Photo/Illutration Kenzaburo Oe in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward in 2007 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

How does the Japanese verb “shiru” (to know) differ from “wakaru” (to understand)?

Author Kenzaburo Oe (1935-2023) once said that advancing from “knowing” to “understanding” enables you to make the best use of your knowledge.

When you then progress to “satoru” (to realize), you come up with completely new ideas.

But even Oe once struggled with the difficulty of knowing and that had to do with Okinawa in the 1960s.

He frequently visited Okinawa, seeking an answer to the question: "Who are the Japanese people?"

The more he came to know Okinawa, however, the more he encountered “the absolute gentleness (of Okinawans) overlapping with their stony rejection (of outsiders),” according to his book “Okinawa noto” (Okinawa Note).

As a nation, Japan has always kept its ears closed to the voices of Okinawans. The latter’s rejection of Japan must have been instilled by the notion that they were always left to the mercy of history.

This bemused Oe, but he patiently continued his research. He continued to squarely face the people of Okinawa and speak out about their issues, including those concerning U.S. military bases.

His interest extended beyond Okinawa to the Japanese Constitution, nuclear power generation, nuclear disarmament, and so on. A literary giant who represented postwar Japan, Oe was also an activist intellectual.

News of his death at age 88 acutely reminds me of the enormity of his presence.

I must confess that I always found his tortuously complex style of writing a complete nightmare, and I recently learned that his style owed to his habit of writing on paper laid out on a drawing board placed on his lap.

I once heard from a fountain pen repairer, who worked on two of Oe’s pens, that both of their nibs had become abraded at the same angle, like the edge of a blade.

The image of Oe I see in my mind’s eye is that of someone who continued to spin tales of salvation by tackling themes such as the relationship between the individual and the community.

The literary and critical works he produced formed a vast mountain range that significantly changed the landscape of Japanese literature.

--The Asahi Shimbun, March 15

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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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