Hideaki Ota at Shimizugaoka High School. (©Japan Forward)
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Hideaki Ota, Representative Director of Japan Forward and adviser to The Sankei Shimbun, delivered a speech titled "On Japan and the Japanese People" at Shimizugaoka High School in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, on October 14, 2025. The audience included about 600 students, including visitors from its sister school, Aoyama Junior and Senior High School.
The speech followed a capping ceremony for first-year nursing students at Shimizugaoka High School, marking the start of their clinical training. An edited version is published here with the school's permission.
Second in a Three-Part Series
Read Part One
War and Justice
War has never disappeared from human history. From before the Common Era to the present day, it has continued without interruption. In the 2nd century AD, at the height of the Roman Empire, the emperor Marcus Aurelius—often called the "philosopher king"—wrote that the world is destined to be tormented by unending evil.
The fighting between Israel and Hamas is one such war. It is now moving, if only slightly, in a better direction, but the war in Gaza continues. Every day, images of it are broadcast in the media, and they are beyond tragic.
The war in Ukraine, following Russia's invasion, is still ongoing. And decades before that, there was the Pacific War, which Japan calls the Greater East Asia War, and World War II. These were followed by the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Afghanistan War, and the Iraq War. War has never ceased.
In World War II, Japan had its own justifications and reasoning. The United States had its own arguments, and China, which was invaded by Japan, naturally had its own claims as well. In every war, each side operates according to its own logic, however valid or invalid, and wars have always been fought, so to speak, in the name of justice.
This begs the question: what exactly is justice?
The Tokyo Air Raid and Atomic Bombings
On March 10, 1945, the year Japan lost the war, American forces carried out a massive air raid on Tokyo. It happened just before the battleship Yamato set sail.
From the early hours of that morning, American B-29s carried out intense bombing of the city. The targets were ordinary residential neighborhoods—areas with no military facilities or factories whatsoever. At the time, reinforced concrete homes were rare, and most people lived in wooden houses. The bombs were dropped indiscriminately.
Incendiary bombs, what we might today call napalm bombs, were dropped across Tokyo in enormous numbers. They were essentially oil-based weapons. Between 80,000 and 100,000 people were burned to death, including babies, children, and the elderly.
Then there were the atomic bombings. In August 1945, atomic bombs—the first in human history—were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Around 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki were killed almost instantly. As in the Tokyo air raid, the victims were ordinary civilians.
The atomic bomb had only been successfully tested three weeks earlier. It was still a brand new weapon, the most destructive ever built. And yet it was used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The American justification was that it would bring the war to a quick end. If a decisive battle were to take place on Japanese soil, massive casualties would occur on both sides. To prevent that, they argued, it was a necessary decision. In other words, the bombing was justified as an unavoidable measure to end the war quickly.
Occupation and Postwar Japan
Japan was defeated, and its territory was placed under the control of the Allied forces, led by the United States. The occupation lasted six years and eight months. For the first time in its history, Japan was ruled by a foreign power.
During that time, the Japanese people were deprived of basic democratic rights, including freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Since television did not yet exist, the occupation authorities conducted a major campaign through newspapers and radio, repeatedly telling the Japanese people how wrong they had been and urging them to reflect on their actions.
This is what happened during Japan's postwar "democratization." And for more than 80 years, Japan has lived within that historical legacy.
Japan's Cultural Legacy: the Birth of Literature
Now, let us step away from that rather heavy discussion and travel back, all the way to the Heian period.
The Tale of Genji. If you know who wrote it, please raise your hand. Yes—Murasaki Shikibu.
Murasaki Shikibu lived during the Heian period. The Heian period began in 794, in the 8th century, and lasted for roughly 400 years. It was a peaceful era.
The Tale of Genji is believed to have been written around 1000 CE. It depicts romance among the aristocracy, along with psychological depth and complex storytelling. It is regarded as literature in the fullest sense—a true novel—and is widely considered one of the earliest novels in the world.
The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon, another highly refined literary work, also comes from this period. It was an era in which many female writers flourished.
Meanwhile, around the same time in Europe, in the eighth century onwards, literature consisted mainly of epic poetry praising kings, heroes, and warriors. It was far from anything resembling the novel.
Nothing comparable to The Tale of Genji existed anywhere. It would be another 400 to 500 years before works like Don Quixote or Robinson Crusoe appeared. In that sense, Japan had already invented the form of the novel long before the West.
In 1925, exactly 100 years ago, a brilliant scholar named Arthur Waley translated The Tale of Genji into English. It quickly gained enormous acclaim. People said that a novel had been written in Japan, in the East, 500 years before Shakespeare. Western intellectuals were astonished, and Genji came to be regarded as a classic of world literature.
When I learned this, I felt a simple sense of joy and pride at how remarkable our ancestors were.
An Extraordinary Poetry Collection
From the same era, there is also the Man'yoshu. It is a unique anthology that includes poetry not only from courtiers, but from ordinary people, frontier guards stationed at the edges of the country, and anonymous voices. There is no other literary collection like it anywhere in the world.
I think we can feel a quiet sense of pride knowing that our ancestors created such works, art that has survived over a thousand years, and that had no equal anywhere else on earth.
Now, let us leave this distant past behind and travel forward to the Edo period.
The Edo Period Reconsidered
The Edo period refers to the era of the Tokugawa shogunate, and it lasted about 260 years.
It is often described as a rigid feudal society, with a strict class system dividing samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants. Farmers in particular are said to have suffered under heavy taxes and lived harsh lives. But was that really the full picture?
The population of Japan at the time was about 30 million. The political center was Edo, where roughly 500,000 samurai lived alongside some 400,000 merchants and artisans, making it a city of about one million people.
Edo was not only a political capital but one of the great consumer cities of the world, a thriving center of urban culture. Waterways and canals ran throughout the city, and small boats moved people and goods much like taxis do today. Vendors sold vegetables and fish from the water.
Notably, Edo's streets were said to be remarkably clean, and even its rivers were clear enough for fish to live in them. The city managed waste in a way that was extraordinary by any standard. Human waste from a city of one million people was collected, bought and sold, and reused as fertilizer on the farmland that fed the city. Food scraps and other organic waste were also recycled.
Sustainability Before Modernity
In recent years, we often hear terms like circular economy, sustainability, and environmental friendliness. But Japan had already achieved something very much like this system 400 to 500 years ago, during the Edo period.
Europe at the time tells a very different story. Paris and London also had populations nearing one million, yet people reportedly threw their waste directly from upper floors into the streets. Rats overran the cities, and the Seine in Paris was so foul that people avoided it. There is even a theory that this gave rise to perfume culture, though how accurate that is, I cannot say.
The Tokaido and Information Networks
At that time, Japan also had the Tokaido road, connecting Edo and Kyoto. It had 53 post stations, known as the 53 stations of the Tokaido, and stretched about 500 kilometers (about 310 miles) in total. People could walk from Edo to Kyoto in roughly two weeks, covering 30 to 40 kilometers a day.
Messengers known as hikyaku carried letters and important documents by running the full 500 kilometers between Edo and Kyoto. It is said they could make the journey in just six days.
Along the road, stone markers called ichirizuka were placed at intervals of about four kilometers, allowing travelers to gauge how much further they had to go. And between each marker, there was always a teahouse where people could eat, rest, and use the toilet.
Apparently, no highway in Europe at the time came close to being as safe or as well-organized as this.
After the Meiji Restoration, steam locomotives began operating in Japan, and eventually the Tokaido Main Line was built. The railway tracks largely followed the same route as the old 53 stations of the Tokaido. Because a major transportation corridor already existed, it is said that construction proceeded rapidly.
Osaka, Commerce, and Futures Trading
Kyoto was home to the Imperial Palace, where the Emperor resided. And beyond Kyoto lay Osaka, then known as Naniwa, a city of commerce and trade. Warehouses filled with rice, known as kuramai, lined the city, and the seafood trade flourished as well. Osaka was an extraordinarily prosperous commercial center.
Rice trading in Osaka was highly active, involving systems that we would today recognize as futures trading and derivatives, officially sanctioned by the shogunate. And once rice prices were set in Osaka, that information was reportedly transmitted all the way to Edo in just eight hours.
This was achieved through a system of flag signaling. Relay stations were set up at high vantage points, passing market price information from one station to the next. In the Hakone mountains, where visibility was poor, runners carried the information by hand. Even so, rice prices set in Osaka could reach Edo in just eight hours.
As for futures trading, the Chicago Board of Trade in the United States is said to have begun such practices roughly 130 years later. According to Kazuya Fukuda's book, Daijoubu na Nihon [Japan Will Be Okay], the Chicago exchange even plays an audio message in English acknowledging that the roots of its trading system trace back to Osaka's rice futures market, and that it was developed with reference to Japan's early and highly organized markets.
Behind all of this was wasan, Japan's own independently developed tradition of mathematics. It was a sophisticated system, advanced enough to solve problems equivalent to calculus, and it reflected a remarkable level of mathematical talent.
So what do you think? Our ancestors achieved truly extraordinary things during the Edo period.
Literacy and Education
And there is one more thing I want to mention about the Edo period: literacy.
Literacy rates in Japan were exceptionally high compared to Europe at the same time. By some estimates, it is said that around 70-80% of men could read and write, along with about 40% of women. Overall, more than half the population was literate.
In England at the same period, it is said that male literacy was around 60%. In France, around 50%.
Beyond the Feudal Stereotype
But what truly set Japan apart was that literacy was not confined to samurai, wealthy merchants, or city dwellers. The ability to read and write had spread to farmers in rural villages, and to women as well. After the Meiji Restoration, when Japan struggled to catch up with the West, this high literacy rate became a major advantage. The ability of ordinary people to read and write was an essential condition for modernization and progress.
Across the country, there were said to be between 10,000 and 15,000 terakoya temple schools. Some researchers put the number as high as 50,000 during the Edo period.
At the time, Japan was divided into roughly 260 to 280 regional domains under the shogunate. Among them, Saga Domain stood out as particularly remarkable.
In the Edo period, society was traditionally hereditary: the son of a senior retainer became a senior retainer, and the son of a foot soldier became a foot soldier. But in Saga Domain, the emphasis on learning was extraordinarily strong even among high-ranking families. Even their children could see their family's status reduced if they fell behind academically. People studied desperately, not wanting their families to lose standing. Some reportedly pushed themselves so hard they damaged their health.
So while the Edo period is often portrayed as a poor, harsh, and suffocating feudal age, that was not the whole picture. It was also a time of considerable freedom, a flourishing urban culture, and the development of art and ideas that were distinctly and uniquely Japanese.
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Speaker: Hideaki Ota
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