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Sneaky Attack on Japan
The Once-Rising Sun Hasn't Set Yet
By: Paul
J. Scalise
Surprise,
surprise: Japan is not perfect. Make way for Alex Kerr, the latest
plaintiff in the ongoing case to put Japan and its Western fan club
on trial for misrepresentation, sloppy journalism and downright
fraud. In his new book, Dogs and Demons: Tales From the Dark
Side of Japan, even the subtitle suggests an anecdotal polemic
confronting one of the most controversial subjects in Asian studies:
What is the true Japan?
Mr. Kerr, author of Lost Japan and winner of the Shincho
Gakugei Literary Prize for nonfiction, cracks open the country's
golden coconut only to taste sour milk. But rather than the usual
explorations into the seedy underbelly of Tokyo's red-light district,
yakuza-ridden boardrooms or "dual economy" of competitive exporters
and uncompetitive domestics (something any graduate student can
now recite with ease), Mr. Kerr conducts a page-turning tirade on
what he sees as Japan's dysfunctional value-system.
Alex Kerr's Japan is a land fraught with contradictions and misspent
opportunities: "nature lovers" who concrete over their rivers and
seashores; financial regulators who mismanage waning stock markets;
technocrats who fail to warn against preventable disasters; and
the world's largest creditor nation concealing a national debt approaching
150% of GDP.
These problems do not stem from "neo-mercantilism" per se; Mr. Kerr
has little interest in ideology and academic details of U.S.-Japan
trade frictions. Nor will readers bracing themselves for a lengthy
discussion of corporate governance and its "neo-Confucian" origins
have much to worry about. Politics, economics and business might
be indicted, but the author's real obsession is the emptiness of
post-modern culture.
...After
reading Dogs and Demons, no one can accuse Alex
Kerr of not caring about Japan.As for always being the source
of accurate information, that's another
matter....
As
the author explains, "Dogs and Demons" (from a Chinese metaphor)
paints the simple things of everyday life that the West has taken
for granted (Dogs) but are seemingly difficult for Japan: "zoning,
sign control, the planting and tending of trees, burial of electric
wires, protection of historic neighborhoods, comfortable and attractive
residential design, environmentally friendly resorts." The difficult
things (Demons) are ostentatious and expensive surface statements;
symbolic gestures rather than substantive commitments. Their signs
are everywhere: museums without artwork, monuments without honor,
roads without destinations.
In short, Mr. Kerr ascribes "culture" as the end-all source of Japan's
malaise some hundred years after sociologist Max Weber first tried
to explain away China's backwardness in similar fashion. "The problem
is not that traditional values have died," Mr. Kerr writes, "but
that they have mutated. Frankenstein's monsters taking on terrifying
new lives."
Most readers comfortable with the constant barrage of negativity
towards environmental politics, cinema, finance, education, architecture
and business will appreciate the keen observations that crop up
along the way. It is interesting, for example, that Japan's houses
are either old or new, but never renovated. It is startling how
Japan has no law against asbestos flooring. It is thought provoking
that more than 10% of Japan's workforce is employed in the construction
industry—twice the number in America and Europe.
After reading Dogs and Demons, no one can accuse Mr. Kerr
of not caring about Japan. As for always being the source of accurate
information, that's another matter. Several minor errors (for example,
he mistakes a Dreamwork film, The Prince of Egypt, for
a Disney movie) could be overlooked by the fastidious reader. Sweeping
generalizations are more troubling. For example, Mr. Kerr tells
us "Japan is the world's only advanced country that does not bury
telephone cables and electric lines." The idea is to show that Japan's
city-planning lags behind practice in most Western cities. In fact,
Tokyo's 23 wards boast 90% of its transmission and 42% of its distribution
cables buried under ground, while South Western England only records
roughly 39% in total. (Click here
for Japan's Underground Installation Rate and here
for the UK's Underground Installation Rate.)
In discussing how Japan's insular values have isolated its cinema,
Mr. Kerr also declares that "there has never been a successful joint
Western-Japanese or Asian-Japanese film, or any highly regarded
Japanese film set in another country." But this is another example
where hyperbole crowds out easily accessible information. Tora!
Tora! Tora!, a 1970 American and Japanese co-production that
meticulously dramatizes the attack on Pearl Harbor, garnered an
Academy Award for best visual effects in film and was voted one
of the 10 best films of the year by the National Board of Review
Awards.
Indeed, the intriguing question that arises as one reads this book
is why Mr. Kerr insists on gilding the lily. It seems that for the
longtime Japan resident and Oxford-educated businessman, it is not
enough that Japan faces dire economic straits—thanks in part
to weak political institutions—the entire country has to be
seen as completely backwards, childish and incompetent. This tendency
is not just a criticism of this book but of current thinking on
Japan, where well-meaning authors seeking to correct the faulty
"Japan Inc." imagery of the past two decades counter with the opposite
extreme.
But sooner or later, the sensible reader will wonder: How acceptable
would a book portraying modern-day Brazil be if it only described
"the culture" in terms of massive foreign-currency debts, supposed
deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, AIDS, street children, authoritarianism,
business fraud, polluted beaches and inland areas, male chauvinism,
a patriarchal class system and latent racial discrimination? While
each of these subjects offers us shades of the Brazilian mosaic,
they hardly describe the country in toto. So it is with Dogs
and Demons—a passionately entertaining, but sadly imbalanced
read. 
Paul J. Scalise. “A Sneaky Attack on Japan: The Once Rising Sun Hasn’t
Set Yet.” The Asian Wall Street Journal. October 26, 2001.
Pg. W7.
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Copyright 2002-2005 JapanReview.Net, All rights reserved
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