Out of the spotlight: Michael E. Stanley puts the focus on public-works projects that actually work

Japan, Inc., Dec, 2002 by Michael E. Stanley

RECENTLY THE ANACHRONISTIC AND Byzantine system of Japanese public works spending has come under justifiably severe criticism. In last month's issue of J@pan Inc, we took a look at the matrix of ecological catastrophes developing as the climax to a half-century polk-baizel boondoggle in Nagasaki Prefecture's Isahaya Bay. That example of the corporate cum political cure bureaucratic incest has spawned a whole brood of problems that are just beginning to rear their ugly heads Looking at that serpents' nest, one is left to ask what good such a system could have produced. This month, in the second installment of our occasional series on public works, Michael Stanley answers that question.

IT IS ALL TOO easy to jump on the anti-public-works bandwagon. The tune of doom and gloom is an easy one to master and it does grab the public ear. However, a little devil's advocacy may be called for here: while the excesses of Japan's construction addiction are indeed obvious, the nation has nevertheless benefited from the amazing advances in its physical infrastructure over the last half-century. Moreover, reasonable public-works spending in the right direction may at some point become a catalyst for consumer spending, the low level of which is an obvious millstone around the neck of the Japanese economy.

In the long run, the eventual evolution of seriously responsible management and direction of public-works projects and their financing may be far more important than any real reduction in the amount spent on them. The real source of the difficulty is the Japanese cultural tendency toward a tribalistic miuchi ishiki (literally "kinship feeling"), a term that sounds innocent enough at first, but in Japanese has nuances of a negative, narrow-minded clannishness. Organizations--corporations, government ministries, and industry associations, for instance--seem unable to perceive anything not directly concerned with their own immediate and vested self-interest. A clear and classic historical example was the inability of the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy to effectively work together even as the Allies carried the Pacific War to the heart of the Japanese homeland. Even the threat of imminent catastrophe could not budge them from their petrified thinking. Japan's real, functioning organizational philosophy has not materially changed in the succeeding six decades, and that is the core of the problem. The spending excesses and scandals are the symptoms of this underlying illness, not the causes.

During my travels on assignment to various parts of Japan, I have had ample opportunity to view some of the results of Japan's construction mania. Much of it has been amazingly overdone and out of place, but some has been evidently useful. I thoroughly enjoyed using some of the newer elements of the highway network, for example. While it is true that apparently pointless roads that lead nowhere do get built, the improvement of much of Japan's skein of intercity highways and rural roads over the last two decades has been nothing short of miraculous. I remember all too well the infuriatingly bad design, short-sighted engineering and--last, but certainly not least--the effectively meaningless signage that virtually guaranteed long sessions with a map at roadside rest areas or in restaurant parking lots.

However, there was another unexpected aspect of Japan's love for publicly funded construction that I got to know as I traveled through the country working on a series of projects centered on Japan's archaeology and cultural evolution. These assignments required photography of modern reconstructions of ancient structures from various periods of the archipelago's history. And--I'm sure you've jumped ahead and guessed it--these modern reconstructions were all publicly funded in one way or another. Moreover, in every case, the managing officials were extremely keen to cooperate with my research and often were decidedly active in suggesting possibilities for interesting photographs. Some even bent the rules in a big way. They were light years away from the legendary bureaucratic trolls that are said to shrink from the light and noise of dealing with the public in general and the media in particular.

It is significant that none of these locations were temples, which are in their own way just as effectively bureaucratic as any governmental organization but nowhere near as cooperative. At the outset, I had hoped for an open minded attitude conducive to producing articles that would help convey the cultural depth and weight of the Buddhist element in Japanese tradition. But the main thrust in any discussion of photography for publication centered on what sort of fee the monks could extract. Thankfully, dealing with them was rarely necessary, and they did not come to figure in the project.

Actually, after coming to Japan, reaching saturation with Buddhist temple architecture to the point of excruciating boredom took almost no time at all. However, even now, a look at many of the guidebooks to Japan leaves a distinct impression that the dark, brooding, the-roofed temples were Japan's major contribution to the world's architectural heritage and that if you miss the Something-something-Tera here or the Whatsis-Ji there, then you've missed the soul of the nation. I vociferously beg to differ. Perhaps I am too easily jaded, but the monotony of temple architecture is a blurry, chiaroscuro reflection of an imported tradition that is totally uncharacteristic of the amazing variety that is really at the root of Japan's ethnos. It was this variety as expressed in the history of Japanese structures that formed the foundation of the theme of my project and opened the door to an aspect of the modern Japanese addiction to building that I did not expect.