Posted on: Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Ehime Maru lessons shared

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Ehime Maru maritime tragedy in which nine people died in waters off Honolulu in 2001 has been an ongoing laboratory in international relations, and yesterday served Japanese and American students as a lesson in the importance, as well as limitations, of cultural understanding.

The forum was an opening-day event of the 56th Japan-America Student Conference, a monthlong symposium that convened yesterday at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i. Thirty-nine college students from the United States and 40 from Japan are participating.

Nine people, including four high school students from Ehime Prefecture, Japan, died Feb. 9, 2001, when the Navy submarine USS Greeneville surfaced under the Ehime Maru, a fishing vessel from the Uwajima Fisheries High School. The impact sliced through the Ehime Maru's hull and the ship quickly sank.

The accident became an international incident in which tensions flared over the correct protocol to follow. The family of the victims felt the Navy apology that finally emerged was late in coming; there was conflict also over whether the Navy should retrieve the bodies of the dead from the sunken vessel.

Two of the panelists — Earl Okawa, president of the Japan-America Society of Hawaii, and George Tanabe, a University of Hawai'i-Manoa religion professor — described their involvement in the mediation between the U.S. Navy and the Japanese families and consulate officials.

Okawa said he was able to help because he had connections with various community leaders and officials, both civilian and military, who were able to help navigate through sensitivities following the accident. Better cultural relations depend on the forging of such personal networks, he said, and urged the students to look for opportunities to do so.

The healing process that began the first year has continued at each successive anniversary commemoration, said Okawa, whose society helped raise funds for the Ehime Maru memorial at Kaka'ako Waterfront Park.

A third panelist, Takie Lebra, UH professor emeritus of anthropology, weighed in on the cultural relevance of the controversy over the Navy's apology for the incident.

Lebra said the apology is considered a crucial communication in Japanese culture because it conveys empathy with the sufferer.

"An apology conveys my capacity to feel what you have gone through," she said. "There are too many people who don't care for other people."

One student from Japan, Tomonori Iida, asked how the American cultural view differed. Tanabe replied that in the United States, an apology is seen as an admission of legal responsibility, and so the Navy's hesitancy to apologize arose from concern over potential criminal liability.

Tanabe recalled a contentious interview he had with a reporter from a Japanese newspaper on the issue of an apology. The reporter hammered the point that America "is a cocky, pushy, aggressive country," Tanabe said. Tanabe finally bristled when he was asked whether, of all nations, America was the least likely to apologize.

"I agree that America is cocky, pushy and aggressive," Tanabe said. "But I must say that there was something patriotic in me that rose up. And I said, 'I don't know, if I were Korean or I were Chinese, I might say that Japan was the least likely to apologize.'

"He didn't continue after that."

Tanabe was involved in discussions with the Navy over the proper handling of the victims' remains, and he said that even with his expertise in Buddhist funerary rituals, he was sometimes at a loss.

There were no easy answers to many questions that came up when he counseled divers retrieving the bodies about how to proceed without offending the victims' families. The entire process of recovery was videotaped for the families by the divers, he said, so the divers were concerned about the sensitivities.

For example, Tanabe said, his initial instinct was that the divers should use gloves to convey a sense of respect. But when the divers opted to work with bare hands, he said, the family reaction was one of gratitude that their loved ones were treated like humans and not as something contaminated.

Cultural differences can be difficult to navigate, but sometimes exchanges such as the conference highlight the shared humanity. That was the consensus of Tiffany Mariko Hirata and Lyndsey Garcia, two Hawai'i students participating.

"Even though we have so many differences, there are so many human dimensions to us as students, too," Hirata said. "You realize how similar we are."

The Japan-America Student Conference is being hosted in Hawai'i at the East-West Center before it moves on to three universities on the Mainland.

Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.