December 26, 2017. This essay considers domestic and international perceptions of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a conversation with a young Chinese woman in Arashiyama, the author’s views on Chinese propaganda, and Tadao Umesao’s extensive fieldwork across almost all of China’s provinces, leading into a discussion of Japan, China, the Korean Peninsula, Britain, and Umesao’s theory of civilization.

I will write down a few thoughts here, almost in the form of notes.
Naturally, almost every country in the world has ranked Prime Minister Abe among the most capable of Japan’s postwar prime ministers in terms of his abilities as a politician.
Yet there is a peculiar phenomenon in Japan.
Only the so-called cultural figures who are in step with media organizations such as the Asahi Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun, and the Tokyo Shimbun, as well as with China and the Korean Peninsula, continue to say entirely different—and outrageous—things.
Simply put, they repeatedly slander Prime Minister Abe in an attempt to instill hatred of him among the Japanese people.
This reminds me of something that happened in Arashiyama.
Near the bus stop downstream from Togetsukyo Bridge, there was a souvenir complex in an attractive building, with a large restaurant on the second floor and an Italian restaurant on the first.
Needless to say, it was always crowded.
For example, during the year when I visited Arashiyama more than one hundred times, I frequently stopped there.
A young Chinese woman was working there part-time.
We began talking after I asked her where she came from.
She said:
“I like all Japanese people except Prime Minister Abe.”
I found that strange.
I pointed out to her that the majority of Japanese voters had supported the political forces that chose Abe as prime minister, and that her logic therefore did not make sense.
Needless to say, this episode reveals the actual power of their propaganda and the tremendous effect it can have.
It demonstrates the frightening effectiveness of the propaganda strategies employed by a totalitarian state.
The late Tadao Umesao reached the conclusion that China and the Korean Peninsula were societies characterized by profound evil and plausible lies.
He was one of the greatest intellects Kyoto University ever produced.
Over the course of his extensive fieldwork, he traveled throughout almost all of China’s provinces, observing the country and its peoples firsthand.
It was through these years of firsthand observation and research that he arrived at the conclusion described above.
I am the first person to bring to the world the truth reached by Tadao Umesao, one of the world’s foremost ethnologists and cultural anthropologists.
In recent years, one of my closest friends and most devoted readers lent me a substantial collection of folktales handed down in countries neighboring China.
As I read those stories, I saw clearly that countries neighboring China, both east and west, had never let down their guard against this vast and populous state, a country they regarded as marked by profound evil and plausible lies.
From ancient times, they had regarded China as what might be called a deeply calculating and duplicitous state, and they dealt with it without ever losing sight of what they believed to be its essential character.
Some of the stories described gifts sent by the Chinese emperor, leaving neighboring countries agonizing over what they could possibly offer in return.
What astonished me most was that, throughout these stories, the people of China and its neighboring countries lied openly and straightforwardly.
They were the complete opposite of the Japanese: they lied brazenly, without the slightest sense of guilt.
As I read story after story in which lies appeared throughout the narrative, I became convinced that these folktales demonstrated the correctness of another striking conclusion reached by Tadao Umesao.
That conclusion was:
“Japan is not Asia. Rather, Japan should be compared with Britain.”
Japan and Britain are island nations situated at opposite ends of the Eurasian continent, and Umesao recognized a fundamental similarity between their historical and civilizational positions.
Anyone who watched the documentary programs about Venetia Stanley-Smith, the British-born woman who made her home in Ohara, Kyoto, should understand and agree with Umesao’s conclusion.
Her life in Ohara seemed to demonstrate naturally how closely certain British and Japanese sensibilities can resonate with one another.
This draft continues.