Twice’s Sana made a post about the changing eras in Japan currently happening due to a new emperor taking the throne, and her words are being deeply misunderstood.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON SANA
Sana is a member of the Korean pop girl group, Twice. While Twice as a group is based in South Korea, Sana is Japanese and was born and raised in Osaka, Japan. Her full name is 湊崎 紗夏 (Minatozaki Sana, in Western order: Sana Minatozaki). She was born on December 29, 1996 making her 22 years old at the time of this post.
Twice is a multi-national group with five of the members being Korean, three being Japanese (including Sana), and one member from Taiwan. Since their debut in 2015, they have become one of the biggest groups in Asia, and considered the Nation’s Girl Group of South Korea. They are also popular outside of Asia, being one of the representative girl groups of K-pop globally.
A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY ON JAPAN’S MONARCHY
Japan has a monarchy that dates back to roughly to 660 BC. The head of the imperial family is given the title of Emperor (or Empress) and the title and role is passed down from generation to generation. Japan has one of the world’s oldest monarchies.
While the title of Emperor is a big deal, the emperor actually hasn’t held the top power of Japan for a long time. The actual power of Japan historically was with the shogunate, and in more modern times, the prime minister. While the emperor is still able to hold influence, and definitely has, he serves much more of a ceremonial symbol to the people of Japan. The actual official role of the emperor is “The symbol of the state of unity of the people.”
Traditionally, an emperor sits on the throne until his death, however it is now accepted that an emperor can retire for a multitude of reasons. When an emperor leaves the throne, it is considered the end of one era and the beginning of another; and it is common for people to mourn the passing era and celebrate the upcoming one. It is very similar to how people in the United Kingdom celebrate a new king or queen.
Each era an emperor serves is given a name. For instance the era where Emperor Hirohito reigned is commonly referred to as the Showa period (1926-1989). The most recent era was sought over by Emperor Akihito, and he has retired as of May 1st due to declining health. This marks the end of Heisei period (1989-2019). His son, Naruhito has now taken the throne and Japan is now officially in the Reiwa period, which will last until it is he passes down the throne to his heir.
These new eras are looked at similarly as generations or new years are. The Heisei era is considered a good period by not only Japanese citizens, but many Asian countries due to it being a time of peace for Japan. Emperor Akihito is actually popular with both Japanese citizens as well as citizens of other Asian countries because he is known to be kind, respectful, and apologetic for Japan’s past war crimes. More so than Japan’s own government, who is frequently at odds with the imperial family due to them wanting better relationships with countries they’ve wronged in the past.
JAPAN-KOREA RELATIONS
Japan and Korea do not have the best history. To keep things brief, Japan attacked and annexed Korea in 1910, and Korea didn’t have their independence until Japan lost World War II in 1945 due to the U.S. dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
During this time, some truly horrific things were done to the Korean people. Including banning their language, forcing them to take Japanese names, Japanese soldiers forcing Korean women into sex slavery, and placing thousands of Koreans into Japan to work tireless jobs. To this day there are around 800,000 Koreans living in Japan, referred to as Zainichi Koreans, and most of them have been in Japan for generations due to the war.
After the war, Japan and Korea’s relations did not get better for decades; this was mainly due to Japan’s government not wanting to apologize to Korea. There were also a slew of territory and trade disputes. Their relationship is much better now, and the average citizens of both countries don’t hold ill will to each other; however that does not stop situations like this one from happening.
Korea is still pretty sensitive about their history, and Japan’s government hasn’t been the best with handling it. There are right-wing nationalists in both countries that makes helping their relationship extremely difficult, because some Japanese people still think that Koreans are inferior to them (and actively antagonize Zainichi Koreans), while there are some Koreans who think trying to have any sort of good relationship with Japan is out of the question and shouldn’t even be attempted.
As for the emperor, like stated above he wants Japan to have better relations with Korea (and other countries, as Korea wasn’t the only country that was seized by Japan). The current prime minister of Korea, Lee Nak-yeon, made a post on facebook and twitter saying good things about Emperor Akihito and voiced approval of the new emperor.
A tweet from Korea’s prime minister thanking Emperor Akihito and looking forward to furthering Korea and Japan’s relationship with Emperor Naruhito.
SANA’S POST
Two days ago on April 30th, 2019 (May 1st depending on what country you’re in) the day that the Reiwa period officially starts, Sana made this post on Twice’s official instagram account (Note: they do not have personal accounts), talking about her feelings now that the Heisei period is coming to a close.
The post is initially written in Japanese, the translation of it is: “As a person born in the Heisei era, I was very sad because the Heisei era was about to end, however, Heisei you worked hard, it is the beginning of the Reiwa era, so I will face this beginning and completion of this last day neatly.”
She is not making a grand political statement over Japan in the last 30 years, she’s mourning the end of an era for her country and celebrating the beginning of a new one. Similar to how people post about how the New Year brings a new age. She is someone who was born and raised in the Heisei era, and many people like her in Japan have never experienced something like this before. There are even those from countries like the United States who were born and raised in Japan on U.S. military bases that are mourning this change as well, because Emperor Akihito welcomed them when there was a lot of resistance in Japan against U.S. presence.
So as you can see, Sana meant nothing malicious by her post.
MISINFORMATION AND NEGATIVE REACTIONS
If Sana’s post meant no ill will then why the negative reactions? Well there was a large amount of mistranslation as well as strategic and bias wording. Before we get into that we need to address the obvious.
When it was announced that JYP Entertainment (Twice’s agency) created a group with three Japanese members, many people, including me, thought that JYP (the CEO of JYP Ent.) would have to be very careful to ensure that the Japanese members wouldn’t end up in controversy. Sana is a Japanese woman, who works primarily in Korea as a singer and is a public figure. To those in Korea who are anti-Japan, any sort of praise or good thing said about Japan will be read as anti-Korean and they will view Sana as a Japanese imperialist, and used as an example as to why Korea should avoid Japan. In Japan, it’s flipped, and because Sana is a Japanese woman who chose to work in Korea, she is seen by their hard nationalists as a “traitor.”
So, as you can see that in and of itself is a sticky situation, and for those people, there’s nothing Sana could do to please them.
But then you have people who are hating on/criticizing her seemingly due to mistranslation, and others (i.e. nationalists) purposefully stretching her words to mean what they want it to say.
Thankfully since that journalist has addressed it, a lot of people are coming to a better understanding, and are less critical of Sana. She is unfortunately still getting a lot of flack for this and it’s very unfair. Knowing the world of K-pop there will more than likely be a few more high-profile articles posted about this issue before she can fully move on from this.
CONCLUSION
Sana’s post is not controversial in the slightest; there is nothing malicious about it. The sentiment she expressed is the same sentiment many people share when an era is coming to a close and a new one is beginning. When Queen Elizabeth passes down the throne to her next heir, many people in the United Kingdom will be posting very similar things to their social media, and will be feeling the exact same things that Sana, along with millions of other Japanese citizens, are feeling right now.
I highly doubt Sana is reading this (and on the off-chance that she somehow does end up reading this article I don’t think she’ll be able to read it), but if you are then just know that many people support you, and do not think you are a bad person. I hope the Reiwa era treats you well!
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