A long time ago, an elderly female professor of the Royal Ballet School of Monaco, who prima ballerinas around the world greatly respect, visited Japan.
She spoke at that time about the significance of an artist's existence.
She said, "Artists are important because they are the only ones who can shed light on hidden, concealed truths and express them."
No one would dispute her words.
It is no exaggeration to say that Masayuki Takayama is not only the one and only journalist in the postwar world but also the one and only artist in the postwar world.
On the other hand, many of those who call themselves artists, such as Oe, Murakami, and Hirano, do not even deserve the artist's name.
They have only expressed the lies created by the Asahi Shimbun and others rather than shedding light on hidden truths and telling them.
Their existence is not limited to Japan but is the same in other countries worldwide.
In other words, only a minimal number of actual artists exist.
This book also keenly proves that I am right when I say that no one in the world today is more deserving of the Nobel Prize in Literature than Masayuki Takayama.
China's Essence as an Incomprehensible Barbaric State
Sekihei
China is the same.
It is always dominated by something substantial and wants to submit to the strong.
It leads to a kind of sense of security.
A kind of "slave spirit," if you will.
Takayama
Mr. Sekihei understands this very well.
No matter what kind of tyrants may emerge in Japan, there will never be a treacherous and outrageous person like Ivan the Terrible or Mao Zedong.
It should be incomprehensible to the Japanese.
Moreover, Mao Zedong would tell lies with impunity, such as that 60,000 tons of rice could be harvested from a single plot of land（991.736 square meters）.
It is an impossible story that has become the norm.
If it were the Japanese, they would say, "Don't be silly," but that is not the case.
If you think about it, China blames "Japan's militarism" in World War II, but the Japanese people went to the battlefield "of their own volition.
They had a noble aspiration: "Let's use this war to liberate Asia, which is being oppressed by the Western powers.
Jayewardene (later President), then Ceylon's representative to the San Francisco Peace Conference with Japan in 1951, said, "When the Asian nations were colonies, only Japan was powerful and free and looked up to as the guardian to liberate us. Japan's slogan of "Asian co-prosperity" had a strong appeal to us. When war broke out, the leaders of each country cooperated with Japan in the hope of liberating their homeland," he said, rejecting U.S. Secretary of State Dulles' speech condemning Japan, and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) renounced its right to claim reparations from Japan.
In a booklet titled "Give it to the Infantry," Masanobu Tsuji, an army chief of staff during World War II, wrote, "The Chinese do not understand a great cause even if you explain it to them.
Therefore, cooperation is impossible.
It also gives detailed instructions on how to be prepared for war.
It is something that can only be understood with a certain level of education.
The foot soldiers of the Japanese Army read the instructions and acted accordingly.
Compared to this Japanese "rationality," China is barbaric.
A tragedy like Fang Xiaoru happens without even seeing Ming's atrocious behavior.
Sekihei
You are referring to a Ming dynasty thinker. He served Emperor Huiyi, and when Emperor Yongle started a rebellion, he wrote a proclamation to defeat Emperor Yongle.
However, when the Yongle Emperor ascended to the throne, he was ordered to write an accession decree due to his fame, but Fang Xiaoru refused and was crucified, and 847 members of his family were also condemned to death.
Takayama.
When I read the story, I wondered why no one stopped him.
When the Yongle Emperor succeeded to the emperor's throne, he advised, "It is not your natural destiny. You have taken someone's imperial throne."
Then the Yongle Emperor said, "What are you talking about?" He killed Fang Xiaoru and his whole family.
It is the most violent story I have ever heard.
Sekihei
Not only the family but all nine clans as well, you know.
Takayama
He killed his father's family, his father's mother's family, his mother's father's family, and all nine clans.
In the end, it slaughtered even his disciples.
He is a horrible person and a nuisance to the people around him.
Sekihei
On the contrary, the problem is that it is told as a beautiful story in Chinese history.
He is praised as "did not bend his principles even if the Nine Tribes were killed''.
But from my point of view, I was ordered by Emperor Yongle to write an imperial rescript on his accession to the throne, and I said, "Then write it. Why doesn't he bend his principles rather than have all your relatives killed? Considering the lives of hundreds of people, it doesn't care about his principles."
But he does not write.
In short, no one in China sees it as a problem when the lives of the people of the Nine Tribes are lost for an unreasonable reason.
On the contrary, they think that "the cause is everything." The Cheng–Zhu school follows that trend.
Takayama.
However, there is nothing more unfamiliar to the original Chinese people than the "cause."
In reality, there is no great cause.
Sekihei
That is true.
But it is precise because there is no cause that it is emphasized so much.
Takayama
I see. ......
