Photo/Illutration Akira Yoshimura in 1994 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Author Akira Yoshimura (1927-2006) could vividly recall the morning of Dec. 8, 1941--the day Japan attacked the United States.

In Japan, that day is often referred to as “kaisen bi,” which translates literally as “the day war began.”

A second-year middle school student at the time, Yoshimura was on his way to school when he heard, amid the blare of a stirring military march, the radio news about an announcement issued by the Imperial General Headquarters.

“It felt as if the whole town was in a frenzy,” Yoshimura wrote in his published collection of essays titled “Shiroi Michi,” (literally, “The white road.”)

His memories of that day were also associated with grief. Two days later, the remains of his older brother, who had died in action in China, came home.

Painfully conscious of their neighbors’ wild exultation over the news of Japan’s brilliant victory in Hawaii, the Yoshimura family closed the shutters, and his mother sobbed hysterically as if she was losing her mind, according to his book.

When the war against the United States and Britain began, Japan was already in a deep quagmire on the Chinese continent.

Yoshimura’s brother’s death was nothing more than just another battlefield fatality. The term “kaisen” (the start of war) must have had a different ring from how we perceive it today.

“Ever since I was old enough to understand what was going on around me, there was nonstop war,” Yoshimura wrote elsewhere. “War was what my routine life was all about, and I was completely used to it.”

There was the 1931 Mukden Incident in Manchuria; then, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937 in suburban Beijing; and the Nomonhan Incident in 1939 on the Mongolia-Manchuria border.

That decade could be said to have been marked, not by any single war, but by multiple, overlapping armed conflicts.

On Dec. 8, Japan marks the 82nd anniversary of its attack on Pearl Harbor. But even after so many years, we Japanese are still unable to call the war that resulted by a name that is acceptable to everyone.

Should it be “Dai Toa Senso” (the Great East Asia War), or “Ajia Taiheiyo Senso” (the Asia-Pacific War), or “Saki no Taisen” (literally, “the last great war”), which is the expression favored by generations of Japanese prime ministers for the annual Aug. 15 statement marking the end of the war for Japan?

What, after all, was that war really about? I am mulling the present state of this country, which remains stuck with an ambiguous perception of its own history.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 8

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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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