Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering (37 page)

Fig. 9-2. “Voice of the People: New Edition Syllable Cards” (Ogawa Takeshi, “Tami no koe: shinpan iroha karuta,”
Manga to yomimono
, New Year issue, 1946).

The attraction of this last entry for the cultural and political historian is that it captured in a few swift strokes what was surely the most popular of all explanations among Japanese as to how they had become embroiled in such a disastrous war. They had, it was said time and again, “been deceived” (
damasareta
). From this, it followed that the people as a whole had to take care never again to be misled by their leaders. And from this observation, in turn, it was but a natural step to argue that the best way to do away with irresponsible leaders was to create a genuinely open, rational, “democratic” society. Seen from this perspective, the scowling cartoon farmer was saying a great deal indeed. He represented (whether he fully realized it or not) a potentially solid “grassroots” basis of support for a drastically liberalized national polity.

The “Voice of the People” sequence also included a few wryly obsequious genuflections to the occupation force. Thus, the drawing for
re
depicted the entry to General MacArthur's headquarters, with the sidebar “Doubly Honorable Allied Force.” For
na
, readers were offered an American sailor engaged in conversation with a little Japanese girl. The caption literally read “Friendly Advancing Force”—picking up a familiar euphemism for the occupation force that, in itself, could be used as a point of departure for a disquisition on the Japanese penchant for weasel words. During the war, for example, it had been military gospel that the imperial army and navy always advanced and never retreated. Thus, when they
did
withdraw from a confrontation, this was rarely acknowledged by plainly speaking of “retreat” (
taikyaku
). Rather, the emperor's soldiers and sailors were said to be engaged in
tenshin
, literally “turning around and advancing.” In a similar manner, the country's defeat (
haisen
) was most often referred to in official pronouncements (much less so in popular discourse) as the “termination of the war” (
sh
Å«
sen
), a far more gentle construction. Much the same linguistic aversion was involved in denaturing the occupation force (
senry
ō
gun
) by referring to it as the “advancing force” (
shinch
Å«
gun
).

	RE “Doubly Honorable Allied Force” ( reng ō gun samasama ) Graphic: entrance to “MacArthur General Headquarters”
	NA “Friendly Occupation Force” ( nakayoshi Shinch Å« gun ) Graphic: American sailor with Japanese child

The cartoon
karuta
, in any case, went far beyond these renditions of conquered and conqueror. They were also, in their way, a more literally graphic counterpart to the word pictures of chaos and confusion conveyed in parodies such as “What's Fashionable in the Capital Now” and “Big Black Market, Little Black Market.” From 1946 to 1949, a good many of these graphics focused on an aspect of the defeat that virtually every Japanese encountered on a daily basis: the black market. Rampant egoism prevailed here, as already seen in some of the mocking entries in
Ky
ō
ryoku shinbun
. Ogawa's cartoon
karuta
for
fu
observed that many of the millions of servicemen and civilians who had been overseas when the war ended made ends meet as black market operatives after they were repatriated.
¹⁷

FU “Repatriated and now in the black market” ( fukuin shite yamiyasan ) Graphic: Ex-serviceman, still wearing his military cap

Over two years after the surrender, a humor magazine ushered in 1948 by inviting well-known cartoonists to contribute
karuta
-style graphics and found many of them still obsessed with
the centrality of the black market in everyday life. For
chi
, for example, Kat
ō
Etsur
ō
pointed out the relationship between the dynamism of the illegal market and the incompetence of the government with a drawing of a sturdy man in gaiters, carrying a huge bundle on his back. The caption read, “delay in rations makes the black marketeer fat” (
chihai de futoru yami sh
ō
nin
). Ogawa Tatsuo satirized the lucrative gains farmers made by diverting their produce from the official distribution system to the black market. His graphic for the syllable
wa
(involving a subtle wordplay) depicted a gloating farmer seated in his house with foodstuff behind him and paper currency spread all over the floor in front of him. Tanaka Hisao used the syllable
ya
to belittle the big operatives who were “getting fat on the black market, forgetting one's place” (
yamibutori mi no hodo shirazu
). His drawing depicted an obese man in a suit picking up paper money with chopsticks. Kat
ō
Etsur
ō
then reentered this collaborative card set with an unusually scathing riff on
fu
. His drawing offered a woman in a kimono giving a speech, while a fat, grinning man in dark glasses stood behind her. What was this slice of life all about? Simple: “Wife is Diet member, husband is black marketeer” (
fujin wa daigishi teishu wa yamiya
).
¹⁸

Beyond these conquered/conqueror vignettes, and beyond the black humor of the market, the
iroha
satires captured the sheer chaos of everyday life as well as any other mode of popular expression in these years. Saji and Terao captured this most vividly in their rendering of a shivering family with “no bedding or house to sleep in.” Ogawa's “Voice of the People” went further. His grim offering for
u
, for example, depicted the feet of a corpse sticking out from under a blanket, a common scene in railway stations and other underground public facilities where the homeless congregated for several years after the surrender. The wives, parents, and children who waited, often for years, for word of whether their overseas loved ones were still alive provided the subject for
mi
, a woman brushing away tears. In a “syllable card” for
o
, Ogawa offered a woman's face with the figure 38,101,834 and a man's face
by the number 33,894,643—picking up statistics that revealed the demographic imbalance caused by the war deaths of young men, a loss that meant many Japanese women of marriage age were deprived of potential spouses.

	U “Starved to death in Ueno Station” ( Ueno de gashi ) Graphic: feet of a corpse protruding from a covering
	MI “When will he return from the south?” ( minami kara itsu kaeru ) Graphic: woman weeping over the failure of a loved one to return
	O “More women in New Japan” ( onna ga ō i shin Nippon ) Graphic: Numbers indicating how Japanese women now greatly outnumbered men due to heavy fatalities in the war