In this essay, the author intertwines his own life story and work with the life and family background of Yoshida Shōin, declaring that “Civilization’s Turntable” itself is his way of life because Shōin’s spirit lives within him.
He argues that, far from regretting his inability to attend Kyoto University, his path actually proves Professor Nobuyuki Kaji’s claim that modern Japan still truly “needs hands,” and he sharply criticizes an education system that forces even low-aptitude students into high schools and universities while neglecting those born to live by soil, sea, forest, crafts, or advanced skills.
The author contrasts Japan’s intellectual depth with what he calls America’s “punk-like” philosophy and its vulnerability to Chinese influence operations, insisting that Japanese intellect is superior and that Asahi Shimbun and its allied “cultural figures” only highlight the shallowness of American thought.
At the same time, he recalls running away from home at nineteen, being listed as “whereabouts unknown,” yet still feeling profound gratitude toward his parents, his beloved hometown of Yuriage, and his classmates who continue to care for him.
The second half, drawing on Yoshiko Sakurai’s column, introduces Shōka Sonjuku, Shōin’s prison reading and teaching, and the extraordinary family that supported him regardless of social rank, concluding that it is the home and its atmosphere—loving families like Shōin’s—that truly raise people of character.

“Civilization’s Turntable” Is My Way of Life, and My Way of Life Is “Civilization’s Turntable,” Because the Spirit of Shōin Dwells Within Me
December 26, 2024

The following is from Ms. Yoshiko Sakurai’s serialized column that appears as the final piece in the December 23 issue of Weekly Shincho.
This essay too proves that she is the supreme “National Treasure” as defined by Saichō, the ultimate National Treasure.
It is essential reading not only for the Japanese people but for people all over the world.

About the work of producing this column.
In order to share with Japan and the world truly genuine essays that the Japanese people and people all over the world must know, I first scan the original text.
I proofread the places where the scanner has made mistakes.
I convert vertical-writing numerals into ones suitable for horizontal writing.
I also adjust the paragraphs and such into horizontal-writing format.
After going through such tasks, I publish these texts to Japan and to the world.
While I was working on changing the paragraphs of this column, I was overcome by a sobbing grief.
It was because I felt, with certainty, that the spirit of Shōin dwells within me.

Shōin truly grew up in a family to be envied.
Within the era, he was executed and died young, but his life was, in truth, a profoundly happy one.

I grew up in an unhappy family, but in fact I am no different from Shōin.
Those around me must have heard many times my statement, “I am eternally nineteen years old.”
Friends with whom I would gladly risk my neck all said, “In your case, that is indeed true…” and agreed.

At nineteen I ran away from home.
Since then, it seems that in my alma mater’s alumni directory I was listed as “whereabouts unknown.”
In other words, it is no exaggeration to say that my life has remained frozen at the age of nineteen.

A person who had been strictly ordered to stand bearing Kyoto University on both shoulders ended up walking a completely different life.
In a certain sense, one could say it was a life so dizzyingly different that heaven and earth themselves were far apart.

Professor Kaji Nobuyuki’s short passage, in which he sounded the alarm, saying “That is wrong, there is indeed a need for manpower,” against the commonplace talk about labor shortages, is one of the greatest essays of the twenty-first century.
In my family, there was a misfortune that made it impossible to send me to Kyoto University and to let me stand bearing that university on these two shoulders.
Yet I do not regret that fact in the slightest.
On the contrary, I stand as living proof of the correctness of Professor Kaji Nobuyuki’s argument.
In truth, university education is by no means something indispensable to a human life.
What is more, he pointed out the foolishness and absurdity of the present educational system that forcibly pushes young people with a mere five-point deviation value up into high school and university.
He pointed out the stupidity of an educational administration that idly spoils those who were born to live upon the soil, tilling the fields and growing crops.
He pointed out the stupidity of an educational administration that idly forces those who were born to live by the sea, to love fish and the ocean throughout their lives, to spend their time in vain.
He pointed out the stupidity of an educational administration that idly forces those who were born to live in the forest, to dwell with trees throughout their lives, to spend their time in vain.
He pointed out the stupidity of an educational administration that idly forces those who were born to live in the countless crafts that arise from the Japanese habit of pursuing perfection, to spend their time in vain.
He pointed out the stupidity of an educational administration that idly forces those who were born to inherit and live by a lathe-worker’s skills so exquisite that no one in the world can imitate them, to spend their time in vain.
He spoke from actual experience.
That is because he is a true intellect.
This piece will be continued on another day.

What about American society, where graduating from university is everything.
That is because America, with its shallow history, in truth has nothing more than a kind of punk-like philosophy.
As proof of that, they are easily having their domestic public opinion divided by the operations of a country like China.
This column proves that Japanese intellect is far superior to American intellect.
Asahi Shimbun and the so-called “cultural figures” who go along with it are themselves proving the shallowness of American intellect.

It was around the time when, due to the impact of the policy failures that had brought about Japan’s deflation, my life as a business owner also began to fall upon hard times.
A friend of mine, an employee of a large corporation with whom I was close through work, asked me to entertain his superior.
I responded with the very best hospitality I could offer and then we went out for a second round of drinking.
At that second party, the superior said, “You live a life like a tightrope walker, don’t you…”
It may well have been a life just like that, but for me, the host who had been treating him, it left me momentarily speechless.

I was unable to have a family like Shōin’s, but I still love my father and mother even now.
I am infinitely grateful to them for giving birth to me and raising me.
I am unconditionally grateful to them for having raised, strong and healthy, one of the greatest intellects of the postwar era.

I am truly grateful that I was born and raised in Yuriage, which I love forever.
I am truly grateful to all my elementary and junior high school classmates, who even now shower me with unreserved affection.

Therefore, even as just one man, I have done work that was described as perhaps the best in Japan among unknown small- and medium-sized business owners.
Since July 2010, in this way, I have been working alone every day, free of charge, to correct Japan and the world.
“Civilization’s Turntable” is my way of life, and my way of life is “Civilization’s Turntable,” because the spirit of Shōin dwells within me.

Great Man Shōin and the Family and Father Who Raised Him

When I visited Yamaguchi Prefecture the other day, a local person of high aspiration gave me a book titled “The Thought and Life of Yoshida Shōin.”
It is a collection of six lectures on Shōin by the late Toshio Kumura, known as a Shōin researcher, which Yamaguchi Bank published for the purpose of educating its employees.
It was a book that deeply moved my heart.
As is well known, Shōin taught at Shōka Sonjuku for only two years and three months.
In that period, about sixty people gathered, crossing the boundaries of social rank.
Among those of samurai status who studied under Shōin were Shinsaku Takasugi, Genzui Kusaka, Issei Maehara, who was beheaded in the Hagi Rebellion, Akiyoshi Yamada, who became Minister of Justice, and Masasuke Nakaya.
Among those of ashigaru (foot-soldier) origin were Eitarō Yoshida, who suffered mortal wounds in the Ikedaya Incident and struggled back as far as the gate of the Chōshū domain residence, where he killed himself, and Sanzō Irie, who died in battle in the Kinmon Incident.
Also, Hirobumi Itō, who became the first Prime Minister, and Aritomo Yamagata, Chief of the General Staff during the Russo-Japanese War, and furthermore Yajirō Shinagawa and Yasushi Nomura, all labored greatly in the cause of the Restoration.
Among the pupils who were neither samurai nor ashigaru was Matsudō Shōdō, the son of a fishmonger and a painter.
There is a portrait of Shōin seated, and it is said that Shōdō painted it.
Incidentally, the first student at Shōka Sonjuku was Masuno Tokutami, the son of a doctor.
The next pupil was the next-door neighbor of the Sugi family (Shōin was adopted into the Yoshida family but continued to live in his natal Sugi household), Eitarō Yoshida, mentioned above.
The third entrant was, again, the aforementioned Matsudō Shōdō.
Mr. Kumura explains the significance of the fact that the first three pupils of Shōka Sonjuku were the sons of a doctor, a foot soldier, and a fishmonger—none of them of samurai rank but all commoners.
Given the realities of Japan and of the Mōri domain at that time, this was exceptional.
In Edo-period Japan there was a class system of warriors, farmers, artisans, and merchants, and the sons of the warrior class studied at the domain schools while the children of commoners studied at temple schools.
The Mōri domain also had a domain school, Meirinkan, in Hagi.
However, Shōin paid no mind to differences of status and regarded all people simply as human beings.
Here we are reminded of the Charter Oath, proclaimed at the birth of the new Meiji government.
“Deliberative assemblies shall be widely established and all matters of state decided by public discussion.
All classes, high and low, shall unite in carrying out the administration of affairs of state.”
In these expressions we see the very ideas that pervaded the Restoration.
Shōin was born about one hundred ninety years ago and was executed ten years before the Meiji Restoration, but he anticipated his era and put these principles magnificently into practice.

Why do we study.
Of the roughly sixty people who studied at Shōka Sonjuku, more than twenty left their names in history.
Was it that, by some special chance, people of remarkable talent happened to be born in the village where Shōin lived.
That is not the case.
Mr. Kumura says that in every village in Japan there are capable people, and when such people encounter a good teacher, they can refine their innate gifts and grow into persons of real distinction.
In other words, Shōin was a good teacher.
Why, then, was Shōin able to cultivate people.
Mr. Kumura writes that, above all else, it was because of the household in which Shōin was raised.
When the shogunate concluded the Treaty of Peace and Amity with America, Shōin yearned to stow away on Perry’s ship and go to America to study.
Near Shimoda Port he watched for his chance, rowed out in a small boat, and finally climbed aboard Perry’s ship, but his wish was not granted.
Shōin voluntarily confessed that he had attempted to secretly leave the country and had broken the national ban.
As a result he was sent back to his domain and handed over to his father, Sugi Yurinosuke.
It was in October of Ansei 1 (1854), when Shōin was twenty-five by Japanese reckoning.
Incidentally, his father, Yurinosuke, held the position of “Hyakuninchū Sekitō and Chief of the Robber-Catching Office,” that is, he was effectively the police chief of Hagi.
To abbreviate the story, Shōin was confined in Noyama Prison.
There were already eleven warriors imprisoned there.
In the prison, Shōin read books.
“When he was moved, he would read with tears streaming down his face; when he was angry, he would read with upturned eyes in a fiercely impassioned tone; when he was delighted, he would read with his voice leaping and slap his knees.”
The police chief’s son was in prison, yet showed not the slightest discouragement and spent his days absorbed in reading.
The eleven others were inspired, and a round-table discussion began within the prison.
Everyone asked him.
Even though there is no hope of leaving this place, why do you study.
Shōin answered.
“Is it not said, ‘If a man hears the Way in the morning, he may die in the evening’.”
If one understands the Way of being human, is that not enough.
If one is to spend a single day in this world, one should do something that makes that single day worthwhile.
Even if one can never leave this place for the rest of one’s life, whether one dies having betrayed the Way of being human, or dies having trodden the Way proper to a human being, depends entirely on one’s own resolve.
In time, even the prison warden of Noyama, that is, the head of the prison, was moved by Shōin’s character and changed the rule that no lights were allowed at night, permitting lamps in the evenings and letting Shōin freely use brush, ink, and paper.
Then one day, he too asked to become Shōin’s disciple.
The fact that Shōin was able to make his prison life so bright and positive was due to his character.
He possessed a self-reliance that, in any circumstance, allowed him to remain true to his essential nature and not be crushed by the trivial atmosphere around him.
He was admirable.
However, we must not overlook the source of the strength that supported Shōin’s manner of being.
Mr. Kumura asserts that what supported Shōin was the power of his household, the character of his family.
A Household to Be Envied

As mentioned, Shōin’s father was the police chief.
Yet that son attempted to break the national ban and stow away to America.
He was punished and returned, and confined in Noyama Prison.
Ordinarily, his father might have become angry, but neither his father, nor his mother, nor his elder brother, nor his younger sister, nor his uncle—no one was angry.
Each and every one of them continued to support Shōin as his good understanding allies.
For example, if we look at “The Reading Record of Noyama Prison,” we see that the number of volumes Shōin read in a month was around forty, and about five hundred volumes in a year.
In the reading record, it is noted that from October 24 of Ansei 1 (1854), when Shōin entered Noyama Prison, to the end of that year he read 106 books, in Ansei 2 he read 480, in Ansei 3 he read 505, and by September of Ansei 4 he had read 346.
His elder brother Umetarō obtained these volumes by visiting book collectors in the surrounding districts.
Or he would order them from Edo and have copies made.
It is said that Umetarō lived until about the end of the Meiji period, and he recalled that obtaining and supplying the books Shōin wanted was quite a struggle.
That was not all.
When Shōin was released from Noyama Prison and returned to the Sugi household, his father, brother, and uncle all three became his disciples.
Shōin had been lecturing in prison before eleven fellow inmates on current events, politics, life, education, and so on, and he continued this at home.
Thus the great work “Kōmō Yowa” was born.
In addition to lectures on Mencius, his father and brother also set aside days on which they read together such works as “Yōroku of Economics,” “Shinron,” and “Nihon Gaishi.”
Since Shōin could not step even a single pace outside the house, he must have been bored.
This was an expression of the family’s love, wanting somehow to encourage him and care for him.
His mother, younger sister, and the women of the extended family formed a “women’s group” and held reading circles centered on Shōin.
Shōin’s family was truly a household to be envied.
Mr. Kumura writes that this was the power of the father.
It is the household that raises a person of character.
It was a loving family that nurtured in Shōin the humanity that could look straight at a person’s qualities as a human being, rather than judge people by rank or wealth.
From this book, I learned the importance of the home and family character through Shōin’s brief thirty-year life.