Japan Smothered in Paradox

...he was more likely to search out an easier foreigner's house in the neighborhood...

...Unfortunately, Campbell is neither...

...Today, however, as Campbell should know, the issue is entirely resolved: The Shakaito is definitely the "Socialist party" (or more accurately, the "Japan Socialist party"), and the newly formed Shakai-Minshu-to has appropriated the official translation of "Social Democratic party...

...The writer's task is to elevate the audience's understanding beyond the primitive sense of paradox that inevitably assails the visitor...

...There is, therefore, a rather considerable accumulation of knowledge of the country, of a physical sense of its sights and sounds...

...The term has always been translated alternatively as "Socialist" or "Social-Democratic,' depending upon one's linguistic ability and political inclination...

...Knowing Campbell to be a fine and conscientious reporter, I had rather hoped he would manage to do better...

...Yet I must confess to having read The Heart of Japan with a certain irritation...

...rockand-roll" becomes "lock-and-loll" One hesitates to throw water on a good joke, but the fact is that the Japanese never pronounce the "1...

...On first view, any strange country is inevitably paradoxical...

...He gives us, for instance, a fascinating circumstantial account of his experience with robbery, which presumably illustrates the difference between Western and Japanese bandits...

...Observing paradox in a foreign culture is, it seems to me, fundamentally a question of how much one knows...

...Reviewed by HERBERT PASSIM Far Eastern Institute, University of Washington After a four-year assignment as Time-Life correspondent in Japan, Alexander Campbell has given us the third in his "Heart" series...

...Imperfect knowledge of a language opens up endless material for false paradoxes...

...Campbell does not do so...

...First of all, there is the question that Campbell has not been able to answer any better than other journalistic and travel writers on Japan: What audience is he writing for...

...the English "1" becomes an "r...

...Though the book cannot really be for the "masses,' it is not pitched high enough for the informed general reader...

...One has the right to expect an observer of Campbell's talents to elucidate apparent oddities rather than smother them in banal paradoxes...

...The word "Tenri," however, means "heavenly law," or "heavenly science" in the sense of Christian Science...

...The genre in which Campbell's book is written has by now developed a few familiar traditions: the superior, if sympathetic eye, swinging over the all-too-obvious paradoxes...

...But he has not resisted the temptation that has beset all other nonspecialist writers on Japan, and he has succumbed to the commonplace and the cute...

...But the word means no more than "jointly owned," quite a different and rather less paradoxical idea...

...Campbell also tells us that since the end of the War many people have given up maintaining the traditional domestic altars to Shinto and Buddhist deities...

...To write a book about contemporary Japan is not an easy task...

...His explanation is that, "It was apparently felt that the gods and Buddha had let Japan down.' Surely one can think of more compelling explanations— that secularization has been advancing at a rapid pace...

...Again, Campbell notes correctly that the Japan Socialist party is "afraid of being called Communist," but then he adds, therefore "it translates its name Shakaito, which actually means Socialist party, to mean Social-Democratic party...

...It is the Chinese who cannot pronounce an "r" (more or less), the Japanese who cannot pronounce an "1...

...But he does not push his inquiry far enough: Who organized these remarkable demonstrations...

...In effect, Campbell tells his story by walking through important scenes and observing and speaking to people who are somehow able to articulate the points he wishes to bring out...

...Finally, Campbell's book would have benefited from more thorough reporting...

...Campbell has managed it with considerable grace, breadth and humor...

...Japanese is indeed a language of a fundamentally different order than ours, and no doubt the nuances of meaning point to important differences in concept and outlook...

...Yet it is done for no other reason than that the kimono is too restrictive a costume for the woman who must be active, ride public transportation, push through crowds, sit in a chair, and run errands...

...Thus, it is an attractive idea to translate the name of the Kyoritsu theater as "standtogetherness.' One feels Campbell has caught hold of some mysterious essence of Japanese life...

...Nakayama, a merry sociology graduate from Tokyo Imperial University, believes in the merry life...

...Later he tells us of "30,000 demonstrators who had been quickly reassembled, as it seemed from nowhere, to shout 'Down with Ikeda,' but he again fails to pursue the obvious question of how they were assembled...

...To illustrate, he offers some diverting examples: A singer sings, "Rub me tender, rub me tloo...

...It would be a fair guess that since 1945 somewhere in the neighborhood of two million Americans have visited Japan with the armed forces, in business, or as tourists...

...The format is essentially the same as in earlier books on Africa and India, but unlike his ill-tempered, even offensive The Heart of India, The Heart of Japan is warm and friendly...

...What is most disturbing is that Campbell's sharp, reportorial eye is constantly betrayed by an irresistible impulse for cute generalization...

...Nor is the correct translation of "Tenri," the name of one of Japan's "new" religions (it started, in fact, in the 19th century, and is the largest of the non-Shinto or Buddhist sects), "merry life...

...These interwoven vignettes form a personal but on the whole fair and informed picture of the contemporary scene...

...His chapter on the MayJune 1960 demonstrations, in some ways the most illuminating analysis I have seen, describes the motives of various types of participants, their demonstration techniques, the rapid shifts of public opinion and reaction...

...Perhaps, but when I underwent a similar experience, I was informed by the robbery expert at the local police station that having failed, the robber would not bother to come back to my house because it was too much trouble...

...If Campbell heard Japanese who appeared to be unable to pronounce an "r," then one of two things must be the case: Either he did not hear correctly, or he was dealing with people who in their struggle to acquire an "1" sound were simply overdoing it...

...But discovering the differences is the task of the skilled linguist, or at least of a skillful user of the language...

...and a certain archness, exemplified in a kind of linguistic psychoanalysis...

...I have no doubt that the present leader, Mr...

...The Japanese, he tells us, confuse the "r" and the "1" sounds...

...but from the inside, the paradoxes disappear...

...that the "disestablishment" of Shinto has removed one of the compulsions for maintaining these altars, and so forth...

...Since the robber failed to steal anything on his first attempt, Campbell was told by his Japanese friends, "He will persist in trying to crack your joint, because he lost face...

...It may be amusing, for example, that the Japanese office girl wears Western clothes to work and then returns to change into a kimono...