A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (84 page)

A possible resurgence of Japanese nationalism was not what Japan’s Asian neighbours wanted to hear being advocated. Contrary to some people’s belief there have in fact been a number of apologies – as opposed to mere statements of regret – for Japan’s wartime behaviour in Asia and elsewhere voiced by authoritative Japanese representatives. In 1990 Emperor Akihito, in conjunction with the then prime minister Kaifu Toshiki, apologised to Korea, and he also apologised to Britain in 1998, though with regard to China he appears to have simply expressed remorse. Various prime ministers, such as Murayama and Obuchi, have also made apologies to Asian nations.

However, occupied Asian nations have generally felt that more sincere apologies are necessary, especially from people in high places. In East Asian societies mere words of apology are not necessarily seen as heart-felt. There are degrees of expressing an apology, including kneeling and bowing one’s head to the floor, yet it would seem that no such profound apology has yet been made by anyone high-ranking. Moreover, any apologies that have been made and any goodwill generated have been offset by ongoing denials of atrocities. For example, in January 2000 a controversial conference, organised by the Society to Correct the Biased Display of War-Related Materials, was held in O saka with the express theme of the Nanjing Massacre being a fabrication. Speakers included the historian Higashinakano Shudo, who remarked on a lack of documentary evidence and stated bluntly that ‘There was no massacre of civilians at Nanjing’.
⁴³

Then in October 2003 the earlier-mentioned outspoken Ishihara Shintar
– the man who claimed Americans were racist because they used
the nuclear bomb on Japan but not Germany, despite the fact that the bomb was developed after Germany had surrendered – further displayed his peculiar interpretation of history by re-asserting his well-known view that the Japanese occupation of Korea had been at the Koreans’ request. Ishihara had become governor of T
ky
in 1999, and had been re-elected in a landslide victory in September 2003. That is, the T
ky
public enthusiastically voted for a man who had not only stated that the Koreans welcomed Japanese occupation, but who had also dismissed the Nanjing Massacre as fiction.
⁴⁴
This again appears to be a case of the public wanting a sense of direction, led by a strong person, even if they are going down the wrong track.

In October 2008 the chief-of-staff of Japan’s Self-Defence airforce, Tamogami Toshio, in the same vein as Ishihara, wrote that Japan had not been an aggressor and had in fact brought prosperity to Asian nations, and he further denied that the Japanese army had been violent. He was dismissed, but with a 60 million yen allowance (well over US$700,000).
⁴⁵
Even though in September 2010 Okada Katsuya, the then foreign minister in the Democratic Party of Japan government, apologised personally to six American former POWs,
⁴⁶
it is no wonder that Asian nations have their doubts about Japan’s real contrition when they hear such statements as those by Ishihara and Tamogami, especially when they come from people in high places.

A further embarrassing problem for Japan with regard to its wartime behaviour was the prominent surfacing during the 1990s of the ‘comfort women’ (
ianfu
) issue.
⁴⁷
These women – mostly Korean, but including many from other Asian nations as well as some Dutch – were forced into the sexual servicing of Japanese troops. First of all the Japanese government denied any knowledge of this, but when confronted with documentation to the contrary (uncovered by a Japanese researcher) they conceded that they knew about it but were not involved. Then when confronted with further documentation categorically indicating the government’s involvement, they had no alternative but to acknowledge the truth. However, they did not offer compensation. The comfort women’s claims were consigned to a private fund, and there has been a failure to make full apologies and bring closure on this issue. Some claimants have been offered compensation by their own governments, but not by the Japanese government, which contends that compensation for all Japanese wartime behaviour was settled shortly after the war.

Within Japan itself, yet another problem that surfaced particularly in the 1990s and continues to the present is that of so-called
hikikomori
(literally ‘withdrawing and shutting oneself away ), a term that refers to social withdrawal and applies both to the condition and the sufferers of it. Sufferers are typically male and in their late teens or early mid-twenties, and they are characterised by staying in their room for up to several years or even longer, generally playing video games or web-surfing amidst piles of rubbish, and depending on their parents for provision of food and other needs. The term is officially applied to anyone not leaving their room or home for more than six months. This situation can and does happen worldwide, seemingly an extreme form of Social Anxiety Disorder, but it appears to be particularly prevalent in Japan. Reasons given include pressures at school (such as examination stress and bullying), or the prospect of going out into the stressful adult world of work. Unfortunately, because of the importance of
mentsu
(‘face’ or standing or reputation) in Japanese society, many parents choose to hide the problem instead of seeking help. It has been widely believed – even by some specialists – that as many as a million or more young people might be in this situation, suggesting a problem of epic proportions (something like one in ten young males), but this belief is now known to be unfounded, being based on a gross over-estimate by a certain Japanese psychologist (not named here, but who admitted the inaccuracy) in order to draw attention to the situation. In reality, the figure is not known, but it is nonetheless a significant problem.

With regard to staying at home, there is another category of young people – and some not so young people – who linger in the parental nest, and seem to be growing in number. They are known as ‘parasite singles’, a term coined in Japan in the late 1990s though the phenomenon is not new, nor confined to Japan, but became particularly noticeable around that time. Again, figures are hard to obtain, but they are mostly – though by no means exclusively – women and are certainly in the millions. They are generally young adults who do not want to get married early, so they stay single for many years (or do not marry at all), and live in their parents’ home, which saves them considerable expense with regard to accommodation and meals. This increasing tendency to stay at home is naturally being linked to marriages being deferred and births occurring later and fewer, contributing to the earlier-discussed problem of
sh
shika
(falling birth rate). On the other hand, they also contribute significantly to consumer spending, as they have considerable discretionary income.

Consumerism and its bedfellow commercialism are certainly evident in twenty-first century Japan – some would say far too evident, arguing that they are risking displacement of more meaningful values. They are also
related to choice, which is recognised by many observers to be a major characteristic of (post-)postmodernism.
⁴⁸
The
sh
shika
problem, for example, is related to choice. One potential problem in having such personal freedom in the matter of choice is that not everyone knows what to do with it, and can feel directionless. Another potential problem is that individuals, by the very nature of individuality, can end up feeling distant and alienated from other individuals if they pursue the cult of freedom of choice and personal expression too vigorously. It is often said that individuals can now construct their ‘self’ through choice of clothing and life-style and so on, though it would seem equally if not more likely that such choices reflect the ‘self’ rather than construct it. Fortunately this potential alienation is somewhat offset by fashions and trends, which, however trivial they may seem, do bring people together. A further agent of ‘togetherness’ is the development of networks through cell-phones and i-pods and Facebook etc. It can be argued that young Japanese lead the world in these regards.