Dogs and Demons, or Japan: The Concrete Nation
Sunday, April 3rd, 2005Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Modern Japan
By Alex Kerr
Hill and Wang, 2001, 432 pages.
Dogs and Demons more accurately describes the Japan I know and lived in better than any book I’ve read. The Japan I know is a very ugly place, with concrete rivers and beaches, ugly dilapidated buildings, and mysterious concrete flood control devices in the hills. The point of the book is that Japan has made a mistake in modernizing. They were very successful up to a point, around the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s, at which time little further progress has been made. Among the examples that Alex Kerr uses are the unsophisticated methods of cleaning up hazardous waste and Japanese brokerages that completely missed out on modern financial dealings. This really fits in with some of the things we talked about in a Japanese economics class last term. The structures in the Japanese economy that created rapid growth are now obsolete and dragging the entire economy down. This process has been continuing on for 15 years now, the “lost decade†of recession keeps on growing and growing.
Alex Kerr puts the blame on these problems squarely on out-of-control bureaucracies that answer to no one and must constantly spend their ever increasing budgets on increasingly pointless public works projects. His favorite example of this is the concreting over of Japan in the name of flood control by erecting pointless dams and encasing rivers in concrete “Uâ€s. He also mentions the Isahaya bay reclamation project as an example of pointless development that destroyed precious tidal wetlands. Both of these examples are close to my heart since I lived in Isahaya for a year. I would often walk along the concrete banks of the river that cut through town, and saw first hand the flood gates that blocked off the sea to reclaim land. Ugly and pointless always came to mind. The destruction of the bay resulted in problems in the entire sea, especially for the nori farmers in Saga and Fukuoka.
So why do these things happen? The secretive bureaucracy is surely a huge problem. But instead of trying to blame them completely, there is a lot of other blame that can be spread around to politicians, industry, special interest groups, and a weak judiciary. For a clearer study on how all these various elements can interact to work against the common good read Abortion before Birth Control by Tiana Norgren, a study of the politics of reproduction in modern Japan. Needless to say, the people who matter most, the common citizen, have the least to say in how Japan operates. Another reason that Alex Kerr identifies is the “Strong nation, poor people†ethos that has defined modern Japan. This is an issue that has plagued Japan throughout the modern era. In its desire to catch up with the West it has often given the welfare of its citizens a low priority. What is most important is the nation and industry. This is also a theme in the history of tuberculosis in Japan. Until Japan went to war, the priority for the nation was to have a strong textile industry, to the detriment of the health of those workers. This theme continues to the present. For the benefit of industry and Japan, the people are made to suffer with poor environmental regulations and a ridiculous and bothersome bureaucracy. The Japanese people have been made to do without the modern cities and homes that other peoples in the world enjoy. As I sit here in my well insulated American home, looking through double-paned windows, I shudder at the thought of how I would either freeze or roast when I lived in Japan. It truly is a rich nation that makes its people live like they’re still poor.
I feel that Alex Kerr truly loves Japan. People may say he’s biased (I saw this allegation on the amazon.com site) or a Japan basher. But to put the time and effort into writing a book like this has to be a painful labor of love. And it’s hard to watch something you love struggle under all its problems. It is also hard to deny that Japan is currently suffering under a number of problems. But how Japan solves these problems will ultimately decide if it will be relevant in the future. Will they come to a decisive decision in the near future? We both apparently think no. I argued in an essay last year, and this book agrees, that Japan can plod on for a number of years as it is, because even though things are bad, they aren’t bad enough to bring about a fundamental change in the system. I highly recommend this book.
April 10th, 2005 at 2:13 pm
[…]the problems in Japan that Alex Kerr mentions in Dogs and Demons have come up in the news[…]
April 10th, 2005 at 8:22 pm
[…]Japan’s tourism problem, In Dogs and Demons, Alex Kerr identifies tourism as one of th […]
July 4th, 2005 at 7:04 pm
“Come to a decisive decision?” Could Japan ever do so? I’ve never seen a sign of it. The watchword of Japan is: ã¨ã‚Šã‚ãˆãšã€è€ƒãˆã¾ã—ょã†ã€‚
But somehow, things seem to work out. Sometimes. The mercury poisoning incidents didn’t come out so well, but Japan seems to have gotten through the banking crisis without really ever facing it (though individual banks, such as Shinsei, did, and for that are far more successful than the others).
December 28th, 2005 at 4:09 am
After suffering insecurity and loss by the Japanese hand, “Dogs and Demons” came along quite nicely. Should I have an axe to grind it provided the cure, the icing on the cake, a perfect testimony for “revenge is sweet, up yours Japan, why should I care?” However, through the book’s comprehensive sometimes eloquent look at Japan’s problems, I realized the issue is more complex. Why kick a country when it’s already down?
Japan so markedly fails in all respects that it is an excellent place for turning one’s life around; for “working out one’s own salvation.” I was removed from three teaching posts altogether during my stay there, and in the most secretive underhand fashion. No wonder, as the book describes, little is transparent in Japan; why the Japanese don’t stand up for themselves, the rest is history.
I even tried to ‘rationalize’ my reading of the book, forcing myself it could be wrong. Just a little…no, not really, except for a smudge of inaccuracy; a touch hyperbolic here and there. No book, however well-documented and powerful, is 100% foolproof nor without controversy. Not every temple in Kyoto is “very hard to see.” But it is wrong to assert that the book is grossly off the mark about the country’s school system (from amazon.com) without experiencing how Japanese children feel about being subjected to a diet of curricula-based education. To ask no questions, to merely accept. Sadness existed on some of their faces during a heart-to-heart with me about what they were forced to put up with. Every picture told a story.
Of course, I witnessed the hallmarks of what the book amply describes, and more. Gratuitous aluminium consumption due to drinks machines at every corner makes an efficient recycling system essential. Combustible material, though, is another matter. Large bags crammed with used plastic and paper packaging stacked high and extending onto the road, was surprising if not altogether embarrassing.
Even though it exists in western countries, the flood of materialism found in every town and city in Japan felt “wrong.” Supermarkets aren’t just those. They are the cash n’ carry variety. It all held a fascination, a mystery. Japan is bereft, barren, spiritually found wanting. No wonder the culture has turned away from nature and is burying it under concrete. It’s no good crying out for change so long as greed, self-interest and cynicism are the norm. It is perhaps ironically unfortunate that the climate of optimism gripping the country due to an economic recovery will drive the Japanese into complacency and further away from the reforms “Dogs and Demons” outlines, which their country so badly needs.
People, largely foreigners, who take issue with the book are like cat’s paws that swipe at birds, mice, or at best scratch your hand. They don’t like to see their egos threatened. They see Japan through rose-tinted spectacles. Other than making lots of money and taking thrilling rides on the high-speed Shinkansen, there’s really little insentive for gaijins to live and work there.
I’ve since moved to China where sedate train travel is also meaningful providing you can get a seat. The Chinese are one group of foreigners who’ve never seen “Dogs and Demons,” much less read it. I don’t think it’s available in Chinese or in China at all. Having already an historic grievance against Japan and by an unacceptable attitude towards its past mistakes, they don’t need to. Two of my students, while memorizing a dialogue in an English exam about their plans for the future, made their sentiments and intentions quite clear: -
Guo: Yes, I see your point, but it is well-known that Japan is one of the
developed countries, why don’t you go there?
Yu: Oh, you are right, I would never consider going there.