Japan Style: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1980)

I must admit that when our British friends suggested the title of this exhibition should be "Japan Style", we had certain reservations about accepting the phrase as it stood. Supposing we could climb aboard a time machine and travel back to nineteenth century Japan, we would probably find, it is true, that the words "Japan Style" aptly described the life being lived then; again, if we were to climb aboard the famous Bullet Train and travel from Tokyo (the modern capital) to Kyoto (the former capital, with a proud history going back more than a millennium), I think we would realise that the life of the latter city still had a certain unity and harmony, which justified the use of the same expression. I know, however, that if I were to speak of modern Kyoto, a city with a population of over one million, as being no more than a cultural relic, I should probably incur the wrath of the inhabitants. Nevertheless, the weight of history and the force of tradition have given the streets of the city an undeniably unified and harmonious atmosphere. Even though Kyoto has yielded to Tokyo the role of political and financial capital, there remains, underlying the complex psychology of her citizens, a certain pride in the fact that, when it comes to traditional life and culture, their city is still at the centre of things.

Everywhere in Japan there may be found old castle-towns, which retain something of the flavour of days gone by (although not in such perfect form as Kyoto itself), and some years ago the Japan National Railways ran a publicity campaign with the English title "Discover Japan" in an effort to get tourists of the younger generation to visit these little Kyotos. As a result, every holiday large charabancs disgorged crowds of young people who strolled around the ancient streets of such towns in brightly coloured T-shirts and jeans. So essential has it become for us to draw attention to the fact that the fine old traditions and cultural patterns of Japan are being lost or destroyed that we have to make deliberate use of the English word "discover" in appealing to the young people who will shape the future of our country. And yet the "Japanese things" in which our foreign friends show most interest almost all pertain to that fine old tradition. Woodblock prints, shoji (translucent sliding paper screens), noren (decorative curtains), monsho (heraldic crests), tatami matting, bonsai trees, kimono, kabuki theatre, sumo wrestling—all of them developed in the Edo period (1615–1868), and we have done no more than inherit them in an already perfected state and repeat and perpetuate them without alteration.

Japan in the Edo period occupied a peculiar position in the general history of the world: just when the countries of Europe and America were embracing mercantilism and plunging headlong into the industrial revolution, the Tokugawa government was virtually cutting Japan off from the outside world by a conscious policy of national isolation. Apart from maintaining commercial relations with Chinese and Dutch merchants via the single port of Nagasaki, to which the foreigners were confined, the authorities allowed no external trade of any kind. By way of compensation they pursued a domestic policy of strengthening the feudal system and encouraging cultural unity and in so doing they managed to keep the country at peace for more than 250 years.

At the end of the seventeenth century the city of Edo (the old name for Tokyo) already had a million inhabitants, and it is not often realized that the government was forced to adopt a number of measures to stem the drift of population away from the provinces towards this large city. It is estimated that there were about thirty million people in Japan at the time; on the one hand the government introduced measures to prevent any further increase, and on the other hand it encouraged the stepping up of food production to meet the needs of the existing population. James Clavell's best-selling historical novel Shogun performed an eminently useful task in drawing the world's attention...