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Naked Director; Naked King in House of Trumps

We used to love watching House of Cards, an American political drama series. We were so "fascinated" by how politicians use words to attain their goals for their constituency and themselves.  Their delicate wording sends a strong message to listeners, sometimes beyond our imagination.   

Cards are called trumps in Japanese
Photo by Adina Voice used under CC

"A house of cards," means a house made of playing cards, which is really fragile.  Have you ever tried to make a so-called pyramid by placing cards balanced together?  With two cards, first make a triangle shape, which is balanced to stand.  This one and another triangle structure, standing side by side, are bridged by another card. Finally, yet another triangle structure is made on top of the horizontally-placed "bridge" card.  Can you picture this pyramid?  Yes, with a spring breeze, this would collapse easily.  

       

What if, we wonder, the house was made of glass?  It sounds very uncomfortable to live in such a glass house, right?  Every move you make inside would be seen from the outsiders.  Its closet could not keep a skeleton at all, because no closet in the house cannot function as a hiding place, to begin with.  Everything is transparent.  However, for some residents, this glass house may not be so uncomfortable as we would imagine.  They might not actually know their house is made of glass. 

You could have ever heard of or actually read this best-known short story: "Hadaka no Ousama" entitled in Japanese.  It is written by Hans Christian Anderson, a renowned Danish author.  its English title is "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" or "The Emperor's New Clothes."  Does this ring a bell?  This story is actually one of the MUST stories Japanese children read in their early education, more specifically character education.  For very young children, first of all, it is amusing in that "Hadakano no Ousama" (Naked King in literal translation) walks around in his kingdom, showing off his "beautiful" clothes.  In fact, the King wears nothing.

For adults, this story has a deeper twist.  Adults mock the King, but CANNOT say anything.  Isn't it really cynical, as you know, that it is  a little child who points out the fact the King wears nothing?  Little children are pure and unafraid of expressing their honest opinions even to someone at a higher postion, such as the King.  In contrast, adults are so bounded by "social skills" that they freely dare not express their disagreement, much less challenge the King, even though they KNOW voicing is good probably for the King's sake or definitely for the better society.

One more concern is what if adults actually could NOT see the problem: They are just like the King.  There is, probably, no way to "wake" them up to face the reality, right?  As you may know, people tend to believe what they believe.  Seriously NO way?

Would you be a child or an adult in the story "Hadaka no ousama"?  Would you let the residents of the house of glass know about the see-through fact?  Or, would you be just a by-stander, or a passive critic who mocks but says nothing?  We seriously wonder what we would do.  We may be chicken in the cage... 

As a side note, the wording is also worth a little attention to the Japanese title of the Andersen's tale: Hadaka no Ousama.  Its reverse translation into English should be "Naked King," NOT "Naked Emperor" as entitled for the English edition.  Ousama means a king in Japanese, NOT an emperor.  Considering that Japanese people feel a special attachment to "Emperor" (Japan has the Emperor/Empress as its "symbol"), it  kind of makes sense why the term King was chosen back then for the Japanese title.    Emperor should not be disgraced!!  Is this only our wild guess?