""Japan is really Mrs. Everyman and her daughters, saving  Mr. Everyman by bursting the paper wall"." "Mr. Everyman explains how to  look like a Japanese and  thus impress those wild and not very  civilised people." "Mrs. Everyman replies that  for savages, they look  remarkably civilised." "Meanwhile, Mr. Everyman, seeing more people  looking even more Japanese,  is reassured." "Mrs. Everyman sees  soldiers parading in European uniform." "She smiles ironically." "But now a number of typical Japanese  walk into the house." "Her irony disappears." "And Mr. Everyman is not ashamed to admit  he is mystified." "This is Etienne Lalou speaking from Tokyo." "The 18th Olympic Games began with a bow." "Emperor Hirohito bowed to the flags of the nations." "Japan was waiting for the Games in 1940." "But not the same Japan." "Japan did not make transistors then  and Emperors did not bow." "Kumiko Muraoka, over 20, but less than 30  born in Manchuria, hates lies." "Attended Franco" " Japanese school." "Hates electric typewriters and girl- chasers." "Met her by accident in Tokyo during the games." "Kumiko is not a typical japanese- if there is such a thing." "Nor a typical girl, nor a modern girl." "She is not an example of anything." "Either class or race." "Not like any other women." "She is like women who are different." "Which is something." "She lives from day to day." "She is amased to find herself starring in a film." "She is well aware  that she won't make history." "Nevertheless... she is history just like  you, me and the Pope." "And Japan is all around her." "Visitors to Tokyo for the Games  don't forget the Dreamland Fun Park." "The big wheel and other sensations." "Its picturesque European village." "Tokyo, 11 October." "The leading Tokyo gang leaders." "... have ordered their gangs  to cease all activities during the games." "Harvard student Peter Kassovitz  is making a sociological study on Tokyo telephone habits." "He wants to find out..." "How many 'phone kiosks there are?" "How many people use them?" "But above all  to whom they telephone?" "... is making a survey  on photography in Japan." "Her main headings are..." "The Statistical Institute  gives the results of a survey." "To the question:" ""What makes life worth living?"" "8% replied: "Family life"." "24% replied: children." "15%: work. 6%: earning money." "4%: enjoying life." "21%:" "LIFE IS NOT WORTH LIVING." "Atheists were asked if religion was important." "77% replied yes." "Asked if they believed in afterlife  20% replied yes. 59% replied no." "9% did not know, and 12% were not sure." "Tokyo, 17 October." "9 students were arrested for protesting  against the visit of American atomic submarines." "The Mainicht News reported that the demonstration was quiet." "And did not attract much attention." "People were watching the Games on TV." "Japanese wrestler, Sunichi Kawano, 27  was run out of his village after losing against the Iranian Resa." "Kuwano's manager accused him of lacking fight." "Adding that his attitude was liable to demoralize the Japanese team." "Between pictures, Kumiko and I talk." "Difficult sometimes  if only because of her way  of speaking French." "But we talk." "You say you're not completely Japanese?" "I am completely Japanese by race  and in spirit?" "I'm all mixed up." "Much too much mixed up." "What was the cause of that?" "Being born in Manchuria?" "In a sense, yes." "At what age did you come to Japan?" "I was ten." "I was quite a foreigner to the country." "How do you feel now?" "You don't feel a foreigner any more?" "I must be Japanese now." "I can't get rid of the Japanese spirit." "What is the Japanese spirit?" "Japanese life." "How d'you mean, Japanese life?" "I mean living as a Japanese,  living in Japan." "How is that different from living in France, say?" "Or America?" "Well, first there's the air." "What about the air?" "It's wet." "Asahi Shimbun of 20 October  gave an article on ladies' dress shops." "Visitors to Japan are always struck  by the models in shop windows." "They all look like Europeans." "The author denied this was aping the West." "But failed to find a convincing answer." "And the question remains:" "Why are Japanese dresses  shown on snub-nosed blondes?" "I don't trouble much about models." "But some of them are white." "Oh well, I suppose it's just to show off the dresses." "Okay." "But look at the magazines." "Nothing but adverts for making eyes bigger  making noses narrower- and other things." "All that is not just to make you look Japanese." "Well, I suppose it's the fashion." "People in Japan no longer like completely Japanese faces." "My face, for example, is completely Japanese, it's..." "Absolutely." "Out of fashion?" "Very much so." "I ought to have been born very much earlier..." "In the Helan period." "Nowadays, in Japan, people like the sort of face that is funny." ""Funny-face", they call them." "I like them too, very much." "Isn't your face funny?" "I don't know, but anyhow..." "Think it's serious?" "I don't, frankly." "My face is very Japanese." "Yes, no doubt about that." "Haven't you noticed, when you smile  all that wrinkles up  at the same time." "Did you know?" "Winkles?" "No!" "Wrinkles." "Pretty wrinkles" ""General de Gaulle is continuing..." "And the Olympic Games..." "Interested?" "I don't know." "Don't you read the papers?" "Haven't you heard about Kruchev - the Chinese bomb?" "The elections in England?" "The satellite with three fellows in it." "And everything?" "Oh yes, I know." "There are a lot of things going on." "And what do they mean to you?" "Nothing?" "For instance, when you heard Kruchev  had retired on account of ill health  were you amused- worried- interested?" "Or indifferent?" "I'm often surprised at things that happen  in Communist countries." "Surprised?" "You're not the only one." "The Vatican Council is continuing in Rome." "Pope Paul VI has announced his intention of going to Bombay." "It will be the first time a Pope has gone to Asia." "What do you expect of life?" "It's difficult to say..." "The trouble is I want so many things- and so few." "Begin with the few." "Looking, getting to know, listening." "So many things!" "So very many things!" "You want a lot in your head?" "Yes, but everything's all so mixed up!" "That's my great misfortune." "A misfortune not to have an ordered brain?" "It's like a box of games, complicated  all in disorder." "A few things- many things." "Things, things, things." "Aren't all heads like that?" "D' you know people with ordered minds?" "I don't think so." "But nearly all people of my age  seem to be able to manage." "Manage- or pretend to manage?" "Or do they manage because they don't worry?" "They've found the way." "To what?" "Why- the way how to live!" "What I need is to live." "And if I asked you why?" "Don't ask me why." "Tokyo, 25 October." "After a plucky fight, Gonzalés was beaten by the Russian Lagutin." "No gold medal for France this time." "A good thing we have a few horses." "Tomorrow, all will be over." "50,610 visitors will leave." "(as also will the Prime Minister, who has just resigned)" "And Tokyo will start recovering from the Games." "I was the 50,610th." "I returned to Paris  leaving a questionnaire with Kumiko  just on the off-chance." "She replied" " Japanese fashion- on recorded tape." "Letters 35 min wide and 180 meters long  replying to all my questions." "Why do some cats bow?" "I personally don't know." "But you're asking me why." "So I went and found a bowing cat, and asked him." "And this is what he said:" ""Where can you find bowing cats?" "I've never seen one"." "So obviously he doesn't know why." "Do you like animals?" "I never hate animals." "I get on well with them  providing they're not too big." "Or too strange." "Dogs are faithful- much too faithful." "I like cats better." "Especially when you look into a cat's eyes  they're so suspicious." "And when I am not quite sure whether to be kind or cruel  my heart torn between them  I see the same doubt in the cat's eyes." "When I was a child, I had some chicks.." "... a tiny hare that had lost its mother  and some white cats with blue eyes." "The chicks ran too fast  following me through the garden." "When night fell, they cried  with sadness at leaving me." "The hare drank the milk I gave him  and slept in my bed." "They all trusted me very much  and I loved them too much." "One morning, I found all the chicks were dead." "They had frozen to death during the night." "And the poor little hare!" "I killed him accidentally  by stepping on him." "The cats died too." "Never again will I live with animals." "All the same, when cats rub against my legs in the street  or a black that looks at me through the window  perhaps she's thirsty." "Or sometimes hungry." "And one day, whern I came across a thin dog  I miouwed without knowing it." "And he miowed back." "I laughed so much!" "Do you see Japanese beauty as we do?" "And Japanese children?" "It's unbelievable  the violence and tenderness inspired in others by beauty." "And I cannot imagine  how you see Japanese beauty- or Japanese children." "Beautiful Japanese children are beautiful for me too." "They may well represent Japanese beauty." "But when I look at beautiful European children  I understand how it was you discovered angels." "For that's exactly what they are." "No matter how beautiful they are  Japanese children are never angels." "It's the same with the eyes,  the timid Asian eyes  always trying to hide something." "European eyes are like lakes." "... tempting and drowning." "Each people has its beauty." "How amazing it is that European eyes are usually coloured!" "I wonder who invented blue eyes." "And Japanese men?" "Men were the mirrors in which  I could see my own face." "I was astonished when I understood that I was living in their eyes." "The witnesses of my life." "They never criticise me  or look for the faults in my face." "They seem to be looking at me through a frosted window." "Why were they always so kind  and always so generous  whereas a real mirror never forgives me?" "There are myths  and the past in a mirror, and it is proud of them." "It is cold and cruel  and it keeps silent forever." "But men- those opaque windows  they are always speaking to me." "They make dates with me." "Then they ask for another date." "I tell them proudly:" ""What about life?" "You talk too fast"." "But I was afraid- afraid all the same." "Afraid of kindness  afraid of men  afraid of life." "But I listened to them and smiled." "I laughed in order to thank them." "And I got tired of them." "I've been to Japan." "I've never been to Japan." "I- like" " Tokyo." "Just a lot of barbarians." "Tradition!" "Everybody has tradition." "... of the Samurai- the barbarians." "According to the Statistical Institute  the Japanese are hard-working." "polite, idealistic, frank, gay, rational and original." "I saw myself quite..." "Just wait for the defects:" "Irritability, rapid loss of enthusiasm," "Insular, love of imitation," "Inplacability, meanness," "Pride and cruelty." "So part of the Japanese character is related to Sadism?" "These magazines and films full of tied up women  and violence for violence." "Never a sign of love- only violence." "The image of violence." "That's something much easier for me to understand." "Violence was born with the history of mankind." "It is bound up with the birth and life of humanity." "It's a natural force." "There is no need to make any effort about violence." "It's a mere nothing." "I'm not afraid of it." "I would never be wounded by the thought of violence." "I would merely die." "If I didn't, why, I would live." "Love and tenderness." "They're intellect- and understanding." "Something infinite" "Severe and delicate like the feeling in your hand, which tells you you have nerve cells." "They're something finer- and more profound." "They're my only reason for living." "The hope of my life." "The only things worth dying for." "Here is your horoscope." "You will have lots of luck in life." "But do not try  to get ahead too fast." "Above all, obey  your superiors." "Never turn against  your superiors." "I don't think that the Japanese of today believe in horoscopes." "Then why do you see so many fortune-tellers?" "I suppose they act as a sort of catalyst  for talking with yourself." "From time to time everybody  needs to talk to himself." "Actually, fortune-tellers don't tell you anything." "They ask questions, listen, and then speak." "As for the older generation  who probably believed in horoscopes and so on  they all prayed to Gods they knew." "They had trust in their wisdom." "They asked God for an authentic sign." "There still remained one question  to which Kumiko had started to reply... one night returning from Yokohama  with me in the driving rain." "But what d'you think of..." "Did it have an influence on what could happen to you, Kumiko?" "Or did it all happen in another world?" "A world which was not yours?" "Oh no, it could happen to me too." "It's like a wave." "Like a wave." "A wave rolling over the sea." "The wave on the sea?" "Always, every day and every night  every morning, always  something is happening  it doesn't matter what." "Things go on happening one by one, throughout the line of history." "But for me, they're just the morning's rubbish  thrown out of the door." "When I was a small child  I lived by what I tasted with my tongue  or by the pleasant odours which I smelt." "At the very same time mankind was beginning to suffer." "Men went off to war, and were made prisoners." "They resisted and cried." "They wept, and human flesh was mutilatted." "And yet, when I learn about all this today, I am astonished  that I didn't know of it for a long time." "I am surprised every morning." "I am astonished how little I understand." "I cannot speak about anything." "But soon, the results of all these happenings will arrive." "Like a wave rolling over the sea  when there has been an earthquake in the distance." "No matter how far away it was  the wave advances bit by bit  until finally it reaches me." ""It reaches me"." "That was Kumiko's last word." "There are 50 million women in Japan." "And one and a half billion in the world."