Savior in the years of hunger

  Shimonoseki is a whale town. Oka Juro, who for the first time used the Norwegian-type whaling method and is known as the father of Japan's modern whaling, comes from Nago, Abu-gun, Yamaguchi Prefecture. Nippon Enyo Gyogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (Japan Distant-water Fishery Co., Ltd.) he established had its head office in Senzaki.

  Toyo Whaling Co., which developed later from that company, constructed its head office building in Ojiyama, Hanano-cho, Shimonoseki.

  The photos left to this day show that the head office, built at the end of the Meiji Period (1868-1912), was a simple but elegant Western-style wooden building. It embodies the vigorous courage of modern whalers in the initial years of whaling, whose ambition from here launched the Antarctic whaling.

  The factory-type whaling in the Antarctic started in 1934, and from Japan as many as six fleets operated there. When World War II raged, the supply of whale meat--a favorite of the Japanese people--stopped. It is because of this suspension that I do not remember eating whale meat during the period when I suffered from hunger.

  When permission for the Antarctic whaling was given after the war, whaling soon saw its prime time, assuming the role of a savior who supplied animal protein to hunger-stricken people.

Whale Steak as main dish

  For youth having an avid appetite, the steak of dried whale meat--called "Shio-kujira" (salted whale meat)--was truly palatable food deserving the name of the main dish. The taste of Makkari (a kind of liquor made from cereal and wheat) while chewing Shio-kujira in the back alleys of Hogakuza Street in Shimonoseki is a youthful reminiscence of the taste deeply imprinted in the minds of men who were born in the 1920s.

  Around that time, the Tenyo Maru, a carrier boat belonging to the Nisshin Maru fleet, entered Shimonoseki port--a whaling base--with its hold full of whale meat. The gift presented at a gorgeous welcome party held in a warehouse was nearly 1 kilogram of whale tail meat.

  When we knew the taste of whale tail meat, which is said to be more relishing than beef, we inclined to stay away from Shio-kujira which we had eaten avidly previously, and instead sought tail meat and whale bacon. That might have been the Japanese people's luxury at the beginning of the age of economic excessiveness.

  However no matter what others tell us, we have nostalgia for the taste of whale meat.

  Drinking liquor with broiled salted red meat reminds us of the taste of our home town. The combination of tail meat and pure rice sake is superb, and eating high-quality bacon gives us a true bliss of intoxication.

How long will Japan's hardship as a whaling nation last?

  In the transition of our diet culture from the period of hunger to that of the pursuit of gourmet food, the whale diet of the Japanese people faced an adverse fate mainly from the demand from western countries that do not have the habit of eating whales. I wonder how long the anger and sorrow of the Japanese people, now allowed to catch only a small number of whales in the Antarctic for scientific research, will last?

  Various factors are woven into the anti-whaling attitude of western countries, such as the fear and wariness against Japan, a maritime nation, and the envy and antipathy against Japan's success as an economic power. At the base of the whaling issue is a difference in dietary habits and the lack of understanding of the fact that the Japanese people see no contradiction between eating whale meat on one hand and embracing the love of whales on the other.

Whale tomb -- a focal point of international understanding of whaling

  The whaling issue embodies a clash of cultures which is difficult to be harmonized. I would like to tell the anti-whaling campaigners about the love of animals that has been practiced in whaling in Choshu (now Yamaguchi Prefecture).

  At the entrance of a temple dedicated to Kannon (one of the most popular bodhisattvas in Japan personifying infinite compassion) within the precinct of Koganji Temple in Nagato, which had been a whaling area overlooking the Sea of Japan, you can find a tomb dedicated to whales. The tomb was constructed at the end of the 17th century, and Buddhist mortuary tablets are enshrined in the temple. Separately, there is a record of the Buddhist names of 85 whale fetuses. It often happened that a fetus was found when flensing a whale. Fishermen had pity for the fetuses and held memorial services for whales every year. This practice has been continued even to this day. They accepted with a devout religious sentiment nature's law that human beings should catch and eat animals for their own survival.

  Kaneko Misuzu (1903~30), a nursery rhyme poet from this area which once thrived on whaling, wrote something like the following in her poem titled "Big Harvest."

  In the sunrise glow
  We had a big harvest
  A big harvest of sardines
  It is as if a festival is going on the beaches
  But probably in the sea
  There will be funerals for tens of thousand of sardines

  The sensitivity of the poet who expressed the sense of guilt to the law of the jungle is considered to have been fostered by the traditional view of nature by the Japanese.

  The history of whaling in Choshu, symbolized by the whale tomb, teaches us about the "symbiotic relationship between man and animals" in which the use of animals for food and the gentleness towards animals do not contradict each other.

  Unlike whaling practiced in Western countries in which only the oil was extracted and the remaining body was discarded, the Japanese have utilized whales from the bones to the skin, to say nothing of the oil. We consume without any waste the living resources which we have captured for our survival. The solemn relationship of coexistence between man and food animals is completed by having the life of captured animals be renewed as a new life as human beings.

  On the monument dedicated to the whales, erected at the side of "Kaikyokan," a Shimonoseki municipal aquarium, an epithet is engraved in large letters saying "Thank you, dear whales!" written by an elementary school pupil. For me who lived through the years of hunger, these words of gratitude carry a deep emotional tone, but I think it is the universal sentiment of the Japanese people. The whale tomb which tells us of the fishermen's sympathy towards the whale fetus is the starting point of animal welfare. We believe international understanding on whaling should start here.