Thoughts on Japan

Kingaku kara no omoi - 金額からの思い

Thoughts on Japan from the National Institute of Japanese Studies. University of Sheffield

Thomas McAuley

University of Sheffield

In my first column I mentioned The Tale of Genji, and a couple of weeks later I talked about the Heian attitude to love. You can probably guess from these references that I’m a fan of pre-modern Japan, and you’d be right: I love classical Japanese and the texts written in it. I’m not going to talk about Genji now – that’s a topic for another time – but instead, I’m going to muse upon why it’s worth reading things written over a thousand years ago, by people whose lives, values and beliefs were so different from our own, and from those of the modern Japanese, too.

Almost everything that we now associate with Japanese culture and the Japanese way of life simply didn’t exist in the Heian period: Noh 能, Kabuki 歌舞伎, Bunraku 文楽, tea ceremony, tatami 畳 mats, shōji 障子 screens, kimono 着物 (as we know them now), samurai 侍, haiku 俳句 poetry, Zen Buddhism – the list could go on, but I expect you get the point: none of these things would be familiar to the people of the Heian period, as they were all developed after it ended. Added to that the rigid separation of men and women (as I described in my column on love affairs), and the taboos and superstitions that ruled much of people’s behaviour, requiring periods of seclusion, or even moving out of one’s house to avoid annoying a jealous deity, and people’s relations and motivations sometimes seem like a complete mystery to us.

So, why should we read things written by people who lived such strange lives, so long ago? And who used a language which can be challenge to read and interpret? (Those of you who work with high school children can ask them what they think of classical grammar (koten bunpō 古典文法) – and I expect you’ll get groans and told that it’s boring – at least by some of them.) I’m not going to go into that in detail now, as I think I’ve talked about the difficulty of Japanese, or lack thereof, enough for the moment, but let’s just say that there are two sides to that argument, and it’s something I’ll come back to at a later date.

Getting back to the question: why read stuff written by the Heian Japanese? I could make the historical argument that it’s the best way of learning about the society and events of the time, or the literary argument that the works raise questions about the human condition, or the linguistic argument that they can enlighten us about the development of the Japanese language – all of these would be true – but miss, perhaps, the most important reason of all: these texts are frequently fun to read, and allow us to see the writers, and the people they write about, as human beings – people with the same emotions as us, who laughed with and at each other, teased each other, or sneered at each other, just like people do today, even if the reasons for doing so are very different.

To prove the point, let’s look at a couple of my favourite extracts from two different classical works: Tosa Nikki 土佐日記 (‘The Tosa Diary’) and Makura no Sōshi 枕草子 (‘The Pillow Book’).

First, Tosa Nikki: this is known to have been written by Ki no Tsurayuki 紀貫之 (ca. 872-945), perhaps the greatest poet of his generation, al though he maintains the fiction that the writer is a woman in his service throughout, as men’s diaries were supposed to have been kept in Chinese – the language of civilisation and culture – at the time. It’s a brief account of his return to the capital from serving as a provincial governor in Tosa in Shikoku, and contains prose entries interspersed with poems to punctuate emotional high-points.

Here’s the scene: Tsurayuki and his party have made port on the coast of Shikoku at New Year; unfortunately, all their special New Year food has been spoiled, as seawater has got into the supplies. One of the local nobles, however, on hearing of their plight has sent over a magnificent repast and everyone has stuffed themselves (in the diary, he writes ‘funagodomo wa haratsuzumi o uchite’ 船子どもは腹鼓を打ちて “Even the sailors beat the drum of their stomachs”). How, though, is their benefactor treated? (I’ve romanised this as if it were modern Japanese – it would have sounded a bit different in the original, but classical Japanese is almost always read as if it were modern now, anyway):

kyō, warigo motasetekitaru hito, sono na nado zo ima omoi’idemu. kono hito, uta yomamu to omou kokoro arite narikeri. tokaku ii’iite, ‘nami tatsu naru koto’ to urueiite, yomeru uta:

yukusaki ni tatsu shiranami no koe yori mo okurete nakamu ware ya masaramu

to zo yomeru. ito ōgoe narubeshi. motekitaru mono yori wa, uta wa ikaga aramu. kono uta o, korekare awaredomo, hitori mo kaeshisezu. shitsubeki hito mo majiredo, kore o nomi itagari, mono o nomi kuite, yo fukenu.

今日、破籠持たせて來たる人、その名などぞや今思ひ出でむ。この人、歌詠まむ、と思ふ心ありてなりけり。とかく言ひ〳〵て、「波の立つなること」と憂へ言ひて、詠める歌、

行く先に立つ白波の聲よりも遲れて泣かむ我や勝らむ

とぞ詠める。いと大聲なるべし。持て來たる物よりは、歌はいかゞあらむ。この歌を、これかれあはれがれども、一人も返しせず。しつべき人も交れゝど、これをのみいたがり、物をのみ食ひて、夜更けぬ。

The man who had the food brought that day – I’ll remember his name soon, I’m sure. Well, this man was of a mind to compose a poem. Or so he said – several times – fretting over, ‘On the waves rising,’; here is the poem he composed:

On your path
The rising whitecaps
Roar:
Left behind, weeping,
I will surpass them!

His voice must have been loud, indeed! And how did his poem compare with the food he had had brought? Though everyone said how moved they were by it, no one attempted a reply. There was one among them who should have done it, but he only praised it, kept on eating, and so the night wore on.

I think you get a real sense from this of the capital aristocrats shifting uneasily in their seats, knowing that the polite thing to do would be to compose a reply, but not knowing how to go about it. Even Tsurayuki, the celebrated poet, the one who should have done it, remains silent, and laughs secretly at the man’s technique. Suddenly, the nameless noble lives again, and you can sympathise with his situation – desperately trying to impress the VIPs from the capital, and not getting it quite right, while they snigger at him for being irremediably uncultured and rustic.

For our second extract, here’s a brief scene from the Makura no Sōshi, Japan’s most celebrated zuihitsu 随筆 (a literary form composed of a series of short anecdotes and miscellaneous jottings), written, at least partially, by a woman now referred to as Sei Shōnagon 清少納言, who served the Empress Sadako 定子 (also known as Teishi) (976-1000), one of the consorts to Emperor Ichijō 一条 (980-1011; r. 986-1011). In this section, Sadako has left the palace and gone to stay at the residence of Taira no Narimasa 平生昌 – noble known for being a good-hearted man, but something of a pompous ass – because she is due to give birth, and the pollution associated with childbirth was not permitted within the palace precincts. Her women, of course, have gone with her, and Sei has earlier berated Narimasa for not having a gate big enough to get an ox-cart through at his house, meaning the ladies have had to get out and walk inside, exposing themselves to public, male, view. That evening:

onaji tsubone ni sumu wakaki hitobito nado shite, yorozu no koto mo shirazu, nebutakereba mina nenu. hingashi no tai no nishi no hisashi, kita kaketearu ni, kita no sōji ni kakegane mo nakarikeru o, sore mo tazunesezu. ie no aruji nareba, annai o shirite aketekeri. ayashiku karebami sawagitaru koe nite, ‘saburawan wa ika ni, ika ni’ to, amata tabi iu koe ni zo odorokite mireba, kichō no ushiro ni tatetaru tōdai no hikari wa arawa nari, sōji o gosun bakari akete iu narikeri. imijū okashi.

sara ni kayō no sukizukishiki waza, yume ni senu mono o, wagaya ni owashimashitari tote muge ni kokoro ni makasuru nameri, to omou mo ito okashi.

katawaranaru hito o oshiokoshite, ‘kare mitamae. kakaru mienu mono no ameru wa’ to ieba, kashira motagete miyarite, imijū warau. ‘are wa ta so, kesō ni’ to ieba, ‘arazu. ie no aruji to, sadame mōsubeki koto no haberu nari’ to ieba, ‘kado no koto o koso kikoetsure, sōji aketamae to ya kikoetsuru’ to ieba, ‘nao sono koto mo mōsamu. soko ni saburawan wa ika ni, ika ni’ to ieba, ‘ito migurushiki koto. sara ni e owaseji’ tote waraumereba, ‘wakaki hito owashikeri’ tote, hikitatete inuru, nochi ni warau koto imijū, aken to naraba, tada irinekashi, shōsoko o iwan ni, yokanari to wa tare ka iwan, to, geni zo okashiki.

　おなじ局にすむわかき人〴〵などして、よろづのこともしらず、ねぶたければみなねぬ。ひんがしの對の西の廂、北かけてあるに、北の障子に掛金もなかりけるを、それも尋ぜず。家あるじなれば、案内をしりてあけてけり。あやしくかればみさわぎたるこゑにて、「さぶらはんはいかに、いかに」と、あまたゝびいふ聲にぞおどろきてみれば、几帳のうしろにたてたる燈臺の光はあらはなり、障子を五寸ばかりあけていふなりけり。いみじうをかし。
さらにかやうのすき〴〵しきわざ、ゆめにせぬものを、わが家におはしましたりとて、むげに心にまかするなめり、と思ふもいとをかし。
かたはらなる人をおしおこして、「かれ見給へ。かゝるみえぬものゝあめるは」といへば、かしらもたげて見やりて、いみじうわらふ。「あれはたそ、顯證に」といへば、「あらず。家のあるじと、さだめ申すべきことの侍るなり」といへば、「門のことをこそ聞えつれ、障子あけ給へとやは聞えつる」といへば、「なほそのことも申さむ。そこにさぶらはんはいかに、いかに」といへば、「いと見ぐるしきこと。さらにえおはせじ」とてわらふめれば、「わかき人おはしけり」とて、ひきたてゝ往ぬる、のちに、わらふこといみじう、あけんとならば、たゞ入りねかし、消息をいはんに、よかなりとはたれかいはん、と、げにぞをかしき。

I was together with a number of other young women in the same chamber, and not thinking about much at all, and being sleepy, we all dozed off. We were in the northern section of the western part of the east wing, and the northern shutter had no bolt – a fact we didn’t know. The master of the house, though, was well acquainted with this, and opened the shutter. In an oddly husky and excited voice, he called, ‘How about if I come in? How about it?’ several times: I was startled, and looking up, by the light of a lamp standing behind the screens, I saw he was speaking through the shutter, which he’d opened five inches or so. It was quite remarkable!

How funny it was when I realised that he thought he could do just as he pleased – disgracefully lascivious conduct he normally wouldn’t have even dreamt of , because Her Majesty was staying in his house!

I prodded the girl beside me awake, saying, ‘Look at that! Did you ever see such a thing?’ and she lifted her head and burst into peals of laughter. ‘Who is it? Being so obvious?’ I asked, and he replied, ‘I am not! It’s just your host, with something he needs to talk to you about.’
‘I asked you about your gate – but did I ask you to come open my shutters?’ I said.
‘That’s just what I want to talk to you about. How about if I come in? How about it?’
‘How disgraceful! You certainly may not!’ answered the other girl, laughing, and he, saying, ‘Oh, there are other young women there!’ drew the shutter closed and departed: afterwards, we laughed and laughed. If he’d gone so far as to open the shutter, he should have just come in and slept with me – for what woman, on being importuned in such a manner, is going to tell a man it’s fine? It really was astounding!

Again, for me, reading this suddenly brings the witty Sei, and the bumptious Narimasa, back to life. You can feel the fun that was to be had in aristocratic life and relationships, and her amusement at Narimasa not following the rules. The way in which she banters with him seems not that dissimilar from how people behave today. Of course, the rules are different from modern ones – Sei’s remark that Narimasa should have just come in and had his way with her demonstrates that – but it’s a small window onto a happy time, and works well as an antidote to all the lamenting over unhappy affairs that one gets in the love poetry.

I did a class on the entire scene of which this is just a part (Narimasa makes a fool of himself the following day, too, when he doesn’t know the right words for some articles of women’s clothing) with some students last summer, and beforehand rehearsed my reading – out loud – of the original text with a Japanese colleague, translating it on the fly as I went along. Afterwards, she said to me, ‘You know, when I studied Makura no Sōshi at school, the picture I got of Sei Shōnagon was of a bitter, humourless woman, but listening to you read that has completely changed my mind. She seem so much more fun now, and you make me want to read more of The Pillow Book.’

As a teacher, I can’t ask for a better reaction than that!

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I thoroughly enjoyed this column. Thank you ELT News, for making such prominent space available for discussion of ancient Japan and these classic texts.

Avery | March 28, 2009 5:36 PM

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