MIYAZAWA KENJI: Part I

Miyazawa Kenji: Part I

My wife Aoi and I are both students of Japanese literature. Of late, we have been interested in the literature produced during the Meiji, Taishō, and early Shōwa periods. One writer who unfortunately, I had not really taken much notice of until I received a book of his as a present — a children’s book titled Chūmon no Ōi Ryōriten (注文の多い料理店), The Restaurant of Many Orders, is Miyazawa Kenji. A few evenings ago, I had been rearranging my bookshelves, in the futile hope of making more room for more books (my study is now a repository of books positioned in any place that I don’t step on) and took a few minutes to leaf through The Restaurant of Many Orders again. I very much enjoyed the book and wanted to share with you what I discovered about the author.

I think to most Westerners, the name Miyazawa Kenji either means not much; or more frequently, it is confused with Miyazaki Hayao, the creator of the now classic My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and Kiki’s Delivery Service. Not at all the same man, but both have indisputably given us some treasures.

Miyazawa (宮沢 賢治) was born August 27, 1896 and is most noted as one of the premier writers of children’s literature of the early Shōwa period. He was also a devout Buddhist and in later life, a social activist.

Unlike what one might expect in many stories of the time, the Meiji period, Miyazawa was not born into a poor humble household; rather, he was born in Iwate, in the town of Hanamaki-shi, north-central Honshū, as the eldest son of a wealthy pawnbroker. Even though he was a child of wealth and privilege, he was bothered by what he perceived to be a great social disparity between his moneyed family and the disadvantaged, often insolvent, farmers of the region, whom his family profited from by lending them money.

The young man attended the Morioka Agriculture and Forestry College (Now Iwate University), graduating in 1918. Records show that he was a bright student; so bright in fact, that his academic advisor hired him as an assistant professor. That in itself should have made young Kenji very happy indeed; yet, a wide chasm developed between him and his father, primarily over religion. Kenji had converted to a modern form of Nichiren Buddhism, Nichirenism or Nichirenshugi (日蓮主義), becoming a follower of the radical nationalist leader of the Nichrensugi, Tanaka Chigaku[i], to the extent of joining Tanaka’s Kokuchukai or “National Pillar” organization in 1920. That, and his growing disgust for the family pawn business, led him to leave Hanamaki for Tokyō, and to give up his financial inheritance in a complete break with his family.

It was in Tokyō that he was introduced to the works of the poet Hagiwara Sakutarō[ii] and was himself inspired to begin writing. He spent eight months in Tokyō, where he primarily wrote children’s stories, but was ultimately forced to return to Hanamaki due to the illness and finally death of his younger sister, whom he had loved very much.

Back at home, on tenuous ground with his father, Miyazawa found employment as a teacher of agricultural science at the Hanamaki Agricultural High School (花巻農学校) at a meager wage; but still, he was able to set aside enough money to pay for the publication of his first collection of children’s stores and fairy tales, Chūmon no Ōi Ryōriten, mentioned earlier, as well as a small collection of free-verse poetry, Haru to Shura (春と修羅), Spring and Asura. Although neither work was what could be considered a commercial success, they did gain the attention of Japanese poets Takamura Kōtarō[iii] and Kusano Shimpei[iv] who in turn, introduced his work to Japanese literary circles. As a teacher, Miyazawa was viewed as a bit eccentric, but also as a man of passion. He taught that learning could only come through actual, first-hand experience rather than solely by scholastic effort. In keeping with that, he often took his students out of the formal classroom setting, sometimes for training, but often simply for enjoyable walks in the countryside. He also encouraged his pupils to put on plays which they had themselves written.

From 1926 until his passing in 1933, Miyazwa did all that he could in order to improve both the material and the spiritual lives of the peasants of Iwate-ken. He introduced new agricultural methods and new varieties of seeds and plants. He went so far as to leave his teaching position in order to establish the Rasu Farmers Association, which met in a small house on his family’s property. Not only did he teach agriculture but also encouraged the performance of plays, music and other cultural activities.

He also, at that time, studied Esperanto, a contrived, constructed language, more of a fashionable fad or experiment, very popular at the time, especially within European intellectual and pseudo-intellectual circles. Nitobé Inazō was another fan of this language and went so far as to attempt to have it adapted as “the international language” by the League of Nations.

Miyazawa’s later work (1926-1933) shows an acute sensitivity for nature, the land, and the people who worked it. He became a prolific writer of children’s stores, many of which might seem light, humorous, even capricious, but which all contained some note of moral education. He wrote not only prose but penned stage plays, a large number of tanka, as well as free-verse, much of which was not published until after his death from pneumonia resulting from chronic pleurisy[v] September 21, 1933

Besides the works previously cited, his other major works include: Gingatetsudō no Yoru (銀河鉄道の夜), Night on the Galactic Railroad; Kaze no Matasaburō (風の又三郎), Matasaburo of the Wind; Cello Hiki no Goshu (セロ弾きのゴーシュ), Gauche the Cellist; Taneyamagahara no Yoru (種山ヶ原の夜), The Night of Taneyamagahara; Vegetarian Taisai (ビジテリアン大祭), Vegetarian Great Festival; Ryū to Shijin (竜と詩人), The Dragon and the Poet.

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[i] Tanaka Chigaku (田中智學) (1861–1939) was a Japanese Buddhist scholar and preacher of Nichiren Buddhism, orator, writer and nationalist propagandist in the Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa periods. He is considered to be the father of Nichirenism, the fiercely nationalistic blend of Nichiren Buddhism and State Shinto espoused by such figures as Inoue Nissho, Ishiwara Kanji and Kita Ikki.

The 1890s saw Tanaka's spiritual philosophy evolve in an increasingly nationalistic manner, taking to concluding his works with the twin salutations of “I Take Refuge in the Scripture of the Wondrous Lotus Blossom” (南無妙法蓮華経, Namu myoho rengekyo) and “Imperial Japan for Ever and Ever” (日本帝国万々歳, Nippon teikoku ban-banzai). The decade saw him carry out extensive lecturing tours throughout Japan and establish his Nichiren study group, Rissho Ankokukai (立正安国会) from his new base in Kamakura. A noted anti-Christian and staunch opponent of Christian missionaries in Japan, he applauded Japan’s triumph in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, stating that “The war with Russia is divinely inspired to make Japanese citizens aware of their heavenly task.”

In 1908, he moved his base to Miho, Shizuoka Prefecture, where he would write his most famous work, “The Doctrine of Saint Nichiren” (日蓮聖人の教義, Nichiren shonin no kyogi) in 1911, in which he casts the radical 13^th century priest Nichiren as the champion of the Japanese nation, and called for world unification through Nichirenism, with the emperor as its core. “Japan’s very purpose of existence,” he writes, “is the implementation of this plan, as a country conceived for building Nichiren Buddhism.”

In 1914, Tanaka amalgamated all of his followers into a single organization, the Kokuchukai (国柱会, National Pillar Society), based in Miho. He maintained a busy lecture schedule until illness curtailed his activities in the late 1930s, and travelled not only throughout Japan but also on speaking tours of Japanese-occupied Korea and Manchukuo, where he supported and gave lectures to Emperor Puyi. His nationalist and imperialist convictions only hardened with age, believing that Japan’s 1931 takeover of Manchuria was divinely ordained and part of a divine plan to spread the “true" Nichiren Buddhism throughout Asia. He even went as far as to compile diagrams of the states in which the “Nichirenization” of the world would take place.

[ii] Hagiwara Sakutarō (萩原 朔太郎, November 1, 1886 - May 11, 1942) was a Japanese writer of free-style verse, active in the Taishō and early Shōwa periods of Japan. He is credited by some as having “liberated Japanese free verse from the grip of traditional rules,” and he is considered by many as the “father of modern colloquial poetry in Japan.” He published many volumes of essays, literary and cultural criticism, and aphorisms over his long career. His unique style of verse expressed his doubts about existence, and his fears, ennui, and anger through the use of dark images and unambiguous wording.

[iii] Takamura Kōtarō (高村 光太郎 March 13, 1883 – April 2, 1956) was a Japanese poet and sculptor. His sculptural work shows strong influence both from Western work (especially Auguste Rodin, whom he idolized) and from Japanese traditions. He is also famous for his poems, and especially for his 1941 collection Chiekoshō (智恵子抄, literally “Selections of Chieko,” in English titled Chieko's Sky after one of the poems therein), a collection of poems about his wife Chieko Takamura, who died in 1938.

[iv] Kusano Shimpei (1903 – 1988) a poet who won the Order of Cultural Merit in 1987, was called “Mr. Frog” by the local people of Iwaki. The reason why he got this nickname was because, as a featured theme of his poetry, he often wrote about frogs. “Mr. Frog,” whose birth place was in Iwaki, is still talked about by its residents as a pure and honest person, almost childlike, how his facial expressions as a poet had some kind of attractiveness and so on. Locally, there are more legends of his unique personality. Shimpei was very poor when he married. He sent a telegram to a total stranger, Miyazawa Kenji, asking, “Would you please send us a bale of rice.” What he received from Kenji were thick books and a letter which said “You can exchange these books to money.” Later on, Shimpei opened a bar, which name was “Hi-no-kuruma” (hard up for money). However, the business did not go well because he started drinking with his customers.

[v] Pleurisy (also known as pleuritis) is an inflammation of the pleura, the lining surrounding the lungs. There are many possible causes of pleurisy but viral infections spreading from the lungs to pleural cavity are the most common. The inflamed pleural layers rub against each other every time the lungs expand to breathe in air. This can cause sharp pain when breathing, also called pleuritic chest pain.