Hello Readers,

This week in ASTU we began reading Obasan by Joy Kogawa, a novel that recalls the Japanese internment in Canada through the eyes of protagonist, Naomi Nakane, a Japanese Canadian whose family experienced the internment first hand when she was five. When discussing this novel in class, Dr. Luger brought up some themes that she suggest we look out for while reading, including: forgetting, memory, and the dichotomy of speech and silence. While further discussing the significance of why Kogawa chose to name the novel Obasan. From this conversation, one particular point struck out to me the most, and it was how Obasan as a character represents not only a preserver of history, but also how people tend to treat the history of Japanese internment–with silence. I then realized that this concept of silence is very deep-rooted in Japanese culture.

After living in Japan for roughly two years during high school, I was exposed to the way Japanese people cope with trauma and social issues in general. While reading the news one day, I came across an article from a Western reporting source that focused on the appallingly high rates of suicide in Japan, however until that day I had not been aware of the issue at all. After researching more deeply into the topic, I discovered that suicide in Japan is actually a very serious issue and that the Japanese suicide rate is about 60% higher than the world average, according to the World Health Organization. Further research revealed that there is even a forest near Mt. Fuji that has been nicknamed the “suicide forest” due to the extremely high amounts of recorded suicides that occur in the forest. My discovery of this issue occurred during near the end of the second year that I was residing in Japan, and at that time I was living with a host family. Out of curiosity, I asked my host mother and sister about what they knew about Japan’s suicide problem; they replied that they were aware of it, but it was never really brought up in conversation–introducing a topic that makes people uncomfortable is generally seen as rude and impolite.

Several weeks later, I was watching the morning news on NHK, one of Japan’s major television networks and was shocked to see that although the news anchors were introducing topics of grave importance such as missing persons or political conflicts of national interest, the network would transition between segments with scenes of bright, gaudy colours, displays of mascots. The childlike cheerfulness of these sections of the news felt inappropriate to me and I wondered why the Japanese news casters felt it necessary to flood the network with such appearances. I jumped into yet another rabbit hole of research, and learned of the origin of kawaii culture (cute culture) in Japan, and how as a means of coping with the traumas of World War II and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan responded with a wave of childish and cute themed art, products, and mascots. Kawaii culture still exists today, and is essentially a manifestation of Japan’s feeling of being an underdog, or a nation stripped of a sense of power, according to a report written by behavioural scientist Hiroshi Nittono from Hiroshima University. After learning about this aspect of Japanese culture, I am beginning to notice how themes of repression and indirect forms of coping with trauma appear in Obasan and I think it has given me a unique lens to analyze the novel through. I will continue to search for ways in which Obasan represents traditionally Japanese methods of dealing with history and trauma, while also comparing it to how Kogawa juxtaposes this with Aunt Emily’s more active and vocal approach.