Photo/Illutration Kunio Yanagita, best known as a folklorist, in 1929, when he was working as an editorial writer at The Asahi Shimbun (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Folklorist Kunio Yanagita is best known for “Tono Monogatari” (The Legends of Tono), an anthology of folktales collected in and around Tono, Iwate Prefecture.

The classic features topics such as “kappa” (water spirits), “kamikakushi” (being spirited away) and “zashiki warashi” (the child deity believed to protect households).

Yanagita (1875-1962), who also served as chief secretary of the House of Peers during the Taisho Era (1912-1926), was bitterly indignant at the dismal performance of the members of the upper chamber of the Imperial Diet.

After resigning from that job, he became an editorial writer at The Asahi Shimbun and harshly criticized the house as an “ailing organization.”

“It is impossible to expect the bicameral legislature to work brilliantly,” he noted.

Yanagita only saw the “interests, dispositions, selfish desires and ulterior motives” of the members clashing in the chamber.

He asserted that the house was only performing the “passive service of doing nothing bad.”

As a folklorist, Yanagita poetically portrayed a world where people and spirits interacted with each other. But he pulled no punches in editorial pieces about politics.

He bemoaned how the House of Peers, comprised of people who had served the nation with distinction, illustrious scholars and aristocrats, had degenerated into a house of vainglory and incompetence.

Despite frequent calls for reforms, the chamber failed to cure its own ills.

The House of Peers was replaced by the Upper House (the House of Councilors) after Japan’s defeat in World War II.

While the General Headquarters of the Allied Forces pressed the government to adopt a single-chamber legislature, Japan rejected the proposal by arguing that an upper chamber was needed to “correct mistakes made by the majority party.”

But the Upper House may be destined to be continually labeled as a white elephant.

Seventy-five years have passed since the Upper House was established.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party won a majority of the seats up for grabs in the July 10 election for the chamber.

But voters have not given the LDP-led ruling coalition carte blanche.

Many may have given only “passive support” for the administration’s “passive service.”

Yanagita wrote that “unexpected new problems are emerging one after another on both the domestic and diplomatic front.”

He also noted, “People’s livelihoods have become even harder.”

What he wrote a century ago is still relevant today. I advise newly elected members of the Upper House to read his commentaries.

--The Asahi Shimbun, July 11

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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