War and (Mis)rememberance

Last week I had the good fortune to attend the International Forum on War History in Tokyo.  It's an annual gathering of Japanese and foreign historians hosted by the Japan National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS), where I am a student.  This year, the forum's topic was "the strategy of the Axis powers in the Pacific War."  While not explicitly stated, the purpose of these gatherings is to promote understanding and redress the criticism that Japan has not, and will not, face up to its wartime history.  It is a good effort, but it underscored for me the gulf between Japan's understanding of the war and that of everyone else.  The reason is simple: the wartime regimes ruling Germany and Italy were swept away but maintained in Japan.
    As a student of East Asia, I fully understand why the Allies (meaning the U.S.) decided to keep Emperor Hirohito on the Chrysanthemum Throne.  It was the correct decision at the time.  Had the U.S. not made it abundantly clear to Japan at the Potsdam conference and afterwards that the Emperor's position was secure, then Japan would not have surrendered.  The entire country would have become what Donald Rumsfeld referred to in Iraq as "dead-enders".  Atomic bombs, starvation and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and Korea would have made no difference to the Japanese government.  Preserving the monarchy was the fig leaf that gave Hirohito himself and the peace faction in the cabinet and the palace the ability to surrender.  As it was, because of the Emperor's cooperation, the Japanese surrender and subsequent occupation were remarkably orderly.
    Nevertheless, Hirohito's survival as Emperor into the 1980's warped Japanese perception of the war.  Suspend disbelief a moment and imagine if the Allies in Europe had stopped short of unconditional surrender with the Germans.  Imagine Karl Donitz staying on as Chancellor of West Germany.  Let's suppose that a few token Nazis, say Herman Goering, were served-up to a war crimes tribunal, but Albert Speer and the rest were blacklisted for a couple of years and then rehabilitated.  Would Germans today have any sense of responsibility for starting a war with the rest of the world?  No.  The German attitude would be that Germany was forced into war because of the machinations of the British, French and Soviets.  (In private they would also blame the Jews).  The war would be portrayed as a catastrophic mistake on the part of Germany.  You know- a "poor choice" as we say today, not a crime.  Death camps would be portrayed as anti-German propaganda.  Sure there were German excesses, they would say, but terrible things happen in war.  The new German state would hardly be expected to be forthright in educating young Germans about the war.  In fact, they might not be taught about the war at all - except to highlight the suffering of the German people at the hands of the Allies.  All because of a policy mistake, they would say.  It could happen to anyone.  Going through this counter-factual exercise will give you an idea of Japan's  position today regarding the war and why they hold it.
    The reality is that Germany and Italy were intellectually changed after the war.  The results were apparent in the presentations of the international scholars from other former Axis powers at the forum - two Germans and an Italian.  The German professors were uncompromising about the evil nature of what the Germans were trying to achieve - even apart from genocide.  They also refused to let the Wehrmacht, the regular German army, off the hook and blame everything on the S.S. and the Nazi Party.  They forcefully pointed out that the Wehrmacht had primary responsibility for governing most German-occupied territory and wholeheartedly implemented Hitler's policies.  The Italian professor kept returning to the evil nature of the Fascist and Nazi regimes.  He admonished us to remember the twisted logic and ideology of those who signed the Tripartite Pact ("the Axis" powers).  The treaty fundamentally did not work as an effective alliance because the three governments involved were fascist dictatorships.
    The last point is the most important.  Most Japanese simply can not accept the fact that from 1931 or so onwards, Japan was essentially a fascist state.  Japan was not an innocent who had fallen in with a bad crowd.  Japan WAS the bad crowd!  Adolf Hitler's Germany did not annex the Sudetenland until 1938 - seven years after Japan invaded Manchuria and one year after Japan invaded China proper.  Mussolini's Italy didn't invade Ethiopia until 1935. 
   The Japanese scholars all gave excellent presentations, but missed this central point.  The reason for joining the Tripartite Pact was to end the "China Incident" (their name for Japan's invasion of China) and prevent war with the U.S. by forcing America to worry about a two-front war.  Of course the exact nature of the "China Incident" or the invasion of Manchuria was never discussed.  Perhaps "them Chinese had it comin'" doesn't sound scholarly?  Most ironic to my mind was the spectacle of Japanese scholars gravely referring to "German racists".  To a Japanese, racism is something that happens in other people.  I felt the urge to shout, "Dude, wake up!  You were partners with ADOLF HITLER and BENITO MUSSOLINI!"  The only regret Japanese delegates expressed was that the alliance with Germany and Italy hadn't worked.
    The International War History Forum was a worthwhile event and I'm sure will be so in the future.  However, apart from researching and unearthing new and interesting tidbits of information, Japan's academic community is missing the larger point.  They should emulate their German and Italian counterparts and realize the nature of Japan's wartime regime.

Baransu...

    Itinerant Gaijin is not intended to be a food blog, but in the absence of, umm, other stimuli, a man's mind turns to his stomach.  Also, based on my last post, some people think I don't like the Japanese.  Not so!  I just don't like some of them.  Much as I don't like some Americans, Canadians or the French.  (Okay, so the last one is a bad example).  In the interests of baransu (balance), I'll expand on my previous post a little.
    In my opinion, it is the service charge that creates the problem of bad service by killing incentive.  However, in Japan there are two ways to overcome the problem of lackadaisical wait staff.  a) Go to a place where the owner(s) serve you.  Of course, they have a vested interest in ensuring you enjoy your visit.  Obviously, this might be hard to discern the first time you pick a restaurant.  b) Sit at the bar.  Sitting at the bar puts you within arm's reach, or choking distance, of a server.  Furthermore, Japanese have a long history of counter-type restaurants, such as ramen shops and sushi bars, and are completely at home with customers eating up-close and personal.  Bar tenders, especially here in Japan, are a cut above your average waiter or waitress.  They are skilled labor and typically not mere temporary Arubeito or part-time employees.  As such, the bar tender is much more apt to ensure you don't die of thirst and that you get the check promptly.  (By the way, assuming they're paying attention, an empty glass is something any red-blooded Japanese person simply can not abide looking at and they will feel compelled to fill it; I'm not kidding).
    The other day, after the pizza fiasco, I stopped by an American-themed restaurant called Hummingbird's Hill.  I sat at the bar and ordered their "Louisiana butter shrimp" as an appetizer, followed by a bacon cheeseburger.  That meal was delicious and would stand up against any family restaurant in the US.  While the shrimp had only a nodding acquaintance with the state of Louisiana (I think the chef waved a can of Zaterain's in their direction) they were spicy by Japanese standards and cooked perfectly.  Since I sat at the bar, my enjoyment of the food was unspoiled by the comparatively crappy service that I noticed diners sat in the main restaurant seemed to be getting.  The food was on time and on target and I got to wash it down with two excellent, cold Yebisu draft beers.  Kampai!

Paulie Walnuts and the Service Charge

    Today is Shubun no hi, the national public holiday marking the autumnal equinox.  It signifies the beginning of Fall, much like our Labor Day in the U.S., and Japanese people visit the graves of their dead relatives to tidy-up and give small offerings to their ancestors.  It's a nice custom.  Today, though, it rained.  It rained a lot.
    My plans for the day, such as they were, were thwarted.  A dreary drizzle in the morning became a downpour as slate-gray clouds emptied their contents onto the streets of Tokyo below.  This is a maritime climate, which means that the temperature remained around 75 degrees Fahrenheit.  The late-summer mugginess lay just behind the rain, waiting to pounce.
    I watched the rain from my apartment.  Alternately reviewing my Facebook page and  staring a the ceiling, I waited for the rain to stop.  By 6:30pm, it was still raining.  My cupboards were bare and it was dinner time.  Good Tokyoite that I am, I pulled on rain jacket and my Doc Marten's (for first time since I've been here), grabbed my trusty umbrella, and headed out into the twilight drizzle in search of dinner.
    I'm not a restaurant critic, but I play one on the internet.  I like food a great deal, yet lack the skill or the motivation to do more than open cans of Chef Boyardee ravioli (a full serving of vegetables in each can!) or packages prepared by the good people at Hormel and heat them in the microwave.  Multivitamin pills fend of rickets and scurvy.  Yet there are restaurants in this city - more than anywhere else.  Around 160,000 known eateries are here.  For comparison, Paris has about 16,000.  Being a tanshin funin, or geographical bachelor, I eat out often.  Yesterday was oysters on the half-shell at Ebisu Garden Place, the day before was a kaiten-zushi (conveyor-belt sushi) place near Ebisu station.  Tonight, I wanted something substantial.  It had to be Italian.
    I had kept my eye on a likely place for about a month.  Calling itself Palermo, this place seemed from the outside like a SBarro pizzeria.  Nice, cheap, good-eating food.  Splashing through the puddles and traffic, I climbed the stairs to the second floor.  I shook my umbrella and put it in the handy umbrella stand outside, then entered.  Greeted by the usual, but very un-Italian, "Irashaimase!" from the staff, I sat down.  Vinyl table cloths, so far, so good - I wanted good and cheap, not outstanding and exorbitant.  Perusing the menu, I ordered a small decanter of house red wine (three glasses for the price of two), a personal pepperoni pizza (the only size you'll get in most Japanese pizza places), and a green salad.  The total should be less than 2800 yen, or about $30.  Nice!  No bread, no water, no frills.
    The salad came quite quickly, and I checked it for anything repulsive.  (Japanese chefs have a cute habit of inserting slimy surprises into salads).  Finding nothing stranger than asparagus, I cleaned my plate.  Take that, scurvy!  Then, I waited...
    I should explain that in Japan, just like in Iceland, one does not tip anyone.  It is considered demeaning.  How cool!  No awkward moments with porters at the hotel or taxi drivers.  A 10% service charge is automatically added to everyone's bill.  Everyone works for the love of their chosen profession - right?
   In countries where this is the custom, e.g. Japan and most of Europe, it is my experience that restaurant service generally sucks.  Your average customer at a neighborhood Denny's in the U.S. is going to get far better service, not to mention endless free refills of soft drinks, water and coffee.  The server will check on you at least once every ten minutes.  Think about it; in your local family restaurant, if you had to hunt your server down for a refill of your gallon-sized glass of Diet Coke or the check, you'd be fuming.  You might complain to the manager.  You might even... lower the tip.  If you were angry enough, you might even not leave a tip at all.  As we all know from watching Reservoir Dogs, this rarely happens.  But it just might, and wait-staff and customers know it.  The 10% service charge is essentially a form of socialism.  In the workers' paradise of a Japanese or European restaurant, a server gets paid no matter what.  Run your ass off and cater to the customers' every desire - 10%.  Drop off the chow late and then piss off outside for a smoke and a chat with your girlfriend on your cell phone - 10%.  Human nature being what it is, and yes the Japanese are human, most servers opt for the second option, albeit not usually that egregious.  Ritualized politeness does not equal effectiveness.
    I pondered this fact as my wait for my microwave-sized pizza reached its twentieth minute.  The smell of burning pepperoni emanating from the kitchen hinted that something was amiss.  A few more minutes elapsed and my waiter, he of the frosted hair, informed me that my pizza would be delayed.  No, "would you like a drink on the house while you wait" or "we won't charge you for your appetizer" or any of the things viewers of Last Restaurant Standing or Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares have come to expect.
    The pizza, when it came, was nice.  It would have been nicer forty minutes earlier.  It would have been even nicer if I had not had to get up and hunt-down my waiter to get the check.  (I paid him in ten and fifty yen coins as part of my passive-aggressive revenge).
    As I splashed back up the hill towards home through the rain, I thought about the service charge and the Palermo restaurant.  Palermo.  Sicily.  The Mafia.  The Sopranos.  Paulie Walnuts.  What would Paulie, the warm-up suit-wearing, white haired, lovable psychopath, think of such goings-on in a Italian restaurant?  The next time anyone tries to convince you that instituting a service charge scheme in the US is a good idea, I have a suggestion: channel your inner Paulie.  Pick up the heaviest object at hand, or perhaps a golf club or a tire iron.  Then, hit them - hard - in the kneecap.  Ciao!

The Blog...

Frustrated in my attempts to communicate via Facebook, I figured that an alternative might be to create a blog and link to FB instead.  Eventually, I might get ambitious and turn this page from disjointed ramblings to some worthwhile commentary.  The first two posts are excerpts from letters that I wrote to my wife, Lenore, and so they have that sort of feel to them.  (I felt odd creating an empty blog, so these will have to do to "prime the pump").  Hopefully the blog will serve to amuse and inform.
- J.

Moved-In

Well, I moved into my new apartment today.  Every Westerner who comes to Japan experiences "culture shock" at some point after arriving here.  I think I'm going through it now.  The act of moving out of the hotel, away from the gaijin-friendly world of Roppongi, which is essentially a game-preserve for foreigners, came as a bit of a wrench.  The Japanese that I have been learning for the past years seems laughably inadequate.  What the hell was I thinking?  My efforts might impress a waiter or two, but they cut no ice with real people.  You would have gotten quite a laugh out of the spectacle of me buying sheets, a blanket and a pillow this afternoon - a moment of low comedy.  Unlike Peter Whimsey, my saddle shoes were definitely in order, although I emerged with the required items.

The room is fine, and you'll be pleased to know that I am working my way through loads of laundry.  Actually, the room isn't fine.  One of the A/C units is not working.  The solution is to move me upstairs to the room above, where presumably the A/C IS working.  Housing managers are the same the world over, it seems.  He wanted to move me this afternoon.  The electricity wasn't on, so no A/C plus no lights, or anything else.  Additionally, some unknown person's boxes were strewn about the kitchen.  I was hot, tired, annoyed and despondent from trekking around Tokyo in search of soft furnishings and bedding, and I felt the distinct urge to choke the living sh*t out of him.  Through gritted teeth, I told him to get the new room ready first, and I would inspect and inventory it tomorrow at 9am.  Meathead!  I felt better after I had a shower and started the laundry in my half air-conditioned room.

I am writing this from an internet cafe in the basement of the New Sanno hotel, so you will surmise that my in-room internet does not work.  This is just as well, since I am moving to another room tomorrow, depending on the new room's state of disrepair relative to my current one.  My first room is next door to the Chinese officer, the upstairs room is across from an Indian officer and his family.  They have lots of children- or at least it seems so because they are loud and in constant motion.  Hey-Ho.  Meathead says that the NTT technician will come to my room between 3pm and 5pm Saturday to do something about my internet service - fingers crossed.  Everyone is very  kind but also very vague about how all this is to be paid for...

Arrival in Japan

Well, I'm here.  The flight wasn't bad.  I got an aisle seat by an emergency exit, so I had lots of leg room.  Although I had to sit next to this big Latino kid who was oozing over into my seat.  We had a dismal, boring stop in Anchorage for a couple of hours.  Lots of taxidermied animals who'd been got at by moths staring at us and not much else.  It is also the home of $7 12oz bottles of water.  (I went thirsty on principle).  An Ambien later, and the time machine had me arriving in Japan.  AMC at Yokota has probably the worst-run customs operation I've come across.  Happily, the Marines from Camp Fuji were there on time and we got here without mishap.

In an hour I have to go "have a beer" with the Base CO.  He seems like a really good guy, but I'm really not in the mood.  I warned him I might fall asleep with my face in the peanuts.  Check-in has gone pretty well so far.  Everyone seems motivated to help.  One of the reasons why is that they managed to seriously F*&% up the CO's travel claim, etc, and so he's on the warpath.  He told me I'm a test case...  On the plus side, I pulled off a real coup today.  I took the test and got my USFJ driving license!  I just asked a random question about cars, and it turns out the Fujiites do their own licensing.  Two hours later I was street legal.  Muah HaHaHaaaah!  I also am taking my wife's advice and staying longer here at Camp Fuji.  I can't stand the thought of leaving the serenity of Fuji-san and galloping downhill to the bedlam of the city tomorrow.  I'll go Friday.  The weather's about 75 degrees here, but humid.  Tomorrow, I want to go for a run through the pine trees.  The place has changed quite a bit.  There has been a lot of new construction.  I kind of miss the older, less developed Camp with it's run-down charm.  I told one of the Marines that I had first come here in August 1992.  I might as well of told him I was one of the guys who rowed George Washington over the Delaware.  'Scuse me while I put my teeth in soak...  Anyway, I had better dig my glad rags out...