In October 1990 I was living in a small mountain town in Hyogo Prefecture.  I write about this town in the stories “Etsuko” and “Enlightenment”, whose links you can find at the top of this page.  I was a middle school teacher.  Come the season of red and gold, it occurred to me that in the spirit of cultural outreach I should find a pumpkin and carve a Jack-o-Lantern for and with the students.

My Japanese counterpart teachers (of English) liked the idea and a big pumpkin was found and brought into the school without much trouble.  A few days before Halloween, in a corner of one of the school hallways, I carved it in stages throughout the school day as students gathered around, amazed.  Several of them helped me scoop-out the insides of Jack’s skull.  Others handed me tools, acting as my nurses in the operating room.  Good times.  When, towards the end of the day, the job was done and the candle was lit and placed just so in Jack’s now-empty skull, I gave a signal and the lights were extinguished in the hall.  Gasps rippled up and down the flock of students nearby.  They had never seen such a thing.

While that wasn’t that long ago, it was long ago enough: Halloween — with its origins dating back well more than a millenium with the Celts of Northern France and the British Isles, brought to America in fits and starts during the 1700s, popularized by Irish immigrants during the latter half of the 19th Century, and supremely commercialized in the States after WWII — is now a Japanese holiday, in the strictly commercial, kitschy sense.

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"The Ghost of Koheiji". Woodblock print. Hokusai. 1830.

But ghosts and goblins and the creepy stories surrounding them have their own long tradition in Japan (as is the case in every culture).  Celebrated Edo Period wood block artist Hokusai (1760-1849) created a series of Kabuki-inspired “ghost story” prints around 1830, “Hyaku Monogatari”.  Above you see the print, “The Ghost of Koheiji”, based on an 1803 story-turned-kabuki-play by Santo Kyoden (poet, writer and woodblock artist).  Koheiji was betrayed and murdered by his wife.  So, naturally, he comes back from the dead to torment her and her lover by slipping under the mosquito netting around their bedding and joining and doling out horrific justice on them.   Below is famous, The Ghost of O-Iwa, a woman murdered by her husband who came back in phantasmic form to haunt and exactly bloody vengeance on her loathsome husband.

The Ghost of O-Iwa. Lantern writing's the Buddhist prayer, "Praise to Amida Buddha"

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Going back a good 1,000 years into early Japanese Buddhist tradition are the tormented “Hungry Ghosts”, or “gaki“.   Gaki are the spirits of those whose lives were consumed with avarice, greed and narcissism (today’s “social climbers”), while leaving their humanity on the back burner (or no burner at all) — you get the picture.  Seems in the afterlife such people will be assigned to wander through –  but never visible to  –  the living world, all disgusting with their distended bellies, wracked with hunger and able to eat only the bowel movements of those in the corporeal world.  They are all around us today, in fact.  Quite the disgusting ghost story and morality tale, all rolled into one and very reminiscent to me of Jesus’ parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, where in death the Rich Man begs Abraham, “‘Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish.’  But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things and Lazarus in like manner received like manner of evil things; but now he is comforted and you are in anguish. . . .’” (Luke 16:24, 25).

"Gaki", or Hungry Ghosts (detail from scroll). Late 12th Century.

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After decades of bouncing from job to job and occasionally living in poverty, Lafcadio Hearn arrived in Japan from the U.S. in 1890 and began teaching Middle School in Matsue  –  a town not far from mine — and fell in love with Japan.  Hearn became one of the first Western “Windows on Japan” and Japanese culture through his books and essays on every day life, Japan’s educational system (which is not too different a 100 years later) and . . . Ghost Stories he collected over his years living in Japan.  Note:  one of the world’s largest Hearn collections is located in the Rare Books section of the University of Alabama.

Just for this week (I’ll take it down on Nov. 1)  I’ve put together s Gallery of Creepy & Bizarre Photos from some of my Japan travels (Note:  taken down on November 1.  Check again next year).   Not all of them are “scary”.   Perhaps “Bizarre” is the better word.  Note that several of them are, well, “cute”.  But cute can be bizarre, cute can be creepy, cute can be disturbing.  Just recall that next-to-last scene in Brazil . . .  Happy Halloween Week.

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October 30 Update

Word up from Creepy Canada.  I met the blogmistress of that one in 1990 . . .  in Japan.

Harrison Dale (ed.)  – Great Ghost Stories (Herbert Jenkins, 1930)

Help! Cover Wanted!

Harrison Dale – The Art Of The Ghost Story

Sir Walter Scott – Wandering Willie’s Tale
Mrs. Gaskell – The Old Nurse’s Story
Lord Lytton – The Haunted And The Haunters
Fitz-James O’Brien – What Was It?
J. S. Le Fanu – Madam Crowl’s Ghost
Robert Louis Stephenson – Thrawn Janet
Trad – Teig O’Kane And The Corpse (Translated by Douglas Hyde)
Edith Wharton – The Lady’s Maid’s Bell
F. Marion Crawford – The Upper Berth
Theophile Gautier – the Mummy’s Foot
Gustavo Becquer – Maese Perez, The Organist
Pedro De Alarcon – The Tall Woman
Lafcadio Hearn – The Story Of Ming-Y
Lafcadio Hearn – The Cedar Closet
Anon – The Corpse And The Blood Drinker (Translated by George Soulie)

The Victoria Cross is the highest British military honour for gallantry in the face of the enemy. It can be bestowed on British or Commonwealth forces, and is not restricted to British nationals – anyone serving in the British or Commonwealth armed forces is eligible. It was created by Royal Warrant in 1856 and the first 62 VCs were awarded to veterans of the Crimean War in 1857, some by the Queen herself in London and others in the field.

Three Victoria Crosses were won on Japanese soil less than a decade later, on 6 September 1864. The trio includes the first Victoria Cross awarded to an American citizen.

The background to the Shimonoseki expedition is familiar – uninvited international incursions into a foreign land, weapons donated to tribal leaders and used against their donors, reckless use of military superiority resulting in massive civilian casualties, failure to appreciate alien political and cultural complexities. The aftermath, too, is sadly familiar – one of the Shimonoseki heroes was so scarred by his experiences that he took his own life just five years later. Yet whatever our opinion of cause and effect, the three men honoured deserve admiration for their heroism and dedication to duty and to their comrades. The story would make an astonishing shonen manga.

Shimonoseki is located in the extreme southwest of Japan’s main island of Honshu, near the island of Kyushu. Today it is a fishing port and industrial town, but it has a long, heroic and bloody history. Its famous Shinto shrine to the child-emperor Antoku, who died at the battle of Dan-no-oura in 1185, inspired Lafcadio Hearn’s ghost story Earless Hochi and the movie Kwaidan.

In 1864 the Shimonoseki gun batteries allowed the powerful Choshu clan to control shipping in its straits. Their armaments included five 200mm Dahlgren guns given to Japan by the USA. The aim of the British Shimonoseki expedition was to destroy the armaments the West had provided, and the antiquated local cannon, so that they could not be used to hinder Western shipping in Japanese waters.

Not all Japanese welcomed the Westerners who had flocked to their country in the wake of Commodore Perry’s gunships in 1853. American Captain David McDougal wrote to Secretary of the U.S.  Navy Gideon Wells in 1863, saying that Japan was “on the eve of revolution, the principal object of which is the expulsion of foreigners.”  A French attack had damaged the Shimonoseki batteries in 1863, but failed to silence them.

Attacks on individual foreigners were common. Also in 1863, the British Navy shelled the castle town of Kagoshima in reprisal for the murder of a British merchant. Much of the town was levelled in an attack widely considered to have been unnecessarily heavy-handed, although only 18 people died on both sides.

The shock-and-awe tactics used at Kagoshima worked. Japanese resentment of foreigners still spilled over into violence from time to time, but when two British officers were murdered in November 1865 the samurai responsible was arrested and executed by the Japanese authorities. Yet some of Queen Victoria’s subjects, generally patriotic to the point of jingoism, saw the level of response at Kagoshima as a stain on Britain’s honour. The British attack on the Shimonoseki batteries gave British public opinion of military action in Japan a welcome boost. The venture not only achieved its objective, but involved no civilian casualties.

It was, however, entirely unauthorised. The commander went ahead without Foreign Office approval and faced dishonourable discharge and ruin had his plan not been so successful. However, communications were so slow – his telegraph informing the FO of his decision had only reached Ceylon when the action took place – that by the time his superiors knew what was happening, the fighting was over.

All three VC recipients served on the British flagship, HMS Euryalus. The medals were awarded after her return home to England, at Southsea, near Portsmouth, on 22 September 1865. Only one more Victoria Cross has been won in Japan, in 1945.

American William Henry Harrison Seeley was born in Maine in 1840 and joined the Royal Navy’s China flagship HMS Imperieuse as an ordinary seaman in 1860. He transferred to Euryalus when she relieved Imperieuse, and went with her to Shimonoseki. The London Gazette recorded that his VC was awarded “For the intelligence and daring which, according to the testimony of Lieutenant Edwards, Commanding the Third Company, he exhibited in ascertaining the enemy’s position, and for continuing to retain his position in front, during the advance, after he had been wounded in the arm.”

Seeley lived into his seventies, dying in 1914 as the world plunged into another conflict. He is buried near his sister Bessie in Stoughton, Massachusetts. His Victoria Cross was still held by his granddaughter in 1943, but has not been seen since. As the first VC awarded to an American citizen, its military and historic importance is considerable.

Dorset native Thomas Pride was born in Wool in 1835, and joined the Navy in 1854. He served in China before his assignment to HMS Euryalus, and held the rank of Captain of the After Guard  at the time of the Shimonoseki expedition. He was one of two colour sergeants charged with guarding the midshipman who carried the Queen’s Colours into action in an attack on the Japanese stockade on 6 September 1864. Despite fierce enemy fire which put six balls through the Colours,  killed the other colour sergeant and seriously wounded Pride, he and Midshipman Boyes had to be ordered back by a superior officer.

Pride was honourably discharged from the Navy in 1866 and returned to his wife and family in Dorset. He died in 1883 and is buried in Poole. His Victoria Cross is proudly displayed in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich.

Cheltenham-born Midshipman Duncan Gordon Boyes was just seventeen at the time of the expedition. His citation in the London Gazette reads: “For the conspicuous gallantry, which, according to the testimony of Capt. Alexander CB, at that time Flag Captain to Vice-Admiral Sir Augustus Kuper KCB, Mr. Boyes displayed in the capture of the enemy’s stockade. He carried a Colour with the leading company, kept it in advance of all, in the face of the thickest fire, his colour-sergeants having fallen, one mortally, the other dangerously wounded, and he was only detained from proceeding yet further by the orders of his superior officer. The Colour he carried was six times pierced by musket balls.” Over half a century later in 1921,  Sir Ernest Satow, who had been Kuper’s interpreter at Shimonoseki,  wrote of “conduct very plucky in one so young” in his memoir A Diplomat in Japan.

Sadly, Boyes’ military service ended in 1867 after he was court-martialled and discharged over a relatively trivial offence. Unable to bear the disgrace, he suffered from bouts of depression and drank heavily. He went to New Zealand to make a fresh start on his brother’s sheep farm, but died after jumping from an upstairs window in January 1869, aged 22. His death certificate cites ‘delirium tremens’ as the cause of death. His grave is in the Servicemen’s Section of Anderson’s Bay Cemetery.

His Victoria Cross passed to his old school Cheltenham College, in 1978, and was sold in 1998, raising over £50,000 to fund a scholarship in his name. It is now in the hands of a private collector, though a replica can still be seen at the College.

A hundred and forty-five years after Shimonoseki, as British and American soldiers continue to display great courage in similar situations, and to suffer terrible physical and mental injuries, it’s time to reflect. We appear to have learned little from history, either about prudence and justice in foreign relations, or about how to look after our war heroes.

Ghost Stories kept the people cool back in Old Japan before electric fans and central air.

Cold sweats, icy fingers down the spine, and blood turned to ice in the veins by chilling stories of the supernatural were just the thing for hot summer nights.

Here I retell a story called “Mujina and the Faceless Ones.” This story is one of the collections of ghost stories in Lafcadio Hearn’s Kwaiden.

I goofed up and called the man in the story Mujina but in fact this is what Hearn called the ghoulish antagonists in this short story.

Mujina is actually the name for badgers who in Japanese folklore could play tricks like the one in this story. However, the type of yokai (Japanese monsters/ghosts/devils) is Noppera-bo – humans (if you can call them such) with no faces who delight in scaring people.

In Old Japan, the summertime was the time for ghost stories. Japanese summers tend to be hot and humid and ghost stories are a form of old fashion all natural air conditioning.

Given our problems with Global Warming and Global Recession, perhaps turning off our air conditioners and telling ghost stories might have to ease the burden of both.

Here I tell (as best as I can) the story of a curse kimono that caused death to its owners and is believed to be the source of one of the worst fires Tokyo suffered from in its early history.

The story can be found in Ghostly Japan by Lafcadio Hearn.

During this week falls the Japanese festival of Obon. (It’s hard to pin down precisely what day it is — different towns seem to celebrate it at slightly different times, but it’s right around now, anyway.) It’s similar in some ways to Hallowe’en. It’s the time when the spirits of the dead return to visit their earthly homes, so in folk belief, the walls between the worlds are thin, and spirits roam. People go to the cemeteries and clean up the family graves — pulling weeds, sweeping up fallen leaves (so it’s kind of like Memorial Day, too). Buddhists pay special attention to the family altars in their homes, buying special offerings of expensive food to place there for the ancestors. Niigata Festival is going on this week, which always makes for an exciting atmosphere — different events go on every night for several days, including parades with traditional dancers, the extravagant fireworks display (tonight), and the launching of floating lanterns on the Shinano River. The streets are crowded; restaurants are packed at suppertime; pedestrians flock here and there, many wearing kimonos. There is no one specific center for the festival: things happen here and there, though primary focal points are the main shopping streets, the Shinto shrines, and in front of the train station. Flutes are shrilling and drums are pounding. I like to find the time sometime during this week to make a loop through the city on my bicycle after dark — it’s an enchanted world of sorts, particularly when the fireworks are lighting up the sky. (Tonight looks as if it’ll be rainy, though.)

Another midsummer/Obon custom is the telling of ghost stories. I’ve heard that the reasoning behind the timing is so that people can feel cooler in the hottest season. Seriously! People tell creepy stories, and when they’re shivering with chills and goosebumps, they forget the oppressive heat for a few minutes.

This is a time to tip our hats to Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904). If you’ve read any traditional Japanese ghost stories, I’m quite sure that what you read came through Hearn’s pen. He was a westerner (born in the Greek Ionian Islands, grew up in Ireland, and moved to the U.S.A. as a young man) who moved to Japan, married a Japanese woman, and spent the end of his life here, collecting and translating and retelling the folklore of long-ago Japan. He became a nationalized citizen and took the name Koizumi Yakumo. It’s famously told that his wife helped him understand some of the stories and cultural concepts by miming or acting them out for him, and he wrote things down accordingly. Have you read “Houichi the Earless”? That’s from Hearn. “The Peony Lantern”? Hearn. “Rokuro-kubi”? Yep. Hearn single-handedly introduced old-time Japanese folklore to the western world. Perhaps his best-known book is Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1903). Kwaidan itself means “Weird Tales.” Five stars! Get it — read it — this is the season for it! I’m not responsible if it spooks you and you can’t sleep. But at least you should be able to turn off your air conditioner.

So what better time than this to tell you a ghost story? This relates to the previous post, too, in which I hinted at the possible existence of a ghost in my Illinois house . . . which perhaps is more than a case of wishful thinking.

First, here’s a very true story which may or may not be related to the ghost. This is the one paranormal experience which I can say for sure I’ve had: when I was in elementary school (I don’t remember how far along), one Saturday my mom and I were in the basement of our house looking for something — canning jars or something. [Isn't "canning jars" an oxymoron? If the process is "canning," why use jars?] My dad was at work at our bookstore. Suddenly my mom and I both heard, very distinctly, footsteps crossing the floor above our heads. This was no case of “old houses settling” or ambiguous creaking or popping. It was a clear, unmistakable procession of footfalls, tromp, tromp, tromp, tromp, tromp, across the main floor of the house. When we went upstairs, we found no one, and we were quite alone in the house. To this day I have no idea what caused that sound, but Mom and I both heard it and agreed that it could be nothing other than footsteps.

Since my Cousin Phil “went public” in his comment on the previous posting, I guess it’s fair game to relate his story here: one summer when he was visiting (again, we were somewhere in elementary school), he and I had gone to bed in my bedroom, and it was pitch black with the darkness one only gets in the country, far from the city lights, with branches rustling and the occasional pack of coyotes yelping. Just after we’d gone to bed and before we were asleep, Phil felt a hand cover his hand and press down. He was too terrified to open his eyes. After a moment, the hand withdrew. There’s no way it could have been a parent, because there was no light in the room to see by (a parent couldn’t have even seen us), and besides, you can hear parents coming a mile off. By the same reasoning, I don’t see how it could have been anyone human. It’s been so long ago that I don’t remember now whether Phil eventually poked me and we whispered about it that night, or whether he waited until the next morning to tell me. But I do know that even today we talk about the incident, and even as men in our forties, we both still sleep with our hands under the covers.

Was our ghost, perhaps, checking to see who this newcomer in our house was, and who was sleeping next to “her” boy? If so, why did none of my other friends who stayed over ever get their hands touched? Did the ghost recognize a family member? Could the touch have been a kind of greeting?

Now I’m going to turn you over to my dad. This is a little essay he wrote in spring 1991:

I have been giving considerable thought lately to why it is that two or more people can be in the same place, and one may see a spectre or U.F.O. WHILE THE OTHER SEES NOTHING. Is it possible that there may be a form of sight that is independent of the eye? I would like to present a personal example to illustrate the thought.

Back in the winter of 1985/86 our only child, our son, was away at college, so it was our custom to close off our bedroom on the colder, northwest corner of our house and sleep in his bedroom on the northeastern corner.

On the night in question, I had retired earlier than my wife. I could hear her in the bathroom, which separated the two bedrooms, bathing, preparing to retire also. As I lay there trying to get warm, I was lying on my right side, which enabled me to see the closet that filled the entire south wall of the bedroom. After a few minutes, I thought I heard my wife cross the small hallway outside of the bedroom and come into the room. I expected her to walk around to the north side of the bed and to get in. Instead, the figure I saw came directly toward me until it almost reached me and then turned to the right and seemingly entered the closet. I was jolted! After a few minutes, my wife actually did come to bed.

As I lay there perplexed, it suddenly came to me that I couldn’t have seen what I thought I had seen! It was my custom, on cold nights, to pull the covers up over my head until I got warm. Therefore, I couldn’t have seen the little old lady, dressed in brown, old-fashioned clothing, enter the closet. Not with my physical eyes.

If I saw her, it must have been through other means. I know I was not dreaming, as I was still too cold to be comfortable at the time.

A footnote to this story is that when my son was still in grade school, he reported seeing the same figure performing the same act. I might also add that the two bedrooms and bath were new additions to our house that were added on after we moved there. Where the little old spectre walks is outside of the original house. Who she is, or what her errand, could be anybody’s guess.

More on his reference to what I saw in a minute, but a few comments here are in order. One, you know how in Dragonfly, the main character is extremely relieved that her Uncle Henry hears the strange sounds from the basement, too? It was a big relief to me as a kid that my parents didn’t try to pretend the world was all well-lighted and quantifiable and sanitary.

Two, that room in Dad’s story, of course, is the same one where Phil felt the hand. Same bed (although in Phil’s incident, I was on the side of the bed toward the closet, and he was back on the “sheltered” side toward the toy shelves). Three, I remember a time many years later when Dad excitedly told me he’d felt a mysterious cold spot right at the door to my bedroom — just outside the room, as I recall. I was away at the time, either in college or in Japan, so I had no way of checking it out.

And four, here’s one more story about my dad which lends even further credence to his report. One summer when I was home, he went to bed (in the other bedroom — the one where he and Mom regularly slept), and Mom and I were still up in the kitchen, talking. A little while after he’d gone to bed, I had something (probably my dirty socks) that I wanted to throw into the laundry basket, which was in Mom and Dad’s room. So as not to disturb Dad, I went into his room without turning on the light (navigating by the light from the bathroom just outside). Very quietly I walked around his bed, put the socks into the basket, went back to the kitchen, and continued talking with my mom.

Well, a few minutes later, Dad came into the kitchen looking totally creeped out — his hair was almost standing on end, like in a cartoon — and he told us very seriously that he’d seen a vision of a young man come into the room and walk around the bed, then walk out again — a young man who looked like me! With embarrassment at having spooked him, I explained that it had been me, that I’d just been in there to put the socks in the basket. He was reluctant to believe me, since he knew I was in the kitchen talking, and he thought the figure he saw had been too quiet to be a real person. [Quite frequently I scare people without intending to because apparently I move quietly. Maybe it's my traces of native American blood -- I'm not sure -- but in both countries, friends of mine have shrieked at the way I glide up behind them, and they turn around and see me. . . . Sorry, sorry!]

But anyway, I tell that story here because Dad’s reactions and ways of recounting his experiences don’t change: unwittingly, I provided a “control” if this were an experiment — I saw how he reacted to an incident that I could explain, and it was just how he reacted to what I couldn’t . . . which seems to suggest that there was something he perceived in the “old lady” sighting that seemed as real to him as when, years later, he saw “the ghost of me.”

But anyway, I no longer very clearly remember the experience of mine that started it all. I would have been in 3rd or 4th grade. The mental picture I have is of lying on my side, facing the closet, and noticing the way the moon was shining brightly through the open window, with the curtains billowing softly in a draft. For just the fraction of an instant, I had the image of a misty, transparent old lady moving in profile beside the bed, between me and the closet — gliding toward the window and angling upward, as if traveling on the moonbeams. But I can’t say for sure now whether I was awake or asleep, or whether I saw an actual shape or some trick of moonlight and/or the relaxing mind.

Finally, many years later, after I’d been in Japan for a long time, I had one possible encounter with the “ghost” (?), although this time it was fully inside a dream. I was home on summer vacation, visiting my parents. I know I was asleep this time, dreaming in my old bed in my old room. It was the type of dream that you’re aware is a dream while you’re having it; those are kind of comforting, like seeing a movie.

In the dream, I was in the kitchen in the middle of the night, and the whole house was dark. I opened the refrigerator, and in the frosty glow from inside it, I met the little old lady. She came from the direction of the living room or kitchenette, from my left. This time, she didn’t look ghost-like at all: she wasn’t transparent, and she was walking with solid feet on the floor. She had dark hair and dark brown clothes. Her face was soft and kind, perhaps a little sad, and she seemed confused.

In the dream I wasn’t alarmed. Rather, I felt like I wanted to help her, so I asked, “Can I help you?  Are you looking for something?”

“My dresses,” she answered, looking forlornly around the kitchen. “I had a whole lot of old dresses here, and I can’t find a one of them.”

“Well, this is the kitchen,” I said. “We have some clothes in the closet. Let’s go look there.” I led the way to my parents’ bedroom [this is all a dream, remember] and opened the closet quietly, since my parents were asleep in bed. “Do any of these look familiar?” I whispered.

She shook her head sadly. “None of these are mine.”

And that was pretty much the end of the dream segment. So . . . you can put the pieces together however you like. Maybe we have a little old ghost who keeps track of the people who come and go, and who lived there in some other era — it’s an old house with a long history. During the year I lived alone there after my parents passed away, I saw no sign of her. One of my aunts asked me how I could possibly stand to stay there by myself after both my parents passed on (at different times) in that house. I just shrugged and said, “If there are ghosts here, they’re ghosts that love me.”

So that’s the news from Japan, during this Obon week.

I should also announce that I finished the rough draft of The Sacred Woods, and as of now I am 26% done with the line-edits! (The larger “chunk-editing” is done.) I’m pretty excited about this book.

Here’s a true story: on the very night I finished the first draft, just as I was writing some of the final words, we had an earthquake! It wasn’t a bad one, but it went on for about 30 seconds, gently shaking the building. (I don’t think there was any serious damage or loss of life this time, even in the mountain villages.) I hope that was a sign that this book will be monumental and Earth-shaking! That was Saturday, August 1, 2009. The book is at around 74,000 words.

Enjoy these wonderful August days and nights! (A student of mine recently asked what are “the dog days of August”? I explained with great relish.)

Title: From Impressionism to Anime: Japan as Fantasy and Fan Cult in the Mind of the West
Author: Susan Napier
Publication Year: 2007
Publisher: Palgrave
Pages: 243

Let me start off by listing the obvious flaws of this book. First of all, the cover. It’s terrible. Whose idiot idea was it to take a crappy photo of crappy cosplay, run it through the “Impressionism” filter in Photoshop, and then put it on the cover of a book? According to the back cover, this monstrosity is the work of “Scribe Inc.” Shame on you, Scribe Inc., and shame on you, Palgrave, for letting them get away with it! Second of all, in a book primarily concerned with visual culture, there are surprisingly few illustrations. To be precise, there are ten, and only four of them are in color. This I am going to blame on the author, whose 2005 work Anime from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle is also surprisingly under-illustrated (while other Palgrave scholarly publications have no shortage of well placed, high-quality greyscale images). Napier has no excuse for this, especially since the cosplay culture she details so lovingly is all about getting pictures of itself published. Third, Napier’s scope is very broad, but her treatment of her many topics is, perhaps unsurprisingly, shallow. I did not find this to be the case with Anime (despite many critical accusations to the contrary), but I’m disappointed with what I found to be the lack of sustained intellectual rigor in Impressionism.

Now that that’s out of the way, let me be something of a fangirl for a second and say that I love all of Napier’s work, Impressionism included. Napier always manages to choose the most fascinating things to write about, and she always does an excellent job of explaining why her chosen subject matter is interesting and important. Her analysis is apt, penetrating, and lucid, and her work does not suffer from any of the structural weakness found in a great deal of recent academic work – you always know what she’s trying to say, and her way of saying it is both logical and artistic. Although her theoretical background is rock solid (her bibliographies are a bit intimidating), she doesn’t blithely toss around big names and critical jargon. Also, you can tell that, even though she occasionally betrays a bit of light-hearted sarcasm, she has nothing but respect for the topics of her studies.

This attitude of respect is very important for a work like Impressionism, which deals with some strange and, depending on one’s perspective, almost contemptible subject matter. The book is divided into eight chapters (not including the Introduction and Conclusion). The first four chapters each take up a different aspect of the West’s fascination with Japan during the last two centuries. The first chapter covers turn-of-the-century Impressionists like Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh, who revolutionized the fine arts with a little inspiration from Japan, or at least the “Japan” of their imaginations. The second chapter goes into famous inter-war Japan enthusiasts such as Lafcadio Hearn, Arthur Waley, and Frank Lloyd Wright. The third chapter follows the antics of post-war American writers like Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Michel Crichton, and William Gibson, and the fourth chapter is all about how Western men perceive and interact with Japanese women in works like Madame Butterfly and Memoirs of a Geisha. The last four chapters, which I consider to be the true raison d’être of this book, deal with American anime fandom and all its various manifestations, from anime conventions to cosplay to slash fan fiction. Through all of this, Napier attempts to uncover the source of the West’s long fascination with Japan, all the while making astute references to the global political and economic climates during which this fascination has become manifest.

The first four chapters, while interesting, are, as I said earlier, somewhat shallow. Each topic that Napier covers in these chapters has been written about extensively by other scholars, a fact which she openly acknowledges. Her originality here lies in the fact that she documents what she sees as a trend, although she is cautious about saying that the various moments in the history of what I am going to call “Japan fandom” are directly related. The main point of interest for readers is the work that Napier has done on post-1980 American anime fandom, which is the culmination of many years of interviews and surveys. Mainly speaking through the voices of the fans she has contacted, Napier attempts to explain the appeal of contemporary Japanese popular culture to Americans, often in contrast to American popular culture. Although she offers no strong conclusion, the variety of insights Napier offers are invaluable.

My one real criticism of this study is that, although Napier hints at exposing the power relations underlying fan culture, she never really follows through. In other words, she is mainly concerned with the relation of fans to the world outside fandom (what she calls “the Muggle world”) and doesn’t delve into the hierarchies of power within the in-group of fandom itself. For example, I would have found an analysis of the term “weeaboo” (an American who loves anime so much that he or she wants to become Japanese) to be a pertinent addition to her discussion. Instead, Napier makes American anime fandom seem like something of a utopia; although she mentions the darker side of fandom by quoting scholars who bring up the concept of “fan pathology,” she never directly acknowledges that such a thing might actually exist in her own object of study.

Otherwise, I found From Impressionism to Anime to be a very satisfying read. It’s an excellent cultural study and could double as a perfect introduction to modern and contemporary Japanese history for someone considering pursuing the subject as an undergraduate – or simply as an intelligent, interested individual. Don’t let the cover fool you. This is actually a book you want to read!

Peter Haining  (ed.) – The Ancient Mystery Reader: Strange Stories of the Unknown & The Unsolved (Gollancz, 1975: Sphere 2 vols, 1978)

H. G. Wells – The Grisly Folk
Lafcadio Hearn – The Mound Builders
B. Traven – A New God Was Born
Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton – The Coming Race
Arthur Machen – The Shining Pyramid
Arthur Conan Doyle – The Terror of Blue John Gap
Sax Rohmer – The Valley of the Sorceress
Edgar Allan Poe – Ms. Found in a Bottle
Geoffrey Household – The Lost Continent
Clark Ashton Smith – An Offering to the Moon
A. Merritt – The Moon Pool
H. P. Lovecraft – The Call of Cthulhu
Leslie Charteris – The Convenient Monster
Gerald Kersh – Men Without Bones
William Sambrot – Creature of the Snows
Harry Harrison – The Secret of Stonehenge
Robert Bloch – The Bald-Headed Mirage
Theodore Sturgeon – The Cave of History

Thanks to Steve Goodwin

De l’art de savoir lancer des Yens

C’est par un froid hivernal, et une fine pluie désagréable, que nous fûmes accueillis sur le sol sacré d’Izumo, l’un des plus anciens et importants site shintoïste nippon, situé dans la région de Shimane. L’occasion pour moi de suivre quelque peu les traces de Lafcadio Hearn sur les légendes mystiques de l’archipel et cultiver un peu plus profondément mes connaissances d’un culte, qui avouons-le, fut jusqu’ici divinement ignoré.

Seulement, à ma grande habitude, j’aurai plutôt fait l’école buissonnière. Et pourtant, tout avait si bien commencé.

Sobaya

Nous avions fait halte peu avant le site, dans un sobaya renommé à l’ambiance chaleureuse, où nous avons pu nous repaitre de nouilles de sarrasin, tempura et autres tsukemono. Une halte délicieusement bienvenue au pays de la gastronomie.

Et bon appétit bien sûr !

Seulement, malgré ce réconfort stomacal de bon aloi, il faut dire que le vent coupant, les 4º extérieurs, ce crachin incessant auront eu la peau de notre envie d’en savoir plus sur les démons, divinités et autres charmes légendaires de la région.

Qui plus est, quand le site est désormais interdit en bonne partie au public, et enlaidi d’une gangue de béton métallique. Izumo semble nous dire que c’était mieux avant. Même le clinquant musée, cherchant à combler ce vide depuis peu, n’arrive qu’a nous faire visiter les lieux au pas de course, snobbant les trop nombreuses “replica” et autres jeux vidéos/attractions pour enfants dissipés.

Sale temps pour les visites…

D’ici à embourber mes mocassins Givenchy sur la plage d’Inasa toute proche, y louper mes photos, et la journée était finie comme on bâcle une visite au cimetière d’un lointain cousin…

Pour se consoler, on aura quand même mangé le plus mauvais ハンバーグ (hamberguu*) du genre, c’est dire du miracle inespéré de trouver enfin un restaurant dégueulasse au pays des étoiles michelin. Comme quoi, tout est possible dans l’ile de “Ge Ge Ge no Kitarou”… 

Ge Ge Ge !!!! (Et non pas ku ku ku ! Ostie de calice !)

Sinon encore un ‘nouvel’ exploit à mettre au compte de Clarence: pour terminer cette soirée, j’ai fait promettre à ma femme de prier pour les baleines, paisibles mammifères aquatiques s’il en est, en lui faisant regarder Moby Dick et lui ait fait jurer sur la bible qu’elle militerait désormais pour Greenpeace. Demain, elle me l’a promis, c’est Karaage* de baleine !

* Hamberguu: Spécialité de steak haché, dérivé du “hamburger” américain, et généralement servi avec une sauce demi-glace.

Karaage: Désigne une friture.

…

Moby Dick – Ugass Kutya!

Lafcadio Hearn é um personagem pouco conhecido na selva, exceto pelo genial livro Kwaidan. Li este livro há muitos anos, em castelhano – sem nunca ter frequetando um único curso de castelhano, o que mostra que a preguiça ainda é a grande desculpa de muita gente – e, este ano, comprei o filme. 

Mas de sua compra até esta semana se foram aí uns bons quatro meses. Não tenho este tempo livre…mas não é que assisti-lo agora é incrível? O curioso é que, por algum motivo bizarro, o nome original do filme, Kaidan, cuja pronúncia em português não sofre qualquer variação, ganhou esta tradução estranha e cuja pronúncia…não existe no japonês original.

Se vale a pena comprar o DVD? Conto ao leitor dois segredos: (a) adquiri (mas não chegaram ainda) alguns filmes mudos de Ozu, pré-Grande Guerra e (b) adquiri três filmes do pós -guerra (estes com legenda apenas em japonês, o que já ajuda), um deles, homônimo da popular música “Shanghai Gaeri no Riru (Lil)”. (update: ih…não tem legenda, vai na coragem e no capital humano mesmo).

Tenho cá comigo o projeto pessoal de fazer exibições de filmes antigos japoneses algum dia. Muita gente que adora cinema adoraria uma sessão de filmes, não? A vantagem é que eu poderia comentar alguns filmes ligando-os à história japonesa. Sim, a outra vantagem é que não sou “intelectual”, o que tornaria o evento algo muito mais agradável. ^_^

Last month, The Library of America, the stateside answer to the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, issued a 900-page glittering treasury of that American exotic of the Gilded Age, Lafcadio Hearn:

Lafcadio Hearn
American Writings

A singular figure in American letters, Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904) had a life as complex as his heritage. Born in the Ionian Islands to a Greek mother and an Irish father, he was abandoned by his parents, raised in boarding schools, and then sent penniless to the United States, where he began a career as a newspaper journalist. After earning a measure of literary fame in his adopted country, he moved permanently to Japan, where he became a leading interpreter of Japanese ways for a Western audience.

A translator of Flaubert and Gautier, Hearn was the master of a gaudy and sometimes self-consciously decadent literary style, but he was also a tough-minded and keenly observant reporter, with an eye for the offbeat, the sensual, and occasionally the gruesome. The writings of his American years collected in this Library of America volume—on subjects as wide ranging as comparative folklore, the history of musical instruments, French literary avant-gardes, and New Orleans voodoo—reveal an omnivorous curiosity and an always eclectic sensibility.

Some Chinese Ghosts (1887), a stylized retelling of ancient legends, foreshadows Hearn’s later fascination with Asian themes. The exquisitely crafted novels Chita (1889), about the devastation wrought by a Louisiana hurricane, and Youma (1890), about a slave rebellion in Martinique, epitomize his writing at its most luxuriantly romantic, alert to the interactions of diverse cultures and suffused with imagistic splendor. His extraordinary travel book Two Years in the French West Indies (1890), presented here with the many illustrations from its first edition, provides a richly impressionistic account of his long stay on Martinique and other Caribbean islands.

More than two dozen examples of Hearn’s journalism from the 1870s and 1880s are also included here, evoking vanished worlds with incomparable vividness: a raucous African-American nightclub on the Cincinnati waterfront; an execution; scenes of Mardi Gras and the New Orleans French Quarter; an uncharted village of Filipino fishermen in a remote Louisiana bayou. The volume is rounded out with a revealing selection of Hearn’s impassioned letters, many published here for the first time in unexpurgated form.

The mouth waters.

from

Kwaidan by           Lafcadio Hearn:

… not be able myself to plant the tree there: so I must beg that you will fulfill that vow for me… Good-bye, dear friends; and remember that I was happy to die for O-Tsuyu’s sake.”
After the funeral of O-Sode, a young cherry-tree,– the finest that could be found,– was planted in the garden of Saihoji by the parents of O-Tsuyu. The tree grew and flourished; and on the sixteenth day of the second month of the following year,– the anniversary of O-Sode’s death,– it blossomed in a wonderful way. So it continued to blossom for two hundred and fifty-four years,– always upon the sixteenth day of the second month; — and its flowers, pink and white, were like the nipples of a woman’s breasts, bedewed with milk. And the people called it Ubazakura, the …

London in Korea

Jack London

Jack London* is regarded as one of America’s most popular writers for his novels and short stories. Less known today is the fact that he was also a first-rate observer of East Asian politics, societies, and peoples. Working as a journalist for several newspapers and magazines, he filed numerous articles and essays covering the Russo-Japanese war and even foresaw the rise of Japan and China as world powers.

(* member of the Socialist Labor Party of America under the leadership of marxist sectarian Daniel De Leon)

Jack London on Japan’s Rise

London admired the Japanese not only for their unique ability to modernize so quickly, but also for what he forecasted as their potential to awaken Asia from its sleep and to lead it to its renaissance vis-à-vis the West. But it was China, once awakened by the Japanese, which he predicted would thrust small Japan aside and itself rise as the world’s preeminent superpower by 1976.

Jack London on Westem-centrism

Americans, London notes, were infatuated and often surprised by Japan because of their total ignorance of Japanese history and civilization. They had created an image of the Japanese based on their own culture and then expected Japanese to behave in a manner predictable to Americans. The reality, however, was that “we know nothing (and less than nothing in so far as we think we know something) of the Japanese. It is a weakness of man to believe that all the rest of mankind is moulded in his own image, and it is a weakness of the white race to believe that tje Japanese think as we think, are moved to action as we are moved and have points of view similar to our own”.

Jack London on the collective nature of Japanese.

Londond commented frequently on the collective nature of Japanese culture. While he admired and respected many individual Japanese, especially certain Japanese generals who showed great courage and fighting skill, he was amazed at the Japanese ability to coalesce and at the high degree of patriotism he found.

Jack London Visions of Future

London predicted that the Chinese Revolution and future ascendancy would be triggered by a Japanese invasion of China. Looking to the future in 1905, London conjectured that Japan would never be satisfied with control over Korea.

London’s predictions for the future of East Asia are found in this 1906 short story, “The Unparalleled Invasion“. London presents an Orwellian drama where he tells of the rise of China in 1976 as a threat to world peace and how the Western powers combated this threat through the use of biological warfare.

->Jack London Reporting from Tokyo and Manchuria: The Forgotten Role of an Influential Observer of Early Modern Asia (PDF), Daniel A. Métraux, Asia Pacific Perspectives, Volume VIII, Number 1, June 2008

This week, in the classroom, it has been all about Yōkai, goblins, demons and other things that go bump in the night.  The kids brought in posters and stories to share. Those who actually did their assignments were in high spirits. Me too.  I’ve been looking forward to this for awhile as each student had signed up to research one yokai each.  I also let them do it in English this time thinking that it would encourage the ones who’ve been holding back.  In the end, just over half the class actually came through.  The rest of them passed on it, but this has been their behavior all year. I wasn’t the only one who was disappointed.  We persevered though, and there were some enthusiastic storytellers. Tomorrow, I’m showing Lafcadio Hearn’s Kwaidan to continue with the ghostly theme.

In my other life, I’ve continued to prep for market and am nearly done with those preparations, at least as far as I can take it this year.  Tomorrow I set up.

En cuanto empiezas a leer sobre cosas de Japón, no tardas mucho en dar con la figura de Lafcadio Hearn, un escritor trotamundos que acabó estableciéndose en Japón, casándose y adoptando la nacionalidad japonesa y con ella el nombre de Yakumo Koizumi.

Yo llegué a su historia tras ver la película “Kwaidan” de Masaki Kobayashi, que reunía en forma de película algunos de los cuentos sobre fantasmas y espectros que recopiló como parte de su obra literaria.

Pues antes de irme a Japón este año buscando una guia de viaje, me encontré por pura casualidad con dos libros de Lafcadio Hearn: “Kwaidan”  “En el Japón espectral”, que reunen una colección de relatos fantásticos mas algunos ensayos sobre temas relacionados con su vivencia diaria en Japón.

Yo la parte que mas disfruté fue la de los relatos, los ensayos aunque interesantes a veces son algo enrevesados para mi revolucionado cerebro, aunque el de las huellas de Buda me gustó, sobre todo porque cuando las encontré en un templo de Miyajima supe de que se trataba.

En fin, que se lo recomiendo a los que les interese la cultura japonesa, el mundo de los fantasmas japoneses es parte fundamental de la literatura y la tradición japonesa.

I was in Kyushu, Japan from July 22nd to August 1st.  For the first part of the trip, I was in the town of Kumamoto visiting a Canadian friend of mine, his Japanese wife and their (not quite) two year old boy whom I’d only ever met on a webcam.
７月２２日から８月一日まで九州に行ってきました。まず、熊本市に住んでいるの友達を訪問しました。彼はカナダ人ですけど奥さんが日本人です。息子はさきに２歳になります。この旅行までにウェブカメだけ会えました。

Since my friends were at work during the day, I had plenty of time on my hands.  This was my third trip to Kumamoto so I pretty much knew where I wanted to go.  The only problem being, it was hot the entire trip.  I don’t think it ever dipped below 33°C and went up to a high of 39°C on one day.  The only good thing is that it isn’t as humid in Japan as it is in Hong Kong so the heat didn’t feel quite so bad.
熊本市へ３回に行ってきました。そして、面白い事と面白くない事を分かりました。いい市と思います。問題一つだけでした。天気は暑かったです。最高気温は３９°Cでした。暑い！でも、日本より香港のほうが蒸し暑いです。それはいいですよ。

For whatever reason, Kumamoto was favoured by literary folk.  The two most famous being Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo to the Japanese) and Natsume Souseki (the guy on the 1000 yen note).  So, I went and checked out both of their former residences.  Sorry to say I wasn’t overcome with the need to spout prose.
竜かどうか分からない。有名な著者は熊本市好きでした。小泉八雲と夏目漱石は熊本市に住んでいました。

Food is a huge part of Japanese culture.  We went for yakiniku (bbq done at your table) and shabu shabu (hotpot style of cooking) but Kyushu is famous for ramen.  The best place to go in Kumamoto is Kokutei (sorry, the website is only in Japanese but they have pretty pictures).  Chashu ramen (pork meat in pork broth) with a cold beer and salted onigiri (rice ball).  That’s heaven.  They’ve been in business since 1925 and are not to be missed but make sure you go early or expect to stand in line.
友達とたくさん食べ物を食べた。焼き肉とシャブシャブを食べた。もちろん、九州ラーメンは有名ですね。熊本市中の一番おいしいラーメンは黒亭にあります。大正１４年（１９２５）に設立されました。長いですね。いつもチャシューメンと塩おにぎりと冷たいビールを注文します。それはうまいですよ。毎日版ご飯時間に長蛇の列があるので早く行ったほうがいいでしょう。

Read this post in English : 日本語

[fr] Malgré les dénégations et la supplique d’un prisonnier condamné, rappelant au seigneur qui avait ordonné son exécution que son esprit courroucé se vengerait après sa mort, l’exécution eut lieu comme prévu et sa tête fut tranchée. La suite est étrange…
Inspirée d’une histoire de fantôme japonais, Cœur de pierre est un conte évoqué en images (Flash) par l’artiste Catherine Ginapé (animation), adaptation et musique de Béhel.
Pour le découvrir : suivre le lien Cœur de pierre sur le site holott.org, où l’on trouvera aussi plusieurs autres réalisations d’après des contes traditionnels. (lien autorisé par l’artiste)

La vignette est empruntée au site abdel-inn.com, avec les remerciements de FuroshikiBlog.

L’inspiration du conte est l’une des histoires du recueil publié par l’écrivain Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) sous le titre Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, publié en 1904 à Boston. La première édition en français date de 1910, ″Kvaidan″, ou Histoires et études de choses étranges…, Paris, 1910, ” Collection d’auteurs étrangers “, dans la traduction de Marc Logé. Plusieurs éditions depuis cette date, dont une en 1998 (Mercure de France).

En écho et en contrepoint, cette série d’images de bouddhas gravées sur pierre (sekibutu), après une recherche sur les termes 石の心 : traduction littérale de “coeur de pierre”, qui se révèle être sans lien avec le titre original du conte. Pour la surprise du rapprochement involontaire entre les termes (traduction automatique oblige) et la sérénité des figures. (c) Photographies de 和泉　賢治　( Izumi . Kenji ), sur le site kitaalps.com.

[en]
Follow this link Cœur de pierre (Stoneheart) to see an animated tale by French artist Catherine Ginapé, music by Béhel. Inspiration is from Lafcadio Hearn’s Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, first published in Boston, 1904 : Diplomacy.

[ja]
石の心 から 怪談 (小泉八雲) – かけひき（Diplomacy） – 小泉 八雲（こいずみ やくも、 1850年6月27日 – 1904年9月26日）
——
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japan cipango kwaidan sekibutu

Upon entering into a Japanese conversation with a native-Japanese speaker, one may find oneself at a crossroads of misunderstanding, incomprehensibility, extreme conversational nuance and tremendously polite speech. That this communicative mountain shall serve to block one’s attempts at deciphering the conversation or inspire one to imitate one’s Japanese conversant, depend on one’s capacities for minding and comprehending not just the Japanese language as such, but the character of what a conversation could be and the ways in which Japanese verbal communication may differ from one’s own mother tongue. Investigating this, architect/photographer/writer/curator and world traveler, Bernard Rudofsky, in his piece On Language, from his book “The Kimono Mind: An Informal Guide to Japan and the Japanese,” leads us through a sketch of the art of spoken Japanese with firsthand observations, linguistic insights, historical quotations and with examples from Japanese thinkers and writers.

A thesis that Rudofsky will continue to flesh out through the remainder of this piece is: “Only unimaginative people conceive of language as a means of communication (Rudofsky 153).” From this, Rudofsky begins by analyzing the the Japanese language from viewing a direct translation of simple Japanese into English. Rudofsky points out the commonly used phrase, “Nihongo de kore ha nan tte iiudesuka?” which translates literally into English as “Japan-language in, this as-for, what that say (Rudofsky 153)?”　He writes that, “By merely skimming the English columns in the pages of a Japanese phrase book, once perceives at once the mock-profundity of every utterance (Rudofsky 153).” That is, by looking at the way the language unfolds, we get a glimpse into the, what appears to Rudofsky, the poetic nature of the language (“mock profundity”) and to see its difference and grammatical uniqueness when directly contrasted with the English language. That is, not only is the grammatical flow of Japanese in sharp contrast to English, the way the language calls for one’s minding of the world, is also very different.

Rudofsky continues by setting the backdrop of the origins of the Japanese language by using the Biblical story of the Curse of Babylon. He writes, “Yet, with the greatest of misfortunes often being a blessing in disguise, the shutdown of the enterprise led to the Babylonian separatist movement, which in turn brought about the discovery and subsequent colonization of the Japanese islands by a splinter group (Rudofsky 154).” The elucidation of this particular story in relation to the Japanese comes, as Rudofsky notes, from the German physicist Engelbertus Kaempfer. He goes on the elucidate the Babylonian movement in Kaempfer’s terms as opposed to the more mystical and mythical creation myths as presented by Japanese writers of old. In support of the Babylonian Curse story, Rudofsky notes, in addition to it being a more sound creation story, “It also would help to account for some of their peculiarities: their aloofness from all non-Japanese, their legendary endurance of incommodities, their addiction to pilgrimages and travel in general, most of all, their convoluted language (Rudofsky 155).”
For Rudofsky, who in the larger context of his life, I assume possessed some ability to speak Japanese, the Japanese language was particularly cursed by the Tower of Babel incident, although even so, “It is their secret strength, but it also could become their undoing (Rudofsky 155).” He goes on to write about the Japanophile-writer Lafcadio Hearn, who even though he made Japan his permanent home, married and had children, refused to learn the Japanese language, because of the difficulty of being able to not only speak Japanese, but in the seeming impossibility to think like a Japanese person. Holding this position as well, Rudofsky is hesitant to compare Japanese to romance languages like French or Italian. For Rudofsky, “It simply is not a tourist’s dish. Moreover, anybody who has acquired by some gruesome brain manipulation the faculty to speak Japanese, realizes how futile were his efforts. His difficulty in communicating with the Japanese has merely grown in depth (Rudofsky 157).”

The task of having to “think Japanese,” Rudofsky continues, presents a challenge to Western peoples in that the Japanese language relies more on strict forms of etiquette and layers of obfuscation than on lucidity and intelligibility. But, he writes, “Paradoxically, such inability to express themselves in articulate speech gives the Japanese a sense of superiority similar to that which the women of Old China derived from their bound feet (Rudofsky 157).” That is to say, it is their distinct curse of linguistic obscurity that opens up the singularity of the Japanese language. As the caption from a picture from a “Kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese writing) dictionary” featured says, “There are upwards of 80,000 ideograms. A knowledge of 3,000 is necessary to read a newspaper. Even the simplest of them permit several interpretations (Rudofsky 157).” Again, Rudofsky is returning to this idea that the obscurity Japanese language is the secret strength of the Japanese.

As to the obscurity of the language, Rudofsky presents three examples, the first being Japanese poetry and its importance in the realm of everyday Japanese life. As Rudofsky points out, “Pronouncements that decide the lives of millions of people are sometimes couched in poetic double-talk (Rudofsky 158).” Rudofsky clarifies this by giving the example of Emperor Hirohito, who, in trying to establish a peaceful resolution before engaging in the Pacific War, recited a poem, which unfortunately wasn’t clear enough. Furthermore, Rudofsky writes, “In their endeavors to save face, the Japanese are able to climb heights of detachment ordinarily reserved for stage characters only (Rudofsky 159).” He backs this up by giving the example of the poetic recitation delivered by the builder of the Castle of Tokyo to his assassin at the moment of death.

Continuing on his analysis of the language comes the perception that the Japanese may hold for the non-Japanese speaker and the role of the translator, Rudofsky writes, “They cleansed their language of its functional impurities and elevated it to an abstract art. They have no love for clumsy foreigners who pester them for explanations and elucidations; who dig for a meaning until it stands revealed. Hence the translator is made the whipping boy for all linguistic ills (Rudofsky 159).” For Rudofsky, the Japanese revel in verbal expression and, given the chance, are apt to spin out of control with their verbal incantations increasing the difficulty of extracting a “correct” translation into another language. In his words, “Being wordy people, they are apt to let themselves get carried away by their verbal flood and to launch into fabrications of their own. So flagrant is their license　sometimes that even a person innocent of any knowledge of Japanese discovers the deceit (Rudofsky 159-160).” The example is given of Commodore Perry who, despite not being able to understand Japanese, greatly mistrusted his Japanese translator and, upon having told him so, was surprised to see his delight. For, “Accusations of this sort do not ruffle the composure of a Japanese. He may reply that his thoughts are too subtle for translation; that his rendering them into an uncongenial idiom is an approximation at best. No harm is done, he thinks, if thoughts are left unsaid, or words go untranslated (Rudofsky 160).”

For Rudofsky, the obscurity of the Japanese language blossoms in the realm of politeness instead of, like those of us in the English-speaking world, intelligence. That is, it is more important for one to be able to speak properly, following the codes of etiquette, than it is for one to speak clearly and directly. He writes, “In sum, a Japanese interpreter seems to be under a compulsion to vaporize a thought and to make the most gripping ideas sound innocuous (Rudofsky 160).” In this way, Rudofsky is returning to the aforementioned points regarding the difficulty in being able to think in a Japanese way and the struggles which one who undertakes the Japanese language will struggle with, perhaps what Rudofsky himself, as a foreigner who lived in Japan, struggled with.

As to some positive points regarding the obscurity of the language, Rudofsky says, “It sustains an even temperature of colloquy, discourages confidences, and preserves an all-important standoffishness. The supreme medium of communication is, not surprisingly, silence – a rather sullen silence, indistinguishable from boredom (Rudofsky 160).” From this semblance of silence, Rudofsky mentions the impressive nature that the Japanese language comes to have in the eyes of foreigners, that is, the image of a zen master contemplating a koan in temple. However, as Rudofsky almost humorously points out, “Usually silence means that their train of thought has jumped the track (Rudofsky 161).”

Also, Rudofsky discusses the tendency of the Japanese speaker to verbally overdue conversations that could be relegated to short responses. He gives the example of how one must be careful not to be too direct even in such simple requests as a hotel wake-up call or asking for a bill at a restaurant. His method of combating the futility of direct speech is this: “The complex message has to be chopped up into tiny earfuls, patted and moistened with generous amounts of spittle and kneaded into acoustic pellets to be dispatched one by one with perfect timing (Rudofsky 161).” In this way, Rudofsky again points to the poetic and indirect nature of the Japanese language as it is intertwined with the etiquette of politeness. Finally, Rudofsky notes to the foreigner approaching the Japanese language, “Keep in mind that they are unfamiliar with our athletic regime of hardening the eardrums, snatching the thread of discourse from others, drowning words with laughter and expletives, talking fast while trying to follow the conversation of others (Rudofsky 161).” What Rudofsky provides here is a strategic approach to the language, hints from someone who has gained an inside view, so to speak.
In closing, Rudofsky describes a huge Japanese dinner party in which many speeches were delivered and received applause and attentiveness despite the fact that the speakers’ volume was only audible to those in the first two rows. He writes, “The Japanese have a faculty of enjoying speech regardless of content (Rudofsky 162).” That is, it didn’t matter that the speeches could not be heard, for the Japanese, the murmur of the speech was enough to enjoy and, furthermore, it would have been in bad form to have requested the speaker to raise his or her voice. Rudofsky continues by giving the example of a foreign lecturer speaking about Henri Bergson (in French) and that by the end of the speech the only members remaining in the audience were Japanese, despite the fact that the Japanese in attendance could not speak or understand the French language. Rudofsky: “This makes the Japanese the world’s best listeners (Rudofsky 162).”

“To the Japanese, the thought that a speaker, celebrated or not, casual or formal, should attach importance to being understood reveals a small mind. Incomprehension on the highest level has its own merits, even when they are not discernible to us (Rudofsky 163).” It is this recognition of incomprehension that leads Rudofsky to respect the Japanese language, despite his seeming frustration with it. He closes On Language with a message to foreigners coming to Japan: “Cultural differences or no cultural differences, if we want to get along with the rest of the world, we cannot afford to be dogmatic (Rudofsky 163).”

What this end points to is, despite all of the barriers posed by the Japanese language when approached by an English speaker, one should learn to capacitate oneself to the unique, to the acceptance of other ways of conversing and, hence, being. It seems to me that in Rudofsky’s probing of the Japanese language, he has come to appreciate the differences and has come to lend his ear and heart to the difficulty of the Japanese language.

In my reading of this piece, I have come to see Rudofsky, himself, as a pure Japanese enthusiast and from re-reading this piece, I would like to offer a brief summary. By engaging and reopening the ways that other travelers have approached and been befuddled by the Japanese language, Rudofsky has drawn out several points for those with interest in learning Japanese or for those who wish to gain some insight into the angle of the Japanese character. For him, Japanese, as such, is a language much different from English. The structure is completely different, which proves the first point of difficulty, and, moreover and more importantly, the way of communicating while using this language demands a wholly new way of understanding and approaching a conversation. Moreover, it seems that Rudofsky is preparing the reader for a chance encounter with a Japanese person and, at the same time, educating the reader in how to approach the conversational situation so as to put the Japanese speaker at ease. At the same time, this text also calls for the positive recognition and appreciation of the Japanese way of communicating. That is, Rudofsky is asking the reader to allow him or herself to accept this way of communicating as something uniquely Japanese and, upon encounter with Japan, to keep these points in mind and, instead of trying to “dogmatically” adjust the flow of conversation to fit the foreigner’s way of being, to be willing to be open to the Japanese way of politeness and etiquette. Furthermore, looking at this piece in relation to “The Kimono Mind: An Informal Guide to Japan and the Japanese” as a whole, I see this as being a plea, a plea to those who would be quick to dismiss the Japanese language as a hodgepodge of other Asiatic languages and instead to see the Japanese as a singular way of expression and a challenging, yet rewarding cultural experience.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rudofsky, Bernard. The Kimono Mind: An Informal Guide to Japan and the Japanese. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1965.

It is not an easy thing to describe one’s first impression of New Orleans; for a while it actually resembles no other city upon the face of the earth, yet it recalls vague memories of a hundred cities. It owns suggestions of towns in Italy, and in Spain, of cities in England and in Germany, of seaports in the Mediterranean, and of seaports in the tropics… Whencesoever the traveler may have come, he may find in the Crescent City some memory of his home – some recollection of his Fatherland – some resemblance of something he loves…

Lafcadio Hearn – At the Gate of the Tropics, New Orleans, November 19, 1877

One thing that strikes the most about the end of the year holidays in New Orleans, is the low key way in which people celebrate the holidays with a spirit that permeates into a desire to renew the vows of love and affection with friends and family.

To those who share a common interest in tango, the weeks preceding and following the turn of another year, bring the excitement of celebrating another banner year for the community, and the prospects of even better times to come.

As the year 2001 was coming to an end, Fortuna came on knocking at the door with the news that a building uptown might fulfill a long held dream about finding a place where to teach and dance tango.

What Fortuna did not mention is that one month later, we would be living, teaching and dancing under one roof. Our House of Tango became a reality, and soon a flurry of activities began to take place.

First it was an intimate gathering with those who had welcomed us, encouraged us, and pointed us in the right direction when we first decided to make this city our home. Then, our first milonga, followed by an end of the year dinner and dance billed as Una Noche Garufa and featuring dishes and wines under the theme Winter in Tuscany.

So far, visitors from many cities in the US and Europe have made their way to New Orleans, and had the chance to enjoy tango dancing with our local community. Next, our first workshop, and the beginning of a series of weekly group classes and regular Saturday milongas. But before, a visual chronicle of our second year end celebration named Una noche de garufa.

Valorie Hart, the hostess

Alberto, Bruce, Linda, Gwen

Table setting

Centerpiece

Cocktails in the parlor

Dining in the salon

Eddie and Annette from Berlin

Bruce and Linda

Adrian and Mary

Denise and Yvette

Eddie and Annette

Aaron and Stephanie

Dining in the salon

Appetizers in the hallway