As my readers know, it is no exaggeration whatsoever to say that I subscribe to THEMIS, a subscription-only monthly magazine, solely to read Masayuki Takayama’s essays.
This essay, too, shows that he is not only the one and only journalist in the postwar world but also, if revealing truths that lie hidden and truths that have been concealed is the foremost reason for an artist’s existence, the writer most deserving of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
It was only from 2014 onward that I became aware of his presence in this capacity in Japan’s world of journalism and letters, after I learned the true nature of the Asahi Shimbun, which I had subscribed to for many years, and immediately canceled my subscription out of profound anger and regret at having continued reading that newspaper for so long.
Ever since, I have continued introducing his essays almost daily as essential reading not only for the Japanese people but for people throughout the world.
I have deliberately continued introducing him as the one and only journalist in the postwar world, using “one and only” as a descriptive phrase—a phrase that was scarcely used at the time.
In my English translations, too, I chose “one and only.”
However, both Google Translate, which I was using at the time, and DeepL, which I began using later, invariably changed my “one and only” into another expression.
Each time, I rejected the change and insisted on my own translation.
Eventually, my “one and only” began appearing in American reporting on MLB.
Now, as though a dam has burst, the mass media and individuals—particularly athletes who have reached the highest level—have all begun using “one and only.”
Those who have been reading me since I first appeared know that it is an undeniable fact that I am the one who popularized this expression.
They also know that, from June 1, 2011, to this day, I have been subjected to persistent interference with searches by a certain criminal, and that the search results pages for my “The Turntable of Civilization” have been vandalized to an unbelievable extent.
And that the effects continue even now.
They also know that, concerning the incident on September 11 in which my X account was suspended following a so-called malicious report, I filed a criminal complaint with the police station having jurisdiction for the first time in fourteen years, and that it was accepted.
That shortly after I first appeared on July 16, 2010, an extraordinary storm of followers arrived from around the world.
It is also an undeniable fact that, in the “site power” rankings being measured at the time, this site ranked thirty-fourth in the world.
The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s regular column in the issue of the monthly magazine THEMIS that arrived at my home on November 1.
This essay, too, proves that he is the one and only figure of his kind in the postwar world.
It is essential reading not only for the Japanese people but for people throughout the world.
There are many of Takayama’s essays that I deliberately publish repeatedly.
Why is that?
As Tadao Umesao said, originality is repetition.
Repeating something is itself originality—a truth discerned by genuine insight.
Whenever I think about this, I invariably think of the way truly first-rate—no, superlative—athletes of the caliber of Ohtani and Ichiro all perform the same routine every time they step up to the plate, take the mound, or, in the case of golfers, hit a tee shot.
Therein lies the very essence of the proposition that originality is repetition—or so I “transcend.”
“Japan Is a New Militarist State,” Lies China, Devoid of Good Sense
“Drunken Lout,” “Molester,” and “Villain” Originated in References to Han People Who Behaved Outrageously
Masayuki Takayama
Stealing Japan’s Shinkansen Know-How
In the 1930s, when relations between Japan and China deteriorated, the American diplomat Ralph Townsend, who was posted to China, listed “lying” as “a universally acknowledged characteristic of the Chinese.”
Townsend added that “Westerners do not lie,” but that itself was a lie; Americans, in particular, tell malicious and ingenious lies.
For example, they blew up their own battleship, the Maine, in Cuba’s Havana Harbor, killing 260 of their compatriots.
They then raised an outcry that “Spain did it” and started the Spanish-American War.
No one would perpetrate a fraud that involved killing large numbers of their own people.
They excel at vicious lies that exploit precisely that assumption: “Surely they would never do such a thing.”
The Chinese, by contrast, being less thoughtful, tell transparent lies without batting an eye.
One day, Townsend returned home early to find his Chinese servant about to take home a bucketful of coal.
“Sir, you were running short of coal, so I have just brought a bucketful from my home.”
Their next characteristic after lying is stealing.
They stole Japan’s Shinkansen know-how, even built an imitation Shinkansen resembling the 700 Series, and marketed it to the world with the lie, “This is a Chinese original.”
The Chinese know no shame, either.
Thus, they steal Shine Muscat grapes and even imitate Uji matcha, selling them around the world.
The Chinese have another characteristic: “a lack of originality.”
China’s currency is the yuan, which is little better than wastepaper.
Yet, through Japan’s ODA and American investment, China somehow became a great power.
The yuan timidly began appearing on the world’s financial markets, but it had no currency symbol of its own like the $ or ¥ used for the dollar and yen.
They could have created one, but they lack originality.
So, on the grounds that it also begins with “Y,” they began using Japan’s “¥” exactly as it was.
Now, China’s “¥” and Japan’s “¥” are intermingled in international markets, and the Chinese exploit this to commit foreign-exchange fraud.
Why are the Chinese so utterly shameless?
The key to answering that question lies in China’s four thousand years of history.
Broadly speaking, the Chinese—the Han people—are the people who live in the “Central Plain” inside the Great Wall.
But whereas the Japanese have their own government centered on the Imperial House, the Chinese have continually been ruled by other peoples who came across the Great Wall.
Two thousand years after the Yin dynasty of the Western Rong was established, there was, for the first time, a moment when no foreign people arrived; Liu Bang seized that opening to establish “Han,” and this enslaved people could call themselves the Han people for the first time.
They promptly stole the writing system unified by the First Emperor and named its characters “Han characters.”
When writing the Records of the Grand Historian, Sima Qian invented “Xia,” a dynasty of the Han people, placing it before Yin and Zhou.
Fabricating history became a Chinese specialty.
But because they originated as an enslaved people, the Han dynasty had no morals.
As the story of Empress Lü turning Liu Bang’s consort Lady Qi into a “human pig” illustrates, cruelty ran rampant at court, and only a culture of “shi”—children killing their parents and subordinates killing their sovereigns—flourished.
Fortunately, conquering peoples crossed the Great Wall again, and the dynasty ruled by the Han people came to an end.
Professor Takashi Suyama of Nagasaki University wrote about how the Tuoba of the Xianbei viewed the Han people when they were gaining power.
Forty Million Starved to Death in the Great Leap Forward
“When someone became drunk and made a disturbance or behaved outrageously, people would say, ‘Just like a Han person,’” and from this arose the terms “suikan” (drunken lout), “chikan” (molester), and “akkan” (villain), he wrote.
To be continued.