Japan In the Land of Mickey-San

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The central icon of this singular faith is, inevitably, Mickey Mouse, whose unfailing perkiness and elder-statesmouse status (recently celebrated in a 17- ; day 59th birthday party) assure him success in a culture that has respect for old age and a soft spot for the cute. The little fellow's image is everywhere in Japan -- on Mitsubishi bankbooks, in framed photos within Zen temples, even on Emperor Hirohito's wristwatch. "Mickey Mouse is an actor," explains the slogan on the cover of a Mickey Mouse diary, "and as such he can do anything; he can play any role."

One role he definitely plays is to support another of Japan's driving principles: pleasure as big business. Foot-high dolls of his consort Minnie in kimono go for more than $60 in Tokyo Disneyland, and the number of ice creams sold there in a single year would, if piled up, reach 14 times as high as 12,388-ft. Mount Fuji.

In the end, though, what most distinguishes Tokyo Disneyland from its American forebears is its user-friendly audience. There are no screeching infants along its spotless walkways and no teenagers on the make. At closing time, after soft neon and colored lights have turned the place into a lovely fairyland, there is no frantic rush for the gates. Elegant secretaries and college boys in shirts bearing the vaguely anarchic slogan CIVIL RIGHT FREAK YOU KNOW UNIVERSITY EDUCATION stand in orderly lines until sweetly smiling cheerleaders lead the crowd forward in regimented squads.

So when the daily Parade of Dreams Come True culminates in a refrain of "Tokyo Disneyland is your land . . . ," the line makes sense in more ways than one. Here, after all, is a flawlessly clean, high-tech, perfectionist model of the flawlessly clean, high-tech, perfectionist society. Small wonder, perhaps, that a couple of years ago, when a group of Japanese were asked what had given them the most happiness in life, more than half mentioned not marriage or family, nor work or religion or love, but simply, and inevitably, Disneyland.