The wooden five rings at the opening of the Tokyo Olympic Games are made from trees planted by athletes from the participating countries in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and have grown over 57 years. Source: The Associated Press
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics have officially opened, and regardless of the outcome, the Olympic Games are destined to go down in history.
The Olympic Games, with no spectators, left the huge stadium empty.
Because of the epidemic, the Olympic atmosphere in Japan is also low and cold.
All in all, it was a lonely Olympic event.
This kind of coldness, of course, is not normal. You know, there have been previous surveys, and Japan is one of the most fanatical countries in the world for the Olympic Games.
The last Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, proved how fanatical the Japanese can be for the Olympics.
At the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, "Super Change" interpreted the Olympic icon. Image source: Visual China
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="21" > the whole of Tokyo in an abnormal state of hyperactivity</h1>
After the defeat in World War II, Japan was isolated and alienated from the international community for a long time. At one point, the IOC even excluded Japan from the Olympic movement.
In the late 1950s, Japan's economy began to recover, which also made the Japanese people's desire to wash away the shame of war and return to the international community urgent.
Naturally, they aimed for the right to host the Olympics.
After losing to Rome in its bid for the 17th Olympic Games, Tokyo's determination has become more determined, and it has the momentum to succeed at any cost.
War and peace, politics and economics, glory and dreams, the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, loaded with too many grand propositions, began the most expensive and extravagant preparations in the history of the Olympic Games at that time.
Tokyo 1964 Image: Nippon
If you visit Tokyo from 1963 to 1964, you will be horrified by the scene in front of you.
More than 10,000 large pits were dug on many main roads in Tokyo to build viaducts, and more than 7,000 houses and more than 50,000 citizens were demolished due to the Olympic project.
The city is full of ravines and ravines, and the resulting traffic accidents have killed more than a thousand people.
The first phase of the Capital Expressway network, the Tokaido Shinkansen connecting Tokyo and Osaka, the Narita Airport, which hosts international aviation, and the iconic Tokyo TV Tower, were all completed during the Olympic cycle, and most of them were completed by rush and surprise.
Among them, the Shinkansen was completed at the end of July 1964 and put into trial operation, during which there were many accidents such as derailment, and finally officially opened nine days before the opening of the Olympic Games.
The Japanese writer Kai Takahashi wrote in his reminiscences: "At that time, Tokyo was full of days and water, only steel bars above his head and black ruins under his feet. ”
Go to the residence of the workers at the Olympic site to see, the conditions are cold, the living space is dark and crowded, dirty and dilapidated, and the air is filled with the smell of feces and urine.
Due to the rapid growth of the city's population, between 1961 and 1964, Tokyo suffered from a severe water shortage. Education and welfare could not keep up with the growth of the population for a while, social contradictions were prominent, prices rose, house prices were high, and the whole of Tokyo was in an abnormal state of excitement.
Then IOC President Avery Brundage inspects the venues of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics (third from left) Source: Jiji News Agency
In order to persuade the people to support the Olympic bid, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government put forward the slogan "The Olympics can make money." They also calculated that they would spend 20 billion yen to host the Olympic Games, and the revenue could reach 27 billion.
In the end, the actual situation is that the Number of Olympic tourists is less than half of the expected, and the entire Olympic economic account is also obviously insufficient.
The Japanese also have a tradition of "concentrating on great things", and people believe that dedication to the country's major affairs, as well as personal sacrifices, should be made.
For the sake of "national events", the student movement, which was still very fierce in the first half of 1964, automatically stopped before the Start of the Olympic Games.
Former Beijing TELEVISION reporter Xu Chunxin once did a search for the Tokyo Olympics, and the Japanese interviewee described to her the social enthusiasm at that time: every resident committee should hold a meeting, every school should give a lecture to talk about the significance of the Olympic Games, every person with special skills should be mobilized, and every company should encourage employees to participate in the work of the Olympic Games.
When the Olympic bid was held, the Japanese media mentioned Tokyo's advantages and summed it up as "the heartfelt demands of 7 million Tokyo citizens" and "a system of national unity", which is not a false statement.
In preparation for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the construction of venues is in full swing Photo source: Jiji News Agency
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="161" > "If there is a day of failure, I will apologize for my sins."</h1>
Every year in October, on the opening day of the Tokyo Olympic Games, casting craftsman Fumigo Suzuki travels to Tokyo to scrub the torch platform at the National Stadium to pay tribute to his father, Mannosuke Suzuki, who gave his life for casting the torch platform.
On October 10, 1964, the Tokyo Olympic Games opened, the first Olympic Games to be held in Asia, and the scale was unprecedented.
During the process of casting the torch tower, the famous craftsman Mannosuke Suzuki died of exhaustion, and his son Fumigo Suzuki miraculously completed this impossible task a week before the opening of the Olympic Games
The Suzuki family is a mastermind in Japanese casting and is responsible for casting the Olympic torch stand. With the event just three weeks away, the mold cracked during the pouring process, and it seemed that this incomparably important and sacred task could not be completed.
The 68-year-old Suzuki Mannosuke was ashamed and exhausted, and three days later he was ordered to go to Huangquan, and his son Suzuki Fumigo continued his father's unfinished work, and Under great pressure, Suzuki Fumigo made a vow: "If it fails, not only will it be difficult for my family to turn over, but also my hometown will be disgraced." If there is a day of failure, I will apologize for my sins. ”
A week before the opening of the Olympic Games, the huge torch platform was miraculously cast.
The documentary work "Tokyo Olympics" by the great Japanese director Ichikawa Kun. Image source: Network
Fumigo Suzuki later said, "My life is very poor, but so what, after all, one thing left for the future is mine." ”
At that time, it was difficult for Westerners to understand how to connect this work with human life, but the story of the Suzuki family became a good story related to the Olympic Games in the minds of the Japanese.
The fanaticism of ordinary people is reflected in the door of the ticket office. In order to buy tickets for the Olympic Games, many people rushed to the ticket office with their luggage, and the citizens in front of the line arrived five days in advance.
At the opening ceremony in Tokyo, Japan, October 10, 1964, the actors performed gymnastics. Image source: iptzx
On October 2, 1964, the Central Post Office sold 1,000 Olympic commemorative coins, and a long queue of 6,000 people lined up in front of the door.
In order to watch the Olympic Games on their doorstep, a considerable number of families added television sets in 1964, or replaced black-and-white televisions with color televisions, and in 1960, the TV penetration rate in Japanese households was 54.5%, and by 1964, when the Olympics were held, the number soared to 93.5%.
Japanese female writer Ichijizo Arai recalls: "The first time I remember the Tokyo Olympics on October 10, 1964, although I was only two and a half years old at the time, the atmosphere of great excitement in the whole society was still quite impressive. ”
The COVID-19 pandemic has dampened Japanese enthusiasm for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Image source: Network
The climax of public enthusiasm undoubtedly belongs to the women's volleyball final. According to NHK Television, the highest instant rating of that game reached 85%, which was higher than the "Red and White Song Festival" that later sensationalized Japan.
When the Japanese women's volleyball team finally won, some media commented that the Olympic Games opened today (October 23, 1964) and closed today.
That historic women's volleyball final, did not end with a perfect detail, the last ball in the competition, the Soviet players were judged to touch the net, the Japanese girl won without a fight. The referee whistle sounded, and the Japanese players and hundreds of millions of spectators were stunned for a moment before they suddenly realized that the great moment was coming, and the energy released by the national carnival was comparable to a nuclear explosion.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="163" > the hero of the crash</h1>
At the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics, the athletes entered in a very free group, and some excited foreign athletes lifted Fukui, the female chess player of the Japanese delegation, and circled the field for a week.
The book "20th Century Japan" comments on the significance of this detail: "Isolated Japan returns to the world. "The touching scene made the Japanese people believe that everything they did for the Olympics was worth it.
Some Japanese newspapers at that time called 1964 Japan's "first year of internationalization", and some called the closing moment of the Olympic Games "a day to regain self-confidence".
Between 1962 and 1964, Japan's average annual economic growth exceeded 10%, which is known as the "Olympic boom".
In 1964, the torchbearers braved the rain to travel to the Main Olympic Stadium in Tokyo. Image source: Network
And 1964 was indeed a landmark year for Japan's return to the international community. In addition to hosting the Olympic Games, another big event happened "coincidentally" – this year, Japan joined the International Monetary Fund (International Monetary Fund) and the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development).
In 1964, Japan miraculously won 16 gold medals at the Olympic Games on its home soil, ranking third in the number of gold medals. But they did not continue to chase dreams such as "Olympic glory", but used this to complete the elegant turn to mass sports.
In 1957, The sports participation rate of Japanese men was only 23%, and in 1965 after the Olympic Games, this figure has soared to 45%. Most Japanese women, who do not need to work, are more important promoters of sports fever.
After the Olympic Games, Japan prevailed "Mama Sang Volleyball", table tennis is also very popular with Mama Sang, many retired Table Tennis players in China make a living in Japan, are to accompany Mom Sang to play ball as the main business.
At the same time as the rise of mass sports, competitive sports have also been re-examined.
On October 10, 1964, the Tokyo Olympic Games opened, the first Olympic Games to be held in Asia, and the scale was unprecedented.
On January 9, 1968, 27-year-old marathon runner Yukiyoshi Marutani committed suicide by cutting his neck at home, and his suicide note read: "Dear Dad, Mom, I can't run anymore, I really want to be a winner, but I'm too tired." ”
In the Tokyo Olympic Marathon, Yukiyoshi Marutani was not favored, but with his super will to win a bronze medal, the scene of his crossing the finish line rolling over the ground in pain was so in line with the hidden and persistent qualities that the Japanese admired, Marutani became the hero of that Olympic Games.
Since then, Marutani, who must have won gold for Japan, has been undergoing devilish and unscientific training, and injuries have also increased. Limited strength and the risk of injury, Yukiyoshi Marutani felt that his dream of winning the 1968 Olympics was a bit out of reach, and the "hero" finally had a nervous breakdown.
At that time, the performance of Japanese sports was mainly supported by the Land Self-Defense Forces, and Yukiyoshi Marutani was also a self-defense team player, and the harsh Self-Defense Forces" system of "enhanced player training" was the engine for the launch of competitive sports, and it was also considered to be the culprit that killed Yukiyoshi Marutani.
The Round Valley suicide shocked the Japanese, and the major media began to reflect on the championship doctrine and the Olympic strategy, and a representative criticism was that Japan was "forgetting the origin of sports.".
The Asahi Shimbun's commentary was "ignoring the expectations of human nature," fiercely criticizing narrow nationalism in modern competition and denouncing the harm of brocadeism to human nature.
On the evening of July 23, 2021, the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, many Tokyo citizens watched fireworks outside the stadium. Source: Reuters
The critique of modern competitive sports even sparked a boycott of Nagoya's bid for the Olympic Games in the late 1970s.
When Nagoya City proposed the Olympic bid, it unexpectedly attracted fierce opposition from the public, and public opinion generally believed that financial funds should be used for mass sports rather than a small number of sports elites.
Osaka has also competed with Beijing for the right to host the 2008 Olympic Games, but like Nagoya's bid, the domestic public is "insufficiently mobilized" and the opposition is huge. Although Nagano also hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics, the impression left by writer Arai Ichijizo was only "something that most people don't care about."
However, Tokyo's bid to host the 2020 Olympics was ultimately successful, and this time the popular support rose slightly (barely more than 70%), perhaps not unrelated to Japan's "loss" in Asia, but the frenzy of 1964 will never be repeated.
This article is excerpted from the "Manuscript", and the original text was first published in the Chinese edition of sports illustrated in the United States. We have authorized it to be published in 358 issues of Vista Looking at the World magazine. Today, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics has entered a fierce competition time, and we are publishing it again to help readers understand the complex attitudes of the Japanese people towards the Olympic Games. (Written by |.) Guan Jun)