A Cultural History of Postwar Japan Read online

  ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: JAPAN

  A CULTURAL HISTORY OF POSTWAR JAPAN 1945–1980

  A CULTURAL HISTORY OF POSTWAR JAPAN 1945–1980

  SHUNSUKE TSURUMI

  Volume 50

  LONDON AND NEW YORK

  First published in English in 1987

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  A CULTURAL HISTORY OF POSTWAR JAPAN 1945–1980

  Shunsuke Tsurumi

  London and New York

  First published in Japanese in 1984 by Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo

  This edition published in 1987 by KPI Limited

  11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE, England

  This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.

  To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

  Distributed by

  Routledge & Kegan Paul

  Associated Book Publishers (UK) Ltd,

  11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

  Methuen Inc., Routledge & Kegan Paul

  29 West 35th Street

  New York, NY 10001, USA

  Produced by Worts-Power Associates

  The publishers gratefully acknowledge

  the assistance of The Japan Foundation

  in the publication of this volume.

  © This translation KPI Limited, 1987

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission

  from the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism.

  ISBN 07103 0259 2

  Contents

  Acknowledgements vi

  List of illustrations viii

  Preface xi

  1 Occupation: the American Way of Life as an Imposed Model 1

  2 Occupation: on the Sense of Justice 13

  3 Comics in Postwar Japan 28

  4 Vaudeville Acts 46

  5 Legends of Common Culture 62

  6 Trends in Popular Songs since the 1960s 79

  7 Ordinary Citizens and Citizens’ Movements 103

  8 Comments on Patterns of Life 116

  9 A Comment on Guidebooks on Japan 125

  References 134

  Index 165

  Acknowledgements

  Photograph 1

  Mainichi Shinbun. Photographed by Kimura Ihei (in Asahi Kamera, Special Issue, December 1979).

  2

  Asahi Shinbun

  3–4

  Mainichi Shinbun

  5

  Photographed by Kimura Ihei (Machikado— Street Scenes—Nikon Saron Bukkusu, Vol. 7)

  6

  Shirato Sanpei, Ninja Bugeich, Vol. 16-B, Kagemaruden (The Life of Kagemaru), Shgakkan, 1971, p. 108

  7

  Mizuki Shigeru, Kappa no Sanpei (Sanpei the Kappa), Vol. 4, Asahi Sonorama, 1970, p. 220

  8

  Tsuge Yoshiharu, Tsuge Yoshiharu-sh (Selected Works of Tsuge Yoshiharu), Gendai Manga, Vol. 12, Chikuma Shob, 1970, p. 247

  9

  Takemiya Keiko, Tera e… (Earthward bound…), Monthly Manga Shnen, Special Issue, General edition, Part I, Asahi Sonorama, 1977, p. 110

  10

  Yamagami Tatsuhiko, Gaki Deka, Vol. II, Shnen Chanpion Komikkusu, Akita Shoten, 1975, p. 144

  12

  Ishiguro Keishichi, Utsusareta Bakumatsu (The Bakumatsu Period in Photos), Vol. II, Asoka Shob, 1957, p. 45

  13

  Suiky Kijinden (Lives of Whimsical Eccentrics), 1863, Sandaibanashi Kaij. By courtesy of Mr Tachibana Ukon

  14

  Shinsakubanashi Omoshiro Sugoroku, 1883. By courtesy of Mr Tachibana Ukon

  12, 16, 17, 18

  By courtesy of Magajin Haususha

  20

  Photographed by Kimura Tsunehisa. First appeared in Kikan Shashin Eiz, No. 3, 1969

  19, 21–27

  Courtesy of NHK Service Centre

  28–29

  By courtesy of Suntory

  31

  Photograph of Kimura Ihei. From Kimura Ihei no Me, Special Issue of Asahi Kamera, 1970

  32

  Courtesy of Maruhachi Mawata

  34–34

  Courtesy of Magajin Haususha

  Score 3

  Pepp Keibu 1976 by N.T.V.N.M. & Nichion Inc.

  4

  Haru Ichiban (The First Storm of Spring), 1976 by Watanabe Music Publishing Corporation.

  Photograph 35

  Courtesy of Th

  Score 14

  Kaette Kita Yopparai (The drunk who came back), 1967, by ART Music Publishing Co., Ltd.

  Photograph 39–40

  Courtesy of Asahi Shinbunsha

  37–38

  Hasegawa Machiko, Sazaesan, Vol. 46, Shimaisha, 1969, p. 68

  41

  Courtesy of Mainichi Shinbunsha

  42

  Sophy Hoare, Japan, the land and its people, in Macdonald Countries series, Macdonald Educational, London, 1975, p. 36

  43

  Lat’s Lot (second collection), Berita Publishing Sdn. Bhd., Kuala Lumpur, 1978, p. 126.

  List of Illustrations

  Marunouchi, October 1949 12

  The accused sit in the dock at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, 3 May 1946 15

  War Crimes Trial in a Singapore court-room, August 1946 18

  War Crimes Trial in Rangoon City Hall, 22 March 1946 19

  Picture-card show (kamishibai), Komatsugawa, Tokyo, 1956 33

  From The Fighting Record of the Invisible Organizers, by Shirato Sanpei 35

  From Sanpei the Kappa, Vol. 4, by Mizuki Shigeru 39

  From The Master of Gensenkan by Tsuge Yoshiharu 41

  From Earthward bound…by Takemiya Keiko 42

  From Gaki Deka, Vol. 2, by Yamagami Tatsuhiko 44

  Manzai performers in the Sensh Scroll, Poetry Contest of the Thirty-two Artisans 51

  Mikawa manzai in the closing years of t
he Edo Period 52

  Vaudeville scene in the late Edo Period 53

  Vaudeville scene in the early Meiji Period 54

  Manzai team Hanabishi Achako and Yokoyama Entatsu 56

  Miyako Chch and Nanto Yji 58

  tori Keisuke and Ky Utako 59

  The Manzai performance by the Two Beats (Ts Biito): Biito Takeshi and Biito Kiyoshi 61

  The NHK Song Contest of 1953 65

  Photomontage by Kimura Tsunehisa 65

  NHK End of Year Song Contest, 1982 66

  NHK Great River Drama Ak Rshi 68

  From Niji (The Rainbow) (1970) 71

  From Ai yori aoku (Bluer than Indigo) (1972) 72

  From Hatoko no Umi (Hatoko’s Sea) (1974) 72

  From Kumo no Jtan (Carpet of Clouds) (1976) 73

  From Kazamidori (Weathercock) (1977) 73

  Chch (The Butterfly) 80

  Tokoton yare-bushi (Miyasan) 81

  Stanislavsky as Nanki Poo and Stekel as Yum Yum in The Mikado, l887 82

  Ichimura Uzaemon XV playing Sukeroku 84

  Takamiyama 85

  Pink Lady 86

  ‘Sergeant Pepper’ 87

  ‘Spring Number One’ 88

  The Candies 89

  Lullaby from the Chgoku region, arranged by Yamada Ksaku 90

  ‘Hietsukibushi’ 91

  Hymn based on ‘Imay’ melody 92

  ‘Zsan’ 93

  ‘The Gondola Song’ 94

  Shimura Takashi singing ‘The Gondola Song’ in the Kurosawa film Ikiru 95

  ‘Song of the Seaside’ 96

  ‘The Red Dragonfly’ 96

  ‘If you go to the sea…’ 97

  ‘A town where the snow is falling’ 98

  ‘The drunk who has come back home’ 99

  ‘The sky of my home village’ 100

  ‘The glow of fireflies’ 101

  ‘Elegy of Seven-Mile Beach’ 102

  Beheiren ‘French Demonstration’ fills Yaesudori Avenue, 23 June 1970 110

  From Sazaesan, Vol. 46, by Hasegawa Machiko 113

  Two types of Japanese breakfast 118

  High-rise housing estates, Takashimadaira, Tokyo, 1973 121

  Illustrations from a guidebook to Japan 127

  An image of the Japanese as portrayed by the Malaysian cartoonist Lat 128

  To Charles W.Young

  Preface

  Japan’s surrender on 15 August 1945 was an unprecedented event in Japanese history. The shift from the life of hunger to the life of saturation that took place between 1945 and 1980 has brought about a great change in life style. The significance of this change will be a subject of reassessment for many years to come. Here I have tried to present an outline of such a change in the domain of mass culture, a sector of Japanese culture most indicative of the change after the defeat and the subsequent economic recovery.

  This book, like the earlier one, An Intellectual History of Wartime Japan, 1931–1945, is based on a series of lectures I gave at McGill University, Quebec, Canada. The lectures were delivered in English from 17 January to 20 March 1980. The footnotes were prepared for the Japanese version published by Iwanami Shoten in 1984.

  I am grateful to the East Asia Centre, McGill University, and the Japan Foundation. My thanks are due to Professors Paul Lin, Sam Noumoff, Ward Geddes, and Yuzo Ohta, my colleagues at McGill University. Thanks are also due to Ms Alison Tokita of Monash University for her assistance in the preparation of the English text, to Mr Kji Takamura for the compilation of illustrations which I had not been able to make use of in the lectures, to Professor Norihiro Kat, formerly of the University of Montreal, for generously letting me make use of his record of my lectures in mimeographed form, and to Dr Yoshio Sugimoto of La Trobe University for giving me the opportunity to write this book as well as the earlier one.

  This book is dedicated to Mr Charles W.Young, my classmate at Middlesex School, Concord, Massachusetts, U.S.A., in 1938– 1939, in recognition of our friendship, which has survived the war between the two nations.

  Shunsuke Tsurumi

  October 1986

  Kyoto

  1

  Occupation: the American Way of Life as an Imposed Model

  On 30 August 1945, the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Military Forces, General MacArthur, arrived in Japan full of the confidence which characterized his whole life. From air photos taken in the last phase of the war, he was assured that there was little possibility of meeting significant resistance from the Japanese. This made him magnanimous.

  General MacArthur had been known as a man of conservative political views. In the summer of 1932, on the order of President Hoover, General MacArthur commanded cavalry and infantry to disperse the 5,000 squatters who remained in barracks in Washington after the spring march of the bonus army, the unemployed World War I veterans who had been badly hit by the 1929 panic. Some 11,000 had marched to Washington to demand the earlier payment of their pension. President Hoover had obtained $100,000 from Congress and reduced the bonus army to 5,000, who then built barracks and continued to watch the central government. The crushing of the remaining bonus army made MacArthur famous. This was just before Hoover was replaced by Roosevelt, who introduced the New Deal. Ironically, at the time of his arrival in Japan General MacArthur’s staff officers were men who had grown up in the era of the New Deal. Nevertheless, MacArthur had soldierly affection for these staff officers, who had fought with him in the Philippines and beyond, and was ready to enjoy the task of drawing up a blueprint for the remodelling of Japan in a spirit of magnanimity. In this respect, the background of his subordinate officers—the New Deal era, when the United States government planned the economy and life style of the society—was most helpful.

  Subordinate again to these officers were non-commissioned officers just a few years out of university. These did most of the chores of investigating conditions in postwar Japan, an extremely difficult task because cities were burnt down and records removed to faraway country towns, and the personal network which could have supplied needed information was hard to find. The task of gathering information and of applying the directives to concrete cases was often left to these young and energetic non-commissioned officers. The Supreme Commander and his higher-ranking aides did not have time to examine the decisions of subordinates in detail, and in many cases supported subordinates’ decisions in the face of complaints brought to them by high-ranking officials of the Japanese government, politicians and company presidents, who had enjoyed a high prestige before the surrender. This state of affairs continued roughly until the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, which brought about a change in the atmosphere which had influenced MacArthur’s decisions.

  So we might say that there was a time-lag between the U.S.A, and U.S. occupied Japan. The earlier phase of the U.S. occupation of Japan perpetuated the original spirit of the New Deal as it had existed in the United States during the early period of the Roosevelt administration in 1933.

  Right from the beginning, however, MacArthur had two opposing factions among his staff officers. The chief of the GII, the General Staff Section II, was General Charles A.Willoughby (1892–1972), who had been a staff officer to General MacArthur since 1940 in the Philippines. The section was in charge of information and counter-espionage activities. Under this cover, General Willoughby kept contact with former officials of the special secret police of Japan and gathered information imbued with the anti-communist bias of the wartime Japanese police, which accorded with the general’s own political views. He also gathered information on what he considered undesirable activities of officials of the Occupation. The information thus collected was sent to the U.S. House of Representatives Un-American Activities Committee and was used for the McCarthyist removal of active New Dealers in the earlier phase of the Occupation.

  The Government Section of MacArthur’s staff was headed by General Courtney Whitney (1897–1969), who had been a practising lawyer in the Philippines before the war and was in charge of Gene
ral MacArthur’s financial affairs. In 1940, he returned to military service as a major in the army and directed guerrilla warfare against Japan in the Philippines. In 1943, he was appointed chief of the Government Section of the U.S. Army in the Pacific theatre, and he arrived in Japan with MacArthur on 30 August. Although he was in conflict with General Willoughby, he kept the trust and affection of General MacArthur and was loyal to the general to the end of his life.