Crown Prince launches attack on conservative Japan

[dArKeR]

REUTERS , TOKYO
Thursday, Jun 10, 2004,Page 5

Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito won the heart of his Harvard-educated bride, nervous about her ability to adapt to the conservative court, by promising to protect her "forever with all his might."

Eleven years later, he is living up to his pledge.

The two marked their wedding anniversary yesterday as uncertainty swirled about when Crown Princess Masako, a former diplomat who has been suffering from a stress-related illness since December, would be able to resume her official duties.

The woes of the 40-year-old princess have shone a harsh spotlight on the pressures of her position and prompted surprisingly blunt comments in her defense from her husband, setting off an unusually public feud over her situation.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/06/10/2003174482

In my opinion and I believe in fact, 'conservative Japan' actually means 'Mafia Crime Family Japan.' Anyone who's delt with Japan pretty much knows this. My personal input: After the Americans took total control of Japan after WWII, what do you think we did there? Do you think we blackmailed politicians by making them masturbate on prisoners with bags over their heads? Do you think we took pictures of them having anal sex with dogs? Do you think we made them molest children? Then used these pictures against them in political life for the American Government? Do you think we planted moles all over the government and CEOs to control Japan after we left?

When you find out about modern Japan it resembles a cross between Hitler's Government and the Bush Crime Family American Government.

The people of Japan have by far the best reputation in the world. The most kind, curteous, respectful, friendly... Not to mention the girls score double on all. While you're overseas traveling you can verify this for yourself. Ask any hotel, public transortation driver, or clerk who are the nicest people who visit their country. I guarantee they'll say Japanese.

[Snow]

1. That's an oddly disjointed post.....

I'm not sure there's a point in there at all. A royal family is conservative by its very nature, a prime function is conserving that aspect of the culture. That there is a connection between the ruling oligarchs of the zaibatsu and the yakuza is unarguable, and that has been there since the mid-1800's that I'm aware of. But a comparison with anything Western doesn't hold water in my opinion.

The Japanese people do have a nice reputation outside of Asia - and deservedly so, I agree with your assessment. In Asia, they're generally disliked and mistrusted - in part for historic reasons, in part because they treat the rest of Asia as colonies. It is much more a conservative older male problem, though, in fairness.

[dArKeR]

2. We made a pan of double chocolate brownies for dinner. I'm probably

on a sugar high.

When I think of 'conservative' this word means 'fascist' to me. When I'm in Japan it reminds me a being in a fascist states. Most everyone is afraid to do something different and stand out. I've seen a copy pull over a speeder and a crowd of a hundreds will stare.

My girl friends tell me to mind my own business because the Yakuza will get me. It's one nice thing about being a stupid foreigner, we usually don't get messed with.

If 'people' can't think for themselves, waiting for people like Fineman, Woodward... to tell them the facts of history, they're all silly. I think we put mole agents all over Japan so that we can control the country. We had Japan on its knees and I feel America was in for PROTIF$ not just surrender. As I feel the same as we/America/CIA has been accused for doing from United Fruit to the PI to Nigeria to Iran to Afghanistan.

[Art_from_Ark]

3. Japan is hardly a fascist state

There is a big difference between fascism and social conservatism.

I don't know what part of Japan you hang around in, but I have never, ever seen crowds of hundreds gawk at some guy getting pulled over for speeding. This is a "look the other way" sort of country.

[dArKeR]

7. What I mean; There are 2 worlds in Japan as in every country in the world

repressed by a Fascist style of Government. The elite of have everything and make all the rules and those who pick up the crumbs and follow the elites rules. The Japanese Gov. is corrupt to the bone along with their business leaders but the Japanese people, the normal citizens which make up 99.99% of the population are the most wonderful group of people I'd care to meet.

There are 2 completely different classes of people in Japan. As I see what the GOP has done to America. Maybe since the Elite Repuke system worked so well in Japan, it has been adopted by the Reagan/Bush/GOP Crime Family.

[Art_from_Ark]

10. Well, sure, you've got "elites" in every country

And the elites in this country (Japan) think they control things, and once in a while, like with the dispatch of SDF to Iraq, they get their way. And sure, the politicians are corrupt to the bone, just like they are in virtually any other country. But this is hardly a fascist country. The military is very small, and keeps a very low profile. There is no forced swearing of allegiance to flag or Emperor in the schools, and most of the public school teachers (bless their hearts) are very anti-war. Textbooks do not promote nationalism. Everyone has access to health care, and the government takes great pains to promote tolerance of other cultures and nationalities. There is also a far smaller gap between extremely rich and extremely poor in Japan than there is in the US. Why would you believe that Japan is a fascist state?

[Hekate]

4. The Japanese are socially rigid, not fascist

And General MacArthur did a hell of a good job on postwar Japanese reconstruction. They ended up with a decent constitution for representative government, and he didn't forget the women in that, either. Japan became in time a highly prosperous modern nation and reliable US ally.

They are Japanese in culture and outlook, however, not American. (To think they should be completely like us is to fall into the provincialism that afflicts our current government.)

The contrast between the vision and actions of General MacArthur/President Truman and that of the Bush admin is beyond embarrassment.

However, to the Princess Masako. She's a bird in a gilded cage, and that cage was built by the palace authorities centuries ago. Japanese Emporers have almost always had a function more religious and ceremonial than political. Their religious function is tied to Shinto, the ancient land-based religion of Japan.

A pattern of life is laid out for the Imperial wives that is socially conservative and restrictive in the extreme, and from what I've read in the past, the authority of the palace authorities is virtually unbreakable.The British Royals are unbelievably free to come and go, by comparison.

It will take a virtual palace revolution for the Japanese Prince to prevail and break the cage that holds his Princess, and from the sounds of things they certainly have public sympathy on their side. Good luck to them both -- not only is Masako's sanity at stake, but their daughter's future life as well.

Hekate

[Snow]

5. Okay, I see we've made the point that "conservative" as we in the West

are using the term nowadays bears no real relation to what looks like conservative to us looking at Asia. The Japanese were accused of being fascists during WWII, and while I feel that was largely incorrect, based on misunderstanding and oversimplification, still there is one (oversimplistic) definition of fascism that applies: unification of government, business, and religion. Anyway, having said that, for anyone interested in understanding Japan - and the book applies equally well to Korea and to a lesser degree to China - there's an outstanding book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679777601/103-2251998-8581445?v=glance

"Confucius lives next door" by TR Reid. Outstanding, very insightful. There's an older book on Korea that's also excellent, and provides balance in that it was written by a man living as the sole foreigner in a rural setting - and Korean culture has very strong farming element to it - that is Richard Rutt's "Korean Works and Days".

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. I think he's referring to the restrictions imposed by

the Imperial Household Agency, and in fact, the Japanese newscast I saw on the International Channel the other day referred to the Crown Prince having a stern discussion with the Director of the Imperial Household Agency.

The IHA is composed of hard-assed traditionalists who want the public behavior of the imperial family to be as restrained and rigid as that of characters in a Noh drama.

For example, when the younger Prince Akishino was engaged and held a joint news conference with his fiancee, the IHA had a conniption fit because he made some teasing remark and she laughed and tousled his hair.

Earlier, back when Empress Michiko was first married to then-Crown Prince Akihito, she went through some tough emotional times and a lot of petty harrassment as the first commoner ever to marry into the family. Akihito and Michiko also had to fight the IHA to be allowed to raise their own children, as opposed to having them taken to be raised by servants in another imperial residence.

You may remember that Emperor Hirohito was "about to die" for nearly six months. That was because the IHA didn't like Akihito (basically thought he was too liberal) and wanted to keep his old man technically alive with machines as long as possible.

I'm glad that Naruhito is showing some guts in standing up to these petty tyrants.

[Snow]

8. Yes, although I fully understand the purpose of cultural preservation

and feel it's important, the IHA and folks like them sometimes get odd ideas going. Two of their biggest misapprehensions are the unbroken dynasty back to 5,000 years ago (or whatever it is) and the one you mention, that a 'commoner' has never married into the royal family. In China, Japan, & Korea you find these sorts, the dynastic nobles and upper aristocracy, having enormous influence and getting into incredible Hatfield & McCoy feuds, but they do serve a real purpose of a restraint and check on power. Asian monarchs follow confucian ethics and in general tend to have a much greater sense of responsibility and indeed of service to the people than was historically true in Europe (*koff* France *koff*), but when they do get out of hand they usually get jumped on faster. All-in-all, it's quite a system, and it makes me extremely grateful Korea's royals aren't sitting on any thrones - they haven't strictly followed the male succession thing that the Japanese picked up from European influence a while back, and the person who's about 6th in line for that thankfully absent throne is my wife.

[Scairp]

9. And Diana thought she had it bad

With the royal family she married into. At least she had the freedom to do her charity work, complain, get a divorce and try to live some kind of normal life. This poor girl has been seen as nothing more than a brood mare to this organization, required to produce at least one boy. What century do they think they are in? I guess they didn't get the scientific memo informing them that it is the MAN'S contribution to conception that determines the gender of a fetus. If there is a problem then it's the royal heir's who cannot produce anything but girls, which in my book, isn't really a problem.