Through the words of the Emperor, the stance of Ichiro, and firsthand encounters with regional Japan,
this essay explores a form of national consciousness that stands in direct opposition to selfish and narrow-minded nationalism.

2016-08-09
Yet the mind and philosophy that stand in complete opposition to the selfish and narrow meaning he spoke of.
A few hours later, I watched the message of the Emperor and learned that His Majesty is the same.
When it comes to the words of the Emperor, all Japanese people should know that they stand at the opposite extreme from the editorials written by the Asahi Shimbun.
Ichiro, the Emperor, and I myself think above all else about Japan and the Japanese people.
If one were to follow the phrase spoken by a U.S. presidential candidate whose face alone would hardly allow a sound judgment of character, namely “America First.”
Yet the mind and philosophy here stand in complete opposition to the selfish and narrow meaning he intended.
A natural and noble spirit that loves the country of one’s birth, a mind and philosophy that love Japan, and a heart that naturally loves Japan as it is and continues to think of it.
As summer arrived, I went to Shirahama for swimming in the sea and hot springs for the first time in several years.
While once again realizing that Shirahama lies entirely within day-trip distance from Osaka.
Shirahama also held many business-related and personal memories.
An acquaintance of mine from a real estate appraisal office in Tokyo, the same age as I, had been responsible for appraising and disposing of properties nationwide for a life insurance company that had gone bankrupt.
Shirahama, Sakai, and Niigata were the only properties that remained unsold.
He pleaded with me to buy them.
“I do not want them even for free. Who would rent an office building in the countryside? On top of that, property taxes in rural areas are absurdly high, so just owning them becomes a major loss.”
Giving in and purchasing one led, ten years ago, to the first serious injury of my life, a complex fracture of my left heel.
Beside the building was a solid concrete drainage ditch about 1.8 meters deep with no water flowing, and while carrying a large gas stove and wearing beach sandals, I stepped into it and fell.
Firefighters and police officers carried me in that very position to Shirahama Hamayu Hospital.
It was a serious injury requiring more than three months to heal.
I do not drive at all now.
I believe it was very good that I stopped driving.
When the return JR train began to move, as I looked out the window, I realized something.
I am someone who has watched the entire series of “Otoko wa Tsurai yo” many times.
Perhaps these were the very landscapes that Tora-san himself gazed upon.
Not wealthy, yet not desperately poor, the real landscapes of regional Japan.
What he saw there, I realized, was the transience of human life.
At the same time, the mountains, forests, fields, coastlines, and the people living there across Japan are nothing like what the editorial writers of the Asahi Shimbun describe.
There is unmistakably human life here, a way of living utterly unrelated to their abnormal and distorted ideologies.
It is no exaggeration to say that the true nature of the Japanese people has nothing to do with the way of being of media figures who are a major factor accelerating Tokyo-centered concentration.
The time has long since come for the Japanese people to know that Japan is not made by those who neither engage in honest work nor do anything but criticize, and who at every opportunity write commentaries that attack and demean Japan.
To be continued.