The Hidden Japanese
BERGER, MICHAEL
RITES OF SUMMER The Hidden Japanese by michael berger Tokyo Two totally unrelated summer rituals took on new dimensions this year that further punctured some long-held myths about Japan. One...
...The summer that just ended, for example, featured a number of events designed to broaden awareness of past wrongdoings...
...And it was the persistent efforts of concerned private individuals, more than anything else, that at last brought about a thorough investigation of the thousands of women driven into prostitution by conquering Imperial forces...
...Yes, the beleaguered corporate salary-man may still find it difficult to leave his desk for more than a few days, but that excessively competitive white-collar breed constitutes less than 14 per cent of Japan's population...
...Indeed, most Japanese TV networks and newspapers have produced or published such stories...
...But this summer saw a surge of interest in spectator sports...
...Who knows, maybe next year rodeo will catch on...
...For nearly half a century the official commemorations have focused almost entirely on the suffering of the Japanese people...
...That's why I like to take a Friday off and escape to a camping place in the mountains," said Shigeru Nomura, one of an estimated 14 million camping enthusiasts here...
...Numerous Japanese have found their own ways to make personal amends...
...The show attracted more than 500 people daily, and is now on tour in Japan...
...Last year camping supply sales in Japan increased 18 per cent, to more than $750 million...
...He and a few others who were present and kept diaries have either published them or spoken out about the brutal incident...
...But the expressions of approval did not mask the feeling among those Asian neighbors that the apology was long overdue...
...slave labor camps??documents his ministry had denied possessing...
...One of the biggest trends this summer was camping??and not simply because it's cheaper than a week in Hawaii or Australia...
...NHK even found a retired Foreign Ministry bureaucrat who confirmed on camera the authenticity of documents that record the existence of Michael Berger contributes frequently to The New Leader from Japan...
...Leisure, in all its forms, is now a multibillion-dollar business in Japan...
...Japan has more national holidays annually than the United States, yet early May, mid-August and the New Year remain the most popular occasions for a trip to the country...
...or Taiwan...
...What outsiders could not know, given the way the foreign press tends to cover this country, was that Hosokawa's demarche, unique as it may have been for a politician, actually reflected the sense of the citizenry...
...IF Japan is often presented as a culture in denial of its past, it is also portrayed as a nation of workaholics...
...Currently he lectures around the country...
...It staged a dinner show complete with live wrestling, charged more than $250 a ticket...
...With an infusion of talent from Europe and South America, Japan's new professional soccer league is attracting tens of thousands of mostly young fans to every match...
...A Tokyo hotel recently cashed in on the boom...
...In 1992, one of the worst years ever for Japan's automotive industry, sales of recreational vehicles were up nearly 14 per cent...
...The Western media periodically notes the lack of historical candor about the Pacific War in Japanese school textbooks...
...another 35 million bowl...
...Ken Yuasa, a military doctor during the War, has written an account admitting that he performed vivisections on live Chinese prisoners as "operation practice...
...Somehow they usually overlook the efforts of many teachers to compensate for this void...
...Businesses related to these activities make billions of dollars annually...
...Most of the remaining 86 per cent??including young working women, students, senior citizens and employees of smaller companies??cherish their holidays...
...I never understood the real meaning of war until now," said one tearful student to a reporter recently...
...While many are students skipping classes, others are working folk who must schedule days off in advance for an outing to Nagoya, Osaka or Tokyo...
...The most devoted followers think nothing of getting on the Bullet Train to support their teams on the road...
...The hottest new spectator trend seems to suggest a diversity of Japanese passions that frequently escapes Western reporters...
...Through a group called Silver Volunteers, retired private citizens??businessmen, engineers and the like??who served in occupied China are contributing their skills to developing countries, sometimes for a year or longer...
...So it was a surprise to many abroad when Japan's new Prime Minister, Morihiro Hosokawa, used his initial parliamentary policy address to convey "a feeling of deep remorse and apologies for the fact that our country's past acts of aggression and colonial rule caused unbearable suffering and sorrow for so many people...
...Marines??virtually ensuring their death...
...Professional wrestling (as distinct from the homegrown sumo variety) is making a comeback here...
...Health sports have always been more popular than the better-publicized baseball, volleyball and sumo wrestling...
...The series was not an aberration...
...That number has more than tripled in the last 10 years...
...In addition, books about World War II??including the rueful confessions of former officers and enlisted men??today fill entire sections of major bookstores...
...Similarly, while the American and European media praised the Prime Minister's statement, they went on to contrast it with the lack of contrition shown by previous leaders...
...The second summer ritual, however, undermines the idea that Japanese would rather work than play: Over the last decade, steadily growing hordes of people here have availed themselves of the warm season to pursue a wide range of outdoor and sporting activities...
...and sold all 700 seats...
...aired devastating film footage of Chinese and Korean slave laborers forced to work in Japanese coal mines and factories, plus interviews with several of the victims...
...In fact, the problem is that too many of them go away at the same time, creating massive jams at airports and train stations, and turning expressways into narrow parking lots...
...They learn not only about the last bloody battle of the War, but about the Imperial Army's refusal to let thousands of Okinawans surrender to the U.S...
...live contests draw more than 50,000 spectators to the large arenas...
...Even in the midst of the worst recession in memory, Japanese continue to devote more of their time and money to physical recreation...
...27 million jog, and close to 25 million swim regularly...
...At any camping retail store customers can survey a paradise of imported merchandise, including American portable stoves, French and German cutlery and drinking containers, wicker baskets from China, and sleeping bags made in the U.S...
...Hosokawa's comments elicited immediate appreciation from governments in Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, and China, where the older generation recalls the bitter days of Japanese military occupation all too vividly...
...An estimated 38 million Japanese regularly participate in gymnastics...
...When Azuma returned to Nanking for a memorial ceremony decades later, he feared he would be attacked...
...Forgetting what was done, he says, "is much worse than what we did...
...Instead, he told a reporter, he was forgiven after publicly apologizing to the Chinese...
...An antiwar organization formed by ex-soldiers gives presentations across Japan...
...In 1937, as a private in the Imperial Army, Shiro Azuma witnessed what became known as the Rape of Nanking...
...Over the last decade, the words and deeds of Imperial Army veterans, writers, teachers, businesspeople, and many others??helped by the national media??have given the lie to the notion of Japan having a culturewide case of "historical amnesia...
...Politicians of every persuasion have united at ceremonies marking Hiroshima and Nagasaki to speak about the horror of The Bomb...
...One concerns "the War season," as August is known here because it is the month the Japanese remember the only nuclear massacres in history, as well as the shock of utter defeat in what they call the Pacific War...
...This summer also featured a shocking exhibit by the Shinjuku Ward Gallery in Tokyo, detailing atrocities committed by a special germ warfare unit of Japan's Imperial Army in occupied China...
...A six-part television retrospective on World War 11, produced by the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK...
...Students at a Yokohama middle school, to cite a particular case, visit Okinawa each year...
...Although often criticized for being an information arm of the government, NHK has broadcast in recent years a number of lengthy prime-time documentaries uncovering the crimes of the military regime...
...Young people also are a major reason why attendance for the two professional baseball leagues has been rising...
...Televised matches are earning high ratings...
Vol. 76 • September 1993 • No. 11
