An Intellectual History of Wartime Japan 1931-1945 by Shunsuke Tsurumi

Author:Shunsuke Tsurumi [Tsurumi, Shunsuke]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2013-10-28T04:00:00+00:00

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* The word ‘lynch’ is used here to designate cases in which a political group takes it upon itself to judge and administer physical punishment, usually a beating, to one or more persons, whether or not the punishment results in death.

9 The Philosophy of Glorious Self-destruction*

A volume of short stories written by novelists in Taiwan was recently translated and published in Japan.74 In the title story, ‘Sayonara, Tsai Cheng’, seven important Japanese businessmen travel to Taiwan to visit a certain company. The protagonist, a Taiwanese employee of the company, is given the task of entertaining the visitors with a night spent at a resort near the capital in the company of some Taiwanese women. It so happens that the resort is the hero's own home town, and he is forced to select girls to entertain the visitors from among his old playmates. After a difficult night, the hero and the Japanese return to the capital, and are joined on the train by some university students. The students ask the hero to interpret so that they can converse with the Japanese men. Wishing to make a good impression, they ask him to say that they are about to graduate and intend to travel to Japan to study Chinese literature. Instead, the interpreter says, These Taiwanese students want to know whether you were in the war.’ The reply is ‘yes’, and the hero translates the next remark of the students as, These Taiwanese students want to know where you went.’ To this the businessmen answer, ‘China’, and the interpreter continues, These students want to know what you did when you were soldiers in China.’ As the conversation progresses, the businessmen become more and more uncomfortable, and finally they remark that the Taiwanese students seem to be very studious and they would be greatly welcomed in Japan. The interpreter translates this to the students as The businessmen want to know why you choose Japan to study Chinese literature’. Then the students begin to feel uncomfortable. In parting at the station, the directors say to the students, Tsai Cheng’ (good-bye), apparently the only Chinese they can remember from their days in China. From this comes the title of the story, ‘Sayonnara, Tsai Cheng’.

The story portrays the discomfort of the older generation of Japanese with the memory of the war. They are reluctant to confront the memory directly but prefer to bury it deep down. Although members of the younger generation are curious about their fathers’ role in the war, their parents are often reluctant to discuss it. There is thus a division between the generations in this regard. The investigation of how Japanese remember, interpret, express, and distort the events of the war can be a clue to the nature of Japanese culture. With this in mind, I will detail the principal military events of the Fifteen Years’ War.

On 19 September 1931, a few staff officers of the Japanese Army stationed in Manchuria, in north-eastern China, placed 3. bomb on the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railroad, three miles north of Mukden.

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