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Today is the 60th anniversary of Japan's
surrender, ending the terror that was the War in the Pacific, as
it's usually called here. During my fourteen years in Japan,
I've travelled quite extensively and have talked with many
people here about the war, whenever I could do so tactfully.
Almost all Japanese I've talked with are glad that Japan lost
the war, since it paved the way for equalization of Japanese
society and real democracy. My mother-in-law especially reveres
General MacArthur for his efforts to equalize Japan, taking land
away from large estates and "zaibatsu" business
cartels and distributing it to those who had no land. Sometimes
these conversations can get a little weird -- in rural Toyama
Prefecture, I was eating with the family of a friend when their
(somewhat inebriated) uncle started sobbing, "Why did giant
America bring war to little Japan?" The question of why a
country with the land area of Nebraska and no meaningful natural
resources thought they could take on the world and somehow win
is a complex one -- what was Japan thinking? I think part of the
answer lies in what's known as "seiyo suhai shugi"
(literally meaning "worship of the West-ism"). Ever
since Japan began modernizing in the 1870s, it's looked with
great respect at the powers of Europe and America, especially
the grand British Empire, another tiny island nation that
managed to exert influence over the entire world. Japan wanted
more than anything to become a country that could stand
shoulder-to-shoulder with those great nations, and I believe its
terrible march to war and imperialism was a case of
"imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" taken to
its most horrific extreme.
We're in the middle of the Japanese Obon
("oh bone") holidays, something similar to
Thanksgiving in the U.S., a time when millions of people return
home to their "inaka" (ee-NAH-KAH, their rural
hometowns) to see loved ones and pay visits to the graves of
family members who have passed away. Tokyo becomes a ghost town
during this season, with almost every company closed for
business. Unfortunately, anyone trying to use the roads during
this special holiday season has to plan around the massive
"U-turn," when everyone turns around to head back into
Tokyo. Already there are traffic jams of up to 40 km snaking
back to the capital, and today is only the second to last day of
Obon -- it will be three times as bad tomorrow.
We've got more happy news around here: Yasu's
daughter was born this morning, a strong and healthy baby girl
named Riko-chan. In Japan, babies are usually born in small
"maternity hospitals" that only deliver babies, rather
than maternity wards of large hospitals. There are several of
these clinics in each city, and competition between them can be
quite fierce -- the place where our children were born lured us
with full-course French cuisine for my wife while she was
recuperating, and a complimentary video featuring Ultrasound
footage of each of our kids as they grew in utero, and of us
holding them after they were born. Japan has a lot of strong
beliefs about childbirth -- I might use the word
"superstitions" but my wife would get mad at me. For
example, for the first week after giving birth a woman is not
allowed to touch water at all or it will make her blood boil (or
something like that). I remember my mother-in-law bustling
around the house making sure the dishes and laundry were done so
my wife didn't have to worry herself with it.
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