Fujiland

THE MYSTERY OF THE GROWING NECK BUDDHA

2025-02-10T07:21:00.000-08:00

Back in 1991, the head of the Manji–no–Sekibutsu (Stone Buddha of Manji), a 3.3–meter tall statue in Japan's mountainous Nagano Prefecture, was found lying alongside its body. The neck of the 63-centimeter-long head was them reinserted back into the body, a crudely carved outcrop of natural rock.

Fast forward to 2008. A local photographer, who annually snapped the statue, noticed that the neck seemed to be growing. After the local media picked up on this phenomenon, the Buddhist statue, which is situated near a Shinto shrine on the outskirts of the town of Suwa, became a popular site of pilgrimage.

But fears that the head, which was now protruding by around 7cm, would once again tumble off and possibly injure some unwitting pilgrim or tourist led the health-and-safety lobby to demand repairs. This led to the mystery finally being solved. Sadly, the reason was not as magical or spiritual as one would hope.

From deposits found in the neck socket it was concluded that the neck had become loose, allowing water in, which in the winter had frozen into ice and expanded. This had gradually pushed up the neck and created more space for leaves, twigs, and dust – as well as the occasional coin from pilgrims – to get into the socket, preventing the head returning to its original position. Over several winters, this process had led to the head edging up higher and higher. Indeed, it was exactly the same process that had led to the statue decapitating itself in 1991.

With this mystery cleared up, the 17th-century statue lost much of its mystique, but luckily an earlier legend remains.

This states that a few hundred years ago the locals wanted to make a torii (a ceremonial gateway) for the local Shinto shrine. In need of stone for this project, a stonemason decided to carve the outcrop that formed the body of Manji–no–Sekibutsu. After excavating a quantity of stone from its back, however, he was horrified to see blood issuing from the stone and immediately stopped his work. Later that night, it is reported, he had a dream in which Buddha revealed to him an alternative source of good stone in nearby Mount Uehara, thus preserving the peace between the two religions of Buddhism and Shinto.

TOKYO BY SOUNDTRUCK: UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH JAPAN'S "FAR-RIGHT"

2025-02-10T06:59:00.000-08:00

Introduction: This is an old Tokyo Journal article from the 1990s by Michael McDongah. As it is no longer available anywhere but well worth reading, we are taking the liberty of republishing it here at Fujiland.

______________________

A rather large, meaty-headed man with karate-damaged knuckles is drawing his finger across a calendar hanging on the wall of Gang H.Q. Koike-san, my burly guide, stylishly decked out in paramilitary fatigues and army boots, kindly explains the significance of the dates circled in red ink.

The year kicks off with the appearance of the Imperial family at the Palace on January 2. Commoners begin congregating at around 8:30 am. Each year, the police allow a different patriotic group, i.e. right-wing gang, to lead the parade through the main gates of the Palace, escorted by Imperial Household staff in morning coats. Before entering everybody is searched and handed a plastic Japanese flag to wave. Gang members strategically place themselves along the front of the crowds and raise banners, hands and voices in a banzai chant as the emperor appears. One gangster informs me it is disrespectful to take photographs of the emperor. By way of compensation, he lets me take a picture of the back of his head, tattooed with the number 4 and Death, written in English. An old man passes us carrying a picture, bordered in black, of a young soldier, perhaps his brother. The crowd is riddled with police to prevent any unseemly incident. In 1969, Okuzaki Kenzo, an angry veteran of the battlefields of New Guinea, launched a slingshot of pachinko balls at Emperor Hirohito. These days the emperor appears behind bullet-proof glass.

Uyoku — right-wing extremists — are obsessive about dates and anniversaries. All provide a good excuse to dress up for the day and head out in a convoy of sound trucks to exhort unfortunate passers-by to greater feats of Yamato spirit, the essence of Japaneseness. The senden ka, literally “propaganda vehicles,” come in a variety of colours, favourites being black with gold kanji or military olive green, most have speakers mounted on the roof, grilles on the windows, and a few add a battering ram on the front, Mad Max style.

Come February 11, National Foundation Day, the trademark sound trucks fan out across the city and congregate at Yasukuni, the controversial Shinto Shrine dedicated to the military war dead, and later descend on Shibuya to take over Hachiko Plaza. On a lovely sunny afternoon, last Foundation Day, I hitched a lift on a convoy. The police were open mouthed to see a gaijin, albeit a blonde haired, blue eyed, Aryan mascot, sitting up front next to the gang boss. Cruising through Tokyo, a law unto themselves, the lead truck ignores red lights, blocks an intersection, warns the halted traffic to stay put, and hails the convoy through in strict formation. One unfortunate lady, caught in the middle of the eight trucks, stalls her car in a panic. Out jump a few, burly youths, with brown, spiky dyed hair, and kindly push her vehicle aside. On we roll.

En route, the gang stop off at an office building to pick up some large, mysterious cardboard boxes, duffel bags, 5-feet-long gas cylinders and folding tables. The trucks pull up in Shibuya, blocking all the roads that run to the Hachiko side of the station, pedestrianizing the area for the rest of the afternoon. While the senior members stand around, smoking, and chatting to each other, underlings unload, set up the tables, and unpack hundreds of little boxes. Each box, the size of a packet of cigarettes, contains a small cake with ‘Love Your Country’ picked out in kanji icing. Other gang members, one in large black and gold Chanel sunglasses, roll out the cylinders, actually full of helium, and begin inflating balloons. While the usual round of speeches blast out from the sound truck speakers, the upbeat gangsters hand out cakes and balloons to passers-by. The two plain-clothed policemen, assigned to keep an eye on the gang, help out with the distribution of balloons.

Foundation Day, to all intents and purposes, is a restoration of Kigensetsu; a national holiday of the prewar and wartime period, created by the Meiji government to celebrate the myth of the enthronement of the first Emperor, Jimmu. Invented tradition played a major role in forging a centralized nation state featuring the emperor at its psychological and physical center. The occupation authorities abolished the holiday in 1948. The Japanese government reinstated it in 1966. Back at Yasukuni I remembered another gang handing out leaflets and collecting donations in support of the construction of a special shrine to the Showa Emperor, along the lines of Meiji Jingu.

Claiming the past and manufacturing a sense of continuity is an important concept in Japan. Group identity possesses a powerful resonance. One shouldn’t assert individual identity too strongly over group consensus. Inevitably there is an undertow of tension over what constitutes identity, and a continual tug of war over the character of the group, expressed in everyday friction between its members, and in larger struggles such as the popular conception of history. Power is a major factor in the contextualizing of time and space. The right conveniently and profitably align themselves with the powers-that-be and underpin the status quo. I notice Koike-san is using a traditional-style calendar marked by the year of the reign of the current emperor; time and space, by imperial decree.

Green Day, April 29, the Showa Emperor’s birthday, is another excuse to take the trucks for a spin around the metropolis, via Yasukuni and the Palace, snarling up traffic, blasting deafening martial music and shouting right wing slogans at pedestrians who remain outwardly impervious to the assault. The Right are particularly fond of Hirohito, an implausible candidate for the godlike status he enjoyed during the war years. Such was the reverence for the image of the emperor, the allies considered painting Hirohito’s face on the side of warships serving in the Pacific to deter to kamikaze squads, reasoning the pilots wouldn’t dare to crash headfirst into the imperial countenance. Hirohito’s post-war transformation was no less remarkable — from international hate figure to a grandfatherly character with a penchant for marine biology pottering about in the imperial gardens. Showa means peace: Hirohito’s reign was the most violent in Japanese history. Green Day posthumously recasts the Showa Emperor as a nature lover and environmentalist. It is difficult to avoid or resist such national myth making. Our minds are made up for us. The right is an effective bulwark against common sense and an honest reckoning of history and society. Right-wing activists map out the parameters of debate and brook no dissent. Critical thinking is not welcome; your silent cooperation is appreciated.

Not surprisingly, one date noticeably absent from the official calendar of national holidays is May Day, International Labor Day, established by the International Socialist Congress in 1889. May Day has not been recognized in Japan since its repression in 1936, having previously been observed for sixteen years. In its place, Japan has its own government sanctioned ‘Thank You Labor Day’ on November 23. Traditionally, a rare opportunity for the left to flex their political muscle, May Day is part street theatre, part ritual civic disobedience, and carries a symbolic significance for both right and left in the turbulent post-war period. Koike-San says his group usually rally their trucks and ‘patrol’ the area around Hibiya Park and Toranomon to counter-demonstrate, harass and shout down their opposite numbers on the left.

In the ‘jan ken pon’ of politics, pragmatism beats principle, and law and order wins out over protest. So it was in the deprived and tumultuous years following Japan’s defeat. The ‘Food May Day’ demonstration of 1946 was a particularly significant outpouring of popular discontent. Largely inspired by housewife action, some three quarters of a million people assembled in Hibiya Park for anti-government demonstrations. Emboldened by numbers, fifty thousand continued on to the Prime Minister’s residence. The police rose to the challenge, brutally, opening fire on the crowds while American military jeeps and armored cars, fitted out with mounted machine guns, intervened to restore order. What the authorities perceived as chaos was, for protesters, a dynamic time of free speech that promised the possibility of change. The Palace Plaza was a sea of red flags and revolutionary banners, loudspeakers hummed with revolutionary slogans, and even relayed jokes at the emperor’s expense. The leader of a delegation that was finally allowed to meet the Prime Minister remarked point blank that somebody so fat could not possibly be living within the 500-yen monthly income imposed on the nation by the government. Such insolence seems remarkable by today’s standards. By May Day, 1952, although the balance of power had shifted back to the authorities, the government remained sufficiently concerned about combined labor action and anti-Americanism being vocally expressed in public that protesters were forbidden from approaching the Palace. Despite a court order overturning the ban, the police were determined to keep the hordes at a respectful distance. The protesters marched on regardless and the police responded with tear gas and pistols, killing two.

It was against this backdrop that modern right-wing gangs came to prominence. Post-war chaos left law and order in a shambles. Shortages fuelled a black market that encouraged the siphoning off of supplies, exacerbating the problem, and pushing up prices and profits even further. It was a ripe time for entrepreneurial criminals and businessmen. Gangs came to bridge the gap between respectable society and illegality, expanding the economic gray zone to every corner of civic life. For example, the mutually beneficial association of the construction business and gangs in labor brokering and strike breaking neatly dovetailed into post war reconstruction and boom years for both. In the convergence of business, political and criminal interests, the right became self-appointed political storm troopers and vigilantes. The anti-red purge, sanctioned by McArthur at the onset of the Cold War, gave the rightists a political raison d’être and material support from above. This new breed of muscle for hire also found plenty of time for straightforward, old-fashioned crime such as robbery, drug and gunrunning, extortion rackets, prostitution and gambling.

Politically, rightists in Japan fulfil a dual role — acting as an advance guard for reactionary, conservative political factions, while at the same time providing a contrast that makes the establishment appear sensible, moderate and respectable. Rightist appeals for recognition of the flag and national anthem, condemnation of a reckoning of Japan’s wartime record, support for revisionist history texts, changes to the Constitution and Article 9, the campaign for ministerial visits and state support for Yasukuni Shrine, have all filtered into mainstream political debate. Rear-guard actions attack those who dare hold alternative points of view. Victims include the national teacher’s union, for their perceived left-wing leanings, public figures — from politicians, filmmakers, to journalists — who step away from the official version of reality, and participants in street demonstrations and seminars of an anti-authoritarian nature, who are liable to harassment and physical attack. The right’s greatest triumph is the resultant self-censorship — the most effective muzzle on thought, speech and action. Sensitive topics are best avoided, anything that smacks of controversy is anathema.

The right propagate and exploit the Japanese fear of confrontation and disharmony. The embarrassment of getting mixed up with gangsters is as big a pressure as the threat of violence. Gangs are not averse to turning this double-edged sword on their political and corporate sponsors. The symbiotic relationship between the underworld and ordinary society is filtered through complex networks of shell companies, financiers, underlings and fixers. The uniformed rightists are symptoms of the system, merely the clown fish to bigger sharks. Petty thugs are useful for strike breaking, warning off rivals and complainants, and securing shareholder meetings against ordinary stockholders who may have legitimate but unwelcome opinions. The more powerful characters further up the food chain, directing events, can easily reverse these services into even more profitable protection rackets and blackmail. Sophisticated ‘sokaiya’, corporate racketeers and extortionists, buy into companies, offer ‘protection’ from embarrassing disclosures, demand funds for their assistance and silence, and buy more stock in related companies to spread their web of influence. Loan sharking and repayment collection, extortion, pay-offs, punishment beatings, jiageya (land raising specialists) — the use of strong-arm tactics to induce landowners to sell up, labor brokering and the move into construction and materials in the 1960s and 1970s were followed by a predictable shift into the world of high finance.

A thin, blurry line separates rightist groups and the yakuza. Perhaps the most significant difference is in dress code — paramilitary dress against suits and ‘civvies.’ Though tactics differ, the aims are the same. A sokaiya in a smart business suit is essentially the same as a paramilitary-dressed rightist; they differ only in the way they lay siege to a company. The sokaiya mounts a silent attack, privately meeting with company officials, while a rightist group will circle the company with trucks screeching ear-splitting slogans. The ultra-nationalists may politely inform the General Affairs department of the company of their plan to return, offering an opt out if the company settles their expenses. Alternatively, but not much less subtly, they might offer a subscription to a newsletter, or some other goods and services, for which the company will pay handsomely. Sokaiya and right-wing gangs often collude. After a few weeks of right-wing encirclement and daily rantings, a sokaiya will miraculously appear offering to rid the company of their unwanted attention. Switching roles, a gang may offer protection against sokaiya. Pay-offs may well escalate, rather than solve the problem.

One can’t help wondering — how is this allowed to happen? It is interesting to contrast the police attitude of zero tolerance to leftists and the accommodation the authorities have reached with the right and yakuza. Leftists are beyond the pale, literally viewed as ‘outlaws’ seeking to overthrow the system. Gangsters work within and underpin the system, creating a shadow version of the establishment. Gang structure and methods are roughly equivalent to corporate Japan. On a street level, gangs and the police recruit from roughly the same demographic. At the higher echelons of authority, a shared agenda becomes apparent. The Japanese police apparently prefer the stability of organized crime to disorganized crime, allowing the shadow structure of rightists and yakuza to flourish. Police attitudes mirror those of Yoshiro Watanabe, the current boss of Japan’s biggest gang, the Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi. Mr. Watanabe portrays himself as an unorthodox public servant, providing a home for society’s dropouts. He contends he merely contains the activities of this underclass, the worst excesses of which are directed at each other, making the yakuza a better alternative to free-for-all crime, especially street crime and random violence, that plagues most other developed countries. This pragmatism has spawned hundreds of officially registered criminal organizations with tens of thousands of members — a professional criminal class, complete with business cards, and lapel pins.

Crime in Japan is a franchise business. Affiliated gangs pay a monthly fee to their parent organization. There are around 90,000 ‘official’ gangsters in Japan, most of them in one of the three largest gangs: the Yamaguchi-gumi, the Inagawa-kai, and the Sumiyoshi-rengo. Gang styles differ. With over 8,000 members, the Inagawa-kai, the second largest gang in Japan and the largest in Tokyo, has made a name for itself in sophisticated business scams. The Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest gang, famed more for its muscle and swagger, boasts 17,500 full-time members, up a third since Watanabe took over 15 years ago, and more than five times the size of the entire American mafia at its peak in the 1950s. Inevitably, tensions between rival gangsters erupt, occasionally escalating into full-blown gang wars. Only then do the police lose patience and act decisively.

The authorities have dubbed all these entities boryokudan. To combat ‘violent groups’ anti-boryokudan laws were passed in 1991 making it illegal to belong to an organization that has a certain percentage of people with criminal records or engaged in designated activities that were previously difficult to prosecute. Activities such as demanding hush money, coercing businesses into using sub-contractors affiliated with yakuza, and even forcing members to get tattoos or cut off their fingers are now prohibited. To combat the anti-boryokudan law, many gangs have set up legitimate front companies to mask their identities. ‘Business suit yakuza’ now make up approximately one-third of total gang membership in Japan. The number of gangs affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi has fallen from 120 to about 100 but alliances with other crime groups have actually increased their power and income. Gang crests have disappeared from doors and new business cards printed up promote their new-found legitimacy. An additional category of ‘quasi-gangsters’ has appeared in police reports, their numbers growing from 14,000 to 48,000 in the past decade. The decline in yakuza numbers has also witnessed a corresponding increase in the creation and membership of right-wing organizations. Criminal groups have simply registered as political pressure groups. As with much of the so-called reform in Japan, the window dressing has changed but business continues as usual.

Koike-san’s ultra-nationalist headquarters captures the chameleon nature of these hybrid operations. In the main room the boss, sporting a neatly trimmed beard and silver framed glasses, is wearing a fetching maroon turtle-necked sweater, smoking a cigar, sitting behind a large desk, feet up, watching the Diet proceedings on TV. On the wall hang two large photographs, one of Hirohito in full military dress, taken in the 1930s, and a full-length portrait of a karate master, a nod to the affiliated dojo downstairs. The adjoining room, where we are temporarily banished because of a hastily called meeting, is full of boxes of pornographic videos awaiting distribution. Every room has its own shredding machine, into which anything of any note, even the receipt for the noodles just delivered by a nervous looking delivery boy, is dropped into oblivion. The gang members carry prepaid mobile phones, the numbers change every few weeks to avoid detection. The radio equipment that connects the trucks with H.Q. crackles in the background. Outside the Japanese flag flies atop the building and the vending machine next to the front door bears the group insignia. Koike-san looks at me with his large, open, bear-like face, and asks “Do you have mafia in your country?” I turn the conversation back to the gang’s yearly outings.

Constitution Day, May 3, commemorates the enactment in 1947 of the post-war constitution, announced by Emperor Hirohito, on the ninety-fourth anniversary of the Meiji Emperor’s birthday. The American-scripted document relegated the emperor from divine status, separated Shinto and State and introduced Article 9, the anti-war clause that has been a lightning rod for left- and right-wing forces ever since. Article 9 forbids Japan the right to retain land and sea forces. Doublethink set in when McArthur, in 1950, called for the creation of a National Police Reserve (NPR), the forerunner of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF), to deal with domestic unrest while freeing up American troops for service in Korea. The cooperation between erstwhile enemies against Korea was a great boost to the recovery of the Japanese economy. The Japanese PM of the time described the Korean War in his memoirs as a “godsend.” Ultra-nationalists such as Koike-san are rooting for rearmament and despise the toy-soldier status of the SDF. Ironically, a not insignificant number of gang members, promoting the ‘Yamato spirit’ of a nationalist Japan, are Korean, or of Korean ancestry. Personal differences aside, everybody bonds in anti-Communism.

The public face of gangs — the foot soldiers, opportunists, misfits, hangers on, petty criminals, and wannabe hoods are a loose federation of errand boys, a floating membership around a smaller number of hard-core members. For many of the junior gangsters, who are the lowest creatures on the food chain, it is a phase they will grow out of. One feels vaguely sorry for them. Dressing up and belonging to a group is one way of satisfying the need for some meaning and significance in their lives. Trucking around town, trick or treating the locals like right-wing ‘Merry Pranksters’, beats working in a convenience store, the only activity some of these characters seem cut out for. Some will have to make a career of it. One young guy has shaved off his hair and eyebrows, lost a finger and gained full-body tattoos. Looking out of the truck, Tokyo is an endless stretch of gray concrete; an urban, sensory deprivation tank. Inside, a bento-box lunch and one-cup sake party is in full swing.

August 9, an eventful time for the Russian Embassy complex near Kamiyacho, marks the anniversary of Russia’s declaration of war against Japan and its subsequent occupation of the Northern Territories, an issue that inflames considerable passion on the right. In 1951 Japan signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty with 48 allied nations, but not Russia. Amongst the declarations of the Treaty, Japan renounced all claim to the Kuril Islands. Unfortunately, the text didn’t specify which islands made up the Kuril chain, hence the “confusion,” as one would say in diplomatic speak. Russia steadfastly maintained the issue was closed until Mikhail Gorbachev, and his Japanese counterparts, announced the dispute would be finally laid to rest as part of a future peace treaty between the two nations. Then the Soviet Union collapsed.

On August 9, every year, war is declared on the embassy in an epic showdown between rightists and police. Around 30 trucks are cruising the area, circling the surroundings streets as if waiting for the signal to attack. Loudspeakers boom demands for the return of the islands. At both ends of the road, a token phalanx of burly riot police, the kidotai, complete with shields, helmets, heavy padding and batons, block the highway — roman garrison style. Busloads of riot police are hidden away in the side streets to be called on if necessary. Ordinary traffic cops wheel heavy-duty metal barriers across both ends of the road to prevent the trucks access to the street that passes directly in front of the embassy compound. The trucks circle. A number of envoys from each gang are searched and escorted by police to the embassy gates. There, they line up, ceremoniously unroll a proclamation, press the doorbell, and shout their demands into the intercom, no doubt at some poor secretary, unlucky enough to have drawn the shortest straw. Satisfied, the rightists pose for a group photograph and are escorted back beyond police lines. Meanwhile, ordinary pedestrians are going about their business, taxi drivers wearily look on from the deepening traffic jam, and office workers mill about in search of sandwiches and bento boxes. The trucks crawl by. Bemused young officers display large banners politely asking the trucks to keep the noise down. Police boffins with decibel counters anxiously poke large mikes in the direction of the loudest offenders. Cheeky truck drivers gun the volume to unbearable levels only to drop it as the police team scuttle towards them. Plain-clothes officers take video, photographs and note down license plates. Many of the senior gang members and police exchange nods or stop for a quick chat. It is a peculiar pantomime of power. Without warning, the doors of a truck fly open and a few young gang members leap out and attack the front-line police. A kidotai squad are immediately at the barriers, as the traffic cops retreat. A lot of pushing and shoving ensues, a mass of blue overalls and army boots. If not for the police helmets and trendy sunglasses, it is difficult to tell them apart. Calm is quickly restored.

A couple of hours later, the pattern monotonously resumed, one driver suddenly swerves his truck into the barriers, managing to break through the police lines, scattering them for a stunned second, perhaps equally surprising himself. The police respond swiftly, throwing spiked barriers in front and behind the wheels preventing the truck maneuvering away. Police descend like a swarm of bees, one policeman bobbing up and down at the back of the crowd videoing the riot police as they bash in the doors and flood inside. The occupants are bundled out and the driver, nattily dressed in a green traditional ‘happi’ suit and ponytail, emerges, handcuffed, and is led away. The police take custody of the truck.

At the end of the day, in one of those ‘Japan Only Moments’ many of the trucks on their final pass say goodbye to the police. One goes as far as mentioning the heat and humidity, and thanks them for a hard day’s work well-done, leaving with a final “otsukaresamadeshita.” Later, in an izakaya, the two plain-clothes police officers assigned to the gang briefly join the boss and amassed members for a light snack and a beer. Before leaving, the policemen hand out mobile phone straps featuring the official police cartoon mascot.

And so it goes. You may see the rightists fly by on the anniversary of Mishima’s death on November 25, or en route to a corporate extortion, or speeding to disrupt a gathering of leftists, adding a splash of color to the dreary conformity they help enforce. At the close of the year, December 23, the gangs congregate once again at the Palace, for the birthday appearance of the current emperor, completing the cycle of another year in the life of a gang.

Video: Daido Moriyama's "Hokkaido"

2025-01-27T10:29:00.000-08:00

Daido Moriyama is a legend of Japanese photography. He is well known for his raw, gritty, and often decentred images, often taken without even looking through the viewfinder. This video of his work attempts to emphasise these characteristics. Bleak is the North.

THE KING WHO WANTED TO BE A RICKSHAW BOY

2024-02-20T02:13:00.000-08:00

Edward VIII when still "Prince of Wales" dressed as a Japanese rickshaw boy

ODAIBA!

2024-02-16T07:30:00.000-08:00

America is often described as a "proposition nation," but Odaiba is a proposition metropolis, sitting just next to Tokyo, across the narrowest part of Tokyo Bay. The proposition in this case is following the Japanese dream of hyperreality and sensory overload, two sides of the same coin.

JUST NOTICED ANOTHER GAIJIN HAS DIED: DOREEN SIMMONDS

2024-02-15T01:33:00.000-08:00

Doreen Simmonds 2010

Fujiland knows everybody in Japan, by which, of course, we mean the country's tiny ex-pat community. We don't keep tabs on them on a day-to-day basis, but occasionally we check in on them to make sure they're doing well or have rounded off a well-spent life in the Orient.

The latest one we can offer an "update" on is Doreen Simmons, NHK's English sumo commentator. Fujiland had the briefest of interactions with Ms Simmons, when apparently she vetoed a piece we wrote on sumo for Kansai Time Out, for whom she was the be-all-and-end-all of its sumo coverage. Luckily the piece saw the light of day at Metropolis and Japan Today, where it caused quite a stir by focusing on the rampant drug abuse in the Japanese sumo world, a subject that Ms Simmonds was unable to countenance due to her "embedded" state with the Japanese sumo world.

It is no surprise to find out that nearly six year ago she has now shuffled off the mortal coil and ascended to the great sumo stable in the sky, as she was born in 1932.

Anyway, here are a few extracts from the Times obituary, which is very unhelpfully pay-walled and rather more helpfully archived:

Often to be found seated in a restaurant in the heart of Tokyo’s old sumo wrestling quarter, Doreen Simmons appeared an unlikely regular customer. A small, silver-haired lady with a trace of a Nottinghamshire accent, she was in fact one of the greatest experts on the ancient sport and its history.

Dubbed the sumo “godmother”, Simmons was the English language commentator for matches broadcast on a popular Japanese TV network. “The thing about sumo is that it’s so simple,” she once said. “The first time you see it, you know what’s going on. But when you start learning about it, there are so many extra things, so many details.”[...]

Simmons chose to live among the old stables of Ryogoku. Every morning she passed apprentices praying to the statues of greats who had gone before them. Despite her small size, she relished the wrestlers’ chanko-nabe, a Japanese stew that contains 17 ingredients, including seafood, chicken, tofu and beef to help weight-gain. “It’s very good. It makes you strong and gives you a lot of protein and vegetables.”[...]

Modestly, she maintained that the sport was never more than her hobby. She held down numerous other “day jobs” in Tokyo and was a colourful figure in the expatriate community [...]

Doreen Sylvia Clarke was born in Nottingham in 1932. Her father, George, was a civil servant, and her mother, Elsie, was a store manager who promoted stationery to women by making paper flowers [...]

After graduating from Girton College, Cambridge, Simmons trained as a teacher of Latin and Greek at Hughes Hall. She was briefly married to Bob Simmons, but it ended in divorce and she rarely spoke about him to friends.

In the early 1960s she was given a job in Singapore in a British Army school and went on a trip to Japan. She found herself on a farm where she saw her first sumo match on television — it was also the first time she watched a programme in colour. After a spell back in England teaching classics, during which time she was a contestant on the BBC’s first series of Mastermind, she said she could not forget Japan.

In 1973 Simmons returned to Tokyo with a teaching post at the International Language Centre in Jinbocho. She later joined the staff of Tokyo’s Foreign Press Centre, editing translations of Japanese government press releases.

She began going to sumo matches at the weekend. “I’ve been going every Saturday, Sunday and public holiday since.” At first she simply enjoyed the ancients rituals such as the throwing of salt, which she recognised straight away as a purification. “My original interest was in its survival from the past, but after a while I got to know some of the middle-ranking wrestlers, along with some extremely knowledgeable Japanese fans, who fuelled my interest,” she said. She started to write for Kansai Time Out magazine, which was in English, and then for Sumo World. In 1992, NHK hired her for its English-language sumo broadcasts. She said she loved the “good rapport” with the other commentators, who are known as “play-by-play men”[...]

Simmons was multilingual and had a gift for voiceovers — “raucous male impersonations, ultra-sweet, throbby animal voices”. She provided the voice for Miss Marple on an Agatha Christie tape, while other roles over the years included a soccer hooligan, a dying rhinoceros and a transvestite geisha [...]

Last year, aged 84, Simmons received the Order of the Rising Sun, one of the Japanese government’s highest honours.

Doreen Simmons, sumo commentator, was born on May 29, 1932. She died of pulmonary causes on April 23, 2018, aged 85

EYES WIDE...OPEN

2023-12-26T09:51:00.000-08:00

This short, satirical article was first published in Tokyo YY Vol 4 No 88, Sept 1999

"Shibuya Crosssing" by Marco Santaniello (click to enlarge)

I’ve got a revolutionary new suggestion for my fellow Tokyoites to make their cramped, stressful lives a lot easier.

HOW ABOUT LOOKING WHERE YOU’RE GOING!

I know this may sound a little difficult at first, but if you carefully feel the upper front part of your face, you might discover two soft, pulpy, slightly moist organs. Now I know most of you think these are only for studying kanji, but this is not quite true.

To be brutally honest they are not for studying kanji at all and any attempt to do so will only irreparably damage them and prevent them from serving their true purpose. This may come as a complete shock to most of you, but they are, in fact, navigational devices.

Don’t take my word for it though, please try them out for yourself. All you have to do is raise your head from that greasemark on your chest and move it a little from side to side. As you do this you will notice a flood of new sensations as something which we scientists call ‘light’ comes bouncing into your newly-discovered organs from the sea of objects moving in front of you in a typical Tokyo street scene.

I have yet more astonishing revelations. Most of those objects bobbing around before you, are in fact your fellow Tokyoites! Once you use these frontal, light-sensitive navigational organs, which we will hereafter refer to by their medical name of ‘eyes’ - you will notice that with a little physical co-ordination, it becomes possible to anticipate the movements of your fellow citizens - and even foreigners! - and so avoid bumping into them every 2 or 3 steps.

The best results are achieved when everybody uses their eyes together, then, by mutually turning only a few degrees left or right well in advance, it becomes possible to slip by people without even scraping shoulders, never mind lodging your elbows deep in their rib cages.

Once you have mastered these simple arts of anticipation and navigation, you might find that your once neglected organs have several other interesting uses. For example, as you deftly glide through the densest of crowds, you might happen to see other enlightened souls glancing back at you instead of careering into you as they stare down at their feet. As your frontal navigational organs detect each other and make what we medical experts call ‘eye contact’ you might experience a pleasant sensation and even feel like smiling at a complete stranger, or, if you have truly mastered your new organs of sight, winking!

Once this has been accomplished, you have truly emerged from the primeval realm of push and shove and entered upon the sunlit uplands of mutual awareness and respect for other people’s personal space.

VIDEO: WHAT AMERICA CAN LEARN FROM JAPAN

2023-11-26T04:05:00.000-08:00

Japan has learned so much from America and is deeply grateful. Now it is time for America to learn something to its advantage from Japan. That's how the World works, or at least should be...

VIDEO: TOKYO GAME SHOW 2017

2023-11-05T16:07:00.005-08:00

Some clips from the 2017 Tokyo Game Show, held at Makuhari Messe. As usual, a lot of scantily dressed women were attempting to distract visitors from the gaming content.

JAP BAP

2023-10-04T22:12:00.008-07:00

I'm not really sure why, but the Bronze Age Pervert aesthetic has been winning on the Internet for some time now.

This aesthetic is essentially gay muscle men, presented partly ironically, in order to serve as a useful conduit for various "counter cultural," "alternative," or even subversive ideas, whatever these may be. It is also probably being boosted by nefarious operations funded by foreign governments. Who knows?

Anyway, if the BAParistas want a Japanese outpost for the weird gay schtick then they could do worse than incorporate the art of Go Mishima (1924-1988), whose art supplemented the look established by 60s novelist and gay paramilitary LARPer Yukio Mishima.

No, I don't think they were related.

Here are the essentials of the Go Mishima sub-BAP phenomenon from the English pages of the Naruyama Gallery in Tokyo.

With passionate collectors around the world, Mishima Go's Otoko-e (translated 'pictures of men') were rarely exhibited to the public. As a cult figure, Mishima was appointed illustrator for BARAZOKU (The Rose Tribe), the first magazine for gay men in Japan. He then played an important role in the publication of a revolutionary publication SABU. Contrary to prior publications as BARAZOKU, which focused on the aesthetics of western gay culture, SABU established the imagery of Japanese men through short, masculine hair, the 'FUNDOSHI' (traditional loincloth underwear), elaborate tattoos, Japanese swords and hara-kiri (or seppuku - suicide by cutting open the abdominal area). Mishima's work decorated the cover of the magazine from its beginning, and he used the medium as his canvas for the rest of his life.

Not my cup of tea, but some of our readers might appreciate it.

ULTRAMAN ART!

2023-08-10T04:19:00.005-07:00

Alien Baltan

After watching Christopher Nolan’s stunning Batman trilogy, it would be fascinating to imagine what that film-maker would do with the quintessential Japanese superhero Ultraman.

Unfortunately that’s just never going to happen, so Ultraman remains stuck in the same kind of cheesy retro land that Batman once occupied. But cheesy or not, there is no denying Ultraman’s enormous influence as a prototypical figure in Japanese manga, anime, and TV, as well as his endearing appeal for children. This is exactly why this show at the Museum of Modern Art Saitama and a similar one at the Museum of Contemporary Art have been held during the school holidays.

The show has more or less what you would expect, with models and artwork used in the making of the TV series. This means lots of scale models like the diorama of the secret base of the “Ultra Police” and human sized suits of giant monsters made from latex. Some of these, like the mask used to depict Gomora, a monstrous opponent 40-meters onscreen, are clearly a lot worse for wear, testifying to the action-packed nature of the Ultraman TV series. Others like the costume for the fiendishly clawed Alien Baltan are in remarkably good condition and ready to pose for photographs with visitors.

Ultraman flies

One of the most fascinating items at the exhibition is a relatively simple rotating machine with clouds painted on it that is used, along with a tiny model of Ultraman and a few pieces of cotton wool, to create scenes of Ultraman flying. In a world where CGI now makes too much possible, items like this point to a magical era where the imagination drew strength from the technical limitations it had to constantly overcome. Perhaps this, rather than Ultraman’s many battles against his monstrous foes, is the really fascinating struggle enshrined in this exhibition.

Colin Liddell

Metropolis

16th August, 2012

TRUMAN CAPOTE VISITS MARLON BRANDO ON THE JAPANESE SET OF "SAYONARA" (1957)

2023-04-03T05:20:00.003-07:00

Most Japanese girls giggle. The little maid on the fourth floor of the Miyako Hotel, in Kyoto, was no exception. Hilarity, and attempts to suppress it, pinked her cheeks (unlike the Chinese, the Japanese complexion more often than not has considerable color), shook her plump peony-and-pansy-kimonoed figure. There seemed to be no particular reason for this merriment; the Japanese giggle operates without apparent motivation. I’d merely asked to be directed toward a certain room. “You come see Marron?” she gasped, showing, like so many of her fellow-countrymen, an array of gold teeth. Then, with the tiny, pigeon-toed skating steps that the wearing of a kimono necessitates, she led me through a labyrinth of corridors, promising, “I knock you Marron.” The “l” sound does not exist in Japanese, and by “Marron” the maid meant Marlon—Marlon Brando, the American actor, who was at that time in Kyoto doing location work for the Warner Brothers-William Goetz motion-picture version of James Michener’s novel “Sayonara.”

My guide tapped at Brando’s door, shrieked “Marron!,” and fled away along the corridor, her kimono sleeves fluttering like the wings of a parakeet. The door was opened by another doll-delicate Miyako maid, who at once succumbed to her own fit of quaint hysteria. From an inner room, Brando called, “What is it, honey?” But the girl, her eyes squeezed shut with mirth and her fat little hands jammed into her mouth, like a bawling baby’s, was incapable of reply. “Hey, honey, what is it?” Brando again inquired, and appeared in the doorway. “Oh, hi,” he said when he saw me. “It’s seven, huh?” We’d made a seven-o’clock date for dinner; I was nearly twenty minutes late. “Well, take off your shoes and come on in. I’m just finishing up here. And, hey, honey,” he told the maid, “bring us some ice.” Then, looking after the girl as she scurried off, he cocked his hands on his hips and, grinning, declared, “They kill me. They really kill me. The kids, too. Don’t you think they’re wonderful, don’t you love them—Japanese kids?”

The Miyako, where about half of the “Sayonara” company was staying, is the most prominent of the so-called Western-style hotels in Kyoto; the majority of its rooms are furnished with sturdy, if commonplace and cumbersome, European chairs and tables, beds and couches. But, for the convenience of Japanese guests who prefer their own mode of décor while desiring the prestige of staying at the Miyako, or of those foreign travellers who yearn after authentic atmosphere yet are disinclined to endure the unheated rigors of a real Japanese inn, the Miyako maintains some suites decorated in the traditional manner, and it was in one of these that Brando had chosen to settle himself. His quarters consisted of two rooms, a bath, and a glassed-in sun porch. Without the overlying and underlying clutter of Brando’s personal belongings, the rooms would have been textbook illustrations of the Japanese penchant for an ostentatious barrenness. The floors were covered with tawny tatami matting, with a discreet scattering of raw-silk pillows; a scroll depicting swimming golden carp hung in an alcove, and beneath it, on a stand, sat a vase filled with tall lilies and red leaves, arranged just so. The larger of the two rooms—the inner one—which the occupant was using as a sort of business office where he also dined and slept, contained a long, low lacquer table and a sleeping pallet. In these rooms, the divergent concepts of Japanese and Western decoration—the one seeking to impress by a lack of display, an absence of possession-exhibiting, the other intent on precisely the reverse—could both be observed, for Brando seemed unwilling to make use of the apartment’s storage space, concealed behind sliding paper doors. All that he owned seemed to be out in the open. Shirts, ready for the laundry; socks, too; shoes and sweaters and jackets and hats and ties, flung around like the costume of a dismantled scarecrow. And cameras, a typewriter, a tape recorder, an electric heater that performed with stifling competence. Here, there, pieces of partly nibbled fruit; a box of the famous Japanese strawberries, each berry the size of an egg. And books, a deep-thought cascade, among which one saw Colin Wilson’s “The Outsider” and various works on Buddhist prayer, Zen meditation, Yogi breathing, and Hindu mysticism, but no fiction, for Brando reads none. He has never, he professes, opened a novel since April 3, 1924, the day he was born, in Omaha, Nebraska. But while he may not care to read fiction, he does desire to write it, and the long lacquer table was loaded with overfilled ashtrays and piled pages of his most recent creative effort, which happens to be a film script entitled “A Burst of Vermilion.”

In fact, Brando had evidently been working on his story at the moment of my arrival. As I entered the room, a subdued-looking, youngish man, whom I shall call Murray, and who had previously been pointed out to me as “the fellow that’s helping Marlon with his writing,” was squatted on the matting fumbling through the manuscript of “A Burst of Vermilion.” Weighing some pages on his hand, he said, “Tell ya, Mar, s’pose I go over this down in my room, and maybe we’ll get together again—say, around ten-thirty?”

Brando scowled, as though unsympathetic to the idea of resuming their endeavors later in the evening. Having been slightly ill, as I learned later, he had spent the day in his room, and now seemed restive. “What’s this?” he asked, pointing to a couple of oblong packages among the literary remains on the lacquer table.

Brando with co-star Miiko Taka

Murray shrugged. The maid had delivered them; that was all he knew. “People are always sending Mar presents,” he told me. “Lots of times we don’t know who sent them. True, Mar?”

“Yeah,” said Brando, beginning to rip open the gifts, which, like most Japanese packages—even mundane purchases from very ordinary shops—were beautifully wrapped. One contained candy, the other white rice cakes, which proved cement-hard, though they looked like puffs of cloud. There was no card in either package to identify the donor. “Every time you turn around, some Japanese is giving you a present. They’re crazy about giving presents,” Brando observed. Athletically crunching a rice cake, he passed the boxes to Murray and me.

Murray shook his head; he was intent on obtaining Brando’s promise to meet with him again at ten-thirty. “Give me a ring around then,” Brando said, finally. “We’ll see what’s happening.”

Murray, as I knew, was only one member of what some of the “Sayonara” company referred to as “Brando’s gang.” Aside from the literary assistant, the gang consisted of Marlon Brando, Sr., who acts as his son’s business manager; a pretty, dark-haired secretary, Miss Levin; and Brando’s private makeup man. The travel expenses of this entourage, and all its living expenses while on location, were allowed for in the actor’s contract with Warner Brothers. Legend to the contrary, film studios are not usually so lenient financially. A Warner man to whom I talked later explained the tolerance shown Brando by saying, “Ordinarily we wouldn’t put up with it. All the demands he makes. Except—well this picture just had to have a big star. Your star—that’s the only thing the really counts at the box office.”

Among the company were some who felt that the social protection supplied by Brando’s inner circle was preventing them from “getting to know the guy” as well as they would have liked. Brando had been in Japan for more than a month, and during that time he had shown himself on the set as a slouchingly dignified, amiable-seeming young man who was always ready to coöperate with, and even encourage, his co-workers—the actors particularly—yet by and large was not socially available, preferring, during the tedious lulls between scenes, to sit alone reading philosophy or scribbling in a schoolboy notebook. After the day’s work, instead of accepting his colleagues’ invitations to join a group for drinks, a plate of raw fish in a restaurant, and a prowl through the old geisha quarter of Kyoto, instead of contributing to the one-big-family, houseparty bonhomie that picture-making on location theoretically generates, he usually returned to his hotel and stayed there. Since the most fervent of movie-star fans are the people who themselves work in the film industry, Brando was a subject of immense interest within the ranks of the “Sayonara” group, and the more so because his attitude of friendly remoteness produced, in the face of such curiosity, such wistful frustrations. Even the film’s director, Joshua Logan, was impelled to say, after working with Brando for two weeks, “Marlon’s the most exciting person I’ve met since Garbo. A genius. But I don’t know what he’s like. I don’t know anything about him.”

The maid had reëntered the star’s room, and Murray, on his way out, almost tripped over the train of her kimono. She put down a bowl of ice and, with a glow, a giggle, an elation that made her little feet, hooflike in their split-toed white socks, lift and lower like a prancing pony’s, announced, “Appapie! Tonight on menu appapie.”

Originally published in The New Yorker, November 2, 1957

INCELS ATTACK XMAS

2023-03-25T08:33:00.006-07:00

Unlike in the West, in Japan Christmas is not a cosy time for the family to get together and remember the birth of Jesus.

Instead it is a highly-charged romantic time for young couples in love to exchange presents and book a night in a fancy hotel. As such, it is also a particularly bleak time for Japan's legions of incels. This has led to demonstrations like this one, where we see a small party of incels protesting against the festival under a banner that reads, "Smash Christmas!"

In 2020 the Japan Family Planning Association reported that 45% of young Japanese women, and over 25% of men "were not interested in or despised sexual contact," while in 2016 a survey of Japanese people aged 18 to 34 found that almost 70% of unmarried men and 60% of unmarried women are not in a relationship. Moreover, many of these were total virgins. Around 42 percent of the men and 44.2 percent of the women admitted they had never had sex.

LACK OF "ROMANTIC ABILITY" BLAMED FOR JAPAN'S SLIDING MARRIAGE, BIRTH RATES

2023-02-25T04:21:00.006-08:00

From Mainichi Japan:

TSU -- The reason for Japanese people's increasing reluctance to get married is that their "romantic ability" is declining, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party faction in the Mie Prefectural Assembly stated here on Feb. 24.

Narise Ishida voiced the theory during a general question and answer session at the assembly, and asked the prefectural government to conduct a survey and analysis of residents' romantic ability.

"The birthrate is not declining because it costs money to have children," Ishida stated. "The problem is that romance has been seen as a taboo subject before marriage."

He proposed that the prefectural government incorporate the idea of romantic ability into its measures against the declining birthrate. Ishida did not state specifically what romantic ability is.

Akira Yasui, the prefectural government's strategic planning department director, responded:

"Since this is related to extremely personal matters, we first need to deepen awareness of what romantic ability is." He added, "In past surveys on prefectural residents' attitudes, some did give answers related to romantic ability, including 'I don't have self-confidence,' and 'I can't get along with the opposite sex,' as reasons for not being married. We will continue to conduct surveys from a broad perspective."

Some councilors belonging to other assembly factions called the entire discussion "off the mark." Others openly wondered if measuring love as an ability would make it increasingly difficult to live in society.

(Japanese original by Yuka Asahina, Tsu Bureau)

THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF "TOKYO REPORTER"

2023-02-22T06:31:00.009-08:00

Brett Bull of Tokyo Reporter

Between 2008 and 2022 Tokyo Reporter translated the juiciest stories from the Japanese gutter press -- nightlife, crime, prostitution, sleaze, scandals, etc -- occasionally turning up nuggets of gold that connected to the "good and the great." It provided an alternative picture of Japan to the World, one that the Japanese may not have been that keen to share.

The site was founded by then 39-year-old Brett Bull who had first come to Japan in 1999 and was working at a construction company at the time.

The site got in early on the internet blogging boom, offering viral-ready content to a wider world, hungry for "less filtered" takes on Japan. It must have been like shooting fish in a barrel for a time, and once established it led to various spin offs for Bull. He got a gig at the Japan Times (until 2013) and became a talking head and source on Japanese topics for the international media.

But, in January 2022, it all ended, with Bull posting a Looney Tunes video of "That's All Folks".

The question remains: Why did the site, which was well established, had a healthy number of hits, and was generating income and opportunities for its owner, have to shut down?

Maybe age (Bull was 53 at the time), maybe illness, maybe he was just too busy, or it might be that it's just harder to make blog content go viral nowadays.

Still, none of these plausible explanations are quite satisfying. After all, to build up the site in the first place, Bull couldn't have cared that much about the hard work and the lack of attention that he initially faced. The site was clearly the result of his own interests and inclinations. For it to suddenly end, therefore, requires a stronger reason.

Just listen to him here in 2020. Sounds like he's still in for the long haul:

So, what happened here?

On Reddit there has been a little discussion:

This sounds better or at least more convincing, but it is also clearly uninformed speculation.

Possibly the best explanation for the demise of TR is that it is somehow mixed up with the Tokyo Olympics, which happened in 2021. During the run-up the nation went through one of its spells of worrying what foreigners might think of "sleazy Japan". It is not difficult to imagine the kinds of pressure that could be brought to bear on a "gaijin" working for a Japanese company and using content "borrowed" from Japanese media sources.

But it's not a perfect match: TR kept running for a few months after the Olympics. Still, I don't know a better reason for it to stop kind of when it did.

UPDATE (1st April, 2023)

Some weeks after this article was published the Tokyo Reporter site flickered back into life.

TOHAKU HASEGAWA FINALLY GETS HIS DUE

2023-01-10T16:04:00.009-08:00

Tigers and bamboo (one screen)

The exhibition at the Idemitsu Museum, “New Discovery: The Beauty of Hasegawa Tohaku,” has quite a tale to tell, one that adds much interest to the stunning screen paintings on display. It is a tale of rivalry and skullduggery that stretches beyond the grave and has seen one of the great artists of Japan’s Azuchi-Momoyama period (1568-1600), deprived of his full glory. Until now, that is.

As museum curator, Hirokazu Yatsunami, explains, recent scholarship is revolutionizing the way Hasegawa is regarded.

“This exhibition is to present these new views and the most representative works among these new discoveries,” he says.

Up until now, Tohaku Hasegawa has been considered primarily a sumi-e (monochromatic ink) painter, who suffused his screen paintings with an emotionalism absent from the work of rivals, like Eitoku Kano (1543-1590) with whom he competed for the favor of the great men of the day, like the Shoguns, Nobunaga Oda and Hideyoshi Toyotomi.

Although striving for emotion, Tohaku Hasegawa skilfully avoided sentimentality in his work by using animal subjects. This can be seen in “Cranes and Bamboo” (ca. 1590), a pair of screens, like most of the works at this exhibition. In one set of panels, the male crane appears to be crying out for his mate, while in the other the female crane looks coyly round, creating a subtle but powerful emotional impact.

Cranes and Bamboo (one screen)

Another pair of ink screen paintings, the smouldering “Tigers and Bamboo” (ca. 1590), is not only a testament to Hasegawa’s genius, but is also evidence of artistic chicanery, Yatsunami explains.

“This screen painting was damaged, therefore these two panels on the left were added by Tanyu Kano,” he mentions. “He has reattributed this work to Tensho Shubun, the grandfather of Japanese ink paintings. Because of the time difference, which is so close, it seems likely that he intentionally changed attribution.”

As the Kano family dominated the Japanese art world in the years following Hasegawa’s death, Yatsunami believes this is evidence of a concerted attempt by the family to erase Hasegawa’s legacy. Another example of reattribution is the atmospheric “Crows on Pine, Egrets on Willow” (ca. 1593) where Hasegawa’s seal has been crudely scraped off so that the screen can be reattributed to Sesshu, the most famous name in Japanese ink painting.

In addition to his ink works being reattributed, Hasegawa’s polychrome works were all but forgotten, except for one example “Cherry and Maple Trees” at Chishakuin Temple in Kyoto. So much was his reputation for colour paintings forgotten that even a work that bore his seal, like “Japanese Bush Clover and Eulalia” (ca. 1602) was suspected to be by someone else. Partly, this was because traditional Japanese polychrome painting is more of a technique-based, craft-like art than the more expressive sumi-e, in which the personal styles of great artists tend to as unmistakable as signatures.

Due to close analysis of the one clear example of his polychrome work at Chishakuin Temple, scholars can now state for the first time that three large colour screens are definitely by Hasegawa. The most impressive of these is “Willow Trees by the Bridge” (ca. 1603), an extravaganza of gold leaf and paint that is said to depict Uji Bridge, a symbol of the connection between this world and the next.

Such gorgeous works, using expensive materials, were a sign that an artist had truly arrived. While Eitoku Kano was alive, the two painters competed for the patronage of the greatest in the land, but after Eitoku's death in 1590, Tohaku stood alone as the greatest living master of his time, something the successors of Eitoku found hard to accept. The Kano family may have helped to suppress the legacy of their great rival, but this fascinating exhibition at least ensures that Hasegawa will have the last laugh.

Pines in the Mist

Colin Liddell
International Herald Tribune Asahi Shimbun

March 18, 2005

THE A-Z OF SEX IN JAPAN

2022-09-28T04:01:00.005-07:00

Arguably the most important lexicon since Dr. Johnson flexed his quill. From the wastepaper basket of forgotten articles from the Japanzine, Fujiland presents you with the complete guide to all things JapaSex. Terribly dated so only the insane would argue that it's premature.

A – Abe, Sada

Few women could erotically asphyxiate their lover, remove his genitals with a household tool, walk "beaming with happiness" through the streets of Tokyo clutching said cock'n'balls in hand and still garner the sympathy of her compatriots. Yet that's exactly what Sada Abe (阿部定) managed on May 18th 1936. Although convicted, Abe was later pardoned during the celebrations marking the anniversary of Emperor Jimmu's ascension to the throne. Last seen playing herself in erotically charged bio-pics. The phrase "only in Japan" was coined for occasions such as this.

B – Bukkake

Here's one for those who believe Japan has given the world nothing. Taken from the verb bukkakeru (打㿣掛㿑る, to dash or splash), this merry little activity was considered a punishment at one time, though we can't imagine why. Involving a protagonist, several supporting players and a whole lotta treating one's body like a circus.

C – Chikan

Not to be confused with the delicate Indian embroidery of the same name, chikan (痴漢) are so central to society that in some cities they've even inspired their own train. Not that they're allowed to ride in it, of course. This group of social daredevils get their kicks groping innocents in crowded environments, thriving on the sardine-tight subways of Japan's larger metropolises.

D – Dekapai

...or "big tits" to you and I, dekapai (デカパイ) are the stuff of otaku dreams. While anime has transformed them into a proud art form, scientifically impossible breasts aren't merely the stuff of fantasy. Leading dekapai idols include the otherwise miniscule Megumi and the no-holes-barred Anna Ohura (see above), both of whom will retire comfortably on their "natural" assets.

E – Enjo Kousai

The P.C. term for enjo kousai (濴助交際) is "assisted dating", which makes it sound like a recovery program for the romantically challenged. Reportedly on the decline, the phenomenon once provided relief for two subsections of society – Japan's sexually depressed CEOs and the financially impoverished kogaru, desperate to keep up with expensive trends and transient fashions. Child prostitution or comfort for the elderly? The jury's still out.

F – Fashion Health

Another oddly misleading phrase that has little to do with its subject. A Fashion Health Massage (ファッションヘルスマッサージ) takes place in a brothel, rather than a gym, and involves everything the male mind could wish for, short of actual intercourse. Apparently.

G – Gokkun

The onomatopoeic cousin of bukkake, gokkun (ゴックン) is the sound of someone swallowing. One human vessel and several eager donors required. ‘Nuff said.

H – "H"

"H" is the first letter of the word hentai (変態) and is therefore afforded supreme status in our little wordbook, for without hentai and its associated pictorial success the world would know little of Japan's outlandish sexual practices. Suitably perverse, the locals pronounce it ecchi (エッヿ). the first word most foreigners learn after watashi wa...

I – Iijima, Ai

Ai Iijima (飯島愛) was gang-raped as a schoolgirl, left home shortly after and made a living doing many of the things we've written about here. One of Japan's most successful porn stars, Iijima retired from the business at the grand old age of 20. Her bestseller biography, Platonic Sex, saw success as a TV series and mainstream movie, and she now earns her keep admiring udon along with the other nonentities on the variety TV circuit. There's artistic progress for you.

J – Japasen

Sorry, dudes, you've been rumbled. For those believing that all you have to do is flex and they'll come running, japasen (ジャパセン) is the reviled trough into which you have fallen. A code word for foreign men who prey on Japanese flesh, memorizing it may save you several months of bewildered celibacy. Thank God for ~~Japanzine~~ Fujiland!

K – Kabukicho

Named after a Kabuki theater that never was, Kabukicho (歌舞伎町) is synonymous with all things grimy. Think seedy cinemas, think yazuka, think Kabukicho. For further info, see the article "Floating World" on page …

L – Love Dolls

It's unsurprising that the Japanese, along with the Germans, were first to develop the sturdier big sister to the blow-up doll, but few could have foreseen the levels this study in perversion would attain. Manufacturers fight to better each other with new and sinister features, such as the Sayaka Deep Kiss model, now complete with removable, washable vagina and head.

Desperate Western incel seeking to satisfy his "Japasen" urges with silicone

M – Mizuage

As seen in Memoirs of a Geisha (100% accurate), the mizuage (水濚㿒) ceremony is the ceremonial deflowering of a maiko to the highest bidder. And curse the blighters who suggest the geisha world is related to prostitution.

N – No-Pan-Kissa

In the mid 80s, No-Pan Kissa (ノーパン喫茶) were the discerning salaryman's retreat of choice. Involving waitresses, short skirts, no underwear and a lot of mirrored flooring; the phenomenon went into a predictable decline once the no-touching rule was broken. All innocence lost, the establishments moved into seedier surrounds and slowly drifted into the past. Expect the same fate for maid cafes.

O – Onsen Geisha

Again, not quite the thriving workforce they once were, Onsen Geisha (温泉芸者) preceded soapland workers by a few decades, performing services that few governments would shop as a tourist attraction.

P – Prostitution

The Anti-Prostitution Law of 1956 brought the glory years to an end, though various loopholes have been adequately exploited since. Essentially, it's just coitus that is illegal in Japan, so if you've been indulging in anything else, you're absolutely onside. Go you!

Readers of Nihongo will notice the insult to Turkish national dignity in the background

R – Roshutsu

Apparently common practice in the adult film industry, roshutsu (露出) involves the revealing of the body outdoors, often in public places. Not a craze that seems to have spread to everyday society. More's the pity.

S – San-P

San P (3P) is the involvement of three practitioners in one practice. In other words, a threesome. Can't imagine Dr. Johnson had this much fun researching his dictionary.

T – Tentacle Rape

A sci-fi fetish that seems to have origins in Shinto and a more playful approach to sexuality. Since woodblock artist Hokusai's renowned piece, The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, the depiction of women impaled on tentacles has found its way into numerous hentai manga. Yet another cultural asset to be proud of.

U – Uno, Sosuke

In August 1989, Prime Minister Sosuke Uno (宇野宗佑) incensed the nation by not supporting his geisha sufficiently, and subsequently resigned. The fact that he had a wife was neither here nor there.

Y – Yoshiwara

The yoshiwara (忉原) was the area of Edo designated for prostitution in the 1700s. Records suggest that up to 1700 women were put to work at the height of its popularity, escorted once a year to view the cherry blossoms, for which you can assume they were damned grateful.

JAPAN'S 98th PRIME MINISTER

2022-08-15T04:33:00.004-07:00

A podcast from Oct 2021 by Oscar Boyd and Satoshi Sugiyama discussing Fumio Kishida the 98th Prime Minister of Japan.

Hakuin: The Sight of One Hand Clapping

2021-10-01T02:41:00.003-07:00

Most people know the famous riddle, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Many are also aware that it is connected with Zen Buddhism, and some will even know that it is a famous koan by the 18th-century monk Hakuin.

A koan, of course, is a paradoxical parable or query used in Zen Buddhism to elicit enlightenment. One of the interesting aspects of this famous koan is that it raises the question of what the other hand — presumably that of Hakuin himself — is doing, which is appropriate, because Hakuin more than perhaps any other famous Zen master had a dual approach to Buddhism.

On the one hand there was his meditation and thought, expressed in his koans and other writings, while on the other there was his art, now the subject of Hakuin: The Hidden Messages of Zen Art at Bunkamura, The Museum, in Tokyo.

The exhibition brings together more than 100 works, mainly ink paintings, created by the monk throughout his life — he died on Jan. 18, 1768, aged 81. For this reason, it is possible to read the exhibition as the story of his spiritual development from a cocky young monk, rather self-consciously proud of his earliest experiences of satori (spiritual awakening), to the rather self-deprecating, comical and much-loved figure depicted in the self-portrait Busy Busy Beggar. This lacks a precise date, like most of the works in the exhibition, but is obviously from later in his life.

It is also possible to view the exhibition in a nonlinear, nonchronological way. One of the aims of Zen Buddhism is the attainment of a state of consciousness outside the temporal and causal flow. There is plenty of scope for this in Hakuin's art because his pictorial subjects cover a wide range of subjects, each one of which can be taken as symbolic of timeless aspects of creation and existence.

His subjects include Buddha; Kannon the Goddess of Mercy; various Buddhist saints, especially Bodhidharma, the reputed founder of Zen Buddhism; figures from Japanese folk beliefs such as Ofuku-san, the bringer of happiness, and the Seven Gods of Good Fortune; as well as anthropomorphic images of animals.

This variety contrasts with Enku, another Buddhist monk and artist, who is the subject of another exhibition across town at the Tokyo National Museum. Limiting himself mainly to stylized statues of Buddha, Enku is much more repetitive in his art. This reflects one of the strands of Buddhist practice, namely ritualistic repetition, something that is also expressed in the prolonged spinning of prayer wheels and the chanting of mantras.

Although he also prayed and meditated, Hakuin's approach to Buddhism was less about losing oneself in ritualistic repetition and more about achieving unique moments of inspiration and enlightenment. This makes for much more varied and interesting art. The search for such searing moments of insight, however, led Hakuin along occasionally difficult paths — both literally, as he wandered around Japan, and metaphorically as he pushed himself to the limit.

An early experience of asceticism led to a long period of illness. This is reflected in a couple of works on the theme of Shakyamuni Leaving the Mountain, in which Buddha is shown after a period of severe ascetic practices with protruding ribs and an emaciated look, testifying to the rigors of the spiritual quest.

This contrasts with the almost insouciant serenity of Hakuin's Lotus Kannon. The Goddess of Mercy is in relaxed mode, contemplating a pond bedecked with lotus flowers. In a world that has always had so much suffering, we cannot help feeling that she is being perhaps a little remiss in her duties.

This work seems formulaic, as if the artist were painting something he didn't quite understand. His artistic forte, and thus the thing that he seems to have understood best, was the figure of the eccentric and charismatic Zen master, like Bodhidharma, known in Japan as Daruma and the inspiration for the dolls of that name. There are many excellent examples at this exhibition, ranging from the cursory One-Eyed Daruma to a large, finely delineated scroll painting from Yomeiji Temple (see above). This shows the sage during a legendary nine-year period of meditation spent facing a cave wall, a fact that may explain why his eyeballs are so firmly lodged in the right-hand corner of his eyes.

Other powerful works center on Daito, a monk who completed his Zen training and then proceeded to spend the next 20 years under the Gojo Bridge in Kyoto with the gang of beggars who lived there. The ragged, hairy figure in his straw hat and cloak, holding a begging bowl in one hand while making a gesture to expel negativity with his other hand, is a potent invocation of the quintessential monk, a person who is half-in and half-out of the world that the rest of us live in — a world, if you like, of one hand clapping.

C.B.Liddell
The Japan Times
17th January. 2013

HOKUSAI'S DUTCH COURAGE

2021-09-26T12:44:00.006-07:00

Katsushika Hokusai and Philipp Franz von Siebold

It might sound a little corny to say that artists live through their works, but in the case of Katsushika Hokusai (1760 – 1849), whose lengthy life story is mired in muddles, myths, and myriad name changes, it is his art that speaks with the clearest voice and provides the scale to weigh the words describing his life. This not only gives art historians and academics something to do, but also opens up and clarifies storylines in the life of the artist routinely hailed as Japan’s greatest.

The exhibition “Siebold & Hokusai and his Tradition” at the Edo–Tokyo Museum is a case in point. It centers around a highly likely though unconfirmed meeting of the great artist with Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796 – 1866), a German who served as physician to the Dutch trading post at Nagasaki from 1823 to 1829, when he was expelled accused of spying, who later became known for his books on Japanese flora, fauna, and ethnography.

The exhibition is divided into two parts. The first “Siebold and Hokusai,” curated by Dr. Matthi Forrer of Holland’s National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden, uses works from that collection and France’s Bibliotheque Nationale to make the case for the meeting. Most of the works are drawn from a series of hand paintings commissioned in 1822 by two Dutch visitors to Edo from the trading colony at Nagasaki, but collected four years later by Siebold and the colony’s CEO, Kapitan Willem de Sturler.

Sudden Rain in the Countryside

Intriguingly, a version of this meeting seems to have been recorded, although with some confusion over dates and details, by Edmond de Goncourt, the late 19th–century enthusiast of Japanese art. In his 1896 book Hokusai he mentions an apparent row over money between Hokusai and a doctor from the Dutch colony:

“Hokusai applied all his care and expertise to painting the four scrolls which were finished at the time when the Dutch would depart. And when Hokusai delivered his paintings, the kapitan gladly paid the agreed sum of money, but the doctor, pretending that his salary was lower than that of the kapitan, only wanted to pay half the money.”

Whatever the details, the result was that Siebold and de Sturler ended up with several dozen paintings on Dutch and Japanese paper that later found their way into the two respective collections.

The brief that Hokusai was given was apparently to depict normal people, objects, and various scenes designed to satisfy foreign ethnological curiosity. As a consequence, some of the paintings, like the realistically detailed “Various implements used with firearms,” look like they belong in a catalogue.

Others, like “Women Divers,” a painting in sumi ink and pigments, which imaginatively follows mermaid–like Ama divers down to the seabed, show much more artistic interpretation. This work in particular has a surreal dreamlike quality that must have impacted powerfully on the 19th–century European consciousness.

Women Divers

The exhibition also points to the influence of Western art on Hokusai. “New Year’s Day at Kasumigaseki” shows an obvious use of vanishing point, while even in “Running Horse Riders,” where the background is sketchy, Hokusai applies perspective to the horsemen whizzing by to help create a sense of centripetal dynamism.

We can infer from Hokusai’s often quoted summation of his lengthy career that the Dutch commission came at an important point in his career.

“Little of what I painted before my seventieth year was truly worth of note,” he wrote in the colophon of “One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji” when he was 75.

This was no idle sophism as most of the major series of prints for which he is remembered were produced after this commission, which came at a time when Hokusai’s career had entered artistic doldrums; he was spending less time on his art and more time writing senryu, the Japanese equivalent of the limerick. It may be possible, then, that the paintings the Kapitan paid for and Siebold haggled over acted as a spur to shake Hokusai free from a case of ‘artistic block.’

New Year’s Day at Kasumigaseki

Whether this is true, the exhibition makes great efforts to show that many of the elements from these paintings later surfaced in his major print series, many of which can be seen in the second part of the exhibition.

For example, the horses and riders from “Running Horse Riders,” with their billowing garments and characteristic headgear were later transposed with some changes to “Sekiya Village on the Sumida River,” one of the classic scenes from “The Thirty–Six Views of Mount Fuji” (1831 – 34)” that can also be seen at the exhibition. Another example is “Sudden Rain in the Countryside” where the figures resisting the sudden squall and the trees bending to its force are close relatives to those in “Ejiri in Suruga Province” also from “The Thirty–Six Views.”

Ejiri in Suruga Province

This attention to detail makes this one of the most educational exhibitions on Hokusai in a long time. In its central thesis that a tight–fisted German doctor helped spur a talented artist to a new lease of life, it is certainly one of the most daring.

Colin Liddell
The Japan Times
20th December, 2007

ARATA ISOZAKI: SOLARIS

2021-09-10T17:00:00.009-07:00

Avant-garde Architecture at the ICC

Tokyo has something of a reputation for buildings that look like they belong on another planet, but the cutting-edge architecture you sometimes see around you is nothing compared to some of the schemes that have routinely been dreamed up by some of Japan’s top architects over the past several decades.

One of the most avant-garde minds in Japanese architecture is Arata Isozaki, the subject of an exhibition at NTT’s InterCommunication Centre. Isozaki is probably more famous for his theoretical writing such as his classic book, Japan-ness in Architecture, and conceptualizations of buildings and cities than for actual constructions. Although, over a long career, he has also managed to produce an impressive list of avant-garde structures, from the Tsukuba Center Building (1983) to the Qatar National Convention Center (2011), not to mention his biggest project—and possibly his swansong—Zhengdong New District, a vast ring of skyscrapers designed to serve as a major business centre in China.

The show’s title, “Arata Isozaki City Solaris,” is a reference to the famous 1973 Soviet science fiction film Solaris by the Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, which some critics saw as a response to Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the movie, a semi-intelligent planet was able to create various scenarios by accessing the minds and memories of the occupants in an orbiting space station. This ties in to Isozaki’s idea that the Earth isn’t a neutral space for building on but more like a spaceship we occupy as we travel through the universe.

Because of Isozaki’s expansive concepts and aura of Blade Runner-esque futurism, there are few more suitable venues for the exhibition than the ICC, a site that specializes in the futuristic, both with a permanent display frequently updated with new works, as well as special, temporary exhibitions like the Arata show.

Using architectural models, designs, concept art and an interactive installation, the exhibition attempts to give visitors some insight into Arata’s architectural philosophy. I recommend first researching him online as the exhibition contains no English explanations, surprising for such an international architect, who has built more outside Japan than inside and whose books and academic works have frequently been translated into English.

This will probably limit the appeal of the exhibition to enthusiasts of futurism and architecture, especially those interested in Japan’s Metabolist movement, of which Isozaki was a key member, alongside Kisho Kurokawa, Kiyonori Kikutake and Fumihiko Maki. The show is hardly exhaustive, presenting a cross section of works—some built, some unbuilt—that give an insight into his mind, with one or two surprises, like the fact that he designed the layout of New York’s famous Palladium night club back in the 1980s.

But even if this show isn’t quite all it could be, the ICC nevertheless has plenty to offer visitors in its permanent exhibition, where you’re sure to find something of interest in its technologically-themed exhibits.

Until Mar 2, ¥500. NTT Intercommunication Center. 4F Tokyo Opera City Tower, 3-20-2 Nishi-Shinjuku. www.ntticc.or.jp

Colin Liddell

Metropolis Magazine
23rd January, 2014

JAPAN'S FERTILITY RATE (BIRTHS PER WOMAN) 1800 TO 2020

2021-08-16T13:50:00.002-07:00

SADIST IN CHARGE OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES MUSIC

2021-07-17T10:17:00.003-07:00

The ~~2020~~ 2021 Tokyo Olympics has been one disaster after another. Now the latest blow is the revelation that the guy in charge of the music for the opening event is a complete shitbag who used to bully and humiliate disabled kids and then laugh about it to journalists.

Keigo Oyamada (小山田圭吾, Oyamada Keigo, born January 27, 1969), also known by his moniker Cornelius (CORNELIUS（コーネリアス）, Kōneriasu), made his name in the Shibuya-kei band Flipper's Guitar and subsequently went on to a prominent solo career that saw him land the Olympic Music Director role.

As revealed by Japan Subculture Research Society:

Here are some choice quotes from his interviews in the January 1994 issue of music magazine, Rockin’ On Japan, and the March 1995 issue of subculture magazine, Quick Japan. He was in his mid-twenties at the time of the interviews.

原文「うん。もう人の道に反して。。全裸にしてグルグルにひもを巻いてオナニーさしてさ。ウンコを喰わしたりさ。喰わした上にバックドロップしたりさ

“Yeah, I did inhuman things. I’d strip (one guy) naked and roll him up in cords and make (him) masturbate. I made him eat shit and then performed a belly- to-back-drop wrestling move on him.”
(Rockin’ On Japan)

原文「マットレス巻きにして殺しちゃった事件*とかあったじゃないですか、そんなことやってたし、跳び箱の中に入れたり　（学校の体育館倉庫で）

“Remember that case where kids rolled up another kid in a mattress and killed him? We did that sort of thing (to the special needs kid) and stuffed them in the vaulting horse…” (At a school gymnasium storage room)
(Quick Japan)

Keeping Oyamada on as the composer for the Olympics Opening Ceremony makes a mockery of everything the Olympics is supposed to stand for.

Actually, maybe he's entirely appropriate, because the Olympics this time round is set to be a real ordeal.

WHY IS JAPAN SO FAR BEHIND IN VACCINATIONS?

2021-04-08T09:31:00.006-07:00

How can we employ nurses in the meantime?

By this date (8th April, 2021) the United Kingdom has vaccinated 56% of its population against Covid-19, the USA 52%, France 19%, and mainland China 11%. Even India has vaccinated 6.7% of its vast and impoverished population. So, how is wealthy, high-tech Japan doing? As of today it has just passed the 1% mark.

Yes, really!

Japan, so far ahead in many areas, is clearly bringing up the rear in Covid vaccination.

It is also relying on foreign supplies, having secured -- in theory at least -- 140 million vaccine doses from US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. Although there seem to be problems here too.

But why isn't Japan's high-tech medical sector just churning out its own vaccine supplies?

The reasons are several, but mainly this is due to a lack of political will. What little political will exists in Japan tends to come from the big corporations that "finance" the politicians, and Japan's medical sector is somewhat ambivalent about vaccines.

One problem is too much protection.

Japan's med sector is old-fashioned and inefficient, with too many small companies that are insulated from that nasty thing called "competition" and also supported by government subsidies.

This cosy arrangement also means that these companies are too small and unwilling to take big bets on "Research and Development." Elsewhere in the world, rampant competition has created much larger companies that can take big bets on R&D. This has led to four massive pharmaceutical giants dominating 70% of the global market for vaccines.

Political will is also lacking because the Japanese government, which used to take the lead in developing vaccines in the past, got burned by a series of lawsuits in the 1990s for the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine. The vaccine was blamed, probabaly unfairly, for deaths and autism.

In 2003, the government and a research center affiliated with Osaka University were forced to pay a total of 155 million yen to the families of two children who died or suffered side effects after receiving the MMR vaccine.

As reported at the time:

The court ruled that the death of the son of a couple in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, and the serious brain damage suffered by 13-year-old Hana Ueno, from Hanamaki, Iwate Prefecture, were caused by the MMR vaccine. It ruled, however, that the child of a couple in Hyogo Prefecture died after contracting influenza.

Thousands more sued the government, mainly for cases of autism, although cases of autism continued to rise even after the vaccine was withdrawn, probably with the late age of the mothers being the real contributing factor.

Dr. Tetsuo Nakayama, a project professor at Kitasato Institute for Life Sciences and director of the Japanese Society of Clinical Virology explained the caution felt by the government:

“It’s not that Japan lacks the development capability. But after the government losses, the government did not actively propel the development of new vaccines. That created a vaccine gap that lasted for more than 10 years, during which Japan was way behind other countries in introducing vaccines for children. The lack of initiative from the government led to few financial resources and human resources to develop vaccines,” he says, “which inevitably slows the pace of development.”

Japan is not expected to produce its own vaccines until at least 2022. Until then it will have to rely on other countries and a draconian lock-down on international travel that has echoes of Sakoku (鎖国, "closed country"), Japan's earlier isolationist history during the Edo period.

Book Review: "Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns" by Isaac Titsingh

2020-08-30T06:56:00.000-07:00

Accounts of foreign lands are interesting both because of what they reveal about the country but also because of what they reveal about the writer. One of the dangers of this genre is that it can become all too focused on the author and his 'culture shock' as he bumbles into yet another inscrutable foreign custom.

Luckily, this is not a problem in this collection of writings by Isaac Titsingh, reissued after a gap of 180 years and heavily annotated by Timon Screech. Titsingh was a level-headed Dutch businessman placed in charge of the Dutch trading station at Nagasaki's Dejima from 1779 to 1784. His success depended on looking beyond confusing cultural surfaces to understand the economic and political realities that underpinned Edo-period society.

Titsingh's account is also remarkable in that he tries to remove the authorial 'I' from the narrative. In the historical part of the book, Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns, rather than digesting or interpreting the island empire's history, Titsingh simply uses translations of documents, allowing an authentic Japanese voice to speak to the West for the first time. Although very laudable in 1822 when Titsingh's book was first published, all the historical information has subsequently been superseded by writers with a more comprehensive understanding of Japanese history and language skills superior to Titsingh, who suspiciously claimed to have 'mastered' the Japanese language in a mere two years.

Titsingh's original concept of using mainly Japanese voices has not been followed by the present book's editor Timon Screech, a Reader in the history of Japanese art at London's School of Oriental and African Studies. In addition, to a detailed 74-page introduction that fills in the detailed background to Titsingh and the Japan of his time, Screech also includes other documents by Titsingh, including his essays on Japan and his 'Secret Diary,' a first-person narrative business report meant for the eyes of his superiors in the Dutch East India Company. This details his day–to–day battle of wits with unreliable translators, capricious governors, and even the authorities in distant Edo.

Titsingh's ace in business negotiations was that the Japanese clearly needed the Dutch at Dejima more than vice versa. While the Japanese imported spices from the Dutch East Indies, wool, and crystal glasses, their main export in return was copper that was becoming increasingly unprofitable for the Dutch due to cheaper sources elsewhere. When Dutch ships didn't visit Nagasaki in 1782 – partly due to war with Great Britain – Titsingh mentions that there was "incessant praying for three days in temples, with the promise of large rewards if the prayers were answered." The other side of this economic downturn was that the Governor of Nagasaki, when he visited Edo Castle, could only be restrained "with the greatest difficulty" from "cutting open his belly," because the loss of trade and the threat of war spreading had led to the stockpiling of rice and a famine.

Rather than being shocked by the extremes of Edo-period culture, like seppuku (ritual suicide), Titsingh remains blasé. In his essay The character of the Japanese People he describes it as one might describe playing shogi (Japanese chess):

"As with us, the graceful performance of certain bodily exercises is considered an accomplishment essential to a liberal education, so among them it is indispensably necessary for all those who by their birth or rank aspire to dignities, to understand the art of ripping themselves up like gentleman."

Titsingh's narrative is useful in that he never sees Japan as a monolithic and static society where everybody thought the same way. Instead, he is constantly aware of the competing groups and interests that make up any complex society, in particular drawing a distinction between those who favored more ties with the outside world and those who didn't, described as "frogs in a well" because of their limited horizons. The widely traveled Titsingh was quite the opposite.

Colin Liddell
Metropolis
22nd December, 2006