A certain man known to this author, and coincidentally sharing the same initials, was from a wealthy construction family. But before young AK (b. 1923) was out of school, the business had fallen on hard times. AK devoted himself to helping his ie※. Refusing university, AK sailed for the textile trade in Dalian, the Liaodong Peninsula, Chaina.

This may have been the happiest time of his life. In spite of his nation’s overlordship, AK had many Chinese friends. He had a White Russian girlfriend. Who hoped, in vain, to marry him. The cause of her disappointment is unknown. It may have been due to deteriorating international relations, or it may have had to do with her beau’s dedication to his ie.

Back home, AK received notice that the Imperial Japanese Army wanted him. The desire was not returned. AK had read, in banned books, in the antiquarian warehouse belonging to a friend of his father’s, that Japan was bound to lose the coming war. Thus the IJA, like the Russian lady, must be disappointed. It was neither personal nor political. AK was sworn to the service of his ie. His blood was for the bloodline, not for the army. Bloodline = ie, not state.

AK asked a military doctor, who was a relative to arrange for a medical certificate regarding an old horse-riding accident of unfitness for service. The injury had been severe. It had called for amputation of one leg from the thigh, but for a miraculous surgery by that medical doctor. AK endured multiple investigations by the authorities, and social shame as a traitor and coward. But his ie was more important than his name and reputation.

Japan lost the war, but the ie survived intact. In the rubble, AK found a wife. They had children together. Still, AK’s parents and siblings had priority. It was the work of a patriarch to clear obstacles for the whole ie. AK developed new agricultural practices, allowing him to put his two younger brothers through university.

GHQ took AK in for questioning once, perhaps because of some right-wing beliefs in junior high school. AK’s fluency in English (and Chinese and Russian) might have helped him well.

AK’s wife sometimes spoke regretfully about the war, blaming all of its horrors on the “deception of the military.” AK disagreed bitterly, insisting on the people’s shared culpability. War had been popular when things were going well.

One of AK’s old school chums used to drop by for a drink. He always cried into his cup for all their old classmates, all gone. All dead. Only he and AK were left alive. AK suffered this, but drank in stoic silence.

This is what I know of AK’s ideology. Ie above all else. The Emperor System, with its mystical unbroken Imperial line, was a mystery to him. He did not hold to the single ethnicity theory, but rather held a view of multi-ethnic harmony, i.e. the Harmony among the Five Ethnic Groups (Manchus, Han Chinese, Mongols, Koreans, and Japanese), a slogan of Manchurian propaganda. And he believed in the exchange of blood between the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago, for this was how he interpreted Jingo Kano’s call to “vigorous good use of energy and mutual prosperity for oneself and others.” On top of this, AK was an honorable man. He rejected military service mainly for the sake of his ie, but it also horrified him, the thought of having to go to war against his Chinese friends.

※ The ie was a minimum social unit based on family and blood relations, legally represented by the koseki (family register,) which listed the members of three or more generations. The leader, called the koshu (head of the ie,) was given the legal right (power) to rule over all members of the ie. The koshu was the “eldest male” in the ie, and therefore the failure to produce a male child to inherit the ie and its governorship was a crisis for the ie. The koshu could be considered as a minor emperor. People imagined an intimate relationship with the Emperor through the somatization of that social system. It was legally abolished in 1947, but is still dominant as an ideology.