In detailing the process of the opening ceremony, a few important points stand out. First, Victor Turner’s (1995) phases of the rites of passage serve as an excellent analogy. When participants first arrive in Japan, they are placed in a liminal state. That is, they are neither tourists nor are they summit participants. Rather, becoming a summit participant is a processual and ritualized act that is exclusionary. Attending the organized activities in sequence are what make summit participants as such and mark them as distinct from other tourists. The process begins as soon as participants arrive in Japan whereby they are given name tags and their movements are carefully monitored and accounted for by summit volunteers. Moreover, participants take on new social roles as they are placed in a position of dependency. Summit volunteers are in charge of providing the name tags, emergency contact information, breakfast vouchers, and departure times. Bourdieu’s (1977) description of hexis aids to reinforce this point in that participants are distinguished from their hosts by how their bodies and respective gestures are managed during the opening ceremony. In controlling when summit participants return to the hotel, asking them to dress a certain way, and then controlling when they should eat and drink, participants go through a series of bodily motions that unite them as a group while also marking them a distinct from their Japanese hosts. Participants do not have control or access to these resources nor can they negotiate how their time is spent. Still, participants do not become
participants until the opening ceremony, which is the initiate stage. During this time participants are stripped of their individual statuses and take on new forms of subjectivity.
Despite the amalgamation of Japanese and Americans in attendance, there are clear protocols designed to separate them. That is, when held in Japan, Americans are separated from each other and become spectators of the performances and speeches which are designed to welcome them and assign them their new role as summit participants. The banners for the
summit as well as official pamphlets and programs transform the Suginoi hotel into a ritual space where this transformation can be played out. The speeches, performances, and banquet further transform this space and imbue it with social significance and new social protocols. That is, these spectacles are held to orient individuals into a common experience by witnessing and partaking in them. As participants attend this event and experience it collectively, they create a distinct
communitas derived from the shared responsibility of engaging in grassroots exchange (Turner, 1995). This was indicated in the speech by the chairman of the summit executive committee who stated that through the summit “grassroots friendships between the two nations will be further strengthened.” The same speaker also used the term participant for the first time in an official capacity with the utterance “participants from the United States.” The first speech, therefore, semantically contextualizes the term participant which then is used interchangeably with such phrases as ‘you’ and ‘guests’ in subsequent speeches. For example, the summit committee chairs expressed that, “the local venues have prepared programs for you to enjoy.” Here, ‘you’ is in reference to participants and not the crowd as a whole. Thus, the deictic use of pronouns during the opening ceremony is an important part of this ritual initiation as the usage of ‘you’ is an act of interpellation on the part of the official speakers of the opening ceremony. ‘You’ comes to refer to the Americans in the crowd that paid for the trip and will attend the homestays and local sessions.
Japanese and each are given their respective roles in the ceremony and for the remainder of the summit. The role of participants was further emphasized by Margaret MacLeod (Director of the American Consulate in Fukuoka and director of Fukuoka America Center) who stated, “You will make friends and you will talk about your home town and your school during your stay. Invite the Japanese friends that you make to visit you in your home towns…” In this case, MacLeod not only speculates as to what participants will do, but also intimates at what they should do in order to conduct proper grassroots exchange. The distribution of gift bags by summit volunteers containing a small weaved basket containing marbles typically sold at the Ōita prefectural art museum during the opening ceremony further marked participants as such for they received these departing gifts as an indicator that they attended the opening ceremony. This act of gift giving solidified the host-guest dichotomy in that the Japanese and Americans cannot and are not allowed to have ambiguous roles and status towards one another. Further still, the use of the term ‘guests’ by Margaret MacLeod further reinforces this dichotomy. Yet, at the center of all this activity is the John Manjiro story which serves as the locus from which discourses and the practices of grassroots exchange and participant purpose are given coherency. It is to this narrative that I now turn.
3.3 (Re)Re-narrating the Story of John Manjiro