Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900

by Shirane, Haruo, ed.

  “Shakuhachi flute masters produce sounds even more delicate than a courtesan’s farts. But they lose their teeth early, and the only work they can get is as spies in vendettas dressed as wandering flute-playing monks. Drummers cry out sharply as they hit their small hand drums or beat out long series of deep sounds on larger drums. Some of them are very skilled, and drumming gives great pleasure, but sounds last only as long as you hear them. No one ever remembers drummers after they die. As for the other activities people usually call arts, they’re all children’s games.

  “The only things you really need to study are the Chinese classics, poetry, and painting. But even these are sometimes badly taught by narrow-minded Confucian scholars who only study books and know nothing about the real world. One scholar, for example, is so inflexible and attached to politeness he wears starched formal clothes even to clean out his well.72 And another, knowing nothing about farming, claims the way to save the country is by spreading sweet potato cultivation; but his plan is so unrealistic, it’s like trying to cook sweet potatoes in a tinderbox.73 These men have wrapped themselves so tightly in wastepaper from ancient China they’ve lost their own freedom. They’re as rigid and solemn as sets of old armor placed out on racks for airing. But even with this pose, they can’t hide their ignorance of the world. They know less about it than ordinary people. That’s why they’re called ‘rotten scholars’ or ‘farting Confucianists.’ They stink as badly as ripe bean paste.

  “Some Confucian scholars have seen through this pose and instead follow the Song Confucianist Zhu Xi even to the point of wearing ancient Confucian caps.74 But their marginal criticisms and tinkering cause even worse problems. They try to straighten the horns and end up killing the cow. The minor followers of this philosophical school play on ancient Chinese flutes as they go to the Yoshiwara licensed quarter in small boats on the Sumida River75 or sing songs in contemporary Chinese pronunciation to a shamisen. The worst of them, incredibly, go around gambling with six-sided tops and doing whatever else they want. Their arrogance has prevented them from knowing anything about the Doctrine of the Mean. China is China, and Japan is Japan. The past is the past, and the present is the present.”

  Continuing to overlap the medieval and Edo periods, the sage describes how corrupt and incompetent the administration of the Kamakura period (1185–1333) was and how only flatterers or those offering bribes were employed, while those with skill and wisdom were ignored.

  “The most influential people then were Buddhist monks, millionaires, women, shamisen players, puppet-play chanters, and jesters. No one knew any longer how to tell what was of great value from what wasn’t, so finally I decided to leave the world behind, and I went to a forest on a mountain, where I managed to survive on nuts and berries. After a while I discovered I had strange new powers. I found I could move in the air and fly here and there wherever the wind took me, so I began using the name Vagabond Sage.76 I’ve been living like this for more than five hundred years now. I don’t know anything about the world these days, but I do know, Asanoshin, that after you give up being a monk, you must never, never become so arrogant as to call yourself a professional artist. On the other hand, if you teach lofty truths, people won’t gather to listen to you. If you aim too high, eventually you’ll have to abandon the world—or it will abandon you. So follow the example of Dongfang Shuo of Han, who had much learning but wrote amusing poems. Appeal to people with lightness and humor, and they will gather around you. Take your images from things near at hand and give people guidance.”

  Asanoshin moved closer to the sage and spoke. “Hearing your teaching,” he said, “I am filled with reverence. But I am still young and know little about human feelings and emotions. What should I do?”

  The sage then handed Asanoshin the feather fan he was holding. “This fan,” he said, “bears within it my most secret powers. Use it. In summer you will feel a cool breeze, and in winter you will be warmed by its wind. If you wish to fly, this fan will become your wings, and if you want to cross a river or sea, it will be your boat. You can learn much about places near and far, and you will be able to see even the tiniest things. If you want to hide yourself, this fan will make you invisible. It is a marvelous and mysterious treasure. Please use it to travel between heaven and earth and learn about the feelings of people in many areas and countries. But remember, people in the world consider physical love to be the highest form of human feeling, so while you’re in a country, be sure to visit the places where people make love. As you travel around to all these countries, you will have many experiences that are interesting and many that are very sad. But never, never consider them simply painful. We will meet again after you have completed your training and returned here once more. Well, until then! Until then!”

  Was it a voice? Wind blowing the sliding doors? Asanoshin sat dazed, somewhere between sleeping and waking, in a room of the Kōmyōin Temple He found himself leaning against his desk, and he sat up straight again. He looked around and saw nothing. But there beside him was the feather fan he had received in the dream.

  In the second chapter Asanoshin looks closely at and is shocked by the decadence of the K ōmyōin Temple, which exists to generate money for the monks, who spend it on sexual, gustatory, and other pleasures. He leaves and rents a hut on Surugadai Heights, from where he watches the customs and activities of all four seasons in Edo. The fan gives Asanoshin great powers of vision, and he describes in detail Edo life throughout a whole year. Fascinating as it is, Edo life finally teaches Asanoshin that everything in the world moves only according to money and desire.

  Land of the Giants (chapter 3)

  Asanoshin sets off for the Yoshiwara licensed quarter and then goes to see kabuki actors in a theater district, call boys working in teahouses, and female hookers and streetwalkers of many sorts all over Edo. Then he wanders up and down Japan, visiting almost every kind of licensed quarter and brothel district.

  . . . After seeing professional women in every part of Japan, Asanoshin decided he wanted to go to learn about love in other countries as well. So he went to the shore and waded out into the ocean. The feather fan floated just like a ship, and when he sat on it, it took him rapidly over the blue water, which spread out endlessly before him. White-capped waves raced more wildly than white horses, yet amazingly, the fan kept him dry. He never became hungry, and for several days he traveled on in this way. When at last he reached an island, he had no idea where he was.

  Asanoshin got off the fan and carried it ashore with him. He walked here and there until he saw some very large houses. As he went toward them, the people inside saw him, and a large number came outside to watch him. All of them were at least twenty feet tall, and even the children they carried on their backs were larger than Japanese adults. Asanoshin realized this must be the famous Land of the Giants. But he didn’t understand their language at all, nor they his. He and they both improvised and tried to explain themselves, making many different gestures and expressions, but none worked. Finally Asanoshin got the idea of putting his fan to his ear. When he did, he was able to understand the giants’ speech. And when he put his fan to his mouth, they seemed to be able to understand him.

  After that, Asanoshin and the giants were able to converse. Asanoshin explained that he was from a country called “Japan,” and the giants brought him many kinds of delicious food. After a couple of days of feasting, they suggested that he go out for a nice trip, and they put him in one of their palanquins. The destination, however, turned out to be a rough, temporary shed covered on all sides by reed screens. It was obviously located in the middle of a very busy area. After Asanoshin got out, the giants put him on a stage in the shed and then, to the rhythm of strange flutes and drums, they began calling out in high, loud voices, “Come right in, now! Take a good look! See a real live Japanese! A handsome man so small you can put him on the palm of your hand and watch him crawl! He’s no imitation. He’s no fake. We’ll show him to you live and in the flesh. Come right in! He
’s what everybody’s talking about!” At that, a dense crowd of men and women of all ages thronged toward the shed. They pushed and shoved their way inside, and when they saw Asanoshin, they pointed at him and laughed.

  Asanoshin tried to think of a way to escape. He knew that all he had to rely on was the feather fan, so he looked up in the direction of the sky and bowed to the sage. Then he got on the fan, and it began to fly upward. He broke through the roof of the shed and continued to climb until he reached a high altitude. The giants were dumbfounded and disappointed at losing their amusing visitor. None of them had ever heard of a Japanese being able to fly before, and some concluded that he must be one of the mountain goblins77 that were said to be so common in Japan. Others pointed out that although he carried a fan in the way that Japanese goblins do in pictures, his nose was too small for him to be a goblin. Still others felt he was indeed a goblin who’d been around to many countries, contracted syphilis somewhere, and lost his nose. A conference was held and many theories proposed, but none was accepted.

  Asanoshin sat on the fan without trying to steer it, letting it fly where it would. When he saw the faint outlines of another island ahead, he decided to land there. It turned out to be the Land of the Tiny People, and its inhabitants were only fifteen or sixteen inches high. They never went outside alone but always walked in groups of four or five so they wouldn’t be snatched up and eaten alive by cranes, and when they saw Asanoshin they began shaking with fear. They all went inside their houses, locked the doors, and refused to come out again. Unable to communicate with them, Asanoshin headed inland, and the farther he went, the smaller the people got. Already they were only about five or six inches high. When he reached the center of the country, the people were the size of tiny dolls.

  In this land, as in Japan, there were various different lords. Near one superbly built castle, Asanoshin saw a large procession of well-dressed tiny people heading toward the castle and another that had just come out of it. The procession leaving the castle went forward with great ceremony, and there, surrounded by vigilant guards, Asanoshin saw the tiny palanquin of a very high-ranking young woman who must be a princess. He picked up the palanquin with the princess in it very delicately with two fingers and placed it into the upper section of the small pillbox hanging from the sash at his waist. When he did, the guards and attendants immediately made a big commotion and began racing off in every direction, looking for the princess. One old gentleman, apparently the minister in charge of the women’s quarters in the castle, was wandering around completely disoriented, so Asanoshin picked him up carefully between his fingers and put him into the lower section of the pillbox.

  Asanoshin, smoking a pipe, watches two processions of tiny people outside a castle. The palanquin containing the princess is at the far right.

  Several hours later, Asanoshin opened his pillbox and took out the minister again, but all he found was the man’s body. The minister, apparently overcome by his feeling of responsibility for losing the princess, had placed himself in the middle of the square black throat lozenge, and there he had committed ritual suicide by cutting himself open. Now he slumped forward on the lozenge, motionless. Asanoshin began to cry when saw that even these tiny people suffer because of their deep feelings of loyalty and obligation to their lord, so he took the princess out of the top section of the pillbox and carefully placed her back in the same place from which he had taken her. He had already caused enough suffering in this land, so he got on his feather fan and flew off again, toward where he could not guess.

  Land of the Chest Holes (chapter 4)

  Asanoshin rode farther on his feather fan, letting it fly wherever it would through the sky. Presently it came down beside a great river running from north to south. Most of the plants and trees here had fascinating shapes Asanoshin had never seen before, and the river water was a reddish color. People back home, he thought, would certainly be very interested in hearing about this.

  Asanoshin wanted to cross the river and explore the area, but he had no idea how deep rivers were in this country, so he sat down on a pine root and waited to see where the local people crossed. Then, in the distance, he saw four or five people fording the river. They were about halfway across, but the water didn’t reach their waists. The river certainly didn’t look shallow enough to walk across, but Asanoshin pulled up his robe and stepped into the water. It quickly became more than ten feet deep, and he was swept away by the strong current. Again and again, he was dragged below the surface, barely managing to come up each time. Almost drowning, he gripped his feather fan and pushed aside the surging water. Spraying water in every direction, he opened a path for himself and walked across the river bottom to the other side.

  When he’d climbed up the far bank, Asanoshin looked around, wondering what had happened to the people who were crossing the river. He discovered he was in the legendary Land of the Long Legged People. The torsos of the people he’d seen were the same size as those of people in Japan, but their legs were fourteen or fifteen feet long, and they’d crossed the river with ease.

  These people had also seen Asanoshin. After watching his feat with his fan, they’d decided to take it for themselves, and now they stood deliberating about how they should do it. The fan, they concluded, wouldn’t be an easy capture, and they decided to ask the aid of people in the neighboring Land of the Long Armed People. These people had arms fourteen or fifteen feet long and worked as professional thieves.

  Asanoshin, completely unaware of what was being planned, stopped at a teahouse for travelers beside the road. He was exhausted from his struggle to keep from drowning, so he rented part of a room, separated off his portion with a standing screen, and fell fast asleep—only to be awakened by strange sounds. Looking around, he saw a thin but very long arm. It had come down through the open skylight window and was now lifting up his feather fan.

  “Well now,” he exclaimed, “if it isn’t a burglar! You know, you look just like the demon Ibaragi Dōji in a Toba comic print. You’re going to keep your arm about as long as he did, too. This instrument here’s just as sharp as the one Watanabe no Tsuna used when he sliced off the demon’s arm at Rashōmon Gate.” Asanoshin’s short sword passed completely through the arm.

  Suddenly there was shouting and commotion in every direction. All heaven and earth shook with attack drums and battle cries. Prepared for the worst, Asanoshin ran outside and found himself surrounded by hundreds of thousands of long-legged people carrying long-armed people on their shoulders. Each pair must have been thirty feet high. The attackers spread out around all him like a vast expanse of tangled trees and vines.

  At an inn, Asanoshin stabs a long-armed person who is attempting to steal his fan.

  Asanoshin knew that even his feather fan might not be able to save him unless he flew with the utmost skill beyond the long reach of the attackers’ arms. He remembered the Vagabond Sage who had sent him on this journey, and silently he prayed to him for guidance. Then he charged the attackers, hitting their long shins again and again with the fan and quickly pulling back. With long-armed people on their shoulders, the long-legged people were even less stable than they normally were, and those in front fell backward and struck those behind. They toppled in long rows like poles, one after another. Those who remained standing reached out and grasped wildly at Asanoshin, but their long arms moved clumsily, and Asanoshin swerved right and left, under and between them, finally knocking down every single pair.

  Asanoshin then rode up into the clouds on his fan. Looking down, he saw long-armed people crawling off in all directions, escaping with hips held high. But the long-legged people were having a harder time. Unable to stand up by themselves, these people always carried drums tied to their waists. If one of them fell down, the unfortunate would beat the drum, calling for others to come hoist him or her up with pulleys, like a ship mast being raised. But today all the long-legged people had fallen down together, and they now lay writhing on the ground, unable to get up. Asanoshin knew
that if he left these many thousands of long-legged people the way they were, they would starve to death, so he took the feather fan and fanned them so hard they all were blown up onto their feet again.

  Asanoshin left while the long-legged people were still standing around dazed. Then, after flying eleven thousand or twelve thousand miles, he arrived in another large country. It was the Land of the Chest Holes, where everyone has a hole in the middle of his or her chest. When the aristocrats here go out, they don’t ride in palanquins but have their carriers pass a pole through their chests and carry them around on the poles. It’s completely painless. Commoners holding poles stand waiting on street corners shouting “Get poled! Get poled!” just the way they call out “Ride our palanquin!” in Japan.

  Asanoshin wanted very much to try this form of transportation, but since he had no hole in his chest, he couldn’t ask to be carried. As he walked on farther into the heartland of the country, he saw more houses, and crowds bustled here and there. It was an undeveloped country, and the people didn’t dress very stylishly. Everyone who saw Asanoshin, aristocrat or commoner, man or woman, stopped to look at him.

  “He certainly has a unique look.”

  “Have you ever seen such an attractive man?”

  The crowd of people around him refused to stop gaping.

  In the days that followed, Asanoshin became known throughout the whole country. The ruler, Emperor Great Hole, heard about him and had some of his officials bring Asanoshin into his presence. When the assembled courtiers saw the visitor, they were quickly captivated by his beauty. Although the emperor had no son, he had a daughter, a princess, who was then sixteen. After seeing Asanoshin’s good looks, both daughter and father decided that the visitor would be the right husband for her. So the emperor called his ministers together and proposed adopting Asanoshin into the royal family as his heir and turning over the country to him. The ministers deliberated for some time, but since it was a royal request, and in view of the fact that the princess was in love with the man, they concluded that it was a splendid idea and offered their most enthusiastic congratulations.