On March 16, 2011, the author excerpts Chikako Ogura’s column about Nobuko Kan’s first close look at Ichirō Ozawa and criticizes television and newspapers. He launches a paid FC2 blog to post Nijō Castle photos and begin a “Speaking of Mother” series, reflecting on his mother’s death in the tsunami and a friend’s message: “Let’s live to the fullest for our mothers and for the world.”

On March 16, 2011, the author quotes psychologist Chizuko Ogura’s column to question the reliability of Japan’s mainstream media. The post highlights an anecdote where Naoto Kan’s wife, Nobuko Kan, described Ichiro Ozawa as “the eye of the typhoon,” exploring the nature of politicians. The author also reveals his personal feelings about losing his mother in the Great East Japan Earthquake, expressing a determination to live for the sake of the world and others in memory of the deceased.

It goes without saying that Chikako Ogura is one of the foremost figures of our time.
2011/3/16

Regarding that person, I’ll excerpt from Ogura’s column now running in Shūkan Asahi (“Shūkan Asahi, March 18, 2011 issue, p.54, ‘Pay on Your Way Out’”).

I will say this again and again: its circulation is 290,000… The television you all watched until just the other day without a second thought—the senile television of the past twenty-plus years—will no longer be the same after March 11. We have learned, deep in our bones, that images are not for showing the faces of inane entertainers and talent, nor of politicians performing for the camera.
Bit by bit—though in truth it should happen all at once, or we cannot call it a 21st-century media—it will change. Television is watched by the entire nation.

Newspapers, which not only fail to report truth consistently but often follow power obsequiously, printing opinions as hollow as a gourd without reflection, misleading many citizens—each paper is read by several million people… while Shūkan Asahi has 290,000.
I repeat this to underscore how low the probability of truth can be.

And now, Ogura’s painstaking work:

Nobuko Kan first saw Ichirō Ozawa up close eighteen years ago, inside the Imperial Palace.

“The first time I met—or rather, saw—Mr. Ozawa up close was at the celebration of the Crown Prince’s marriage. All Diet members were invited with their spouses, so we attended. That was June 1993, just before the no-confidence motion against the Miyazawa Cabinet passed and the Diet was dissolved.”

…(omission)…

On August 9, the Hosokawa Cabinet was formed.
That was when the 55-year system of LDP vs. Socialists collapsed.

Nobuko Kan attended the celebration of the Crown Prince’s marriage just before the no-confidence motion against the Miyazawa Cabinet was submitted and before the dissolution—right before the birth of the New Party Sakigake and the Japan Renewal Party. She records what she saw at the palace:

“The legislators were all excited, talking about the coming election. Amid the commotion, there was one man gazing silently across the palace courtyard—that was Ichirō Ozawa.
At the time I did not know him, so I did not speak to him, but while it was a frenzy all around, only where Mr. Ozawa stood was there stillness. Perhaps that is what they mean by the eye of a typhoon.”

…(omission)…

Nobuko writes that she had no allergy to Ozawa, but seeing him at the palace must have stirred in her a reflex to compare him with her husband. And this was her reaction when her husband became prime minister:

“Because I know him so well, I can’t help thinking, ‘Is it really all right for this person to be prime minister?’”

(To be continued.)

—

I had thought I would have to present this as “writer and readers” (laughs).
Today, after a business meeting, a young, capable PC professional—whose face shows decency—set up a paid blog for me on FC2.
As early as tomorrow, I plan to post the photos I took at Nijō Castle on March 13, along with my text. Because the words and images will be saturated with the eternal emotions found in every heart, I felt I had no choice but to present them in the form of “writer and readers” (laughs).

MagMag’s newsletters cannot attach photos, but FC2 can, and it can be turned straight into a paid newsletter—an excellent site.
There, under the title “Speaking of Mother,” I will probably—at various times and places from now on—keep creating works in my oeuvre that are the same as what everyone carries within them: the naïve, emotional pieces that humans will carry forever. I will begin doing so from tomorrow onward.

As many readers already know, my mother—despite my hopes and prayers that she might somehow be saved—was, like so many others, swept away by the great tsunami and died.
My sister phoned today to say she will be cremated on the 21st, but for reasons known to her and to readers, I will not return home that day.
I will be somewhere in Kyoto—wherever is most fitting for my mother and me—together with her.

Once I finish writing on FC2, likely tomorrow, I will let you know. Please read it.
The day before yesterday, I received a kind email from a man who has been my dearest friend throughout my working life—the very model of our nation’s treasure: superbly capable and impartial, a trading-company man.
Yesterday I had to tell him that, against our hopes, her death had been confirmed; and then I suddenly remembered that long ago, when he and I traveled to Sendai on business and stopped by my family home, my now-elderly mother treated us to a large platter of Japan’s finest ark shell clams. That turned out to be the last time I saw her face. I added my thanks to the email with that memory.

In his reply—after words that moved me with the gratitude one feels for a true friend—he wrote words that are exactly my own heart:
“…Let us both live to the fullest, for the sake of our mothers, and for the sake of the world.”

Right now, I believe many, many people feel the same.