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Home , 2001 in Japan, Akiyuki Nosaka, Azumi people, Bonsai, Conformity, Cultural nationalism

SOCIAL AND IN

by

Chie Muroga Jex

B.A., The of West Florida, 2005

A thesis submitted to the Department of Anthropology College of Arts and The University of West Florida In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Anthropology

2009

The thesis of Chie Muroga Jex is approved:

______Rosalind A. Fisher, M.A., Committee Member Date

______Terry J. Prewitt, Ph.D., Committee Member Date

______Robert C. Philen, Ph.D., Committee Chair Date

Accepted for the Department/Division:

______John R. Bratten, Ph.D., Chair Date

Accepted for the University:

______Richard S. Podemski, Ph.D., Dean of Graduate Studies Date

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my deep appreciation to Dr. Terry J. Prewitt, Dr. Robert

Philen, and Ms. Rosalind Fisher for their willingness to be my thesis committee members. My fellow anthropology graduate student, Trey Bond, also gave me many helpful suggestions. They have inspired and sustained me with insightful comments, patience and encouragement.

I also wish to especially thank my bilingual husband, Timothy T. Jex for always taking time, and patiently proofreading and correcting my English grammar despite his

busy schedule.

Without these professional and generous supporters, I could have never done this.

They will always have my heartfelt thanks.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... iii

LIST OF TABLES ...... vi

ABSTRACT ...... vii

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTER I. PEOPLE AND OF JAPAN ...... 7 A. People and Language ...... 10 B. Isolation: Environmental and Historical Contexts ...... 15 C. Character and of ...... 23 1. Concept of Nature and ...... 23 2. The Emperor and the People Depicted by Benedict ...... 30 3. Dominating Concepts...... 36

CHAPTER II. THE OF JAPAN ...... 45 A. Japanese History of State and Religion ...... 47 1. Rise of and History ...... 47 2. Emperor and Shogun...... 50 3. Religion in Early Modern Period ...... 51 4. Religion and ...... 54 5. Religion after World War II ...... 58 B. Concept of Religion ...... 61 1. Concept of ...... 62 2. Multiplicity of ...... 63 3. Stigma of Shūkyo...... 66 4. Religion and the Secular ...... 72 C. Japanese Religion: Nihonism ...... 74

CHAPTER III. THE OF JAPANESE VALUES AND NATIONALISM ...... 80 A. Nationalism and Education ...... 80 1. Early Childhood ...... 80 2. Textbook Controversy ...... 87 3. Nationalism and ...... 93 B. : Nihonjinron ...... 99 1. Tradition Constructed ...... 99

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2. Social Hierarchal System ...... 103 3. Essentialism...... 105

CHAPTER IV. SOCIAL CONFORMITY AND NATIONALISM TODAY ...... 109 A. Nationalism after War ...... 109 1. ...... 110 2. Traditional Values, Modernization, and ...... 112 3. Educational System Today ...... 116 B. Nationalism Revival ...... 120 1. Powerful Nationalists ...... 120 2. and Flag ...... 124 3. Nationalism Revival and Anti-Japan Movement ...... 126

CONCLUSION ...... 134

EPILOGUE ...... 137

REFERENCES ...... 138

v

LIST OF TABLES

1. by Country in 2005...... 69

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ABSTRACT

SOCIAL CONFORMITY AND NATIONALIM IN JAPAN

Chie Muroga Jex

It has been said that the thought processes and attitudes of Japanese people are distinctly different from those of people of other . From the perspective of

anthropologist and a Japanese expatriate, I argue that the thoughts and attitudes of

Japanese are profoundly correlated with pressure to conform with social norms and

nationalism which are not usually discussed or apparent to outsiders. This paper

describes Japanese and attempts to explain the conceptual differences in some

major ideas between Japanese and Westerns. It also analyzes how ,

education, and intertwine with each other, function, and are used as

for building and shaping Japanese people. This paper is divided into

four major sections: (1) The People and Nation of Japan, (2) The Religion of Japan, (3)

The Socialization of Japanese Values and Nationalism, and (4) Social Conformity and

Nationalism Today.

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INTRODUCTION

What words come to your mind when you think about Japan? Japanese terms, such as , , , karate, , wrestlers, , kamikaze pilots, or

Japanese brand names, such as Nissan, Honda, Mitsubishi, , and are quite

familiar to many western people. Japan has always been portrayed as a country that has a unique culture by both Westerners and the Japanese people.

This thesis explores the view that the thought processes and attitudes of Japanese

people are distinctly different from those of people of other cultures. Although some

scholars claim that this is due to differences in biological and physiological effects on

mental processes between races, in this paper, I will discuss the psychological and

philosophical effects of cultural socialization. The characteristics of Japanese culture and

Japanese people have been observed and described by many Western scholars, and

Japanese have been both admired and criticized for their historical actions and positions.

There are a myriad of books and articles about Japan available today. Although most of

them describe the uniqueness of Japanese culture beautifully, generally they lack depth

when analyzing and investigating the distinct causes of Japanese , in other

words, why Japanese think the way they do. In this paper, I delve into works by scholars

such as Eika Tai from North Carolina State University and Timothy Fitzgerald from

University Stirling (UK), who critically discuss and deeply examine the underlying

structures of Japanese culture, tradition, religion, and philosophy. For example, in

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“Rethinking Culture, National Culture, and Japanese Culture” from Japanese Language

and Literature, Tai (2003) looks into the historical process of nationalism and colonialism and elucidates how Japanese culture and tradition have been invented by elites through education. In an article, “Religion and the Secular in Japan” from

Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, as an expert on the relationship

between religion and , Fitzgerald (2003) discusses how western scholars’ criteria

of understanding religion can lead to misunderstanding the of Japanese culture and

religion. He reviews many books about Japanese religion and points out some scholars’

misinterpretation of Japanese religion, supported by his life in Japan as a

scholar and a husband of a Japanese woman.

From the perspective of a Japanese expatriate, and supported by the indispensable

works of the last sixty years by these various scholars, I argue that the thoughts and

attitudes of Japanese are profoundly correlated with the pressures to conform with social

norms and nationalism which are not usually discussed or apparent to many others.

Through interacting with other Japanese from an early age, Japanese children are taught

social expectations and that virtue springs from conformity to the social

and obedience to one’s higher authorities. They are also constantly reminded

of the shame associated with deviating from accepted social norms and national traditions

by their , peers, and teachers.

Socialization of social conformity and nationalism is quite different from

“socialization of nationality,” which means learning and knowing just the history, value,

and cultural uniqueness of that country through social . For example, most

Japanese believe that it would be impossible to survive without conforming to certain

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ways and expectations of the nation. Generally, the people of any nation are loyal to their country; however, I believe the loyalty of Japanese toward their nation is not the same as the loyalty in many other countries. Japanese are shaped by strict social expectations and nationalism, and Japanese social expectations are formed by the Japanese traditions.

Those national traditions, , and values teach the people the necessity of social conformity, and the stage for the natural development of nationalism. For

Japanese, being loyal to the nation is not just a matter of free will and desire, it is essential for their social survival. For most Japanese, their nation is not just their country, but their whole world, and their traditional ways are a fundamental part of what they perceive as being good Japanese people and virtuous beings.

This work explores and identifies the conceptual differences in some major ideas between Japanese and Westerns. Moreover, this thesis discusses the relationship between

Japan’s unique nationalism and the thoughts and attitudes of Japanese from an anthropological and expatriate perspective. I analyze how Japanese language, education, and religions function, intertwine with each other, and are used as ideologies for building its nationalism and shaping Japanese people.

There are many methods today to understand cultural differences, such as media analysis, historical analysis, cross-cultural comparison, participant observation, and interviews. I tried to employ various methods while conducting research for this thesis.

Yet, most importantly, I tried to explore core cultural values and analyze the cultural structure. This approach is somewhat like the Values Orientation Method (VOM), which

American anthropologists Clyde Kluckhohn and others began developing at Harvard

University in the 1940s (Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck 1961). To understand cultures, C.

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Kluckhohn identified cultural premises by questioning and analyzing five profound

aspects of human life: innate human nature, the relation of man to nature/super-nature, perspectives regarding perception of time, motive for , and relationship patterns. Although this VOM was developed about 60 years ago, I believe that it is still a vital tool to identify cultural premises, differences in core values and world views.

Therefore, although this paper does not exactly follow the VOM, it is still fundamentally influenced by Kluckhohn; it attempts to explore how Japanese perceive themselves, their nation, and relationships with others via looking at structures and functions of language, religion, and education, and comparing these Japanese views with Western views.

Since coming to the , I have been asked many questions relating to

Japan which I have had trouble answering. Two major for that are the language and conceptual differences between Japanese and English. I have often realized that the connotations and innuendos of many words are different, sometimes slightly, sometimes critically, from western words. They cannot be translated directly from Japanese to

English or vice versa. In many cases, not only does a word have a different connotation, but also the words and phrases that one would use to explain the differences of the original word cannot be translated effectively, so misunderstanding is often inevitable.

In order to avoid this problem as much as possible, this paper will describe not only the customs of Japan and the actions and thoughts of Japanese, but will also elucidate the conceptual differences between the two cultures of even simple words, such as nationalism, religion, love, and respect. English is my second language, therefore understanding and expressing complicated concepts and thoughts in English has always been extraordinarily difficult and time consuming for me. Perhaps for this ,

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investigating the difficulties of communication between two different cultures is my engrossing interest.

Analyzing the relationships between the nationalism, tradition, religion, myth, and by Western criteria seldom produces valid results. Although anthropologists have tried to emphasize cultural holism and interconnectedness, Western thought generally attempts to dichotomize and discretely consider each concept separately from the others. In Japanese thought, some concepts are so strongly correlated or co-mingled that both readers and writers may have difficultly organizing and discussing topics in a way easily understood by the Western mind. Despite this challenge, this paper will attempt to systematically do just that.

This paper is divided into four major sections: (1) The People and Nation of

Japan, (2) The Religion of Japan, (3) The Socialization of Japanese Values and

Nationalism, and (4) Social Conformity and Nationalism Today. In each section, before discussing major topics, definitions of related words and a general background will be provided in order to avoid ambiguity. Besides citing from publications, I also use some classic Japanese films to emphasize my points and illustrate some descriptive concepts, and incorporate my experiences living in both Japan and the United States to compare and contrast Japanese and Western ideas.

Taking advantage of being bilingual, the research materials I used for this thesis are not only academic publications and journals by Western and Japanese scholars, but also include other types of publications by Japanese writers as well. Moreover, I was born and raised until early adulthood in Japan by people who had first hand memories of

World War II. Compared to what Western scholars provide, I hope that my life

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experiences and direct observations while living in both Japan and the United States may contribute valuable and unique insights toward understanding Japan and its people in more depth.

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CHAPTER I

PEOPLE AND NATION OF JAPAN

Do people shape their nation or does a nation shape its people? A nation is made of people who live there. Many people often assume that a nation and its people have the same characteristics, but it is certainly not so in Japan’s case. The first time I realized this, I was participating with some of my American friends in a game for determining personality traits for fun. The questionnaires of the game led each of us to a country with a stereotypical personality which matched our own. For example, if you were led to

Spain, you were a passionate person; United Kingdom for pride in self and tradition; U.S. for liberty and free spirit; for disciplined and clean; for distrusting the world, and on it went. One of my friends was led to Japan, explained as an arrogant and aggressive personality. I protested that Japanese were not arrogant and aggressive, but diligent and meek. Our host explained that perhaps the image of the nation of Japan during the colonization of late 1800s to early 1900s and World War II was arrogant and aggressive from other countries perspective, but this was not intended to criticize

Japanese people. Because I had always believed that the people of Japan, especially during the wars, were completely meek and loyal at all times, I was astonished to find that Westerners perceived the nation of Japan as arrogant and aggressive. Moreover, I realized that the characteristics of the nation and those of the people in Japan were sharply different.

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Today, Nationalism can be defined and interpreted in a variety of ways. The

following are some general definitions of nationalism: a that your own nation is

superior to all others; a belief in the need to aggressively defend it against other ; a

devotion to national interests, unity, and independence; determination of ’

identity by their shared national ethnicity, language, culture, and values; emphasis on

nationhood and ; and for many, nationalism implies a political movement

propagated by fascists as was seen in the twentieth century. According to Encyclopedia of

Nationalism, Louis L. Snyder from Princeton states,

Though there are many conflicting views on the meaning of nationalism, it may

well be said to be that state of mind in which the supreme loyalty of the individual

is felt to be owed to the nation-state. It remains the strongest of political emotions.

Throughout the world, national consciousness has been molded into dogmatic

philosophies and ideologies. [Snyder 1990:ix]

Benedict Anderson defines nation as “an imagined political community”

(2005:49). Similarity, Ernest Gellner also states that “Nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness: it invents nations where they do not exist” (1964:169). I agree with these concepts of nationalism, however, my emotions toward Japanese nationalism are complicated as an expatriate of the nation of Japan. Nationalism can be treated as “if it belonged with ‘’ and ‘religion’ . . . [as well as] ‘’ or

‘,’” Anderson remarks (2005:49). Snyder also mentions that “Carlton J. H. Hayes, pioneer scholar of nationalism, points out, nationalism may be a blessing or it may be a curse” (Snyder 1990:xi). If I think about fallen soldiers and their who were willing to their lives for their nation and people, I truly respect and

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appreciate them. Japanese children learn to venerate those forebearers. They are of Japanese people. I want to believe that their motivation was love for their families.

However, nationalism can be dangerous. It can generate ethnocentric elements.

In this paper, I use nationalism to mean simply a belief in the uniqueness, distinctiveness, and extraordinarily precious value of one’s own nation, yet not necessarily or always superior to other nations. However, nationalism for Japanese also implies a belief in vital obligations of with social expectations and national norms and values. As in some other nations’ cases, Japanese political elites have always controlled the commoners through the socialization of social conformity and nationalism.

In other words, the pressure to conform to social expectations and internalize national values naturally promotes nationalism. It is a political strategy that on the surface appears to be a mere promotion of humanity, virtue of the people, national unity, harmony, and peace; yet in fact, it is a political manipulation that pressures the people into absolute compliance with the traditions, religion, and education invented by the elites.

Japanese political elites have always used nationalism to shape the loves of common people since the beginning of Japan’s history. The elites in Japan have consistently taken advantage of the dignified temperament of Japanese people, primarily consisting in a loyalty to the perceived natural order that is established by their ancient animistic beliefs. The reason for the deep sense of nationalism in Japan is not only that elites always have been using nationalism to control the people, but that the nation of

Japan has virtually optimal conditions for establishing nationalism due to many other factors. This is my primary argument, that Japanese language, history, physical location,

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environmental context of Japan, can all help explain why Japanese are so loyal to their

nation. This factor is the key to the uniqueness of Japanese people.

People and Language

I believe the uniqueness of Japanese thought is definitely correlated with the uniqueness of their language. Today, theories concerning the relationship between language and thought are commonly called, “mould theories” or “the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,” named after prominent American linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee

Whorf in the mid-1900s (Chandler 1994). Sapir (1970:15) asserted that the primary function of language is not only communication, but also thought process, expression, and especially, socialization. In The Relation of Habitual Thought and to

Language, Benjamin Whorf (1956) also focused on the relationship between the grammatical structure of a language and how the speaker of the language perceives the world. Just as Sapir and Whorf asserted, as a Japanese living in America, I have also realized how Japanese linguistic structures have influenced my way of thinking and expressing thoughts, and my first language itself set many of my attitudes and values that are distinct from those of Americans.

Japanese language has idiosyncratic features that provide an optimal environment for establishing and sustaining nationalism. Communicating with Japanese language, its structure, use of , and its means of expression creates intense social expectations.

Therefore, conformity to the shared norm in the nation is almost inevitable. The following are some examples of Japanese linguistic structure and use, and how they impact individuals’ attitude and perspectives.

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In my speech class in the United States, my instructor pointed out my weakness of

speech. He told me he had noticed that his previous Japanese students also had the same

problem, a particular structure of their speech. Instead of declaring assertions first and

then providing reasons to support their points as Americans usually do, Japanese tend to claim their assertions only after detailed explanations. It is even true that in casual conversations, Japanese often provide just reasons and never clearly express their points.

The basic Japanese syntax is Subject-Object-Verb. Even with modifying words, an active verb is located at the very end of the sentence. For example, “I love you very much” in

Japanese word order becomes “I / you /very much / love.” In Japanese, one never knows what a subject actually does or is until the end of the sentence, we are required to pay great attention to the context. In addition, in spoken Japanese, Japanese often omit the subject, rarely use pronouns, and begin with the direct object and the verb (Crowe

1987:38). Another distinct feature of Japanese is the use of kanji, a type of logograph

(characters that represent concepts) in their writing system. Japanese tend to value concepts and pay little attention to expressing the precise details of the objects with modified or ornamental words. Japanese grammar does not differentiate singular, plural, or definite articles of a word, such as “a pen,” “pens,” or “the pen,” for instance. It does not much matter to Japanese or it is obvious to them by the context of the story or the conversation.

As described above, Japanese expressions are simple, but also can be said in ambiguous and diffuse ways (Hayashi and Kuroda 1997:17). Japanese rely heavily on context for meaning. Therefore, communication with the language requires great attention, intense awareness of surroundings (such as place, time, and self and others’

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positions), and keen sensibility to cues that the other is sending (such as the significance

of pause, the tone of voice, and head movement). Sensing these non-verbal expressions is

especially important since the Japanese teach everyone to be modest or rather quiet while

the Americans generally encourage everyone to speak up. In Japan there is a word

Kigatsuku (気が付く) that cannot be exactly translated by a single word in English.

Kigatsuku can be roughly translated as “notice,” “come to one’s senses,” “come around,” or “be attentive.” In her book, Lighten Up, Chieko Okazaki explains that Kigatsuku is

“an inner spirit to act without being told what to do” (1993:107). From the time they are small, Japanese children are taught to be a kigatsuku person. For example, when somebody is sweeping the floor, a kigatsuku person would run to get the dustpan and hold it for the sweeper without being told. A person who is Kigatsuku is much appreciated, and most Japanese expect others to be kigatsuku people. If they are not, they may be thought impolite or even ill-mannered.

Other unique Japanese terms include honne (本音) translated as “true or actual intention,” and tatemae (建前) translated as “enunciated principle.” To preserve anothers’

“face,” or to show respect, Japanese rarely directly express their opinions. Often they will

say “yes” (for tatemae), when their actual intention is “no” (honne). Yet Japanese grasp

the speaker’s true intention by sensing a subtle cue that the speaker sends. Carl Falsgraf

et. al. (1993) studied the challenges which English speakers in Japanese work

environments face. According to their , many foreign workers fail to “distinguish

honne from tatemae.” One person reported that “his foreign colleague tended to take what was being said at its face value and did not understand the real message or could not

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read between the lines” (Falsgraf et al. 1993:192). Keiichi Inoue et. al. (2004) explained

these terms to foreigners:

Some foreigners criticize the Japanese for not expressing their opinions or for

having two differing opinions. However, in the Japanese vertical where

order is maintained by tatemae (enunciated principle) more than honne (true or

actual intention), this is considered necessary for keeping social harmony. The

tactics of tatemae are often used in order to solve problems efficiently without

hurting anyone, while pushing one’s opinions too hard tends to be avoided. [Inoue

et al. 2004:165, parenthetical added]

Satoko Suzuki also notes that “Japanese language and thought can be understood most

effectively when examined in terms of the mutual influence they share with the

sociocultural context” (2000:595). Whether structure of the language, kigatsuku, or honne

and tatemae, they clearly demonstrate the urgency and significance of sensitivity to

surroundings, mutual agreement, and strict conformity to the shared norm or custom in

order to communicate among Japanese. If a shared norm were created to maintain a

certain ideology of ruling elites, the Japanese language would be the perfect instrument for implementation. This concept is often called, Nihonjinron (日本人論), and will be discussed later.

Indeed, Japanese language is an effective tool for reinforcing at least two ideologies: hierarchy and gender stratification. Generally people “adjust [their] standard and nonstandard language to suit [their] audience . . . [Yet] in Japanese, levels of usage

are a much more formal and serious matter” (Crowe 1987:38). The use of honorifics and

gendered languages had been widely thought to be one of the beautiful elements of

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Japanese language until recently, when more and more western foreigners became eager

to speak Japanese language fluently in order to pursue global careers. Many Japanese language professors who teach Japanese as a second language in the West today are aware of the potential problems in teaching the language straight from typical Japanese textbooks. Meryl Siegal and Shigeko Okamoto (2003) surveyed several popular textbooks that are used in Japanese language classrooms in the United States. The representations of men and women and their speech in those textbooks showed the emphasis of traditional gender stratification. They found that in many cases, men are given high-status roles, and women are in more subordinate roles (Siegal and Okamoto

1996; 2003). They argue that “characterization of strict gender differences in language indicate a larger ideology within Japanese society” (2003:52), and note that “teaching

Japanese as a foreign language implies teaching ‘traditional Japanese culture,’ a reified formation of society, which includes expectations of gendered language and other behaviors” (2003:50). They raise the critical issue and ask us whether Japanese language instructors should teach by these textbooks that “maintain and in some ways create an oppressive and stereotyped hegemonic gender structure which could inhibit language learning among [their] students” (Siegal and Okamoto 2003:61).

Likewise Ryuko Kubota (2003) also discusses the parallel issue regarding teaching Japanese culture. She argues that:

There are cultural assumptions that are commonly accepted, such as the notion

that Japanese society exhibits a rigid social hierarchy. Once this notion is

conceptualized as a “correct” insiders’ perspective, it influences the way we

interpret various cultural practices and products and works a fixed and convenient

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formula to explain cultural phenomena. This danger is demonstrated in examples

of gender-and status-specific language use. . . . [Furthermore,] the Standards

document overlooks the political and ideological construction of knowledge about

culture and reflects a limited understanding of cultural essentialism. . . . Notions

such as national culture and cultural homogeneity are actually constructed in the

process of nation building, which seeks a unified identity and ethnic pride.

[Kubota 2003:72]

Bernard Saint-Jacques and Takako Suzuki confirm that “the Japanese, indeed, have a vivid consciousness of their language as an expression and an essential element of their culture, and as a symbol of their ethnicity” (1984:93). A language functions not only as communication, but also as “the foundation of a culture and the vehicle of its propagation” (Saint-Jacques and Suzuki 1984:91). Through language, people are socialized to acquire certain knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes that enable them to live in a certain culture. In the case of Japanese, the linguistic structure and the use of language force individuals to behave a certain way; people in Japan are always expected to comply with the norm or ideology of the nation because communicating with the

Japanese language requires it. Because the Japanese language is passed on to each succeeding generation, it is a great tool for preserving nationalism indefinitely.

Isolation: Environmental and Historical Contexts

Another element that creates an optimal condition for supporting nationalism is physical, historical, and cultural isolation. Chin Kim and Craig M. Lawson remark that the physical isolation of Japan as an island nation “produced a national ethnic cohesion

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and helped to preserve it for a thousand years” (1979:493). Since the time the modern

Japanese islands were formed (about 13,000 years ago when glaciers melted rapidly all

over the world), Japan has been in an optimal condition for human settlement. The

diversity of resource-rich habitats available within a short distance of one central site—

inland forests, rivers, seashores, bays, and open oceans—made it possible for even

hunter-gatherers to establish a sedentary society (Diamond 1998:91; Imamura 1996;

Habu 2004). Japan had been a rural agricultural nation for more than a thousand years

until the 1950s. Wet rice cultivation demands intense labor and a physical settlement.

Today, despite the fact that Japan has become a postindustrial nation, its people are still

hesitant to move. This is simply because they are not used to moving. Even when

breadwinners are under the pressure of having to move for their business, most Japanese

families decide to send only the breadwinners and the rest of them stay. Families that live separately for even several years for that reason are not at all rare in Japan. Another practical reason is the housing market in Japan. In order to move, they have to sell their

houses before buying new houses in the new places. Because people tend not to move

much to begin with, both the supply and demand are low. Thus, it is not only the physical

isolation of Japan, but also the people within the nation tend to be stationary, which also

contributes to their isolation.

Incidentally, the physical isolation by the surrounding ocean made a spectacular

defense from invaders. The word, kamikaze, translated as “divine wind,” from kamikaze

pilots in World War II is based on actual historical events in 1274 and 1281. Typhoons

destroyed two Mongol fleets under Kublai Khan and protected Japan from the Mongols’

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attempted invasions. Japanese believe that kami, or , sent the typhoons to save Japan

(Varley 2000:304). This incident allowed the Japanese to continue their isolation.

In addition to the physical isolation, Japanese historical and cultural contexts contribute tremendously to the unchanging nature and uniqueness of Japan. The United

Kingdom and Ireland, for instance, are also island nations, isolated by the sea. However, their historical contexts are very different from Japan’s. Japan has never experienced major invasions from any other cultures nor the revolutions that other nations have dealt with. There was the Warring States period (戦国時代, sengoku jidai) in which the

Japanese government was decentralized roughly from the middle of the 15th century to

the beginning of the 17th century in Japan. However, these wars did not change Japan

dramatically like the revolutions and civil wars of other nations. The reason is that the

motivation for these wars was sovereignty among the higher rank of samurai (warriors)

or daimyo. They were originally extended family members of the emperor clan, who

moved to remote areas to establish their own sovereign power. Following success in their

local regions, they became ambitious to expand their power by military force. Therefore,

the commoners were never directly involved in these wars. They did not do the fighting,

and for them, it really did not matter which Shōgun (the highest rank of warriors,

Commander of the Armies, or higher authority of daimyo) won. Their miserable states

would change very little regardless. And most importantly, even the most aggressive and

atrocious daimyo never tried to take the most superior position in Japan, the throne of the

Emperor (天皇 tennou). During the Warring States and feudal periods, indeed, Shōgun had de facto political power. However, even Shōgun could not usurp the throne of the

Emperor because they believed that Japan could not exist without the emperor. After all,

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they were also the part of the mandate of the royal family, descendents from the sun

, the ultimate of the whole Japanese world.

Moreover, substantial elements such as religion and language, that profoundly

influence individuals have never become divided or changed dramatically within the

nation. For instance, the is not the only language spoken in the United

Kingdom or the United States. In Ireland, the Protestant and Catholic religions have

traditionally been opposed to one another, and there are English and Gaelic speakers.

Thus, even though they are island nations, they are not nearly as homogeneous as Japan.

In contrast, only Japanese is accepted as the spoken language of the nation of

Japan. In the past, even the aborigines of Japan, Ainu, were forced to speak only

Japanese and their language was eradicated. Japanese did adopt , kanji to establish their logographic written system in the fifth to sixth century. However, there was no Japanese written system whatsoever in Japan before that. Therefore, there was no conflict or division of written systems. Japanese use kanji along with and

that developed from the kanji to make their very own written system. By the time the commoners started to learn the written language, their writing system was already well established and very unique to Japan. In addition, as mentioned previously, the arduous and somewhat paradoxical style of Japanese communication with its unique language may contribute to the width of the barrier between foreigners and Japanese.

With regard to Japanese religion, it is also very unique, and it has not been radically changed in the eyes of Japanese. The did change from

to during the transfer from the Shogunate period to the Imperial period. Then,

Japanese became secular after World War II. These might seem to be dramatic changes

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for Westerners; however, they were not. Since the fifth century, Buddhism has always been there along with Shinto, which has been considered to be the indigenous tradition for more than two thousand years. Because of the nature of the religions, they do not conflict with each other. Therefore, one can participate in both religions at the same time.

In Shinto and Buddhism, secular (or material) and spiritual blessings are not really separate things. And for Japanese, Shinto and Buddhism are more like traditions than religions. However, the introduction of Christianity in the sixteenth century did impact the Japanese. It was so distinct from their traditions, that if the Shōgun had not prohibited

Christianity, indeed it would have changed Japan dramatically from its traditions.

Japanese elites quickly realized that and prevented Japan from losing its uniqueness and traditions. Japanese Christians were tortured and eradicated in the period. Because of that history, even today, Christians are still less than one percent of the total population of

Japan and it has not really contributed to a change in Japanese thought. In fact, the self- isolation period (from the beginning of the 17th century to the mid-19th century) was started because of the elites’ fear of the impact of Christianity.

Michael Haugh mentions that “The Japanese are often labeled xenophobic by the mainstream media” (1998:27). Today, Japanese are really just concerned with keeping the uniqueness of their nation rather than having a fear or hatred of foreigners. However, in the time of the or , the Japanese were well characterized as xenophobic. A series of policies of national seclusion were enacted by

Tokugawa Ieyasu from 1633 to 1639, and remained in effect until 1853 with the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry of the United Sates and his squadron of “black ships”

(Varley 2000:164, 235). These more than two and a half centuries are commonly called

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the period of (鎖国), meaning closed or chained country. During the sakoku period, the Tokugawa shogunate indeed enjoyed great peace partly because of the seclusion policy (Varley 2000:165). Nevertheless, I must note that not all of the Japanese enjoyed that peace. Paul Varley lists two essential reasons that the Tokugawa pursued their seclusion policy:

First, the fear, smoldering since Hideyoshi’s day [1590-1598], that Christianity

was by its nature antithetical to Japan’s traditional and religious

beliefs; and second, the apprehension that the daimyos of western Japan, who had

been the leading opponents of the Tokugawa before the battle of Sekigahara

[1600], might ally themselves with the Europeans and attempt to overthrow the

Edo regime. [Varley 2000:165]

As Varley states, the purpose of the seclusion policy was for political reasons, not for the protection of the Japanese people. The only Japanese who were xenophobic at the time were political elites, not the common people. In fact, Catholic converts were increasing considerably in southern Japan, especially among farmers, fishermen, and women (N.

Suzuki 1996:67). Catholic from and Spain were well respected by the new converts and the people in . This situation was a significant threat to the

Tokugawa regime.

In the sixteenth century, the political elites in Japan welcomed Portuguese traders who first contacted Japan from Europe. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,

Christianity grew rapidly. Actually many of the converts were among the urban middle class and “the samurai, who placed special emphasis on the virtue of loyalty”

(Matsumoto 1996:23). They were “amazed and fascinated by the advanced medical

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knowledge, techniques for the organization of mutual assistance, and other social and cultural contributions brought from the West and thought of as related to Christianity”

(N. Suzuki 1996:68). However, as Christianity began to spread to the common people and farmers, the political leaders’ friendly attitude toward Christianity and Europeans suddenly changed. The elites started to realize a potential threat and feared losing their power; but most of all, they were threatened by the core characteristic of Christianity, which placed loyalty to one’s before all others. This idea was totally unfamiliar and dangerous to the Japanese elites.

The foreign policy not only banned foreigners from coming to Japan, but also prohibited Japanese from leaving, which was illegal until the Restoration in 1868

(Totman 1980). The Japanese political elites prospered during this sakoku period. They effectively issued these edicts to control the people, strengthen their power, and establish a solid feudal society.

As Kim and Lawson (1979) noted, isolation produces “a national ethnic cohesion” and helps “preserve it” for a myriad of years. They also remark that, “Although many of

. . . [Japan’s] basic cultural innovations were inspired by other cultures, Japan’s isolation enabled her to digest these foreign cultural influences gradually, and to adapt them to, and integrate them with, her own culture at will” (Kim and Lawson 1979:493). Some of

Japan’s common religions, its writing system, many of its electronic innovations, gesture habits, and so on, are originally from other cultures. They did not stay in their original forms; however, they never faded away once they arrived in Japan. Japanese are experts at altering any element into a unique Japanese version and preserving things that they learn from others as a part of their own tradition. Put simply, the core perception of life

21

for Japanese has never changed dramatically or rapidly, even with the change from being

a self-isolating nation to being an aggressive major player in geopolitics in the Pacific

and from the mid-19th through mid-20th centuries.

When the Tokugawa Shogunate ended, attempted to change vastly

the political and social structures of Japan. He adopted a European-style political system,

issued a new constitution with , established public schools, and

introduced many more changes. This was indeed dramatic change on the surface.

However, Emperor Meiji's true intention was not to make Japan more like the democratic

nations in the West. He did not completely follow the Western models of political and

social systems. Instead, the Imperial regime adopted those systems, but it stealthily altered them to fit to its own agenda and the old tradition of tyranny. For the political elites, their ultimate purpose was to expand their political power, even into other nations,

and gain wealth. Changing governing structures was simply to facilitate dealing with the

Western nations. For the commoners, their political leaders and structures had changed,

yet their absolute subordination to the political elites was still mandatory and their status

had not changed much. The new political and social leadership positions were all quickly

filled with only royal family members and old daimyo from the feudal era.

The Japanese developed the concepts of hierarchy and loyalty at the beginning of their society, and these still remain. The archaeological record reveals that there were signs of an enormous hierarchical society in Japan as early as the third century A.C.E.

(Hall 1991:25). There were great tumuli, called (古墳), “often imposing structures

larger in mass than the pyramids of Egypt. The greatest of them, the tomb of Nintoku

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stands today nearly fifteen hundred feet long and over one hundred feet high” (Hall

1991:21), which has a most distinctive “keyhole” shape.

These geographically, historically, and culturally isolated conditions are most

desirable to preserve distinct Japanese characteristics, enhance the unity of the nation,

and develop a strong loyalty to the nation. On the other hand, isolation also tends to leave

people significantly naïve, which makes them extremely susceptible to manipulation by

the elites. There is a proverb in Japan that fits this situation perfectly. It is said, “i no naka

no kawazu, taikai o shirazu (井の中の蛙、大海を知らず),” directly translated as “A frog

in the well, does not know the ocean.” Japanese teachers often used it in the past “to

encourage their students to beyond the circumstances into which they were

born” (Maynard and Maynard 1993:83), but today Japanese more often use it

sarcastically to criticize themselves. Many of them are indeed still a frog in the well;

Japan is the only world they know in some sense.

Character and Value of Japanese People

Concept of Nature and Law

The people of Japan in primitive or prehistoric times could be said to be generally

simple, naïve, community oriented and animistic just like many other indigenous people.

Because of their isolation in many aspects, most common Japanese still hold these

characteristics today. The Japanese conception of nature, “nihonjin no shizenkan

(日本人の自然観),” is quite different from the western conception of nature. One encyclopedia, Keys to the Japanese Heart and reads:

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The basic, etymological meaning of the Japanese word shizen, which is used to

translate the English word “nature,” “is the power of spontaneous self-

development and what results from the power.” The Chinese characters [kanji] for

the Japanese term shizen literally mean “from itself thus it is,” expressing a mode

of being rather than the existence of a natural order. Indeed, the term shizen as a

general expression for nature is not found in ancient Japanese. The ancient

Japanese people recognized every phenomenon as a manifestation of the kami

(god or gods). [S. Suzuki ed. 1996:17]

Since ancient times this concept of nature is one of the remarkable Japanese characteristics, that is a belief that any life is to be accepted and lived as it is, not to be artificially rearranged or removed by human logic from the natural state of things (Noda

1971:133). This attitude can be seen in traditional aesthetic thoughts, especially well illustrated in a Japanese flower arrangement. While a classic western flower arrangement is usually beautifully organized and coordinated in color and in perfect symmetrical shape, a traditional Japanese arrangement always is asymmetrical, and often is arranged with a few lovely flowers and a dead twig.

I have taken a one-day Japanese flower arrangement class with a couple of

American friends of mine in Japan. We were supposed to follow exactly what the instructor was doing. The instructor picked one fresh and perfect brilliant purple hydrangea with full healthy and a long stem, which came right from the flower shop. Then she snipped right at the bottom of the flower bud (cut off from any leaves and any part of the stem) and placed it directly on the water surface in her wide flower arrangement dish. This may sound a little contradictory to what I previously explained

24

about how Japanese see beauty in everything’s “natural state.” For the flower arrangement instructor, because the hydrangea came from the flower shop, which meant the flower was already modified by gardeners to grow into a perfect shape in human eyes, she needed to make it imperfect by cutting off some parts. She was meticulously following the rule to make it look like its “natural state.” When my American friends saw this, they were astonished and just could not bring themselves to snip their flowers as the instructor had done boldly. For them, the act was one of ruining the beauty of the flowers.

Despite learning traditional Japanese flower arrangement, my American friends asked their instructor if they could arrange their flowers in their own ways. I remember that just as they were astonished by the Japanese way of arranging flowers, I was astonished by the reaction that my American friends had that day.

The book, Keys to the Japanese Heart and Soul, explains in this way:

Pictorial and other arts in Japan have traditionally relied heavily on the artist’s

sensitivity to nature and have generally tended toward the simple, compact, spare

and graceful. . . . This love of natural form and an eagerness to express it ideally

have been primary motives in the development of traditional Japanese arts such as

flower arrangement, the tea ceremony, tray landscapes (bonkei), , and

landscape . By means of these arts, the Japanese people have tried to

integrate the beauty of nature into their daily lives and spiritual values. For

decorating a teahouse, an unassuming flower was selected to conform with the

principle that “flowers should always look as if they were in the wild.” The

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Japanese sought to express the vastness and simplicity of nature with a single wild

flower in a solitary vase. [S. Suzuki ed. 1996:19]

Again, these distinct Japanese aesthetics and the concept of nature produce a particular attitude, one where every life is to be accepted and lived as it is (Noda 1971) because every given thing is a manifestation of the kami and is meant to be (S. Suzuki ed. 1996).

Therefore, when powerful political elites arose and introduced new religions or philosophies, especially , or when they established the feudal system,

Japanese commoners accepted them as they were without hesitation.

Although Japanese today rarely speak much about Confucianism (Green 2001),

H. G. Wren (1968) argues that Confucianism is the most important intellectual influence on traditional Japanese thoughts and values: the primacy of the group, harmony, diligence, perseverance, loyalty, submissiveness to authority, and so on. Confucius (551-

479 B.C.E.) emphasized the importance of five human relationships: father and son, husband and wife, elder and younger, ruler and subject, and friend and friend (Wren

1968:221). The difference between Chinese Confucianism and the Japanese teachings based on Confucianism in the seventh century was loyalty to the lord was central to the whole Japanese system.

The first recorded constitution in Japan, the Seventeen-Article Constitution of 604 by Prince Shōtoku, is mainly a Confucian document with emphasis on harmony and loyalty to imperial commands (Varley 2000:25-26). The Constitution in Confucian style appears to stress “ethical government” and offers “general principles of guidance for rule by moral suasion rather than compulsion” (Varley 2000:26). When some scholars look into the details of the document, however, they see the true intent as a justification for

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imperial rule. Varley asserts that “these are lofty Chinese ideas about emperorship, which hold that the emperor not only enjoyed absolute authority over all the people but, in the proper exercise of his office, was essential to the basic functioning of nature itself”

(2000:26).

These traditional aesthetic approaches to nature and the influences of

Confucianism have great influence on Japanese attitudes. In like manner, the world view of Japanese is also well demonstrated in the traditional Japanese conception of law.

Japan is famous for its extraordinarily low number of lawyers compared to the rest of the world. A senior representative of Corporation, Carl J. Green (2001) provides statistics regarding the number of lawyers in the world. In Japan, a nation of 126 million, there is only one lawyer for every 7,325 citizens, while in the United States, the ratio is one for 288 citizens. Even the lowest ratio in Europe is in France, with one for every

1,634 citizens. Kim and Lawson comment that “westerners are accustomed to the idea of justice under a system of rational and impersonal . Western society is litigation- oriented; social problems become legal problems, thrashed out in open court, and lawyers are everywhere. Japanese traditionally abhor lawsuits” (1979:491). Further, the authors offer the two main reasons: 1) the traditional Japanese aversion to law, and 2) the law in

Japan “does not accurately reflect the social mechanisms which adjust tensions and resolve disputes, and may not adequately reflect the state of the living law itself” (Kim and Lawson 1979:491).

Japan’s first constitution, Seventeen Articles by Prince Shōtoku (聖徳太子) in the seventh century, begins with, “Above all else esteem concord (); make it your first duty to avoid discord” (translated by Nakamura 1967b:145). Japanese have been taught

27

that “the harmonious settlement of disputes through mutual understanding is virtuous; the fight to the finish in the courtroom is shameful. . . . Justice is therefore associated, not with rights and duties, but with righteousness” (Kim and Lawson 1979:502; Kōsaka

1967). In addition, because of Japan’s racial and cultural homogeneity and ethnic cohesion, “the Japanese people have a naïve belief that everyone thinks alike. . . . To understand one another, it is unnecessary to resort to a discussion proceeding according to rules agreed upon in advance, i.e. logical rules. One simply looks to this “community of spirit” (Noda 1971:130). Japanese do not like to use law to resolve their disputes.

This may appear illogical to Westerners, but Takeyoshi Kawashima (1967:300) explains

Japanese logic, “harmony consists not in making distinctions; if a distinction between good and bad can be made then there wa (harmony) does not exist.”

Kim and Lawson (1979) state that in the traditional Japanese view, one’s life is given; it is to be accepted as it is (497). Therefore, “the Japanese traditionally do not sue”

(Kim and Lawson 1979:506). This attitude not only comes from the Japanese concept of nature, but it is inherited from our ancestors from the feudal era. Yosiyuki Noda

(1971:159) remarks:

Not surprisingly, traditional Japanese thought has often been observed to lack any

consciousness of rights. The Japanese word for law, ho (horitsu), means only the

corpus of legal rules; it carries no connotation either of subjective law or of

personal rights. And the non–individualistic emphasis on the group in Japanese

society has been reflected in the historical fact that the law rarely ever functioned

to protect individual right. [Kim and Lawson 1979:503]

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Again, Nakamura’s translation of the teachings of Prince Shōtoku in the seventh century

reads that, “earnest discussion was most desirable. If we discuss affairs with the feeling

of harmony, desisting from anger, difficult problems will be settled spontaneously in the

right way. In this way alone is possible that decision may be reached at conferences”

(1967a:146). However, the reality has always been a submission of a person of the lower status without any fair discussion. There is a Japanese term for this: nakineiri

(泣き寝入り). The direct meaning of this word is “cry oneself to sleep.” A Japanese-

English dictionary defines nakineiri as “let the matter drop; be compelled to; accept or

bear; pocket or swallow an insult or a humiliation; grin and bear it” (Ogawa et al.

1979:758). Unfortunately, this word, nakineiri is still used very commonly in Japanese

society. Neither the law nor the harmonious solution protects the commoners’ rights from

their oppressors.

Although the references that I used for the traditional Japanese conception of law

here are relatively old sources, their works are still very relevant. As seen previously, the

recent statistics regarding lawyers provided by Green (2001) and his remarks in his

speech, “Japan: ‘The Rule of Law without Lawyers’ Reconsidered,” also manifest that

Japanese commoners’ attitude toward law has not changed much since more than 30

years ago. Green states, “There is a gradual movement toward the use of more Western-

style written contracts among certain Japanese businesses, but that is still the exception

rather than the rule” (2001:4).

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The Emperor and the People Depicted by Benedict

When discussing the traditional characteristics and values of Japanese, most of the older works are still applicable. The and the by was first published in 1946, already more than a half century ago, and although some parts are not suited to today’s modern society, “it captures much of the essence of

Japanese tradition and culture that is relevant today” (Ito 1993:374). In 1944, when the

United States government commissioned Benedict to study Japan for war-related consultation, the United States’ great offensive against Japan was at its peak (Benedict

1989:2). This was an extremely difficult assignment because not only was staying in

Japan for an extended period impossible, but also even just a visit to Japan was too dangerous. Therefore, she had to conduct the study without the benefit of any of the procedures or tools that any cultural anthropologist would normally use. Despite not having the direct experience of living in Japan, Benedict’s description of Japanese culture and their attitudes are indeed amazingly accurate. Besides her excellent skill as an anthropologist, I believe that interviewing first-generation contributed tremendously to depicting well the distinct Japanese characteristics. The first

Japanese Americans were already exposed to two different cultures and profoundly understood how different the two nations were. They could also view their own birthplace more objectively and explain it much more effectively than the people who were still living in Japan or anyone else from other countries.

Benedict explored Japanese character traits by studying their attitude toward the

Emperor. During World War II, the most puzzling question for Americans was what the

Emperor’s charisma was that held his subjects so strongly, especially when his primacy

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was so recent (Benedict 1989:29). Some American authorities acknowledged that the

Emperor had been a shadowy figurehead during all of Japan’s feudal centuries:

“He was kept secluded in an isolated court whose ceremonies and activities were

rigorously circumscribed by the Shogun’s regulations. . . . Every man’s immediate

loyalty was due to his lord, the daimyo (大名), and, beyond that, to the military

Generalissimo, the Shogun” (Benedict 1989:29). For the commoners, the Emperor had

been unfamiliar and only known from history. Many of the American authorities assumed

if they “undermined and challenged the sanctity of the Emperor, the whole structure of

enemy Japan would fall in ruins” (Benedict 1989:30). However, those who had lived in

Japan argued and persuaded the authorities not to conduct direct attacks on the Emperor

because they knew it would aggravate the situation. Those residents

insisted, “the reverence of the Japanese for their Imperial chief could not be compared . . .

with Heil-Hitler veneration which was a barometer of the fortunes of the Nazi party and

bound up with all the evils of a fascist program” (Benedict 1989:30).

By interviewing Japanese prisoners of war, Benedict came to understand how earnest and reverent Japanese felt toward the Emperor. This attitude did not come from the mere acknowledgement of the virtues of the hierarchy, but a true reverence and devoutness. Benedict notes that the prisoners of war “were free with their denunciation of their local commanders, especially those who had not shared the dangers and hardships of their soldiers. . . . There was no sign that they lacked the will to discriminate the good from the bad in things Japanese” (Benedict 1989:34).

In addition, “whether in Japanese newspapers and magazines or in war prisoners’ testimony, there was criticism of the government and of military leaders” (Benedict

31

1989:33). “But the Emperor was exempt” (Benedict 1989:35). To show the Japanese prisoners’ “unconditional and unrestricted loyalty to the emperor,” Benedict quotes their comments: “the Japanese ‘will fight unhesitatingly, even with nothing more than bamboo poles, if the Emperor so decrees. They would stop just as quickly if he so decreed’; Japan would throw down tomorrow if the Emperor should issue such an order’” (Benedict

1989:33). Indeed, the Emperor was inseparable from Japan. She continues to quote the prisoners’ comments: “‘a Japan without the Emperor is not Japan’ . . . ‘Japan without the

Emperor cannot be imagined’ . . . ‘The people did not consider the Emperor responsible for the war’ . . . ‘In the event of defeat the Cabinet and the military leaders would take the blame, not the Emperor’ . . . ‘Even if Japan lost the war ten out of ten Japanese would still revere the Emperor.’” (1989:32). All the prisoners refused to speak against the

Emperor; Benedict states:

even those who co-operated with the Allies and broadcast for us to the Japanese

troops. Out of all the collected interviews of prisoners of war, only three were

even mildly anti-Emperor and only one went so far as to say: “It would be a

mistake to leave the Emperor on the throne.” A second said the Emperor was “a

feeble-minded person, nothing more than a puppet.” And the third got no farther

than supposing that the emperor might abdicate in favor of his son and that if the

monarchy were abolished young Japanese women would hope to get a freedom

they envied in the women of America. [Benedict 1989:32-33]

The prisoners’ comments above well depict the Japanese attitudes to the Emperor.

Today, I doubt that the people would be willing to die for him. However, the Japanese

Emperor is still the symbol of the Japanese people, and they are still much interested in

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the Imperial Household. I have never heard anything worse than the comments of those

anti-Emperor prisoners during the war.

Benedict continues to write the Japanese view of their emperor during the war:

“‘He had been deceived by [Prime Minister] Tojo . . . During the Manchurian Incident he

showed that he was against the military . . . The war was started without the Emperor’s

knowledge or permission. The Emperor does not like war and would not have permitted

his people to be dragged into it’” (Benedict 1989:31). In fact, the people of Japan today

still hear like these prisoners’ comments once in awhile when popular

magazines issue special editions about the Emperor during World War II. I read in one

Japanese magazine that when Japan was defeated, the Emperor sincerely apologized to his people, and meekly took all the blame on himself. On the other hand, according to historian Richard Storry in his book, A History of Modern Japan (1961), during the radio broadcast announcing the unconditional surrender of Japan’s military force, the Emperor purposely used vague language, “accept the unacceptable,” which only the well-educated clearly understood, but most did not. It might be true that what the Emperor stated was vague to most commoners; however, as previously discussed, vagueness and language differentiation depending on the context are typical Japanese characteristics. Moreover, especially for the Emperor, he must only have known formal language, and probably did not purposely use it with the intent of confusing the people of Japan; at least this is what

Japanese want to believe.

Benedict describes the Emperor and the Japanese since VJ-Day:

The retention of the Emperor has been of great importance. It has been handled

well. It was the Emperor who called first upon General MacArthur, not

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MacArthur upon him, and this was an object lesson to the Japanese the force of

which it is hard for Westerners to appreciate. It is said that when it was suggested

to the Emperor that he disavow his , he protested that it would be a

personal embarrassment to strip himself of something he did not have. The

Japanese, he said truthfully, did not consider him a god in the Western sense.

[Benedict 1989:309]

Some Westerners may juxtapose Al Qaeda suicide bombers and kamikaze pilots in World

War II, but a Japanese historian, Daikichi Irokawa (2004) argues that kamikaze pilots did not die for their religion nor salvation, but for their exhausted families and friends in their hometowns and for their nation. Japanese do not perceive the Emperor as a prophet, religious leader, nor god in the Western sense. They do not expect the Emperor to make them happy or bring them salvation. The emperor is simply the most symbol of the nation to Japanese. Literally, “A Japan without the Emperor is not Japan” (Benedict

1989:32), as one prisoner of war stated.

When Benedict was interviewing Japanese prisoners of war, she wondered, “Were

Japanese prisoners of war right in claiming that just as the people would fight to the

‘with bamboo ’ as long as he so ordered, they would peaceably accept defeat and occupation if that was his command? Was this nonsense meant to mislead us? Or was it, possibly, the ?” (1989:35). She found the answer later. The majority of Americans thought the Japanese were aggressive and never would surrender even if their country was defeated. Right after Japan was defeated, still many Americans feared that the

Japanese would be hostile to the Americans and sabotage any peace program (Benedict

1989:299). Therefore, the Japanese attitude toward the Americans after the war stunned

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most Americans. The people of Japan, who once had vowed to fight to the death with bamboo spears, welcomed Americans with a friendly smile (Benedict 1989:306). They were polite and submissive. Recently, one military officer in the United States commented to me that most Americans could not understand the Japanese reaction because if Americans were in the same situation, they would never give up and would fight to the death for their families’ and their own freedom. Indeed, their freedom is so important that they would never submit to their enemy.

My mother used to talk about her memory of the war. During the war, she was about ten years old, living a small village. She remembered how she had to practice attacking the enemy with a bamboo pole every single day with all the other school mates in the field. In her mind as a small , as she was practicing, she believed she could really poke with her bamboo pole and knock an enemy down. Right after the war, some

American soldiers came to a town close to her village and she saw Americans for the first time. They were enormous compared to not only her, but to any Japanese adult. She saw guns, helmets, and all the gear they wore, and thought how silly Japan was to try to attack them; there was no way to fight with these people and win. In addition, she really liked them. They were friendly and brought a lot of candies and chocolates for every child.

My mother might have been a child then, but most commoners’ thoughts were not much different from hers. The majority of the people in Japan never blamed their Emperor or their enemy for their loss. They were simply grateful that the war was over. Their

Emperor accepted the loss, and so did the Japanese people. This was a natural consequence of defeat; the Japanese understood their position.

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Benedict also reports about the headlines of some prominent newspapers in

Tokyo after the war. Five days after VJ-Day, “the Mainichi Shimbun, could speak of defeat and of the political changes it would bring, and say, ‘But it was all to the good for the ultimate salvation of Japan’ and ‘Right was lost when we were defeated’” (Benedict

1989:304). The Asahi wrote “the old attitude, from which we could gain so little and suffered so much, should be discarded for a new one which is rooted in international co-

operation and love of peace” (Benedict 1989:304-305). Ten days after VJ-Day, the

Yomiuri-Hochi would write “Beginning of a New Art and New Culture . . . It takes courage to look this defeat in the face as a stark fact, (but we must) put our in

Nippon’s culture of tomorrow” (Benedict 1989:305). There was no blaming the Emperor or criticizing political leaders. Needless to say, the Americans’ non-coercive, supportive

attitude greatly helped the people of Japan to adjust to the change, yet the unique

Japanese thought processes and characters also helped them to quickly transition from

extremely aggressive to completely meek attitudes toward the Americans. As discussed

previously, the Japanese conceptions of their life and nature are simple. This could be a virtue, yet at the same time it could be a weakness, easily manipulated.

Dominating Concepts

In addition to “the concept of nature,” there are many more concepts that are totally unique to the people of Japan. Importantly, the concepts such as (義理), ninjō

(人情), on (恩), wa (和), and haji (恥) constantly dominate Japanese minds and lives.

These concepts cannot be translated directly into an English word or even an English sentence. In her book, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, Benedict needed to take a full

36

twelve chapters to elucidate these unique concepts; she had to provide various examples in different circumstances in order for it to make sense for Western readers.

The concise English translations of these words are giri as a sense of duty, ninjō as a human emotion, and on as an obligation and kindness. However, these translations do not really appropriately describe the concepts. The written giri is a compound of two kanji characters, gi (儀), translated as just or right and ri (理), translated as reason or reasonable behavior. Yoshiyuki Noda explains that this “means the manner of behaviour required of one person to others in consequence of his ” (1971:175).

Likewise, Koya Azumi (1974) elucidates the concepts of giri and on:

A person’s conduct in social life is governed by the obligations of on and giri. In

contrast to America where people consider themselves “heir of the ages,” the

Japanese consider themselves debtors to the ages. Men are indebted not only to

the past [ancestors] but also to the emperor, the nation, parents, and teachers. It is

the need to repay these debts which furnishes the motivations for a person’s

actions. On refers specifically to the obligations passively incurred toward

important benefactors such as the emperor, the nation, the law, parents. It is one’s

gimu (duty) to work hard to repay these benefactors, but the debt is life-long and

is never considered to be fully paid. One is obliged, however, to repay the

mathematical equivalent of on (whether the original benefaction be money, a

favor, or a gift) within certain time limits if the benefactor is less closely related.

Toward friends, workmates, distant relatives, and other persons of a status equal

to or inferior to oneself one is said to have incurred giri. Though one may not be

genuinely willing to do so, the giri relationship will nevertheless oblige one to

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come to the aid of these persons if ever the need should arise. [Azumi 1974:525-

526]

Similarly, Kim and Lawson also summarize Noda’s (1971:175-177) six important characteristics of giri in their article, “The Law of the Subtle Mind: the Traditional

Japanese Conception of Law.” Here I discuss some implications that are not found in the previous quotation from Azumi’s explanation. Kim and Lawson state that “the system of giri rules is not enforced by public constraint. The violation of one’s giri is sanctioned only by a feeling of dishonor. He who has failed to uphold his giri loses face”

(1979:501). It is true that giri is not enforced by the written law, however, for Japanese, losing face is more likely to be the same or even worse than receiving a legal penalty.

Thus, giri is still enforced by social constraint in that sense. The authors also note that

“giri is both the duty and the state of a person bound to a prescribed manner of behavior towards a certain other person. It varies from situation to situation, according to status”

(Kim and Lawson 1979:501). Japanese consider not only the other’s status, but also all other contexts. Japanese may feel giri to certain foreigners whom they are dealing, however, Japanese generally do not expect the western foreigners to act on or understand the concept of giri (though, for eastern foreigners, I am not sure that the same can be said).

Ninjō can be translated as human emotion, sympathy, warm heartedness, humanity, or “natural human affection” (Noda 1971:174). Without ninjō, human beings cannot be human, but just animal. Kim and Lawson state that “social obligations are ideally to be filled by a voluntary act suffused with ninjō, with particular friendliness or benevolence. . . . Ninjō also reflects a traditional reverence for nature as given, a

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reverence for the ‘givens’ or ‘human nature’” (1979:500). These words, giri, on, ninjō,

wa, and haji are intricately associated with each other. For example, both giri and on

promote wa, harmony or accord (Kawashima 1963), and ninjō is the foundation of giri

(Noda 1971). Kim and Lawson mark that “Although the Western mind often separates

the bond of love from the bond of social duty, often indeed finds them opposed, giri and

ninjō are necessarily interpenetrating concepts, each giving content to the other”

(1979:501). Failing to repay one’s on or to sense giri indicates the lack of one’s ninjō,

which implies the person’s shame. In contrast, if giri and ninjō are well displayed in

social relationships, it promotes wa, which is a particularly important traditional value

(Kawashima 1963). Kim and Lawson assert that “the Japanese traditionally do not sue”

(1979:506) because “to sue, to demand one’s right, is a cold-hearted violation of on-giri-

ninjō” (1979:507).

Benedict (1989) introduces more notable Japanese terms that express the subtle

Japanese mind, which is to perceive oneself as “a debtor to the ages and the world” (98).

The direct meaning of Kino doku (気の毒) is “poisonous feeling.” Japanese use this term as “I am sorry, pitiful, regrettable, or unfortunate,” and interestingly use it also as “Thank

you.” It means that “It is too good of you to treat me so kindly,” “I am sorry for the

indebtedness,” or “I feel like a contemptible or despicable person because you beat me to

this act of generosity” (Benedict 1989:105). Sumimasen (すみません) is “I am sorry” or

“excuse me” in English. Japanese also use this word, Suminasen when they want to say

“thank you.” For example, if I said sumimasen when receiving a glass of water that I have asked for, it implies that I am sorry that I troubled you to bring me a glass of water, but I am grateful for you. Another word, “‘katajikenai (忝い),’ which is written with the

39

character ‘loss of face’” (Benedict 1989:106) is also used as “thank you.” In fact,

Benedict (1989:106) states that katajikenai is written with the character, “insult,” but

actually “shame” is more accurate according to Japanese dictionaries. Consequently, “I

am shamed” can interpret as “I am grateful.” By this term you say that “by the

extraordinary benefit you have received you are shamed . . . because you are not worthy of the benefaction” (Benedict 1989:106). It also means that “‘I am shamed in unworthily accepting this on; I am awed by your graciousness; . . . [or] ‘I humbly thank you’”

(Benedict 1989:107). These terms can well describe how Japanese think when they are

grateful.

In like manner, Japanese classic literature and films also describe well Japanese

characters traits and values. About fifty years ago, Benedict noted that “countless

incidents of hero tales, of which the most popular is the historical Tale of the Forty Seven

Ronin, [the theme of which centers around giri and loyalty to one’s lord] are known to

everybody” (1989:162). Today, Tale of the Forty Seven Ronin or Chusingura (忠臣蔵)

may not be the most popular one, but still the literature and films are well known to

everybody. Plays and films set in feudal or warrior periods are still popular today in

Japan. In the 1950s and 60s, many films, such as Ikiru (生きる) in 1952, Gate of Hell or

Jigokumon (地獄門) in 1953, Seven Samurai (七人の侍) in 1954, Harakiri or Seppuku

(切腹) in 1962, Samurai or Jō-uchi (上意討ち) in 1967, and so on, all dealt with

giri, ninjō, on, haji. The traditional value of loyalty was promoted, and they became the

social models for the people of Japan.

The Tale of the Forty Seven Ronin is a true incident that took place in 1701 in

Japan. The story is about forty seven samurai heroes, who get revenge for their lord and 40

kill themselves in the end. It should be noted that while the Tale of the Forty Seven Ronin

focuses on their loyalty to their lord or daimyo, most movies released after World War II

criticize unjust authorities. They often focus on vengeance against abusive lords as well

as loyalty to families and friends. For example, both protagonists in Harakiri (1962) and

Samurai Rebellion (1967) directed by Masaki Kobayashi, were once proper and loyal

samurai to their lords. They both had been faithful and submissive and endured through

even dreadful orders from their unfair lords. Their cruel lords continued to humiliate and

physically or emotionally torture their innocent families. They became true heroes when

they finally became enraged and swore vengeance against their atrocious lords on behalf

of their perished loved ones, even at the cost of their own life.

After World War II, Japanese seemed to finally realize that they also have rights

and it is acceptable to rebel against cruel authorities. By tradition, Japanese had been

taught the importance of giri (a sense of duty), ninjō (a human emotion), on (an

obligation and kindness), and haji (a feeling of shame). Until the end of World War II, their only duty and obligation was their loyalty to their lords or superiors. Their greatest fear was losing face and dishonoring their clans by not behaving properly. There were so many innocent victims who were abused, tortured, and killed by their lords in the feudal period. For subordinates, becoming to haunt their abusers and betrayers was the only way to get justice. I am sure that this is one of the reasons that Yotsuya Kaidan

(四谷怪談) or Story of Yotsuya in the feudal period has been so popular in Japan

since the early 19th century. There are many horror stories in Japan, but this tale of

ghostly revenge has been like mythology to the Japanese and adopted for classic

theatrical and film innumerable times.

41

Compared to Western horror movies, it is interesting that what scares people the

most in Japan is anything that reminds them of shameful acts as a human being, such as

hurting innocent people for the of their own egos. It is hearing the faint moan of a

perished innocent victim in pain, or seeing the pained face flash through their minds,

instead of a hideous monster chasing them with a chainsaw or an evil spirit that truly

terrifies them. The most horrifying thing for a Japanese is feeling shame as an honorable

being. Therefore, the scariest Japanese ghosts haunt only the offender, a shameful person.

The haunting is extremely personal and emotional, and works as a sanction or

for wrong doings, which is lacking ninjō.

Another theme in films after World War II is questioning to whom we ought to be

loyal and what our true and moral obligations as human beings are. For example, Ikiru or

To Live directed by Akira Kurosawa in 1952, promotes a meaningful life. The main

character finds a significant purpose in his living, which is becoming a loyal and

persevering servant to the common or real people of his town. Unlike many other films

released during the time, Ikiru takes place in the modern Japan at that time. Through this

film, Kurosawa not only promotes loyalty to real people, but also severely criticizes

Japanese bureaucracy, which is portrayed as an impersonal authority-hierarchal organization with inefficient rules and procedures, and arrogant bureaucratic power. This film closely reflects Japanese society during the time after the war and in the early 1950s.

The protagonist, a middle-aged monotonous bureaucratic worker, Watanabe is diagnosed with terminal gastric cancer one day. He looks back on his life, and searches for a meaningful purpose in his living. He finally finds the reason to live, and he dedicates the rest of his life to the least powerful people, a small group of wives from a

42

poor section of his town. They have been asking the government to remodel a contaminated area, which is a mosquito-infested muddy pool, into a children’s playground. However, their request is scuffled around the departments and nobody takes the issue seriously. Watanabe passionately advocates for these women and tries to help by enduring humiliations, insults, and threats from the authorities. Finally his persistence overcomes the vicious cycle of inefficient bureaucracy. Before Watanabe dies, he sees the completed children’s playground and dies in peace. At his , the mayor who once rejected Watanabe, tries to take all the credit himself for Watanabe’s accomplishment. Watanabe may not have been recognized by the public for his accomplishment, but the small group of wives visits his funeral, deeply appreciates

Watanabe and looks up to him as their true hero.

Similarly, another of Kurosawa’s prominent films, Seven Samurai (1954), also depicts seven masterless samurai who chose to protect poor peasants from bandits out of a sense of duty, even at the risk of their very own lives. Many films before and after

World War II have different nuances. However, all the traditional Japanese values, self- sacrifice, perseverance, loyalty, and ninjō, are in these films.

The concepts and attitudes discussed in this section are only a part of the whole, but these are very essential elements in order to be a Japanese. The following is a list of typical Japanese character traits. I selected ones that are still relevant today from Hajime

Nakamura’s list of “the main characteristics of Japanese” (1967a:143-144): (1) the acceptance of actuality, apprehension of the absolute in the phenomenal world, (2) emphasis on human relationship and harmony, avoidance of being different, (3) human relationships being of greater importance than the individual, (4) emphasis on activity in

43

group and society rather than individually, (5) emphasis upon hierarchical relations of status, (6) placing value on loyalty and perseverance, (7) thinking of themselves as a debtor to the ages and the world, (8) expecting others’ conformity to the social , (9) communication based on the premise of homogeneous thoughts of the people of Japan, (10) avoidance of direct expression and emphasis on sensitivity to subtle cues of others, (11) lack of self–consciousness in religious reverence, (12) intuitional and emotional and non-logical tendencies, and (13) treasuring the emperor.

Needless to say, there are variations of characteristics within each Japanese individual; however, generally, Japanese think of themselves as homogeneous. These characteristics are developed by Japan’s unique language, environmental and historical contexts. They are virtues as well as dangerous traits of the people of Japan. Because of their acceptance of actuality and emphasis on harmony, the people tend to strive to endure and persevere even to the point of or malignant nationalism promoted by powerful elites. Furthermore, in the foreword of Benedict’s book, Ezra F.

Vogel comments that Benedict:

was puzzled about the paradoxes she observed, by a people who could be so

polite and yet insolent, so rigid and yet so adaptable to innovations, so submissive

and yet difficult to control from above, so loyal and yet capable of treachery, so

disciplined and yet occasionally insubordinate, so ready to die by the sword and

yet so concerned with the beauty of the chrysanthemum. [Benedict 1989:x-xi]

These paradoxical characteristics also illustrate well the various impacts of Shinto,

Confucius, and the Japanese nationalism created by the elites on the people of Japan.

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CHAPTER II

THE RELIGION OF JAPAN

When I was studying the origin of the first human inhabitants in America and the

history of their society before European contact, I learned an interesting fact. The change

in the natives’ method of subsistence—hunter-gatherers to agricultural—was the key to

development and change, not only change in the division of labor, but also their whole

system of society. Social and occupational hierarchies, political and economic power,

philosophies, and ideologies were all integrated to build and support a complex society.

Most fascinating to me, however, is that the sedentary imperial peoples of ancient

in America, not only the Aztec and Inca, but Maya, Muisca, and Tupi-Speaking

Indians societies, “all developed profound and complex religious systems” (Kicza

2003:13). The elites might use systems as a tool to gain power over their societies.

In his essay, Religion and Nationalism in the First Word, John Coakley (2002) asserts that just as languages “have a powerful impact on ethnonational sentiment” (206) and may contribute to the prevalence of a constructed ideology of elites, religion is also significantly equivalent to nationalism (206-208). He supports his view by noting Carlton

Hayes’s (1926:93-125) remarks that “nationalism may well have had religious roots in many cases, but it was itself remarkably similar to religion, constituting a new creed, with its own gods, , theological system, holy days, and other classical accoutrements of

45

conventional religion” (Coakley 2002:212-213). Furthermore, Anthony Smith (1986:34-

37) lists the contribution of organized religion to the process of ethnonational identity:

a close relationship, in many cases, between ethnic origin and religious

belief; religious sectarianism as potential support for nationalist separatism; and

the contribution of a particular religion’s organizational base, in terms of educated

personnel and communication channels, to the nationalist project. [Coakley 2002:

213]

John Hutchingson (1994) has a slightly different argument that nationalism depends on

religion. Whether religion influences nationalism or nationalism depends on religion, it is

clear that there is some significant correlation between nationalism and religion.

S. F. MacLennan states that “religion is inseparable from human life and human society. . . . No matter to what phase or stage of human culture we turn we find religion, and moreover, we find it everywhere close-locked with the deepest impulses and dearest interests of mankind” (1922:601). Emile Durkheim (1915) also implies that “religion is functional for society because it reaffirms the social bonds that people have with each other creating social cohesion and integration” (Andersen and Taylor 2007:340).

Prominent American social scientists J. Milton Yinger and Clifford Geertz also indicate how religion affects culture and society, and vice versa. Functionalism `perceives that religion is part of a social system; however, religion cannot be reduced to the overly- simplified because of the complexity of social system. Yinger (1958) points out that as socio-cultural structures change, religious expressions and form also change. Geertz

(1973) sees religion as a as well as expression of cultural meaning.

Religion provides a template for action for society, and also culture uses religion as a

46

type of propaganda to shape socio-cultural condition. Religion is tremendously intricate,

complex, and powerful. Religious attitudes, behaviors, experiences, views of the world

are integrated into culture, society, individual philosophy, personality, and even

physiological and neurological components. As Coakley implies, if states become

mingled with religion, external conformity would become more important and the

intensity of religious commitment of the people would be enhanced (2002:207-208).

Religion can become a powerful and dangerous tool for ruling elites to control their

people.

Japanese History of State and Religion

Rise of Myth and History

In his book, Myth and Meaning, Claude Lévi-Strauss asks, “where does mythology end and where does history start?” (1978:38). This is exactly the problem in the case of Japan’s history. One may say that while mythology was created in prehistoric times and was only a verbal tradition, history was a written record of true events of the past. However, many historians today, such as Marc Bloch (1964), recognize that recorded histories are not always accurate, but sometimes biased or even wrong due to the writers’ partial views or intentional manipulation.

According to the earliest recorded Japanese chronicles (古事記 and 日本書紀) in

C.E. 620-720, (神武天皇) (711-585 B.C.E.) was claimed to be a

descendent from the sun goddess Amaterasu (天照), literally meaning “illuminates

Heaven.” The Imperial household of Japan is said to be directly linked to the lineage of

Emperor Jimmu (Nakano1996; Suzuki and Kaku 2002; Varley 2000). The current 47

, Emperor , is traditionally considered the 125th direct

descendant of the legendary first known emperor, Emperor Jimmu (神武天皇), who is recorded in the (古事記), one of the Japanese chronicles. Since the end of World

War II, Japan has not taught its people the above as true history, yet Japan has not totally

dismissed these records as simple mythology either. The Japanese national religion,

Shinto, is based on these ancient chronicles. Japanese customs, history, and identity are

all based on these records. It is tremendously difficult for Japanese to admit that all they

have believed and established are based on just an unreliable myth.

From an archaeological perspective, the emergence of the powerful ruling family

Yamato (大和) took place just before the (about C. E. 250 to 538) when

gigantic tombs appeared in Japan. Since then, religion has always been used as an

instrument to regulate people of Japan. The first emperor who officially imported

Confucianism and Buddhism from was Prince Shōtoku (573-621), according to the

Nihon Shoki (日本書紀) in 720. By the sixth century, China had already established a

powerful dynasty and the most prosperous nation in Asia. Prince Shōtoku was an

ambitious man; he wanted to establish a strong dynasty just like China. What he was

interested in was not only religion, but everything the T’ang dynasty had. He sent

Imperial embassies to China to import the Chinese writing system, , technology,

architectural skills, and city plans. In fact , the at that time, was

modeled after the T’ang capital of Ch’ang-an (Varley 2000:34). Although Prince Shōtoku admired China, he never thought of himself as just a follower of mighty China. When Sui

Emperor Yangdi sent a message in 605 which said, “The sovereign of Sui respectfully

inquires about the sovereign of Wa [Japan],” in 607 Prince Shōtoku responded and began 48

with: “‘From the sovereign of the land of the rising sun to the sovereign of the land of the setting sun.’ The Sui emperor did not appreciate this lack of respect and refused to reply”

(Varley 2000:24).

Japan learned and adopted many things, but one element Japan did not learn from

China was justifying the legitimacy of the single–dynasty based on literal descent from the sun goddess, Amaterasu. Varley remarks that:

During the early and middle seventh century the Japanese appear to have

experimented with various ideas, drawn from Confucianism and Buddhism as

well as Shinto, to justify imperial rule. Probably not until the late seventh and

early eighth centuries did they finally settle on the Shinto interpretation, as

reflected in Amaterasu’s mandate, and codify it for all future generations in Kojiki

and Nihonshoki. [Varley 2000:26]

What most fascinates me is not the emperors of Japan or the system but the perception of the people of Japan. There have been many monarchs, emperors and kings in the world from the pharaohs in Egypt to the British kings and queens. Some crowned themselves like the French emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte (Spielvogel 2000:576); some received popular approval, like Julius Caesar (Kleiner et al. 2001:264); and some claimed legitimacy through legendary stories like some Chinese emperors and Etruscan King

Romulus (Kleiner et al. 2001:240). Monarchs who claimed “God’s mandate” to rule their empires or kingdoms are not unique to Japanese emperors. Nevertheless, all of them were eventually overthrown by other powerful leaders or elites, except Japanese emperors. As mentioned previously, Emperor Akihito is considered the 125th direct descendant of the legendary Emperor Jimmu from the fifth century B.C.E. Although since 1945, the emperor

49

of Japan is no longer a ruler of state, the Imperial family has not been stripped of the title

“emperor” by anyone for at least twenty centuries. The reason is not that Japan has had

more powerful political leaders than others, but that the people have a unique attitude

toward their emperors.

Emperor and Shogun

During the feudal period, Shoguns allied themselves with wealthy and powerful

Buddhist leaders and emphasized Buddhism instead of Shinto in order to restrict the

emperor’s power. In contrast, during the Meiji period, the Emperor restricted Buddhism,

and emphasized Shinto. Moreover, he mingled Shinto with Imperial ideals of education

in order to control the minds of Japanese citizens. Emperors and Shoguns always used

religion to gain political power. I had previously recognized the strong connection

between religion and the state of Japan, but a few years ago, one of my American friends

asked me about something I had never thought of before: why did the shoguns never overthrow the emperors? I believe the reason is that the Emperor of Japan was always thought of as not a great political leader, ruler, or dictator, but a divine being. For

Japanese, overthrowing the emperor is unthinkable, even for shoguns. Today, although

not believed to be divine, Japanese still perceive the emperor as a symbolic figure of

Japan. As one prisoner of war stated in Benedict’s during World War II, “A

Japan without the Emperor is not Japan” (Benedict 1989:32).

During the feudal era, all the political and social edicts came from the highest commander of the military, the Shogun, and all the commoners’ immediate loyalty was to the local chief samurai lord, the daimyo. The Shoguns kept the emperors away from the

50

capital of Japan, Edo ( today), which was the center of political, social,

economical, and cultural influence in Japan. The majority of Japanese did not hear much

about their emperors, but the people knew of them from the history of Japan. Benedict

mentions that during World War II, American analysts were puzzled that the Emperor

was able to so quickly attain feverish devotion from all the people of Japan; in these

circumstances, “fealty to the Emperor was hardly an issue. . . . How could an Emperor

who had been brought out from obscurity within the memory of still living people be the

real rallying point of a conservative nation like Japan?” (Benedict 1989:29). The answer

is that Japanese fealty to the Emperor has never ceased since the beginning of the nation,

whether the Emperor had actual political power or not. This is the reason the Shogun

prohibited his people from paying their respects to the Emperor, and “it was treason even

for a great feudal lord” (Benedict 1989:29). In fact, the Shogun especially prohibited it

for a powerful feudal lord because any alliance or union between the Emperor and a

daimyo could become a conspiracy and a tremendous threat to the Shogun.

Religion in Early Modern Period

Meiji-ishin (明治維新) is commonly translated in English as, “”

or “the Restoration of Emperor.” “Meiji” was the Emperor’s name in the late nineteen

century and ishin means revolution or renewal. Meiji-ishin should be “Meiji Revolution” as directly translated, but Western scholars hesitated to call it that because Meiji-ishin was not a typical ideological revolution like the French Revolution in the Western sense.

Although there were many limited scale local agrarian revolts (Benedict 1989:78), the majority of the citizens were not involved in this revolution. Mainly this was a collision

51

between the Emperor and the samurai elites, not the aristocrats or feudal lords and the

common people. There were no great massacres or reigns of terror, but only relatively

small scale disputes among the major players. When the Tokugawa Shogunate officially

ended in 1867, Emperor Meiji attempted to dramatically change the political and social

structure of Japan, such as abolishing fiefs, ending the caste system which is called

sinoukoushō (士農工商), discriminating against the outcasts, and establishing public

schools.

Most importantly, the was promulgated on February 11, 1889,

and the Diet was established, modeled on the German political system: a legislature, a

judiciary, and an executive, which consisted of a cabinet of ministers of state. Yet,

needless to say, the executive branch was made up of prominent aristocrats and powerful

ex-daimyos (Suzuki and Kaku 2002:293). Benedict (1989:80) writes in the

Chrysanthemum and the Sword that “it was drawn up with great care by Their

Excellencies after critical study of the varied constitutions of the Western World,” and adds in her notes a quotation from Herbert Norman (1940:88): “however, [the writers of the constitution] took ‘every possible precaution to guard against popular interference and the invasion of ’” (Benedict 1989:80). Japan became the first nation with a constitution in Asia. However, this constitution was not established by the citizens, but by the Emperor (Suzuki and Kaku 2002:302); the ultimate beneficiaries of this constitution were the Emperor and the government, not the citizens.

In “Religion and State” in Religion in Japanese Culture, Tsuyoshi Nakano (1996) describes concretely what the constitution offered:

52

The constitution stated: “The Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in

Himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercises them, according to the provisions

of the present Constitution” (Chapter 1, Article 4). Clearly, the new government

took the form of a constitutional monarchy with the emperor as the head of state.

The emperor’s right to sovereignty, however, did not derive from the constitution.

As an imperial rescript issued at the time of promulgation put it, “the supreme

power we inherit from Our Imperial Ancestors.” This power, therefore, conferred

neither by the citizens nor by the constitution, relied on intuitional charisma to

perpetuate “the lineal succession unbroken for ages eternal.” Article 3 stated,

moreover, the “the Emperor is sacred and inviolable,” thus vesting him with

divine character. [Nakano 1996:115-116]

Not only did the Imperial rescript justify the emperor’s right to sovereignty, but the campaign of the Jinja Honchō (神社本庁), the Association of Shinto Shrines, during the

war systematized Shinto doctrine into something like “a unified, monotheistic theory that

places the Sun Kami [Amaterasu] at the top [of all other kami], venerates the emperor as

a descendant of this Kami as well as her intermediary, and wins the heart and minds of

the public in ways the prewar ideology never achieved” (Nelson 1996:240). A specialist

in modern Japanese religions, Helen Hardacre defines “” as “the relationship

of state patronage and advocacy existing between the Japanese state and the religious

practice known as Shinto between 1868-1945” (1989:4).

Nevertheless, the Meiji constitution surprisingly proclaimed religious freedom.

Article 28 states, “Japanese subjects shall, within limits not prejudicial to peace and

order, and not antagonistic to their duties as subjects, enjoy freedom of religious belief”

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(Nakano 1996:116). However, the government control over religion was obvious by the series of laws that were enacted, such as the criminal law governing lése-majesté (the crime of violating majesty) in 1900, the Security Police Law in 1900, the Peace

Reservation Law in 1925, and the Religious Organization Law, Shūkyō dantai hō

(宗教団体法) in 1939. The latter law, Nakano (1996) stresses, “sought not only to expand government control over religious organizations but also to supervise even more strictly actions that could be construed as interfering with peace, order, or national goals” (116).

Because of these laws, systems, and religious propaganda, “any political or social demands based on religious ideas were immediately inspected for their conformity with the ideology of the emperor system” (Nakano 1996:117). Many religious organizations quickly showed themselves willing to collaborate. Especially after seeing how those opposed were treated by the government, even “mainstream bodies in the Christian world likewise looked to governmental authority for recognition, sought religious freedom within the church alone, and otherwise obediently allied themselves with government policies” (Nakano 1996:117).

Religion and Education

Ruth Benedict explains the mechanism behind State Shinto and freedom of religion:

The State took as its realm a that specifically upholds the symbols of

national unity and superiority, and in all the rest it left freedom of worship to the

individual. This area of national jurisdiction was State Shinto. Since it was

concerned with proper respect to national symbols, as saluting the flag is in the

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United States, State Shinto was, they said, “no religion.” Japan therefore could

require it of all citizens without violation of the Occidental of religious

freedom any more than the United States violates it in requiring a salute to the

Stars and Stripes (though of course, many schools’ regulations in the United

States today have changed this since then). It was a mere sign of allegiance.

Because it was “not religion,” Japan could teach it in the schools without risk of

Occidental criticism. [Benedict 1989:87, parenthetical added]

The concept of “religion” in the Western sense was still new to Japanese in the late nineteen century. In this paper, Shinto is treated as a “religion,” but generally it is not actually a religion in the Western sense at all, and not to many Japanese even today.

Details of the Japanese concept of religion will be discussed in a later section. Here I focus on how Shinto was treated and how its teachings supported the emperor system, while claiming separation of religion and education from the Meiji era to 1945.

Public schools in Japan were first established in the early Meiji period. A professor of Komazawa University, Nobutaka Inoue states that “initially, there were areas in which religion and education were not yet differentiated” (1996:138) from 1868 to

1890. One of the major reasons for establishing a public school system was “to promote the idea of empire based on the emperor system, and protect the country by opposing the spread of Christianity” (138). “The Imperial Rescript on Education, drafted by Inoue

Kowashi, Motoda Nagazane et al. and promulgated on October 23, 1890, played a critical role in strengthening the influence of the emperor system in the field of education” (141), says Inoue. Just as Prince Shōtoku’s edicts in the seventh century, it was based on

Confucian ethics, but emphasized the royalty of ruler-subject relationship. Inoue remarks

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that “because it was an imperial message, many held that the rescript was to be obeyed

absolutely” (1996:141). The emperor’s rescript was not for , but for

moral education that every citizen needed to maintain a nation of wa (harmony).

Nevertheless, Inoue also comments, as “the distinction between religious

education and academic education gradually took shape” (1996:138) during the Meiji and

Taishō era (1869-1926), the separation of religion and education became a basic principle

of the state (137). Any teachings that question, challenge, or impugned the Japanese

emperor system were definitely not allowed. Accordingly, there were firm restraints on

religious education; not only Buddhist and Christian priests, but even priests of Shinto

denominations or were forbidden by law to teach any dogma. The jobs of a State

Shinto priest was not to teach or give any directions to their people, but only to perform

rites and purify whatever by waving a wand with hemp and paper steamers (Benedict

1989:87-88).

As mentioned above briefly, prior to this conformity by religious leaders, there were a series of incidents in which anyone that challenged the emperor system was severely punished. The government punished even scholars who wrote controversial articles which did not even directly attack the imperial system. For example, Inoue

Tetsujirō, who wrote an article entitled “Kyōiku to shukyō no shōtotsu (The collision between education and religion)” contending that Christianity was incompatible with the character of the nation; and Kume Kunitake, a professor at Tokyo Imperial University, who wrote an article entitled “Shinto wa saiten no kozoku (Shinto as an archaic ritual custom in honor of heaven)” were dismissed for publishing in 1892 (Inoue 1996:141).

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Despite these educators’ efforts, the imperial system came to dictate more and more of

the education system of Japan.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, “State Shinto in the schools becomes

the history of Japan from the and the veneration of the Emperor, ‘ruler

from ages eternal.’ It was State-supported, State-regulated” (Benedict 1989:87). The imperial system was stressed again by the bestowal of goshin’ei (御真影), photographs

of the emperor and the empress to the public schools (Inoue 1996:141). “Bowing in

respectful obeisance before the goshin’ei became expected behavior even in the Christian

schools” (1996:143) by the early 1900s, Inoue comments. Then in 1935, the Ministry of

Education issued another notice: “‘Points for Consideration in Relation to the Fostering

of Religious Sentiments,’ urging educators to drive home the meaning of the Imperial

Rescript on Education and promote the spirit of sacrifice for the sake of the nation”

(Inoue 1996:142). These policies and the campaigns of emperor ideology through the

education system took root in the thoughts and feelings of the people of Japan. The moral

guidance that the ruling elites laid out for their people was that good Japanese citizens

must to be loyal to their nation and the Emperor.

During the early Shōwa period (1929-1945), education was completely used for

political propaganda and military training (Inoue 1996:138, 143). Michiaki Okuyama

(2002:24) writes that “as Japanese and prospered with victories in the

Sino-Japanese war of 1894-1895 and the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-1905, the prestige

accruing to Imperialism and to the rejuvenated Shinto cult burgeoned.” Some scholars

point out that by the 1930s, the people who actually took advantage of the emperor

system and took over the education system were not the Emperor and his close advocates,

57

but the military. Jon Davidann (1999) reviews Stephen S. Large’s (1992) book, Emperor

Hirohito and Showa Japan: A Political Biography, and argues that “the more

transcendent the emperor became, the less real power he had, and the more power was

exercised in his name by those militarists who believed the Japanese emperor to be

absolute but who happened to despise and ignore this particular emperor” (265).

Whoever the real players behind this emperor system, one thing is clear; intermingling a

state, national historic legends and myth, religious tradition, and an education system can

produce robust nationalism.

Religion after World War II

The Japanese government accepted the Potsdam Declaration and surrendered

unconditionally on August 15, 1945. On December 15, 1945, the occupation policy on

religion entitled, “Abolition of Governmental Sponsorship, Support, Perpetuation,

Control, and Dissemination of State Shinto (Kokka Shinto, Jinja Shinto)” (Nakano

1996:119) was issued. In addition, the new Religious Corporation Law established a regulation system. Any religious group that met the prescribed regulations could become a religious corporation, instead of the previous law, which was based on the government recognition system; the government screened out any religious groups from a legal right

to exist, and even those recognized ones were strictly controlled by the government

(Nakano 1996:119). Because of this new regulation system, not the old government

recognition system, there were new religious movements right after World War II. It was

noted that many “religious organizations . . . have come into being outside the framework

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of the established Shinto, Buddhist, or Christian bodies and maintain an independent existence” (Arai 1996:100).

The separation of religion and state after World War II surely brought more democratic systems into Japanese politics; however, it also brought a new problem—

where to draw the line between religion and tradition. The occupation policy specified the separation of State Shinto and the state, but it did not specify the separation of tradition and the state. The policy also did not completely eradicate the Japanese emperor system; it did not recognize the emperor as a deity nor a ruler, but it still recognized him as a symbolic figure for the nation. In some ways, it is hard to draw the line between religion and tradition, and in Japan’s case, it was not easy to resolve the problem. For example, according to the Allied Powers, during World War II, was “an ultra-nationalistic for promoting hero worship and strengthening the fighting spirit of the nation” (Nakano 1996:131). Therefore, the Supreme Commander for the

Allied Powers ordered that “it be stripped of its militaristic elements and completely separated from the state” (131). However, in the mid-1970s with the Peace Treaty and the restoration of independence, a movement for promoting state support for Yasukuni

Shrine rose. Nakano remarks that:

Those promoting state support for the shrine . . . lobbied for the emperor and state

officials to offer worship (sanpai) at Yasukuni Shrine in their official capacity, for

foreign envoys to pay their respect at the shrine, and for uniformed

representatives of the Self-Defense Force to offer formal worship there. . . . The

event that particularly drew people’s attention was Prime Minister Miki Takeo’s

visit to the shrine on August 15, 1975, the anniversary of the end of the Pacific

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War. There had been prime ministers who visited the shrine while in office

before, but his visit was especially important; it raised the issue of whether this

was a religious action forbidden to the government by the constitution, and

involved the difficult question of how to evaluate the war. Prime Minister Miki

emphasized that he had visited the shrine in a private capacity, but it is undeniable

that his worship at the shrine opened the way for subsequent official visits.

[Nakano 1996:132]

Likewise, “a later prime minister, Nakasone Yasuhiro, emphatically ‘ended the postwar

period’ by making an official visit to Yasukuni Shrine on August 15, 1985” (Nakano

1996:132). This visit provoked a “strong barrage of protests from China and other Asian

countries[, and also] opened disputes about where to draw the line between the public

person and the private person” (Nakano 1996:132-133).

There was a similar incident in 1975, in which a city and the municipal Board of

Education, with public funds, transferred a fallen-soldiers monument or chūkonhi

(忠魂碑), from the grounds of a municipal elementary school to donated public land.

Likewise, Nakano (1996:134) reports that, “early in 1976, the local Association of War-

Bereaved Families, with the cooperation of municipal employees, sponsored an ireisai

(慰霊祭), a Shinto ceremony to propitiate the of fallen soldiers.” This incident again

raised debate whether the monument and the Shinto ceremony for fallen soldiers by

municipal officials violate the constitution or were just acts of honoring fallen soldiers,

not a state religious facility (Nakano 1996:134-135).

The Shinto service, Taisō-no-gi (大葬の儀), for Emperor Shōwa on

February 24, 1989 and the new Emperor, Akihito’s Sokui-no-rei (即位の礼), or 60

Enthronement Ceremony on November 12, 1990 also raised another type of debate and

lawsuit: whether a ceremony associated with the emperor, who is given a national

symbolic status, should be handled as a secular state ceremony or a private Imperial

House ceremony. The questions extended to which rites could be a state ceremony

without violating the principle of separation of religion and state (Nakano 1996:135).

Nakano called it “an ambiguous political compromise and will doubtless spur more

debate in years to come” (1996:136).

Concept of Religion

The Japanese concept of religion is definitely different from the Western concept of religion. As described above, separating religion and state in Japan cannot be done easily as in the Western world. In this paper, Shinto, Buddhism and Confucianism are treated as religions as many western scholars would do; however, Shinto is not actually a religion, but more like a national tradition to most Japanese. Hence, the Westerners can easily misunderstand the Japanese. For example, in their book, Japanese Culture in

Comparative Perspectives, Chieko Hayashi and Yasumasa Kuorda state that “They

[Japanese] do not have personal religious faith, but they think religion is important”

(1997:144). This statement alone can be misleading without any context. I would clarify as follows: Japanese do not have personal religious faith and do not think religion in the

Western sense is important. However, they strongly believe that traditional values and are important. Describing how the concept of religion differs between the West and Japan takes many steps to explain. I shall discuss the concept of kami or gods;

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secondly, multiplicity of religion in Japan; thirdly, social stigma associated with new

religions; and fourthly, differences between tradition, religion, and the secular.

Concept of Kami

Shinto or spirits are called “kami” (神), which can be singular or plural.

The Judeo-Christian “God” is also translated as kami in Japanese; however, the Japanese originally had no concept of a monotheistic “God.” One of the first college classes that I took in the United States was a philosophy course. When my instructor was discussing ontology and God’s existence, I had to ask him which god he was discussing. From my

Japanese perspective at that time, there was not just one god, but innumerable gods in my mind, as suggested by the Japanese phrase, yaoyorozu no kami (myriads of gods). In the book, Religion in Japanese Culture, Shigeru Matsumoto observes that:

Originally, people applied the word [kami] to any form of existence that

possessed some extraordinary, awe-inspiring quality. Mountains, seas, rivers,

rocks, , birds, animals—anything that evoked a sense of mystery or dread

was regarded as a kami. The same term applied to human beings who had some

extraordinary quality: people like emperors, heroes, ancestors, and the like. It

will be evident, therefore, that the kami idea held by most Japanese is essentially

different from the idea of God found in the Judeo-Christian and Muslim

traditions. [Matsumoto 1996:15-16]

The Japanese concept of kami is a vague, amorphous, indefinite, and generalized entity. They are unlikely to have precise images of gods, and when they visit a shrine to pray to kami, they are usually more likely to pray to the generalized kami or spirit(s) even

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though a particular shrine is built to honor a particular spirit(s). Consequently, Shinto is an animistic religion, which includes the idea that souls inhabit all objects; generally the cosmology of animists holds no dichotomous idea between spirit and matter, but an idea of unification of spirit and matter and of harmony between and nature.

Incidentally, British anthropologist Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (1920) observed that was pre-monotheistic and the most primitive form of religion. Interestingly however, Japan is not a primitive tribal culture anymore, but one of the most technologically and scientifically advanced cultures; and it has never developed into a monotheistic culture after thousands years. Perhaps the theory only applies to the old

Western view.

Multiplicity of Religion in Japan

Numerous religious traditions coexist in Japan. The major ones are Shinto, which is considered to be the indigenous tradition back more than two thousand years;

Buddhism and Confucianism, which were adopted beginning in the sixth century C. E. from China and ; and Christianity, which was first introduced in 1549 by

Portuguese missionaries from the Roman , but then became forbidden in the Tokugawa era. Christianity then returned again with Protestant missionaries in the

Meiji era of the nineteenth century. A type of religion called, New Religions, also emerged in the transitional period at the beginning of the Meiji era, as well as the period after World War II. The last type of religion that exists in Japan are the folk religions, which consist of local legends and myths, still kept as their heritage by the common people in villages and small towns in Japan. Perhaps, with wide global influences and in

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this complicated and diverse cultural era, one might think that every country has multiple religions. North America for example, includes people with various traditions and cultures, and a myriad of religions. Christianity alone has thousands of different sects, , and denominations. However, there are significant differences between North

America and Japan.

One difference is that many religious traditions coexist not only within the country of Japan, but also within a Japanese individual. I am not talking about tolerance of diverse religions here. Commonly speaking, “religion” in the West is presumed to be a personal commitment to a single church set apart by its doctrine concerning personal salvation or the after-life. In other words, an individual usually holds a membership in only one particular church or religion at a time. However, this is not true in the case of

Japanese “religious” people. Japanese do not have any Judeo-Christian concept of religion or its monotheistic view as expressed in the Bible: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20: 3) and “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6: 24). Every morning in Japan, my grandmother, just like most other elderly Japanese, used to offer rice and water and pray for our protection to both the small Shinto altar in the dining room and the family

Buddhist altar in the other room.

Japanese tend to have multiple religious commitments; therefore, interpreting many religious statistics about Japan is problematic. According to the Shūkyō nenkan

(Religions yearbook) for 1995, edited by the Ministry of Education’s for Cultural

Affairs, the numbers of followers of the various religions in Japan exceeds the total

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population of Japan. The statistics on religious organizations and the numbers of their followers on December 31, 1994, are approximately as follows: Shinto—115 million,

Buddhists—90 million, Christians—1.5 million, and other New Religions—11 million.

The total is over 200 million believers, while the total population of Japan was only 125 million at that time (Shūkyō nenkan 1995:30-31, 46-49).

As stated above, among the many religions in Japan, Shinto is supposed to be the of Japan. However, again, calling Shinto a “religion” may be misleading because it has neither founder nor canon. In fact, many Japanese feel uncomfortable calling Shinto a “religion.” This ancient “religion” of the Japanese (in the western sense) was not originated as a self-conscious tradition and is nothing like the

Judaism that originated in ancient . Early Shinto was such “an unorganized, undifferentiated, and unnamed complex of agricultural cult, , ancestor worship and shamanism” (Matsumoto 1996:15) that it does not even seem appropriate to call Shinto “one religion.” Matsumoto explains that the term Shinto (神道) means the way of the kami, which “entered the language only after the introduction and spread of

Chinese culture and religions, serving to distinguish the ancient Japanese customs, rites, and beliefs from Buddhism (the way of the Buddha) and from Confucianism (the way of

Confucius)” (1996:15).

Nevertheless, the Japanese indigenous tradition is not named in the same way as

Buddhism and Confucianism. Shinto (神道) is composed of two ideographs or kanji,

(神—kami or gods) and (道—dou or way), while Buddhism is named bukkyō (仏教), which is composed of two ideographs, (仏—Buddha, hotoke, or enlightened being) and

(教—kyō or teaching), thus Buddhism, or in Japanese bukkyō, means “the teaching of 65

Buddha,” not “the way of Buddha.” Likewise, Confucianism is jukyō (儒教—the teaching of Kōshi or Confucius) in Japanese. In the same way, Christianity is kirisutokyō

(キリスト教—the teaching of Christ), and overall, “Religion” is shūkyō (宗教—

teaching(s) of gods, ancestors, or originators). One of the reasons Shinto is named

differently from other religions is thought that Shinto was not originally a system of

moral principles or philosophical doctrines like others. However, the most important

reason is that the Japanese wanted to give Shinto a different status from all other

religions.

Despite their inclusion of certain ethical principles and philosophical doctrines,

physical and mental disciplines, such as Bushidō (武士道—the way of the warriors),

Kendō (剣道—the way of the sword), Judō (柔道—the gentle way, translated as “Japanese

martial art”); chadō (茶道—the way of tea, translated as “tea ceremony”), are called the

“way” of something instead of the “teaching” of swordsmanship or of the tea ritual, and

so on. It seems that Japanese-originated rituals and traditions of spiritual-physical

principles and disciplines are conceptualized as a part of the Japanese way of life, and

they are differentiated from other moral principles or “religions” which are adopted from

other cultures. It is not surprising that some Shinto priests and leaders express

disapproval of Shinto being classified as a “religion” and instead, claim it as “the way of

life of the Japanese people” (McFarland 1967:27).

Social Stigma of Shūkyo

There are notable differences in the concepts and connotations connected with the

word, “religion,” between Japanese and Westerns. The word “religion” is relatively new

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to the Japanese. Ian Reader, who has published many books and articles about Japanese

religion and culture, explains the idea of religion to Japanese:

A problem that occurs . . . is precisely what is understood when terms like

“religion” are used in Japan. The Japanese word generally used in surveys and

elsewhere to denote “religion” is shūkyō, a word made up of two ideograms, shū,

meaning or denomination, and kyō, teaching and doctrine. It is a derived

word that came into prominence in the 19th century as a result of Japanese

encounters with the west and particularly with Christian missionaries, to denote a

concept and view of religion commonplace in the realms of 19th century Christian

but at that time not found in Japan, of religion as a specific, belief-

framed entity. The term shūkyō thus, in origin at least, implies a separation of that

which is religious from other aspects of society and culture, and contains

implications of belief and commitment to one order or movement–something that

has not been traditionally a common factor in Japanese religious behavior and

something that tends to exclude many of the phenomena involved in the Japanese

religious process. [Reader 1991:13-14]

In short, the word “religion” has the innuendo of something unfamiliar, new, different from tradition, and even a radical image. In some sense, for Japanese people, being involved in any particular religion or shūkyō (宗教), which indicates something that is different from others and from their traditional belief system, carries a social stigma, an attribute that is socially devalued and discredited in Japanese society. Because Japanese emphasize and value unity and the harmony of a community, being different, unique, or

special is not traditionally encouraged. Japanese history shows many examples of the

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strong social expectations that do not allow the people to have individualistic lifestyles, especially in their religions for political purpose. There are three significant historical incidents that practicing shūkyō to a social stigma: the prosecution of Christianity in the Edo period, the concentration on secularization after World War II, and the Aum

Shinrikyō incident in 1995.

As mentioned earlier, prior to the arrival of Christianity, the Japanese had been practicing various beliefs yet had never thought of their traditional beliefs in the way that

Christianity was represented. The Christians perceive religion as an organization which religious men belong to, containing ultimate value or absolute truth, and as a private matter, requiring strong personal devotion and commitment regardless of others’ beliefs.

This concept of religion was something unfamiliar to traditional Japanese. Hence,

Japanese perceive Christianity as “religion” because it is something that is not traditional to Japanese. However, Christianity was not the first foreign religion that came to Japan;

Buddhism was. Yet for most Japanese, it is difficult to perceive mainstream Buddhism as

“religion.” This reason is not merely the long history of adaptation to Buddhism, but also the nature of Buddhism which is not monotheistic, but more philosophical, and the lack of a historical social stigma similar to Christianity’s. By comparing the numbers of

Christians in Japan with those in other Asian countries, it is clear that the reason

Christianity struggled in Japan is not merely its unfamiliarity or foreignness. The ratio of

Christians among all three major Asian countries, China, Korea, and Japan, is small.

However, the ratio in Japan (less than 1%) is by far the lowest, even among Asian countries. One of the significant reasons for this phenomenon is Japan’s unique history of

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political agendas associated with Christianity (Table 1). The following statistic is from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Factbook on April 17, 2007:

TABLE 1

Christianity by Country in 2005

Country Population in 2005 % Christian Christians Total

Japan 127,417,244 0.7 % 891,920

South Korea 48,846,823 26.3 % 12,846,714

China 1,306,313,812 3~5.7 % 39,189,414 ~ 74,459,887

The brief history of is as follows. Roman Catholic

Christianity was initially introduced to Japan in the sixteenth century by Portuguese traders. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Christianity actually grew rapidly. Norihisa

Suzuki (1996) provides the total number of Christian converts in 1614, which was about three hundred thousand—ten percent of Japan’s total population, roughly ten times higher than the ratio of Japanese Christians today (67). In 1587 Shogun

(豊臣秀吉) issued a series of edicts banning the Christian missionaries and ordering all

Japanese Christians to abandon their faith or face death. In 1614, the Tokugawa shogun also enforced an edict aimed at the complete eradication of the Christian church in Japan

(Suzuki 1996:67-68). The acceptance and understanding of Christianity by Japanese elites was mostly superficial; they quickly changed their attitude once the political authorities started to suppress and prosecute the Christians. However, many innocent and honest converts among the poor, women, and children were the most severe victims of

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these intense prosecutions. They were tortured and massacred because of their pure

Christian faith. In fact, it was this anti-Christian feeling among Japan’s ruling elites that led to two hundred years of isolationism and ; they call the period sakoku

(鎖国), meaning closed or chained country, as mentioned in an earlier section of this

paper.

Another reason for the subtle connotation of social stigma in the word shūkyō in

Japanese history is the secularization propaganda after World War II. Secularization

meant becoming like the Westerners or like “advanced countries where secularism and

capitalism have thoroughly permeated society” (Shimazono 1996:183). Properly

speaking, this social movement should have encouraged Japanese to become more

individualistic and tolerant of various different religions. Indeed, the new religious

movements flourished after the war; however, most of them faded away quickly. Only a

few new religions remained (all of them by Japanese founders) and grew at a dynamic

pace during the 1950s to the 1970s. Major new religions include (創価学会)

and Rissho Koseikai (立正佼成会) – new sects of Buddhism; and Perfect Liberty and

Seicho no Ie (生長の家) – their characteristics are a mixture of Shinto, Buddhism, and

Christianity (Matsumoto 1996). Susumu Shimazono notes that “Nonetheless, their growth was not regarded as signifying the rebirth of religion. The prevailing idea was that the new religions were vestiges of the premodern period, to be found only among a small group of people with low incomes and low level of education” (1996:171). Even so, these new religions grew much better than the growth of Christianity since 1945, which was far from noteworthy. In addition to the influence of history, Matsumoto speculates there is another reason behind the social stigma associated with religion: 70

One reason Christianity is not more generally accepted may be that to the

Japanese religious consciousness, with its orientation toward family or household

religion as opposed to a religion of individual choice and commitment, and its

almost instinctive inclination to affirm an essential continuity between the divine

and human, Christianity simply seems utterly alien. [Matsumoto 1996:24]

Finally, the Aum Shinrikyō (オウム真理教) incident on March 20, 1995, in which

“the deadly nerve gas, sarin was planted in five subway cars on three lines in the Tokyo subway system, killing or injuring more than five thousand people” (Ishii 1996: 219), had a tremendous impact on the social image of shūkyō. The Aum Shinrikyō was established during the postwar period by a Japanese ex-acupuncturist, Asahara Shōkō, and involves using superhuman powers through yoga practices, emphasizing enlightenment through , and the idea of rejecting the world. Consequently, the public grew extremely skeptical toward shūkyō after the incident, eventually even revising the “Religious

Corporation Law, by requiring religious groups with corporate status to submit reports on their financial assets every fiscal year, [giving] government authorities greater control over such bodies” (Ishii 1996:215). The revision helps protect the people from harmful religious organizations; on the other hand, ironically, it also gives the government an opportunity again to control religious organizations in some sense.

For these reasons noted above, many Japanese people still feel uncomfortable talking about shūkyō in general even today. In sum, for Japanese people, the concept of

“religion” or shūkyō is quite different than it is in the West. Shūkyō has nothing to do with Japanese traditional rituals and customs—although the Westerners call the Japanese traditions “religious” rituals and customs. Religion, shūkyō, implies something which is

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different and new from Japanese traditional practices. In Japan there is a common saying,

“The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” Those who stand out either by having

notably different opinions from the majority or exhibiting ostentation are typically

rejected by the group. Practicing shūkyō means being different from others, and Japanese do not like to be different from others. Hiroshi Kagawa discusses this Japanese thought:

“While many Japanese understand the negative social climate created by this conformist

way of thinking, they also cynically understand its importance for survival in Japanese

society” (Kagawa 1997:95). Therefore, despite the fact that the Japanese appear to be

very religious from the eyes of the Westerners, the majority of Japanese call themselves

secular, or not religious.

Religion and the Secular

In the introduction of her book, Religion and Culture, Annemarie De Waal

Malefijt (1989) states that “Religion is one of the most important aspects of culture

studied by anthropologists and other social scientists” (1). This statement is especially

true for Japanese culture. The , patterns of thought and social behaviors,

and values, are closely associated with “religion” (Japanese call it “tradition”) in Japan.

If individuals do not comply with the hidden rules or values that Japanese tradition

prescribes, they will lose Japanese-ness. For Japanese, the concepts associated with terms

such as Shinto, beliefs, traditions, culture, nation, and emperor are very difficult to

differentiate from one another; there are no distinct lines separating them. Because of the

differences in the concepts of religion between most of the West (at least in the UK and

North America) and Japan, the study of religion in Japan can be highly problematic.

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Ian Reader comments in Religion in Contemporary Japan that “in reality

Japanese people in general exhibit extremely high levels of religious activity and behavior, and Japanese society and culture are intricately interwoven with religious themes” (1991:5). With the exception of a small number of people belonging to new religious groups and Christianity, Japanese today overall tend to claim themselves to be secular. This phenomenon seems to contradict the assertion by Ian Reader that “Japanese are highly religious people." In fact, as Reader declares, since the prehistoric period and the beginning of to the present, Japanese have worshiped gods and ancestors, and practiced Buddhism and Confucianism. They have prayed to local guardian gods for their protection. They have climbed mountains, watched the , and visited any sublime nature sights in order to worship and obtain reverence. They have burned incense and prayed to their ancestors for help and comfort. Most Japanese families maintain both

Buddhist altars to their ancestors and Shinto shrines in their homes.

This paradox is due to the fact that Japanese themselves do not realize that they are religious at all, Reader (1991) claims. Most Japanese people today believe that they are secular. Those traditional religious practices described above are part of everyday

Japanese life and customs; they are never consciously thought of as practicing religion.

Just as discussed previously, separating religion and state is difficult while not separating tradition and state in Japan, so also religion and the secular cannot be neatly disconnected. In his article, “‘Religion’ and ‘the Secular’ in Japan,” Timothy Fitzgerald

(2003) focuses on the serious problems involved with dichotomizing "religion” and “the secular” when studying Japanese religions. He states that “Japanese never did distinguish between religious and secular ideas and institutions until Western pressure led to the

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construction of ‘shūkyō’” (Fitzgerald 2003:11). Even after the Japanese word, shūkyō was

created when the Westerns introduced “religion,” Japanese have never thought about or

differentiated “religious” from “secular” when they have been socializing and teaching

traditional customs and social expectations to their children. If social scientists categorize

Shinto, Buddhism, and Confucianism as religion, then being a Japanese means being a

religious person. However, they are not “religious” in a monotheistic sense because the

characteristics of Shinto, Buddhism, and Confucianism are so different, even opposite in

some ways from the religion of Judeo-Christianity.

In Western cultures, the distinction between “religion” and “the secular” may be much clearer than in the Eastern cultures because these words and their meanings were originally constructed and modified in order to separate religions from states in the West in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In other words, the concept of dichotomizing between “religion” and “the secular” was constructed in consequence of the Western history or the unique Western cultural process. On the other hand, Japanese religion and state had always been mingled until 1945. Therefore, scholars who categorize and analyze Japanese religion based only on the Western criteria can lead to misunderstanding.

Japanese Religion: Nihonism

Generally speaking, most Japanese have commitments to multiple religions, but do not have personal religious faith in the Western monotheistic sense. They diligently visit temples and shrines and perform rituals for their ancestors and the living, but they do not really differentiate between religious matters and secular matters. Moreover, most of

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the people of Japan do not know any of the religious doctrines in detail and they do not even strive to study them. Should Japanese people still be considered “religious?” In the

Western monotheistic sense, one may say that Japanese are not really “religious” because they serve too many masters. In fact, the people of Japan ultimately serve only one master: nationalism. In order to enhance the nation and to unify the people, Japan has adopted a variety of philosophies and religions from other cultures. Japanese are indeed ardently “religious” people when it comes to practicing the “Japanese tradition,” which is the true religion of Japan that is uniquely and pragmatically formulated by combining elements from Shinto, Buddhism, Confucianism, , the , history, and even a hint of Christianity and others. Matsumoto explains this unique

Japanese religious phenomenon:

The multiplicity and complexity of Japanese religious phenomena is related to an

assimilative tendency in Japanese culture. Historically, Japan has adopted various

cultural and religious traditions and thereby enriched its spiritual life. The newly

introduced ideas did not uproot indigenous beliefs but blended into a certain

homogeneous tradition, which itself might be called the “Japanese religion.”

What stands out in this assimilative process is not ideological conflict or discord,

but continuity and harmony. [1996:14]

Isaiah Ben-Dasan had a similar idea when he first used the term “Japanese religion” in his best-selling book, Nihonjin to Yodayajin (The Japanese and the ) in

1970. He calls Japanese people, “Japanese believers,” which implies that all Japanese are united as adherents of Nihon kyō (日本教)—of which the direct meaning is “Teaching of

Japan or Japanese Religion.” In the English version of the same book published in 1972,

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this word, Nihon kyō, is translated to “Nihonism” in order to make more sense to English

readers. One example that Ben-Dasan provides is as follows:

Though it sounds strange to Western ears, it is not at all unusual in Japan to hear

young engaged couples discussing whether their wedding ceremony will be

Shinto, Buddhist, or Christian. The nature of the rite makes no difference, since

those concerned are members of the Japan faith I call Nihonism. [Ben-Dasan

1972:113-114]

For Japanese, this is like Christians discussing whether their wedding ceremony will be in the garden at the bride’s home, the chapel in their church, or the beautiful beach near their homes. There is no vital difference as long as they marry in the same religious faith.

Nevertheless, from the Westerns’ view, Japanese still appear to be very casual about their religion and choice of wedding ceremonies. As a matter of fact, Japanese are dead serious about their religion, “Nihonism,” and their wedding rituals. To meet expectations as a faithful believer of “Nihonism,” the couples and their families sacrifice an incredible amount of money and effort to properly perform their wedding ceremonies and receptions. In general, most Japanese couples have the ceremony first and then move to what often superficially appears to be the Western style reception; having a wedding cake and brides and grooms changing from traditional wedding to the tuxedo and formal party dress. However, this reception is actually not like the Western versions at all, but is an exclusively Japanese ritual. Fitzgerald, who studies religion and married a Japanese woman, comments about the Japanese weddings:

At the Japanese weddings that I have attended, including my own, the social order

was symbolically represented at the party that followed the Shinto ritual by the

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seating arrangements, in the order of precedence in speech making, and in the

quite complex structure of gift exchange . . . . The mood in both the Shinto part

and in the first part the reception afterwards was solemn, deferential and serious,

and it would have been meaningless to claim that while the solemnity at the

Shinto part was a religious solemnity, the solemnity during the speech-making

was merely a secular solemnity. [Fitzgerald 2003:2]

Indeed, for Japanese, the Shinto ceremony and the wedding party after the

ceremony are both equally important, and they must be performed in a certain and proper

way. Clearly, Japanese people’s commitment to properly perform these rituals is not only

a reflection of their faith in “religion” in the Western sense, but also recognition of their

social obligations and cultural requirements (the Japanese unique conception of giri and

on which was discussed previously is deeply involved in properly executing the wedding

ritual). Their true commitment is not to gods, or deities, but to humanity, and is called

“Nihonism.” Ben-Dasan also indicates that as long as they comply with social norms and live normal Japanese lives, regardless of whether they are baptized into one of the

Christian churches, or converted to one of the new religions, they are still only becoming members of certain branches or factions that are part of “Nihonism” (1972:107).

Indeed, generally, a Japanese who is converted to be a Christian is not becoming a member of the Japanese branch of Christianity, but a member of the Christian branch of

Nihonism. These peculiarities might appear to be a subtle difference, but it actually is quite significant. For Japanese Christians, the central element of their belief is still humanity, not god. Ben-Dasan compares Nihonism to and explains:

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More than anything else, the Diaspora forced the Jews into an intensified sense of

identity and, perhaps, excessive consciousness of being part of a particular

religious faith. Scattered over many parts of the globe, yet united by the idea of

the synagogue and by rabbinical tradition, Jews could not avoid comparing

themselves with the peoples among whom they lived. In doing so they discovered

their own traits, from which evolved an awareness of a unique thing called

Jewishness. The Japanese, never having undergone such dispersal, are less aware

of the forces that unite them, especially of that great binding faith which I called

Nihonism. It has so permeated the minds of its followers that it is taken for

granted, a remarkable fact when one considers that it is as valid a religion as

Judaism, Christianity, or . [Ben-Dasan 1972:106-107]

It is important to emphasize here that humanity, not deity or God, sits at the center of

Nihonism (109). The concept of humanity lying at the heart of Nihonism cannot be

expressed in words, but in implications (113), and it is based on unwritten law (101).

Therefore, Ben-Dasan says that “Since a mastery of implications is impossible for

foreigners, only Japanese can become Nihonists” (1972:113). Ben-Dasan demonstrates this unique Japanese religious phenomenon by providing another example:

A Japanese woman, a Christian and graduate of a mission school, may very well

be married according to Shinto rites, and her funeral service may be Buddhist.

This does not seem odd to the Japanese, nor does it indicate any lack of religious

fastidiousness. Their apparently eclectic approach to religious ceremony shows an

indifference arising from the fact that at heart of the only religion they truly

believe in is Nihonism. [1972: 114-115]

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Japanese society works efficiently because everyone in the nation understands the principles of Nihonism which is based on giri, ninjō, and on as discussed in the previous section.

In summary, nationalism often relies on religion. Combining religion and state can contribute significantly to a prevalence of political ideology. The powerful political elites in Japan had used religion (or tradition for Japanese) as a tool to control their people since the beginning of the state to 1945. Because of the differences in the concept of religion, separating religion and state is not as easily done in Japan even after the war as it is in the Western world. From the Westerners’ view, Japanese appear to be religious, but they are indifferent to personal faith and not religious in a monotheist sense at all.

Japanese individuals have multiple religious beliefs, yet claim themselves secular.

Nevertheless, Japanese are ultimately devoted followers of Nihonism, which is based on pragmatic Japanese traditions and values that only they can share by experiencing life in

Japan. Most importantly, this Nihonism promotes nationalism and demands strict conformity to the mainstream of the national ideology.

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CHAPTER III

THE SOCIALIZATION OF JAPANESE VALUES AND NATIONALISM

Physical and historical contexts as well as language contributed to forming certain

characteristics of the Japanese. Shinto, Buddhism, and Confucianism have also

significantly influenced traditional patterns of thought of the people of Japan. Their

traditional, religious, aesthetic, secular, and ethical values are closely intertwined and all

lead to certain attitudes that promote nationalism. This chapter will discuss what and how

Japanese social expectations are constructed through social interaction, the education

system, and propaganda.

Nationalism and Education

Early Childhood

Ruth Benedict calls Japan a “shame culture” and explains that “true shame

cultures rely on external sanctions for good behavior, not, as true guilt cultures do, on an

internalized conviction of sin. Shame is a reaction to other people’s criticism. A man is

shamed either by being openly ridiculed and rejected or by fantasying to himself that he

has been made ridiculous” (1989:223). From early childhood, the Japanese children are

taught responsibility for circumspection, and many times they hear phrases, such as “haji

wo shiru (恥を知る)”—knowing shame, and “jibun no tachiba wo wakimaeru

(自分の立場を弁える)”— knowing or understanding one’s own position or situation in a

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context. These attributes are essential for surviving in Japanese society, which

emphasizes the importance of unity, group orientation, and hierarchal . Because

Japan had been an isolated island nation and comprised of homogeneous people and close

for so many centuries, Japanese are “terribly concerned about what other

people will think of their behavior” (Benedict 1989:2). In the Tokugawa period,

murahachibu (村八分)— or boycotting interaction was very common as a

negative sanction against families who violated a village code (Ito 1993:373). Any

deviant actions or sometimes even just acting different from the convention would be

punished by boycott under the mentality that “a nail that sticks out gets hammered

down.” The tremendous pressure for conformity and proper actions is inescapable in

Japanese life.

Socialization of the group-oriented spirit, the importance of human relationships, harmony, and so on, is not isolated to the home, but it is enhanced once a child starts going to school. Japanese may not realize that they are not only teaching their children traditional values and virtue, but many attitudes that reinforce the national unity.

For example, when I was in the fourth grade in Japan, my teacher explained the reasons why Westerners shake their right hands and why Japanese bow to each other when greeting someone. He taught us that it was all about differences in the ways of thinking between the Westerners and the Japanese. He said that by using one’s own right hand to shake anothers, Westerners show each other their intention not to use their weapons (to use a gun, one only needs the right hand). Thus the relationship in the West is based on a mutual agreement. On the other hand, Japanese traditionally used as their weapon of choice. To use a , one needs both hands; hence a hand

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shake cannot work for showing mutual agreement, or demonstrating mutual respect. The

Japanese relationship is not based on mutual agreement, but based on total trust, respect,

and even submission. While individuals are bowing their heads, they cannot see what the

other is doing, which means they are completely defenseless. My teacher implied that we all should have based not just on mutual agreement as Westerners do, but on strong trust and respect, even to the extent we can entrust our own lives to each other.

Now I have thought over this as an expatriate. A simple Japanese greeting is not so

simple, but I recognize that my instructor was teaching his students some ideological

elements in this simple act of greeting. Likewise, many values that are quite contrasting

to Western values are inculcated in Japan. For instance, while the Americans value , the Japanese value unity and group loyalty. While the Americans

encourage everyone to speak up, the Japanese teach modesty and reservation. The

Americans teach respect for diversity and that being different makes one unique and special, but the Japanese stress the importance of unity and that being different disturbs harmony.

Lucien Ellington (1990) reviews several books on Japanese education and identifies material common to each and reports “the effects of Japanese schools on beliefs, such as perseverance, the primacy of the group, and the superiority of meritocracy” (405). Especially, perseverance is believed to be the key to be successful among the Japanese. Ellington also observes that “Japanese adults constantly

exhort students to gambaru (頑張る), or persevere” (1990:406) because they think that

“success depends on perseverance rather than innate ability” (406). Furthermore, “the

compulsory ethics course is mostly a study of famous Japanese and Westerners who

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despite adversity, achieved their goals through dogged perseverance” (1990:407), he

continues to explain. Ellington mentions an interesting study in his review in order to

support his point. The study shows that while one-half of the Japanese mothers

interviewed for the study, believed their children’s math performance depended on how

hard the children worked, only five percent of the American mothers did (1990:408). In

his book, The Japanese School, Benjamin Duke (1986) also remarks that “Japanese

educators teach youngsters the importance of group loyalty . . . [and] through both curricular and extracurricular activities, Japanese children learn early that individual self-

sacrifice is often necessary for group success” (Ellington 1990:407).

Joseph J. Tobin et al. (1987) studied the perspectives of Japanese teachers and

educators through class size and student/teacher ratios in . Tobin et al. report

that “American early childhood education specialists stress the importance of small

classes, small student/teacher ratios, a high degree of contact between students and their

teachers” (1987:533). For American parents of toddlers and preschoolers, small

student/teacher ratios and small class size are the key to choosing a good day-care and

school. Many scholars agree that Japan is “a country that gives great importance to

education, a country whose students from first grade on outperform Americans (and,

indeed, most of the rest of the world) on international academic achievement tests”

(Tobin et al. 1987:533). However, while the United States sets regulatory limits on

student/teacher ratios of 18:1 to 14:1 for 4-year-olds, Japanese sets the limit at 30:1 for 3 to 5-year-olds (1987:533-534).

By showing videotapes of typical American and Japanese preschool classes respectively to Japanese teachers and mothers in different in different areas

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throughout Japan, and interviewing them after the viewing, Tobin et at. try to analyze

Japanese minds and behaviors. Tobin et al. comment that most Japanese mothers and teachers praised the creativity and warmth of the American teachers in the films (540); however, they also wondered if American teachers acted too much like a mother, so affectionate with each child that they appeared to compromise their role as a teacher

(537). Furthermore, Tobin et al. emphasize, “Even the Japanese mothers who work full time that we spoke with viewed the role of preschools less as providing a substitute form of mothering than offering something no mother can provide: a first experience of living out in the world” (1987:542).

The parents of contemporary nuclear families living in inner-city Japan believe that “it is in preschools . . . with large ratio and large classes, that children are most likely to get the chance to interact with other children and to learn shakaisei (social consciousness) and shudan seikatu (group life)” (Tobin et al. 1987:542). The following statements from Japanese teachers demonstrate well the intent of the large class size and large ratios—promoting the traditional Japanese values of groupism and selflessness.

Nagami Kengo, the director of a consortium of preschools in Hiroshima, states:

These days in Japan children are growing up in such small families that they don’t

have the chance to learn what it means to be a member of a group. It is our job as

educators of young children to see that children get this experience before they go

on to primary school, where they will be expected to know how to behave

properly and to be comfortable in large classes. [Tobin et al. 1987:543-544]

And Chie Okubo, an preschool administrator explained:

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“The take of the preschool is to produce ningen-rashii kodomo (human-like

children). To be fully human is to be not just an individual but also a member of a

group . . . To find the right balance between individualism and groupism, isn’t it?”

[Tobin et al. 1987:544]

These comments such as “behave properly”—implying knowing one’s own position or

role, and acting accordingly, and “human-like-children”—empathy and perseverance, not

emphasis on individualism, indicate their belief in “Nihonism,” which is what Japanese

are really fanatic about.

While the Americans and many Westerners in general emphasize individualism,

“creativity, autonomy, self-confidence, and self-expression” the Japanese value “group orientation, openness, perseverance, and empathy” (Tobin et al. 1987:548). Tobin’s research illustrates that behind the differences between the United States and Japan in class size and children-teacher ratios lie “very different notions of the function of the

preschool teacher and the role of preschools in education and socializing . . . children”

(537). Additionally, Tobin discusses the typical Japanese preschool teachers. They are hired directly out of college or junior college at 20 or 22 years old, unmarried young women, or non-mother-like employees. They generally work only 3-5 years before

retiring to marry. Young unmarried are expected to be “energetic,

cheery, cute, and girlish” so that the preschool teachers are more likely to appear to the

children in their classes to be “more like a (much) older sister than a mother” (538-359).

My own preschool teacher and all the preschool teachers that I know exactly fit Tobin’s

description. I was amazed at how high student/teacher ratios, class size, and type of

preschool teachers function to keep teachers from being too mother-like, thereby training

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3 to 5 year-olds, at the most critical stage of socialization, to be “human-like-children.”

Before examining Tobin’s research, I had never thought about how Japanese children are

socialized through the preschool system.

The establishment of public schools took place during the Meiji Restoration in

1868. The methods and structures of the Western education system were adopted in order

to become competitive with other Western nations. However, the purpose for establishing

a public school system was not only for modernization and the education of individuals to

enrich their lives, but also for the production of a homogeneous society and the

promotion of the political ideology. The national historic legends of State Shinto and the

veneration of the Emperor as “ruler from ages eternal” (Benedict 1989:87), was treated as the true history of Japan in the school system until 1945. Eika Tai asserts that through the state education system, not only was the Japanese national character “invented and spread as a ; its constitutive personality traits were inculcated in pupils . . . . The idea of chukun aikoku (loyalty to the emperor and love for the state) was central to the education rescript (kyuōiku chokugo), the major doctrine in public schools” (Tai 2003:9). Actually, even after 1945, political ideology has been continuously taught to the children throughout the Japanese school system, which I will discuss later.

In the early Shōwa period (1929-1945), when Japan was involved in a wartime situation, “the idea of education became completely subordinate to purpose of state”

(Inoue 1996:138) and “militarism gradually blanked Japanese society” (143). At the beginning of the war with China in 1937, the Ministry of Education published kokutai no hongi (国体の本義)—“The fundamental principle of the character of the nation” (143).

Nobutaka Inoue indicates that:

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In March 1941 the act that had governed elementary schools was replaced by

another act creating ‘national schools’ (kokumin gakkō [国民学校]), thus initiating

a system intended to produce subjects of a single heart and mind. In detailed

regulations, it was laid out from the beginning that the goal of education was to

produce loyal subjects for the empire. [Inoue 1996:143]

Tai also mentions that “the undōkai ([運動会] athletic meet), a widely-practiced school

event in today’s Japan, was invented in the Meiji period to discipline the bodies of

children and to inculcate loyalty in them. The undōkai was created by integrating military

training practice and discipline into the custom of local festivals” (Tai 2003:9). A couple

years ago, my daughter and I visited Japan and happened to observe an undōkai held in

my niece’s and nephews’ elementary school. My daughter, who was born and raised in

the United States, was amazed at how more than a hundred seven-year-olds all excellently performed a synchronized dance. They were not professionals, and they only trained and practiced for a short amount of time. She thought that it was impossible for any American seven-year-olds to perform as a large group like that. Yet the remark above by Tai reveals why it is possible for Japanese children; the Japanese inculcation technique has not changed much since then.

Textbook Controversy

Randy Huntsberry (1976:239) starts his article, “Suffering History,” with citing a report from Mainichi Daily News, July 17, 1974:

Governmental screening of school textbooks in itself is not necessarily

unconstitutional, the Tokyo district Court ruled Tuesday as it rejected the claims

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of historian Ienaga Sabuurō who sued the state nine years ago for an immediate

end to the alleged of textbooks by the Education Ministry. . . . The

historian has presented a certain sufferer-hero image to the Japanese public during

the prolonged legal battle. He read aloud two (31-syllable poems) as he met

with the press after the court session. One of the poems said:

“Tho darkened by clouds is sunshine today,

Cloudless is my mind as I place

My trust in the court of last instance.”

Benjamin C. Duke relates the origin of this incident. In 1965, Saburō Ienaga, a professor of Japanese History at the Tokyo University of Education, filed a court suit against the

Japanese Ministry of Education. Ienaga claimed that the Ministry violated his freedom of expression guaranteed in the new post-war constitution by requiring him to revise and expunge as many as 200 passages before authorizing his Japanese history textbook for senior high schools (Duke 1969:73).

Huntsberry (1976) investigated the issues from both sides. One prominent

Ministry official, Jirō Murao , as a government official, that he has a moral responsibility for the educational content presented to Japanese children. He stresses that

“one of the purposes of Japanese history is to make the students aware of how Japan has become what it is through the cumulative efforts of their ancestors” (Huntsberry

1976:240). Murao sees Ienaga as a Westernized modernist wanting to write Japanese history for the sake of his personal and political interests (240). On the other hand, Ienaga believes that the Ministry “has a hidden agenda of moral responsibility for protecting the children by hiding the ‘dark side’ (ankoumen) of Japanese history” (Huntsberry

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1976:240). The Ministry may call it “love of country education” since only the “pleasing things” are presented, but Ienaga asserts that “true love of country” can be demonstrated by looking “at the ‘social contradictions’ and ‘mistakes’ of pre-war Japan to avoid succumbing once again to ‘the cruelty of war’” (Huntsberry 1976:240).

Duke (1969) observes this textbook controversy from a relatively objective perspective by comparing textbook content between the United States and Japan, and analyzing their attitudes and views of the between them. There are significant differences between American and Japanese textbook views of the Pacific

War. In Japanese textbooks, the Pacific War is treated as one of a series of incidents during World War II. The origin of World War II is “inextricably related to events and circumstances surrounding the great world depression of 1929, with the concomitants of increased unemployment, decreased farm incomes, and general ferment pervading

Japanese society” (Duke 1969:74). According to Duke, in the Japanese textbooks, the direct incident of the origin of the Pacific War was the United States’ refusal for continuing the U.S.—Japan Trade and Navigation Treaty in response to Japanese movement into Indochina. Japan depended on the United States for substantial resources, such as oil. While Prime Minister Konoe was advocating further negotiation with the

United States, he resigned and Army Minister Tōjō, who advocated war, became the new

Prime Minister, “deciding at an Imperial Conference on 1 December 1941 to declare war.

On 8 December 1941 (Japanese time) the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbour and declared war against the United States” (Duke 1969:75).

In contrast, in American textbooks, the direct origin of the Pacific War was the 7

December 1941 Pearl Harbour attack by Japan without any warning or any declaration of

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war, while “peace conferences” were going on in Washington. American textbooks also

include details about damages and dead from the Pearl Harbor incident (Duke 1969:76).

Another major difference regards the role of worship of the Emperor. While American

textbooks describe “the Japanese belief in the divinity of the Emperor as a fundamental

cause underlying Japan’s policy of expansionism during the 1930’s[,] . . . Japanese textbooks do not refer to the role of the Emperor nor to the divinity ascribed to him during the war” (Duke 1969:79).

Another striking difference was the description of the atomic bombings of Japan.

Duke reports that “in American textbooks the event, which to some Americans was a catastrophic and even shameful episode in American history taking the lives of thousands of innocent civilians, is described in some detail and sometimes in rather moving narrative” (80). On the other hand, “in spite of the fact that the only atomic bombs in the history of warfare fell on Japanese soil, . . . the event in Japanese textbooks is written off in one or two simple sentences without detail and without acrimony” (80). After identifying all the differences in American and Japanese teachings, Duke raises one outstanding similarity. Through exploring textbooks and interviewing high school teachers in both countries, Duke concludes, “From an international viewpoint transcending ideologies, it would seem desirable that the hatred and violence between friends who were former enemies should be de-emphasized” (1969:81).

What I personally learned in history class in Japan supports the information Duke provides. Additionally, a Japanese history textbook for public high schools published in

1980 that I obtained is written with similar conclusions. In Japan, I did not learn at all about the Nanjing massacre, comfort women, or Bataan. Japan did not blame the

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Emperor or the United States for the misery of the war. Instead, Japan has curtly

emphasized the war itself. The suffering of the innocent people of Japan because of the

war was described very emotionally through and films without any explanation of the cause of the war. For Japanese children, the real enemy of the war is

war itself and nothing beyond. An animation film, Hotaru no haka (火垂るの墓) or

Grave of Fireflies directed by in 1988, which is based on a true story written by Akiyuki Nosaka, demonstrates well how common Japanese view World War

II. The author, Nosaka, lost his little sister during the war to malnutrition and blamed himself for her death. The story of the film was written based on Nosaka’s real experience of the war. Takahata depicts the war through the main characters of the film: a

14-year-old brother and a 4-year-old sister. They are innocent and have no knowledge of political ideology, international economic situations, or how enemies treat each other, but they suffer tremendously, physically and emotionally. From the Japanese perspective of

World War II, they were the only victims they have ever known.

Since the Ienaga textbook controversy and because of pressure from other countries, the Ministry of Education has gradually allowed historians to briefly mention negative aspects of the war in Japanese history textbooks including the Nanjing massacre.

Alan Brender reports in May 27, 2005 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education that

“South Korean textbooks only started mentioning them (“comfort women”) in 1997, and a year after Japanese textbooks first did so” (Brender 2005). Nevertheless, when Iris

Chang published her book, The Rape of Nanking: the Forgotten Holocaust of World War

II in 1998, the majority of Japanese were deeply shocked and shamed, and some felt betrayed by the government, but not all of the people of Japan felt that way. Chang’s

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book successfully disclosed the outrage of the Nanjing (or Nanking) massacre and raised awareness of the cruelty of Japanese soldiers during the war. A historian at St. Olaf

College, Robert Entenmann reviewed Chang’s book and remarks that her “vivid and gut- wrenching narration of the massacre” has caught wide attention, but “her description of the massacre itself, the strongest part of the book, is . . . open to criticism.” Moreover, he points out that “the Japanese historical background Chang presents is clichéd, simplistic, stereotyped, and often inaccurate” (Entenmann 1998:2) and provides a number of concrete examples throughout his paper.

A Japanese historian Ikuhito Hata (1998) also claims that some photographs in

Chang’s book are “fakes, , and composites” and he successfully demonstrates that for two of them: “One, a photograph of a row of severed heads, depicts bandits executed by Chinese police in 1930 rather than victims of the Nanjing massacre. Another photo, which appeared in the November 10, 1937 issue of Asahi Gurafu, is a propaganda picture of Chinese villagers returning from fields “under the protection of soldiers” (Entenmann 1998:2-3). Because of Chang’s questionable credibility and her style of presentation, the book has stirred up Japanese ultra-nationalists once more.

The second textbook controversy aroused in the middle of 1990s, about thirty years after the first one in the 1960s. This time, two Japanese professors who wrote a history textbook for schoolchildren were accused of neglecting to mention negative impacts and justifying the war. Only a small number of private schools actually used their textbook, yet the protesters were more concerned over the government’s stamp of approval on such textbooks than about its usage (Brender 2005). Moreover, in 1996

Atarashii Rekishi Kyōkasho o Tsukuru Kai (新しい歴史教科書をつくる会—the Japanese

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Society for History Textbook Reform), a group which promotes a revised view of

Japanese history and nationalism, was formed. Most of the members are from the Liberal

Democratic Party (LDP), which is a prominent nationalist political group. The number of

members is only a very small percentage of the total Japanese population; however, most

of them are powerful, influential, and wealthy elites (Conachy 2001). Despite harsh

criticism by China, , and other Asian countries (Kubota 2003:68-69), the

group has been continuing to lead the recent textbook controversy.

Just as revealing all of the horrible details of the Vietnam War that some

American soldiers experienced might not be a positive thing for most of American schoolchildren, neither might revealing the atrocious details of the Nanjing massacre be good for most of Japanese schoolchildren. However, ignoring or hiding the negative aspects of war does not benefit them either. Because of the Japanese ultra-nationalists and the deep rooted anti-Japanese movement in China and South Korea, finding the right balance of information in regards to the content of Japanese history textbooks is challenging. As long as powerful ultra-nationalists exist, the history textbook controversy may never end.

Nationalism and Archaeology

As all the history textbooks for schoolchildren are screened by the Japanese

Ministry of Education, archeology in Japan is also controlled by the administrative policy of Protection (CPP), similar to Cultural Resource Management (CRM) in America. Leo Aoi Hosoya (1996) from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological

Research, University of Cambridge, reports that in a few decades, because of the rapid

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increase in construction due to the economic growth of Japan, the numbers of rescue

excavations with CPP increased remarkably from 3400 to 8500 during the 10 years

between 1980 and 1990. However, generally “research or academic excavations were

very un-welcome, because they were not felt to be urgent or worth spending time, money or people on” (Hosoya 1996:6). Therefore, most Japanese excavation reports are just

detailed empirical data without any interpretation or analysis and not really useful for

archaeological researchers though they are available to the public (Hosoya 1996; Pearson

1986).

As mentioned previously, during the pre-war era, any writer or scholar who was identified as a left-winger or anybody who questioned the Emperor system was arrested by the Japanese government. This also included archeologists who analyzed data unfavorably (Habu 2004:80). Interestingly, even after World War II, Japanese archaeologists still did not start to freely discuss historical interpretations. Hosoya explains that:

theoretical interpretation has always meant manipulation of data to make them

match to the pre-fixed concept of the legendary history, so post-war

archaeologists’ strong objection toward the old legendary history directly became

a phobia of making theoretical hypothesis itself. . . . So, even with the

introduction of Marxist’s concept, what was emphasized was only its materialistic

way to reconstruct history. [Hosoya 1996:3]

The fundamental difference between North American and Japanese archeology is while

American archeology is a part of the anthropology discipline, Japanese archeology belongs to the discipline of history. “The major goal of archaeology in East Asia is to

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enhance understanding of a nation’s past” (Ikawa-Smith 1999:626), while the goal of

American archaeologists is to reveal the human past and to understand human behaviors.

Therefore, any interpretations of archaeological data that challenge the traditional

concept of Japanese history can be problematic.

Most Japanese still prefer to believe that Japanese gradually evolved from ancient

Ice Age people who occupied Japan long before 20,000 B.C.E. (Diamond 1998:86).

However, there is clear archaeological evidence of a dynamic transition from the Jomon

culture to the Yayoi in about 300 B.C.E. to 100 B.C.E. (Aikens and Higuchi 1982:206;

Diamond 1998). The original inhabitants, the Jomon people, were egalitarian hunter- gatherers and the Jomon culture lasted for several thousand years. Despite their subsistence-type living and because of their resource-rich environment throughout the year, they had a sedentary and already produced . Some pieces of earthenware found from the Sannai Maruyama, the most significant Jomon archeological site discovered in 1998, were dated at 16,500 years ago, the oldest known clay pottery in the world (Diamond 1998; Habu 2004:42).

Pottery in the was unlike Jomon pottery and very similar to contemporary South Korean pottery in shape. Moreover, “many other elements of the new Yayoi culture were also unmistakably Chinese and Korean, previously foreign to

Japan” (Diamond 1998:92). New types of artifacts suddenly appeared in the Yayoi period, such as horse and cow figurines, copper points, bronze mirrors, stone molds for the casting of bronze blades, and stone reaping knives and other rice cultivation tools similar to the ones found in continental China and Southern Korea (Hall 1991:18; Aiken and Higuchi 1982:208-209). Jared Diamond remarks that “Japanese culture underwent

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far more radical change in the 700 years of the Yayoi era than in the ten millennia of

Jomon time” (1998:92). Obviously, something significant happened in 400 B.C.E. What caused that change? Many Japanese still prefer the theory that Jomon hunter-gatherers themselves gradually evolved into the modern Japanese. However, Diamond asserts that the theory of a massive influx of immigrants from Korea appears to be a logical explanation because “the new mode of living appeared first on the north coast of Japan’s south western most island, Kyushū, just across the Korea Strait from South Korea”

(1998:92).

The evidence for immigration from Korea cannot be ignored. Many foreign scholars theorize that the Jomon people were the Ainu who now live in , the northern island in Japan today, and the Yayoi were people from Korea who took over

Japan about 300 B.C. E.. This theory implies that modern Japanese are descendents of the

Koreans, which strikingly contrasts with traditional Japanese history. Conversely, many

Japanese scholars argue that the immigration was not massive. Instead, they suggest that

a modest number of immigrant farmers brought rice cultivation and metal work to Japan

during the Late Jomon Period. Then, Jomon people started to learn and practice those

new things (Ikawa-Smith 1999:627). Which of the theories is right? The only direct way

to answer this question is to compare Jomon and Yayoi skeletons and DNA with those of

modern Japanese and Ainu.

Measurements have now been made of many skeletons. In addition, within the

last several years molecular geneticists have begun to extract DNA from ancient human

skeletons and compare Japan’s ancient and modern populations. Diamond summarizes

the results:

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Jomon skulls differ from those of modern Japanese and are most similar to those

of modern Ainu, while Yayoi skulls most resemble those of modern Japanese.

Similarly, geneticists attempting to calculate the relative contributions of Korean-

like Yayoi and Ainu-like Jomon genes to the modern Japanese pool

have concluded that the Yayoi contribution was generally dominant. Thus,

immigrants from Korea really did make a big contribution to the modern

Japanese, though we cannot yet say whether that was because of massive

immigration or modest immigration amplified by a high rate of population

increase. [Diamond 1998:93]

Diamond claims that genetic studies have at last “resolved the controversy about the origins of the Ainu; they are the descendants of Japan’s ancient Jomon inhabitants, mixed with Korean genes of Yayoi colonists and of the modern Japanese” (1998:93).

However, the Japanese generally ignore the or massive Korean immigration theory in the Yayoi era when they are talking about the ancient people of

Japan. As a matter of fact, I never learned about the Ainu during my school years in

Japan, and first heard about them as an adult. Furthermore, from pre-WWII until about the 1980s, in Japan were often discriminated against by the Japanese. Japanese

“archaeology has made a lot of progress, but politics has made it difficult for the general public to take a critical look at their own past” (Fackler 1999), said Hisao Baba, curator of anthropology at the National Science Museum in Tokyo. For instance, among the enormous tumuli of the ruling elites, called kofun (古墳), in the third century, “the most distinctive shape was the “keyhole.” Hall states this keyhole-shaped “appears to have had no counterpart in other mound-building cultures” (1991:21). Just as Hall

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explains, many other scholars emphasize the unique and distinct character of these

“keyhole” tumuli in Japan, but only a few mention that they have been discovered not

only in Japan, but also in Korea. In addition, Diamond notes that “those kofun that have

been excavated contain lavish goods, but excavation of the largest ones is still

forbidden because they are believed to contain the ancestors of the Japanese imperial

line” (1998:92).

Facing clear evidence that a sudden change swept Japan about 400 B.C.E.,

replacing a millennia–old hunter-gatherer culture with an agricultural and warrior society,

Fackler (1999) notes that conservative Japanese archaeologists attribute it to nothing

more than technological borrowing from the mainland. On the other hand, a younger generation of Japanese archaeologists has now come to accept that some sort of migration

took place and that the Ainu are much more closely related to Japan’s original

inhabitants. Researchers and scholars have been debating over just how many migrants

came and whether they violently displaced the natives—or peacefully intermarried with

them (Fackler 1999).

The controversial theories of Japan’s past from the archaeological evidence

should raise some sort of shocking awareness in the people of Japan. “But it doesn’t.

Most Japanese have never even heard of it,” Fackler (1999:1) comments. For much of the

twentieth century, “Japanese archaeologists said Japan’s gene pool had remained isolated since the end of the last ice age, more than 20,000 years ago,” and newspapers and other

media reported any archeological artifacts, no matter how old, as left by “our ancestors”

(Fackler 1999:2).

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In the summer of 1999, such views were so widely accepted that when NHK

(Japan Public Education Channel) aired a documentary of some of the recent DNA

findings regarding the origin of Japanese people, more than 200 calls immediately

followed. NHK spokeswomen, Akiko Toda reports that “most of the viewers expressed

shock or surprise,” and “a few refused to believe it” (Fackler 1999:2). Fackler remarks

that:

The attitude is left over from the start of this [20th] century, when Japan was

building a colonial empire and justified its domination in terms of cultural and

racial superiority. . . . While such attitudes may finally be changing, saying that

the Japanese share recent roots with other Asians remains a social taboo that some

researchers even today say they hesitate to break. [Fackler 1999:3]

The evidence of massive Korean influences on Japan during the kofun era is interpreted as “the Korean conquest of Japan” by Koreans and “the Japanese conquest of

Korea” by the Japanese (Diamond 1998:92). Fumiko Ikawa-Smith states that in Japan, archeology is used for constructing and “promoting the sense of national pride and asserting its legitimacy as a political entity” (1999:626).

Propaganda: Nihonjinron

Tradition Constructed

Eika Tai (2003) critically examines the historical processes of nationalism and colonialism in her article, “Rethinking Culture, National Culture, and Japanese Culture.”

Tai strongly asserts that “sentiments of ethnic identity and culture are politically created but are taken as natural by people who are under the effect of the politics” (20003:3).

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Craig Calhoun also states that nations are often created through “a self-conscious and manipulative project carried out by elites who seek to secure their power by mobilizing followers on the basis of nationalist ideology” (Calhoun 1997:30). Likewise, Eric J.

Hobsbawm (1983) suggests that the national consciousness in common people is inculcated through traditions, symbols, history, and culture that the nationalist elites might invent. Similarly, by reviewing John K. Nelson’s book, A Year in the Life of a

Shinto Shrine, Karen A. Smyers affirms that regarding the Japanese religion Shinto,

“there is no continuous, pure, indigenous religious tradition in Japan as was previously claimed” (1996:513).

Ruling elites of Japan have constructed and invented the national tradition through education, religion, media, and literature. One blueprint for such construction of

Japanese tradition is the so-called Nihonjinron (日本人論), “theory or discussion of the

Japanese people.” Matsumoto and Okamoto describe Nihonjinron as literature that

presents “dominant models of Japanese society and culture . . . [and] stress characteristics

such as homogeneity, group-orientedness, and hierarchy. Because of these characteristics,

Japanese are said to be particularly concerned about maintaining harmony, consensus,

and interdependence among themselves” (2003:28).

Ryuko Kubota (2003:68) thinks that the uniqueness of Japanese character traits:

diligence, perseverance, group loyalty, high attention to hierarchal etiquette, harmony,

self-sacrifice, and self-reservation, was interpreted as the cause of Japan’s economic

success in the 1960s and 70s. These traits became “the core tenet of Nihonjinron”

(Kubota 2003:68), discussions of how Japanese should behave and perceive. Sugimoto

and Mouer (1982) argue that the emphasis on social harmony can also be interpreted as

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“a tool for political and ideological control to prevent or hide various kinds of conflicts

that do exist in the society” (Kubota 2003:71). Kubota explains that “in the 80s and 90s,

the concept of Japanese uniqueness was appropriated by political and opinion leaders to

revive the Japanese identity threatened by globalization and Westernization” (68). Tai

quotes Harumi Befu (2001) that “Nihonjinron can be called ‘intellectual hegemony,’ since it is intended to shape the values and behaviors of the intellectual and business elite” (Tai 2003:14).

Nihonjinron emphasizes the self-affirmation of unique Japanese identity, particularly its homogeneity and harmony (Kubota 2003:73). One may believe that this promotes only positive qualities to the citizens of Japan. However, the ideology of

Nihonjinron can be problematic since the people of Japan are not totally homogeneous.

Tai is also concerned with Nihonjinron that emphasizes homogeneity and harmony:

Intellectuals, bureaucrats, and elite businessmen who produce and consume

Nihonjinron have more power in spreading ideas than women, the less-educated,

and physical laborers, among others. The Nihon- they discuss is likely to be

the culture familiar or ideal to them, while other kinds of cultural practices are

considered to be marginal, insignificant, or even less Japanese. [Tai 2003:16]

According to “Statistics on Foreign Residents” in 2005 by the Ministry of Justice in

Japan, Japan is an extremely homogeneous society, yet there are non-Japanese permanent

residences, mostly Korean, marking up 1.22% of the population. Most Japanese practice

Shinto and Buddhism rituals and do not have personal faith, but 0.7% of the population is

Christian and 9% have other religions (CIA 2008). Because Japanese propaganda through

Nihonjinron emphasizes unity, homogeneity, and harmony as a unique Japanese identity,

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people who are different, who can be expressed as “nails that stick out,” get “hammered

down.” Just as the Ainu and the Okinawans were forcefully assimilated from the Meiji

era to the end of the war, the were discriminated against because they

were considered as barbarians during the Imperial period. Unfortunately, even today, this

attitude is still deeply rooted in some Japanese. The Japanese have tried to ignore the existence of the independent Ainu that have lived in Japan since the prehistoric period because it means also admitting that Koreans, whom the Japanese have prejudged as barbarians, may ironically be their true ancestors. Thus the Japanese government had a long history of forced assimilation of the Ainu, but had never tried to assimilate Koreans who have also been born and have lived in Japan for a long time.

My hometown, Shimonoseki (下関市), is a historically rich city. It is a port city at

the southern tip of the main island of Honshū, and the closest city to the large port city of

Pusan (釜山) in South Korea. There is a relatively slightly higher percentage of Koreans

in the population there than in other cities in Japan. When I was in high school, two of

my many friends disclosed to me that they were Koreans. They were physically just like

me, born and raised in Shimonoseki, but they had to hide their nationality because of the

by the Japanese. When they told me their true identities, they were

nervously observing my attitude and checking for any changes in my attitude toward our

. I remembered how sad I felt that they had to do that, and I strongly felt how

wrong our society was. In fact, after graduating from high school, they took totally

different paths from my other Japanese friends. They were only employed by the

companies or small businesses managed by Koreans, and could only marry Koreans who

lived in Japan like them. Their sense of the Korean community became strong, and when

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I saw them again a few years after our graduation, I did not mention it to them, but I felt

that they had become people of a different ethnicity rather than being my same old high

school friends. Yet, of course, we are still good friends.

Social Hierarchal System

Whether foreigners become naturalized citizens of Japan or not, and no matter

how many generations of their families live in Japan, they are always perceived as

“outsiders” by the people of Japan, and never accepted as Japanese, Ben-Dasan notes

(2002:114). However, Japan has discriminated against not only ethnically different

people, but also some people within their own ethnicity. They were called either

(部落民), “people of a hamlet,” eta (穢多), “full of filth,” or hinin (非人),

“non-humans,” who are “descendants of the outcasts who engaged in so-called dirty jobs

such as leather tanning, digging graves, executing criminals, and vulgar entertainment

during the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1867)” (Ito 1993:374). A rigid caste system of samurai, peasants, artisans, merchants, and outcasts were emancipated by the new Meiji

government in 1871; however, Ito remarks that “they still encounter de facto

discrimination and in education, housing, occupations, and other areas” (Ito

1993:374). For example, according to my great-grandfather’s koseki (戸籍抄本), a document of family residence recorded in 1899, retrieved in 1968, still noted that his family was from a samurai clan. Although since 1958, the system of family residence records has stopped mentioning any information on original family class, there are ways to obtain old records, and some still use them to discriminate against people. In fact, my grandmother was from the merchant class and my grandfather and grandmother happened

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to fall in love with each other, but because they were from different social classes, my

grandfather’s family rejected their marriage. They started living together anyway and had

four children. However, my grandfather’s family residence record shows that he had four

children, but there is no mention of the marriage with my grandmother. Officially, my

grandmother is still single, and has never obtained my grandfather’s last name (my

grandmother is still living and is currently 101 years old).

The historic hierarchical system and many of its corresponding attitudes are still

deeply ingrained in Japanese people without their recognition. The Nihonjinron of

promoting politeness and use of respectful language, and knowing one’s own “proper

station” actually enhances the sense of inequality among people, which has been the

center of Japanese life for centuries. Benedict states that “behavior that recognized

hierarchy is as natural to them as breathing. . . . Both those who exercise control and

those who are under others’ control act in conformity to a tradition” (Benedict 1989:47) by knowing their “proper stations.” Furthermore, Benedict also remarks that “the

Japanese . . . order their world with constant reference to hierarchy” (1989:96) by use of respectful language accompanied by proper bows and kneeling. She illustrates as follows:

All such behavior is governed by meticulous rules and conventions; it is not

merely necessary to know to whom one bows but it is necessary to know how

much one bows. A bow that is the right and proper tone to the host would be

resented as an insult by another who stood in a slightly different relationship to

the bower. And bows range all the way from kneeling with forehead lowered to

the hands placed flat upon the floor, to the mere inclination of head and shoulders.

One must learn, and learn early, how to suit the obeisance to each particular case.

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It is not merely class differences which must be constantly recognized by

appropriate behavior, though these are important. Sex and age, family ties and

previous dealings between two persons all enter into the necessary calculations.

[Benedict 1989:48]

Benedict explains that the Japanese “have accepted hierarchy as legitimate. It is as

characteristic of their judgment on life as trust in equality and free enterprise is of the

American way of life” (1989:96). This Japanese tradition of meticulous attention to

hierarchal etiquette could only have come about as a consequence of the nation building

efforts by powerful elites.

National Essentialism

Finally, the Nihonjinron in the postwar period that creates and promotes the

traditional and unique qualities of Japanese people, culture, and society is also associated

with essentialism (Befu 2001:4; Tai 2003:13). Calhoun defines essentialism as “a

reduction of the diversity in a population to some single criterion held to constitute its

defining ‘essence’ and most crucial character” (1997:18). “Nationalist discourse is

generally predicated on essentialism,” Tai (2003:6) asserts. Kubota (2003:79) sees that nationalist discourse develops our perception of the Self and the Other in a certain way.

She argues that:

A dominant discourse serves the major political and economic interests,

convincing the general public to endorse the dominant way of thinking. . . . The

notions of discourse and discursive construction of knowledge further reveal the

politics behind certain knowledge about culture and cultural difference, providing

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an understanding that such knowledge is often used strategically for pursuing

certain political and ideological purpose. [Kubota 2003:80]

Hidenori Mashiko (2001:235-245) points out that the state education system contributes tremendously to spreading the nationalist consciousness through these dominant . As discussed previously, education can be a great tool for spreading political ideology. For example, Tai (2003) quotes a U. S.–Japan governmental study of

1987 on Japanese education in order to demonstrate how Japanese education uniformly influences individuals’ personal values and attitudes and how cultural homogeneity is produced:

“there is a strong consensus that schools have the obligation and authority to

impart fundamental Japanese values as the foundation of proper moral attitudes

and personal habits” (OERI 1987:3). One such value is placed on “harmonious

relations” and hence “teachers attempt to foster group cohesion and a strong

group spirit by avoiding overt recognition of differences in individual ability and

minimizing one-against-one ” (3). Such “uniform education”

(kakuitsu kyōiku) helps to produce cultural homogeneity in practice. [Tai 2003:16-

17]

Especially through subjects such as national history and kokugo (国語), or , is disseminated to the general population beyond

Nihonjinron consumers, and “also prepares those consumers to endorse Nihonjinron arguments” (Tai 2003:16). Tai argues that “the recent controversy over the conservative history textbooks published by Atarashii rekishi-kyokasho o tsukurukai (the Japanese

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Society for History Textbook Reform) demonstrates that history education is subject to

manipulation for the purpose of raising nationalistic sentiments” (2003:17).

Michael Haugh points out that emphasizing the uniqueness of Japanese

characteristics implies separating and differentiating “Japanese” from “foreign” things or

concepts (1998:32). He states that several Western linguists claim that the use of the

terms Nihongo (日本語), the Japanese language that foreigners learn, and kokugo (国語), the national language that the Japanese learn, is “indicative of the belief that Japanese is

‘pure’ and exceptionally difficult” (Haugh 1998:32). However, Shibata (1976) argues that

the two terms are not for merely differentiating between the Japanese language learned

by foreigners and by the Japanese, but one term has a national sentimental attachment

and the other does not. Shibata claims that “kogugo ‘national language’ symbolizes

nationhood and thus has connotation of officiality, standardness and nativeness (koyuu) for the Japanese, whereas Nihongo ‘language of Japan’ has a much more general meaning and is thus a more objective term” (Haugh 1998:32).

The common Japanese are proud of being unique, without recognizing how their pride or image of the model Japanese is constructed by intellectuals, bureaucrats, and influential elites with sometimes negative consequences. Kubota claims that we often overlook the political and ideological construction of knowledge about culture in textbooks and fail to recognize cultural essentialism that “seeks a unified identity and ethnic pride” (2003:72). Kubota, as an educator for teaching Japanese to foreign students, notes that:

Emphasizing the exotic and alien images of Japan may fascinate and motivate

students. However, stressing the uniqueness of Japan reinforces a cultural

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dichotomy . . . . It is important to be aware that such a dichotomy often manifests

a certain perceived relation of power—“US” as “superior” and “THEM” as

“inferior” or vice versa. [Kubota 2003:84]

Traditional Japanese identity and characteristics, such as harmony, group orientation, politeness, diligence, homogeny, and so on were once thought to be natural, permanent and to have preceded history. However, these traditions were actually constructed by powerful elites through Nihonjinron (discussions of how Japanese should behave and perceive) during the post war period (Hobsbawm1983; Kubota 2003; Tai

2003). Furthermore, scholars’ interpretations of Japanese history and archaeology are still restricted to some degree even today. For that reason, the state education system quite effectively contributes to spreading the ideology and unifying values and attitudes of the people of Japan. The emphasis on homogeneity compels the people to comply with social norms and mainstreams, as well as ignore the existence and rights of the minorities, such as Koreans and the Ainu in Japan. Promoting the uniqueness of Japanese culture, values, language, tradition, and customs appears to be positive. Nevertheless, it results in distinguishing Japanese from others, which can lead to unhealthy national essentialism.

Consequently, the socialization of Japanese values through social interaction, education, and propaganda (the Nihonjinron literature), strongly sustains the nationalism that is a source of both pride and concern to the people of Japan.

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CHAPTER IV

SOCIAL CONFORMITY AND NATIONALISM TODAY

Nationalism after War

A senior researcher at the Japan Broadcasting Corporation’s Institute of Public

Opinion Research, Kazuto Kojima, reported on the public trends in Japan in 1977. He

notes that since the end of World War II in 1945, “drastic changes in the political and

economic systems and a high rate of economic growth, unprecedented in the nation’s

history, have been accompanied by considerable changes in the people’s way of

thinking” (1977:206). By analyzing nationwide data taken from 1,500 public opinion

surveys, Kojima concludes that trends in the Japanese way of thinking during the past 30

years have been characterized by changes in three aspects: the strengthening of

democratic tendencies, the precedence of private life over public, and changes in

nationalism (206).

Because of the new constitution after the war, there has been an “increasing

consciousness of human rights and growing opposition to the practice for leaving

everything in the hands of the professional politicians” (Kojima 1977:215). The analysis

also shows a tendency to give priority to one’s private life rather than to public affairs:

“an orientation toward the nuclear family and the gaining of a higher education as the basis for maintaining a stable private life” (215). Kojima comments that this trend perhaps “prompted a certain change in the traditional valuing of self-sacrifice for the

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public good. . . . [Nevertheless,] this priority, for the majority of Japanese, is related to the family rather than to the individual” (216). On the other hand, he stresses that although support for the Emperor System may be reduced, “there has not been much change in the nationalist feeling of the Japanese” (Kojima 1977:215) during the 30-year post war period.

Today, already more than sixty years have passed since the end of World War II.

The youth of today are raised by people who did not directly know the life before 1945.

Japan has become one of the most advanced postindustrial nations in the world. Japan should have changed dramatically, not only since 1945, but also since Kojima’s survey in

1977. This section looks at recent social trends and political situations related to nationalism today.

Economic Nationalism

In a review of Takeshi Ishida’s (1983) book, Japanese , Scott C.

Flanagan relates Ishida’s argument that:

the dual strains of conformity and competition in Japanese culture became

integrated in the form of a competition to prove one’s loyalty, which in the prewar

period meant loyalty to the emperor and in the postwar period loyalty to one’s

company or other group. [Flanagan 1985:135-136]

Kenneth B. Pyle (1979) also points out a similar view by quoting Sannosuke Matsumoto:

Having seen imperialism lead to total defeat and to destruction of their livelihood,

the Japanese people, Matsumoto Sannosuke wrote in 1971, “no longer expect

political power to become a substantially useful means for their welfare.” Instead,

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they pursued their own private economic interest and ultimately this became “a

depoliticized form of nationalism” when the Japanese came to see economic

growth “as an apolitical way of enhancing international prestige,” replacing the

prewar approach based on military power. [Pyle 1979:3]

Both Ishida (1983) and Matsumoto (1971) claim that the Japanese since the war have been concentrating on their economy, and interestingly, both use terms such as “loyalty” and “nationalism” to describe this phenomena. Pyle (1979) comments, “they [Japanese people] pursued their own private economic interest” (3). However, I should note that the

Japanese attitude toward pursuing economic interest is not like that of the Westerners.

While the Westerners work hard ultimately for themselves or their families, the Japanese work hard ultimately for their companies as Ishida states, and even sacrifice themselves and their families for their business organizations.

A Japanese term, (過労死), literally death from overwork illustrates this

attitude. Not only many laid off men, but also many men who were employed killed

themselves or died in the early 2000s, when the economic slump hit Japan, because they

were “overwhelmed by increased workloads that were a result of colleagues losing their

jobs” (Wehrfritz 2001:3). My friend who has been working at Shiseido (資生堂), the largest cosmetic company in Japan, for more than twenty years, works from 8:30 a.m. until 11:00 p.m. for half of every month without getting any extra pay. She works six extra hours for free. She emails me often to tell how physically and psychologically stressful it is. She has been on and off anti-depression and anti-hypertension medicines.

It sounds like hell to me, nevertheless, “I am grateful at least for still having my job,” she says.

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Traditional Values, Modernization, and Suicide

“Contemporary Japan is Tokugawa Japan [feudal state] transformed, but not rejected,” Kim and Lawson (1979:495) state. The Western systems of politics, education,

and constitution were adopted starting in the Meiji era (1868); however, Japan has

modernized “without fundamentally altering her national character” (495). Customs and

values usually change as a social environment changes. Despite the dynamic national

progress of the economy and technology in the last century, the Japanese stubbornly hold

on to their traditional customs and values. It is true that Japanese and Japanese society are

never standing still; both continue to move towards the West (Kim and Lawson

1979:512). Nevertheless, culture lag—the people of Japan are unable to keep up with the

rapid pace of the Westernization of systems and technological change—is obvious when

we look at Japanese social problems and conflicts today.

The recent increase in the suicide rate in Japan, for example, illustrates well this

culture lag phenomenon. Stephanie Strom from The New York Times reports that “a total

of 32,863 people committed suicide in 1998, both the largest number and the highest rate

of suicide recorded since the police began keeping records in 1947” (Strom 1999:1). In

2001 George Wehrfritz from Newsweek reports in his article, “Death by Conformity:

Japan’s Corporate Warriors are Killing Themselves in Record Numbers” that:

Japan’s suicide tally topped 30,000 for the third year running. That’s roughly

triple the number of road nationally and double the per capita suicide rate

in the United States. Males make up 71 percent of the total, and since the late

1990s salarymen have constituted the bulk of the increase. Nearly one third of

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suicide notes recovered in 2000 cited economic hardship–the highest rate ever.

[Wehrfritz 2001]

About two decades ago, my Mexican friend who was living in Japan at the time

happened to see a news story that someone committed suicide because he was fired from

his company. My friend could not comprehend why he had to kill himself. She said, in

her country, Mexico, if someone gets fired, maybe after being depressed for a little while

the person would start looking for another job, that was all. However, being fired is not

so easy for the Japanese. The traditional Japanese relationship between companies and

their employees, especially salarymen, is profound and deep. A sociologist, Kinko Ito

describes how devoted Japanese men are to their companies:

It has been well documented in the American mass media that Japanese men are

married to their companies and are workaholics. Actually, many men find their

work more attractive, stimulating, and challenging than their family life. Some

even suffer from “I-do-not-want-to-go-home” ism. All Japanese families are

virtually “single-parent” families [— not by divorce, but because of busy

husbands]. [Ito 1993:373]

The understood social contract is that employees would work tirelessly for their companies, and in return the companies would safeguard them for life (Wehrfritz 2001).

Most companies in Japan offer shushin koyosei (lifetime commitment of employment) and nenkosei (seniority wages). It used to be very rare for an average, middle-aged

Japanese man to be unemployed. And if one was fired, it would be a shameful thing, whatever the reason for being fired was, because Japanese are taught that being different from others is shameful. The following remark from Ruth Benedict applies here as well,

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“[the Japanese] are terribly concerned about what other people will think of their behavior” (1989:2).

At any rate, Wehrfritz explains, “by 1997, the year financial turmoil ravaged economies across Asia, Japan Inc. could no longer hold up its end of the deal” (2001:2).

The unwanted Japanese workers “felt betrayed as if by a lover” (2), he quotes from one who was restructured out of a job. Storm also discusses this devastating situation: “The shame associated with not having a job is immense, overwhelming and much understood by senior executives, who feel bullied by foreign investors and analysts pushing them to move more aggressively to cut jobs” (1999:2).

Forensic pathologist Yoshihide Sorimachi studies the correlation between suicide and unemployment. He compares “trends in Japan and —two countries with high income and low unemployment that hit the economic skids in the 1990s. Contrary to

Japan’s experience, Sweden’s suicide rate is declining” (Wehrfritz 2001:2). Dr.

Sorimachi suggests that the recent increase in the suicide rate in Japan is caused by the

Japanese work ethic, insufficient psychiatric treatment offered to depressed workers, the traditional views on suicide and depression, and “reward” suicide by some life policies, Wehrfritz reports. This sudden increase of middle age suicide is not related to merely the economic slump, but also definitely with Japanese traditional values:

“depression is regarded as a sign of weakness, . . . suicide is . . . glamorized as part of the samurai tradition” (Wehrfritz 2001:1), and loyalty or self-sacrifice for companies is expected. Wehrfritz also illustrates how Japan lacks trained psychological therapists and adequate medications: “Prozac, launched in 1986 in Europe and a year later in the United

States, still hasn’t been approved” (2001:1). Prozac became available in .

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“Because gun ownership is severely restricted in Japan, many Japanese resort to throwing themselves in front of trains, hanging themselves, jumping off cliffs or overdosing,” Strom reports (1999:3). And unfortunately, families of suicide victims who die by throwing themselves in front of a train are even charged a damage fee depending on how badly traffic is disrupted (Strom 1999:3). Hiroshi Kawahito, a lawyer representing the families of victims of karoshi (death from overwork) comments that “in

Japan, the culprit and the victims are often reversed” (1999:2). US/World News on April

26, 2008, reported that the recent trend of Japanese suicide is by inhaling hydrogen

sulfide gas, produced by mixing detergent and a bath lotion. In just the month of April

2008, the number of middle aged men committing suicide by chemicals reached about

50, as reported in the article, “Rash of 50 Detergent in Japan.” The number of suicides outnumbers the number of people who die in traffic accidents. Strom quotes the lawyer Kawahito’s comments:

If there was an increase in traffic accidents, the Japanese Government would

surely make an effort to reduce the number, . . . but the suicide rate keeps going

up and we have no Government policy. [Strom 1999:4]

Dr. Shizuo Machizawa, a psychiatrist for the NEC Corporation (日本電気株式会社),

believes that:

the suicide rate is one response to a gradual breakdown of a system that rewarded

traditional Japanese values of loyalty, hierarchy and paternalism. Typically, in

Japanese companies, subordinates offer their department heads absolute loyalty,

and in return Japanese executives take care of their charges with an almost

fatherly devotion. Now, with pressures to lay off employees, cut costs and

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improve efficiency, neither the boss nor the subordinate can necessarily fulfill his

side of the traditional bargain. “In the past, employees could control their career

trajectory,” Dr. Machizawa said. “Now, they can’t.” As managers are forced to

lay off staff or tell older workers that younger subordinates may be making more

money, the sense of shame for the bearer of bad tidings can be overwhelming.

[Strom 1999:3]

In sum, today’s Japanese nationalism is expressed by the nation’s economic growth after World War II, replacing the prewar military growth. Westernization and modernization often clash with Japanese traditional values. The increase in suicides among middle-aged men during the economic slump is one good example of that. The core etiology of is not mere financial straits, but the pressure to conform to the traditional Japanese values created by the ruling elites of Japan: loyalty to companies, losing face by losing a job, perseverance, self-sacrifice, and so on.

Educational System Today

Since the end of World War II, while the Japanese men diligently work for their companies and the nation’s economic growth, the women have become the kyoiku mama, or education mother. Ito notes that “these women, left alone by their husband, have a passion (as well as an obsession) about their children’s education; their self-worth and self-esteem derive from their children’s academic achievement. The mother-child bond is stronger than the bond between a father and his child” (Ito 1993:373), and even stronger than the bond between a husband and his wife.

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Furthermore, Japanese education is usually connected to business in regard to

Japanese companies’ hiring practices, Ito explains. “The companies contain cliques and

hierarchies of cliques that are based on the university one graduated from; one’s clique

often influences one’s promotions and raises” (Ito 1993:373). Therefore, successes in

high school and university entrance examinations are often “the two most critical

junctures in determining a young person’s future” (Ellington 1990:407).

Lucien Ellington (1990) reviews and explains that the highest

Japanese educational institutions are public, unlike those in the United States (409).

Because “the Japanese government deliberately limits the number of public academic high schools and ” (409), it creates high competition and requires intense effort to pass. Ito calls the Japanese university entrance examination, “examination hell”

(1993:373). Ellington further explains that:

Regardless of personal economic resources, students can enter the public

academic high school or of their choice providing they can pass

the entrance examinations. Students who cannot pass the tough public high school

and university entrance examination can, if they have the means, attend private

high schools and universities that are expensive but generally easy to enter. Large

numbers of private educational institutions exist both because of consumer

demand due to the limited supply of public high schools and universities and as a

result of Japanese government subsides to private schools. [Ellington 1990:409-

410]

“Academic achievement thus becomes very important to many Japanese children not only as individuals but also as members of their families” (1993:373), Ito quotes from

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Chie Nakane (1970). Because the Japanese “value conformity to a group, whether one’s family, one’s school, or one’s company” (Ito 1993:373):

When a Japanese child cannot realistically fulfill his or her parents’ expectations

of academic achievement, suicide often becomes the only option. The feudal

tradition of hara-kiri, or committing suicide, is still observable in children’s

suicides; one would rather die than live in disgrace, such as by being a poor

student and a troublemaker in one’s family. [Ito 1993:373]

The creation and emphasis of the Japanese traditional values by ruling elites and the society’s expectation for conformity to these traditions direct the behaviors of the people of Japan, including the school children, into an extremely stressful life, even in today’s modernized society.

The people of Japan know that the education system needs to be changed. Japan strives to change it to a better system. Since Dr. Ienaga’s history textbook lawsuit in the1970s, the Ministry of Education in Japan has allowed high school textbook authors to mention the “dark” side of war history to some extent, such as the Nanjing massacre, yet it “continues to dictate the curriculums of schools nationwide and entrance exams for high school and college stress rote learning” (Landers 1998:2). Japanese teachers today are encouraged to lead discussions in their classes rather than just lecturing the whole time. The Minister of Education also has finally started directing English to be taught not only by memorizing vast amounts of vocabulary and spelling in junior and high schools, but also by starting earlier and teaching it in more practical, conversational, and fun ways. Some teachers have started to emphasize creativity, individualism, and personal responsibility (Landers 1998) rather than conformity and self-sacrifice. In some school

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districts such as Kawasaki City, instead of emphasizing “conformity,” they chose as their

slogan, “’chigai o yotakasa ni’ (treat differences as a source of enrichment), which is applied not only to ethnic diversity but also to diversity in talents, skills and personality traits” (Tai 2003:18).

Japanese “educators say regimentation is fading” (Landers 1998:2). Manabu Sato, a professor of education at Tokyo University suggests that in the future, the Japanese education system will feature more and more decentralization among regions and increasing local control of schools, Peter Landers reports (1998:3). On the contrary,

Hitotsubashi University professor Iwao Nakatani, a member of the prime minister’s

Strategic Economic Council writes in Tokyo Keizai that “the regions aren’t self- sufficient—they’ve descended to the level of chicks who simply wait with their mouths open for food brought by the mother bird” (Landers 1998:3).

Nevertheless, I indeed see changes here and there in the still strongly rooted old centralized education system. I was surprised to hear about my nephews’ and niece’s and public elementary school in Japan several years ago. Their schools are located in a newly developed town for young, slightly upper middle class families in southern Japan. There was no uniform or rigid rules that my school used to have. Some children had dyed hair. Seeing different colors of hair on Japanese children’s heads in the school yard was quite strange to me. The children were free to express whatever styles they wanted. However, according to my sister-in-law, who was the president of the PTA in that school at the time, some old teachers still teach in the traditional way, forcing children to do things all in the same way and punishing ones that do not obey. Those teachers often conflict with young parents who are more individualistic. The Japanese

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education system is changing, but at a slow pace. The children may be ready, but Japan is

still not quite ready for a totally decentralized and individualistic education system.

Nationalism Revival

Powerful Nationalists

Various aspects of Japanese characteristics and traditions that reinforce

nationalism have been discussed in this paper. The people of Japan can be said to have

been manipulated by ruling elites through their invention of traditions and emphasis on

and valuing conformity, harmony, homogeneity, and perseverance. So who are the ruling

elites? Who is controlling the people of Japan and hindering them from becoming truly

democratic?

David McNeill is one of the few foreigners to experience ultra-right, uyoku

(右翼), or hard nationalists’ intimidation. He and his wife hosted a weekly talk show on

local radio in Western Tokyo in 2001 that tried an “opinionated approach to the clash of

East versus West” (McNeill 2001:1). When they discussed the Nanjing Massacre by the

Japanese imperial army at the end of 1937, three members of a local “political group”

arrived at the studio and politely criticized them, saying they should not have mentioned

the Nanjing Massacre because it had not been “officially announced” by the government.

Two days later the senior station manager told them that he would be very grateful if they

would not discuss political issues on the radio. Moreover, he said that they would need to

apologize over the air for the Nanjing comment. If they did not, the ultra-nationalists would “drive their gaisensha (街宣車), black sound trucks, outside their sponsors and

harass them until they withdrew their support” (McNeill 2001:1-2).

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Ultra-right Nationalist groups are well known for their highly visible propaganda

vehicles, gaisensha—usually black trucks with loud speakers, airing WWII military

theme songs, prominently marked with propaganda slogans, and decorated with the

imperial seal and the Japanese military flag. McNeill reports that most of these far-right

members are affiliated through an organization called Zennipoon Aikokusha Dantai Kaigi

(全日本愛国者団体会議), or the National Conference of Patriotic Associations (Van

Wolferen 1993; McNeill 2001). There are roughly 100,000 members, however, “the

exact number is clouded in controversy because there is overlap with (Japanese mafia) gangsters” (McNeill 2001:3). Since the 1970s, radical nationalism or new nationalism has emerged in Japan, and most of these neo-nationalists are powerful conservative politicians, academics, well-known authors and artists.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that was mentioned in the textbook controversy section is one prominent leading nationalist group. McNeill explains that they are “more media-savvy and much more likely to stress Japanese independence and

self-sufficiency in the face of American ‘hegemony’” (2001:3). Most of the LDP

members are powerful. Ishihara Shintaro (石原 慎太郎), author of many books including,

The Japan That Can Say No in 1989, and a Tokyo governor since 1999, is one of them.

His deceased younger brother, Yujiro Ishihara was a nationally famous actor and many of

the popular actors connected to him also support Ishihara Shintaro. The number of

members in these ultra-nationalist groups is relatively very small; however, they are

powerful, and politically, socially, and physically influential. Despite the assertion by a

nationalist, Ino, that ultra-nationalists of the Yakuza and intellectual neo-

nationalists are clearly different, McNeill comments in notes for the article that his

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experience with the radio station management illustrates “how difficult it is to disentangle

genuine nationalists from gangsters” (2001:10). “The relationship between the yakuza- uyoku, the neo-nationalists and established political figures is a complex matrix of financial, political and personal ties with conflicting and contradictory elements”

(2001:4), McNeill remarks. He suggests that “the system” of calling on the services of the ultra-nationalists to intimidate troublesome elements (Van Wolferen 1993) has helped to give the conservative political mainstream “a legitimacy and influence arguably beyond what would be tolerated in any other advanced industrial country. Moreover, ultra- nationalists are often aware of their role in not only preventing discussion of taboo topics but also in helping to legitimize fringe ideas” (McNeill 2001:4).

McNeill provides some additional examples of ultra-nationalist intimidation besides his own experience. A small theater which screened a Chinese movie on Nanjing, was attacked and shut down in 1998 while the Japanese revisionist war movie Pride directed by Sanaya Ito and funded by renowned ultra-right wing investors, was showing in hundreds of cinemas nationwide. For failure to use proper honorific terms for the emperor, Tomohiro Kojiro, an Asahi Shimbun reporter, was killed by a shotgun-wielding rightist in 1987. The mayor of Nagasaki, Motojima Hitoshi, a mild- mannered Christian, was threatened for months and shot in the back in 1990 by right- wingers for suggesting that emperor bore some responsibility for the war.

Whenever the mass media broach a taboo topic, the extreme right can still have a significant impact on public discussion by instigating a relatively small numbers of incidents. NHK (the national state broadcaster) which produced the program, Senso to josei e no boryoku (War and violence against women) in 2000, failed to report the final

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judgment of the court, that the emperor was guilty of war crimes against the women.

Velisarios Kattoulas from Herald Tribune International also reports that Saburo Ienaga, who first filed a court suit against the Japanese Ministry of Education for violating his freedom of expression by forbidding him to include the Nanjing incident in a high school history textbook in 1965, “draws the ire of far-right thugs. . . . [During his 30-year legal battle,] they have attacked his home, threatened his family, and at times forced him to live under police guard for dishonoring Japan and the emperor, as they see it” (1997:2),

Kattoulas writes.

McNeill remarks that:

A common pole of analysis is to suggest that the apparent failure of media

gatekeepers in Japan to confront intimidation may be the result of the group-

centered nature of Japanese society which translates into negotiation and

ultimately compromise with elements within the system that threaten to disrupt

harmony (Takeshita and Takeuchi, 1996, and Pharr and Krauss, 1996, pp.359).

Sociologists in Japan stress the fear of difference, of being the nail that sticks up,

the value attached to conformism and the subtle and not so subtle differences used

to achieve it. . . . This analysis, that there is some central drive within Japanese

culture, to harmonize and transform “discordance” into consensus is superficially

plausible but fails to explain where this drive comes from or what interests might

be served by it. As Van Wolferen says, “The term ‘consensus’ implies positive

support for an idea or a course of action” (Van Wolferen, 1993, pp. 441). This

notion of consensus, reinforced through the education system and other state

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apparatus, often boils down, in practice, to the imposition of power over

dissenting minority, and sometimes even, majority opinions. [McNeill 2001:6]

The connections between the government and the Japanese mafia, yakuza, is well known to the Japanese. The government has been using organized crime groups to intimidate and threaten whoever challenges the ruling elites since the beginning of the state. The people of Japan just cannot openly talk about it.

National Anthem and Flag

Both the (君が代) national anthem and the hinomaru (日の丸), rising-

sun flag have been officially recognized since August 1999. At one time, the anthem and

the flag were regarded as symbols of emperor worship and of the war

period. The ceremonial use of them in Japanese schools has been a source of sharp

conflict between school administrations and the Japan teachers’ union, Nikkyoso

(日教組) (Symonds 1999; McNeill 2001). Peter Symonds explains why Prime Minister

Obuchi issued the bill in 1999.

In February [of 1999], a school principal in southern Japan hanged himself after

being caught in the middle of a disagreement between the school board and

teachers over the singing of the anthem at graduation ceremonies. Obuchi seized

on the incident to push for legal recognition of the flag and anthem. The

legislation, he claimed, was necessary to eliminate any ambiguity in their use and

thus prevent any repetition of the suicide in Hiroshima. Following the vote, the

Tokyo City Board of Education announced that it was disciplining a primary

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school music teacher for refusing to provide the piano accompaniment for the

anthem during school entrance ceremonies in March. [Symonds 1999:1]

The lyrics of the national anthem of Japan, kimigayo, commonly translated as

“May your reign last forever,” are based on a Waka poem written in the

(794-1185) and the current melody was written in 1880 (Hongo 2007). The following is

an English translation of the lyrics of kimigayo (君が代).

May your reign continue for a thousand, eight thousand years,

Until the pebbles grow into boulders lush with moss

During the war, this song was clearly about the reign of the Emperor, but according to a

Kanji-, ambiguously, the kanji (君) itself in the song can be

interpreted several ways: lord, king, emperor, person who reigns over people, sovereign,

or simply you. Obuchi insists that the emperor is simply “the symbol of the state and of

the unity of the people, deriving his position from the will of the people with whom

resides sovereign power” (Symonds 1999:1); however, Symonds notes that “any

elevation of the status of the emperor has deeper political implications” (1).

When I heard news that one of the most popular young Japanese pop-stars,

Masahiro Nakai, sang the national anthem, kimigayo, during the ceremonial first pitch at the Tokyo baseball dome in March 2000, I could not help but think it was a conspiracy by the nationalists in order to get votes from the youth for accepting kimigayo as the official

Japanese anthem. There was no custom to sing kimigayo by a young pop-star during the

ceremonial first pitch before. Especially because he was famous for being a poor singer—

Nakai himself frequently admitted how uncomfortable and nervous he was singing solo

in public. Nevertheless, the singer had to be him because he was the most nationally

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popular star at that time. As expected, Nakai did sing horribly that day; but for the youngsters it did not matter, he was still cute. Nevertheless, many Japanese, including the youngsters, wondered why Nakai did not turn down the offer to sing.

According to the opinion polls in 1999, “around 60 percent [supported] the legislation to recognize the Japanese flag and anthem” (Symonds 1999:2). McNeill interviewed the headmaster of a local junior high school in 2001 and asked how he felt about flying the once deputed national flag, and the headmaster said, “It’s a shame that we have to be the only country in the world that is embarrassed to fly our national flag because of events that happened before any of us were born” (McNeill 2001:6). By the way, this entire episode was cut from the broadcast by the manager because “it had simply been too sensitive” (2001:7), McNeill comments. His radio station manager, Sato- san, said that to air it was asking for trouble and he was afraid of the yokuza-uyoku’s harassment. McNeill notes Sato-san’s comments that “he personally sung the national anthem ‘with pride’ and couldn’t understand anyone who didn’t” (2001:7). In contrast,

Symonds reports the opposing opinion—“Keiko Tsuwa of The Japanese Women’s

Caucus Against War commented: ‘No one can be proud of them as national symbols without true remorse and apology for the wartime aggression against Asia’” (1991:1).

Nationalism Revival and Anti-Japan Movement

As discussed previously, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) consisting primarily of the Japanese ruling elites has held power for most of the postwar period, yet the LDP had exerted its power somewhat behind the scenes. However, since the economic slump in the late 1990s, the LDP has been acting prominently to pursue its long-held views.

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The Textbook Reform Society, which was formed in 1997 claiming to have 10,000 members, was composed of several hundred politicians and leading business figures from the LDP (Conachy 2001). The high school textbooks composed by the Textbook Reform

Society and “four out of the seven other history texts in Japan in 2001 cut out their previous references to the fate of ‘comfort women’ during World War II” (Conachy

2001:3). James Conachy reports from World Socialist Web Site that:

The inculcation of in the schools is being pushed aggressively by the

media. Since 1997 the Fuji-Sankei Communications empire, the owner of Japan’s

largest television and radio stations and fifth largest newspaper, Sankei Shimbun,

has provided editorial space and support for the Textbook Reform Society. . . .

[Moreover,] the LDP responded to the campaign in 1999 by making the singing of

the national anthem and raising the Rising Sun flag—symbols of wartime

militarism—compulsory in schools. [Conachy 2001:3]

Ever since World War II, nationalism in the sense of military expansion in Japan has been widely denounced. However, the discussions, which were once taboo, also have appeared recently in the Japanese mainstream (Matthews 2003). Since the late 1990s, the

“government has seized on several incidents involving North Korea—its firing of a ballistic missile [in 1998], and the incursion of a North Korean vessel into Japanese waters—to create an air of panic and mold public opinion into accepting an expanded military” (Symonds 1999:3). During 1998 to 2000 when I was in Japan, I remembered that Japanese TV news programs often aired clips from North Korean news with

Japanese translation to demonstrate how unrealistic North Koreans’ ideas were and how dangerous they were. The citizens’ feelings of being threatened by North Korea were

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enforced through these news clips. In one incident, the Japanese navy detected an

identified ship on December 18, 2001. The mystery ship did not respond to hails and

fired on the Japanese ship when they approached. Eventually Japanese patrol boats had to

open fire on the intruder with heavy machine guns. The 100-ton squid fishing ship with

Chinese markings, turned out to be a North Korean spy ship. It was the first time Japan’s

navy had sunk a foreign vessel since the end of World War II (Matthews 2003). In

October 2002, North Korea admitted that it was actively developing nuclear weapons.

Eugene A. Matthews reports in Foreign Affairs that in February 2003, Japan’s defense

minister, Shigeru Ishiba, warned North Korea that “Japan could launch a preemptive

strike to defend itself if necessary. He repeated the warning on September 15, . . . noting

that ‘the Japanese constitution permits my position. Attacking North Korea after a missile

attack on Japan is too late’” (2003:1). The Japanese Prime Minister

(2001 – 2006) approved the expansion of the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) and sent about 1,000 JSDF troops to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq in 2003 (Clemons 2003).

Although he resigned abruptly in 2007, only lasting for one year, Shinzo Abe, a hard core nationalist, was elected 90th and the president of the

LDP at the same time. In addition to these activities that have been reviving nationalism in Japan, the Japanese Prime Ministers’ annual visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, which deifies fallen soldiers, including the twelve class-A war criminals from World War II, has provoked strong anti-Japan movements in Asia, particularly in China (Conachy 2001;

Marquardt 2005; Fukuyama 2007). Erich Marquardt (2005) from the Power and Interest

News Report reports that an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 Chinese anti-Japanese protesters

marched to the Japanese Embassy in , throwing stones at the facility in 2005, and

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another 20,000 demonstrators marched in two cities in southern Guangdong province,

attacking a Japanese department store in Shenzhen.

Shinzo Abe, from the LDP commented in 2005 that “Japan is an outlet to vent

that anger. . . . Because of the anti-Japanese education [in China], it’s easy to light the fire of these demonstrations and, because of the Internet, it’s easy to assemble a lot of people”

(Marquardt 2005:2). Nobukatsu Fujioka, the vice chairman of the Japanese Society for

History Textbook Reform, explains that Japan is currently:

educating our children using unsubstantiated, wartime, enemy propaganda. You

can easily imagine how children come to believe that their ancestors were

murderous monsters. In actuality, there is no evidence providing that Japanese

war crimes were any worse than war crimes committed by other nations.

[Marquardt 2005:2]

Fujioka continues to argue, “More and more people share our opposition to instilling self-

hatred in our children” (Marquardt 2005:2). Statements such as these convince some of

Japan’s population to give more power to the country’s nationalists, Marquardt argues.

The nationalists aggressively use the media to persuade the people of Japan by

airing the testimonies of World War II soldiers. Discussing the Nanjing Incident, the

veterans claimed the Chinese soldiers used unfair tactics which left them no choice.

Instead of surrendering, they took off their military uniforms, disguised themselves as

civilians, hid among civilian villages, and continued to fight against the Japanese

soldiers. Japanese soldiers avoided women and children as much as they could, but in the

end, attacking whole villages was inevitable for that reason. Some other soldiers testified

that so called, “comfort women” were prostitutes provided by, in fact, Chinese brokers

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themselves to Japanese soldiers as part of their negotiations. The Manila Times on March

6, 2007 reports that the Japanese Prime Minister, Abe commented in parliament, Japan on

March 5, 2007 that “there was no coercion such as kidnappings by the Japanese

authorities.”

Nevertheless, in the International Herald Tribune, Mitsuru Kitano (2006), a

minister of public affairs for the Japanese Embassy in Washington, questions the

truthfulness of all the reports of excessive Japanese nationalism today in some U. S. and

other news media. For example, Kitano writes:

Japan’s critics charge that an extreme Japanese antipathy toward South Korea and

China is on the rise. A recent report that a comic book titled “Hating the Korean

Wave” has sold 360,000 copies went on to say that this suggested strong anti-

Korean sentiment in Japan. The report failed to note, however, that according to

opinion polls, the percentage of Japanese having warm feelings toward South

Korea increased from 36 percent in 1996 to 57 percent as of 2004. Further, South

Korean television dramas and actors are extremely popular in Japan. This

warming of relations between South Korea and Japan was spurred by the 2002

soccer World Cup, which both countries co-hosted. Any antipathy toward South

Korea today is a counter-trend, smaller in scale. [Kitano 2006:1]

When I visited several Japanese book stores in 2006, I was indeed astonished by finding a series of such Korean hate comic books. But moreover, I was surprised by so many entertainment magazines for teens and younger adults full of articles and photos of South

Korean and other Asian actors, musicians, , and movies. This phenomenon would have been a totally unimaginable just a couple of decades ago. The friendly

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attitude of the Japanese youth toward South Koreans and Chinese was apparent. Other

Asian entertainers and sports players were idolized in the same way the Japanese youth

used to admire the Western stars and movies a couple of decades ago.

Many other reporters charge that “Japan tries to glorify its prewar militarism and whitewash past misdeeds” (Kitano 2006:1); however, Kitano argues that the textbook produced by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform was adopted by only 0.4 percent of Japanese schools. Moreover, even the description of World War II in the textbook in no way glorifies its prewar militarism. Kitano (2006:1) quotes from the textbook: “This war caused huge damage and suffering to the people of the various regions of Asia that had become the field of battle. In particular, soldiers and the people of China fell victim in large numbers to the invasion by the Japanese military.” He continues to provide examples that “while there are voices opposed to Prime Minister

Junichiro Koizumi visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, he has clearly apologized and stated his remorse for Japan’s past colonialism and aggression” (Kitano 2006:1). For Koizumi, I do not believe that visiting Yasukuni had any ideological or political purpose, but as he said

many times, he just visited to console the souls of the war dead who fought for his nation

and people, just like many Americans who visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall

located in Washington DC. As discussed in the previous section, we must consider that visiting a shrine for the Japanese people does not indicate the same profound and personal desire for a relationship with deity like in the Western monolithic sense, but rather it means a proper traditional act as a Japanese. Another false claim is the revival of dangerous militarism due to the recent expansion of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces

and sending troops to Iraq and the Indian Ocean. Kitano (2006) argues that these

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activities are for peacekeeping operations in the international community and for security

arrangements with the United States.

The media can mislead us. One reports the revival of dangerous Japanese

nationalism and militarism, and another claim that it is just a rumor that is part of the

Chinese conspiracy against Japan. As a witness of these phenomena in Japan, I admit that

some try to deny what truly happened in Nanjing and their attitudes are ethnocentric.

However, I also know that most Japanese feel ashamed about what Japan did in the war.

Not all Japanese soldiers in World War II justify what they did. Several Japanese

veterans testified about what really happened in Nanjing and feel deep remorse. One

Japanese veteran, Mitsutani, for example, states in the program, “Nanjing Massacre 70th

Anniversary” in Radio, Television (RTHK) in 2007, that he is not able to

forget how horrible he felt when the order came from above to kill all the Chinese,

including even non-uniformed people. He says that he cannot change what Japan did, but

at least, he wants to tell the truth and tell how atrocious and horrendous the war was and

what we can learn from it.

The Asian Women’s Fund (AWF) was established by prominent Japanese citizens

in 1995 and is designed to compensate the Comfort Women. AWF raised roughly $5

million from the public from 1995 to 2002, and “through 2007 used $14 million from the

Government of Japan for medical and other payments. Altogether the Fund spent $19 million for the Comfort Women with operating costs being $27 million” (Kotler

2007:48). Japan’s Yohei Kono issued a statement of admission and apology in 1992 regarding this issue. The Manila Times on March 6, 2007, writes

that the Japanese Prime Minster Koizumi also issued an apology in the year 2001, and his

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letter to Filipinos in 2002, regarding “comfort women” states, “most sincere apologies

and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences and

suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women. We must not

evade the weights of the past, nor should we evade our responsibilities for the future”

(The Manila Times, March 6, 2007). However, Chinese, South Korean, and Filipino

“Comfort Women” victims have continued to protest against Japan and to request sincere apologies from Japan. For the victims, as long as they see the arrogant attitudes of the powerful Japanese ruling elites like Shinzo Abe and Shintaro Ishihara, their psychological wounds will never heal.

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CONCLUSION

Despite their remarkable national progress in the last century, Japanese still hold on strongly to the traditional “proper” views, conventional social norms, and characteristics. Since the beginning of the state, the ruling elites have used religion and propaganda to control the people of Japan. Japan’s geographic and historical isolation, unique Japanese language, and the state education system have tremendously contributed to the national self-image of homogeneity and uniqueness from other nations. The discourse of a homogenous and unique culture has also produced the discrimination against minorities, ethnocentric attitude, emphasis of traditional values, and discouragement of the Western sense of personal rights, logic, and fairness.

The people of Japan have been socialized to comply with their higher authorities, seek harmony and avoid conflict, be loyal to their groups, value perseverance, and to accept unbearable difficulty and self-sacrifice. They are somewhat naïve and have a tendency to be led and driven by the majority and the media. For Japanese living in an isolated, homogeneous island nation, being different from others is the most frightening thing. They live in a nation that strikes the nail that sticks out. Some Japanese traditions do not make any sense, are illogical, and are even inconvenient today, yet Japanese inevitably comply with them anyway just to not be different from others.

The Meiji Restoration ended several hundred years of a stable feudal state, and adopted a Western style of constitution, politics, law, and education system. However,

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the government was still far from the level of a Western democracy. The ruling elites continued to dominate the Japanese government. Although after World War II, the state was finally separated from religions and the emperor system by the new constitution, fortunately or unfortunately, Japan has been allowed to keep the emperor as a symbol of

Japan, and the Japanese traditions continued to dominate Japanese behaviors and way of thinking. The Japanese concept of “religion” is distinct from the Western concept.

Although the Japanese today continue to practice multiple religious rituals, they perceive themselves secular. These multiplicity and complexity of Japanese religious phenomena are difficult for categorizing by the Western criteria of religion from the secular.

Japanese Religion (Nihonism), tradition, and the secular are all intermingled with each other and separating them is impossible. Separating religion and state can be especially problematic because most of the nation’s traditions and religious rituals themselves were originally connected with the ruling elites’ political agenda. Furthermore, the unique language is more than just a means of communication, but is also a means of propagating political ideology. The Japanese traditional values are still very useful to the ruling elites for controlling and manipulating the people of Japan.

Japan has never experienced a political revolution in the Western degree.

Contemporary Japan is just an altered form of feudalistic Japan from the medieval period in some sense. Today, only a very small number of people are inveterate nationalists.

However, most of those ultra-nationalists are powerful ruling elites with connections to the Japanese mafias, yakuza. As Japanese history witnesses, they can effectively manipulate the system and people to achieve their goals. Without even realizing it, the

Japanese may continue to be controlled by the ruling elites through the media, traditions,

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and Nihonjinron, the theory or discussion of how Japanese should think and behave.

Incidentally, Kinko Ito mentions that the name Japan (日本), pronounced internationally,

“Nippon” and nationally, “Nihon,” itself is rather ethnocentric, essentialist, and nationalistic in the first place; it means “the origin of the sun” or “the place where the sun rises” (Ito 1993:375).

It is true that the technology, economy, society, laws, and environment of Japan never stay still, and Japanese thought is continuously moving toward the West even though it is at a very slow pace. However, Japanese will never truly be like the

Westerners because their cultural premises are quite different from the West’s. In other words, Japanese will never lose their Japanese-ness.

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EPILOGUE

I often get comments from people in the United States about how pleasant their visit in Japan was and how polite and nice Japanese were. I hope this was true. I believe that most Japanese, most of the time, genuinely try to be nice to others without any particular ulterior motive. The purpose of this paper is not to criticize Japanese, but my hope is to be make contribution to help the Westerners understand the people of Japan.

Japanese may behave or think illogically and paradoxically, even in negatively strange ways to Westerners. However, this is not always because they naturally do and think those things, but because they were socialized this way and often manipulated by ruling elites. Many Japanese may actually suffer and go to great effort to comply with some of those strange traditions or customs in order to survive in Japanese society.

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