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Japan's expo of
contradictions
By Cem Ozturk
NAGOYA - Two green plant-like
cartoon creatures of Japan's long-lost natural
woodlands, Kiccoro, the "Forest Child", and
Morizo, the "Forest Grandfather" - cute and
ubiquitous official mascots - are overrunning the
2005 World Exhibition, known as Expo 2005,
dedicated to "Nature's Wisdom". That wisdom,
however, has been
thwarted and perverted with concrete coastlines,
cemented riverbeds, concrete and ironclad
hillsides and man-planted commercial forests that
afflict many Japanese with tearful pollen
allergies. They - perhaps as many as a third of
the population - could be weeping for Japan.
This extravaganza of contradictions opened
last week and will last six months in Aichi
prefecture, focusing the world's attention on
Japan's thriving industrial heartland. But while
everyone in Japan supports the objectives of
environmental responsibility and sustainable
development, the topics of the day, many voices
inside the nation point out there are many
fearsome environmental skeletons in Japan's
closets.
Once upon a time, Japan was one
of the most beautiful lands, one that celebrated
nature's beauty and bounty in painting, poetry
(haiku traditionally features nature),
prose, music and other art forms. The celebrations
or seasons and cherry blossoms continue today, but
for many observers they ring hollow and Expo 2005
is seen as an ironic, feel-good waste of funds
intended to extol Japan as a champion of the
environment. The Kyoto Protocol, aimed at limiting
emissions of greenhouse gases, took effect in the
middle of February. The Japanese government, under
pressure from business, already has backed down
from requiring a "green" environmental tax on
industry, emphasizing instead voluntary
commitments by the nation's big polluters to clean
up their acts.
Kiccoro and Morizo may be
trying to make us forget the sordid environment
elsewhere. They have infested Nagoya, Japan's
third-largest city. Just outside the doors of the
bustling ultra-modern Nagoya Station, it is
impossible to miss these cutesy reminders of
bygone times; they are perched atop a nearby
building, directly across from two towering
red-and-white construction cranes.
Anime
movie scene this is not, although the two
characters are certainly drawn in the same
appealing style for which Japanese cartoonists are
famous. Kiccoro and Morizo are everywhere at the
Aichi World Exposition 2005, an international
event expected to draw millions of visitors. Local
enthusiasm for the event is high, and typical of
trend-driven Japan, the mascots dangle from mobile
phones and are emblazoned on bumper stickers, on
boxes of tissues, on bags of shrimp-flavored
snacks, and even on underwear.
Another
international exposition
Expo 2005 opened
on March 25, with exhibitions as ancient as the
remains of an 18,000-year-old mastodon, and as
advanced as next-generation robots performing
hip-hop, driverless buses, and technologies that
convert the actual garbage from the expo into
immediately usable energy. Recycled and converted
rubbish is channeled as energy into the power grid
and powers the expo itself.
More than 120
countries, a multitude of international
organizations, and many major corporations such as
Toyota - a neighbor and major underwriter - and
Hitachi are represented at the spectacle, being
held in the Seto and Nagakute regions of Aichi,
about 30 minutes by train from the prefecture's
capital Nagoya.
As one would expect from
such a major international event, all manner of
royalty, heads of state, entertainers and
celebrities will be on hand, including German
President Horst Koehler, composer Phillip Glass,
cellist Yo Yo Ma and even Emperor Akihito. In
terms of hoi polloi, the event's organizers
predict that 15 million will attend by the time
the expo closes on September 25.
According
to the Bureau International des Expositions, the
Paris-based organization that regulates all
international exhibitions, every World Exposition
since the original 1851 Great Exhibition in London
has been charged with the task of educating the
public along the lines of a guiding theme.
The theme of the last World Exposition
hosted by Japan was "Progress and Harmony for
Mankind" in 1970. Hugely successful, it served the
dual purpose of introducing the outside world to a
country in its nascent stages of
internationalization, and helping to redefine
post-World War II Japan as a major manufacturing
and technology power.
Many Japanese still
fondly remember the event, attended by more than
64 million people, as marking a changing point in
Japanese society. "It was the first time I had
ever seen a blond-haired woman," recalled
Toshihiro Ando, the president of an architecture
firm in Aichi. "I was so amazed - I just walked up
to her and shook her hand."
Thirty-five
years later, the international expo has returned
to Japan, but the circumstances are quite
different. There are certainly more blond-haired
residents, if mostly at work in the hostess bars
of Japan's famous and sprawling domestic escort
industry. Japan has long been an established
international economic powerhouse, even after its
economic bubble burst in the 1990s. The residents
of Japan are now relatively accustomed to
international cultures - if not through direct
contact within still ethnically homogeneous Japan,
then through the ubiquity of outward-looking media
that bring the world to them.
More
important this time, though, is the fact that Expo
2005 will bring the world to Aichi, one of Japan's
most economically successful prefectures. A
dependable source of growth in the nation's
now-tepid economy, Aichi has consistently reported
positive real growth at times when all other
prefectures recorded negative growth. During its
better years, the prefecture by itself is
responsible for more than 1% of the world's total
gross domestic product (GDP). At a time when
Japan's regional economic image is in a state of
change, showcasing one of the country's most
powerful local economies may foster renewed
confidence in Japan, and help build business ties
internationally, especially with Japan's
neighbors.
That's certainly what the
organizers are hoping for, as visa restrictions on
all Chinese, South Koreans and Taiwanese have been
lifted for the duration of the event, despite
domestic concern that doing so will bring in waves
of illegal workers and organized crime. China,
which is to host the next World Exposition in
Shanghai in 2010, is keeping a close eye on this
event.
There is much speculation in the
national press that Japan will use Expo 2005 as a
platform from which to advocate its bid for a
permanent seat on the United Nations Security
Council. As reported by the Japan Times,
government sources have indicated that visiting
dignitaries have been requested to visit Tokyo for
talks relating to the council seat bid and other
issues, visits expected to generate a significant
amount of noteworthy diplomacy.
Just as
the 1970 exposition consolidated Japan's role as a
leading economic power, this expo will help
promote Japan's role as a leading advocate of
sustainable development. There is some question,
though, as to Japan's suitability for that role.
Nature's wisdom?
Official
explanations of the "Nature's Wisdom" theme speak
vaguely and at great length about transforming the
relationships among man, nature and technology to
envisage and create a brighter new eco-friendly
society, a brave new world of man in tune once
again with nature.
It is taken for granted
here that Japan possesses a culture at one with
nature: the passing of the seasons is celebrated
with elaborate ritual and fanfare; the traditional
culture is as rich as any in praising the beauty
of the natural world in poetry, art and religion.
Japan's solemn Shinto shrines were built to honor
gods thought to inhabit the mountains, rivers and
trees.
While this connection to nature
certainly existed in the past, the nation's
oneness with nature has not persisted through
Japan's modernization and economic rise. According
to the official explanation of the expo's theme:
Looking back at the history of
Japan, one can see that Japan has faced a dual
challenge - in focusing on economic development
while at the same time preserving its precious
natural environment. In spite of the fact that
Japan lacks vast open spaces and abundant
mineral resources, it has achieved industrial
development and prosperity without destroying
its natural environment. Although this
idea is embraced by the much of the public, there
is a large and growing number of voices inside
Japan, in media, government and the general public
that strongly disagree. The truth, they hold,
couldn't be more different.
"The
bureaucracy of the Japanese government has done
everything it could practically to wipe clean,
flatten and do away with 'Nature's Wisdom',"
author Alex Kerr told Asia Times Online. Kerr is
the first foreigner in Japan's history to win the
prestigious Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize,
which he received in 1994 for his non-fiction book
about cultural and environmental changes in
contemporary Japan, titled Lost Japan.
"As hundreds of billions of dollars are
being spent continually on this [environmental
degradation], for Japan to be hosting something
called 'Nature's Wisdom' is somewhat ironic," Kerr
said.
Concrete thinking
Of great
concern to many Japanese is the destruction of
Japan's once legendary natural beauty by massive
and often unnecessary public works undertaken by
the Construction Ministry and its subcontractors.
The construction industry is so large in Japan
that the name dokken kokka ("construction
state") is commonly used by Japanese pundits when
describing their country. Public works are huge
business in Japan for contractors and government
bureaucrats alike, and spending in this area has
grown to two or three times that of other
industrialized countries. The result of these
environmentally disruptive works, according to
Kerr, is that Japan has become arguably the
world's ugliest country.
Kerr told Asia
Times Online: "Speaking to civic groups and others
around the country, I have met a great many people
who are outraged with what is happening to the
environment here. There is a dialogue going on,
even within the government - but change is still
outweighed by the vast power of the bureaucratic
machine."
A look at the concrete-gray
coasts of Japan will humble any visitor previously
excited by the scenic pictures in travel books and
on postcards. According to Kerr in the book
Dogs and Demons, 97% of all major rivers in
Japan are dammed - and all are lined with
concrete. By 1993 an astounding 55% of Japan's
coastlines were covered in concrete laid down by
government programs. The gray concrete of the
once-natural beach lines is punctuated by piles of
countless concrete and iron tetrapods -
four-legged anti-erosion barriers that look like
large jacks and are often as large as bulldozers.
"I miss the natural scenery from my
childhood days," said Aichi resident Makiko Kato.
"When I was young, it was much more beautiful.
These days, the beaches and rivers are artificial,
everything is concrete."
Driving through
Aichi, the host region of the expo itself, it is
not uncommon to see hillsides covered in massive,
grid-like masks of reinforced concrete, apparently
designed to prevent erosion. Hiking through even
remote trails in the sparsely populated area of
Shitara in eastern Aichi, it is common to come
across mountain streams that have been paved under
with squared-off concrete waterways, waterfalls
that now trickle along stained concrete chutes.
The whole country, it seems, is one giant
construction project.
Foreign visitors to
the opening of Expo 2005 might be alarmed by the
number of local attendees wearing protective masks
to the eco-festivities. Every spring, along with
the famous sakura or cherry-blossom
festivals, come extremely high levels of airborne
sugi (Japanese cedar) pollen. Allergies to
sugi pollen, unknown before Japan's
industrial development, now affect huge numbers of
the population, and the number of kafunsho
(pollen allergy) sufferers rises every year.
The levels are so high that in a 2005
nationwide poll conducted by the Asahi Shimbun,
more than one-third of the respondents were
afflicted with the painful pollen syndrome. "About
50% of people I know have it," said Aichi resident
Amiko Kitagowa. "It can be really bad for some
people - like having a cold for two months."
What is noteworthy about the sugi
phenomenon is that this nationwide ailment is
entirely man-made. As Kerr reported, during the
postwar reconstruction, the Japan Forestry Agency
began a program to clear-cut the nation's native
forest and replace it with commercial timber.
Trillions of yen have been poured into this
program, which continues today despite the fact
that it is far cheaper to import wood. About 45%
of Japan's native forest has been replaced with
this commercial timber - almost all of which is
the allergenic sugi. The result of this
policy has been that the natural, native forests
of Japan have been razed and replaced with vast,
unneeded tracts of neatly lined commercial
forests, whose main contribution to the country
its their sickening pollen.
Though the
species of the Expo 2005's mascots, Forest Child
Kiccoro and Forest Grandfather Morizo, are
unclear, it is safe to assume that they are
probably not sugi. Expo 2005 may be
centered on environmental responsibility, but it
is being hosted by a country that many say has
hardly been a role model. Japan's legendary
manufacturers, however, may be providing the real
leadership in this area.
Toyota's
blooming eco-industries
Aichi is home to a
robust manufacturing industry, led by the world's
No 2 auto maker, Toyota Motor Corp. Toyota City,
known as Koromo City until 1959, is in the center
of Aichi, southeast of Nagoya. The success of
Aichi as a major industrial area is tied directly
to the success of Toyota; the auto manufacturer is
unquestionably the most important corporation in
the prefecture.
So it is no surprise then
that Toyota has had a major role in Expo 2005. As
the lead corporate underwriter, Toyota has been
instrumental in the development, planning and
execution of the exposition - so much so that many
here have dubbed the event "Toyota Expo 2005".
The automotive giant, whose site at the
expo is among the most popular, is demonstrating
some of its latest environmentally friendly
technologies, such as hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered
buses and cars and self-regenerating catalysts.
It hardly seems coincidental that the
"Toyota Expo" is being held at the same time as
Toyota is making a push to redefine itself as the
leader in alternative-energy powertrains. The
company currently is leading the way in the
hybrid-car market with its award-winning Prius
model, which commands the lion's share of global
hybrid sales. On the very day of the expo's
opening in Japan, Toyota released its first hybrid
luxury sedan in New York, a model that is expected
to fare well as oil prices continue to fluctuate.
Toyota has provided leadership in this
area for many years. Toyota has funded major
reforestation projects, made environmental grants
and used as much as 88% recycled plastic in its
cars, among other activities - Toyota seems to be
as environment-friendly as a car manufacturer can
be.
While an auto manufacturer may seem a
dubious champion of environmental programs, global
companies such as Toyota can effect change
internationally in ways governments cannot.
Whether or not a US or Australian president signs
the Kyoto Protocol (neither has signed, nor
appears likely to do so), if Americans and
Australians are driving hybrid cars, and embracing
alternative-energy technology, it may not matter
so much.
A hopeful and, it's
hoped, profitable event
Despite all of
the contradictions inherent in an event like this,
the project seems a boon for its hosts Japan and
Toyota. Both are certain to receive boosts to
their regional and international images, and the
environmental issues at hand could hardly have two
more powerful patrons in government and industry.
While an improved image is virtually
assured, the hosts of the event will be lucky to
break even financially. Previous World Exhibitions
in Lisbon and Germany fell very far short of their
expected attendance numbers, and local governments
ended up paying the difference.
Yet even
the most vigorous critics of Japan's environmental
problems are somewhat hopeful about the outcome of
Expo 2005, extolling nature's wisdom. "Maybe Japan
is the very best place for an event like this,"
Kerr said. Perhaps the event will lead to serious
rethinking of Japan's environmental course and
point the way to solutions to Japan's many
domestic environmental issues.
"This expo
is closer than Tokyo Disneyland," said Nagoya
resident Maki Morimoto. "So maybe I will go."
Perhaps.
Cem Ozturk is a roving
freelance writer based in Nagoya, Japan. He has
written on China, the Middle East and other
regions and his articles have appeared in
Lonely Planet, the Irrawaddy, Middle East
Insight and other publications.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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