Islands of Protest

by Davinder L. Bhowmik

  Up until then, 80 percent of the islanders adhered to traditional island customs. Both men and women wore their hair in the island topknot, the men’s known as katakashira and women’s as karaji. The men wore two ornamental hairpins, and the women one; the samurai’s were silver, the farmers’ brass, and landlords, like the great daimyō, wore gold with a carved peony on the end of the men’s hairpin. In the case of the samurai and farmers, it was a narcissus. With their loose-shirtsleeve kimono fastened neatly in front with a man’s stiff belt, it was obvious that they were southern island natives. There were some students and government officials with cropped hair, but they were despised as “poor bums.”

  Even among schools of thought, there were clashes between the old and the new. On the one hand, there was the Black League, formed by the Confucian scholars of N town, S town, and samurai descendants who lived below the old castle. Inspired by the plots of historical fiction like The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Military Tales of Han and Chu, and stories of the Wu-Yue War, they believed that no matter what, the Japanese would never surpass military strategists of China like Confucius. In opposition, advanced thinkers among the people and like-minded government officials gathered together youth who had received a modern education and formed the White League. They drew lessons from the Mongol invasions6 and lauded the bravery of the Japanese warriors, going so far as to predict the complete obliteration of China.

  At some point, it became customary in the Ryukyus to call China Tō; the mainland Yamato; and all of Europe Oranda or Kirishitan. Since long ago, the sizes and shapes of the three areas had been envisioned in popular imagination. Tō was “the great rain umbrella”; Yamato, “the horse’s hoof”; and the Ryukyus, “the point of the needle.” On all the other continents, it was thought that there lived the “Eastern Dutch with Dragon Eye Pupils.” According to the Black League, the “Horse’s Hoof” of Japan would lose and be vanquished by the “Great Rain Umbrella” of China.

  The leader of the stubborn Black League was known as Old Man Okushima. He was sixty-five years old at the time, a white-bearded, white-sideburned scholar of the Wang Yangming school of Confucian thought. Under the former government, he had been promoted to scholar official of the third rank, and in his youth, it seems he traveled by Chinese boat to Beijing three times to study. After the abolition of Ryukyu province and the establishment of Okinawa prefecture, he went into seclusion in the countryside, relying on the considerable sum of money he’d put aside. Over the lintel of his house, he tacked up the Chinese tablet “Floating Clouds, Fields of Cranes” and devoted himself to the pleasures of nature. At the same time, he established a private school, “Nakayama Studies,” in the old temple-school style, and taught disciples. But soon that too was swept aside by the trends of the new regime. This was the main reason for the old man’s opposition to the new epoch. He believed that the reason his school of Confucian study had been neglected to such an extent was due to Yamato education, which had led the hearts and minds of people astray. Thus, he despised the “heresy” of the new education, the so-called Yamato School. He had been raised from childhood in the Confucian discipline, and in his effort to recall the fast-fading days of his youth, he cursed the new regime and people who supported it. Then, in August 1894, just as the war started between Japan and China, he reappeared quite suddenly in town.

  “I’m a descendant of China. I refuse to help Yamato to victory.”

  He tried to attract allies with such nonsense, but there simply weren’t any allies to be found. Eventually even the Black League, on whom he had expected to rely, kept him at arm’s length, calling him crazy, so in the end, he formed his own “Stone Pillow League.” Almost every day, he went about the streets of the town muttering under his breath, “The yellow gunboats will defeat the Yamato in the end. I am a Chinese scholar official of the third rank.” For some reason, he seemed to believe that the Chinese gunboats were yellow, their flags were yellow, and the men aboard were dressed in yellow.

  The sight of the strange old man stumbling along the stone paths bleached white by relentless rays of the August sun, in his island clogs blackened with soot and wound with hemp, holding the long handle of a traditional island-blue sun umbrella over his gleaming topknot and long silver beard, and dressed, even in the midday sun, in his faded, brown-striped street robes, was singular indeed. It’s not known who started it, but he was mocked as “the town hermit.” After a while, a rumor began circulating that the old man was demented. Around then, he disappeared from sight.

  Almost every evening, a magic lantern show of Japan at war was shown in the elementary school courtyard, green with the leaves of the plantain trees. In this way, the necessity for the war was drilled into the still-disbelieving heads of the people. Among students, hostility was engendered spontaneously with songs like “Shoot and Kill the Chinese soldiers!” Each season brought new war songs, which were tremendously popular.

  Principal Hosokawa Shigeru, wiping away hot tears, would read haltingly in the Ryukyu language the narration for the magic lantern shows.

  It was said that when he first gathered pupils of the school and reverently delivered the Imperial Declaration of War in a heightened emotional state, he burst into tears. Pretty soon the news had spread throughout the town.

  When school let out, he would drop by the Matsudas’ and talk at length about the war. On one occasion, the principal teased, “Sei! You’d better get your hair cut, or they’ll be calling you pigtail boy!” Frowning, the boy tied up his well-oiled hair with the red ribbon that had come undone. “I don’t want to. No one’ll bother me!”

  “They’ll say you’re not a Japanese then,” he replied with an exaggerated island accent.

  “I’m not Japanese!”

  “So you don’t want to cut it? Ha, ha, ha …” he laughed, mirthlessly.

  The principal sat on the veranda in the sun where the factory workers were hard at work. It was slightly cool that day. Sei’ichi’s dark-complexioned mother spoke up: “Sir, please bob our Sei’s hair and take him up to Tokyo for me.”

  Sei’ichi rushed around from behind and thumped her on the back, crying, “No! Mama’s a traitor! I won’t go!”

  His father, lacquering a tray, glared at him over the round lenses of his old-fashioned tortoise-shell glasses: “What’re you carrying on about, with that face like a fearsome Chinese man?”7 Sei’ichi just sucked on his finger and didn’t budge.

  That day was a Sunday. Afternoon tea was ready, so everyone had gathered. They were snacking on the island’s black castella cake from a red Chinese bowl. When they called Ushi, she came right away. Principal Hosokawa told them war stories as they drank their tea. Finally, the question came up of what they would do if the war were to reach the island. “We could hide out in a cave on the cliffs at Nami no Ue,” suggested the normally facetious Tarugane.

  “What? It’d be better to hide in the well and pull the lid down over our heads. They’d never find us,” responded red-haired Tsurugi very seriously.

  “Once the island is hit by an ‘iron island-destroyer,’ it won’t much matter where you hide,” the mistress lectured, as if she knew all about it.

  They burst into cheers of admiration: “Yes!” “Yes!” An “iron island-destroyer” referred to a cannon.

  “In any case,” the principal smiled, “the battle won’t come this close. No matter how many yellow gunboats there are, the Yamato ‘iron arrow’ will obliterate them all.”

  The master joined in: “That’s right. You all saw it at the magic lantern show, didn’t you? The Chinese gunboats went up in crimson flames and sunk. It’s always been true. Yamato is the land of the samurai; they always win.”

  Ushi clasped her soft, white, elegantly aligned fingers. According to island custom, the rough skin on the backs of the women’s hands was tattooed a blue-black, but not Ushi’s skin. The eyes of the young lacquerware workers were often drawn to the backs of her hands.

  Not long after, a rumor spread through to
wn. The Chinese army would soon occupy the island and erect a gunpowder armory in the harbor at N town. Startled, the relatively quiet and peaceful island suddenly erupted as if on fire. And since there are always those who let their imaginations run wild, the tragedies of war shown in pictures and in magic lantern shows rose up before them alarmingly: crazed scenes of sharpened spears, halberds, glittering swords, pitiful fields set ablaze by the fires of war, and frantic men and beasts trapped in the dark-red fire and smoke of cannons.

  The wealthy wrapped up their belongings and took refuge in distant fields and mountains. On the roads, you’d often see Ryukyu dwarf draft horses with packhorse drivers seated on white wooden saddles loaded with household items, wearing hats made of palm grass, wielding whips and hurrying past, or two men hefting a gold lacquered Chinese trunk. After them came litters carrying the elderly and young men and women holding babies. At the same time, thugs rampaged the entertainment districts, while in graveyards secret meetings and rendezvous took place.

  The government office issued an order requiring all employees to purchase a Japanese sword with a white wooden hilt.

  A “Ryukyu squad” was formed among the students and teachers at the Middle School Teachers’ College, while among the local police and prison guards various brigades arose. The glass windows of the gymnasium rattled from morning to night with the clash of bamboo swords.

  The war advanced from one day to the next.

  Nearly every day there were explosions and the crack of rifle fire on the military training grounds.

  At the Matsudas’, however, it was relatively peaceful.

  Starting in early autumn, from time to time there was a guest with the traditional topknot at the principal’s house. Later, it was thought to have been Old Man Okushima. He always came at night. And there’d be whispering until he left. Still, during the day the principal continued to work diligently for the education of the citizens. The magic lantern shows changed frequently, and there were two or three lectures on the war effort at the main hall of the Honganji temple as well. The principal never failed to appear.

  Then it happened that one evening Sei’ichi had to pee in the middle of the night. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he quietly stepped out of the mosquito netting. The light of the lantern by his pillow cast a soft light on the yellowed paper. Walking along the dark corridor, he could see the blue moonlit night through the windows. From somewhere came the trill of autumn insects. On his way back, without thinking, he peeped through a small knothole in the cedar wall into the back room. It was the principal’s bedroom, which doubled as a study.

  The principal seemed to be awake and still at work. The nickel-plated copper candlestick shone brightly on the desk in the room’s dark corner. The dull red light of the Western-style candle spun up in a whirlpool from the core, and the face illuminated there, with its blue-white bone structure, looked like a dead man’s. Translucent white wax melted and flowed down the candle. Scraps of paper littered the area around the desk. The principal was writing intently. The fingers of his left hand raked through his long, loosened hair, while his right hand held the brush, and he wrote continuously, thinking hard. In the middle of the room, without so much as a mosquito netting, the half-naked body of “little doll Tsuru,” emerging languidly from the velvet neck of her night robes, sprawled onto a silk futon. In the candlelight, the soft glow from her face to her plump arms and her breast was like a ceiling painting of an exhausted mermaid out of a play, washed up on some southern shore on a moonlit night. It was a bit warm that night, what the islanders called “the season when the western sea howls.”

  After a bit, the principal crouched down and placed what looked like a small blue urn on his desk. It looked quite old. Even the glaze had darkened. The mouth was covered with a dark-brown windmill palm leaf. He lifted the cover silently. From inside, he took several thick bundles of bills. He looked through them carefully, one by one, and replaced them in the urn. A little while later he carried it into the next room. In just two minutes, he returned, shuffled the papers on his desk into a neat pile, put them in a briefcase, and locked it.

  Then the candle went out.

  The next morning the principal left for school as usual.

  Sei’ichi never mentioned the “blue urn” story to anyone. He knew his parents would reprimand him if he were to admit that he’d been peeping into someone’s room.

  The war continued unabated.

  It had been a rainy day. By dusk, the red blossoms of the chrysanthemum were wet with raindrops falling from the overhanging leaves of the green plantains. A stranger entered the small, black, wooden door at the back and called, “Is this the Fujiya residence?” Fujiya was the name of the shop.

  “Yes, that’s us.” The master came out to greet him.

  “Is that right? I wonder if you might show me some of your lacquerware?” He folded up his umbrella and took shelter under the eaves.

  “Of course, please take a look. We offer a good price and the highest quality. Please step inside. It’s muddy out there.”

  “Thanks, but I’d rather not take off my shoes. Would you mind showing them to me out here?” The man took out a threadbare red blanket, which he spread out on the veranda, then sat down. He was a man of about twenty-eight or twenty-nine, dressed in a new kimono jacket, still redolent with the scent of indigo dye, over a delicate Ryukyu blue-and-white, splash-patterned robe, tied with a soft, crushed cotton belt. From his manner, he seemed familiar with the islands, as if he had arrived some time ago.

  The reception area was a three-mat room, attached to the eight-mat workroom. The master brought out a variety of lacquerware and laid it out before the visitor: red ware, black ware, the new soft orange ware, black ware inlaid with blue shells, and sculpted golden lacquer with gold leaf inlay. Depicted on the lacquerware were humble scenes in a riot of blue, yellow, and red patterns.

  Sei’ichi brought the tea and stood bolt upright, staring hard at this unusual stranger, until his father scolded him.

  “Hey! This scamp stands here stock-still like a Chinaman, without even a bow for our guest.”

  “That’s perfectly all right. Please come here. What grade are you in at school?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s still in his first year. He’s completely useless. He goes to school and doesn’t even know enough to bow,” the father replied.

  The visitor selected a candy box, carved round with a lathe, and then, after placing a new order for soup bowls, he offered his name card and left.

  On the oversized name card was written “Yokota Tsuneo.”

  Ten days later Mr. Yokota showed up again. It was a Sunday afternoon, a bit warm for fall, the sky a deep blue. He brought an oil painting of the war for Sei’ichi.

  Yokota returned four or five times, and Sei’ichi gradually grew used to him. Yokota even got into the habit of coming into the workroom when the master was out and joking around with the workmen. On one occasion, he said, “I hear there’s a beauty living at the principal’s.” Tsurugi replied, “You wouldn’t see a woman like that much where you’re from, I bet. Like one of those Yamato paintings of a high-class courtesan, all in red.”

  “Exactly,” Yokota responded. “Why don’t you try your luck with her once when the principal is out?”

  “If I were even to consider it, I’d be shot dead with that pistol of his. He’d give his life for that pampered doll.” This time it was Tarugane, who was putting the finishing touches on a rice tub. He laid down his red lacquer brush and dragged the tobacco bowl over to him with his pipe.

  Around him, pieces of unfinished lathe work and tools used for the first coat lay in a jumble. A row of ten lacquer brushes hung from nails on the black wall. Various other small utensils lay scattered about.

  The remaining three young workmen continued their tasks without comment.

  Life at the principal’s house was much as usual. Occasionally, when there’d been a victory, he’d be sure to order sake and fish to celebrate and invite th
e Matsuda family to join him. On Ushi’s delicate, white finger was a new gold ring with a green jewel, rarely seen on the islands.

  In the precincts of Nami no Ue Shrine and on the lawn before the shrine gate, the families and relatives of soldiers departing for the war with China sang, danced, and prayed loudly for eternal good fortune in battle. In this way, autumn came to an end.

  One day Yokota took Sei’ichi to the Sanjū Castle lighthouse at the mouth of the bay. They stood on the rocks, yellow at dusk. The sea in early winter was a soft indigo; in the sky, a bank of red clouds floated by.

  A ferryboat, the Daiyū-maru, was anchored in the harbor. Against the background of the gray stone wall enclosure of the Kakinohana town prison and the dark red brick chimney that soared up within, masts of beached boats lined up near the Meiji Bridge like a forest of trees. As the sun set, it grew dark and silent.

  From the boat’s mast, the red globes of lanterns dangled, like pieces of fruit. When they reached the spot where the water police hung the cutter boats, Yokota came to an abrupt stop. Along one side of the stone wall, the leaves of a banyan tree branch hung low over the narrow path. Along the other was the inlet. From within the rush mat covering a beached boat, the light of a yellow, handheld lantern cast an arc of light over the dark sea. The two sat silently on some rocks by the side of the path. After a bit, Yokota struck a match and lit a Sunrise, the fragrant cigarette popular at the time. Laughing, he said, “Why don’t I take you somewhere really fun tonight, Sei.”

  “Where? A play?”

  “Not a play. Somewhere even better!”

  “Uh-uh. If you don’t say where, I’m not going.”

  “It’ll be fine. Come along and see. They’ll give you lots of good things to eat. Whatever you want. Come on, let’s go!”

  The two left. From Tondō, they took a rickshaw, a two-seater. Their destination was Tsuji, a red-light district. At first, Sei’ichi felt uneasy and fidgeted, but then a pale-complexioned girl appeared and took him by the hand—“Please come in, young man”—so he followed. All along the cave-like corridor, vermillion-colored light glowed faintly from round lacquer lanterns illuminating their feet.