re: China, Japan and Safety (Sardar Haddad, US; ex-Iran)

Sardar Haddad writes:

I agree with Charles Ridley (15 November) about safety in Japan. During my visits to Japan, I have noticed that Tokyo and other Japanese cities are safer than cities in many other countries. However, even in safe Japan there is some crime. I recently heard an interview with American journalist Jake Adelstein about his life in Japan. He worked for a Japanese newspaper for several years. Adelstein has written about crime in Japan in his book Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan.

China, Japan and Safety (Charles Ridley, US)

Charles Ridley writes:

Like Mike Bonnie (15 November) I certainly felt safe in China. One might be cheated in bargaining over the proce of a scarf with a store clerk, but one doesn’t feel in danger amongst the crowds of Beijing or at the popular sightseeing spots.

In Japan, another country in which I always feel safe, one sees young girls bicyling home after dark on the streets of Tokyo and one knows that they will be perfectly safe. One night I was walking along a Tokyo Street and three young men approached me coming the other way. I was nervous for a moment until I realized I was in Tokyo, not San Francisco. I am always apprehensive when I walk down a street in San Francisco in the evening, particularly when not many people are out. I remember one evening when I was walking to the parking lot in Union Square after attending a meeting. There was no one on the street at the time and I was frightened should someone suddenly appear out of a doorway and possibly attack me.

Even in our own seemingly peaceful neighborhood here in residential Palo Alto, people have been killed on the streets in the evening.

Violent crimes in Japan often appear to be crimes of passion against personal enemies or unfaithful lovers. I am sure the same is true in China, as it was in Taiwan when I was there as a student.

JE comments: The more totalitarian the society the safer the streets–truth or poppycock? I cannot but predict that when/should/if China becomes more democratic, its street crime will increase. This was the case in Spain, the USSR/Russia, Iraq, Chile…everywhere that has gone from autocracy to democracy. Japan, which has always seemed safe, doesn’t fit into the formula. A contrary question: has there ever been a nation where a transition to democracy has actually coincided with a lessening of petty crime (muggings, vandalism, thefts, removing tags from couches, etc.)?

re: China: Compassion and Confucian Thought Today (Charles Ridley, US)

Charles Ridley responds to Robert Whealey’s post of 5 November:

Although the negative view alluded to by Robert Whealey was stated by Confucius, the central virtue of Confucianism is compassion, often translated as “human-heartedness” or “humane-heartedness.” The Confucian ethic is the foundation ethic of the East Asian societies that were the heirs of Confucianism and is still operative to this day. To be sure, if you were to ask a Japanese on the street what the Confucian values are, he or she would not be able to tell you. Nevertheless, these are the values that are operative in Japanese society. And, of course, the governments of Singapore and Taiwan have made a great effort at cultivating the Confucian values.

At present, the government of China is also restoring Confucianism. I have been working through the latest Chinese textbooks, primarily of elementary schools, and am finding concrete evidence of this revival of Confucianism. In the school readers, there is a considerable emphasis on caring for others.

As far as I am concerned, the Confucian ethic is alive and well.

JE comments: The reigning WAIS King of Punsters, Charles Ridley, titled this e-mail “State of Confucianism.” I like that.

re: Japan and Religion (Charles Ridley, US)

Charles Ridley responds to Mike Bonnie’s post of 4 June:

Permit me to inject a few words into the fray on religion in Japan. I
will welcome the critical comments of Tom Hashimoto and others on my
remarks.

It was always my sense in encountering Japan that Japan was not a
religious country, even given the customs of using a Shinto ceremony
for weddings and Buddhist ceremonies for funerals.

After Tokugawa Ieyasu unified Japan following the battle of
Sekigahara, he adopted Neo-Confucianism as a tool of governance.
Although Herman Ooms, in *Tokugawa Ideology*, makes it clear that
there were several ideologies at work in Japan at the time in addition
to Neo-Confucianism, it is certainly the case that Confucian values
permeated the society and were adopted by the bushi (samurai) class.

In spite of the deviation to Shinto during the Second World War,
Confucian values remain in modern Japanese society, as visitors to the
country have observed by the spirit of kindness that they have
experienced in their contacts with the Japanese and as can be seen by
the extent to which the concept of “chowa” (harmony) permeates
Japanese society and social relationships.

As I have pointed out previously, there is a basic substratum of
Confucian values in the moral education textbooks that are used in
Japanese schools. At the moment I am translating the guidelines for a
relatively new series of schoolbooks, “Kokoro no Noto,” (literally,
heart notebooks), which are conceived of a means for integrating moral
values into pupils’ minds.

The substratum of Confucian values in Japanese society serves a part
of the role played by religion in the Western world, and, as a set of secular
values, generally does not conflict with whatever religion, if any, in
which an individual believes.

However, they do not provide the spiritual aspect that religion does.
This is perhaps the reason that, since about the 1960s, a large number of what
scholars refer to as “new religions” has arisen. The numbers of
adherents are not high, but they fulfill a need that the secular
society of Japan does not meet. It should be noted, that they often
draw on Buddhism for their ideas, although they often cannot be described as varieties of Buddhism.

It seems that I have only cracked the surface of the topic but have
exceeded my allotted space. So, I shall desist.

JE comments: I would be very interested in continuing our discussion
of the “new religions” in Japan. So…allow me to allot more space to
our dear friend Charles Ridley!

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Japanese Internees in WWII (Tom Hashimoto, Japan)

Tom Hashimoto comments on the Japanese-American internees during WWII:

It was very a interesting event that the Japanese-Americans
received an apology from the US government.
The bill was called “the Civil Liberties Act of 1988,”
which funded $1.25 billion dollars for reparation.
Japanese-Americans were relocated to the restricted areas
by Executive Order 9066 during WWII.

My professor back at the University of San Francisco, Dr.
Brian Weiner, wrote in his book *Sins of the Parents*,
that this apology is quite unique for the following
reasons:

First, Japanese-Americans in 1988 were not significant (in
terms of size and lobbying influence) in US politics compared
to other ethnic minorities.

Second, the $1.25 billion dollars put President Reagan in an
uneasy position to for carrying out his fiscal policy.

Third, the Congress had just become Democratic-controlled by the
mid-term election, but the bill was joined by Republicans
as well.

As for the Japanese-Americans who received a letter from
President Bush and $20,000 in 1991, needless to say that
many of them framed the letter and the check and hung it on
the wall.�

JE comments: The check might be a nice memento for the wall, but I would
have cashed mine!

–
For information about the World Association of International Studies
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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Japan: Nagasaki Appeal 2006 (David Krieger, US)

David Krieger writes, in response to Harry Papasotiriou’s post of 1
November:

Bush and Putin signed an agreement, the Strategic Offensive Reductions
Treaty, to lower the number of deployed strategic warheads on each side to

2,200 by 2012. The treaty has many flaws, the most important of which are
that it has no provisions for verification and no measures to make
disarmament irreversible. After December 31, 2012, the treaty is ended
and each side can do what it chooses. Many of the weapons taken off
deployed status are being put on the shelf rather than destroyed, and thus
can be put back to use after the treaty ends in 2012.

As to the accusation of “soft on defense,” nuclear weapons do not provide
defense, and deterrence is a very dangerous theory that can fail in many
ways. It requires rational decision-making in time of crisis,
believability, and the ability to locate one’s adversary. All of these
are problematic. It is likely that we survived the Cold War by good
fortune rather than the efficacy of deterrence.

–
For information about the World Association of International Studies
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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Japan: Nagasaki Appeal 2006 (Harry Papasotiriou, Greece)

Daryl DeBell wrote on 31 October: “The trouble is that any suggestion to
reduce or eliminate our [nuclear weapons] stockpile is likely to be met
with the accusation, ’soft on defense’.”
Harry Papasotiriou responds: Bush and Putin agreed in 2002 drastically to

reduce their nuclear arsenals by the end of the decade. The United States
and Russia will only keep about one fourth of their previous nuclear
weapons–three fourths will be eliminated. �

–
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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Japan: Nagasaki Appeal 2006 (Daryl DeBell, US)

Daryl DeBell writes:

There is really nothing to add to David Krieger’s post on nuclear weapons
(29 October), except to emphasize the macho idiocy of US and Soviet
policies which maintain multiples of nuclear weapons–enough to destroy
civilization many times over. I lost all respect for Henry Kissinger when
he remarked that our obscene stockpile of atomic bombs constituted useful
bargaining chips. Such careless reasoning borders on the psychotic. We may
indeed be experiencing ‘the end of history’. It is not hard to imagine
some leader with the mind and attitude of Kim Jong Il or Kissinger, or
even our own Dear Leader lauching an atomic attack and triggering multiple
responses, which could make the earth uninhabitable, or reduced to
stone-age capacity. The trouble is that any suggestion to reduce or
eliminate out stockpile is likely to be met with the accusation, ’soft on
defense’. �

–
For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

Re: Nationalism (Tom Hashimoto, Japan)

Tom Hashimoto writes: Vincent Littrell comments on nationalism in Europe and the Middle-East. Nationalism is probably one of the largest sources of conflict in international affairs even today. But as Catheine the Great once commented confronting the
book of Anarchist Pugachev, an idea cannot be defeated but by another idea. So, if that is the case, what is the alternative to nationalism? Religion? But Asia or Africa are leaning more toward nationalism than religion. RH: Globalization, the UN.

Plan to attend the WAIS conference on “Critical World Issues ” at Stanford July 31-August 1, 2006. It will be a rare opportunity to meet other WAISers. Tell interested friends.

Ronald Hilton, Editor, 2006

Re: JAPAN: Kyoto ( Miles Seeley, US)

Tom Hashimoto said Kyoto is the soul of Japam. Miles Seeley writes: I was a young single man working in Tokyo in the early 1950s, and my Japanese girlfriend and I would often go to resorts for the weekend. They were all unique experiences which I thoroughly enjoyed. The best trips, however, were to Kyoto. She was a Kyoto native, and we spent many days exploring, visiting all the temples and shrines and just walking through each district. Nearby Nara was easy to reach, and the famous Deer Park there was lovely, as were many of the Temples.

My main impression of both places was the peace and quiet. After the noise and pollution of Tokyo, it was like being in a different world. During these trips I learned a little about Japanese culture and history. I began to collect kakemono (scrolls) and netsuke (small carved objects) and woodblock prints, which I have in my home today.

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Re: Japanese again (Tom Hashimoto)

Tom Hashimoto writes: As a part-time job, I teach Japanese, and I have one good method for learning Japanese. Well, try to learn how “incorrectly” Japanese speak English. Meaning, Japanese mistakes in English are often the misyakes Americans make in Japanese. For example, intonation - The Japanese accent is very monotone, and Americans have a hard time copying it.� Now, please pronounce my last name - Hashimoto. Did you notice that you put accent on the first “o” as hashimOto. The actual pronunciation is hAshimoto. Some linguists say that English is up-beat and Japanese is down-beat; i think that makes some sense.� RH: Not really.� The tendency in English is to put the stress in the first syllable.

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The Japanese language (Boris Volodarsky)

Boris Volodarksy writes: As a professional linguist I want to say that there is no “easy” or “difficult” language: it all depends on learner’s abilities and circumstances in which he studies the language. What Hashimoto-san writes about the Japanese verb “teberu” is naive (sorry, Hashimoto-san, I beg your pardon, please forgive my rudeness - saying this I am bowing in the most polite manner, no joke). There are at least 50 ways to translate a simple English verb “to go” into Russian (from “idu, priidu, poidu, uidu, otoidu”, etc. to: poedu, polechu, poplyvu, potaschus etcetera). Is it more or less difficult than four or five meanings and applications of the Japanese verb “to eat”? If you need and want to master any language, you shall do it in a normal course of time depending, as mentioned, on the previous linguistic skills and talents for foreign languages. The level of mastering the language, however, will greatly depend on many other factors, not least of all the teachers and the society (the last is equally true in Japan, France and Britain) a student finds himself in.

In countries like Japan it also depends on the gender. I have many Japanese friends, and all of them speak a number of foreign languages very well. I know a Russian woman whose married name is Matsuoka-san and� whose exquisite Japanese speech many native Japanese speakers applaud. We started learning Japanese with my son, and in a week’s time started to give our orders in the Japanese restaurant (not a sushi bar, but an authentic Kaiseki place run from Tokyo) in Japanese. I very much enjoy greeting people in Japanese supermarkets in Japanese, and knowing the names of original Japanese products and fish is great fun. I always find it difficult to explain the difference between nori, wakame, hijiki and konbu, all being seaweeds, to those who never tasted them, and it is even more difficult to translate these names into English. But still it is not more difficult than the names and shades of tastes of the Russian mushrooms. RH: The best way to learn Japanese is to marry a Japanese woman.
�

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Japan’s inclusiveness vs economic realities (George Zhibin Gu)

Referring to various discussions on Japan’s closed nature, George Zhibin Gu writes: There are numerous unique aspects to go with Japan’s closed nature. One fact is this: selling to Japan takes more than quality, competitiveness and pricing. One example: even if your beef is 5 times cheaper than the Japanese and Japan has a huge market for it, it does not mean that it can be sold to Japan. There are countless barriers to its entry.

But this Japanese practice has backfired against Japan’s interest. In particular, a large number of companies in Japan form exclusive partnerships around a financial institution. They do trade and financial among each other — regardless of business merits. This has already caused huge damage to Japanese banks, as they hold huge stakes in their clients’ companies. Lending is not done on professional merit as outsiders understand it. Furthermore, these sister companies buy each other’s supplies even if they do have better alternative choices. Naturally, it has led to Japan’s economic crisis in the last 15 years, among other factors. But dropping� this practice is not that easy at all for Japan� Inc. , since, this tradition has been there for ages.

Yet, many scholars have long labelled this traditional Japanese practice as something far superior. One person stands out in particular: Frank Furukawa. In his writing, he has gone at length to explain the vast advantages of this Japanese tradition. But realities suggest otherwise. This is one issue my book, China’s Global Reach, has� addressed. Indeed, one should not see it as a merely a Japanese issue. For, after all, Japan’s economic relations reach the entire globe.

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Japanese again (Charles Ridley)

Charles Ridley writes: I perhaps have not clarified my thoughts too well on the question of “easy” and difficult languages. From my own personal perspective, all foreign languages are difficult and I have never been able to achieve any degree of fluency in any language I have studied.� So, when I say Japanese is “easy,” what I mean is that, in relative terms, it is no more difficult than other languages.� I gave up on French after 4 years with the realization that I would never master the nuances of the language.�� And I was never sufficiently fluent in Chinese to teach the language — what a graduate of the Asian Languages Department at Stanford is supposed to be able to do.
�
As far as Japanese goes, the levels of politeness are indeed not easy to master.� Whether their difficulty is a factor for young people (Japanese), as Tom Hashimoto suggests, or to a social factor, such as alienation of the young from traditional Japanese culture that predisposes them not to use the polite forms, is a matter� for consideration. Certain aspects of Japanese, however, are comparatively easy to deal with.
�1. Pronunciation is not a major problem and there are no sounds, as in Arabic, that are difficult to acquire or distinguish between.� Most Japanese articulate their language clearly.
�2. There are no noun declensions (compare Russian) and the verb conjugation system is relatively simple, there being no different forms for person as in the Romance languages.� There are a few irregular verbs, but not the large numbers in many European languages.
�
The written language appears more difficult and does take time to acquire (but I don’t care to equate time required for learning with degree of difficulty).�� The fact that the compound words of Chinese origin are constructed logically� from simpler building blocks- my favorite example being the word for volcano - kazan (literally, fire mountain) - makes acquiring a large vocabulary less of a burden than acquiring the same vocabulary in, say, Hungarian.� This assumes, of course, a knowledge of a sufficient number of “kanji” (Chinese characters) to recognize the building blocks.
�
Of course, my view is skewed because I have a more visual learning style.�� And I often don’t� hear things correctly even in English. My point is, I suppose, that different languages have different aspects that present problems for the foreign learner� but that there are also aspects that ease the burden.

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JAPAN: Shame in speaking English (Charlees Ridley)

Charles Ridley writes:I think that Hashinoto-san is in part correct about shame as a factor standing in the way of Japanese speaking English.� However, in my early days in Japan, it was a common occurrence to be approached by students in particular but also adults who wished to practice their English.�� I have not seen this as much in recent years though.
�
One factor that most likely plays a part in reluctance to speak English is the way in which English has been taught.� Teaching has centered on learning the rules of grammar and on reading, with little emphasis on conversation, primarily because most English teachers were not skilled in conversational English.�� Another contributing factor has been that teaching oif English has been directed at preparing students to pass the demanding, and most inpractical, college entrance examinations for English.�� (A word of warning here regarding the teaching for exams spirit that has been promulgated by a certain administration in this country.)
�
This defect is being remedied by the JET program (in which my daughter participated for two years) in which native speakers of English are placed in Japanese classrooms as English teachers.� The program has grown over the years and ought to contribute to better English speaking skills among the younger generation.
�
I am not so sure about RH’s hosts feeling pity because of his unfamiliarity with the tea ceremony.�� Japanese are well aware that foreigners will not be familiar� with� Japanese cultural practices and are very tolerant and sympathetic on this score.� Of course, they may well fel sorry that foreigners miss out on aspects of their culture that they prize.� I myself have not encountered pity.

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The Japanese and foreign languages (Tom Hashimoto)

Why are the Japanese reluctant to speak a foreign language? Tom Hashimoto explains: The answer is shame. Japanese people do not want to be shamed in front of others; they always try to save face. Thus, the Japanese� are always afraid of speaking foreign languages with others. Japanese people always try to be together, because no other groups of people can speak Japanese well enough to communicate freely. Japanese is, i think, very difficult language because of its formality. I personally believe that learning always involves shame
and� mistakes. So, I am� not afraid of anything. Therefore, the Japanese are afraid of me and try not to communicate with me… Sad story.

Japanese Inclusiveness (Charles Ridley)

Charles Ridley writes:I am always a bit leery of� grand generalizations about a nation or people, and that of “Japanese inclusiveness” is no exception. Historically, the Japanese people have� adopted aspects of foreign cultures, with particular reference to Chinese culture, and, in more recent times, Western and American culture.� At the time of the Mongol attack, there were Chinese merchants in the port cities of Nagasaki and� Hakata.
�
In my Army days when I was stationed on the southern island of Kyushu close to the port of Hakata,� one found a considerable openness to foreigners and foreign culture.� However, since the time of Tokugawa Shogunate, when Japan was closed to outsiders and Japanese were forbidden to engage in foreign travel until the arrival of Admiral Perry and the Meiji restoration, Japan was cut off from the outside world. As a result,
in spite of Japan becoming a world trading nation, there has, I feel, been a sense of isolation among the Japanese from the world.�� There are scholars who have gone so far as to say that the Japanese brain differs from that of non-Japanese, and there is certainly a feeling that foreigners can never succeed in speaking Japanese or understanding Japanese culture.��� This view has affected even Western scholars who speak fluent Japanese and have found that store clerks reply to their fluent Japanese in broken English because they cannot believe that the “foreigner” is speaking Japanese.
�
I personally have found that Japanese who have not traveled abroad� do not have a clear idea of the� nature of Western culture.� In particular, there is a religious group that would like to extend its teachings to the world but does not understand how unlikely it is that Christians and Jews would immediately flock to the new religion.� There is, then a sense that Japanese are a unique people whose culture and language are beyond the comprehension of outsiders.� This is perhaps a result of Japan being an island nation.
�
The Chinese, by contrast, have traditionally believed that Chinese culture and Confucianism are of universal valaidity.� When they encountered “barbarians,” they sought to “transorm them by teaching.”� In one of the Taiwan “The Citizen and Morality” textbooks used at the upper middle school level, there is a lesson affirming that the Confucian ethical tradition� could play a part in the restoration of a world moral culture.
�
China, as contrasted to insular Japan, is a large continental country that for centuries had� extensive trade contacts with countries outside China.�� It is a curious contradiction that Japan, which is more isolated geographically than China,� moved quickly to taken modern Western culture and technology, whereas China, which also had closed itself off from the world during the Manchu (Qing) Dynasty, under the burden of the traditional educational system and imperial system, resisted the intrusion of Western culture.�� This, too, is a generalization and one should be somewhat leery of it.

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Re: what elements are behind Japan’s closedness? (Akain de Benoist))

Is Japan a closed (inclusive) society? Alain de Benoist answers: Yes, every nation has some degree of �inclusiveness and closedness�. And this is both natural and good. Too much inclusiveness means xenophobia, too much �openness� means loosing one�s personality. If some people find Japan too much �inclusive�, they could try, as a beginning, to learn the Japanese language.� RH:� Very true, but easier said than done. My impression is that it is very difficult for a Westerner to learn Japanese.

What elements are behind Japan’s closedness? (George Gu)

�George Zhibin Gu writes: Many thanks to Tom Hashimoto for kindly commenting on Japan’s religion vs inclusiveness on Nov 16-17. His answer prompts one’s interest even further in knowing more about this Japanese inclusiveness, which has been persisting to our own era, despite Japan’s huge outward economic engagement with the rest of world. Each and every nation has some degree of “inclusiveness and closedness”, which is all true even in our era, but Japan’s society stands out in particular. If Japanese national religion has no effect on this issue, then, what are the key elements behind it? So far, discussions on this issue come mostly from outside observers, but little from native Japanese. Therefore, it is very meaningful as well as necessary to ask Japanese insiders to offer insights on the issue.

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Re: Japan’s religion vs inclusivity (Tom Hashimoto)

George Zhibin Gu asked: does the Japanese national religion play a role in Japanese inclusiveness (closed nature)? Tom Hashimoto replies: I think there is only a little connection if� any. In modern Japanese society, Shintoism is very weak.Besides, Japanese Shintoism is different from other religions.� First, since it values the Nature a lot, Shintoism can be observed only on the Japanese soil. The Shrine Agency of Japan recognises only few shrines outside of the Japanese territory because “in different places, different gods live.” Since the god is not in your heart, Japanese do not really care.

Second, Shintoism does not require service for God. Like mass for Christians and 6 times daily prayer for Muslims, most religions require some prayer duty. Shintoism does not. You pray only when you want something from God. Even between God and people, there is a relationship of give-and-take. Sacrifice animals in shrines and give to God in order to receive rain, etc.

Third, during the modernisation of Japan in the Meiji era (the 1870s), people tended to think that practising religion is “waste of time.” (Sorry, this is exactly my neighbors say.) Even my mother says, “if you have time to go to church on Sundays, study harder!!” Although Shintoism is almost nothing to do with Japan being a
closed society, Confucianism has an interesting connection.

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The travels and education of world leaders.. Japanese new leaders.

Tom Hashimoto reports: The “Samurai” were humanm so their curiosity about overseas countries was enormous. From the 15th to the 17th century, several delegations were sent to Rome and� European great powers.� Then, in 1868 the� Meiji restgoratiom occurred, and the Samurais were no longer in the power.� The government was dramatically modernised. However,� the leaders were not sure what exactly “modern” meant. So, the Emperor sent a delegation to study “modern” countries, such as Bismarck’s Germany and the US. The delegation was called the”Iwakura Delegate Team” named by its leader, Tomomi Iwakura. In 1872, on January 23, one of the delegates, later Japan’s first Prime Minister, Hirobumi Ito gave an excellent speech in San Francisco, he Sun Flag Address, before� of 300 people. Then 31 years old, he presented Japan as a unique country which had broken the old federal system without blood. (In fact, Japan had had a civil war, but Mr.
Ito exaggerated here.) In any cases, this experience gave Mr. Ito an impression that Japan would be accepted to America and Europe as a newborn modern country, unlike the Qing dynasty of China.

Resources (in Japanese):
http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~nippon/jogbd_h13/jog208.html
and “Archive of Foreign Affairs of the Great Japan” by Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan

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"Sea of Japan" or "East Sea", eyc.

Regarding names like “Sea of Japan”, Cameron Sawyer says: I find this controversy amusing.� The Japanese surely never named the “Sea of Japan”, nor did the Persians name the “Persian Gulf”, or did the Mexicans name the Gulf of Mexico.� The name “Sea of Japan” reflects the point of view of those living on the other shore, just as the names “Persian Gulf” and “Gulf of Mexico” does.�

RH:Oh no!! The name indicates a claim to hegemony in the sea.� It is the Iranians who insist on the name “Persian Gulf”,� much to the Arabs’ annoyance.� The Mexicans call the Gulf of Mexico “el Golfo de M�xico”. It is the English who speak of “the English Channel”. The French call it “La Manche”.

Ronald Hilton, 2005

Re: "Sea of Japan" or "East Sea"

Koreans requested the name of� the”Sea of Japan” be changed to to “East Sea”.� From the UK, George Sassoon comments:� This reminds me of the “North Sea”, which is actually to the east of England, but is known as such in that country.� Before the 1914-18 war it was called the “German Ocean”, but the English name was changed for political reasons.�� “North Sea” is actually the German name for that stretch of water, it being to Germany’s north, and the “East Sea” is the German name for the Baltic!

Ronald Hilton, 2005

JAPAN: The Inland Sea

Alberto Gutierrez, who has navigated all the oceans, comments on the argument about the names “East Sea” and� “Sea of Japan”:� As far as I am concerned,� what really matters is the beautiful and classic Japanese Inland Sea from Shimonoseki Strait to Awaji Jima and Osaka. While I found Yawata rather unappealing, I have good memories of Kure. In colorful Miyajima there is a graceful red “totori” or Shinto gate which rises with the tides of Hiroshima Bay. About 140 miles to the northeast, not too far from the shoreline, the lofty Himeji Castle , also known as� “The White Heron” because of its white plaster finish, was completed during the Tokugawa period and is my favored Japanese medieval fortress.� RH: This compelled me to consult th map of Japan in an attempt to reconstruct my own trip along Japan’s Inland Sea. Alberto was traveling by ship, I by train.� Clearly traveling by ship allows one to contemplate sights much better than traveling by train.

Ronald Hilton, 2005

JAPAN: The truth about World War II

Clenye Cain writes: This story (New York Times, 6/20/05) seems highly relevant to WAIS discussions of both historical revisionism and learning history, topics which are naturally so intertwined.

Burying the Truth? by James Brooke

ITOMAN, Okinawa,� Clutching a hand grenade issued by the Japanese Imperial Army and driven by tales of what American soldiers would do with a pretty young woman, Sumie Oshiro recalled recently, she fled into the forests of Okinawa during the World War II battle known here as the “typhoon of steel.” Takejiro Nakamura, 77, now a guide at an Okinawan historic house, says he tried to strangle himself when the Americans arrived. “At one place, we sat together and hit the grenade on the ground, but it did not explode,” she recalled of her flight with friends after Japanese soldiers told them to kill themselves rather than be taken captive. “We tried to kill ourselves many times, trying to explode the grenade we were given from Japanese Army.” The three-month battle for Okinawa took more than 200,000 lives - 12,520 Americans, 94,136 Japanese soldiers, and 94,000 Okinawan civilians, about one-quarter of the prewar population. Lt. Gen. Robert Blackman, commander of the United States Marines in Japan, led a low-profile memorial ceremony on Friday, attended largely by American war veterans and relatives.

This Thursday, the 60th anniversary of the battle here, the last major one of World War II, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is to attend Japan’s tribute here. [On Sunday he led a memorial service in Iwo Jima, a Japanese island where fighting ended in March 1945, just as the invasion here began.� Okinawa’s trauma over what happened here after 545,000 American troops attacked this small archipelago is still deep. People here on Japan’s southernmost islands want more recognition from Japanese society for their sufferings. But that wish collides with a growing nationalist effort to airbrush the past.

After winning battles to play down Japan’s war-era history of forcing Asian women to work in military-run brothels and Asian men to work in Japanese factories and mines, Nobukatsu Fujioka, a nationalist educator, started campaigning two weeks ago to delete from schoolbooks statements that soldiers ordered civilians here to choose suicide over surrender. But he said there were no such orders. “I confirmed this by hearing people this time,” he said. “People claimed that there was an order by Japanese Army because they wanted to get pension for the bereaved.” Okinawa’s anguish over the widespread civilian suicides has been sharpened by the deep belief here that soldiers from Japan’s main islands encouraged Okinawan civilians to choose suicide. In a display at the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum, a spotlight highlights a glinting bayonet held by a fierce looking Japanese soldier who stands over an Okinawan family huddled in a cave, the mother trying to smother her baby’s cries. “At the hands of Japanese soldiers, civilians were massacred, forced to kill themselves and each other,” reads the caption. Nearby, a life-size photo shows the grisly aftermath of a family killed by a hand grenade.

Soldiers seeking refuge from the naval shelling forced civilians out of limestone caves and, during the fighting, out of the island’s turtle-back shaped tombs, according to captions. About two weeks into the battle, the Japanese military commander sought to suppress spying by banning the speaking of Okinawan dialect, a version of Japanese often unintelligible to nonresidents. Armed with this order, Japanese soldiers killed about 1,000 Okinawans, according to local historians. Two mainstream Japanese history textbooks from the 1990’s that talk of Japanese soldiers “coercing” civilians to kill themselves are on display. Now, Okinawans fear that this history will be dropped from the national consciousness.

“In many cases, hand grenades, which were in extreme shortage, were distributed to residents,” Masahide Ota, an Okinawan who fought here in a unit called the Blood and Iron Student Corps, said in an interview on Friday. “I heard people say they were told by the military to commit suicide using the grenades rather than becoming captives.”
Mr. Ota, who surrendered four months after the fighting ended here, went on to become a leading local historian, then Okinawa’s governor, from 1990 to 1998. Now, at age 80, he represents the prefecture in Japan’s upper house of Parliament. Okinawans fear that the lack of a written suicide order by Japanese commanders will prompt editors of Japanese history textbooks to drop all mention of the military indoctrination that, as a wartime slogan put it, “soldiers and civilians had to live and die together.”

On Geruma Island, Takejiro Nakamura was one such civilian, a 15-year-old student when the American invasion started.� “For a long time, the Japanese Imperial Army announced that, on other islands, the women had been raped and killed, and the men were tied at the wrists and tanks were driven over them,” said Mr. Nakamura, now a guide at a museum housed in a traditional dwelling that bears bullet holes from the American attack. As Japanese defenses crumbled on the island in late March 1945, 56 of the 130 residents committed suicide, he said. Fleeing with family and neighbors, he said, he passed one cave where 10 villagers had killed themselves.

“I heard my sister calling out, ‘Kill me now, hurry,’ ” Mr. Nakamura said, recalling how his 20-year-old sister panicked at the approach of American soldiers. His mother took a rope and strangled her. “I tried to also strangle myself with a rope,” he recalled, lifting his now weather-beaten hands to his neck. “But I kept breathing. It is really tough to kill yourself.” Minutes later, the Americans took them captive.”The U.S. soldier touched me to check if I had any weapons,” he recalled. “Then he gave us candy and cigarettes. That was my first experience on coming out of the cave.” His mother lived into her 80’s. “We talked about the war,” Mr. Nakamura said. “But to the end, she never once talked about killing her daughter.”

RH: This sad story brings in not only historical revisionism and learning history, but also language and nationalism.� At least the people of Okinawa remember the truth.

Rape of Nanking and Iris Chang

I said that the Hoover Library should acquire the papers of Iris Chang.� Hoover Library director Elena Danielson writes: I have been in touch with Iris for many years; she did research in the Archives and we have supported her work.� There is an Iris Chang collection in the Hoover Archives, and we had anticipated building it with her as she developed her latest project on Americans in the Pacific War.� I was in Europe when Iris died; her story was written up in the German magazine Spiegel as the first item in the obituary page. It is truly tragic that her life was cut short.� RH

Bill Ratliff writes: You ask a question that has befuddled mankind, “How can we remember the past in order not to commit the old crimes and yet bear no resentment toward the nations which committed them?” Though I have no definitive answer to that one, I will at least send some related comments arising out of the Iris Chang/China/Japan affair.

On the basis of the evidence I have seen so far, I will suggest that the Japanese seem to have taken their revenge on Iris Chang for telling so much of the truth about them to a public that for a while listened with at least one ear. Several years after her book documenting the Rape of Nanking, she began extensive interviewing of aging U.S. military veterans who had suffered as POWs in Japanese captivity during World War II. This (and who knows what else in her personal life and/or the world today) sent her into a depression that led to her being hospitalized for some time. But it was too little care too late, or perhaps we should say too much Japan too often. The truth she uncovered about the far limits of human depravity, as represented by Japanese actions before and during World War II, drove her mad and the only escape was suicide. I doubt it helped her state of mind that her “new” country,� the United States, in her judgment had unjustly locked up Chinese-American scientist Wenho Li and treated him most shabbily.�

I once read an interview with Chang recounting how she decided to write Rape of� Nanking. She and her parents lived in Northern California. As I recall it, they had an old grandmother living with them who never said anything, but always sat quietly in a corner of the kitchen. One day Chang, in her mid- to late-20s, remarked that she didn’t understand why some people were critical of the Japanese, whereupon the old woman leaped out of her chair and exploded into a lecture on the crimes the Japanese had committed against the Chinese people. She then sat down and never spoke again. Chang thought she had better look into what had so enraged her mild little grandmother.� As the research progressed, she found that it was all true and the result was her book.

One of the most offensive Japanese-related exhibitions I have ever seen occurred about ten years ago when I was taking a rather small Chinese ship east on the Yangzi River out of� Chongqing, China’s wartime capital. Except for me, the 50 or so passengers were about evenly divided between Chinese and Japanese. As we left the city, the Japanese took over the stern of the ship for a big celebration. I don’t speak Japanese so I can’t say what they were so noisily toasting; I doubt if many of the Chinese present understood their words either. But their message through their actions in light of history seemed clear enough and made this one the most insensitive (or more honestly put grossest) stunts I have ever witnessed, and I believe all the Chinese present would say the same. For years neither rain nor clouds nor humanity had stopped Japanese planes from flying west on the Yangzi over the spot of the toast to where the rivers part and they could unload their tons of bombs on Chongqing, to which the Chinese government had retreated, step by step, because of Japan’s brutal war (the rape of Nanjing, etc.) on and near the Pacific coast.� The Japanese are renowned for their at least surface good manners, but this stunt came close to setting a new low for any civilization.�

Now, I must offer an alternative position on the Japanese advocacy of peace in the wake of the atomic bombs. I have not been to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial with what is described as its message of peace, so I will accept the description we have of it. I have, however, just returned from the memorial museum in Nagasaki and though I love travel in Japan and have many Japanese personal friends, etc., etc., etc., I left that place fit to be tied. Only in the most Japanese self-serving sense could it be considered peace-affirming. Indeed a very long wall that purported to present a time-line leading to the bomb was a blatant example of the routine Japanese cop-out or that refusal to accept responsibility that seems to have helped drive Iris Chang mad. The bomb time-line begins with the United States. No, not with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, but after that sneak attack. The time-line doesn’t mention Pearl Harbor at all, and it doesn’t mention Japan’s invasion of China in 1937, including the Rape of Nanjing or any of the other horrendous things done in China between 1937 and 1945, and it doesn’t mention Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931, including the rape of that region and Korea during the years that followed, and it doesn’t mention the internationally sanctioned Japanese occupation of parts of China (the birthplace of Confucius) after World War I, and it doesn’t mention Japan’s wars against China and Russia at the end of the previous century. Perhaps there is another very long wall in the museum that lists all of the above history that preceded the development of the bomb, accompanied by admissions of Japanese responsibility for at least something in this historical progression and thus Japan’s non-peaceful contribution to 20th century Asia. Alas, I missed that wall. Perhaps someone else who has been there can assure me that I just didn’t see it, somehow, with its honest and forward-looking messages of peace on earth and good will to men. If so I will very gladly retract my uncharitable comments above. That said, it is important to add that some Japanese do know how badly they behaved before and during World War II and have sought to get their country and people to admit it. Some former Japanese soldiers have even traveled the world confessing in vivid detail what they and their buddies did during those years to the Chinese (and other) people. Several years ago Japan semi-apologized to Korea, which Korea accepted as adequate considering it came from Japanese, but when the China asked for the same apology, Japan refused.�

But while we are at it, let us note the further consequences, far beyond the “rapes” noted above, of Japan’s post-Meiji relations with China.� (1) After the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-95, Japan took Taiwan as booty from China thus setting the stage for the current potentially explosive dispute over whether Taiwan is part of China or eligible for independence. Had Japan not seized Taiwan, the island would have remained unquestionably part of One China.� Of course, if Japan had not taken Taiwan and the US decided to defend it after China became involved in the Korean war, Taiwan would never have established the first democracy in the millennia long history of the Chinese people.� (2) if Japan had not invaded China, the fledgling Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek (which Japan was bombing in Chongqing)� would easily have wiped out Mao Zedong in Yenan and there almost certainly never would have been a Communist China. Even the late Harvard Sinologist John Fairbank, no lover of Chiang (to say the least) thinks the Nationalists, not as corrupt as they later became, probably would have put the country together and working. This means the worst modern atrocities Mao committed against his own people, including but not limited to the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, would never have happened. Of course no one can say what would have taken place instead in East Asia, but there is no question Japan’s policies played a critical role in laying the political groundwork for much of the 20th and 21st centuries in Asia.

I am very flexible on how people or peoples accept responsibility for their actions and I agree that we should not wallow in the past (though we should try to understand it) but must look to the future. Some countries like China and Russia just ignore the slaughter of millions in their recent past and aim for the next stage; some like South Africa have had commissions investigate, but rarely punish, which of course is what Chile tried to do after Pinochet until the whole business was reopened by Spanish Judge Garzon; some want to punish all those found to be guilty, at least to the limits of political correctness. I am glad to let individual countries handle their own pasts as they like so long as when they dragged in other countries and peoples those who perpetrated crimes at least come clean. What so angers and frustrates many of us, and seemingly drove Iris Chang to suicide, is those who have been particularly hideous to their neighbors but trivialize or deny their actions and then march around like victims, preaching peace.

RH:� All this goes to the heart of our Learning History project. Bill is a curator at the Hoover Institution. I would again urge that it try to procure the papers of Iris Chang.

Ronald Hilton
November 24, 2004