Japan: Swords and Butterflies - The Wise World Traveler: Becoming a Part of All that You Meet - page 266

HOW WAS JAPAN TRANSFORMED?
Surrendered Japan was a burnt-out country. Its cities were devastated, and its industries and
transport were smashed. Hunger stalked the land. Added to the country's burdens, more
than six million soldiers and civilians were rounded up and dumped back onto the Japanese
homeland. The Americans occupied Japan almost without incident. A nation once ready to
resist invaders step by step, with pitchforks and scythes if need be, accepted them quies-
cently. Under the terms of surrender, the emperor renounced his divinity. Great estates were
broken up and distributed to those who farmed them. Industrial wealth was dispersed ac-
cording to the precepts of America's anti-monopoly laws. A new Constitution proclaimed
the sovereignty of the people's will. To that purpose, it established universal suffrage and
parliamentary governance. Enshrined in the Constitution was a provision whereby Japan
renounced war; the country could create a defense and security force, but not an army or
navy.
HOW DID THE KOREAN WAR TRANSFORM JAPAN AGAIN?
To use the butterfly metaphor, Japan's transformation was in its chrysalis stage, its poverty
painful, its industries weak. Then the Korean War erupted in late June 1950, and the
United States made Japan its military provider and military-staging area. Japan's economy
thrummed, and a new creature emerged—not a butterfly but an economic giant.
A thousand years of agricultural poverty and the privations of an empire at war had
made the Japanese a culture of thrift. In post-war Japan, the savings rate of workers and
families was the highest in the world. Liquid capital in banks fueled industrial expansion.
Also important to industrial success was the old tradition of loyalty to great lords and to
clan and village leaders. This was now transformed into loyalty to employers and compan-
ies and willingness to work long and hard to assure corporate success. Loyalty, along with
1,000 years of deference to those in power, enabled the Ministry of International Trade and
Industry (MITI) to direct economic growth by offering loans on favorable terms to indus-
tries marked for success.
The new Japan was not without its economic problems. In recent years it has struggled
against a worldwide economic downturn exacerbated by questionable bank loans. But
even so, Japan today compared with Japan in 1945 is an amazing transforma-
tion.
WHAT REMAINS OF THE OLD JAPAN?
Visitors to Tokyo see modern Japan in Technicolor splendor: sleek, high-rise buildings and
a glaring, insistent profusion of neon signs. Crowds throng the streets; occasionally an
older woman will be wearing traditional sandals and a kimono. Beneath the pavement is an
efficient subway system that carries so many passengers that, it is said, Norwegians studied