Originally posted on July 4, 2019.
Through Shiro Suzuki’s testimony and observations from everyday life, this piece argues that the discipline of the war generation fundamentally refutes the anti-Japan propaganda spread by China and the Korean Peninsula.
It sharply criticizes The Asahi Shimbun, NHK, and the scholars, so-called human-rights lawyers, and opposition politicians who echo them, while also continuing from the previous chapter with Suzuki’s recollections of the “Longevity Quiz” segment on Karakuri TV, portraying both his respect for the elderly and the true value of the program.

2019-07-04
In other words, people who were thoroughly taught that kind of discipline,

Readers, too, must surely have encountered in daily life proof that it is precisely Mr. Shiro Suzuki’s interview feature that is true, and that media outlets such as The Asahi Shimbun and NHK are, without the slightest exaggeration, the very height of foolishness.
Anyone who has gone to a sports club on a weekday afternoon these days has experienced that it is filled almost entirely with grandfathers and grandmothers.
And there, once or twice, they have probably had the same experience as I have. … Suppose you come out of the bath area and there is a washstand.
The ones who carefully wipe clean the washstand and chairs after using them are, without exception, the grandfathers of the war generation.
Or, if someone sits on a bench while still having wet parts of the body, the ones who say, “That’s no good…” are also, without exception, the grandfathers. … At first, I inwardly felt irritated at times.
Among those born after the war and educated after the war, including myself, there is not a single person who does such things.
In other words, there is no way that people who were thoroughly taught that kind of discipline would behave like the anti-Japan propaganda of China and the Korean Peninsula, with their “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies.”
Those educated in the postwar era, when they are people of poor academic performance, abuse children to death and commit vile crimes day after day,
and among the academically excellent, examination-elite students, there are countless utterly foolish people who eagerly side with the anti-Japan propaganda produced by the “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies” of China and the Korean Peninsula, and the reality is the complete opposite of this: media outlets such as The Asahi Shimbun and NHK, the scholars who echo them, the so-called human-rights lawyers, and opposition politicians have produced them in numbers too many to count.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
A delightful encounter with the long-lived.　
The “Longevity Quiz” on Karakuri TV is an important job for me, one that I have continued since before retirement.
It has been broadcast 388 times so far, and with 50 elderly participants gathering each time, after three preliminary rounds, I have met 12,000 elderly men alone.　
What the director had hoped for with this program was a kind of laughter that, while drawing out the natural absent-mindedness and off-target answers of elderly people, would gently tickle the viewers in an indescribable way.
But when I first heard about the program at the planning stage, I strongly opposed it.　
I thought a program that would make elderly people into objects of laughter was outrageous.
So I told the director, “Please spare me.”
But the director would not give up, and pressed me, saying, “But, Shirō-san, could you at least please go along with it just once or twice? And if you really dislike it, then tell me,” so I reluctantly accepted.　
However, once we actually started doing it, my thinking changed.
That was because the elderly participants, who kept giving “unusual answers” and “bewildering answers,” and who had the appearance of kindly old gentlemen, were bursting with bright, carefree, and genuinely happy expressions.　
Because I was given a classical announcer’s training, I approach the program believing that turning grandfathers into objects of ridicule must never happen.
Even during the actual broadcast, there are many moments when I tell myself I must not laugh, because it would be rude, and I hold myself back.　
Maintaining that atmosphere, I carry the program forward with the quiz as the highest priority, changing my expression as little as possible no matter what kind of “unusual answer” is given, but then, without a moment’s pause, another “unusual answer” strikes one after another.
That gap probably became vivid laughter for the viewers.
Moreover, that program was especially well received by the elderly themselves.
Furthermore, as I began hearing stories such as how appearing on the program led some people to start walking on their own feet after previously living in a wheelchair, or how dementia had been advancing but then improved, my feelings changed completely.　
For these long-lived people, who endured difficult times gritting their teeth, and who live modestly even in old age while not wishing to burden their children and grandchildren, there are probably not many moments in ordinary life when they can taste such a special kind of joy.
Three television cameras are directed at them and they are shown in close-up, and they can let themselves go to their heart’s content. Television created such an opportunity for them.
When they sit in their seats wearing a sash with their address and name written on it in large characters, tremendous lighting is shining on them.
That alone is already a scene impossible in ordinary life.
And when I, as the announcer, sit there firmly and host the program, it becomes a completely unique situation, and because they become stiff with nervousness, I think that is why those kinds of answers come out one after another.
But still, although they are nervous, they are truly enjoying themselves from the bottom of their hearts.
To be continued.