We all know the story – after World War II, Japan spent decades propelling itself to the summit of economic and technological achievement. Now with 20 years of a stalled growth – what was it all for? A question that has popped up in more and more and ways in the Japanese media recently, the latest by writer and psychiatrist Otohiko Kaga. Approximately 30,000 Japanese a year commit suicide; a million suffer from clinical depression.
Writing in the Shukan Post, Kaga proposes for these frequently noted stats an unexpected explanation. Sixty-five years of postwar progress and economic triumph have not altered – but may even have deepened – a fatal flaw in Japan’s circumstances, namely its virtual over-dependence on its former occupier, the United States.
If anyone had doubted it before, it’s harder to do so now in the wake of the rather blunt way Japan was put in its place this summer, when the now-defunct Hatoyama administration sought to revise terms governing the relocation of a U.S. air base in Okinawa. The existence of foreign military bases itself symbolizes an ongoing occupation, in fact if not in name. Does no one protest? No, laments Kaga, no one does, apart from those living in the bases’ immediate proximity – the protesting impulse having evidently spent itself back in the furious 1960s and ‘70s. What’s left, he says, is the resignation of despair.
The occupation is not just military, in his view, but economic – witness Japan’s economic paralysis on the heels of the American “subprime” crisis and “Lehman shock.”
Another symptom, more ubiquitous and in a sense more insidious, though more often thought of with a smile than a shudder, is that bane of so many English-speaking foreigners here, “katakana English.”
Are we still on the same subject? We are, for “people who lose their sensitivity to language,” says Kaga, “become empty-headed.” Case in point: politicians who “pepper their speeches with katakana English to show off their erudition.”
There are any number of examples he could have raised to demonstrate the grating ugliness of this verbal tic; he confines himself to one: “Sky Tree,” the new broadcasting tower now under construction in Tokyo.
Imagine “Japanese, the language of the [11th-century] ‘Tale of Genji,’ the language of the [8th-century poetry anthology] Manyoshu, so rich in native expressions,” stooping to such a “banal name” for the nation’s tallest architectural structure!
“Sky Tree,” to Kaga, suggests nothing so much as loss of pride, which helps account for the despair he notes at the outset of his article. Think of cleansing the language, he says, as “a first step toward making this unhappy country happy.”
Comments
When Japanese are failing economically and have no real power, they always resort to blaming the U.S. Typical.
The reality is Japanese would not be ANYWHERE economically, politically or socially if it wasn’t for the U.S. rebuilding them and sustaining its economic transformation. Sure, nothing is perfect, especially between opposite sides of the world, but Japan needs to wake up, grow up, and stop whining. The only reason the Japanese economy even grew after WWII is because of favorable policies from the U.S., restricted U.S. competition in Japan, devalued currency against the U.S. dollar, etc. So stop blaming Lehman Brothers for your 20 years of zero economic growth, Japan.
Enough for now…But I also could spew more about Japan and its sad society that blames everyone else but itself. I am sure the U.S. also imported suicide, too…Geez!
Ah yes, I remember fondly my English History classes! People who claim that any language should be static and homogeneous don’t realize how much it depends on change. As times change we must find new ways to express ourselves. This basic necessity combined with the fact that language is an imprecise, blunt instrument of expression assures that there will always be a need for such borrowing as we search for a more precise way to convey meaning.
Japan is no longer an island unto itself,and as a member of the world community it necessitates
than language as a means of communication, too,evolves relative to the various influences precipitated by the changing times.It just so happens that english,the worlds dominant language carries the day.Were he to think a little bit more, he will also realise that the japanese he speaks now varies to that of his forefathers.
post-war japan was a developing nation and an emerging economy. in the past 20 years, it had developed and emerged. the difference in growth goes without saying. the fact remains that japan is in a position that other countries are barely reaching. what’s the point of development? the next step that i can forsee is embracing english, the world’s language.
I cannot claim any knowledge on the other points of the article, but in terms of katakana English, I don’t think there’s anything to really worry about. English went through a period like this before, too, when other languages were in style. French words, in particular, became very popular and were incorporated into the language. This phase passed in English and it will pass in Japanese, and unnecessary English words will fall out of use. If I remember right from my English History course, I suppose you could say “language cleansing” of a sort happened in the English language when the influx of foreign words became too much and language rules were created. Many foreign words remained in English, but many were dropped. These foreign words remained because they were useful and not very hard to understand. Japanese, on the other hand, uses kanji. Too much katakana makes writing very hard to understand. I suspect that when Japan makes language rules (similar to the ones that English made with the influx of French words), English will lose its flashiness and the amount of katakana English used will drop to a minimum: as in, it will be used only when there is no suitable or well known Japanese equivalent.
After the war Japan was fortunate enough to have millions of dollars of aid pumped into it’s economy, by USA and Britain, in order to rebuild its economy. This was to the detriment of much of British industry in particular..the money would have been better spent on rebuilding post – war British industry. The Japanese had this financial cushion to renew their industries; to copy and modify western ideas and technology to their own advantage; and to see western industry fall behind.
Now that this advantage has gone, and the Japanese have no financial assistance from the west, they have to think of things for themselves, now finding that there is little special about Japan on a level playing field.