The Cultural Trade Deficit: Japanese Intellectuals, Let’s Speak Out in English

It’s often said that the Japanese cultural trade deficit is very large.

Japanese intellectuals who can speak foreign languages have been earning money by bringing foreign knowledge and information into Japan. Most of them haven’t been interested in expressing their thoughts to the world, because it is much easier for them to import foreign knowledge and sell it in Japan.

It’s might not be bad that there are rich collections of Japanese translations of foreign books, but there are much fewer translations of Japanese books. Haruki Murakami is a complete exception.

Through the experience of keeping a blog in English I have realized that Japanese intellectuals should speak out in English to the world much more.

Firstly, remarks by Japanese intellectuals in English have value because of their scarcity at this time. When I write in English on my blog, I found that my opinion was unique because of my Japanese origin, even if I don’t try intentionally insisting on a Japanese point of views. We, as Japanese intellectuals, have a duty to provide our unique point of views to the world.

Now, many non-Western countries fail to build democratic governments. Japan, as a non-Western country, has the experiences of importing the concept of democracy from the West and developing our own democratic government; Japanese intellectuals could point out factors which make non-Western countries fail in building democratic governments that Western intellectuals can't see.

Secondly, we could make our opinions more sophisticated by expressing them in English. When we speak in English to the world, we have to explain things that are obvious for Japanese people. This forces us to think about our fundamental assumptions.

In my blog, I wrote the entry "Is Japan Really a Democratic Country?" Certainly I could think much more deeply about Japanese government by that than writing it in Japanese.

Japanese intellectuals, let’s speak out in English!

Al-Qaeda as “Bandits”

I’ve read the book Eric Hobsbawm “Bandits,” again.

In this book he wrote about the history of “Bandits” around the world. He insisted that groups that were called “bandits” appeared in the age between the demise of tribal societies and the formation of modern capitalized society.

He described the phenomenon “bandits” as follows.

Social banditry of this kind is one of the most universal social phenomena known to history, and one of the most amazingly uniform.
…
… this uniformity is not the consequence of cultural diffusion, but the reflection of similar situations within peasant societies, whether in China, Peru, Sicily, the Ukraine, or Indonesia.
…
… Socially it seems to occur in all types of human society which lie between the evolutionary phase of tribal and kinship organization, and modern capitalist and industrial society, but including the phases of disintegrating kinship society and transition to agrarian capitalism.
…
At the other end of historic development, modern agrarian systems, both capitalist and post-capitalist, are no longer those of traditional peasant society and cease to produce social bandits
…
… In a broader sense ‘modernization’, that is to say the combination of economic development, efficient communications and public administration, deprives any kind of banditry, including the social, of the conditions under which it flourishes.

When I read this passage, I was reminded of Al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda has two faces. The first is the globalized organization using the Internet to instigate terrorism, and the second is the aggregation of small groups revolving in remote areas, such as the tribal area in Pakistan and the mountain area in Afghanistan.

The second face of Al-Qaeda has many features in common with “bandits,” which Eric Hobsbawm focused on. His study showed that “bandits” couldn’t be wiped out by officials but they disappeared through losing their social and economic basis. In fact, Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan is surviving even though the U.S. Army attacked them using their modern weapons.

It might be more efficient to eliminate Al-Qaeda through realizing “the combination of economic development, efficient communications and public administration” in these areas.

Although I don’t know well about the progress of the study about “bandits,” it must be quite important to deal with Al-Qaeda, especially, the study about “bandits” in the globalization and the Internet age.

Superman and the 442nd Regimental Combat team

The movie “Batman vs. Superman,” which is a sequel of “Man of Steel,” will be out in July 2015.

Batman and Superman are complete opposites in every aspect. Batman is the dark knight, but on the other hand the sun makes Superman a super hero. Bruce Wayne is a son of a millionaire in Gotham City, whose model is obviously New York City, but Clark Kent grew up in Smallville, Kansas.

It is most interesting that Superman who was born in the Planet Krypton is very patriotic, but Batman who is a born American doesn’t believe in his government.

In Frank Miller’s comics “Batman: the Dark Knight Returns,” Batman said to Superman, “You always say yes to anyone with a badge or a flag. No good,” while fighting against each other.

Superman’s patriotism reminds me the motto of the 442nd Regimental Combat team, “Go for Broke.”

In the period of World War II, Japanese American citizens in the U.S. were interned in camps, because they were thought to be anti-American, even though they had American citizenship.

Most members of the 442nd Regimental Combat team were young Japanese Americans whose parents were interned. They had to prove that they were the true Americans, and they fought bravely in Europe in World War II.

After Superman fought for life to save America and the Planet Earth, at the end of “Man of Steel,” General Swanwick talked with Superman.

General Swanwick: Then I'll ask the obvious question: How do we know you won't one day act against America's interests.
Superman: I grew up in Kansas, General. It's about as American as it gets. Look, I'm here to help. But it has to be on my own terms. And you have to convince Washington of that.
General Swanwick: Even if I were willing to try, what makes you think they'd listen?
Superman: I don't know, General. I guess I'll just have to trust you.

Superman has to keep trying to trust American people, so he keeps fighting for Americans like the 442nd Regimental Combat team, because he was born in a foreign planet.

Do What You Feels Right, When You Have No Idea What I Should Do: My Impression of the Movie “Star Trek Into Darkness”

After work, I went to see “Star Trek Into Darkness.” It is a very interesting movie, I think.



Compared with “Man of Steel,” the visual effect of this movie looks cheaper, although that of “Man of Steel” is outstanding.

Actually, the biggest appeal of “Star Trek Into Darkness” isn’t visuals but dialogs between characters, especially Kirk and Spock. When I read the quotes of it, I found that the script was really well written.

Since I became a middle manager of my company, I have been thinking about management and leadership for two years. “Star Trek” series are very helpful for it.

Spock is always quite logical and clear, so he is an extremely capable manager. Then, why is Kirk a captain of the USS Enterprise?

The answer is that management and leadership aren’t different. Spock is the best manager, but he isn’t good enough for a leader, and Kirk is inferior to Spock as a manager, but he is the leader of the USS Enterprise.

I think that the most important roles of leaders are motivating people and making a decision.

Motivation of human beings isn’t necessary logical. Sometimes emotional sympathy moves people more than reasonable explanation. It is important for leaders to express what they feel. Spock isn’t good at expressing emotion at all. Although Kirk is too emotional as a manager, it is one of the most important qualities of a leader.

Leaders have to make a decision, even when they don’t have any idea what they should do logically. Such a decision is often critical. Spock can point out only what shouldn’t do, but he can’t decide what really they will do. Kirk is sometimes thoughtless and makes a mistake, but he can make such a difficult and critical decision.

I’d like to show a typical dialog between Spock and Kirk.

Spock: Captain, I cannot allow you to do this!
Bones: Jim, you're not actually going after this guy, are you?
James T. Kirk: I have no idea what I'm supposed to do! I only know what I CAN do!

Spock warned Kirk that his idea was too dangerous, but he couldn’t show what they should do. On the other hand, Kirk decided to do what he could do.

Spock is appropriate for the lieutenant of the USS Enterprise and Kirk is appropriate for the captain.

Do what I feels right, when I have no idea what I should do.

Superman, the Loneliest Superhero: My Impression of the Movie “Man of Steel”

I saw the movie “Man of Steel” in an IMAX theater.



I didn’t like Superman, because he was so comical and  he didn’t look cool at all. For example his costume was too gaudy. People who love the original superman would think that “Man of Steel” is too serious, but I was moved deeply by this powerful movie.

Superheroes are lonely, because they are too special for ordinary people to understand them. They show their superpower to try to save people, but their superpower makes people fear them. Superheroes are like Jesus who was betrayed by the people he wanted to help.

I think that Superman is the loneliest superhero. 

Bruce Wayne is basically an ordinary human being. He wanted to be special, and he wears a mask to be Batman. 

On other hand, Kal-El was born in the planet Krypton and he isn’t a human being. He is fundamentally different from people on the planet earth. But he fought against and killed Kryptonians to save human beings. He is far lonelier than Bruce Wayne. 

The plot of this movie expressed the loneliness of Superman very well. He is lonely, so the plot couldn’t be comical but serious.

As an aside, Diane Lane, who played Martha Kent, Clark’s mother on Earth, was great. I was surprised that Laurence Fishburne has became so fat.

She Looked Very Cute and Fashionable. That’s All, but It’s Enough: My Impression of the Movie “Populaire”

I saw the French comedy movie “Populaire” after work for a change. 



Déborah François as the heroin, Rose Pamphyle, looked very cute and fashionable. That’s all, but it’s enough for me to see this movie for a change. I am guessing that Régis Roinsard, the director of this movie, just wanted to make Déborah look as cute and fashionable as possible in this movie, and he was successful.

Although this movie has many shortcomings that audience can point out, it doesn’t matter at all. For example, the plot of this movie is quite stereotyped, but it is better to make audience concentrated in the heroin Déborah.

I love Kabuki, whose plots are usually dubious. The audience of Kabuki mainly wants to be fascinated with the beauty of Kabuki actors, and a deep plot would disturb the entertainment of Kabuki.

Of course, Déborah François herself is very attractive. She shows a variety of expressions, smile, anger, tears, envy, and love, and all of them are charming.

If you thought that she was cute in the trailer, it would be worth seeing this movie.

There Is No One Who Is Completely Evil or Right

Finally, I read through the article “Jahar's World” on Rolling Stone magazine. It reminded me of the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway by the cult "Aum Shinrikyo" in 1995 and  Haruki Murakami’s book “Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche.”

In 1995, I was living in Higashi-Koenji, and commute to my office in Otemachi, Tokyo by Marunouchi subway line, which was one of the subwaylines that Aum Shinrikyo attacked by the Sarin gas. Fortunately, I felt sick and took a day off at my work on the morning of the Sarin gas attack. It was possible for me to be a victim of this attack, so I couldn’t think that this was someone else’s affair.

Just after this attack, there were full of reports about Aum Shinrikyo in every media, but most of them were based on the stereotypical views. The book “Underground” is a series of interviews with the people that affected by this attack and the members of Aum Shinrikyo. Only “Underground” presented these people as individuals. 

Everyone in the world is special, but at the same time it is difficult for us to avoid stereotypical views. In fact there is no one who is completely evil or right, even including Shoko Asahara, the cult founder, or Jahar, the the bomber of Boston Marathon.

After September 11 attack, Bush Jr. started to use the words "war on terrorism." Now, every government that wants to suppress its opponent uses these words. The Egyptian army calls the Muslim Brotherhood "terrorist." 

Of course, I don't have any intention of justify the Sarin gas attack, September 11 attack, and the bombing Boston Marathon, and we should care about every victim of these affairs individually, but I want to know exactly why they caused such affairs.

When you read "Underground" or his essay about the bombing Boston Marathon "Boston, from One Citizen of the World Who Calls Himself a Runner," you would understand how deeply he cares about the victims of these affairs. At the same time, he didn't write a founder of the cult as just an evil person in his novel "1Q84."

I got a little knowledge about him from the article “Jahar's World.” Although I can't say that I completely understand why he did so, it's much better to read it.

“Boss, I Did My Best and My Best Wasn’t Enough Today”

In a previous entry “Goodbye My Good Old Yankees,” I wrote about my love for the Yankees in 1990s.

Now, the Yankees are not what they were in 1990s at all, but we can still see Derek, Andy, and Mo, who have survived from back then to now, and are still playing on the field. However, Mo will retire at the end of this season.

I read an interview of Mo, which was about his faith. It was really interesting and impressive to me. I’d like to quote a passage which interested me most.

I ask Rivera how it felt to lose the 2001 series, and he answers that God was in charge that day as he is on all others. “I did my best. I did everything within my power. I did everything within my power to win that game for us. Guess what? Didn’t happen. And you think I’m going to start like a child, Oh oh oh, I be crying? No, I did my best. My best wasn’t enough that day. I looked my boss into his eyes, and I said, ‘Boss, I did my best and my best wasn’t enough today.’ I can sleep comfortable and move forward.”

He thinks that his talent isn’t his own property but a gift from the God. He just does his best and he doesn’t care about the consequences, because only God can decide them. He looks down at himself from the God’s view, and he has been performing at his full potential.

I am not a Christian, so I don’t believe that my talent is a gift from God, but it might be very important to think that my talent isn’t inherent.

I can manage somebody else, because I see their ability in an objective way. Likewise, it is really difficult for me to manage myself, because I can’t objectively judge my own ability.

The desire to possess leads a wrong decision. I am trying to throw away my desire and just do what I can.

The Vulnerability of Democracy

In Egypt, the conflict between the coup regime by the Egyptian army and the Muslim Brotherhood is becomming more severe.

I think that the deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, has legitimacy, because it was he who elected through the legitimate election, and the suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood by the current government is injustice.

In fact, democracy is quite vulnerable in many times and countries.

Before World War II, the democracy in Japan was killed by Japanese Army’s coups like Egypt nowadays.

In a previous entry “Is Japan Really a Democratic Country?” I wrote as below.

Is Japan really a democratic country? The answer is that "yes, it is formally."
…
If Japan is a democratic country, we should fight against them ("the nuclear village") in order to realize our own will. We, Japanese people, don't believe in the ideal of democracy, do we? I'm now deeply skeptical.”

Democratic constitutions and laws alone cannot guarantee democracy. The Nazi party arose out of the Weimar Republic. People in a country should believe in and save democracy.

But the Egyptian people don’t seem to believe in democracy. If they did so, the opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood would support the deposed president Morsi in order to save the Egyptian democracy. But they don’t do so just like the Japanese people before the World War II.

I’m now deeply wondering if democratic regime can be established universally. 

Someday, Egypt will be a democratic country, won’t it? The Egyptian people really do want democracy, don’t they?

The Doctrine of the Mean Is of the Highest Order 中庸之爲徳也、其至矣乎

This morning, my wife and I had pancakes and coffee for breakfast.

Recently, Hawaiian style pancakes are becoming more popular in Tokyo. One of the famous Hawaiian pancake shops, Egg ‘n Things, opened a new branch in Harajuku, Tokyo, which has customers lined up.

Basically, I love almost everything about Hawaii, but I have some question about Hawaiian style pancakes, which are full of fresh cream and fruits. 

I prefer the burnt pancakes and weak coffee that can be found in any ordinary American diner. Don’t you think that Hawaiian style pancakes are too much for breakfast? American diner pancakes are enough for me.

I love drinking espresso in an Italian bar. It really wakes me up. But I don’t want to have it with pancakes for breakfast in an American diner. Weak “American” coffee doesn’t taste great, but it does the trick.

The Master said, “The virtue embodied in the doctrine of the Mean is of the highest order. But it has long been rare among people.”

子曰、中庸之爲徳也、其至矣乎、民鮮久矣。

Milton and the Chocolate Town: Milton Hershey’s Amazing life

I’ve just finished reading the book “The Emperors of Chocolate.”

As I wrote in my previous entries, “"Gibu Mi Chokoreito": Ration D Bars and Japanese Children” and “The Ethics of Protestantism and The Spirits of Chocolate,” this book is about the U.S. chocolate industry, focusing especially on the competition between Hershey and Mars.

I was interested in Milton Hershey, who was a founder of the Hershey Company. His life was full of amazing stories.

He was born in 1857 in rural Pennsylvania. His parents were Mennonites, who were similar to the Amish. His mother expected that he would be a farmer like the people in his community were, and he went to school just until fourth grade.

But he didn’t become a farmer, instead he established a candy maker. In 1893, he found that chocolate machinery was exhibited at World’s Columbian Exposition and he bought all of the equipment after the exposition. He became the first major chocolate maker in the U.S.

At that time, Milton Hershey didn’t know how to make chocolate, so he learned it through trial and error. In the end, he created a chocolate with unique Hershey’s flavor. Because of its flavor, Hershey’s chocolate became quite popular in the U.S., but they couldn’t sell it well abroad.

Although his chocolate was almost dominat in the U.S. market, Milton Hershey himself was rarely interested in business. Using the huge profit by his chocolate, he began to build the city Hershey, near his birthplace.

In the early twentieth century, Milton Hershey built not only his huge chocolate factory but also infrastructure of the city Hershey, like streets, transportation, water supply, a park, a swimming pool, a theater, a hotel, and a church, and he supported his factory workers to build their own houses.

Since he didn’t have any children, he transferred a great part of his assets to the Milton Hershey School Trust fund to support the Hershey Industrial School, where many orphans, who got a scholarship from the fund, studied.

The fund had a majority stake in the Hershey Company, so the Hershey Company virtually earned profit in order to support the fund. It is the ultimate philanthropy.

After his death in 1945, the Hershey Company changed. In his days, although the Hershey Company  didn’t do marketing, their chocolate sold quite well and earned huge profit.

But the competition in the chocolate market got more severe, and it got more difficult for the Hershey Company to support the city Hershey. And now, the Hershey Company is an ordinary “Fortune Top 500 company.” 

Someday, I want to visit Hershey’s Chocolate World and stay Hotel Hershey in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

A Great Story, Good Actors and Actresses, but a Cheap Direction: My Impression of the Movie, “The Great Gatsby”

I saw the movie “the Great Gatsby” yesterday.


I love the novel “the Great Gatsby,” so I was looking forward to this movie, and at the same time I felt anxious about it.

Of course, the plot is great, not due to any staff of this movie but to F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Gatsby devoted whole his life to Daisy, who wasn’t what she really was but what he believed that she should be. He did anything that he believed that she would love, but actually it wasn’t sure that she would love it. In the end, he was betrayed by the real Daisy, because she wasn’t what he thought that her was.

In this sense, “the Great Gatsby” is tragedy and comedy like “Don Quixote.” Gatsby and Don Quixote lived in their own imagination. All of us also live more or less in our imagination, but we can’t forget the real world at all. Therefore, we look down on them and adore them at the same time like Nick Carter.

Would you like to live your own life at any cost and go to ruin like Jay Gatsby, or to watch someone else’s life from a safety zone like Nick Carter?

Tobey Maguire was adequate as Nick Carter. Although sometimes Leonardo DiCaprio overacted, I can’t imagine that another actor palys Gatsby. Carey Mulligan was cute enough for Daisy who Gatsby loved.

But I was really disappointed that the direction was so cheap.

In my entry “Punk Rock and the Digital Camera: the Impression of the Documentary Movie “Side by Side,” I wrote, “I want to watch a movie made by punk rockers more than by Thomas Edison.” I don’t deny developing of the digital technology, but I just hope that directors would use them effectively.

In this movie, everything in the images was unnatural. If it was a music video, I could say that their images were fashionable, but in this movie they broke my concentration on the story.

Did they use such artificial images in order to express the cheapness of the Roaring Twenties? If they wanted it, it would be successful. In fact, I seemed this movie to be cheap.

I’ll try Robert Redford’s “the Great Gatsby.”

"Gibu Mi Chokoreito": Ration D Bars and Japanese Children

There was a cliche, "Gibu mi chokoreito", which was used during the U.S. occupation of Japan just after the Pacific War. Of course, "Gibu mi chokoreito" means, "Give me chocolate."

I just started to read the book "the emperors of Chocolate," which is about the U.S. chocolate industry, focusing especially on the competition between Hershey and Mars.

The first chapter of this book, "Bar Wars," is written about the relationship between the U.S. Army and chocolate companies. The author wrote:

In 1942, when the United States entered the war against Germany and Japan, the military ordered Hershey to commence full-scale production of the new ration bar, and for the next four years the Hershey plant operated around the clock, seven days a week, churning out half a million Ration D bars per shift.

I didn't know about "Ration D Bars" before reading this.

I heard that the  U. S. Army soldiers gave chocolate to Japanese children during American occupation of Japan. At that time, even dairy foods were running short, so obviously sweets were quite valuable goods. Japanese children followed American Army's jeeps and shouted, "Gibu mi chokoreito!"

I'd like to know what kind of chocolate was given by the U.S. soldiers, so I googled it and found an image of the Ration D Bars. It was much rougher and bigger than I imagined. I think that the Japanese children who got Ration D Bars were probably very surprised by the size of the chocolate.

I began to want to eat a simple “Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar.”

The Meaning of Being Outdated: The Impression of Kazuo Ishiguro's Novel “An Artist of the Floating World”

I've just finished reading Kazuo Ishiguro's novel “An Artist of the Floating World.”

I love his novels, but I'm used to reading them in Japanese translations. I heard that his English was beautiful, so I wanted to read his novel in the original English version. This time, I tried to read “An Artist of the Floating World” in English.

When I read the conversations in it, I felt kind of strange. In this novel, all characters are Japanese, and obviously they speak in Japanese. But Kazuo Ishiguro wrote their conversation in English, because the entire of this novel was written in English.

The first half of the novel is about an arranged marriage of the daughter of the main character, Masuji Ono. I felt like I was reading the English translation of a Japanese novel like Junichiro Tanizaki's "the Makioka Sisters."

His daughter talked to him like this.

"Forgive me, but I wonder if it may not be wise if Father were to visit Mr Kuroda soon."

She denigrated herself to her father very much. I'm guessing that native English speakers don’t talk with their fathers in such a way. This conversation sounds like a direct translation from Japanese to English. I don’t know if Kazuo Ishiguro can speak Japanese, so I wonder whether he wrote this conversation in Japanese first and translated into English, or if he wrote in English as if he were writing a translation.

There appeared many outdated people in this novel.

Masuji Ono was a retired painter. During World War II, he worked for the military, and he drew many paintings endorsing the Japanese invasion of Asian countries. At that time he believed that he was doing the right thing for the Japanese people, but after Japan surrendered, he was blamed for his responsibility in the war, and no one was interested in his paintings.

Ono’s master drew only beautiful women in the red-light district. Although his paintings used to be quite popular, just before World War II people became to think of his paintings as not patriotic.

Ono criticized and broke away from his master, and then he himself also was criticized by younger generation. In the end, everyone became outdated.

Ono’s master told Ono the following:

“When I am an old man, when I look back over my life and see I have devoted it to the task of capturing the unique beauty of that world, I believe I will be well satisfied. And no man will make me believe I’ve wasted my time.”

Kazuo Ishiguro didn’t make clear if Ono and his master was actually satisfied with their lives.

Everyone must be outdated, when they are old. I wonder if I will be well satisfied.

What a Dissolute and Delightful Saturday in Kamakura!

Yesterday, my wife and I visited Kamakura.

Kamakura is an old seaside city, about an hour away by train from Tokyo.  The relationship between Tokyo and Kamakura is similar to the one between New York and Long Island, or Los Angeles and Santa Monica. Sometimes we go to Kamakura and spend for half a day walking around, looking at the sea, and having coffee in a cozy café.

After we got off the train at Kamakura station, we went to directly the soba restaurant named Matsubara-an (松原庵).  

We sat down and immediately ordered sparkling wine and antipastos. It is most dissolute and delightful to drink during the day at a nice soba restaurant. Most people around our table were also drinking. It was our first visit to Matsubara-an, and I would really like to go there again.

And then, we went to Komyo-ji (光明寺).

Komyo-ji(光明寺)

We are now making a pilgrimage of Kamakura thirty three kannons (鎌倉三十三観音参り). We bring our goshuin-cho (御朱印帳), a kind of autograph album with us, and when we visit a temple that have one of the thirty three kannnons, we get stamps on our goshuin-cho. Of course we can’t visit all of thirty tree temples in one day, so we go to Kamakura on a seasonal basis, and visit three or four temples at a time. We have already visited nineteen temples.

goshuin-cho(御朱印帳)

goshuin(御朱印)

This time, we visited Komyo-ji, Renjo-in (蓮乗院), and Senju-in (千手院). Although it is quite imprudent to visit a temple with alcohol, we couldn’t stand it…

a cat in Senju-in(千手院)

Komyo-ji was just beside Zaimoku-za beach (材木座海岸), so after we visited Komyo-ji, we watched some people windsurfing at the beach. The cool wind on my burning cheeks felt great.

What a dissolute and delightful Saturday in Kamakura!

The Age of Discovery in Europe and the Age of Tokugawa in Japan

As I wrote in the previous entry “Chocolate, Coffee, and Tea: The History of Globalization,” I have become interested in the history of globalization.


When was the beginning of globalization?

A historian pointed out that the empire of Mongolia made the Eastern and Western world unified and established world history. Marco Polo could travel from Venice to China in the thirteenth century through the territory of the empire of Mongolia. In this sense, the origin of globalization was the empire of Mongolia.

Aside from Marco Polo, there was few people actually traveling between the Eastern and Western worlds at that time, and Europeans had not reached America or “Zipangu”, which Marco Polo called Japan. Of course no Japanese people had arrived in Europe.

And then, the Europeans, who had been trying to find a more direct route to Asia, accidentally discovered America in the late fifteenth century. In the middle of sixteenth century, Portuguese with guns drifted down to Tanegashima, the southern part of the Japanese archipelago, as I wrote the entry “Spread of Guns in the World History.” 

Japan, “Zipangu”, which is located in the farthest area from Europe, was the ultimate goal for European in the Age of Discovery. Their arrival on Tanegashima meant that the whole world finally had been united. This was the beginning of globalization, I think.

In fact, the arrival of Europeans had great impact on Japanese history.

In the sixteenth century, feudal lords called “daimyo” (大名) were scattered and fought each other throughout Japan. After the Portuguese brought guns to Japan, Japanese artisans began to produce guns. These then quickly spread among the feudal lords engaged in battle. Guns transformed the way of battle, and only forty years after the arrival of guns, Japan was reunified by force.

The feudal lords competed with each other to trade with the Europeans in order to get gunpowder. Some of them converted to Christianity and Catholicism spread rapidly into Japanese people. Some Christian feudal lords called “Kirishitan Daimyo” (キリシタン大名) dispatched embassies to Rome.

In the early of seventeenth century, the Tokugawa Shogunate (徳川幕府) was established and a big rebellion of Catholic people occurred. Iemitsu Tokugawa, the third Tokugawa Shogun, decided to expel Portuguese and only allowed trade with Chinese and Dutch traders, because Dutch were not Catholic but Protestant.

In the age of discovery, European culture and technology to the world both eastbound and westbound. Portuguese arrival at Japan was, of course, eastbound. In the early of the nineteenth century, American whalers passed through Cape Horn to off shore of Japan in the Pacific Ocean, which they called “Japan ground.” This meant that the Europeans finally arrived in Japan in the farthest “west.” 

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Californian gold rush occurred and Europeans literally “rushed” to the west coast of North America. The United States dispatched a fleet to Edo to request the Tokugawa Shogunate to open country. This caused the breakup of the Tokugawa Shogunate and Japanese modernization.

In this sense, the age of Tokugawa was the period between eastbound and westbound of European arrival at Japan, and after the sixteenth century Japanese history was deeply influenced by globalization.

Chocolate, Coffee, and Tea: The History of Globalization

I have just finished the book “The True History of Chocolate.”

Recently, I have become interested in the history of globalization, especially its origin, so I have been reading books about the history of commodities - such as coffee, tea, sugar, chocolate, whale oil, fur etc. - that were produced, traded, and consumed all over the world.

The origin of chocolate is Mesoamerica. In the Olmec, the Maya, and the Aztec civilization, chocolate was quite a precious drink. Basically, only noble people drank it and ordinary people could drink it only during rituals.

After Columbus reached the New World, chocolate spread mainly among aristocratic society and Catholic churches in Europe through Spain.

The episode in this book that I was most interested in is about coffee houses in the seventeenth century in London. In the middle of that century, three of the most major beverage, coffee, tea, and, chocolate, were introduced to England almost at the same time, and people in London drank them in coffee houses.

The origins of three of them are different. As I wrote, the origin of chocolate was Mesoamerica. Coffee is from Ethiopia and tea is from East Asia. It is no coincidence that they arrived at England simultaneously. Coffee, tea, and chocolate were the most important commodities in early globalization, and their arrivals in the seventeenth century symbolized the dawn of globalization in England. 

In the eighteenth century, coffee was most popular in three of them in England. Chocolate was characterized as southern, Catholic, and aristocratic, and coffee as northern, Protestant, and middle-class. Tea was quite expensive before India was colonized and tea plantations were developed in India. The bourgeoisie with “the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism” drunk coffee.

Before the nineteenth century, chocolate was basically drunken. In this century, Van Houten, Henri Nestle, Rudolphe Lindt, John Cadbury, and Milton Hershey, who ironically were not Catholic aristocrats in the Southern Europe but Protestant bourgeoisie in the Northern Europe, invented and manufactured the mass product of solid chocolate.

Next, I will read a book about the history of sugar.

Punk Rock and the Digital Camera: the Impression of the Documentary Movie “Side by Side”

Johnny Rotten shouted, “I wanna be anarchy,” and he broke down the values of music.



When I was a high school student, some of my friends formed a band and played punk rock in the school festival. The reason that they chose punk rock was because they could only play punk rock.

Before the Sex Pistols, music played better technically was better, but Sex Pistols showed that music didn’t have to be played technically well. They democratized rock music.

I watched the documentary “Side by Side” about the transition from film cameras to digital cameras in the movie industry. In this movie, Keanu Reeves interviewed many people: directors, cinematographers, producers, actors, editors, colorists, and so on. Some of them welcomed digital cameras, while others stuck to film cameras.



Digitalization changed movie making in two ways.

Firstly, movie making by a digital camera is far cheaper than by a film camera. Videotapes, which don’t have to be developed, are much cheaper than films, and it is much easier to use a digital camera than a film camera, so they don’t need trained professionals. But the picture quality of digital cameras used to be lesser than film cameras.

Secondary, digital cameras got rid of the technical limitation of film cameras. A film camera can shoot only ten minutes, and a director has to wait for a day to watch the pictures that they take, because films need to be developed. On the contrary, a digital camera can shoot much longer than a film camera, and director can check the pictures that they take simultaneously. The picture quality of digital cameras is getting better and is now comparable to film cameras.

The first way was represented by Danny Boyle and Anthony Dod Mantle, who made “Slumdog Millionaire,” and the second way was represented by George Lucas and James Cameron, and “Star Wars” and “Avatar”.

Dod Mantle worked for Dogme 95 project, in which they used digital cameras earliest to make movies.



Danny Boyle was deeply impressed by his avant-garde pictures and decided to make a movie with him using a digital camera. They used a handy digital camera and expressed the dynamism of Mumbai in “Slumdog Millionaire.”



George Lucas and James Cameron have been developing the new digital technology to make images that they want, and their movies, in which they used these technologies, were quite successful commercially. They are entrepreneurs in the movie industry.

Danny Boyle and Dod Mantel democratized movies by digital camera like the Sex Pistols, and George Lucas and James Cameron industrialized movies like Thomas Edison. 

I want to watch a movie made by punk rockers more than by Thomas Edison.

Actually I Like to Wait for Someone's Response to the Story that I Threw to the Ocean

Tori Miki, who is a manga artist and essayist, wrote that he liked Twitter much better than Facebook on his column.

I completely agree with him, so I'd like to translate selected passages of his column into English:

"I Love You, Because I'm Selfish" (自分勝手だから、君を愛している)  Tori Miki (Nikkei Business Online) 

In addition to Twitter, I sort of use Facebook in a sort. 

Although I use Facebook, honestly I don't like Facebook better than Twitter.
That is Because Facebook has too much functions and so on. 

I like Twitter, because it is simple and inconvenient. 

First of all, I like the equivalence and parallel of one hundred forty words of each tweet. 

Nobody tries to preach about the correct use of Twitter, and I can use it however I like.

It's OK to tweet irresponsibly, and you don't have to reply them. It's free. You can decide whom you follow and unfollow without any concern. I like the ease of Twitter. 

Originally, I hate closed communities, such as relatives, local community, and school cliques, so I run away from them and do a job like this. Because I want to do things as I like and don't want to belong to any thing, so Twitter fits me very much. 

I can tweet even silly jokes all day long. 

As I wrote that I hated closed communities. When I say so, someone is surprised and says to me “But your manga and tweet are so deep and intricate.”  

Although it may be true, I don’t like to send such stories to closed communities where everyone can understand them. Well, you don’t think that’s interesting at all, do you? Actually I like to wait for someone's response to the story that I threw to the ocean. 

Even editors and fans have the wrong idea, but a deep and intricate story should be used in a major group.

In my weblog, sometimes I wrote a deep entry, which I myself wonder who would be interested in. But occasionally someone from somewhere in the Internet Ocean, would give a comment to such an entry. It resembles fishing.

And today I also go fishing in the Internet Ocean to get someone who understands my deep entry.

A Very Well Written Novel: My Impression of Haruki Murakami’s New Novel “Tsukuru Tazaki without Colors, and the Year of His Pilgrimage”

I’ve just finished Haruki Murakami’s new novel “Tsukuru Tazaki without Colors, and the Year of His Pilgrimage.”

To put it bluntly, this is a very well written novel.

Haruki Murakami wrote a short novel after a long novel. He wrote “South of the Border, West of the Sun” after “Dance Dance Dance”, “Sputnik Sweetheart” after “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”, “After Dark” and “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” after “Kafka on the Shore”, and this novel after “1Q84.”

His long novels are somewhat confusing. I guess that Haruki Murakami intentionally made them confusing. Dostoyevsky’s long novels, for example “The Brothers Karamazov”, are confusing, too. The intentional confusion of such long novels moves me deeply.

On the contrary, Haruki Murakami’s short novels are very well constructed. When I’m tired, it is too hard to read his long novels, because I don’t want to be moved but be calm. Thus I read his well written short novels, like “Tsukuru Tazaki without Colors, and the Year of His Pilgrimage.”

If you try to read his first novel, I recommend his short novels.

I’d like to translate several passages from this novel.

Jealousy that Tsukuru understood in his dream was the most desperate prison in the word. That was because it is the prison where prisoners locked themselves up. Nobody forced to imprison them. They themselves got into it, locked the door from inside, and threw the keys outside of the iron bars. Nobody knew that they were locked up there. Of course, if they decided to get out of there, they could do so, because the prison existed in their own heart. But they couldn’t choose to. Their hearts got as hard as stonewalls. This is the essence of jealousy. 

嫉妬とは―つくるが夢のなかで理解したところでは―世界で最も絶望的な牢獄だった。なぜならそれは囚人自身が自らを閉じ込めた牢獄であるからだ。誰かに力尽くで入れられたわけではない。自らそこに入り、内側から鍵をかけ、その鍵を自ら鉄格子の外に投げ捨てたのだ。そして彼がそこに幽閉されていることを知るものは、この世界に誰ひとりいない。もちろん出ていこうと本人が決心さえすれば、そこから出ていける。その牢獄は彼の心中にあるのだから。しかし、その決心ができない。彼の心は石壁のように硬くなっている。それこそがまさに嫉妬の本質なのだ。

“You just say what you feel honestly. It isn’t an excuse.” 

「君は自分の気持ちを正直に口にしているだけだ。言い訳とは違う」

“I had been thinking of myself as a victim. I was forced into a cruel experience without any reason. So I suffered from a deep pain in my soul, and this ruined my natural life. Honestly, I blamed four of you. I wondered why only I had a terrible experience. But it may not be true. I’m not just a victim, but I might also hurt people around me. And I might also hurt myself. ” 

「僕はこれまでずっと、自分のことを犠牲者だと考えてきた。わけもなく苛酷な目にあわされたと思い続けてきた。そのせいで心に深い傷を負い、その傷が僕の人生の本来の流れを損なってきたと。正直言って、君たち四人を恨んだこともあった。なぜ僕一人だけがこんなひどい目にあわなくちゃならないんだろうと。でも本当はそうじゃなかったのかもしれない。僕は犠牲者であるだけじゃなく、それと同時に自分でもしらないうちにまわりの人々を傷つけてきたのかもしれない。そしてまた返す刃で僕自身を傷つけてきたのかもしれない」

“If you are a empty vessel, it’s OK,” said Eri. “Even so, you are truly a wonderful and fascinating vessel. Nobody knows what they really are, don’t you agree? If you are so, it is enough for you to be a beautiful vessel, which someone wants to put something into. A favorable vessel.”

「 たとえ君が空っぽの容器だっとしても、それでいいじゃない」とエリは言った。「もしそうだとしても、君はとても素敵な、心を惹かれる容器だよ。自分自身が何であるかなんて、そんなこと本当は誰にもわかりはしない。そう思わない？それなら君は、どこまでも美しいかたちの入れ物になればいいんだ。誰かが思わず中に何かを入れたくなるような、しっかり好感の持てる容器に」