Beginning with a spring visit to Arashiyama and Tenryū-ji, this essay examines Masayuki Takayama’s account of Western colonial rule, exposing a system that built prisons instead of schools and reduced entire regions to slave plantations.

2016-04-26

It is well known to my readers that Arashiyama is my own garden.
Today was a truly cloudless day.
For the first time since the cherry blossom season, I headed once again to Arashiyama.
The season of fresh green leaves had arrived in all its splendor.
I have entered Tenryū-ji more than thirty times with ease.
Anyone who has visited would surely agree on the magnificence of the garden at Tenryū-ji.
Today, the wisteria was almost in full bloom, filling the air with its fragrant scent—one of the reasons I love it so much.
That alone was enough to feel as though I had reached the essence of flowers, birds, wind, and moon.
After leaving Tenryū-ji, I headed toward Ōsawa Pond.
The air was remarkably refreshing.
My companion, a friend, said that coming here had truly been worthwhile.
A blue-banded swallowtail butterfly also appeared.

On the drive home, I read a book by Masayuki Takayama.
Below are the words written on the book’s obi band.

“The common sense about the Pacific War is nothing but lies!
Japanese soldiers who freed Asia from the dark colonial rule of scheming white powers were admirable!”

“The liberation of Asia was, in truth, thanks to the Japanese army!”
Masayuki Takayama (WAC, 930 yen)

The following is from page 109.

Emphasis in the text is mine.

At the point when the twentieth century began, Asia—except for Japan, Thailand, and China—had been divided among the great powers as colonies.
According to the Asahi Shimbun, Japan is also said to have made Taiwan and Korea its “colonies.”
Certainly, the Cairo Declaration of the last war refers to the “enslaved state of the Korean Peninsula,” but this is an exaggeration.
A colony is characterized by the imposition of poll taxes, liquor taxes, and salt taxes, the suppression of literacy rates, and the thorough crushing of any resistance to the suzerain power.

Put simply, a colony meant turning an entire country into a slave plantation.
For example, in French Indochina, in addition to the aforementioned taxes, marriage, funerals, and moving house were all taxed, and opium—prohibited by law in the home country—was monopolized (régie d’opium) and allocated to every village.
If it made money, they even became drug dealers.
This was the French view of colonial rule.
The literacy rate was barely over one percent.
They did not build schools, but they built prisons in every city.
The famous prison island of Poulo Condore was already constructed at the end of the nineteenth century, soon after colonization began.

To be continued.