came aboard the MSDF escort ship Onami on May 23 to discuss further about their missions.

And it wasn’t a Japanese idea, either:

Both meetings were held at the request of the Chinese Navy, which contacted the MSDF through international radio equipped for antipiracy information.

Contrast that with events on the other side of Asia. Coinciding with the hands across the Persian Gulf approach was the growing tension between the two countries in the East China Sea:

Friction occurred in April between Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force and the Chinese Navy as a fleet of 10 Chinese naval vessels, including two submarines, three frigates and three destroyers, sailed south and then north between Okinawa and Miyako islands. On April 7-9, the fleet carried out training exercises, including helicopter flights, in the middle of the East China Sea. On April 8, before the fleet reached the line linking Okinawa and Miyako, a Chinese naval helicopter, at an altitude of 30 meters, flew within 90 meters of the 4,650-ton MSDF destroyer Suzunami. The MSDF said there was a danger of a collision because the top of Suzunami’s mast rises 40 meters above the sea.

And:

On April 10, the Chinese naval fleet passed the line between Okinawa and Miyako islands while sailing south. On April 21, as it was returning north some 500 km off Okinawa Island, a Chinese helicopter twice circled the 3,100-ton MSDF destroyer Asayuki at a distance of a mere 90 meters. This time, Japan lodged a protest with the Chinese embassy in Tokyo on the same day. Before the incident, the Chinese naval fleet had conducted training exercises west of Okino Torishima Island, Japan’s southernmost island. On April 22, the Chinese naval fleet, returning north, was seen passing between Okinawa and Miyako islands.

The general policy of the Democratic Party-led government in Japan is to tilt away from the United States and toward China, but this nautical saber rattling was too much even for them:

Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada on Wednesday defended Japanese Self-Defense Forces’ monitoring of Chinese navy vessels that sailed near Japanese southern waters earlier this month in response to Chinese criticism of the move the day before…Tokyo has lodged a protest with Beijing over what it sees as “dangerous” approaches by Chinese ship-borne helicopters on April 8 and 21 toward Japanese destroyers, which were deployed for surveillance of the Chinese vessels.

That rubbed the Chinese fur in the wrong direction:

On Tuesday, Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua criticized Japan for “following” the vessels “for quite a long time,” telling a press conference in Japanese, “I think such a thing would be a betrayal of mutual trust.”

What mutual trust would that be? No one trusts the Chinese, and the Chinese don’t care what anyone thinks.

Just the day before, the Chinese delivered a diplomatic message through analysts talking to a print media surrogate:

Tokyo should talk to Beijing about its proposed strategy to scour the seafloors near China’s Diaoyu Islands for rare metals, as any unilateral move on its part may likely “trigger a clash” between the Asian neighbors, analysts told China Daily on Monday…

The Chinese threaten military action over a maritime mineralogical expedition, but some people still think an unresurgent Japanese militarism is a matter for concern.

Under (a) new strategy (on securing undersea resources), Japan is keen to explore the seabed within its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), an area that extends 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) offshore or to the half-way points to neighboring countries, according to Kyodo. The areas to be explored cover 340,000 square kilometers (136,000 square miles) of the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean, it reported.

China claims indisputable sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands and adjacent islets. Japan too regards the Diaoyu Islands as its own territory. The two countries also hold disputes on overlapping claims of their extended continental shelf in the East China Sea where both countries have oil-drilling platforms.

Isn’t the following sentence more than a bit reminiscent of Germany talking about Central Europe in the 1930s?

“As long as it does not breach any law, other countries should gradually get used to it,” Jin added. (The increased Chinese military presence)

It would have been easy to identify the source of the article without mentioning the name of the media outlet. The author called them the Diaoyu Islands rather than the Senkakus, even though they are in the possession of Japan. There is no mention that the Chinese have been siphoning off natural gas as if through a straw from a site four kilometers away from what the Japanese consider the boundary of their EEZ. The Japanese are developing oil and natural gas resources on their side of the line. This line, incidentally, is drawn midway between Okinawa and the Chinese coast, but the Chinese claim rights to all the maritime territory as far as the Okinawa Trough, some distance east of that line.

Need I mention that the Chinese refuse to take the dispute to the International Court of Justice? The Chinese are reasserting their traditional self-image as the hegemons of all they survey. Who is the International Court of Justice to cast judgment on them?

There’s even a Chinese Journal of International Law to convey their own legal determinations to the rest of the world–regardless of the incongruity of the juxtaposition of the “Chinese” with the idea of “international law”.

This dispute is the likely reason for the naval pas de deux:

Japan has told China it will appeal to an international maritime court if Beijing starts gas production in a disputed field in the East China Sea, a Japanese newspaper reported on Monday.

If anyone still takes Reuters seriously, the next sentence alone should disabuse them of that notion:

Tensions mostly stem from Japan’s wartime occupation of China.

Those lingering wartime tensions continued into May this year:

On May 3…another incident occurred…when a Chinese 1,690-ton marine survey ship stalked the Japan Coast Guard’s 3,000-ton survey ship Shoyo for three hours and 45 minutes in what Japan claims to be the Japanese side of the median line demarcating the exclusive economic zones of the two countries in the East China Sea — about 320 km northwest of Amami Oshima Island. Beijing rejected Japan’s protest, saying the waters where the incident occurred belong to China.

The Japanese impertinence and intransigence would be enough to exasperate anybody!

Still, the Chinese justification for their behavior was not without its comic aspects:

The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, said the Chinese ship was acting within its rights. “It’s totally legitimate for a Chinese maritime survey vessel to undertake law-enforcement activities in these seas,” she was quoted as saying by China’s official media.

Considering the size of their military forces, ethnic ego, and nuclear weaponry, the Chinese can be surprisingly whiny:

Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua expressed strong displeasure on Tuesday with the recent monitoring of a Chinese navy fleet by Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force in the sea off the Japanese coast. “While there are various neighboring countries around China, only the Japanese Self-Defense Force vessels hounded (the Chinese ships) from the beginning,” the ambassador said at a lecture hosted by Kyodo News in Tokyo.

You’ll never guess what diplomatic card they tried to play. Well, maybe you can:

At Tuesday’s lecture, Cheng alluded to the presence of anti-Japanese sentiment among Chinese people given Japan’s wartime aggression against China, asking Japan to imagine how Chinese nationals would feel if only the SDF was monitoring a Chinese fleet.

It might be more appropriate to imagine how Japanese nationals would feel now that the Chinese were exhibiting the behavior of a latter-day moustachioed paperhanger promising that the Sudetenland would be his last territorial claim.

There are even echoes of the Cold War:

Against a background of increased friction between Japanese and Chinese ships due to the Chinese Navy’s expanded activities in international waters near Japan, Japan’s Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi agreed in a May 15 meeting in South Korea on the need to establish a hotline mechanism to avert problems at sea. A similar agreement was made three years ago, but little became of it.

Did little become of it because no one was at home whenever the Japanese called?

This Chinese explanation should cover all the contingencies:

“In order to defend China’s territory and sovereignty, and secure its maritime rights and interests, the navy decided to set its defense range as the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the South China Sea,” Xinhua reported. “This range covered the maritime territory that should be governed by China, according to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, as well as the islands in the South China Sea, which have been its territory since ancient times.”

And that has been the rhetoric of international thuggery since ancient times, tarted up with a reference to the UN.

The Taiwanese aren’t helping matters, either. At the end of May:

Taiwan expressed regret Saturday at Japan’s intention to expand its military airspace identification boundary to include all of Japan’s westernmost islands, saying it will not accept the decision. The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Japan acted unilaterally in a manner that infringes Taiwan’s sovereignty.

How dare the Japanese include its own territory in its defensive perimeter.

Here’s the nature of the infringement of Taiwanese sovereignty:

Japanese Defense Ministry officials said Wednesday they plan to extend Japan’s Air Defense Identification Zone — now along the 123 degrees east longitude line — to include Yonakuni Island, Japan’s westernmost territory and the closest to Taiwan, as well as waters to the island’s west.

The line is a national defense perimeter within which aircraft must provide flight details to aviation authorities before entering. Failure to do so can prompt interception by the military.

What makes the Taiwanese think this is an infringement of their sovereignty is their claim on some of the same islands in the area. Would their response have been any different had the Japanese told them about it first? Unlikely–to the Chinese, Greater China is Greater China, no matter where they’re from.

*****
The transparency of the Chinese motive for waving the bloody shirt of Japanese militarism should be obvious on the face of it (though it was enough to stump Reuters). Anyone who thinks the Chinese (and the South Koreans) are concerned about contemporary Japanese militarism for any reason other than as a weapon to deflect attention from the pursuit of their own advantage in the region, either in the East China Sea or the Sea of Japan, has not been paying attention. Indeed, in view of the Chinese naval expansion far beyond the levels required for national defense—as if anyone were going to attack them—the identity of the real militarists in the region should also be apparent.

Really, if the Chinese were that concerned about Japanese militarism, would they be doing this?

Along with the fall of the U.S. dollar and the rise of the Japanese yen in the foreign exchange markets, China has bought more Japanese yen and euro assets. In June, China largely increased its holdings of Japanese government bonds worth about 5.3 billion U.S. dollars. Since 2010, China has cumulatively bought 20 billion U.S. dollars of Japanese yen financial assets, nearly five times the amount bought in the past five years.

Because events are likely to proceed along this path for the foreseeable future, it would be instructive to revisit the background to the adoption of Article 9, the Peace Clause of the Japanese Constitution. Here’s the text for reference:

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
(2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

Now, here’s what Douglas MacArthur wanted the clause to say. (The italics are mine.):

War as a sovereign right of the nation is abolished. Japan renounces it as an instrumentality for settling its disputes and even for preserving its own security. It relies upon the higher ideals which are now stirring the world for its defense and protection.

However:

The “even for preserving its own security” language was apparently deleted by the Government Section because the Section’s deputy chief, Col. Charles L. Kades, felt every country was entitled to self-preservation. (Kades was close to MacArthur.)

The Japanese Diet accepted the article on 3 November 1946. Not that they thought they had much choice:

The Japanese government was reportedly shocked at the breadth of the Article, but felt that there was little they could do to oppose the Occupation’s version since MacArthur had personally pushed for its adoption.

(The preceding three quotes are from a 40 page pdf file. Use the search function to find them in the document.)

It should also have been apparent long before now that Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution is a dated relic from an age that no longer exists, was espoused by people whose perspective is no longer relevant, and whose continued existence is counterproductive.

In 1945, that might have been understandable, even assuming one fell for the “peace-loving Soviet people” routine (or was treacherous enough to promote it). Today, that attitude would be inexcusable for anyone other than a junior high school girl.

But the circumstances of the modern age present a different set of problems. Even though Japan has a security treaty with the United States, some Japanese have wondered if the Americans would really come to their defense if attacked–and that was before the presidency of Barack Obama, whose behavior suggests he’d prefer to be the head of the Non-Aligned Nations Movement.

Then there is the omnipresence of the mass media, the presumption of its servant-mandarin class that they are the ones to define the parameters of political debate, their preference for drama of any kind over substance when defining those parameters, and the inevitability that politicians will choose their careers and the perquisites of office rather than take a strong and principled stand. All these factors make it unlikely Japan will be able to rid itself of an obsolete Article 9 absent a clear and present danger.

It’s time to apply the original viewpoint of Charles Kades to all of Article 9. It doesn’t have to be amended—just ignored. Self-defense is neither an act of war nor of belligerency, nor is it a means of settling international disputes. It’s the only way to ensure self-preservation.

This is a start. Could anyone, in seriousness, accuse the Japanese of rattling sabers of their own, especially considering the lack of urgency?

The Defense Ministry is considering dispatching the Ground Self-Defense Force’s border security and coastal monitoring units to some islands in southwestern Okinawa Prefecture in about five to eight years in response to factors such as activities in the area by Chinese naval vessels, senior ministry officials said Monday.

The ministry is considering reinforcing surveillance around Japan’s western border as the Self-Defense Forces is only sparsely dispatched in areas to the west of Okinawa’s main island, but the move is likely to draw protests from China and Taiwan as the units would be placed close to islands disputed by the three sides.

The plan involves deploying several hundred GSDF members in charge of border security to Miyako and Ishigaki islands and about 100 members for coastal monitoring to Yonaguni Island in stages, the officials said.

To consider the Japanese a threat to anyone’s security, much less that of its neighbors, is to point the telescope in the wrong direction, look through the wrong end, and pretend the world hasn’t changed in more than half a century.

It could also be hazardous to the health of a large part of a globe. One doesn’t have to think of a response as self-defense. It’s closer to public hygiene instead.

Afterwords:

Sometimes the Chinese approach resembles the Big Bad Wolf dressed in Grandma’s clothes reassuring Little Red Riding Hood. Try these excerpts from an op-ed in a Japanese newspaper by Song Xiaojun, a military commentator with China Central Television, a former communications officer of the Chinese navy, and the co-author of the book, “Unhappy China”:

Talk about the “Chinese threat” appears to be escalating. This is most likely due to a lack of communication and understanding between the people of the two countries.

As any country starts to industrialize, its volume of trade grows. As a result, since security of sea lanes becomes increasingly important, countries have tended to rely on military muscle to ensure that everything proceeds safely.

This is what European countries and the United States have done. Why then does China become a target of criticism when it tries to do the same?

In proportion with China’s economic development, its imports of resources have surged. It is only natural for the Chinese navy to protect the country’s sea lanes.

“Unhappy China” indeed.

Perhaps Mr. Song should have read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Remember, this next part is for a Japanese audience:

But even as China’s influence grows, it has no intention of resorting to colonialism or expansionism as practiced by the former Imperial Japanese Army.

And:

The Japanese people should not forget that the Chinese people still hold a grudge against them over Japan’s past military aggression. It is not easy to erase memories of large-scale massacres of Chinese by the Japanese army.

Especially when the Chinese government goes to such lengths to keep those memories alive, including the public construction of more than 100 war museums.

By making a fuss over the “threat” of China’s naval forces, Japan runs the risk that anti-Japanese sentiment will flare up again. The two countries should take time to improve their bilateral relations.

In other words, if you get upset at our belligerence, it’s all your fault. It’s hard to believe the Chinese think anyone in Japan will fall for this.

But then they shift to the real villain:

The greatest factor standing in the way of East Asia’s integration is the presence of the United States. As long as the United States maintains its military and economic presence in the region, it will be difficult to create the kind of East Asian community advocated by former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

Why would the Chinese assume that most Japanese are interested in that kind of East Asian community? And it’s hard to believe the Chinese think…wait, I already said that. But that doesn’t make it any easier to believe.

Have you caught the historical irony? The Imperial Japanese wanted to drive out the Western colonialists and create a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The imperial Chinese incessantly reference Japanese behavior of a bygone era–and want to drive out the Western colonialists and create a greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere.

And guess who the Chinese are offering as guarantors of the New World Order:

If the United States is unable to serve as the “world’s policeman,” China is ready to take its place. Why shouldn’t China take on the role of the world’s top cop?

It’s hard to believe the Chin…somebody stop me!

But really, why shouldn’t the Chinese assume that role? After all, they have much more experience in the role of “top cop” than the Americans:

In its 5,000-year history, China for more than 2,000 years maintained its grip on East Asia based on the Confucian thought of governance by virtue. During that time, order was maintained centering on China.

“Grip”? Was something lost in the translation, or is it just difficult for the Chinese to keep up the charade for more than three minutes at a time?

At one time, Japan was the dominant influence in East Asia, with strong U.S. backing. Even if China establishes itself as a superpower, it will not seek to attain hegemony over the region, like the United States.

“All the better to grip you with, my dear.”

For this reason, Japan should quit worrying. China will aim to establish a community in which members are equal.

In other words, “get used to it”.

It is no coincidence that this op-ed appeared in the Asahi Shimbun, whose editorial stance forms a global triumvirate of useful idiots with the New York Times and The Guardian.

You’ll be sorry

Don’t I have other things to do on this earth than avenge the blacks of the seventeenth century?… I am not a slave of the slavery that dehumanized my ancestors.
- Frantz Fanon

PRIME MINISTER Kan Naoto’s tear-stained apology to South Korea on the 10th to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Japan’s merger/annexation/occupation of the peninsula later this month might have two benefits—neither of which will have been anticipated either by Mr. Kan or Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku Yoshito, the real mastermind behind this exercise in gesture politics.

The first is that the Japanese public and most of its political class will at last realize they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t, and that issuing yet another apology to be largely ignored by its intended audience, either in Northeast Asia or the West, is pointless and a waste of time. There might be a long wait before the Japanese are disposed to offer another one.

Writing on the Commentary website, Jonathan Tobin groused about the attendance of American Ambassador John Roos at the Hiroshima memorial service last week in a stunning display of ignorance. He thinks:

(T)he Japanese have never taken full responsibility for their own conduct during the war that the Hiroshima bombing helped end. Indeed, to listen to the Japanese, their involvement in the war sounds limited to the incineration of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the fire bombings of many other urban centers in the country, followed by a humiliating American occupation.

For 65 years it has served as a magic event that has erased from the collective memory of the Japanese people the vicious aggression and countless war crimes committed against not only the Allied powers but also the peoples of Asia who fell under their cruel rule in the 1930s and 1940s.

That’s odious from start to finish, but understandable. Listening to what the Japanese say is not a pursuit to which the drive-by commentators of the West devote much time. You think not? Try this:

Apologies by the Tenno (Emperor)

Near the end of the Occupation, the Showa Tenno (Hirohito) visited SCAP headquarters in Tokyo to offer a formal apology for Japan’s actions in the Second World War, including the attack on Pearl Harbor. Douglas MacArthur refused to admit him.
1984: The Showa Tenno, directly to President Chun Doo-hwan of South Korea
1990: The Heisei Tenno (Akihito) directly to President Roh Tae-woo of South Korea
1996: The Heisei Tenno to President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea at a formal dinner

Apologies by prime ministers

1957: Kishi Nobusuke, to Burma and Australia (Kishi was imprisoned for three years as a Class A war suspect, incidentally, but was never indicted. He was Minister of Commerce and Industry from 1941 to 1945.)
1972: Tanaka Kakuei, to China
1982: Suzuki Zenko, to all Asian nations
1984: Nakasone Yasuhiro, to South Korea
1985: Nakasone Yasuhiro, to everyone during a UN speech
1989: Takeshita Noboru, to all Asian countries and South Korea in particular
1990: Kaifu Toshiki, to President Roh Tae-woo of South Korea
1992: Miyazawa Kiichi, to President Roh Tae-woo of South Korea (Miyazawa was a minor Finance Ministry official during the war and also briefly served as a bureaucrat in The Philippines during the Japanese occupation.)
1992: Miyazawa Kiichi, during a policy speech in South Korea
1993: Hosokawa Morihiro, to everyone in a Diet Speech
1994: Murayama Tomiichi, to Asia, and twice that year to South Korea
1995: Murayama Tomiichi, to everyone on the 50th anniversary of V-J Day.
1996: Hashimoto Ryutaro, to South Korea at a joint news conference in that country with President Kim Young-sam
1997: Hashimoto Ryutaro, to China in speech
1997: Hashimoto Ryutaro, to China again, to Premier Li Peng during a summit meeting in China
1998: Hashimoto Ryutaro, to British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the Japanese treatment POWs, during Mr. Blair’s visit to Japan. (Typical of events that occur with Japanese apologies, his press secretary was badgered with questions asking why an apology was given to Blair and not to Australia. Responded the press secretary: “Every time we make this type of statement, it is our expression of a new determination to build a new era together with other countries.” The press secretary repeated several times that the apologies of both Hashimoto and Murayama were to everyone, but that didn’t satisfy the questioner.)
1998: Hashimoto Ryutaro, to Netherlands Prime Minister Willem Kok
1998: Obuchi Keizo, in a joint declaration with South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. The declaration includes the sentence:

“This settles the legacy of the 20th century.”

1998: Obuchi Keizo, in a joint declaration with China
2001: Koizumi Jun’ichiro, to South Korea directly to President Kim Dae-jung in South Korea
2002: Koizumi Jun’ichiro, to North Korea in a joint declaration
2003: Koizumi Jun’ichiro, to everyone in general and Asian countries in particular at a memorial ceremony for the war dead on 15 August
2005: Koizumi Jun’ichiro, to everyone at the Asia–Africa summit. As with many of the apologies, including the latest one by Mr. Kan, it declares that the Japanese “squarely face the historical facts”, an eternal demand of South Koreans.
2005: Koizumi Jun’ichiro, to everyone again in this statement on the 60th anniversary of V-J Day.
2007: Abe Shinzo to the comfort women (Mr. Abe also counts more than 20 separate Japanese government apologies to the Chinese alone.)

Apologies by foreign ministers

1965: Shiina Etsusaburo, to South Korea
1990: Nakayama Taro, to South Korea
2000: Kono Yohei, to China while in China
2001: Tanaka Makiko, to everyone at a speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the peace treaty
2010: Okada Katsuya, in a joint news conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan

Apologies by chief cabinet secretaries

1982: Miyazawa Kiichi, to Asia, specifically China and South Korea
1992: Kato Koichi, to South Korea
1993: Kono Yohei, to South Korea
2001: Fukuda Yasuo, to everyone, and Asia in particular

Apologies by the lower house of the Diet

1995: A resolution

Apologies from the government as whole

2009: From the Japanese ambassador to the U.S. to POWs who suffered in the Bataan Death March, on behalf of the Japanese government

Umezu Itaru, the Consul-General to Hong Kong, also apologized in the Far Eastern Economic Review in 2000.

That’s one heck of a lot of apologies for a people whose memory banks were magically erased by two atomic bombs. Every one of them, by the way, was reported in Japanese newspapers.

Now you see why it’s usually a waste of time to read most contemporary commentary about Japan. It would take a bank of klieg lights instead of Diogenes’ lantern to find someone who knew what they were talking about.

*****

This new and improved apology in a newly designed package was modeled after the one offered by Murayama Tomiichi. Mr. Kan said:

Colonial rule dispossessed (Koreans) of their country and culture, and deeply wounded their pride as a people…. The rule under colonization and the invasion caused great damage and hardship for the people of Asia. We humbly accept these facts of history, express again our heartfelt remorse, and declare our heartfelt apology.

As with many of the other apologies, he added a positive note:

Japan and South Korea have in common a wonderful culture and tradition they can take pride in before the world, (which has been achieved) through dynamic cultural interaction and travel for 2,000 years. Further, the interaction between the two countries is multilayered and wide-ranging, and the feelings of closeness and friendship between the people of the two countries have grown stronger than ever before. The economic and personal ties between both countries have surged since the normalization of diplomatic relations, and these ties have grown exceptionally strong through friendly competition.

Who could gainsay those sentiments? Mr. Kan is also, without question, sincere. But after so many ignored apologies, and apologies people are ignorant of, this time the mood of the Japanese public seems to be: Enough. The prime minister must have been disappointed at the paucity of positive responses.

One of them was from South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. After the Japanese prime minister called him personally, Mr. Lee thanked him and said, “We will be able to build even stronger ties in the future.”

It was also welcomed by the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade:

We accept the statement of Prime Minister Kan Naoto and the government of Japan for overcoming our unfortunate history and opening a path to bright South Korean-Japanese relations in the future…The South Korean government too hopes that the current close ties between the two countries will develop into a partnership in the future, based on the proper awareness and remorse for this unfortunate history.

Keio University Professor Okonogi Masao, a specialist in Korean affairs, commented:

For the first time, it clearly stated the annexation was against the will of the Korean people. It sidestepped the issues of law and compensation, which will not satisfy those historians who claim the treaty was improper, and the mass media.

The reason it sidestepped the issue of law and compensation is that it is the position of both the Japanese and South Korean governments that those issues were resolved in 1965. More on that later.

Yang Seok-il, an author born in Japan to Korean citizens, liked the clear view of history, the humility, and the forward-looking aspect, but thought the references to colonization were too abstract and was disappointed Mr. Kan said nothing about others born in Japan who chose to retain their Korean citizenship.

Most people were pleased the Japanese prime minister promised to return the copies in its possession of what the UN calls Uigwe: The Royal Protocols of the Joseon Dynasty, a collection of instructions and illustrations that were a model for rituals. Typical of this episode, he neglected to inform in advance the Imperial Household Agency, which has possession of the copy, but they said they’re waiting for word from the Cabinet or the Foreign Ministry.

In fact, the Japanese government plans to give it back with no strings attached. Compare their approach with that of the French, who have some originals. Jacques Chirac finally let the Koreans have it, but the French insist it’s a loan and that they still own it.

Among those displeased with the apology in South Korea are the mass media, perhaps the single most disruptive force in Japanese-South Korean relations. Here’s part of an editorial from the Chosun Ilbo:

Only repeating the spirit of apology means simply that (the Japanese) are unable to transcend the past. Without any content that the treaty of annexation, the basis for colonial rule, was coerced, the sense of this declaration is rather thin.

They did like idea of returning the Uigwe, however. So did the Joongan Ilbo, which said:

Without a visible gift, the South Korean government and people would have criticized it as mere lip service.

The Seoul Shinmun said: “It did not reach South Korean expectations.”

Then again, anything other than perpetual abject groveling will fail to reach the expectations of some elements of the South Korean mass media.

In Japan

Mr. Kan also failed to reach the expectations of many people in Japan, mainly because he doesn’t seem to have told many people about what he planned to do—even in his own party. He might regret that, and rather soon, too.

One of the unhappy Democratic Party campers is Genba Koichiro, a member of Mr. Kan’s Cabinet with three minor portfolios. He’s also the chair of the party’s Policy Research Committee:

There were different opinions in the party. Wouldn’t it have been appropriate to consult with (me, as the committee chair) at an early stage of the preparations?… If you ask me whether it was positive or not, I would say it was not positive…I signed it this time (with the cabinet) but I hope they hold consultations at an early stage in the future.

Mr. Genba also brought up the issue that irked most Japanese politicians:

I want them to make sure this is not linked to reparations.

Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Haraguchi Kazuhiro thought it was generally a positive step, but added:

It does not require new obligations of Japan under international law. If anyone takes so much as a step in that direction, I will lay out my body to block it.

Internal DPJ criticism was more pointed than that offered by Tanigaki Sadakazu, the head of the opposition LDP:

A forward-looking outlook is essential, but is a statement of this sort even needed at this point? I have a lot of doubts….it would be an enormous error to uselessly rehash issues that were resolved by the 1965 treaty and subsidiary agreements…Is this something for which a process has been taken in the ruling party and the government, or is it just some idea they had?

During the just-concluded Diet session, the prime minister repeatedly said his apology would be prudent, but he never explained why another apology would either be necessary or important.

Discuss it directly with the Japanese people first? Surely you jest. This is a left-wing government. Whatever they do is always automatic for the people.

Mr. Kan claimed his apology was no different in approach from the Murayama declaration, insisted that post-war reparations were a closed matter, and that since his apology was patterned after the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea, the issue would not arise again.

That last part is too clever by half. People suspect the apology was orchestrated by Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku Yoshito, and they do not care for that at all.

For his part, Mr. Sengoku said he would discuss the apology with the appropriate DPJ organizations in advance, but as Mr. Genba noted, that didn’t happen. He also told Diet members that the apology followed the Murayama pattern, and that it was necessary to strengthen ties with South Korea to resolve the North Korean abduction and nuclear issues.

That displeased Finance Minister Noda Yoshihiko, who thought discretion was the better part of valor:

I will express my opinion to Mr. Sengoku by telephone or in person.

Mr. Sengoku’s problem is that no one believes his explanation—not after he publicly stated that as an attorney, he thinks there are grounds for the Japanese to pay additional reparations. Not after he told the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan on 7 July that the reparations Japan paid were insufficient and that new individual reparations would have to be considered. Not after Mr. Sengoku was the prime mover during his days in the opposition to further apologize and pay reparations to comfort women.

Concerned about what might happen, the Foreign Ministry carefully explained the background of the government’s position. They were told the explanation would be used “as a reference”. The ministry asked about returning cultural treasures, and were told, “It isn’t true that we’re considering it.” Then they found out with the rest of the country that the Uigwe would be handed over. The statement also exceeded the Murayama declaration by using the word “illegality”, potentially causing more problems in bilateral diplomatic relations.

Some of his statements led the South Korean media to start practicing their Glory Hallelujah chants, but they’re premature. More than a few people think Mr. Sengoku is out of control, and he might also be out of office before too long.

He insists:

The (1965) treaty was only one act of settlement. Several remain at the citizen level, the people’s level, and the national (minzoku) level. We should work to eliminate any obstacles that will prevent (good relations) in the future

He used the word shimin for citizen, not the usual kokumin, which is in keeping with his belief that nation-states should dissolve.

Mr. Sengoku, however, is not be the first leftist lawyer who chose to ignore words clearly written on a page that interfered with his ulterior motives. For example, the 1965 treaty contains this passage:

We recognize that the issues regarding the two signatories to this treaty, the assets, rights, and benefits of their people, and the right of claims between the two countries and their people…are completely and finally resolved.

Dashed inconvenient, that “completely and finally resolved” part.

As part of the treaty’s obligations, the Japanese paid $US 800 million yen to the South Korean government in 1965. The deal was that the South Koreans would handle reparations to individual South Koreans themselves, and they received the money on behalf of the victims.

But the South Korean government paid only KRW 300,000 to individuals who died as victims of forced labor. They spent most of the money on infrastructure instead. Part of the funds went to establish POSCO (a steel company), and build the Gyeongbu Expressway and the Soyang River Dam. In fact, a poll of South Koreans showed that more than 70% want the South Korean government to compensate the victims of colonization.

Indeed, since the Japanese are looking clearly at history, it’s time for the South Koreans to return the favor. The $US 800 million in reparations in 1965 was more than double the entire South Korean budget of $US 350 million that year.

South Korea is justly proud of what is called the Miracle of the Han River, in which the people applied their intelligence and diligence to transform the country into an economic power. From 1970 to 1979, the country’s GDP growth averaged eight percent annually.

In other words, the Japanese government bankrolled the Korean miracle.

Not that the Koreans will give them any credit for it, or that the Japanese expect it. And Mr. Sengoku thinks it’s still not enough.

Why did Mr. Sengoku force the issue? It’s not that hard to see—he’s one of a common type that also infests Western countries. He’s a former member of the Socialist Party who joined the DPJ to ensure his political viability. People of that brood often don designer-made hair shirts as a form of self-congratulation. Mea maxima culpa are the first words out of their mouth when they talk about their own country’s behavior, and that comes easier to a man who doesn’t believe in countries to begin with.

Finally, people from his part of the political pasture believe in doing what they’ve always wanted to do while the doing is good, consensus be damned, because they’re convinced of their moral superiority, and they know their window of opportunity usually closes very quickly. The ruling party itself wasn’t informed that Mr. Kan would issue a statment until the day before. They were informed only of the outline and not given a copy of the full declaration. Some in the party asked how much longer Japan would be expected to apologize, but no one made themselves available to answer that question.

But Mr. Sengoku chose a poor time to take a stand on what for him passes as principle. The Kan government is already skating on thin ice after its election defeat last month and Mr. Kan’s ineptitude as he stumbles his way from one hangover to the next. With Japan’s parliamentary system, it is usually expected that a prime minister whould dissolve the lower house and face the peoeple after a defeat of that magnitude, but not this crowd. Thus, he is seen by many as ruling without a mandate.

The prime minister is also facing reelection as party president next month. The DPJ is an ideologically fragile coalition to begin with, and this just widened the cracks in the party. The prime minister’s reelection is no sure bet, and the way the issue was handled, from Mr. Sengoku’s lying to his party and the Foreign Ministry, to Mr. Kan’s tears, might be one factor that tips the balance against him. A Kan loss, in turn, could well spark the inevitable political realignment coming to Japan (which might have occurred anyway after the DPJ election). Any realignment that occurs could result in a reduced DPJ membership, with the government in the hands of a different coalition of forces and both Mr. Sengoku and Mr. Kan in a rump party of leftists on the outside looking in.

I mentioned the apology might have two benefits. That’s the second.

Afterwords:

I provided two links to the Japanese apologies. There are plenty more for the other ones, for anyone who’s interested.

Here’s an interesting review of a book by French intellectual Pascal Bruckner. The connection with this topic is indirect, but not entirely unrelated:

Despite his Jewish heritage, Bruckner characterises Auschwitz as our new Golgotha, “as if Christ died a second time there.” Holocaust fetishism set in motion a process that has resulted, he argues, in the “penitent state” whose history consists of a litany of shameful episodes. The result is a profusion of victim groups—racial, regional, sexual—each seizing on particular episodes to stake their legal and moral claims against the majority.

The reviewer adds:

Could it be that making guilty noises signals sophistication and status, with the high priests of the left earning psychic wages equivalent to bankers’ bonuses?

If so, Sengoku Yoshito and Kan Naoto must be pleased with their psychic bank accounts.

Complementary to the “penitent state” idea is the feminization of political behavior over the past half-century and the attempted conversion of the alpha male into the beta boy in all aspects of life.

Matsuri da! (113): It’s about that time!

EVERY COUNTRY seems to fill its calendar with commemorative days, weeks, and months that most people never know exist, or would never care about if they did know. In the United States, for example, June is both National Polka Month and Bath Safety Month. The second week of June was Law Enforcement Training Week and School Guard Crossing Week. The 16th was National Fudge Day, the 14th was Blood Type Awareness Day (that’s every day in Japan), and the 10th was American Log Cabin Day.

In Japan, meanwhile, the 10th was set aside as the day to commemorate time. Unlike American Log Cabin Day, it did not pass by unnoticed, particularly by the folks in Otsu, Shiga. They did what comes naturally to the Japanese—they had a festival!

That event was the Rokokusai, or Water Clock Festival, held at the Omi-jingu, a local Shinto shrine. As the jingu name suggests, this shrine is associated with the Imperial household, and the enshrined deity is the spirit of the Tenchi Tenno (emperor). He was number 38 and lived in the seventh century. In contrast, the shrine itself is relatively new—it was built in 1940 to celebrate the 2,600th year of the Imperial reign, dating back to the legendary first Tenno, Jimmu.

The reason they got all excited about water clocks is that the Tenchi Tenno introduced the use of those timekeepers to Japan 1,340 years ago. Several of those clocks and other historical timepieces are on display in a museum on the shrine grounds. Naturally, the local timepiece manufacturers take a special interest in the shrine and this event. They each donated a sample of their new products to the shrine for presentation to the divinity with a prayer for the prosperous growth of their industry.

The festival included a performance of kagura, or Shinto song and dance, and there was a procession with 400 people. The photo shows some of those participating in the procession presenting the donated timepieces to the divinity. They’re dressed in the manner of uneme, which means “selected women”. During the Heian period (794-1185), they were chosen from a nationwide talent pool—probably for their timeless good looks—to be court attendants and serve the Tenno at table. This was a formal role, though they likely did not serve the Tenno in other ways that some of you lecherous types are probably thinking about. He had official concubines to handle that aspect of his life.

Because the Japanese Tenno has primarily been a religious figure, the uneme were considered to have a religious role, and they were also his personal property. Therefore, violating an uneme was a serious breach of the law that was severely punished as one of the “eight abominable crimes”.

Watching attractive women in period costume carry around clocks might not ring most people’s chimes, but one participant saw it differently:

When I sat inside the quiet shrine precincts with the guardian deity for time, I reflected on how much time I’ve wasted. I hope to live my life hereafter with a real sense of the importance of time.

Tenchi’s water clocks sounded the passage of time with a bell, but some later timepieces used a boom. On Time Day this year, Kadoya Shoji of Nagaoka, Niigata, displayed a taiko drum clock that he recreated based on an original model dating from 1793 now in the collection of the National Museum of Nature and Science in Ueno, Tokyo (link on right sidebar). The interior of that clock is hollow, however, and how it worked is a mystery. There are no surviving designs, so Mr. Kadoya, who repairs timepieces for a living, had to come up with some ideas on his own.

His task was complicated because Japan used what is known as the temporal time system during the Edo period. Instead of dividing a day into 24 equal periods of 60 minutes each, the period from dawn to dusk was split into six equal intervals, as was the period from dusk to dawn. Therefore, the operation of the clocks varied from month to month. The period of daylight is longer than the night in summer, but that’s reversed in winter. Thus the “hours” progressively grew longer until this time of year (this week in fact), when they began growing shorter.

This manner of timekeeping was used until 1873, when the Japanese government adopted the Western method of using equal hours with no seasonal variation, as well as the Gregorian calendar.

Mr. Kadoya contrived a system with two scales – one for day and one for night—and used lead weights to operate it. He said it was difficult to create the mechanism for the automatic switch from the daytime scale to the one used at night. The weights are raised and readjusted once a day. The clock itself is 108 centimeters high (3.54 feet), 45 centimeters in diameter, and 20 centimeters thick. In addition to the drum beat signaling the hours, a bell sounds at the equivalent of noon. A mechanical bird attached to the upper part of the drum also moves at midday, in accordance with contemporary accounts of the original drum.

He’s been at this quite a while; Mr. Kadoya first repaired a Japanese clock 35 years ago at the request of a customer. That piqued his interest, and he has repaired more than 200 since then.

Asking someone for the time of day is usually a simple matter, but Mr. Kadoya might have a more complicated answer. You should specify the century first!

Afterwords:

For a photo of the face of an older Japanese clock, plus more details on their operation, try this post on the website of novelist Gina Collia-Suzuki.

The bounce and the bounced

Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.
- Niccolo Machiavelli

AFTER 420 PEOPLE in Tokyo elected Kan Naoto to replace Hatoyama Yukio as prime minister, polls showed a rebound in support for the ruling Democratic Party of Japan. Reports in the English-language news media used some colorful language to describe this shift in public sentiment. One said there was a “leap” in the rate of support, and another said it had “spurted”. Those aren’t words one usually associates with the people involved, particularly the second.

But there’s already an excellent descriptive term in common use in English to describe such a rebound in support, a political phenomenon that regularly occurs in all democracies. They could have called it a “bounce”.

Kan Naoto on tour

In the United States, for example, there are always stories after the two major parties hold their summer conventions during an election year to examine how much of a bounce they receive in the polls, and how quickly and to what extent that bounce dissipates. The media also uses it in such instances as, “President Obama received no bounce from the passage of his health care legislation.”

In Japan, the polls always bounce when a new prime minister is named in these circumstances. This time, the Kyodo (RDD) poll had the support numbers for the DPJ rising from about 21% to 36.1%, roughly 15 points. Meanwhile, the Fuji-Sankei RDD poll pegged the bounce at 30.6%, and Mainichi’s RDD poll showed it at 28%.

While we can’t compare the rate of support for the new Cabinet because it hasn’t been officially installed yet, we can look at the bounce the last two replacement prime ministers received in identical circumstances. Here are the figures from the Jiji poll when Fukuda Yasuo replaced Abe Shinzo in 2007:

Abe Shinzo in September: 25.5%
Fukuda Yasuo in October: 44.1%

And here are the numbers when Aso Taro replaced Fukuda Yasuo a year later:

Fukuda Yasuo in September: 15.6%
Aso Taro in October: 38.6%

Compared to the Fukuda and Aso bounces, the DPJ bounce seems to have been an unremarkable squirt rather than a spurt.

Indeed, what should concern the DPJ is that the Kan bounce will turn out to be just like the other two. Had the journos spent more time reading the financial pages of their own publications—I know, I know—they would be aware of a well-known Wall Street term that fits the circumstances perfectly: the “dead cat bounce”.

That expression originates from the idea that “even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height”. Here’s the definition from one website:

Securities that are prone to a dead cat bounce share a few common characteristics. First, the securities are not held in high esteem, based on past performance. Second, there are no indicators that the securities in question are capable of attaining and sustaining a higher value in the current market. Last, there are no indicators that sustained growth would be achieved if some major economic shift occurred in the market.

Sound familiar?

We’ve already seen two dead cat bounces within the past three years. The most recent Asahi poll found 38% of the respondents supporting the continuation of a DPJ-based government, but an equal number disagreeing. That suggests the possibility of a third dead cat, perhaps before the end of the year.

It took a few months for those other cats to hit the pavement a second time, however. It is to Mr. Kan’s advantage that the upper house election will be held next month, before gravity begins to take effect.

*****
Speaking of dead cats, Kan Naoto might wind up being one dead cat politically after his Cabinet selections over the weekend.

Some commentators, including me, thought that selecting Mr. Kan as Mr. Hatoyama’s replacement was a sign that Ozawa Ichiro still controlled the party. But not only did the new prime minister suggest that Mr. Ozawa get lost for a while, he also selected Ozawa enemies to fill posts in a Cabinet reshuffle. (This is one of the things people mean when they talk about the DPJ’s structural incompatibilities.)

Everyone realized that Mr. Kan would have to demonstrate he was not an Ozawa puppet if he wanted his government to have any credibility at all, but selecting Edano Yukio as DPJ secretary-general to replace Mr. Ozawa, Sengoku Yoshito as chief cabinet secretary, and to a lesser extent, Ren Ho as governmental reform minister / consumer affairs minister is equivalent to the prime minister sticking his middle finger in the Boss Man’s face on live television. All three are anti-Ozawans, and the Edano-Ozawa animosity is particularly venemous.

Here’s Mr. Edano’s position as stated before his appointment:

Drive Ozawa Ichiro out of the DPJ!

And:

Mr. Ozawa is undemocratic. He does not recognize anyone who doesn’t listen to him.

The Japanese proverb kega no komyo is used to describe a misfortune (literally, an injury) that eventually has an unexpected benefit. It’s possible that Mr. Kan has created that situation in reverse. He’s winning plaudits for distancing himself from Mr. Ozawa now, but he could pay for it dearly down the road. He doesn’t seem to be the type of pol to be aware of the Machiavellian maxim at the top of the post, but Mr. Ozawa probably understands it instinctively. The latter is the kind of guy who brings a squad armed with submachine guns to a knife fight, while Mr. Kan is no one’s idea of a political street fighter.

Former U.S. President Lyndon Johnson once counseled that it was best to have the late FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover as an ally because he’d “rather have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.”

Mr. Kan has now ensured he has the man with the most toxic political urine in Japan inside the tent pissing in.

Here are some of the disadvantages of the new prime minister’s approach.

1. See you in September, baby

Mr. Kan was selected to fill out the remainder of Hatoyama Yukio’s term, which ends in September. Word from the Ozawa camp is that they’re already preparing for a rumble.

Mr. Ozawa sent a video message to a party meeting in his home prefecture of Iwate held on the evening of the 4th. Here’s part of what he said:

We can achieve real reform by stabilizing the government with a victory in the upper house election. At that time, I myself will do everything to lead the charge.

Some think that means he’s considering another run for party president in September. In fact, word is now leaking out, mostly from former Foreign Minister Tanaka Makiko, that he briefly considered running against Mr. Kan, but decided there wasn’t enough time to mount a campaign.

2. Sayonara, baby

Even his enemies in the party have put up with Mr. Ozawa for two reasons. First, he showed them how to win, which was beyond their political capabilities before he got there. They are not the smoothest of political operatives. Second, he’s put them on permanent notice that he’s always ready to walk. More than a few people think he’s always planned on walking someday anyway.

Recall that he worked out a deal with then-Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo to create a grand coalition government, a deal the other party elders led by Messrs. Hatoyama and Kan rejected. When they failed to kiss his ring, Mr. Ozawa abruptly quit as party head and made an unmistakable threat to split and take his supporters with him. The elders knew that if he left, their chance to take power left with him. He was back in the catbird seat a few days later.

Japanese commentators generally assume that he controls roughly 150 of the party’s 423 Diet members. That total might rise in the July election. Some think he can’t count on all of them to walk out the door with him, in part because people dislike his iron-fisted leadership methods. They may be right, but that would present practical problems for the ones who choose another political planet to orbit.

Mr. Ozawa knows how to run campaigns and raise money. No one in the DPJ knew before he showed up—they were just the beneficiaries of the default anti-LDP votes. The same applies to many of the current Diet members whose fannies are sitting in the plush seats of Nagata-cho because of him. How would they fare in a re-election bid without his support, election skills, and money-raising abilities?

3. A different breed of cat

Mr. Ozawa has been through similar situations several times before with several parties and reemerged each time. A cat with nine lives lands on his feet instead of bouncing off the sidewalk, and even though he’s 68, he might have a few of those lives left. He certainly knows the layout of this particular alley.

4. Back to square one

People have noticed the new Cabinet looks very much like the pre-Ozawa DPJ, led by the hapless Hatoyama and the irascible Kan, which could never gain serious traction with the voters. It had the reputation as a left-of-center coffee house debating society for squishes. Are they capable of standing on their own? Some think they spot the outlines of a battle between the Old DPJ and the Ozawa Liberal Party-wing taking shape.

The problem will be exacerbated by appointing Mr. Edano to serve as party secretary-general. His job will be to create party unity and run the national election campaign, and he’s never had any experience of that type before. How does he develop party unity when fingers already have started pointing after the Hatoyama debacle? How does he foster party unity among the more moderate elements such as himself and co-group leader Maehara Seiji, the hard-line left wingers who joined the party because they couldn’t win running as socialists, and those in the pockets of the labor unions? How does he create unity with Ozawa Ichiro disinclined to help him, though he is sure to be Johnny-on-the-spot for those loyal to him.

Add to that the dissatisfaction already expressed by Mr. Kan’s own faction for being passed over for important Cabinet posts. (Mr. Edano, Mr. Sengoku, and several other appointees are from the Edano/Maehara group.) The spoils are supposed to go to the victor, but the victor’s supporters didn’t get many.

Depending on circumstances, this election could well determine whether the DPJ survives as a party, and the campaign is now under the nominal supervision of people whose track record at this level contains more stumbles than successes.

In any event, the Old DPJ bloc in the party will have to lie in the bed they made. A lot of Mr. Kan’s support, particularly that from the Edano-Maehara group, came with the condition that he distance himself from Ozawa-style politics and the man himself. They got what they wanted. Now we’ll see if they know what to do with it.

Something to watch for

It was assumed that the upper house election would be called for July 11. One reason for circling that date is that prosecutors will make another decision on Ozawa Ichiro’s prosecution in mid-July. Will Mr. Kan choose to hold the election later in the month and hope the prosecutors bear good tidings?

A Kanusian quote-a-rama

From page 73 of the expanded edition of Daijin (Minister), which Kan Naoto published last December:

The problem (with the LDP era) was that the next prime minister was selected from the same party that had been responsible for the misgovernment…Fundamentally, when the ruling party selects its next prime minister, he should dissolve the lower house at that point and ask the people in a general election whom the prime minister should be. That didn’t happen, however, partly due to the weakness of the opposition parties.

Some prime ministers and presidents are tested by economic or security crises. A good test for Mr. Kan is how he would handle a question asking him about that passage from his book.

Health Minister Yanagisawa Hakuo was forced out of office during the Abe Shinzo administration for calling women “baby-making machines”. Mr. Kan was one of those who called for his head, but he’s also talked about the low birthrate:

The economy is good in Aichi and Tokyo. They say productivity is high, but in one sector, they’re competing for last place. They are the lowest in productivity for having children.

When called on it, he resorted to quoting the dictionary definition of “production”.

On the Marines in Okinawa:

After we form a government, we’ll have them leave right away.

When the Isahaya Bay project, in which part of the bay was closed off for dikes and landfill, became an issue after fishermen complained of red tides and a poor fishing environment, he stormed:

Under whose authority was this done?

He was a cabinet minister when the government approved the project.

He’s had a sex scandal of his own. Here’s how he handled it:

We spent the night together, but there was no male-female relationship. I bear no responsibility for explaining this.

On 5 June, the Ryukyu Shimpo, a regional Okinawa newspaper, rounded up some quotes of interest to their readership:

1996:
He agreed with Hatoyama Yukio that security was possible without American forces stationed permanently in Japan.

August 2001:

The absence of Marines in Okinawa wouldn’t cause great harm to Japan’s security.

July 2003:

Rather than moving (the Futenma-based marines) inside the country, it should be easier to think of moving them somewhere in the US, such as Hawaii.

July 2001:
On the Status of Forces Agreement

Rather than improving its implementation, mustn’t we reevaluate (i.e., change) the agreement itself?

November 2003:

The vertical structure of Kasumigaseki (the bureaucracy) is horrendous. We promise to appoint a minister responsible for all aspects of the Okinawa problem at the Cabinet level.

This weekend, on the consumption tax:

I hope to indicate a direction with the new cabinet and party executives, including the manner of expression.

By expression, he means the name they give it. As our last post on Mr. Kan explained, he was interested in renaming the national tax burden the “share” or “allotment”.

Here are some more English-language quotes rounded up by Jillian Melchior of Contentions, the blog for Commentary magazine, mostly about what Japanese foreign policy might be under Mr. Kan. Alas, my fellow self-absorbed Americans still don’t get it:

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama had played to populism, running his campaign partially on promises to reduce American presence in Japan.

How shall I put this?

America, it isn’t always about you. I know you like to think of yourself as the center of the universe, but most people in the rest of the world manage to live their lives without thinking about you much at all.

Had Mr. Hatoyama said absolutely nothing about the American presence in Japan during the campaign, the election result would have been identical, with the possible exception of a few seats in Okinawa.

Have you forgotten Tip O’Neill? All politics is local. Last year’s election in Japan was as local as they get.

Kan the irascible

The new prime minister’s nickname in Japanese is Ira-Kan for his notoriously short temper, and that slides nicely into English as the irascible Kan.

Your Party Secretary-General Eda Kenji has developed a personal relationship with Mr. Kan, visiting him at his home to discuss politics. He wrote on his website about one such debate:

When I argued that reform was absolutely impossible for a party that relied on public employee labor unions (i.e., the DPJ), he pounded the table with his fist so hard he smashed a teacup and bloodied his hand.

Mr. Eda says that Mr. Kan has asked him several times to work with the DPJ, but he’s refused for this particular reason. He added, “As long as Your Party is the antithesis of the 90s political reorganization, we’ll never work with a party with the philosophy of the DPJ.”

Mr. Kan has kept a low profile recently, anticipating that he would replace Hatoyama Yukio, and he’s been holding only two pressers a week. Now he’s going to have to go to two a day. Said one reporter: “It hasn’t been conveyed because he’s had so little exposure in news coverage lately, but he still sometimes looks like he’s going to explode in anger, demanding of reporters, ‘Who said such a thing’. He reportedly banged a table and shouted at some bureaucrats over the search for the secret U.S.-Japan treaty.”

Kan the republican

A post by Miyazaki Masahiro floated around the Japanese-language Internet over the weekend claiming that Kan Naoto refuses to sing the national anthem. This naturally got people upset, some more than others.

I spent some time looking for confirmation, and the only thing I could come up with was his–and the DPJ’s—opposition to the 1999 bill making the Hinomaru the national flag and Kimi ga Yo the national anthem. He proposed an amendment that kept the clause about the flag but removed Kimi ga Yo as the anthem. The DPJ and other parties of the left voted for it. They lost.

Those who can read Japanese can see some of the debate on this page, as well as the people who voted for and against it. Hatoyama Yukio spoke in the Diet in favor of Mr. Kan’s amendment against designating Kimi ga Yo as the national anthem. He justified his opposition by citing the association it has in some people’s minds with the glorification of the Imperial household during the war.

It really is time to end this charade.

The DPJ knows as well as anyone else—and better than I—that the lyrics to the song originated as a poem more than a millennium ago, and that kimi (you) referred not to the Tenno (emperor) but to one’s lover. It came to have Imperial associations later.

They know as well as anyone else the difference between shrine Shinto and the state Shinto of the war years, the reasons for the difference, and the reasons for the eventual abuse of state Shinto. They know as well as anyone else that this period in Japanese history is an exception rather than the rule.

Here’s my conclusion: Kan Naoto and the rest of the DPJ are republicans in the way the British use the term. In other words, they’re opposed to the existence of the Imperial household itself. They would still be republicans had World War II never happened. The republican position can be controversial in Britain, and it is even more so in Japan. The Japanese republicans realize they wouldn’t stand a chance with public opinion unless they played off war guilt.

There are many rational, intelligent people in Japan who can and do make the case for maintaining the Imperial traditions as the symbol of the nation. Yet they are no more interested in marching back into the Korean Peninsula than a British monarchist would be in re-colonizing India.

When the new Cabinet officially takes office, they will go to the Imperial Palace in formal dress and receive a proclamation from the Tenno. They will not swear an oath of allegiance, as is done in Britain. There, at the start of every Parliament, all the MPs take the oath: “I [name] swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God.”

This site shows a photo of the late Tony Banks crossing his fingers while taking the oath, which caused a bit of a ruckus. In 1998, 15 dukes, three of them from the royal family, refused to take the oath. One MP added the words “and all who sail on her” after the words Queen Elizabeth. (A funny line, isn’t it?) The British monarchists and republicans may not care for each other’s views, but everyone still soldiers on without the nation collapsing.

It’s time for Mr. Hatoyama, Mr. Kan, and others to quit griping about the song, knock off the lame excuse about the war—which gets lamer with each passing year—and just admit that they’re republicans. The “forever guilty” pose is as tiresome as it is unattractive and false.

Mr. Edano and Mr. Maehara also voted for the Kan amendment, incidentally. Whether they did so out of party loyalty, or whether they too are republicans, is not possible to know.

And, to steal a line from Detective Columbo, I almost forgot: When opposing the 1999 bill for the national flag and anthem, Mr. Hatoyama complained that only 13 hours of debate were allowed. That’s more than twice the amount of time he allowed for debate in the lower house on the Japan Post re-privatization bill last month.

Afterwords:

The photo shows Mr. Kan in 2004 making the 88-temple pilgrimage in Shikoku to atone for his failure to pay his share into the general pension fund, for which he was bounced as party leader during his first time around. Note the shaved head.

Another Cabinet minister to be bounced will be Agriculture Minister Akamatsu Hirotaka for his mishandling of the foot and mouth epidemic in Miyazaki. It isn’t just the politicos who are prone to that malady. A total of 130,000 cows and pigs will be slaughtered in that small, mostly rural prefecture, with a loss of roughly JPY 35 billion (about $US 380.3 million). It’s a major story in Japan that’s caused yet more trouble for the DPJ government, but political free-for-alls in the city get more TV time than dead animals in the country, even when the economic impact is severe.

Memo to the DPJ: I know your English-language website isn’t a priority, but don’t you think that keeping the old “You have made history!” banner is inappropriate under the circumstances? Isn’t it time you updated the site to include a national apology?

Finally, the Iconic Photos website with the picture of the MP crossing his fingers during the oath in Parliament has nothing to do with Japan, but I enjoy following the site’s posts.

Shimojo Masao (9): Tenno or Ilwang?

THE SOUTH KOREANS use the term ilwang (日王, or Japanese king), to refer to the Japanese Tenno, or emperor. But in the Confucian cultural sphere, the political standing of a king and the Tenno were entirely different. That’s because the term tenno also is used to designate an emperor. It is not the same as a king, which implies the existence of a subservient nobility. Why is it that South Koreans insist on calling the Tenno, which is nothing more than a historical proper noun, an ilwang, thereby turning an emperor into a king?

The South Korean explanation is that in the Confucian cultural sphere, the terms used for emperor, including tenno, are limited to Chinese historical dynasties that were suzerains. Using that word to denote the Japanese Tenno would place South Korea in the position of a Japanese vassal state.

It is a historical fact, however, that the situation in Japan was identical to that of the Chinese dynasties. The “shogun in charge of conquering barbarian territories” established a military government of the samurai class, known as the bakufu, after receiving the sanction of the Tenno. It used the Tenno’s era name as the symbol of an independent state. A superior-subordinate relationship was maintained between the shogun and the nobility, or daimyo. The relationship between the Tenno and the shogun was a system of governance that closely resembled the vassal system in which the Chinese dynasties made vassals of the nobility from the surrounding states. During the Edo period, governance was established as a system with the Shogunate and feudal domains.

Viewed from this historical perspective, there were two empires in the Confucian cultural sphere–China and Japan—and two people who were tenshi (天子, i.e., emperor, or the child of heaven). Located between China on the continent and the Japanese archipelago, the Korean Peninsula was historically subject to the geopolitical influence of those two states.

However, the Korean Peninsula, which had long been in a subordinate position to the Chinese dynasty, was annexed by Japan in August 1910. The peninsula was liberated from Japanese rule with the latter’s defeat in the Second World War. A movement arose in post-liberation South Korea to restore the historical conditions of the past, and that led to the emergence of a historical awareness that pressed for a settlement of past issues. Because South Korea had historically looked up to China as the suzerain, they viewed Japan has having been in the position of nobility–identical to the position of the peninsula. Therefore, for South Koreans to refer to the Japanese Tenno with that term would be tantamount to an admission they were still under Japanese rule, which would wound their self-respect.

The unique historical viewpoint of the Korean Peninsula, which holds that “this is how the history of the past should be”, has had a not-insubstantial impact on recent historical issues between Japan and South Korea, and South Korea and China. In South Korea, a contemporary historical aesthesis is used to evaluate history. That’s because they seek a settlement of the history of the past based on a historical viewpoint derived from that evaluation.

Joseon achieved “absolute independence as a self-governing nation” as the result of the 1894 war between Japan and China. That meant Japan, which was the victor in that war, was compelled to recognize the independence of Joseon, for which the Qing Dynasty had been the suzerain. Therefore, in accordance with the tradition of the states of the Confucian cultural sphere, Joseon reinstituted the Greater Korean Empire in 1896, installed Gojong as the emperor, and established an era name. That’s why, in South Korea, the descendents of Emperor Gojong of the Greater Korean Empire are known as “imperial descendants”.

In recent years, there have been discussions between Japan and South Korea about a possible visit by the Japanese Tenno to the latter country. If there were an opportunity for the Tenno to meet with Gojong’s descendents during such a visit, and the South Korean historical view of the Tenno as the ilwang remained intact, would the mass media in that country report that the “imperial descendants” had met with the “Japanese king”?

History should not be cavalierly rewritten from the arbitrary interpretation of later generations. One obstacle when considering the establishment of an East Asian entity is a barren historical viewpoint based on a contemporary aesthesis that would go so far as to recreate the history of the past in conformity with present attitudes.

- Shimojo Masao

The origin of holidays and the Tenno system

IF IT ISN’T UNIQUE, the Tokyo Metropolitan District is surely one of the few governments anywhere whose two top chief executives were men of letters before becoming involved with politics. Gov. Ishihara Shintaro first captured the attention of the public by publishing a spectacularly successful novel while still a university student. Vice-Governor Inose Naoki, meanwhile, made his name as a non-fiction writer.

In connection with a new book to be published later this week, Mr. Inose has distributed online an article he wrote for the 24 November 1988 edition of the weekly Shukan Spa. The article describes how and why some of Japan’s holidays were selected when the new Constitution came into effect after the war. It also explains how and why the Japanese weren’t always the ones to select the dates of those holidays.

My quick translation of most of the article follows.

*****
The Origin of Holidays and the Tenno System

Many of Japan’s holidays have a rather complicated history. Labor Day is originally associated with the Niinamesai (Harvest Festival), which is connected to the Tenno (Emperor).

Even those people for whom the name Niinamesai does not register should recall seeing on television the Tenno cutting the rice in the paddy at the Fukiage-gyoen (gardens) at the Imperial Palace. The Niinamesai is a festival to celebrate the rice harvest and offer a prayer for an abundant harvest in the coming year.

The Tenno’s rice harvest is a symbolic performance. The Tenno, whose spiritual power has been strengthened to the maximum through the Chinkonsai (Shinto service for the repose of the dead) held the previous night, conducts a ceremony at the Imperial Palace for offering the harvested grain to the divinities. The Daijosai is conducted when the new Tenno ascends the throne, and is best understood as a version of the Niinamesai on a larger scale.

The Tenno system has continued even with the changes to the Constitution after the defeat in the war and the transfer of ultimate sovereignty from the Tenno to the people. When decisions were being made on new holidays, the Niinamesai was offered as a candidate, adapted as a day to give thanks for the new harvest. The associations between the name of the holiday and the Tenno gradually grew weaker, and the holiday was established as a day to honor work, celebrate production, and to have the citizens extend their thanks to each other for the work they do.

A poem in the Man’yoshu suggests the Niiname was once a ceremony conducted in the home. The name Niiname is not to be found among the harvest festivals held throughout the country in the early modern period, however. In short, it is best considered a ceremony restored under the Meiji Tenno system.

The origin of Labor Day has not been taught in schools in the postwar period, so children think of it as a day of appreciation for their father’s daily efforts. But if that is the case, why isn’t 1 May—May Day—a holiday?

Culture Day on 3 November was known as the Meiji Setsu before the war. It is the birthday of the Meiji Tenno. During the Meiji period, it was known as Tencho Setsu (The Imperial Birthday). During the (following) Taisho period, the birthday of the Taisho Tenno was known as the Tencho Setsu, and the birthday of the Meiji Tenno was eliminated as a holiday. But the Meiji Setsu was brought back as a holiday soon after the Taisho Tenno died and the Showa period began.

Postwar decisions

The Law Regarding Citizens’ Holidays was promulgated on 20 July 1948. Of course, Japan was still an occupied nation under GHQ control. Provision was made for nine holidays at that time: New Year’s, Coming-of-Age Day, the Vernal Equinox, the Tenno’s Birthday, Constitution Day, Children’s Day, the Autumnal Equinox, Culture Day, and Labor Day. Of these, five were holidays related to the Tenno; only their names were changed. The Vernal Equinox and the Autumnal Equinox were originally known as the All Imperial Ancestors’ Day for the spring and fall respectively. The Tenno’s Birthday had been known as the Tencho Setsu. As we’ve already seen, Culture Day was the Meiji Setsu and Labor Day was the Niinamesai.

The author and politician Yamamoto Yuzo, who was a member of the upper house Culture Committee considering that legislation at the time, wrote with great sorrow the behind-the-scenes story about setting the date of Culture Day. According to his account, the committee placed the greatest emphasis on 3 November and wanted to make that Constitution Day. Their reason was that Japan’s new Constitution had been promulgated the year before on that day—3 November 1947.

As he wrote, “The Civil Information and Education Section (of GHQ) did not allow that, however. They thought 3 May would be a better choice for Constitution Day. It wasn’t long before the lower house approved 3 May as the date, making negotiations all the more difficult. But I did not give up. I thought the date the Constitution was promulgated rather than the date it came into force to be a more appropriate date. Considering the distribution of the holidays, the seasons, and the weather for each, I kept up the good fight for seven months.”

Why was GHQ so adamant? Yamamoto Yuzo explains that both the Americans and the Japanese had ulterior motives. He wanted to make the date for commemorating the Constitution the day it was promulgated rather than the day it went into force. The new Constitution was passed by the Diet and approved by the Privy Council on 29 October. He wanted the promulgation date to be 1 November and make that the holiday. But the Constitution was to come into force six months later, and that would mean it would coincide with May Day.

At that time, the United States was engaged in the Cold War with the Soviet Union and did not want the date the new Constitution came into effect to overlap with the day commemorating laborers. Therefore, GHQ ordered that 3 November be made the date of promulgation.

The next dispute arose over whether to make Constitution Day the date of promulgation or the date of effectiveness. The Japanese old guard was certain that 3 November would be the date because it was the former Meiji Setsu. But GHQ, which was trying to promote democratization, thought that should be prevented and insisted the most suitable date for Constitution Day was the day the document came into effect.

Other factors

I suspect there was perhaps one more reason that GHQ went counter to common sense and stuck to 3 May. That was the day the International Military Tribunal for the Far East—the Tokyo War Crimes Trial—held its first session in 1946. Surely they wanted the date to coincide with the first day of the ceremony that sat in judgment of militarism. They did not want anyone to ever forget the spirit of war renunciation in the new Constitution.

That’s why Constitution Day falls on 3 May, but there are also some strange circumstances involving 3 November. Culture Day was created as the result of a dispute between the Japanese forces of reform and conservative forces. Yamamoto Yuzo wrote: “Our task was to select holidays for the people, not select holidays for the Imperial Household.” This can be understood as a kind of declaration of defeat. The result of the effort to make 3 November Constitution Day was ultimately to give that day the nonsensical name of Culture Day.

In spite of Yamamoto Yuzo’s intent, Meiji Setsu survived, but ironically in a different form. In his later years, he recalled that he was criticized every year for the unfathomable day called Culture Day.

Ironically enough, 23 December, the birthday of the Kotaishi (Crown Prince—now the current Tenno), which would become a holiday sometime in the future, was the date Class A war criminal Tojo Hideki was executed.

- Inose Naoki

Afterwords: The last sentence above is the topic of Mr. Inose’s new book.

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From the overseas media

TO SLIP BRIEFLY into blogging mode, here are two quick hits from the foreign media instead of another piece I was working on. (My wife suggested a trip to the baths, and that’s a suggestion I always agree to.)

The first item concerns the apprehension of the prime suspect in the Lindsay Hawker murder case, which aroused intense interest in Britain. A long-time lurker sent me this link to an article written by Jenny Holt for the Comment is Free section of The Guardian. I don’t follow police blotter/natural disaster stories very closely, so please accept my apologies if you’ve seen it already.

Ms. Holt pulls no punches in her description of the coverage of this country in general, and of the Hawker case in particular. The Uzai! she snaps off to the media suggests that she had reached her limit and could contain her disgust no longer. For example:

“(T)he mainstream media has seized on the crime as an excuse to indulge in practically the only form of overt racism still tolerated today – the demonisation and denigration, en masse, of Japanese men.”

I’d replace that last word with “people”, but after a start like that, I’m not about to pick nits with Ms. Holt. Then she shifts into second gear, referring to:

“…(T)he same xenophobic caricatures about an uptight society with an underlying streak of insanity that refuses to co-operate with western forces of reason and justice.”

Preach, sister!

“And it is not just the Blackman and Hawker cases that invite this approach. The same ignorant stereotypes are rolled out at any opportunity…Television programmes seek out oddballs to portray as mainstream…And cinemagoers would be forgiven for thinking that every other Japanese was a geisha or a yakuza. Any half-informed piece of disinformation seems to suffice where Japan is concerned.”

Hallelujah!

“I have lived in Japan for nine years, I have a Japanese husband and son, and I can honestly say that the most striking thing about people here is how downright normal they are.”

Lord have mercy!

“This is modern normality, and if foreigners who came here actually bothered to learn the language and find out what ordinary Japanese people think they would appreciate that.”

Yes! And now for the slam dunk:

“The stereotyping also speaks volumes about the western psyche. It suggests that westerners resent and fear successful non-white cultures and that they cope by denigrating and dehumanising them. What Britain chooses to see in Japan says more about its own insecurities than about the Japanese…”

I stand in awe—in a few paragraphs, she’s precisely laid on the line what I’ve been banging on about for several years, though I include the entire Anglosphere rather than just Britain. Thank you, Ms. Holt.

Allow me to make just one addition, if I may make so bold. Of the other countries in Northeast Asia, South Korea has become a successful society, and it isn’t on the butt end of ignorant stereotypes. China is making rapid strides toward success on Western terms, despite some serious handicaps of its own device. It is subjected to serious criticism in the Western media for its failings, but seldom does one see any of the schoolboy raillery aimed at Japan.

I submit that is because neither fought a war with the Western powers and lost. Imperial Japan was flattened and left a smoldering ruin at the end of that war, which is still within living memory for some. Yet while most of the veterans of that war were still alive, Japan not only reconstructed itself, it thrived, and surpassed in economic power all of the victorious Allied powers save one. Additionally, the residents of that one remaining superpower, the United States, had to face the fact as long as 30 years ago that the formerly humiliated Japanese now excelled them in the production and quality of the symbol of their economic power and personal freedom–the mass-produced automobile.

The attitude of the Western media, I suspect, is fueled by chagrin and mortification at the defeated nation’s demonstrated ability to outdo them all, and to do it so quickly.

Uzai, by the way, is a rough expression that packs quite a message into one blunt and compact word. The user is telling the listener that since he has his head up his posterior, just STFU and go away.

The second item concerns one of those minor teapot tempests that I wouldn’t have ordinarily bothered with until I had an uzai moment of my own.

That would be U.S. President Barack Obama’s two-for-the-price-of-one, super-sized bow and handshake offered to the Japanese Tenno and Kogo during his recent visit.

This caused some gnashing of teeth in America for several reasons. They include:

• Heads of state do not bow to heads of state

• Americans in particular do not care for their heads of state to bow to royalty any time, anywhere, for any reason. 1776 and all that.

• He already got slammed for bowing to the Saudi head of state earlier this year, which the ninnies staffing his White House initially denied, even in the face of video evidence.

• He gallivants around the world bowing and scraping but can’t be bothered to put his hand over his heart during the playing of the national anthem—another breach of American presidential protocol.

In other words, despite spending part of his childhood living as a Muslim in Indonesia, Mr. Obama is no more cluey about dealing with foreign cultures than those Americans in flyover country he denigrates as bitterly clinging to guns and religion.

Some rushed to his defense. A reader of Glenn Reynolds’s Instapundit blog, who said he had spent seven years in Japan, pointed out that the Japanese always bow when meeting each other. The correspondent overreached himself, however, by including bows to “repairmen coming to fix the kitchen sink”.

Sorry Charlie, but only a horse’s ass would bow from the waist to a repairman, and that goes double for men. Besides, I would hesitate to use the term “bow” for a slight forward tilt of the trunk combined with an exaggerated but quick nod.

And regardless of the angle of incline, it is never combined with a handshake.

To be fair, it wasn’t just Mr. Obama. It turns out that Richard Nixon also bowed years ago, and Bill Clinton offered a semi-bow to the current Tenno. The New York Times offered some semi-criticism of Mr. Clinton here, observing succinctly that “Americans shake hands.” They also said he “put his hands together”, which is not what Japanese do with their hands when they bow.

Memo to Bubba: Thailand is several thousand miles away to the south.

Jake Tapper, the White House correspondent for the American network ABC, consulted a friend in academia whom he described as having some expertise in things Japanese. The response was every bit as excellent as Ms. Holt’s:

“Obama’s handshake/forward lurch was so jarring and inappropriate it recalls Bush’s back-rub of Merkel.
“Kyodo News is running his appropriate and reciprocated nod and shake with the Empress, certainly to show the president as dignified, and not in the form of a first year English teacher trying to impress with Karate Kid-level knowledge of Japanese customs.
“The bow as he performed did not just display weakness in Red State terms, but evoked weakness in Japanese terms….The last thing the Japanese want or need is a weak looking American president and, again, in all ways, he unintentionally played that part.”

That line about the first-year English teacher trying to impress with Karate-kid level knowledge of Japanese customs is so good I wish I had thought of it myself.

My uzai moment, however, came with this post at the Contentions blog at Commentary by John Steele Gordon. After getting his displeasure with Mr. Obama out of the way, he continued:

“President Obama goes abroad apologizing for the supposed sins of a country that defended and extended freedom around the world at a staggering cost in lives and treasure and then grovels before the man whose country has yet to apologize for the Rape of Nanking. As my mother used to say, ‘Pardon me while I throw up.’”

Before Mr. Gordon heaves all over his CPU and makes a smelly mess, he might consider the following:

• The Japanese government has apologized to the Chinese for its behavior on more than 20 occasions, according to former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo in his book, Toward a Beautiful Japan. Those in the nether regions of the commentariat and blogosphere might scoff and suggest we consider the source, but I suspect the source could come up with a list in short order. I also suspect that none of the scoffers would be informed enough to dispute it.

• Since diplomatic relations have been restored, Japan has lavished enormous amounts of ODA on China as de facto war reparations. This largesse continues even though China is likely to surpass Japan as the world’s second-largest economy in the near future.

• The LA Times story to which he links notes that soon after assuming the throne, the current Tenno formally expressed his remorse to the countries that were the victims of Japanese behavior during the war. Yes, those are apologies. They’re also more of an apology than Queen Elizabeth has ever given for British colonial behavior.

• Inputting the name Askew in the Search function on the left sidebar will turn up a paper written by a professor of that name. It will help demonstrate to those with only superficial knowledge of the event the fact that real scholarship into the Nanjing Massacre is broader, deeper, more extensive–and more honest, all things considered–in Japan than in China or the United States.

And I don’t have the time for the research now, but as a regular reader of the Contentions site, I wouldn’t be surprised if the stomachs of most of the contributors there would start jumping at an American presidential apology for slavery.

Isn’t it time to do something about those double standards?

Afterwords:

The LA Times article contains this sentence:

“The future emperor learned English during the U.S. occupation, but, inexplicably, his father ordered that his oldest boy not receive an Army commission as previous imperial heirs always had.”

Why should this be “inexplicable”? The Japanese were determined to eliminate militarism in their country after the war, and what better place to start than at the top? Did not the Americans intentionally try to create a culture of pacifism in Japan? Is it so surprising that they succeeded? Is the LA Times so clueless as to be unaware of this?

The words emperor and empress are inaccurate substitutes for the Japanese terms Tenno and Kogo, so I no longer use them. A case could be made that “pope” is more accurate than emperor, were that a hereditary position. Also, we already have the precedents of the English use of the terms Kaiser and Czar.

To those who would ask why I don’t follow customary usage, I would answer that they have their style manuals, and I have mine.

The warring sandbox period in Japanese politics

You’re only young once, but you can be immature forever.
- Larry Anderson

NO SOONER do I compare the behavior of Japanese politicians at the national level to that of the daimyo during the Warring States period than one of those prominent politicos uses a different historical reference that underscores the internal disarray which has turned the ruling Liberal Democratic Party into a Warring Sandbox. It also provides a disturbing glimpse of how some politicians might view their personal role in what everyone else views as a liberal democracy.

Hatoyama Kunio makes a political statement

Kicking the sand this time was Hatoyama Kunio, a former Cabinet minister in three different governments. He most recently headed the Internal Affairs ministry in the Aso administration until he resigned over a dispute about the sale of a Japan Post-owned business. He’s also the younger brother of Hatoyama Yukio, the head of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, of which Kunio was a founding member until he split as the result of a fraternal dispute.

Hatoyama the Younger and Aso Taro have been celebrated in the Japanese media for having a close friendship, and it’s easy to see why. The former represents district #6 in Fukuoka Prefecture, and the latter represents district #8 in the same prefecture. They are both well-to-do grandsons of former prime ministers, who themselves were members of the old postwar Liberal Party that merged with other right-of-center parties to become today’s LDP.

But Mr. Hatoyama appears to have some difficulty staying on good terms with the people closest to him. His conflict with his elder brother doesn’t seem to have been completely resolved–witness his recent reference to him as a “momma’s boy”, which, come to think of it, does jibe with the public personality of Hatoyama the Elder. It also might be an expression of chagrin over the amount of family money that some suggest momma has been funneling to Big Brother’s campaign war chest. In any event, however, petty family feuding is never conducive to good government at the best of times, and this is not the best of times.

Now he’s all upset with buddy Taro since his hissy fit and resignation. But Mr. Hatoyama caused some eyebrows to rise even further when he said that Prime Minister Aso was “the Northern Court” and that he was “the Southern Court”.

He’s referring to an ancient dispute over Imperial succession in Japan that led to two separate courts from 1337 to 1392. In brief, the Imperial house split into two lines created by brothers who both served as tenno (emperors). The Kamakura Shogunate cut a deal in which the two lines would alternate members on the Chrysanthemum throne. One tenno of the junior line wanted to keep the succession in his family, however, so he wound up creating the Southern Court. After a few decades of intrigue and military skirmishing, the Muromachi Shogunate brought them back to the original compromise involving the alternation of the two lines, but the Northern Court didn’t keep its promise and the Southern Court died out.

The dispute over the legitimacy of the two lines kept cropping up over the years, as some scholars claimed the Southern court had the bona fides because they maintained possession of the Imperial regalia. That argument continued until the early part of the 20th century, when the Meiji Tenno—himself a descendant of the Northern Court—officially recognized the legitimacy of the Southern Court. Thereafter, history textbooks have treated the Northern Court as the outlier.

But that brings up the question of why a politician who sees himself as a potential prime minister would compare his dispute with Mr. Aso to one more than half a millennium ago involving the Imperial household. Does this not suggest that Mr. Hatoyama’s background of wealth and heritage has created a sense of identity that causes him to believe he’s a member of the political nobility bestowed with the divine right to rule Japan?

And wasn’t the lad being clever when he chose for himself the identity of the Southern Court? Japan’s history books recognize that court as being the legitimate line of succession whose members were deprived of the opportunity to reign. Remember also that the Southern Court was founded by the younger brother, suggesting that Mr. Hatoyama sees himself as the rightful ruler even if Big Brother becomes the next prime minister.

Finally, there’s yet another factor that really brings this down to the sandbox level. Not long ago there was an informal group in the Diet called the Taro-kai (the Taro Association). The membership consisted of MPs from several LDP factions, and the group’s objective was to promote Aso Taro for the job of prime minister. After Fukuda Yasuo abruptly resigned last year, it swung into action and finally achieved its goal.

The chairman of the Taro-kai was Hatoyama Kunio.

Now where’s the mass media when you really need them? One thing they do quite well is to cut people down to size when they get too full of themselves. Yet the media seems content to use the childish bickering as a way to provide entertainment without having to pay fees to show business performers rather than an opportunity to do something useful. Does not their enabling behavior make them a willing accomplice?

***
The quarreling brings to mind a passage from the ironically titled book, Jiminto ha Naze Tsuburenai no ka? (Why doesn’t the LDP Fall Apart?). That consists of the edited transcripts of a series of roundtable political discussions between Murakami Masakuni, a former Labor Minister and head of the LDP delegation in the upper house of the Diet, and current jailbird sentenced to the pen for influence-peddling; Hirano Sadao, a former DPJ upper house member and close associate of Ozawa Ichiro; and Fudesaka Hideyo, a former Communist Party member of the upper house who resigned after an accusation of sexual harassment.

Here’s a quick translation of the relevant part:

Hirano: When I was in the New Frontier Party, we discussed the subject of a possible conservative coalition with some members of the LDP. (Then-party leader) Ozawa Ichiro asked me to meet with Aso Taro and tell him that he (Ozawa) would support him if he left the LDP and formed a new “Aso Taro Party”. Mr. Aso is (former Prime Minister) Yoshida Shigeru’s grandson, and Mr. Ozawa’s father Ozawa Saeki was a very close associate of Yoshida Shigeru. Prime Minister Yoshida entrusted him with some important tasks. It was Yoshida Shigeru who talked me out of joining the Communist Party when I was about to become a member. So knowing that background, that’s why he sent me to talk (to Mr. Aso).

Mr. Aso’s political thinking in those days was just like that of a child. To me it looked as if he didn’t really care about principles, policies, or human relations. I thought it couldn’t be possible that he was related to Yoshida Shigeru.

Fudesaka: Not all second- and third-generation politicians are like that, but when I look at Mr. Aso…I get the impression that he’s playing.

Murakami: He’s (like some) chairman of the Junior Chamber of Commerce. In the end, he’s just the young master who’s never had to deal with any hardships.

Hirano: An Akihabara otaku, eh? He’s the captain of the otaku.

Fudesaka: Hatoyama Kunio is the same type (of person). They don’t seem as if they’re seriously concerned about the country’s direction.

***
In addition to captain of the otaku and head of the Junior Jaycees, a third description of Aso Taro might be the best one of all. After observing Mr. Aso in action years ago, the late former Prime Minister Takeshita Noboru remarked:

“He’s like a man on stilts.”

***
Please don’t get the impression, by the way, that I’m singling out the aged bon-bons of Japan. People of this type can be found in politics the world over, and two who come immediately to mind are Al Gore, who grew up in the Washington D.C. hotel rooms of his Senator father, and Ted Kennedy.

To the credit of the Japanese, at least the LDP mudboaters didn’t throw a tantrum that threw their country into turmoil as Al Gore did when he lost an election in Florida—several times, in fact—after first trying to steal it. Nor did it cause them to go so far off the deep end that they morphed into the political equivalent of a Bible Belt evangelist darkly warning that global warming meant the end of the world was nigh. And just as some of those preachers are revealed as hypocrites when their sexual liaisons come to light, so too does Mr. Gore show his true colors by purchasing offsets for his immense carbon footprint from a company in which he has an ownership stake.

Nor did any of the Japanese politicians–as far as we know—get drunk and drive off a bridge with a staffer/girlfriend in the car, leave her to die trapped underwater, and spend the better part of a day trying to find a fall guy and getting his story straight before calling the police. How lucky for him that his money and family name eliminated the possibility of a jail term for criminally negligent homicide.

***
And lest the DPJ supporters start indulging in schadenfreude over the rapidly imploding LDP, a word of caution is in order that their time will come too.

More than one serious Japanese journalist thinks former DPJ (and Liberal Party, and New Frontier party) boss Ozawa Ichiro’s eventual aim is to use Hatoyama Yukio as a vehicle to take power, break up the DPJ, and realign Japanese politics more in accordance with his own tastes.

Even if that scenario is a flight of fancy or never comes to pass, the LDP’s incipient collapse and shift to the opposition gives it a head start on rearranging itself into more workable groups–something the DPJ is also going to have to do, soon or late, willing or not.

***
But let’s be fair–Hatoyama Kunio does have his movements of lucidity. He’s been recently quoted as saying that it would be hell to leave the LDP and hell to stay in the party.

He should have extended his analogy. It will be hell if the LDP retains power and hell if it doesn’t. But since a trip through Hades is both inevitable and necessary, getting through the flames as quickly as possible means that the first step should be taken as quickly as possible.

Asuka: Gagaku for the 21st century

LONG-TIME FRIENDS know that I’m like iron filings for the magnet of modern Japanese roots music, including that goofy/funky mongrel known as chin-don, as well as Okinawan minyo. Hit the Music category on the left sidebar and you’ll find plenty of references to those styles, including one post about the Ryukyu Chimdon Band. That group combines both of them into a barrel of musical fun concealing a lot of sophistication behind the wackiness. (What better word to use to describe the use of Zairean soukous structures with chin-don instrumentation to play Okinawan melodies?)

Long-time friends also know that one of my avocations is informal research into festivals and Shinto traditions, and for proof of that all you have to do is get clicky with the Festival category on the same sidebar.

Somewhere in the Music category there are a few references to gagaku, the ancient music of the Japanese Imperial court. Both the music and the instruments of that style came primarily from China about 1,400 years ago, though some also crossed over from the Korean Peninsula. While that musical tradition has long been dead on the Asian mainland, it’s still alive here. Some musicologists say it’s the longest continuous musical tradition in existence.

Asuka me again and I'll tell you the same

So it should be no surprise that I had to grab my tongue to keep from swallowing it in excitement when I stumbled across news of a progressive gagaku band on the run that’s updated the tradition for the 21st century. How do you do, Flame, meet the Moth!

What I read was almost too good to be true. The group is named Asuka (明日香), and all the members are conservatory graduates. While at music school, they specialized in studies of Western jazz, pop, and classical music.

But that’s not the half of it–the male members of Asuka are legitimate Shinto priests and the women are miko shrine maidens. And two members are from families of musicians who perform in what is known as the “festival gagaku” tradition (祭典雅楽). Rather than playing for the Imperial court or related functions, these musicians play at Shinto shrines and village ceremonies. (This is the first I’ve heard of it, and there’s not a lot of information about it on the web in Japanese, either.) It’s considered to be more cheerful than the Court version of the music.

Asuka has presented more than 100 performances a year since they came together, but it’s only recently that they’ve begun playing in more commercial settings. Now comes word that they’ll be making their concert debut (on stage as a solo act before several thousand people) at the Japan Expo 2009 in Paris from 2-5 July. They’ll also give a short live performance during the Expo at the booth of the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry.

If that hasn’t grabbed you by the shirt collar and woken you up yet, this will: in conjunction with their Japan Expo appearance, they’ve formally created a branch of Osaka’s Horiage Atago Shinto shrine and will have a small shrine structure and torii shipped from Japan. They plan to set up what their record company is calling a “mini theme park” of a Shinto shrine and festival. It will have the amulets, fortunes, lotteries, and ema (votive pictures) that are part of established shrines for the edification and enjoyment of the Europeans.

Asuka has released a CD available at Amazon Japan called Tenchi Muso (天地夢想). Here is their page in Japanese at the record company’s site. They helpfully provide a link to a YouTube promotional video of a live performance. By the time I’d made it this far, I was nearly salivating. And here it is:

It broke my heart! Why oh why did they have to screw it up by using computers and a drum machine? What wasted potential!

This is my confession, mama: I’m a such a diehard that when I finally flip out for good, I might just turn into a musical Carrie Nation. Instead of taking an axe to saloons, I’ll track down record studios and destroy all their rhythm machines. If I had a hammer, I’d swing it in the morning, into those consoles, all over this land. Computerized drum machines are to music what inflatable rubber dolls are to sex. They miss the point entirely!

I’m OK with electric or electronic instruments, as long as they’re performed in real time using hands, feet, head, heart, and lung.

Before giving up on them, I was lucky to notice that YouTube has several videos by Asuka. The next one I tried was this:

Now that’s more like it. It combines a transverse bamboo flute, acoustic piano, and electric bass with a jazzy melody. OK, I thought, there’s hope for these guys yet. And then I discovered this:

All is bliss! Fans of Japanese music will recognize the man playing the Yamaha as Sakamoto Ryuichi, Japan’s first Academy Award winner for his work on the score of The Last Emperor. He’s been composing and performing cutting edge pop/avant garde music for decades, first as a member of the Yellow Magic Orchestra and then on his own. Those with longer memories will recognize this song as Tong Poo (東風), one of his better-known numbers from the YMO days–though this version is quite different (and much more to my tase). Mr. Sakamoto has always been ready to incorporate Japanese and Asian elements into his music, including Okinawan minyo. What a lovely performance!

That sold me. The Asuka CD is going to be my next musical purchase, and I’ve got my fingers crossed that the tracks sound more like the second and third videos here than the first.

Afterwords:
The instrument with the vertical bamboo pipes is called a sho. It’s a mouth organ with 17 pipes that can play tone clusters of five or six notes at a time. The two longest pipes are silent; the sound of the instrument is said to resemble the call of the phoenix, and those pipes are the wings. It’s tuned using wax. For those who can read music, here’s some sho notation:

I can’t read music, but I do know this: I’d jam some clothes into a rucksack tomorrow, leave home for good, and become the love slave of either of those women playing it! Dip me in chocolate and turn me into a licking stick!

Japan’s cultural kaleidoscope (2)

BAREFOOTIN’ IN TEE-SHIRTS and short pants, all the better to deal with the 30-minute turnarounds of pouring rain and blazing sun: yeah, summer has arrived at last in Japan. During the dog days, the archipelago offers all sorts of hot-weather delights, including watermelon, shaved ice, and best of all, the transformation of even the most neo-radical of young women into traditional beauties once they exchange their jeans for yukata (a summer kimono).

What else is going on up and down the islands? Well, take a look and find out!

Firefly festivals

Once upon a time, summer nights on the East Coast of the United States came alive with a light show au naturel created by fireflies. The march of progress and suburbia seems to have ended all that, but the lightning bugs, as we used to call them, are still alive and flickering in the countryside here.

This is Japan, so take it as given that people know just when to expect their appearance every year, just how long it will last, and how to organize the viewing parties and festivals held to coincide with those dates.

Lightning bugs!

The photo shows the fireflies near the Ayu River in Tanabe, in the southern part of Wakayama. It’s one of several locations in the area known as superb firefly viewing sites from the end of May to the beginning of June.

But as with the cherry blossoms and the rainy season, the firefly front keeps marching north, and right now the folks in Yonezawa, Yamagata, are enjoying a month-long firefly festival at the Onogawa spa. The festival is sponsored by the spa’s tourism association and the Yonezawa Firefly Protection Society. The opening ceremony was held at the local memorial firefly tower to pray for the safety of the participants during the event. Those Yonezawans must really like fireflies!

It’s not a festival in Japan without liquor, so right after the prayers they perform another centuries-old ritual by knocking open the head of a sake barrel with wooden hammers and passing the hooch around. They say some people see double when they drink too much, so you can imagine the sort of visions that light up the retinas of the festival-goers when a wave of fireflies floats by.

The viewing in Yonezawa begins on the riverbank right after it gets dark at 8:00 p.m. and lasts until 9:00. The area is such a firefly mecca that three different species breed here, and who but the entomologists knew there were different types of lightning bugs? For a spot of relaxation after all this excitement, the open-air baths stay open until nine, and there’s a tea house set up temporarily next to the firefly tower. The festival fun lasts until 31 July, but some people like to time their visit for the amateur entertainment contest on the 4th and 5th.

Hatsukiri

Sliding over from zoology to botany, here’s a photo of the festival held by the Miyajidake Shinto shrine in Fukutsu, Fukuoka, for the first cutting of Edo irises in a local garden. The purpose of the event, called Hatsukiri—first cutting, appropriately enough—is to present the irises as an offering to the divinities. They’ve got plenty of flowers from which to choose, because the garden has 30,000 individual plants. While the priests grunt, bend over, and swing their scythes, two miko hold irises as they perform a dance accompanied by a flute. More than 200 people came to watch. A small turnout, you say? That’s not a bad crowd for watching two girls perform a centuries-old dance in costume in a garden in a town of 56,000 while priests cut flowers. How many people would show up where you live?

The shrine held its Iris festival on the same day. They place 70,000 irises in front of the shrine and light ‘em up until 9:00 p.m. for 10 days. The shrine has its own iris garden too, started from bulbs sent by the Meiji-jingu in Tokyo in 1965. They now have 100,000 plants in 100 varieties. That’s a heck of a lot of irises, but they need that many to go around for all of Shinto’s yaoyorozu divine ones. (Yaoyorozu is the traditional number of divinities in Shinto. It literally means eight million, but figuratively represents an infinite number, signifying that each natural object has a divine spirit.)

Seaweed cutting

Irises weren’t the only flora getting cut for a Shinto ritual. Four priests from the Futamikitama Shinto shrine in Ise, Mie, boarded a boat with some miko and sailed offshore for some seaweed cutting. They present the seaweed—fortunately an uncountable noun—to the divinities, allow it to dry out for a month, and then distribute it to their parishioners to drive out bad fortune and eradicate impurities.

At 10:30 a.m., the priests set sail on their skiff festooned with red, yellow, green, purple, and white streamers, with bamboo grass placed at bow and stern, and headed for the special seaweed site 770 meters northeast of the Futami no Meoto, sometimes called the Wedded Rocks. (The word meoto designates a pair of something, one large and one small.) Since this is a special ritual, they can’t just start cutting—first they have to circle the divine Kitama rock on the seabed three times, then they haul out a three-meter long sickle and get to work.

Sea goya

Since the subject is aquatic plants, now’s as good a time as any to report that the Fukuka Aquaculture Center in Kin-machi, Okinawa, is ramping up production of a new variety of sea grapes they hope to popularize in Japan after sales start next month. The center has dubbed the new type “sea goya”, after the knobby bitter squash for which Okinawa is famous. (Here’s a previous post about sea grapes in Okinawa and goya in general.)

Tastes as good as it looks!

The center’s director said they discovered these particular sea grapes among a batch imported in March 2008. The new variety flourished in the southern climate, and that gave people the idea to turn it into a new product, particularly as they were looking for ways to juice the market after the prices of regular sea grapes and mozuku seaweed tanked.

They decided to call the new plant sea goya because it’s more elongated than regular sea grapes and has the bitter flavor of goya. The center has already applied to register the name as a trademark, and they’re confident the application will be approved. After hearing about the new product, more than 10 companies inquired about handling the distribution.

Nara ayu

After insects, irises, seaweed, and sea grapes, here come the freshwater fish: namely the ayu, or sweetfish, which we’ve encountered before in a post about their encounters with traditional traps.

Some sweetfish just for you

These sweetfish, however, were caught by means with an even longer and exalted pedigree—trained cormorants. The birds require keepers that are somewhat analogous to falconers, all of whom ply their skills for the Imperial Household Agency because the technique is a tradition of the Japanese Imperial household. (Dig their costumes in the photo at the link.)

Six keepers were employed to catch the fish at the Imperial fishing grounds on the Nagara River in Gifu City, but the keepers can handle up to a dozen birds on the end of ropes, so they must have taken quite a haul. They go out in boats too, but at night, and they take along lighted torches. The fish are attracted to the flame like maritime moths, and the birds dive in after them. The lower part of the cormorants’ necks are collared to prevent them from swallowing the fish, and after they’ve snatched one, the keepers reel them in and make them cough it up. That’s got to be more cruel than feeding a dog peanut butter.

The fish were packed into paulownia boxes and shipped to the Kashihara-jingu, a Shinto shrine in Kashihara, Nara, as well as the Imperial Palace and the Meiji-jingu, another Shinto shrine in Tokyo. Both shrines have an Imperial connection.

The Japanese have been using cormorants to catch sweetfish since at least the 8th century—don’t you wonder who came up with that idea?–and the Nagara River event is more than a millennium old, but this shrine has been receiving the sweetfish shipments only since 1940 to offer in prayer for the safety of fishing and a good catch. (The 1940 date suggests it might have begun as part of the celebrations that year marking the 2600th anniversary of the establishment of the Japanese Imperial House.)

Contributing to the delinquency of minors

Yet another sign of summer in Japan is the yaoyorozu of rice-planting festivals held throughout the country. It’s easy to figure out why—they grow the rice in wet paddies, which are made even wetter by all the rain that falls this time of year.

But the students at Miyoshi High School in Miyoshi, Tokushima, weren’t planting this rice as part of a festival; they were getting classroom credit. The lads aren’t planning to be farmers when they grow up–rather, they’re enrolled in a course covering the brewing and fermentation of food products. They’ll harvest that rice in the fall and use it to make sake.

The rice is grown on a 3,000-square-meter paddy the school rents from area residents. The teachers do most of the planting with a machine, and then some of the second year students wade right in and plant by hand those parts the machine can’t reach. They expect to harvest 1.5 tons of the rice in mid-September, which can probably be converted into enough sake to keep the town of Miyoshi more lit than a riverbank full of fireflies until New Year’s. The school started the project last year, and this year they increased the size of the cultivated area six-fold to use only the rice grown by students.

One of those students, 16-year-old Fukuda Shinya, had planted rice before, but he said the seedlings were more difficult to handle because the size was different than that of regular table rice.

Now why couldn’t I have gone to that school!

Shochu collector

While the high school students were outdoors sweating and getting dirty as they planted the rice for the sake they will later brew, Masuyama Hiroki (73) of Izumi, Kagoshima, was relaxing with an adult beverage as he contemplated the success of his 12-year effort to collect one bottle each from all the prefecture’s shochu distillers. This is Kagoshima, where everyone drinks shochu and almost no one drinks sake, so he had his work cut out for him.

He’s so proud of his accomplishment he’s got them lined up on the wall, and hasn’t twisted the cap on a single bottle. Mr. Masuyama decided to make it is hobby after he retired from a job with the prefectural government in 1996 and started working in sales. His business trips took him throughout Kagoshima, and after he got the idea—probably in a bar during one of those business trips–he made a list and started buying while he was selling. He started with 1.8 liter (1.92 US quarts) bottles, but they were too heavy and took up too much space, so he switched to bottles half that size. He had a few difficulties completing the collection, and no, one of them wasn’t a tendency to polish off a bottle before before he could display it on the rack. For one thing, the smaller bottles were sold mainly to commercial establishments, but he applied his salesmen’s skills to get what he wanted. Another was that he didn’t have much of a chance to go to the prefecture’s many outlying islands on business. After retiring from his second job, it took two more years to finish the project.

Mr. Masuyama says he enjoys looking at his collection while having a late-night drink, but his libation doesn’t come from those shelves on the wall. He hasn’t opened any of the bottles and says it would be a waste to drink them.

Now there’s a man with discipline!

Miko class

Shinto shrine maidens, known as miko, get to do all sorts of fun stuff. In this post alone, they’ve sailed out to the Wedded Rocks to help the priests cut seaweed, carried the sacred sweetfish caught by cormorants, and danced while the priests cut Edo irises in Fukutsu. Even better, they get to handle the money at the shrine during New Year’s.

Doesn’t that sound like a great part-time job? If that’s the kind of work you’re looking for, the Kanda Myojin Shinto shrine in Chiyoda, Tokyo, is offering a beginner’s level course that provides instruction in how to become a miko. Even better, the class will last only one day, on 17 August—the middle of summer vacation!

Kanda Myojin conducts the class every year with the idea of giving young Japanese women a better idea of their traditions and culture, as well as teaching them more about the shrine. Last year, the student body consisted of 24 women who got to wear the red and white outfit for a day as they studied the shrine’s history, the daily conduct of affairs at the shrine, and its religious ceremonies.

Considering they charge only JPY 5,000 yen ($US 52.40), that sounds like a good deal. They’re looking for 20 unmarried young women this year from 16 to 22, and enrollment is open until the end of the month.

The declaration of the eisa nation

Start with a party, end with a party. This particular hoedown is the eisa dance native to Okinawa. Centuries ago, it was performed as a rite for the repose of the dead, but now it’s done for entertainment and is more likely to wake the dead than ease their way into the next world.

Okinawa City issued a proclamation declaring itself Eisa Town earlier this month, and held a Declaration Day Eisa Night event outside the city offices to lay claim to the title. Six groups made their eisadelic statement as they performed in original/trad clothing they created themselves. Eisa Night means that eisa season has officially started in the city, and summer in this city means that local youth groups will give public performances every weekend until the really big show, the Okinawa Eisa Festival in September.

During her greeting at the ceremony, Mayor Tomon Mitsuko said, “We hope you come to Okinawa City on the weekends and enjoy yourselves.” Then the dancing started and everyone proceeded to do just that.

It’s not just for the Ryukyuans, either. One of the six groups performing was the Machida-ryu of Machida, Tokyo, who started their own group in 1999 after a trip to Okinawa. They were so captivated by the dance they had to do it themselves at home. Now the troupe has more than 100 members.

There’s an idea: create your own Okinawan dance and drum ensemble and visit Eisa Town next year. If you want to learn, watching the video is a great way to start!

The tenno’s own cherry tree

WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED that cherry trees are the stuff of legend both in North America and Japan? Every American, for example, is familiar with the fable of a young George Washington, who chopped down a cherry tree during his misspent youth while looking for some action with a new hatchet. Washington is said to have copped to the deed when his father asked him about it point blank. Little Georgie’s honesty won him parental praise instead of the expected punishment for vandalizing the property. Today they’d probably stuff him with Ritalin.

It turns out this story depicting the father of his country as a moral exemplar was concocted by Parson Mason Weems to boost sales of his biography of Washington, the first one written. Perhaps juicing the tale with a little fiction helped—the book ran to 82 editions, the last of which was published in 1927, and it was translated into French. I’m not sure why they wanted to read it—the French certainly have no problems when it comes to creating myths about Gallic public figures.

The Japanese have their own cock-and-bull story about a cherry tree, which is not surprising considering the number of cherry trees in this country and the quantity of cock-and-bull artists to be found in the drinking establishments of any country. But this one concerns the planting of a tree, rather than the destruction of one.

The photo shows a cherry tree of the shidarezakura variety–literally “drooping branch cherry”–on the grounds of the Kumano-Nachi Shinto shrine in Nachikatsu’ura-cho, Wakayama. The shidarezakura, native to Japan, is known to botanists as the prunus pendula, but normal people in the English-speaking world call it the weeping cherry.

This one is deemed worthy of a newspaper photograph because legend has it that it was planted by the Go-Shirakawa Tenno (emperor), who sat on the Chrysanthemum Throne from 1155 to 1158. Now that can’t be right—the life span of the more common Yoshino cherry is 40-50 years, and drooping isn’t going to extend a cherry tree’s life by nearly a millennium.

The shrine insists on its polite fiction, however, and keeps it out of public view most of the year. They make an exception when it blooms, and this year the blossoms came out a week earlier than usual on 23 March.

It might not be a millennium old, but the Emperor’s Cherry, as it is sometimes called, is old enough to have grown to seven meters in height with a trunk 1.4 meters in circumference. Some of those drooping branches are eight meters long.

As often happens when doing research on what seems to be an innocuous story in Japan, other interesting details come to light. For example, this tree is said to be depicted in the Kumano-Nachi Sankei Mandala, or Mandala of a Visit to Kumano-Nachi. The mandala dates from the early Edo period, which would make it the 17th century, so they do like their tall cherry tree tales in Wakayama. Here’s a website showing the mandala, and you can click on it to view sections in greater detail. I couldn’t positively identify the Emperor’s Cherry, but it’s probably in there somewhere. It’s such a well-known work of art locally that high school students made their own, as you can see here. It took them 50 days to paste together 234,000 pieces of paper, which is a better way for teenagers to spend their spare time instead of running around with a hatchet in a cherry orchard.

Go-Shirakawa Tenno, incidentally, was the 77th emperor, and though his reign lasted but three years, he survived long enough to pull strings behind the scenes for another 34. That means he might have outlasted the original cherry tree he planted, despite the stories to the contrary!

Not all is elegance and sweet myth at the Kumano-Nachi shrine, either. Revisit if you will this previous post on the shrine’s fire festival. Those are some serious torches the guys are carrying. And just to make sure that the whole place is pure before the festival, the priests hang a shimenawa, or a sacred rope, at the top of a nearby waterfall. Purity of spirit is not for the faint of heart in Japan!

Since this is cherry blossom season, don’t miss the updated predictions on the cherry blooming front from the Japanese Meteorological Agency here, or on the right sidebar.

The Buddhist temple Koreans built in Japan

THERE’S NO TELLING what’ll turn up when someone sticks a spade into the ground in Japan. In Okinawa, as we saw in this recent post, the diggers might strike undetonated bombs or artillery shells buried since the Second World War. More often, however, what they’ll uncover are fascinating glimpses of periods dating back more than a millennium.

Digging a hole

That was demonstrated again last week when the Education Committee of Hirakata, Osaka, and the city’s cultural treasure research and survey association announced they had discovered a trench used to cast iron and bronze utensils at Kudara-ji, a Buddhist temple in that city.

Here’s where it gets interesting: The temple was built in the latter half of the 8th century by members of the Baekche royal family from the Korean Peninsula who fled to Japan. In fact, it was named for them: the Chinese characters for Baekche (百済) are read Kudara in Japanese.

One of the three ancient Korean kingdoms, Baekche was located in the southwestern part of the peninsula, an area that still maintains close ties with Japan. It wound up the loser in frequent battles with Silla and Goguryo, the other two kingdoms. Some members of its royal family dashed across the Korea Strait after the kingdom’s defeat by Silla and their Chinese allies. Japan sent a substantial military force to fight with Baekche, and it’s estimated that as many as half of that force did not return home after being beaten. Meanwhile, the transplanted Baekche royal family is credited with introducing the Chinese writing system, Buddhism, and the advanced technology of the period to this country. Indeed, one of the Baekche kings, Muryeong, was born in Kyushu. (He ascended to the throne after his elder brother was assassinated.)

The researchers think they’ve discovered the remnants of the facility used to build the temple and make the implements used there. Only a handful of these facilities have been unearthed nationwide, so scholars consider the find important because it may shed light on the structure of the temple buildings of the time.

The committee said they found a pit 2.5 meters in circumference at the northeast section of the site used for the placement of casting molds. In addition to iron and bronze utensils nearby, they found about 300 shards from a melting furnace which is thought to have been used for casting.

They also found the remains of six posts, which they think formed a gateway at the northern wall. About 500 meters to the north of that gate is the site of ruins in Kinyahon-machi. The researchers say the find tends to confirm the close connection between the latter district and the Baekche royal family, which was given preferential treatment by the Japanese state at the time–including intermarriage with the Imperial family.

City officials noted that in addition to aiding research into temple structure of the period, the discovery is important because it provides further support for the idea that the Baekche royal family enjoyed great influence in that area from the Nara period to the Heian period (covering the 8th century).

There is another significant aspect to this story that city officials might have mentioned had they been disposed to do so. Namely, some ungenerous expatriate foreigners in Japan, as well as some South Koreans misinformed by the political and media axis in that country, labor under the belief that Japanese do not care to be reminded of their ancient ties with the Korean Peninsula and the impact those ties had on their culture.

Yet this story about a temple named after Koreans was openly and widely reported in the Japanese news media. The reports also noted that archaeological excavations have been conducted at this site since 1932.

Or, to take it to another level of detail, the Baekche kingdom itself was founded by people who headed south down the peninsula from Manchuria. So who’s your daddy, daddy-o?

All of which suggests that the Nippo-crits might be less informed on this subject than the Japanese public they hold in such disdain.