Why sorry seems to be the hardest word
Josh Hong
“Japan did a lot of bad things in Malaysia during the Second World War. I am so deeply sorry.” Shizuko uttered her apology to me, in a tone full of shame and guilt, on a breezy summer day in 1994.
We were in Ealing, a beautiful London suburb, surrounded by the lush green trees and grass, by the River Thames. It was a fine and lazy afternoon, but she decided to raise the delicate issue nonetheless. I could see she was struggling to express the remorse that the successive governments in Tokyo had failed to demonstrate in an unequivocal manner.
Still, one thing is clear: Shizuko and I have been able to remain close friends for more than a decade because we had crossed the psychological barrier thrust upon us by a war that neither of us was involved in, yet had to confront nonetheless.
When the Sino-Japanese dispute over Tokyo’s attempt to revise its war past escalated in recent weeks, some Malaysian journalists were quick to cite The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1), the seminal book by US anthropologist Ruth Benedict, to prove that Japan is a nation shrouded in a culture of shame, and it is therefore hard, if not impossible, for the Japanese to feel remorseful for the wrongs that their country had committed. (more…)
