Nori's blog----Novels, Poems, Essays, from Japan

Sorry Friends.

I have been too busy to write here for a long time.
Now I rehabilitate myself.

Nori

Many years ago, an American lady I know has written in her letter
"the United States has many aspects".

I was reminded of this sentence in her letter while seeing reports
about MJ's life and death.

MJ(Michael Jackson) was, without doubt, an incarnation of
what one calls "American dream".
However, various reports about him and his family remind me of
the sentence above -- " the United States has many aspects ".

The abuse of propofol(Diprivan), for example, upset me with the
fact that THERE IS SUCH A DOCTOR IN AMERICA, whose moral is
thus low or whose knowledge about propofol is poor.

The reported confrontation between MJ and his father makes me sad
to find out there was such a family in America, which does not seem
to have been happy, regardless of the enormous wealth and fame MJ obtained.

It is sad to confront such " many aspects " of America in the flood of
reports about his life and death.

It is deja-vu of CITIZEN KANE-- "Rose Bud".

*

June 4th is the birthday of late Russian conductor Yevgeni Mravinsky (1903-1988).

(About Mravinsky (Wikipedia))
　　　　　　　↓
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evgeny_Mravinsky

Due to a certain fortune, I, who was very young then,
could know him in person when he repeatedly visited Japan
with his Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1970s.

Every year, on June 4th, I recall him not only because it is his
birthday but also because I have a wonderful memory of a secret
birthday party in Japan in 1979, when he happened to be in
Japan on his birthday.

We held a small party for him in a hotel room of the Silk Hotel
in Yokohama. He was really pleased with the party and told us
of his memory in childhood.----He was a son of a Russian aristocrat
family before the Russian Revolution. He and his parents were persecuted
by the communists government after the Russian revolution.
Mravinsky told us how he had been celebrated on his birthdays in
his childhood by his parents, saying he had been an overprotected child.

He told us about God and told about Glazounov, the Russian
composer who influenced him in his childhood.

I recall the night he told us about his sweet memeory of
his childhood in pre-revolution Russia and Glazounov on
June 4th every year.

Happy Birthday

NOriNishioka

Youtube: Mravinsky conducting Tchaikovsky's 5th symphony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQhzfTwwMlU

Youtube: Mravinsky conducting Schostakovich's 5th symphony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5oZcDqDDF4

My book about Mravinsky ("Mravinsky: Gakuya no Sugao"(2003) in Japanese)
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%83%A0%E3%83%A9%E3%83%B4%E3%82%A3%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B9%E3%82%AD%E3%83%BC%E2%80%95%E6%A5%BD%E5%B1%8B%E3%81%AE%E7%B4%A0%E9%A1%94-%E8%A5%BF%E5%B2%A1-%E6%98%8C%E7%B4%80/dp/4947637854/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244087153&sr=1-3

Today is the 64th anniversary of the horrible Tokyo Air Raid on March 10th, 1945, which claimed approximately 100 thousands lives in one night.

I present you the English translation of an editorial published
by the Japanese newspaper YOMIURI SHIMBUN one year ago.(March 10th, 2008)

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"I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal. Fortunately we were on the winning side."

This remark, made years after World War II, is attributed to Gen. Curtis LeMay (1906-90), a U.S. Air Force commander who directed a massive incendiary attack on Tokyo in the predawn hours of March 10, 1945, scorching a good portion of the city's eastern shitamachi, a low-lying area with many small independent shops and factories.

The Great Tokyo Air Raid should be regarded as a genocidal attack that mainly targeted civilians in obvious violation of international law. The aerial bombing came after the U.S. Air Force had failed to achieve much in its intermittent pinpoint bombing of military-related facilities in Japan. The United States was shifting the focus of its military campaign against this country to firebombing and scorching urban areas as a means of sapping the people's will to continue fighting.

The air raid turned crowded blocks of wooden houses in Tokyo into a sea of fire, claiming about 100,000 lives. The figure exceeded the death toll from the bombing of Dresden, Germany, by the U.S. and British air forces in February 1945, one of the largest air raids carried out in Europe during World War II.
After successfully accomplishing its military aim in the Tokyo air raid, the United States expanded its list of indiscriminate bombing targets to launch an air attack on Nagoya on March 12 and Osaka on March 13-14. By the end of war, the United States had bombed about 150 Japanese cities, killing an estimated 500,000 people.

LeMay is not the only one to acknowledge the Great Tokyo Air Raid as a war crime. "LeMay said, 'If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals.' And I think he's right. He---and I'd say I--were behaving as war criminals," former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara said in "The Fog of War," a U.S. documentary movie produced in 2003 and released in Japan last year. McNamara was one of the U.S. officials who played a major role in the deepening military involvement of the United States in Vietnam.

During World War II, McNamara helped plan efficient bombing campaigns as a lieutenant colonel under Gen. LeMay's command.

In light of McNamara's remarks, what was the meaning of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, known as Tokyo Trial? McNamara's remarks can give anyone cause to rethink the significance of the Tokyo Trial, which tried Japanese political and military leaders as war criminals.

In 1992, the German government raised a strong objection when a bronze statue of Arthur Harris, a British general who had directed the Dresden bombing, was erected in central London.

This is in stark contrast to the attitude taken by the Japanese government toward LeMay after the war. In 1964, he was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun for his "cooperation in the development of the Air Self-Defense Force." This symbolically showed how strongly the Japanese public's perception of the prewar and wartime history had been distorted by their own blind acceptance of incidents established as historical facts during the Tokyo Trial.

Immediately after the Tokyo air raid, Koyo Ishikawa, then a photographer of the Metropolitan Police Department, photographed the city's landscape. Although the GHQ ordered him to hand over rolls of film used to photograph the war-ravaged Tokyo, Ishikawa never surrendered the film, instead burying it in the garden of his house.

The Edo-Tokyo Museum exhibits some of his photos taken with the film, including one depicting the charred bodies of a mother and child, in a section featuring the 60th anniversary of the air raid.

Today, the Tokyo metropolitan government, which has designated March 10 as Peace Day, holds an annual ceremony marking the significance of peace. The Great Tokyo Air Raid should never fall into oblivion. The story of the bombing should be handed down from generation to generation.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/kyoiku/learning/editorial/20050318/index.htm

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My mother is a surviror of this holocaust.

Nori

*

*

--Tragedy does not take place when the good fights against
the evil. Tragedy takes place when the good fights with
another good.--
(Andrezej Wajda)

It was many years ago that my mother told me of the memory.

It snowed heavily in Tokyo on the day.
My mother was 7 years ago at the time.

Although she was a little child, who attended her primary
school as usual on the day too, she remembered the day as
a very unusual day for two reasons: One was the heavy snow
on the morning and the other reason was that her family's
maid appeared at her primary school and told my mother
she must leave the school and come back to home. It was
very unusual to my mother because her family's maid had
never appeared at her school until then. That her family's
maid appeared at her school and told her to return home with
her was a surprise to my mother who was 7 years old then.
--My mother was escorted by her family's maid and returned
home in snow.

It was exactly 73 years ago that my mother expereienced
this heavy snow and unusual returning home with the
maid's escort. It was the day Japan was shaken by the
attempted coup d'etat in Tokyo on the February 26th,
1936.

It was a tragic event. The attempted coup in snow was
aborted when their assault on the cabinet members in Tokyo
in the early morning of February 26th(1936) triggered
anger of the Emperor Hirohito. The only way those young
army officers who joint the coup d'etat in the snowy
mornig was only to surrender or to commit suicide.

Those young army officers attempted the coup from their
indignation against the corrupt politics and awful
poverty of Japanese peasants which they believed to be
the consequence of the the then corrupt politics.
They expected Emperor Showa's support but their act
resulted only in the Emperor's anger.

Those young army officers who participated in the
aborted coup were without doubt patriots.
So, the consequence of the aborted coup, in which
they killed themselves or were executed after they
surrendered to the government and were tired in the
military courts was tragic enough.
But another aspect of the tragedy was that the
victims--the then cabinet members who were assassinated
by those army officers in the snowy morning--included
such respectable patriot as the then financial minister
TAKAHASHI Korekiyo. It was a tragedy because the good
claimed the life of other good, as Wajda called it
a tragedy concerning his movie “Ash and Diamond”.

（Click here to know about this history)
　　　　　　　　　　↓
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_26_Incident

The tragic event--the aborted coup is mentioned in the impressive conversation in the movie “MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR.LAWRENCE”, for example.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
(From“MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR.LAWRENCE”)

Yonoi :How wonderful it would have been, if it could
have been invited all of you to a gathering
under our cherry trees.
Lawrence:Yes. My fondest memory of Japan is the snow.
Trees covered with snow.
Yonoi :It was snowing on the day.
Lawrence:What day?
Yonoi on't you know? February 26th, 1936.
Lawrence:Ah, yes. I was in Tokyo on the day.You too?
Yonoi :No. I had been sent off to Manchuria 3 months
before. I was not there for the uprising.
Lawrence:You regret that?
Yonoi :My comrades were executed. I was left to die
after them.
Laerence:I see. So, you were one of the shining officers.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

My mother was there too.
She was a little girl of 7 years old who went to her school
as usual on the snowy morning. But Japan was in a turmoil
while she attended her school in the heavy snow.

I have heard the TV weather forecasting say that it may
snow in Tokyo tonight, as it did 73 years ago.

Feb 26th, 2009

Nori

*

Obama is a small city in Fukui-prefecture in Japan.

（Click here to know about Obama-City)
　　　　　　　　　　↓
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama,_Fukui

It is a tiny quiet town facing the beautiful sea
of Wakasa-Bay and it has many beautiful Buddhism
temples as well as the beauty of nature. --It is
called “anoter NARA with the sea”.

The tiny city became famous since Mr.Barak Obama
appeared in US, for the simple reason the city has
the same name with him.
After Mr.Obama won the presidential election,
this quiet city facing the Sea of Japan excited
at the news their name has become the same with
the US president.

This morning, I watched the NHK news about the
inauguration of President Barak Obama in Wasshington D.C.

The long news showed us not only the scenes from
Washington D.C, but also people's voices about the
new president.

The news reported the voice of Japanese people
about President Obama from various parts of Japan.
For example, some Japanese in Osaka were rejoiced by
this inauguration, as usual.--Osakans like America.
But then, we were shown citizens of Obama city
who were interviewd by the TV crew on streets of
Obama-City.

They were rejoiced and said they were very glad with
the inauguration of a new president in the United
States whose name is same with their hometown.
However, two citizens who were interviewd by the
TV crew, in front of the TV camera, said they hope
President Obama will give supports to the efforts
for the Japanese abducted by North Korea will be
returned to Japan.

（Click here to know about North Korean abduction of Japanese)
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　↓
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_abductions_of_Japanese

Obama-City was a place where some Japanese were
abducted by North Koreans in the 1970s. They could
come back to Japan in 2002 after they were forced
to waste their valuable years of life in the
prison-state as instructors of Japanese for North
Korean soldiers, or spies, while their abduction
was kept secret. --It was after 2002 North Korean
dictator Kim Jong-Il acknowledged their crime--
abduction of multiple Japanese from Japan--and
apologized to the then Japanese prime minster Koizumi
who visited North Korea. There are, however, many
more Japanese who were abducted in Japan by Koreans
and missed after they were forced to live in North
Korea as instructors of Japanese for North Korean
soldiers and spies.

Bush administration was sympathetic to the family
of those kidnapped japanese and president Bush
expressed his anger to North Korea. Moreover,
president Bush even invited a mother of such
abducted Japanese, YOKOTA Megumi, who had been
abducted by North Korean operators on a street in
Japan in 1978, when she had been 13 years old.
President Bush, however, betrayed Japan after this
touching event. Under the treacherous dipolpmacy of
Rice and Hill, who conceded North Korea and ignored
the Japanese concern, Bush administration changed
US diplomacy to extremely pro-North Korean one
to obtain North Korean compromise in nuclear issue.

Under such diplomatic circumstance, the Japanese
are deeply concerned Obama administrarion may concede
more to North Korea than Bush administration did
and are wondering what policy Obama administration
start with North Korea.

I am one of them.
As well as the citizens of Obama-City who are concerned
about the American attitude towards North Korea, regardless
of the pleasure new president of the US has the same name
with their town, I am deeply concerned president Obama
may take more pro-North Korean policy than Mr.Bush
who betrayed the Japanese mother waiting for her daughter
30 years in Japan.

Nori

*

Today is the 18th anniversary of the outbreak of
the GUlf War.

On the anniversary of this rather forgotten war
after the war of Iraq, I send you a part of a
thought-provoking article about the role of censor
in war, which is a memoir by a Japanese critic and
a historian.

It is a part of a memoir by late Mr.ETOH Jun, who was
a critic of modern Japanese literature and politics.

He was known for his unique research about the censorship
by the US Occupation in occupied Japan----He researched
extensively about the influence of American censorship in
occupied Japan on poetwar Japanese culture and politics.

With such unique viewpoint about the history of censorship
in Japan and the US, he reviewd the Gulf War from his proper
viewpoint on the role of censorship in war, right after the
Gulf War in 1991.

Following is a part of an article by a Japanese critic
who by chance heard an ex-official of the US government,
Dean Rusk, state his view on the role of censorship in
American wars.

You are urged to read this and think about the role of
censorship in American history.----America was not an
exceptinal state in its history of censorship.

-------------------------------------------------------------
(Memoir by late ETOH Jun)

Some may have recalled that there is censor in our world
during the Gulf War this year. Not a few young generation,
on the other hand, might have learnt that there is censor in
our world for the first time. Both the multinational(US) Army
and the Iraqis implemented very utter censor. As the result,
to our mystery, we are unaware exactly how many Iraqis this
war claimed. According to a certain faierly reliable source,
the war may have claimed 300 thousands Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait only.
On the other hand, the American casualities, which is supposed to be
hundreds officially, is uncertain, to tell the truth. Censor created such
image of clean war in which we cannot see the images of the dead.
The released images by the multinational Army, which we saw on
television, were made under the American control.
Seeing those images made by US, I was convinced that the US is doing
the war very seriously.

My memory is back to 11 years ago. In the spring of 1980, I was in America.
I was in America as a research fellow in the Wilson Center in Washington D.C.
I was sent there by the Japan Foundation to do research about the censor
US Occupation Army had done in Japan during the years US occupied Japan.
By chance, while I was staying there, a symposium on Vietnam War was held.
Neil Sheehan, an American journalist who had campaigned against the war
during the Vietnam War, was one of the research fellows who had been in the
Wilson Center at the time.
In contrast with the Gulf War this year, Vietnam War was a poignant war to
the United States. In addition, since the spring of 1980 was right after rescue
operation of the American hostages in Iran failed, the symposium was held in
the Wilson Center in a very depressing mood.

I must remind you of Dean Rusk here. Dean Rusk, the ex-secretary of the state
during the Vietnam War, had retired many years ago then.
He became a professor at Georgia University in Georgia State, which was his home.
He was invited to the symposium by the Wilson Center and came from Atlanta to
Washington D.C. by airplain to attend the symposium. He was not one of the
panelists nor speaker. I noticed an old man sitting silently in a corner of the floor.
When I noticed the man as being alike Dean Rusk, it was very Dean Rusk.
He was listening the panelers' debate silently.
As I am a foreigner, I was listening what Americans speak enthusiastically about
the Vietnam War silently as well, to learn about the issue.
Then, Mr.Rusk, the ex-secretary of the State, raised his arm at the end of the
symposium. He stated all who were there a very poignant comment.
“I could hear many valuable opinions here. I, however, think that we failed the war.
I guess you all agree to this point”.
The audience were silent. Mr.Rusk continued.
“Why did we fail the war? The reason was because we did not do censor even once
in the Vietnam War. In the past World War Ⅱ, we implemented a very hard censor
and won the war. But we did not do censor in the Vietnam War. As the result,
we could not get supports from the people in our own country. Imagine how the people,
who watch the images of their sons, boyfriends, or husbands, being murdered cruelly
by Vietcongs every day, would respond to our govenment's campaign to continue this war.
There's no reason people would accept it positively.
No government is capable to continue to fight and win the war under such midia
circumstances.”
When Mr.Rusk said as above, the audience were in complete silence. I was most
impressed by the sight Neil Sheehan, who was criticizing the war, did not rufute at all.
He was, on contrary, nodding with a solemn face to Mr.Rusk's words.

(from “A Personal Proposal of abolishing the Constitution 1946” by ETOH Jun:
SAPIO May.9, 1991, p.21
(translated by NISHIOKA Masanori--Note:The remark by Mr.Dean Rusk in this
translation above is my reverse translation from the original Japanese text.
As it is a reverse translation from what late Mr.Etoh recalled and wrote in Japanese,
Mr.Rusk's remark in my reverse translation above must differ from his original remark
there, which he spoke in English.)

------------------------------------------------------------------

It is dangerous many Americans are unaware that their
country has such history of censorship which was
invisible to the American public.

Jan. 17, 2009(Sat)

On the 18th anniversary of the
outbreak of the Gulf War

Nori

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War
(about the Gulf War)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Sheehan
（About Neil Sheehan)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Rusk
(About Dean Rusk)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Japan
(About the occupation of Japan including censorship by the
US occuapation)

http://www.froginawell.net/japan/2006/03/the-case-of-taiwa-shinron/
(About censorship in occupied Japan: Frog in a well)

http://www.faqs.org/abstracts/Health/Censorship-of-medical-journals-in-occupied-Japan-Censorship-of-the-atomic-bomb-casualty-reports-in-o.html
(About Censorship of medical journals in Japan)

*

Today is the 18th anniversary of the outbreak of the Gulf War.

After the war of Iraq(2003), this war in 1991(the Gulf War)
seems to be rather forgotten. I recall the war, however, as a
more horrifying event I witnessed in my lofe, though I "witnessed"
the war through media--not as my real experience.

Among the many things I "witnessed" through media during the war,
I am most impressed by the image of the sea bird that was contaminated
by oil, whose image was at first explained as a victim of "Iraqi
environmental terrorism". It was told, at first, that the bird was
found at a certain sea shore of Saudi Arabia and that the bird was
standing in spilled oil after the Iraqi released oil to the Persian
Gulf.

It was found out, however, that the explanation was illogical
because the sea stream of Persian Gulf was not so fast as to
bring the spilled oil to Saudi Arabian sea shore if the oil had
been really released by the Iraqi in Kuwait. On contrary, it was
revealed later that the bird had been a victim of American air raid
that made oil flow into the sea.

I was appalled when I heard in a radio news that the report of the
sea bird outraged the public and there appeared even such opinion
as to say nuclear weapon may be used against Iraqi who commit such
environmental terrorism in the Western nations. It was appaling to
witness the public oipnion of "democratic" countires can be thus
easily misled to an emotional one to condone nuclear attack against
whatever nation, with a false caption given to a image of really
miserable bird.

Our democracy is always at the threat of propaganda with visual
propagandas. The Gulf War(1991) is a reminder "public opinion" in
democratic society can be misled with such fraud as the sea bird
standing in oil given a false comment--the Iraqis did it--to the
extent of supporting nuclear attack.

On the 18th anniversary of
the outbreak of the Gulf War

Nori

*

*

As in every December, I went to listen Beethoven's
9th symphony this year too.--I went to two concerts
this year.

And, as in every end of a year, I thought over
various matters about my life while listening
the symphony. To me, it is the moment to reflect
on my life in the music.

(I have been coming to at least two concerts of
Beethoven's 9th symphony in every December in the
last 10 years)

There is a part of the symphony--certain part of the
4th movement--where I am reminded of the German POWs
who performed this symphony for the first in Japan.
Whenever the performance comes to the part, I think
about those German POWs. I wonder what emotion those
Germen POWs held in their mind at the part when they
played this music. I imagine they thought about their
defeated homeland and their families and friends in
Germany, playing the part in front of many Japanese
who listened this symphony for the first time in
Japanese history.--And now, I am listening the same
music in this country.

This year was the 90th anniversary of the first
performance of Beethoven's 9th symphony in Japan.

Adiu 2008.

Nori

*

*

Concerning this tradition in Japan, I would like you
to know certain history. It is the history about the
first artists who performed this symphony--Beethoven's
9th symphony--in Japan.

They were German POWs of the World War I, who were
captured by the Japanese in Tsintao which was the
German territory in Shantao peninsula in Northern
China.

This may need explanation--Japan, who participated in
the World War I as the British ally, declared war
against Germany in W.W.I and occupied the small
German territory in Northern China, Tsintao.
There were Gernmans, and they were made Japanese
POWs of W.W.I. THen, they were taken to Japanese
southwestern island Shikoku and spent their years in
a camp there. And many of those POWs came to the
camp in Japan with instruments.

The relation between the German POWs and the Japanese
was quite good. And the friendship was even widened to
the local Japanese living around their camp.

In such human relationship, when the World War I ended,
those German POWs held a concert for the Japanese who
ran the camp in Bantoh POW camp in Shikoku on June 1st
of 1918. It was in this concert Beethoven's 9th symphony
was first performed in Japan.

There were no female singers, of course. And there were
no female choir group too. So, it was not a perfect
performance of the 9th symphony.
However, they performed Beethoven's 9th symphony in the
remote camp of Japan in 1918.
It is amazing those Germans could organize an orchestra
of whatever level and could manage to perform Beethoven's
9th symphony without female singers there in 1918.

This amazing history had been forgotten for many years.
It was in the mid-1970s that this amazing history of the
first performance of the Beethoven's 9th symphony was
told by a TV documentary in Japan and then many books
appeared about this history.

I was one of those who learnt this amazing history by
the TV documentary in 1970s and was deeply moved by
the figure of a few very old German ex-POWs who were
still alive and played part of the 9th symphony in the
TV documentary in the mid-1970s.--The 9th symphony in
Japan's December had such amazing history.

(To be continued)

Nori

(I am sorry I could not find a good English web-site
about this rather unknown history of the first performance
of the Beethoven's 9th symphony in Japan.
But here is a web-site about this history in German.
If you can read German, please click and read this web-site.)
↓
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsgefangenenlager_Band%C5%8D

*