History plays a significant role in the return of the Olympics to Japan. In 1964, Japan was granted the honor of being the first Asian nation to play host to this competition. Here was a nation brimming with confidence and power two decades after its defeat from World War II. Forget about its rise from the proverbial ashes; economic historians would know that much of the support of the United States of America was given to this island-nation, as it always describes itself.
With the 1964 Tokyo Olympics came massive changes in Japan. One was the Shinkansen or Bullet train, the beginning of a transport system that would impress the world.
Many things have taken place since then. The automobile industry of Japan would not only stand for its superior machine and design; it would supplant and put out of business the pioneering car factories of the US. The country, overnight, turned itself into Japan Incorporated, with its business auguring the spread of Japanese culture across the globe. Soft diplomacy it was called.
As Japan hurtled into the future, it did not forget its art forms. Preserved and well-funded, its traditional arts and crafts lived side by side by side with inventions that dominated the world market. While new thoughts and ideas were unencumbered, Japanese literature and aesthetics forwarded different and enchanting ways of perceiving and presenting things.
Cultures of nations are ways of displaying identities; nowhere is this act more compelling than in Japanese culture. In its language, a series of levels is available to its speakers: Shall I lower myself or shall I bring myself equal to this person I am talking with? Shall I elevate the status of this person before me as I further efface myself? There are varied pronouns and verb forms for all social engagement; there are different bodily movements embedded in the social environment of the Japanese individual.
Even the mythical inscrutability of Japanese society and culture, much of it a function of a language again that favors vagueness over directness, turned into a popular handle for us outsiders as communities attempted to enter the Japanese universe.
Thus was reborn the concept of Nihonjinron. A kind of essentialism, this phenomenon refers to books and papers written by Japanese scholars as well as non-Japanese academics purporting to describe Japan as “unique.” Cutting across disciplines, like sociology, economics, political science and many others, Nihonjinron satisfied the exoticization done by both outsiders and insiders with regard to Japanese culture and society.
This Nihonjinron traces itself back to the Kokugagu or national studies writings, which offered images of Japan before the advent of the Chinese civilization. It was a search for the “pure” and indigenous culture of the country.
This claim of uniqueness, however, does not end with the proclamation of a monolithic culture but a declaration of both purity and supremacy. Note the Expo 70, again an introduction of the technological discoveries this time held in Osaka, where ultimately the symbol was Taro Okamoto’s “Tower of the Sun.” Tracing the sun back to the myths of Japan (the first chapter of Japanese history is about their myth of origin), that symbol links itself to Amaterasu, the putative origin of all Japanese people. It is a beginning premised on a pure race, a nation that cannot accept foreigners.
Flash forward to the opening ceremony: Behold Naomi Osaka, a hafu or a half-breed. What is the fruit of that decision to give the honor of lighting the cauldron on top of a structure symbolizing Fuji-san or Mt. Fuji, the sacred mountain for the Japanese, to one who is not of “pure” Japanese blood?
That night, Japan presented itself again thickly with symbols.
Was it for the first time that the national anthem of Japan, the Kimigayo (its title referring to “His Imperial Majesty’s Reign”) was belted, by Misia, a pop singer, instead of played by an orchestra or sung by a choir?
While the protests for days and months pleaded that the government think of the safety of its people, actor-dancer Mirai Moriyama performed an “In Memoriam.” In a dance that was half-lament, half-retribution, the deaths related to the Olympics were mentioned, with the assassination of the Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics jolting the audiences.
There were kitschy moments (imagine “Imagine” being sung) but these were visually overpowered in memory by a Kabuki being performed side by side with Berklee alumna and jazz artist, Hiromi Uehara. It was an explosion of energy with legendary Kabuki actor Ichikawa Ebizo wearing a costume more than 60 kgs, as he showed images from the play, Shibaraku (literally, Wait a Moment!).
Technology was the muse of the night. And precision commanded the whole show. This is Japan that we like and even understand. This is Japan that we consume.
Months ago, however, Yoshiro Mori, the president of the Olympic committee resigned after it was found out he uttered sexist remarks (“women talk too much during meetings”). He was replaced by a woman, Seiko Hashimoto, a former Olympics athletes now a politician.
Less than two days before the opening ceremonies, the director of the said event, comedian and theatre director, Kentaro Kobayashi, was fired. Reason: it was discovered he used the Holocausts in a comic scene he did, in 1998.
But some things cannot change, addressed as “The Emperor” by the Chairman of the Olympic Committee, the name for the present monarch was a neutral portrait of gentility. But addressed in Japanese by Hashimoto, Naruhito became Tenno Heika, the “God-Emperor” no less, a direct descendant of the Sun-Goddess.
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