Boiled Rice Nationalism, by Yukio Mishima
"What if we now completely stopped making a mirror of the West? This is my nationalism."
Boiled Rice1 Nationalism
Yukio Mishima
Three Types of New Returnee2
When I consider whether a Meiji-style word like “new returnee” would no longer have currency in a world where full jets arrive in and depart from Haneda around the clock, it does not seem so.
There are fairly many people whose character changes completely after only having gone abroad for several months. This is natural, and even with scenes that one is accustomed to seeing in movies and on television, the shock of actually having seen it is great. When I first went to New York and saw groups of skyscrapers, I was at first struck with admiration for how prewar soldiers courageously started a war with such a country, and I doubted whether they would have felt like starting the war if all of them had seen New York.
Even among men who have gone for a year to a country like Italy, which is not particularly rich, there are those who subsequently become prisoners to the fixed idea that “Japan is poor,” and, no matter how many numbers you give to assert the poverty and social backwardness of southern Italy, will refuse to listen and continue saying “Japan is poorer.”
But since the economic boom of a few years ago, the “Japan Is Poor Faction” has gradually come to be overwhelmed by the “Japan Is Great Faction.” When the mood of new returnees changes so, it has a tendency to influence the entirety of public opinion.
On the whole, the comparison of things is carried out from where there is a greater or lesser possibility of competition, and even when people who live in an apartment with two rooms in addition to a dining room and a kitchen3 visit an ultra-modern large residence with an area of 660 square meters4, the same as if they had gone to a department store or hotel, it is natural that it be big, and not only do they not even feel like comparing it to their home, they only think that their home, where everything is within arm’s reach, is in all things more comfortable.
The new returnees of the Meiji era were probably of that attitude, and their pride was placed totally in non-material things, in the spiritual values of the Japanese and Japanese culture. However, because what is invisible is not readily understood, the parts that are visible dressed themselves in civilization and enlightenment5 and faithfully copied the West. Thus have we passed through three or four generations since we began to wear Western clothes.
In that time, civilization and enlightenment has permeated our minds, even the spiritual values of Japanese culture have been lost sight of, and the burial gang6 that seeks to make the Western spirit our spirit has occupied the majority of intellectual new returnees. Language study has also developed, and facilities for studying Western culture in Japan have grown greatly, and as a result, great intellectuals7 who have not read the Japanese classics properly have become Japan’s opinion leaders.
When the war ended, Japan recovered economically, and truly for the first time since Meiji an economic system was established that permitted copious domestic consumption of domestic products, fortunately, because this coincided with the era of the Americanization of Europe and its loss of economic hegemony, Japanese who go to the West gradually ceased to feel a fearful economic gap between it and their own lifestyles.
First, there is no comparison between outhouses and flush toilets, but when in urban areas homes with flush toilets cease to be uncommon, in even bathrooms a standard of comparison follows.
Next, with the modernization of the kitchen, the kitchen is also added to this standard of comparison. We cannot at all match the cultural relics of Europe, but they were built by their wealthy ancestors and will just remain forever because they are made of stone, we come to feel that now, at present, the abilities and economic power of Europeans aren’t that different from ours.
This is the basis of the idea of the first innocent “Japan is Great Faction.” And this is a totally unthinkable idea to Meijiite new returnees8, and in the minds of those of this faction, nothing is included of the spiritual values of the Japanese except the spirit of thrift that has been kept until now.
In contrast, the new returnees of the “Japan Is Still Poor Faction” point out the poverty of Japan by inferring from the social security and individual accumulation of Europe and America, explain the characteristics of Japanese culture also from this poverty, and, in conclusion, point out that if she does not start a typical Afro-Asian socialist revolution, Japan will never be able to become truly wealthy.
And what these two factions have in common is what I call “boiled rice nationalism.”
The Aftereffects of Civilization and Enlightenment
What I often receive when I go abroad are invitations from resident Japanese to eat boiled rice, seaweed, and pickled turnip in their homes.
Even looking at how full of confidence the inviter’s way of speaking is, I can almost see how many travelers, with this one word, have purred like a cat that has smelled catnip. Even among gentlemen who are fashionable from head to toe there are a number whose nerves go strange if they don’t eat boiled rice for a week, and it seems that only boiled rice does not give consideration to thought, as, once they have stepped one foot abroad, progressive literati and reactionary politicians both happily become the prisoners of boiled rice nostalgia.
And, while smacking their lips and gulping down boiled rice, earnest debate rages over Japan, with one saying “Japan is poor,” the other, “No, Japan is great,” the one “Japan is still a backward country,” and the other “No, Japan is now not the Far East but the Far West.”
In general, there is nothing so difficult to reform as culinary life, and no matter how much Japan industrializes after this, it will be difficult for her to cut ties with rice meals.
Even if you say that they eat rice meals in Italy and Spain, one can say that there is no people other than the Japanese that cooks this kind of rice in this way and eats it in such large amounts. The rice that is preferred in Southeast Asia is that long, thin, and dry foreign rice. The stickiness and unique shine of, and the attachment to meals of Japanese rice are something completely unique to Japan.
— Now, when such Japanese return to Japan, they relax into the honest feeling9 that Japan is nice because the food is delicious, but this is an exceedingly subjective feeling and a sensibility10 that is absolutely incomprehensible to Westerners.
The arising of nationalist ideas through the mixture of such sensibilities and thoughts is boiled rice nationalism. This is not limited to rice meals. Discovering that the French cuisine of Japan is the most delicious (!) thanks to having traveled around the world is a variation of boiled rice nationalism, and rediscovering that the women of Japan are the most attractive11 in the world and also how wonderful it is to lie down on a new tatami in just underwear12 are the same.
Are Japan, the Japanese, and Japanese culture so difficult to understand? Are they so difficult to appreciate13 within Japan? Can one not grasp this by any means without having stepped outside the country? Or have the Japanese become so extravagant that they have ceased to notice the value of what they have except from afar?
It seems that this is probably, rather than a condition14 of civilization and enlightenment, something like an aftereffect of the civilization and enlightenment of Meiji.
An American-Style Beauty15
On the whole, the West was the mirror of Japan.
Until the black ships came16, and I am not talking about “The Mirror of Matsuyama,”17 but the Japanese lived in a country without mirrors, so to speak, and we vaguely18 believed that our face was not entirely displeasing.
But we looked into the mirror of the West thrust before us, were shocked by our pockmarked face and thrown into confusion, and in great haste imported cosmetics and makeup from the West, but there is no way that rapidly applied makeup would go well. It is a law of nature that at such times one has no choice but to believe in one’s internal spiritual values, and the era that was Meiji had two faces, a face with makeup applied rapidly and in great haste, and the outwardly invisible internal beautiful face of the Japanese.
When in time makeup also gradually became second nature19, the visceral necessity of believing in the internal spiritual values of the Japanese also decreased, and it was in the Taishō era that we felt that we, somehow subjectively, resembled the faces of Westerners and began to be at ease. The mirror also gradually became messed up and ceased to reflect an accurate image.
However, it is the psychology of man that that alone would cease to suffice, and a powerful reaction came. At all costs we wanted to believe that we are the greatest beauty in the world and to forget the old shock of having seen our pockmarked face. There, it was the Shōwa restrictions on speech that ended up smashing mirrors across Japan.
During the Greater East Asian War20, Japan was the greatest beauty in the world, but we somehow worried whether this was actually true. Unlike the simple era of “The Mirror of Matsuyama,” because we had once known the mirror and ended up smashing it, it is natural that we felt somewhat guilty. Because it was an era when one would be hauled off by the Military Police if one was in possession of a mirror, if one had it be that we are the greatest beauty in the world, one would in any case be safe.
As a result of defeat, the mirror of the West once again ended up being thrust before us, because of which we despaired so much that we wanted to die, but that shock was softened on account of another shock21, the shock of defeat, and was not as great as during the early years of Meiji.
This time we were skilled in rapidly applying makeup, immediately did our makeup in the American style, and ultimately became such a beauty as would be mistaken for an American woman. Because this time we were surrounded by mirrors, and had also become a beauty to a significant degree, we were much at ease. The speed of this acquisition of makeup was also intense, and it was to the point where we became a wonder of the world.
However, upon reflection, the forced and unnatural narcissism (self-intoxication)22 of the Greater East Asian War that we are the greatest beauty in the world was also in fact one aftereffect of the civilization and enlightenment of Meiji. It may seem that that was totally an age of spiritualism, but, with some exceptions, the convictionless refrain in the minds of many, first, that “You are beautiful. You are beautiful. You are a beauty,” should not have birthed passion if there was no necessity to polish our internal spiritual values and create another invisible and beautiful face.23
Now, when we became an American-style beauty, and, even materially, gained a status in which we could with ease acquire a mink coat, for the first time, somehow, the feeling emerged that this might not be good enough.
When, thinking so, we looked around ourselves, we could find not a shred of the things that had made Japan Japan and the Japanese Japanese. Hibachi24 turned into oil stoves, paper lanterns into electric torches, happi25 into jumpers, and koshimaki26 into panties.
In addition, the Taishō intelligentsia occupied the upper echelons of society, and, because they are things unknown to them, objective evaluation of the voluptuous, pure, decadent, manly, and beautiful in the traditional culture of Japan was rendered impossible.
What If We Stopped Making Comparisons At All?27
So, they go to the West.
New returnees overwhelmed by the massive spiritual tradition and tradition of material civilization of the West become the “Japan Is Still Poor Faction,” and new returnees who, from the weakening of the cultural creative powers of the West and the equalization of conditions in the immediate present, felt a proximity with the living standards of Japan become the “Japan Is Great Faction.” Because it does not take into account the fact that they have fallen while we have risen, the feeling of even the latter is ultimately subjective.
And, in the respect that they took greater interest in Japan and the Japanese than before going abroad, they are both a sort of nationalist, though their expressions may differ, and in the respect that each of their arguments are in the last analysis subjective and dogmatic, they are boiled rice nationalists grounded in the taste of boiled rice.
Further, in the respect that neither of them place the basis of true pride in the spiritual internal values of the Japanese, they differ greatly from the new returnees of Meiji. That is, because the yardstick of both the “Japanese Is Still Poor Faction” and the “Japan Is Great Faction” ultimately lies in the West, one can say that in that respect there is between them not so great a difference as it appears.28 Is it, at most, a matter of a difference in the angle of perception?
“In Japan there are televisions and electric refrigerators in even remote villages. She is great.”
The manufacturing process for those televisions and electric refrigerators are not transmitted in The Tale of Genji. They are both inventions of modern Western material civilization. Transistor radios and cameras are also not the invention of the Japanese and Japanese culture. The bases of the great boasting29 of the Japan of the present are all thanks to Western inventions.
This is something that can also be said of even the aircraft of the Greater East Asian War, and although we would be able to brag if we had fought that war with only Japanese swords, but we all fought Western opponents with the inventions of the West. The one and only true Japanese weapon is the Special Attack Forces who died in battle30 using aircraft as a Japanese sword.
Then the “Japan Is Great Faction” of today is entirely founded upon this. What I called boiled rice nationalists, when one tracks down the basis of their nationalism, while on the one hand bearing emotions (feelings)31 of such totally undeniable yet subjective and unconvincing things as “the flavor of things” that one feels on the tongue, on the other hand have been taken in by the illusions of civilization and enlightenment onward.32
Now, what if, instead of saying “Japan is still poor” or “Japan is totally great,” and instead of making the problem so big, we just said “boiled rice is really delicious?”
What if we completely stopped the comparisons? On the whole, judging by how comparing the taste of boiled rice to the taste of steak is nonsensical, one couldn’t say which is better and which is worse. Also, what if, instead of saying such stupid things as, “when it comes to French cuisine, the stuff you eat in Japan is tastier than in France itself,” we stopped at saying that in France there is something called French cuisine and in Japan also there is something called Japanese-style French cuisine? What if we now completely stopped making a mirror of the West? This is my nationalism.33
What I find most offensive are the thinking of civilization and enlightenment that lurks among bureaucrats etc., and the foolish way of thinking that, during the Olympics, tried to close Turkish baths because foreigners find them embarrassing and ban the operation of brothels past midnight in order to make Tokyo look like a clean metropolis. So long as this way of thinking remains, Japanese will never be able to become “natural Japanese.”
When the Asanuma Incident34 took place, the Yada Dancers were performing The Japan Review at the Moulin Rouge in Paris, but apparently because in one scene there was a swordfight with shortswords, Japanese bureaucratic sources recommended that they cut that scene. Such foolish ideas in no way come from the Japanese spirit, but are the spectral thinking35 of civilization and enlightenment.
Become Natural Japanese
Some think that to seek to show only the good parts, only the peaceful parts, the harmless parts, and the pure parts to foreigners is the same as fixing one’s appearance among fellow Japanese and, when a guest comes, admitting him to the parlor, which is the only room that has been cleaned up, and is Japan’s time-honored morality of looking after visitors, but I think that is wrong.
When among fellow Japanese, we all know well that the other rooms are dirty, we know well each other’s sources of embarrassment, and the lifestyle tradition of mutually playing the role of host and guest is founded upon that, but to do this with foreign interlocutors is clear pharisaism36, deception, and, essentially, Han thinking.37
Only becoming natural Japanese is the sole path for present-day Japanese, and I do not care at all if those natural Japanese are more or less barbarians. With a people that has established such a subtle and delicate cultural tradition, if it is not more or less barbaric, it goes to ruin. We should let children fight freely, and we must not be taken advantage of by the prim-mouthed PTA spirit or livestock morality that uses protection of the youth as a pretext.
Incidentally, this New Year’s Day, looking at the surrounding homes from the highest part of my house, I was astonished by the fact that there were few homes flying the Hinomaru38. I think that such a beautiful national flag is rare, and now, when good design39 is trending, without saying anything difficult, why can we not fly the national flag in front of every home at least because it is good design?
I have two vivid memories of the Hinomaru from my trip of last autumn.
One is when, in the New York Waldorf Astoria Hotel where I was staying, by chance Prince Mikasanomiya40 had come to stay for an international conference related to Oriental Studies or some such, and in the front entrance a large Hinomaru flag was flown on Park Avenue. This had a truly grand impression. I too, as a Japanese and as a fellow lodger, felt that I was in charge of a one-centimeter corner of that massive Hinomaru flag, and my heart broadened.
I have written about the other one elsewhere, but when I was visiting the port of Hamburg, but it was a Hinomaru fluttering in the wind at the stern of a massive freight ship that had entered the port. I was overcome with awe and, as the only Japanese on the scene, waved my breast pocket handkerchief.
I do not say these things boastfully. For me, as the exceedingly natural emotions, which have no need for logic, of a Japanese, I was deeply moved by the Hinomaru flying overseas, but in the first place flags are made to inspire romantic feelings, and if they were flat they would be dull, but because they whip in the wind as if on the verge of tearing, they touch the heart.
Incidentally, when I talk about these things, there are people who all sneer and look at me with pity in their eyes. Troublesomely, Japanese intellectuals have decided that one absolutely must not show others simple emotions. However, upon careful consideration, which has a cosmopolitan character41, my “Hinomaru nostalgia,” or “boiled rice nationalism?”
The disposition to be moved by one’s national flag is a sentiment that people in any country should have, but it is doubtful whether the taste of boiled rice can obtain such sympathy. Among the peoples of the world, the Japanese are probably the only nationality that finds such a plain and strangely watery thing delicious, and even if they each have nostalgia for the national cuisine of their homelands, it does not seem to be to the extent that, for example, Greeks would go mad if they did not eat moussaka.
What I mean to say is that I have had enough of those halfway Japanese who, while despising Japanese culture and Japanese tradition in word, cannot cut ties with the taste of boiled rice, and what I desire from the future youth of Japan is for them to take the unique spiritual values of Japan as their pride while gorging themselves with hamburgers.
Boiled Rice Nationalism (First Appearance) Bungei Shunjū - April of the Forty-First Year of the Shōwa Era (1966)
(First Publication) For Young Samurai - Nihon Kyōbunsha - July of the Forty-Fourth Year of the Shōwa Era (1969)
お茶漬け ochazuke. This refers to a simple meal of boiled rice soaked in either water or tea, sometimes with meat, vegetables, or seaweed. I have chosen the concise translation “boiled rice” for its sound and brevity.
帰朝者 kichōsha. This term refers to Japan as the Court and emphasizes the centrality of the Emperor to the country and its history. The standard term today is 帰国者 kikokusha, which is a general term that can be used with reference to any country.
2DK.
二百坪 nihyaku tsubo, 200 tsubo. One tsubo is approximately 3.3 square meters.
文明開化 bunmeikaika. Term referring to the early Meiji movement to import Western liberal ideas, particularly in the work of men like Fukuzawa Yukichi, Takekoshi Yosaburō, and Taguchi Ukichi.
埋没組 maibotsugumi.
大インテリ dai interi.
明治人新帰朝者 Meijijin shinkichōsha.
感想 kansō. Can also mean impression or sentiment.
感覚 kankaku. Can also mean feeling or sensation.
魅力的 miryokuteki. Can also mean charming or appealing.
ステテコ suteteko. Refers specifically to men’s summer underwear.
有難味を知りにくい arigatami o shirinikui. Lit. difficult to know the value or worth.
病状 byōjō. Refers to the state or condition of someone’s illness.
美女 bijo.
黒船 kurofune. The term for Commodore Perry’s fleets.
松山鏡 Matsuyama Kagami. A number of different stories, some humorous, that revolve around characters who, not knowing what mirrors are, mistake their own reflections for others. In one, a traveler, out of the belief that his father is inside, brings a mirror home to his daughter, who, mistaking her reflection for another, believes that her father has brought home a young woman. In another, the princess of Matsunoyama in Echigo (present day Niigata Prefecture) looks into a mirror that her mother left her as a parting gift and, mistaking her reflection for her mother, yearns for her.
おぼろげながら oborogenagara. The literal meaning is closer to “hazily.”
板についてくる ita ni tsuite kuru. Can also mean to become natural, to feel or look comfortable.
大東亜戦争 Daitōa Sensō. This was the official name given by the Japanese government on December 12, 1941 to the war that broke out in China on July 7, 1937, expanded to encompass the entire Asia-Pacific region on December 8, 1941, and ended with the public proclamation of the acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration on August 15, 1945 (the decision was conveyed to the Allied Powers and the Surrender Rescript recorded the day before). This term has three competitors, only two of which have any currency among intellectuals and others who concern themselves with these matters in Japan. First is the Pacific War (1941-1945), which refers specifically to the war with the Western powers in the Asia-Pacific that began on December 8, 1941, but also technically includes fighting in China from that point on. This term is rejected by most Japanese intellectuals and scholars because it ignores the centrality of the conflict over the fate of China to its outbreak. Second is the Asia-Pacific War (1937-1945). This is merely a rebranding of the Greater East Asian War and was either coined or popularized by Ienaga Saburō. Third is the Fifteen Year War (1931-1945). This term, which is the most popular term among Japanese intellectuals today, was first coined by Tsurumi Shunsuke and later taken up by scholars like Eguchi Keiichi. In its most basic form, the term Fifteen Year War refers to the period of war on the Asian continent and retrenchment of liberal democracy at home that began with the Manchuria Incident in September 1931 and ended in August 1945. In its later, more developed form, it divides the war into four stages, each of which set the stage for, but neither directly caused nor made inevitable, the following one. The first is the Manchuria Incident (September 18, 1931 - May 31, 1933), which began with the Liutiaohu Incident and ended with the signing of the Tanggu Truce, by which the Republic of China recognized the independence of Manshūkoku, between Japanese forces and Chiang Kai-Shek. The second is the North China Separation Maneuver (June 1, 1933 - July 6, 1937), during which Japanese forces gradually advanced south of the Great Wall through limited engagements followed by treaties and informal agreements with local “warlords.” The third is the Sino-Japanese War (the Japanese refer to the war with the Qing Dynasty as the Japano-Qing War, which is more reflective of the character of that state and its rulers than the English term First Sino-Japanese War, as this latter implies a continuity that does not exist), which began with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on July 7, 1937, includes Japan’s incursions into French Indochina in September 1940, when they occupied the north, and July 1941, when they occupied the south, and ends on December 7, 1941. The fourth and final stage is the aforementioned Asia-Pacific War, which begins with the attacks on Pearl Harbor and British Malaya and ends on August 15, 1945. Each term has a political connotation that should be obvious to the reader.
ショック shokku. Mishima uses the English word “shock” here.
ナルシシズム(自己陶酔)narushishizumu (jiko tōsui). Mishima here uses the English word narcissism and immediately glosses it in Japanese.
それはいかにも精神主義の時代であったようだが、一部をのぞいて、多くの人の心の中には確信がなく、第一、「きれいだ。きれいだ。お前は別嬪だ」と言いつづけられていては、明治人のように、自分の内面的精神的価値を磨き立てて、人の目に見えぬ、もう一つの美しい顔を作り上げる必要もなければ、情熱も生まれない筈だった。Sore wa ika ni mo seishinshugi no jidai de atta yō da ga, ichibu o nozoite, ōku no hito no kokoro no naka ni wa kakushin ga naku, dai ichi, “kirei da. kirei da. omae wa beppin da” to ītsuzukerarete ite wa, meijijin no yō ni, jibun no naimenteki seishinteki kachi o migakitatete, hito no me ni mienu, mō hitotsu no utsukushī kao o tsukuriageru hitsuyō mo nakereba, jōnetsu mo umarenai hazu datta.
火鉢 hibachi. A Japanese-style brazier used for indoor heating.
法被 happi. A traditional tube-sleeved coat with a crest signifying one’s household or, in the case of workmen and firemen, group affiliation.
腰巻 koshimaki. Women’s underwear worn under a kimono.
比較を一切やめたら? Hikaku O Issai Yametara? Translated more liberally based on the context, this might be rendered What If We Stopped Comparing Ourselves To Them Completely?
その点では二者のあいだには、見かけほどの差はないといっていい, sono ten de wa nisha no aida ni wa, mikake hodo no sa wa nai to itte ii.
大威張り ōibari. Also great pride, great braggartry.
斬死 kirijini. Refers specifically to dying in a sword battle.
エモーション(情緒) emōshon (jōcho). Mishima gives the word emotion in English and immediately after glosses it in Japanese.
一方では文明開化以来の迷妄に乗っかっていることだ, ippō de wa bunmei kaika irai no meimō ni nokkatte iru koto da.
The last two sentences are one long sentence divided by a comma in the Japanese.
The assassination of Japan Socialist Party chairman Asanuma Inejirō by Yamaguchi Otoya on October 12, 1960.
亡霊的思考 bōreiteki shikō. Also ghostly thinking, the thinking of the ghost, the thinking of the specter.
偽善 gizen. Also hypocrisy.
漢意 karagokoro, lit. Han mind. This is an Edo-period term for Japanese who had absorbed Han customs and thinking through Chinese texts and relied on them instead of Japanese ways.
日の丸 hi no maru, lit. disc of the sun. The official flag of Japan.
グッド・デザイン guddo dezain. Mishima uses the English words.
三笠宮殿下 Mikasanomiya Denka. The fourth son of the Taishō Emperor Prince Takahito. In 1935 he established the House Mikasanomiya, hence Mishima’s use of this appellation, which specializes in the study of the Far East in antiquity.
国際性 kokusaisei, lit. cosmopolitanism or internationalism (not in the Marxist sense, the word for that is 国際主義 kokusaishugi).