Careful Surfacing Archives - understand-culture

The Emperor’s Illness

On September 22, 1987, Emperor Shōwa had abdominal surgery at the Imperial Household Agency hospital. The agency announced chronic pancreatitis. In fact, it was cancer.

Reporters at a television network later said that they had confirmed early on that it was cancer. They had held back, they said, because of the question of telling the emperor himself and his family, and because of the social impact. On January 7, 1989, his chief physician announced the final diagnosis: a tumor around the duodenal papilla.

Telling the Family First

Gan kokuchi means telling patients that they have cancer. An article in Gendai Business says that it used to be normal in Japan to tell the family the name of the disease and to hide the facts from the patient. Cancer notification in Japan, it says, began in the 1990s.

A study at Kanazawa University Hospital found that in 1988, most doctors in gastroenterology did not tell patients even about early-stage cancer. By 1996, about 70 percent disclosed early-stage cancer, and by 2005 disclosure was almost complete.

Public Stance and True Feelings

Tatemae (建前): the principle one officially stands by. The outward view. A dictionary gives the example Ano hito wa tatemae to honne ga mattaku chigau, that person’s public stance and true feelings are completely different.

Honne (本音): one’s true thoughts or feelings, as opposed to what one says in public for the sake of harmony.

Deru kui wa utareru (出る杭は打たれる): the stake that sticks out gets hammered. A person who stands out or oversteps tends to be resented and criticized by others.

Party Without Rank

A bureikō is a banquet held without regard to rank or etiquette. The most famous one in Japanese history was held by Emperor Go-Daigo in the Kamakura period. He used it to gather people of different ranks and plot in secret. One guest told his wife, and the plot leaked.

The same source notes that, in practice, rank does not disappear at a bureikō. Communication at company drinking parties has its own coined word, nominication, from nomu (to drink). It first appeared in the media in the 1980s.