Last week in this column, in an attempt to trace the roots of the nationalism now becoming a mainstream political force in Japan, I discussed the currents that characterized this country in the 1980s. This week I will look at the 1990s, to see how the social euphoria of the '80s led to what has come to be called "the lost decade." (Next week and the week after, Counterpoint will consider the 1960s and the '70s.)

There is no precise date when Japan's economic bubble burst, but surely by 1992 all the signs were evident: falling land prices, sluggish domestic demand and a realization that the free ride afforded speculators and insider-traders in the '80s was going to incur a stupendous cost.

In fact, the bubble didn't pop or burst, as hajikeru -- the Japanese word for the phenomenon -- suggests. It merely shriveled down to size. Most people who became spectacularly rich through land and stock speculation in the '80s have retained their wealth. Those who suffered were ordinary working people who were able, in the '80s, to borrow large sums of money from the banks to buy real estate that was, in some cases, worth less a decade later than the amount of their mortgages. If Japanese people had taken advantage of the '80s boom to invest in education, health services, overall social welfare and the genuine reform of the financial sector, it would have taken no more than a little stocktaking of values to equip the nation for the real challenges ahead.