bout de papier, Vol. 15, No. 4 (1998-1999) — Winter 1998/99 // Hiver 1998/99, pp. 42–43
IF ONLY IHAD KNOWN, by Mary Taylor,
Oberon Press, 1998, 174 p. $34.95
Reviewed by Jane Anido
Foreigners living in Japan have a saying: “After you have lived here for two weeks you can write a book about it; after two years, an article; but after five years you cannot seem to put pen to paper.” Mary Taylor has defied the odds and written a book on Japan after her five year posting in Tokyo with her husband, Canadian Ambassador Si Taylor.
Mary Taylor went to Japan during exciting times for Canada’s diplomatic presence there. She lived in the official residence on Ayoama Dori, a Westmount style mansion built by Sir Herbert Marler, Canada’s first legate to Japan. During her posting the Canadian government decided to build a brand new Embassy in Tokyo to celebrate the bilateral relationship and recognize the scale of relations.
Mary was a consummate host and revealed to her myriad guests her passionate interest in cracking the Japanese cultural code. Her guests in turn, from imperial royalty, to business executives, to intellectuals and cultural contacts, invited the Taylors to their palaces, homes, and festive occasions not often seen by most foreigners. In addition to her experiences across Japan, Mary was a copious reader, an acute observer, and always curious.
In 1989 noted journalist Karel van Wolferen wrote The Enigma of Japanese Power, “a revealing portrait of a society where ritual and hierarchy prevail as antidotes to conflict.” The book was written on the basis of van Wolferen’s twenty five-year residence in Japan as a journalist who spoke fluent Japanese and was regarded as dean of the press corps. It was an unflattering book detailing the problems of an isolated society in an elusive state, servile, submissive, ritual-ridden, and intimidating. It was a picture Canada’s Hong Kong veterans would understand in a shot.
Mary Taylor is the diplomat to van Wolferen’s journalist. She focusses on the good and positive, allowing the critical to enter her thesis as an occasional and modified counterbalance. The title of the book places the burden of proof on her – “if only I had known” implies that “no one told me so I had to find out”
The author takes responsibility for her own research and utterance. She then proceeds to illustrate how individual Japanese friends and contacts showed her kindness, and vivid intellectual stimulation, amid the bizarre rituals that layer the enigma of Japanese culture.
The Japanese people she met responded to Mary Taylor’s honest interest in their habits. They cultivated her to share ideas and stories in an environment when “koksaika” (globalization) was the buzzword of the day. Whether or not they understood the complexity of their interest, this Canadian of Scottish ancestry took them seriously with great empathy.
The style of writing presumes that some readers know little of Japan. There are the axioms — “Japan is different from the West simply because it is, after all, an Asian country…” And there are the crucial observations that make this book a valuable addition to Japanophilia — “they are set apart not just by the enormous importance they attach to aesthetic considerations but also by the criteria which they apply.” The result is the potential for a wide-ranging audience, indifferent to assertive conclusions, and interested in the reports, personal observations and storied pictures.
Mary Taylor is an admirably observant author with a strong sense of history gleaned from her life as a British and, through mar-rage, a Canadian diplomat — “it is the first time since the days of the Ottoman Empire that a country which is neither Western of Christian has achieved such prominence.”
The book is part tourist guide, part cultural expose, and part diary. The author does not just see Japan from the back seat of a diplomatic limousine. She drove all over Tokyo, and further afield, in a small compact car, took the subway, and explored nooks and crannies of cities, towns and villages on foot. She had access through her station to the highest authorities of the land, but she mixes easily and thoughtfully with ordinary people whom she observes with affection and critical insight.
She visits the pachinko parlours, that “hint at sin”, to watch the pinball machines and the frozen faces of the gamblers. She walks her old family dog, Selkirk, through the Aoyama Bochi cemetery where Buddhists, Christians and Jews are buried alongside under the sakura cherry trees, around which joggers exercise.
For those who have lived in Japan, Mary Taylor’s book is a colourful reminder of what for most in diplomacy, broadcasting, academe and business, was a privileged experience. We were well housed, well fed, and paid sufficiently to accommodate the enormous expenses of daily life. The Taylors nurtured a team spirit in the Canadian Embassy because they were engaged in studying Japan.
The Japanese contacts who spoke our languages, particularly English, were helpful and generous. The dark sides of Japan required more profound insight, and the deeper you went the more confused the inference. We were in Japan to build personal and business ties — not to compare bushido, the art of the samurai, with the Geneva Convention.
If Only I Had Known fits into that body of readable literature on Japan that adds personal insights to the array of opinions and observations on and of contemporary Japan that shape consciousness and judgments. Mary Taylor liked the Japanese she met and wished their country well. She is fully aware of the negatives while she illuminates the positives — “Japan is not a country that can be easily ignored or dismissed.”
Some pundits have audaciously, and naively, tried to “demystify Japan” for western minds. Such grandiose claims frequently confuse more than they illuminate, and descend into cliché and myth. Robert Fulford correctly describes this book as “shrewd and witty”. It paints pictures as the tales unravel.
Mary Taylor is clearly fascinated by the aesthetic quality of Japanese life. She has given us a work that instructs the newcomer, helpfully, and sympathetically. Her work also reminds the frequent visitor, or former resident, of the fascinating, enigmatic, and unforgettable attraction of Japan. It is worth taking on the next trip there, or reading to see whether Japan is worth the visit.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 15, No. 4 (1998-1999) — Winter 1998/99 // Hiver 1998/99, pp. 42–43. Read the rest of this issue →
