The Silver Spoon

by Kansuke Naka

  103 Shōmen: the side of the room equipped with a tokonoma (alcove) and a decorative closet.

  104 Chongakure. A contemporary’s account says it is a variation of blind man’s bluff or blind man’s tag.

  105 Oka-oni. Another variation or name of blind man’s bluff.

  106 Kage ya tōro. Translation tentative.

  107 Kōtō chūgakkō: a prep school for an imperial (national) university. Shortly after this time, in 1894, the name changed to kōtō gakkō, “higher school.”

  108 The gold cherry-blossom insignia on the school cap was the norm.

  109 May have been Yanagiwara Rokuzō at Kuroda Ordinary Higher Elementary School (Jinjō Kōtō Shōgakkō). Horibe, p.124.

  110 Chin, wan, neko-nyā, chū.

  111 Inu, hashi, hon, tsukue.

  112 Japanese syllabary comparable to A, B, C.

  113 Binan-kazura (Kadsura japonica): a shrub that bears glossy red berries. The sap from its stalks used to be used as hair oil, hence the name. Also called sanekazura. It is a popular plant in classical Japanese verse.

  114 This probably refers to a sub-temple or temple.

  115 Sasa (Sasa nipponica): a variety of bamboo, though, unlike regular bamboo, sasa is a low-growth plant with a profusion of leaves.

  116 Amane: chigusa (Phalaris canariensis)?

  117 Tokiwa Gozen (1138–90?): concubine of Minamoto no Yoshitomo (1123–60). After Yoshitomo was defeated during the Heiji Disturbance in 1160 and killed, Taira no Kiyomori (1118–81), who emerged victorious, ordered that Tokiwa’s three sons—Imawaka (later, Ano Zensei, 1153–1203), Otowaka (later, Gien, 1155–81), and Ushiwaka (later, Yoshitsune, 1159–89)—be captured and killed. Told of this, Tokiwa fled Kyoto, taking her three sons along with her. As the military tale Heiji monogatari tells it: “It was the 10th of Second Month. The persisting cold was severe, and it snowed ceaselessly. She made Imawaka walk ahead, led Otowaka by the hand, and carried Ushiwaka hugging him, with the two boys not even wearing footwear as they walked barefoot on ice. ‘It’s cold, it’s freezing, Mother,’ the young ones cried and wept. She took her robes off and had them wear them, making sure that they were on the quiet downwind side, she on the severe upwind side.”

  118 Torreya nucifera: a large evergreen tree.

  119 A swordsman famous for simultaneously using the two swords that a samurai carried (1584?–1645). The best-known among his tracts on swordsmanship is Book of Five Elements (Gorin no sho).

  120 Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159–89): a warrior-commander who helped his clan, the Miyamoto, win the war against the rival clan, the Taira. See note 117 on Tokiwa Gozen in Episode 1.37.

  121 A legendary warrior-monk who remained steadfastly loyal to Yoshitsune.

  122 Ryūgū(jō): the undersea palace where the Watatsumi (Sea God) lives. It is famous for the Urashima legend. A young fisherman, Urashima Tarō, out fishing in his boat, meets and marries the Watatsumi’s daughter, Princess Oto, and spends three glorious years in the palace. When he returns to his fishing village, he discovers three hundred years have passed. The best account appears in the Tango Fudoki, one of the regional reports compiled in 713. The large verse anthology Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves (Man’yōshū) has a poem on the legend, no. 1740. In both accounts the palace is said to be Paradise (tokoyo), but in neither is it called Ryūgū.

  123 Sugai (Turbo [Lunella] coreensis): a species of marine snail.

  124 Harbor at the estuary of the Kako River, in Harima (today’s Hyōgo), once famous for its picturesque scenery. Takasago is also the name of a celebratory nō play by Zeami (1363-1443?), which is based on the legend that the pine of Takasago and the pine of Sumiyoshi, in Settsu (today’s Osaka), are husband and wife, and on the belief in the pine tree as a symbol of peaceful coexistence and longevity. The protagonist of the play is a benign-looking, handsome old man with white hair and white eyebrows, and he holds a rake.

  125 Yokobai (Japanagallia pteridis): an insect that looks like a tiny version of a cicada.

  126 Hato-mushi or, more commonly, hato or aobahagoromo (Geisha distinctissima): a light-green insect one third of an inch long. Aobahagoromo means “blue (green) wing feathery cloth.”

  127 Kenka ryōseibai: an old adjudicatory principle. One reason the famous Forty-seven Samurai carried out their vendetta for their lord, in 1703, was the shogunate’s failure to uphold this principle in punishing both their lord and the man he tried to kill.

  128 Toyotomi Hideyoshi sent an invading army to Korea twice: the first time, in 1592, for the purpose of conquering China—the Ming Dynasty at the time—and the second time, in 1597, for a punitive purpose, Hideyoshi claiming that China had violated the terms of the ceasefire agreement concluded a year earlier. In the first expedition, Hideyoshi’s army of 160,000 soldiers won a series of victories but had to abandon the idea of reaching China. During the second expedition, the Japanese army of 140,000 soldiers again won quick victories but decided to withdraw because of Hideyoshi’s death. Katō Kiyomasa, who had served as a top commander in the first expedition as well, had to defend the fort he had built in Ulsan—actually the outermost one of a network of eight forts—from the combined Ming-Korean forces twice, the first time from the end of 1597 to early 1598, the second time, in the summer of 1598, and beat them back both times. For Kiyomasa, see note 19 in Episode 1.8.

  129 In the old way of counting one’s age, a person was one year old at the time of birth. Someone born in an earlier part of the year, as in the New Year, had advantage over someone born later in the year in growth and other respects, even though they were the same age.

  130 Inu-jirami: Naka probably refers to a plant in the Oenanthe family commonly known as kusa-jirami, “grass lice,” or yabu-jirami, “bush lice” (Torilis japonica). Its tiny seedpods are burs that stick readily to clothes and hair.

  131 A figure in the kabuki Taikō ki, modeled after Akechi Mitsuhide. See note 19 in Episode 1.8. In historical plays and other accounts written during the Edo period, changing the real names, often in palpably obvious fashion, was routine because the Tokugawa government frowned upon descriptions of actual historical figures, current and in the recent past.

  132 One of the kazoeuta, “counting rhymes,” in playing temari. In a collection of his essays on customs and the like toward the end of the Edo period, Kiyū shōran (1830), Kitamura Nobuyo (1784–1856) quoted a version of these counting rhymes, saying, “The meaning is hard to get.” See Horibe, p. 163. The tentative translation given here is based on Kyoko Selden’s suggestion that nenjo may mean “start of year.” Jo of oyonejo is a suffix meaning “girl” or “woman.”

  133 The onomatopoeic reproduction of the warbler’s warbling. It is thought to be particularly auspicious because it also means “The Law, the Lotus Sutra.” What follows is one of the temari songs current in those days.

  134 Usagi, usagi: one of the more popular children’s songs in praise of the moon. It dates from the Edo period.

  135 Literally “hand-balls”: small palm-sized beanbags decoratively made and used for a table game.

  136 Shikidai. In the old-style Japanese house, the foyer (genkan) consisted of sliding entrance doors, a ground-level space where footwear was taken off, a step-up space (usually made of wooden boards), followed by a small tatami room. A tsuitate, “a partition,” was placed in the room, near the step-up space.

  137 Dōdan(-tsutsuji) (Enkianthus perulatus): a species of azalea with clusters of small, white pot-shaped flowers.

  138 Yūzen chirimen. “A new technique of silk dyeing called yūzen [which came into being during the Genroku era, 1688–1704] allowed freeform drawing of fine white lines in resist that when dyed created crisp outlines between sharply defined small areas of color. Yūzen was a more painterly technique than earlier methods of dyeing, and it provided the technical means to create wonderfully detailed pictorial themes.” Dalby, p. 40.

  139 A semi-mythological figure in the Record of Ancient Matters (Kojiki), compiled in 712. The story here prob
ably retells the following passage: “To see the deity, the Prince went into the field. Then the Governor set the field afire. Realizing that he had been deceived, the Prince opened the bag his aunt had given him, and found flint stones in it. So he first mowed away the grass with his sword. Then he struck the flints and set a counterfire which burned away from him.”

  140 The second of the two invasions of Japan that Kublai Khan attempted, the first one, in 1274, and the second, in 1281. In 1274 Kublai sent an armada of 25,000 troops in boats across the Tsushima Strait. After overwhelming initial victories in land battles, the Mongolian troops regrouped in the boats on the 20th of Tenth Month—a fateful decision: that night a violent storm struck and an estimated 13,500 troops were drowned, forcing a general withdrawal of invading forces. In 1281 Kublai sent another invading force—this time a combined total of 140,000 troops—but even while various armies were engaged in skirmishes, a typhoon struck and drowned more than one third of the invaders, again forcing a general withdrawal. The two fortuitous storms reinforced the notion that Japan is protected by kamikaze, “the divine wind.”

  141 The game leapfrog: umatobi, “jumping horse.”

  142 For kappa, see note 13 in Episode 1.6.

  143 See note 15 on The Thousand Cherry Trees in Episode 1.6.

  144 Actually, the teacher most likely referred to her by her surname as was and is customary in teacher-pupil relations, but O-Kei-chan’s surname is not known.

  145 A hairdo for girls started by aristocrats. The hair was turned up in such a way as to make two erect rings at the top of the head. Ochigo means “respectable child.”

  146 Kō, “duke,” was originally a suffix reserved for a certain class of nobility, hence a title of respect; later, when applied to an ordinary male, an adult or a boy, it came to express friendliness or a mild contempt.

  147 Pokkuri: festive clogs for girls, each one made of a single piece of wood with its sole hollowed, so it may make a plonking sound when used. The ones described here apparently are also decorated with small bells.

  148 A species of bamboo (Phyllostachys aurea), which, toward its base, grows “monstrous” protuberances. The name Hotei derives from the Chinese Zen monk Futai (d. 917) who is said to have had constant smiles and a large belly. He is reputed to have made the rounds carrying a large bag for alms. In Japan Hotei is counted among the Seven Deities of Good Luck.

  149 Yukitsuri, “snow-fishing.” A simple game of throwing a piece of hard charcoal tied to a string into the snow and pulling it in as the charcoal collects snow around it.

  150 See note 102 in Episode 1.30.

  151 It appears that during the period Naka describes, “the Great Fire of Kanda” usually referred to the one in March 1892, when Naka was seven years old. It reduced the entire district to ashes and spread to the neighboring districts, burning down 4,200 houses. The novelist Tayama Katai (1872–1930) has a brief description of the fire in his account The Thirty Years in Tokyo (Tokyo no sanjūnen), originally published in 1917. However, from Naka’s manner of reference, the fire may refer to the one that struck the district a few months before he was born, in May 1885.

  152 Shirozake, which is made for the Peach (Doll) Festival. Unlike amazake, “sweet sake,” it contains a considerable amount of alcohol. Today it is classed as a liqueur.

  153 Suichūka: artificial flowers that are put in the water for them to “bloom.“ Marcel Proust describes them in À la recherche du temps perdu: “And just as the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little crumbs of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch themselves and bend, take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, permanent and recognisable,” etc. Tr. C. K. Scott Moncrief.

  154 Jūroku-musashi: originally a gambling board game, later adopted as a children’s game.

  155 Hagoita. Casal: “a stemmed quadrangle of light wood. . . . For centuries the hagoita have been used as a medium for showy extravagance, so much so that the feudal government time and again intervened and restricted their luxury. Formerly painted with appropriate designs, often lacquered in gold, they were later embellished with figures of heroes and, chiefly, of famous actors and courtesans, in raised silk-crêpe and with jet-black silk hair.”

  156 A fancy portrait of Benkei. Subscription List (Kanjinchō) is a kabuki play written by Namiki Gohei III and first staged in 1840 with Ichikawa Danjūrō VII playing Benkei. Narita-ya is the “house name” for Ichikawa Danjūrō and his troupes. For Benkei, see note 121 in Episode 1.38.

  157 A kabuki play whose author remains unknown. Its Edo version was staged first in 1713 with Ichikawa Danjūrō II playing the lead role of the dandy Sukeroku. Otowa-ya is the “house name” of Onoe Kikugorō and his troupes.

  158 There are a number of plays and songs based on the double suicide committed, in 1708, by O-Some, an Osaka oil-vendor’s daughter, and Hisamatsu, one of his young store clerks.

  159 Sansui tengu: A goblin’s face drawn by writing the simple Chinese characters for “mountain” and “water” in the fluid style.

  160 Hemamushi nyūdō: A human figure drawn by writing the four katakana, he, ma, mu, shi, and two Chinese characters for the word for the tonsured lay priest in the fluid style.

  PART TWO

  1

  Our teacher Mr. Nakazawa was a gentle soul but had a very bad temper; when enraged for some reason, he could lash you on the head with his whip until the ground beneath you started to quake. Despite this I was very fond of him and sometimes took the trouble of taking a stem from the Chusan palm in our garden to provide him with a new whip to experience more pain. Each time I did this, he would give an ironic smirk.

  “Thank you very much. This is the best thing to hit a head with,” he would say and pretend to hit me with it.

  I never followed his instructions, doing what I wanted, so he seemed not to know what to do with me. But I had convinced myself that he had a soft spot for me. When his pupils’ bad conduct made his temper flare and his face turned into a ball of fire, they would all cringe and fall silent. Even at such times, I was completely unperturbed, surveying the scene with a smile. So one day when the principal came by on his round of inspection, Mr. Nakazawa complained to him about me, saying that I was utterly unfeeling. I was standing by them, looking amused to hear them talk about me.

  “Aren’t you afraid of your teacher?” the principal asked.

  “No, not at all,” I replied.

  “Why aren’t you afraid?”

  “Because I think my teacher is also a human being after all.”

  The principal and Mr. Nakazawa looked at each other with sour smiles but didn’t say anything. From around that time I had begun to see a comic child inside a grownup’s stern exterior, and I was unable to have the kind of special respect for adults that ordinary children have.

  At about this time, the Sino-Japanese War1 began. I came down with a bad case of measles and had to take days off from school. When I finally made it back our class teacher had unexpectedly changed. I was told that Mr. Nakazawa had been drafted. They said he was a former naval officer but had been put on the reserve list because of illness. No wonder he had often talked about warships. Sadness filled my heart when I thought of how he had told us those mysterious stories from the Saiyūki,2 how he used to lick his paintbrush and paint neat pictures, how I had liked everything about him except his hitting a head with a Chusan palm whip, and how I could no longer see him. So, after school, I gathered together my friends and tried to learn in detail at least how he had looked when he came to say farewell. But, distracted as they were by their daily games, they just sat there as if they’d completely forgotten all about it even though barely half a month had passed since they parted with him. And they fidgeted, pouting, apparently dissatisfied that they’d been prevented from their games. Finally, though, after struggling to remember something, one of them blurted out: “He was wearing an overcoat with
lion hair.”

  “Lion hair! Lion hair!” several others echoed him.

  These fools had been so entranced by the lion hair they saw for the first time—though that, too, was probably a mistake—they didn’t remember anything else. Even so I tried to find out everything I could. After exasperating me no end, one of them spoke up.

  “I am going to war now and may not be able to see you again,” the teacher had said. “You must listen carefully to the new teacher, study hard, and grow up to be great men.”

  At these words tears suddenly welled up and rolled down my cheeks. Taken aback, my friends stared at me, some even sneering contemptuously, eyeing each other, tugging at each other’s sleeves. They still didn’t know one could cry like that, as they simply believed that the code our teacher taught us, that a man is allowed to cry only once every three years,3 could not be violated.

  2

  An even more unhappy thing was that I did not at all get along with the new teacher, Mr. Ushida. He was known to be good at jūjutsu, so the pupils were afraid of him, and he was evidently proud of it himself, at times flipping backward all by himself to impress us. Indeed, there was nothing admirable about him, except that once, during a drawing class, he praised the gourd I’d painted, saying, You are better than me, and gave it three circles. Just as I disliked him, he must have disliked me. I couldn’t tell from when, but in time we became enemies, more or less.

  Aside from that, after the war started my friends’ talk, from morning to evening, was all filled with the Yamato Spirit4 and chinks.5 Worse, our teacher joined in, repeating the Yamato Spirit and chinks at every turn as if he were inciting dogs to fight. I found it all so distasteful and unpleasant. He wouldn’t make any reference whatsoever to the stories of Yojō and Hikan.6 Instead, he only talked interminably about the Mongolian invasions7 and the Korean conquests.8 And when it came to songs, he had us sing bleak war-related things while making us dance utterly uninteresting calisthenic-like dances. Even worse, as though those chinks with whom we “couldn’t live under Heaven”9 had actually swarmed toward them, everyone, shoulders raised and elbows spread out, stomped their snow-slippers10 with such abandon as to almost tear apart the leather pieces as they bellowed songs out of tune, out of rhythm, in the suffocating dust that swirled up. Almost ashamed to stand in line with these wretches, I deliberately sang even more out of tune. Also, now in the school yard, which was small in the first place, only Katō Kiyomasas and Hōjō Tokimunes11 snottily went about, all the wimps having turned into chinks to be beheaded.