Read Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering Online
Authors: John W. Dower
6
. Asahi Shimbunsha,
Koe
, 1:253. This appeared in the January 9, 1947, issue of the
Asahi
.
7
. The
kana
syllabary consists of 48 “syllables,” but the symbol read as “n” is omitted from the game (since it never begins a word), giving a total of 47. However, the syllable
ky
Å
(from Kyoto, where the game may have originated) was commonly included in the old card games, thus accounting for the conventional total of 48 cards (doubled to 96). The appearance of the initial
kana
syllable on the picture cards made the game appropriate for teaching children the syllabary itself (and not just proverbs). The order in which the
kana
appear in the card set derives from the famous “
iroha
poem”(
iroha uta
) that dates from the late tenth century and is made up of the 47 syllables (again excluding
n
) of the syllabary. (This
iroha
order was the most common way of “alphabetizing” lists, entries, and the like until 1889, when the
a-i-u-e-o
order familiar today became conventional.) The term
karuta
itself comes from the Portuguese for “card” and entered the native vocabulary in the sixteenth century, when the Japanese first encountered and began to copy the foreigners' illustrated playing cards. The original name for the children's game introduced at the turn of the nineteenth century was
irohatatoekaruta
, with
tatoe
meaning “proverb.” See
Iroha karuta
, 57â68, and for the observations and examples about commoner attitudes that follow here, 72â75.
8
. Ibid., 6, 79.
9
. Ibid., 79, 87. One of the unwholesome early flatulence “sayings” for
he
was “tightening the buttocks after passing a fart” (
he o hette shiri tsubomeru
).
Iroha karuta
, which contains many excellent full-color reproductions of card sets, includes a good one from the war years on 87.
10
.
Ky
Å
ryoku shimbun
, January 1946. A nastier variation on this most famous of opening
karuta
proverbs was offered in the
Asahi gurafu
issue of the same date. Here virtually the identical classic saying (given as
inu ga
[rather than
mo
]
arukeba b
Å
ni ataru
)âthat is, “If a dog walks around, it will encounter a stick”âwas accompanied by a photograph of three GIs accompanied by three young Japanese women. Readers were left to speculate on their own who was the dog and who the stick, but the sarcasm was unmistakable.
11
. See Dower,
Embracing Defeat
, chap. 14 on “Censored Democracy.”
12
.
Ky
Å
ryoku shimbun
, January 1946. See also
Sh
Å
wa manga shi
, a special volume (
bessatsu
) of the engaging multivolume illustrated collection
Ichiokunin no Sh
Å
wa shi
(Sh
Å
wa history of the hundred million) (Tokyo: Mainichi shinbunsha, 1977). This unpaginated volume devoted to Sh
Å
waera cartoons (up to 1977) includes the opening 23 entries of the
Ky
Å
ryoku shimbun
feature by Saji and Terao, plus the full reproduction (47 “cards”) of another sequence discussed at length below: Ogawa Takeshi's “Voice of the People: New Edition Syllable Cards” (hereafter cited as Ogawa, “Voice of the People”). Many of the phrases or “captions” on these cards involved ironic twists on well-known clichés or catchphrases that are impossible to convey in English.
13
. This is a good example of the subtle, clever, historically resonant (and thoroughly untranslatable) wordplays that were so often involved in these graphic jokes.
Toshiyori mo hiyaase
is very close to the mocking phrase that appeared in the Edo-period
iroha karuta
and was translated earlier in this chapter as “old people who ought to know better” (
toshiyori no hiyamizu
).
Hiyamizu
is literally “cold water,” and the connotation of imprudent old people derives from the notion that they might carelessly imperil their health by drinking cold water.
Hiyaase
, “cold sweat”âthe term used in the 1946
iroha
cartoonâis a wonderfully vivid characterization of the old-guard leaders who were trembling in fear of being convicted of war crimes. At the same time, whether consciously or subconsciously,
hiyaase
is layered over
hiyamizu
. The “cold sweat” of these men in defeat is inseparable from their imprudence in leading Japan into hopeless war and miserable defeat.
14
. This is not only a supremely ironic deflation of the wartime “divine wind” mystique but also another example of a subjectâthe wartime U.S. air raidsâthat subsequently rarely passed the censor's screening. This is also true of the associations given for the syllables
so
and
ya
that follow.
15
. For reasons maddening to delineate,
kyÅ
is actually written
kefu
in the old writing style, and so this particular
iroha
association is given for the syllable
ke
. “Dreams of the capital” was an old phrase referring to Kyoto. Here, of course, the allusion is to “dreams in Tokyo.” Since
ky
Å
also can mean “today,” the clever pun has even further connotations.
16
. See also note 10 above concerning the comparably disdainful treatment of fraternization in the
Asahi gurafu
issue of January 1946. This same “photo-karuta” feature in
Asahi gurafu
also used the syllable
e
to highlight the presence of blacks in the U.S. occupation force. In this instance, a photograph of an old Japanese man lighting the cigarette of a black GI was accompanied by the same proverb (“The ties that
bind are strange and wonderful”). Japanese commentators reasonably speculate that such taboo observations probably made it into the media at this early stage because the censors simply did not pick up on or pay attention to these clever, insider word games. See, e.g.,
Iroha karuta
, 102. For the duration of the occupation, verbal or graphic treatment of black Americans was negligible, although Japanese racial responses to their presence were not negligible at all.
17
. See the 1946
iroha
cartoon entries reproduced in
Sh
Å
wa manga shi
.
18
. This interesting “collaborative”
iroha
cartoon sequence appears in the January 1948 issue of
Nippon y
Å«
moa
(Japan humor). A more common postsurrender mockery of the two-income couple had the husband being a black market operative and the wife a “
panpan
prostitute” (the “panpan” catered primarily to the foreign personnel affiliated with the occupation); see, e.g., the unillustrated
iroha
witticisms in
Manga
, January 1947, 23.
19
. These last two examples, as well as those that follow in the text, have been selected from the various cartoon sets previously cited, plus a December 1948 sequence in
Shin Osaka
(New Osaka) that is reproduced in
Iroha karuta
, 103â4.
20
. The emperor reference, regrettably, appeared as an
iroha
witticism without illustration (in
Manga
, January 1947). Ono Saseo drew the emperor removing a huge mask-like head capped with traditional Heian court headgear, and emerging as an ordinary man in a Western suit, as an association for
te
. “Even the emperor is a human being” (
tenn
Å
mo ningen
) was his caption, referring to the January 1, 1946, imperial rescript in which Emperor Hirohito more or less renounced his “divinity”; see
Nihon y
Å«
moa
, January 1948.
21
. A diary entry by Tokugawa Yoshihiro, dated April 24, 1968, and disclosed in the Japanese media in 1999, is the most recent revelation of the emperor's obsession with the regalia and preservation of his family line; see
Asahi Shimbun
, January 6, 1999. On Shigemitsu and the emperor's belated appreciation of the Charter Oath, see Dower,
Embracing Defeat
, 287â89, 313â15; examples of all other “uses of tradition” mentioned in these concluding paragraphs appear scattered throughout this same source.
22
. I have summarized some of the literature on the legacies of Japan's so-called Fifteen-Year War in “The Useful War,” an essay reprinted in John W. Dower,
Japan in War and Peace: Selected Essays
(The New Press, 1993), 9â32.
23
. For postage stamps, see the popular annual catalogs issued by Nihon y
Å«
bin kittesh
Å
ky
Å
d
Å
kumiai (Japan stamp dealers' association),
Nihon kitte katarogu
. The 1949â52 Cultural Figures Series is reproduced on p. 12 of the 1998 catalog. Individuals honored in 1950 were the educator Fukuzawa Yukichi, writer Natsume S
Å
seki, writer Tsubouchi Sh
Å
y
Å
, Kabuki actor Ichikawa Danj
Å«
r
Å
, and educator Niijima J
Å
. In 1951, stamps honored the painter Kan
Å
H
Å
gai, theologian Uchimura Kanz
Å
, writer Higuchi Ichiy
Å
, writer Mori
Å
gai, poet Masaoka Shiki, and painter Hishida Shuns
Å
. The series concluded in 1952 with stamps commemorating the philosopher Nishi Amane, legal scholar Ume Kenjir
Å
, astronomer Kimura Sakae, educator Nitobe Inaz
Å
, scientist Terada Torahiko, and artist and aesthetic critic Okakura Tenshin. Presurrender Japanese stamps did not, in fact, commemorate many “cultural heroes,” apart from General Nogi.
Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.
Afro-Asian Problems Study Association,
213
air raids,
36
,
69
,
106
,
117
,
119
,
180
,
273n2
,
281n8
,
289â90n16
,
304n14
.
See also
“Hiroshimas and Nagasakis”
Al Qaeda,
256
American exceptionalism,
262
American Historical Association,
185
Ando Shoeki and the Anatomy of Japanese Feudalism
(E.H. Norman),
2
,
7
“Anglo-American thought,”
78
,
80
Anti-Comintern Pact,
67
anti-Communism,
19
,
117
,
122
,
189
,
198
,
207â208
,
215
,
263
,
266
.
See also
Cold War
antimilitarism,
142
,
168
,
169
,
237
,
244
,
244
,
246
antinuclear movement,
132
,
155â57
,
218
,
293n31
anti-orientalism,
46â47
anti-Semitism,
30
Aristotle,
59
artwork, Japanese
by
hibakusha
,
137
,
152
,
157
,
292n27
styles in 1920s and 1930s,
95â96
,
97
in war years,
96
,
98
,
102â4
,
103
,
148
,
151â52
,
277n22
Asahi gurafu
(weekly),
230â31
,
301n3
,
303n10
,
304n16
Asahi shimbun
,
139
,
140
,
143
,
228
,
232
Asano,
268
Asian Problems Study Association,
213
Association of War Bereaved Families,
122â23
Atarashii Rekishi Ky
Å
kasho o Tsukuru Kai,
280n6
Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC),
146
,
152
atomic-bomb research in Japan,
146
,
147
,
151
,
166â67
,
287n6
atomic bombs,
174
,
282n12
.
See also
“Hiroshimas and Nagasakis”
Auschwitz,
291n21
.
See also
Holocaust
Austria,
118
Axis Alliance,
31
,
67
,
107
,
117
,
120
“axis of evil,”
262
“bamboo-shoot existence,”
251â52
Beard, Charles,
16
Bertolucci, Bernardo,
265
“Big Black Market, Little Black Market,”
232â33
,
247
“Big Sunset, Little Sunset” (song),
231â33
Bikini Incident,
132
,
156
,
208
,
218
black Americans, and Japanese,
54
,
243
,
304â5n16