History Lesson

Some years ago I spent a year or two doing graduate study in Japan. My Japanese wasn't bad in those days, although it depended on what the topic was. If someone wanted to talk about baseball, they were out of luck. If someone wanted to talk about the development of the Japanese legal system in the context of the larger development of capitalism in Japan in the 19th century, I was their man. My memories of my time there seem to involve a very few very long conversations.

I mostly talked to professors. Once, I met a professor who came from an ancient (by ancient, I mean "trace my lineage back 1,200 years" ancient) noble family. He seemed to be someone that I should cultivate. But sucking up to professors was hard. On one hand, small talk (which I hate) was important. On the other hand, I had to try to look like a scholar. It was very easy to slip the rails here.

A topic to try to avoid was World War 2. In general the War doesn't excite strong emotions in people there, who mostly view it as a universal tragedy. But sometimes I would run into people who had been maimed themselves or who had had their families and property obliterated in our bombings. I suppose one needs an eye for history (as I used to have) to look around Japanese cities and see that there are almost no pre-War buildings anywhere, since we destroyed them all. So some people hate us, although they don't go out of their way to say anything as a rule.

The professor from the noble family was a historian of modern Japan and that was my problem. Could I have an in-depth but yet facile conversation about the War (which had resulted, among other things, in the fall of families like his) if it came up? Would he have strong feelings about the War that he would transfer to me? Would other people at the conference, seeing him talking to an American, come up and join in out of curiosity?

We exchanged business cards to establish our ranks and occupations as all Japanese do. We established some shared connections in Japan and the university I was going to. We noted that there was weather outside and many people inside. Then we somehow slipped into the topic of art. Rocky shoals here, because Japanese art is something that I may not know much about but I know what I like. But we were able to converse smoothly, keeping it pretty shallow, like a teardrop on a mirror. It looked like smooth sailing until he brought up the War.

"My family has a few good, ancient pieces still. But alas, we really lost everything in the War."

Was this an ambush? Did he bring this up to open the gate to expressing strong feelings to the foreign barbarian?

"The War? Do you mean World War 2? Where was your family living?"

"Oh, he sighed. I mean the Onin War."

The Onin War was in 1467.