HŌRAI

Blue vision of depth lost in height — sea and sky intermixing through luminous haze. The day is of spring, and the hour morning.

Only sky and sea — one azure enormity. In the foreground, ripples are catching a silvery light, and threads of foam are swirling. But a little further off no motion is visible, nor anything except color: dim warm blue water widening away to melt into blue air. Horizon, there is none: only distance soaring into space — infinite concavity hollowing before you, and hugely arching above you — the color deepening with the height. But far in the midway blue, there hangs a faint, faint vision of palace towers, with high roofs horned and curved like moons — some shadowing of splendor strange and old, illumined by a sunshine soft as memory.

What I have thus been trying to describe is a kakémono,⁵¹ that is to say, a Japanese painting on silk, suspended on the wall of my alcove and the name of it is “Shinkirō,” which means “mirage.” But the shapes of the mirage are unmistakable. Those are the glimmering portals of Hōrai the Blest;⁵² and those are the moony roofs of the palace of the Dragon King; and their style (though drawn by a Japanese brush of today) is the style of things Chinese, twenty-one hundred years ago. Thus, much is told of the place in the Chinese books of that time.

In Hōrai there is neither death nor pain; and there is no winter. The flowers in that place never fade, and the fruits never fail; and if a man tastes those fruits even once, he can never again feel thirst or hunger. In Hōrai grow the enchanted plants So-rin-shi, Riku-gō-aoi, and Ban-kon-tō, which heal all manner of sickness — and there also grows the magical grass, Yo-shin-shi, that revives the dead; and the magical grass is watered by a fairy water of which a single drink confers perpetual youth. The people of Hōrai eat their rice out of very, very small bowls; but the rice never diminishes within those bowls — however much of it be eaten — until the eater desires no more. And the people of Hōrai drink their wine out of very, very small cups; but no man can empty one of those cups — however stoutly he may drink — until the pleasant drowsiness of intoxication comes upon him.

All this and more is told in the legends of the time of the Shin dynasty; although, that the people who wrote down those legends ever saw Hōrai, even in a mirage, is not believable. For really, there are no enchanted fruits that leave the eater forever satisfied — nor any magical grass that revives the dead — nor any fountain of fairy water — nor any bowls that never lack rice, — nor any cups that never lack wine. It is not true that sorrow and death never enter Hōrai — neither is it true that there is not any winter. The winter in Hōrai is cold — the winds bite to the bone, and the heaping of snow on the roofs of the Dragon-King is monstrous.

Nevertheless, there are wonderful things in Hōrai; and the most wonderful of all has not been mentioned by any Chinese writer. I mean the atmosphere of Hōrai. It is an atmosphere unique to the place, and because of it, the sunshine in Hōrai is whiter than any other sunshine — a milky light that never dazzles — astonishingly clear, but very soft. This atmosphere is not of our human era: it is enormously old — so old that I feel afraid when I try to think how old it is — and it is not a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. It is not made of air at all — but of ghost — the substance of quintillions of quintillions of gener- ations of souls, blended into one immense translucency — souls of people who thought in ways never resembling our ways. If a mortal man inhales that atmosphere, he takes the thrilling of these spirits into his blood; and they change the sense within him — reshaping his notions of space and time — so that he can see only as they used to see, and feel only as they used to feel, and think only as they used to think. Soft as sleep are these changes of sense; and Hōrai, discerned across them, might thus be described:

Because in Hōrai there is no knowledge of great evil, the hearts of the people never grow old. And, by reason of being always young in heart, the people of Hōrai smile from birth until death — except when the Gods send sorrow among them; and faces are then veiled until the sorrow goes away. All folk in Hōrai love and trust each other, as if all were members of a single household — and the speech of the women is like birds singing, because their hearts are as light as the souls of birds — and the swaying of the sleeves of the maidens at play seems like the fluttering of wide, soft wings. In Hōrai nothing is hidden but grief, because there is no reason for shame — and nothing is locked away, because there could not be any theft — and by night as well as by day all doors remain unbarred, because there is no reason for fear. And because the people are fairies — though mortal — all things in Hōrai, except the palace of the Dragon King, are small and quaint and strange — and these fairy-folk really do eat their rice out of very, very small bowls, and drink their wine out of very, very small cups.

Much of this seeming would be due to the inhalation of that ghostly atmosphere — but not all. For the spell wrought by the dead is only the charm of an ideal, the glamour of an ancient hope; and something of that hope has found fulfillment in many hearts — in the simple beauty of unselfish lives — in the sweetness of women.

Evil winds from the West are blowing over Hōrai; and the magical atmosphere, alas, is shrinking away before them. It lingers now only in patches and bands — like those long bright bands of clouds that trail across the landscapes of Japanese painters. Under these shreds of the elfish vapor you still can find Hōrai — but not everywhere. Remember that Hōrai is also called “Shinkirō,” which means mirage — the Vision of the Intangible. And the Vision is fading — never again to appear except in pictures and poems and dreams. 

(From The Annotated Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn, Edited and Illustrated by Hayato Tokugawa, Copyright 2017 by Hayato Tokugawa and Shisei-Do Publications.)

PENNIES

PENNIES

When I was a small boy, in the days when my grandfather was still a young man, nobody resented wasting a little time. I wonder, did that represent a deliberate judgment, from a time when we were less hurried or frantic, or was it merely foolishness?

If I were to speak to those who, out of foolishness, are lazy, I would tell them that while a penny is of little value on its own, that an accumulation of pennies will, in time, make a rich man of a poor one. It is for this very reason that a merchant is so likely to hoard each and every one of his coins. As we go about our sometimes distracted, frantic days, we may not be aware of the passing moments; yet, we spend them as if they too have little value, until suddenly, they are all spent. For this very reason, would not a wise man not bemoan the passage times yet to come, but instead lament the wasting of a single present moment?

AFTER THE VIOLENCE

In The Aftermath of the Violence

This morning, the television news programs were filled with political pundits and would-be wise men, all searching for easy solutions to something where there are no easy solutions — weapons bans, tighter weapons control, harsher penalties for violent crime, making school buildings more secure, more care for the mentally ill (assuming one can identify who is mentally ill). As usual, the national hysteria, the national neurosis rages, the national breast-beating; and as usual nothing will get done. Before anything else, America, as a nation, as a people, needs to look deep within and realize the culture of violence that dwells there. Nothing will be done, nothing can be done, until that culture of violence, that ethos where bloody murder is the commonplace, is realized and changed within each heart – within each family. I know all too well. I’ve been cleaning up the messes of that culture all my life.

(Twenty children and six adults killed in a massacre at the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school were all shot multiple times, many with a rifle, wielded by a lone gunman, on December 14, 2012.)

JAPANESE AESTHETICS: Plants in the Visual Arts (Geijutsu to Shokubutsu)

The graphic or illustrative arts in Japan traditionally have relied on the sensitivity of the artist to nature and thus, have been likely to be simple, compact, and modest, yet elegant. Traditional renderings of landscapes, for example, do not display the wide range of colors that is seen in Western oil paintings or watercolors. This same simplicity and grace applies to sculpture as well: delicately carved and small in size.

Plants, flowers and birds, or at least their outlines are frequently rendered in lifelike colors on fabric, lacquer ware and ceramics. The love of natural forms and an enthusiasm for the expression of nature in idealized style have been the key intentions in the development of traditional Japanese arts such as ikebana (flower arrangement, chanoyou (the tea ceremony), tray landscapes (bonkei), bonsai, and landscape gardening. It is through these arts that the Japanese people have attempted to incorporate the beauty of nature into their spiritual values and daily lives.

For the decoration of a teahouse, a modest flower was selected to conform with the principle that flowers should always look as if they were still in nature. The Japanese have sought to express the immensity as well as the simplicity of nature with a single wild flower in a solitary vase.

Copyright 2010 by Hayato Tokugawa. All rights reserved.

SAITO AND THE KAPPA

The Tokugawa family is blessed with cats. Well actually, “blessed” may be a stretch; perhaps it is better to simply say that the Tokugawa family has cats, or the cats have us: probably the latter. Being for most intents and purposes, a Japanese family (despite the current separation of 8,000 miles), we have a certain cultural and religious involvement with the both Shintō and Buddhism. We observe the customs and traditions of both religions as do most Japanese; indeed, if you are born Japanese, you are pretty much born into Shintō and Buddhism: they are part of the Japanese tapestry. This involvement with the religions and traditions of Japan does not only extend to the human members of a family, but can, as we discovered, involve our animal members as well: as we recently found out.

As I’ve written in the past, Tajimi and the surrounding area is the capital of ceramic art and ceramic production in Japan. You may also remember that I mentioned once that the official mascot of Tajimi is a kappa. What’s more, perhaps appropriately, the first gift my bride Aoi gave me was a ceramic kappa, made in Tajimi.

Now, you may well ask, “What is a kappa?”A kappa (河童) or “river child,” also known as a kawatarō (川太郎 ) or “river boy” or kawako (川子) “river child,” is a legendary creature, a type of water fairy, or more appropriately a suijin or water kami (deity), found in Japanese folklore as well as the in the traditions of Shintō.

Most portrayals of kappa are as child-sized, human-like kami, although their bodies are often more combinations of those of monkeys and/or frogs rather than human beings, with thick shells a bit like those of a turtle, and scaly green, yellow, or blue skin. According to legend, kappa usually inhabit ponds and rivers in Japan and have physical features to aid them in these environments like webbed hands and feet. It is sometimes said that they smell like fish, in addition to being able to swim like them.

Tradition holds that kappa are generally mischievous or troublemakers; with their antics ranging from basically innocent jokes such as loudly passing gas or looking up a lady’s kimono, to being a bit more troublesome; such as stealing crops, kidnapping children, and the like. Some legends also say that small children are in fact, one of the kappa’s favorite meals, although they may, from time to time, eat an adult as well. Now you may well scoff at all this, but one should be aware that even today, in many towns and villages, there are signs along rivers, streams, and ponds warning of the presence of kappa! Obviously, someone considers kappa real enough to spend the money to post the signs. It is also said that kappa are afraid of fire and some villages hold firework festivals annually to scare the kappa away.

An old Japanese friend has provided me with this assured old Japanese method of escape if one is ever confronted by a kappa:

Kappa, for some reason which is unknown to me, other than they are truly Japanese, are obsessed with being overly polite. If one gestures in a deep bow to a kappa, because of the need to return the politeness and then some, the kappa can be tricked into bowing even deeper. When he does this, water, which is kept in a bowl that looks much like a lily pad on his head, will spill out and he will then be stuck in this bowing position until the bowl is refilled with water from the exact body of water in which he lives.

My friend also assured me that as legend has it, if the water is refilled by a human, then the kappa would serve them for all eternity.

Kappa as a rule are not really hostile towards men or women, or haven’t been until modern times, beginning with the Meiji Period. Rather, they are curious about Japanese and human culture, to the extent that they have learned to write and speak Japanese quite well. They also like sports and competitions; and will from time to time, challenge someone they meet to a game of shogi (which is like Western chess) or even sumo wrestling. Another legend says that kappa will even make friends with humans, especially in exchange for gifts such as cucumbers: the only food kappa are known to enjoy more than children! In many villages still, Japanese parents sometimes inscribe the names of their children on the skins of cucumbers and then throw them into “kappa-infested” waters in order to pacify the kappa and to allow the family to swim there.
Once someone makes a friend of a kappa, according to the stories, they have been know to be very helpful to their human friends. For example, they sometimes help farmers to irrigate their land. Kappa are also skilled at medicine and legend has it that they are the ones who taught the art of bone setting to the Japanese people. Because of this goodwill on the part of the kappa, some Shintō shrines have been dedicated to kappa that have proven themselves particularly helpful.

Now, how does this all relates to the Tokugawa family and Saitochan? Well, beside my futon, on a nightstand, sit three ceramic figures from Tajimi. One is a small ceramic kitty that looks quite a bit like the very glamorous and sophisticated kitty, Sumiechan. The other is a rather playful appearing dachshund which looks remarkably like the Tokugawa family dog, Tonochan. The third figure is that of the kappa, which Aoi sent me many years ago: her first gift to me. Saito has a problem, well actually several; but among them are his need to touch everything possible, to claim ownership of anything he wants, and to use whatever he wants as a toy. Thus, from time to time, the ceramic Sumiechan and Tonochan have disappeared in the middle of the night and turned up in Saito’s toy box or other secret hiding places for his purloined possessions.

Up until last week, the kappa had never been molested, played with, or taken. Then one night at about 2 am, I heard a dull thump. I got up with the immediate thought of, “What has that little four-legged gaki (brat) done now?” Ceramic Tono was missing (I found him two days later, buried under the futon’s wooden frame) and so was the kappa. There, on top of the large tansu chest (a stepped chest much like a Western dresser or “chest of drawers”) with a look on his face that said, “What? Why is it always me?” was Saito. Why indeed! On the floor, in front of the tansu, lay the body of the kappa, his right arm broken into two pieces. Now I strongly doubt that the kappa, in some mysterious way for some equally mysterious reason, took himself to the top of the chest and then ended his own existence by jumping off. Saito not only likes to touch things or carry them off, he likes to push things off wherever they might be: shelves, tables, cupboards, etc.

Up to now, you might well say that this is just another example of brat-cat mischief and you would probably be correct in your assumption; however, at that same time, over 8,000 miles away in Tajimi, a water valve broke in our Tajimi home and the resulting torrent flooded the laundry room, until Aoi was able to shut the water pipe off elsewhere on the property. Despite desperate telephone calls for help, no haikankō (plumber) could come to fix the problem. One would come, however, as soon as he could: an open-ended pledge.

The next day, the kappa, after my profuse apologies to it for Saito’s inconsiderate and painful (possibly) behavior, was repaired as best as could be accomplished. Have you ever noticed that once broken, things just never fit back together quite the same way again? Nevertheless, at that very same time, a haikankō miraculously appeared and fixed the broken pipe and valve at the Tajimi house.

It would certainly be easy to just attribute all of this to a bratty cat and coincidence; yet, we can’t help but wonder why, at the same time the kappa was broken, the water valve broke and flooded the laundry room, some 8,000 miles away in a town officially represented by a kappa? Why, at almost the same time the ceramic kappa was repaired, did the overworked haikankō (it was below freezing, snowing, and unprotected water pipes were breaking all over town) suddenly appear?

Aoi and I have been working on a project involving a new translation and interpretation of the Kojiki (古事記 ), or Record of Ancient Matters, the oldest existing recorded Japanese chronicles and foundation of much of Shintō’s beliefs and traditions. I’ve also been involved in editing some articles by Lafcadio Hearn on Shintō. Our combined experience makes us wonder if there is some connection beyond what seems obvious to Western eyes. Something tells us, even in modern Japan (and the West), the traditions and beliefs of that ancient religion cannot be pushed aside. Japan is just too mysterious a place for that.

Copyright 2010 by Hayato Tokugawa and Shisei-Do Publications. All rights reserved.

THOUGHTS FROM A TAKAYAMA ROOFTOP: Musings on a View of History

Musings on a View of History

kishamichi ni
hikuku kari tobu
tsukiyo kana

low over the railroad
wild geese flying –
a moonlight night

-Shiki

The warm days of summer are now gone and the soft, gentle breeze that drifted through the open doors of my study and rustled the papers on my desk has grown teeth. In summer, it would make its way through this old “samurai house,” blending indoors with out, lending a certain tenderness and ease to life. Today, sweater replaces yukata, iced tea is now traded for steaming coffee. Last night the wind shook the closed shutters over our doors and windows, as though demanding entry: equal time with the zephyrs of mid-year. Now our warmth comes from the electric heater and the fire which crackles and snaps from the pit in the main tatami room, on which rides the smoky incense of oak rather than the perfume of flowers and fresh grass.

As I look through the sliding glass door of my refuge, filled with the volumes of Japan past which stir my imagination and answer my questions, only then give birth to new queries, I can see the cats at play in the garden; enjoying the day in their newly fluffed coats. The old puss perches high up on the gate, surveying her domain, as though she is some ancient daimyō watching over her han (domain). The two young ones dart here and there; games of hide-and-seek or perhaps imagining themselves as tigers in the wild; hiding in the now brown grass; waiting for some elusive prey to venture too close to their place of cover. Occasionally one cat ventures out to the edge of the pond and looks in. Yes, the koi are all still there in their places. Then he’s off again to pounce on his preoccupied sibling who just found a mouse. All too soon, the pond will be covered with ice, the ground will be blanketed in snow, and the garden mice will be safe in their nests below the porch.

One cannot help but to smile a bit at the moment, and then I look at the volumes of history that line the walls of my room and think about autumns long ago. Did Tokugawa Ieyasu look out his window at Edo Castle, or later at Sanpu in Suruga, and see similar scenes? Some might say no, he was without doubt too busy plotting and scheming. I think he did see such things and probably thought deeply upon them in his later years. Nevertheless, that is a difference in the viewing of history.



History is merely an attempt to write about events that belong to the past. What is written depends on documents: manuscripts, essays, and articles from the period being written about. Modern-day topics and events are often regarded as being too ordinary and thus, unworthy of documentation except as television newsbytes or a few short columns in a newspaper.
I often find myself wondering how historians, perhaps two or three centuries from now, will regard the last few years, and especially this year of 2009, in viewing Japan or the United States. Will they describe 2009 as a year when America began to once again find direction and to re-assume a position of world leadership, this time for the betterment of the world in general and in particular for its own citizens; or, will they perhaps hold 2009 up as enduring evidence that a once great notion grew too big to sustain itself and its ideals, and in the end failed?

Will they say that Japan continued its socio-political decline, and that its culture continued to erode, giving way to the forces of globalization, just as a beach is consumed by the waves of an approaching typhoon, or will they perhaps say that 2009 was a year when Japan, at last, broke free from the miasma from which it suffered, beginning at the end of World War II? Did Japan at last find its feet and stand up to demand equity with the United States among the nations of the world and cast off its acquiescence to Western domination?

Recently I wrote a short essay on the topic of Bushidō and its core. The article, much to my delight, stirred more than a little controversy and debate, which in itself, was a very good thing; for in my mind, such writing has little point unless it stirs thought and stimulates discussion. The essay and resulting commentary became the subject of conversations among myself and other Japanese with a more than passing interest in Japanese culture and history. Some were outraged by the views expressed by a group from the San Francisco Bay Area: others were simply dismayed. More than one comment was made that they should “admit their shame and end their life.” The comment was also made that some, whose samurai heritage had been insulted, would be more than willing to assist the group in the called for acts of seppuku. Some may indeed by surprised that one’s samurai heritage can be insulted, more than one hundred and forty years after the conclusion (note I did not say fall) of the Tokugawa Era. Most Japanese, even those who we might term as “liberals” are far more conservative than their American liberal cousins are. Most Japanese still attach great significance to their family histories: their clans and their samurai heritage. That is being Japanese.

Certainly, the group, Asians Art Museum, which parodies the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, has every right to express their views and opinions; indeed, I encourage it. Yet, the Japanese who read it and expressed their opinions to me, felt that the group’s views were tainted, that there was a certain “agenda” not too well hidden beneath their words: expressions marked with an irony that does not translate to Japanese thought. Among the Japanese students of Japanese history, none of my associates regard themselves as scholars but simply as students, sincehistory is an unending process of study and analysis– a process we often engage in over coffee, tea, sake and snacks (we try to do things with a bit of flair), the view was frequently expressed that aspiring or pseudo-historians tend to notice or to select records which match their own pre-conceptions of the past and support (or can be bent to support) their own personal, revisionist agendas; that is, they have an ax to grind.






Certainly there exits confusion about the complexities of Japanese history, even among Japanese. In this particular case, however, we have Western historians giving interpretation to Japanese history. In the West, modern historians still are greatly influenced by 18th century theories of history and long-past Age of Enlightenment in Europe. They still regard the European medieval age as the “dark ages” and as a corollary, the age of Japanese feudalism: cruel, dark, dismal. Certainly some Japanese historians and intellectuals (such as Nitobé Inazo) are equally as guilty of this view, having themselves imported ideals of Western feudalism and overlaying them on unique, Japanese concepts. Add to that a certain taint of Marxism interlaced with the American penchant for political correctness, and the overall result becomes skewed. A result is the compartmentalization of Japanese history into Japan’s “Classical Era,” Japan’s “Feudal Era” or Dark Ages, and the Modern or “Post-Tokugawa Era”, when it is far more complex than that. This tends to perpetuate the selective (and often simplistic) reporting of history: ignoring the complexities of Japanese history, which can be likened to the weaving of some fine tapestry.

Nevertheless, the overall result of the discussions was twofold. First, that certainly, everyone should be free to express their thoughts and opinions, even though it may lack wisdom or good manners – expression is essential. The second conclusion was that Japanese history and its interpretation should be left to Japanese, since the West is not equipped to understand and appreciate Japanese thought and the depth of Japanese culture and the intricacies of its history.

(To be continued)

-Tokugawa H.

Copyright 2009 by H. Tokugawa and Shisei-Do Publications. All rights reserved.