Kenzaburo Oe Japan Quotations

The ambiguous orientation of Japan drove the country into the position of an invader in Asia.

My observation is that after one hundred and twenty years of modernisation since the opening of the country, present-day Japan is split between two opposite poles of ambiguity.

From another point of view, a new situation now seems to be arising in which Japan's prosperity is going to be incorporated into the expanding potential power of both production and consumption in Asia at large.

The way Japan had tried to build up a modern state modelled on the West was cataclysmic.

Paradoxically, the people and state of Japan living on such moral props were not innocent but had been stained by their own past history of invading other Asian countries.

In the recent years there have been criticisms levelled against Japan suggesting that she should offer more military forces to the United Nations forces and thereby play a more active role in the keeping and restoration of peace in various parts of the world.

What was more, Japan was driven into isolation from other Asian countries, not only politically but also socially and culturally.