Japan debates dignity, or the lack thereof

tokyo -- The annual autumn sumo tournament concludes Sunday in Tokyo, a two-week-long sporting pageant loaded with ceremonial traditions that this time is missing its Mongolian-born superstar, Asashoryu. The ferocious grand champion, or yokozuna, was in seclusion at a Mongolian hot spring, having slipped out of Japan to seek treatment for what is officially being called depression.

The yokozuna’s reputation has taken a beating over his flight from public scrutiny. He has been derided for playing hooky and his disappearance has given rise to a new Japanese verb: Asashoryu-suru, roughly meaning to shirk responsibility by faking an illness.

Pulling an Asashoryu suru is also how some here have described the unusual resignation of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who quit his job Sept. 10 without warning. After a rambling farewell news conference at which he never gave a clear explanation for his departure, Abe then checked into a Tokyo hospital. He has remained there throughout the short campaign to pick his successor, reportedly suffering from a chronic intestinal ailment and from stress.

His condition has been no protection from the storm of ridicule that hit him for walking away from his responsibilities. To many people here, throwing in the towel seemed hypocritical, given Abe’s political mantra of cultivating a “beautiful country [that] respects discipline and has dignity.”

The opprobrium directed toward Asashoryu and Abe springs, in part, from a sense that they have acted without suitable dignity.

Hinkaku, as it is called in Japan, has long been a venerated cultural value. But dignity is particularly high profile at the moment, amid protests from those who believe the Japanese people are losing it.

Take the case of Asashoryu. The brash Mongolian had been a burr in the backside of the traditionalists running the Japan Sumo Assn., who were appalled by his refusal to act with the humble stoicism expected of champions. There were complaints about his disdain for opponents, an after-hours street brawl and an ugly incident of hair-pulling in the ring.

So when Asashoryu skipped the annual summer exhibition tour because of what he said was a bad back -- and then was caught on film kicking a soccer ball around the Mongolian steppes in a charity match -- the sport’s governing body pounced. It fined the yokozuna and suspended him for two tournaments, something it had never done.

The behavior, association executives said, lacked the dignity expected of a yokozuna.

The preoccupation with dignity can be traced to the publication in 2005 of the best-selling lament for a lost Japan called “The Dignity of The Nation,” in which author Masahiko Fujiwara blasted the Japanese faith in Western values of logic, democracy and individualism. The patriotic tome urged the Japanese to put an equal emphasis on their emotions, such as feeling a unique melancholy toward autumn.

Fujiwara also demanded a restoration of the samurai spirit, the only way for Japan to avoid having its culture dragged down by association with the perceived vulgarity of the West.

Fujiwara’s call for Japan to embrace bushido values, a loosely defined moral code that emphasizes charity, courage and justice, flew off bookstore shelves and continues to sell well. In response, publishers pumped out so many other tomes on bushido, or books with “dignity” in the title, that many bookstores had to dedicate sections of shelf space to the subject.

The word “dignity” alone has often been enough to sell a book. One current best-seller is “Dignity of a Woman,” in which author Mariko Bando offers advice to women on how to recover the etiquette and social habits of old that she sees as necessary to succeeding in modern Japan.

“Japanese society is becoming more conservative, more appreciative of its cultural traditions,” and the sale of more than a million copies has been driven by the public’s appetite for books on traditional values, Bando said. But she complained that while her book has sold well by association, it is also misunderstood. Her theme, she said, is how women can bring a softer approach to relationships to change the cold, rapacious character of corporate Japan.

“I’m actually afraid of those old values,” she said in an interview, referring to “The Dignity of the Nation.” “Some of them are good. But some are dangerous.”

The inability to specifically define “dignity” may have been part of its appeal. Trend spotting agencies declared hinkaku the most popular buzzword of 2006. Companies started to welcome bushido specialists into staff training.

And Japanese athletes and celebrities discovered that their popularity with the public could be tied to their “dignity” quotient, whatever that was. Baseball star Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners was said to possess it in spades, more than any other Japanese public figure, according to Oricon Style, a market data firm best-known for its music charts.

None of this was lost on Abe and the cultural conservatives who accompanied him into power in 2006. Abe’s career had risen on the back of a nationalist political movement within the Liberal Democratic Party that not only questioned the standing narrative about Japan’s war guilt, but was appalled by what it saw as collapsing social morals infected by Western notions of what they called “egotism.”

Once in power, they sought to turn back the clock of liberalism. They urged a patriotic Japan that valued personal discipline, strong family ties and communal obligations. They amended the basic education law to force teachers to teach pride in being Japanese. And Abe created a task force charged with identifying excellence in Japanese culture so it could be used it to promote his “beautiful country.”

That task force was ignominiously disbanded Friday, the latest sign that the Abe vision is in ashes. His conservative agenda was repudiated in partial elections this summer in which voters handed control of parliament’s upper house to the main opposition, though the prime minister staggered on in office for a few more weeks.

The final collapse was his bizarre departure scene: a tearful, incoherent performance that was anything but dignified.

“The prime minister liked to use the term hinkaku, but he took the least dignified way of resigning,” political commentator Hirotaka Futatsuki said.

The governing Liberal Democratic Party is now running as fast as possible away from the Abe brand of politics. On Sunday, it will almost certainly hand the leadership to Yasuo Fukuda, 71, a party veteran they dismissed just a year ago as being too soft on China, too soft on North Korea and too willing to express remorse for Japan’s wartime role.

The only candidate to stand against Fukuda was Taro Aso, an Abe ally and foreign minister for most of the last year, who finds himself representing a discredited policy. He has acknowledged that he is running far behind Fukuda.

Perhaps in the rush to woo the million or so people who bought “The Dignity of the Nation,” the LDP forgot about the many millions more who didn’t.

“The LDP chose Abe only because they thought he could win, but his ideas did not represent a consensus in the party,” Futatsuki said.

“The party is now fed up and exhausted. They will elect Fukuda because they want to take a rest with someone who can be a healing uncle.”

Meanwhile, Mongolian doctors are reporting that Asashoryu is feeling better and may be well enough to return to Japan. The yokozuna’s appetite is said to be coming back. And he is starting to smile.

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bruce.wallace@latimes.com

Hisako Ueno of The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report