The flap over Princess Masako, Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne, a book about the Japanese Imperial family by the Australian journalist, Ben Hills, seemed to have come and gone rather quickly. It was last February.that Mr Hill's Japanese publisher, Kodansha, dropped its plans to publish a translation of the book, after the Imperial Household Agency threw a wobbly over its sneering portrayal of life inside the Palace. (see my post on the subject here). But six months later, the book has found a new Japanese publisher, and stirred predictable outrage among the sound truck-driving, Yasukuni Shrine-loving, Nanking Massacre-denying classes.
As the Kyodo news agency reports:
'Princess Masako' author, publisher threatened ahead of translation
SYDNEY, Aug. 21 KYODO
The Australian journalist who wrote a controversial biography of Japan's Crown Princess Masako has received death threats ahead of the release of the Japanese translation of his book.
The Tokyo-based publisher of the translation, Daisan-Shokan, has also reported being targeted in protests by right-wing nationalist groups.
The translation of ''Princess Masako, Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne'' by Ben Hills is due to be published in early September.
Hills told Kyodo News he has received several e-mail death threats, via his website, in the lead-up to the Japanese publication.
''I have had death threats. They were saying things like, 'Die white pork!' They were quite racist,'' Hills said.
None of that is particularly surprising except for one thing.
WHITE PORK?
What is going on with Die white pork?
Am I missing somthing? Or is that simply one of the most underwhelming, bathetic, self-defeating, half-arsed pieces of invective yet devised, inadequate on so many levels? Die, white pig! would simply have been simply unimpressive. But how can the meat of animal which has already been slaughtered, butchered and cooked, die another death? You might as well put the fear of God into someone with Perish, veal cutlet! or Meet thy maker, chicken drumstick!
Die, white pork? Ooh, I'm scared - not.
And why white? And what is white pork anyway? Is it an inferior type, by comparison with the famously delicious kurobuta "black pork"? Is Ben Hills being tormented with the allegation that, as well as facing death for writing a book critical of the Imperial house, he is a metaphorically inferior cut of meat. Is it like saying, Drop dead, cut price off-cut of goat?
Am I failing to pick up on some interesting cultural nuances? In the Meji Period, the expression bataa-kusai (stinking of butter) was applied to the newly arrived Westerners whose consumption of dairy products was said to impart to them an unwholesome aroma. Figuratively, the expression is applied to those with an excessive or slavish urge to imitate Occidental styles and practices.
Is white pork a phrase from a similar era? Or a euphemism, like long pig, coined by hungry, cannibalistic Japanese soldiers in the wartime jungles of New Guinea?
Or is it just another sign of the severely limited intelligence, humour and verbal powers of the ultra-right?