Differences of Culture and Custom

Amid a fierce contest, Mr. Joe Biden claimed victory in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

What I felt in this election is that, regardless of age or sex, the American people’s feelings toward an election—partly because they themselves can cast a vote—run exceedingly high in interest and enthusiasm.

A president who single-handedly carries the expectations of a people who think seriously, through politics, about their own lives and the future of America and the world, is truly a figure fit to lead the world as the leader of a great nation.

Our country does not have a presidential system, and whether it is peace-induced complacency, national character, or resignation toward politics I cannot say, but I do not sense a groundswell of public will toward politics on this scale.

Listening to the presidential candidates’ speeches, aesthetic ideals such as “the able hawk hides its talons,” “to lose is to win,” “the ripened ear of rice bows its head,” and “the unsaid surpasses the said” are of no use at all; it must be a national character in which, unless you fight with retorts and mutual abuse, saying whatever you please and doing whatever you please, the world takes you for nothing but a meek fool.

The Japanese, who must conduct diplomacy with foreign nations that possess such a culture of language, should not follow the “when in Rome” approach, but—without casting off Japanese aesthetics—measure the right moment, bring out the spirit of hospitality and the heart of tenderness, and, with a tenacious mind-skill-body spirit that never gives up in the faith that a way will surely open, from here on say YES and NO clearly, and lead the world.