The Land od the Rising Yen

called by one of their compatriots the ugliest
people in the world.
    ‘The Japanese,’ wrote Mr Ichiro
Kawasaki, ‘are perhaps physically the least attractive people with the
exception of the pygmies and hotten tots. Members of the so-called Mongolian
race to which the Japanese belong have flat, expressionless faces, high
cheek-bones, and oblique eyes. Their figures are also far from being shapely
with a disproportionately large head, an elongated trunk, and short, often
bowed legs.’ 9
    I don’t know how beautiful or
otherwise hottentots are. I cannot recall ever having seen one. Perhaps they do
not even exist, but were just invented for the sake of disparaging comparisons.
Smollett, about two hundred years ago, was already complaining (about the
Italians, not the Japanese) that their ‘inns are enough to turn the stomach of
a muleteer’ and that ‘the victuals... were cooked in such a manner as to fill a
hottentot with loathing.’ Whether hottentots exist or not, it is clear from the
context that Mr Kawasaki meant nothing complimentary. He was Japanese
Ambassador to Argentina when his book appeared (first in English) and created
what more common persons than I would call a stink. He was recalled, put in
cold storage and informed that he would soon be retired. The Foreign Ministry
hotly denied that this decision had anything to do with his book. He had stayed
long enough in Argentina, it was stated, and was approaching retiring age. If
an ambassador is a gentleman sent abroad to lie in the interest of his country,
then a Foreign Ministry is a collection of gentlemen staying at home, doing the
same. Kawasaki spent less than a year in Argentina and even in Japan people are retired when they reach and not when they approach retiring
age. Perhaps Kawasaki was retired, after all, because he saw less beauty in the
Japanese than the present Foreign Minister; perhaps, because he had failed to
obtain permission for publishing his book, as was his duty. There was quite a
hullabaloo about the book and I always thought this question of permission was
the crux of the matter. But no one ever put the question to Kawasaki. So I
asked him. He told me: no, he had not asked permission because he had regarded
this new book as a revised version of an older one, called The Japanese Are
Like That. But in his own preface to Japan Unmasked he calls his
work ‘a completely new book’. (Is this a literary or a diplomatic blunder?)

    Be that as it may, Mr Kawasaki,
instead of being angry with the Foreign Ministry, should feel undying gratitude
to it. ‘I am net a distinguished diplomat; I am an extinguished diplomat,’ he
protested at a luncheon, and his extinction, his recall, turned his book into a succès de scandale. He was inundated with offers to unmask many things:
Japanese sex-life, politics, big business; he was requested to unmask Korea, Taiwan, the United Nations and the United States; he was requested to unmask diplomatic life
and the latest offer was to unmask the moon. If he accepts only half of these
offers he will become the greatest professional unmasker of the century.
    It is often said that the Japanese
are very sensitive; they hate all criticism, however mild, and refuse to read
or listen to anything unfavourable about themselves. I have found them much
more reasonable in this respect, carrying fewer chips on their shoulders, than
their neighbours, the Australians, and I am pleased to report that their
masochistic instincts are as highly and healthily developed as those of most
nations. When I was in Tokyo, Kawasaki’s book was published in Japanese and
sold like hot cakes.
    Is Kawasaki right or wrong about the
ugliness of the Japanese? True, the Japanese are small in stature but so are
the Italians, usually referred to as extremely good-looking people. They are
growing, however: both Italians and Japanese. They are much better off than
before and shortness of stature is closely connected with poverty and
malnutrition.
    It is also true, I think, that the
legs of the Japanese are shorter than they ought to be because of their habit
of squatting, or more precisely of sitting, on their heels. This posture —
practised for long centuries — hinders the proper development of the legs. Now,
however, with the influx of modern and revolutionary ideas, the Japanese are
beginning to understand that the function of legs is to be stood on, not sat
on, so this defect may slowly be remedied. And anyway the Japanese often