Masahiko Ishizuka is one of Japan’s leading journalists. He began his career in the 1960s as a reporter for Nihon Keizai Shimbun (The Nikkei), Japan’s largest economic daily. He was Hong Kong bureau chief from 1976 – 1980, during which time he covered Manila, Singapore, and other Southeast Asian cities. From 1985-1988 he was editor of The Nikkei Weekly, the English-language international weekly edition of Nihon Keizai Shimbun. He served as editorial writer of the daily for 10 years until he retired from the newspaper in 2000. From 2000-2004 he was managing director of the Foreign Press Center Japan, an organization aimed at helping foreign media cover and report on Japan. He has been lecturing at Waseda University since 2006, and continues to write a monthly column for The Nikkei Weekly and occasional commentaries on the Foreign Press Center Web site.
Writers Forum
You were born in 1940, five years before Hiroshima and Nagasaki and before the firebombing of Tokyo during WWII. It was an incredibly tumultuous time.
Masahiko Ishizuka
We evacuated from Tokyo to Shikoku in the spring of 1945, several months before the end of the war, so I don’t remember any scenes of misery. I heard a lot about that from my parents, but my neighborhood, until we moved, wasn’t air raided.
WF
What was your neighborhood?
MI
Present-day Shinagawa-ku. My father stayed on in Tokyo to work. He was not drafted. My mother and I moved to Shikoku in mid-April in 1945. So when the war ended in August, my mother and I were in a mountainous region in Shikoku. Then, I moved to Kyushu and started elementary school in Saga Prefecture. And then, after a few years, we moved closer to Tokyo in Ibaraki Prefecture. We settled down in Yokohama when I was 10. So my memories...I experienced poverty right after the war, not the devastation. My parents talked a lot about that, but I didn’t experience it personally.
WF
Do you think that even though you didn’t experience the upheaval of the war firsthand that it influenced your decision to become a writer and go into journalism?
MI
No, it had
nothing to do with it. I decided to go to a newspaper...when I was in college.
When I was a child I had no idea. I was always joking that I wanted to be the
stationmaster at Tokyo Station. [laughs]
WF
I can see you doing that! [laughs]
MI
My parents also laughed at that.
WF
So what influenced your decision to go into journalism?
MI
In college, I knew I would be a very poor businessman. So business was out of the question for me.
WF
Why would you have been a poor businessman?
MI
I’m not a good salesman! [laughs] And when I was in high school, I belonged to a so-called newspaper club. And I remember I was very excited...I wrote a very short article on the school’s rugby club result...I was very excited when that was printed.
WF
Ah.
MI
I remember that quite well – that excitement. And in college I was editor of the students’ association annual that discussed many issues and problems from the students’ viewpoint. That was my journalistic experience before taking up the job.
WF
Your initiation into it.
MI
Initiation. Yes.
WF
Though...you, when you’re writing, and especially as an editorial writer, you’re a kind of...salesman, in a way.
MI
Salesman?
WF
In a way. When you’re writing editorials, you have a view and you’re trying to...convince readers.
MI
Well, a salesman of ideas. But I’d make a poor salesman in selling goods, automobiles...
WF
Because you don’t care as much about goods and products as you do ideas.
MI
Anyway, I’m not interested in business.
WF
Right.
MI
Many [of my classmates] went to banking institutions, trading companies like Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and so on. And in those days, 50 years ago, popular job destinations were shipping, textiles, steel. Very well paid jobs. But I wasn’t interested in those areas at all.
WF
Why English? Why writing in English as opposed to Japanese?
MI
It doesn’t mean that I’m not interested in writing in Japanese. The fact is that I wanted to write in both languages, which I did when I was with the newspaper, and still do. I don’t know how I developed my interest in English. Somehow I got interested in the language when I was in junior high school and high school. Why I got interested in English, and continued to improve, was I had a sort of head start because my elementary school teacher gave us special lessons on Sundays, teaching us English. That’s how I started. I felt sort of that English became my tokui.
WF
Your special...
MI
...subject. Yeah. I was very poor in math. [laughs]
WF
What were the special assignments that your elementary school teacher gave you?
MI
Oh, we simply used the textbook used in the middle school. In those days, I think about the only English textbook used in Japan was called Jack and Betty – under the influence of the American occupation. “Jack” was a son of some kind of medical doctor – or engineer? “Betty” was the daughter of...a banker? Something. And the textbook centered on their life, their friendship, their conversation – American life. So people my age, in Japan, must remember Jack and Betty.
WF
How much writing and publishing do you do in Japanese? Or is most of your published work in English?
MI
At present, I work more in English than in Japanese. But when I was with the newspaper company, it was about half and half throughout my career.
WF
Really?
MI
When I was hired by Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper company straight from university, I was assigned to the English weekly edition which started that year. Before that, my writing was almost all in Japanese, in my high school and college days. Although I wrote a thesis in English because my thesis advisor was American. I wrote about economic thought in English and took many courses in English. But after joining the newspaper, where I stayed for nearly 40 years, my career was equally divided, half and half: 20 years in Japanese, 20 years in English, on an on-and-off basis. That’s how I became...a sort of bilingual journalist. When I joined the company, they started an international English weekly addition.
WF
Just when you joined?
MI
Yeah. 1963.
And that was the time when the Japanese economy was starting its spectacular
postwar growth – many foreign investors were interested in the Japanese
economy. So the company decided an English newspaper was needed.
WF
And that was The Japan Economic Journal at that time.
MI
Yeah. It’s called The Nikkei Weekly now. So when I joined the company, my first assignment was that weekly. It was a very tough job, because I had no experience. Not only in Japanese, but in English...
WF
....in writing newspaper articles...
MI
...or translating from Japanese.
WF
What was the toughest thing, at that time?
MI
I didn’t know English well enough...for commercial journalism. So I wrote and got edited heavily. Straight from school, you’re assigned to a police department, right?
WF
Right.
MI
Heavily edited, or even...thrown into the trash box. If it’s the Japanese language, if it’s your native language, you’ll get used to it within a short time. Maybe in six months you’ll be a reporter. But English...if it’s not your native language, it takes more time. Three, five years. It of course depends on our own capability. So I stayed with the English edition for three years, and then reassigned to the Japanese edition. Because the problem with the English edition is that you don’t have much time to go out and collect news. You’re primarily dependent on original Japanese and translating it into English. One reason was a shortage of staff. For economic reasons, we cannot afford a big editorial staff. That won’t be good enough to train a journalist. So I was transferred to the economic news department on the daily Japanese edition. I covered the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and then the Finance Ministry. I covered those very important ministries for two years. And then the company decided to send me to New York – not as a correspondent, but for training at an American newspaper.
WF
Really?
MI
...so that I could improve my writing and editing ability. That newspaper is now defunct, gone. It was a very old newspaper called the Journal of Commerce. A very established newspaper with a long history at that time. Nihon Keizai Shimbun was in a sort of partnership with the Journal of Commerce. So the Journal of Commerce was supposed to accept me and train me. But the arrangement somehow didn’t work out well. So I asked the company to allow me to...enter Columbia Journalism School. So I got a masters degree in journalism. And after completing the school, I interned at UPI. This is a news agency which is not properly gone, but...
WF
You still see it online.
MI
But in those days it was a full-fledged wire service. I interned there for six months before coming back to Japan. It was in the New York Daily News Building, near the United Nations. Then I came back to Japan and was reassigned to the English edition, again. Stayed there for five, six years and in 1976 suddenly I was told you go to Hong Kong as a correspondent for the Japan edition. In September of that year the Asian Wall Street Journal, the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal, started publication in Hong Kong. By that time, Nikkei’s partner had been switched from the Journal of Commerce to Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal. Nikkei had a 10% stake in the Hong Kong company, so the management thought it would be good to keep someone from Nikkei in Hong Kong. I stayed in Hong Kong for nearly four years, and that was a very good experience. I enjoyed my Hong Kong years.
WF
Why was that a good experience?
MI
Hong Kong was a very interesting place -- the point where China and the rest of the world met. It was a very freewheeling society as a British colony, very interesting place for business and watching China. It was full of a lot of information, although some of it was very false and unreliable. And it was economically very dynamic. My stay with the Asian Wall Street Journal was also very interesting. I spent the whole day with them.
WF
Can you give an example of the richness of the Hong Kong experience?
MI
I enjoyed Hong Kong people and their life. You know, it’s a very important banking center. All the major Japanese banks had branches. There was a lot going on, finance and trading...
WF
What are Hong Kong people like?
MI
Very down to earth.
WF
Unpretentious.
MI
I still like that. We have quite a few students from Hong Kong at Waseda. So I keep and make friends with them. There is a restaurant near Waseda, which is run by a middle-aged guy who came to Japan and started a small restaurant. He’s very blunt, not very polite, but that’s the Hong Kong way. [laughs] Good-natured at heart.
WF
You like that!
MI
I like that.
WF
Chokusetsu....Yeah, very direct.
MI
Anyway, I liked Hong Kong in many ways. Personally, professionally, and I still like the city.
WF
Have you gone back recently?
MI
Many times.
WF
How has it changed?
MI
It’s changed a lot. Uh...looks like a different world. Politically, of course, it reverted to Chinese rule in 1997. Physically, a lot of new, glittering skyscrapers. It is more of a Chinese city than a British colonial city, of course. But I think Hong Kong people, basically....
WF
...have not changed.
MI
Have not changed. And there are a lot of old sections, still. So Hong Kong is still Hong Kong.
But China was not my responsibility. Instead of that, including Hong Kong, I was expected to look to the South – Southeast Asia. So I moved around Southeast Asia, visiting such cities as Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Manila. Manila was my beat, so I went there once every few months. I also covered Singapore.
WF
Looking back on that period now, and the reporting you did, do any stories stand out in your mind that you’re particularly proud of?
MI
In 1977 there was a major meeting of, a major trip, a sort of historic, I would say, visit by our Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda. And he made a very important statement that Japan values a heart-to-heart relationship with Asians. That was called The Fukuda Doctrine that set the tone of Japan’s diplomacy toward the region and reassured people there. I accompanied him throughout the region on that trip. So that was one thing I remember very well. Another one, I interviewed Carlos Romulo [former Filipino diplomat and journalist]. He was very harsh against the Japanese because of the war. But I liked him. He was a journalist himself, and he won the Pulitzer Prize. It was a long time ago, even before the war. He prided himself on being a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.
WF
You were in the United States during the late 1960s. Was it interesting being there during that time?
MI
A lot of upheaval in America. Yes, very interesting. 1968...was the height of the anti-Vietnam movement. Everything was tumultuous, radical, militant, racial issues, Blacks very militant, women’s liberation, hippies, students, campus riots. Columbia University’s president’s office was raided by students. So, it was a very interesting period to watch.
WF
How did that influence you?
MI
I don’t think I was influenced ideologically. But...America, for me, is still the America of the 1960s.
WF
Really?!
MI
Yeah. The way, maybe, I’m looking through...
WF
...the lens of the 1960s.
MI
So I’m very interested in how American political ideology swings left, right, Reagan years, Bush years. I don’t know if Obama is really swinging back to the left or not. The theory of the 30-year cycle was the theory of Arthur Schlesinger Jr. And according to a recent book Nixonland, by Rick Perlstein, a history of recent American politics published in 2008, the roots of the current situation in American politics are back in the 1960s. Another important book is Camelot and the Cultural Revolution, a book about John F. Kennedy’s assassination by James Piereson, who says that the assassination has had a more profound impact on American society than the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. So the 1960s, late 1960s, were very important. Kennedy was elected and killed. Martin Luther King was killed. So, late ‘60s – I was very lucky to be there.
WF
A very interesting time to be there.
MI
I was 28, 29 years old.
WF
It didn’t influence you ideologically. But did it influence you personally?
MI
[silence] Maybe I was influenced, but I can’t figure out how.
WF
Let me ask in a different way. How did the experience of living abroad, living in the United States in the ‘60s, living in Hong Kong for four years – how has that influenced you?
MI
In general?
WF
Yes.
MI
[silence] I have a very broad view of the world. Beyond the border. [silence] Not just confined to Japan in terms of viewpoint and mindset. How do you become global? International? I think I’m quite free.
WF
Free from...
MI
Free from...obsession with Japan.
WF
Oh!
MI
I think I can like foreigners, non-Japanese.
WF
Be open to them.
MI
Maybe I’ve been influenced in many other ways. I’m interested in many different parts of the world. I hope I can go to every corner of the world if physically possible. So what I tell students at Waseda – you have to take a look at, give your eyes to the whole world. And foreign languages, especially English, is very useful. My career and retirement after all show how I was influenced by overseas experience. After coming back from Hong Kong, I was again on The Nikkei Weekly. Those years included when I was editor in chief of the paper. The last 10 years I was with the editorial board, writing editorials for the daily edition, chiefly on Asian affairs. I also wrote about English-language education in Japan, occasionally, the importance of English. For example I wrote a 10-part series of editorials on the subject. And I keep writing occasionally for The Nikkei Weekly. After Nikkei, I came to the Foreign Press Center. And now I’m teaching at Waseda University in the school of economics and political science, they call it seikei gakubu, and also the graduate school of journalism. I keep writing for Nikkei once a month, and maybe two or three times a month for the Web site of the Foreign Press center -- this is unsigned.
WF
In Japanese.
MI
No, both in Japanese and English.
WF
Really?
MI
On Japanese affairs, mostly economic and diplomatic issues. I’m asked to write both in Japanese and English, exactly the same thing, on the Web site for the Foreign Press Center. I try to always write English first, and then translate, sort of, into Japanese. Because if you write in Japanese first, your English will become awkward because you are bound by the original Japanese. Without that you could write more freely. It’s hard to explain, but when you write English you think in English. Right?
WF
Right
MI
But if you write in Japanese, then you think in Japanese.
WF
Right.
MI
The thinking
process...
WF
...is different.
MI
...is different in English and Japanese.
WF
How is it different?
MI
[silence] In style, in thinking and everything. It’s hard to explain. It’s very different!
MI/WF
[laughter]
MI
If I write in Japanese first, and then translate to English, it becomes like Japanese-English. I’m afraid of that, so I try to write in English first.
WF
But then does the Japanese become awkward?
MI
I guess so.
WF
You guess so?!
MI
The editor....maybe they don’t like the Japanese.
WF
But you’re not sure?
MI
Sometimes it’s corrected and edited.
WF
[laughs] Oh, well.
MI
It’s not easy to translate your own English into Japanese, even if you’re writing the same thing, because the structure of English news writing and Japanese news writing is different. In English news writing, the really important thing comes at the top of the opening paragraph. But in Japanese, from the English standpoint, is not like that.
WF
So it’s more like pyramidal structure in Japanese and inverted pyramid in English.
MI
Yeah. One example I give students is an article on the American Congress bailout of GM. The Mainichi Shimbun discussed whether to provide this amount of rescue money to GM, but the prospect is uncertain. Hakkiri shinai. That’s the ending sentence. But if I’m writing that in English, I start – “It is not certain whether the money will be provided, even though the Congress is debating.” So this is the structural difference between the two languages. So in English, you start with the important thing, but Japanese language simply doesn’t make it possible. Even if you try. If you do, it’s very awkward, unreadable for Japanese readers.
WF
Yeah, right. This is what I’m always telling my students, too -- that they have to start thinking in English.
MI
These days I don’t have many opportunities to write Japanese for anything. So I feel it’s easier to write in English. I have translated quite a few English books into Japanese, including Margaret Thatcher’s Downing Street Years, which was a best seller, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom. I also have done a lot of Japanese-to-English translation. But after all, I hate translation. It’s not enjoyable work.
WF
So you’re used to now thinking mostly in English.
MI
I force myself.
WF
[laughs] You force yourself!
MI
Because, frankly speaking, I’m still struggling with English. Because, after all, English is not my native language. I wish I could be a native speaker, but I can’t But I can still try to become closer to being a native speaker of English. So I watch English television, I read English newspapers, in addition to Japanese newspapers. I read English newspapers and always mark phrases I think I should acquire and use someday.
WF
Right.
MI
I’m always telling my students, I’m still learning, and I’m learning with you. After 50 years...maybe there should be a more efficient and smarter way of learning English.
