Алекс Керр - Dogs and Demons

The governor of Mie, well aware of the water surplus, was concerned about the tremendous expense that his prefecture would have to shoulder. At the same time, he was afraid to cancel the project because the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) was subsidizing its construction, and if the prefecture turned down the dam MITI would deny it money in the future. In 1979, Mie dispatched Takeuchi Gen'ichi, the director of its Office of Planning, to present the new figures to MITI and to beg for a delay in construction. But MITI's manager of the Office of Industrial Water Use dismissed Takeuchi, saying, «You can't just tell us now that there will be too much water!» MITI couldn't allow the fact of water surplus in 1979 to interfere with the inexorable concept adopted in 1960. Environmental groups loudly protested the damming of Japan's last major river in its natural state, but their voices went unheard. Construction began in the 1980s, and today the central dam stands complete while work goes forward on a vast web of canals and subsidiary flood works spanning the three rivers.

Once a concept, always a concept. As in the case of the Isahaya wetlands, no opposition and no change in outward realities would affect the concept. Students of Japan's bureaucracy must understand this simple truth: A bureaucratic concept is like a Terminator robot programmed with commands that no one can override; the Terminator may stumble and lose a leg or an arm, but it will pick itself up and go forward relentlessly until it has fulfilled its mission. It is beyond the power of any man to stop it.

An old poem reads: «Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; / Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.» So grind the mills of Japan's government agencies. In August 1998, public opposition forced Kyoto's city office to cancel plans to build a bridge that would have altered the ambience of the old street of Pon-tocho, but when the dust settled it became clear that the city had canceled only the present design of the bridge, while reserving the right to build another bridge with a different design at the same location later. No matter how misguided or unpopular – give it five, ten, or twenty years – the bridge at Pon-tocho will be built.

Across Japan, gigantic earthmoving projects – among the largest and most costly in the world-continue to advance, many long after their original purposes have disappeared. There is hope, however, in new citizens' opposition movements that are beginning to stir, such as the one that stopped the Pontocho bridge. Other projects are being canceled or «extended indefinitely» because their costs have run too high even for Japan's profligate ministries. One such example is Shimane Prefecture's plan (dating back to 1963) to create new agricultural land by filling in part of Lake Nakaumi at a cost of $770 million, even though the number of farmers in the area, the people for whom the plan was intended, has dropped. The few farmers who remain vigorously oppose the landfill because of the damage it will do to the water quality of the lake, but the project continued on course-until recently. In August 2000, the government, as part of a review of the most notoriously waste u public-works projects, decided to halt the landfill. While this is progress, it does not mean that Lake Nakaumi or the area und it will remain in pristine condition. For one thing, 40 cent of the reclamation has already been completed; meanwhile on learning of the news of cancellation, local governments scrambled to present new proposals for roads, and even for reclamation of other parts of the lake to «revitalize the local economy» Shimane governor Sumita Nobuyoshi told reporters that he would do everything in his power to make sure the replacement proposals get funded. The Concept at Lake Nakaumi will live on, although under different names.

The roots of Japan's environmental troubles go much deeper than the mere greed of bureaucrats and politicians. Japan is a sobering case study, for it calls into question what may befall the landscape of other countries in East Asia or across the world. What happens if «developing countries» never become «developed countries»? The great modern paradox of Japan is the mismatch between its present-day economic success and its governing mentality, which is that of a still-undeveloped country.

Japan suffers from a severe case of «pave and build» mentality. «Pave and build» is the idea that huge, expensive, man-made monuments are a priori wonderful, that natural surfaces smoothed over and covered with concrete mean wealth, progress, and modernism. Nakaoki Yutaka, the governor of Toyama Prefecture, summarized this attitude when he argued, in September 1996, for the construction of a new railroad line to rural areas, although there was no apparent need for it. Building the new line, he said, «is needed to develop the social infrastructure so that people can feel they have become rich .»

Before World War II, Japan was a poor nation, with industrialization limited to its cities. The War devastated the cities, and afterward the pave-and-build mentality took root. Although today Japan is wealthy – by some measures, the wealthiest nation in the world – and every tiny hamlet has «developed,» the postwar view that progress means building something new and shiny remains unchanged.

President Dwight Eisenhower once remarked that when he was growing up his family was very poor. «But the wonder of America,» he said, «is that we never felt poor.» The wonder of Japan lies in precisely the opposite feeling: though rich, people do not feel rich, and hence need a constant supply of new train lines and freshly cemented riverbanks to reassure them.

Kata is an important Japanese word that means «forms,» a term that derives from traditional arts and refers to fixed movements in dance, the tea ceremony, and martial arts. Once the kata of an art take shape, it is nearly impossible to change them fundamentally, although practitioners may make slight adjustments and embellishments. In the tea ceremony, kata require that the tea master first fold a small silk cloth and wipe the tea container with it. Followers of the Urasenke school fold the cloth in thirds, while those of the Mushanokoji school fold it in half, but the essential kata is the same for both schools.

Kata apply to modern life in Japan as well. Japan's school system, established in the 1880s, took as its model the Prussian system, complete (for the boys) with black military uniforms with high collars and brass buttons. Today, even though the boys have dyed hair and wear earrings, they must continue to wear these uniforms – a kata that never changed. In general, most of Japan's modern kata do not go back as far as the Prussian uniforms; they can be traced to the early postwar years, roughly 1945-1965, the period during which Japan experienced its highest growth rate and its modern industry, banking, and bureaucracy took shape. The mismatch between the realities of the 1990s and ways of thinking established in the decades before 1965 is the keynote of Japan's modern troubles – and it is visible in every art and industry. The kata were set in their present shape almost forty years ago and are now out of step with the modern world.

Pave-and-build involves another mismatch – with Japan's own tradition. In their historical culture, the Japanese have all the ingredients necessary to counter or, at least, to temper this mentality. «Love of nature» is a cliche in the standard literature about Japan, and there was much truth in it, as can be seen in the haiku poems of Basho or the intensively cared for gardens of Kyoto. Japan was once the land of love of autumn grasses and mossy hillsides covered with the falling leaves of gingko trees and maples; Japanese art is almost synonymous with the words restraint and miniature, with the use of unpolished wood and rough clay. Yet modern Japan pursues a path that is completely at variance with its own tradition.