The Hundred Secret Senses is an exultant novel about China and America, love and loyalty, the identities we invent and the true selves we discover along the way. Olivia Laguni is half-Chinese, but typically American in her uneasiness with her patchwork family. And no one in Olivia’s family is more embarrassing to her than her half-sister, Kwan Li. For Kwan speaks mangled English, is cheerfully deaf to Olivia’s sarcasm, and sees the dead with her “yin eyes.”
Even as Olivia details the particulars of her decades-long grudge against her sister (who, among other things, is a source of infuriatingly good advice), Kwan Li is telling her own story, one that sweeps us into the splendor, squalor, and violence of Manchu China. And out of the friction between her narrators, Amy Tan creates a work that illuminates both the present and the past sweetly, sadly, hilariously, with searing and vivid prose.
“The Hundred Secret Senses doesn’t simply return to a world but burrows more deeply into it, following new trails to fresh revelations.”–Newsweek
Over two-thirds of Japan is covered with forested mountains. Traditionally these are sacred places, viewed as dwelling places of the dead and ancestral spirits, and as a liminal space between this world and the other world. Yama, the Japanese word for ‘mountain,’ is reflected in the words yamabushi—an ascetic practitioner who “lies or prostrates on the mountain”— and yamamba, the mountain witch, crone or hag of folklore that is the focus of this anthology.
Since the name yamamba first appeared in the Muromachi period (1336-1573) the mountain witch has appeared in many guises. Depending on the circumstances, she can both ignite fear or perform acts said to transcend ordinary kindness. Yamamba is one of the best known yōkai (strange or mysterious creatures) in Japan and continues to be reimagined in contemporary times. Yamamba’s identity is intimately connected to mountains, nature, the feminine/other as well as the duality of good and evil throughout this fascinating volume.
Yamamba expert Noriko T. Reader sets the scene for Yamamba: In Search of the Japanese Mountain Witch, a collection of poems, interviews, short stories and commentary. The style of each contribution is used as the heading in the Table of Contents, which makes it possible to dip in and out of the book according to one’s inclination. If one feels like reading poetry for example, it is easy to locate the two delightful chapters in (translated) verse. Or if one is hankering for a short story, there are three to select from. At 152 pages, it is just the right length for the combination of literary styles.
The anthology, co-edited by Rebecca Copeland and Linda C. Ehrlich, features authors who range from academics to performance artists in both North America and Japan. Several of the entries are translated from Japanese, and one poem has been translated into Japanese. With a limited number of illustrations, readers are left to imagine the yamamba in her various forms; the freedom to do so adds depth to the reading experience. The diverse perspectives and categories are presented as “a sampling of the awe the yamamba inspires with her power.” This yōkai certainly taps into the deeper recesses of our ‘being’.
Two seminal Japanese works are highlighted in the anthology: one composed in the early 14th century, the other in 1976. The Noh play “Yamamba,” attributed to Zeami Motokiyo, has been regularly performed for centuries. The story tells of the meeting in the mountains between a real yamamba and an actress who plays yamamba. Hisa and Hikaru Uzawa, two contemporary Noh artists who know the play intimately, are interviewed and their contribution is my personal favourite. Along with a recent review of Noh As Living Art, the portrayal of this noh play has inspired me to further explore this Japanese art form.
“The Smile of the Mountain Witch,” a story by the highly respected female writer Oba Minako, provides a feminist perspective on the yamamba. This 1970s work was the starting point for the anthology and is reproduced within its pages. In the Preface, the editors powerfully state that Oba-san “reveals the compelling way creative women can take charge of misogynistic tropes, invert them, and use them to tell compelling stories of female empowerment.” This new narrative shows a different and more intimate side of the yamamba. The ability of the mountain witch to read people’s minds is used with great effect in Oba-san’s story.
Komatsu Kazuhiko states in his preface to the English edition of An Introduction to Yokai Culture that “a deeper knowledge of yōkai is a prerequisite for a deeper understanding of Japanese culture as a whole” In that spirit, I feel much better acquainted with the yamamba, especially her representation of nature and the seasons, and as a woman living outside the norms of village or city life. Her role as an archetype is also addressed in the anthology, another aspect of this complex character.
No longer will I view this yōkai as an unsightly old woman who lives in the mountains and devours humans, as she is popularly characterised. Readers can discover her many dimensions and multiple layers as seen through the words of an impressive group of authors. For those wanting to learn even more, a comprehensive reading list is provided at the end of the book.
This slim volume, at just over 100 pages, is a primer to noh, Japan’s classic performance art. First appearing in Japanese, the text was translated by Kawamoto Nozomu, who was raised in the United States and currently trains with the author in noh utai singing. The work was published by Japan Library, as part of a series of non-fiction English translations by prominent Japanese authors that is backed by the Japanese government. As might be expected, this series reflects a somewhat conservative picture of Japan’s achievements in politics, economics, international relations, art, and culture.
With all the books out there on noh, would this be worthwhile for a first-time student of this venerable tradition? My answer would be a qualified yes. The translator has, along with the author, made certain changes to target a foreign readership, but more than that, Yasuda has provided a witty and fresh approach to this art.
Yasuda Noboru is a professional specializing in waki roles, which he calls the “foil.” (The protagonists of noh plays are called shite, pronounced not as Roddy Doyle would say it, but more like shté.) It escapes me why anyone would want to specialize in waki roles when everyone knows that the shite get all the best parts, not only for singing, but also for the dance (mai). Waki don’t say much, and after entering and introducing themselves, sit down and pretty much do nothing else for the duration of the performance. A thankless task for any actor, one might think. Like many outsiders attracted to noh, however, Yasuda was already a musician in another genre— jazz—and waki performer Kaburaki Mineo’s voice literally “swept [him] away.” Kaburaki thus became Yasuda’s mentor. One of Yasuda’s own students is the novelist and rap artist Itō Seikō. (More on him later.) Chance encounters like this are life-changing.
Since Yasuda is not directing this book to scholars or other professional actors, but to the general public, his angle on noh is as a guide to living well, a sort of tongue-in-cheek self-help book along the lines of Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Save Your Life. For centuries noh has served as a window into the Japanese classics and as a means of spiritual and physical cultivation, not only for the samurai class in past centuries, but also for commoners. Indeed, today it is largely via teaching amateurs and professionals that noh has been able to survive as long as it has. Even so, the number of people studying this ancient performance art is dwindling, hence the need for a proper guide. Besides conducting a regular coterie of students in utai as do most other professional actors, Yasuda also teaches outreach classes, even as therapy to hikikomori (shut-ins who have shut themselves out of society for a variety of reasons). The psychological benefits from practising noh, Yasuda suggests (following from Rollo May), has to do with enabling a person to become, not an object of others, but a subject in one’s own right.
Toward the end of his book Yasuda offers fifteen witty reasons for studying noh and one of the best is: “Belting out an utai piece is an excellent way of relieving stress,” and “…it is also a good way of beating the blues. Unlike pharmaceuticals, moreover, utai has no side effects” (p.90). (Yasuda’s appendix provides information on excellent online resources like the-noh.com and where to find places to study the form.)
Practising noh is good for the body too and many actors are phenomenal athletes. In his fifties, Yasuda was examined by a physician who pronounced that he had the core muscles of a twenty-year-old. Kamae, the distinct stance taken in noh, and the sliding footwork of suriashi, ensure that even the waki, who seems to do little on stage, is in superb shape. The energy expended but often sublimated by the actors in performance ensures that noh is thrillingly alive and not a museum piece.
The master to disciple iemoto system has ensured a continuous performance tradition for over 650 years, which is unprecedented in any European performance art. Still, it has had to change with the times. Noh as Living Art provides a quick, standard history of this form and the singular contributions that Zeami and his father Kan’ami made to lifting it out of a popular, but low-class, entertainment into a high art patronized by Japan’s elites. Along the way, Yasuda suggests that noh served as a civilizing influence particularly for Japan’s warrior class, noting how it was a successful “attempt to redirect the energies of the samurai from warfare to dance” (p.42). Japan, after all, enjoyed 250 years of peace under the Tokugawa rule.
The texts of noh also served as a kind of lingua franca for Japanese people, who were divided by their distinct local dialects. Zeami’s noh was a good deal faster (Yasuda surmises it might have been more like hip hop) than it became during the Tokugawa Shogunate when it was transformed into a kind of court ceremonial.
Noh wasn’t only for samurai, however. The poet Matsuo Bashō was evidently a great fan of the form and utai especially had many amateur practitioners among the lower classes. Noh might have died out during the Meiji era were it not for politicians like Iwakura Tomomi initiating a transition of patronage from the disbanded samurai class to the prewar aristocracy, but many key figures in the arts, like novelist Natsume Sōseki and haiku poets Masaoka Shiki and Takahama Kyoshi were avid amateur singers of utai. However, since 1945, in order to survive, noh has needed to open up to people from all walks of life.
Which brings me back to Yasuda’s student, the rapper Itō Seikō. Since April of last year, Yasuda, Itō, and Jay Rubin have been running a monthly series in the literary magazine Shinchō, with Itō providing modern Japanese translations and Rubin the English translations of ten plays, one per month. Rubin may be better known to readers here as a translator of Haruki Murakami, but he’s been tinkering with noh texts for over a quarter century now. Royall Tyler’s Penguin translations of noh may be the gold standard for some of us, but I for one am eager to hear what noh sounds like as a kind of rap Haruki. Let’s hope that Japan Library or someone else will make Rubin’s translations available soon to English readers.
Note: This title is currently only available in hardback form from Amazon Japan (see “Where to Buy” link to the left) or directly from The Japan Library.
From Chapter 3: A Cat’s Resentment (toward those who help it)
(猫の逆恨み / Neko No Sakaurami)
I’d had kittens before, but none with such a destructive nature. Finally, I decided it was time to take him to the vets and get some advice. Maybe there was something physically wrong with him that was causing this outlandish behaviour, or maybe the vet could help with advice on how to change such a war-mongering
attitude.
To my astonishment, when I took him to the vets, the kitten switched personalities again. He was completely well-behaved during his first consultation and
exam, and with a complete stranger, too.
‘Amerika no short hair desu ka?’ the vet asked as he picked him up to examine him.
I shook my head. Kawaii, he most certainly was, but an American shorthair he most definitely was not.
Still, it was true that he did look more exotic than the traditional Japanese bobtail, which has a stocky build with brown patches and a short tail. The kitten’s
pricked over-sized ears, extremely long back legs, and triangular face gave him an alien-like appearance (something we both had in common).
I described the kitten’s aggressive behaviour.
Dr. Iguchi, the vet, nodded. ‘Hai-tenshon. Violento kitten desu yo.’
‘Yes, very bad,’ I said showing him some scratches on my hand.
‘Sou desu ka?’ (Is that so?) He said with a smile.
It turned out that the kitten had nothing physically wrong with him. The aggression was in his nature. Dr. Iguchi gave him a full bill of health and we were sent home with the singularly unhelpful recommendation to feed him a more nutritious brand of cat food.
When we got home, I let the kitten out of his carrier and we regarded each other. ‘What am I going to do with you?’ I asked.
He looked at me as if to say, ‘Why should you do anything with me? I’m perfect the way I am.’
He had the most personality I’d ever encountered in a cat. This small silver tabby could express more emotion and more comments with his black-rimmed green
eyes than many people could with words. He was a human in a cat suit: a soul who had once had the ability to speak with words and now could only communicate with eyes, body, and tail.
And express himself he did. When not engaged in battle, he always held himself with a superior air: an emperor in kitten’s clothing, noble in appearance and
attitude.
Ryan and I had posted flyers trying to find the kitten’s original owners, but no one had responded. We couldn’t keep calling him ‘the kitten’ and ‘hellcat.’ He needed
a name. Because of his skillful ping pong ball work, we considered the names Beckham and Pele, but they seemed too obvious. Later we thought of Hirohito,
because of his establishment of his imperial reign. But nothing felt right for this charming little terror.
Then one day, quite by chance, the peaceful chords of a cello filled our sparsely decorated apartment. Ryan and I were watching the Japanese television
network NHK, which was airing a documentary about the work of famed German composer Johannes Sebastian Bach. To my amazement, the lovely music had an
almost instant impact on the kitten. His high-octane nature reversed itself, his usually tense body relaxed, and his green eyes slid half shut.
That music could have such a dramatic impact on the kitten led Ryan and I to discuss all sorts of musician, singer, and composer names for him. We finally settled
on Gershwin, ‘G’ for short.
And now, besides a name, we also had a new strategy to calm him down whenever his energy or aggression were dialed up too high. We tuned the radio to the
classical music station, to be turned on when needed.
‘This is only a temporary solution,’ Ryan warned, and I agreed. It didn’t matter that it was the idea of living with cats that had helped lure me back to Japan in
the first place. It didn’t matter that I was crazy in love with Gershwin and Ryan loved him, too. The apartment was meant to be a two-cat household, not a three-cat
household. The responsible thing to do was to find Gershwin a permanent home, preferably as a single cat.
After a couple of weeks, when no one responded to the flyers we’d posted for the Ninja Kitten, Ryan and I approached our friends, co-workers, and acquaintances.
But no one wanted a rambunctious cat.
So, I turned to the Internet and, after an exhaustive search, I found just one Japanese animal charity run by a British woman. But it was far away in Osaka. So, I
emailed her to see if she knew of any cat animal shelters, humane societies, or sanctuaries in Gifu. Sadly, to her knowledge, there were none.
‘What do the Japanese do when they find strays and they don’t have an RSPCA or animal welfare group to help them?’ I demanded of Ryan.
‘They probably try to rehome them through friends or leave them on the streets, or in a forest,’ he said sadly.
If there was an animal shelter out there, I couldn’t find it. The Osaka charity kindly offered to put a photo of Gershwin on their website, and suggested that I try advertising with vets and in the local newspaper. I took her advice but, again, we had no response.
‘Try not to worry too much,’ Ryan said reassuringly that evening. ‘We’ll find Gershwin a home. Maybe one of the vet adverts will work.’
On the following morning, I was rudely awakened by a sharp pulsating pain in my abdomen. I cursed and opened my eyes to be met by a piercing pair of unblinking
green eyes. Gershwin placed his paws atop my full bladder and began to knead it. He was already developing ways to manipulate humans. In the morning, every morning, he wanted his breakfast, which meant he needed me to get up.
This feline routine had been happening with greater regularity. Ryan called it ‘the bladder stomp.’
I had never been known for my love of mornings. With such a determined furry alarm clock, though, it was becoming impossible to lie in and be lazy and avoid
the day. Gershwin’s new morning ritual was breaking me from a bad habit I’d spent far too long indulging.
On this particular morning, however, he was unusually persistent, even for him. Then all three cats began running around the bedroom agitatedly, meowing
incessantly. I pulled the covers over my head, turned on my side to protect my bladder, and tried my best to ignore them.
But their meows grew more ferocious. The three of them were making sounds I had never heard out of a cat before and Gershwin, who had got back on the bed, was digging his claws even deeper into my easily-pierced flesh.
Reluctantly, I crawled out of bed to see what in hell had turned my cats into psycho-kitties. No sooner had I pulled on my dressing gown, than the old clinic
windows began rattling loudly, sending the cats scurrying for cover under the bed. I had no idea what was happening until I heard the city’s warning sirens.
Earthquake!
I was home alone and I didn’t know where to go or what to do. Panicked, I crawled under the bedroom table like I’d seen people in movies do and huddled there
waiting (and praying) for the tremors to pass. I wrapped my dressing gown tightly around my body as everything in the apartment shook. Books flew off shelves. Chairs hopped across the floor. The windowpane shook so violently, I was sure it would break. The very floor I clung to pulsated.
In the midst of my fear, I realised that Iko, Niko, and Gershwin’s harassment this morning had been their desperate attempts to warn me that an earthquake was
coming. They had known long before the humans’ seismographic sensors had known what was coming. In the midst of my fear, I felt my love for that feline trio triple.
Thankfully, the earthquake passed in a few minutes. I cuddled the cats to reassure them (and me), and thank them for their early warning.
Though it had scared me to death, the earthquake really hadn’t been terribly strong by Japanese standards. No buildings had been levelled and my home was
relatively undamaged. The country’s propensity for earthquakes was something Ryan and I had not considered when deciding to come back to work in Japan.
According to Japanese mythology, the Namazu, or giant catfish, lives under the islands of Japan. Whenever it moves, the ground shakes. Being a fish, it moves a
lot. I told myself to learn much more about earthquake safety procedures, should the Namazu decide to make itself known again, and to pay much more attention to the cats’ warnings of changes in atmospheric pressure.
On the evening after the earthquake, I gazed fondly over at Iko, Niko, and Gershwin, who were eating their dinners contentedly while Ryan and I prepared our own meal. With no response to our flyers, Ryan and I had decided to put the idea of re-homing Gershwin on a back burner. We truly had done all we could to find him a new home. It seemed – to our secret joy – that he was meant to be a permanent member of our temporary Japanese family.
Because of these three cats, I was learning truly, deeply, and for the first time in my life the importance of trust and companionship, commitment and caring.
Because of them, I was shedding a lifetime of loneliness and rejection.
And yet . . . Ryan and I had never intended to stay more than a year in Japan.
When our contract at the school was up, we would leave. We would leave Iko, Niko, and Gershwin and then, even with Ryan, my life would be lonely again.
About the Author:
Carla Francis is the author of the 5th edition guidebook (and blog) Travelling with Pets. Her work has been featured in publications in Australia, the UK, and Japan.
The Cat With Three Passports is available from Bookshop.org (US) or Amazon (international) or via Angus & Robertson (Australia)
Memoir or fiction? Murakami blurs the line between the two in First Person Singular, his most recent collection of stories where he tackles time, dreams, and memory (its power, lapses and distortions). He demonstrates how we wish into existence and remember into existence memories we are unwilling to abandon, such as how a one-night stand or a girl running down a high school hallway can stay with us and leave a lasting imprint.
First Person Singular (translated by Philip Gabriel) is reminiscent of Murakami’s previous collection of short stories The Elephant Vanishes in that all the stories are told in the first person and in Murakami’s famous conversational style. Some stories are other-worldly while others are based in the mundane. This volume has less punch and polish than The Elephant Vanishes and, as such perhaps should not serve as an introduction to Murakami, but nonetheless, these stories remain a welcome read for Murakami fans.
This collection is solid, recognizable Murakami with the usual attention to music, whiskey, sex and baseball. The stories are diverse: a mysterious philosophizing old man in an abandoned park; a one-night stand with a tanka poet; a Charlie Parker dreamscape where Parker plays bossa nova from an imaginary album; a life-long obsession with a girl the narrator once saw carrying a Beatles album; a talking monkey masseur with a fetish for stealing women’s names; a platonic attachment to a charismatic woman; an homage to the Tokyo Yakult Swallows baseball team where he remembers poetry he never wrote; and the titular story where an encounter with a stranger forces him to regret actions he doesn’t remember.
Some stories are clearly autobiographical, such as the one about his life-long attachment to the Yakult Swallows. Others just feel like actual experiences, still others are pure fantasy, but all are told with the same casual conversational tone that gives you the sense you’re sitting across from the author over a coffee or whiskey, sharing his memories.
Simply told tales of memory and reckoning, Murakami investigates how we form our identities and how certain encounters are powerful in that formation. Every story starts early in the narrator’s life, with a tale of an encounter, and then takes a leap forward many years to reflect upon a memory. The reckoning that comes with the passage of time and the assessment of the life lived is the crux of these narratives.
Murakami is adept at capturing a slice of life—something ordinary—but with a strong sense of time and place. Even in his trademark magical-realism, Murakami evokes the mundane to immerse the reader in the ordinariness of the narrator’s life. A good example is “With the Beatles” where Murakami takes an unremarkable moment and constructs an entire story around it. In high school, the narrator encounters an unknown girl running down the corridor clutching a Beatles album. He never sees her again, not in high school and not later in life, yet he measures every subsequent girl and woman by the feeling he had at the sight of this girl.
Murakami best sums up these moments with this quote from the end of “Carnaval:”
“…a pair of minor incidents that happened in my trivial little life. Short side trips along the way. Even if they hadn’t happened, I doubt my life would have wound up much different from what it is now. But still, these memories return to me sometimes, traveling down a very long passageway to arrive. And when they do, their unexpected power shakes me to the core. Like an autumn wind that gusts at night, swirling fallen leaves in a forest, flattening the pampas grass in fields, and pounding hard on the doors to people’s homes, over and over again.”
In a novel, especially a modern one which addresses shortened attention spans, a conversation in a park or attendance at a baseball game might not make it into the book. The character in the novel may very well have such an encounter, but unless it leads to the development of the plot, the scene would be edited out. It is that so-called insignificant encounter that Murakami focuses on to develop beautiful short stories. He lingers in these stories and savors the moments in a way a novel cannot.
Similar to movie director Akira Kurosawa, Murakami is sometimes considered too Western by the Japanese literary establishment. In my opinion, however, his Japanese-ness sneaks in via kishōtenketsu, the Japanese literary tradition where a major conflict is not necessary. Kishōtenketsu has an introduction, a development, a twist (often not a major conflict) and a wrap up where the protagonist is not necessarily deeply changed but adjusts to the new normal. Kishōtenketsu relies more on the evolution of a character through natural change versus the destructive nature of conflict so prevalent in the West. Some of Murakami’s works have dramatic twists and disruption, but many, especially his short stories, have only minor twists, and this collection of stories is particularly so.
I read this book while listening to the music mentioned in the stories as I do with every Murakami book. In the past I have made my own playlists, but this time there was one posted on Spotify. Make sure to find it. Murakami deserves to be read accompanied by the music he has coursing through his mind.
I get the distinct impression that Murakami writes for himself. It is clear that he is having fun while tackling existential questions. You must suspend disbelief to enjoy the flights of fancy Murakami undertakes to tell his story. Accept his invitation to go along for the journey and you will enjoy him.
In this episode of the Books on Asia podcast, show host Amy Chavez talks with Robert Whiting about his just released memoir Tokyo Junkie: 60 Years of Bright Lights and Back Alleys . . . and Baseball(Stone Bridge Press, April, 2021). Whiting is known for his numerous books on Japanese baseball: The Chrysanthemum and the Bat, You Gotta Have Wa, and The Samurai Way of Baseball. He’s also penned a book about gangsters called Tokyo Underworld. In this episode of the podcast, Whiting talks about all these books as well as what its like to write a memoir.
Podcast Show Notes:
The show starts out as Whiting tells how he came to Japan in 1962 and worked for the CIA. At the time, Japan was preparing for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and Whiting elucidates the transformation of Tokyo as the city prepared to host the Games. He contrasts that with the upcoming 2021 Tokyo Olympics to show how far Tokyo has come in 60 years.
Whiting talks about attending Sophia University where he studied politics, and why he returned to the U.S. His homecoming led to his first gig writing The Chrysanthemum and the Bat and after that, a chance to come back to Japan with “Time/Life.”
While working in Tokyo, he started hanging out with gangsters at the bars which, eventually, led to his writing Tokyo Underworld.
Lastly, Whiting talks about his life with his long-time wife Machiko, and how he followed her career around the world for her position as Officer for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Whiting shares some writing advice as well as his favorite books on Japan:
It’s a bitter irony that a festival that is nearly as old as Kyoto, dedicated to ridding the city of pestilence in the hot and sticky month of July, was cancelled by the world-wide coronavirus pandemic last year. 2021 bodes no better: the great processions of splendid floats through the city, usually held on July 17 and 24, have been cancelled again. But until the time we can all go again to the Gion Festival, we can prepare, thanks to the new guide The Gion Festival: Exploring its Mysteries.
Author Pawasarat compares the Gion Festival to a vast Tibetan sand mandala that is destroyed shortly after its construction. Thus, it not only symbolizes Buddhism’s intricate map of the spiritual universe, but also demonstrates one of its central truths, that nothing lasts. Like all performances, however much work goes into it, it is to all intents and purposes gone once the event is over. The Gion festival originated in a rite of purification, called a goryō-e, commissioned by Emperor Seiwa to placate evil spirits thought responsible for a plague that ravaged the city in 869 CE. Seiwa ordered a procession of sixty-six hoko (pikes) to be carried through the city in an effort to transform the evil spirits (onryō) into benevolent spirits (goryō), evidence of, Pawasarat writes, the shamanistic roots of many Shinto practices. It became an annual rite in 970 CE and has been held pretty much continuously ever since.
A key element of this festival is the vast amount of priceless works of art—textiles, wooden sculptures and structures, paintings and metalwork—that have been the pride of Kyoto’s townspeople since at least the middle ages. The Gion Festival is a nexus of several rites, exhibitions, and performances that converge in Kyoto in July to celebrate the gods of Yasaka Shrine and numerous other spirits and culture heroes represented by 34 floats erected by individual neighbourhoods in central Kyoto. Festivities ceased during the Ōnin War (1467-77), which destroyed most of the city, and by the late 15th century, the centre of cultural production had passed from the Kyoto court and samurai aristocracy to the wealthy merchant class who lived in the centre of town. The Gion Festival became a stage to display their treasures and impeccable artistic taste, and became the model for many other pageants across Japan. Scholars have called this fūryū (“elegance”), a performance type that flourished from the 16th century to show off the pride of the wealthy urban commoner.
As much a symbol of the unique culture of Kyoto (Japan’s capital for over a millennium), what’s on display is astoundingly cosmopolitan, presenting artworks from as far afield as China, India, Persia, and even present-day Belgium. The art depicts scenes and motifs not only from Shinto and Buddhism, but Taoism, Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Greco-Roman mythology, demonstrating that Kyoto was in touch with the world from as early as the middle ages. Local masters like the 16th-century Hasegawa Tōhaku and 17th-century Maruyama Ōkyo also contributed works to the festival.
An important sidelight to the procession of floats is an event called the byōbu matsuri, in which many of the wealthier old establishments in the centre of town open their homes to the public to display their priceless kimono, folding screens and other treasures from their storerooms. New works by some of Kyoto’s finest artists are still being commissioned, attesting to the fact that the festival is not a museum.
Yet Kyoto and the Gion Festival have always been under threat. Many of the splendid floats and other priceless artwork were destroyed in the Great Genji Fire of 1864, sparked by the civil war between pro and anti-Shogun forces at the end of the Edo period. The U.S. Occupation of Japan from 1945-1951 banned public gatherings and curtailed many of the Gion festival events in the immediate postwar period too. Despite centuries of fire and civil disturbance, the people of Kyoto have managed to rebuild their floats, revive ritual performances, and keep this 1,150-year-old tradition very much alive.
Still, it hasn’t been easy. The bursting of the economic bubble in the 1990s led to the demise of many of the textile firms that had been the mainstay of the Kyoto economy and patrons for the festival. During the same time, many of the old machiya, the traditional townhouses that are a symbol of the distinctive Kyoto townscape, were torn down to build nondescript office buildings and condominiums. And now, a pandemic is testing the tenacity of tradition.
Any first-time visitor to Kyoto will be struck by the beauty of its traditional architecture and gardens, but those who stick around know only too well the cavalier attitude with which many residents seem to regard their material culture. The respect for private property over historical preservation, combined with the impact of inheritance taxes on struggling family businesses, has meant the loss of many of the venerable machiya that have supported the Gion Festival for centuries. In a country prone to fires and earthquakes, it has generally been intangible culture—practices passed down by oral tradition—that have embodied whatever might be called the essence of Japan. Many lifelines to the preservation of this festival have thereby been severed.
As Pawasarat writes, “as the social fabric of its inter-generational communities thins in downtown Kyoto, traditions are conveyed less by direct hands-on experience and word of mouth” (p.204). Crowd-funding, soliciting new residents, digitally recording and archiving of precious artworks, and documenting work of university students and researchers to digitally record and archive art and documents pertaining to the festival are the current means to preserve what had been essentially an oral tradition.
Another change has been the attempt to make the festival more accessible to women. Some floats, like the Naginataboko (perhaps the most important since all processions begin with it) are off-limits to women. Scholars like Wakita Akiko, however, have made clear that women played an instrumental role in creating many of Japan’s traditional performing arts, such as noh and kabuki. I suspect that women were prevented from participating in many of the Gion Festival activities because of the Tokugawa Shogunate’s ban on women from public performances in 1629, though the tendency to exclude women from many events had been ongoing for some centuries before. Some traditions can and should be changed, but Pawasarat recognizes that community standards cannot be changed overnight.
Even at the best of times crowded, the Gion Festival is as much an ascetic rite as an attraction. Pawasarat calls it Kyoto’s version of a sweat lodge. For much of the postwar period, ritual events had become stripped down, resulting in a single procession of floats on July 17. This was the Gion Festival familiar to me, but in 2014, the previous system of two traditional processions was restored: the Saki Matsuri (early festival) on July 17 and the Ato Matsuri (later festival) on July 24, to celebrate first the descent of the gods from Yasaka Shrine into the city centre and, later, their return. The Saki Matsuri remains the largest pageant, with some 23 floats, combining hoko with the tall pikes atop their roofs, and yama (mountains) adorned with pines, dominating the Ato Matsuri. Both pike and pine are yorishiro, essentially lightning rods, down which the gods descend from the heavens to inhabit the floats during the time of the festival.
Pawasarat writes that, in addition to the restoration of the two processions of yamaboko, several floats previously lost to fire or neglect, such as the Ōfuneboko have been reintroduced after scrupulous research and fundraising. The Gion Festival was given UNESCO world heritage status in 2009, which no doubt helped support its preservation as well as made it a destination for even more visitors to Kyoto during one of the hottest months of the year. As Pawasarat writes in her foreword, “with more than a millennium of rich history, the Gion Festival offers an excellent case study for sustainability and community resilience” (p. 7). “What positive roles can tourism play in this?” she asks. Like many historic attractions around the world, Kyoto has suffered from over-tourism. Pawasarat notes that, with only eleven floats, the less opulent and crowded Ato Matsuri preserves some of the cozy community character of festivals of yesteryear.
The sheer scale of the Gion Festival and the variety of activities contributing to it sometimes make it seem more like a labyrinth than a mandala to a visitor. The pedant in me looks for a bibliography and I was a bit disappointed there was none, nor an index. Hundreds, even thousands, of studies have been written in Japanese about this festival, perhaps more than anything else in this city. Yet Pawasarat has certainly done her homework. She lived for some twenty years in Kyoto, much of that time in a machiya in a neighbourhood that sponsors one of these floats, where the author was effectively adopted by her chōnai. Her familiarity and fascination with this ancient festival enabled her to make friends with many in Kyoto who make this event an annual occurrence; dozens of them are credited in her acknowledgements for the expertise they have shared. Generous footnotes guide the reader to other sources and many of the floats and the traditional houses that support them have their own websites in English and other languages as well as Japanese.
I received a complimentary copy of the book for review, but there is so much here that I bought the Kindle version too, which has the advantage of hyperlinks to relevant information, and serves as its own index. The author has provided a well-maintained and informative website as well as a Youtube channel of videos she has taken over the years. No matter what form of the book you buy, it’s full of sumptuous colour illustrations that give the reader a vivid impression of the festival’s beauty and religious significance. Maps chart the course of processions and tell you where to go to see the attractions.
This is the first English guide to this extraordinary festival in close to a century. You’ll need it to make sense of the colourful chaos around should you decide to brave the heat.
Mystery Writers of America’s story collection When a Stranger Comes to Town, edited by Michael Koryta was just released (April 21, 2021)! Thanks to Hanover Square Press and Tina deBellegarde for giving BOA permission to run the following story from the anthology. It’s been said that all great literature boils down to one of two stories—someone takes a journey, or a stranger comes to town. Enough said. Enjoy!
TOKYO STRANGER
By Tina deBellegarde
Mr. Sasaki gets into his car, his pressed uniform sliding easily on the leather seats. The muted thump of the Mercedes door’s closing signals the start of his shift. He turns the ignition and gently the engine comes to life, quietly, almost imperceptibly, but his practiced senses can feel the hum as it idles. He tunes the radio, searching for the classical music program scheduled to begin at midnight. He pauses to admire his gloved hand on the dial. The gloves, a gift from his wife, his name stitched inside so they would never be lost at the station.
He glides the car into Drive and pulls into the colorful streets of Tokyo. The time on the dashboard shows twelve o’clock just as he arrives at the old apartment building.
She steps out as he pulls up. Tonight she wears a fuchsia dress riding high on her thighs, stiletto heels, and a silk wrap of emerald green thrown over her shoulder against the chilly breeze. She carries a small umbrella.
He presses a button, and the left rear passenger door opens automatically. She slips in and unwraps her shawl in the cozy interior.
“Konbanwa, Sasaki-san.”
“Konbanwa, Yuki-chan.”
Good evening, they greet each other, despite the late hour.
He puts the car in gear, and they start their weekly trip across town.
Friday night is his favorite fare. He peeks in his mirror and watches this young girl, so much like his daughter except for the startling slash of blood red lipstick. He can’t resist watching her fiddle with her mirror and her complicated clothes. He observes quietly as Yuki reapplies her lipstick. He can almost believe it is his daughter. Not only does she wear her hair in the same bob as Haru but the color is exactly the same. With hints of red or purple, magenta maybe. And like his daughter, she chews her lip as she thinks.
What is on her mind? Is she thinking about her upcoming evening or her life outside these midnight trysts? Does she have a family she is working to care for? Sasaki doubts it, she is so young. Or does she just look young? He has never seen her in the light of day, only embellished with the blues and reds of the late-night city lights.
Twenty minutes into his reverie he pulls into a silent street, the large homes on each side hidden by walls. He slows down as he approaches and inches his car close to the gate. From her purse she pulls out a tiny remote. He looks back through his mirror again; she is furiously chewing on the edge of her lip.
He puts the car in gear, but stops when he hears her catch her breath, as if startled. Once again, his eyes find her reflection. A tiny drop of blood emerges from her lip as if her lipstick had come to life. He passes her his linen handkerchief. She takes it from him with a slight bow of her head and dabs at the blood. Once, twice, but the droplet reappears. The third time the blood stops. She passes the handkerchief back. He glances at the blood and lipstick, the linen permanently damaged. He lays it carefully on the seat next to him so as not to stain his gloves.
The gate opens, he pulls in and parks. Sasaki releases her door and it quietly opens to the cool night air, but he tells her to wait, for the rain has already started, earlier than expected. He runs around the car and pushes open a wide golf umbrella. With this protection he escorts her to the door. She lets herself in, offers him a shallow bow in thanks, and closes the door.
He has over two hours until he must return to pick her up. Tanaka pays him for the entire three hours, doesn’t want him picking up any other fares between eleven-thirty and two-thirty. He wants Sasaki at his disposal. For what Tanaka pays him, Sasaki doesn’t mind as long as he is able to keep his mind occupied.
He drives away, dreading the idle time ahead of him. Guilt rushes in to fill the void. Guilt over his wife, over his daughter. And tonight, guilt over delivering this young girl to a yakuza boss or worse. Tanaka has a “business associate” visiting from out of town who specifically requested Yuki. She is Tanaka’s personal favorite. This stranger must be pretty powerful if Tanaka agreed.
Sasaki circles the block looking for a spot. He parks around the corner from the Black Cat Jazz Club and walks the half block in the misty rain.
He enters the smoky haze and sits at his usual corner seat by the bar. The bartender pours him a shot of whiskey on two cubes of ice. Sasaki removes his gloves before lighting up a cigarette and swirling the drink. He prefers his whiskey neat, but on Friday nights he allows himself one shot on some ice. It is his habit to nurse it slowly and allow the ice to melt, a diluted drink is better than none. He needs to have his wits about him to drive.
The cigarette, the drink and the alto sax smooth over his tension and guilt. They are his only remaining vices. Sasaki lights another cigarette and closes his eyes to listen.
When the musician finishes his set, he takes the stool next to him. “Very nicely done.”
The musician motions to the bartender. “Tengo, refill his drink on me.”
Sasaki pauses, thinking how pleasant it would be to sit here for another drink and chat with this musician, but comes to his senses. “Thank you, no. I’m done drinking for tonight.” He turns his wrist. Two fifteen. He empties his glass and puts on his gloves after saying his goodbyes.
Outside, he lights his last cigarette of the evening and smokes it under the black awning.
The rain is heavier now. He pulls up the collar of his uniform jacket and heads for his car.
⁂
The gate is closed when he arrives. Usually Yuki opens the gate once he pulls up. He sits in the drive, the car idling, a Mendelssohn violin concerto gently playing on the radio. The rain beating on the window almost drowns out the soft music.
He glances at his watch, two forty-five. He gets out of the car, pulls up his collar once again and looks around.
The rain suddenly lets up. In the silence he hears a tiny crack, like a squirrel walking on the autumn leaves. Then a little cry. Again, louder this time, more like a child. He walks along the path, tracking the sound.
It’s a steady cry. Then a hiccup and another whimper. He stands still to quiet his footsteps.
“Yuki, is that you?”
“Sasaki-san?”
He spots an opening where the gate meets the wall and squeezes himself through.
He follows the noise until he finds her. Yuki is crouched behind the hydrangea bush, barefoot, one shoe in her hand, her fuchsia dress darker in some spots. Her hair clings to her face, the obvious tears lost in the rain.
“Are you hurt?”
She shivers, but doesn’t answer.
When he gets closer, he realizes the spots on her dress are blood.
He looks her over, but decides she is uninjured. He scoops her up, she doesn’t protest.
Tiny as she is, he hardly has to exert any effort at all. He presses the button to open the gate then places her gently in the back of the taxi. The car is still idling and the warmth engulfs them both.
“You have to tell me what happened.”
“I…I wouldn’t let him…I couldn’t let him.” But Yuki gives him nothing more.
“I will be right back.”
As he turns to close the door, she puts a hand on his arm. “Please don’t leave me.”
He is torn. He looks at her, so small in the car. Wet and still shivering. It reminds him of the times he took his daughter to the ocean. She would erupt from the water with her hair hugging her chin. Shivering, her arms crossed until he wrapped her in a towel.
He gently pries Yuki’s hand from his jacket.
“I promise. I will be right back.”
She shakes her head and grabs his arm. “I promise.”
She closes her eyes and lets go.
He finds the front door ajar. He stops to listen. There is only silence. He looks toward the stairway and sees a streak of blood along the bannister. At the top he stops again. Complete stillness. The door at the end of the hall is the only one open. He approaches it slowly.
In the bedroom, he finds the stranger face down on the bed on blood-soaked sheets. Yuki’s green shawl sprawled along the foot of the bed is like a winding mossy trail leading to her purse, the contents spilled on the bed. Her missing shoe, along with a knife covered in blood, are on the floor beside a pair of men’s slippers.
Sasaki turns to run. But in the hallway he stops.
He returns to the bedroom. He removes his gloves, then retrieves the shawl and the shoe. He grabs Yuki’s lipstick and keys along with the rest of her belongings and shoves them back in the purse.
He grabs a towel from the bathroom and wipes down every surface, the headboard, the doorknob, the side table, anything Yuki might have touched. Then he gingerly picks up the knife and wraps it in the towel.
⁂
Down the boulevard, his temples pound as he forces himself to drive within the speed limit back to Yuki’s house.
He rummages around in her purse until he finds the key, then picks her up and carries her into the building.
He tries to avert his eyes while he strips off her clothes and leans her in the shower. He searches for the warmest clothes in her closet and helps her dress. He dumps out the contents of a shopping bag and fills it with more clothes and toiletries. He finds ten thousand yen on her dresser and adds it to the rest.
Back in the car, he puts the bag on her lap and closes the door.
“Sasaki-san, where are you taking me?” she asks, but doesn’t wait for the answer. She leans her head on the door jamb and falls asleep.
Forty-five minutes north of the city, he pulls up to a deserted train station and buys a ticket at the kiosk. The sun is just peeking up over the tracks. The train is due in twelve minutes. He waits ten minutes, then goes to get her.
“Take this.” He hands her all his money. Combined with her own money, enough to last a while if she is careful. “I bought you a ticket to Aomori. Do not come back here. Ever. Do you understand?”
The rumble of the train drowns out his last few words.
She nods and steps into the open door. The doors close behind her. She leans her head on the glass and the last he sees of Yuki is her dazed eyes staring out over the platform as the train pulls away.
Sasaki drives his car onto the bridge behind the train station. He grabs the package in the trunk and scrambles down the embankment to the riverbed. He finds the largest stone he can handle, adds it to the towel and ties a sturdy knot. Then throws it into the river. He watches it sink before he leaves.
⁂
Sasaki enters his apartment. Dog tired. More tired than he has ever been in his life. He walks to the far corner, taps the bell and tilts his head in prayer, then looks up at the picture of his wife and daughter on the altar. How many years has it been?
He closes his eyes again. Nineteen years, and he has finally redeemed himself. Nineteen years since they took that fatal drive, when he wasn’t there to protect them. Nineteen years of aging alone. All that remains is his job. Driving to numb the pain.
He strips, one piece of clothing at a time. Slowly, deliberately. First his hat. He places it carefully on the dresser. Then he removes his jacket and slides it onto the hanger, buttoning the first and last buttons. His pants, he picks up by the crease and clips to the wooden hanger. He does not rush. With the same reverence as every other day, he hangs his uniform in its proper place.
After he showers, he sits on the bed. Usually he sleeps for eight hours before getting up to start his day shift.
Today he would have to settle for less sleep, but he needs to be refreshed when they come for him. He must be sure he isn’t too tired, that he will be clear-headed. He needs to be completely convincing, so the search will stop at him.
He gently swings his legs up on the bed and rests his head on the pillow, contemplating the ceiling. If he sleeps until noon, he could get enough rest before they come for him. It would take them about that long to find the gloves. It would take them about that long to track him down at work and then show up at his door.
Tina deBellegarde’s debut novel, Winter Witness, is nominated for the 2020 Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Her story “Tokyo Stranger” appears alongside celebrated authors in the Mystery Writers of America anthology When a Stranger Comes to Town. Tina lives in New York with her husband Denis where they harvest shiitake mushrooms and tend to their beehives. She travels to Japan regularly to visit her son Alessandro. Visit her website.
Twenty-four stories in a collection of climate fiction that seek to imagine what cities might look like in a future of multi-species co-existence and green justice.
Set primarily in the Asia-Pacific, the twenty-four stories of this new collection of climate fiction seek to imagine what cities might look like in a future of multi-species co-existence and green justice. Firmly planted in the new genre of solarpunk, the stories are filled with a polyphony of voices—some non-human and a few non-alive—working together to bring about solutions that address global warming, the extinction of animal species, and coming climate disaster.
Gone is the bleak, trashed landscape devoid of animal life so characteristic of much science fiction, and cyberpunk in particular; instead we find ourselves in cities that are alive, shared by humans and animals, insects and plants, land forms and machines. And the authors ask: What might city ecosystems look like in the future if we strive for multispecies justice in our urban settings?
In these “more-than-human stories,” twenty-four authors, mainly of Asian-Pacific descent, investigate humanity’s relationship with the rest of the natural world, placing characters in situations where humans have to look beyond their own needs and interests. In such an interconnected world, we find: dolphins and humans learning each other’s languages in a story by Shweta Taneja; a multiplicity of voices, including stars and rivers, in stories by Priya Sarukkai Chabria and Eliza Victoria; or where a bad date in Hawai‘i takes an unexpected turn in a story by N. R. M. Roshak, the couple stumbles upon some confused sea turtle hatchlings and take the time to figure out how to help.
In one of the more memorable stories, “The Mammoth Steps” by Andrew Dana Hudson, we find an unlikely friendship between a boy and an extinct animal. The boy’s family is paid by carbon traders to roam the Siberian grasslands with the woolly mammoths. The animals were brought back using de-extinction gene splicing technology in an effort to save the world. This is not just fiction: talk of doing this has been floating around among scientists to address real concerns over the thawing of arctic permafrost, which would cause greenhouse gas emissions to skyrocket and raise global temperatures even further than currently projected. In this scenario the mammoths are brought back from extinction to trample down the mosses and shrubs and uproot trees, thereby bringing down temperatures. The story is not about the human triumph over a human-created problem, but is rather a tale of inter-species love and cooperation that follows the pair on a trek across Asia in search of elephants.
Interestingly, this is not necessarily a vegan world, since “multispecies justice” does not suggest straightforward notions of care, guardianship, and living and letting live, but rather acting both responsively and responsibly in both life and death. In one of the more disturbing stories, “A Life with Cibi,” by Japanese author Natsumi Tanaka, we are confronted with the breakdown of our notions about bodily autonomy and food: As creatures walking around our cities talk to us, we carve off our flesh to eat. But this is not the call to vegetarianism as one might expect. When the narrator of the story becomes emotionally close to one of the Cibi, refusing to eat it anymore, the creature dies since that kind of culling is what kept it healthy. This story, like many of the others in the collection, challenges our notions of what some eco-philosophers call our hyper-separation.
It not surprising to see an anthology that is, by intention, set primarily in the future cities of the Asia-Pacific. Many of the world’s megacities are situated in Asia and it is this region where the early symptoms of change were first noticed. Japanese manga and anime has been at the forefront of the solarpunk movement, but so too has the new architecture found in Singapore and elsewhere around Asia. Examples of the aesthetic include, Gardens by the Bay in Singapore, the Golden Bridge in Vietnam, and green tower skyscrapers and cafes in Chengdu and Shanghai.
Readers not familiar with solarpunk will benefit from reading the engaging introduction (written by Christoph Rupprecht, Deborah Cleland, Norie Tamura, and Rajat Chaudhuri) that gives context to the stories. Of course, some of the stories were first published elsewhere, but the introduction enriches the reading by laying out how specific stories were chosen for this anthology. It is also a dazzling eye-opening call for the reform of literature, perhaps reminiscent of Amitab Ghosh’s 2016 book, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, in which he calls for authors to try to imagine a future of climate change. Since Ghosh’s book, we have, in fact, seen many works of fiction that do just as he demanded: Imagine our world—right now—of climate change.
What is so interesting about Multispecies Cities: Solarpunk Urban Futures is the call for changes not just in terms of content, but about form, questioning progress-based narratives, stories of the individual, the lone hero, people against people, and others. Yes, this means no more standard character-arcs or the dreaded character-based story. At first, readers might feel disoriented at these stories of cooperation, where rivers speak and stars can be heard. You might even want to re-read some of them to assess what is going on when there is no winning or losing, overcoming or failure. In “The Exuberant Vitality of Hatchling Habitats” by D.A. Xiaolin Spires, we follow along as a quirky eco-businessman sees broader applications for a high school science fair project. Readers might be expecting him to steal the kids’ project for his own gain or some intrigue regarding the friends, but none of this happens. Science is gentle and there is a multiplicity of voices. These stories of solutions look toward a green future of healthy ecosystems and cities teeming with life.
