Hodo Tokushu: The Japanese “60 Minutes”
Hodo Tokushu (“News Report Special Collection,” broadcast Saturday nights, 7:00-7:45 pm, KXLA, Channel 44) is not a program that is often spotlighted in this column. The fact is that Hodo Tokushu offers the most difficult Japanese of any television program on the air. And it makes no compromises. There are no English subtitles, no hint of what the program is about for English speaking viewers (of whom there are probably very few) and very sophisticated language. So Hodo Tokushu is not for beginners, the unwary or those easily bored by serious subjects. Consequently, this column very rarely reviews the program, even though it is absolutely the best Japanese television program on the air.
However, recently Hodo Tokushu aired a program that was so stunning that it must be reported. It was called, “Condemned to Death,” but the title was somewhat misleading. The subject was the horrible ordeal that Suzuki Junko went through after being one of the commuters on the Amagasaki rail line two years ago when an inexperienced conductor plowed the train into an office building in Kobe apparently rushing to meet the schedule. Suzuki was a living corpse hauled out of the wreckage and the doctors told her mother that she was as good as dead. Her mother said, “It was like they just condemned her to death. But I know my daughter. I know how strong she is. And I knew that I just had to stand by her to make sure that she had a chance.”
Suzuki was a complete mess. For the first couple of months she couldn’t eat, she couldn’t move, really. She dropped below 100 pounds because her mouth was clinched shut. Actually, her mouth was full of glass from the accident. She was like an emaciated mannequin, frozen in a fetal position. She had to be fed from a tube inserted down her throat and into her stomach. And of course, she was also burned over 90 percent of her body.
The one thing Suzuki had going for her was her mother, a very strong woman the like of which one often sees in Japan. She embodies the Japanese spirit of never giving up. That mother refused to let Suzuki go. She patiently nursed her back to health, always being by her side, always talking to her and encouraging her.
The Hodo Tokushu program, broadcast on the second anniversary of the Amagaski tragedy, gave a clear-eyed, unsentimental account of Suzuki’s ordeal. She had to learn how to be a human being all over again. She had to learn to hold chopsticks and learn how to feed herself. It was a slow process. She had to learn to talk again. All of this was presented in a matter-of-fact way and one felt that at any moment this poor soul might pass away, that was the sense of urgency the program managed to convey.
But she didn’t pass away. Suzuki rallied and put herself back together. Her heroic recovery was inspiring. At the end of the Hodo Tokushu program, Suzuki sported a rakish mop of hair and a mischievous grin, and before the show was over, it was speculated that she might even consider getting married before long.
All too often Hodo Tokushu presents pedestrian fare, such as a recent report on the national academic testing of the country’s 2.4 million school children in grades 6 through 9, complete with sample questions (which are regularly printed in the newspapers as well, extending over several pages, for those who want to test themselves or help their children prepare, an indication of the intense Japanese interest in education). Or an election shooting in Kagoshima. Or the all-time favorite, the “ratchi mondai,” or the “kidnapping problem,” that is, the kidnapping of up to fifty Japanese citizens by North Korean soldiers over the years. (This writer still speculates that the North Koreans were actually practicing kidnapping techniques when they abducted all those Japanese citizens. They actually wanted to kidnap Korean nationals and needed the practice to make sure they got it right.) Charles Jenkins, an American soldier who defected to North Korea in the 1960s and married a Japanese woman there, is often featured in such segments although he was not one of those abductees.
But often enough Hodo Tokushu airs a program such as that about Suzuki Junko, that makes one sit up and take notice. It is unfortunate that this program is not subtitled in English. (The program does offer on screen graphics in Japanese, much like similar programs, but that does not help English speaking viewers.) However, regardless of this, Hodo Tokushu is always worth a look. Stories that transcend the language barrier are regularly shown there, and sometimes real gems are broadcast. It beats the latest sex farce shown in Prime Time on Japanese television.
Hodo Tokushu, Saturday evenings, 7:00 pm to 7:45 pm on KXLA, Channel 44