Letters to the Editor,
The Daily Yomiuri,
1-7-1 Otemachi,
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8055
Internal Affairs and Communication Minister Taro Aso’s reported comments that Japan is “one nation, one civilization one language, one culture and one race,” (“Aso describes Japan as ‘one-race’ nation,” October 18, 2005) are all obviously and patently false ideas. I wonder if Aso, a salaried public official and therefore my employee as a Japanese taxpayer, actually knows anything at all about our country, or if he just makes things up as he goes along. Never mind. We all know the answer to that already. Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone’s famously ignorant quip that Japanis a “homogenous nation” was equally ridiculous and false when he pronounced it. Since we know that these ideas are not true - by which I mean not factual - why do not better informed Japanese shout it from their doorsteps and spit it from their mouths not in a rude manner, but in a brotherly loving way of correcting the learning challenged in our midst?
In addition, contrary to Aso’s next quoted remark that Japanis “like nowhere else,” I suggest that the man travel and get out in the world a bit more. He will quickly learn that everyplace is pretty much like every other place in the world, only more so.
Japanese have an almost pathologic need to digest fantasy about themselves. But pathology, or sickness, is exactly what this menu of cant is. It’s sick. People who talk like this are sick.