Chapter 7 A Personal View of Japanese Culture Sakaguchi Ango! Things “Japanese” IT know next to nothing about traditional Japanese culture. I’ve never seen the Katsura Detached Palace which Bruno Taut praised so highly, nor am I familiar with his precious Mochizuki Gyokusen, Iké no Taiga, Tanomura Chikuden, or Tomioka Tessai. As for his Hata Zoroku and Chikugen Saishi, well, I’ve never even heard of them.’ For one thing, I’m not much of a tourist, so the towns and villages of our homeland, with all their varied local customs and landmarks, are a mystery to me. On top of that, I was born in what Taut called the most vulgar city in Japan, Niigata, and I adore the strip running from Ueno to Ginza and the neon lights, both of which he despised. I know none of the formalities of the tea ceremony, but I do know all about getting rip-roaring drunk. In my lonely home, T’'ve never once given anything like the rokonoma [alcove] a second thought. Still, I don’t believe that having lost sight of the glorious ancient culture of my homeland has impoverished my life as I’ve just described it. (I do, though, agonize over what it lacks in other respects.) Taut was once one of about ten guests hosted by a certain Japanese millionaire, an avid admirer of Chikuden. The host dismissed the maids, and himself went back and forth between the tatami parlor and the storeroom, each time returning with a hanging scroll to display in the alcove before leaving once again to fetch the next. He took great delight in having the famous paintings please those assembled. The host then moved the group to another room, where he provided a tea ceremony followed by a formal banquet. Now, to claim that this lifestyle is spiritually rich because it “does not lose sight of the traditions of ancient culture” is absurd—the standards for the spiritual are so very low. This is not to say, though, that my lifestyle, which has lost sight of cultural traditions, is for that reason necessarily rich. During his visit to Japan the French writer Jean Cocteau asked why the Japanese no longer wore kimono, and he lamented Japan’s forgetting the traditions of the motherland in its efforts to Westernize. I guess that’s the sort of comment we should expect considering the eccentricities of the French: when 137138 Sakaguchi Ango the war broke out, the first things they evacuated were the exhibits at the Louvre and their gold bullion. With this act they changed the fate of the nation, and all for the sake of preserving Paris. They may have saved their cultural assets, but they remain oblivious to the fact that the real source of the nation’s traditions is nothing other than the people themselves, What, then, is “tradition”? What do we mean by the words “national character”? Is there some primary factor that determines national character, that renders the Japanese destined to invent and wear the kimono? In the tales of old we find that our ancestors’ desire for revenge was so strong that they would pose as beggars and leave no stone unturned as they hunted down their enemies.’ It has been only seventy or eighty years since the end of these “samurai,” but the stories seem like fairy tales to us now, and the Japanese of today can be counted among the least malicious peoples of the world. An anecdote from my days as a student is a case in point. At a welcome reception for Professor Robert at the Athénée Frangais I found myself, for some reason, the only one assigned a seat surrounded by foreigners, with Professor Cotte seated directly across from me.* Bored without a conversation partner, I amused myself by observing his table manners. A special meal had been prepared for this vegetarian, and Professor Cotte was gobbling up something that looked like oatmeal. His hand travelled between the bowl and his mouth at an incredible pace, and once he had begun he did not put the spoon down until he had finished his entire meal. He slurped down a full bowl of oatmeal in the time it took me to swallow a single bite of meat. No wonder he had indigestion! The table speeches began, and Professor Cotte stood up. In the most serious of tones he launched directly into a tribute to Georges Clemenceau, whose passing had just been reported in that day’s newspapers. (Clemenceau had been the French prime minister during World War I and his fondness for pistol duels had earned this politician the nickname “the tiger.”) Professor Cotte was both an atheist and a nihilist, and his admiration for Voltaire inspired him to both fondly recite and teach his elegies and epigrams. These facts left me totally unprepared for the manner in which the professor’s unrestrained emotion got the better of his intellect as he spoke of Clemenceau’s death. I thought that it was all tongue- in-cheek, and that the professor was setting us up for a surprising punch line. However, the tone of the professor’s speech turned from gravity to intense grief, and it was soon clear to me that it was no joke. The emotional outburst was so unexpected that I was quite dumbfounded—and then I burst out laughing. I°ll never be able to forget the look in the professor’s eyes at that instant. He shot me a murderous look, a bloodthirsty glare absolutely brimming with hatred. You won’t get a look like that from a Japanese. I’ve been consciously waiting for one since that day and, personally, I’ve never once seen a Japanese with that kind of look in his eyes. In short, that sort of hatred simply doesn’t exist for the Japanese. The kind of hatred one finds in the Tale of Three Kingdoms or Lady Chatterley’s Lover, that bloodthirsty malice that would gladly see a man ripped limb from limb, is all but completely lacking in the Japanese. The sentiment that we share instead is an easygoingness that turnsA Personal View of Japanese Culture 139 yesterday’s enemy into today’s bosom buddy. Make no mistake about it: most Japanese today are keenly aware that revenge just doesn’t suit them. Harboring a deep-seated hatred over long periods is beyond them; the best they can manage isa dirty look. The concepts of “tradition” and “national character” often mislead us in just this way. They imply that regardless of personality, an individual is driven by some innate urge to abide by certain customs and traditions. However, it does not stand to reason that simply because a practice existed in Japan long ago, it is somehow innately Japanese. On the contrary, it is quite conceivable that customs followed in foreign countries and not in Japan are, in fact, better suited to the Japanese. Adopting such foreign customs would not be an act of imitation, but rather one of discovery. Even in the arts, a field with the utmost respect for originality, the progression from imitation to discovery is a common occurrence, as we see in Goethe completing masterpieces of his own after having taken his cues from Shakespeare. Inspiration often has its roots in an imitative spirit and bears fruit in an original discovery. So, then, what is the real significance of the “kimono”? Well, its existence means nothing more than that Japan encountered Western clothing a thousand years later than the rest of the world. The “kimono” exists simply because our craftsmanship was limited, and we were not exposed to an alternative technology that would have prompted the invention of something new. It is not the case that the scrawny build of the Japanese gave birth to the “kimono,” nor is it true that the “kimono” is the only garment that looks beautiful on the Japanese. It goes without saying that a brawny foreigner looks far grander in Japanese dress than we do. I remember how for a long time in grade school | grieved the fate of the Bandaibashi, a wooden bridge that spanned the mouth of the Shinano River. They were going to tear it down, narrow the river by half, and erect a steel bridge in its place. The fact that the best wooden bridge in Japan would be gone and the river narrowed meant I would be losing something I was proud of, and the idea was terribly depressing. This peculiar sort of grief all seems like a dream to me now. As I matured and my relationship to things deepened, this sort of grief simply faded away. Replacing the wooden bridge with one of steel and narrowing the river is now not only not sad, it actually strikes me as perfectly natural. I don’t imagine that I’m the only one whose thinking has changed along these lines. Rather than grieve, most Japanese today rejoice each time an old piece of their hometown is destroyed and a Western-style building springs up. We need new transportation facilities, we need elevators. More than traditional beauty or intrinsically Japanese forms, we need more convenience in our daily lives. The destruction of the temples in Kyoto or the Buddhist statues in Nara wouldn’t bother us in the least, but we’d be in real trouble if the streetcars stopped running. The only things that matter to us are “the necessities of life.” Though ancient culture may be destroyed, our day-to-day lives would not come to an end, and as long as these are intact, our uniqueness is assured. It is140 Sakaguchi Ango safeguarded by the fact that we would have lost neither the needs that belong to us alone nor the desires that spring forth from those needs. I understand that when Taut lectured in Tokyo, 80 or 90 percent of his audience was composed of students and the rest architects. The sponsors had sent invitations to every single architectural specialist in Tokyo and the turnout was still this poor. I hear that something like this would never happen in Europe, where 80 or 90 percent of the audience would be architects and the rest dignitaries such as city or village mayors with an interest in urban culture. There would be no room for the students to squeeze in. I’m in the dark when it comes to the world of architecture, but I can imagine similar results in a literary forum. Say that André Gide gave a lecture in Tokyo. Surely about 90 percent of the novelists would be conspicuously absent and, what’s more, you can bet that 80 or 90 percent of the audience would be students, with about thirty percent of these being coeds. As a student in a Buddhist Studies department, I attended lectures given by French or English scholars of Buddhism, and the entire audience was composed of students in spite of the fact that Japan is absolutely swarming with monks! Could it be that all those students were aspiring monks? This difference in attendance patterns might be evidence that the cultural elites in Japan are irresponsible while men of culture in the West take their responsibilities to society seriously. However, being socially diligent is not necessarily the same as being truly diligent, and being negligent in one’s social duties doesn’t necessarily mean that one is truly derelict. But, issues of diligence and dereliction aside, the fact remains that Japan’s men of culture are really an embarrassment, They’ve never seen the Katsura Detached Palace; they don’t know Chikuden, Gyokusen, or Tessai. The tea ceremony is a mystery to them While some might tentatively identify Kobori Enshi as an architect, garden designer, feudal lord, or tea master, others would claim he was the founder of 2 ninja school.° These men of culture tear down the ancient architecture of their hometowns and proudly replace it with shoddy Western-style pre-fabs, all the while absenting themselves from lectures by the Tauts or Gides. They stumble about drunkenly in the shadows cast by the neon, and they slurp moonshine as they grope the chicks with perms. They really are a rascally bunch. Not only do they lack an understanding of the indigenous traditions of Japan, their apish imitations of the West all fall short, too, with no trace of the original beauty remaining. Everything they produce is the epitome of kitsch. They pack the theaters to watch Gary Cooper, but only a handful come to see Umewake Manzaburé.’ There is really no hope for them. Be that as it may, none of this changes the fact that there exists a gap greater than Taut ever imagined between his discovering Japan with all its traditional beauty and our actually being Japanese, though we may have lost sight of the traditions of Japan. In other words, while Taut had to discover Japan, we have had no such need for we are Japanese. Though we may have lost sight of our ancient culture, surely we have not lost sight of Japan itself. “What is the essence of the Japanese spirit?” We of all people do not need to theorize on that. Japan does not arise from some explication of its spirit; nor can something likeA Personal View of Japanese Culture 141 the Japanese spirit be explained. If the everyday life of the Japanese is healthy, Japan itself is in good health. We yank trousers over our stubby bowlegs, deck ourselves out in Western clothes, waddle about, dance the jitterbug, toss out the tatami, and strike our affected poses amidst tacky chairs and tables. That this appears completely absurd to the Western eye has no bearing on the fact that we ourselves are satisfied with the convenience of it all. There is a fundamental difference between their standpoint, from which they chuckle pitifully at us, and ours, from which we go on with our everyday lives. As long as our day-to-day lives are rooted in proper desires, their condescending smiles don’t mean a damn thing. They laugh because we look funny waddling along with our short bowlegs draped in trousers. That’s just fine. As long as we don’t obsess over that kind of thing but rather set our sights on goals more lofty, the last laugh might not be theirs after all. As I went so far as to confess a moment ago, I’ve never laid eyes on the Katsura Detached Palace, nor am I familiar with Sesshii, Sesson, Chikuden, Iké no Taiga, Gyokusen, or Tessai. I know nothing about the Kano school or Unkei.* In spite of this, I’d like to try my hand at relating my own “Personal View of Japanese Culture.” You may think it odd that some guy would speak of Japanese culture when he knows nothing of the traditions of his homeland and is familiar instead with nothing but the neon lights and jazz. Well, at the very least, there has been no need for me to “discover” Japanese culture. Vulgarity (Humans Love What Is Human)? From the start of winter 1937 to early summer of the next year, I lived in Kyoto. Since I had set out with no particular purpose in mind, I took along a half written novel, a thousand sheets of manuscript paper, and nothing more—not even a towel or a toothbrush. I thought I'd look up Oki Kazuo, have him find me a place to stay, and in my solitude finish the novel.!° Looking back on it now, I guess it was really just the solitude I was longing for. During one of our chats, Oki nonchalantly asked me what I hoped to see in Kyoto and what sort of foods I liked. I hadn’t expected anything from him other than the casual friendship we had enjoyed in Tokyo, but the Kyoto Oki was not the same as the Tokyo Oki—he had reverted to that pampered rich kid of the ancient capital and was finely attuned to any information that would allow him to better cater to a guest. Without really thinking, I blurted out an answer: “The maiko of Gion and wild boar.”"' This popped out simply because Ozaki Shird had taken me out for my first taste of wild boar on the night before I had left for Kyoto, as a sort of farewell party.'? This was all there was behind my comment and, in any case, I was under the impression that boar meat was not readily available and therefore the comment would soon be forgotten. I could not have been more mistaken. From that moment on, night after night, I was bombarded with the stuff and, to top it all off, on about the third day it became painfully obvious that I didn’t even really like it. Still, I had to swallow my objections—and the boar meat with them. As for the maiko, on the very night that I arrived in Kyoto, Oki escorted me to a tea room on Hanami142 Sakaguchi Ango K@ji, a lively alley in the entertainment district. Though the entire Gion district boasted only thirty-six or so maiko at the time, about twenty of them appeared before my drunken, bleary eyes, one right after the other. Oki had really overdone it here, too, but what could I do? I resigned myself to my fate and decided to let come what may. I saw more than half of the maiko in Kyoto, and let me tell you that there is hardly anything as absurd as this breed of entertainer. You might think that a maiko has undergone some special training, but nothing could be further from the truth: her dancing ability is mediocre and her knowledge of drama is pretty much limited to gossip about Takiko and Orie." Is this, then, some endearing innocence that makes the maiko sexy? Not at all—she’s simply insolent and completely lacking in the charms of the fresh and pure. Though the whole premise behind a maiko is that she be sweet and endearing, she in fact possesses none of the virtues of the child that she is. A little girl without an ounce of self- consciousness has nothing to recommend her, and there is nothing at all seductive about that in-between stage in which the child is no longer childlike. I’ve heard that there are entertainers in Canton called “mémai,” young girls with perfect facial features who are blinded in childhood and specially trained in dance and music. The Chinese do go to extremes, but we have to at least give them credit for being thorough. If you’re going to artificially shape something for your personal pleasures, then this is the way to go about it. Blinding then— now that really shows some dedication to the task. Brutal, yes, but the mere thought of it is strangely titillating. The maiko, on the other hand, may seem to be an artificial, manufactured product, but the fact is they lack the charms of the truly man-made. What’s worse, being young girls without the characteristic self- consciousness, they also fail to exhibit the allure that nature would otherwise have bestowed on them. One of the maiko confessed she had a crush on a dancer at the Higashiyama Dance Hall and had her heart set on dancing with him that very night. So, though it was now nearly midnight, that’s where we headed with five or six of the maiko in tow. The dance hall was on the slopes of Higashiyama, away from the residential area, and far cleaner than those in Tokyo. What surprised me in that crowded and lively place was how the maiko, who had not been the least bit attractive while they gabbed and performed traditional dances in the tea house, now stood out in the dance hall crowd. Here they had a commanding presence and exuded a real splendor; their unique kimonos and trailing sashes outshone both the men in western dress and the dancers in evening wear. Even the Westerners appeared shabby beside them. “Why of course,” I thought, rather struck by it all, “things rooted in tradition exude an aura of authority all their own,” I have the same reaction every time I watch sumo wrestling. The wrestlers are called, the referee is introduced. Next the wrestlers bow to each other, stomp their feet, splash some water about, and calmly scatter salt around the ring. They assume their stances, reposition themselves, stare each other down for a moment or two, and calmly go back for another handful of salt. The sum6 wrestlers inA Personal View of Japanese Culture 143 the ring absolutely dominate the entire National Sum6d Stadium; the tens of thousands of spectators and the grand architecture of the arena pale in comparison to them. Juxtaposing this with baseball, two differences become immediately clear. The first is the enormity of the baseball field. The nine players are overwhelmed by the size of it as they scramble about. Surrounded by a crowd of thousands, they look pitifully helpless; they seem so insignificant on the vast field that they might easily be mistaken for groundskeepers. They don’t seem to play the game as much as the game plays them, leaving them scrambling all over the field, panting and out of breath. There was, to be sure, something different about the one time I saw Babe Ruth hit a home run. His stand-up homer took command of the place and the size of the field was hardly noticeable at all. While he may not have totally dominated the field, his presence was certainly on a par with it. It’s not merely a matter of physical size. After all, not all the sumé wrestlers are big men. Neither is it entirely a matter of technique. What bestows this commanding presence on an individual is the dignity that comes from tradition. This dignity is what allows the wrestlers to dominate the ring, to stand out in the colossal architecture of the National Sumé Stadium and to overwhelm the thousands sitting in the stands. And yet dignity alone is not enough to sustain the life of these traditions for all eternity. While the kimono of the maiko may overwhelm the dance hall and the rituals of the wrestlers might stand out in the National Sumé Stadium, the maiko and the wrestlers will not be able to eternally support the life of their traditions with dignity alone. Without sufficient substance behind the dignity, these traditions will eventually fade away. What matters in the end is neither tradition nor dignity but substance. For the three weeks it took me to find a room in Fushimi I stayed in Oki’s second house in Saga. Though the skies over Kyoto proper might be clear, nearby Mt. Atago attracts the clouds and there are snow flurries in the area daily." About sixty yards from Oki’s second house stands a bizarre shrine called Kurumazaki Jinja. Though it is supposedly dedicated to the memory of somebody-or-other Kiyohara, a scholar it seems, the real object of veneration is quite obviously the almighty yen.'* In a fenced-in area in front of the main building is a mountainous pile of small, smooth stones—thousands of them. People offer their prayers by writing their names and dates of birth on these stones, and then adding requests for cash. They then place their stone on the pile. Some stones include requests for fifty-thousand yen, other pitiful stones ask for a measly thirty. Occasionally one finds a stone with very detailed accounting—a salary increase of so much plus periodic bonuses raised to such- and-such an amount. I picked up these stones one evening after the ceremonies marking the spring equinox, and I read them by the fading light of the shrine’s sacred fire. They were quite unsettling, these stones, especially to someone like me—on a journey and without a place to call home, battling a shaky sense of self-confidence and with nothing but a pen to support me.144 Sakaguchi Ango One man unable to pass a shrine or temple without stopping was the eccentric Makino Shin’ichi.'* He would, without fail, worship most reverently— noisily clanging the bells by pulling on the ropes whenever possible, making an offering, closing his eyes for a moment, and bowing deeply. It made no difference to him what the particular sect might be. Makino was generally shy and averse to anything that would attract attention, but this was the single exception; it seemed that he just couldn’t stop himself. Once he dropped by my place while out on a walk with his son Hideo, and the three of us went over to the Ikegami Honmonji temple. At Makino’s urging, Hideo joined him in approaching the main building, where Makino had him make an offering of a few coins before father and son lowered their heads in prayer. The sight of Makino handing down to his son these inexplicable religious aspirations was quite moving. Back to the stones I read by firelight on the spring equinox. I don’t imagine they represented particularly deep or powerful sentiments or emotions, and yet I remember them all as if it were yesterday. Conversely, though day after day I toured the temples in Saga and Arashiyama as the snow settled on the bamboo groves, and though I meandered beyond Mt. Kiyotaki and the cemeteries of Mt. Ogurayama, I found it all—even the Tenrydji and Daikakuji Temples— unpleasantly cold and lifeless. I don’t remember a thing about them today.'” Directly behind Kurumazaki Shrine was an old shack, run-down but with a name that inspired confidence: the Arashiyama Theatre. It was surrounded by nothing but fields with a few houses scattered among them. At dusk an empty oxcart would trundle along the road by the theater, a drunk farmer asleep in the back as the ox found its own way home. When I first arrived in Kyoto a taxi driver and I trudged through the area looking for Oki’s second home. Posters for the Arashiyama Theatre were hanging on the telephone poles, advertising Nekohachi of the Byoyaken and promising fifty sacks of rice if he proved to be an imposter, He wasn’t, of course, as the Nekohachi known in Tokyo was the Nekohachi of the Edoya.'® Needless to say, I wasted no time in going to see the Byoyaken Nekohachi. He was fabulous, a nasty giant who looked tremendously powerful. A knack for imitations was just one of the many talents he lacked. He would appear at the end of the show, after a variety of acts including a dancer who suddenly rolls up her kimono to reveal her backside. When Nekohachi appeared, he would do so with great ceremony, wearing a splendid formal kimono and standing behind a table trimmed with a swath of cloth so extravagant it could well have been Ungetsu’s.'? Then, flashing the crowd with a grin that seemed to be challenging anyone present to a brawl, he said something like, “Thanks for coming. Pretty good, wasn’t it? Come back tomorrow night, and bring all your friends.” And that was it. He was quite a unique entertainer—the reasons behind the grandly trimmed table and his formal kimono remain a mystery. These travelling performers would usually perform for a day or, at most, do a three-day run. Not all of them were rowdy brawlers; Nekohachi was, in fact, an exception. I would attend every time the performers changed, or even go toA Personal View of Japanese Culture 145 see the same performance two or three times in some extreme cases. I remember the farmers from a mountain village in Fukui Prefecture who would only put together a show and go on the road during the slow winter months. They did some comedy routines, some skits and a magic act, every last one of which was too terrible for words. The entire troupe was pitiful, with just one experienced old-timer doing his best to keep up morale while simultaneously mortified over their clumsy performances. The troupe did have a pretty girl of about eighteen, and she seemed to be their only draw. During the day they drummed up business by parading her through the area, more fields than houses, with just a single companion. And they used her in the comedy routines, put her in the skits, and had her dance, trying to get her on stage at every possible opportunity. This only made it worse, though, as she still needed a lot of practice. I went back on the second day of their run. There were only fifteen or sixteen people in the audience that night so the troupe canceled their third date to move on to the next town, Passing behind the theater late that night after the show on my way for a bowl of hot noodles, I saw they had the wooden door ajar and were loading the gear onto a large wagon. The head of the troupe was there grilling some sardines by the side of the road. Just over the Togetsukyo Bridge in Arashiyama stands a string of tea houses. The area is teeming with people in the spring, when the tour buses stop here for lunch, and the places plug along even through the winter. While out for a walk one night, Oki and I decided to stop for a drink but went door-to-door without finding a light burning or any sign of life. Apparently customers don’t just wander in randomly on a winter’s night. At long last we did find a place. Because they didn’t have a fire burning in the tea house itself, the gentle, forty- something owner and her nineteen-year old maid led us into the family room out back, where we drank our saké while warming ourselves by a single hibachi. The maid, it turns out, had once been a dancer with an animal act, and all of a sudden she launched into a description of the Arashiyama Theatre. I knew about the theater’s only toilet—it was perpetually drenched in urine, and the stench was unbearable. Before I could take care of my business, I would have to tortuously pick my way through where the damage was least and, even so, at times I’d be wading through an ocean of urine just to make my way to the piss pot. Since we in the audience were stuck with a toilet like this, it wasn’t hard to imagine the filth backstage in the changing rooms. “Can you imagine how disgusting it was?” the ex-dancer suddenly blurted out, a real edge to her voice. She spoke very candidly about her experience: the hardest thing about being in the act, she said, was being forced to drink soy sauce in the winter. Every time she was about to take the stage nude, they forced her to toss back a glass since it would supposedly keep her warm. Apparently that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. So, while I spent my days in Saga totally immersed in writing my novel, at night I usually made my way to the Arashiyama Theatre. The city of Kyoto, its shrines and temples, its famous places and ancient ruins—none of these moved me in the least. I was content just to be with the other freezing spectators, fewer146 Sakaguchi Ango than a hundred of them, enveloped in the stench of piss in the Arashiyama Theatre, half yawning and half laughing at the ridiculous gags. Oki, it seems, was put off by my behavior and decided to go out on a limb in order to put a scare in me. Though it was snowing again, he dragged me onto a train, which took us up along the Hozugawa River to the Tanba district and a place called Kameyama. This was the Kameyama of old, once the site of Akechi Mitsuhide’s castle and more recently home to the extravagant headquarters of the Omotokyé sect.” The entire compound had been recently dynamited by the government, which suspected the sect of lése-majesté. We had set out to see the ruins, The hilltop compound, complete with moat, was strewn from top to bottom with the fragments of shattered roofing tiles. They were even in the now empty moat. Nota single tree or blade of grass remained, and there was no sign of even a dog sniffing about. The compound was enclosed behind a wooden fence and, just for good measure, barbed wire had been coiled along the perimeter and a guard post set up off to one side. We had braved the jostling of the train along the long Tanba trail (which wasn’t really so long) and so, alas, we could not very well turn back without completing our mission. We climbed over the barbed wire and stepped into the remains of Onisaburd’s dream. Standing at the peak we had a sweeping view of the town of Kameoka and the small plain surrounded by the Tanba Mountains. The snow began falling harder, covering the roof tiles. Nothing of any value remained—it had all been confiscated before the demolition. Still, at the peak were tiles with designs etched in gold, and one could detect traces of the once opulent courtyard in the area halfway up the hill, presumably the site of the harem housing Onisaburd’s thirty consorts. Here and there along the stone staircase rested fragments of stone sculptures, the heads as big as saké kegs. Quite clearly the compound had been thoroughly, meticulously, smashed to bits. We climbed back over the barbed wire and walked the road paralleling the moat. On the outskirts of town we stopped in a tea house, where we drank a local brew called “Hozugawa.” The river after which it’s named flows clear and pure; the saké itself is anything but. Before long a wagon driver showed up, tied up his nag, and started in on the very same brew. He had been buying scrap paper on his way home from work, and now he grumbled how the profits wouldn’t even buy him a bottle of booze. “What’s the use?” he asked as he gulped down bottle after bottle. It seemed he wanted to talk to us and, at the same time, was terribly frightened about the prospect. Before long he was drunk enough to speak up. “You gents must be down from Tokyo on business.” “You've got that right,” we answered. The wagon driver pulled himself together and launched into a string of five or six bows, mumbling something all the while. As the conversation continued we figured it out: he thought we were detectives down in the area on some special secret mission. Not an unreasonable conclusion, I guess, considering our conspicuous attire: Oki, wearing a tight-sleeved overcoat and a cap, looked likeA Personal View of Japanese Culture 147 the dandy heir to a merchant house and I was casually dressed in a quilted kimono, swinging a cane, and without an overcoat despite the fact that it was snowing. This, along with the nonchalant way we had climbed over the barbed wire enclosing the restricted area, had alarmed the wagon driver, prompting him to follow us into the tea house. Hearing this we realized that even the compound guard had been keeping his distance: for the hour or so that we roamed the compound he had watched us as he swept the area around his post, but every time we looked his way, he would quickly turn his back and pretend not to have seen us. We jumped right into this role of detectives and began questioning the driver about Omotokyé sect believers who might still be in hiding. Dead drunk though he was, the driver turned pale on the spot and was soon stammering, “I won’t say that I don’t have any information about them but, please, I haven’t broken a law in my life so don’t make me answer that question.” He was groveling as though we had him in the interrogation chambers. The monk Ingen, who established the Manpukuji Temple on Mt, Obaku in the Uji district, is credited with the idea that the key to temple architecture is sublimity, that the physical shape of the buildings must elevate the vulgar hearts of the believers.”' He is also credited with emphasizing the importance of meals as, taken communally, they deepen the relationships among men. This would explain the grandeur of the Manpukuji’s dining hall as well as the fine reputation of the temple’s vegetarian cuisine. Stressing communal meals to foster human interaction, though, is not an idea unique to Ingen—it seems to be common practice in China. I know absolutely nothing about the engineering aspects of architecture but one thing I do know is that the distinguishing feature of temple construction is, first and foremost, that the buildings are not designed to serve as homes. This means more than the elimination of all things that allude to an everyday life in this everyday world. In the construction of a temple attention must be focused on expressing a lifestyle and philosophy diametrically opposed to the worldly and profane. This being the case, it is no surprise that the True Pure Land sect, which affirms a worldly lifestyle as fully in keeping with its religious beliefs, maintains temple compounds that reek of the vulgar and routine.” The temples (such as the two Honganji temples of Kyoto) take ancient temple architecture, evocative of a philosophy of austerity and self-denial, adopt it wholesale, and attempt to employ it in their own beliefs, which affirm life in this world. The result is entirely unsettling and vulgar. Don’t misunderstand me—I have no objections to vulgarity in things that are meant to be vulgar. My point is that vulgarity calls for applications unique to the circumstances. Kyoto is jam-packed with temples and famous ruins—every two or three blocks you run into another big temple or shrine compound. If you're planning a visit of a week or so, just letting your feet take you where they will is better than setting off with a particular destination in mind. One after another you'll run into places with a history behind them, and when one seems appealing, you can always find out what it’s called and take a good long look around. Kyoto isn’t a148 Sakaguchi Ango big city, and you can walk the length of it without much trouble at all. That’s what I used to do, walking the path along the ridge running from Fukakusa, through Daigo and Ononosato, to Yamashina, for instance. No matter what direction you take, there’s never any need to worry about getting lost in the city itself, I once started in Fushimi and was surprised to find myself bumping into Sugawara Michizane, the deity enshrined in the Kitano Shrine, by the time evening came!* When I went into town on my walks, it was in search of either diversion or solitude. In either case, temple grounds fit the bill, if for no other reason than that they provided a relaxing alternative to dodging cars on the busy boulevards. Anyway, my point is that, in their very architecture, temples allude to the austere. They do not make us think of the aromas of cooking, or of wives and children, but strive instead to sever all connections to everyday emotions and profane ideas. However, try as they might to embody such ideals in their architecture, the result is always a far cry from the concept itself. Contrary to popular belief, the Japanese landscape garden cannot possibly have been modeled on nature itself. It seems instead to be an attempt to give concrete expression, in the form of a garden, to the stark, minimalist ideals or spirit that we see expressed in paintings of the Southern School.” The same is true of the architecture of the tea room (or of temples for that matter): all of these are expressions of concepts, manipulations of nature rather than replications of it. The limits imposed by the confines of space are the equivalent of those imposed on a painting by the size of the canvas. But think for a moment of the stark austerity of the boundless sea, of the desert, or of the forests and plains. In comparison we become painfully aware of just how twisted and perverse, how trifling, is the stark austerity of the landscape garden. What is the rock garden of Rydanji trying to express?” What sort of concepts is it attempting to weave together? Taut, for his part, showered praise on the black and white checkered wallpaper in the library of the Shugakui= Detached Palace, claiming it represented the sound of a waterfall.”° Forcing a= appreciation to the point of such tortured explanations is downright embarrassing. Landscape gardens and tea rooms, like the enlightenment of a Ze= monk, are castles in the air. They have nothing but Zen-like hypotheses t support them. “Wherein lies the Buddha nature?” one asks, The answer: “In = shit stick.” Someone puts a rock in a garden and says, “This is indeed a shiz stick, but it also has the Buddha nature.” That works just fine as long as people are willing to cooperate and consider the thing Buddha-like. But the minute somebody sees the shit stick as just a shit stick, well, that’s the end of that. The obvious, self-evident observation that a shit stick is just shit stick and nothing more makes for a more persuasive argument than any following the conventions of the Zen dialogue.” The profound stillness and the minimalist beauty expressed by the rock garden at Rydanji, its link to unfathomable Zen mysteries—none of this matters The ideals and philosophy behind the placement of the rocks, too, are beside the point. When the emotions evoked by the rock garden do not compare to thoseA Personal View of Japanese Culture 149 summoned up by a grand sunset over the desert or to the overwhelming melancholy prompted by a boundless sea, we can just as well dismiss the garden without giving it a second thought. To defend it on the grounds that it is impossible to capture the boundless seas and plateaus within the confines of a garden is just plain nonsense. Basho left the garden, finding and forging one of his own in the vast expanse of nature. The love of travel that marks his life distinguishes his haiku as well: it, too, leaves the garden-like in favor of shaping gardens in the grand landscapes of nature. In these gardens there may be but a single acom tree, nothing but the sprouts of summer grasses, or simply a boulder pierced by the cry of a cicada.”* In his gardens no rock has a meaning foisted upon it, no pine is twisted out of its natural shape; these things are unmediated landscape and, simultaneously, unmediated concepts. They are all more beautiful than the rock garden at Rydanji. And make no mistake about it: one could not build, with an acorn tree or some summer grasses, these very same gardens in reality. The Japanese have long been resigned to the fact that nothing in the world of gardens and architecture is “eternal,” and this not merely in the sense that sooner or later everything will be swallowed by fire. The realization that buildings will burn to the ground and people will, in the end, pass away—the idea that life is as transient as the bubbles forming on the surface of the river—is what drives An Account of My Hut.?? Taut loved this book and, truth be told, his thinking never went much beyond it. What he missed was the attitude toward life embraced by those spiritual seekers (particularly in Japan) who were concerned with substance. Their attitude was rooted in both a resignation to the fact that Bashd’s garden could not actually be built and a more general despair over the limits of human contrivance. As a result, these seekers paid no heed to things like houses, gardens, or furnishings. Iké no Taiga did not have a studio; Ryokan had no need for even a temple.” This is not to say that these men made a vow of poverty a defining principle of their lives. On the contrary, the fact is that, spiritually speaking, their desires were too deep, too extravagant, too aristocratic for ordinary material goods. Studios and temples were not meaningless to them; rather, they realized that the absolute was unobtainable and, rejecting the idea of compromise, they chose instead a purity wherein nothingness is the absolute value.’! The tea room is designed around the idea of simplicity. It is not, however, a product of the spirit wherein nothingness is the ultimate value. For this spirit every last ounce of energy deliberately expended to produce simplicity is impure and garrulous. However much the tokonoma may be manipulated to give the impression of rustic simplicity, the efforts invested in producing that result render it, by definition, inferior to nothingness, less authentic than that which might occur spontaneously. From the perspective of the spirit in which nothingness reigns supreme, the simple tea room and the gaudy Toshogi of Nikk6 are birds of a feather, both being similarly products of “presence.”*” Viewed from this perspective, the distinction between the simple, refined Katsura Detached Palace and the vulgar Toshdgi is invalid. Both are just so150 Sakaguchi Ango much chatter; neither is a structure that can stand an eternal appreciation from the “spiritual aristocracy.” However, although there may exist a harsh critical spirit centered on nothingness as an ultimate value, an art based on this ideal is inconceivable. There is no such thing as art without form. Now, in light of all this, if one were to attempt to incorporate the ideal of nothingness in the creation of a material beauty, it would make more sense to reject the contrived simplicity of something like the tea room in favor of attempting to bring the ideal to fruition in the greatest extravagance humanly possible, pushing a worldly vulgarity to its very limits. If both simplicity and ostentation are ultimately vulgar, then surely one is better off adopting a magnanimity capable of embracing a vulgarity that revels in its vulgarity rather than clinging to a pettiness that remains vulgar in its attempts to transcend that state. I see this spirit in Toyotomi Hideyoshi.” The extent of his understanding and appreciation of art is a mystery to us, and we may never know the degree of his input on the art projects he commissioned. Furthermore, Hideyoshi himself was no artisan and surely he made the most of the unique abilities of his workers. Still, without a doubt, all of the art produced on his orders is consistent in character: it is the epitome of artifice, it is extravagant to the extreme. As long as the work was carried out along those lines, Hideyoshi gave his artisans free reign. When he was building a castle, he would gather the biggest damned boulders in the realm. The walls of the Sanjisangendo are giants among walls, the folding screens of the Chishakuin were so enormous that sitting before them Hideyoshi must truly have looked like a monkey among the blossoms.* To this man, art and shit were alike, both products born of the most vulgar intentions. Be that as it may, the works do have an undeniable decisiveness about them. They have a calm and settled feel. All of this makes it possible to say that Hideyoshi had the spirit of an undisputed “master of the realm.” Tokugawa Ieyasu, too, held everything under the heavens in his hands, but he was no master of the realm. There were, in fact, many shoguns who controlled the nation, but among them only Hideyoshi was a true master of the realm. Even the Temple of the Golden Pavilion and the Temple of the Silver Pavilion are products far removed from this spirit; they are nothing more than the playthings of rich men with elegant tastes.°> There is no trace of such elegance or leisure in Hideyoshi’s work. Each and every thing that he did was an expression of his fanatical desire for things unparalleled in the realm. There is no evidence of hesitation, no trace of even the slightest restraint. He wanted all the beautiful women in the realm, and, when denied, somebody would end up like Sen no Rikyi: dead.** Hideyoshi was able to demand anything, even the impossible. And he did. There is something comforting about the incessant demands of a spoiled child, and this feeling, magnified to the level of a nation’s ruler, is what blossoms in all the works Hideyoshi left behind. There are only two things to regret: first, that this master of the realm was limited by Japan’s diminutive size and, second, that in his legacy there remains a hint of Hideyoshi’s despair at being unable to force theA Personal View of Japanese Culture 151 world to conform to the impossible demands he placed upon it. The extremes of splendor oftentimes evoke such subtle feelings of melancholy, and this is true of what Hideyoshi left behind. Nevertheless, Hideyoshi’s creations are of a scale that defies speculation. The Hideyoshi Wall of the Sanjisangends is a good example. While only the smallest piece remains, it is obvious that it was built without the slightest concern for balance with the Sanjisangend6 itself. If there is any balance to be found at all, it is in the way that the two structures vie with each other in terms of size and presence. Walls are, presumably, built because there is something significant within them; this wall, however, is a monument unto itself, taking all attention away from the Sanjisangend6 that sits within it. Its strength and presence surpass even those of the Sanjisangendb. It is more beautiful as well, the unique curves of the wall erasing any resistance one may feel towards its colossal size. On the way to Kameoka I pictured Onisaburo as a modern day Hideyoshi, another spoiled child who fulfilled his own brand of outrageous desires. The high hopes I had for the ruins of Onisabur6’s dream, though, were dashed by the absurdly small scale and the unmitigated vulgarity of the site. It was a wretched place, wanting in all respects. Needless to say, there was not an ounce of that melancholy that usually clings to the extremes of extravagance. “If I but have a cask of saké, what use have I for the emperor?” “Ah but to be a shoe, that I might be tread upon by that young lass.” Among the poets of the Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves, Anakreon and his companions, or the lyricists of China or Persia—wherever, in fact, there has been culture—there have inevitably been poets expressing emotions such as these.°” Their ideas, though, are a bore. Questioning the emperor is absurd—these poets were neither born with the makings of an emperor nor would they accomplish a single thing of significance if, by some miracle, they were to rise to that position! I yearn for those who live true to their desires—the common man living a common life without apology, the petty man living a petty life with no regrets. I feel the same way about the arts: they must be honest. And temples—they don’t come before the monks; there should be monks, and only then temples. The existence of Ryokan had nothing to do with temples. If we do indeed need Buddhism, it means that we need monks, not that we need temples. Let the ancient temples of Kyoto and Nara bum to the ground. The traditions of Japan would not be affected in the least. Nor would Japanese architecture as a whole suffer. If a need exists, we can just as well build the temples anew; the style of prefab barracks would be just fine. The temples of Kyoto and Nara are virtually all the same, and none sticks out in my memory. It is the coolness of the rocks at Kurumazaki Shrine that stays with me; it is Fushimi Inari’s outrageously vulgar red torii arches, making a tunnel over two miles long, that I can’t forget. Offensive to the eye and without an ounce of beauty to recommend them, yes, but being tied to the heartfelt desires of the people, there is something about them that strikes straight to the heart. These structures do not posit nothingness as an ultimate value, and152 Sakaguchi Ango their forms are petty and vulgar. But they are necessities. | have no desire to compose myself in the stone garden of Rydanji, but there are times when I want to lose myself in thought while watching kitschy revues at the Arashiyama Theatre. Humans love what is human, and that alone. True art, too, is infused with the human touch. Rejuvenate myself beneath some sterile stand of trees, removed from the world of our most human emotions? No thanks. I do believe that “Higaki” is world class literature but I have no desire to see it performed on the noh stage.** I just wouldn’t be able to sit, bored stiff, through the language and chanting so alien to us today as I waited for, at most, that single flake of gold. I can imagine the stage for myself—construct it in my own mind—and that will do just fine. The genius of Zeami is forever new but I have serious doubts about whether that is the case for the staging, method of chanting, and forms of expression. Old things, tedious things—it is only natural that they should fade away or be reborn in a new form, The Home” T’ve lived alone for most of the last ten years. Whether in one part of Tokyo or another, in Kyoto, in Ibaraki Prefecture’s tiny town of Toride, and in Odawara, I’ve always lived alone. During this time I’ve discovered that even living alone, homes (or rented rooms, for that matter) always arouse feelings of anxiety and regret. At times I’m away for a while, out drinking, chasing women, or maybe on some uneventful outing. Regardless of where I’ve been or what I’ve been doing, the moment I get home I’m assailed with the same doubts and remorse. There’s no nagging mother, and no angry wife or children. My lifestyle is such that I don’t even exchange hellos with my neighbors. Still, the second I get home, I’m unable to escape that strange sadness and anxiety. I might stop off at a friend’s place on the way home, and I won’t feel the sadness and anxiety while I’m there. This prompts me to make my way home via the houses of four or even five friends. Still, once inside the front door, there it is again—sadness and anxiety. The act of “going home” is an eerie one. If you don’t “go home,” you avoid the sadness and regret. If you do, there is no escaping them, even if no mother, wife, or child awaits. Going home means you’ll be haunted by thoughts of what might have been. So, to escape these regrets and the sadness, all you really have to do is not go home. Just keep plowing ahead. Napoleon kept advancing and didn’t stop until he reached Russia. Still, even a genius of his caliber was unable to escape the home, and as long as there is a home, sooner or later one has to retum to it. Surely Napoleon, too, was prey to the mysterious sadness and regrets that I feel. Could it be that this great genius was a man of tempered steel, and completely unlike me? Unlikely. In fact I think that once back in his lonely quarters a man of steel would be even more prone to contemplate the gravity of his circumstances. Though there may be no scolding mother or nagging wife, going home means a reprimand. A man is certainly not free even if he lives a solitary lifeA Personal View of Japanese Culture 153 with no obligations. It is this condition, I believe, that gives birth to literature. Think, for a moment, about the movie 4 nous /a liberté, which is a satire of the industrial age.“ The movie implies that man would be free and happy if only every day were Sunday, if only there were neither bosses nor factory workers, and man could spend all his time fishing, drinking, and enjoying himself, But the matter of freedom is not as simple as that—even if man is without obligations, freedom remains beyond his grasp. For one thing, if man spent every single day enjoying himself, the allure of these pleasures would dissipate and there would be nothing at all enjoyable about them. Feelings of pleasure are only possible because there are times of suffering as well, and pleasures would cease to be pleasurable if they were all we had, It would be like a world covered with nothing but water. Death is a certainty, and that’s what makes possible our full range of emotions. If we were guaranteed eternal life, living would lose all its meaning and become indescribably tedious. But the absurdities of A nous la liberté are really not the point. What I'm trying to say is that the conception of freedom held by its director, Réne Clair, is virtually indistinguishable from that held by social reformers, and this is what prompts me to believe all the more deeply in literature. For me literature is omnipotent because it starts where a homecoming turns our thoughts inward, regardless of the fact that there may be no scolding mother or nagging wife to prompt the process. Literature is so deeply rooted in this point of origin that, should I somehow lose faith in literature, I will have lost faith in humanity itself. On Beauty Three years ago I lived in a town called Toride. It’s a tiny place along the Tonegawa River with only two restaurants to choose from: one serves pork cutlets and the other noodles. I ate the cutlets every day, and after six months couldn’t stand the sight of them. I used to go into Tokyo twice a month and, as a rule, would come home drunk. There was, actually, a bar of sorts in town, but it wasn’t anything like the places that serve snacks with your drinks. Customers would sit on a rail and drink their saké from a regular old cup. The owners of the place would force a whole bottle of saké into only eight cups, making each a very generous, overflowing serving. This practice led to the place being called “Bight Cups,” and when you'd had a few this started to sound like “Hiccups.” The local farmers took to saying things like “How about the hiccups?” The price would vary from fifteen to seventeen sen a cup, depending on what the bottles themselves were going for that day. I, of course, absolutely loved the stuff, but my friends up from Tokyo would shudder with every sip. The town is only about fifty-six minutes by train from Ueno in the heart of Tokyo. On the way you cross three big rivers—the Tonegawa, the Edogawa, and the Arakawa—and on the banks of one of these sits the Kosuge Prison. You can get. great view of this colossal modern structure from the train as it shoots past. The wings of this prisonhouse stretch out proudly in the shape of an “X,” and it is all surrounded by very tall, concrete walls. Thrusting skyward at the intersection of the wings is a watchtower taller than the chimney of any major154 Sakaguchi Ango factory. As you would expect, this grand building does not have a single decorative embellishment and is, however you look at it, a most prison-like prison. Built the way it is, you couldn’t imagine it being anything but a prison, and this made the sight strangely appealing. I wasn’t drawn to this structure because it coincided with certain preconceptions of what a prison should look like (oppressive, say). Instead, I found it appealing for sentimental reasons. Or, put another way, there was something beautiful about it. The scenery of the Tonegawa River and the Teganuma marshlands failed to move me like this prison, and this fact was so odd that | sometimes wondered if there wasn’t something wrong with me. I clearly remember another, similar experience. It was more than ten years ago. I was still a student and didn’t drink. Friends and I had just started publishing a magazine and, because we didn’t drink, we worked off our excess energy with vigorous walks of five or six hours during which we argued nonstop. Lost in the debate, we wouldn’t pay attention to where we were headed and would end up wandering through all sorts of places. When a walk stretched on late into the night (or even not so late) more often than not we would get hauled in by the police for questioning, Those were the days when the left-wing movements were at their peak so we'd be grilled pretty thoroughly. Most of the time it turned out that what had raised suspicions about us was the fact that we were moving in a group late at night and weren't drunk. I wish I could blame these experiences for my change of heart and evolution into the boozer I am today. ‘Anyway, these walks would often take us from Ginza to Tsukiji, where we would get on the ferry and make our way over to Tsukudajima. The ferry ran all night, so we never worried about being stuck on the island until morning. Both sides of the dark alleys, none wider than a yard across, would be lined with houses marked “Tsukuda-shige” and “Tsukuda-ichi.” They were probably shops selling the area’s specialty, food boiled down in soy. On the whole, though, the place felt like a fishing village, and getting off the ferry we would suddenly feel as if we'd made a long journey. It was hard to believe that Ginza was just across the river. We crossed to the island so often because we liked the feeling of this journey, and also because one of our friends on the magazine worked in the dry ice factory close to Saint Luke’s Hospital there on the island. The dry ice factory—now that was something that really had a strange hold on me. In an industrial zone there would probably be nothing special about the building, It had a crane and some rails, concrete to the left and to the right, and elevated tracks jutting out of the warehouse high overhead. There was no concern for aesthetics here, either; it was just a building composed of the necessary features. Placed as it was, though, among the houses of the village, it looked gigantic—spectacular—and I recognized in it an outstanding beauty. To be sure, Saint Luke’s Hospital is a grand piece of architecture, and in comparison the dry ice factory may seem rather small and weak. But the factory’s density and mass made Saint Luke’s seem like a flimsy child’s toy.A Personal View of Japanese Culture 155 The factory wormed its way into my heart, its rugged beauty linked to a yeaming for a distant home in some long ago past. The Kosuge Prison and the dry ice factory. Other than being struck by the fact that their sturdy beauty stirs up that yearning within me, I’ve never really thought about what they have in common. Their beauty is entirely different from that of places like the Horydji or Bydddin Temples.‘' If we take into consideration the antiquity or history of places like the Horydji and the Byédéin, there is no denying that there is something beautiful about them. But it’s not an immediate beauty that stirs our very souls or strikes straight to the heart. To appreciate their beauty we have to somehow supplement their deficiencies. The Kosuge Prison and the dry ice factory, though, appeal to us more directly; there is nothing to supplement, and they have the power to inspire that yearning within me. I’ve never felt the need to consider why this is so. Early one spring I set out on a trip to a port town on the tip of a peninsula. In the tiny bay sat a battleship. It gave the impression of being a modest little battleship, but even so one look was enough for its beauty to move me to the bottom of my soul. While I loafed about on the shore, I never grew tired of watching that modest, black lump of steel floating out in the water. In my mind it became one with the Kosuge Prison and the dry ice factory, and I pondered on the essence of their beauty. What makes these three things—the prison, the factory, and the destroyer— so beautiful? It is the fact that no frills have been added for the sake of beautifying them. Not a single pillar or sheet of steel has been added in the interest of beauty; not a single pillar or sheet of steel has been removed because it is not aesthetically pleasing. That which is needed, and only that, has been placed precisely where it is needed. With the superfluous removed, the unique shapes demanded by necessity emerge. These are shapes true to themselves, and they bear no resemblance to anything else. Where needed the pillars are ruthlessly warped, the sheets of steel are hammered unevenly into place, and the overhead rails jut out of nowhere. It is all done out of necessity, pure and simple. No preconceived notion was powerful enough to obstruct the creation of these things; the necessities behind them were unstoppable. And thus three utterly unique objects were created. The very same thing might be said about my work, literature. To add even a single line to a work of literature simply for the purpose of making it beautiful is unacceptable. Beauty is not born where one is consciously trying to create it. There are things that we absolutely must write and things that absolutely must be written. Our job is to compose only in accordance with those uncontrollable needs. It is all, from beginning to end, a matter of “necessity,” and that alone. When a work takes its unique shape in accordance with some “undeniably genuine substance,” beauty will emerge naturally. Any pillar erected outside the demands of substance and in the interests of aesthetics or poetics is just a flimsy piece of handicraft. This attitude is what the “spirit of prose” is all about; it is the ultimate goal of the novel.” In fact, this attitude is the one true path for all the arts.156 Sakaguchi Ango These are the relevant questions: Is what you write truly necessary? Is it a gem so precious that you cannot resist expressing it, even at risk to your very life? Finally, have you discarded all that is superfluous and expressed yourself in a genuinely suitable manner, in accordance with necessity and in your own unique manner? There’s a big difference between the beauty of a Jesse Owens running the hundred-yard dash and that of a second-rate sprinter: the former is the beauty of movement perfected in meeting the necessities for speed, the latter a clumsy inability to respond to these needs. In middle school we were convinced that sprinters for the hundred-yard dash should be thin, light, long-legged, and tall. The burly, heavy guys would be assigned to the throwing events, and they spent their time lugging around shot puts or spinning with the hammer on the edge of the track. This was the rule right up to the days of Paddock and Simpson, both of whom have visited Japan. Then came Metcalfe and Tolan, and the thinking changed.*? Now a muscular physique is the primary qualification for a sprinter and the slender guys are assigned the middle distances. I went out to Haneda Airport once and watched the E-16 fighter planes. The moment you think you’ve caught a glimpse of them down on the left side of the runway, they shoot out of view to the right at a mind-boggling speed. The Japanese, on the other hand, have always sacrificed speed to firepower with their fighter planes, and they don’t hold a candle to the E-16 in terms of acceleration. These E-16s are short and stubby, they look sturdy and heavy—just like the modern ideal for a hundred-yard sprinter. There is nothing graceful about the E- 16. Viewed from any angle, it is just plain ugly. But watch the way it accelerates, the way it shoots through the sky at incredible speeds. No stylish passenger plane can match that sort of beauty. Being pleasing to the eye does not in and of itself qualify something as truly beautiful. What really matters is substance. Beauty for beauty’s sake is not sincere; it is not, in the end, authentic. Such beauty is essentially empty, and has no truth capable of moving people. When all is said and done, we can just as well do without such items. I couldn’t care less if both Horyiji and Byddoin burned to the ground. If the need should arise, we’d do well to tear down HOryiiji and put in a parking lot. The glorious culture and traditions of our race would most certainly not decline because of it. True, the quiet sunsets over the Musashino plains are no more. What we have instead is the sun setting over the rooftops of housing tracts, the pre-fabs all built right on top of one another. The dust in the air is so thick it blocks the sunlight on even the clearest day, and the moonlight has been replaced by the glare of the neon. But our lives as we actually live them have their roots in this landscape, and as long as that is the case, how can it be anything but beautiful? Just look—planes fly overhead, iron warships glide through the seas, trains clatter by on elevated rails. Our day-to- day lives are healthy and as long as this is so, our culture is healthy, even if we do pride ourselves on replicating Western architecture with cheap, pre-fab knock-offs. Our traditions, too, are healthy. If the need arises, plow under the parks and turn them into vegetable plots. If inspired by a genuine need, thenA Personal View of Japanese Culture 157 those plots are an integral part of our everyday life and they are sure to be beautiful. As long as we live sincerely, apish imitation is nothing to be ashamed of. If it is an integral part of our everyday lives, apish imitation is as precious as creativity. ({ranslated and annotated by James Dorsey) Notes 1. Sakaguchi Ango published this essay in the magazine Gendai bungaku (Contemporary literature) in February 1942. This translation is based on the text included in Teihon Sakaguchi Ango zenshii, ed. Okuno Takeo (Tokyo: Tojusha, 1972), 7:122-141 2. Ango’s assault on the conventional icons of traditional Japanese culture is tied tightly to the model left by German architect Bruno Taut (1880-1938). Taut arrived in Japan in 1933, and his books praising traditional Japanese culture and architecture (including one whose title Ango appropriates for this essay) were embraced by a Japanese public craving foreign affirmations of the nation’s worth. Taut championed the stark, minimalist (sabi) vein of Japanese aesthetics, the pinnacle of which he found in Kyoto’s Katsura Detached Palace (Katsura Rikyd). Built in the seventeenth century, this compound includes the tokonoma alcoves, landscape gardens, and tea rooms of which Taut was so fond. ‘The individuals mentioned here by Ango are all classical artists championed by ‘aut, Though the roster includes metal workers and sculptors as well, most of the figures ‘are associated with the tradition of bunjinga, or “paintings by literati.” Distinguished by their understated, elegant simplicity, these paintings are often natural scenes depicted with no more than a few quick, seemingly casual brush strokes of black ink on a white seroll. Many include a few short lines of poetry, another of the literati talents. 3. Ango is here referring to tales of samurai valor such as the “forty-seven samurai,” or Chiishingura, After the wrongful death of their lord in 1701, these loyal retainers lulled the responsible party into a false sense of security by feigning lives of decadence and debauchery. They then stormed his residence and killed him in the bath, an act of vengeance for which they were ordered to take their own lives. The story has long been immensely popular, and told and retold in countless forms. 4, Founded in 1913 by Joseph Cotte, a lecturer at Tokyo Imperial University, ‘Athénée Francais is a private academy for the study of French language and literature. Professor Marcel Robert was a teacher there from 1929 to 1933. Ango studied French at the academy while a university student. 5, Ango’s defense of imitation is part of his polemic against Taut, who opens his book A Personal View of Japanese Culture with the following epigram: “Imitation is the death of Beauty.” Throughout his writing Taut offers approval of only those Japanese works of art faithful to indigenous traditions. 6. Kobori Enshii (1579-1647) did in fact serve in all of these capacities except that of ninja master. Based on the (ultimately mistaken) belief that Enshii was the architect and designer of the Katsura Rikyi compound, Bruno Taut lauded him as the finest and most versatile of Japan’s artists. 7. Umewaka Manzaburé (1868-1946) was a nationally recognized actor in the traditional noh theater.158 Sakaguchi Ango 8. Like the figures mentioned in the opening paragraph, these artists and schools from various periods in Japan’s history were all praised by Bruno Taut and considered representative of Japan’s unique cultural tradition. ‘9. The word “vulgarity” (zokuaku), along with the related “fraudulent” (inchiki) and “kitsch” (kamono), represents a key concept in this essay. Taut had used these words to denigrate cultural practices that deviated from Japan’s indigenous aesthetic tradition— anything imitative—and Ango rehabilitates them in his attempt to reorient the lines of cultural discourse. 10. Oki Kazuo, the son of a wealthy Kyoto family, had worked with Ango on a number of literary projects in Tokyo. 11, Maiko, literally “dancing girls,” are young, apprentice geisha. 12. Ozaki Shird (1898-1964) was a popular novelist and longtime friend of Ango. 13. Mizunoe Takiko and Tsusaka Orie were wildly popular male impersonators in the Shdchiku Girls Theater, an all-female revue not unlike today’s Takarazuka. An integral component of the popular culture of the time, such revues are the polar opposite of the traditional theater, knowledge of which is indispensable to a full-fledged geisha. 14, Saga and Mt. Atago, both located in northwestern Kyoto, are often associated in classical poetry with their elegant cherry blossoms and exquisite fall foliage. As such the setting contrasts sharply with the all-too-worldly, here-and-now concerns of Kurumazaki Shrine, discussed below. 15. Signs on the shrine grounds identify the deity as the scholar Kiyohara Yorinari (1122-1189), and the practice described here by Ango persists to this day. 16. Makino Shin'ichi (1896-1936) was the writer who discovered Ango and launched his literary career. 17. Mt. Kiyotaki and Mt. Ogurayama are both famous for their autumn leaves. Mt. Ogurayama has also long been a favorite spot for viewing the cherry blossoms, and it lends its name to a famous collection of Japanese poetry, the Ogura hyakunin isshu (One hundred poems by one hundred poets, ca. 1235). As in the section above, Ango is evoking sites celebrated in the classical arts prior to a jarring juxtaposition of them with a more humble, “vulgar” place. Above, it was the Kurumazaki Shrine; below, it is the Arashiyama Theatre. 18. “Nekohachi” was originally a generic label for Edo period (1600-1868) street performers who would imitate cats, dogs, roosters, and other animals. By Ango’s day the word referred to a broader range of itinerant entertainers. “Bydyiken” indicates this particular performer’s professional affiliation. The “satisfaction guaranteed” clause was actually all loophole: as there was no claim to be the original Nekohachi of Tokyo’s Edoya, the performer could not possibly be revealed as an imposter. 19. Ungetsu was perhaps the most famous naniwabushi (a type of wandering minstrel) of the 1930s. The humor here lies in the contrast between the rough-and-tumble persona of this Nekohachi and the elegance of the accoutrements befitting one of the nation’s top female performers. 20. Akechi Mitsuhide (15282-1583) was a feudal lord once trusted by Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), one of Japan’s great unifiers. He is best remembered for betraying Oda, killing him in an ambush at Honndji Temple in 1582, Omotokys is one of the eclectic “new religions” of modern Japan. Founded by Deguchi Nao in 1892, the sect grew rapidly under the leadership of her son, Deguchi Onisaburo (1871-1948). Onisaburd was twice arrested on suspicion of treason and his followers were persecuted under the wartime regime. 21. Ingen (1592-1673) was a Chinese monk who arrived in Japan in 1654, and designed Manpukuji Temple along Ming period architectural guidelines.A Personal View of Japanese Culture 159 22. The True Pure Land sect, Jod6 Shinshi (or, more simply, Shinshi), was founded by the monk Shinran (1173-1262). In keeping with his belief that Buddha’s grace forgives all imperfections, and in hopes of further spreading Buddhism among the laity, Shinran abolished the prohibition on marriage for monks. He himself married and raised a family. Mentioned below are the headquarters of two branches of the sect. The Western Honganji was built in 1591, and the Eastern Honganji in 1602. 23. Sugawara Michizane (845-903) was a famous writer and politician of the Heian period (794-1192). Ango’s walk took him the entire length of the city. 24. “Southern School paintings” (nanga) is another name for the “literati paintings” (bunjinga) described in footnote 2. 25. Rydanji is a Zen temple in the northwestern section of Kyoto and dates back to 1450. Its rock garden, consisting of fifteen rocks, large and small, placed on an intricately raked bed of white gravel, is the subject of myriad metaphysical interpretations. 26. The Shugakuin Detached Palace, most of which dates back to the late seventeenth century, is famous for its buildings done in the sukiya style, in which an apparently simple, rustic dwelling reveals intricate craftsmanship when carefully inspected. It is also known for gardens employing the technique of shakkei, “borrowed landscapes.” Trees and bushes are placed and shaped to direct the visitor’s eyes to mountains visible in the distance, thereby “borrowing” elements of the natural terrain beyond the garden’s walls. The Shugakuin was another of Bruno Taut’s favorite pieces of Japanese architecture. 27. In this passage Ango is alluding to the manner in which some Buddhist teachers (usually from the Zen tradition) would associate the Buddha with the most earthy objects imaginable in order to prevent followers from worshipping him rather than pursuing a similar enlightenment. The “shit stick” mentioned here (and used for wiping in lieu of precious paper) was one such object. See William R. LaFleur, Buddhism (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1988), 104. 28. Matsuo Bashé (1644-1694) is the poet who elevated the seventeen syllable haiku to the level of a fully accepted literary genre, These images from nature all appear in Basho’s poetry. Ango is thinking perhaps of the following famous haiku: tabibito no How it resembles kokoro nimoniyo The traveller’s heart: shii no hana The flowers of the acorn tree natukusa ya In the summer grasses tsuwamonodomo ga __The traces of the dreams yume no ato Of ancient warriors shizukasa ya In the quiet iwa ni shimiiru It penetrates the boulder: semi no koe The cry of the cicada 29. An Account of My Hut (Hjoki, 1212), by the hermit priest Kamo no Chémei (11552-1216), is a classic of Buddhist-inspired medieval literature. In this section Ango is alluding to Taut’s epithet for his favorite piece of Japanese architecture, “the eternal Katsura Riko.” 30. Iké no Taiga (1723-1776) was an eclectic artist who travelled widely from his base in Kyoto. He was iconoclastic, insisting, for example, on painting ugly subjects at a time when portraits of beauties were all the rage, The poet-monk RyOkan (1758-1831)160 Sakaguchi Ango grew up not far from Ango’s hometown in what is now Niigata Prefecture. He became a monk early in life, studying at various monasteries and travelling incessantly throughout Japan. He was known for living in complete compliance with his whims: he slept, drank saké, meditated, or played just as the spirit moved him. Ryokan was well into his sixties when he fell in love with a nun forty years his junior. She recorded many of the poems from his final years. 31. “Nothingness is the absolute value” (naki ni shikazaru) is a key concept in this section of the essay, where Ango is radically re-reading the legacy of certain premodern artists whose eccentricities have carned them the status of folk heroes. While their rejection of worldly goods and securities—their embrace of nothingness—is often interpreted as evidence of their erasure of the ego, Ango here recasts it as the ultimate expression of that same ego: so committed was their quest for perfection that they refused to settle for anything less. This left them resigned to having nothing. 32. The Toshogi Shrine, completed in 1646, enshrines Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542- 1616), the man who completed the unification of Japan and whose descendants reigned as shoguns for over 200 years. Incredibly ornate, even gaudy in its extensive use of gold leaf and intricate carvings, the ToshOgi represents the polar opposite of the stark, minimalist aesthetic seen in the tea room and the Shugakuin and Katsura Detached Palaces. Taut was influential in canonizing the minimalist sabi aesthetic as the core of Japan's indigenous arts and effacing the more ornamental veins, which he believed were but derivations of Chinese models, Taut often represented the latter with the Toshogi, dismissing it as mere “kitsch.” 33. Of humble origins, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598) rose to the position of general under Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582). After avenging Nobunaga’s death, Hideyoshi was largely successful in his unification of the country. He also attempted two invasions of the Korean peninsula. His love of grandeur is legendary: in addition to owning a golden tea house and, in 1587, providing for over a thousand guests in the world’s largest tea ceremony, Hideyoshi employed record numbers of workers to construct his various mammoth castle residences, gathering materials from the outer reaches of the realm. Hideyoshi had a colossal wall (14 miles long, 9 feet high, and 30 feet in width) built around the city of Kyoto, and commissioned enormous wall paintings, some measuring more than three hundred square feet. Many of these paintings were done by Hasegawa Tohaku (1539-1610), known for depicting monkeys in his works. Hideyoshi’s nickname, given to him by Nobunaga, was “monkey.” 34, The Sanjiisangend6, located in Kyoto, was built in 1164. It is known for its vast collection of Kannon statues, a main hall so long it accommodates an annual archery contest, and the remains of the Hideyoshi Wall (taikohei), discussed below. The original Chishakuin Temple, once located in modern Wakayama Prefecture, was burned to the ground in one of Hideyoshi’s military campaigns. Ironically, paintings Hideyoshi commissioned for another temple were later housed in the new Chishakuin, rebuilt in Kyoto. One of these enormous paintings covers four full sliding doors (fusuma), each approximately 5.5 x 4.5 feet. 35. The building now known as the Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Kinkakuji) was renovated in 1397 by the third Ashikaga shogun, Yoshimitsu (1358-1408), for use as a retreat. Its surface is entirely covered in gold leaf. Yoshimasa (1436-1490), the eighth Ashikaga shogun, completed his retreat, what was later to become the Temple of the Silver Pavilion (Ginkakuji), in 1489. It was only the outbreak of civil war that prevented him from covering it in silver leaf. Both buildings are in Kyoto. 36. Sen no Rikyi (1522-1591) is the man responsible for making the tea ceremony the austere, understated art form that it is today. He first served Oda Nobunaga and laterA Personal View of Japanese Culture 161 Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who eventually demanded that the tea master take his own life. Though the reasons for this remain a mystery, Ango is referring to the theory that it was Rikya’s refusal to surrender his daughter to Hideyoshi that prompted the death sentence. 37. The lines that open this paragraph seem to be Ango’s paraphrase of poems in a decadent, hedonistic vein. The Manydshii (The collection of ten-thousand leaves), compiled by Otomo Yakamochi, is the oldest collection of Japanese poetry, with the majority dating to between 600 and 759. In modern times the collection has been appreciated for the straightforwardness and sincerity (makoto) of its poems, a feature that gives way to increasing technical finesse in later collections. Anakreon was a Greek lyric poet born in the sixth century B.C.E. Though few of his poems have survived, he was known for life-affirming themes and a love of wine and romance. 38. “Higaki” is a medieval noh play written by the genre’s greatest playwright, Zeami Motokiyo (13637-14432). Like many noh plays it continues to be performed, virtually unchanged, even today. The archaic script, music, and chanting make noh plays largely inaccessible to an uninitiated modern audience. 39. The Japanese word, ie, refers to the physical house, the family, and the family lineage. This section, perhaps the most disjointed and repetitive of the essay, is a rejoinder to the sentimental, idealized image of the home being presented in contemporary fiction and criticism and invoked by wartime propaganda. 40. A nous la liberté, directed by Réne Clair (1898-1981) and starring Raymond Cordy and Henri Marchand, was produced in 1931. It is best known in the English- speaking world as the inspiration for Chaplin’s Modern Times. 41. Located in Nara Prefecture, the Horyiji is closely associated with the great statesman and champion of Buddhism Shotoku Taishi (574-622), and it holds many priceless Buddhist statues and paintings. Parts of the temple date back to the seventh century, making it Japan’s oldest extant temple, Bydddin, located in Uji, southeast of Kyoto, is considered one of the finest examples of late Heian Period (974-1192) architecture, and it has a grand collection of statues and paintings of its own. Both temples were favorites of Bruno Taut. 42. The phrase “spirit of prose” (sanbun no seishin) refers to a long-running literary debate concerning the relationship of art to life in the modern world. Ango seems to agree with the position of Hirotsu Kazuo (1891-1968), the critic most closely associated with the debate. Hirotsu insisted that while poetry, the visual arts, and music all have their place, literature in prose reigns supreme for its direct engagement with our modern social and political lives. 43, These sprinters were all U.S. Olympians. The legendary Jesse (James Cleveland) Owens won four gold medals (100 meters, long jump, 200 meters, 400-meter relay) in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Charley Paddock placed first in the 100 meter event in the 1920 Olympics. George Simpson, Ralph Metcalfe, and Eddie Tolan were also medal winners in the 1932 and/or 1936 games.