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Haruki Murakami - Asiaweek
HARUKI
MURAKAMI
Asiaweek, October 3 1997
THE HUMAN COST
The Aum Shinrikyo victims have their
say
By Kavitha Rao and
Murakami Mutsuko / Tokyo
More than two years
after it shocked the world by killing 12 people and injuring another 5,000 in a
sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, the Aum Shinrikyo cult has managed to slip
back into the shadows. Only the slug-paced trial of leader Asahara Shokou --
plus those of some of his followers for unrelated offenses -- draws media
attention these days. But that doesn't mean the doomsday disciples have
abandoned their aims.
A new police report says
the cult has been rebuilding. It is now up to 500 fulltime devotees -- compared
with 1,100 at the time of the gassings -- and 5,000 other followers (10,000
previously). It opened a new center in downtown Tokyo in May, bringing the
number nationwide to 26. It is raising funds in a number of ways, including
running a discount computer store. The movement, the police report says, "still
shows dangerous signs and requires close monitoring." Egawa Shoko, an
investigative reporter who has shadowed the cult's activities, says: "It is
still a destructive force."
But what of its victims
and their families? Since the March 20, 1995 attack, they have been viewed as
little more than statistical evidence of Aum's viciousness and evil ambition.
But each represents a mini-drama -- a tale of an innocent life wrecked. Take,
for instance, the case of supermarket worker Akashi Shizuko:
The night before the
attack, she had eaten at a noodle shop with her family. Her brother recalls:
"When we had dinner together, we thought, 'This is what happiness is all about,
isn't it?' Everyone gets together, eats and chats. It is a tiny happiness, such
a modest joy. But it was destroyed the next day." Akashi, a happy-go-lucky
31-year-old, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was on the Marunouchi
subway line, heading for a sales-training session, when the cult's goons
struck.
The effects of the sarin
left her with severe brain damage. Today, she has recovered enough to pronounce
her name and move her arm, but she cannot walk or eat unaided. She has almost no
recall of her life before the attack. "I wish she had died," her mother said at
the time.
Akashi's story springs
from one of more than 60 interviews conducted for Underground, a book by
popular Japanese novelist Murakami Haruki. In a year of intimate discussions
with survivors, families of victims, eyewitnesses and others, he fleshed out
press reports into a poignant history of a fateful day. The interviewees
included office workers, doctors, a lawyer and subway employees. Many used their
real names; some asked for pseudonyms.
The author prefaces
their stories with his own description of how the day had begun: "March 20,
l995. It is an early spring morning, nice and clean. The wind is still cold and
people on the streets are wearing coats. Yesterday was Sunday and tomorrow is
the Vernal Equinox, a national holiday. So it is a day in between. But you
couldn't take it off for various reasons. So you get up at the usual time, wash
your face, change your clothes and head for the station. It is an
uncharacteristic morning, one of the unidentifiable days of your life -- until
five Aum devotees stick the sharpened points of their umbrellas into plastic
bags containing a strange liquid."
Murakami, 48, says he
wrote the book to balance press coverage of the incident. "I had been frustrated
by the few reports on victims, in sharp contrast to the flood of information
about the Aum Shinrikyo," he told Asiaweek. "I felt I had to find out the
other side of the story." He learned a lot more than he was comfortable
with.
He cites, in particular,
the tale of Wada Eiji. The 30-year-old employee of the Japan Tobacco company
left home at 7.30 in the morning to take the subway to work. Two and a half
hours later, his wife, Yoshiko, received a phone call from her husband's boss.
He told her Eiji was dead. Yoshiko, married for just three years and pregnant,
gave birth to a girl a few months later. Says Murakami: "The family talked to me
in detail, cheerfully at times. But later what they had said gradually soaked
in. I am sure what I heard will stay deep inside me and then, perhaps in a year
or two, it will emerge somehow."
Also graphically told is
the drama of Ohashi Kenji, 41, an automobile service center employee and father
of three children. He didn't normally take the train to work, but that morning
he missed his bus because it passed two minutes earlier than usual. When he
boarded the train, he saw one male passenger slumped in his seat and a woman
doubled over. He sensed a strange smell, "sweet as if something was rotten."
Ohashi took a seat and fell into a brief sleep. When he woke up, he was thirsty
and started coughing. His legs began trembling. Everything was black around him
and he could hardly breathe. He was rushed to hospital, where he stayed for 12
days.
Today he still
experiences paralyzing headaches. "I wanted many times to commit suicide," he
told Murakami. "I thought it would be better if I died. I still think that way.
Imagine how you would feel if you had a stone or heavy helmet on your head all
the time. I don't think anyone can understand how I feel. I am very
alone."
Underground,
which runs to 727 pages, sold 270,000 copies in Japan in the first two months
after its release earlier this year. Not bad for a first foray into non-fiction
by an author better known for surrealistic works such as The Hard-Boiled
Wonderland and the End of the World and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
Murakami's books have been translated into English, Chinese, French, Korean and
Italian. Seven of his short stories have been published in The New
Yorker. There are no plans at this stage to translate Underground
into English.
Murakami says the book
has changed him. "I learned, for one thing, that you cannot share the pain of
other people. They lost their family members. You are lying if you claim you can
feel their sorrow," he says. For all that -- and despite the often-distressing
task of transcribing hours of taped interviews -- Underground was a
rewarding experience. "I am genuinely interested in people and their stories. I
enjoyed talking to every one of them," he says. And the victims, through him,
were given a chance to show the true human cost of that day of
madness.
The Storyteller
"I wanted to know what
happened"
In an interview with
Asiaweek correspondent Murakami Mutsuko, author Murakami Haruki talked
about how Underground came about and what his research into the Aum
Shinrikyo killings taught him about Japanese society.
Excerpts:
Q.- You are better known
as a fiction writer -- and a successful one at that. What motivated you to
interview the sarin gas victims? A.- I simply wanted to know exactly what happened in
the Tokyo subway that morning. I felt an urge to learn about the individual
victims. To do that, I had to go to them directly and hear all the details. It
was exhausting, a non-stop job. I spent 80% of my energy last year on this
project.
Q.- What are your
feelings now about the Aum Shinrikyo and its activities? A.- The movement is a symbol of
modern Japan. It grew at a time when the country was losing its sense of values.
Asahara Shokou represented a set of values -- no matter how vicious -- and
that's why quite a number of people chose to follow him. It is not just what the
Aum Shinrikyo did that frightens me. What is worrying is that it is quite
possible that something similar may happen again.
Q.- You say in
Underground that Japan needs to examine itself and analyze why these
killings took place. Two and a half years later, do you think we have learned
any lessons? A.- It all comes down to the individual and the
system. Who was responsible for the subway gassings -- the Aum Shinrikyo or the
people who committed the crimes? It is the same with the Rape of Nanking. Who
did it? The military or the individual soldiers? Just how responsible are
individuals in a society where they relinquish their free will to the system? In
Japan, individuals simply do not function well enough. That's the
problem.
Haruki Murakami - Asiaweek
HARUKI
MURAKAMI
Asiaweek, October 3 1997
THE HUMAN COST
The Aum Shinrikyo victims have their
say
By Kavitha Rao and
Murakami Mutsuko / Tokyo
More than two years
after it shocked the world by killing 12 people and injuring another 5,000 in a
sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, the Aum Shinrikyo cult has managed to slip
back into the shadows. Only the slug-paced trial of leader Asahara Shokou --
plus those of some of his followers for unrelated offenses -- draws media
attention these days. But that doesn't mean the doomsday disciples have
abandoned their aims.
A new police report says
the cult has been rebuilding. It is now up to 500 fulltime devotees -- compared
with 1,100 at the time of the gassings -- and 5,000 other followers (10,000
previously). It opened a new center in downtown Tokyo in May, bringing the
number nationwide to 26. It is raising funds in a number of ways, including
running a discount computer store. The movement, the police report says, "still
shows dangerous signs and requires close monitoring." Egawa Shoko, an
investigative reporter who has shadowed the cult's activities, says: "It is
still a destructive force."
But what of its victims
and their families? Since the March 20, 1995 attack, they have been viewed as
little more than statistical evidence of Aum's viciousness and evil ambition.
But each represents a mini-drama -- a tale of an innocent life wrecked. Take,
for instance, the case of supermarket worker Akashi Shizuko:
The night before the
attack, she had eaten at a noodle shop with her family. Her brother recalls:
"When we had dinner together, we thought, 'This is what happiness is all about,
isn't it?' Everyone gets together, eats and chats. It is a tiny happiness, such
a modest joy. But it was destroyed the next day." Akashi, a happy-go-lucky
31-year-old, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was on the Marunouchi
subway line, heading for a sales-training session, when the cult's goons
struck.
The effects of the sarin
left her with severe brain damage. Today, she has recovered enough to pronounce
her name and move her arm, but she cannot walk or eat unaided. She has almost no
recall of her life before the attack. "I wish she had died," her mother said at
the time.
Akashi's story springs
from one of more than 60 interviews conducted for Underground, a book by
popular Japanese novelist Murakami Haruki. In a year of intimate discussions
with survivors, families of victims, eyewitnesses and others, he fleshed out
press reports into a poignant history of a fateful day. The interviewees
included office workers, doctors, a lawyer and subway employees. Many used their
real names; some asked for pseudonyms.
The author prefaces
their stories with his own description of how the day had begun: "March 20,
l995. It is an early spring morning, nice and clean. The wind is still cold and
people on the streets are wearing coats. Yesterday was Sunday and tomorrow is
the Vernal Equinox, a national holiday. So it is a day in between. But you
couldn't take it off for various reasons. So you get up at the usual time, wash
your face, change your clothes and head for the station. It is an
uncharacteristic morning, one of the unidentifiable days of your life -- until
five Aum devotees stick the sharpened points of their umbrellas into plastic
bags containing a strange liquid."
Murakami, 48, says he
wrote the book to balance press coverage of the incident. "I had been frustrated
by the few reports on victims, in sharp contrast to the flood of information
about the Aum Shinrikyo," he told Asiaweek. "I felt I had to find out the
other side of the story." He learned a lot more than he was comfortable
with.
He cites, in particular,
the tale of Wada Eiji. The 30-year-old employee of the Japan Tobacco company
left home at 7.30 in the morning to take the subway to work. Two and a half
hours later, his wife, Yoshiko, received a phone call from her husband's boss.
He told her Eiji was dead. Yoshiko, married for just three years and pregnant,
gave birth to a girl a few months later. Says Murakami: "The family talked to me
in detail, cheerfully at times. But later what they had said gradually soaked
in. I am sure what I heard will stay deep inside me and then, perhaps in a year
or two, it will emerge somehow."
Also graphically told is
the drama of Ohashi Kenji, 41, an automobile service center employee and father
of three children. He didn't normally take the train to work, but that morning
he missed his bus because it passed two minutes earlier than usual. When he
boarded the train, he saw one male passenger slumped in his seat and a woman
doubled over. He sensed a strange smell, "sweet as if something was rotten."
Ohashi took a seat and fell into a brief sleep. When he woke up, he was thirsty
and started coughing. His legs began trembling. Everything was black around him
and he could hardly breathe. He was rushed to hospital, where he stayed for 12
days.
Today he still
experiences paralyzing headaches. "I wanted many times to commit suicide," he
told Murakami. "I thought it would be better if I died. I still think that way.
Imagine how you would feel if you had a stone or heavy helmet on your head all
the time. I don't think anyone can understand how I feel. I am very
alone."
Underground,
which runs to 727 pages, sold 270,000 copies in Japan in the first two months
after its release earlier this year. Not bad for a first foray into non-fiction
by an author better known for surrealistic works such as The Hard-Boiled
Wonderland and the End of the World and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
Murakami's books have been translated into English, Chinese, French, Korean and
Italian. Seven of his short stories have been published in The New
Yorker. There are no plans at this stage to translate Underground
into English.
Murakami says the book
has changed him. "I learned, for one thing, that you cannot share the pain of
other people. They lost their family members. You are lying if you claim you can
feel their sorrow," he says. For all that -- and despite the often-distressing
task of transcribing hours of taped interviews -- Underground was a
rewarding experience. "I am genuinely interested in people and their stories. I
enjoyed talking to every one of them," he says. And the victims, through him,
were given a chance to show the true human cost of that day of
madness.
The Storyteller
"I wanted to know what
happened"
In an interview with
Asiaweek correspondent Murakami Mutsuko, author Murakami Haruki talked
about how Underground came about and what his research into the Aum
Shinrikyo killings taught him about Japanese society.
Excerpts:
Q.- You are better known
as a fiction writer -- and a successful one at that. What motivated you to
interview the sarin gas victims? A.- I simply wanted to know exactly what happened in
the Tokyo subway that morning. I felt an urge to learn about the individual
victims. To do that, I had to go to them directly and hear all the details. It
was exhausting, a non-stop job. I spent 80% of my energy last year on this
project.
Q.- What are your
feelings now about the Aum Shinrikyo and its activities? A.- The movement is a symbol of
modern Japan. It grew at a time when the country was losing its sense of values.
Asahara Shokou represented a set of values -- no matter how vicious -- and
that's why quite a number of people chose to follow him. It is not just what the
Aum Shinrikyo did that frightens me. What is worrying is that it is quite
possible that something similar may happen again.
Q.- You say in
Underground that Japan needs to examine itself and analyze why these
killings took place. Two and a half years later, do you think we have learned
any lessons? A.- It all comes down to the individual and the
system. Who was responsible for the subway gassings -- the Aum Shinrikyo or the
people who committed the crimes? It is the same with the Rape of Nanking. Who
did it? The military or the individual soldiers? Just how responsible are
individuals in a society where they relinquish their free will to the system? In
Japan, individuals simply do not function well enough. That's the
problem.
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