ellen@reed.UUCP (Ellen Eades) (03/23/86)
> > bart@alice.UucP (Bart N. Locanthi): > > >>...the Japanese are wonderful for > >>romanticizing suicide like we Americans do violence > >>(and also because of their willingness to slice up their friends)... > > > >a second for a japanese [understands and] > >agrees that there is only one way out. > > In the US you would never hear a story about two young lovers > who realized they had achieved the heights of human bliss; so > as a consequence, they walked arm-in-arm up a volcano and > jumped in. This kind of bilge is a part of Japanese culture, > and sometimes they act on it. Was there "only one way out" for Yukio > Mishima? Is not the suicide of Mishima the product of this Japanese > societal sickness, just as all the murders in the US are a product of > our different sort of warpage? I say yes, and I think a lot of you > turkeys sound like ghouls and sickos. > > Gene Ward Smith/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720 I have tried (really hard!) to stay out of this debate on Japanese/Moslem attitudes toward suicide, but Mr. Smiths commeent perpetrates some nasty stereotypes which I feel I must, as a person of Japanese descent, oppose. Mishima, who incidentally gets a lot more press in the US than he ever did in Japan, was a right-wing fanatic and taken just about as seriously as, say, Jerry Falwell here; that is to say, some idolized him, some considered him dangerous, and some (my mother among them) thought he was laughable, a raving lunatic not worth worry. If Mr. Smith is referring to the story "Patriotism," or any other in which Mishima extols the virtues of seppuku, he should know that most Japanese are not extremist enough to regard this as other than a right-wing's rhetoric. I strongly object to Mr. Smith's blaming Mishima's suicide on any "societal sickness" of the Japanese people. After all, the English literature has "Romeo and Juliet," among others. I resent my culture's beliefs on suicide being summed up pithily as "bilge," and I suggest to Mr. Smith that his information has been -- limited at best. Gently, politely and restrainedly, Ellen Eades -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Who's been repeating all that hard stuff to you?" "I read it in a book," said Alice. - - - - - - - - - - - - -
weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P. Wiener) (03/24/86)
In article <2871@reed.UUCP> ellen@reed.UUCP (Ellen Eades) writes: >> >>...the Japanese are wonderful for >> >>romanticizing suicide like we Americans do violence >> >>(and also because of their willingness to slice up their friends)... >> > >> >a second for a japanese [understands and] >> >agrees that there is only one way out. >> ... >> jumped in. This kind of bilge is a part of Japanese culture, >> and sometimes they act on it. Was there "only one way out" for Yukio >> Mishima? Is not the suicide of Mishima the product of this Japanese >> societal sickness, just as all the murders in the US are a product of >> .... > >I have tried (really hard!) to stay out of this debate on >Japanese/Moslem attitudes toward suicide, but Mr. Smiths commeent >perpetrates some nasty stereotypes which I feel I must, as a >person of Japanese descent, oppose. Mishima, who incidentally >gets a lot more press in the US than he ever did in Japan, was >a right-wing fanatic and taken just about as seriously as, say, >Jerry Falwell here; that is to say, some idolized him, some >.... There was a case in California recently that got a lot of attention about a native Japanese woman, whose husband had been unfaithful, committed ritual murder of her two children and then attempted to kill herself. The defense argued that this was an acceptable Japanese response to her shame, and all the newspaper accounts I read played on this. Could you clarify this Ellen? No mention was made of her being a fanatic or anything. Such tragedies do occur among Americans, of course, but the general attitude is that this response is an act of further shame itself. ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720