Remorse, Heroism, and Shame

April 27, 2004 | Laughing Knees | 10 Comments 

Last night, while tak­ing a break from de­sign work, I turned on the TV to watch the news. Japan’s prime min­is­ter Koizumi had just stepped into a press con­fer­ence to make a state­ment about the re­cently re­turned hostages. In essence this is what he said:

“Well, it’s good to know that they have re­turned home safely. Now I think they should take the time to re­flect on the great ef­fort that went into [sav­ing] them.”

It is a seem­ingly in­no­cent state­ment, but ac­cord­ing to the mores of Japan­ese un­der­state­ment Koizumi was ac­tu­ally pub­licly rep­ri­mand­ing the hostages for caus­ing both “mei­waku” (be­ing in­con­sid­er­ate of oth­ers… some­thing that car­ries great weight in Japan) and “haji” (shame, loss of face) to the world. That he took the time to ac­tu­ally say this on TV means great hu­mil­i­a­tion for the hostages, both pub­licly and pri­vately. For three in­di­vid­u­als to have caused an en­tire na­tion un­used to pub­lic dis­plays of emo­tion to stum­ble into a heated de­bate about the le­git­i­macy of the present government’s poli­cies and ac­tions, nearly top­pling Koizumi from power, leaves a bit­ter af­ter­taste for many peo­ple here, and the con­se­quences for the hostages has been harsh. Ac­cord­ing to the ther­a­pist who ex­am­ined them upon re­turn, their stress lev­els now are higher than when they were be­ing threat­ened with death in Iraq. In ad­di­tion, each hostage must pay ¥600,000 (nearly $6,000) in repa­ra­tions to the government.

Koizumi wasn’t go­ing to let go of this op­por­tu­nity to pun­ish those who nearly cost him his lead­er­ship of the country.

I’ve been fum­ing about the back­lash against the hostages since I first started hear­ing the news bash them. (I first got wind of this news through Setsunai’s post at On Gaien Hi­gashi Dori) But since it was only on the news that I heard all this, I de­cided to wait and talk to some peo­ple. In my Eng­lish class this evening I asked my group of four stu­dents what they thought. I was shocked that ba­si­cally they all agreed with Koizumi and the press, say­ing that all the hostages had been warned be­fore they left for Iraq that Iraq was dan­ger­ous. The stu­dents felt that the hostages had only thought about them­selves and had dis­re­garded the feel­ings of their fam­i­lies, the awk­ward po­si­tions that they had put Japan­ese diplo­mats and politi­cians in, and the rea­sons why the Self De­fense Force had been sent to Iraq in the first place. Most of them agreed that the in­ten­tions of the hostages were in them­selves good, but misguided.

I pointed out to them that Koizumi was the one who had put Japan­ese peo­ple in Iraq in dan­ger by pre­sum­ing to send the Self De­fense Force in the first place (against the wishes of nearly 90% of the pop­u­lace) and thus an­ger­ing the Iraqi peo­ple. I rea­soned that the one who had been in­con­sid­er­ate and caused loss of face for the Japan­ese peo­ple was there­fore Koizumi, not the hostages.

My stu­dents met me halfway and I tried to meet them halfway, too, but I still can­not quite fathom the rea­son­ing. I feel it re­flects much of the Japan­ese re­luc­tance to truly take re­spon­si­bil­ity for any­thing or any one other than them­selves, of­ten in pub­lic here, and more than of­ten on the in­ter­na­tional stage. To me the shame they pro­fess re­flects a kind of self­ish­ness stoked by a con­stant de­sire to al­ways look good in the eyes of oth­ers, lash­ing out when their im­age is dis­torted. It is the same thing that caused the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment to refuse the en­try of the Doc­tors With­out Fron­tiers res­cue or­ga­ni­za­tion dur­ing the Kobe earth­quake and the help of the Amer­i­can air force when a com­mer­cial jet crashed in a re­mote area of the moun­tains about ten years ago.

Su­san of A Line Cast, A Hope Fol­lowed wrote me this e-​​mail:

It seems the news of the treat­ment of the hostages has gone world­wide. And with­out un­der­stand­ing how Japan­ese so­ci­ety works their treat­ment must seem bizarre and cruel. I’m not sure it is out of cru­elty that the Japan­ese are re­act­ing this way… in great part it is a re­ac­tion to hav­ing been ex­posed so starkly in the in­ter­na­tional me­dia (Japan­ese are a peo­ple who in gen­eral shun the lime­light) and to the sense of anger that peo­ple any­where of­ten feel af­ter hav­ing been greatly fright­ened. If the hostages had ac­tu­ally been killed, I don’t know what would have hap­pened in Japan. Some­thing un­spo­ken would have snapped.

I’m sure the hostages will be fine, es­pe­cially af­ter the rav­en­ous Japan­ese me­dia set­tles down.

There have been other re­ac­tions to the wars right now that have both­ered me, too. Denny, from Book of Life and Beth at Cas­san­dra Pages, both of whom I re­spect deeply and whose blogs I read re­li­giously every day, re­cently wrote about the death of the Amer­i­can sol­dier Pat Tilman. I very much sym­pa­thize with and un­der­stand the sor­row and pain peo­ple feel over his death. Like Beth I protest against war not be­cause of the ridicu­lous pol­i­tics in­volved but be­cause peo­ple are killed. Whether those peo­ple are sol­diers or lit­tle chil­dren or ar­ro­gant lead­ers, every death that war brings is a sor­row that can­not be un­made. And Pat Tilman’s death is an ut­ter tragedy.

But so many of the sto­ries from the news are cloaked, as al­ways, in the myths of “hero­ism” and “do­ing great deeds for coun­try” and the “self­less­ness of the young men and women who serve our coun­try”. I’ve read and reread the words over and over again, try­ing to find in my­self the em­pa­thy for such ab­stract and fer­vent emo­tions, but, per­haps be­cause I am not Amer­i­can, I just can’t look at the photo of Pat Tilman and feel that he is any­thing other than a young man whose death will cause suf­fer­ing for those who knew him and fur­ther paints the pic­ture of the war in Afghanistan as noth­ing more than an ar­ro­gant and empty fi­asco that the Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment has all but for­got­ten. I can­not find it in my­self to see him as a hero. I can­not see it in my­self to see any­one as a “hero”.

Why do we never see pho­tos of the self­less deeds of vol­un­teers who risk their lives to save vic­tims in wars, with­out weapons? Why do we not see pho­tos and hear grief and praise for Pales­tini­ans who blow them­selves up in the name of sav­ing their land from in­vaders? Af­ter all, their slo­gans and songs of pa­tri­o­tism sound ex­actly like the sup­port for Pat Tilman from above. Both are a lit­tle blind, both see vi­o­lence and re­venge and blood­shed as le­git­i­mate means to right­ing a wrong. And nei­ther is aware of how one-​​sided their dogma ap­pears to those who stand out­side their sphere of dialogue.

This Iraq war is go­ing to get worse, much worse, though I wish to mercy that I am wrong. If we don’t all start to in­tro­spect and re­arrange our views of both our­selves and those with whom we share this one lit­tle world, learn to stop go­ing blind at our bor­ders, one day the whole stack of blocks will lose equi­lib­rium. There are those who would say I am an alarmist, that the world is still go­ing in spite of doom say­ers, but al­ready we have had two world wars. I lis­tened to the sto­ries my Ger­man grand­fa­ther and grand­mother told me of what hap­pened. Who’s to say it couldn’t hap­pen again? The re­sem­blance to the ris­ing of the Nazis is chill­ing. But no, WE aren’t like that. WE would never do any­thing so evil. NEVER.

Up­date: The In­de­pen­dant: Japan’s hostages tell how they came home to scorn and shame. It’s a well-​​written ar­ti­cle, though, with its com­par­i­son to Amer­i­can na­tion­al­ism, I think it doesn’t por­tray the gen­eral at­mos­phere here. Few Japan­ese are speak­ing in terms of “sup­port our boys”. They want the troops to come home.

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Serendipity

April 25, 2004 | Laughing Knees | 8 Comments 

Fe­male Oblong-​​Winged Katy­did rest­ing amidst the un­der­brush, White River Junc­tion, Ver­mont, U.S.A., 1989

Spring is ratch­et­ing by (yes, I know it’s not a real word, but it sounded so de­scrip­tive of the oc­ca­sional glimpses I make out of the win­dow… if I was a cam­corder the whole world out­side would pass like time lapse film) out­side my win­dow, not too dif­fer­ent from Rod Taylor’s 1960’s “Time Ma­chine” vi­sions of his world fast for­ward­ing and fast rewind­ing. The two Zelko­vas that I planted two years ago have sprung out into a sur­prise of light green leaves, al­ready wav­ing a me­ter above my head. I peek out the cur­tain be­tween bouts at the com­puter, while hard at work on the last spurt of the ho­tel de­sign project, and lament yet an­other pass­ing of Apollo’s char­iot across the rooftops.

The other parts of the con­nec­tion to sun­light and green things and air liv­ing in free­dom come to me in lit­tle gifts of pas­sage while on the trains, go­ing to and from work. I stand on the train plat­form of the sta­tion near my home, look­ing over a tree nurs­ery of flow­er­ing dog­woods and take a few mo­ments to hear the last rays of the sun tin­kling into the cor­ners of my eyes, seep­ing in like warm honey. Or I sit trans­fixed, star­ing across the breadth of the train car at the hard laven­der sky build­ing up mus­cles among the clouds. When no one ob­jects I pull open the win­dow be­hind me and close my eyes as balmy fin­gers of wind buf­fet my face; at times I in­hale deeply, seek­ing traces of sweet­ness in the night air. Or bet­ter yet, the liv­ing room slid­ing door rat­tles open to my hand and I step out into the dawn light, mist still screen­ing the neigh­bor­ing gar­den, while a flock of one of my fa­vorite birds, the Azure Winged Mag­pie (Cyanopica cyana) (Pica, a very in­ter­est­ing cu­rios­ity about this species is that they live only here in Japan, parts of south­east­ern China, west­ern Spain (in the Ex­tremadura), and in Por­tu­gal. ) keep watch in the Mag­no­lia, their long, azure tails point­ing down be­neath the branches.

Per­haps the most de­light­ful mo­ment oc­curred four nights ago on my way home on the train from a long day of morn­ing at the doc­tor, af­ter­noon at a de­sign re­view meet­ing, and evening of teach­ing Eng­lish… I was so tired that the mo­ment I sat down I drifted off into sleep. For some rea­son I woke one sta­tion be­fore my stop and opened my eyes straight into the face of a young woman star­ing at my… knee. My knee? My eyes fol­lowed the line of her gaze and I nearly jumped out of my seat: there, do­ing a pretty lit­tle pirou­ette, she was, a fe­male katy­did (Holochlora japon­ica), green as green be. That was not some­thing I had ex­pected to see on a late night train, a chilly spring evening, while half sub­dued from nature-​​deprivation. And yet there she was, say­ing hello, wav­ing at me with her an­ten­nae. I thought she was de­light­ful, though I think the woman star­ing at me must have felt she was wit­ness­ing the com­ing of the body snatch­ers. I reached out to grab the katy­did, and she hopped to the floor. In front of every­one and just not car­ing what any­one thought, I leaned down and caught her, bring­ing her to the win­dow, which I promptly pulled open. I stood with the wind blow­ing in, my back to every­one on the train and waited un­til the train passed through an open area where the katy­did would be sure to find the com­pany of leaves. I tossed her into the night, wish­ing her well, and some­how wish­ing I was toss­ing my­self out with her. She dis­ap­peared into the dark­ness and I closed the win­dow, sat down, and closed my eyes again.

Na­ture is not some for­eign dream­world that only the ini­ti­ated can at­tend. It is all around us, every day, wild and free and vi­tal. It may be harder to rec­og­nize it in this con­crete lab ex­per­i­ment we’ve de­cided to call “good liv­ing”, but if you peer be­tween the cracks the denizens are mov­ing, go­ing about their own lives. And oc­ca­sion­ally they look up and see us, and when you’re lucky, they wave hello.

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Jogging Memories

April 17, 2004 | Laughing Knees | 14 Comments 

More than a week ago, while deeply im­mersed in my work, an e-​​mail floated to the sur­face of my e-​​mail client that had me make a dou­ble take. I thought the e-​​mail was spam at first, but when I saw the name of the sender I stopped every­thing I was do­ing and opened it: it was a let­ter from a for­mer high school class­mate who was try­ing to con­tact as many peo­ple from our alma mater as he could. At­tached to the mes­sage was a photo of six of the class­mates, din­ing at a school re­union bar­be­cue and look­ing older and a lit­tle more dog eared.

I write about this be­cause I hadn’t been in touch with any of these peo­ple since I grad­u­ated in 1978, all ex­cept one, and he and I have had a falling out. For me high school here in Japan left a lot to be de­sired; be­ing a skinny, some­times overly sen­si­tive guy in a boy’s school, look­ing like a Mex­i­can or In­dian among ma­cho white Amer­i­cans, Aus­tralians, Brits, and hierarchy-​​minded Japan­ese, in a school where the en­tire cur­ricu­lum was based on an Amer­i­can point of view (though the school, run by Cana­dian Je­suit broth­ers, boasted to the world 52 dif­fer­ent na­tions rep­re­sented… but just imag­ine: 7 years study­ing Amer­i­can his­tory, only one year study­ing world his­tory.. some­thing was quite warped) and where if you didn’t hail from the dom­i­nat­ing coun­tries and cul­tures you ended up be­ing an out­cast, one of the Oth­ers who sat at sep­a­rate ta­bles in the lunch room and who re­ceived only sup­port­ing roles in the dis­tinctly Euro-​​American bi­ased mu­si­cals… all this left me deeply sus­pi­cious and crit­i­cal of white Amer­i­cans, of elit­ists who be­lieve that those with less money ex­ist to serve them, and of Christianity.

I say Chris­tian­ity be­cause of the in­tol­er­ance the broth­ers showed for peo­ple with dif­fer­ent faiths or be­liefs (some­thing I could never un­der­stand in an in­ter­na­tional school) and for the ram­pant mo­lest­ing that went on around the school, usu­ally of the el­e­men­tary school boys, in­clud­ing me and my brother, but also of some of the vis­it­ing girls who took some sci­ence classes and ten­nis lessons from the broth­ers. One time, my teacher dis­missed the en­tire class when I raised the ques­tion of abor­tion to a car­di­nal vis­it­ing from Rome. I have never heard any­one, ex­cept my brother, men­tion these aw­ful acts… even to­day it is a no-​​no that prob­a­bly no one will ever ac­knowl­edge. I have no idea if the mo­lest­ing still goes on.

All my high school years I felt some­thing dirty liv­ing in­side me. I felt I was an­gry all the time, at a world try­ing to snuff my spirit out. My es­cape to Amer­ica, to the Uni­ver­sity of Ore­gon was like a breath of fresh, clean air… the new peo­ple I met were noth­ing like the elit­ists I had en­dured back in Japan, and while there were al­ways those peo­ple who can­not seem to help but act like in­fants, the ex­pe­ri­ence of col­lege was lib­er­at­ing. It opened my mind, ex­posed me to char­ac­ters who chal­lenged me to grow and find the ker­nel of strength in my­self, and opened an in­ter­ac­tive re­la­tion­ship with a place around me that didn’t feel cor­ro­sive. I even be­gan to en­joy my body, not feel­ing that my skin­ni­ness and dark com­plex­ion made me un­at­trac­tive or un­de­sir­able. Best of all I made a ring of won­der­ful, sup­port­ive, and fun-​​loving friends, peo­ple I will cher­ish all my life.

Years have passed and, like any­one, I’ve long since grown out of that un­gainly high school boy. Or so I thought. When I peered at the e-​​mail from my for­mer class­mate a lot of old mem­o­ries came flood­ing back. All the bul­ly­ing and ex­clu­sions and feel­ing in­fe­rior. To have these feel­ings poke their ugly lit­tle heads out from un­der the hood is trou­bling, to say the least. I have of­ten won­dered if I could face these boys again and hold my ground, with­out get­ting all awk­ward and tongue-​​tied the way I used to. I thought I had grown into some­one more con­fi­dent, but now I’m not so sure. What is it that trig­gers all the child­hood fears?

Partly to coun­ter­act this sense of los­ing ground, I de­cided to re­ply to all the re­cip­i­ents of the e-​​mail, to hail them and try to over­come so much of the old re­sent­ments. Send­ing the let­ter made me ner­vous enough to make my palms sweat, but I did it. I like to try to face old ghosts and make friends with them.

Only one per­son replied, as flip­pant as I re­mem­ber. No one else. And I don’t ex­pect them to. In a way it con­firms my high school sus­pi­cions. All week I have been ask­ing my­self why I would sub­ject my­self to fur­ther ne­glect and in­vis­i­bil­ity. I haven’t needed these peo­ple for 26 years. Why would I need them now?

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More Stupid History

April 15, 2004 | Laughing Knees | 3 Comments 

Um, wasn’t the whole Iraq thingie sup­posed to re­volve around a mous­ta­chioed forget-​​me-​​not? I don’t get launch­ing an at­tack on the Iraqi peo­ple. Can any­one ex­plain this to me?

I think I might cut my hair. Saw a photo of His Royal High­ness this evening and had to hold a plate in front of my head so no one be­hind the com­puter screen could see how much my own hair­style re­sem­bled his. What do you think? Buzz cut? With desert gog­gle tan lines?

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