In "Japan at War: An Oral History," Hideo Sato recalls being forced to hoist the Hinomaru flag in tandem with the playing of the "Kimigayo" — "His Majesty's Reign," the Japanese national anthem — as a schoolchild in the 1940s. If the flag reached the top of the pole too early the teachers would beat him.
More than 60 years on, he's "chagrined that they still raise the flag."
Today, public school teachers in Tokyo are being beaten — if only metaphorically — for refusing to stand when the "Kimigayo" is played at school functions such as graduation ceremonies. Kimiko Nezu, a teacher at a Tokyo junior high school, has been suspended without pay for between one and six months every year since 2003. This year's suspension, if it comes, will be her last.