bout de papier, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1993) — Spring 1993 // Printemps 1993, pp. 44–47
Mutual Hostages: Canadians and
Japanese During the Second World War
by Patricia Roy, J.L. Granatstein, Masako Iino
and Hiroko Takamura, University of Toronto
Press, 1990, 281 pp., price not indicated.
Canada and Japan in the Twentieth
Century edited by John Schultz and
Kimitada Miwa, Oxford University Press,
1991, 262 pp., $14.95.
Discovering Japan: Issues for Canadians
edited by Don J. Daley and Tom T. Sekine,
Captus University Publications, 1990, 287 pp.,
price not indicated.
Reviewed by R.V. Gorham
Japan — from the arrival of Japanese immigrants to Canada and the racial hostility they encountered, through the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries and the unhappy years of the Second World War, to current economic and cultural ties as well as various aspects of Japanese history and society.
The topics of Japanese immigration to Canada, the racial hostility and the wartime experiences of Canadian soldiers in Hong Kong, and the treatment of Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Canadians in Canada during the war are very well covered in Mutual Hostages. Many citizens of our contemporary multi-racial society in Canada will be shocked and ashamed by the revelations of the racism and racist paranoia vis-à-vis Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Canadians, born or naturalized, that existed in Canada — particularly in British Columbia — during the pre-war and wartime years and by their forced evacuation and subsequent relocation and repatriation during and immediately after the war. Equally, they will be surprised and angered by the casual and uninformed manner by which untrained Canadian troops were sent on a hopeless mission to defend Hong Kong (which British defence authorities considered to be indefensible) and by their suffering and deaths at the hands of their Japanese military captors. Mutual Hostages also contains a chapter dealing with the experiences of Canadian civilians in Japanese-held wartime captivity in Japan, China, Korea and the Philippines — topics which have not been much written about previously.
The authors of Mutual Hostages state that their purpose has been “to explain, not to condone or condemn” and to write “with the intention of examining the events of the war years as dispassionately as possible and trying to explain them in the context of their times” This they have done extremely well and in a very readable fashion. In their words the story of Canadians and Japanese during the Second World War is one of prejudice, misunderstanding and cruelty. Multiple wrongs can never make a right and there were plenty of wrongs on both sides…. The virtually unanimous public support for evacuation in 1942 does not excuse the bungling with which it was carried out…. The evacuation of the Japanese Canadians from the west coast can be explained as a tragic consequence of war; the Canadian Government’s efforts to repatriate the Japanese Canadians, however, smack of vengeance unworthy of a democratic government…. Without question the Nisei, Canadian citizens by birth, merited much better treatment than they received. Their loyalty to Canada was severely tried but, with rare exception, never faltered. They proved to be more aware of the rights and obligations of citizenship than those who discriminated against them on the basis of race alone.
Japanese immigrants in Canada and their wartime treatment are also well, but less extensively, covered in two essays entitled Not All Were Welcome and The Wartime Experience in this book, Canada and Japan in the Twentieth Century. The Pacific War and the Hong Kong tragedy are also well covered in three essays entitled Canada and the Far East in the 1930s and No Reason Why: The Hong Kong Tragedy and The Canadian Expeditionary Force and the Fall of Hong Kong with considerably more detail than in Mutual Hostages, especially with regard to the decision to send Canadian troops to Hong Kong.
Other essays entitled Ambassadors of the Cross and E.H. Norman Revisited deal with the role of Canadian missionaries in Japan and suggest that Mr. Norman may have had a beneficial influence on the postwar Occupation policy in Japan. Marler and the Canadian Legation deals with the establish-ment of a Canadian Embassy in Tokyo. Having served for several years in that Embassy, I was always fascinated by Canada’s first diplomatic representative in Japan, Sir Herbert Marler, and his construction of the elegant Residence, which still stands today. I was delighted to read the essay by my friend and former colleague, Dr. Eber Rice, which provided a wealth of new information on that subject. Essays by Yuko Ohara, Gregory Johnson and Nobuya Bamba and Tadayuki Okuma deal with the development of Canada-Japan relations in the 1920s, the 1930s and the post-war years, while the current economic relationships between the two countries are dealt with in essays by Charles McMillan and Hideo Sato. Essays by John Howes and Kensei Yoshida provide a very comprehensive review of the recent development of Japanese studies in Canada and Canadian studies in Japan.
John Saywell’s excellent essay entitled Continuity, Discontinuity and Asymmetry in Canada Japan Relations describes the ups and downs of the relationship as “Canadian policy towards Japan has moved from complacency to anxiety as Japan has emerged from post-war poverty to alarming influence”. He notes that there has been a striking continuity in Canadian attempts to reap the maximum benefit from the economic relationship, but the rhetoric and exhortations, the appeals to the Japanese to look more kindly toward us and to the private sector to try harder have not altered the fundamental asymmetry in the bilateral relationship. As this asymmetry is unlikely to change, he suggests that “it is best to acknowledge the asymmetry and lack of independence for what it is” and either adopt drastic measures to ensure more value-added components to our exports, or else, accept things as they are and possibly “have to run very hard to stand still in the fields of trade and investment”. “. He goes on to say “but if so we should acknowledge the way it is and not boast of quadrupling of exports when so much of it is an increase in value not volume and when we have failed to maintain market share and keep up with the growth of the Japanese economy, or boast of new investment which is little more than a continuation of our traditional policy of trading away our comparative advantage”.
Some may not agree with this conclusion, but I believe all who have been involved in the promotion of our bilateral relationship with Japan will applaud his final sentence: “Above all, we should have a national day of mourning for the officers in External Affairs and the external trade offices in the provincial governments who, like Sisyphus, must feel that they have been condemned to push that heavy rock up the steep hill forever”
The third book under review, Discovering Japan: Issues for Canadians, I found a bit disappointing. Its subtitle, Issues for Canadians, would have been more accurate if it had been Issues for Canadian Scholars Dealing with Japan because, with one or two exceptions, most of the essays in the collection assume a readership already knowledgeable with the subject matter under discussion. Four chapters dealing with the Controversy over Japan’s Low Manufactured Imports, Changes in the Japanese Economy and Japan’s Trade with North America, The Changing Environment for Exports of Manufactured Products to Japan and Will the Yen Replace the USA Dollar are all well-laden with statistics and data concerning exchange rates, balance of payments and comparisons of the Canadian, United States and Japanese markets. They are probably relevant and useful to economic experts; but not very entertaining for the average reader.
John Saywell’s article Kanada Pan and Honda San: Continuity, Discontinuity and Asymmetry in Canada-Japan Relations is a slightly expanded version of his article in Canada and Japan in the Twentieth Century and is a good read. I was puzzled by the title of this version, until revelation came about six pages into the text commenting on the 1903 Osaka Industrial Exhibition at which the Canadian display made a hit with freshly-baked bread made from Canadian wheat. This apparently inspired in Ottawa “a euphoric Governor-General [to urge] Sir Wilfrid Laurier to invest in a chain of Canadian bakeries, restaurants, and a fleet of red and white delivery wagons, adorned with a gold maple leaf, whose drivers would roam the streets shouting Kanada Pan (Canadian bread)! Kanada Pan!!
The article entitled Japan in the Changing International Arena provides an interesting discussion concerning contributions which Japan could make toward international collective security. It is especially timely in view of the criticism made of Japan regarding its contribution in the recent Gulf War. The article concludes with the interesting suggestion that there are two areas of common regional security interest — the North Pacific and membership and leadership in international organizations — in which Canada and Japan could play a useful cooperative role.
The other six articles deal with various aspects of Japanese culture and society such as the Emperor system, Social Familism, the problems of overseas-educated Japanese children, endogenous development, Japanese pilgrimage places, and the Japanese idea of soul in animals and objects — all of which are pretty esoteric stuff for an average (and perhaps the not-so-average) reader.
In terms of reader-interest and pleasure on a scale of ten, I would give Mutual Hostages an eight; Canada and Japan in the Twentieth Century a six; and Discovering Japan: Issues for Canadians a four!
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1993) — Spring 1993 // Printemps 1993, pp. 44–47. Read the rest of this issue →
