Japan

Kyoko Jones coordinates the Fulbright Memorial Fund Program in Japan. Perhaps because once again the United States is gripped with fear and embroiled in another war, I found Kyoko Jones' remarks tonight at the Welcome Reception in Tokyo deeply moving. I asked her if she would share them with me in print so I could share them with you. She graciously agreed, and I post them here in their entirety.

Some things that we take for granted initially come as surprises. Americans are decent people. The Japanese are decent people. Sixty years ago we were shocked to discover this about each other. American children had learned that “Japs” were underhanded, back stabbing sneaks who started the war. Japanese children learned that American marines were monsters willing to kill their own grandmothers. While these images were exaggerations, the hatreds and fears underlying them were real.

The attack on Pearl Harbor, the death march at Bataan and the relentless kamikaze attacks revulsed Americans with their brutality. American efforts to starve Japan into submission, the nightly fire bombings of cities and the terrible carnage of the atomic bombs horrified the Japanese. People on each side were convinced that the others were monsters bent on destroying them. So when the people of Tokyo looked out over the piles of bodies and charred ruins that filled this city, they had little reason to welcome the American conquerors. When the Americans landed to find prison camps filled with emaciated and starving POW’s, they had little reason to feel sympathy for Japan.

There was all the potential for a protracted, bitter guerrilla war. The people of Japan were prepared for this, they had stored arms and had drilled everyone, even young children, in how to kill the enemy. The Americans expected fanatical resistance. Yet instead there was an uneasy peace in which both sides eyed each other warily.

Then gradually something amazing began to happen. It was a quiet thing, a beginning of understanding that the other was not alien, that the other was
indeed human. It had many roots. One of the most important ones sprang from a tiny seed that was planted almost unnoticed in U.S. legislation regarding the disposal of surplus war goods and resources left overseas.

It was a bill written by a young senator from what was then considered a backward rural state. He had realized that the disposal of war properties
could generate the funds needed to achieve one of his dreams. That senator, William Fulbright, had figured out how to turn the weapons of war into the
tools for building peace. He knew that shared educational experiences could bring people together and lead them to recognize and value each other’s common humanity and each other’s unique cultural identities and that that would become the basis for a lasting peace.

Japanese beneficiaries of this vision have gone on to become leaders in business, government, medicine and education. They have guided many of the initiatives that have brought Japan from the edge of starvation, misery and defeat to a position of prosperity and world leadership. So we, Japanese, feel a sense of on, indebtedness or obligation, to the Fulbright program and to the American people.

It still serves as shining examples of how education and international relations can fuse together to build a meaningful peace. It also provided Japan with the inspiration to do something to discharge this debt of honor - so you are here tonight as part of this process. We want you to be aware of this, so that you will recognize the debt that you and we owe to visionaries such as Senator Fulbright.

We feel we can never really repay this debt, which we actually owe to him, and to your parents or grandparents. Many past FMFers say they feel the same way about repaying Japan for this opportunity. But we don’t expect you to repay us, just as Senator Fulbright didn’t expect other countries to repay the U.S. Instead we expect you to feel the obligation to take the things you learn from this program back to your communities to enrich the lives of your students and others in the same way Fulbright scholars have enriched our lives in Japan.

Yet at the same time, we should acknowledge that you are adding to our sense of indebtedness. As you visit schools, towns and homes, you will touch the lives of the people you meet, you will expose them to a vibrant cross-section of America and you will inspire others to undertake their own
voyages of discovery. So in the end, we may be more indebted to America than before, but this sort of debt enhances life by making us more intensely aware of our mutual dependence, more aware of the fact we are true friends, who have freely undertaken obligations to each other, who can see how this has transformed us from being fierce unthinking enemies into people mutually committed to enhancing peace and the quality of life everywhere.
This is what we hope you will take home with you as a lasting treasure, a gift from our nations to each other.

Kyoko Jones 10/04/06