Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself: The Nobel Prize Speech and Other Lectures - Hardcover

Oe, who won the Nobel Prize in 1994, lives in Tokyo with his wife and three children.

I come to you today as one Japanese writer who feels that Japanese literature may be decaying. A confession like this by a writer from the third world will undoubtedly disappoint an audience that is expecting a genuine "challenge," given the theme of our discussion: "The Challenge of Third World Culture." There are reasons, however, why I readily accept the part of disappointing clown; and these have to do with an element in the Japanese nation and its people that makes them unwilling to accept the fact that they are members of the third world and reluctant to play their role accordingly. Japan appeared on the international scene as a third-world nation in about 1868. Ever since, in the process of modernizing, it has been blatantly hostile to its fellow third-world nations in Asia, as evidenced by its annexation of Korea and its war of aggression against China. Japan's hostility toward its neighbors continues even today.

The destruction we wrought upon China during the invasion was so great that what was destroyed can never be restored or compensated for. However, even now, more than forty years after the end of the war, I do not think that we have done enough to make amends where they can be made--either economically or culturally. Nor is the annexation of Korea in 1910 a bygone matter when one considers the discriminatory status imposed on some six hundred thousand Korean residents in Japan at present. Furthermore, when one sees our government supporting a South Korean regime that oppresses citizens aspiring to democracy in that nation, it becomes clear that Japan is in fact one of the powers that oppresses the third world. This, surely, is the national image of Japan held not only by those who seek democracy in South Korea but by democratic forces throughout Asia, which makes me more than ever determined to listen with undivided attention to the criticism of my colleagues here, and especially to the participant from the Philippines, Kidlat Tahimik. Japan has betrayed those who aspire to freedom in third-world countries, and has often been an aggressor toward those nations among which it should count itself. The burden of that knowledge weighs heavily on me.

What, then, is the image of Japan in the eyes of the industrialized nations? If, during my stay here in the United States, I am welcomed by neutral smiles, it is because I am an engineer who designs products that are not very competitive in the international market: I produce novels and not automobiles, TV sets, or audio equipment. Being such a person, I can remain indifferent to whatever favors the happy users of Japanese products may ply me with, or to the hostility with which workers who have to compete with Japanese companies may greet me. Nevertheless, when I compare this visit with my first one twenty years ago, I--by the mere fact of being Japanese--cannot help feeling a sense of crisis, one that I always feel while in Japan, but made much clearer, and felt more acutely, over here.