In honor of the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on the US at Pearl Harbor, the Society for the History of American Foreign Relations has published a series of essays on the event and historical memory issues; HNN has reprinted it (with a useful index post). John Gripentrog’s “The Road to War” is a solid discussion of the political and ideological differences which put the US and Japan on a collision course. HNN’s supplemental piece, by Rupert Colley, tracks how the attack brought the US into the European conflict. And Emily Rosenberg discusses how iconic attacks like Pearl Harbor and 9/11 and their rhetorical and cultural resonances.

Those are fine, but the articles I find most interesting are the other two. Greg Robinson writes about the effect of the Pearl Harbor attack on Japanese Americans at that time and the way in which it becomes part of the rhetoric of race and bias in the decades to come.¹ Finally, Yujin Yaguchi describes an intercultural teachers’ seminar which brought together Japanese and American teachers with time to explore their biases, perspectives, and to encounter new ones. The historiographical issues aren’t terribly new to academic historians, but for teachers working in a national curriculum context, it was quite enlightening.

Update: This article by Jonathan Parshall and J. Michael Wenger is the first interesting new scholarship I’ve seen on Pearl Harbor in years. Mostly it’s about the development of the Japanese aircraft carrier group as an operational unit, an unforseen shift in naval tactics.

1. The twitter chatter as the disaster this spring unfolded frequently, shockingly, referenced Pearl Harbor with a vicious karmic glee

Stephen Turnbull, one of the most prolific and controversial writers on Japanese military history, has written a book on the 47 Samurai incident. The Samurai Archives review is quite positive, though Turnbull’s involvement as historical consultant on the upcoming Keanu Reeves version does raise concerns.

It’s nice to see Turnbull stepping up his game a bit, using front-line scholarship and taking a critical approach, rather than the mish-mash of his earlier books. It seems unlikely to me, though, that the debunking scholarship which has advanced over the last decade or so will have a significant impact on popular versions of the incident. It’s possible, I suppose, that Turnbull’s involvement in the new movie means that it will be a thoroughly revisionist statement¹ but the entrenched romantic version is going to remain authoritative until the revisionist history starts to get traction in Japan.

Even then, there’s the Shakespeare problem. We know that his portrayals of English kings and other historical moments were partisan and/or heavily fictionalized, but they remain some of the most enduring images and themes in historical fiction and movies, so that historians are still forced to routinely debunk these myths.² Chushingura and its ilk created a solid mythology by the dawn of the modern age, and the imperialist valorization of the Ako Roshi and other self-destructive samurai tendencies reinforced a vision of the samurai as abstemious, effective, principled, selfless and frequently violent. It would take a dramatic cultural shift to wipe out this tradition, one that seems unlikely given Japan’s rightward tendencies these days.³

I was screening movies for my Samurai course and came across recommendations (on twitter, I think) for The Twilight Samurai. I was very impressed: the portrayal of samurai poverty, bureaucracy, domainal politics, bakumatsu confusion, and the diversity (and, generally speaking, irrelevance) of fighting styles (and illegality of dueling) was very nicely done. The romantic side was a little over-generous, perhaps, but more realistic that an awful lot of other historical pieces. If you’re looking for a solid historical movie, one that will educate more than it will obscure, it’s very good.

1. assuming that all the pre-release publicity is wrong
2. It doesn’t help that “most historically accurate portrayal ever” in movie advertising usually means precisely the opposite, as the most recent Robin Hood versions demonstrate
3. more likely you’d see something like the American transformation of cowboy films: more internal focus and diversity, and an obscuring of the historically undeniable negative sides (i.e., Dances with Wolves and the death of the cowboy-and-indian film) with perhaps some culturally acceptable complications. Frankly, a good Brokeback Mountain treatment would go a long way, plus being historically credible.

The Asia/Pacific Journal, aka Japan Focus, has a fascinating interview with Heinrich Reinfried, Senior Lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University St. Gallen, Switzerland, conducted by a Swiss weekly. “Sushi and Samurai: Western Stereotypes and the (Mis)Understanding of Post-Tsunami Japan” begins and ends with a credible historical and thematic deconstruction of some of the less helpful stereotypes of Japan: Japan as samurai state, kamikaze, zen masters. I particularly liked the short bit on Herrigel

Nazi Germany made use of the samurai ideal of one who obeys orders unconditionally, who sacrifices himself on orders from above, who although not a Christian has a noble soul. This is the ideological basis of Zen in the Art of Archery by the Nazi Eugen Herrigel, a book which has exerted a powerful influence over the years. Some Swiss still today regard this book as the open sesame to Japan. It is amusing to hear of Europeans with an anti-authoritarian upbringing who go to Japan to let a Zen master hit them should they doze off during meditation.

He mentions early 20th century ideas about national character, and Saidian othering

we use Japan as a negative role model incorporating the opposite of the positive qualities we attribute to ourselves.

And he talks about the Cold War re-exoticisation of Japan as a land of Geisha and gardens, class-less capitalism. I’m not sure Henry Luce is as much to blame as Reinfried, nor am I terribly convinced by his analysis of Japan’s response/role in the process:

Reinfried: Japanese are quick to realize what others see in them. They are eager to incorporate foreign images into their self-image, above all, of course, those which are self-aggrandizing. This is what happened during the Cold War when Japanese adapted and subsequently internalized the positive image that the Western world had propagated in order to mark Japan off from communist China. This self-perception enabled the country to reach the goal it had envisaged since the Meiji-Period, namely to “catch up to and go beyond“ the West. It made Japan unique but also nurtured its own brand of nationalism.

DM: There are those who maintain that Japanese just love playing the exotic role assigned to them by foreigners.

Reinfried: To some extent every country puts on a show for others. That is part of the success story of many nations. We Swiss, too, like to pretend that we are cowherds addicted to cheese. It is only when disaster occurs that we take note of the fact that we all live in one and the same world. Exceptionalist claims regarding culture then immediately fade into irrelevance.

There’s an argument to be made there, I suppose, but there’s too much going on here which glosses over complications: tourism, nationalism, the extent to which Japan’s self-image created or was created by foreign discourses, and the China-Japan cultural tension which was over a half-century old before the Cold War started.

This is typical, though, of the middle section of the interview, in which Reinfried engages in substantial myth-making and othering of his own. Aside from a well-earned swipe at foreign journalists shallow reportage, there’s a whole litany of chestnuts, conventional images of Japan, highly questionable generalizations presented as nearly-universal truths about all Japanese, without a hint of the critical perspective of the rest of the article. Most of them are about Japan as a collective, connected society. For example:

• “In Japan, even a disaster is handled in an organized manner. Japan is generally characterized by a very high degree of organization. This also applies to disaster management. Japanese rely heavily on organization, simply because they do not see any real alternative to getting themselves organized.”
• “People in the Western world basically believe in their capability to live on their own, whereas Japanese tend to see themselves as part of a system. They do not see themselves as being capable of existing without an external system such as the state.”
• “In Japan, man and nature are not in contradiction, since in their view man was not blessed by God with a mind and then placed in Nature. In Japan, man and what we call Nature together form a unity. This realm can be either orderly or chaotic, bestowing blessings at times, at other times demonstrating that its might cannot be controlled, such as when it produces huge tsunami or rattles the earth. At the same time, the conviction that man can keep the dangers of Nature at bay with the help of technology is being nurtured. Scientists refer to a disaster as an “occurrence.“ A disaster is the result of the fact that man settled in places he is not intended to settle.”
• “Religious beliefs are a strictly private concern. There is, however, a strong link with one’s ancestors, to whom Japanese feel very close. Religious feelings do exist in the form of gratefulness towards them as well as towards fellow human beings in general. The notion is widely accepted that in a society based on division of labor, one’s existence depends precariously on one’s fellow citizens doing their jobs properly. This, in essence, is the least common denominator in Japanese religion.”
• “In Japan there is the view that man is neither good nor bad, but malleable: Just as water assumes the form of the vessel it is contained in, man must always be embedded in a vessel, be it family, community or company.”
• “In Japan, public discourse constitutes mainly an exchange of factual information, not of worldviews or personal convictions. … Japanese public debates on TV generally run in orderly fashion. In Japan, differences of opinion are attributed to differences in the level of information and not to ideological differences. We have behind us a long tradition of disputes between believers and non-believers. In Japan, there are only those who know and those who do not. In case of disagreement, people do not raise their voices to outshout each other but go home to recheck the vital facts. Saying this, I don’t in any way want to suggest that Japanese are unable to raise their voices in a quarrel if they feel the need.”
• “Japanese are not successful because they are ready to die for their company. Japanese are successful because they think in terms of systems. The individual is of little importance in this dimension of strategic thinking, so these handbooks are misleading. In Japan, everything is conceived as a system. Individuals and their achievements are of secondary importance.”

I could go on. The idea of Japan as a systematic, organized society has deep roots, and there are ways in which these statements could be construed as true, with caveats, limitations, and an awareness of the way in which these ideas serve the needs of the state and a kind of social order. What’s most odd, I suppose, is the degree to which Reinfried fails to recognize that these are cultural tropes of great power as well as fairly commonplace images of Japan, both within and abroad. There’s a saying I heard once, and can’t find a source for, that man for man, the Chinese can beat the Japanese, but that four Japanese can beat four Chinese because they work together.¹ There have been movies² and books galore on these themes, not to mention a whole cottage industry of debunking scholarship on most of them.

This ended up being a very frustrating article to read, because it started out so well….

1. I’m pretty sure I heard it about economic productivity regarding Japan and the US, too. If anyone can find sources, I’d be interested to see them.
2. Gung Ho, among others

One of our graduate assistants came in recently with an old newspaper that her husband had found on a deconstruction job. Considering that it was, apparently, stored in a wall for decades, the December 7, 1941 Pittsburg Sun was in fairly good condition: brittle, but almost entirely intact and clear. I didn’t want to force the folds into a flatbed scanner – the paper clearly isn’t going to survive too much handling, and the next step is to show it to our archivist – so I took some pictures with my camera to share.

Interestingly, we got an email today indicating that the Governor has declared today a half-staff day, in honor of the anniversary, so consider this our contribution to the remembrance.

I have uploaded images of all four pages of the Extra edition in the Flickr set, as well as detail shots of some of the more interesting bits. My favorite bits, aside from the Japanese Consul General in Hawaii’s attempt to deny the raid(!) are the maps on page 4, which were obviously prepped and ready to go, possibly previously run material that they reprinted.

	Map Heading: “The Pacific – Which is No Longer Pacific” Map shows US, Pacific Ocean, East Asia and Australia, illustrating proximity of US outposts to Japanese mandate territories. Caption reads: “Japan, fortifying herself with new bases in strategic Indo-China, has challenged American and British might in the vast Pacific. In any clash the bases for naval operation will dominate the strategy of all participants. The long string of American naval bases and air stations stretching from Panama to the Philippines all have been assigned roles in a master plan for keeping most of the Pacific secure. Britain’s bases, centered on armed-to-the-teeth Singapore, keep an eye on the East Indies corner. But Japanese roots stretch farther and farther from Tokyo. And Nipponese vessels cross and recross vital British trade lanes. Now the powder keg has been fired.”
	Map Heading: “Three-Front Warfare” Map shows Germany, Russia, Balkans, Eastern Mediterranean including Libya and Egypt. Caption reads: “New outbreak of warfare in Yugoslavia forces the armies of Germany to fight on a much-feared third front at a time of allied pressure on both her other battle zones. Map shows how the widely separated fronts created extended supply and troop transport problems for the axis.”
	Map Heading: “Why Free Seas are vital to U.S. Defense” Global map showing transportation lines from all continents. Labels include: Tin, Mica, Antimony, Vanadium, Tungsten, Manganese, Graphite, Chrome, Nickel, Quinine, Rubber, Mercury.

The whole paper is worth browsing through, and I haven’t had time, at this point in the semester, to do it justice. The main thing that I noticed is a great deal of war news: the coming of war is clearly surprising, but doesn’t seem shocking. The Washington Daybook, for example, which is about industrial and refugee diamonds, and the “Free Seas” maps above, not to mention the Jayhawk Ordinance Works dedication and the War Bonds cartoon, point to a substantial wartime footing already in place.

After reading the last two installments in the Hooblers’ samurai detective series, I got hold of the first two. There are still two I have not read, obviously, but based on these four, I can’t seriously recommend the series: the misinformation and errors just outweigh any value that they have as presentations of Edo life or culture.¹ The authors’ notes can’t save these books, because even good information is twisted into such blazingly implausible scenarios that no real understanding could survive, and there’s no end to the errors. [Spoilers, of course, because I don't really want anyone to read these books!]

The first book in the series, Ghost, combines travel, kabuki theater, religion and daimyo politics in a melange of anachronism and implausibilities. Seikei, son of a tea merchant travelling from Osaka to Edo, is a witness in the theft of a precious jewel from an annoying daimyo. Judge Ooka is called in to investigate and is impressed enough with Seikei to use him as an assistant. Seikei manages to infiltrate the kabuki troupe at the center of the mystery, becoming an assistant — Seikei seems to have a preternatural ability to be useful to important people in a wide array of contexts — to the star, a sometime onnagata and scion of a daimyo house that was destroyed as hidden Christians. Yes, “Genji” is a kakure kirishitan ronin who’s become a multi-talented kabuki actor so he can carry out an elaborate vengeful plot culminating in the embarassment and forced seppuku of the daimyo whose aggression caused the downfall of his family. Remember, the series is set in the 1730s: roughly a century too late for Christian daimyo, for daimyo houses to be seized by their neighbors, or for anyone to recognize a crucifix pendant as a sign of Christianity. In spite of the fact that Seikei knows — and Judge Ooka suspects — all of the above before the end, and admit as much to the Shogun who was, embarassingly and necessarily, present at the bloody denouement, they are neither punished nor chastised. Finally, Judge Ooka agrees to adopt Seikei as his heir, much to the relief of his not-sure-what-to-do-with-this-impractical-son merchant family.

There are other problems: the play that the kabuki troupe performs is The 47 Ronin, though open portrayals of the Ako Incident will remain illegal for some time.² Seikei’s father justifies “mak[ing] sacrifices” (5) at both Shinto and Buddhist shrines on the grounds that “All religions may have some truth to them. We must be sure not to offend any of the gods. Particularly since we have been favored with wealth.” (6) Though they also point out that “Most Japanese did the same,” they replace the fascinating realities of Japanese religion with a banal ecumenicism, then fail to explain why Christianity fails to fit.³ In what may be a running gag (see “Lord Ponzu” in the earlier post), there’s a dog named “Inu” (112).

Not to say that they don’t get some interesting things right. There’s a mention of village savings associations (75-6) and the use of placards and decapitated heads of criminals to send deterrent messages (155), and most of what they get wrong, as you can see, is based on a misunderstanding of actual historical phenomena. The second book, In Darkness, Death, also has some surprisingly good details, including eyeglasses from Nagasaki (75), domainal autonomy (155) and the great danger peasants faced if they presented complaints or petitions to domainal authorities outside of the normal chain of command (131, passim). Unfortunately, the core of the book is about ninja, and they use the full-throttle defenders-of-the-weak, harassed-by-samurai, super-secret weapons, sensitive-to-nature, special-wisdom, code-of-honor version of the ninja myth. Worse, it’s a daimyo assassination by his ne’er-do-well heir, a plot that was a hoary cliche in the 17th century, and that’s all I’m going to say about the book.

If I can get hold of the middle two in the series, I will probably read them, for completeness’ sake, but I very much doubt that they’re going to shift my views much at this point. Of the four books I’ve read, only one managed to avoid major errors and absurdities. Since I read that one first, the rest have been particularly disappointing. For a brief shining moment, I thought I’d found something worth recommending; the search continues.

1. I still maintain that the last book, A Samurai Never Fears Death is decent, but it’s clearly the exception.
2. Chushingura itself won’t be written for another decade or more, though other versions did exist.
3. “Because the Tokugawas feared that the Kirishitans were plotting a rebellion, they banned the religion and executed any Kirishitans who clung to their faith.” (170, where they also manage to miss Hideyoshi entirely: “After Nobunaga’s death, his ally Ieyasu Tokugawa was named shogun….”)