A Japanese Mirror

by Ian Buruma

  These celebrations are called matsuri. They are like Latin carnivals or fiestas, celebrations as well as outlets for popular frustration; every Japanese city, town and village has a matsuri, often more than one. These fiestas have been influenced by Buddhism, but they are basically Shinto, and they are always exuberant, sometimes escalating into real violence. Experiencing a matsuri one has the impression of massive energy constantly teetering on the edge of chaos, like a primitive tribal dance. In some villages huge phalluses are carried through the streets like battering rams, and are violently mated with swaying female symbols held by sweating and heaving youths from a neighbouring shrine.

  The novelist Mishima Yukio, who committed suicide in 1970, called the matsuri ‘a vulgar mating of humanity and eternity, which could be consummated only through some such pious immorality as this’.22 What shocked and obviously titillated him as a boy was ‘the expression of the most wanton and undisguised rapture in the world … ’23

  Pain and ecstasy, sex and death, worship and fear, purity and pollution are all vital elements in the Japanese festival. The Shinto gods are very Japanese in their tastes: they do not demand sacrifices – apart from some food – prayers or a dogma of faith; instead they demand to be entertained, like the Sun Goddess; they want to celebrate, to laugh. Above all, they want spectacle, masquerade, and the sexier the better. In a sense, they invite the people to break the very taboos they themselves symbolize.

  It is this theatre for the gods that forms the basis of popular culture in Japan. This primitive, often obscene, frequently violent side of Japanese culture has persisted to this day, despite the frequent official disapproval of its raunchier manifestations and the superimposition of more austere and alien forms.

  The first performer of this kind of spectacle was of course the Dread Female of Heaven. Her sacred striptease was the prototype of what was later known as Kagura, literally ‘that which pleases the gods’. Though Kagura is still performed at shrines it has lost much of its popular appeal. But its spirit can still be seen in more modern dramatic forms. The contemporary striptease parlour is one example.

  The ‘Toji Deluxe’ is a well known striptease parlour in Kyoto. It is a garish, neon-lit place in a dark, dreary street behind the station. The entrance is decorated with great garlands of plastic flowers, like colourful funeral wreaths. The customer is led through a purple-lit hall into an inner chamber where the entertainment takes place. It is a huge space bathed in a warm pink light. In the middle stands a large, slowly revolving stage.

  High above the spectators is a second tier of revolving stages made of transparent plastic. The walls and ceilings are completely covered with mirrors, multiplying the ten or so girls into a kind of cubist harem painting.

  The audience is welcomed by a male voice crackling through a loudspeaker and several women dressed in flimsy nightdresses toddle on to the ramps (some hastily handing their babies to colleagues backstage), carrying what look like picnic hampers, neatly covered with colourful cloths. These baskets are placed on the stage and the cloths carefully spread out. Then, with an exquisite sense of decorum, the girls unpack their accoutrements, vibrators, cucumbers and condoms and put them side by side, in a neat little row, as if preparing for a traditional tea-ceremony.

  This done, the girls stand up and to the loud and scratchy tune of ‘Strangers in the Night’ they adopt a few perfunctory poses; not so much a dance as a series of tableaux vivants. Their faces remain impassive. Japanese dancers, classical and modern, often seem to wear a mask of complete detachment, as if their motions are automatic, the human will numbed into submission.

  But then a slight smile shines through: not the plastic grin of American show-girls or the studied naughtiness of the French music-hall, but more like a maternal assurance that there is nothing whatsoever to fear.

  Still smiling they invite members of the audience to join them on stage. Blushing and giggling, neatly dressed men on company outings are pushed on to the stage by their colleagues. Their ensuing attempts to have sex with the dancers are part of the entertainment. Not surprisingly in the circumstances, these attempts mostly fail, much to the merriment of the audience.

  The show must go on, however, and with more blushing and giggling the young company employees are hastily pushed off the platform, whence they struggle awkwardly back to their seats with their trousers still dangling round their ankles. The best part, the real show, the thing that most men have paid to see, is still to come: the Tokudashi (special event), also known as the ‘open’, for reasons that will become clear.

  The girls shuffle over to the edge of the stage, crouch and, leaning back as far as they can, slowly open their legs just a few inches from the flushed faces in the front row. The audience, suddenly very quiet now, leans forward to get a better view of this mesmerizing sight, this magical organ, revealed in all its mysterious glory.

  The women, still with their maternal smiles, slowly move around, crablike, from person to person, softly encouraging the spectators to take a closer look. To aid the men in their explorations, they hand out magnifying glasses and small hand-torches, which pass from hand to hand. All the attention is focussed on that one spot of the female anatomy; instead of being the humiliated objects of masculine desire, the women seem in complete control, like matriarchal goddesses.

  The tension of this remarkable ceremony is broken in the end by wild applause, and loud, liberating laughter. Several men produce handkerchiefs to wipe the sweat off their heated brows.

  All this is a long way from the austere, controlled, exquisitely restrained, melancholy beauty most people in the West have come to associate with Japan. It is true that the contrast between the native, Shinto-inspired, popular culture and the more aristocratic, Buddhist-inspired aesthetic is so strong that one could almost speak of two separate cultures.24

  This is partly a matter of class. Foreign influence is generally felt first by those with the time and money to indulge in exotic fashions. Indeed much in the aristocratic tradition was imported from more sophisticated societies (mainly China and Korea). Thus the first Buddhists in Japan were aristocrats at the court of Prince Shotoku in the beginning of the seventh century. And during the Heian period (794–1183) all the male literati wrote in Chinese – the women did not and consequently they were the pioneers in native Japanese literature.

  Importing upper-class culture is not a typically Japanese phenomenon. French culture in Europe was eagerly lapped up in the nineteenth-century salons of the upper classes. But the impact of foreign importations, usually at a much higher stage of development, on an isolated island culture was enormous and in some ways traumatic. Moreover Buddhism and Confucianism with their strong emphasis on ethics and morality were useful tools to keep the masses under control. The seventh-century rulers of Japan deemed Buddhism ‘excellent for protecting the state’.25

  But the native tradition never disappeared. Unlike Europe, where Christianity was quite successful in squashing or at least replacing ancient forms of worship, primitive cults in Japan were never crushed by more sophisticated official creeds. Though the distinctions, especially at the most popular level, are somewhat blurred at the edges, Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines still exist side by side. Rites of both creeds are observed, though not always at the same time or place. This might be due to the Japanese lack of concern for ideology or dogma. Instead great importance is attached to externals, to the attitudes proper to assume on each occasion, because ‘appearance’ is more important than ‘being’.26

  Aristocratic culture, because of its Buddhist influence, emphasizes restraint and austere perfection to the point of morbidity: not surprisingly, the Japanese, high and low, use Buddhist rituals to bury their dead. In popular Shinto culture everything human and sensual is stressed and sometimes grotesquely exaggerated. Again not surprisingly, marriage is usually a Shinto ceremony, though nowadays many young couples, though not in any sense believers or even formal members, find it more chic to marry in Christian c
hurches, which are most willing to oblige. In terms of traditional culture this means that the austerity of the No theatre, suffused with Zen Buddhism, co-exists with the violent extravagance of Kabuki.

  Nevertheless, if one should ask a Japanese if he is a Buddhist or a Shintoist, he would not know what to say. Both, is the most likely answer. Or he might mumble something about the Japanese being non-religious. There are, however, hidden conflicts between the morality of the rulers and their officialdom, supported by Buddhism, Confucianism or even State Shinto, all depending on the period in history, and the Shinto way of life. Power in Japan has never rested so much on the letter of the law, as on a type of social totalitarianism. People were often made to behave according to imported codes, which they did not really share. Thus the tension between official and popular culture is always simmering under the surface. The harder the official pressure is, the more grotesque the manifestations of popular culture become. This was most apparent during the Edo period (1615–1867), the influence of which is still strongly felt today.

  From the moment they came to power, the Tokugawa shoguns, who ruled during the entire Edo period, did all they could to suppress anything that could possibly pose a threat to their authority. The creed that served the authoritarian government best was Confucianism, especially the school of Chu Hsi, a twelfth-century Chinese philosopher, emphasizing loyalty and duty; originally to one’s parents, but most conveniently expanded to include one’s rulers, in effect the Tokugawa rulers themselves. It must be stressed that loyalty in Japan became something far more absolute than the original Chinese model.

  Being terrified of disorder, the Tokugawa government tried with varying degrees of success to clamp down on the hedonistic, extravagant and erotic aspects of popular culture. This tug of war between officialdom and the common people is indeed still going on. Censorship and other other forms of control were based on the official morality, which was not an internalized religious morality, but included anything that supported the power of the state; the power of the state was the official morality.27

  Homosexual prostitution, for example, was officially banned in 1648, although homosexuality was in no way thought to be sinful. Particularly amongst the samurai it was considered quite normal, desirable even. The reason for the crack-down was that upper-class warriors mixed with lower-class actors, hustlers and other members of the demi-monde. Worse still, they affected their habits. This was not acceptable, for Tokugawa power was based on rigid class divisions.

  The subservient position of women in feudal society was also given the Confucian stamp of approval. The scholar Kaibara Ekiken (1630–1714) wrote that ‘a woman must regard her husband as her lord and serve him with all the reverence and all the adoration of which she is capable. The chief duty of woman, her duty throughout life, is to obey.’ This seems a far cry from the world of the Sun Goddess and Izanami, where shamanesses held sway and even, like Himiko in the third century A.D., became queens of the land; or the Heian court, where promiscuous ladies were the arbiters, if not of real power, at least of taste. The Tokugawa government did everything to stamp out the last vestiges of matriarchy for ever.

  To a large degree it succeeded in its aims. It became difficult and even dangerous for people to behave as independent individuals: everybody was judged by his or her rank in the social hierarchy, a habit which has, unfortunately, stuck. The only escape from this oppressive system was, as usual, the spectacle, the matsuri, the cruel world of theatres and brothels.

  Within the strict boundaries of licensed areas, permitted and controlled by the government, people could let themselves go. The gods were entertained by female impersonators, male prostitutes, woodblock artists and courtesans. Popular urban culture of the Edo period, especially during the relatively prosperous seventeenth century, was intimately connected to this narrow world of pleasure. Writers, musicians, actors and painters, all were to be found in the officially despised but commonly adored ‘floating world’. The importance of this cannot be overestimated. One could say that little has fundamentally changed: violent entertainment and grotesque erotica are still important outlets in what continues to be an oppressive social system. Thus they have a social and political significance far beyond similar fare in the West.

  Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, when the Tokugawa regime came to an end, Japan entered the era of ‘Civilization and Enlightenment’ (Bunmei Kaika). She began to borrow from the West in the same wholesale way she had done eleven centuries before from China. This did not mean that the Tokugawa legacy of social oppression could be discarded as easily as the native kimono. Moreover, the influence from the then still highly puritanical West helped push the Sun Goddess even further into her cave.

  Released from its self-imposed isolation, Japan became a little self-conscious. The Japanese ‘were like an anxious housewife preparing to receive guests, hiding away in closets common articles of daily use and laying aside comfortable everyday clothes, hoping to impress the guests with the immaculate idealized life of her household, without so much as a speck of dust in view.’28 It seems trains even had signs in them dissuading passengers from the old custom of tucking in the hems of their kimonos: ‘DO NOT BARE THE THIGHS’.29 One still sees similar signs in Western-style hotels, where foreigners might be shocked by the sight of Japanese men walking around in their pyjamas, or worse, their underwear, though both are common enough sights in places not normally frequented by overseas visitors.

  But much has changed since the Japanese were first civilized and enlightened. Now that ‘Western’ culture has reached even the simplest Japanese home through television, advertising and organized foreign holidays, the surface of Japanese life has changed almost beyond recognition. All the same, enough remains under the concrete and glass façade of the Economic Miracle to amuse the gods. Despite all the changes Japan is a profoundly traditional country. Every new building has a shrine on the roof, dedicated to the fox Inari, guardian of rice-crops and export figures. In many ways the Japanese continue to be a nation of farmers not quite sure what to make of their new affluence.

  The film director Imamura Shohei has called the modern surface of Japan an illusion, ‘Reality’, he says, ‘is those little shrines, the superstition and the irrationality that pervade the Japanese consciousness under the veneer of the business suits and advanced technology.’30

  In the last few decades the more primitive aspects of Japanese culture, things ‘reeking of mud’ (dorokusai), have enjoyed a kind of renaissance. The Japanese are now secure enough, it would appear, not to worry too much about specks of dust coming into view – though many would still prefer foreigners not to notice. Since the 1960s especially, Japanese scholars have been digging their muddy spades into the more scabrous corners of popular culture. Certain Kabuki plays, long considered too vulgar for a civilized and enlightened world, are being performed again, albeit somewhat toned down. And the matsuri are enjoying a televised boom.

  This does not mean that the Japanese are living in an age of unbridled earthy hedonism, dancing in the streets all night. On the contrary, some controls are tighter than ever. It would be truer to say that what were once expressions of dangerous, subversive spontaneity have now entered the sphere of harmless folklore. But popular expression need not be traditional in form: it is the spirit that counts. And I think it will seem from the images in films, books, comics and plays which I shall discuss, how close the contemporary Japanese still are, despite the vicissitudes of history, to the original gods they created.

  2

  The Eternal Mother

  Oh, that my dear mother

  Were a jewel-piece

  That I might place in my hair-knot

  And always wear above me.

  Manyoshu, eighth century

  It is said that kamikaze pilots always screamed the same famous last words before crashing their planes into American battleships: ‘Long live the emperor!’ (‘Tenno Heika banzai!’) Some of them may indeed have done so. But most, acc
ording to less reverent informants, simply shouted at the top of their terrified voices: ‘Mother!’

  I visited an old kamikaze air base recently. The best-selling souvenir in the dingy museum was a record album entitled ‘The Suicide Pilot’s Mother’:

  You are the suicide pilot’s mother

  So please don’t cry

  Laugh as you send us off

  We’ll show you how to die

  Mother, Oh Mother!

  When Takakura Ken, the most popular macho star in gangster films, is thrown into a maximum security jail in one of his many movies, after stabbing a rival boss to death, all he worries about is his mother. He hears-and so do we-his sister’s voice on the soundtrack: ‘Dear brother, do you know that mother calls out your name every single day?’ At that point the hardened gangster hero and his fans in the auditorium break down and cry.

  An ultra-rich businessman in his seventies, with shady political and criminal connections, has launched an expensive campaign to clean up his grubby public image. How? By buying television time for ‘commercials’ showing pictures of himself as a young man gallantly carrying his mother on his back.

  Every night thousands of Japanese businessmen find refuge from the Economic Miracle in tiny bars, sometimes with names like ‘Mother’s Taste’ or just ‘Mother’. There, aided by whisky and water, they retreat into early childhood, seeking the ever-attentive ears of the ladies they call ‘mama-san’, who, with the practised patience of psychiatrists, listen to their problems: about how the wife keeps nagging and how the section-chief in the company is no good and how nobody appreciates their hard work. After some kind words of advice and plenty of soothing encouragement from the mama-san, Japan’s economic warriors stagger home, holding each other up, jumping on and off each other’s backs, and shrieking with the sheer joy of being eight years old again.