The JAPANESE were the most alien enemy the United States had ever fought in an all-out struggle. In no other war with a major foe had it been necessary to take into account such exceedingly different habits of acting and thinking. Like Czarist Russia before us in 1905, we were fighting a nation fully armed and trained which did not belong to the Western cultural tradition. Conventions of war which Western nations had come to accept as facts of human nature obviously did not exist for the Japanese. It made the war in the Pacific more than a series of landings on island beaches, more than an unsurpassed problem of logistics. It made it a major problem in the nature of the enemy. We had to understand their behavior in order to cope with it.
The difficulties were great. During the past seventy-five years since Japan's closed doors were opened, the Japanese have been described in the most fantastic series of“but also”ever used for any nation of the world. When a serious observer is writing about peoples other than the Japanese and says they are unprecedentedly polite, he is not likely to add,“But also insolent and overbearing.”When he says people of some nation are incomparably rigid in their behavior, he does not add,“But also they adapt themselves readily to extreme innovations.”When he says a people are submissive, he does not explain too that they are not easily amenable to control from above. When he says they are loyal and generous, he does not declare.“But also treacherous and spiteful.”When he says they are genuinely brave, he does not expatiate on their timidity. When he says they act out of concern for others’opinions, he does not then go on to tell that they have a truly terrifying conscience. When he describes robot-like discipline in their Army, he does not continue by describing the way the soldiers in that Army take the bit in their own teeth even to the point of insubordination. When he describes a people who devote themselves with passion to Western learning, he does not also enlarge on their fervid conservatism. When he writes a book on a nation with a popular cult of aestheticism which gives high honor to actors and to artists and lavishes art upon the cultivation of chrysanthemums, that book does not ordinarily have to be supplemented by another which is devoted to the cult of the sword and the top prestige of the warrior.
All these contradictions, however, are the warp and woof of books on Japan. They are true. Both the sword and the chrysanthemum are a part of the picture. The Japanese are, to the highest degree, both aggressive and unaggressive, both militaristic and aesthetic, both insolent and polite, rigid and adaptable,submissive and resentful of being pushed around, loyal and treacherous. brave and timid, conservative and hospitable to new ways. They are terribly concerned about what other people will think of their behavior, and they are also overcome by guilt when other people know nothing of their misstep. Their soldiers are disciplined to the hilt but are also insubordinate.
When it became so important for America to understand Japan, these contradictions and many others equally blatant could not be waved aside. Crises were facing us in quick succession. What would the Japanese do? Was capitulation possible without invasion? Should we bomb the Emperor's palace? What could we expect of Japanese prisoners of war? What should we say in our propaganda to Japanese troops and to the Japanese homeland which could save the lives of Americans and lessen Japanese determination to fight to the last man? There were violent disagreements among those who knew the Japanese best. When peace came, were the Japanese a people who would require perpetual martial law to keep them in order? Would our army have to prepare to fight desperate bitter-enders in every mountain fastness of Japan? Would there have to be a revolution in Japan after the order of the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution before international peace was possible? Who would lead it? Was the alternative the eradication of the Japanese? It made a great deal of difference what our judgments were.
In June, 1944, I was assigned to the study of Japan. I was asked to use all the techniques I could as a cultural anthropologist to spell out what the Japanese were like. During that early summer our great offensive against Japan had just begun to show itself in its true magnitude. People in the United States were still saying that the war with Japan would last three years, perhaps ten years, more. In Japan they talked of its lasting one hundred years. Americans, they said, had had local victories, but New Guinea and the Solomons were thousands of miles away from their home islands. Their official communiques had hardly admitted naval defeats and the Japanese people still regarded themselves as victors.
In June, however, the situation began to change. The second front was opened in Europe and the military priority which the High Command had for two years and a half given to the European theater paid off. The end of the war against Germany was in sight. And in the Pacific our forces landed on Saipan, a great operation forecasting eventual Japanese defeat. From then on our soldiers were to face the Japanese army at constantly closer quarters. And we knew well, from the fighting in New Guinea, on Guadalcanal, in Burma, on Attu and Tarawa and Biak, that we were pitted against a formidable foe.
In June, 1944, therefore, it was important to answer a multitude of questions about our enemy, Japan. Whether the issue was military or diplomatic, whether it was raised by questions of high policy or of leaflets to be dropped behind the Japanese front lines, every insight was important. In the all-out war Japan was fighting we had to know, not just the aims and motives of those in power in Tokyo, not just the long history of Japan, not just economic and military statistics; we had to know what their government could count on from the people. We had to try to understand Japanese habits of thought and emotion and the patterns into which these habits fell. We had to know the sanctions behind these actions and opinions. We had to put aside for the moment the premises on which we act as Americans and to keep ourselves as far as possible from leaping to the easy conclusion that what we would do in a given situation was what they would do.
My assignment was difficult. America and Japan were at war and it is easy in wartime to condemn wholesale, but far harder to try to see how your enemy looks at life through his own eyes. Yet it had to be done. The question was how the Japanese would behave, not how we would behave if we were in their place. I had to try to use Japanese behavior in war as an asset in understanding them, not as a liability. I had to look at the way they conducted the war itself and see it not for the moment as a military problem but as a cultural problem. In warfare as well as in peace, the Japanese acted in character. What special indications of their way of life and thinking did they give in the way they handled warfare? Their leaders’ways of whipping up war spirit, of reassuring the bewildered, of utilizing their soldiers in the field-all these things showed what they themselves regarded as the strengths on which they could capitalize. I had to follow the details of the war to see how the Japanese revealed themselves in it step by step.
The fact that our two nations were at war inevitably meant, however, a serious disadvantage. It meant that I had to forego the most important technique of the cultural anthropologist: a field trip. I could not go to Japan and live in their homes and watch the strains and stresses of daily life, see with my own eyes which were crucial and which were not. I could not watch them in the complicated business of arriving at a decision. I could not see their children being brought up. The one anthropologist's field study of a Japanese village,John Embree's Suye Mura,was invaluable,but many of the questions about Japan with which we were faced in 1944 were not raised when that study was written.
As a cultural anthropologist, in spite of these major difficulties, I had confidence in certain techniques and postulates which could be used. At least I did not have to forego the anthropologist's great reliance upon face-to-face contact with the people he is studying. There were plenty of Japanese in this country who had been reared in Japan and I could ask them about the concrete facts of their own experiences, find out how they judged them, fill in from their descriptions many gaps in our knowledge which as an anthropologist I believed were essential in understanding any culture. Other social scientists who were studying Japan were using libraries, analyzing past events or statistics, following developments in the written or spoken word of Japanese propaganda. I had confidence that many of these answers they sought were embedded in the rules and values of Japanese culture and could be found more satisfactorily by exploring that culture with people who had really lived it.
This did not mean that I did not read and that 1 was not constantly indebted to Westerners who had lived in Japan. The vast literature on the Japanese and the great number of good Occidental observers who have lived in Japan gave me an advantage which no anthropologist has when he goes to the Amazon headwaters or the New Guinea highlands to study a non-literate tribe. Having no written language such tribes have committed no self-revelations to paper. Comments by Westerners are few and superficial. Nobody knows their past history. The field worker must discover without any help from previous students the way their economic life works, how stratified their society is, what is uppermost in their religious life. In studying Japan, I was the heir of many students. Descriptions of small details of life were tucked away in antiquarian papers. Men and women from Europe and America had set down their vivid experiences, and the Japanese themselves had written really extraordinary self-revelations. Unlike many Oriental people they have a great impulse to write themselves out. They wrote about the trivia of their lives as well as about their programs of world expansion. They were amazingly frank. Of course they did not present the whole picture. No people does. A Japanese who writes about Japan passes over really crucial things which are as familiar to him and as invisible as the air he breathes. So do Americans when they write about America. But just the same the Japanese loved selfrevelation.
I read this literature as Darwin says he read when he was working out his theories on the origin of species, noting what I had not the means to understand. What would I need to know to understand the juxtaposition of ideas in a speech in the Diet? What could lie back of their violent condemnation of some act that seemed venial and their easy acceptance of one that seemed outrageous? I read, asking the ever-present question: What is“wrong with this picture?”What would I need to know to understand it?
I went to movies, too, which had been written and produced in Japan-propaganda movies, historical movies, movies of contemporary life in Tokyo and in the farm villages. I went over them afterward with Japanese who had seen some of these same movies in Japan and who in any case saw the hero and the heroine and the villain as Japanese see them, not as I saw them. When I was at sea, it was clear that they were not. The plots, the motivations were not as I saw them, but they made sense in terms of the way the movie was constructed.As with the novels, there was much more difference than met the eye between what they meant to me and what they meant to the Japanese-reared. Some of these Japanese were quick to come to the defense of Japanese conventions and some hated everything Japanese. It is hard to say from which group I learned most. In the intimate picture they gave of how one regulates one's life in Japan they agreed, whether they accepted it gladly or rejected it with bitterness.
In so far as the anthropologist goes for his material and his insights directly to the people of the culture he is studying, he is doing what all the ablest Western observers have done who have lived in Japan. If this were all an anthropologist had to offer, he could not hope to add to the valuable studies which foreign residents have made of the Japanese. The cultural anthropologist, however, has certain qualifications as a result of his training which appeared to make it worth his will to try to add his own contribution in a field rich in students and observers.
The anthropologist knows many cultures of Asia and the Pacifc. There are many social arrangements and habits of life in Japan which have close parallels even in the primitive tribes of the Pacific islands. Some of these parallels are in Malaysia, some in New Guinea, some in Polynesia. It is interesting, of course, to speculate on whether these show some ancient migrations or contacts, but this problem of possible historical relationship was not the reason why knowledge of these cultural similarities was valuable to me. It was rather that I knew in these simpler cultures how these institutions worked and could get clues to Japanese Iife from the likeness or the difference I found. I knew, too, something about Siam and Burma and China on the mainland of Asia, and I could therefore compare Japan with other nations which are a part of its great cultural heritage. Anthropologists had shown over and over in their studies of primitive people how valuable such cultural comparisons can be. A tribe may share ninety percent of its formal observances with its neighbors and yet it may have revamped them to fit a way of life and a set of values which it does not share with any surrounding peoples. In the process it may have had to reject some fundamental arrangements which, however small in proportion to the whole, turn its future course of development in a unique direction. Nothing is more helpful to an anthropologist than to study contrasts he finds between peoples who on the whole share many traits.
Anthropologists also have had to accustom themselves to maximum differences between their own culture and another and their techniques have to be sharpened for this particular problem. They know from experience that there are great differences in the situations which men in different cultures have to meet and in the way in which different tribes and nations define the meanings of these situations. In some Arctic village or tropical desert they were faced with tribal arrangements of kinship responsibifity or financial exchange which in their moments of most unleashed imagination they could not have invented. They have had to investigate, not only the details of kinship or exchange, but what the consequences of these arrangements were in the tribe's behavior and how each generation was conditioned from childhood to carry on as their ancestors had done before them.
This professional concern with differences and their conditioning and their consequences could well be used in the study of Japan. No one is unaware of the deeprooted cultural differences between the United States and Japan. We have even a folklore about the Japanese which says that whatever we do they do the opposite. Such a conviction of difference is dangerous only if a student rests content with saying simply that these differences are so fantastic that it is impossible to understand such people. The anthropologist has good proof in his experience that even bizarre behavior does not prevent one's understanding it. More than any other social scientist he has professionally used differences as an asset rather than a liability. There is nothing that has made him pay such sharp attention to institutions and peoples as the fact that they were phenomenally strange. There was nothing he could take for granted in his tribe's way of living and it made him look not just at a few selected facts, but at everything. In studies of Western nations one who is untrained in studies of comparative cultures overlooks whole areas of behavior. He takes so much for granted that he does not explore the range of trivial habits in daily living and all those accepted verdict on homely matters, which, thrown large on the national screen, have more to do with that nation's future than treaties signed by diplomats.
The anthropologist has had to develop techniques for studying the commonplace because those things that are commonplaces in the tribe he was studying were so different from their counterparts in his own home country. When he tried to understand the extreme maliciousness of some tribe or the extreme timidity of another, when he tried to plot out the way they would act and feel in a given situation, he found he had to draw heavily on observations and details that are not often noted about civilized nations. He had good reason to believe they were essential and he knew the kind of research that would unearth them.
It was worth trying in the case of Japan. For it is only when one has noted the intensely human commonplaces of any people's existence that one appreciates at its full importance the anthropologist's premise that human behavior in any primitive tribe or in any nation in the forefront of civilization is learned in daily living. No matter how bizarre his act or his opinion, the way a man feels and thinks has some relation to his experience. The more baffled I was at some bit of behavior, the more I therefore assumed that there existed somewhere in Japanese life some ordinary conditioning of such strangeness. If the search took me into trivial details of daily intercourse, so much the better. That was where people learned.
As a cultural anthropologist also I started from the premise that the most isolated bits of behavior have some systematic relation to each other. I took seriously the way hundreds of details fall into over-all patterns. A human society must make for itself some design for living. It approves certain ways of meeting situations, certain ways of sizing them up. People in that society regard these solutions as foundations of the universe. They integrate them, no matter what the difficulties. Men who have accepted a system of values by which to live cannot without courting inefficiency and chaos keep for long a fenced-off portion of their lives where they think and behave according to a contrary set of values. They try to bring about more conformity. They provide themselves with some common rationale and some common motivations. Some degree of consistency is necessary or the whole scheme falls to pieces.
Economic behavior, family arrangements, religious rites and political objectives therefore become geared into one another. Changes in one area may occur more rapidly than in others and subject these other areas to great stress, but the stress itself arises from the need for consistency. In preliterate societies committed to the pursuit of power over others, the will to power is expressed in their religious practices no less than in their economic transactions and in their relations with other tribes. In civilized nations which have old written scriptures, the Church necessarily retains the phrases of past centuries. as tribes without written language do not, but it abdicates authority in those fields which would interfere with increasing public approval of economic and political power. The words remain but the meaning is altered. Religious dogmas, economic practices and politics do not stay dammed up in neat separate little ponds but they overflow their supposed boundaries and their waters mingle inextricably one with the other. Because this is always true, the more a student has seemingly scattered his investigation among facts of economics and sex and religion and the care of the baby, the better he can follow what is happening in the society he studies. He can draw up his hypotheses and get his data in any area of life with profit.He can learn to see the demands any nation makes, whether they are phrased in political, economic, or moral terms, as expressions of habits and ways of thinking which are learned in their social experience. This volume therefore is not a book specifically about Japanese religion or economic life or politics or the family. It examines Japanese assumptions about the conduct of life. It describes these assumptions as they have manifested themselves whatever the activity in hand. It is about what makes Japan a nation of Japanese.
One of the handicaps of the twentieth century is that we still have the vaguest and most biased notions, not only of what makes Japan a nation of Japanese, but of what makes the United States a nation of Americans, France a nation of Frenchmen, and Russia a nation of Russians. Lacking this knowledge, each country misunderstands the other. We fear irreconcilable differences when the trouble is only between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and we talk about common purposes when one nation by virtue of its whole experience and system of values has in mind a quite different course of action from the one we meant. We do not give ourselves a chance to find out what their habits and values are. If we did, we might discover that a course of action is not necessarily vicious because it is not the one we know.
It is not possible to depend entirely upon what each nation says of its own habits of thought and action. Writers in every nation have tried to give an account of themselves. But it is not easy. The lenses through which any nation looks at life are not the ones another nation uses. It is hard to be conscious of the eyes through which one looks. Any country takes them for granted, and the tricks of focusing and of perspective which give to any people its national view of life seem to that people the god-given arrangement of the 1andscape. In any matter of spectacles, we do not expect the man who wears them to know the formula for the lenses, and neither can we expect nations to analyze their own outlook upon the world. When we want to know about spectacles, we train an oculist and expect him to be able to write out the formula for any lenses we bring him. Some day no doubt we shall recognize that it is the job of the social scientist to do this for the nations of the contemporary world.
The job requires both a certain tough-mindedness and a certain generosity. It requires a tough-mindedness which people of good will have sometimes condemned. These protagonists of One World have staked their hopes on convincing people of every corner of the earth that all the differences between East and West, black and white, Christian and Mohammedan, are superficial and that all mankind is really like-minded. This view is sometimes called the brotherhood of man. I do not know why believing in the brotherhood of man should mean that one cannot say that the Japanese have their own version of the conduct of life and that Americans have theirs. It sometimes seems as if the tender-minded could not base a doctrine of good will upon anything less than a world of peoples each of which is a print from the same negative. But to demand such uniformity as a condition of respecting another nation is as neurotic as to demand it of one's wife or one's children. The tough-minded are content that differences should exist. They respect differences. Their goal is a world made safe for differences, where the United States may be American to the hilt without threatening the peace of the world, and France may be France, and Japan may be Japan on the same conditions. To forbid the ripening of any of these attitudes toward life by outside interference seems wanton to any student who is not himself convinced that differences need be a Damocles'sword hanging over the world. Nor need he fear that by taking such a position he is helping to freeze the world into the status quo. Encouraging cultural differences would not mean a static world. England did not lose her Englishness because an Age of Elizabeth was followed by an Age of Queen Anne and a Victorian Era. It was just because the English were so much themselves that different standards and different national moods could assert themselves in different generations.
Systematic study of national differences requires a certain generosity as well as toughmindedness. The study of comparative religions has flourished only when men were secure enough in their own convictions to be unusually generous. They might be Jesuits or Arabic savants of unbelievers. but they could not be zealots. The study of comparative cultures too cannot flourish when men are so defensive about their own way of life that it appears to them to be by definition the sole solution in the world. Such men will never know the added love of their own culture which comes from a knowledge of other ways of life. They cut themselves off from a pleasant and enriching experience. Being so defensive,they have no alternative but to demand that other nations adopt their own particular solutions. As Americans they urge our favorite tenets on all nations. And other nations can no more adopt our ways of life on demand than we could learn to do our calculations in units of 12's instead of 10's, or stand on one foot in repose like certain East African natives.
This book, then, is about habit that are expected and taken for granted in Japan. It is about those situations when any Japanese can count on courtesy and those situations when he cannot, about when he feels shame, when he feels embarrassment, what he requires of himself. The ideal authority for any statement in this book would be the proverbial man in the street. It would be anybody. That does not mean that this anybody would in his own person have been placed in each particular circumstance. It does mean that anybody would recognize that that was how it was under those conditions. The goal of such a study as this is to describe deeply entrenched attitudes of thought and behavior. Even when it falls short, this was nevertheless the ideal.
In such a study one quickly reaches the point where the testimony of great numbers of additional informants provides no further validation. Who bows to whom and when, for instance, needs no statistical study of all Japan; the approved and customary circumstances can be reported by almost any one and after a few confirmations it is not necessary to get the same information from a million Japanese.
The student who is trying to uncover the assumptions upon which Japan builds its way of 1ife has a far harder task than statistical validation. The great demand upon him is to report how these accepted practices and judgments become the lenses through which the Japanese see existence. He has to state the way in which their assumptions affect the focus and perspective in which they view life. He has to try to make this intelligible to Americans who see existence in very different focus. In this task of analysis the court of authority is not necessarily Tanaka San, the Japanese“anybody.”For Tanaka San does not make his assumptions explicit, and interpretations written for Americans will undoubtedly seem to him unduly labored.
American studies of societies have not often been planned to study the premises on which civilized cultures are built. Most studies assume that these premises are self-evident. Sociologists and psychologists are preoccupied with the“scatter”of opinion and behavior, and the stock technique is statistical. They subject to statistical. analysis masses of census material, great numbers of answers to questionnaires or to interviewers’questions, psychological measurements and the like, and attempt to derive the independence or interdependence of certain factors. In the field of public opinion, the valuable technique of polling the country by using a scientifically selected sample of the population has been highly perfected in the United States. It is possible to discover how many people support or oppose a certain candidate for public office or a certain policy. Supporters and opponents can be classified as rural or urban, low income or high income, Republicans or Democrats. In a country with universal suffrage, where laws are actually drafted and enacted by he people's representatives, such findings have practical importance.
Americans can poll Americans and understand the findings, but they can do this because of a prior step which is so obvious that no one mentions it: they know and take for granted the conduct of life in the United States. The results of polling tell more about what we already know. In trying to understand another country, systematic qualitative study of the habits and assumptions of its people is essential before a poll can serve to good advantage. By careful sampling, a poll can discover how many people are for or against government. But what does that tell us about them unless we know what their notions are about the State? Only so can we know what the factions are disputing about, in the streets or in the Diet. A nation's assumptions about government are of much more general and permanent importance than figures of party strength. In the United States, the Government,to both Republicans and Democrats, is almost a necessary evil and it limits individual freedom; Government employment, too, except perhaps in wartime, does not give a man the standing he gets from an equivalent job in private enterprise. This version of the State is a far cry from the Japanese version, and even from that of many European nations. What we need to know first of all is just what their version is. Their view is embodied in their folkways, in their comments on successful men, in their myth of their national history, in their speeches on national holidays;and it can be studied in these indirect manifestations. But it requires systematic study.
The basic assumptions which any nation makes about living, the solutions it has sanctioned, can be studied with as much attention and as much detail as we give to finding out what proportion of a population will vote yes and no in an election. Japan was a country whose fundamental assumptions were well worth exploring. Certainly I found that once I had seen where my Occidental assumptions did not fit into their view of life and had got some idea of the categories and symbols they used, many contradictions Westerners are accustomed to see in Japanese behavior were no longer contradictions. I began to see how it was that the Japanese themselves saw certain violent swings of behavior as integral parts of a system consistent within itself. I can try to show why. As I worked with them, they began to use strange phrases and ideas which turned out to have great implications and to be full of agelong emotion. Virtue and vice as the Occident understands them had undergone a seachange. The system was singular. It was not Buddhism and it was not Confucianism. It was Japanese-the strength and the weakness of Japan.
在美国曾经全力以赴作战的敌人中，日本人是我们最不了解的对手。从来没有一场战争中曾有过这么一个主要对手，由于它的行为和思考习惯与我们完全迥异，以至于需要我们对它认真加以考虑。我们就像1905年的沙皇俄国一样，在和一个全副武装并经过严格训练的民族作战，但它并不是西方文化传统中的一员。被西方国家视为人类天性的战争惯例，很明显在日本人那里并不存在。正因为如此，在太平洋的战争并不仅仅是一系列海岸登陆作战，也远比那些后勤上几乎无法解决的难题更加严重。这些困难使得了解敌人天性成为一个主要难题，为了解决它，我们不得不去了解日本人的行为。
困难是巨大的。在75年前，自从日本紧闭的大门被打开后，对日本的描述总是出现在一系列最令人匪夷所思的作品中，那些作品总是运用“但又”这一固定句型，这在世界上其他任何国家都是没有过的。当一个严肃的观察家在描述日本之外的民族时，他可能会说，“他们是前所未有的礼貌民族”，他不太可能会再加一句“但是他们又傲慢专横”；当他描述一些民族在行为中表现出无与伦比的顽固时，他不会加上一句“但是他们又非常容易适应极端的革新”；当他描述一个民族性情驯服时，他通常不会解释说他们并不是那么容易驯服于上级的控制；当他说他们忠诚且有雅量时，他不会宣称“但是他们又背信弃义、满腹怨恨”；当他说他们天生神勇时，他不会详细叙述他们如何怯懦；当他说这一民族的人完全是按照别人的观点来行事时，他不会接下去说他们怀有一颗真诚得令人吃惊的良心；当他描述说他们的军人都被训练得像机器人时，他不会继续描述那些军队中的士兵如何不服管训，甚至犯上作乱；当他描述说一个民族将自己所有热情都奉献给学习西方时，他不会再详细描述该民族极端热忱的守旧性格；当一个人写了一本书来讲述一个普遍崇尚美感的民族，说他们极端尊敬演员、艺术家，以及丰富的菊花养殖艺术时，他通常不会被迫再写一本书来补充说，这个民族如何崇敬刀剑，以及武士如何具有无上威望。
但是，所有这些矛盾表现，却正是有关日本的论著中的经纬；而且这些都千真万确。刀与菊都是这幅画的组成部分。从最大程度上来说，日本人天生好斗，但又非常温和；穷兵黩武，但又珍视美感；孤介傲慢，但又彬彬有礼；顽固强硬，但又柔顺善变；驯服谦恭，但又不听摆布；非常忠诚，但又易于叛变；天生神勇，但又胆小怯懦；固执守旧，但又顺应潮流。他们极端重视别人怎么看待他们的行为；同时，在发觉别人没有发现他们的过失时，他们为战胜自己的羞耻心而窃喜。他们的士兵被严格训练成武器，但是这些人又富有反抗精神。
当美国了解日本已经成为当务之急时，我们不能将这些矛盾表现和其他一些同样喧嚣的矛盾表现都弃之一旁。严重事态接二连三地出现在我们面前。下一步日本人会怎么办？如果没有攻入其本土，日本会投降吗？我们应该直接轰炸日本皇宫吗？从日本战俘身上我们可以期望得到什么？在针对日本军队和日本本土的宣传中我们应该怎么表达，才能挽救美国人的生命，并且削弱日本人那种战斗到最后一人的信念？这些问题在很多非常了解日本的人中间也都存在着激烈的争论。当和平来临，是不是只有靠永久的军事管制才能保证他们遵守秩序？我们的战士是否要被迫在日本的每一个山口要塞与拼死决战的日本兵战斗到底？在世界和平成为现实之前，日本是否也得来一场革命，就像法国大革命或者俄罗斯革命？谁来领导这场革命？除了根除日本人，还有没有别的替代方式？这些问题也让美国人感到众说纷纭，莫衷一是。
1944年6月，我被指派研究日本。我接手的任务是，要使用我作为一个文化人类学家的所有技能，来拼出日本人到底像什么。那年夏初，我们针对日本的巨大攻势已经开始展现其真正的威力。美国人仍然在说对日本的战争将要维持3年的时间，也许10年，也许更长；而日本人则认为它会持续一个世纪。他们说尽管美国取得了局部的胜利，但是新几内亚和所罗门群岛离日本本土还有数千英里之遥，他们的官方公报几乎不承认他们在海上的失败。日本人仍然视自己为胜利者。
但是，6月时，形势发生了逆转。在欧洲，第二战场开辟，最高统帅部在两年半时间里一直给予欧洲战场的军事优先权已没有必要再继续下去。结束针对德国的战争已经指日可待。在太平洋上，我们的军队已经在塞班岛登陆[1]，这一军事行动预示着日本彻底的失败。从此以后我们的战士离日本兵越来越近，就要与其短兵相接。从新几内亚、瓜达康纳尔岛、缅甸、阿图、塔拉瓦岛和比耶克岛的战役中，我们清楚知道，我们已经给了可怕的敌人重重一击。
于是，在1944年6月，回答上述一系列关于日本的问题已经变得很迫切。这些问题当中，不管是军事的还是外交的，也不管它是出自最高决策的要求，还是被抛撒在日本前线的传单中所提出的问题，对每一个问题给予深入解答已经很重要。在对日本的战斗中，我们必须要了解的不仅仅是东京当权者们的目的和动议，也不仅仅是日本漫长的历史，也不仅仅是经济和军事的统计资料，我们必须了解的是，日本政府能指望人民做什么。我们不得不尝试去理解日本人的思维和情感习惯，以及这些习惯所形成的模式。我们不得不去了解在他们的行为和观点背后的制约力量。我们不得不将美国人采取行动的前提抛在一边，尽可能不轻率地得出一个结论：在一个给定的条件下，我们怎么做，他们也会怎么做。
我的任务是困难的。美国和日本正在交战，在战争状态中很容易对对方全盘否定；而且，要试图通过敌人自己的眼睛来看他们如何看待生活，这就很困难了。问题就是，如果处在他们的境地，他们会如何采取行动，而不是我们将如何采取行动。我不得不试图将战争中的日本人的行为作为我的一项资产——即有利条件来加以利用，而不是作为一种负债——即不利条件来运用。我不得不运用他们自己的行为方式来看待他们在战争中的所作所为——不是为了暂时的军事难题，而是作为一个文化难题来看待它。不管在战争期间还是和平时期，日本人都以自己的方式生活。他们的生活方式和思维方式给他们处置战争的方式提供了怎样的特殊暗示？他们的领袖激励士气的方式、安抚惶惑民心的方式、在战场上调兵遣将的方式——所有这些显示出来的他们视为可资利用的力量到底是什么？我不得不认真研究这些战争中的细节，来看看日本人一步步所展现出的他们自己到底是什么样的。
但是，我们两个国家尚处在交战中，这一事实不可避免地意味着这是一个严重的不利因素。它意味着我不得不放弃文化人类学者最重要的一项技术：田野调查。我不能去日本，不能住在他们家里来观察他们日常生活的细节，并运用我自己的眼睛来观察对于他们来说哪些是关键细节，哪些是细枝末节。我不能观察到他们在一项复杂事务中如何做出决定；也不能看看他们抚育培养孩子的过程。约翰·艾勃里[2]的《须惠村》[3]是一本有关日本乡村的田野研究，这本书非常珍贵，但是在写作这本书时，许多1944年要面对的关于日本的问题都还没有出现。
尽管面对这么多的困难，作为一个文化人类社会学研究者，我确信还是有一些可以利用的方法和公理。至少，我还可以运用文化人类学最倚重的方法：与所研究的民族面对面接触。在美国有很多日本人，他们在日本被培养起来，我可以向他们询问他们所经历的各种具体事实，观察他们怎么判断这些事实，从他们的描述中来填充我们的知识中的诸多空白。作为一个人类学者，我相信这些知识对于理解任何文化都是非常重要的。其他一些研究日本的社会科学家的方式是，借助图书馆的资料来分析历史事件和统计数据，观察日本各种文字宣传和口头宣传中所运用的词汇的迁移变化。我相信他们所发现的答案是建立在规则以及日本文化价值基础之上的，但是，如果能对人们置身其中的文化进行研究，将会获得更加令人满意的答案。
说这些并不意味着我不读书，也不意味着我没有向生活在日本的西方人请教。有关日本的大量文学作品以及曾经居住在日本的优秀的西方观察家们，他们给我提供了一种人类学者所不具备的优势——因为人类学者必须去亚马逊河流源头或者新几内亚高地研究那些还没有文字的部落；这些部落因为没有书写文字，无法用纸张来展现自我，因此西方对他们的评述很少而且肤浅，也就没有人知道他们过去的历史。在没有前人的任何帮助的情况下，田野调查者必须发现这些部落的经济生活运转方式，发现他们的社会分层如何，发现他们宗教生活中的顶级膜拜物是什么。而在研究日本的过程中，我却有很多前辈学人的遗产可以继承。大量细节描写被记录在那些求知欲旺盛的学者的论文中。许多欧美的男人和女人们记录了他们生活的经历，日本人自己也写下了非凡的展露自我的作品。他们并不像其他东方民族那样极其渴望冲动，在写作时将自身放在写作内容之外。日本人既写他们生活中的琐事，也写他们的全球扩张计划。他们具有令人惊奇的坦诚品质，当然他们不会和盘托出。没有一个民族会这么做。一个日本人写日本，会忽略很关键性的事物，因为他们对这些太熟悉了，就像他们所呼吸的空气那样，他们已经感觉不到它。美国人在写关于美国的事物时也是这么做的。但是和美国人一样，日本人也是最喜欢展露自己的。
达尔文说他在创立“物种起源理论”时开始阅读文学作品，我也采取了这种做法，对所有我认为有意义的作品都努力去理解。为了理解议会演说中所罗列的一系列理念，我需要知道些什么？有些行为看起来是可宽恕的，但是他们却对其猛烈谴责；一些行为看起来是很凶暴的，但他们却很容易宽恕它们。这些谴责和宽容背后隐藏着什么？我一边读，一边不断地问：这幅图画错在哪里？为了理解日本人的特性，我需要了解什么？
继而我转到电影，它们是日本编剧并导演的——包括宣传片、历史片，还有反映东京以及乡村的现时代电影。我和一些日本人一起温习这些电影。这些日本人可能在日本已经看过相同影片，当然，他们看待男女主人公乃至那些恶棍，是以日本人的眼光，而不是以我的眼光来看。当我对剧情感到迷茫时，他们看起来很理解。他们对细节、动因的理解也跟我所理解的不一样，但是这些日本人是按照电影整体结构来理解的。就小说来说，我的理解与日本人的理解之间有很大差异，这些差异远比它们所呈现出来的还要多。那些在日本成长的人中间，有些人非常轻易就表现出了保护日本传统的倾向，有些人则痛恨日本的一切东西。很难说我从哪一种人那里学到的东西更多。这些人就日本人如何规范自己的生活，向我提供了一些只向亲近人透露的内容，这也是他们都认可的生活，不管他们是欣然接受还是带着深刻厌恶来接受。
如果人类学者直接从他的研究对象中寻求资料和见解，那么他所有的努力无非是做了一件曾经生活在日本的西方观察家已经做过的事。如果这些就是一个人类学者能提供的所有东西，那就不能指望他能比那些外国居留者对日本所进行的研究再提供更有价值的东西。但是，文化人类学者则具备足够的资本，因为他受过特殊训练，当他试图去为这一领域的研究添砖加瓦时，这种训练看起来很管用，尽管这一领域的研究已经被各个研究者和观察家们所丰富。
人类学者对于很多亚太地区的文化很了解。在日本存在的很多社会风俗和日常习惯，甚至与太平洋岛屿那些原始部落的非常相近。这些与之相近的部落或者是在马来西亚，或者是在新几内亚，或者是在波利尼西亚。当然，推测它们古代曾有移民和接触活动是非常有趣的话题。但是了解文化相近性的相关知识之所以让我感到重要，并不是这些可能存在的历史关联所带来的问题。相比较而言，还不如说我是为了了解在这些相对简单的文化中，社会结构是如何运转的；而且我能够从我所看到的相近和相异性当中，来获得有关日本生活的线索。我也了解一些亚洲大陆上的暹罗[4]、缅甸和中国的知识，因此我能够将日本与这些民族进行比较，他们都是一个伟大文化的遗产的一部分。人类学者在他们关于原始部落的研究中，已经反复证明了这些文化比较是如何有价值。一个部落可能在正式惯例上与他的邻居百分之九十都相同，但是它可能否决了一些基础性制度安排。即使发生变更的制度就整体而言比例非常之小，但足以使未来的发展途径转向，朝着一个独一无二的方向开始发展。对于一个人类学家来说，没有什么比对那些在整体上具有许多共性的民族之间的差异进行研究更有益的了。
人类学者也不得不最大限度地适应自身文化和其他文化之间的差异，他们的技术也必须专为解决特殊难题而加以磨砺。他们凭经验得知，不同的文化中的人必须面对的情境存在着很大差异，不同的部落和民族如何判断这些情境的意义也大不相同。在一些北极乡村或者热带沙漠，他们所要面对的是部落中关于血族责任或经济交换的制度安排，外人即使有奔放的想象力，也难以想象出这种制度安排。他们不得不去调查，不仅要调查亲属关系和交换关系的细节；而且要调查在那些部落行为中，那些制度安排的结果是什么；更要调查每一代人从年少时如何在这样的制度下调整生活状态，就像他们的先辈们那样。
对那些差异、调整和结果的专业性研究，能够帮我们很好地研究日本。没有人能够忽略美国和日本文化之间根深蒂固的差异。我们甚至有这么一个民间笑话说，日本人声称，不管美国人做什么，他们都要反其道而行。一个研究者仅仅满足于说“这些差异太过离奇，以至于不太可能去理解这样的人”，那么这样一种有关差异的定论就是很危险的。人类学者根据经验可以充分证明：再荒谬的行为也能够被理解。他的职业决定了他可以将差异作为资产，而不是负债来运用，这方面他做的远比其他社会学者更多。正是因为所面对的都是非常奇怪的事，所以他会关注这些情境和民族极端。他所研究的部落的生活方式中，没有什么会被他视作理所当然，也没有什么会让他只关注那些被挑出来的事实，而不是全部事实。在对西方民族的研究中，一个在比较文化学上没有受过训练的人会忽略整个区域的行为。他想当然地认为没有必要去探索如下领域：日常生活中的细微习惯、家庭事务中广被接受的定论；但正是这些内容，当它们被投射在民族大屏幕上时，他们对国家的未来影响要远远超越外交家们所签订的条约。
人类学家不得不提升学习日常琐事的技术，因为那些内容在他所研究的部落中都是日常琐事，而且与他自己国家的对应物存在很大的差异。当他试图去理解一些部落表现出的极端恶毒，或者另一些部落表现出的极端胆怯时，当他试图去了解在一个给定条件下，他们如何采取行动和表达感受时，他会发现，他不得不把重点放在仔细观察和关注细节上，而这些细节经常不会被文明民族所记录。他有足够理由相信这些都是很重要的，而且他已经掌握了很多能将其深入挖掘的研究方法。
这种方法很值得用于对日本的研究。因为只有当一个人注意到任何民族中的日常琐事时，他才会从最大程度上认可人类学家所提出的前提：无论是在任何原始部落，还是在文明前沿的任何民族，人类的行为都是从日常生活学来的。不管一个人的行为和观点如何怪异，他的感知和思考方式都与他自己的经历有关系。我对一些行为方式越感到迷惑，我也越发由此确信，在日本的生活中存在着决定这些奇怪行为的普遍条件。如果我的研究能深入到日常交往的琐碎细节中，这些普遍条件一定能被发现更多。人们就在那里学习。
作为一个文化人类学者，我开始进行研究的另一个前提是：大多数孤立的行为之间也有系统上的联系。我十分重视数以百计的细节如何组合成一个总体模式。一个人类社会必须为了生活而推出一些制度安排。它对某种情况下人们的处理方式表示许可，于是一些固定生活方式就此确立。生活在这个社会中的人们会顺理成章地将这些解决方式视为世界的基础。不管遇到怎样的困难，他们也会努力整合它们。一个生活于此并接受了这一价值体系的人，如果他按照相反的价值体系来思维和行为，那他的生活就不得不长期处于防御状态，因为逆势而行会导致无效和混乱。他们试图创造更多的一致性。他们为自己提供了一些共同的基本原理和共同的动机。一定程度的一致性是必要的，不然整个体系会瓦解。
因此，经济行为、家庭制度、宗教仪式、政治目标越来越相互嵌合。一个领域可能会发生比其他领域更急剧的变化，并且给其他领域造成很大的压力，但这种压力本身可能是出于对一致性的需求。在史前时代，社会追逐的是凌驾于他人之上的强力，他们在经济交换中、在与其他部落交往中，十分强调获得强力的意志，在他们的宗教活动中也是如此。在那些有文献的古老文明民族中，教堂很有必要地保留了过去数个世纪中的部分片段，而那些没有书写文字的部落则无法保留。但是，随着公众对于经济和政治权利的认可日益增长，教堂权势越来越造成了干扰，并且已经在那些领域放弃权势。话还是那么说，但意义已经发生变化。宗教信条、经济活动、政治，不再乖乖待在一个个整洁且相互独立的小池塘中，它们溢过了给它们设定的边界，水流一股股地纠结在一起。一个研究者越把自己的关注点分散在很多事实上，如经济、性、宗教和孩子培养，他就越能掌控得住他所研究的社会所发生的事，这一条通常是无可置疑的。而且他也能在任何生活领域有效地提出假说和搜集资料。他能学会分辨任何民族的要求，不管它是政治的、经济的，还是用道德的术语来表达，并将其理解为他们在自身的社会经历中所习得的习惯表达和思考方式。因此我这本书并不是一本专门针对日本宗教、经济生活、政治或家庭的书。它探讨的是日本人对于自己的生活方式所持有的观点[5]。它描述的是这些观点如何获得自我证明，不管它是通过什么日常活动。正是这些使得日本成为日本民族。
20世纪以来，阻碍之一是我们仍然持有最含糊不清的、也是最偏激的观念，其内容不仅包括日本如何成就日本民族，而且也包括美国如何成就美利坚民族，法国如何成就法兰西民族，以及俄国如何成就俄罗斯民族。因为缺乏这些知识，每一个国家都对其他国家有误解。当冲突双方只不过半斤对八两时，我们却担心他们之间有不可调和的分歧；一个国家基于其全部历史和价值体系形成了自己的道德观，当这个国家有意表现出一种与我们的理解完全不同的行为时，我们却在那里妄谈什么共同目标。我们不给自己机会去了解他们的习惯和价值到底是什么。如果我们做了，可能会发现那一行为过程并不是那么凶暴，只不过是因为它不为我们所了解。
如果全部指望每个民族针对自己的思考和行为习惯来进行描述，那是不太可能的。每一个国家的作家都尽其所能来展现他们的民族，但是这并不容易。一个民族用来观察其日常生活的透镜，另一个民族并不拿来使用。人们在观察事物时，也很难意识到自己是通过透镜来观察的。任何民族都认为自己所观察到的内容都是理所当然。对这些民族来说，为了能让他们观察自身的生活方式而为其提供的有关聚焦和透视方面的技巧，都像出于神灵的安排。就眼镜来说，我们不必期望一个戴眼镜的人知道透镜的计算公式，我们也不会期望这些民族能够从世界角度来分析他们自己。如果我们想知道有关眼镜的知识，我们会训练一个验光师，并且期待他能够将我们拿来的透镜计算出来度数。终有一天，我们毫无疑问必将认识到，社会科学工作者的任务就是为当代各民族做验光师那样的工作。
这项工作要求两样东西：足够硬的心肠和足够宽容的品德。那些心怀良好愿望的人有时会指责心肠太硬不好。那些宣称“大同世界”的吹鼓手们将自己的希望建立在以下基础之上：他们确信地球上每个角落的人，不管他们属于东方还是西方，不管他们是黑人还是白人，不管他们是基督教徒还是伊斯兰教徒，这些差异都是表面现象，人类在心智上是相似的。这些观点有时被称为“四海之内皆兄弟”。我不能理解的是，为什么坚信“四海之内皆兄弟”的人不许别人说日本人在生活方式上有他们自己的观点，而美国人也有我们自己的。有时这些软心肠的人似乎认为，如果要达成良好愿望，只有全世界各民族都由同一张底片上印出来才行，除此之外别无他途。但是，将统一性作为尊重另一个民族的条件，这种要求实在太神经质了，就好像一个人要求自己妻子和孩子跟自己长得一模一样。心肠硬的人认同差异的存在。他们尊重差异性。他们的目标是，建立一个不同的人安全相处的世界——在这里，只有不威胁世界和平，美国才是地道的美国，法国如是，日本亦如是。试图通过外界干扰来阻挠这种态度的发展成熟，对一些研究者来说完全是荒谬的，因为那些研究者并不相信那些差异就是悬挂在世界之上的达摩克利斯之剑[6]。他不必担心采取这种立场会使世界僵化冰冷。鼓励文化差异并不意味着一个静态的世界。英国不会失去它的英国性，在伊丽莎白时代之后有安妮女王时代和维多利亚时代来延续。这是因为英国完好保存了自身个性，即使在不同时代出现了不同的标准和不同的国民心态，他们也能够保持自我。
对民族差异性进行研究，除了需要硬心肠，还需要足够的宽容。只有在人们确信自己的信仰并且胸怀宽容时，比较宗教学才能得以昌盛。他们可能会是耶稣会士，可能会是阿拉伯专家，或者任何不信神者，但是他们不能成为狂热者。如果人们对自己的生活方式总是一副严阵以待的保卫态度，对他们来说，他们的生活方式就是世界难题的唯一解决途径，那么比较文化学也同样无法得以昌盛。这些人根本不知道，如果他了解了其他文化中的生活方式的有关知识，会同时增进他对自己的生活方式的热爱。他们把自己隔离在一个有趣而丰富的体验之外。因为采取这般强硬的防卫态度，在他们看来，世界没有可以选择的机会，其他民族只能接受他们独特的解决方式。这就像美国人所做的那样，他们力促美国的原则四海皆准。但别的国家并不接受我们所号召的人生方式，这就跟我们总是学不会用十二进位制来代替十进位制进行计算一样，或者跟我们学不会东非土著那样单脚站立休息一样。
因此，这本书就是针对日本人的习惯而写的，这些习惯是外界期待能了解的内容，但又被日本民族视为理所当然。它介绍了这样一些场景：哪些情景在日本人看来是礼貌的，哪些是不礼貌的；什么让他们感到羞耻，什么让他们感到尴尬，他们对自己的要求是什么。这本书里所陈述的理念的依据，就是日本大街上的普通人。它可以是任何人。这并不是说他们都曾置身于每一个特殊场景之下。这也并不是说他们都承认在那些场景下他们将会如何如何反应。就这一方面来说，这项研究的目的是为了描绘日本民族深刻且确定不移的思想方式和行为态度。即使没有达到这种目的，但这至少是我这本书的理想。
在这一研究中，研究者很容易发现：被调查对象的证言即使大量累加，也不会使论据显得更加充实。举例来说，谁对谁鞠躬，什么时间鞠躬，并不需要全部统计了所有日本人之后才行；任何一个人都可以证明这种被他们所接受的习惯性场景，再增加一些例证即可，并不需要再从一百万日本人那里确证同一条信息。
一个研究者若试图搞清楚所有日本人赖以构建自己的生活方式的观点，他会遇到一个远比统计上的证实更艰难的任务。人们迫切需要从他那里知道的是，这些公认的行为和判断如何成为日本人观察现实的透镜。他不得不阐述日本人的观点如何影响焦点和透视。他不得不尝试使得这些能够为美国人所理解，因为美国人看待现实是通过完全不同的焦点。在这样一项分析任务中，权威的裁判官并不一定就是“田中先生”，即普通的日本人。因为这位田中先生需要使他的观点明晰化，而且，要为美国人写那些详细解释，对这位田中先生来说无疑是多余之举。
美国的社会学研究一般不研究文明社会所赖以建立的前提。很多研究都假定这一前提是不言自明的。社会学家和心理学家都全神贯注地研究观点和行为的“碎片”，最主要的技术就是统计学。他们受制于对以下材料的分析：大量统计资料、大量问卷调查、采访记录、心理学的测定等，并且试图从中分离出某些因素的独立性以及相关依存的关系。在公共观点调查领域，运用经过科学挑选出来的人口样本，来对全国进行民意测验，这种非常有价值的技术已经在美国高度完善。通过这种技术，可能会发现对某一个公职候选人或者一项政策有多少支持者，有多少反对者。支持者和反对者可以按城市和乡村、高收入和低收入、共和党人和民主党人来进行划分。在一个有普遍选举权的国家，法律是由人民的代议机构来制定和落实的，在这些国家进行这样的民意调查具有很切实的意义。
美国人乐意参与民意调查，而且理解这样的活动。但是，他们之所以会如此，是因为有一个前提，这一前提因为太过明显反而没有人会再注意它，这一前提就是：他们了解美国的生活方式并且将其视为理所当然的事情。民意调查的结果使我们在已经了解的基础上又增加了一些内容。为了理解另外一个国家，对这一国家人民的习惯以及态度进行系统和定性的研究是非常重要的，然后民意调查才能发挥其优势。通过仔细的样本选择，在一次民意调查中可以发现有多少人支持政府，有多少人反对政府。但是，如果我们不知道他们关于国家的观点，这些民意调查又能告诉我们些什么呢？我们只有了解他们的国家观，才能够知道这些派系在大街上或议会中争论些什么。一个民族对于政府的观点，比那些标志党派势力的党员数字具有更普遍、更持久的重要性。在美国，无论是共和党人还是民主党人，他们都认为自己所组建的政府近乎是“必要之恶”，而且它还限制个人自由。除非在战争时期，政府公职所能赋予人的地位并不比他担任私营企业雇员高。美国人这种关于政府的观点跟日本人的看法完全不同，甚至跟欧洲一些国家的也不一样。因此我们首先需要知道的是，他们的看法是什么。他们的观点深深植根于他们的民间传统，深深植根于他们对于成功人士的评价中，深深植根于他们关于民族历史的传说中，深深植根于国家节日时的致辞中；根据这些间接的表现也可以进行研究，但是这需要系统的研究。
为了发现在一场选举中，投赞成票与投反对票的人口比例将有多少，我们要付出足够的努力，以便获得足够多的细节；研究一个民族赖以生活的基本观点以及大家所公认的解决方法，也同样需要足够多的努力和细节描述。日本就是这样一个国家：最基本的观点都非常值得探究。我确实发现，一旦我了解到我的哪些西方观点与日本人的生活方式不符合，并且掌握了一些他们所使用的范畴和符号时，那些西方人所熟知的在日本人身上所表现出来的矛盾性就不复存在。我开始理解日本人为什么会将处于两个极端的行为，看作在其自身一直存在的完整系统的两个部分。我能够试着解释原因了。当我开始这项工作时，起初在我看来那些奇奇怪怪的言语和理念，现在都已经变得具有深刻含义，并且充满经年情感。西方人所理解的善与恶，与日本人的观念之间有海一样的距离。日本人的系统是独一无二的，不属于佛教，也不属于儒教。它是日本式的——包括其长处，也包括其短处。
注释：
[1] 塞班岛是马里亚纳群岛的主要岛屿。1944年6月11日起美军开始发起进攻。15日，美军登陆。此后经过多次反复交战，7月9日，美军占领全岛。在塞班岛战役中，日军伤亡4.1万人，被俘近2000人；美军伤亡1.6万人。美军夺取塞班岛，为攻占马里亚纳群岛其他岛屿创造了条件，也为B—29远程轰炸机轰炸日本本土提供了基地。
[2] John F. Embree（1908～1950），美国人类学家，精研日本。二战期间在芝加哥大学特设的战争系任教，为对日作战军事官员提供培训。42岁时和女儿死于车祸。
[3]《须惠村》一书出版于1939年。须惠村位于日本九州岛，属熊本县。
[4] 即泰国。
[5] 这是本书中作者反复运用的一个词，英文assumption原意为“尚未加以证明的假设”。为阅读方便，权且翻译为“观点”。
[6] 源自希腊神话，意为“迫在眉睫的危险”。