Fate of long-dominant LDP in question after crucial election

Aug. 28, 2009

Fate of long-dominant LDP in question after crucial election


Takeo Miki, who served as Japan’s prime minister from 1974 to 1976, was a nonmainstream conservative politician. Miki was one of the few Liberal Democrats who successfully tried to distance themselves from money politics. As a result, he was called “Mr. Clean.” The Liberal Democratic Party has ruled Japan’s politics almost uninterruptedly since 1955 when it came into being through a merger of conservative forces. But the party is on the brink of losing power now.
The party and its minor coalition partner have had a two-thirds majority in the all-important House of Representatives, the Lower House. The Lower House election, set for the coming Sunday, is expected to change Japan’s political landscape as voters are dissatisfied with the LDP’s failure to break with money-oriented politics and sever cozy relations with bureaucrats and interest groups. Political pundits predict that around two-thirds of seats will this time go to the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan.
Miki lived in an area in Shibuya, uptown Tokyo. His former residence, the Japanese-style house which is about half a century old, is opened to the public irregularly because his kin still live there. The district used to be a calm residential area, but the house is surrounded with big condos at present. It is next door to the fashionable Daikanyama area which attracts young people all the seasons. “It was just an ordinary house, wasn’t it?” my wife said. The house was not actually an ordinary house, slightly bigger than those of ordinary people, but it looked humble compared to the residences of other former prime ministers, some of them called “palaces.” Miki started his political career before the last war and underwent many hardships. But he came back every time.
Following is a waka poem composed by Michizane Sugawara, a noted scholar and a top court official from the ninth to early 10th centuries, when he was transported under guard to a place of exile:

There are many paths here and there on this hill,
but no one tells me “This way please. This road leads you back to the capital.”
(A personal translation)

Michizane, then deputy prime minister of the Emperor's government, lost a power struggle to be exiled. He could never come back and he died in exile.
One of Miki’s tough times came in 1942 when he managed to win a seat in parliament in an election monopolized by a body affiliated with the then Hideki Tojo government. Miki’s influence grew gradually in the postwar period, but his power base in the LDP was fragile until he came to power. He was handpicked to be prime minister by a caretaker of the LDP in a political vacuum after Kakuei Tanaka resigned in disgrace. His job was to salvage and clean up the LDP. It is far from certain if any salvager will emerge for the party after its expected defeat in the forthcoming election. But if a matured democracy with two equally influential parties is to be established in Japan, the LDP should be asked to train itself as a healthy opposition party from now on.

Deep division continues on how to mourn Japan’s war dead

August 20, 2009

Deep division continues on how to mourn Japan’s war dead


Japanese have two utterly different war-related facilities to visit on Aug. 15, the anniversary of the end of the last war. They are Yasukuni Shrine, the 140-year-old Shinto shrine, and the Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery, both located in Tokyo’s Kudan area, just north of the Emperor’s Palace. The shrine was run by the government until 1945 when Japan surrendered to the Allied Nations. Yasukuni attracts not only World War II veterans and bereaved families but also those belonging to nationalist and right-wing groups on the war anniversary every year. Nationalists were handing out fliers and soliciting signatures for their campaigns at various places around the shrine last week. The shrine was also surrounded by dozens of large vehicles with loudspeakers mobilized by right-wing groups, and hundreds of police officers were on the alert in the area. Many media people, Japanese and foreign, were also on hand to see what should happen among people at the shrine.
The shrine, dedicated to Japan's war dead since the Meiji Era, has been the pivot of decades-long debates on how Japan should mourn those who lost their lives in the last war. The situation has become more complex since Yasukuni enshrined in the late 1970s the 14 wartime leaders, including former Premier Hideki Tojo, who were tried as class-A war criminals in the Far East Military Tribunal. Japan’s Asian neighbors, such as China, have criticized Japanese political leaders’ official visits to Yasukuni as attempts to justify Japan’s wartime acts.
One foreign journalist, accompanied by an interpreter, was having a chat with a nationalist group member, who angrily asked him, “Do you know that Taiwanese guys made a fuss at this shrine the other day, at the place where the souls of Japanese soldiers rest?”
A group of former Navy pilots was posing for pictures beside the main building of the shrine after paying homage to their dead comrades. In their 80s, they were wearing a blue shirt with an anchor-and-cherry blossom emblem for their former squadron. They were trained at the Yokaren Imperial Navy school toward the end of the war. “The war came to an end when we were waiting for an order at the Atsugi airfield (southwest of Tokyo). We had already been unable to fly,” one member told the author.
The Chidorigafuchi Cemetery, a nonreligious facility built in 1959, attracted people hoping to mourn the war dead in a calm atmosphere. The facility is dedicated to about 2.4 million unknown Japanese soldiers and civilians who lost their lives outside of Japan in the war.

When I go on the sea, I see soaked bodies floating.
When I go on the hills, I see grass-covered bodies lying.
I am ready to die before the Emperor. I will never look back.
(A personal translation)

This is a part of a long poem composed by Otomo Yakamochi, an eighth century poet who contributed to compiling Japan’s oldest waka poem anthology Manyoshu. The passage became a song with a solemn, beautiful melody written by a Tokyo Music School professor. The song was played at every occasion when Japanese soldiers were sent to the front in the Pacific war.
At Chidorigafuchi, an old man was looking at a monument along a path leading to the cemetery. “Many Japanese soldiers died on foreign soil, at battlefields far from Japan. They did not die because of fighting. They died because of the lack of supplies. Japan really went on a reckless war,” he whispered.
Political party leaders have taken to the streets for campaigns toward the Aug. 30 election of the House of Representatives. The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan stands a good chance of dislocating the Liberal Democratic Party as the ruling party. The DPJ has made clear that it will propose building a new nonreligious national facility dedicated to the victims of World War II, abiding by the constitutional division of government and religion. The use of public money by a local government for offerings to Yasukuni Shrine was ruled unconstitutional by Japan's top court in 1997. Yasukuni is also faced with requests from Buddhist and Christian bereaved families and bereaved families of "Japanese soldiers" from Korea and Taiwan as former Japanese colonies that the names of their kins be removed from the shrine. Meanwhile, there are moves in the right-wing camp to rewrite Japan’s war-related history from a nationalist point of view. Calls are also growing for Japan to review its defense-oriented military capability amid an increasing nuclear threat from North Korea.
It is far from certain if and when Japan will be able to overcome the longstanding deep rift over the remnants of the last war.

Bon summer festival season starts in Japan

August 10, 2009

Bon summer festival season starts in Japan


The “bon” festival kid dancing contest started after sunset at a breezy small square in a shopping mall in a city near Tokyo, attracting about 50 summer kimono-clad children. The prize was to be awarded to the cutest dancers by a three-man judge. But it showered before the judges announce the result. The shower came so quickly that the kids, their parents and many viewers got wet before running under the eaves. But children looked happy and satisfied with the dance.
A series of bon festival events began across Japan early this month. The long “tsuyu” rainy season is over, and hot summer has come. The bon festival, a Buddhist festival, is dedicated to the dead, but Japanese have fun with related events, dispelling the heat of summer.
Japanese have developed items that can create coolness not only physically but also visually and auditorily to overcome the hot summer. They include “uchiwa” and “sensu” portable fans and “furin” small hanging wind bells. Set fireworks decorate the night sky in riverside and lakeside summer festivals.
The twitters of little cuckoos, a migratory bird that comes to Japan early summer, heralded the arrival of summer for people in the Heian Period 10 to 11 centuries ago.

A little cuckoo is singing just out there, reluctant to pass my house.
Because it is dark? or because he has got lost?
(A personal translation)

This is a waka poem composed by Ki Tomonori, a noted poet in the Heian Period, and included in the Kokinwakashu waka poem anthology compiled in the 10th century. People in the period looked forward to hearing the season’s first twitters of little cuckoos. People sometimes stayed awake throughout the night to hear their voices.
Japanese in the ancient times felt the nature just beside them. They knew how to live with the nature and how to be environmentally friendly. Japanese people are coming to realize today that they have to be more environmentally friendly, sometime at the expense of becoming inconvenient. In a recent government survey, 53 pct of the polled said Japan should switch to a recycling-oriented society even if its standard of living declines. More than 60 pct replied they use refillable products to reduce waste and refrain from free plastic shopping bags at stores.
“Uchimizu,” the water spraying custom, has been promoted as an effective means of cooling places around houses. A device called “suikinkutsu,” created by an Edo Period gardener, is drawing renewed attention. As the term literally means “water harp,” the device is designed to enjoy the echoing sound of water trickling down at the bottom of the basin buried underground.
Japan is a resources-poor country. The so-called three Rs campaign is going on to encourage the people to “reduce, reuse and recycle.”
More people may go out to enjoy evening breezes, rather than cooling in air conditioning at home. Summer bon festivals not only help people to stand the heat of summer but also give them “peripheral” effects including making friends and knowing more about the community. Bon festival events are hoped to be maintained for the coming generation because they have to be on good terms with the environment.

Japanese enjoy longest total solar eclipse this century

July 28, 2009

Japanese enjoy longest total solar eclipse this century

Iwojima Island, a World War II battlefield in the western Pacific, drew public attention across Japan last week as it hosted a spectacular astronomical event—a total solar eclipse. The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan provided images of the jet-black sun telecast from a ship near the island. NHK, Japan’s prestigious public TV network, continued to air images of the phenomenon from its staff on the island and aboard a ship in the waters. The total eclipse continued for about six minutes and a half before noon Japan time on July 22. Total eclipses this long will not occur any more this century, astronomers say. (The photo above was taken from NHK TV; an overlapped image of the sun completely hidden by the shadow of the moon and a sunset-like scene which appeared on the horizon in the surrounding area.)
Iwojima Island, located about 1,200 kilometers south of Tokyo, is one of the southernmost territories of Japan. Fighting between Japanese and U.S. forces on the volcanic island claimed tens of thousands of lives on both sides.
The Japanese media kept showing many Japanese who got excited about the unusual event and followed the so-called solar eclipse hunters. The latest total eclipse was the first phenomenon of its kind observed in Japan in 46 years. The total eclipse band started in India, cut across China and moved on to small islands south of the Japanese Archipelago, including Iwojima. Islands which are nearer to the main islands of Japan were covered by thick clouds or hit by rain. As a result, Iwojima unexpectedly came into the spotlight as a good place to observe the total eclipse. Partial eclipse was observed at many places on the main islands of Japan.

The previous total eclipse in Japan occurred in 1963 when Japanese people had only started getting back on their feet from the ruins of the last war. This time, Japanese adults and children equally enjoyed the solar eclipse, while experts welcomed the event as a chance to make children more interested in the sciences. Some people thought the supernatural event was a good, epoch-making opportunity to restart their life.

Japan’s oldest confirmed total eclipse occurred in the year of 975 in the middle of the Heian period. The Imperial Court then announced a general amnesty. The astronomical event was generally viewed as an ominous sign in Japan until early last century. In a 1950 short novel written by Yukio Mishima, one of the greatest modern Japanese writers, the heroin recalls that she got married with her husband, who lost his eyesight due to injuries in the war, while knowing a solar eclipse would occur the following day. Her parents disliked the date for their wedding and warned “You’ll bring on bad luck.”

The unpopular Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso dissolved the House of Representatives for a snap general election while knowing the total eclipse would occur the following day. The odds are against him, but Aso and his Liberal Democratic Party had no other choice. They had no time to enjoy the solar eclipse, either. They have to fight for a showdown with the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan throughout this summer.

Dark side of pet boom in Japan

July 16, 2009

Dark side of pet boom in Japan

My routine starts with the six-month-old Boston terrier on weekdays. I take the cat-like dog out for a walk for half an hour, sometimes longer, in the neighborhood. His friends include a four-year-old female bulldog. He shits twice, and I take it home and dispose of it. My wife and I sometimes take him to the beach, which can be reached with a 15-minute bike ride. I always tell him in my heart, “You were really lucky, weren’t you? You were luckier than other dogs.”
One can see pet shops with newly born dogs and cats in small display cages at almost every corner of major cities. The pet boom comes at a time when an increasing number of Japanese people want to have something to heal themselves amid strong stress in their daily life.

I make you my pet, because I hope you may be a means of remembering her, my unhappy love. For what are you crying this way?
(A personal translation)

This is a poem made by a young noble about his one-sided love with a princess in the Tale of Genji, a long novel of the early 11th century around the peak of the Heian Period. The novel fields a “very small, pretty Chinese cat” in an episode involving the two figures and the husband of the princess, Genji, who is the main character of the saga.

Kashiwagi, the young man, was invited to see an event at Genji’s lavish mansion one day and happened to have a glimpse of the princess standing behind a blind when a cat darted out from behind the blind and became entangled with its cord, lifting the blind and revealing the princess and her women inside. Charmed by her beauty, Kashiwagi unsuccessfully tried to approach her again. Hoping to obtain the cat instead, he persuaded the crown prince to seek the cat from the princess, Onna San no Miya, who is his younger sister. Kashiwagi, the intendant of the right gate watch, then succeeded in obtaining the cat from the crown prince.
The pet boom in today’s Japan has a dark side in which more than 300,000 dogs and cats are “disposed of” every year. Dogs and cats deserted by owners are collected at “animal protection centers” established by local governments. The collected pets have a week to wait for new owners in what they call “dream boxes” at the facilities. If nobody appears, death by gassing waits for them. The number of pets killed at these facilities has been declining in recent years. Animal Rights Center Japan and other related organizations are on campaigns to reduce the number to zero, but there are many hurdles to clear toward achieving the goal.

ARC, a 22-year-old nonprofit organization, set up a booth at a community fair in Kamakura, south of Tokyo, in July, trying to enhance the public awareness of various animal abuses. ARC blames breeders and pet shops and their money-oriented business for the continued killings of dogs and cats. But irresponsible owners also prevent the situation from being corrected. Owners should remind themselves that they keep living creatures, not things, experts say. The pet-related problems must be addressed as a matter which concerns the whole of society, not just persons interested, they say.
Kashiwagi always kept the cat around him and a few years later, he finally obtained an opportunity to sleep with the princess. This was against her will, but she gave birth to a boy baby before Kashiwagi dies. The novel gives no hint about the fate of the cat after his death.

Star Festival gives Japanese opportunity to dwell on future

July 6, 2009

Star Festival gives Japanese opportunity to dwell on future

The “tanabata” Star Festival amounts to an opportunity for Japanese people to dwell on their future. People put up branches of bamboo with their wishes written on small pieces of paper in front of their houses. Separately, tanabata summer festivals take place in major cities, attracting hundreds of thousands or millions of visitors. People enjoy strolling through streets lined by tall bamboo poles with decorated lanterns and streamers hanging
The star festival, observed in early July or early August in Japan, originally comes from a legend in the ancient China in which the star of the weaver and the star of the cowherd, known as Vega and Altair in the West, make a rendezvous only once a year over the Milky Way. Japanese people make wishes to the heaven while thinking of the long separated heavenly couple.

In Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, which hosts one of the biggest tanabata festivals, organizers, mainly local shop owners, set up several stands to accept wishes from visitors with a 100-yen donation. Their wishes, written on tanzaku long strips of paper, will be dedicated to a shrine after the end of the festival. A father wrote “Peace continue on my family,” while a young woman wrote “A good partner appear before me.”
Most tanabata festivals form part of serious efforts by the local business community to prop up their declining economy. A Japanese-style restaurant in Hiratsuka built its own bamboo decoration, inviting school pupils to hang tanzaku strips with their wishes on the bamboo leaves. “I would like to cross Amanogawa, just one time,” read the wish of an 11-year-old girl. The Milky Way is called Amanogawa, or Heavenly River in Japan. A waka poem composed by an unknown woman and included in the Kokinwakashu poem anthology of the early 10th century says:

Ferryman on the Heavenly River!
Please hide your rudder when my lover has arrived here
so that he may not return to the other side.
(A personal translation)

About 34,000 pieces of tanzaku paper with visitors’ wishes were collected in the tanabata festival in Hiratsuka last year. “We expect more wishes to be collected and dedicated this year,” said a young man in charge of the campaign. Organizers and visitors equally look more serious this year as Japan is struggling amid the global recession.
In July 2008,, the then Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda hosted an annual leaders’ meeting of eight major countries at a lakeside resort in northern Japan. He asked participants and their spouses to write their wishes on tanzaku strips of paper for a social function at the start of the event. “Our future be opened up with the wisdom of mankind,” Fukuda wrote. He stepped down two months later, however.

This year’s meeting comes at a time when the political climate is stormy for some participants, including those from Britain and Japan. Nobody knows what their wishes should be to overcome tough challenges facing the world.

Silk tree flowers in bloom at garden related to Empress Michiko’s lullaby

June 26, 2009

Silk tree flowers in bloom at garden related to Empress Michiko’s lullaby


A silk tree, or nemu-no-ki in Japanese, blooms from late June to July at the small Tokyo garden named after a lullaby written by Empress Michiko. This overlaps the tsuyu rainy season in Japan. The silk tree, with filament-like pink and white flowers, was on hand to receive a group of about 10 tourists on an occasionally sunny day in late June. (Readers may be advised to see the April 28 post on this blog site.)
The garden was opened at a site formerly occupied by the residence of the parents of Empress Michiko in 2004. “You can see the silk tree right up there. Tha tree is the same as the tree which was sung in Nemu-No-Ki-No-Komoriuta (Silk Tree Lullaby), the song based on the lyrics written by Her Majesty.” the guide of the group said. Silk tree flowers have a good fragrance. “The flowers lie scattered there. You can pick up some,” the guide said.
The lyrics of the lullaby were written by the Empress when she was a high school student. The song was published after she got married to Emperor Akihito, then the crown prince, in 1959. The song was quite different from old Japanese lullabies, and its warm melody and words quickly became popular.
Most of the famous old Japanese lullabies were songs sung by baby sitters in dialect. Baby sitting used to be a job mainly for small girls from poor villages. Separated from their families, they sang of their loneliness and the hardness of their jobs.
The Lullaby of Itsuki, one of the best known lullabies in Japan, was originally sung in a certain area in Kumamoto Prefecture, southwestern Japan. The song was collected by a local school teacher in the 1930s and became widely known in the 1950s. The most commonly heard version of the song follows:

/I’ll have to be here until the Bon, but no more after the Bon.
If the Bon comes early, I can be home early.
/I’m a poor person, but they’re rich.
Rich people with good sash and good clothes.
/If I died, who would cry for me?
Cicadas in a pine tree mountain in the back would cry for me.
/If I died, bury me by the roadside.
Passers-by would serve flowers for me.
/What flower to serve? Camellias readily available there.
Water would be obtained from the heaven.
(A personal translation)

There exist old lullabies in the true sense of the term, nursery songs sung by mothers, but the baby sitters’ songs are more widely known in Japan. Their sad songs have been seen as a negative trace of the Japanese history and culture and failed to be studied properly. But researchers stress the need to preserve a wide range of indigenous lullabies as part of Japan’s cultural assets before they disappear.
An NPO calls for taking a fresh look at the importance and effectiveness of lullabies for child-raising. It is said that Japanese mothers sing lullabies for their kids less frequently than ever and some mothers know few to sing.
Japanese mothers should not be totally accused for their unwillingness to sing lullabies. The situation is becoming harder for families with small children in Japan. Their income is on the decline amid the current global economic plight. The situation is even worse for fatherless families. A bill for reinstating a special welfare benefit for single-parent households is before the parliament, but it is far from certain if it will be enacted.
Mothers who raise their children singlehandedly are apparently too busy and tired to sing songs for their children. Their situation must be improved to give them a solid base for living and time to sing lullabies for their kids.

An author’s note: The Bon summer festival, usually observed in mid-August, is one of the happiest holiday seasons in Japan, especially for people like boys and girls sent as servants for unpaid domestic service, a practice seen until early last century. Servants were allowed to return home on a once-a-year leave in the Bon season.