My Article
Here is another article by me in the Tombo Times (the English magazine for Oita Prefecture). It's an article on the Japanese national anthem, and the contraversy surrounding it, which was of interest to me for a couple of reasons.

One reason I've been interested in the contraversy is because it is a good insight into the Japanese culture wars. I think sometimes we have a tendency to view foreign countries as a whole, instead of seeing the complexity inside the boarders. We recognize that America is a complex place with competing view points, but not other countries.

Perhaps a classic example is the right wing hatred of everything French, including French restaurants and French wines, after the French government refused to support the Iraq War.

But there are good examples relating to Japan as well. Some of you might remember the "text book" contraversy about 3 years ago. The Japanese Education Ministry created a new text book which glossed over the Japanese war crimes during World War II.

The text book caused set backs in Japan's relations with Korea and China, and Japan was criticized in the American Press. But missing in much of the discussion in the American media was that this text book was created by the right wing party in Japan, and the intended target was the Japanese left (the contraversy over the history of the war being a big right-left issue in Japan). The fall out with Korea and China was an unintended consequence. Also not given enough coverage was the fact that all the local boards of education rejected the textbook, and a left wing Japanese group exploded a bomb inside the text book author's office.

But rather than see this as a battle within Japan, I think the Western Media choose to portray it as a battle between Japan and Korea, with Japan being represented as having a monolithic view point.

So the "national anthem controversy" in Japan seemed like a good place to emphasize that Japan, just like the U.S., has it's own culture wars.

The second reason this was of interest to me was because it deals with the politics within Japanese schools. I don't really claim to understand everything yet, but what I've observed while I've been here has been of great interest.

When I arrived in Japan, I was coming fresh from my student teaching experience at Tri-Unity Christian High School, which was an ultra-conservative Christian high school. (Oh, the stories I could tell... But I'll have to save that for another occasion).

Arriving in Japan, I was cautious at first about voicing my own political opinions. But slowly I began to notice things. As I began to learn to read a little Japanese I realized that the director of the board of Education was always reading the Japanese Communist Party Newspaper. I realized the schools also had this newspaper in the teachers lounge, and in Ajimu Junior High School, the principle would even cut out articles from the JCP Newspaper and paste them on a bulletin board for students to read. I noticed several posters in the school were very political. In the teachers "relax room", signs left over from a demonstration opposing the Iraq war are being stored.

Like I said, I don't claim to understand everything yet, but there is an interesting political climate in the Japanese schools around here, and this is reflected in the contraversy about the National Anthem.

So, for these reasons I volunteered to write an article on the National Anthem. I didn't know that much about it when I started it, but it gave me an excuse to do a little research (via the internet of course).

Unfortunately my timing was a bit bad. Perhaps because I don't have a TV, I'm a little out of it, but unbeknownst to me at the time I volunteered to do the article, the National Anthem was making headlines again because of new rules adopted by the Tokyo metropolitan board of Education. (These rules were for Tokyo only by the way, but news all over Japan). The headlines continued after I had written the article, and even attracted the attention of the Western Media.

So, by the time my article was published, it was simply parroting what was in the headlines already. Somebody said to me that they read my article, and then the next day read almost the exact same thing on CNN's website. It was a bit discouraging to go through the trouble of researching an original article, and then have it be old news, but oh well.

Also of interest in the Tombo Times
There is an interesting series being published called, "Diary of a JOT". The idea behind it is a that a Japanese person goes to England to teach Japanese, and records his observations. It's written by a JET, so it is obviously a westerner trying to imagine what a Japanese person would think. It can be quite funny. I didn't like it at first, but the series has been warming up on me. If you think it's funny, check out the back issues for more of this series.

Also in last months Tombo Times was a funny article on Morning Musume. I don't hear quite so much about Morning Musume anymore, but they seemed to be very big when I first came to Japan. If you want to learn about Japanese pop music at its very cheesiest, it doesn't get any better than this.

Update: Since Tombo Times long ago took down the issue from their website, I'm reprinting my article below:

Graduation ceremony in Japan can be a bit of an odd affair. For me, the most interesting part was the “singing” of the national anthem. I have the word singing in quotes, because at the ceremony I attended, the number of people in the room actually singing could be counted on one hand.

I’m guessing the experience was the same for most of you. Maybe some of you even thought to yourself, “What is this strange song no one is singing, and why haven’t I heard it before?” In America, the national anthem is sung loudly, and sung often. In Japan, after a year of living here, perhaps graduation was the first time you even heard the anthem.

The reason is that just like our home countries, Japan has internal culture wars of its own. And the national anthem is in the middle of these wars.

The Japanese National Anthem, or Kimigayo, was made official in 1988. The words were taken from a tenth century poem. Although there is no official English translation, one interpretation reads like this:

Ten Thousand years of happy reign be thine

Rule on, my lord, till what are pebbles now

By ages united to mighty rocks shall grow

Whose venerable sides the moss doth line.

Although there is a theory that this poem was originally meant to be a love song, most people interpret the words as referring to the Emperor. For this reason, and because the national anthem is associated with Japan’s militaristic past, many socially conscious Japanese people refuse to sing Kimigayo.

In post war Japan, Kimigayo was not legally recognized as a national symbol, but continued to be in use unofficially. The ambivalent status caused years of debate between the Left, which wanted to do away with Kimigayo completely, and the Right, which wanted Kimigayo restored to its former status. The Japanese schools became the battleground as the leftist dominated teachers union refused to sing Kimigayo, and the rightists in government frequently tried to force it into the schools.

In 1999, Toshihiro Ishikawa, high school principle in Hiroshima, committed suicide because he could not successfully mediate between the board of education, which demanded that Kimigayo be sung at graduation, and the teachers, who refused to sing it. The right wing used this opportunity to push through a bill recognizing Kimigayo as the official national anthem of Japan. Despite student protests outside, and one protester who had to be forcibly removed from the Diet gallery, the bill was passed. (The Japanese flag, also controversial, was made an official symbol at the same time).

But the law did not end the controversy, as many teachers still refused to sing Kimigayo. And resistance has not been limited to the teachers. In 2002, graduating seniors at Minami high school in Sapporo attempted to stop the singing of Kimigayo at graduation by filing pleas with a human rights attorney. The students argued that the forced singing of Kimigayo violated their freedom of thought under the Children’s Rights Act. On graduation day, Kimigayo was played anyway. Only 6 students stood up to sing. More initially stood up, then sat back down again when they realized how many of their classmates remained seated. Some students later commented that the graduation ceremony was ruined because the student body was feeling divided instead of united.

This year the controversy was renewed when the Tokyo metropolitan board of education issued an order requiring all teachers to stand and send Kimigayo. The Tokyo board of education sent officials to school ceremonies to ensure that the law was being followed.

Many students begged popular teachers to give in and sing Kimigayo to avoid being fired. But despite the students’ efforts, 200 teachers were disciplined for failing to sing the song. Of those disciplined, teachers on annual contracts were not rehired for the next year.

The debate spilled into the larger Japanese society. The conservative newspaper, “Yomiyuri Shimbun” demanded that the teachers correct their thoughtless behavior. The more liberal “Asahi Shimbun” defended the right not to sing.

The issue is far from over, and as of the writing of this article, it is still making news as officials in Tokyo are watching the entrance ceremonies very closely. The Japanese right will probably never give up Kimigayo, so this is controversy that is likely to stay in Japan for a long time. It is a battle that will be played out in high school and junior high school graduations for years to come.