Der Begriff „Shina“ wurde erst in der Nachkriegszeit durch mediale Prägung, insbesondere der Asahi Shimbun, als diskriminierend dargestellt. Doch historisch benutzten alle Völker im Krieg abwertende Bezeichnungen für den Gegner, und schon der Existenz des berühmten Liedes „Shina no Yoru“ zeigt, dass das Wort ursprünglich kein Schimpfwort war. Anhand einer bewegenden musikalischen Begegnung in Singapur offenbart dieser Text die Verzerrung von Sprache, Erinnerung und Kriegsgeschichte.

“But such things are common in this world, and particularly when countries are at war, it is only natural to refer to the other nation with a derogatory name.”

We, who had long subscribed to the Asahi Shimbun — I myself for over forty years, of course — were thoroughly conditioned to regard the word “Shina” as a discriminatory term.

Yet it was precisely the Asahi Shimbun, which had so relentlessly indoctrinated us in this way, that during the war wrote “Devilish British and Americans” and sent the people off to the battlefield as the largest propaganda organ of the time.

In other words, Mr. Sakai’s opening argument is entirely correct.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that human beings have repeated wars ever since their birth.

All peoples, all human beings, have during wartime referred to the opposing nation with derogatory names, and the fact that “Shina” itself was not originally a slur is made clear simply by the existence of the beautiful song “Shina no Yoru,” which is one of my own signature pieces.

There is no way such a beautiful masterpiece could have been built upon contempt or a slur toward the other.

As I write this, I realize that the reason this song has not been heard on television at all in recent years may also have been yet another harmful consequence of the Asahi Shimbun’s influence…

As I have already mentioned, there was a time when I became close as brothers with an overseas Chinese entrepreneur in Singapore who was, in all likelihood, among the top five business leaders there at the time.

When total volume regulations were imposed and many business executives in the real estate industry were driven to suicide, I — quite fittingly for a longtime Asahi subscriber — headed for Singapore and Thailand to form an Asian investment fund.

He, who ranked among the top fifty in Singapore at that time, instantly grasped my intentions. The man who introduced me to him had grown through his involvement with Singapore as an employee of a trading company; his wife was a Chinese Singaporean, and they had one son and two daughters. I later heard that their son had entered the Sorbonne, which made me marvel in admiration.

That overseas Chinese gentleman arranged for me, together with his wife and eldest son, to spend a dreamlike dinner at a Chinese restaurant known only to them — inexpensive yet exquisite, and filled entirely with an atmosphere that was, in every sense, purely “China.”

The woman in question was a dignified and supremely intelligent beauty, also the owner of what had once been Singapore’s finest hotel in the postwar era.

As the evening grew truly joyful and everyone began to sing, he told her that I was a good singer.

Thus, after I sang “Yelaixiang,” he sang “Shina no Yoru.”

She then sang Puccini’s aria “Un bel dì, vedremo” in English.

At the end, she and I linked arms and continued singing “Un bel dì, vedremo” — she in English, I in Japanese — even as we stepped outside into the night long after darkness had fully fallen. It was, beyond doubt, a night beyond compare.

The person who was most astonished by all of this was the man who had introduced us — the very one who had never been able to meet her until that evening — as I wrote some time ago.