On Sunday, November 2, 2003, the day before Culture Day, the morning editions of the major daily newspapers announced the national government medal recipients for this autumn. All reported that because the minimum age limit of 50 had been lifted, one of the recipients was 28-year-old judo champion Ryoko Tamura, popularly known as Yawara-chan. They also reported that five groups and twenty-nine individuals who had made contributions through volunteer efforts were to be honored with the Green Ribbon Medal, which had not been conferred since 1954.

I felt that something was wrong with these reports. I had the impression that decorations or medals were things that the government rewarded to the elderly. At the same time, I also thought of Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro declining the government’s People’s Honor Award saying he was too young to be given the honor. And record-breaking swimmer Kosuke Kitajima, only 21, was totally different from our image of an honoree.

Personally, I have a sense that decorations or medals are not compatible with volunteering or civil activities at all. While volunteers should not adopt an unnecessarily hostile attitude towards national or local governments, they should not go hand in hand with them either: it is important for volunteers to be independent as part of citizen sector. But it was reported that this autumn, volunteers and their groups were to be given the Green Ribbon Medal, which had not been issued for years.

According to the home page of the Decoration Bureau of the Cabinet Office, the Medal of Honor System has its origin in a proposal put forward by the Cabinet Office in 1880. In the proposal we can see the motive of the system, which was that those who saved lives regardless of their own safety, those who were of filial virtue, and those who donated their private funds for the public good should be honored with government medals in lieu of money. In December 1881, the Medal of Honor Act was promulgated in Cabinet Declaration No.63.

Today, there are a total of six Medals of Honor:
(1) Red Ribbon Medal - for those who save lives regardless of their own safety.
(2) Green Ribbon Medal - for those who are of excellent virtue.
(3) Blue Ribbon Medal —for those who have made extraordinary efforts in the areas of education or public welfare.
(4) Dark Blue Ribbon Medal - for those who donate their private funds for the public good.
(5) Yellow Ribbon Medal - for those who are public models of exemplary diligence in business.
(6) Purple Ribbon Medal - for those who produce notable innovations in academics or the arts.

The first three have been around since the beginning of the system, and the last two were added in January 1955. The Dark Blue Ribbon Medal was added in 1918.

The Green Ribbon Medal, which was given to volunteers this autumn, used to be given to filial sons and daughters, the youth respectful of the elders, faithful women, and loyal servants. This medal was for those who were recognized for loyalty and filial piety in the Japanese feudalistic society. Obviously, it was not designed for role models in our modern society. As a result, this medal had not been issued since 1954 - nearly fifty years.

Now, I have listed below the recipients of the Green Ribbon Medal out of Nikkei's special page Recipients of Medals of Honor for This Autumn. In the newspaper they were listed by region and medal, in order of name, age, and title. Intriguingly, every recipient of the Green Ribbon Medal is a person or organization classified as houshi() , whereas recipients of the other medals vary widely including people from such roles as volunteer probation officer, farmer, company president, and committee chair. The use of the term houshi with the Green Ribbon Medal looked quite anachronistic and strange to me, so I called Nikkei for the information. They said their list was based on official handouts from the Cabinet Office. Then I called the Decoration Bureau. They said something indicating that they had written out the list directly from submitted documents.

Volunteers themselves are not likely to refer to themselves as persons or organizations that do houshi. Furthermore, Nikkei is not likely to invent these words on its own either. The only explanation I can think of is the possibility that officials in the Decoration Bureau chose to apply houshi as a uniform title to volunteers and their groups. Looking at the list, we see that eleven, the largest number of honorees, were honored for beautification or cleaning, with seven for contributions in the field of social welfare. Six were recognized for reading for the blind, transcribing Braille, or interpreting sign language. The five others were honored for their roles as a local street guide, a music instructor, a folk song instructor, a handicraft instructor, and a crossing guard for school children.

Although these recipients are absolutely not to blame, it seems to me that the judging of the awards was heavily biased and really outdated. Among the recipients of the Green Ribbon Medal, the youngest was 60 years old, and twelve were over 80, including four who were over 90 despite the lifting of the minimum age limit. Assuming that the elderly are defined as people who are 65 and over, the elderly recipient rate of the Green Ribbon Medal is very high: 89.65% or twenty-six out of twenty-nine.

When it comes to age, among all the recipients of the six Medals of Honor, there were none in their 30s and only four in their 40s. In addition, I am not satisfied with the fact that all the recipients in their 20s were athletes who received the Purple Ribbon Medal.

In any case, the conferring of the government medals this autumn has turned out to be just as it had been before, even though the government had claimed an overhaul of the honors system. If volunteers are to be honored, those individuals or groups who are in their prime and energetically tackling current social issues should be honorably awarded a massive amount of money in lieu of government medals.

List of the Green Ribbon Medal Recipients (29 individuals and 5 groups) * = group

*Houshi-dantai: Braille transcription, Hokkaido, Hokkaido
Houshi-sha: member - social welfare foundation, 72, Aomori, Tohoku
Houshi-sha: reading for the blind, 65, Iwate
Houshi-sha: Braille transcriber, 75, Miyagi
*Houshi-dantai: beautification, Miyagi
Houshi-sha: beautification, 82, Niigata, Shin-Etsu
Houshi-sha: beautification, 80, Ibaraki, Kanto
Houshi-sha: in-home welfare services, 81, Ibaraki
Houshi-sha: cleaning, 64, Ibaraki
Houshi-sha: member - medical institution, 74, Ibaraki
*Houshi-dantai: beautification, Tochigi
*Houshi-dantai: in-home welfare services, Tochigi
Houshi-sha: Braille transcriber, 90, Gunma
Houshi-sha: local street guide, 84, Tokyo
Houshi-sha: music instructor, 66, Kanagawa
Houshi-sha: beautification, 84, Kanagawa
Houshi-sha: sign language interpreter, 72, Aichi, Chubu
Houshi-sha: folk song instructor, 78, Aichi
Houshi-sha: member: social welfare institution, 90, Aichi
Houshi-sha: handicraft instructor, 60, Gifu
Houshi-sha: member - social welfare institution, 64, Toyama, Hokuriku
Houshi-sha: Braille transcriber, 78, Ishikawa
*Houshi-dantai: in-home welfare services, Shiga, Kinki
Houshi-sha: beautification, 91, Osaka
Houshi-sha: crossing guard for school children, 76, Hyogo
Houshi-sha: beautification, 84, Hyogo
Houshi-sha: member - social welfare institution, 69, Wakayama
Houshi-sha: in-home welfare services, 83, Shimane, Chugoku
Houshi-sha: reading for the blind, 74, Hiroshima
Houshi-sha: beautification, 69, Hiroshima
Houshi-sha: cleaning, 93, Tokushima, Shikoku
Houshi-sha: beautification, 67, Kagawa
Houshi-sha: beautification, 80, Ehime
Houshi-sha: cleaning, 76, Nagasaki, Kyushu