Number of words: 1,036

In 1942, the Japanese people were one of the anachronisms of the modern world, for although they had acquired the material assets and trappings of modern civilization philosophy, mentally they were still struggling to emancipate themselves from the fetters of feudalism and barbaric mysticism. 

In appearance there is no such thing as a typical Japanese, nor is it easy to tell the difference between a Japanese and Chinese. The Japanese vary enormously in appearance, from the tall good looks, by our standards, of the Ainu tribe from the northern island of Hokkaido, to the short legged baboon like appearance of the more southern inhabitants. Of all the basis of the world the Japanese are physically one of the least attractive.

They are the most excitable of the human race and at times, they can become quite historical with either range or enchantment. If something annoys a Japanese, he can go berserk without thought of justice, personal dignity or possible retribution: a dangerous man who proved particularly when he has a bayonet of the end of his rifle. If you want to please a Japanese, compliment him on the spiritual side of his character; if you want to annoy him, then all you have to do is to laugh at him, with his congenital inferiority complex, derision is the one thing he fears. 

At the beginning of the war they were terribly immature: they had only been on international terms with the rest of the world for about a hundred years.

As recently as the middle of the nineteenth century Japan was, to all intents and purposes, cut off from the rest of the civilized world; contact of any sort with the outside world was forbidden and the people of Japan existed in glorious isolation, practicing their ancient and mediaeval customs, barbaric rituals and mystical taboos. 

In earlier days, Japan was ruled by Shoguns and for three centuries, prior to 1850, power was in the hands of the Tokugawa dynasty, a feudal family who had usurped the power of the rightful royal family. Below the ruling shoguns were approximately 300 feudal lords and the country was divided up into districts, each ruled by a lord and his feudal clan. 

Japan in 1800 can be compared with England in 1200 and the bushido code in Japan was not unlike the western chivalry of the 14th century.

The bushido code taught that the worst thing a samurai could do was to bring shame on his lord on his family and it taught ceremony and etiquette in peace with fearless deeds and self-sacrifice in war. The Japanese ceremonial suicide, Hara Kiri, was both obligatory and laudable for anyone who had committed a dishonourable act and was the method of Atonement. 

Another typical attitude practiced by the Japanese was a form of stoicism which was developed by Buddhist teaching. ‘Deprecate the material value of things and be loyal to the lord.’ This was one of their most cherished principles and they were taught to believe that endurance and repression were the highest ideals of life. 

Japan emerged into the modern world in 1868 when the original royal family in the person of Emperor Matsohito, a boy of only 15, posthumously known as Meiji, the enlightened one, obtained the ruling power of Japan at the expense of the Tokugawa shogunate and inaugurated the modern and westernized era in Japan. At this time the capital was moved from Kyoto to Tokyo. 

It can be reasonably be said that the Japanese people were forced into a run before they were properly able to walk and had learned to use the inventions of modern science without having undergone any of the traditional training and experience necessary to put these things to good use. No doubt, some of the less creditable performance of the Japanese performances of the Japanese, such as the sack of Nanking and the Burma Siam railway were a return to primitive brutality from which they were not very far removed. 
Many of these ancient mystical taboos and quite recent feudal practices can explain many of the incomprehensible attitudes we as prisoners had to deal with. Their pathological inferiority complex, their fear of being put in the wrong and losing face, their attitude to us as prisoners. All these strange and at times incomprehensible attitude we found hard to understand and deal with. 

One very strong influence on the Japanese people was Buddhism,which spread from China to Japan in the 6th century AD, but the basis of this faith was Shinto, the way of the Gods. The kamikaze were seeking Nirvana, the Buddhist paradise, in which one is released from all worldly considerations and problems. Shintoism is based on the belief that the Gods are the ancestors of the Japanese people and the family of the emperor is descended from the sun goddess herself, and thus he was a divine being, a God who all Japanese worshipped. 

In addition, Shintoism taught a highly Nationalist spirit which, in the 1930s the incoming warlords used in the militarist movement in Japan: they taught that the Japanese army was God’s army here on earth, and therefore could do no wrong. 

it was all these ancient cultures that enabled the Japanese warlords to initiate the practice of kamikaze; The gods of the wind, the kamikaze, were paraded in the streets dressed in special clothing and everybody bowed to them as they passed; heroes would you say, or dupes of a ruthless regime? Similarly the fanatical bravery of Japanese troops was nurtured and increased by the ancient cultures, mysticism and taboos.

In 1940 Japan allied herself with the axis powers, Germany and Italy, and in the agreed world carve-up, Japan was to inherit from the British their dominant position in the far East. Party organisations were outlawed, strict militarism was a way of life and a dictatorship was established under General Tojo, subject only to retaining Emperor Hirohito as the supreme head of state and God like father figure of the Japanese people. Japan was to establish the ‘Great East Asia co-prosperity Sphere’ to add to her territory and to find space for her bulging population.

Excerpted from Pg 90-93 of ‘Guest of an Emperor’ by Arthur Cransie