Category Archive: Japan

US Open Champion Naomi Osaka: A Most Charming and Popular Japanese


Naomi Osaka

Naomi Osaka is the 2018 US Open champion, the first Japanese to win a grand slam tennis championship, let alone make it to the semi-finals of one.

And as most sports fans know today, her victory was most bittersweet. Osaka defeated her idol, Serena Williams, who had a monumental emotional meltdown in the second set of the Open finals. Engaging in a battle of wills, Williams and umpire, Carlos Ramos, turned the last 30 minutes of the match into an emotionally charged, penalty-filled drama which helped determine the final outcome.

What should have been the happiest moment in the 20-year-old’s career was instead rendered unexpectedly painful.

Naomi Osaka was crowned champion, after a display of dominant tennis, but thanks to the rain of boos from the New York crowd who sided with Williams, Osaka could only weep for playing a role in the humiliation of her hero. She initially believed the crowd was booing her, which is heartbreaking to think about.

In answer to the question about her dream to play in a finals match against Serena, she replied “I’m going to sort of differ from your question. I’m sorry. I know everyone was cheering for her. I’m sorry it had to end like this.” As soon as Osaka said that, you could hear the crowd groaning in regret for their boos. As the groans turned to cheers, she did something so very Japanese, simply thanking the audience for being there. “I just want to say thank you for watching the match. Thank you.”

With those last two words, she nodded her head in a bow, like so many Japanese do unconsciously every day.

Naomi Osaka, the daughter of a Japanese mother and a Haitian father, does not at first glance appear Japanese. And it is not uncommon for children of mixed race to stick out uncomfortably in Japanese society, sometimes bullied for appearing different.

But in that moment, I suspect many Japanese who watched Osaka’s body language closely, recognized her as their own. Yomiuri, which owns the largest newspaper in Japan, called Osaka a “new heroine that Japan is proud of.”

Terebi Asahi Live_Naomi Osaka
Terebi Asahi Live, September 13, 2018

In the days after Osaka’s US Open championship victory, the Japanese media was thoroughly won over. On the September 13 broadcast of Terebi Asahi Live, the commentators highlighted the reasons why the Japanese of all ages have fallen in love with Naomi Osaka. Among several reasons, they cited qualities that exemplify Japanese values:

  • The gap between her cool on the court and her awkwardness in front of the press
  • Her caring comments about other players
  • Her shy smile and even her broken Japanese.

Awkward Cool: In her appearance on the highly popular talk show Ellen, she answered the first question about becoming the US Open champion by saying, “I’m sorry but it’s so weird…like you’re a real person?” To which, Ellen Degeneres replied that she was indeed real. As many have noted, she puts on no airs in front of the cameras. What you see is what you get.

Caring Comments: In the awards ceremony of the US Open, Osaka was asked what it felt to be the first Japanese, male or female, to win a grand slam final. Again, deflecting the focus off her, she replied that was her dream to play Serena Williams in a US Open Finals. “I’m really glad I was able to do that,” she said looking at Williams. “I am really grateful I was able to play with you. Thank you.”

And again, the head bow to Serena, something so out of place in New York, and so overtly Japanese in its humility.

Naomi Osaka has charmed the world. And Japan has quite unexpectedly made her their own. Even the Japanese government, one run by the fairly conservative Liberal Democratic Party, has slowly eased into the idea that Japan needs to allow greater inflows of foreign immigrants. The Foreign Minister, Taro Kono, explained on September 13 to the World Economic Forum that Japan has to accept more foreigners due to its aging population and low birth rate, citing Naomi Osaka as a symbol for how Japan can benefit from increased immigration.

It’s good to have diversity,” Kono said. “It’s good to have an open policy.”

Before the US Open, there was some hope that a Japanese would win gold at the 2020 Olympics in front of the home crowd. As Naomi Osaka is the newly crowned Queen of tennis, that hope has blossomed into full-blown expectation.

Continue reading →

The Complex Case of Sae Miyakawa and Power Harassment in Japanese Women’s Gymnastics


Sae Miyakawa

The coach slapped the teenage gymnast’s face and pulled her hair while preparing her for the biggest competitions in her life. On August 15, 2018, gymnastics coach, Yuto Hayami, was banned indefinitely by the Japan Gymnastics Association (JGA) from coaching gymnasts.

And then the fireworks really began.

On August 29, 18-year-old gymnast, Sae Miyakawa, held a press conference emotionally protesting the banning of her coach, saying she was harassed by leaders of the JGA, and that she was threatened with being left off the Tokyo 2020 team. The vault specialist on the women’s gymnastics team at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Miyakawa also said that while her coach, Hayami, did sometimes hit her, she wanted him restored as her coach.

According to the Mainichi, she said at the press conference “I did not ask for such a punishment and I cannot agree with its severity.” The Mainichi also reported that “she may withdraw from consideration for a spot on the national team for the Doha competition as it is difficult to train without Hayami, who has taught her since she was in the fifth grade.”

Not only did she protest the ban, she shot back at the powers that be, stating that on the contrary the head of the women’s national gymnastics team, Chieko Tsukahara, is guilty of power harassment. According to Asahi, the Japan Gymnastics Association established a new system after the Rio Games of identifying the top gymnastics prospects and sending them on special training sessions in Japan and overseas, but that Miyakawa did not take part in the early stages. Miyakawa claims she was pressured to take part in that special training.

At the news conference, she quoted Chieko Tsukahara as telling her, “If you do not take part, the association will not be able to provide cooperation and you will not be able to participate in the Tokyo Olympics.” Miyakawa said she wanted that action to be recognized as power harassment because she “felt it was a form of violence using authority” on the part of Chieko Tsukahara.

Chieko Tsukahara is part of a power couple in the Japan Gymnastics Association. While she heads the women’s gymnastics team, her husband, Mitsuo Tsukahara is a Vice-Chair of the association. He was part of Japan’s legendary run of team gold medals in four straight Olympics from 1964 to 1976, himself a 9-time Olympic medalist. She was a member of the women’s gymnastics team at the 1968 Mexico City Games when Japan came in a strong fourth.

According to NHK, Mitsuo Tsukahara denies the allegation.

The gymnast said that she was questioned by the association’s deputy chief Mitsuo Tsukahara, and his wife Chieko, about her coach’s violence. Miyakawa stated that Chieko Tsukahara, who is in charge of training the women’s national team, told her that she had not grown as a gymnast because her coach was not good enough. Miyakawa said Tsukahara had annoyed and harassed her. Mitsuo Tsukahara has denied the allegations. He said that he and his wife have done nothing wrong, and that they have always tried to put the athletes first.

While the Tsukahara’s say they are providing guidance to gymnasts, panelists of the Sunday morning television program, Terebi Asahi Live on September 2 stated that the Tsukahara’s bear responsibility. They are not only senior people on the National Gymnastics Association, but also the head of one the most prominent gymnastics clubs, The Asahi Mutual Life Insurance Club, one considered a great stepping stone for promising gymnasts. And so with so much influence at the national level and as the head of the most influential clubs, can the Tsukahara’s be exerting undue influence, was the question.

Power Harassment Womens Gymnastics_5
From the television program, Terebi Asahi Live, broadcasted on Sunday, September 2.

Miyakawa asserts that the Tsukahara’s “were trying to separate me from the coach, using the issue of his violence as a pretext, because they wanted to put me in the Asahi Mutual Life Insurance team.” The Tsukahara’s assert they were simply removing a coach who used violence as a coaching tactic, which they said was unacceptable.

For now, it’s he said, she said. But JGA will appoint a three-person panel to investigate the allegations in depth, and then release a report in two weeks.

In the wake of fairly prominent power harassment cases in sports, including one involving four-time gold medal Olympic champion, Kaori Icho, it’s now gymnastics turn to deal with the uncomfortable need to examine its development processes and possibly engage in some soul searching.

Continue reading →

To All Olympians from October, 1964: Did You Get this Kokeshi Doll?

kokeshi 3

I bought mine on eBay. But if you were an athlete or official at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, you should have received this as a gift.

They are called kokeshi, traditional wooden dolls, developed in the northern part of Japan as toys for children. The more artistically expressive they became, the more popular they became for wealthier adults who saw them as ways to show their status, according to this article.

In 1964, a volunteer organization of students called the Japan Junior Sports Club Association, set off on a mission to carve 12,000 kokeshi for distribution to participants of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. One fifth-generation kokeshi artisan, Akihiro Sakurai, was recruited as a student to manufacture these dolls, and he spent a good part of ’64 breathing kokeshi life into wood.

“I’ve been making kokeshi since middle school,” said Sakurai, who is from the Naruko Onsen area of Miyagi Prefecture, a part of Japan where kokeshi craftsmen have plied their trade for centuries. “At the time, there was a kokeshi-making club in school. The club was the centre of my life and the kokeshi makers from our local area came and taught us, and we practiced like mad to make those kokeshi.”

When the athletes received their kokeshi gift, they looked at the base of the doll, and found a rolled up piece of paper inside a cylindrical hole drilled to store the note. This was the message:

October, 1964

To the participants who have come over to this country for the Tokyo Olympic Games.

We, Japan Junior Sports Club Association, give a hearty welcome to you all. Now at this unforgettable time of the Tokyo Olympic Games, we’ve decided to give you a “Kokeshi Doll”, one of our old folk dolls in this country.

This is one of Kokeshi Dolls which were made by the members of Junior Sports Club at Naruko, a branch of J.J.S.A., in Miyagi Prefecture. Naruko is famous for its producing center of Kokeshi Dolls. Well, during this summer vacation, they’ve made these dolls one by one, through the process of cutting woods and pointing them, giving their whole mind to the work.

“Kokeshi Dolls” are wooden ones which have been handed downs since several hundreds years ago in Tohoku district in Japan. They say that these dolls were popular with warriors as ‘mascot’ in expectation of their victory.

This is “Naruko Kokeshi”, which is a well-known toy, enjoyed by the boys and girls all over this country. If we turn its head slowly, it makes a charming sound to hear.

We wish you would accept such a tiny present as a token of a real friendship between you and J.J.S.A.

At this memorable international sports meeting of the Tokyo Olympic Games, we hope you’ll have a good time.

Japan Junior Sports Club Association

(J. J. S. A.)

kokeshi 1

Please note that the 64th All-Japan Naruko Kokeshi Matsuri (Festival) will be held from August 31 to September 2, 2018. Go to this link for details.

To see a video of a kokeshi doll being created, click here.

Continue reading →

Ticket Prices for Tokyo 2020: What’s Hot, What’s Not

Opening Ceremonies Ticket_front
A ticket to the Opening Ceremony of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

Tickets for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics won’t go on sale until the Spring of 2019. But the ticket prices have been announced. And if you want to have one of the best views to the biggest global must-see event of 2020 – the Olympics opening ceremony – then you need to shell out 300,000 yen. But if you just want to take your family of 5 to witness a bit of Olympic history, like the marathon, then all you need is to pay 2,500 yen per person.

Based on the price list released by Tokyo 2020, here’s What’s Hot, and What’s Not for the Tokyo Summer Games:

What’s Hot

  • Opening Ceremony: JPY12,000 ~300,000
  • Closing Ceremony: JPY12,000~220,000
  • Track and Field: JPY3,000~130,000
  • Swimming: JPY5,800~108,000
  • Basketball: JPY3,000~108,000

What’s Not (or rather, What’s More Affordable)

  • Modern Pentathlon: JPY2,500~4,000
  • Shooting: JPY2,500~5,500
  • Marathon: JPY2,500~6,000
  • Weightlifting: JPY2,500~12,800
  • Sailing: JPY3,000~5,500
  • Taekwando: JPY3,000~9,500

Note that there will be affordable tickets at JPY3,000 for such “hot” sports as Track and Field and Basketball. But I imagine those tickets could move quickly.

Another note to note  on the 2020 site: “Tickets prices as of 20 July, 2018. Prices may change based on the Games plan and competition schedule.”

Continue reading →

Buying Tickets for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games: If You’re Living in Japan, Register First and Join the Lottery

Tokyo 2020 Registration Page
The registration process is all in Japanese.

Tickets for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be available from the Spring of 2019.

If you are a resident of Japan, there will be an open lottery from May 9 to 28, 2019 in which you can win a chance at tickets before they are made available to the rest of the world. This apparently is not normal practice as other Olympics have made tickets available to people around the world at the same time.

For more information on this lottery process, please see this Tokyo2020 site in English.  The video, with English subtitles, below highlights this process and timeline.

The first step for residents of Japan is to get your Tokyo2020 ID. If you can’t read Japanese, find a friend who can. If you can, and you have a physical address in Japan, here are the steps:

  1. Go to this site: https://id.tokyo2020.jp/
  2. Input your email address
  3. When you get an email from Tokyo 2020, click on the link to a registration page
  4. Input your address, phone number, password etc
  5. Pick your favorite Olympic events
  6. Pick your favorite Paralympic events
  7. Get confirmation email from Tokyo 2020

For those outside Japan, keep your eyes open for announcements in the Spring of 2019. The online site for the Japan travel agency, JTB, may be your best bet to buy via the internet.

For information on events and approximate pricing, go here. As the announcement states, “ticket prices and the application process will vary from country to country, although the structure will be broadly in line with that for tickets purchased in Japan.”

Again, for detailed information in English, go here.

Good luck!

Continue reading →

Power Harassing Kaori Icho, One of the Strongest Woman in Japan: #MeToo Japan Style


Kazuhito Sakae Kazuhito Sakae

Kaori Icho is arguably one of the strongest women in Japan physically. And after the 2016 Rio Olympics, she is arguably the best ever women’s wrestler, capturing her fourth straight Olympic title since wrestling became an Olympic sport at the 2004 Athens Games.

And yet, even the strongest are susceptible to power harassment. In April of 2018, after a thorough review of an independent panel, Kazuhito Sakae was fired from his position as head of top athlete development in the Japan Wrestling Federation, and then in June, fired as head coach of the Shigakkan University wrestling team, for harassment of two Olympians.

As the #MeToo movement hit the shores of Japan, the story of Icho and Sakae played out in the Japanese press, revealing, as Mainichi put it, “an outmoded relationship of master and disciple.” The bulk of the harassment took place in the period around 2010, after Icho had won her 2nd gold medal in individual freestyle wrestling at the Beijing Olympics, and as she was preparing for the 2012 London Olympics.

According to the independent panel, formed at the request of the Japan Wrestling Federation, there were four clear cases of power harassment suffered by not only Icho, but her coach and former Olympian and bronze medalist in men’s freestyle wrestling, Chikara Tanabe.

  1. In 2010 Icho moved to Tokyo from Aichi Prefecture where she was attending Chukyo Women’s University (which is now called Shigakkan University), in an effort to remove herself from the direct influence of Sakae who was the head coach there. When Icho participated in a training session for the Japan national team, which Sakae was overseeing, Sakae said to Icho, “you have the nerve to wrestle in front of me.”
  2. Icho, who effectively stopped taking any coaching from Sakae, asked Tanabe, the coach of the national men’s freestyle team, to coach her. Sakae then demanded that Tanabe to cease any coaching activities of Icho. When Tanabe refused he found himself harassed by other members of the wrestling team, as directed by Sakae, according to the independent panel.
  3. Quite inexplicably, the world’s best female wrestler in her weightclass, Icho, was left off the women’s freestyle wrestling team for the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China. The committee that left Icho off the team was headed by Sakae.
  4. In 2015, Sakae was seen harassing Tanabe to leave a national team training session, screaming, “You are an eyesore! Get out!”

Those were the four specific proofpoints of power harassment that the independent committee described. And while one may suspect there was more, this was enough for the Japanese public to nod their head and think, yes, I’ve seen that too.

According to a survey conducted in 2017 by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry in Japan, one out of every three workers had experienced power harassment over the previous three years. This was up from one out of every four when the survey had been conducted five years earlier in 2012. Additionally, 7,8% said they were harassed “many times”, while 17.8% were harassed “occasionally.”

Of those harassed, 41% took no action, citing the belief that nothing would come of it. According to this Deutsche Welle article, only 4% of the cases of sexual violence against women are reported, and that only one of every three rape cases reach the Japanese courts.

Icho and Sakae
Kaori Icho, right, is one of Japan’s biggest stars but has yet to announce her plans for Tokyo 2020 ©Getty Images

“Not speaking out is rooted in Japanese culture. Traditionally, people here are not accustomed to revealing details about themselves or sharing personal issues in public,” Makoto Watanabe, an associate professor of communications and media at Hokkaido Bunkyo University, told DW. “And society looks down on people who do break that unwritten rule.”

Supporting the tendency in Japan not to report, Icho said in a statement that she was not “involved in any way” in lodging the complaint, according to Inside the Games. Thankfully, three Olympians did send an official complaint to the Chief Cabinet Secretary of the Japanese Government.

On June 14, Sakae finally apologized. “I would like to express my deepest apologies to Icho and her coach (Chikara) Tanabe,” Sakae said. “I will treat people with respect at all times so I never make the same mistake again,” he said as he bowed his head in apology in a news conference.

Despite the swirl of controversy, there is still hope that Icho will commit to an attempt at an unprecedented fifth straight Olympic title in 2020, under the warm gaze of a home crowd. Now 34, she has refrained from competition since the Rio Olympics. If she does, she has said that she will resume her training in 2019.

Icho in 2020.

Imagine what she could do without being harassed by the head of the national wresting team.

Continue reading →

Japan Rising from the Ashes Part 4: Supreme Commander General Douglas MacArthur’s Office – The Dai-Ichi Insurance Building

GHQ Dai Ichi

From August, 28 1945 to April 28, 1952, Japan was not a sovereign nation; instead it was occupied by the Allied nations of the Second World War. And the Allies base of operations during the occupation was an imposing building in its time – The Dai-Ichi Insurance Building. While much of Tokyo was destroyed by American firebombing, the Imperial Palace and the central part of Tokyo were not targeted, perhaps to spare the Emperor, perhaps to leave a habitable space for a conquering military administration.

The General Arrives at Dai Ichi Building SCAP HQ
General Douglas MacArthur entering SCAP HQ, the Dai Ichi Building

Completed in 1933, across the moat of the Imperial Palace, it must have been an impressive sight. One of the largest structures in the area at the time, GHQ’s home was a solid stone block of a building with its six-story columns, the American flag flapping from the top, clearly visible from the Imperial Palace. In this building worked the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), American commander, General Douglas MacArthur.

As wrote Russell Brines, the war correspondent and author of the 1948 book, MacArthur’s Japan, the general commanded respect.

In Tokyo, his personal and legal authority was unquestioned. His headquarters was dominated by military men, accustomed to unquestioning obedience. They echoed his moods, repeated his propaganda, tried to anticipate his wishes. His personality constantly hovered over the ornate Dai Ichi Insurance Company, and other modern buildings, where policy was made in the capital. Civilian officials who disagreed remained discreetly silent.

GHQ Presidential Office MacArthur's office
General MacArthur’s office

MacArthur’s office on the sixth floor of the Dai Ichi Insurance Building was surprisingly spartan. His desk was more like a dining table, without drawers, his table often without papers or reports. As a Dai Ichi spokesman said in explanation of the lack drawers,

MacArthur didn’t need any. He was a man who made quick decisions, not the type to pull reports out of his bureau for lengthy consideration.

MacArthur had long days in GHQ. They started around 10 am in the morning. He would then go to his residence in the American Embassy compound around 2:30 pm and return around to GHQ around 4:30. He would then continue his work until about 8:30 pm, a pattern that E. H. Freeman in this discussion board called Armchair General.com said the general did 7 days a week.

GHQ_1
Dai Ichi Building today

MacArthur was as close to a super hero as you can get in those days. Japanese and Americans alike would try to time his arrivals and departures from GHQ to catch a glimpse of him passing through the columns of the Dai Ichi Insurance Building – the Japanese bowing and the GI’s saluting. Bill Zettler wrote about his moment with the man on the discussion board:

In the fall of 1946 I was standing near the front entrance to the Dai Ichi building, camera in hand, hoping to see Mac as he came to work. I did not realize he would use the door behind me. I felt that photographing him at that distance would be impertinent, and so I stepped aside, held the camera behind me, and saluted. He returned that salute, and then I realized I was the only GI in his view, so I had received a PERSONAL salute from the General.

GHQ12

Continue reading →

Japan Rising from the Ashes Part 3: Grave of the Fireflies

Grave of the Fireflies 1

Grave of the Fireflies (火垂るの墓 Hotaru no Haka) was released in 1988, in hindsight, a surprisingly sober film from Studio Ghibli, the production company that has brought the world such wondrous animated films as My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away.

I watched it for the first time this week.

Destruction in war time, no matter which side of a conflict you’re on, is hard to comprehend in times of peace, or in the security of your living room, in front of a large flatscreen TV. And yet, in Grave of the Fireflies, the director, Isao Takahata, transports us to Kobe, Japan, in the waning days of World War II – a time of routine air raids, frantic dashes to air raid shelters, and fruitless attempts to extinguish the fires of napalm bombs dropped from American B-29s.

Over 60 cities in Japan were bombed in the months leading to the war’s end on August 15, 1945, including Kobe, a port city that was a major industrial center, particularly for shipbuilding.

Takahata, based on a short story by Akiyuki Nosaka, tells the semi-autobiographical story of a brother, Seita, and his younger sister, Setsuko, who are orphaned when their mother dies from full-body burns in a air raid, and their father in the Imperial Navy perishes in the Pacific. They stay at an aunt’s home, but as the days pass, the siblings feel they are an unwelcome burden, and leave to survive on their own in an abandoned cave. Their resources dwindling, the two make do, but eventually, Setsuko, and finally, Seita, succumb to the slow death of malnutrition and starvation.

orphan children post war japan 2.jpg

John Dower, who wrote the book Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, wrote of the stigma and the challenges that returning soldiers, war widows, and war orphans faced, driven in part by the culture of the country.

Despite a mild Buddhist tradition of care for the weak and infirm, despite Confucian homilies about reciprocal obligations between social superiors and inferiors, and despite imperial platitudes about all Japanese being “one family” under the emperor, Japan was a harsh inhospitable place for anyone who did not fall into a “proper” social category.

In the early stages of the post-war period in mid-1946, the Ministry of Health and Welfare estimated there about 4,000 war orphans in Japan, but that number climbed to over 120,000 eighteen months later.

According to Dower, the war orphans lived by their wits doing anything they could to survive, “shining shoes, selling newspapers, stealing, recycling cigarette butts, illegally selling food coupons, begging,” with teenage girls ending up prostituting themselves to get by.

orphan children post war japan
Grave of the Fireflies powerfully brings the war orphan experience alive – a desperate experience – and one in the thoughts of the late, great film critic, Roger Ebert that speaks to the unfairness of war in its lack of precision, by showing the innocent nature of these two children, and the agonizing specifics of their circumstances.

I’ve seen a lot of war films. Many of them are exciting, or moving, or dramatic or artistically effective. And a few of them reach you at an emotional level and not just at an action level. I was amazed the first time I watched Grave of the Fireflies that I was actually moved just about to tears by this film. This film has an emotional breadth involving war, and the results of war, and two victims of war that is astonishing.

I think this movie is saying that firebombing is not a very precise way of going after the enemy. It’s a way to destroy morale, a way to break down a nation’s will to resist, but at the same time, are we really thinking about people like this little brother and his even smaller sister, when we drop these bombs. Or are we managing to objectify the Japanese as an evil race who deserve to have this happen to them.

So many decades later, in the 21st century, many around the world have little visceral understanding of the immediate post-war period, their understanding based on text books and dry historical explanations. But Grave of the Fireflies, considered one of the best animated films ever produced, brought that difficult time in history to life, a powerful reminder of what the stakes are when we go to war, and what depths Japan emerged from to get to where it is today – a nation where some of the most beautiful and touching animated works of art have been created.

Continue reading →

Japan Rising from the Ashes Part 2: “Kyodatsu” and the Desperate Times of Post-War Japan

homeless in postwar japan
Hundreds of Japanese jam the Ueno railway station in Northeast Tokyo, on Oct. 26, 1945, these windy autumn nights seeking shelter. Homeless, the old and the young huddle together on thin matting and old newspapers, and try to sleep. Many are starving. Police estimate there are two of three deaths nightly from starvation. (AP Photo)

At the end of World War II, in 1945, there were 9 million Japanese left homeless, primarily due to the devastation wrought by B-29s and their bombing raids for nearly a year.

With 80% of all ships destroyed, 33% of all industrial machine tools destroyed, 25% of all trains and cars destroyed, and with the allied-ruled governing body, led by General Douglas MacArthur, imposing a rule of law that prioritized dispersing of Japanese assets to allied victors, the economy was in ruins.

Hunger and malnutrition were the norm, as Japanese managed to live off of 550 to 1,100 calories per day, about 25 to 50% the minimum required to maintain health.

The years after the end of the war was a desperate time for Japanese. Historian John Dower referred to this post-war malaise in his book, Embracing Defeat, as kyodatsu, a Japanese word for the collective depression that fell on the country. After all, when the Emperor got on the radio on August 15, 1945 to announce that the war had ended, they had not only heard the voice of a divine being for the first time, after years of being told of the need to fight to the end, they were suddenly told to stop their resistance, and to continue to live and work towards Japan’s recovery.

The immediate meaning of ‘liberation’ for most Japanese was not political but psychological. Surrender – and, by association, the Allied victory, the American army of occupation itself – liberated them from death. Month after month, they had prepared for the worst; then, abruptly, the tension was broken. In an almost literal sense, they were given back their lives. Shock bordering on stupefaction was a normal response to the emperor’s announcement, usually followed quickly by an overwhelming sense of relief. But that sense of relief all too often proved ephemeral.

Malnutrition poster 1946_Dower

From John Dower’s Embracing Defeat.

On top of all that, the post-war period saw the return of countrymen and women who served in other parts of Asia in the military or as civilians working in Japanese organizations. From October 1, 1945 to December 31, 1946, about 5.1 million repatriated back to Japan, adding to the misery of Japan that already had too few jobs and too little food for those already in the country.

An early first-hand account was written by AP journalist, Russell Brines, in his book, MacArthur’s Japan, who described a Japan unrecognizable today. Here’s how he described the repatriation of Japanese soldiers and civilians from abroad.

Men, women and children – tired and dirty – plodded off the ship, wound past the American sentry and pushed up a hill toward a weather beaten building. They stood like cattle while doctors deloused them, then walked to the railroad station. As they waited for trains, gloomy and apprehensive, commuters eyed them stiffly before hurrying away. Only relatives gave them a smile or a soft word. They soon learned the rest of Japan was too busy – or just unconcerned – to give them much thought to the cycle of fate that had deposited them like rubbish on their nation’s doorstep.

Jammed, filthy trains took them to all parts of the homeland. Some had been away as long as eight years. They returned to blowsy cities, tiny villages or drab farms; to the narrow, contained life they had left for conquest. Many found stony neighbors, silently condemning them for sharing in defeat or for failing to die, as custom decreed. Others encountered resentment from people miserly over food and patched clothing. Some located only ashes where their homes had been and only vagueness when they searched for missing relatives.

The sifting of lives continues, day by day, behind paper-curtained little homes. Men returned to find their “widows” remarried. Some wives had become streetwalkers, through necessity or restlessness. Women had lost some of their obedience and most of their patience. The fabric of prearranged, loveless marriages was too weak in many cases to survive long separation and irritable reconciliation. For the first time, women became complainants in divorce suits; including one whose husband brought back a native wife and two children from Borneo.

Jobs were scarce, money useless and the new life confusing. Those who returned swaggering, found no one willing to cringe before them, as had subject peoples. Those who came back ashamed and penitent found no pity. Only the opportunists profited, the men who had kept their eyes open to all the sharp practices they saw abroad.

Continue reading →

Japan Rising from the Ashes Part 1: The Aftermath of the Bombing Raids on Japan at War’s End

 

Tokyo firebombed 1945
Aerial view of Tokyo September 10, 1945

 

On October 10, 1964, Japan welcomed the world to Tokyo, a bustling, clean and modern city.

But only 19 years before, when the Pacific War ended on August 15, 1945, Tokyo was a flattened devastated city. The war had taken its toll on the Japanese.

An estimated 3 million Japanese died during the war in both Japan and he war zones of Asia, including upwards of 800,000 civilians. And while the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were horrific moments at war’s end, much of the devastation in Japan was due to continuous air raids by American bombers. After the American Navy’s victories over Japan’s Imperial Navy in the Mariana and Palau Islands, the American military built airfields on Saipan and Tinian. These islands were some 2,400 kilometers away from Japan, close enough for B-29 bombers to make routine sorties over Japan and return without refueling.

And from November, 1944, the bombing raids over Japan was relentless. And the destruction immense.

  • 66: major cities heavily bombed
  • 40: percentage of all urban areas in Japan destroyed by bombing
  • 100,000: civilian deaths in Tokyo alone

In the powerful documentary, The Fog of War, director Errol Morris interviews Robert McNamara, who was secretary of defense for American presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. During World War II, he was also a captain in the US Army Air Force whose job was to analyze the efficiency and effectiveness of American bombers. Intimately familiar with the incendiary bombing raids on Japan during World War II, commanded by General Curtis LeMay, McNamara describes the results of American bombers in Japan with hard cold facts.

50 square miles of Tokyo were burned. Tokyo was a wooden city so when we dropped these firebombs they just burned it.

In order to win a war should you kill a hundred thousand people in one night, by firebombing or any other way? LeMay’s answer would be clearly ‘yes’. McNamara, do you mean to say that instead of killing a hundred thousand – burning to death a hundred thousand Japanese civilians in that one night, we should have burned to death a lesser number, or none? And then have our soldiers cross the beaches of Tokyo and be slaughtered in the tens of thousands? Is that what you are proposing?

Why was it necessary to drop the nuclear bomb if LeMay was burning up Japan? And he went on from Tokyo to firebomb other cities. 58% of Yokohama – Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland – so 58% of Cleveland destroyed. Tokyo is roughly the size of New York. 51% of New York destroyed. 99% of the equivalent of Chattanooga, which was Toyama. 40% of the equivalent of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya.

According to McNamara’s rational mind, this was overkill. And yet, in the end, the desire for the American government to end the war as quickly as possible was the overriding objective.

This was all done before the dropping of the nuclear bomb, which by the way, was dropped by LeMay’s command. Proportionality should be a guideline of war. Killing 50-90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities, and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs, is not proportional in the minds of some people.”

I don’t fault Truman for dropping the nuclear bombs. The US-Japanese war was one of the most brutal wars in all of human history. Kamikaze pilots, suicide – unbelievable. What one could criticize is that the human race prior to that time, and today, has not really grappled with what are the rules of war. Was there a rule that you shouldn’t bomb, shouldn’t kill, burn to death a hundred thousand civilians in a night?

McNamara grappled a bit with the moral dilemma of the bombings of Japan. And perhaps McNamara maintained a lingering sense of guilt over the destruction in Japan.

LeMay said if we lost the war we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he’s right! He and I’d say I were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. What makes it immoral if you lose and moral if you win?

Continue reading →