M & N are for Enigma and Interview with a Translator, Part III

WRITING ABOUT JAPAN

Question: Hills' book reads rather like a tabloid in places--lots of "I spoke to the friend of the friend of the friend" conversations. On the one hand, I appreciate his willingness to treat his subjects as people rather than "inscrutable" members of a culture that is too refined and remote for a Westerner to write about. On the other hand, I feel like he consistently misreads situations or applies a single element of Japanese culture to a situation as if it was the only possible interpretation. Personality traits get attached to either Japanese heritage or Japanese cultural pressure.

For instance, Hills accuses Japanese culture of placing undue pressure on Masako to become a diplomat--then turns around and accuses Japanese culture of not giving her enough support as a woman in her ambition to become a diplomat. He insists that she is an outside-the-box thinker, even though her scholarly writing is fairly pedestrian--but that's also the fault of being forced to conform! It's a "heads you lose; tails I win" type of writing. Reading between the lines, it isn't all that obvious from the possible evidence that Masako was interested in having a career or all that ambitious in a scholarly way. (Despite the reputation of Harvard students as "ambitious.")

Is this approach typical of Western writers about Japan? Do the intellectuals make the same mistakes in the opposite direction? Or in the same direction (they are simply better at hiding it)?

Masako also attended Balliol in the late 80's.

She did not complete her thesis.

Eugene: Japanese popular culture does imbue the label "Harvard" with an almost holy status, right up there next to Tokyo University (Todai). Any introduction of a television personality like Patrick Harlan never fails to point out that he graduated from Harvard (and there's no denying the guy is whip smart, especially when it comes to language).

That item on the resume, like graduating from Tokyo University, establishes a whole host of expectations. I have no problem believing that Masako struggled with those expectations. Unlike Patrick Harlan, she couldn't (or couldn't bring herself to) take a sabbatical and bum around for a couple of years while she figured out what she wanted to do with her life.

When the brass ring shows up, the easy thing is push all the angst aside and just grab it. But that's pretty much true of everybody everywhere who has risen high enough up Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs that they can start looking for "meaningful work."

Japanese aren't the Borg but we are all products of our culture and rarely think to question it. Fish discover water last. It's always easier to point at those other people in that other culture. I think there are a whole lot of unhappy people in the Occident who can't divorce themselves from the culture that defines the boundaries of their lives and end up trapped by those expectations.

Like the nature versus nurture debate, splitting the difference is a good place to start. But that means half is on you.

The underlying fallacy here is ascribing an overly prescriptionist role to culture (or the government) in general. The culture (or the government or some other collective entity) is supposed to fix the social problem du jour. To be sure, collective action can address problems. But there is always a point at which the only viable solution is individual action and responsibility. 

In a quieter way than fans, many students support

the Imperial Family and the current era: Reiwa.

Question: Hills at one point speaks to Imperial family fans, who sound kind of nutty to me but then I've never gone in for the cult of the celebrity, even with Leonard Nimoy (or my own church leaders). Earlier in the book, he refers to Masako and her teenage girlfriends going everywhere they can to contact a well-known baseball star--they even end up going to a restaurant with him. It seems rather innocuous to me but then I grew up in the 1970s. Hills points out that current Western culture looks at this type of behavior negatively, especially in terms of teenage girls hanging out with an older man.

How is the culture of fans treated in Japan? Is the line between "fanboy/girl" and "wall of crazy/stalking" the same or different in Japan than in the West?

Eugene: Otaku still don't have a great image in Japan. Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions begins with the protagonist desperately trying to shed that reputation. "Teenage girls hanging out with an older man" sounds just as weird in Japan as anywhere else. The soapy O Maidens In Your Savage Season concludes that teenage girls and older men should stick to their own peer groups.

And then there's the whole social phenomenon of enjo kousai, which tends to get treated in a moralistic and didactic manner by the same media that hyped it up.

Question: Ultimately, I can’t recommend Ben Hills’ book. Although the beginning comes across as fresh and potentially humorous, it grows increasingly unkind and even vicious. Hills seems to see himself as a defender of Masako but he comes across, instead, as a user who dismisses any element of her personality that interferes with his thesis. He argues that she was forced to be a certain way but he consistently dismisses evidence that she may in fact be the person that he rejects.

However, it is difficult to ignore Hills’ book when there are so few alternate sources! Are there sources about the royal family you could recommend instead? Writers about Japanese culture (yourself included!)?

Eugene: I think the biggest reason there is so little material about Japan's Imperial Family (scandalous or otherwise) is because they are so darn good at being boring and just doing their jobs. Aside from histories and maybe day-in-the-life accounts, I'm not sure what there is to write about. Coverage in the respectable press tends to read like a family Christmas card year-in-review.

Most of the time, it's the crazy people that end up in the news.

Peter Barakan

One of the best books about contemporary Japan is Embracing Defeat by John Dower. It lays down the necessary foundation for understanding the post-war era and the long post-war reign of Hirohito. 

 

I don't read much commentary these days but my current favorite is NHK World's Peter Barakan. To be sure, he's more of an informed and amiable guide.

When I can find the time, I'm going to read Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852–1912. There was a whole lot more truly historic drama going on back then.

The NHK World productions that focus specifically on Japanese culture, geography, and everyday life can be quite good, such as Core Kyoto, Cycle around Japan, Japan Railway Journal, and Document 72 Hours. And for sheer educational cuteness, Kiyo in Kyoto.

I honestly believe you can learn a lot about modern Japan, and about how Japanese view themselves, from manga and anime. Not necessarily from the stories themselves, but from how the characters relate to each other and the greater society. For example, melodramas like A Silent Voice, Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War, My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions, Hyouka, and even a contemporary fantasy like Interviews With Monster Girls. 

In Conclusion

Kate's conclusion regarding the particular biography and subject under review:

 

Putting all the evidence together, ignoring Hills' tone, and allowing for context, my take is that Masako was not particularly interested in being a diplomat. She returned to the academic world by attending Balliol (Oxford) in the late 1980s. I suspect that she found Oxford rather more like the Japanese working culture she'd left than the friendly American college life at Harvard she apparently greatly enjoyed (doctorate programs in the West being notoriously dog-eat-dog in an utterly "does anyone else really care?" insular way).

She returned to Japan in 1990 rather than completing her degree. She entered into marriage with Naruhito in 1992 (they met in 1986). I suspect that if she in fact suffers from clinical depression (which she likely does), it may have manifested in the late 1980s. Clinical depression is not caused by life being tough. It is caused by chemical imbalances that may be partly brought about as well as exacerbated by life circumstances. (And it cannot be "escaped" by running into something like marriage.)

In a way, I think my interpretation of available evidence is a sadder (though endurable) story than the one Hills tells. Masako isn't a victim of a demanding culture. And she isn't the type of person who truly breaks barriers, as Hills wants her to be. She's a naive, wealthy, and intelligent woman who struggled to find a place for herself in a culture where she already occupied a rank or standing layered with specific expectations, rather like the class occupied by nineteenth-century upper-class spinsters and Patty Hearst. Only she didn't head off to become an explorer. Or shoot up banks.

But my conjectures are conjectures--as are Hills'. There is little definitive proof in any direction, which arguably is true of all biographies. Individual motivations and desires and choices still remain locked in individual brains, and may not even be entirely understood there.

Regarding Interview with a Translator, I agree that manga and anime are great windows into Japanese culture. More to come in the future!

Thanks to Eugene for his insights!