Elegant profiling of Japan - Sri Lanka ties

Reviewed by Kalakeerthi Edwin Ariyadasa

"Japan, for all its modern comforts and luxuries, lives on the brink of disaster. Even its language is a testament to how this sense of precariousness has shaped the national consciousness. I find it hard to define gaman a unique mix of endurance and self-abnegation that practically all people, I spoke to in the disaster zone used to describe their situations.

Or what about Shoganai, which is often translated too simply as "There's nothing you can do". That's not quite right. The fatalism implied in the phrase denotes not just a helplessness at life's vagaries but also a calm determination to overcome what cannot be controlled..."

Hannah Beech - Insights on March 11/2011

Japanese tsunami

Any discriminating individual, discovering the work, A Journey in Harmony - Sixty years of Japan-Sri Lanka relations, will invariably experience a minor intellectual tsunami, that will agitate one's soul into a gratifying intellectual awakening.When you begin to talk about this volume, you feel compelled to perform an inescapable initial duty. That, in brief, is to record our obligation to felicitate Prof. H.D. Karunaratne, for an excellent editing spell.His fully engrossed presence is vividly evident, in all the areas of this comprehensive anthology.

Introductory essay

He contributes an opening prefatory note. As the book proceeds, he provides a solid introductory essay that runs to 27 substantial pages. In a fastidious exercise, he presents, extremely useful thumb-nail resumés of all the 17 articles that make up the bulk of the book.As has been explained in the preface, the current publication was brought out, to make the 60th anniversary of Japan-Sri Lanka diplomatic relations - But, as things are, the book has achieved much more than what it set out to win, in the first instance.

To begin with, this impressive anthology puts together in a lasting, firm format, all those fugitive views, thoughts and opinions that circulated all these years about the six-decades of Japan-Sri Lanka relations.

Ramifications

All the ramifications of the 60-year-long links between our two countries, are chronicled in this work - authoritatively and academically. Prof. H.D. Karunaratne's assiduous effort, provides the scholar, the academic and the discriminating reader, with the mantra, that will enable them to get into the full-picture of these historical ties.

The opening article by Dr. Saman Kelegama, focuses steadily on the transformation of the Japanse economy. The spirit that pervades and suffuses the totality of his learned presentation, is his unswerving belief in the capacity of the economy of Japan, to muster resilience and the ever-present urge for renewal, to overcome any passing little "hiccup."

In the concluding area of his essay, Dr. Saman Kelegama says '... the Japanese will keep modifying these management techniques to suit the requirements of the current global environment ... Developing countries such as Sri Lanka have many lessons to learn from these excellent management technique of the Japanese economic systems that have proved their work".

Collaboration

The ensuing contributions, turn their attention mostly to specific instances of Japanese assistance and collaboration. This trend is set by Prof. N.S. Cooray who titles his presentation: sixty years of Japanese assistance to Sri Lanka: T rends, patterns and future prospects."

Prof. Dharma de Silva draws attention to the markedly influential entity Sogo-Shosha (General Trading Companies) that have arisen out of the formidable Zaibatsu' (family conglomerates) that dominated the trade and financial landscape of pre warrant war-time Japan.The essay takes special note of our mutual trading processes and casts a futuristic glance at Sogo-Shosa's high-profile presence in Sri Lanka, ensuring the enhancement of benefits accruing to us.

Cultural exchange

The anthology accommodates a study by Prof. Patrick Ratnayake who places expert emphasis on an area, that has enriched and continues to nourish our mutual cultural exchanges. He provides a thoroughly researched analysis of the social background of cinema savant Akira Kurosawa's Rasho man.

The writer, quite aptly characterises Rashoman' as a tapestry. This exploration has a special appeal to Sri Lankan cinema aesthetics as Rashoman is a favourite product of the international film creations, for a while majority of film - goers in Sri Lanka.

Its multi-layered meanings, many faceted implications, intriguing interpretation of the nature of truth, have made Rashoman a film-icon for the Sri Lankans.

Complex analysis

To my mind, Prof. Patrick Ratnayake's complex and detailed analysis of this perennial film classic, could very well form a guiding light, to those who are keen to obtains an in-depth awareness of an outstanding cinematic work.

His capacity to synthesise conventional film aesthetics, with the Japanese attitude towards the appreciation of works of art, makes this essay exemplary and thought provoking.

Prof. Kulatilaka Kumarasinghe' study titled Noba Theatre in Japan takes a profound view of a tradition Japanese theatrical performance, that command reference and adoration.

Wide portal

As a whole, this work opens a wide portal on the land of the Rising Sun, which is a unique theatre of human existence.

To my mind Japan though a highly dominant land in the global arena of ultra sophisticated high-tech kingdoms, it is, reclusive and austere as well. This imparts to Japan a uniqueness, that most other nations may not be able to penetrate effectively. Above all, its steadiness and its skill to remain unshaken, buffeted by hideous vicissitudes, which most other communities will succumb to helplessly, elicit universal admiration.

Again, the telling observations by writer Hannah Beach vouch for the built-in discipline of the Japanese. This inner strength does not weaken, even under the most withering of threats to life. Her words: "A sense of order, moreover, is not confined just to government manuals. In the wake of the disaster, there has been no looting, no rioting. Even as people hoping for food water and fuel wait in kilometre long lines in freezing weather - sometimes without success - tempers have not flared...'

In the formal chronicle on the practical outcomes of 60 years of Japan-Sri Lanka relations, these oblique lessons are too abstract to be recorded.

But, personally, I spend a good part of my precious leisure to observe NHK Documentaries, to appreciate the thrill of ritualistic discipline in even the slightest thing that the Japanese do - as recorded by these high quality products.

Prof. H.D. Karunaratne, will eventually, I believe, to chronicle these lessons too as a bumper, humane harvest from these 60-year-links.