Journalism: in The Japan Times Post-War Japan in Photographs: Erasing The Past and Building The Future

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Post-war Japan in photographs: Erasing the past and building the future
in the Japan Times
Fabienne Darling-Wolf
Journalism 2004; 5; 403
DOI: 10.1177/1464884904044202
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Journalism
Copyright © 2004 SAGE Publications

(London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
Vol. 5(4): 403–422 DOI: 10.1177/1464884904044202
ARTICLE
Post-war Japan in photographs

Erasing the past and building the future in the
Japan Times
! Fabienne Darling-Wolf
Temple University, Philadelphia, USA
ABSTRACT
Through a discourse analysis of news photographs published after the end of the
Second World War, this study investigates how Japan’s new position as a defeated and
occupied nation was visually negotiated in the two decades following the war in the
pages of one major national Japanese English-language newspaper. It addresses, in
particular, how symbolic representations of the Japanese nation were (re)defined and
reinterpreted in these photographs in the aftermath of the war under the significant
influence of occupation leaders eager to reorganize the Japanese press system
following American models. It argues that visual representations of Japan and its
leaders created shortly after the war illustrate the beginnings of a process of erasure of
the past and cultural reinterpretation that scholars of the Japanese cultural
environment have identified as a central component of Japanese contemporary
(post)modern identity.
KEY WORDS ! American occupation ! culture ! gender ! news
photographs ! post-war Japan ! western influence
The end of the war was also a beginning. Noon, August 15, 1945 – the time of the
surrender broadcast was inscribed in Japanese memory as the fictive moment
when the past ended and the present began. Willing time to be broken and
history severed, Japan turned toward the future, with the result that the past
became more present than before. This was because the New Japan, as so many
called it, was conceived as an inversion of the old. The pre-war past, to be
obliterated, had first to be retold. (Gluck, 1993: 64)
Carol Gluck’s description captures the nature of the psychological shift that
took place in the Japanese cultural imaginary following Japan’s Second World
War defeat. Over the next 30 years, Japan’s past would indeed be retold – and
its present negotiated – as Japan claimed a place at the top of global geo-
politics. It is no coincidence that Gluck would choose a national broadcast

404 Journalism 5(4)
as the crux of this historical turning point. The Japanese media have been a
vital terrain on which ‘the post-war script to re-enact Japan in a different
mode’ (Gluck, 1993: 64) has been composed. Like their electronic counter-
parts, Japanese newspapers have participated in the drafting of a cultural
narrative illustrative of Japan’s efforts to negotiate the cultural, economic and
political changes it experienced in the latter half of the 20th century. It is this
narrative that this article explores, as it was visually constructed through
photographs in the pages of one English-language newspaper from 1946 to
1964 – the symbolic year when Japan hosted the Olympic games and pre-
sented itself to the rest of the world as an entirely recovered, prosperous nation
(Pempel, 1998).
Historical context
John Dower (1993) argues that domestic and international politics have been
interwoven for the Japanese ever since western nations ruptured Japan’s
seclusion in 1853. It is also since then that Japan started defining itself
culturally in relationship – and opposition – to essentialized notions of ‘the
West’ (Ivy, 1993, 1995; Najita, 1989) in a process scholars identify as still
significant to Japanese contemporary cultural identity (see for example, Ivy,
1993, 1995; Treat, 1996; Iwabuchi, 2002; Darling-Wolf, 2003).
The American occupation marks the period of most direct western cultural
and political influence on Japanese society, even though the post-war-era
process of negotiation and integration of foreign elements into Japanese
culture was similar in many respects to that having taken place in earlier times.
From 1945 to 1947, 1 the General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander for
the Allied Powers (SCAP) concerned with bringing ‘Demilitarization and
Democratization’ (Dower, 1993: 3) to Japan drafted a new constitution and
completely reorganized the Japanese education system (Thomas, 1996).
The Japanese media fell into the hands of occupation leaders who exerted
‘direct control by means of “advice” and “suggestions” to those in commun-
ications’ (Kato, 1978: 32). On 10 September 1945 a SCAP directive instructed
‘The Japanese Imperial Government . . . to issue the necessary orders to
prevent dissemination of news, through newspapers, radio broadcasting or
other means of publication, which fails to adhere to the truth or which
disturbs public tranquility’ (Beer, 1985: 74). The directive also allowed the
Supreme Commander to suspend any publication or radio station publishing
such information. The Press Code established by this directive and clarified in
two memoranda released on 19 and 24 September 1946 broadly prohibited
news reports ‘unfavorable to the occupation forces and their politics’

Darling-Wolf Post-war Japan in photographs 405
(Kato, 1978: 18). The Code was enforced by a system of prepublication

censorship requiring editors to show final proofs to the Civil Censorship
Detachment of the Public Safety Division within the allied headquarters (De
Lange, 1998).
While examples of censorship under American occupation certainly
abound – between June 1946 and April 1947 the Mainichi Shinbun suffered 112
deletions and the Asahi Shinbun 84 – it is also important to keep in mind that
press censorship was by no means a new phenomenon in Japan. Freedom of
expression had been significantly curtailed throughout the Meiji (1869–1912),
Taishô (1912–25) and Showa (1925–45) periods. 2 Because of the numerous
legal restrictions on what could and could not be published, self-censorship
was also a common practice in pre-war Japan (Beer, 1985). In fact, despite the
many limitations imposed by the Press Code, American occupation leaders
concerned with promoting democracy were, in many respects, encouraging
greater freedom than Japanese newspapers had previously enjoyed. The Pots-
dam declaration, adopted by the Allied Forces on 26 July, 1945, and accepted
by Japan upon its surrender required the Japanese government to remove all
legal restrictions to the press (Beer, 1985: 74). In other words, limits to freedom
of expression were not unilaterally imposed by foreign invaders on a mono-
lithic Japanese intellectual community. Dissident groups, particularly those
critical of the Emperor system, actually enjoyed greater freedom under
American occupation than under Showa rule (Nishi, 1982; Takeda, 1988).
Furthermore, the American attitude toward the Japanese media evolved with
changes in policy.
As the Cold War developed – and the Soviet Union emerged as a new,
more threatening enemy than Japan itself – American planners reversed their
policy of demilitarization to focus on economic recovery and rearmament in
order to provide the United States with a strong ally in Asia. 3 Premier Shigeru
Yamada decided that the advantages of American friendship outweighed the
disadvantages of Soviet hostility. In September 1951, Japan signed a peace
treaty with 48 nations in San Francisco and formally aligned itself with US
Cold War policy through the bilateral Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and
Security (Dower, 1993). Doing so helped secure American supremacy in the
Pacific and Japanese economic recovery.
Japanese leaders were now free to pursue the popular post-surrender ideal
of ‘Construction of a Nation of Culture’ (Bunka Kokka no Kensetsu). Regular
SCAP press censorship was abolished by the Diet in 1949 and the Press Code
eliminated in 1952. In 1955, the system that would, to this day, dominate the
Japanese political and socioeconomic landscape developed with the establish-
ment of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Characterized by ‘an internally
competitive but nonetheless hegemonic conservative establishment and a

406 Journalism 5(4)
marginalized but sometimes influential liberal and Marxist opposition’

(Dower, 1993: 4), the ‘1955 system’ symbolizes not only Japan’s spectacular
emergence to domestic and international prosperity but also the intense
political and social conflicts that accompanied its rise to power (see also Garon
and Mochizuki, 1993). Under this system, Japanese leaders and intellectuals
would redefine their nation from defeated and shamed to powerful and proud,
reinterpreting much of their past in the process (Gluck, 1993, 1998). It is
within this context of international and domestic turmoil and cultural iden-
tity (re)formation that journalists, editors, and photographers for the Japan
Times worked in the immediate post-war period. The pictures they took and/or
chose to include in the pages of their newspaper subtly tell the story of this
negotiation.
The visual discourse of the Nippon and Japan Times
The following is a textual analysis of the visual discourse that emerged in the
pages of one English-language Japanese newspaper in the two decades follow-
ing the end of the Second World War. An English-language newspaper was
chosen in an attempt to explore how Japanese editors and photographers
represented their nation to an audience of foreigners and Japanese intellectuals
concerned with the way Japan may be perceived in other parts of the world.
Japanese English-language newspapers provide a forum for the negotiation of
such representation, as they are the product of Japanese leaders’ efforts to open
up to the West and ‘become part of the world’ – in other words, a product of the
Meiji Era during which most of them started publication. Inaugurated on 22
March 1897 the Japan Times – which switched its name to the Nippon Times from
1943 to 1956 – is one of the oldest such English-language newspapers in Japan.
With headquarters in Tokyo and Osaka and a current staff of about 260, it is also
one of the largest publications of its kind.
The sample for this study was obtained at the newspaper’s archives in its
Tokyo office during a six-week stay in Japan in the summer of 2003: 15 August
1945 and 15 January 1964 were selected as appropriate beginning and ending
dates for examination. The first date marks the Japanese Second World War
surrender broadcast, the second the year the Olympic games were hosted for
the first time in Tokyo (Japan’s wartime government had forced the Japanese
Olympic Committee to resign as hosts in 1940). The 1964 Olympics have been
identified as a symbolic turning point in Japan’s historical shift from defeated
to prosperous nation. 4
Because very few photographs appeared in the newspaper’s earlier years of
publication – and because the immediate post-war years were a particularly

crucial period of political and cultural identity negotiation in Japan – all

photographs from August 1945 to December 1947 were included in the study’s
sample. From 1948 to 1964, all photographs appearing in the newspaper’s
front page and the first page of its society pages on the 1st and 15th of each
month were selected for analysis. Photographs from both the front and society
pages were included in the sample because the society pages were a better
source of photographs taken by Japanese photojournalists. While the front
page was dominated by ‘hard news’ photographs often obtained through
international news agencies or the American military – and consequently
reflected what Japanese editors and international agencies considered particu-
larly newsworthy on a global scale – the society pages offered a more flexible
terrain on which Japanese sociocultural identity could be negotiated both
internally and in relationship to the rest of the world.
If fewer than two photographs were included in a particular issue, the
closest date with two or more photographs was examined instead. Following
this sampling method, a total of 1156 photographs were examined. Out of this
sample, 219 photographs were small ‘mugshots’ of Japanese and foreign offi-
cials or celebrities and were not subjected to further analysis. The remaining 937
photographs were divided into categories (see Appendix) for further examina-
tion. These categories broadly represented a number of visual themes that arose
out of the newspaper’s coverage. This analysis was most specifically concerned
with the visual discourses surrounding the representation of the Japanese
nation and Japanese culture emerging in the pages of the newspaper as Japan
symbolically (re)negotiated its political, economic, and cultural position vis-à-
vis the rest of the world during these historically crucial years. The categories
‘foreign relations’, ‘the Emperor’, ‘Japanese culture’, ‘US military’, ‘Japanese
success’, and ‘other foreigners’ were consequently given particular attention.
Selected examples from these categories are discussed in detail in the following
pages.
The content of photographs and captions was examined as well as the
photographs’ placement on the page, their size, composition, and their rela-
tionship to the text surrounding them. In other words, both the denotative and
connotative meanings were considered (Barthes, 1972; Fiske, 1990; Van
Leeuwen, 2001). Because relatively few photographs were included in the
newspaper during the years examined – and because most of the photographs
examined were quite small by contemporary standards and contained relatively
little visual information – the editorial choice of including certain photographs
rather than others was also taken into consideration as part of the images’
connotative meaning. Indeed, because of the restrictions imposed on Japanese
journalists and editors in the early post-war years, the very inclusion of a
photograph on a specific topic created a visual message – about which topics
were worthy enough of attention to warrant a visual, what type of photographs

408 Journalism 5(4)
were available at the time, and what was considered acceptable to include –
regardless of the photograph’s actual visual content.
This analysis further strived to consider these visuals in relationship to the
larger cultural and historical environment in which they were produced and
distributed, as numerous scholars have argued that the meaning of a text is not
statically embedded in the text itself but is constructed through its interaction
with other texts and the larger environment in which it is produced and
distributed (Derrida, 1976; Kristeva, 1980; Fiske, 1990; Hall 1997 and Manning
and Cullum-Swan, 1998).
An occupied nation
Even a cursory look at the pages of the Japan Times in the early post-war years
reveals Japan as an occupied nation. Photographs of foreigners visually dom-
inate the publication. In fact, more than 50 percent of the images examined
here featured foreigners – either alone or interacting with Japanese. The arrival
in Tokyo of foreign visitors was always noted and accompanied by a photo-
graph of the newly arrived guest. But the most frequently seen photographs of
foreigners were those of American military personnel in uniform engaged in
various tasks. General MacArthur was repeatedly shown addressing the nation,
greeting new recruits, celebrating ‘Commodore Perry Day’, or commenting on
the result of Japanese elections – as in a May 1947 shot accompanied by the
caption ‘MacArthur hails choice of Premier Katayama’. He was even featured
‘leaving his headquarters following a busy day’ (8 August 1946), opening the
silk fair for allied personnel along with his wife (5 May 1947), or attending a
flower exhibition (6 April 1949). Most often, however, the general was seen
reviewing his troops.
It is in those photographs that the power of the American military, and its
control over the Japanese nation, was most clearly established. Recurring
images of rows of soldiers in impeccable uniforms ‘All set for army day’ (3 April
1947), the (American) ‘Independence day parade’ (5 July 1949), or marching
down the streets of Tokyo – all displayed above the fold on the front page of
the newspaper and accompanied by large headlines – hinted at the signific-
ance, both physical and psychological, of the American military presence in
Japan in the aftermath of the war. The fact that soldiers were typically
photographed against a background of easily recognizable Tokyo sites – the
Diet building, the Imperial Palace, the Ginza – accentuated the feeling of
invasion permeating these early images.
Such representations of American triumph were particularly powerful
when considered in contrast to the photographs of Japanese war criminals or

starving civilians, also found throughout the newspaper in the three years
following Japan’s surrender. The 5 May 1946 issue of the newspaper featured at
the top of its front page a photograph of a ‘defendant being taken out of court
in [a] major war crime trial’. He was seen leaving the courthouse head down,
surrounded by military personnel in uniform. His defeated posture contrasted
with that of the taller Americans surrounding him confidently looking straight
ahead. Two days later, the newspaper’s front page included two large photo-
graphs of military personnel standing at attention in bright uniforms. On 12
May 1946, a front-page above-the-fold photograph of Eisenhower and Mac-
Arthur riding together in a car down a Tokyo street bore the headline ‘Axis-
Smasher Reaches Tokyo’ in large, bold print. The fact that Japan was one of the
countries ‘smashed’ by Eisenhower was not mentioned. On 13 May, the US
Chief of Staff was again inspecting troops.
American superiority was also established through the military’s associ-
ation with technology. Newly arrived military personnel or dignitaries were
seen riding in brand new cars (as in the previously described photograph),
standing in front of airplanes, stepping off ships, or boarding trains. Emphasis
was even given, on the front page of the 23 March 1946 issue, to the ‘high-tech
room’ in which ‘top-ranking Japanese war crime suspects’ were to be tried by
the international tribunal. A large photograph placed at the top of the page
featured a room equipped with microphones. Another photograph below it
showed the interpreter’s equipment ‘brought here for possible use in the
trials’, which took up an entire room and resembled an early computer. Two
Americans in uniform were testing the machine. Again, these photographs of
American technological prowess contrasted with those of hungry Japanese
crowds roaming the streets (4 April 1946), air-raid survivors living in pre-
carious conditions (2 February 1946), black-marketeers being caught red-
handed (2 March 1947), desperate jobless men (2 June 1947), homeless people
(4 December 1947), or victims of the various natural disasters – from earth-
quakes to floods to typhoons – that repeatedly struck the country and also
received extensive coverage (see Appendix).
The inclusion of these visuals in the newspaper may have much to do,
however, with what was available to editors at the time. The US army provided
the majority of photographs of military personnel found in the newspaper –
even though staff photographers were sent to major military events taking
place in Tokyo. Other photographs of foreigners were frequently obtained
through international news services. Thus, the very practical limitations
imposed by the reality of publishing a newspaper in an economically de-
pressed and politically controlled environment may certainly have influenced
what kind of photographs appeared in the newspaper, especially during the
early post-war years.

410 Journalism 5(4)
Occupation forces’ tight control of the press also clearly influenced

editors’ decisions. While direct control of the press was never acknowledged in
the pages of the newspaper, frequent photographs of American journalists and
editors arriving in Tokyo to ‘Aid Japanese journalism’ (12 August 1947) or
‘Study the conditions in this country’ (15 July 1947) suggest that American
influence of the Japanese press extended beyond the simple application of the
SCAP press code. Indeed, the newspaper consistently covered American leaders
and their policies in an extremely positive light. A 15 August 1946 photograph
of MacArthur was accompanied by the headline ‘Makes Occupation a Success’.
Its caption read: ‘General Douglas MacArthur, mighty man of war, has proven
that he is also a great leader in peace by his capable and intelligent administra-
tion of Japan during the one year following its defeat’. The caption of a 1
January 1949 photograph similarly identified MacArthur as ‘Probably the
busiest and most active of all members of the Occupation Forces in Japan . . .
thanks to whose capable direction and wise guidance during the past year,
Japan is enabled to greet the new year in peace and with brightest hopes’.
Readers were constantly reminded of the positive social and political
changes brought about by the occupation. Even the defeated rulers of the ‘old
Japan’ were portrayed as grateful, as in an otherwise rather (visually) un-
interesting photograph of Prince Chichibu shot from the waist up, which
carried the headline ‘Prince Chichibu Lauds Americans for Teaching Democ-
racy to Japan’. More generally, the tone of the newspaper was extremely
upbeat and positive considering the level of destruction and considerable
social unrest Japan was experiencing at the time. A 14 April 1946 photograph
of cherry blossoms carried the caption: ‘Betokening a happier and freer Japan,
the cherry blossoms in front of the Diet building have burst forth in all their
beauty, suffusing the drab surroundings with a rosy glow’.
In contrast, former Japanese military leaders were clearly portrayed as
criminals. The headline of a 5 June 1946 photograph of prosecutor Joseph R.
Keenan addressing the International Military Tribunal for the Far East read
‘Launches action for justice’. On 12 December 1946, readers were introduced
to the ‘first woman witness at Tokyo trial’, who ‘recounted the horrors of
Japanese concentration camps in the Philippines’. The photograph featured
her standing alone behind a large microphone. Interestingly, the criminals
themselves were not included in these photographs. Creating a ‘happier and
freer Japan’ or a ‘New nation dedicated to freedom, peace’ (4 November 1946)
clearly entailed purging past offenses. Once these had been dealt with, how-
ever, the newspaper’s coverage could revert to its more positive tone and
continue its process of erasure of the past.
By the end of 1948, references to war criminals had disappeared from the
pages of the Times and the shift in American priorities that was to lead to

the 1951 San Francisco treaty was evident in its coverage. Japan was reframed
as a strong and essential ally of the United States against communism. A 28
January 1949 photograph of MacArthur inspecting his guard was titled ‘Japan
won’t yield to reds’. The fact that only American soldiers were included in the
picture makes one wonder where the Japan mentioned in the headline was
visually represented. A 5 July 1949 image of the general delivering a speech
behind a star-spangled podium was accompanied by the headline ‘SCAP
brands communism international outlawry; sees Japan as bulwark’. Its sub-
head read: ‘This country is holding up fast against red threat’.
Labor activists previously referred to as ‘union members’ or ‘protestors’
were now deemed ‘communists’ or ‘reds’. ‘Crowds’ turned into ‘red-led mobs’
in the headlines and captions of the newspaper. A large two-photograph
spread at the top of the 12 June 1949 front page featured union members
boarding a train ‘flaunting red Communist banners and plastered with red
posters’. The banners were most prominently displayed in the photographs
while union members themselves could barely be seen in the background. The
headline running across the top of the page read: ‘Communists “make hay”
over railway strike as public suffers’. Another prominently displayed 2 July
1949 photograph bore the headline ‘Red-led mob stages riot’. No sign of riot,
however, was evident from the photograph itself. It featured a rather innocent-
looking crowd shot from the back and provided no visual clue to what the
crowd’s focus might have been. Its caption nevertheless mentioned ‘A
communist-led mob’ and several injuries.
The newspaper’s society pages also shed a positive light on occupation
forces. There, the visual discourse constructed by the happy faces of Japanese
children receiving candy, books, food, money, or other gifts from occupation
personnel was one of American benevolence in the midst of adversity. Recur-
ring photographs of war orphans posed with their uniformed ‘benefactors’
towering above them (17 December 1948; 10 February 1949) or holding out a
protective arm (14 August 1949), symbolically reflected the nature of the early
post-war US–Japan relationship. A 6 June 1947 photograph of excited Japanese
children holding up candy to the camera bore the caption: ‘Smiling happily,
these husky youngsters receive American candy distributed in celebration of
the effectuation of the new constitution’. In this case, American generosity
was not only linked to their gift of candy but also to their drafting of the
Japanese constitution, identified as cause for celebration.
The positive impact of American influence on gender roles was another
subtext of the newspaper’s coverage. Women’s position in the ‘new Japan’ that
was to emerge from the ashes of the war seemed at the forefront of much
discussion. A 21 February 1946 front-page photograph located above the
fold featured eight Japanese women – posed in a row and looking straight at

412 Journalism 5(4)
the camera – who were to discuss ‘women in politics’ on Radio Tokyo that
night. Its caption enthusiastically stated: ‘Never before in the history of Radio
Tokyo has such a representative group of women appeared together on a
broadcast’.
Women entering domains previously reserved to men also received much
attention. The first cohort of female officers graduating from the Japanese
police academy in April 1946 spurred recurring stories and visuals for an entire
year. Appearing with headlines along the lines of ‘Lady coppers awaiting
debut’ (20 April 1946) or ‘Lady cop in action’ (12 June 1946), these photo-
graphs typically featured cheerful female officers in uniform proudly posing
for the camera. The first batch of female trainees to enter the Institute of the
Foreign Service to train for careers in diplomacy received similar treatment in
1949. Young women setting off for college – particularly those planning to
attend American universities – were also prominently featured.
These women’s accomplishments were subtly linked to Japan’s post-war
relationship to the United States. On 8 July 1946, a photograph of a Japanese
woman standing amongst a crowd of seated men bore the headline ‘Cham-
pions women’s rights’. Its caption told readers that ‘Mrs Shizue Kato, in her
interpellation at the Lower House Constitution Committee session, was as-
sured by the justice minister that the new draft is based on the principles of
equality between men and women’. Japanese activists were also often por-
trayed with prominent female westerners. On 15 January 1953, the newspaper
reported on the arrival in Tokyo of the president of the General Federation of
Women’s Clubs of the United States. She was photographed being greeted with
flowers by two members of the Tokyo Women’s Club wearing kimonos. A 15
March 1960 close-up of Mrs Roosevelt engaged in a conversation at a dinner
table with a young Japanese woman was titled ‘Mrs Roosevelt fetes Nippon
women leaders’. Similarly, a 15 September 1960 photograph showed a group of
six women – two Japanese and four western – standing together around a large
book. The caption indicated that these women were officials of the College
Women’s Club of Tokyo admiring their collection of Japanese woodcut prints
during a membership drive at one of the foreigners’ residence.
These photographs sent Japanese women the message that they could
become shapers of the new Japan being built in the post-war era through their
association with westerners. Japanese feminist leaders did, in fact, take ad-
vantage of occupation leaders’ early emphasis on democratizing Japan. They
effectively employed the ideal of democracy to promote women’s involvement
in politics and redefine domesticity to validate women’s public activities (Uno,
1993). Their work resulted in an unprecedented 39 women being elected to the
Diet in 1946 (Hastings, 1996). This association of women’s rights with western

influence has also, however, proven problematic. Aside from not doing justice
to the work of early Japanese leaders, it has allowed conservative intellectuals
and politicians to dismiss the Japanese feminist movement as mere western
manipulation (Tanaka, 1990; Fujieda and Fujimura-Fanselow, 1995). As a
strategy to justify American intervention on Japanese culture, it also helped
make SCAP’s ‘benevolent colonialism’ (Duus, 1976: 239) more palatable.
Cultural invasion
Indeed, the foreign invasion of Japan in the early post-war period was not only
military but also cultural. Along with occupation forces, an array of new
practices penetrated the Japanese cultural environment. Reports on sports
previously rarely practiced in Japan soon started appearing in the newspaper.
While these reports initially focused on the exploits of foreign teams, Japanese
players would eventually take the forefront. This shift illustrates the active
process of foreign cultural adoption and adaptation Japan engaged in at the
time, and is still engaged in today. The front page of the 15 September 1952
issue included a large photograph above the fold of the Japanese baseball team
in action. Its caption, ‘Minoru Matsui scores for Kanebo Nine in the sixth
inning on a single by first baseman Hirotoshi Yamamura as Fort Myer catcher
Doug Cassey waits for the throw at home’, suggests that, by that time, Japan
Times readers were familiar with the game. Golf – another sport that was to
become a central element of Japan’s post-war corporate culture – also started
receiving frequent coverage as early as 1950.
Other, more obscure, cultural legacies of the presence of occupation forces
on Japanese soil were occasionally mentioned. The caption of a 17 January
1946 front-page photograph of a white westerner riding a bull under the
headline ‘Ride’em cowboy!’ informed readers that a rodeo was to be held in
Tokyo. A 15 March 1949 photograph of a dancing hall full of young Japanese
lined up in neat rows bore the headline, ‘Square dancing popular in Japan’. A
few months later, square dancing had apparently become a ‘craze’, as stated in
the headline of a 15 December 1950 society-page photograph featuring
Japanese law enforcement agents in uniform in the midst of a dance being led
by a Japanese teacher playing the violin.
By the end of 1949, photographs of foreign celebrities rivaled those of
military officials in the pages of the newspaper. A six-photograph spread on
Hollywood movies took up most of page 3 on 15 May 1952. It featured
photographs of Debra Paget and Louis Jourdan in Bird of Paradise, Kenneth

414 Journalism 5(4)
Tonbey and Margaret Sheridan in The Thing, Anthony Dexter and Eleanor
Parker in Valentino, Stephen McNally and Alexis Smith in Wyoming Mail, and
Tom Kelly and Ann Gillis in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The sixth photo-
graph was of Pinocchio. Events deemed of importance in the American
entertainment world – such as the 1951 wedding of Frank Sinatra and Ava
Gardner or the yearly selection of Miss America – also received extensive
coverage.
Negotiating cultural invasion
The Japan Times’ coverage also demonstrates, however, that Japan was not
simply a passive victim of foreign political and cultural influence in the post-
war era. On the contrary, western cultural influence was actively negotiated
and, occasionally, resisted as Japan claimed its position in a new world order.
Japan’s participation in international sports, boy scout jamborees, or global
cultural productions helped locate it as a major player in post-war global
geopolitics. Japan was even sometimes shown beating America at its own game
– as in a 15 May 1960 photograph featuring an American bowling team having
just lost to its Japanese rival. The inclusion of foreign places and faces in the
pages of the newspaper similarly served to assert Japan’s position as ‘part of the
world’.
More generally, the process of western cultural influence Japan experi-
enced in the 20 years following its Second World War surrender was one of
hybridization rather than imposition. On 15 February 1953, the newspaper
included a photograph of dolls of ‘a lovely European prince and princess’
being sold by a department store in Ginza for the traditional March doll
festival – which normally features dolls representing the imperial family. The
photograph’s caption interpreted this ‘unique set’ as ‘an unusual variation on
the century-old motif’. Similarly, on 21 May 1947, the newspaper reported
that this year’s silk fair was ‘highlighted by a fashion display of Western styles’.
A series of photographs featured Japanese models sporting silk dresses drawing
from the latest western fashion of the time. On 14 November 1950, Japanese
traditional artists were featured proudly presenting the Pope with a scroll
describing the life of early Japanese Christians. In these examples, elements of
foreign culture were integrated into traditional Japanese cultural practices.
This hybridization also marked the beginning of a process of commodification
of Japanese traditional cultural forms that was to become a central character-
istic of capitalist Japan (Ivy, 1989, 1995). On 15 November 1954, geishas in

traditional gear were shown serving westerners Christmas shopping at one of

Tokyo’s largest department stores.
Western cultural influence was, however, most assertively negotiated in
the pages of the newspaper through photographs emphasizing Japan’s recip-
rocal impact on western environments. The Times never failed to notice
foreigners adopting Japanese practices. As early as 2 February 1945, a large
society-page photograph titled ‘GI Joe – his life and his views’, featured a group
of GIs reading Japanese books. The newspaper also featured GIs taking up judo
(11 November 1945) or admiring Japanese traditional palaces (18 April 1946).
On 16 November 1947, a photograph of a meditating American wearing the
costume of a Buddhist monk appeared under the headline ‘GI embraces
Buddhist faith’. The newspaper would follow the progress of George Levy, the
Buddhist monk from New York, throughout the years – its coverage happily
ending with the man’s wedding to a Japanese woman. A 15 April 1957
photograph of the ceremony featured him wearing a kimono and sitting
Japanese style next to his bride, also in traditional costume. Below it, a large
close-up of his upper body showed him in deep concentration practicing
calligraphy ‘along with his Japanese colleagues’, who could be seen in the
background.
On 10 October 1947, a young white woman in kimono was shown
walking down the Ginza with two young Japanese women. The caption of the
photograph, published under the headline ‘American girl achieves ambition’,
indicated that, ‘For many years it has been the heart’s desire of Miss Jackie
Gluth, GHQ typist, to take a walk on the Ginza clad in Japanese kimono and
its accoutrements’. On 15 December 1949, it was the turn of three wives of
SCAP officials to try on gold-embroidered Japanese bridal robes. On 15
February 1954, a large above-the-fold photograph featured an Australian
official having his first Japanese cooking lesson in the company of a Tokyo
chef. Portraying him sitting behind a table covered with cooking ingredients
with three young Japanese women – presumably other students in the class –
standing to his right and the chef to his left showing him how to proceed, the
image left no doubt as to who was being culturally influenced. On 15 March
1958, foreigners were featured enjoying Noh Theater; on 15 May 1960, world
batamweight champion Jose Becerra of Mexico was portrayed eating yakitori
(Japanese style grilled chicken); and, on 16 January 1961, the US Ambassador
was shown learning to make paper cranes in the company of a beautiful young
kimono-clad Japanese woman. 5
Reports on the spread of Japanese traditional culture to other cultural
environments – the kimono from Mme Butterfly displayed in New York City (15
August 1953), the Archbishop of Canterbury wearing a miter ‘of pure Japanese
brocade’ (15 August 1954), a Japanese art exhibit in London (15 June 1955) –

416 Journalism 5(4)
were another means to celebrate Japanese influence. Possibly the most inter-
esting coverage in this vein was a large front-page 6 April 1948 photograph of
cherry trees blossoming on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Its caption
described at length how the trees had been grown from Japanese seeds. What,
at first glance, might have appeared as a display of American influence was, in
fact, a celebration of Japanese presence in the American capital.
A central figure in this (re)negotiation of Japanese cultural identity was
that of the Emperor, whom the newspaper used as a model of how to act in the
face of western influence. Initially featured in official roles, his capacity
quickly shifted from political leader to cultural representative. On 24 June
1947, the caption of a photograph showing him sitting in the audience at the
Diet stated: ‘The photograph shows the Emperor as a “guest” instead of the
“Supreme Ruler” listening to the address of the speaker of the lower house’.
Having been forced to abandon his position as a political ruler – along with all
claims to divinity (Duus, 1998) – the Emperor would soon become a symbol of
how Japan could change.
From then on, he only appeared in the Japan Times in western clothing
and among commoners, attending social events, or comforting war victims.
The rest of the imperial family also symbolized this shift. Photograph after
photograph featured its members reading western books, learning about
western art, embracing western fashion, or simply enjoying various aspects of
western culture – from American fried chicken to Hollywood movies. For
instance, on 18 December 1946, readers were told in the caption of an
otherwise unrelated photograph of Prince and Princess Chichibu in a park that
the Prince ‘enjoys reading US magazines but finds comics hard to understand’.
On 12 October 1946, Crown Prince Akihito was shown studying with his
American tutor. On 15 September 1953, the newspaper featured him visiting in
Philadelphia ‘the woman who taught him his first lesson in democracy’.
While the fact that even the imperial family adopted western practices
illustrates the power of foreign cultural influence on Japan at the time, it also
indicates that such influence was negotiated on Japanese terms. The continu-
ing omnipresence of the Emperor and members of his entourage in the pages
of the newspaper might even be interpreted as a subtle act of resistance. The
Times indeed never failed to report on their actions, no matter how trivial – as
when Akihito got a new haircut in 1949, when the Emperor and Empress swam
at the YMCA in 1951, or when the entire family was shown on New Year’s Eve
playing with young Prince Hiro in their living room in 1964. By giving that
much attention to individuals symbolizing Japan’s pre-war power – and about
whom occupation leaders had, at best, mixed feelings – the newspaper’s visual
message reassured its readers that their nation was still in control of its own
destiny.

Celebrating Japan’s success
Another subtle subtext of the reassertion of Japanese culture in the face of

foreign influence developed in photographs celebrating Japan’s beauty and,
ultimately, its success in redefining itself. This theme was most clearly appar-
ent in the early days of the occupation and in the society pages of the
newspaper. There, photographs of beautiful Japanese sceneries offered a sooth-
ing contrast to the tales of military invasion, tribunals, and suffering found on
the front page. Photographs of signs, in the semiotic sense of the term, of
Japan’s glory – Mt Fuji, majestic Shinto shrines, the Inland Sea – appeared on
an almost daily basis. While the inclusion of these visuals may have had much
to do with their availability and political neutrality, their continuing presence
and minimal ‘news value’ suggests other possible motives.
Indeed, captions read like advertisements for Japanese tourism. On 12
November 1945, the newspaper stated that Hokkaido ‘is popular not only for
its spas with geysers, turbulent mud pools and hissing sulfur fume jets but also
for its magnificent scenery’. A few days later, a spread on Japan’s national parks
read, ‘The handwork of nature and man at its best have been combined in
delicate harmony at the famed twelve national parks of Japan’. These visuals
certainly aimed at getting the Times’ foreign audience acquainted with Japan.
They also, however, marked the beginning of a process of celebration – and
even reinterpretation – of Japan’s beauty and tradition numerous scholars
have identified as a crucial element of this country’s post-war development
(see, for example, Ivy, 1989, 1995, 1997; Robertson, 1998; Vlastos, 1998).
This process also entails the celebration of Japanese traditional practices –
a celebration in which the Japan Times certainly engaged. The caption of a
large 18 February 1948, front-page photograph of anglers in traditional cos-
tumes read: ‘More than ever before, Japan looks to her hardy fisher folks to
supply the larders of her teeming population’. On 15 January 1960, a photo-
graph published as part of a ‘traditional crafts of Japan’ series similarly featured
a Samurai sword maker with his apprentice, both ‘in the traditional robe of
Japanese swordsmiths’. On 15 April 1958, it was the turn of traditional
wooden-doll makers to be featured. Photographs of traditional Japanese fes-
tivals also competed in the pages of the newspaper with those of the foreign
celebrations of Easter or the 4th of July.
Later on, the newspaper’s focus shifted in part from nostalgic accounts of
traditional Japanese practices to a celebration of Japan’s technological accom-
plishments. Huge spreads on the opening of new hotels complete with
photographs of modern amenities, additional subway stations, ‘mammoth’
swimming pools (15 July 1962), amusement centers, golf clubs, government
buildings, or the inauguration of the Tokyo Tower – which, according to a

418 Journalism 5(4)
photograph’s headline, ‘tops them all’ (15 October 1958) – forged a visual
discourse of Japanese success and recovery. Contributions of Japanese scient-
ists ranging from a ‘handy transistor’ allowing ‘the busy businessman to
dictate on his way to work’ (15 July 1959) to an apparatus for the prevention
of Caisson Disease (15 June 1960) to a new kind of TV tube (15 November
1963) were also duly noted.
But possibly the most striking example of this discourse of recovery was a
15 August 1960 spread on the rebuilding of Nagasaki. Titled ‘Amazing post-war
recovery staged by A-bombed Nagasaki’, the spread told a story of utter
destruction and rebirth. Two photographs at the very top of the page featured
a business district as it was soon after the bombing and as it stood 15 years
later. Their caption read: ‘The Uragami district of Nagasaki was leveled by the
A-bomb (upper photo). It is now a thriving business center with many fine
buildings and industrial plants.’ At the center of the page, ‘before’ and ‘after’
photographs of a cathedral showed how it had been rebuilt ‘thanks to
donations from both home and abroad’. The bottom photograph featured
veiled female worshippers in bright western clothing climbing a set of stairs
leading to the imposing structure. 6 Other photographs in the spread displayed
an industrial complex, a new building containing an A-bomb museum, and
the peace statue standing at the A-bomb memorial park.
By the time Japan was preparing to host the 1964 Olympics, the news-
paper’s discourse was one of unequivocal celebration. Huge spreads featured
the sites being built to stage the games and the shows being rehearsed. On 1
January 1964, the caption of a front-page photograph of Mt Fuji topped by the
Olympic rings read: ‘The huge five rings, symbolic of the Olympic games, are
laid out above the snow-capped Mt Fuji by five Air Self-Defense Force jets in a
rehearsal for the opening ceremony of the Tokyo games’. The rings laid above
one of the most frequently used and easily recognizable symbols of the
Japanese nation also symbolized this country’s triumph – at least for a moment
– against the ghosts of its own past.
The Times and the erasure of Japan’s past
Much more could be said about this fascinating period of Japanese history. I
hope, however, that this admittedly incomplete analysis is illustrative of the
complex process of cultural negotiation having taken place in Japan in the
post-war era. The visual discourses constructed in the pages of the newspaper
at the time exemplify how Japan dealt as a nation with the intense foreign
cultural intervention characterizing this period. Because media coverage both

reflects and influences cultural and social trends, the Times was also one site
on which ‘the post-war script to reenact Japan in a different mode’ (Gluck,
1993: 64) could be drafted.
Despite the numerous restrictions under which the press operated in the
occupation period, Japan Times photographers and editors managed to con-
struct Japan symbolically as a proud nation in control of its own destiny and
starting to envision its role as a leader in the new post-war world order. In
order to do so the ‘mistakes’ of Japan’s past had to be erased or at least ignored.
And indeed they were in the pages of the newspaper. As early as 1950, Japanese
and American wrestlers – who, just five years earlier, would have been mortal
enemies – were featured ‘Taking up all in good fun’ (15 July 1950). In August
1958, the caption of a photograph of a Japanese man holding hands with two
westerners brandishing Japanese traditional dolls explained that the Japanese
had sunk the men’s ship during the war. They had luckily survived and had
met their attacker in Tokyo for this friendly reunion. On the 15th anniversary
of the Japanese surrender, the caption of a photograph of the Emperor in
western clothing standing next to MacArthur read: ‘Fifteen years ago the
Emperor called upon the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers’, creating
a discourse of cooperation rather than defeat. With the past thus out of the
way, Japan could start focusing on its future.
In 1964, many challenges still lay ahead for the Japanese nation and it
would certainly soon come down from the euphoria of hosting the Olympic
games. But the process of repositioning and reinterpretation started and
illustrated in the pages of the Japan Times would continue to this day.
Notes
1 The Japanese constitution adopted on 3 November 1946 went into effect six
months later.
2 A complex censorship system in place since the Meiji era provided for criminal
penalties for criticizing the government, reporting on the contents of government
meetings, or publishing slanderous caricatures or immoral writings (Beer, 1985).
3 American leaders’ previously lenient attitude toward the Japanese labor and radical
movements also quickly changed (Upham, 1993). On 7 June 1950, MacArthur
ordered 17 editors of a communist newspaper purged for sending him an open
letter condemning the arrests and trials of Communist Party members (Nishi,
1982). Just four years earlier, he had strongly supported the Tokyo District Public
Prosecutors Office’s decision to acquit five individuals accused of public criticism
of the Emperor in the pages of the same newspaper.
4 To prepare for the event, the Japanese government spent $3 billion to rebuild
Tokyo and inaugurated the world famous Japanese bullet train (Shinkansen).

420 Journalism 5(4)
5 All of these photographs appeared in the society pages of the newspaper, confirm-
ing my contention that this section of the newspaper was a particularly fertile
terrain for the visual reaffirmation of Japanese cultural influence.
6 The choice of a Catholic cathedral as the visual center of the page subtly hints at
the looming presence of western cultural influence in this newly reborn Japan.
Next to the cathedral a photograph featured remnants of the gate of a Shinto
shrine partially blown off by the wind of the nuclear explosion. The gate had,
apparently, not been rebuilt.
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422 Journalism 5(4)
Biographical note
Fabienne Darling-Wolf is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism

and in the Mass Media and Communication Program at Temple University. Her
research focuses on processes of global identity formation.
Address: School of Communications and Theater, 2020 N. 13th Street, Temple
University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA.
[email: fabienne.darling-wolf@temple.edu].
Appendix: Categories of photographs examined
Categories Number of Approximate

photographs percentage
Foreign relations (cultural and religious exchanges,

political and business dealings, Japanese
interacting with foreigners) 221 24
Other foreigners (foreign politicians, celebrities, or
other civilians not interacting with Japanese) 185 20
US military (US military officials in uniform) 67 7
Japanese culture (Japanese festivals, traditional
theater, traditional crafts) 65 7
Japanese success (new buildings, technology,
inventions, recognition abroad) 61 6.5
Japanese civilians 57 6
Disasters (natural, industrial accidents) 54 6
Japanese government officials (except Emperor and
when not interacting with Americans) 45 5
The Emperor 42 4.5
Protesters 31 3
US power (ships, flags, technology) 21 2
Sceneries (of Japan) 18 2
Other military (non-US, including Japanese) 17 1.5
Sports 16 1.5
Other (inanimate objects, animals) 37 4
Total 937 100


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Post-war Japan in photographs

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(Kato, 1978: 18). The Code was enforced by a system of prepublication

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marginalized but sometimes influential liberal and Marxist opposition’

The visual discourse of the Nippon and Japan Times

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crucial period of political and cultural identity negotiation in Japan – all

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Occupation forces’ tight control of the press also clearly influenced

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Negotiating cultural invasion

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traditional gear were shown serving westerners Christmas shopping at one of

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Celebrating Japan’s success

Another subtle subtext of the reassertion of Japanese culture in the face of

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The Times and the erasure of Japan’s past

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Barthes, R. (1972) Mythologies. New York: Hill & Wang.

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Ivy, M. (1989) ‘Critical Texts, Mass Artifacts: The Consumption of Knowledge in

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Fabienne Darling-Wolf is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism

Appendix: Categories of photographs examined

Categories Number of Approximate

Foreign relations (cultural and religious exchanges,

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