Time bombs?
Sunday, Sept. 5, 1999
In Time's Aug. 16 cover story, entitled "Japan returns to nationalism," Tokyo bureau chief Tim Larimer reported, "Disregarding the jingoistic racket ... isn't so easy nowadays. The almost comic doggedness of these true believers masks an unsettling reality in today's Japan: Nationalism is on the rise again."
Few readers were likely to escape Time's dateline: just one day removed from the date, 54 years ago, on which Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's surrender and the guns of World War II fell silent.
But is that long-awaited other shoe - Japan's re-emergence as a heavy after more than a half-century of dormancy - about to be dropped? Take a whiff of these smoking guns, Time suggests: The Diet had just rammed through a law giving official recognition to the flag and national anthem. Japan has been tightening down a few more screws by forging defense pacts with the United States and South Korea. It has passed a law permitting police to conduct wiretapping. Tentative proposals for revising Japan's Constitution are being considered. And as other evidence that the embers of ultranationalism may be starting to glow anew, the U.S. weekly points to the 560,000 people who paid out good money for a copy of "Senso-ron," the historically revisionist comic book by self-proclaimed "arrogant" cartoonist Yoshinori Kobayashi.
To make sure no one missed its point, Time festooned the margins of its 8-page article with the radiant rays of the kyokujitsu-ki, as the rising sun flag is called in Japanese. But unlike the abhorred swastika symbol used by Nazi Germany, this flag is still flown by ships of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force even today. It also serves, in slightly off-center form, as the logo of the Asahi Shimbun, a major daily that unapologetically ascribes to left-of-center views.
Writing in the Asahi's weekly newsmagazine Aera (8/30), journalist Shunji Taoka responds to Time's salvo, aiming an extra volley or two at the March 29 Newsweek story in which Japan was referred to rather accusatorially as "Land of the Rising Gun." Americans, Taoka asserts, have a latent distrust of Japan, and all too often their media eagerly issues invitations to Asian countries to "be wary of Japan."
But what, in fact, does Japan mean for the average American? Perhaps for most it means just two things: four years of World War II and the stereos, cars, cameras and video games it exports. Aside from that, Americans appear to take little (or no) interest in the country that Commodore Perry took so much trouble to force, kicking and screaming, out of 250 years of isolation. Not to speak of a studied indifference to its learning, its culture, and the fact that Japan has been governed by a representative assembly with a history dating back to 1890.
"Over more than 200 years of American history," an indignant Taoka states, "Japan is the only country with which the United States fought a war that made it fear for its very existence." Perhaps this is why, he suggests, more than half a century later alarmist headlines about "Japan's military resurgence" - or "Japan's economic invasion" - still sell magazines.
But if anything is to be feared, Aera suggests, it's a hulking superpower with a short memory. Look, it points out, how easily America's sentiments can be reversed. Once the Cold War was over and the Russians no longer a threat, it turned against Yugoslavia, a former friendly nation, to unleash a vicious bombing campaign. This recalls the old Chinese aphorism that goes Jiao tu si, zou gou peng (After the cunning hare is killed, the running dog is to be cooked). The implication being that nobody's safe. Is Japan, Aera wonders, going to be the hare, or the dog?
Of course, if evidence could be found to support a few of Time's assertions, perhaps Aera's argument would carry less weight. To see if the now-official national anthem was gaining any ground, DaCapo (9/15) contacted spokesmen at the nation's commercial television networks to ask if they intended to follow the example of the Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) and broadcast "Kimigayo" during their sign-ons or sign-offs. "We broadcast around the clock," came the reply from Asahi News Network. "No sign-offs, no anthem." Nor did any of the other networks say they had plans to slip patriotic refrains into their schedules.
Somewhat ironically, the issue of Time appearing one week after its "return to nationalism" story (Aug. 23-30) seems to have created an even greater stir in Japan's vernacular media. This time, the singing to which it refers is not the inspiring notes of "Kimigayo," but the off-key crooning that goes on every evening in the nation's bars and pubs.
In its issue of Aug. 23/30, Time listed the most illustrious Asians of the 20th century. And there, along with India's Gandhi, China's Sun Yat-sen, Indonesia's Sukarno and Thailand's Chulalongkorn was Daisuke Inoue. Daisuke who, you ask? Time's correspondent Pico Iyer chose to laud this unsung 59-year-old Kobe entrepreneur for inventing the karaoke machine back in 1971. "As much as ... Mao and Gandhi changed Asian days," Iyer writes, "Inoue transformed its nights."
"I'll certainly go along with Time on that one," Kanazawa University Professor Toru Mitsui remarks to Shukan Hoseki (9/9). An authority on popular music, Mitsui adds his view that "Karaoke is a great invention that belongs alongside the Walkman and personal computers."
For all the media clamor, Inoue, alas, never profited from his invention. At best, he's gained some satisfaction from his efforts. "Time's reporter told me that outside of Japan, karaoke is recognized as a form of culture," he remarks to Shukan Bunshun (9/2). "I found that deeply moving."
Truly, Time waits for no man. mainichi.co.jp |
