Focus 580; The Donald Ritchie Reader

Good morning and welcome to focus 580. I'm Ron Yates professor of journalism and the head of the department of journalism at the University of Illinois. I'm pitching today for David Ensor. Today we're going to be taking a look at Japan specifically Japan as seen through the eyes of one of its most insightful observers a man named Donald Ritchie. Mr. Ritchie is the author of a new book called The Donald Ritchie reader. Fifty years of writing on Japan published by Stonebridge press just this year. Donald Ritchie has been called one of the three or four most accomplished writers on Japan in the world and that's a very heady company when you consider people like her and Ruth Benedict Edwin Reischauer who are generally regarded as some of the best observers and translators of Japan for the rest of the world. Donald would be joining us from Detroit by telephone I think. Few people have been able to write about Japan over such a long span of time from new years eve of one thousand forty six until today and it's a view of Japan that few of us have including me

even though I spent almost 10 years there as a foreign correspondent between the mid 1970s the 1980s and in the early 90s. Before we get to our questions and our interview with Donald Ritchie I want to remind you that you're invited to join the conversation by calling 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 in Champaign-Urbana or toll free 1 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. Anywhere you can hear us on the radio or anywhere across North America that you might be listening on the on the Internet. Those numbers again are 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 or 3 3 3 W I L L locally and toll free at 1 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. Welcome to focus 580 Mr. Rich ever thank you very much. I don't know if you and I have actually run into one another and Japan in the 70s 80s and 90s and I suspect we might have bumped into one another at the Foreign Correspondents Club because I suspect that's a place you probably spent some time member right.

Right. Well one of the things that I think. That your perspective of Japan is is truly unique it not only in its depth but in its breath. If you Americans have lived so long in Japan and have seen the changes that you've seen and I guess one of the first things I like to ask you is what are the most striking changes that you've seen in your 50 years of writing about Japan and and let me just leave it at that one the one of the most striking changes you've seen Well the Panthers have been pretty dramatic because when I first went there weren't really any Japan last night it took me three major somebody who had been completely obliterated. And so I was pretty much ground zero and I don't I watch things recover after that. I went to the accusation and said I like Grew up again and I watched in the affluent that way get back on its feet and then I watch it again like I've been a part of it

and then I would witness to that great and I witnessed the Great Depression. Is that what they're calling it now the Great Depression. No. What about one of the most striking things in your book I found really fascinating and having lived in Tokyo myself for a while it's an unusual thing to even think about and that's being able to see Mt. Fuji from the Ginza which is the heart of downtown Tokyo and that's something that you were able to do in 1946 right. Yeah. I was able to through I was working at an offer for the new again. And after school down the corner the short term a corner and there could be because there's really nothing in between. And yet everything you know every day. A burned out saying all of the wooden structures at that but I mean they wouldn't had all been burned and there was a veteran center and it actually gets painted and it no one ever had because you know what I think people like

mean girls rap but even though they were in there we could find it I was able to clean up and remove my little by the end of the year when he was no longer visible. I don't think you can see it at all from Tokyo today maybe on an occasional very clear there's one avenue and now yellow would be an avenue that would kind of get and I know you from the days and you know I ask you for what before what the most striking changes were that you've seen and in the 50 years that you've been writing about Japan I suspect there are also some very subtle changes that you might be able to talk about. Oh yeah exactly. I did big economic train your little train come in the wake of big economic changes. A lot of the advent of the train to do it kept me and I did you know when I would have it was a nation which had been you know more life than I do

and so people were questioning themselves as they were in everything when you yourself like to root for the activity you end up with. And and so this new self-identification happening. Given the time because of the economic downturn and everybody who are truly middle class or they were not and had those breaks and was in the country them and before that was the idea you know that capitalistic and defining your money your lawn was not particularly to be met with. But after the war in America and the American occupation capitalism is the way of life gone with Venton with everybody working hard. Having already been accepted for it to recover before the war money was made out of that and so consequently you would find a number of

things had been admired and things you know things over to your tracks and one of the things like that. Most of it. This is what we would call abject poverty. And so a lot of the Japanese were doing things a lot. I mean if you don't have a team then you make marvelous pottery son. You don't have enough money for furniture then you make that space. Which is what happened over when you have money enough. Not little but with my dad in one. And when you have to buy every new gadget get in and fill up a space that way. Then these ideas go away and they buy something else which is usually more common like Tony or you know decorating. And so this sort of thing has become rampant until just recently but

now now that the economy has pretty much in that it revealed that it was based upon not many people thought no matter the old ideas about time and about being Japanese are coming back again. But it's kind of a retro kind of revision to Japanese during the Japanese tribe. Language more difficult in the world. All of this we used to keep them together you know you're looking for an order to define who you are. You are Americans like that makes. I'm glad we're not mixed in with this thread but they wouldn't know who they were and let the Mexicans with them whether or not in the same way the Japanese you know people who could use neighbors

or use everything to to find out they're not in Japan you're a foreigner the foreigner in the other and so we're not that therefore we had Japanese so they protect the big protective of money and of the same kind of imbalance. And a lot of other things you know close markets. Now that this is no longer to defend is loosening up and realizing that it is popular because it is very very gated distant mongrel as any other country. There's a much much human characters we would you know it was the Western idea of humanism. Now independent of the poverty that has been growing and the other decades it has been that you know one of the things that you always hear about Japan when you live there at all as theirs is us and them mentality there's this sense that somehow Japan was irrevocably altered by the occupation period.

And as a result in this kind of relationship with the United States for example of which Japan is the child in the United States is the parent. And you heard this I heard this a lot in the 70s and 80s I suspect it's probably not quite as prevalent today but there's still that sense of we hear of some kind of a inferiority complex of the United States and perhaps the West that used to be prevalent in Japan or at least the perception was that it was there. Is that still something which exists or is that just a figment of Americans imagination. You know I think it but I think it mutates a lot. Originally in the end maybe a good one commander going up didn't want to look at where people were then fixing up with it became a national action. There were reports that we're going to have to be back in the 90s

actually and economically being on the top of the heap. The idea of raising you know our you know your capsule is completely gone over everything that had been captured. Then foreign have been all accounted for and always been modified to the extent they can no Japanese culture or concept and have become to all that Japanese believe in anything out there the fish insists. There's a few things that the Japanese want DON'T HAVE ALREADY again and this is something we all do we all look abroad. Take what we want. Turn and script isn't called progress and proof. And so English can overtake for a funny farm and you know you've heard many jokes about her.

But the point is it's not a brand of English it's a branch of Japanese. And it's from an entirely different purpose of communication is not meant to be funny. Indeed in Congress don't fight which is to point out that the use of English has become a trend. Become a popular thing to do to be seen wearing. And in this indicate you with a bunch of cool the military does not mean anything. It is all. Did not hide from anybody. Now dig a little bit too much into the round thing people are going in really that are more recently now and more arcane angerly events which are very different from the Japanese. It would simply mean that I am I am with the trends I am at the cutting edge of

whatever it is. Donald I just want to interrupt you very quick we've got a problem with their connection and what we'd like to do is call you right back and see if we can get this connection apparently there's some kind of a problem with the sound quality and we'd like to call you right back and look up again at the if that's OK. I've been talking with Donald Ritchie who has been one of the great observers of Japan since 1986 when he first went to Japan. Donald Ritchie has just written a new book called The Donald Ritchie reader. Fifty years of writing on Japan. He's doing a book tour of the United States right now. And let me tell you a little bit about Donald Rich's background what we've got this minute to get him reconnected from Detroit. He was born in Lima Ohio nine thousand twenty four in 1041 he left home and hitchhiked to New Orleans enlisted in the

U.S. maritime service or the Merchant Marine and wound up going to North Africa Southern Europe and eventually to Shanghai all during World War Two and after World War Two. He was hired by the civil service as a typist in occupied Japan and he arrived in Okinawa Bay on the on New Year's Eve in 1906. Eventually he made his way to Tokyo which had been devastated by U.S. air raids during the war. At the age of 22 and he began working as a film reviewer for the Pacific Stars and Stripes the US military newspaper. And at that point that's when he began exploring Japan and learning about Japan and the only way you can learn about it and that's by being there. He has since gone into other areas of Japanese culture including film and I guess. Donna what I'd like to ask you is what attracted a young man from Lima Ohio

to Japan back in 1946. Well you know speaking nothing not nothing good because when you go away and you go halfway around the world you know you're going to like something you're going away from something in my case I was at the retreat from Lima Ohio and where I went didn't really make so much difference is the fact that I was going at all during the war. I had gone to Europe a great deal I was in the richer Marine and after the war I did not want to return to Ohio. And so I discovered that the fun part of a job open for people in the to occupy Germany and Japan and I was that my talent that I might be. I know how to type very quickly and somewhat accurately I don't. I don't not at my prime that I liked to brag about. Dad got out of my typing so much right

back then you could move around a great deal better than you could for years and they did inform but they did not have a film critic and then they knew what every review Betty Grable for that group could. Before we get back to our Question of the dollar which I just want to remind you that you're invited to join the conversation by calling us at 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 in Champaign-Urbana or toll free at 1 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5 from anywhere you can hear us on the radio or anywhere across North America that you might be listening on the on the Internet. You know I think one of the enduring themes for anybody who spent any time at all in Japan is the question of Westernization or internationalization or what the Japanese call Coke Side Tekken now whatever and and and I just wonder how international I'm using quotations around that word. Is the Japan of two thousand and one as opposed to the Japan of say nine hundred forty six. It looks a good deal more international I mean it looks like like

Blade Runner and Blade Runner was got to look like Ridley Scott coming over and looking at that night and that became the world of Blade Runner in a very you know kind of the new architectures. And your great powers every place and all the latest gadgets and anything you want to buy I mean my my little Japanese supermarket near where I am there are cream like and do you know Western tricks and stuff. In actuality how much until now I might have said that you know different changes but the core whole and I'm in the middle of this ancient Japanese virtue. And it still exists but I don't I don't belong to that school anymore. I haven't been there long enough I now realize that this museum that I lived in that is being raised in that hall that I thought would last forever when I know you know both

before my eyes. So I believe in her green tinted makes it makes sense. I mean what we have been watching what we've been calling a calling to pan all of these years is really the prize of an erosion and you can only use the road so much dependent entries deep into a very long time for the erosion to be noticeable. But now it is you even in theory are quote Japanese unquote. Things like lifetime occupation are you know on the bureaucratic escalator and get to know that you are you know got money and position all of this is top high school you get a good job if you if you get out of Tokyo University you get really good. This is stopped everything like Mark turns out to be economically basis. And so was Japan and violent oppression. It means that a lot of the old bridge vanished that we absolutely permanent. So flies planes futurology your planet anybody.

Again I would imagine they're going to be a period where Japan looks like a new Los Angeles. You're going to act like that little by little I would imagine you're going to build their new national and it would be a new economy. You know back in the late 70s. I guess it was Herman Kahn who made these incredible predictions about Japan being the new leader of the world etc. etc. and of course in the 1900s when the bubble was really getting large in Japan everybody was beginning to believe it. And of course now we've seen after the bubble has burst and that may not be the case for all these predictions you know what what what drove those predictions about that Japan and the Japanese I wonder. Well they were serving for example when Andrew Vogel decided that it was number one and only the books became a national hero. It also became extremely popular because and when it is in the

study and because of the war and a lot of Japanese continue to regard America even now so Id then it makes a real runaway bird. Conor Vogel made it happen by simply magically insisting that it was stacked. However now that the and I mean durable has occurred. You don't hear Conard program looking at how much anymore there is. I don't panic but there's a feeling of a new seriousness and which really you know the ways of the trip and the fact that the way things are done is really still now the way things were done in you know. That's what needs to be restructured the entire structure. I know that you know what holding the country together two years ago can I no longer do so. And yet we find a place in bureaucracies all of which I call PR sending

the best analysis I think instead of kind of fun for him. And anybody who read Japanese power even though it was written 10 years ago because you written large. PRESIDENT OBAMA Right. We've got a caller from downs on the line for a full take that call and oh you're on with Donald Ritchie. Hello. Yes we did in Japan for a time around 1980 and I was very interested. I I knew you know man socially because that's the way to society at least. Then why Stanley. But I was very interested in women because I had had thought that women didn't work. And as our son was going to you know Chan and we lived in a large apartment building I realized that a great many women that I knew who had young children but who were in school were working part time I also had contacts and some traditional dying industries. And there you had the cottage industry where the

whole family was was involved. But I'm wondering what it what has happened to women since then whether they are working whether they're moving into full time you know mainstream kind of job. Right. I cooly that women have taken off for one thing covered the new work or original or your current room. We don't have any legal rights laws on this. But nowadays to get women you have to pay them with my men and the president that you have to treat them as well as treat men. So the idea of a you know second is a minority who are third world war and women simply has not worked out. And women have taken economic over the country to a large extent. There are many many women in profession now many women lawyers enablement doctors so forth. Up until five or six years ago there'd be a

token woman perhaps in a governmental office found a real weapon and you know to the Department of State as it were able woman has an awful lot of flak to encounter but nonetheless. Well and bravely you talk about to knock out the not so up to 10 years ago you know you think you know five lawyers get together and the one that female makes this is no longer. The women are have not been given the right to they have taken the right Paul. Also it's anomic Lee on the street. Women now have most of the pine tar there that Japan is raised in the matriarchy anyway and now women have all the money they give their husbands the allowance because they have to pay for the home and the kids over more important than any husband. And so having all this they now know what to buy

because the media has been following them and nobody you know or the media is women. And because they have the money and they can spend it and do it all the advertisers know that in addition to a large amount of money is from the new women who are our new wage earners and they have a considerable amount of money most of them still visit home. Those who don't like this call them the typical generation because it is a common they don't offer anything to their parents and then they want but the money you get and they go on trips together without men. Agrippa broad re-offer filled with young women all enjoying them and being with her and. Rather vocal and they don't tend to get mad. I don't need men that they don't want to have children like that they have careers.

Would it be the ideal of every Japanese woman. They would spread the idea of you know the good life why mother really couldn't be separated. I know one of the stories I did back in the 80s was the decline of the birth rate in Japan to the point where officials bureaucrats were getting really worried about the future of Japan in terms of the next generation exactly what they were getting more and what fractions were going to get. The kind of father you think you and I will ever see a woman as prime minister of Japan. You think you or I will ever see a woman as prime minister of Japan. I think it is more profitable now than ever I think it would warn President from Aspen. That's that's the that's the big question. Thank you very much for your call. Thank you. Another call from Urbana. Hello you're on with Donald Ritchie. Find ONE just ONE ONE. I would like to continue the previous callers line of questioning

which you talk about family life and fathers in Japan I had seen a movie within the last year and that indicated that a lot of businessmen stopped off someplace on the way home to go to a bar or whatever and so they came home very late and wonder you know old you father you care and very much. OK. This used to be the pattern. The idea was that if you didn't leave then leave work could look better leaving earlier in the year and hurting the team. And then to go out afterwards and you were encouraged to go out because then you could bet the bar when you get off you're no good you know. So the abundant and this is very good for the company and you know Warrior her this is all going to be don't behave that way anymore. I regret going where he wouldn't and I said look you're going to

do it and I will be here and sure enough. And I agree. She had no no different. He he he always gets off early but then he goes to a coffee shop and read a movie or something then he comes home by 9 o'clock and I see why and she said You really don't depend very well if it if the neighbors saw him coming home they would think you were getting on with his job properly and they would laugh. And I was crying her death because it needed to be clear content was. Missing. It's a shocking for me to have heard that I hadn't realized. I think then I think of a lot like a good chap and was a good would not come home for the wife. The only male he would have would be the male child in her life whom she would you know it.

Continually telling what danger lies and the little generation of little nerds were created. And we're still suffering from that. You play in a girl I would imagine you know she'll be and Kashmir and pearls and it will be a new baseball hat backwards and you think a child but not a couple. Take the lemonade I don't care but it really can only be called a mature a lot of the reason you go don't want to get made. They don't want to get made a place like there so the idea of you know a great education. My mom called Philly home you know pushing the boy and everything because that would be a plate for her emotion of a real thing but it's not that common but not a lot like to share with our listeners a couple of passages out of the book.

This is from the. The chapter called Japanese shapes I really found this fascinating because I guess anybody who's ever spent any time in Japan can identify with this. And let me read a couple of passages here. Man is the only one among the animals to make patterns and among men the Japanese are probably the most the foremost pattern makers. They are patterned people who live in a patterned country land where habit is exalted to right where the exemplar still exists where there is a model for everything. And the ideal is actively sought where the shape of an idea or an action may be as important as its content or the configuration of parts depends upon recognised form and the profile of the country depends upon the shape of living. The profile is visible to think of Japan as to think of form but beneath this a social pattern also exists. There is a way to pace calls a way to go shopping. A way to drink tea. A way to arrange flowers. A way to owe money. A formal absolute exists and is inspired to

social social form must be satisfied if social chaos is to be avoided. To me that says. A lot about Japan and I'm just wondering if this is a view which I think a lot of Westerners or Americans or foreigners living in Japan actually understand that. Yeah they knew when it was actually occurring but of course nowadays at that but I wrote less cruel but where it tastes like that. Now that young people have no idea of what this must have been like I mean you see a Big Mac on the street you see a paper you know on the corner and you flop around and you know you do things you want to pay the rigorousness of Japanese civilization has almost vanished. Only people who generate certainly my generation and the one under it. But the new generation has been not been educated as it had been a pretty good

distance so you find a new generation and with it. And because of cell phone usage going up a new etiquette of how to use the Internet how not to a new etiquette is this that and I don't know enough about the structure of the old being continued in the new I'm not but a continuation. I still believe the company are great pattern makers and I think either of this will come new patterns of behavior. But the one that I was celebrating my writing to be done to anybody among young people. Now I think back in the 80s there was a word that was being tossed around quite a bit and the word was soon generally which was this new generation so to speak of it a new generation you know people who think young people are from Mars I think. But you know name anybody over 70. Why do you get comfort care when you get old. But on the other hand we

do have you know thoughtful you know people who also think they're from Mars. So yeah I think there's been a greater generational change to the economic condition than any that it did before. We often hear about Japans homogeneity however and in the last 10 years or the 10 years that I spent there I found in addition to this this homogeneous society we hear a lot about I found quite a bit of diversity and quite a bit of tolerance for those who are not part of the so-called Japanese family so to speak and you're right quite right. You know so I mean the idea of connection with you know all the same probably based on everything you know not been reported by people who are complicated. Go look up and you know what happened here wild reflectively pluralistic as anybody else. I mean America for example prides itself quite properly on Elizabeth. Depend on what to do because it's just that early on there's just too many minorities as

much minority opinion but if you point out the Japanese are paved with to express themselves one of the social way one is a personal individual and private way. One privilege above the other and that and I'm the one doing this when we downgrade the official and we upgrade the private depended to the opposite of what the observer company gets the official the official Japan line. No no it's not true and he wasn't the official American line. There are too many exceptions to it. You're absolutely right to notice that while Pearl is and with it a period if you put it quite rightly the power. I do find this some other countries where people who don't you know aren't playing in the same direction and I could be pretty and very often hidden things are quietly approved up in a way which is uncommon and which I find admirable. We have another caller.

This is the line for from Bloomington you're on with the Donald Ritchie thank you very much I have a number of questions and I'll try just very quickly. And one what is the status of Article 9 and the dispute about a military force and is there more facing up to the fact that the security force is an incredible military force. Secondly let them one by one OK. I'm sorry what. Let me answer them one by Mohammed. Yes go ahead. Yes go ahead. Radical mine go to remember when I finally made your plan after having made her go out and they asked and they mentioned column a direct competition I mean after that your guy there got that piece of paper around. Constitution which is not taken seriously by anybody else except the government the deputy governor or 20 extremely convenient to take you seriously. But now we agree a point where you're from the

UK will have finally after 50. Been all used up. America is making demands on Japan to have an army again it depends doesn't have an army. Given the euphemism of the actual defense force and indeed when the help wanted the Gulf War it did present the Japanese and the group. All of which was widely applauded because Japanese Japan truly back the first nation and maybe no other but could and will fight and fight and not have to work at it and all other politicians will fight because it will be highly unpopular to declare period I'm me again so I don't know what is going to be I do know that America's going to camp and it's going to depend or will not be in a position to be used and I don't know how it's going to manage. I think Japan has offered to send a couple of ships into the area near where the US might need them I think some hospital

ship something like that. Some of the good little America decides that a quick right that's a good question. You have another question. Yes two more quickly. One real next one relates to what you were saying about women. There were some studies before trying to show about the use of law in formal law in Japan and it was claimed that actually you know using a formal legal mechanism helped people to help groups such as women. But I came in and others more than the informal mechanisms which we were so lauded here today. And I'm just curious do you find that there is more appeals to formal legal mechanisms in Japan is that increasing Has that helped women for example or are these more informal dispute resolution mechanism still prominent.

Where the government is so maladroit that anything that it does do to help the social problem does not mitigate for example you mention the broccoli and the pariah class is not a law on the books that are a good one to discriminate against that large over 100 years old and had never before had I known that actually pushed I mean they have the flood which is going to put him and probably even now we have a discrimination against broccoli you know your broccoli you can't and a good place to be a pretty good job and so forth. Despite all the governmental Africa has been very really very governmental efforts on the part of women white women have won have been won by women not by the government contract as a grave to express. I'll take him for example. Film within my field. Let me just interrupt We're talking with Donald Ritchie who is the author of a new book on Japan called the Donald Ritchie reader 50 years of writing on Japan published by Stonebridge press in the car had one more question right.

Yes one quick question. It's the captain. Apparently performs the almost the worst on the toughest test the English speaking test. Let's further down the North Koreans for example and I'm wondering if any improvements have been made in the teaching of English beyond the sort of what was called somewhat nastily Jap Lish in Japan are there any efforts being made to teach English in a different way than it has been in the past. Not not not really low everybody where the problem now. The problem I see is twofold one keeping that based upon common terms or to celebrate or support the originally tiny countries that were to have to be learned and one of the things about the room my dear about the kind of image and everything you know it's been a while

and you know you don't get to get a proper pronunciation if you are caught using the attitude which everybody here and so that means that if you can't knock anything differently then you're too. Because people who do tend to speak out of that about was completely psychological. Well if you think Japanese don't like to do anything about perfect at it I mean you don't practice you can't be perfect and they don't practice. The Japanese have come abroad and are forced to learn to speak then they become very well indeed. However I think the independent girl inhibited and not interested in all languages and that's that's very true as it's the way I think. I've been in classrooms where they were teaching English and it's almost rote like there's very little interaction very little conversation and in the conversation is done. They follow the lead of the instructor who is often mispronouncing and it creates a

pattern of true English it's not like Latin like. Exactly. You've written a lot of books on Japan and I'm just curious to know what your favorite book is the one that you seem to like the best one that I think is the one that I thought about prize writing at the wonders of my time I've had no romantic outpouring no white Why did you pick that. Why is that your favorite. It can't have been mediation the scholarship. It's completely impressionistic. It's al fresco. I think one of the reasons I like it over precious. And even more novel that it's a real book and that is made up. Nonetheless the persona is they persuade you underneath things like this and the things and you learn. All things are trying to say you know what. But you kept the burning of it in the book is being spent on Pinterest. Yes but next year there's going to be a new edition and I'm very happy to see the book of mine reinstated I think

like this. Do you think you'll be writing a new intro to the book or yes I did I went to the NAACP last month to find out what it was like I hadn't really been there for 30 or 40 years and I thought about what it was like and that is going to farm the day of what I write if you would just describe for those have never been there describe B and C as you wrote about it then and maybe as you see it now when you went back over the Internet is a long treat actually because I was the one tuned Koku who many many I'm a legend. It looks like next painting. Extraordinary beautiful land where beauty has been sacrificed to function long ago. It stands out as it is is one of what this really pleasing since Easter Island people are cut off mainly families and so one can find Kruk a very cool Japanese as it was in the Japanese stages of

Western and light the day your pride because I found people when I do a big moment for the news you know wave their hands in front of their faces. They know English and so you can find you know very Japanese as it were in among the layers. That's very interesting and one of things about the book is about the voyaging among these layers. Also you can find the history of their lives to varying degrees. If you realize that you can find it increasingly And I'm going through this math of course islands and I end up in the edge of the great shrine and all of us you still beckon from that as they think it is in a way a room you know. They're coming in for tea and so. Learning up to give you didn't have to think of them and them anymore because he has

been given the gift through this trip of identifying and to be said that he didn't need them to hold him up any boy material things right. This is posited getting soaked through life. We have one more caller a phone from Chicago line for your own words. Thank you General MacArthur towards the end of his career remarks about what he felt was the futility of war. And I'd like to assure their friendly observation that about the folly and irony of war in that Germany Japan and Italy were at one time our enemies and now they are some allies. And the extent that we can learn that peaceful constructive creative cooperation and harmony is advancing the cause for all of us. And it's much much further than destructive elements of war and I was wondering if you had any

observations along those lines. Imaginary moment favorite but I also feel that would you want your career as you've done all the damage I mean General McGregor. You know two and four and then he came to the realization that in fact it is the old soldiers who come to this realization not young lawyers. I think I think I you know I did see human nature but I don't really believe that but what the destruction capability of a human being I would say that what we're talking about a utopian state which none of us will ever live to see the wonderful thought and it is practical I mean would gain my pet more than to do this after the war but I personally given the kind of animals who live where I do really don't believe what you know one of the things I was going to ask you we haven't had a chance to really get to it we won't have a whole.

Time now to your some of your best writing I think it deals with Japanese film and that seems to be a first love of yours. Tell us a bit about Japanese film and why you find it so compelling. When I composed retrospective film you know back in Ohio when I was very young I was. But it is one of the ways you children quiet. I kind of you know try this new reality which I prefer authenticity which I preferred the one that I was being subjected to. And so in no time at all and I found it taken back I think that Johnny Weissmuller and my mother might cry but I didn't. But when Norma shared it I did this new this new reality have revived my interest in being alive and I and I good her threat I think is true of many of my generation who learned the sound of the film it's always great if you could see where there had to be so or not. And her Consequently I learned

about my own civilization through seeing it through the back of the film. So when I went to a new country with a new civilization Naturally my mood of gaining knowledge was pinned to film again in order to and let the film was reflected. Japan but the pinnacle is greater and there really is more with which people on the screen were exactly like the people whose houses I'm going home after seeing the film in the theater and so I was able to put two and two together with them. Mark what feeling of equability than I would ordinarily been able to do the pictures were showing people as they were they were not yet deep people because if they would want to be which of course is what often does not and so I was able to take advantage of it in order to use it to learn in school in order to turn Japan that it's always been the main role of it to elucidation I think my life has been about kept at loose sedation

and the film is certainly been a major tool I think. It's a very good description of what you've done since you've been in Japan. Now you're headed where to New York now is you next up as New York if I wanted to flag in my book. So I'm going to flog more in New York and then I go to buy and then try to give a big speech. So I'm going to go back home and home is Tokyo. Absolutely yeah right now. Do you plan to stay there for the rest of your life if you think you might come back to this country ever hell that many option. I mean coming back to this country is badly on my back for her life. Well I appreciate your joining us and I wish you the best of success with the book as it's a fascinating read. Anybody who is interested and has any interest at all in Japan would do well to pick this up and take a look at it because it provides people with such a broad perspective of this very interesting country.

And I thank you very much for most everything. Well I appreciate it and good luck to you. Thank you very much. OK. Coming up next is the is the market report and and following that we have the afternoon magazine with Celeste Quinn and I thank you for joining us and we'll talk to you again.