The Happiness of "Oh Well" | Kenji Kumasaka (Dean of the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies)
2004.09.02
August 21, 2004, was Open Campus. Many high school students gathered, and I confirmed that there were high expectations for SFC. What a relief. I was glad. While promoting SFC to them, the conversation drifted to the Olympics. The last time Japan had tried this hard was at the Tokyo Olympics exactly 40 years ago. At that time, I was the same age as the high school students here today.
In 1964, I, too, was struggling in the midst of the "examination war," just like everyone else. However, for the two weeks of the Olympics starting from October 10, an unspoken armistice was declared in the war of entrance exams, and even we exam-takers were immersed in the joy of being Japanese. That event in October 1964 was the last time I felt a genuine sense of being Japanese.
In Athens, Kosei Inoue, whom everyone in Japan was convinced was the surest bet for a gold medal, was eliminated in a surprisingly swift defeat. Everyone doubted their own eyes and ears. Nevertheless, the fact that he had lost remained unchanged. Instead, Keiji Suzuki won, and his response of "Yeah!" and the V-sign flashed in the corner of the screen to a foolish interviewer's question, "A word for the people of Japan," saved everything. This was good enough. Faced with the harshness and pain of shouldering the nation's hopes, you can't say anything just because someone lost, and no one can blame them. That's why I cannot forgive the parent who prostrated themselves in apology on behalf of their child. The parent has nothing to do with it; it's all the individual's own problem, their own world.
Forty years ago, marathon runner Kokichi Tsuburaya returned to the Olympic Stadium in Yoyogi in second place. However, never looking back, he was overtaken by Heatley at the very end and finished third. Even so, the bronze medal should have been the greatest honor of Tsuburaya's life. Yet, he was strongly expected by his father and society to win gold at the next Olympics in Mexico. He tried his best, but couldn't live up to the expectations, and in the end, he took his own life, leaving a suicide note apologizing to his parents. Those were the times. Kotaro Sawaki wrote a masterpiece titled "A Long-Distance Runner's Last Testament."
Late on the night of August 23, when Mizuki Noguchi entered the stadium in Athens in the lead, she was waving to the crowd. "Hey, is this really the time for that? Ndereba is right behind you! Run with all your might!"—perhaps only those of the generation who know of Tsuburaya's tragedy thought this. For a moment, the shadow of Tsuburaya overlapped with Noguchi. However, Noguchi, 40 years later, won powerfully, as if to dismiss the anxieties of that generation. It was a remarkable feat.
The book containing this masterpiece is "Hairezaru Monotachi" (The Unvanquished), and it should also include a nonfiction piece describing what a genius Shigeo Nagashima was when he joined the Giants as a rookie. That "Nagashima Japan" team finally managed to win a bronze medal. I found myself feeling, "Oh well, that's good enough."
(Date of publication: 2004/09/02)