THE CHINA MAIL, NOVEMBER 1, 1988.
14
A GLANCE AT THE INVADERS OF CHINA
A TOKYO newspaper cartoons
a Japanese woman in Ginza store looking at a geo- graphical globe. Examining dis- tastefully the large areas marked China, U.S.S.R. and U.S.A., she
complains to the clerk:
"I want a globe with only Japan
on!"
In this manner Mr. Willard Price, one of the world's leading foreign journalists, introduces his absorbingly interesting book... "Where Are You Going, Japan?"
Claiming to be neither pro Japanese nor anti-Japanese, ho moves easily through the Oriental masses of humanity seiz- ing here and there on points of interest, and revealing a mine of information about the country, its preparations for the future, education, human dramas, farm- ing and even a crude and living picture of primitive methods practised before child-birth.
But Mr. Price is not satisfied by merely mentioning something in a nonchalant way. When he be- comes interested in a subject he studies it. He does not, in the or- dinary way, tell his readers that Japan is densely populated. This is how he tackles it;
Japan has a population density of 2,750 per arable square mile in comparison with 2,170 in the United Kingdom, 1,709 in Bel- gium, 819 in Italy, 806 in Ger- many, 467 in France, and 229 in the United States.
A RATHER FRIGHTENING
PICTURE
And so, like a guide to the peo- ples of the West, Mr. Price, who knew his East as early as 1912, takes us through the countries Japan, "Japan in Manchuria,” "Japan in Korea," "Japan in China," "Japan in the Pacific and Japan in the World." He paints a rather frightening picture, and emphasises throughout his book that Japan is preparing to make herself the most powerful and in- dependent nation in the world. Japan's trade, he reveals, surviv ed the depression without being aware that there was one. New factories and mills are now springing up everywhere.
:
Before describing the people Mr. Price eats and res with them and learns that the Japan- ese of to-day are a race of con- tradictions. They read Sinclair Lewis, Julian Huxley and even Einstein-yet they cling to the belief that boiled. snake is good for pleurisy, a certain "abracada-". bra" repeated over a well will ensure pure water, and a bow and arrow erected on the ridge pole of a new house will scare away devils.
SHALL BE A WORLD POWER
All that the East knows, all that the West knows, Japan is determined to know. She shall be -interpreter between Oriental and Occidental. She shall not be an Eastern Power, but a world Pow- er. The currents of thought flow ing through Japanese class-rooms are like a parade of nations. Chin- ese classics, Indian Buddhism, Russian Communism, ✨ English law, French aestheticism, Ameri-
WHERE. ARE YOU GOING, JAPAN?
can' pragmatism, German military
drill, and Danish oallisthenics.
"Japan feels it necessary to strike a body blow at the giant that has imprisoned her the giant of Status Quo. That sentinel was created and put on guard by the Powers after they had alt they needed. He is the jailer of the Japanese. Somehow Japan must break jail. That she con- siders is inevitable in view of the steady expansion of the popula- tion within an expanding cell walled in by the sea coasts. Al- though her trouble is lack of ter- ritory, she is only secondarily in- terested in sending her people to occupy new territory. What she wants is sources of raw materials, a vast industrial system to trans- form these materials, and access to world markets," says the au- thor.
there
"Japan's entire educational sys- tem is marked by an excess of zeal. To the Westerner seems to be too intense a military atmosphere, too much patriotism, too much emphasis, on the des- tiny of Nippon, too merciless an eye-strain, nerve-strain, . and brain-strain in the rush to learn. Japan is impelled by a vision that is sometimes almost a frenzy. She sees herself with a role to play not merely in Asia but in the world at large second to that; of no other nation on earth. And she is preparing.”
These "iron men from paper houses" have no fear of death, as Mr. Price proves by quoting sta- tistics of suicides prompted by what the Westerner would con- sider trifles.
"Japan is an island floating on a sea of fire. Recently 58 of her 192 volcanoes were active. There are nearly a thousand hot springs. There
are four earthquakes a day, one severe earthquake every 30 months, a disastrous shock every lifetime. Typhoons are fre- quent. Also tidal waves. Floods, Conflagrations. Dean of disaster is the beautiful Fugi, an” abori- ginal word with two meanings, goddess of fire and to burst forth. Its most recent great eruption was in 1708."
When Mr. Price writes about a mountain he climbs it. "I climbed Asama (Asamá means without bottom, but the name is a mis-
· nomer as the crater's bottom may now be seen at a depth of 600ft. and it is still rising), and shall not forget the experience. The mountain gives constant promise annihilating the human midget and lends spice to the adventure."
THREW HIMSELF INTO
THE CRATER.
He went up with a party of students; one threw himself into the crater--because life at school was very hard."
"Even when one knows that there are three volcanic suicides every day it is a shock to have one come within close range. To the Japanese suicide is an order. ly and recognised procedure, and my companions were only a little quiet as we went down the moun- tain.
“Japan/ outstrips her nearest competitor in number and vio.
lence of earthquakes: During the
1
ten years following 1923 there
were 21,845 quakes strong enough to be felt besides tens of thou- sands détected only by the seismo- graph. The death roll is heavy, the nerve toll heavier, Japanese do not become accustomed to
earthquakes; they dislike and fear them."
He goes on to say that floods," together. with tidal waves and typhoons, drown 600 persons year- ly, 20,000 wooden houses are des- troyed by fire every year.
ARRESTED FOR HARBOURING
DANGEROUS THOUGHTS
Mr. Price returns to politics: "Japan's, dangerous thoughts are turning from red to black. Thoughts are scrutinised as care- fully as actions. Men are arrest-- ed, tried and executed for har- bouring dangerous thoughts. Usually these thoughts have been of 8 communistic tinge-but there is now a change in their character.
"The war in China and the ex- pectation of a crisis in interna- tional relations during the next few years is wiping out the ef- fects of a decade of patient Soviet propaganda in Japan. Naturally the thought police claim credit for
the suppression of Commun-
ism: But there has been a corres- ponding increase in dangerous thoughts along the line of a re- actionary and fascistic national- ism.
"Japan expects trouble-even more than she already has in China, She demands place as one of the three greatest world Pow- ers: greatest of all in the Pacific more than she already has in area. She means to hold the man- dated islands regardless of any possible decision of the League. She projects a southwards ad- vance to be backed by the navy. She realises that the Manchurian question cannot be called settled until the Powers recognise Man- chukuo. She sees the nations throwing up tariffs against her goods. And she does not look for smooth ́ sailing in her relations with Soviet Russia,”
"In short, Japan stands alone against the world.”
is
This excellent publication crammed with facts. Here are a few picked at random.
Japanese do not lack courage to die. Nor are they easily shaken from a purpose-witness their Itenacity in their Asian venture: Let a true Japanese get his beeth locked in a bit of conviction and he will hold to it through hell and high water. Then why do they not hold with communism?. Because communism in Japan is a conceit, not a conviction.
Since 1928 more than 30,000- Communists have been arrested..
The movement to restore Japan: to
ancient and better ways... is sweeping through the schools. Numerous proletarian societies have abandoned their anti wa slogans and turned reactionary, Five years ago there wer
"NEW BOOK BY WILLARD PRICE
ly 20 Fascist organisations of im- portance in Japan; there are now more than 200 large, active or- ganisations and several hundred
minor societies.
go
THEY ARE TRAINED
TO DIE
“The training of men who will to their doom with the un- swerving directness of steel ro- bots is a weird process. The train..... ing begins 2,000 years before the soldier is born. Bushido has taught the Japanese race to think
well of itself, and the Japanese individual to regard himself as nothing but dirt to be ground under the chariot wheels of pro- gress of his race. The one must be for all. What better racial tradition could there be for the making of die easy soldiers? Ac- tive military training begins at the e age of six. Little tots, mark time, goose-step, march in pla- toons. As they grow older they go through the manual of arms' with snap and precision. On en- tering school at the age of 12 years the boys are provided with light rifles and uniforms, and are thoroughly drilled by military in- structors
a soldier's life is claimed by the Emperor great sensation was caused when two small boys who would have no one to care for them if their father obeyed the call to service in China,, bared their bodies to his sword and died with the Em peror's name on their lips. An-. other conscripted father gave his. motherless daughters to a brothel. It is not uncommon for wives to be divorced and sent back to their parents when the call to arms. comes...
no
"It is always a simple matter in the Japanese Armỹ to get volun- teers to serve as human bombs or to ride to certain death or to wedge their bodies into the muz- zle of the cannon so that the ob- struction may blow the artillery bits before it may fall into the` hand of the enemy, This does not mean that the Japanese soldier is braver than any other.
"It is the natural outcome of the ever-preached doctrine of self-immolation for the public good. The army is Japan's church and religion. Buddhism is weak in comparison."
The publication covers a vast field. "There is a chapter on ban→ dits, a terribly vivid and too last- ing description of Korean-met- hods of "doctoring" ailments. The book has come at a right time of á country where there is "water, water
everywere and no erosion.
But no matter what subject Mr. Price discusses, one hears big guns booming incessantly in the background, and the title "Where Are You Going, Japan?" simply cannot be forgotten for one in- stant.
Where Are You Going Japan?!" by Willard Price (Mossra, WIL- Ham Heinemanh, Ltd. publish- era
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