FREEDOM
Last
week I found myself explaining American freedom (among other things) to thirty
Japanese college students who were on a 3-week study tour of the Los Angeles
area. This morning, while getting
a haircut, I tried to explain to my barber what I said to them and why.
Last
week’s challenge was part of a day-long cross-cultural seminar the students had
with me (and Carol my wife) on the LA campus of Bukkyo University. We decided to focus on the different
reactions of Japanese and Americans to two types of violence: that brought on by nature (specifically
the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami on March 10, 2011) and the kind that is man-made
(case in point, our “Dark Knight” massacre in July of this year.)
We
pretty much knew how the discussions on these topics were going to go. Once
they realized they could speak freely to us in Japanese, the students answered
our questions about where they each were on the afternoon of this natural
disaster. They knew all the shocking
statistics about the event: 16,000
dead – mostly old people and children – whose bodies were recovered or swept
out to sea, and about the international relief effort that is still going on. And they had heard of the estimated multi-billion
dollar cost to the Japanese public in terms of what was lost and must be
rebuilt.
The
students heard us say how profoundly moved we were by the orderly and
compassionate manner the Japanese went about helping each other. The students took our compliments in
stride. Such thoughtful behavior
is merely the way things should be (atari-mae),
they said. Carol and I continue to
be amazed because it appears the Japanese are a people who stoically accept the
inevitable or unavoidable and seem to be born with a put-others-first (omoi-yari) gene.
For
our students, last year’s earthquake and tsunami were unavoidable natural
disasters. They noted that
earthquakes were almost a daily event in their island nation, and agreed that
the tsunami did the most damage, giving personal testimonials about how this
one affected their lives. They laughed at the idea that the destruction and
violence was due to nuclear warming or an angry God in heaven. For them the choice to grieve silently
and rebuild carefully was a no-brainer.
The
question of man-made violence caused more excitement and concern, even
outrage. They know about America’s
love affair with weapons of all kinds, and quickly concluded that the American
student who murdered innocent theatergoers in July was insane. But they blame the American legal
system more than they blame him.
We really couldn’t push the conversation much further than “what do
Americans expect?” The students
nevertheless attempted to translate my paper on the subject (“Movie Theater
Massacre”) as part of their language assignment.
One
of the students timidly pointed out that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the only
cities in history to be destroyed by atomic bombs, and that Japan’s population
had decreased by about half after all Japanese cities except Nara and Kyoto had
been flattened by American bombs by 1945.
While noting that that was surely a case of man-made violence, he and
the other students quickly admitted that Japan had provoked the war. They kept looking our way to assure us
that the cause and effect nature of that ugly part of our shared history was
almost like a natural disaster.
By
that time the question of cultural differences between Japan and the U.S. far
outweighed the need to continue to look at my rather academic focus on natural
and man-made violence. The
students wanted to move on to weightier problems, like why do Americans not
take off their shoes indoors, or take such short baths, or not care for homeless
people, or argue about abortion and healthcare, etc., etc. But the ones that hit home were the
questions about racism and religious intolerance. “Why do Americans hate black people, even their own
president?” “Why do Americans hate
Muslims?” “Why do Americans hate so much?”
I’m
not sure my answers were adequate. These young Japanese college students’
curiosity was genuine, and I felt deeply challenged. I began by trying to bolster their shaky but well-informed
knowledge of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. They couldn’t take any of these doctrines seriously, but
Carol and I tried to assure them that many Americans do, and that we argue over which one is
right. At the same time we
tried to imagine how our expressions of faith would sound to 19-year-old
Japanese students.
Like
all Japanese, these students are nominal Buddhists. Which is to say their families observe all special days and
rituals in the Buddhist calendar of their particular denomination. But they are vague on the particulars
of the Buddhist denomination their individual families have been affiliated
with for centuries. They cannot
even give a clear account of basic Buddhist history and teachings. (As it turns out, all but two of the
students are from Jodo-shu Pure Land Buddhist families.)
Which
brings me to my experience in the barbershop this morning. As I climbed into the chair, I noticed
a sad little sticky-note on the mirror with the following pencil-written
message (but without the correct spelling and grammatical markings): “Defend Freedom, Defeat Obama, Vote on
Nov. 6.” Suddenly the whole
experience last week with the Japanese students in Los Angeles came back in a
rush. My barber Dave is a good
man. He was in the Korean War, and
remembers vividly how cold it was in winter. He took breaks in Japan, loved “Geeshas” and said he was
puzzled and embarrassed when Japanese passing him on the sidewalk would
bow.
But
my barber and lots of his customers hate President Obama, mostly because he is
black and therefore shouldn’t be in the office of the President of the United
States. He is not an
American. He is a Muslim. His Obama-care is socialized medicine
(“just like my VA medical care, says Dave, but communist.”) I asked Dave how defeating Obama would
help him defend freedom. What was
the connection? What kind of
freedom are we talking about?
Freedom from Obama? (Yes)
Freedom from a black man?
(Yes) Is that all?
(No) “I’ll have the freedom to
make all the money I want and be myself!”
Really?
And
so went the conversation. Freedom
was the key, American freedom, that is, to make money and do what I want with
as few restrictions from the government as possible. Greed is good.
Never mind that Obama and the Democratic platform is bound to put more
money in my barber’s pockets than Romney and Ryan. It makes no sense.
(Did I mention that my barber is a Catholic boy who thinks Mormonism is
a cult?) Anyway, I decided that to
talk about American freedom is one way to explain to Japanese friends many
things they may find mysterious about my country. Our Bukkyo University students are back in Japan now, but
another group will be visiting next year.
So
here’s the way I would shape a discussion around freedom for them, and for all
Japanese acquaintances who want to understand American culture a bit better. Americans may be shocked that Japanese
people have always considered words like “independence”, “ individuality” and
“freedom” to have a negative ring.
They were the words used for centuries to criticize selfish
behavior. Self concerns had to be
kept in check in a society composed of interdependent groups. Putting your own needs ahead of others
was for citizens of Japan a kind of mortal sin.
The
Japanese must have been shocked, first when Americans forced Japan with war
ships to open her ports to trade in 1853, and then when the American invaders declared
freedom to be the goal of human life.
The two Chinese characters for the word “freedom” (pronounced jiyu in Japanese) mean something like
“self-assertion” or “self-insistence”.
That would seem to be the opposite of what the word means in Western
languages.
Instead
of describing how it feels to be liberated from oppression, which is what
“freedom” means in the history of Europe and the Americas, the word in old
Japan described someone who was intent on being a threat to the welfare of
others. Even now the Japanese word
for “selfish” is almost a synonym for “free”, so to be free is almost by
definition to be inconsiderate. That is why, when the Japanese understood what
the Westerners were saying, that freedom seemed to them a strange goal for
humans to aspire to.
But
if you want to be free not to pay taxes to an oppressive government, and be
free of a man in the presidency who is not even an American, and a black Muslim
to boot, then you will want to “defend freedom” by voting against President
Barak Obama. And I suppose knowing
this will help Japanese people understand American freedom better. But I will tell them that such a sad
little sticky-note on my beloved country’s historical record needs to be torn
off and burned.
Glenn
Webb, 9/7/2012
