Pain with a Side of Suffering...

Pain and suffering. Ah yes, everyone's two favorite words. These two words have affected pretty much every single topic we have covered in EAS 314. However, these words have changed in meaning from text to text and whether they were seen in a negative or positive light have also been relative. I hope to examine, if only briefly, how people have dealt with pain and suffering in the texts and course material we have already seen, and perhaps we can attain a better understanding of what it means to experience pain and suffering, and in doing so, we may even have our eyes just a little more widened to the human condition that is common to all of us.

For the sake of convenience, I'd like to start with material we learned from the beginning of the course to the end. I am sure everybody still remembers the film that Mizenko Sensei showed us about the effects of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan during World War 2, White Light Black Rain [9]. We had just come back to start off the new spring semester and the first images we see in EAS 314 are pictures of badly mutilated men, women, and children, suffering from all kinds of injuries from some radiation burns and poisoning to entire bodies being completely scarred to missing limbs. The film was sobering to say the least. It showed us in great detail about the real effects of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan. It's sad to have seen so many images of the mushroom cloud that those fateful bombs made over Japan, yet many of us are not shown what the bomb had done to the people. Now, it is not the point of this blossay to talk about whether the atomic bombs were necessary or not to end the war, but I am sure there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the bombs have certainly created pain and suffering in the rawest of form. The images have given us the physical aspect of this topic in terrifying detail. People's hands bent and fingers melted together, lips still swollen from burns and corrective surgery, the images were, in the most modest of terms, shocking. Many years later, victims of the bombs still had half of their backs missing with ribs showing underneath thin layers of skin. The amount of physical pain and suffering is immeasurable. Somehow, these people have survived and lived their lives as fulfilling as they could, which can only be a testament to strength of their character.

More scarring and permanent than any physical injury was the emotional and psychological devastation that the atomic bombs caused. Honestly, have you ever tried to imagine a scenario in which without warning, your entire family and home along with the surround area in huge radius was wiped out, destroyed, burned to the ground? In Summer Flower, grotesque images entered my mind as I read lines such as "on the site of the classrooms lay the bones of the pupils." [7]. How can anybody ever get over that if it actually happened to them or witnessed all of this chaos? Well, the answer is they don't. Countless victims of the atomic bombs have grieved for their long lost family and friends even after decades had past. Sometimes, it seems like the suffering was so great that even if the person directly afflicted with the injury made peace with their condition, witnesses could not hold back their tears. In Fireflies, the author could not help but weep and sob as she stared at a girl whose face was grotesquely deformed from the atomic bombs [3].

Thinking back on all of these readings and the images that I saw watching White Light Black Rain, there is a certain place deep inside of my chest that weeps for our kind. Pain and suffering is a necessary part of life, just turn on the TV and watch a nature channel. Animals, plants, insects, bacteria, viruses, everything and anything alive causes pain and suffering, to survive and live. But, can we really make the same argument for the human species? Sure, you can argue that everything people fight about can be broken down into its most basic components, money representing a power structure, different affiliations representing different herds or groups you could say, but at the core of the issue, what is it that makes humans kill each other without mercy? Different religious beliefs, money, oil, different ethnic groups. Power. Nobody wants to suffer or experience pain, but everyone accepts the fact that we all do anyway and we let people who have power do it onto others whether we do it consciously or not.

Maybe it's because pain and suffering is personal and relative to the person experiencing it first hand. For example, one of the pilots that flew the bomber that dropped one of the atomic bombs over Japan spoke of having no ill feelings or guilt. I do not believe this man is cold hearted or immoral, but perhaps in his perspective, his pain and suffering originated when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. So, he dealt with his own pain and suffering by causing it onto whom he believed put it unto him. With this type of mindset, we allow this cycle of suffering to move round and round. Just look at the story of Mononoke Hime. Without getting into whose side was more "right", this is a story that involves a cycle of pain and suffering. Humans damage mother nature and cause all of the animals to undergo great suffering, and so the animals decide to fight back by killing humans as well [5]. Both sides take physical and emotional tolls on each other but the cycle never seems to stop.

One interesting piece of work that I enjoyed reading was Barefoot Gen. Although the media used was that of a manga or comic, its message was nonetheless very clear. Gen and his family went through hardships of all kinds and at all times of the story. There was no break for them. If they were not being herded into bomb shelters during bombing raids, they were being harassed by their neighbors, starving from lack of food, or trying to help each other survive different circumstances. Their pain was my pain as I read the manga. When they suffered, I tried to feel the same way, in order to connect with their characters. When Gen's brother went off to join the military, and his father was standing by the train station crying and yelling celebratory shouts, I felt a distinct connection with the father's feelings [1]. Even if the story turned out to be a work of fiction, there was a very real emotional pain that was being used as the inspiration for the story. Gen's older brother had joined the military to ease the suffering of his family from being seen as traitors. Gen's father had treated his children harshly out of love and fear of them experiencing pain. How many of you guys have ever been in a situation where you felt helpless to aid your family? This type of pain hits close to home and it was no different reading Barefood Gen. When the atomic bomb was dropped in Gen's hometown in the manga, all of the emotional and psychological pain combined with their physical injuries that really made my heart ache for these characters, because I knew in the back of my mind, real human beings suffered real injuries and lost real family members many years ago in these types of situations.

The next piece of material that I want to bring up really impressed me with its subtlety and simplicity of filming style and language. If you guys read my last discussion board post, then you should already know that Tokyo Story was one of the most impressive course materials for me this semester. So far, on the topic of the atomic bombs and the aftermath in Japan, I feel that I really emphasized more of the physical pain and suffering experienced by the victims. No doubt there were psychological and emotional pain associated with the atomic bombs, however Tokyo Story focuses on a different type of psychological and emotional pain. Here's a quick recap: Tokyo Story is about an elderly husband and wife who decide to travel a long distance to Tokyo in order to take a trip together and visit their children. Out of this simple storyline came, in my opinion, some of the most subtle yet depressing scenes driven by amazing acting. When the parents first visited their children, I wasn't sure if they knew that their children were moving them around out of hassle and inconvenience. But, it was when the children decided to send them packing literally to a loud, obnoxious vacation spot, that the parents really showed what they felt and knew. During the whole film, they had been suffering from the thought of their children not having time for them anymore and treating them disrespectfully. But, as the husband and wife were sitting together outside of the vacation building staring off at the endless sea, they decided that it was time to go home [8]. But it was the look on their faces and the tone of their voices that expressed their sorrow of coming to the realization that their children were not same children that they raised. They dealt with this type of pain of coming to a realization by simply accepting it as it was. However, personally for me, this was one of the hardest scenes to watch without feeling a deep sadness within me. I've always felt that treating your parents with disrespect was one of the worst betrayals a child could make and I still feel that way. Throughout the whole movie, the suffering of the parents seemed so pure and subtle and I almost feel as if the mother dying at the end was due to the carrying of all this pain within her. I don't have any children yet but I can only imagine that your children treating you disrespectfully and having no time for you could only make you feel terrible. I was pissed off at their daughter in the movie the entire time.

I think it's important that we recognize that it's not only adults that have to deal with pain and suffering in everyday life. So far, I've only covered the experiences of adults but adolescents have their own unique pains to deal with. Many of the issues are things that we may have also dealt with in our own lives. After all, we have all been adolescents before not too long ago. In Cruel Story of Youth, the main characters, Kiyoshi and Makoto, pretty much ask for trouble as they steal from lustful men, get into fights with gangsters, and get into other dangerous scenarios. Kiyoshi and Makoto are both trying to deal with problems in their life, so acting out is one way of dealing with them. Makoto deals with her issues by allowing herself to be dominated by Kiyoshi repeatedly, (read dominated as raped), and stealing from lustful old men. Kiyoshi deals with his feeling of having no real motivation to do anything buy sleeping with random women, going around getting into fights, and eventually spending his time with Makoto stealing money [2]. What Kiyoshi and Makoto were really doing, as this happens in real life too frequently, is replace their psychological pain and suffering with physical pain and suffering.

Another example of this comes from Patriotism, both the story and the film. In Patriotism, a young soldier named Lieutenant Shinji Takeyama and his wife Reiko perform hara-kiri [6]. After a failed coup by Lieutenant Shinji and Reiko's friends, they experienced inner turmoil. Lieutenant Shinji was ordered to round up the failed coup members, his friends, and execute them. There is no doubt that they were experiencing great emotional and psychological pain. So, instead of executing their friends, both Lieutenant Shinji and his wife Reiko decided that they would rather perform a ritual suicide. They decided to replace their emotional pain and suffering with physical pain and suffering, eventually death in this case.

As I round up my discussion of how people have dealt with pain and suffering, I wanted to bring up one more important piece of work. I'm referring to Ghost in the Shell, one of the last films that we saw in the course. The futuristic story involves a woman named Major Motoko Kusanagi as a government cyborg assassin [4]. She has an interesting perspective compared to all of the other films and literature that we've read and seen during the course because as a cyborg, she does not have to worry about physical pain and suffering. However, it seems that as much as she lacked physical pain and suffering, she took that much more load as psychological and emotional suffering. Throughout the film, she was constantly trying to figure out who she was, whether she was still considered a human being or a piece of machinery, controlled by the government perhaps literally, things that would cause any person to despair over.

As I analyzed each work that I've discussed so far, I kept thinking to myself, which is worse? Is it better to experience physical pain and suffering or emotional and psychological pain and suffering? Usually, with one comes the other. However, in cases such as Ghost in the Shell, Motoko seemed to have equated experiencing physical pain to being more human. Since she did not really feel any type of physical pain, she kept questioning her humanity. Personally, I believe physical pain and suffering is easier to heal, but it is the psychological pain that takes many years to overcome. All living things must experience pain and suffering during their lifetime, and humans are no exception. Although some kinds can be and should be avoided, I feel that life would not be more beautiful and valuable to us without the pain and suffering that comes with it. Through our own experiences and ways of dealing with it, we learn who we are on a more intimate level and grow in character as a result of our new knowledge. I hope I opened my eyes to you readers at least a little bit and created a little bit more understanding of the complex relationship between humans and pain and suffering.

Sources used:

[1] Barefood Gen. Manga.

[2] Cruel Story of Youth. Film.

[3] Fireflies. Text.

[4] Ghost in the Shell. Film.

[5] Mononoke Hime. Film.

[6] Patriotism. Text/Film.

[7] Summer Flower. Text.

[8] Tokyo Story. Film.

[9] White Light Black Rain. Film.

EAS314 Project

Japanese Patriotism

For my blossay, I wanted to try to focus on something that I thought was rather complicated to talked about. The topic that I want to try to engage you readers in, is on the topic of patriotism in Japan before, during, and after World War 2. As you guys have all seen and read (or hope to have read!) from class film screenings and texts, patriotism in Japan was very strong during that turbulent period. However, in the texts and films made after that period, patriotism was usually seen in a negative light, though not without merit. However, I was interested in learning more about the Japanese people's idea of patriotism during World War 2 and see if I could dig a little bit deeper into the subject. These are the results of my work. Please keep in mind that the words below are my words and the conclusions I have come to after reading different texts both from class and outside of class, which are cited. If you want to add to or disagree with some of my conclusions, please leave comments! I am more than happy to see different perspectives and ideas from other people.

It is difficult trying to tackle the subject of patriotism in Japan with all its nuances and meanings. For the people of Japan, patriotism went hand-in-hand with military might and imperialism, while for others it was learning from the disasters caused by military endeavors and remembering the dead. I'm sure, as it is in all societies, gray areas where people had ideas of patriotism from both sides. What most people including myself can agree with is that the idea of patriotism was very strong before, during, and after the events of World War 2, no matter what part of the spectrum of thought it came from.

Before and during World War 2, the main type of patriotism in place among the Japanese people, at least the one the militaristic government at the time was trying to implement, was monolithically chauvinistic (Shogimen 141). This meant that the government and most of the people during this time strove for uniformity among themselves in mind and motivation and accepted blind loyalty to their government, country, and their Emperor. If some people did not follow or have this same type of patriotism within themselves, then they were usually shunned, outcast, or abused by either their neighbors, the government, or both (Barefoot Gen volume 1). How the people of Japan came to follow these ideals and how their government implemented them is a large part of modern Japanese history in its own right.

As early Meiji political leaders worked to turn Japan into a modern nation state, they realized a very important part of that process. The political leaders realized that they needed some sort of “spiritual axis” for the people and the country of Japan to follow as a new nation state. While the countries of the West had Christianity as a spiritual axis, Japan did not have a religion on which to use. Therefore, the Meiji political leaders created their own religion called State Shintō, not related to the ancient Japanese religion of Shintō. The political leaders created this new religion to be Japan's counterpart to the West's Christianity. State Shintō went along with the idea of unconditional loyalty to Tennō, or the Japanese Emperor. From this newly recognized religion came the ideas of militaristic and chauvinistic patriotism (Shogimen 143).

When we delve a little further into this militaristic and chauvinistic patriotism, these ideas can be seen being firmly implanted into the Japanese people way before World War 2 in 1910. In 1910, the Imperial Military Reserve Association began, and in the opening ceremony of the association, Field Marshal Yamagata Aritomo said in a speech that spoke of soldiers mastering the warrior code, become model citizens to influence the younger generation, and not to hesitate to take on the task of serving the Emperor. He then stated that the association's aims and ideal was to make sure that all Japanese citizens are also soldiers (Smethurst 2). With organizations such as the Imperial Military Reserve Association headed by leaders such as Tanaka Giichi, and leaders such as Yamagata Aritomo giving the association his blessing, it is easy to see how things were set into motion for a Japan led by militaristic patriotism and unconditional love for their Emperor.

Alongside the main form of patriotism in Japan, which was backed up by State Shintō, there was another form of patriotism that affected a more specific crowd. This can be called prophetic patriotism. This type of patriotism involved acts of judgment in light of Christian ideals of justice and peace (Shogimen 142). Two Christian thinkers specifically mentioned were Yanaihara Tadao and Tsukamoto Toraji. These two Christian thinkers had to deal a very important political climate in Japan during this time which was the rise of the mainstream patriotism, fanatical nationalism and militarism in the 1930s and 1940s (Shogimen 143). During World War 2, patriotism meant dying for the kokutai or the national polity which was the Japanese Emperor. This caused conflicts for Japanese Christians about their loyalty. They tried to determine the relation between loyalty for their country and their faith in God. Yanaihara and Tsukamoto both gave their versions of what it meant to be a patriot from a Christian perspective, however their views contrasted with each other's sharply. Tsukamoto's views accommodated with the Japanese government but Yanaihara's views criticized the Japanese government very strongly (Shogimen 143).

Tsukamoto's ideas and views of patriotism were much more lenient towards the Japanese imperial government's actions and ideals. Tsukamoto struggled with the issue of what role a Japanese Christian should play during this time of national crisis. At first, he seemed to have disagreed with the direction that the government of Japan was taking the country because he was quoted as saying, “in Japan today, no living truth is allowed to be mentioned publicly. If you mention it, you are in trouble. I had considered myself until yesterday as a patriotic preacher. I had hoped to save my beloved country....I now realized, however, that I am not able to say what God commands me to say in the way in which Jeremiah did. ...I have neither brave heart nor patriotism nor capability as a preacher.” (Shogimen 148). He also wrote about his desire to devote himself completely to religion without getting involved in politics and the happenings of the world around him and chose to keep himself only around religion. Despite criticism for denying reality, Tsukamoto believed that exercising worldly leadership was not a mission for a Christian.

Even though Tsukamoto chose to devote himself completely to religion, his works actually gave much support to the actions of the imperial government of Japan. He had discovered the idea of hakkō-ichiu or “all the world under one roof” ideology in ancient imperial tradition, and so he was proud of what the government's traditional imperial ideals. He tried to think of how he could relate a Christian's mission for peace to the actions of the Japanese government and he came up with the ideal that Japan's invasions were about rescuing East Asian nations from the West's ideas and to restore liberty, equality, and peace. Tsukamoto decided that the Christians' mission should be to turn Japan into the true model of the moral state. He then endorsed the ideals of the Japanese government and tried to discover how Japanese Christians could help in contributing to the government's ideals.

To sum up Tsukamoto's views of patriotism, he believed that the better Japanese a person was, the better Christian he or she was, and vice versa. Therefore, he believed that all the problems of a person and the state to be caused by the issue of individuals (Shogimen 151). I believe what he meant by this was that you had to deal with your own sins and try to be a good Christian (in the contexts of Tsukamoto's views) in order to be a good patriot of Japan.

Yanaihara's idea of patriotism was very different from Tsukamoto in that he criticized the Japanese government for their actions and ideals. Also, Yanaihara never chose to pursue Christianity professionally and instead chose to remain an international economics teacher and researcher. His works revolved around critical analysis of the Japanese imperial government's militaristic policies which caused him to be unpopular among his nationalistic peers and crowd. As for the issue of what role a Japanese Christian should play during this turbulent time, Yanaihara said that religion had become increasingly individualistic and private. Although he recognized positive contributions to this change, such as defending freedom of belief from state intervention, he also stated that the downsides to this change meant that religion was becoming separate from public, political issues, causing political apathy among the religious Japanese people. Yanaihara believed that this political apathy made religion powerless when it came to being “the driving force for social progress.” (Shogimen 153). He believed that religion was a private matter because it was spiritual and for that reason worldly power could not influence religion. From this he stated that because of this religion could judge but cannot be judged by this world. He believed that one could not separate religion from politics and so any ideas in politics that seemed contradictory to religious beliefs can be viewed and judged from a religious perspective. Yanaihara was not happy with religion's role during this time as simply consoling and aiding men and women from falling into despair and sorrow.

Yanaihara's position with the imperial Japanese government was clear in the first paragraph of his argument in “Ideals of a State”. He said, “When the behavior of a state is actually confused, one reflects on the ideals of the state and, when the state is actually mad, one thinks of an ideal state. This is not an escape from reality but a leap that is required to attempt to critique the reality powerfully.” (Shogimen 154). Yanaihara then stated that the ideals of the state are justice and peace. The duties of a citizen, he stated, was that they were not only to abide by the law of the state but also contribute to the realization of the ideals of the state. In arguing this idea, Yanaihara was criticizing the policies of the Japanese government.

Yanaihara's idea of patriotism was that a patriot is “not someone who ingratiates himself with the policies of the powers that be but the one who loves, and is loyal to, the ideals of the state.” (Shogimen 155). He stated further that true patriotism does not include blind obedience to contemporary policies, but it involves resisting blind obedience and criticizing reality in regards to the ideals of the state. He went on to say that true patriots did not pray for the national interest, but they prayed for national morality (Shogimen 155). In a way, Yanaihara's idea of patriotism could be said to have embodied the judgment of political issues based on both “political realism and Christian faith.” (Shogimen 158).

After the end of World War 2, with Japan defeated and its people and economy completely devastated, it seemed like the Japanese people were still trying to figure out how they could be patriotic for their country. For example, the Japanese author Kenzaburo Oe wrote in his story Seventeen about an argument between a brother and sister over two different political viewpoints of having a liberal Japanese government and a conservative Japanese government (Seventeen 9-16). This gives a fictional account, albeit in a true political climate, about the complicated feelings that still affected the Japanese people. Another work of fiction that was produced by a Japanese author was a story called Yūkoku, or Patriotism. This work represented the feelings some Japanese people still had towards the militaristic government that ran Japan before and during World War 2 (Patriotism). This work showed that some Japanese people still desired such a government and country. To touch on yet another side of Japanese patriotism, there were Japanese women who were sent abroad by the imperial government before and during World War 2 to brothels around South East Asia and many of them, despite perhaps being forced into their profession, felt it was their patriotic duty to Japan to give money to Japan's war efforts. To learn more about these women, please do some reading on Karayuki san and watch movies such as Sandakan 8 (Sandakan 8). This conflict and confusion of what was considered patriotic in Japan after World War 2 have existed up to current times. Even up to modern times the Japanese Prime Ministers in the past have been hesitant to visit the Yasakuni shrine for fear of disrespecting other political leaders in other countries (Tamamoto 33-34).

I hope that I brought some more insight into this complicated subject of patriotism in Japan. I feel that being a patriot is a complicated thing in every country, but due to recent events in history, it is even more so in Japan. Thanks for taking the time to read my blossay and I hope that you can take something out of this or due further reading for yourself if you are interested in this topic.

Works Cited

Image credits:

http://www.politicsabroad.com/wp-content/themes/PoliticsAbroad/images/flags/japan.gif

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsXd57PUXlD4zNeBFT97dJYQQBBPpf96li4PH9-d_ZHZrjhXXkRsQ3nHN6wtsA4mxDlvAMBZCjtm7ExFfJeUzGcTh60y687MWHwg64aOHzoXGjO5xccHdkJoW5JOXqDxLaMylZXNt0wl0X/s1600/70.jpg

Kenzaburo, Oe. Seventeen. 1961. Print.

Mishima, Yukio, and Geoffrey W. Sargent. Patriotism. New York: New Directions, 1995. Print.

Nakazawa, Keiji. "Barefoot Gen." Comic strip. Vol. 1. Print.

Sandakan 8. 1977. DVD.

Shogimen, Takashi. ""Another" Patriotism in Early Shōwa Japan (1930–1945)." Journal of the History of Ideas 71.1 (2010). Project MUSE. Web. 28 Mar. 2011.

Smethurst, Richard J. A Social Basis for Prewar Japanese Militarism: the Army and the Rural Community. Berkeley: University of California, 1974. Print.

Welcome to my EAS314 blog!

Hey everyone. This is my blog for one of my classes called EAS314. I'll be posting various things such as projects for this class on my blog so stay updated!