The following is an excerpt from the first part of a serialized discussion between Gyo Tsutsumi and Koshi Kubo that appears in the current issue of the monthly magazine Hanada.
It is a must-read not only for the people of Japan but also for people around the world.
Otani from Tibet in Japan
Tsutsumi
Well, it is extremely hot, isn't it?
Kubo
I'm exhausted just by coming here.
The heat is so hot that I even feel the will to kill.
Are we humans being avenged by nature?
Tsutsumi
UN Secretary-General Guterres said, "The era of global warming is over, and we have entered an era of global boiling," which may not be an exaggeration.
Sports are the best way to get rid of the heat.
The Koshien Summer Olympic Games and Nadeshiko Japan, even though they lost in the quarterfinals. And of course, Shohei Otani.
Kubo
He is a great guy, isn't he?
Mori Ogai wrote an essay lamenting the poor physique of the Japanese concerning the Western theory of the yellow peril (yellow peril). Still, Otani is not only a genius in skill and good manners, but his body is more significant than that of an average American athlete.
Tsutsumi
Not only does he hit, he throws, hits, and runs, and his very existence is a case in baseball history: a one-in-a-century player.
Such a great guy came out of Iwate Prefecture, which was said to be the Tibet of Japan.
His hometown of Mizusawa is close to my mother's hometown.
That's one of the reasons I feel a kinship with him.
Kubo
Even Ichiro Ozawa, whom you dislike, is from Mizusawa, isn't he (laughs)?
Tsutsumi
Mizusawa has produced eminent figures such as Choei Takano, Minoru Saito, Shimpei Goto, and Etsujiro Shiina.
Ozawa is heterogeneous (laughs).
Speaking of Etsusaburo Shiina, I was having dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Shiina at a hotel in Hakone when it began to rain heavily. Mrs. Shiina said, "Oh my God," and got up from her seat.
When she returned, she said, "I called our house and had them put a metal basin in the leaky part. There are three cores.
Shiina's house was so shabby that the newspaper reporter was surprised.
A large amount of money goes in and out of that shabby house.
It was the time when he was the head of the LDP's accounting bureau.
It is said that Shiina never put a penny in his pocket.
The quality of human beings is different from that of Ichiro Ozawa, who has a mansion and a real estate agent pretending to be a politician.
To tell another story, 500,000 people surrounded the Diet during the 1960 Security Treaty uprising (350,000, according to the police).
Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi approached Munenori Akagi, Director General of the Defense Agency, about mobilizing the Self-Defense Forces.
Then Chief Cabinet Secretary Shiina invited Kishi to sit by the window.
Pointing to the demonstrators below, he said, "Prime Minister, look at this. In the past, when the Syngman Rhee regime fell in South Korea, the demonstrations swelled and swelled with the participation of the surrounding crowds. But in this demonstration, the demonstrators and onlookers are neatly separated, and the crowd is not participating. Don't worry; there is no need to send out the Self-Defense Forces." Hearing this, Kishi did not send out the Self-Defense Forces.
Kishi and Shiina had been a duo since their days at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and were known as Kishi the razor and Shiina the machete.
What a razor can't cut, a machete can.
If the Self-Defense Forces had been sent out there, the "Tiananmen Square Incident" might have occurred in Japan.
This article continues