Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

Can you believe Japanese celebrate Christmas?

 As you know, our people are predominantly Budhist. And even among Budhist, only a small portion of them practice it seriously. Most of our people are atheist.

Unlike Europe and the U.S. Japan's Christmas is basically commericial event. Good for business.

History goes back to late 19th century, Christmas was imported from the West. The below photo is taken from the top page of newspaper in December 1937.

As you see, it says "X'mas," that is misspelling. No ' is needed to spell Xmas (Christmas.) That is the ad of lady's boutique. "Christmas sale for lady's hats and furs." Surprisingly the same page posted the news article of Japanese imperial army's victory in Nanjing battle, former capital of China. That is where Nanjing massacre took place. I can't believe people celebrated the war victory and Christmas at the same time.

I "You Tube" today's Christmas in Tokyo.

Please click on Christmas in Tokyo.

First scene is the flyer for Christmas mass in church.

Second scene is brass band playing Christmas song.

Third scene is Santa Clause from Finland spoke and translater translated what he said.

He said, "I was surprised that there is no snow in Japan. So I had to use good Japanese automobile instead of a sleigh. In Finland, fairies are making presents for good children."

Last scenes were illumination of famous shopping mall, Shinjuku Southern Terrace. 

Anyway, MERRY CHRISTMAS!  

I was surprised to know an American actor who is famous for acting British sailor who arrived in 17th century Japan in the famous TV mini-seires "Shogun" was gay. He came out 4 years ago on TV interview program. If you want to know more about it, please visit this site.

In the mini-series, he made very impressive line of dialog. A British sailor named John Blackthorne was saved by Samurai lord. A woman who took care of him was so worried about his health. She recommended him to do pillowing with a woman or women. But he declined. Then a woman said "how about boys?"

Blackthorne was upset and said "I am not God Cursed Sodomite. My intimate customs doesn't include boys."

But the actor who played that role was. Very strange.

 In the interview, he said that he was so enthusiastic about playing that role and worked so hard getting the job because at that time Sean Connery was a big candidate.

Why was he so enthusiastic? He said he read the novel of the "Shogun." Maybe he learned what was Samurai's sexual life was by the book. As I described in this post, Japanese men's sexuality in the medieval to pre-modern period was bi-sexual. Samurai lords had gay lovers very openly. Some of their love stories became legends. The head of Japan, Shogun did have gay love affairs with his retainers.

Maybe Mr. Chamberlain wanted to jump into the period and the country where his way of loving people was considered normal. 

His act in the mini-series was very realistic and convincing. He really wanted to be Samurai. Samurai was free sex lover.

By the way, there was also a famous actor who came out as gay and is related to our country. Mr. George Takei, who played an important role in "Star Trek." I am very surprised to know that, too. I've seen him more than 10 years ago in Japan Town, San Francisco. I remembered he made a speech about Japanese Americans rights and harsh history.

If you want to know about him, please visit this site.  

I rented DVD of the old time TV Mini-Series "Roots." It was aired in 1977. The story is based on Alex Hailey's novel. He wrote the story of generations of his family going back to late 18th century when an African tribe boy, Kunta Kinte was born. Kunta Kinte was captured by slave merchants and transported to America.

He was sold as slave to the plantation owner. He tried to escape but in vain. Then he left an offspring. Generation after generation, a story of Kunta Kinte was succeeded to an author, Alex Hailey. Between Kunta Kinte and Hailey, the family experienced enormous oppression by American society.

More than 10 years ago, when I was a college student, I took the course titled "Black Studies." It was very interesting course, the most interesting of all I took in my college days. A Black woman was an instructor. The below is what I learned.

1. Anything what you learn outside Black Studies is white studies.

2. Whenever you type "black", you have to capitalize the first letter "B." Don't care about "white."

3. U.S. doesn't want to provide Black people good education. Even the schools are integrated, the school districts are divided by racial residential areas. In the slavery time, it was illegal to teach Blacks how to read. It is easier for whites to control Black people when Blacks are uneducated.

4. Founding fathers, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson were hypocrats because they owned slaves.

5. Christianity is not good religion because churches supported the slavery in the South, and didn't even treat Blacks better than other people.

6. IQ tests are culturally biased towards East coast white people. That is why Black students scored less than white students. IQ tests cannot be a good tool to measure one's intelligence. When someone talks about intelligence, ask him or her what the definition of it. In fact, there is no such thing. Very ambiguous.

7. Whites may be fearful of Black people because they do not want to know they are inferior to Blacks in terms of intelligence and human body conditions.

8. According to the Cress Theory, the anscestors of whites were albinos of Africans who later migrated to Europe.

9. In the past, it was believed that first man on earth was born in Europe, not in Africa because they did not admit Africans were the anscestors of whites. Now they say whites are advanced creatures of Africans. They twisted the theory not to give up their supremacy.

Her lectures were very radical so she had been criticized even by African students in class. I did not agree with all of what she taught. But I learned very important things. I learned how to counter ridiculous things in the world, how to overcome oppressions. Everyone is biased and everything in the world is political. Nothing is neutral, even in the academics.

Thanks for Black Studies, I survived in this hell.

Is Japan regressing to its pre-war condition? The past and present cause me very much to think so. Prime Minister Abe’s pronouncement that the “Imperial army’s comfort women were not coerced in the strict sense of the word” has shaken the American political world and media. Consequently, criticism of Japan has risen, and the American Congress has adopted a resolution demanding that Japan apologize to the WW II comfort women in Asia.

In some respects, this evokes close resemblance to past generation. Before the war was an era before Japan and America were in conflict. During this era, criticism of the Japanese invasion of China mounted, and the Rape of Nanking was widely reported, leading to boycotts of Japanese products, etc. Americans at the time empathized with the Chinese, who were suffering under the Japanese, and with public opinion as a causal factor, sanctions against Japan in the form of the ABCD encirclement were implemented. "A" is America, "B" means British, the “C” means China and "D" means Dutch . At the time, in Japan , there was a sense that the Japanese themselves were not at fault over the sanctions, and with their backs to the wall there would be no option but to retaliate. They merely excused their stance out of emotional theory, which led to the attack on Pearl Harbor .

 The same is happening now. Just as before, the conservative media and politicians claim that the Japanese government is not responsible for the comfort women problem, and maintain their position that the facts should be reexamined. This, despite the fact that an examination was completed 14 years ago, and the Secretary of the Cabinet at the time admitted in conversation direct army involvement. Just as in the prewar years, the judgment is extremely inward-looking and purely subjective. Further, there is no strategy behind the action. There is no sense that the resulting destination has been coolly considered. Indeed, it resembles Japan just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor .

Nevertheless, in one sense, I can hope that the current adoption will lead to a cooling off. This is because public opinion and politics in America, which is our greatest ally overseas, has started to become greatly involved in the problem of our war responsibility, which was hitherto thought to be merely a problem of the Right and Left. This is so-called “outside pressure”. This is not merely ideology, but clearly starting to develop into a question of national interest. The outside viewpoint becomes clear, forcing us to realize just how irrational our actions are. Relations with China and Korea have already chilled because of the ceremonial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, and at this juncture, America can also now be added. This closely resembles the process that led to the formation of the ABCD encirclement previously. The adoption of this resolution may cause Japan to feel a sense of humiliation like having been scolded by a teacher. This should not lead, however, to citing “hara-kiri” as in the past, but should be linked primarily to coolly considering what is in the national interest. I want Japan to quit acting on emotion alone.

The first thing should be done is that Prime Minister Abe resign from his position. He made things worse.