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A Japanese Mirror

Page 27

by Ian Buruma


  If there were a universal moral principle, everything, in fantasy and reality, would have to be judged morally. Hence in the West a cartoon in a national newspaper of a woman tied up in ropes would be considered by many to be morally offensive. In Japan even the most horrifying violence, as long as it is not real, can be judged purely aesthetically. This is even true when the violence depicted is based on a real event.

  A novel which has won the highest Japanese literary prize is a case in point. The author, Kara Juro, follows an old tradition in Japanese fiction by taking a real event around which to spin a literary fantasy. The facts upon which the book, Letters From Sagawa, is based, are fairly straightforward: a Japanese student in Paris shot his Dutch girlfriend in the back, cut her up with an electric knife and ate parts of her body. Any attempt at documenting the truth is soon abandoned and much of the book, while retaining real names and places, is devoted to the author’s personal reveries. But one is still left with the slightly uncomfortable feeling of never quite knowing what is fact and what fancy. Uncomfortable, that is, for someone raised in a tradition that regards the Truth as something sacred. Murder, in Kara’s book, is neither analysed nor condemned but is aestheticized. The most famous example of a Western author doing something similar is the Marquis de Sade. Some call him a saint, others a devil, but both sides judge him on very moral grounds.

  Such is not the case in Japan. Kara’s book has come in for some rare criticism, but based purely on aesthetics. Morality, or the lack of it, is never an issue, neither is playing fast and loose with the truth. The author is judged on his style. A real murder, in his book, has been transformed into art, nothing more, nothing less. As such it is severed from reality and need not be morally condemned.

  Encouraging people to act out their violent impulses in fantasy, while suppressing them in real life, is an effective way of preserving order. Vicarious crime is after all one of the functions of theatre. As long as the tatemae of hierarchy, etiquette and propriety is upheld, the frustrated company man can look at pictures of tied-up women as much as he likes.

  Frustration can boil over, however, and even Japanese rules do at times break down. But much resistance must be overcome before this happens, and the resulting violence is almost always hysterical and usually confined to one’s own group. Random killings are rare in Japan, but families wiped out by mothers or fathers going berserk are not.

  Popular fantasies of sex and violence are usually hysterical too. They remind one of children screaming because they have no other way of expressing their needs. A scream, though, is normally a spontaneous action. Ritual screaming, naturally, is not. The bizarre excesses of Japanese popular culture are as bound by stylistic conventions as the tea ceremony, flower arranging and other aesthetic pastimes. Even play conforms to strict patterns.

  One sees this clearly in that other great emotional outlet open to Japanese men: drinking. Drunken behaviour is of course as much influenced by cultural expectations as table manners or courtship rituals. Getting drunk together is the traditional after-hours way of letting off steam, letting out the honne, as it were. But it also conforms to its own kind of tatemae. What to an outside observer may seem like childish anarchy, is in fact a ritual.

  Every section of a Japanese company has its regular night out to lubricate group relations. It tends to start off modestly with a few beers at a local bar. Then the group will move on to a club with hostesses, who listen to their complaints and make the men relax by strategically placed hands and reassuring sounds of complete agreement. When entirely at ease the men often regress into early childhood behaviour: shame is then suspended for a few hours. Some, mouths open wide, are chopstick-fed by the hostesses, others dance around in their underpants; several grow maudlin and throw their arms around each other’s necks. It is even quite possible that one or two become aggressive and have to be restrained from hitting a colleague over the head. But suddenly, usually after the most senior member has indicated his wish to leave, it is all over. Emotions have been vented, the play is finished, the hierarchy restored and nothing remains the next morning except perhaps a headache. Even the men who insulted each other the night before are ostensibly the best of friends again. Everyone agrees to agree.

  The more violent examples used in this book are like these drinking bouts: ritual explosions of honne played out according to the aesthetic rules of tatemae. They are the violent fantasies of a people forced to be gentle. What one sees on the screen, on stage or in the comic-books is usually precisely the reverse of normal behaviour. The morbid and sometimes grotesque taste that runs through Japanese culture – and has done for centuries – is a direct result of being made to conform to such a strict and limiting code of normality. The theatrical imagination, the world of the bizarre is a parallel, or rather the flip-side of reality, as fleeting and intangible as a reflection in the mirror.

  Notes

  Preface

  1

  See Roy Andrew Miller, Japan’s Modern Myth, Tokyo, 1982.

  1 Mirror of the Gods

  1

  These myths were first compiled in two eighth-century chronicles, the Kojiki (712) and the Nihongi (720). Both were written in Chinese and were obviously influenced by continental culture. The standard, though now somewhat archaic, translations of the Kojiki are by W. G. Aston, London, 1956, and by B. H. Chamberlain, London, 1932.

  2

  Theo Lesoualc’h, Érotique du Japon, Paris, 1978, p. 28.

  3

  Kojiki.

  4

  Ibid.

  5

  John C. Pelzel, ‘Human Nature in the Japanese Myths’, in A. M. Craig and D. M. Shively, Personality in Japanese History, Berkeley, 1970, p. 41.

  6

  Louis Frederic, Japan, Art and Civilization, London, 1971, p. 52.

  7

  Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, London, 1922.

  8

  According to the psychologist Kawai Hayao this indicates how old the Japanese cult of the sacrificing mother must be. Kawai Hayao, Boseishakai Nippon no Byori, Tokyo, 1976, p. 28.

  9

  Harumi Befu, Japan: An Anthropological Introduction, paperback edition, Tokyo, 1981, p. 106.

  10

  See Georges Bataille, L’Érotisme, Paris, 1957.

  11

  Ivan Morris, World of the Shining Prince, London, 1964, note on p. 260.

  12

  Ibid.

  13

  See Ivan Morris, The Life of an Amorous Woman and Other Writings, London and New York, 1963, pp. 164–71.

  14

  Ivan Morris, The Nobility of Failure, London, 1975, p. 12.

  15

  Kambayashi Sumio, Nihon Hanbunka no Dento, Tokyo, 1976, p. 76.

  16

  Theo Lesoualc’h, op. cit., p. 12.

  17

  Ibid. On p. 30 there is a photograph of a statue of Kannon dating from the Edo period. She has hitched up her skirt, revealing her genitals. It is to be seen at the Kanshoji temple in Tatebayashi.

  18

  Katsu Shintaro, famous chiefly for his portrayal of Zatoichi, the blind samurai.

  19

  Theo Lesoualc’h, op. cit., p. 34.

  20

  Ivan Morris, World of the Shining Prince, p. 134.

  21

  Arthur Koestler, The Lotus and the Robot, London, 1960.

  22

  From Mishima Yukio, Confessions of a Mask, translated by Meredith Weatherby, N.Y., 1958.

  23

  Ibid.

  24

  Robert Redfield, the American social scientist, made a well known distinction between the ‘little tradition’ of rural folk-culture and the ‘great tradition’ of the urban intelligentsia. See The Papers of Robert Redfield, Chicago, 1962.

  25

  Sir George Sansom, Japan, A Short Cultural History, London, 1952, p. 131.

  26

  Louis Frederic, op. cit., p. 210.

  27

  This had a conside
rable effect on militant nationalism in modern Japan. See in particular Maruyama Masao, Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics, expanded edition, London, 1969.

  28

  Mishima Yukio, foreword in Yato Tamotsu’s photobook Naked Festival, New York and Tokyo, 1968, p. 7.

  29

  Ibid.

  30

  Audie Bock, Japanese Film Directors, Tokyo and New York, 1978, p. 287.

  2 The Eternal Mother

  1

  Kurt Singer, Mirror, Sword and Jewel, London, 1973, p. 39.

  2

  Takie Sugiyama Lebra, Japanese Patterns of Behaviour, Hawaii, 1976, p. 143.

  3

  Doi Takeo, The Anatomy of Dependence, Tokyo, 1971.

  4

  Harumi Befu, Japan: An Anthropological Introduction, paperback edition, Tokyo, 1981, p. 154.

  5

  Quoted in Minami Hiroshi, Nihonjin no Geijutsu to Bunka, Tokyo, 1980.

  6

  From Tanizaki Junichiro, Yosho Jidai (Days of my Youth), Tokyo, 1957.

  7

  The Bridge of Dreams was translated by Howard Hibbett in Seven Japanese Tales by Junichiro Tanizaki, New York, 1963.

  8

  Kurt Singer, op. cit., p. 38.

  9

  See Robert Lyons Danly, In the Shade of Spring Leaves, Yale, 1981, p. 82.

  10

  For an exhaustive analysis of this subject see George de Vos, Socialization For Achievement, London, 1973.

  11

  Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, new paperback edition, London, 1977, p. 184.

  12

  Kawai Hayao, Boseishakai Nihon no Byori, Tokyo, 1976, p. 54.

  13

  Ishiko Junzo, Nihon no Hahazo, Tokyo, 1976.

  14

  Muramatsu Taiko, Terebidorama no Joseigakku, Tokyo, 1979, p. 185.

  15

  Ibid., p. 187.

  16

  Sato Tadao, Nihon Eiga Shisoshi, Tokyo, 1970, p. 18.

  17

  Ibid., p. 175.

  18

  Bungei Shunju (journal), September 1974, p. 103.

  19

  Audie Bock, Japanese Film Directors, Tokyo and New York, 1978, p. 40.

  20

  Especially the work of Kawabata Yasunari.

  21

  Imamura Shohei no Eiga, Tokyo, 1971, p. 101.

  22

  Interview by the author and Max Tessier published in Le Cinéma japonais au présent, Paris, 1979, p. 101.

  3 Holy Matrimony

  1

  These statistics were published in Japan, A Pocket Guide, Foreign Press Center, Tokyo, 1982 and in The Women of Japan, Foreign Press Center, 1977.

  2

  The Women of Japan, p. 16.

  3

  Harumi Befu, Japan: An Anthropological Introduction, paperback edition, Tokyo, 1981, p. 48.

  4

  A phrase coined by Befu to denote the growing influence of samurai class values in modern Japanese society.

  5

  The Women of Japan, p. 16.

  6

  Harumi Befu, op. cit., p. 53.

  4 Demon Woman

  1

  Terayama Shuji, Inugamike no Hitobito, Tokyo, 1976.

  2

  The Kabuki version, entitled Musume Dojoji was first staged in 1753.

  3

  ‘The Tattooer’ (‘Shiseishi’) was translated by Howard Hibbett in Seven Tales by Junichiro Tanizaki, New York, 1963.

  4

  Mishima Yukio, Tanizaki Junichiro, reprinted in Bungei Tokuhon (a journal), a special issue on Tanizaki, Tokyo, 1977.

  5

  Aguri was translated by Howard Hibbett, op. cit.

  6

  Georges Bataille, L’Érotisme, Paris, 1957, p. 17.

  7

  Nomura Shogo, Tanizaki Junichiro Denki, Tokyo, 1972, p. 273.

  8

  Tanizaki Junichiro, Renai oyobi Shikijo, Tokyo, 1932.

  9

  Audie Bock, Japanese Film Directors, Tokyo and New York, 1978, p. 52.

  10

  Hara Shozo, Nihon Koshoku Bijutsushi, Tokyo, 1931, p. 64.

  11

  See Donald Keene, World Within Walls, New York, 1976.

  12

  Takechi Tetsuji, in Eiga Geijutsu (journal), July 1965.

  13

  Tanemura Suehiro in Nihon Dokushu Shimbun (newspaper), January 1966.

  14

  Nikkatsu Romantic Pornographic Series (publicity handout), 1978.

  15

  Ibid.

  16

  See the chapter on ‘Japanese Eroduction’ in Donald Richie, Some Aspects of Popular Japanese Culture, Tokyo, 1981.

  6 The Art of Prostitution

  1

  Kuruwa no Subete, a special issue of Kokubungaku (journal), October 1980, p. 42.

  2

  Donald Shively, The Social Environment of Tokugawa Kabuki’, in J. Brandon, W. Malm, D. Shively, Studies in Kabuki, Hawaii, 1978, p. 51.

  3

  Nanshoku Okagami (Great Mirror of Manly Love). There is a rather inadequate translation of this late-seventeenth-century text by E. Powys Mathers. The first private edition (1928) was entitled Eastern Love; it has since been reissued as Comrade Loves of the Samurai, paperback edition, Tokyo, 1972.

  4

  Donald Shively, op. cit., p. 53.

  5

  For a detailed account see Robert van Gulik, Sexual Life in Ancient China, Leiden, 1961.

  6

  Ivan Morris, World of the Shining Prince, New York and London, 1964, p. 239.

  7

  Ibid.

  8

  Izumi Shikibu Nikki (Diary of Izumi Shikibu) translated by Ivan Morris, Tokyo, 1957, pp. 408–10. Quoted in World of the Shining Prince.

  9

  Donald Shively, The Love Suicide at Amijima, Cambridge, 1953, p. 20.

  10

  Kuruwa no Subete, p. 42.

  11

  Hirosue Tamotsu, Henkai no Akujo, Tokyo, 1973, p. 150.

  12

  Donald Shively, The Social Environment of Tokugawa Kabuki, p. 53.

  13

  The social scientist Kuki Shozo considered this to be the essence of Japanese aesthetics. See his very important book, Iki no Kozo, Tokyo, 1936.

  14

  Howard Hibbett, The Floating World in Japanese Fiction, London, 1959, p. 27.

  15

  Kuruwa no Subete, p. 25.

  16

  Ihara Saikaku, Nippon Etaigura (Everlasting Storehouse of Japan), 1688.

  17

  Translated by Donald Keene in Major Plays of Chikamatsu, New York and London, 1961.

  18

  A famous example is the well-known suicide of the romantic novelist Dazai Osamu, whose works are still highly popular, especially with romantic young ladies.

  19

  Thomas Rimer, Towards a Modern Japanese Theatre, Princeton, 1974, p. 12.

  20

  Lefcadio Hearn, Out of the East, first issued in 1895, but republished in London, 1927, p. 73.

  21

  For much of this information I am indebted to Edward Seidensticker’s brilliant biography and translation of Nagai Kafu, Kafu the Scribbler, Stanford, 1965.

  22

  Kato Shuichi, Form, Style, Tradition, translated by John Bester, London, 1971, p. 27.

  23

  Edward Seidensticker, op. cit.

  24

  Ibid.

  25

  Nagai Kafu, Fuyu no Hae (A Housefly in Winter), Tokyo, 1935, expanded edition, 1945 translated by E. Seidensticker.

  26

  Ibid.

  27

  Robert Lyons Danly, In The Shade of Spring Leaves, Yale, 1981, p. 111.

  28

  Ibid. p. 103.

  29

  Translated by Robert Lyons Danly, op. cit.

  30

  Ibid.

  31

  Robert Lyons Danly, op. cit., p. 134.

  32

&nb
sp; Ibid.

  33

  Ibid.

  34

  Ibid.

  35

  This example was taken from the Asahi Geino, December 1981, but similar instances can be found daily in other magazines.

  36

  There is a rather stagey photograph of this in Takano Hiroshi’s picture-book, Waisetsu Bunka, Tokyo, 1981.

  37

  Sato Jushin in Eiga Hyoron (magazine), December 1972.

  38

  It is an indication of the speed with which fads come and go in Japan that the Nopan kissas are already rapidly being replaced by other voyeuristic gimmicks in 1983.

  7 The Third Sex

  1

  Peter Ackroyd, Dressing Up, London, 1979, p. 57.

  2

  Hara Shozo, Nihon Koshoku Bijutsushi, Tokyo, 1931, p. 66.

  3

  Quoted in Donald Shively, ‘Social Environment of Tokugawa Kabuki’ in Brandon, Malm, Shively, Studies in Kabuki, Hawaii 1978, p. 6.

 

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