A selection of unpublished letters about Community stories from the second half of last year.
A selection of unpublished letters about Community stories from the second half of last year:
Re: “ Of guns and cutlery: Memories of the war, from the Netherlands to Japan ” by Hans Brinckmann (Foreign Agenda, Aug. 9):
This article was one of the best I’ve read in recent times. It is said that war brings out the best and worst in people. Judging from the photograph of the miserable veterans in Kobe and the indifferent passers-by, it would seem that the same could be said for defeat.
Like the acrylic cutlery in Mr. Brinckmann’s kitchen, these photographs must not be hidden away. They prick at our conscience and deserve a special place in the public consciousness, as a reminder of what makes us human, for better or worse.
WILLIAM CHOW
Melbourne, Australia
Thinking way back, I recall that it was the 47th year (1992) since American warplanes had last dropped bombs on Japan during World War II. It must have been my second year in the Aichi Senmon Nisodo, a training monastery for female priests in the Soto Zen Buddhist tradition in Nagoya.
One day at the Nisodo, a Civil Defense officer appeared at the door. Aichi Gakuen was constructing a new building for the university right nearby, digging two floors down to make best use of the land. An undetonated U. S. bomb had been found there, and we were all to go next day at 2 p.m. to a nearby bomb shelter while work was to be done to defuse it.
Memories arose in me of my father during WWII. On his desk he had fine tweezers and a magnifying eyepiece that he’d used for years to place small parts into the instrument panels of B-24s or B-29s. The thought came to me: Had that undetonated bomb just down the hill been dropped from a plane which my father had helped to build?
How could I go and enter a bomb shelter if there was an accident, the bomb exploded and hurt people? How could I come out safe when others might be injured? I asked our Abbess to let me be the rusu-ban, the one who stays back. “Dai-En-san, we have orders for all of us to leave,” she said.
Someone suggested, “The movie ‘Gandhi’ is playing. Couldn’t we all go there instead?” Everyone wanted to go. But how could I come back from a movie theatre if someone were hurt at the bomb site? How could I stay on there — but also, how could I leave? I wanted to go down to the site myself, but worried I might be ordered to the bomb shelter.
“Abbess, how can I go anywhere? I can’t. I ask to stay here,” I said.
“Very well, then” was her reply.
All left but one, the senior nun whom our abbess asked to stay downstairs. I stood behind a curtain to the side of a second-floor window, not moving.
The minutes seemed like hours. Thoughts of my father’s work, not his choice, flowed through my mind. Thoughts of my fellow countrymen who had made other parts of the plane, and of the bombs, followed behind in my mind. If there were an accident while trying to detonate the bomb, how could I stay on, safe, to practice at the women’s monastery? What would I do? What could I do? I could come up with no answer when I heard the signal that all was well.
All the nuns returned from the movie.
“Here is a small o-miage for you,” said one nun, handing me a sweet. As always, in the morning, in the evening, we do zazen meditation. That evening, “Everyone is safe. Everyone is safe,” came the unsolicited mantra in my quieted mind.
REV. PATRICIA DAI-EN BENNAGE
Abbess emerita, Mt. Equity Zendo, Jihoji
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania
Re: “ Trump or decency? Every American, whether in Japan or elsewhere, must choose a side ” by Jesse Glickstein (Foreign Agenda, Aug. 23):
Jesse Glickstein’s plea to choose decency and stand up against hatred strikes a poignant chord with all of us who have been appalled by what took place in Charlottesville. His taking President Donald Trump to task for repeatedly abetting the white nationalists and calling for accountability in condemning racism and intolerance could not be more urgent.
Having said that, if an effort to eradicate hate groups were to be pursued in a constructive manner, one must confront the question of how white nationalism has gained steam in recent years. Many in the media and public may point to the ascent of Donald Trump for a large part of the answer: Trump has undeniably fanned the flame of hate with his overtly racist rhetoric.
Nevertheless, the facile insinuation by some that Trump has single-handedly fomented a climate of racism and hate only diverts the attention from the real source of the problem. In fact, Trump, an unscrupulous opportunist to the core, merely appealed to the base and tribalist tendency that has been nurtured under an increasingly fractious political environment.
America is deeply divided, and one of the primary forces driving the numerous fractures on its edifice is fervent identity politics and its attendant bigotry. In recent years, America has seen alarming growth of toxic, “us vs. them” mentality among its population. For example, members of the Antifa movement and Black Lives Matter seemingly justify vicious treatment of those they deem to be their enemies as part of their stated claim to fight oppression.
In a similar vein, the eagerness with which vilification of those whose opinions diverge from one’s own takes place has been another disturbing trend. Those who have tried to engage in reasonable debate over problems with Islamic theology, differences between men and women, the merit of adopting a multitude of arbitrary gender pronouns, or any other hot-button issues, only to be silenced and branded with unenviable epithets (e.g. “Islamophobic,” “racist,” “male chauvinist”), could attest to this.
The dogmatic antagonism toward those who refuse to toe the party line, as demonstrated by groups such as Black Lives Matter, third-wave feminists, transgender rights activists (and others of the “social justice warrior” ilk) only leads to atomization of society. In this environment ripe for hate and division along racial and ideological lines, it is not entirely surprising that white nationalism has sprouted. In other words, white nationalism and other aforementioned groups are all cut from the same cloth of bigotry and tribalism.
White nationalism may be the most recent and vivid example of hate we have witnessed, but in “rallying against hate,” striving for decency begins with combating rampant divisiveness and intolerance of all forms.
AKI KUWABARA
Tokyo
Re: “ How a love of Japan led me to stop dating its women ” by Damian Flanagan (Foreign Agenda, Aug. 27):
I’m a transplant from Tokyo to Chicago, and today came across this article. I think it is gallingly unprofessional of your editorial team to post what was obviously a private journal entry to your news site. Surely, Mr. Flanagan would be deeply embarrassed to have his name publicly associated with such a self-obsessed catalog of his previous romantic conquests, especially one that reduces all of his previous partners to pretty much just their ethnic background.
How would this affect Mr. Flanagan’s life going forward — is it not inevitable that publication of these private ramblings could affect his relationship with his wife, who surely is a more complex individual with nuanced personality traits beyond just being Australian? Would she appreciate being whittled down to just her ethnic background in a public forum like this?
Then again, what would I know, as a half-Japanese, half-American woman who is “adventurous” and therefore has marred her Japaneseness? (Though I suppose I should be thankful that I’m not just “boring.”) Maybe this stuff is supposed to be flattering, and we women — sorry, “girls” — should take it as such, even if it’s blatantly not.
JEANNIE HARRELL
Chicago
A very important essay for those who are or might considering dating Japanese women in Japan.
The culture is indeed much too restrictive for Western tastes, but one would think the bond with its romance would alleviate most of that stress. I guess it depends on the individuals and their situations.
As for Mr. Flanagan, I am of the opinion that he must have had the luxury of making his choices free of financial concerns and other mitigating factors, unlike many of the other Westerners who choose to date Japanese women.
THOMAS A. DIMATTIA
This whole thing is so cringy. What is the author, a 13-year-old on LiveJournal?
“I found that the nationality of the girl I was dating greatly affected my mental mood and how I thought about things.”
Reading that sentence without any context is a trip. Does the author have no control over his moods? The nationality of his girlfriend determined his mood?! That is nonsense.
Seriously, this is garbage and an embarrassment.
EMILY OWAKI
Chicago
Sorry, but I thought this entire essay was pointless, just a bit of narcissistic preening, as in “Ain’t I the cat’s meow!”
And why does British expatriate Damian Flanagan assume that Japanese women are only attracted to Western nerds who have all the social graces of a Woody Allen character? Admittedly, Meiji-Era Brit Lafcadio Hearn, with his one near-sighted eye, the other blind, and his diminutive height, might have started the whole “nerd gaijin (foreigners) marry lovely Japanese women” stereotype, but many attractive Western men have taken a Japanese spouse since Hearn’s day.
