The White-Covered Book

 

When I was a graduate student, I met a unique professor. I found him interesting, and I often visited his office. When I visited him, he always made time to talk with me.

One day when I visited his office, he was reading a unique book and looked extremely focused on it. I was interested in the book. Its cover was completely white, with no letters or pictures. Nothing was printed on it, and I had never seen that kind of book. I tried to read the book from behind him. It looked like a high school textbook...

When the professor noticed I was reading the book, he hid it quickly. Then he stood up, bowed to me, and said, “Keep this matter secret, please.”

He always spoke to me in a friendly manner, but at that time, he asked me very politely.

Sniffing around someone’s secret is not good. I didn’t ask him any questions about the book. I had no idea what the book was.

About ten years later, I guessed the secret.

In Japan, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology officially approves the textbooks publishers produce, and a committee selects textbooks for public high schools. During this process, the Ministry and committee accept suggestions from experts. This is my theory: The Ministry asks the publishers to print books with white covers. Then the white-covered books are given to the experts to hide the publication details. The book might be printed without the publisher’s name, author’s name, and imprint. The Ministry and the committee should not give the experts any clues to avoid any corruption, bribery, and prejudice.

I guess my professor was one of these experts, and he needed keep this secret. He was a historian. History textbooks are always controversial. All publishers want printing permission and want to be selected to publish textbooks for public high schools. If his secret was revealed, it could be bothersome for him.

I assumed he was a not great professor because he always welcomed our conversations. I thought he was not busy. Furthermore, his office was always untidy, with many books lying around. But he could be a greater professor than I thought.

That was twenty years ago. He could have climbed the career ladder. Recently Japan decided the new name of an era. Experts suggested the candidates for the name; the names of those experts were kept secret. I suspect my professor could have been one of the experts.

Picture by Totallypic