Dogs and Demons_ Tales From the Dark Side of Japan - Kerr [163]
Nevertheless, there is movement below the surface. Despite what Marxist theory tells us, the masses rarely start revolutions. The instigators tend to be the educated middle class and disgruntled low-level officials, what one might call «the soft underbelly of the elite» – and the soft underbelly is hurting. Since the publication of Lost Japan in Japanese, I am sometimes asked to speak on panels or write for specialist publications, even to act as a consultant to government agencies. What I have found is that the mid-levels of many organizations – mostly people in their forties – are disillusioned and frustrated by their inability to make changes. Mid-level disillusionment is a highly subjective area. There are no statistics on this subject, and elite-track officials and company employees don't write books and articles, which leaves me with very little in the way of published quotable material. I have only my own experiences to go by.
In 1994, I wrote an article lambasting the dreary displays and shoddy interiors of the Ueno National Museum. Soon afterward, at an opening, I met one of the top officials in the agency that runs the museum. He approached me, and I steeled myself for an angry denunciation of my article-only to hear him say that he personally thinks the mismanagement of Japanese museums is a disgrace. But despite his lofty position in the hierarchy there is little he can do. At the moment, the «soft underbelly» is hurting, but even elite managers are powerless against the inertia of their agencies.
The same official did manage to bring in a team of experts from the Smithsonian to give advice on modern museum management. To put most of that advice into practice he will have to wait – as enlightened middle-level bureaucrats and executives across Japan are waiting – for stodgy seniors to retire, or for their department to fall into such disarray that they can finally seize the initiative. This group of would-be reformers are like Madame Defarge in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, a secret revolutionary who sat for years in her tavern quietly knitting the names of hated aristocrats into her shawl. When the revolution finally came, she took her place at the foot of the guillotine, counting as the heads rolled. A lot of people in Japan are waiting to count heads.
You can hear the drumbeat of coming revolution in the rising level of anger in public opinion, fueled to a great extent by the sheer embarrassment of falling behind. There is considerable chagrin as the gaps between Japan and the United States, Europe, and newly wealthy Asian states widen. The thrust of the educational system is to make people highly competitive, and the hierarchical social structure gets people into the habit of ranking ethnic groups and nations as «higher» and «lower.» Naturally, they would like to stand at the top of the pyramid, and this leads to obsessive comparisons between Japan and other countries. This is where the frustration comes in.
When millions of Japanese travel abroad and return from Singapore's beautiful and efficient Changi Airport to the grim environment of Narita, the disparity is too strong to ignore. The decline of the Tokyo stock market, against a backdrop of explosive growth in New York and London, has been an agonizing spectacle for Japan's financial community. By the end of the century, Chinese-directed films featuring major Hollywood stars regularly took top spots in American box offices, and Chinese stars had become household names; in contrast, Japan's greatest success was Pokemon, a movie for ten-year-olds. The Japanese sense the contrast between the bright lights and excitement outside, and the mediocrity inside. They are embarrassed.
Yet while the groundwork exists, there is no assurance that the revolution will come. Against the dissatisfaction