Narratives, the Body and the 1964 Tokyo Olympics
2007; Routledge; Volume: 31; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/10357820701373283
ISSN1467-8403
Autores Tópico(s)Japanese History and Culture
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. The body is marginalised in the modernist concept of the subject, in which the self is imagined to be a clean-and-proper unified entity. Julia Kristeva first used these terms to critique the oppression of the symbolic realm in Lacanian psychoanalysis in Powers of Horror (1982 Kristeva, Julia. 1982. Powers of horror: An essay on abjection, New York: Columbia University Press. trans. Leon S. Roudiez [Google Scholar]). Michel Foucault's critique of the modern nation-state demonstrates the same concept in The Birth of the Clinic (1994 Foucault, Michel. 1994. The birth of the clinic: An archaeology of medical perception, New York: Vintage Books. trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith [Google Scholar]) and Discipline and Punish (1995 Foucault, Michel. 1995. Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison, Harmondsworth: Penguin. trans. Alan Sheridan[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). This approach to the body was consistent with the pre-existing samurai code of ethics that was popularised in support of the militarist cause in the mid-Meiji period. See Yoshikuni Igarashi, Bodies of Memory: Narratives of war in postwar Japanese culture, 1945–70 (2000 Igarashi, Yoshikuni. 2000. Bodies of memory: Narratives of war in postwar Japanese culture, 1945–1970, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar]), which effectively demonstrates a Foucauldian reading of the body in postwar Japan. Japanese names are given surname first throughout this essay, unless they are authors of English publications such as Igarashi. 2. The state-citizens equation that I use here can be replaced by the corporation-workers relationship in the context of postwar Japan. The difficulty in locating power in this period is compounded by the tight collaboration between the state and large corporations. 3. The modern Olympic Games were initially held as the opening performance of the World Exposition, which functioned as a vehicle for imperialist projects (Yoshimi, 1992 Yoshimi, Shun'ya. 1992. Hakurankai no seijigaku: manazashi no kindai (Chūō kōron shinsha) [Google Scholar]; 1999 Yoshimi, Shun'ya. 1999. Undōkai to nihon kindai, (Seikyūsha) [Google Scholar]; 2002 Yoshimi, Shun'ya. 2002. 1930 nendai no media to shintai, (Seikyūsha) [Google Scholar]; and Tomotsune, 1995 Tomotsune, Tsutomu. 1995. 1940 nen Tōkyō bankokuhaku, orinpikku to hisabetsu buraku e no manazashi, (http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/∼ls9r-situ/tomoar1.html last accessed 27 January 2007) [Google Scholar]). 4. Prior to the Tokyo Olympics, television had already created a national hero – a professional wrestler called Rikidōzan (1924–63) – who, using the "native" technique of karate-choppu, always defeated American wrestlers at the end of the match. He was of Korean descent, and started his sporting career as a sumō wrestler in Japan. 5. For historical accounts of the ways in which sports were incorporated into rising militarism in prewar Japan, see Kimura (1978 Kimura, Kichiji. 1978. "Nihon ni okeru supōtsu to nashonarizumu". In Supōtsu nashonarizumu Edited by: Toshio, Nakamura. 117–78. Taishūkan shoten [Google Scholar], pp. 117–78). 6. This view is underscored by recent research, such as work by Yoshimi Shun'ya (1992 Yoshimi, Shun'ya. 1992. Hakurankai no seijigaku: manazashi no kindai (Chūō kōron shinsha) [Google Scholar]; 1999 Yoshimi, Shun'ya. 1999. Undōkai to nihon kindai, (Seikyūsha) [Google Scholar]; 2002 Yoshimi, Shun'ya. 2002. 1930 nendai no media to shintai, (Seikyūsha) [Google Scholar]). 7. It has been pointed out that the development of sporting activities went in parallel with the country's industrialisation process; hence the absence of club-based civil sports was notable until recently (Todoroki, 1993 Todoroki, Kenji. 1993. Kigyō, supōtsu, shizen: kabushiki gaisha Nippon no supōtsu, (Taishūkan) [Google Scholar], pp. 13-32) 8. Among the novels written by Mishima Yukio are Kamen no kokuhaku (1949 Mishima, Yukio. 1949. Kamen no kokuhaku (Kawade shobō) [1993. Confessions of a mask, trans. Meredith Weatherby. London: Flamingo] [Google Scholar]) (Confessions of a mask), Kinkakuji (1956 Mishima, Yukio. 1956. Kinkakuji (Shinchōsha) [1987. The temple of the golden pavilion, trans. Ivan Morris, Penguin Books] [Google Scholar]) (The temple of the golden pavilion) and the four volumes of Hōjō no umi (1965–71) (The sea of fertility). 9. Mishima appeared in six films as an actor. Twenty-one of his novels have been made into films, and Shiosai(1954 Mishima, Yukio. 1954. Shiosai (Shinchosha) [c1956. The sound of waves, trans. Meredith Weatherby, Tokyo: C. E. Tuttle] [Google Scholar]) (The sound of waves) was remade five times over twenty years. His playfully written articles such as Fudōtoku kyōiku kōza (1958–59) (Unethical educational lectures, Mishima 1989 Mishima, Yukio. 1989. Mishima Yukio hyōron zenshū, 4 Shinchōsha [Google Scholar], vol. 3, pp. 15–222) and Han teijo daigaku (1966 Mishima, Yukio. 1966. Han teijo daigaku, (Shinchōsha) [Google Scholar]) (Lessons not to become a faithful wife) were originally serialised in popular magazines. 10. See Otomo, '"The way of the samurai": Ghost Dog, Mishima, and modernity's Other' (2000 Otomo, Rio. 2000. "The way of the samurai": Ghost Dog, Mishima, and modernity's Other, Japanese Studies. 21(1): 31–43. [Google Scholar]) for further discussion on this point. 11. Mishima (1989 Mishima, Yukio. 1989. Mishima Yukio hyōron zenshū, 4 Shinchōsha [Google Scholar], vol. 4, pp. 347–48). The original article was published in Hōchi shinbun, 24 October 1964. English translation of Japanese quotations is mine throughout. 12. Igarashi describes the ways in which the nation-wide expectation for the team to compete in the Tokyo Olympic Games altered their plan to retire after winning the world championship in 1962. See 'Nostalgia for Bodies in Pain' (Igarashi, 2000 Igarashi, Yoshikuni. 2000. Bodies of memory: Narratives of war in postwar Japanese culture, 1945–1970, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar], pp. 155–63). 13. There are well-publicised non-fiction works such as Hosoi Wakizō's Jokō aishi (1925 Hosoi, Wakizō. 1925. Jokō aishi, Kaizōsha [Google Scholar]) and Yamamoto Shigemi's Aa Nomugitōge (1968 Yamamoto, Shigemi. 1968. Aa nomugitoge, (Asahi shinbunsha) [Google Scholar]) which documented the hard conditions of young textile workers in the Meiji-Taisho periods. Mishima's fiction focused more on the family rhetoric used by the company owner and the innocent youths involved in the early Showa period. 14. Frederick W. Taylor's The Principles of Scientific Management (1911 Taylor, Frederick W. 1911. The priniciples of scientific management, New York: Harper Bros. [Google Scholar]) was translated into Japanese as early as 1912, and its methodology was modified and promoted through a governmental institution. The Industrial Efficiency Research Institute was set up in 1921 to promote the concept. See William Tsutsui's Manufacturing Ideology (1998 Tsutsui, William W. 1998. Manufacturing ideology: Scientific management in twentieth-century Japan, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 15. I owe this information to 'Nanmin no sengoshi: shūdan shūshoku, dekasegi and rettō no fuchi' (Sunouchi, 2001 Sunouchi, Keiji. 2001. "Nanmin no sengoshi: shūdan shūshoku, dekasegi to rettō no fuchi". In Rekishi ga kakikaerareru toki Edited by: Tadao, Uemura. 195–218. (Iwanami shoten) [Google Scholar], pp.195-218). 16. Although there were also a large number of boys who were recruited in this way, they were considered to be lifetime employees, while girls were there for a limited period and regularly replaced by a fresh intake. 17. The Olympic team was based on Nichibō Kaizuka (Nihon Bōseki Kōgyō, later called Yunichika), which is now owned by Tōre (Tōkyō Reiyon). The members were Kasai Masae, Miyamoto Emiko, Yada Kinuko, Handa Yuriko, Matsumura Yoshiko, Isobe Sada, Matsumura Masami, Shinozaki Yōko, Sasaki Setsuko, Fujimoto Yūko, Kondō Masako and Shibuki Ayano. 18. Tōkyo orinpikku, 1965, Tōkyo orinpikku eiga kyōkai. 19. The extract from Daimatsu's Nasebanaru (1964) (When there is a will, there is a way) is translated and cited by Igarashi in Bodies of Memory, 2000, p. 157. 20. Igarashi makes a fascinating connection between Daimatsu's wartime experience as a POW and his philosophy of winning and managing women's bodies (2000 Igarashi, Yoshikuni. 2000. Bodies of memory: Narratives of war in postwar Japanese culture, 1945–1970, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar], pp. 155–63). 21. Looking back, team leader Kasai recently mentioned that girls owed everything to Coach Daimatsu, who loved them and taught them so much through the hardest training. (http://www.joc.or.jp/stories/tokyo/20041021_tokyo.html) 22. Extra-curricular sporting activity is called bukatsudō in Japanese. Peter Cave points out the changing culture of school sports in 'Bukatsudō: The educational role of Japanese school clubs' (2004 Cave, Peter. 2004. Bukatsudō: The educational role of Japanese school clubs. The Journal of Japanese Studies, 30(2): 383–415. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 23. Saitō Tamaki (2003 Saitō, Tamaki. 2003. Sentō bishōjo no seishin bunseki, (Ōta shuppan) [Google Scholar], pp. 153-59 and appendix). Saitō points out that the supokon genre survives through the 1980s but as a parody of the earlier works, found for example in Toppu o nerae (1988) which is an obvious parody of Ēsu o nerae. 24. The oni, a powerful creature of Japanese folk mythology, is always represented bearing an iron bar. 25. Mishima (1989 Mishima, Yukio. 1989. Mishima Yukio hyōron zenshū, 4 Shinchōsha [Google Scholar], vol. 4, p. 346), originally published in Mainichi shinbun, 21 October 1964. 26. Ibid (pp.345–346). 27. The couple convey in an interview just before the Games that they are longing to have a normal family life with their children. (See 'Chanoma no kin medaru' in Bungei shunjū ni miru supōtsu showa shi vol. 2, pp. 330–35). 28. 'Ase to namida to egao no yonjū-ni nen' (Forty-two years of sweat, tears and smiles), Shūkan Asahi, 7 July 2000. 29. The poem was written as a letter to her younger brother, who was a conscript in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) in which 60,000 young soldiers died in less than two years. 30. Op. cit., 'Ase to namida to egao no yonjū-ni nen'. 31. All nameless "sisters" are his sisters-in-law. 32. These are the names of his nephews and nieces. 33. The original Japanese text can be found on the web, or in print (Kawabata, 1978, pp. 292–93; Sawaki, 1979 Sawaki, Kōtaro. 1979. Chōkyori rannā no isho. Yaburezaru monotachi, : 97–142. (Bunshun Bunko) [Google Scholar], p. 100). My translation fails to convey the starkly detached tone which runs through this poem (as I would prefer to call it); even in the last sentence the poet refers to himself in the third person. 34. Sawaki (1979 Sawaki, Kōtaro. 1979. Chōkyori rannā no isho. Yaburezaru monotachi, : 97–142. (Bunshun Bunko) [Google Scholar], p. 101). For the biography of Tsuburaya, see also Hashimato Katsuhiko (1999 Hashimoto, Katsuhiko. 1999. Orinpikku ni ubawareta inochi, Shōgakukan [Google Scholar]). 35. Ibid. Sawaki describes Tsuburaya's good relationship with his father, who was a man of principles and a patriarch who both loved his children and raised them in a highly disciplined manner. 36. Their public relations strategies must have been effective, since my childhood memory of the Self Defence Forces in my hometown is a warm and happy one: the big fair of their camp Open Day; my excitement at climbing on top of a tank; the reassuring presence of strong but friendly men in uniform. 37. Uchiumi (1993 Uchiumi, Kazuo. 1993. Jieitai to supōtsu: jieitai ni totte no Tōkyō Orinpikku, in. Sengo supōtsu taisei no kakuritsu, : 256–85. (Fumaidō) [Google Scholar], p. 272), the extract from Taiiku gakkō shi (Jieitai taiiku gakkō, 1964, p. 93). 38. The media in general talked of public expectations as the cause of Tsuburaya's suicide. Uchiumi and others, however, emphasise that the nature of the Self-Defence Forces was the key factor (Uchiumi, 1993 Uchiumi, Kazuo. 1993. Jieitai to supōtsu: jieitai ni totte no Tōkyō Orinpikku, in. Sengo supōtsu taisei no kakuritsu, : 256–85. (Fumaidō) [Google Scholar]; Nagaoka, 1977 Nagaoka, Tamio. 1977. Mō, hashiremasen: Tsuburaya Kokichi no eikō to shi, (Kodansha) [Google Scholar]; Aoyama, 1980; Kawamoto, 1979). 39. Mishima (1989 Mishima, Yukio. 1989. Mishima Yukio hyōron zenshū, 4 Shinchōsha [Google Scholar], vol. 3, p. 452). 40. Modern Japanese literature strove to construct the solid presence of the speaking "I", a project that Mishima was part of. At the time of Tsuburaya's suicide, however, Mishima was departing from that project, as demonstrated in Hōjō no umi (The sea of fertility). 41. The quoted terms are Nietzschean terms. See On the Genealogy of Morals (Nietzsche, 1989 Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1989. On the genealogy of morals, Edited by: Kaufmann, Walter. New York: Vintage Books. [Google Scholar], First essay, sections 6 and 7). For Mishima's understanding of Nietzsche see Seikai Ken (1992) Seikai, Ken. 1992. Mishima Yukio to Nīche, (Seikyūsha) [Google Scholar] and Roy Starrs (1994) Starrs, Roy. 1994. Deadly dialectics: Sex, violence and nihilism in the world of Yukio Mishima, Kent: Japan Library. [Google Scholar]. 42. Mishima (1989 Mishima, Yukio. 1989. Mishima Yukio hyōron zenshū, 4 Shinchōsha [Google Scholar], vol.1, pp. 688–734). The English translation is found in The samurai ethic and modern Japan: Yukio Mishima and Hagakure (1992) Mishima, Yukio. 1992. The samurai ethic and modern Japan: Yukio Mishima and Hagakure, Tokyo: CE Tuttle. trans. Kathryn Sparling [Google Scholar]. The book of hagakure was written in the eighteenth century by Yamamoto Tsunetomo and read only by his associates in a region away from the central Edo government. It was revived and taken seriously during Japan's modernisation in the Meiji period as representing a value system peculiar to Japan. 43. Henry Scott-stokes (1975) Scott-Stokes, Henry. 1975. The life and death of Yukio Mishima, London: Peter Owen. [Google Scholar] gives a detailed description of Mishima's suicide. For a more literary interpretation of Mishima, see John Nathan (1974) Nathan, John. 1974. Mishima, a biography, London: Hamilton. [Google Scholar], and the film by Paul Schrader (1985) Schrader, Paul (director co-scripted). 1985. A Mishima: Life in four chapters (a film) distributed by Warner Bros [Google Scholar]. It goes without saying that in Japanese there books are constantly being written on Mishima and his works, one of the most recent being Dōmoto Masaki's memoir (2005 Dōmoto, Masaki. 2005. Kaisō: kaiten tobira no Mishima Yukio, Bungei shunjū [Google Scholar]), which openly discusses Mishima's sexuality and its relevance to his final action. 44. Murakami (2004 Murakami, Haruki. 2004. Shidonii! koara junjōhen, (Bungei shunjū) [Google Scholar], pp. 24–25). 45. The original article on konjō that included her criticism of Japanese athletes has been removed from the current website http://www.yoko2.com, which may also reveal the view of the general public. There are, however, various articles found on this website that convey similar sentiments, and her motto remains the same. Incidentally, Zetterlund was coached by her mother, who was herself once trained by Coach Daimatsu, over seven years. 46. There are numerous positive stories of communal involvement in sports in contemporary Japan. See for example, Light and Yasaki's account of how the J. League has constructed local identity (2000). 47. One example of Ishihara's racially derogatory remarks is cited by John Brinsley and Keiichi Yamamura (9 February 2007): [Roppongi] is now virtually a foreign neighborhood. Africans – I don't mean African-Americans – who don't speak English are there doing who knows what — This is leading to new forms of crime such as car theft," he [Ishihara] said. "We should be letting in people who are intelligent". (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid = newsarchive&sid = avIXVI1vqIKo) See also the controversial article written by Ishihara (Sankei shinbun, 8 May 2001). Morisu Hiroshi and Kan Sanjun point out the Japanese media's apparent inability to critique Ishihara's racism in Nasionarizumu no kokufuku (2002, pp. 22–23).
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