In some three hundred pages, Field takes a decidedly anti-Imperial and somewhat of an anti-Capitalistic approach to her subject, and raises difficult questions about Japan’s war guilt, historical revisionism, and societal tension.
The daughter of a Japanese mother and an American father, she became familiar with both cultures, allowing her both detachment and familiarity with her topic. With this dual credibility, she explores the facts and fictions of being Japanese in the 1980s, and claims that a dangerous attitude has developed amongst Japanese citizens, who through the combination of a strict emperor system and economic prosperity have grown complacent.
Title and Purpose
The title of this book, In the Realm of a Dying Emperor, sets it in the final days of Emperor Hirohito, whom after a battle of four long months succumbed to cancer in 1989 (Gordon, 310). Emperor Hirohito’s death is important to this work for two main reasons, the most important of which is that Emperor Hirohito was Emperor before, during, and after World War II.
Second in importance was the fact that Hirohito’s prolonged illness and subsequent death were cause for an, as Japanese historian Andrew Gordon puts it, "atmosphere of coercive consensus," (Gordon, 311) with government officials calling for restraint amongst Japan’s citizenry. Something that Field uses to support her argument against the strict emperor system of present-day Japan.
Part 1: Chibana Shoichi
After an introduction, Field opens up with the story of Chibana Shoichi, an Okinawan supermarket owner. Chibana Shoichi is guilty of burning the Japanese flag in response to resurgent Japanese nationalism, and Field uses his pain and frustration as a means to show the reader how torn Okinawans are concerning their place in Japanese society.
She uses his example as a stepping point from which she can show that he is not alone in his resentment of the Japanese government. She does this, especially, with poignant tales of mass suicides, and the history of how the Okinawans have had to deal with both American and Japanese oppression. According to Field, the government’s failure to recognize this history, and the Japanese brutalities that went with it, only added to the anger and resentment.
Part 2: Nakaya Yasuko
The second part of this book centers on Nakaya Yasuko, a cook at a municipal daycare center and a Christian, who for sixteen years had protested the deification of her husband, a member of Japan’s Self Defense Force, by the state. This process of deification by the state refers to the enshrinement of soldiers who had given their lives in Japan’s defense at Yasukuni Shrine and other great national sanctuaries. It was espoused, in State Shinto, that should a soldier die in this way, they would become a kami, or guardian spirit, and watch over Japan in death as they had in life (Microsoft Encarta, "Shinto").
Despite her protests, however, she had not reversed the state’s decision at the writing of this book, and Field uses this story to demonstrate the ways in which the government manipulates and distorts the Japanese constitution to bolster the emperor system. Effectively, Japanese officials manage to ignore the part of their constitution that calls for a separation of church and state, and to ignore Nakaya Yasuko’s personal wishes as well.
Part 3: Motoshima Hitoshi
The third part of the book, and the last of the main biographies, focuses on Motoshima Hitoshi, a mayor of Nagasaki. Motoshima Hitoshi is a noteworthy figure in modern Japanese history, because not only did he believe that Emperor Hirohito bore some responsibility for the war, but also because he was almost assassinated for voicing this belief aloud. Says Gordon of Motoshima’s belief: "this was not a new or unusual opinion," but in voicing it, he was condemned by Imperial defenders and almost killed (Gordon, 311).
For Field, this event is significant because not only does it help to prove her point that Japan’s government is more heavily emperor-centered than it ought to be, but also because it offers hope for a reforming Japan in the hundreds of letters of support that Mayor Motoshima received from Nagasaki’s citizens while and after recovering from his injuries.
Conclusions
Throughout these narratives, Field’s assertion that Japan’s emperor system is a problem for Japanese citizens is thus supported. Throughout, they also vibrantly illustrate the problems of "Japanese amnesia," and the Japanese reluctance to admit to Japanese aggression during the early half of the 20th century – a major theme all through the text.
The fact is that even today Japanese revisionism and a reluctance to face its past are still both significant problems fifteen years after Field’s book was written. Her assertion that capitalism and economic success are problematic receives less support from these biographies, however. Moreover, she never truly offers a solid explanation or argument in defense of this assertion anywhere in the book. Nevertheless, it seems in hindsight that she may have been right, or have even predicted the 1990s economic bust and slump.
Despite being more than fifteen years old, In the Realm of a Dying Emperor remains contemporary. And even though it is written in a very personal voice, a voice that sometimes detracts from the work as a whole, it remains a fascinating, well-thought out, and educational book.
Although it is difficult to say how Japanese society will continue to grow and adapt in the face of new business practices, new competition, and a new global culture, clearly Field’s was on to something in saying that it did, in fact, need to change. How Japan deals with this need for change, and how it does not, will shape its role in the world during the 21st century. One must wonder, then, how will Field’s Japan look when Emperor Akihito or crown prince Naruhito lies in his deathbed, and it is, once again, the realm of a dying emperor?
Sources
Field, Norma. In the Realm of a Dying Emperor: Japan at Century's End. (Vintage: 1993).
Gordon, Andrew. A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2003).
Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia, "Shinto," Available from: Shinto.
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