Koike as Japanese PM?
Part One: Yuriko Koike
Brexit, Obama,Justin Trudeau, Jeremy Corbyn, Hillary, Trump...People ask me how I most get it right in my predictions and analyses --when NYT and WaPo and the Guardian get it wrong.
My secret?
As I have said before-- everything you need to know about politics, you learned in the High School cafeteria. It's just basic human behavior -- not rocket science. No, you don't need a PhD.
Of course, a lot depends on the High School! And what if it's a Japanese school?
Different high schools mean different behaviors.
American commentators continue to get Japan and things Japanese wrong --largely because they didn't go to Japanese high schools. Or sometimes because they went to prep schools.
Take the Foreign Press's assessments of Yuriko Koike as a future Prime Minister. No, the pundits say -- she will be shut out-- and they have, on the surface, some prettygood reasons.
First, nothing is going to happen for at least five years. Of course, that could be a positive for Koike as a national leader. However, in politics five years is forever. Welcome to fantasyland.
Abe, of course, is still strong -- and barring really serious scandals like his wife revealing he wears hair plugs and uses Viagra (more on this later) or other events...he will hold on to power no matter what until the Olympics has come and gone -- and the economy takes the hit which it must after that event.
Koike's term as Governor of Tokyo ends just before the Olympics and most people assume that she would run again as Governor rather than abandon her supporters and challenge a still strong Abe or a replacement from the LDP Old Boy system, most likely a younger Old Boy -- or one of the factions that are always popping up as "new parties".
The Guv' has indicated that she has no ambitions to work at the national level-- since quitting as defense minister to fix Tokyo. Of course, her position as defense minister indicates an interest in national politics -- even though she must have realized that she couldn't do a lot and was there as a feminist, or rather female placeholder.
As Tokyo Governor, however, Koike is really beholden only to the citizens of Tokyo.
There is something else. to consider it. As mentioned, Koike is a WOMAN!
Yes, she occasionally wears pant suits although Hillary seems to do it most of the time. But Koike dresses for the occasion -- kimono, usually tasteful skirts and jackets.... She dresses for success -- as a woman.
Koike does not proselytyze as a "feminist" -- unlike Hillary --who is what I call a "masculinist' -- a woman who mostly espouses hormonal male values -- war, for example --and predatory capitalism, war on the economic front.
Hooya! She is shrill. She cackles about men getting raped by bayonets. Kill, kill!
By contrast, the women of Japan look up to Koike because she's smart and calm. She can manage. And she knows her vegetables. Oh, and she has never been married. Doesn't need one. Besides, every housewife knows that men can't handle money.
Hillary's is power is pretending to have balls -- Koike's is femininity. No 'roid rage here. Rather, the "All Mother" in the Japanese sense. Himiko, who we will get to later. Hail estrogen.
The "Old Boy" system is an anachronism. A throwback to samurai days. Please --just fall on your swords and get it over with.
Given the rapid decay of the system, with its huge emphasis on male bonding -- who knows what will happen in in four or five years. This system ahs already proven inadequate in Tokyo which had its Abe -- a guy named Ishihara. Now you need a smart woman to clean up the mess. Five years from now -- you may need here -- or someone like her -- nationally.
Of course, Koike will never say anything about this -- she is simply too here-and-now . If she were a man, she would probably want to drop "hints" -- to flaunt and posture. As a woman, she understands the value of modesty -- also also pragmatism. One step a time.
Part Two: Japanese Feminism
Testosterone, as the ancient Chinese knew, makes for good soldiers but not for good governors. That's why the top Chinese bureaucracy was largely made up of eunuchs. Oh, if we could only do that to the State Department in the US! Imagine too if all five star generals had to carry their balls in a box.
No, no --you say -- Japan is and always has been male-dominated.
Not quite.
From the Edo Period until 1945, women were officially non-people. That's over 400 years -- a fairly long time. In the West, women were in fact almost-people for a rather longer time.
However, for much of Japan's 2000 year history -- say 1600 years -- women have played a prominent role.
The Tokugawa Shogunate was regressive, and its aggressive feudal patriarchalism -- the cult of the warrior -- bushido --led directly to the militarism of the Meiji, Taisho and early Showa periods. Historically, however, bushido -- and Edo --was not the norm for Japan -- but an aberration.
Japanese TV would have us believe otherwise -- with lots of female ninja. -- just as American TV pretends that gunslingers didn't suffer from scabies and festering crotch rot and their women dream of escaping to the live with the Indians where they could have a life.
Foreigners love their memes -- as long as they are not true.
Japanese women should be submissive and obedient cute, always polite. Think of Japanese TV and all those "Yes Girls"-- nodding their heads in perpetual agreement. And Japanese porn? Yup. Just try marrying a Japanese girl -- and see what happens to that cute OL!
As my friends over at Tim Langley's Brand2020 have noted, foreigners are surprised when they marry -- and get divorced in Japan. They see their wives as "vengeful". And they find they have no parental rights.
In this segment, Tim asks a pertinent question: why do Japanese women seem so "vengeful". The key to understanding a foreign culture is always being able to ask the right questions.
In this segement, however, Tim doesn't get an answer -- not a real one, in my opinion.
So here's one.....
In the "salaryman" culture, women, rule the "home", technically the "household", which is also the "marriage". To get married here you have to join a household.
Traditionally -- since the 1950s anyway, Japanese women control the finances.
If you get divorced, your wife will take the children because the marriage is the household; the children belong to it; and the divorced husbands don't . It's not vengeance, actually -- it's just business. Marital capitalism. In Japan, the husband has no household capital if divorced.
Of course, divorced men frequently don't pay support. So women leverage their positions. And that "vengeful" attitude: passive aggressive, yes.
Japanese women have their own worlds, their own language, and their own social networks, which function differently from those of men which are dominated by "senpai-kohai" relationships, mimicking the samurai code. If you are a foreign man - -then you are very much "other. Not a different gender -- a different species.
Such things prompted the anthropologist Volker to write of the "conspiracy of the wife and her children" against the father. Many others have noted how little notions of sex and love have to do with marriage in Japan where in fact the rate of sexual congress is the lowest in the world.
Granted -- things are changing. Men participate more with their families. There is more sharing. But when push comes to shove it is women who rule the home.
Sometimes it gets confusing in Japan -- especially with regards to celebrities who have their own culture. Take the Matsui Kazuyo scandal in which Matsui, an aging and wealthy celebrity found her husband cheating with her best friend in Hawaii and proceeded to make a video accusing him of not only infidelity but wearing hair plugs and using Viagra. She then went on to try and get him fired from his job at NHK.
By Japanese standards,however, Matsui is not a feminist of any kind -- she is simply regarded as crazy. she is as the Japanese say "urasai". Women in Japan have power --when they are calm and stable -- this is their role in the household. Japanese women do not get mad -- they get even - -as I have indicated, usually passively aggressively. They are social guerrillas.
In a society that values ambiguity, ambivalence and indirection, women have few other options.
Part 3 Koike and Himiko
Yuriko Koike looks like the kind of person who can hold it together. A modern Himiko. according to Chinese records, the first Empress of Japan.
Brexit, Obama,Justin Trudeau, Jeremy Corbyn, Hillary, Trump...People ask me how I most get it right in my predictions and analyses --when NYT and WaPo and the Guardian get it wrong.
My secret?
As I have said before-- everything you need to know about politics, you learned in the High School cafeteria. It's just basic human behavior -- not rocket science. No, you don't need a PhD.
Of course, a lot depends on the High School! And what if it's a Japanese school?
American commentators continue to get Japan and things Japanese wrong --largely because they didn't go to Japanese high schools. Or sometimes because they went to prep schools.
Take the Foreign Press's assessments of Yuriko Koike as a future Prime Minister. No, the pundits say -- she will be shut out-- and they have, on the surface, some prettygood reasons.
First, nothing is going to happen for at least five years. Of course, that could be a positive for Koike as a national leader. However, in politics five years is forever. Welcome to fantasyland.
Abe, of course, is still strong -- and barring really serious scandals like his wife revealing he wears hair plugs and uses Viagra (more on this later) or other events...he will hold on to power no matter what until the Olympics has come and gone -- and the economy takes the hit which it must after that event.
Koike's term as Governor of Tokyo ends just before the Olympics and most people assume that she would run again as Governor rather than abandon her supporters and challenge a still strong Abe or a replacement from the LDP Old Boy system, most likely a younger Old Boy -- or one of the factions that are always popping up as "new parties".
The Guv' has indicated that she has no ambitions to work at the national level-- since quitting as defense minister to fix Tokyo. Of course, her position as defense minister indicates an interest in national politics -- even though she must have realized that she couldn't do a lot and was there as a feminist, or rather female placeholder.
As Tokyo Governor, however, Koike is really beholden only to the citizens of Tokyo.
There is something else. to consider it. As mentioned, Koike is a WOMAN!
Yes, she occasionally wears pant suits although Hillary seems to do it most of the time. But Koike dresses for the occasion -- kimono, usually tasteful skirts and jackets.... She dresses for success -- as a woman.
 |
| The one with the ball on the right |
Koike does not proselytyze as a "feminist" -- unlike Hillary --who is what I call a "masculinist' -- a woman who mostly espouses hormonal male values -- war, for example --and predatory capitalism, war on the economic front.
Hooya! She is shrill. She cackles about men getting raped by bayonets. Kill, kill!
By contrast, the women of Japan look up to Koike because she's smart and calm. She can manage. And she knows her vegetables. Oh, and she has never been married. Doesn't need one. Besides, every housewife knows that men can't handle money.
 |
| Where to go for opinion of Japanese politics? Tim Langley went to the right high school. |
The "Old Boy" system is an anachronism. A throwback to samurai days. Please --just fall on your swords and get it over with.
Given the rapid decay of the system, with its huge emphasis on male bonding -- who knows what will happen in in four or five years. This system ahs already proven inadequate in Tokyo which had its Abe -- a guy named Ishihara. Now you need a smart woman to clean up the mess. Five years from now -- you may need here -- or someone like her -- nationally.
Of course, Koike will never say anything about this -- she is simply too here-and-now . If she were a man, she would probably want to drop "hints" -- to flaunt and posture. As a woman, she understands the value of modesty -- also also pragmatism. One step a time.
Part Two: Japanese Feminism
Testosterone, as the ancient Chinese knew, makes for good soldiers but not for good governors. That's why the top Chinese bureaucracy was largely made up of eunuchs. Oh, if we could only do that to the State Department in the US! Imagine too if all five star generals had to carry their balls in a box.
No, no --you say -- Japan is and always has been male-dominated.
Not quite.
From the Edo Period until 1945, women were officially non-people. That's over 400 years -- a fairly long time. In the West, women were in fact almost-people for a rather longer time.
However, for much of Japan's 2000 year history -- say 1600 years -- women have played a prominent role.
The Tokugawa Shogunate was regressive, and its aggressive feudal patriarchalism -- the cult of the warrior -- bushido --led directly to the militarism of the Meiji, Taisho and early Showa periods. Historically, however, bushido -- and Edo --was not the norm for Japan -- but an aberration.
Japanese TV would have us believe otherwise -- with lots of female ninja. -- just as American TV pretends that gunslingers didn't suffer from scabies and festering crotch rot and their women dream of escaping to the live with the Indians where they could have a life.
Foreigners love their memes -- as long as they are not true.
Japanese women should be submissive and obedient cute, always polite. Think of Japanese TV and all those "Yes Girls"-- nodding their heads in perpetual agreement. And Japanese porn? Yup. Just try marrying a Japanese girl -- and see what happens to that cute OL!
As my friends over at Tim Langley's Brand2020 have noted, foreigners are surprised when they marry -- and get divorced in Japan. They see their wives as "vengeful". And they find they have no parental rights.
In this segment, Tim asks a pertinent question: why do Japanese women seem so "vengeful". The key to understanding a foreign culture is always being able to ask the right questions.
In this segement, however, Tim doesn't get an answer -- not a real one, in my opinion.
So here's one.....
In the "salaryman" culture, women, rule the "home", technically the "household", which is also the "marriage". To get married here you have to join a household.
Traditionally -- since the 1950s anyway, Japanese women control the finances.
If you get divorced, your wife will take the children because the marriage is the household; the children belong to it; and the divorced husbands don't . It's not vengeance, actually -- it's just business. Marital capitalism. In Japan, the husband has no household capital if divorced.
Of course, divorced men frequently don't pay support. So women leverage their positions. And that "vengeful" attitude: passive aggressive, yes.
Japanese women have their own worlds, their own language, and their own social networks, which function differently from those of men which are dominated by "senpai-kohai" relationships, mimicking the samurai code. If you are a foreign man - -then you are very much "other. Not a different gender -- a different species.
 |
| Empress Himiko. Japanese Men Don't Always Call The Shots |
Granted -- things are changing. Men participate more with their families. There is more sharing. But when push comes to shove it is women who rule the home.
Sometimes it gets confusing in Japan -- especially with regards to celebrities who have their own culture. Take the Matsui Kazuyo scandal in which Matsui, an aging and wealthy celebrity found her husband cheating with her best friend in Hawaii and proceeded to make a video accusing him of not only infidelity but wearing hair plugs and using Viagra. She then went on to try and get him fired from his job at NHK.
By Japanese standards,however, Matsui is not a feminist of any kind -- she is simply regarded as crazy. she is as the Japanese say "urasai". Women in Japan have power --when they are calm and stable -- this is their role in the household. Japanese women do not get mad -- they get even - -as I have indicated, usually passively aggressively. They are social guerrillas.
In a society that values ambiguity, ambivalence and indirection, women have few other options.
Part 3 Koike and Himiko
Yuriko Koike looks like the kind of person who can hold it together. A modern Himiko. according to Chinese records, the first Empress of Japan.
The country formerly had a man as ruler. For some seventy or eighty years after that there were disturbances and warfare. Thereupon the people agreed upon a woman for their ruler. Her name was Himiko [卑彌呼], her age at the time was only fourteen. She occupied herself with magic and sorcery, bewitching the people. Though mature in age, she remained unmarried. She had a younger brother who assisted her in ruling the country. After she became the ruler, there were few who saw her. She had one thousand women as attendants, but only one man. He served her food and drink and acted as a medium of communication. She resided in a palace surrounded by towers and stockades, with armed guards in a state of constant vigilance. (tr. Tsunoda 1951:13)
Wow: what an excellent and thoughtful article. Very insightful, Julian... I always learn something from you.
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