The “colossal structure” facing the central square of the village is known as the “Mary Palace” or the “Royal Palace,” and it continues to expand even now. This is because Mary’s praetorian guard takes it upon themselves to keep adding onto it. Inside, beneath a timber-framed dome, lies a sprawling “Audience Chamber”—the place where Mary holds her assemblies.
In truth, I have never once stepped inside.
Behind the palace lies a birch forest. Following a small path for a while leads to a two-story Western-style manor. This house existed long before the commune was settled; it was originally a villa built by a certain Count who owned the land, and it served as the commune’s first administrative office. In those early days, it was likely owned and used by Mary Senior—my mother-in-law—around the time she founded the Mary Foundation.
With its Gothic stone architecture, the house looks like something out of an old castle. It has seven fireplaces and seven chimneys. Every window is double-glazed and equipped with thick rain shutters. I don’t know exactly how many rooms there are, but there are many—filled with archaic tables, beds, sofas, a broken grandfather clock, wardrobes stuffed with old clothes, glass-door bookshelves lined with leather-bound volumes, equestrian gear, farm tools, carpentry equipment, rusted medical devices, cardboard boxes filled with packing material, vases, and globes, all crammed in haphazardly. Judging by the hue of the furniture and the way the dust has settled, these rooms haven’t been used in at least twenty or thirty years. Only the room that served as the living room, the adjoining kitchen, and the closet have been refreshed with bright paint, renovated into a “love nest” for my wife and me. That said, the only things in here are
a king-sized bed Mary brought in, a clawfoot bathtub enclosed by curtains drawn from the ceiling, and a needlessly gorgeous built-in fireplace.
I suspect we are the only couple in this village capable of maintaining a proper marital life. I don’t even want to imagine how the others manage.
I only come here when Mary decides to stay the night. Otherwise, I sleep in the barracks. I’ve always been uncomfortable in these sorts of “mini-palaces.” I especially dislike the idea of only Mary and me living here like royalty. It makes me feel as if I’m staying in an expensive love hotel. I find I sleep better in a barracks’ iron pipe single bed, wearing earplugs to block out the snoring of others. Even better is pitching a one-person tent outdoors, falling asleep to the
hooting of owls and waking to the chirping of birds. When the season and weather are right, that is the ideal.
The forest is clearly a plantation; it was once cleared, and birches were planted at regular intervals.
At twilight, when a fog as thick as packed cotton settles into the gaps of the grove—where the underbrush is neatly trimmed and the view extends far—I would wait in the manor. Mary would enter, dragging her suitcase with a rolling sound, and collapse onto the bed.
“You’re exhausted,” I’d say.
Usually, she is scentless, but only when she is exhausted does she emit a strange, pungent scent of sweat.
“Yes. I’ve been writing a book.”
“About what?”
“An Introduction to Life Chemistry and Molecular Biology. It’s a co-authored work with the professor of the seminar I was assigned to for my graduation research, but I was the one forced to write almost all of it. Out of five hundred pages, from the front cover to the back cover and the spine, I wrote four hundred and ninety-nine of them.”
“I see. And the last page?”
“The preface. He wrote only the preface and told me to ‘fix the rest to match it.’ It was a wretched, incoherent mess full of typos, but if I were to fix it, it would mean I wrote all five hundred pages. So I left it alone. Everyone will notice. The style and quality are completely different from the other pages. Serves him right. Let everyone mock him.”
“That’s caustic.”
“If anything, it’s not enough. It’s practically a fraud—calling that a ‘research and educational achievement.'”
“There are still professors like that, even in an age where authorship criteria have become so strict?”
“Oh, they’re everywhere.”
“Why didn’t you just refuse the work?”
“Accepting it was the faster way to get my degree. I don’t have time to waste.”
“Why not sue him? You can do that. There’s nothing the head of the Mary Foundation cannot do.”
“Sue him? Me? I won’t do that. But I will ensure his misconduct is exposed, using the power of my Foundation. Right now, the priority is obtaining my degree as quickly as possible. Bachelor’s. Master’s. And then the Doctorate. I’ll let him slide for now. But the moment I have my degree, I’ll tear him apart.
I intentionally scattered throughout the book things that he could never write, but that only I, as a co-author, could.
If he’s honest, he’ll testify that I wrote almost everything. But he’ll say, ‘I wrote it all, and I simply had Mary Schmidt, my co-author, proofread it under my guidance.’ He will walk straight into the trap I’ve set. And then, for scientific misconduct, he will be purged from the academic society. Serves him right. Maybe I’ll take this opportunity to sweep out all the corrupt supervisors. They can all end up on the street.”
“Do you actually want to be a scientist?”
Mary stared at me.
“You are a scientist, even if you spend your days idly fishing. I have no talent as a scientist. As a real scientist, you surely saw through me long ago. I don’t have the vanity to think otherwise.”
“I think you’re far more clever than I am.”
For once, there was a momentary pause before she responded. “Cleverness is only one requirement for being a scientist.
The essence of a scientist is not being a dreamer. A scientist is someone who has survived the jungle, returned from the desert, or escaped a labyrinth. I am none of those. I am just a woman who can drive a car fast down an Interstate.
David became king because he actually slew Goliath. Whether he used a stone, a sword, or an arrow—the means didn’t matter. Achieving the goal was enough. A king is not someone who merely says, ‘I can kill Goliath.'”
She was one of the smartest people I knew, yet she was speaking in a way that seemed almost incoherent. However, I understood what she meant. The research she did and the papers she wrote were excellent, but they were too efficient.
My own research, by contrast, was clumsy, desperate, and frantic—like someone who had barely survived a trip through the desert. It was a cave carved out by grinding away at hard bedrock. I took pride in that; I had nothing to be ashamed of.
Because she understood what science was, she could see the meaning of my work through the eyes of a fellow scientist.
Mary was profoundly intellectual. Her mind raced at an incredible speed. But I can’t quite put it into words—she didn’t smell like a scientist. A scientist is someone precariously balanced between brilliance and stubborn stupidity. She lacked that instability. If a scientist is someone who wanders, bumps into walls, and sometimes retreats, only to find a detour that no one else ever found, then Mary was like a road racer—someone who executes a given task at a superhuman level. But that is ultimately just a form of administrative proficiency. It is fundamentally different from the originality of a scientist.
“Did you just compliment me? If so, I’m honored. To be recognized by someone as brilliant as you.”
For a second, she looked at me with a creepy, surveillance-camera-like gaze. But it was only for a moment. Or perhaps I imagined it.
“What I want is proof that I existed. A degree is one such proof.”
Mary zipped open her suitcase with a sharp zip. Inside, mixed with dry snacks like potato chips and popcorn, were a hamburger and fries.
“Want some?”
“No, I’ll pass.”
“Suit yourself.”
Mary is obsessively fond of hamburgers. Even living in the Geo-commune, she cannot resist the temptation. I watched blankly as her temple pulsed like a machine while she chewed.
“Mary. I spoke with a man the other day who called you ‘Junior.'”
“A man who calls me Junior? Who? Someone in the village?”
“Yeah. A guy who looks like Conan the Barbarian.”
Gulping lukewarm Coke from a plastic bottle, she began to remove her pumps and tights. I quietly took off my glasses and put them in the case. I couldn’t let Charlie see her naked.
“Ah. Eric. What did he say?”
“He kept asking why you chose me as your husband, and why you didn’t choose him.”
“Ridiculous. The answer is obvious. It’s because I love you more than I love Eric.”
I already knew that. Even before she spoke, I knew those words would come out of her mouth.
Now completely naked, she used her toes to shove her discarded clothes under the bed, as she always does. In her mind, this meant the room was tidy. When she and I are absent, “the little people” come to make the bed and, in the process, clean those clothes and put them neatly in the closet. After all, she is the Queen.
Then she stepped into a brilliant white enameled clawfoot tub with gold plating, drew the translucent plastic curtain, and began to shower without filling the tub. I spoke to her through a gap in the curtain.
“Who is Eric? He said he was your fiancé.”
The scent of her favorite Aleppo soap leaked through the curtain. It smells like oil-clay, and I’ve never liked it.
“A fiancé arranged by our parents. A childhood friend, and we remained friends after that. He taught me horseback riding and shooting. He was very kind to me, but he always acted like a big brother.”
“Were you lovers?”
“Are you jealous?”
“You want me to be, don’t you?”
“Hehe. Perhaps a little. You are far too deficient in expressing your affection. Compared to us. But that’s fine. I love you including those parts of you. And I know that you love me too.”
I suppose to her, I look like a mysterious Oriental—expressionless and taciturn.
“Of course I love you.”
I make it a point to say “I love you” back whenever I’m told so. I feel that if we don’t both say it, the scales will tip; the balance won’t be maintained. In reality, I should be the one to say it first. Especially in this country.
I still can’t say “I love you” properly. I try to say it as naturally as possible, without too much of a pause, simply, yet with feeling. And after I say it, I find myself trying to read Mary’s expression, while pretending to look at her cute forehead. I wonder, what percentage of people actually mean it when they say “I love you”? How seriously do people in this country say it? Maybe I’m the strange one for worrying about it.
Whether she sensed my inner turmoil or not, she continued. “He also acted like a ‘husband.’ He was head-over-heels for me, and I thought he was too perfect as a man, as a romantic partner. My mother liked him too. I felt as if everything—my very destiny—had been prepared and laid out on a track for me.”
But you used your mother to make me propose, I wanted to say. It almost seemed like your mother chose me for some reason. I always feel the urge to press her on this. Who is actually deciding her destiny? It’s certainly not me.
“When I was a child, there was a photo of the two of us side by side. It was in a frame in my room. Looking at it, I always imagined a scene where we had grown old—me as a grandmother and him as a grandfather—and he would look at the photo and tell me, ‘Mary, you are my most beloved wife.’ I would just smile in silence. Eric and I, childhood friends who married and grew old together. From the start, I could see my entire life. From beginning to end. Everything was already complete. Like a biography in a book pulled from a dusty shelf. I felt as if I weren’t a living human, but a historical figure.”
But that’s not what happened. Why not? I wanted to ask, but I stopped. She would just answer, “Because I liked you better.”
As if reading my mind, she added, “But the one with whom I felt a destined encounter was you, Hiroshi. I felt nothing for Eric, and I still feel nothing.”
I could only smile sheepishly. I gave up on the conversation. If you repeat a lie enough times, it becomes the truth. A terrifying thought occurred to me. I wanted to believe the words she kept telling me. But I am a scientist, as she says.
A scientist may be certain based on facts, but must never blindly believe without evidence. Even if it is the word of his own wife.
“Eric is indispensable to this community.”
“And I’m the intruder.”
“Hehe. Perhaps. He understands what I am trying to do. And he’s the one who manages the village. The hunting leader.
There are other pros, but his shooting and riding are at an Olympic level, so he’s the only one who can lead the others.”
That makes sense. I can learn how to hunt directly from Mary, or I can choose not to hunt at all, or I can simply ignore everyone but Mary. But the others have no choice but to rely on Eric and treat him as their leader to survive in this village. It’s strange, or perhaps inevitable, that even in this new village, a relationship of dominance and subordination has already formed.
At the apex of that hierarchy reigns the symbol of the Geo-commune’s civic integration: Lady Mary. Here, Mary is the Queen and the Goddess.
“So, Eric is essentially the Captain of the Priesthood serving Queen Mary.”
“Not that I wished for that.”
Still wet, Mary collapsed onto the bed, wrapped herself in the duvet, and fell asleep. She’s exhausted; I’ll let her sleep.
My position is precarious. If Eric had married Mary, everything would have proceeded smoothly. Because I married her, a man closer to her than I am has suddenly appeared.
Perhaps, as Mary’s spouse, I should have fought Eric for the position of chieftain. But I avoided that. I think Eric understood that too.
Still, to follow Mary all the way to this uncivilized village even after she was married… Eric is a truly pathetic man.
Mary was fast asleep, but I wasn’t tired at all. I felt like eating and drinking, so I decided to head out alone. I lit a torch. Not just because it was dark—the moonlight made the outside faintly bright—but because in this fog, it’s easy to miss a turn and get lost. I proceeded with caution. Eventually, the birch plantation ended, giving way to a natural mixed forest.
It was located slightly away from the village, so I hadn’t noticed it at first. I had been introduced to it when I wanted to buy shoes at the market. It’s a shop without a proper name. Some call it the “Shoe Store,” some call it the “Ham Shop,” and others call it the “Tavern at the Edge of the Village.” You can drink as much as you want there, too. I always call it the “Smokehouse.” Regardless of the name, it’s the only place in the village that fits the description.
At the village-run “Bar,” I always run into Eric. We are “polite” to each other. The women at the bar often pry or tease us about our relationship. If I talk back, the male customers get involved. It’s annoying. I wonder if anyone understands this feeling. Every time I go to the bar, I accumulate frustration. I can’t be a member of that kind of “friendly club.” Smiling, reading people’s faces, keeping the mood up, and drinking happily… I’m sure one day my anger will explode. I’ve come to believe that the bar is the most dangerous place in the village for me. So I stopped going there and started frequenting the Smokehouse, even though it’s further away.
Though I call it a Smokehouse or a Shoe Store, is it really a store? There are three or four tents, and about ten men live there. One could see it as a separate settlement independent from the “Viking Village.” However, their dwellings look less impressive than the pit-houses of primitive humans I saw in textbooks.
The settlement is on a rocky plateau, slightly elevated from the surrounding mixed forest, at the edge of the village. Fresh water springs from the gaps in the rocks behind them, and the place is isolated so that blood and excrement from washing organs don’t flow into the village. In the forest downstream, a small area has been cleared to plant cabbage.
This “Spider’s Web”—half rock-cave, half leather tent—is built in a hollow of the rocks to avoid strong winds. The frames are made of deer antlers and bones tied together with ropes made from split bark, covered with sewn deer hides.
On sunny days, wooden frames covered in tanned leather are set up everywhere on the plateau and in the cabbage patch to dry.
I hesitated to enter these tents at first, but now I’m fine with it. There is no ceiling, obviously, just the exposed frame, from which dozens of deer and reindeer hams hang. The lights are animal-fat candles. These hams are of such high quality they could be sold in the outside world, but since they are salt-cured for room-temperature storage, you can’t eat much at once. The “Spiders” actually trade their smoked meats and hams for alcohol and don’t eat them themselves.
Since possessing money is forbidden in the commune, and their leather goods and hams would fetch a high price outside, they store a vast amount of top-shelf alcohol as payment. In other words, they are the “richest” people in the village.
And while they drink the world’s most expensive liquors, they only eat things that normal people find repulsive—things like reindeer brain cheese fermented with mold, seals buried in soil until the organs rot into a mush, or boiled larvae and reindeer parasites. They might actually be the greatest gourmets in the village. In truth, I find most of what they eat smelly and disgusting. The most I can manage is a stew of organs or blood-and-glutinous-rice sausages. So, I mainly bring in the fish I’ve caught to be smoked, and use that as a snack while drinking delicious alcohol.
“Hiroshi, I fixed the hole in your boots.”
“Thanks. I’ve got some great prizes today.”
“What is it? The usual char? Or did you catch a rock crab?”
“Neither. Look at this.”
“What the… Wow. Is this a bear paw? Which means this is…”
One of the “Spiders”—black as a charcoal-burner from the smoke—sniffed it and licked the edge.
“No mistake. This is a bear gall bladder, bear gall. An absolute treasure. How did you get it?”
“Eric gave it to me.”
“Hah. Lord Eric did? To you? Why?”
“Who knows. Probably because my wife knows him.”
“Ah, Mrs. Mary. Hmmm. Quite generous of him. Let’s get it smoked right away.”
He grabbed a shovel and brought blocks of peat from the backyard. These were dug from the marshes near the village, cut into cubes, and dried. Here, peat is used in fireplaces instead of firewood. He roasted the bear meat over the blazing fire.
“I’ll trade this for some good liquor.”
“Sure, drink whatever you want. Today is a special occasion.”
Real bourbon, real single malt, genuine Moutai. A feast of choices. I’ve never seen or heard of some of these, but a good drink is a good drink. Lately, my favorite is Elijah Craig. I heard the name comes from a Baptist preacher who first made bourbon whiskey. It’s refined and delicious. It doesn’t compare to the whiskey-mimics the locals make with peat-scenting.
It doesn’t burn the throat, it doesn’t cause bad hangovers, and it doesn’t leave me with a headache.
“You sure know how to enjoy your drink,” a man of unknown race and age spoke to me. He might have already passed sixty.
“I do,” I replied.
“Is the liquor here that good?”
“It brings me back to life.”
“You don’t go to the place where the women are? The drinks there must be better. You look young enough.”
“No thanks. The liquor is bad, but the atmosphere makes it taste even worse.”
“Did a woman reject you?”
“I think it’s the opposite.”
“What’s so bad about being liked by women?”
Some women, knowing I am Mary’s husband, intentionally provoke me or flirt with me. And if I speak friendly with one of those women, the atmosphere in the shop suddenly turns murderous.
“I think I just have terrible luck with women.”
“Bad luck” or “woman-trouble” is essentially a product of women and their entourages. The mistake is getting close to that kind of sinkhole circle.
“Heh. You’re that Queen’s husband, right?”
“That’s me. That’s exactly why it’s bad. Especially in places like that, there’s no room for me.”
“So that’s why you want to be one of us.”
“If you’ll have me. Gladly.”
This is a place for nameless gourmets where women are not needed. I spent the night drinking with these rough-looking guys, engaging in vulgar, pointless conversations until dawn. When I finally returned to the manor, Mary was already awake, wearing an apron in the kitchen, making sausage and eggs. Like a housewife from a bygone era.
“Oh, back in the morning? Quite the lifestyle. Were you at a place with women?”
“Haha. Are you jealous? No. I was at the Smokehouse, with only the roughs.”
“Heeeh. That place, huh. Maybe I’ll have you take me there sometime.”
I wondered if she was serious.
“You want to eat there too?”
I wasn’t hungry and I was drunk, so I wanted to go straight back to the barracks and sleep, but that wasn’t an option. My wife had stayed at the house and cooked a home-made meal; I couldn’t refuse it.
“Yeah. Then, after I take a shower, just a little.”
I washed away the smell of organs and alcohol. I believe in showering before meals. Someone always leaves two fresh bath towels in this room. Mary is the type to wear a bathrobe instead of using a towel, but when she’s exhausted, she just wraps herself in a duvet like a robe and sleeps.
I dried myself properly with a towel.
Last night’s fog had turned into a melancholy rain. A misty drizzle falling silently. A dull light filtered through the window, casting shadows on the white tablecloth. The ensemble of wood popping in the fireplace, the steam from the kettle, and the sound of rain dripping from the roof was comforting. A quiet, beautiful morning.
Since my wife had gone out of her way to return here, I had a duty as a husband. She had slept well and was fully prepared. Once we finished breakfast, we had to begin the customary “joint effort.” On the bed, still damp from Mary’s wet body.
While eating, I decided to bring up a question.
“You are a wife, and you’ll soon be a mother if you have children. And you’re also the chairwoman of the Foundation. I can understand that much. But you spend one month with me here in the Geo-commune, and in the remaining month, you manage to attend university classes and earn your credits. I suspect you’re getting some kind of special favor from the university president.”
“Of course I’m getting special favors. But not in the way you imagine.”
When eating ham and eggs with toast, my wife puts ketchup and mustard on the eggs, blueberry jam on the toast, and drinks coffee with plenty of milk. These were originally my favorites, and they are the standard breakfast in this country’s business hotels. For her, it’s a substitute for hamburgers and Coke. For some reason, she refrains from eating burgers and drinking Coke here—likely because it would be inconvenient for her image as the “Queen.” So she has the commune
staff prepare the breakfast exactly as I request, and she eats the same.
The first time I ate thin, crisply toasted bread in this country, I was moved. In my home country, toast is usually fluffy, chewy, and cut thick. Incidentally, in recent business hotels, bagels are becoming the mainstream. I don’t understand the appeal of those hard, cold lumps of flour that look like donuts.
“You were a legacy admission, weren’t you?”
In my home country, legacy admission is seen as a “back door” entry; regardless of the law, it’s socially unacceptable.
In this country, it also has a slightly shady image. But it’s accepted as a necessary evil. The rich pay huge sums to enter prestigious universities, and the universities use that money to provide scholarships for the poor.
“Is that bad?”
“No, not particularly.”
“It couldn’t be helped. My preparation period before entering university was short. But after I entered, the reason professors provide me with special favors is that I provide them with special favors in return. It’s a reciprocal relationship.”
“I see. Could you explain that in more detail?”
“First, I go to see the professor. There’s hardly a teacher who refuses a personal meeting with a student. Teachers prefer proactive students over passive ones. Of course, they aren’t so bored that they’ll deal with someone who is proactive but brazen, or a student who provides no benefit to them.
I always negotiate. I say, ‘As you may already know, I am the chairwoman of a certain Foundation and am extremely busy. I am also a housewife. It is very difficult for me to attend your class fifteen times a semester. Therefore, I would like you to grant me credit if I submit assignments that are equivalent to those fifteen attendances.'”
“But some teachers would refuse.”
“They do, but I simply don’t take those people’s classes. Far more professors jump at the offer. ‘Interesting. You seem very confident. Then what kind of assignment can you produce that would satisfy me?’ That’s usually what they ask. Once they’re that interested, the deal is basically done.”
“Hmph. And then?”
“University professors want nothing more than research achievements. They spend their whole lives thinking about how to increase their number of publications. So I say, ‘I will write a paper in your field of expertise within one week. If it’s a paper worthy of publication, you will be the co-author—the supervisor—and submit it. If the paper is good, you give me the credit.'”
“Pure guest authorship. And you sell yourself into it.” I listened with a grin. “Interesting. And did the professors buy it?”
“Of course they did. Some even said, ‘Come to my lab right now and help with experiments, and if you show promise, I’ll make you an assistant and let you write papers.'”
“That was fast.”
“And then I write ten papers a week.”
“A week? Ten?”
“Yes. Almost all of them are accepted with conditions, and one or two are accepted as is.”
“Terrifying,” I groaned exaggeratedly.
“I get the credits, I get all S grades, and I leave behind a research record. Three birds with one stone. Then other professors, hearing about this, come to me and say, ‘I’ll give you credits too, just write a co-authored paper for me.’
Of course, there’s a cap on how many credits one can take at once, so my credits for years to come are already reserved.”
“A masterpiece. Truly amusing.”
“Well, that’s how I manage to spend only one month of every two on university studies, and spend the other month relaxing in the Geo-commune.”
I’ve always known her work speed was abnormal. I can’t judge the quality, though. I can vaguely imagine what “tricks” she uses. But if I mentioned it, she’d be offended. The Schmidt conglomerate and the Mary Foundation employ scores of scholars. She probably just had them “help” her a bit. Good grief, what a bunch of problematic scientists.
“Mary, we actually agree on something interesting. I was the same. University classes were boring as hell. But I loved spending time in the professors’ labs. When I was told a report I submitted was interesting, I’d say, ‘I’ll write more,’ and take it to the lab. Before I even belonged to a specific lab, I attended seminars in various labs, and was invited to present posters at conferences. Before I knew it, I was sucked into academic society.”
“Hmph. You were a very inefficient student, weren’t you?”
“I guess so. I did more than the assigned work, and even did things that weren’t assigned. But thanks to that, I got to know many professors and got used to the atmosphere of conferences.”
“True, that’s far more important. Classes are useless. Professors only do them because it’s a quota they have to fill. Of course they’re boring.”
“Exactly. A total waste of time.”
“Did you meet many good professors?”
“Not really. There were far more unpleasant ones. People who tried to force their own values on me rather than teach academia. That’s actually why I left my country and came here.”
“Was university in your country that boring?”
“Yeah. Not just boring, it was broken. Not the universities themselves, but the entire environment surrounding them.
There are many great things, but many terrible things too. I don’t think this country is perfect, but… how do I put it… the constant turf wars, the pulling-down of others, the petty fighting over budgets, the internal politics…
professors who have no talent of their own, and because of that, spend all their time suppressing and exploiting students… that’s rare here. This place is fundamentally open, friendly, and welcoming. I couldn’t bring myself to cling to my own country and go to grad school there.”
“I want to hear more.”
“You’re interested in that?”
“Yes, very much.”
“My home country is particularly vulnerable to globalism. It’s strong in subcultures, but weak in the mainstream. Being ‘Galapagos’ is fine. The problem is when people who are just imitating others claim ‘I am the best.’ There are brilliant things—culture or technology—born uniquely within the country, things that could be world-class, but the arrogant elites never notice them. By the time those subcultures evolve into the mainstream and we have to compete on a global standard, the elites finally notice and start ‘industry-academic-government cooperation,’ and that’s exactly when they start losing. Even if they were ahead at first, they get caught up and eventually lose. And before they know it, they are just following the world. The more they panic, the more the elites tinker with the system and self-destruct.
While they’re trying to nurture a subculture into the mainstream, someone more efficient elsewhere has already standardized it. By the time they realize it, everything has been taken by other countries. Even when pointed out by those who noticed first, they refuse to admit it. They only import the mainstream after it’s too late. They have no awareness that they’ve lost the lead. So they end up trailing behind. They don’t counter-attack. They just get put on a pedestal and spend the rest of their lives clinging to past glory.
By the time the rest of the world has established a business model and is making piles of money, they’re still fumbling with national policies and budget disputes, lose their initial advantage, stall, and fail miserably. Then only the pathetic ones remain, unable to forget their former glory. Idiots.”
“Idiots indeed. There’s so much profit in growing immature ventures into something big.”
“It’s always the same cycle. They have no eye for talent. They don’t know how to allocate national resources or how to utilize the people. They always make the wrong move at the critical moment.
Academia should love globalism and hate borders above all else. Universities should be the first to be evaluated internationally, with teachers and students crossing borders. That’s how a university grows—by interacting directly with universities worldwide, exchanging talent, and sharpening itself. But then, the ‘cultural figures’ and ‘intellectuals’ of the country pull the university’s legs. They push an airy, hypothetical idealism that obstructs the healthy development
of the university and turns it into a mess.”
“I don’t quite follow. Aren’t those ‘cultural figures’ and ‘intellectuals’ university-educated people themselves? People of the academy? Why would they hinder the healthy growth of the university?”
“In a sense, yes. They are like cancer cells—born within the university and eroding it from the inside. It’s a common thing in stagnant societies.”
“It’s all Greek to me.”
“Right, it’s getting too abstract. Let me limit it to the university I attended during my undergraduate years.
It was an excellent university. Everyone considers it one of the top institutions in my country. And it was a very peculiar university. To those inside, it was normal, but to those outside, it was incomprehensible. No outsider with half-baked knowledge could ever hope to succeed there.”
“A social minority?”
“Yes. It wasn’t a place to produce politicians, businessmen, or cultural figures. It was a place to produce scientists—or rather, engineers and creators. It started about 150 years ago as a ‘Technical School.’ A school to train ‘teachers of technical schools’ or ‘foremen.’ ‘Technical’ meant blue-collar. Because of that, it was hated and shunned by the Imperial Universities that pursued pure theory. Because of that, it struggled to attract students and was almost shut down by the government several times.
In the beginning, it focused on spinning, ceramics, and metallurgy. But then the era of modern warfare and heavy chemical industry arrived, and suddenly, it became the vanguard of the country’s cutting-edge science and technology. No one predicted it. Despite being looked down upon by the academy, it became a presence that every other university respected.
But it was never truly understood. It was blatantly ignored by those who looked down on war and munitions. It’s exactly like modern subcultures.”
“I don’t quite get it, but basically, it wasn’t a comprehensive university, but a specialized technical college.”
“Right. Recently—though it’s been true for a long time—while the comprehensive universities were stagnating, our university was fighting a good fight. And what happened?”
“The comprehensive universities followed your example and reformed?”
“Far from it. The exact opposite happened. ‘We admit your scientific level is high. But you lack something. You lack Liberal Arts. The great universities of the world are all excellent in Liberal Arts. You are certainly smart. Give you a problem, and you find the answer immediately. But that’s just being ‘efficient.’ You’re infinitely efficient, but that won’t work on a global scale.’ That’s how they thoroughly mocked the students.”
“How condescending.”
“When taking a course, you’d ask the teacher for the evaluation criteria and smoothly earn your credits. ‘True scholarship is not like that,’ they’d say. ‘That kind of learning attitude is what prevents you from succeeding as a researcher.’ That was their logic.”
“That’s strange. It sounds like that person thinks true scholarship is based on subjective evaluation. While that’s a side of scholarship, it’s a dangerous ideology that can easily lapse into mere spiritualism.”
“Exactly. Spiritualism. There are still people who tell you to learn ‘dirtily,’ with sweat on your brow, and without being efficient. Relics of the last century.”
“‘Course subjects’ and ‘curriculums’ are not ‘True Scholarship.’ If you ask if they are ‘False Scholarship,’ then yes.
They’re just dress rehearsals. In this day and age, it’s normal for courses to have objective evaluation criteria like syllabi and rubrics, and for departments to have curriculum policies. Otherwise, students wouldn’t know what criteria to use to take courses, how to allocate their resources, or how to earn credits efficiently. ‘True Scholarship’ is what lies beyond completing that ‘False Scholarship.’ Those who stop at the ‘False Scholarship’ stage are just mass-produced
mediocrities. Hopeless.”
“That’s exactly what that strange teacher would say. ‘In True Scholarship, there is no easy answer,’ ‘There are no pre-made evaluation criteria.’ I was shocked when I heard him say that in a general education class in my first year. He explicitly declared, ‘You don’t understand True Scholarship,’ and ‘In scholarship, criteria do not exist.’ This man didn’t understand the difference between academic fields. Our research is not like the study of The Tale of Genji. For The Tale of Genji, there are no clear criteria. Of course not; it’s a vague, nebulous novel. But to explore natural science, you must first decide the direction of your inquiry and the evaluation criteria—you must decide which way you’re running. You have to decide the criteria; otherwise, you can’t judge whether a piece of research is worth one paper, two papers, or three. Unless you’re writing about Hikaru Genji or Ariwara no Narihira.”
“The so-called ‘salami publications,’ then.”
“What’s wrong with salami? Is a researcher who bunches ten papers’ worth of content into one paper ten times more valued?
No. Don’t be stupid. Conversely, by writing ten papers for ten pieces of research, the world finally understands how important that research is—at least ‘quantitatively.’ You can’t trust academic societies or university personnel to objectively evaluate ‘qualitative’ differences.”
“Hiroshi, you’re surprisingly talkative today. Tell me more.”
“A person lost in the desert, whether they go north, south, east, or west, must keep walking in the same direction. If you decide to go north, you must keep going north. If you wander aimlessly, you’ll never get out. That immediate goal is the ‘criteria.’
‘Scholarship begins by setting a problem for which a conclusion cannot be easily reached,’ he’d say. But how can you know if a problem is easy or hard before you even tackle it? What’s the point of setting a problem blindly? Has this man ever actually set a problem and solved it?
To solve a problem, you set concrete goals, decide the evaluation criteria, check if you’re moving in the right direction, correct your course, and explore where the real problem lies until you finally discover it. Did he speak based on that experience? Like Columbus or Magellan?”
“To me, it sounds like he’s saying, ‘Scholarship is about walking blindfolded and feeling your way; the result doesn’t matter.’ He recites these grand slogans, but in the end, if he reaches no conclusion or a wrong one, no one takes responsibility and no one admits it’s wrong. I wish he wouldn’t call that ‘scholarship.’ Is staring blankly at the starry sky and wondering ‘What is a human?’ scholarship?”
“I might as well tackle the ‘problem of whether the statement ‘Scholarship begins by setting a problem for which a conclusion cannot be easily reached’ is itself a problem for which a conclusion cannot be easily reached.’ No, I’ll pass.
A total waste of time.”
“It is also a legitimate form of scholarship to steadily accumulate problems that can be easily answered. He probably doesn’t even know such scholarship exists.”
“They want to say that Liberal Arts is like The Tale of Genji. That’s nonsense. Liberal Arts is a collection of various disciplines—aesthetics, philosophy, mathematics, science, literature, music—and each has its own specific system of scholarship. And when doing interdisciplinary research across these fields, of course there are no pre-given criteria.
You have to devise new criteria as you go.”
“We’ve known that from the start. To glimpse the unknown horizon, you must first master your own specialty and then travel far. But those narrow-minded specialists who can’t even cross over into another field—those idiots—try to cover up their incompetence by meddling in interdisciplinary problems, and they blow themselves up.
They don’t understand Liberal Arts—or rather, they don’t understand the science and math side of it. People who are sinking in a mud boat, creating their own convenient version of Liberal Arts and shouting about it, picking fights with the science and math fields that are actually doing well, lecturing students with a smug face, and invading departments they weren’t invited to, stirring things up, parasitizing them, and ruining them—and then calling it ‘university reform’ and telling the students, ‘Be grateful, we’ve made you world-class students.’ It’s absurd. It’s disgusting. It’s irritating. I want to tell them, ‘Do that in your own world.’ ‘Stop bothering us.’ ‘Why should we be the garnish to your sashimi? We are the main dish. We’re doing just fine on our own, so stay away.'”
“The motivated teachers and students just shut up in disgust. The louder the crazy people get, the worse the atmosphere becomes. More classes that are nothing but quotas and performances are added, and the time for actual research is stripped away.”
“The fact that our science is world-class is not your achievement or the result of your guidance. You’re just leaching off us. You’re an annoyance. Don’t tinker with and break the system we were running perfectly. Go back to your own world and die together. If you want, we’ll even do the research on Hikaru Genji for you. We’d do it much better. We just haven’t touched it because it’s a low priority. I want to tell them that. If they had a lecture on Hikaru Genji given by a science professor, they’d probably die of indignation. That’s exactly what they’re doing to us.”
“Wow, Hiroshi. I’ve heard about it, but this is the first time I’ve seen you have an episode of ‘Sudden Outburst of Righteousness Syndrome.'”
“Is that so? Sorry. I get like this sometimes.”
“I don’t think it’s a bad thing.”
“Still, I’ve failed too many times because of this.”
“Well, there are specialists everywhere, but do those self-proclaimed ‘Liberal Artists’ not understand math or physics?”
“They don’t.”
“Strange.”
“It is strange. But they have no awareness that they are the strange ones. Rather, they think math, physics, and other sciences are factors that obstruct the true spirit of inquiry, the Liberal Arts.”
“In fact, there are a fair number of natural science researchers who blindly believe in Liberal Arts. They fantasize, ‘If only I could paint, if only I had a literary talent, I could do better research.'”
“They don’t understand what Liberal Arts is. Originally, Liberal Arts referred to the general ‘arts’ (skills) necessary to be a ‘free person.’ Unless one comprehensively masters the Humanities, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences, a ‘person’ cannot be ‘free’ from society, from worldly desires, or from ignorance.”
“If someone is only well-versed in a few specific dogmas and ignores or denies others, and then dares to speak about what science is, there’s a high risk it’s ‘unfree,’ degraded, pseudo-science. Pseudo-scientists flock together, form cults, and harm the academy. It’s a vile phenomenon seen regardless of East or West, ancient or modern. Even Isaac Newton couldn’t distinguish between science and cults. Humanity has spent enormous effort separating and excluding religion and
cults from science. Hiroshi, is that what you’re talking about?”
“Exactly, Mary. People who do nothing but attack others, defend themselves, cling to one ideology, and obsessively repeat one claim. They have no ears for others’ opinions. They think they win by teaming up to crush someone. That’s what ‘liberal’ means now, isn’t it? Being trapped by a fixed idea is the opposite of being free. Tunnel vision is the opposite of freedom. A free person is someone who listens to various opinions and reflects in silence.”
“Liberalism is freedom from ignorance. Freedom from obsession. These aren’t limited to old customs. There are new, ongoing forms of ignorance and obsession. So it’s a mistake to view liberalism only as ‘progressive’ or to say it’s not ‘conservative.’ You cannot call yourself a liberal unless you are always questioning if you are wrong. Someone who tries to force their views on others before reflecting on their own ignorance is not a liberal. Biased knowledge, biased science, biased political or religious positions—these also bind a person. To strictly discipline oneself and strive to be in a state free from all bindings—that is the liberal. It’s not about believing that laissez-faire is always best.”
“A liberal must have many drawers. They must be able to tune into many channels. Someone who is well-versed in literature but can also do math. A genius at math who also understands literature. Such a person is called a Bachelor of Arts. But since ‘Arts’ is confusing, we usually say Liberal Arts. If you try to force Literature on someone who does Mathematics, you have to be just as good at Mathematics as they are. If you want to argue the validity of literary methodology, you must have mastered mathematical methodology as well, otherwise you have no persuasiveness. No student would be persuaded by such a teacher; they’d just be laughing inside. But in reality, not everyone is a ‘free person’ or a ‘universal man.’
A sane Liberal Arts teacher wouldn’t be so vain as to claim, ‘I am the embodiment of Liberal Arts, a free man, a universal man.’ They wouldn’t meddle in every field. Unless they are profoundly ignorant and shameless, they naturally respect specialties other than their own.”
“Exactly, Mary. Exactly. But in reality, there are ‘Liberal Artists’ who are economists but don’t understand probability, statistics, calculus, or linear algebra.”
“Ah, ‘Classical’ economics.”
“Marxist economics doesn’t use math at all.”
“That’s not true. Right now, we need to reconstruct Marxist economics using a modern mathematical approach, employing topology and game theory.”
“I like that. Let’s try writing a paper together sometime.”
“Let’s do that.”
“Wait. What were we talking about?”
“Why you left your country and came to this one.”
“Right. For that reason, I became completely disgusted with the state of academia in my country. I didn’t want to be with those people.”
“They were excellent anti-examples, then.”
Mary finished her breakfast, and I had several refills of coffee with just milk. After our pleasant marital conversation,it was finally time to begin the “battle.” To be honest, I wanted to get it over with quickly so I could go back to sleep.