American Heroes and Godzilla

I wrote about American heroes in the previous entry, and I'd like to write about the same topic more.

I've been interested in American culture for a long time, partly because it is so exotic for me. Although Japanese culture has been westernized for 150 years, now it is deeply based on elements that are quite different from Western culture. Sometimes I find something in American culture that I can't understand at all, and it's really fun for me to think about it.

One of these things is "American Heroes." I know that "heroes" are quite important in American culture, but I can't understand why they are so important.

I found articles about "Fukushima 50" in American press after the Tohoku earthquake and the accident of the Fukushima nuclear plants. I didn't read about their stories in Japanese mass media at all, and I felt that it was exotic that American press sought "heroes" in such tragedies.

Of course Japanese media reported about heroic acts, which are done by firefighters, policemen, army, and ordinary people. But it mainly focused on the uncontrollable natural threat, which was beyond justice and evil.

The story of Fukushima 50 is like American hero movies, and the story reported by Japanese mass media is like Godzilla (Not the Godzilla made by Roland Emmerich in Hollywood in 1998 but is the first Godzilla movie made in Japan in 1954.)

A nuclear experience awakened Godzilla, who was sleeping in the deep sea, and Godzilla landed on Japan, destroyed everything, and spread radioactivity. Godzilla doesn't have any morals, and human beings couldn't even know if it had any intention.

Haruki Murakami said, as follows, in his Catalunya International Prize speech.

In Japanese, we have the word “mujō (無常)”. It means that everything is ephemeral. Everything born into this world changes, and will ultimately disappear. There is nothing that can be considered eternal or immutable. This view of the world was derived from Buddhism, but the idea of “mujo” was burned into the spirit of Japanese people beyond the strictly religious context, taking root in the common ethnic consciousness from ancient times.

Godzilla destroyed everything, ultimately because this world is "mujo". Human beings can't do anything, and we, Japanese, don't believe in heroes. American people, including press, can't accept "mujo" of the disaster, so they seek heroes.

In the next entry I'll write about relationship between ethics and American Heroes.

American Heroes after September 11

I'm reading Kichiro Yanashita's "User's Guide to Pandemonium (新世紀読書大全)". Kichiro Yanashita (柳下毅一郎) is a critic and a translator,and he specializes in so-called subculture, which is called "サブカル (sabukaru)" in Japan. This book consists of all of his book reviews written from 1990 to 2010.

He wrote about American comics in the 1990s and after September 11.

I read American comics most eagerly in the 90s, when the world of American comics was changing dynamically because of the American comic revolution led by Frank Miller and Alan Moore. I had the momentum to read every area of American comics, from leaf to graphic novels.. I read the best works of American comics, for example "The Dark Knight Returns", "Watchmen", and "The Sandman", and I felt certain that American comics were on the cutting edge.
...
September 11 attacks and "patriotic fervor" had great influence on American comics. Hero comics lost their power (there were no meaning of heroes like Dr. Doom who collapsed into tears on terrorists' attack and Spiderman who said "The real heroes are firefighters died in the twin tower."), and comics on newspapers were choked by patriotism.

Ironically, American comics in the 1990s influenced Hollywood in the 2000s. Many hero movies were made, and some of these could be called masterpieces. I really love the movie "The Dark Knight", which was based on the comic "The Dark Knight Returns". I wrote an entry about "The Dark Knight" on my weblog.

In American comics in the 1990s and in hero movies in the 2000s justice and evil became relative with each other and heroes lost their identities. I feel it natural that justice and evil are relative, so I can accept this sense of values and I love these comics and movies. I also wrote another entry about American comics.

I am interested in the raison d'etre of heroes.If there were no evil in this world, we wouldn't need any heroes. Batman's raison d'etre is Joker. If Joker is gone, Batman also should be gone. Joker will never kill Batman and Batman will never kill Joker. Justice and evil are two sides of the same coin.

This is the truth about justice and evil in the world after September 11, isn't it?

The Meaning of Learning a Foreign Language

I read the article "Why are Japanese so bad at English?" on the internet magazine. I almost agree with the opinion that the author said.

I think the reason why most Japanese are bad at English is that they do not have the opportunity to use English in their daily life. I'm living and working in Tokyo, and I hardly have to speak English at all, if I don't intentionally create an occasion to speak English. For example, by going to an English conversation school or by speaking with a native English speaker over Skype at midnight.

I think that we can find the same situation in some other countries. In the 1990s, when I was a university student, I toured across East Europe with my backpack. At Budapest station I found that a traveler, who looked depressed. Hence I talked to him. He said that he was an Australian and that he envied my English. In fact my English was awful at that time.

In Budapest in the 1990s, the first foreign language for Hungarian people was German and there were few people that could speak English. I guessed that it was first time for that young Australian man to get into the place where no one could speak English and he realized the meaning of learning a foreign language.

In the article "Why are Japanese so bad at English?" the author wrote, "And what’s the future language of the Internet going to be? Not Japanese, that’s for sure." I wrote an entry about the internet in China, which was separated from the internet by the Great Firewall. In this world there are two huge networks, the internet and China net. And there is another small network in Japan, in which people write in Japanese. Japan net is a kind of the Galapagos Islands in the internet world.

I just finished reading V. S. Naipaul's novel "Half a Life" and I found following passage.

Ana was now at a language school in England. She said, 'I wanted to break out of the Portuguese language. I feel it was that that had made my grandfather such a limited man. He had no true idea of the world. All he could think of was Portugal and Portuguese Africa and Goa and Brazil. In his mind, because of the Portuguese language, all the rest of the world had been strained away.

Ana was born in the Portuguese colony on the east coast of Africa. Like her grandfather most Japanese had no true idea of the world, because they live only in Japanese world. When people master English, they can recognize the new idea of the world. Of course, although this new idea of the world can't be "the true idea of the world", they become able to see the world from multiple perspectives.

After the accident of Fukushima nuclear plants, I realized that we should get news from a variety of sources, not only Japanese mass media but also foreign press, because Japanese mass media was really biased.

Japanese people can live and work just in Japan and just with the Japanese language, but it keeps them in a small world.

"I Don't Work, Because of the Relationship between Japan and the West"

I just finished reading V. S. Naipaul's novel "Half a Life."

The central character of this novel, Willie, was born in India and went to a missionary school to learn English, because his father wanted it. Ironically learning English language and culture made him feel uncomfortable with his family and their culture and society, so he left India to go to England. But he couldn't settle in England, he kept roaming around the world.

Ann, Willie's lover, who was born in a former Portuguese colony at the East cost of Africa, sent a letter about the novel that Willie wrote. She. In the letter she wrote as follows.

We read this book and that book and we tell ourselves we like it, but all the books they tell us to read are written for other people and really we are always in somebody else's house and we have to walk carefully and sometimes we have to stop our ears at things we hear people say. I feel I had to write to you because in your stories for the first time I find moments that are like moments in my own life, though the background and material are so different.

I'm not familiar with the background and materials in the novel "Half a Life", nevertheless I can also understand its story very well, because I've read the same theme in a lot of works of modern Japanese literature.

For example, Soseki Natsume, who was one of the greatest novelists in the modern Japanese literature in the late 19th century, wrote a following remark in his novel "Sorekara (それから)", which means "After that."

"I don't work, because of the relationship between Japan and the West"

This remark was spoken by the central character, Daisuke, who was a second son of an upstart in the Meiji Era, when Japan was modernizing rapidly. His elder brother was working at a family business with his father, but Daisuke did nothing.

His father gave Daisuke Western education, so he couldn't believe in old Japanese values, which his father had, but at the same time he couldn't get into western society.

Daisuke in the novel that was written in the late 19th century by Japanese author resembles Willie in the novel that written in the early 21st century by Indian author born in Trinidad and Tobago.

I, who was born and am living in the hinterland of the world dominated by the West, Japan, "find moments that are like moments in my own life, though the background and material are so different" in this novel. Similarly people, who were forced to modernize, in India or Guinea-Bissau might find something in common in the modern Japanese literature.

You Don't Have to Be Strong or Perfect

I used to feel ashamed at the fact that I was weak, so I tried to hide it. I wanted to be perfect and I couldn't accept my weakness.

I believed that I always should do things as possible as I could, but of course, I really couldn't do it, so I was always disappointed with myself.

But now I think that I don't have to be strong and perfect. After I accepted my weakness and imperfection, things turned to be much better than before.

I am not strong or perfect, so I need someone else's help. And in order to have someone else's help, I really think about what I can give him or her. When I wanted to be strong and perfect, I didn't care about somebody else seriously.

But now I realize that no-one is strong or perfect and everyone needs someone else's help. We should need each other's help. The recognition of this fact leads teamwork.

After I accepted weakness, I could see exactly what I was. I became able to recognize objectively not only my bad point but also my good point and potential. I know what I should do in order to grow up and I can do it actually.

I've stopped pretending that I don't have my weakness, and as a result people trust me much more than before, because I've behaved as what I really was. Now that I understand this I am better able to trust those people who don't pretend.

So you don't have to be strong and perfect.