The Olympics always present a full palette of feelings about the athletes. But for me, what stands out at Nagano this winter is the Japaneseness of the Olympics and the way the Games open a window into a country at a time of pessimism and self-doubt. The Japanese are not known for their displays of emotion, yet emotions over the victories of Japanese athletes have flooded forth. The Games seem to be serving as both catharsis and reflection of Japan's current difficulties.
Seven years ago, when Nagano was chosen for the Olympics, Japan was at the top of its game. Then the economic bubble burst, and the logic of serving as Olympic host turned upside down. To its embarrassment, Japan was forced to scale back its extravagant promises to pay travel and other expenses for athletes. The Japanese are now worried that the billions spent for the Games will leave mountainous debts and useless facilities too costly to keep up.Sullenness over the cost has been momentarily banished by the thrill of Japan's first individual gold medals in the Winter Olympics since the 1972 Sapporo Games. The whole country has gone wild over gold medals for Tae Satoya in the women's mogul skiing event and Hiroyasu Shimizu in speed skating.
In a deeply moving gesture in a land of ancestor worship, Satoya carried a picture of her father, who died in July, in her breast pocket, while Shimizu visited his father's grave the day after his victory to tell him the news.
As for the opening ceremonies, what could have been a spectacle of strutting was instead loaded with self-abasement and cross-cultural confusion. The artificial doves, looking like origami balloons, were described by announcers as gestures of atonement for Japanese misdeeds earlier in the century.
The appearance of Seiji Ozawa of the Boston Symphony seemed aimed at burying some ill feelings of a different kind. It was a reminder of how he had left Japan as a young man, only to return in a disastrous visit in the 1960s when the NHK Symphony rebelled against his brash American style and refused to play for him. Ozawa has been welcomed back in recent years, and his rendition of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," though cruelly interrupted with commercials, marked a full reconciliation.
The one moment where one had to cringe was the appearance of figure skater Midori Ito, wearing a red and white kimono that made her look like a designer's fantasy of Amaterasu, the Japanese sun goddess. The Japanese are fascinated by how others perceive them and often willingly embrace outsiders' perceptions. In the 19th century, English visitors said Japan's central mountains reminded them of Switzerland. Presto, they became the Japan Alps.
But what possessed the Japanese to have Ito light the Olympic torch accompanied by "Un bel di" from Puccini's "Madama Butterfly," evoking Japan's seduction and betrayal by the United States? These Olympics have been widely and justly praised for eschewing the hucksterism of Atlanta. But, as is often the case with Japan, the underlying equation is more complicated. The mastermind of the Games is the mysterious Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, one of the wealthiest men in the world and the owner of Japan's biggest luxury hotel chain.
As head of the Olympic Organizing Committee, Tsutsumi persuaded the Japanese government to spend billions on improvements in Nagano, including a bullet train, from Tokyo. By no coincidence, all these expenditures greatly benefited Tsutsumi's many ski resorts and hotels in the area. He was forced to resign as chairman of the organizing committee when such rewards became an embarrassment. But his role is a perfect illustration of Japan's problems with crony capitalism and the clandestine mixture of public goods and private enrichment that has got Japan into so much economic trouble in recent years.
It is not clear how these Olympics will change Japan, if at all. The 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo are remembered because they left a legacy of superhighways and marked the arrival of a rebuilt, democratic postwar Japan. The Nagano Olympics seem likely to be recalled as a moment when the Japanese celebrated their Olympic accomplishments and were reminded of the troubles they tried so hard to set aside.