Season's Greetings from a Classical Japanese Poem Lover

Dec. 25, 2009

Season's Greetings
from a classical Japanese poem lover

with

photos of

the four seasons of Tokyo (from the top):

cherry blossoms and a restaurant at Yotsuya

a tree-surrounded square at Azabu-Juban

a Japanese-style garden with a pond at Roppongi

an alley along Meguro River

a mother and a boy strolling on a street at Shirogane

a ginkgo tree avenue at Jingu-Gaien

a boutique at Daikanyama

an old building on a slope at Ebisu

a "hagoita" fair at Sensoji Temple

illuminated Christmas trees on a Ginza street

“Hagoita” fair boosts joyful mood at Tokyo temple for New Year

Dec. 19, 2009

“Hagoita” fair boosts joyful mood at Tokyo temple for New Year

Japanese are busy preparing themselves for the New Year’s Day around this time of the year. Jobs for them to do for the year-end and New Year’s holiday season include writing postcards for New Year’s greetings to be delivered on the first day of January, making dishes ready for guests, cleaning the whole house and buying gifts for family members, friends and others. Japan’s economy remains in a fix, but an animated mood was dominant in areas around Sensoji Temple, a famous tourist spot in Tokyo, this week with the approach to its main gate lined by about 30 shops set up for an annual fair of decorated “hagoita” battledore or rackets for Japanese badminton.

Playing battledore and shuttlecock is a traditional New Year’s game for young girls and children. The play is said to have originated from court people in the 15th century. Some of the customs and games for the New Year’s holidays have become outdated, but some are still observed. Girls sometimes actually play hagoita badminton, but the fair at the Buddhist temple attracted people hoping to buy decorated hagoita as gifts for girl babies for their health or as New Year’s ornaments. An old shopkeeper was talking to an elderly customer at one hagoita stand. “May I help you, mom?” “I’d like to have a nice one for my newly born granddaughter.” “Must be your first grandchild ‘cause you look young.”

How many nights to sleep before the New Year’s Day?
When it comes, let’s play kite flying. Let’s play top spinning.
Come to us quickly, please, the New Year’s Day.
How many nights to sleep before the New Year’s Day?
When it comes, let’s play ball bouncing. Let’s play badminton.
Come to us quickly, please, the New Year’s Day.
(A personal translation)

This is a song included in a book of songs for kindergarten children published by the Education Ministry in 1901.
Decorated hagoita rackets usually feature images of heroines and heroes of popular traditional “kabuki” plays. The relief-like images are created by pasting many colored pieces of silk cloth stuffed with cotton on rectangle plates of wood. At the three-day fair, the shops were carrying various kinds of hagoita rackets, from miniatures to big ones. Prices ranged from less than 1,000 yen to over 100,000 yen. When deals were done, shop clerks clapped their hands for a celebration while wishing the customers a happy new year. Customers and shopkeepers alike were seen hoping that the colorful items would not only brighten their life but also help dispel evils for Japan in the New Year.

Exhibition on Classical Poetry Shows Future Cultural Model for Japan

Dec. 12, 2009

Exhibition on Classical Poetry Shows Future Cultural Model for Japan

Visitors were gazing at two 800-year-old manuscripts by a noted ancient waka poet and his father displayed as part of about 500 items at a much publicized exhibition in Tokyo. The documents were among the five National Treasures from the late Heian to early Kamakura periods provided at the exhibition, “The Reizei Family: Keepers of Classical Poetic Tradition,” at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. The two manuscripts, placed side by side in a glass case, were the three-volume poem anthology “Shui Guso” personally compiled by Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241) and the “Korai Futeisho,” the notes written by Fujiwara no Shunzei (1114-1204) about poetic style since the old times.

Waka poetry, a purely Japanese poetic form dating back to the sixth or seventh centuries, basically consists of a total of 31 syllables in five lines.
Also on display were three other National Treasures—the hand scrolls of the diary Meigetsuki kept by Teika from his young age to just before his death and two manuscripts of different Imperial waka poem anthologies. The two-month-long exhibition provides a rare opportunity for ordinary Japanese people to take a firsthand look at valuable literary assets amassed and preserved by the noble Reizei house over the past eight centuries. The Reizei family, which still lives in Kyoto, originates from a grandson of Teika
Imperial poem anthologies were assembled in the names of emperors or retired emperors since the early 10th century. In a preface to the first Imperial poem anthology, one of the compilers wrote, “The seeds of Yamato (Japanese) poetry lies in the human heart and from it, grows a myriad of leaves of word.” This amounted to a declaration that the true expression of the human nature of Japanese is to be found in waka poems composed in the native Japanese language, not in Chinese poetic writing, says a brochure provided at the exhibition. For poets in the Heian period, to be named editors of Imperial poem anthologies was a great honor. They were even willing to risk their lives just to have a single poem included in those collections. The Reizei family and its predecessor provided three editors of Imperial waka anthologies.

In a spring night sky, the floating bridge of dreams vanishes
as a peak separates horizontally lingering clouds.
(A personal translation)

This is one of many famous poems composed by Teika in his turbulent years amid a transition of power from the nobles to samurai warlords. His poems feature elegant and alluring words with suggested feelings and lingering imagery. The poem about the spring night is a descriptive one on the surface, but it contains subtle, inspiring implications for readers. “The floating bridge of dreams,” which forms the second line in the original, derives from the title of the 54th and last volume of the Tale of Genji, which is known as the world’s oldest long novel. The volume depicts a broken love between Kaoru, the son of a princess who married Genji, the hero of the saga, and a young unfortunate woman named Ukifune. The title was so used as to expand on the romantic but sad atmosphere surrounding the two figures in the novel.

His poems were initially criticized as being excessively elaborate and polished, but Teika’s reputation was eventually established and his name was remembered as a great master of waka poetry.
The exhibition, which is under way from Oct. 24, is relatively academic with only a few visibly colorful items on display, but it has attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors. This may be an indication that many Japanese are looking for something that helps them to reconfirm their roots in Japan’s history and culture. A similar euphoric move was seen last year when various events took place across the country to mark the millennial anniversary of the presumed completion of the Tale of Genji.
The history of the Reizei family has not been smooth at all. They had to undergone many periods of war. Faced with the danger of having its historically important assets scattered and lost from time to time, the family continued hard efforts to preserve and hand down its collection through the generations. War was not the sole thing that threatened the family and its cultural assets. They had to live in the days of misfortune from the Meiji era to until after the last war, when the waka poems of the Heian period came under criticism as anachronistic products made by aristocrats just to amuse themselves.
A fresh light is being shed, however, on the importance of the collection of literary assets kept by the family. The manuscripts left by Teika and his descendants have come to be widely known as the texts of many ancient literary works which are publicly available to today’s readers. The Reizei family transferred its secretly preserved assets to a new nonprofit corporation in the 1980s to make them available to the public. The exhibition was held on the occasion of the completion of a series of books to be published from their archives since then.

Japan has so far established itself as the world’s No. 2 economic power, but it is expected to be outranked by China in the not too distant future. What should be supporting Japan from now on? Will Japan be able to find a new supporting base in the current era of slow economic growth?

Calls are growing that Japan should beef up its “soft power” in order to explore a way for its future. Japan’s valuable, centuries-old cultural assets cannot be imitated by any other country. Cultural power backed by such property should become an important element that will help enhance Japan in the years or centuries to come. The ongoing exhibition may also provide a model for Japan to demonstrate itself as a leading country in the cultural field in the world.

Poverty threatening Japan’s society as new homeless people spread

Nov. 29, 2009

Poverty threatening Japan’s society as new homeless people spread

The time-honored stone building is part of the head office facilities of the Bank of Japan located a few kilometers north of Ginza, one of the busiest and most fashionable shopping centers in Tokyo. The two-story building faces a canal across a street to the west and above the canal runs an elevated expressway lane. The structure and a small bridge over the canal provide a good shelter-like environment for homeless people to live. Actually, “houses” of corrugated cardboard and wooden boards occupy some places around the bridge.
This is just one of the scenes one can see at corners of parks, station squares and other public places in Tokyo. As far as ordinary Japanese people are concerned, how the homeless live had been an unrelated problem until late last year, when a new breed of homeless people began to emerge amid Japan’s economic crisis.
Many Japanese companies resorted to firing contract or temporary workers in an effort to survive the global recession from late 2008 to this year. These workers’ contracts had been extended many times, giving them almost the same job conditions as those for regular workers, among them company housing. Some of them had no money to find their own housing and became homeless on the very day when their contracts were terminated. Eventually, they had to join the existing homeless people on the street.
Poverty is filtering into Japan’s society calmly and steadily. The Japanese government recently announced that Japan’s relative poverty rate had climbed to 15.7 pct in 2007. The rate represents the percentage of people whose annual income is less than half of the median of disposable income for each of the people, estimated at 2.28 million yen for the year under review. The finding means that one of every six persons suffers poverty in a country which had once boasted a stable society supported by many middle-income earners. The percentage was a staggering 54.3 pct for single-parent families.

A windy and rainy night, a rainy and snowy night. There is no means for me to tolerate cold during such a night. So, I nibble at hard salt and sip sake lees soup.

While coughing, sniveling and stroking my small beard, I tell myself cocksure there must be no one who is more talented than I. But because it is so cold, I pull hemp bedclothes over my head and wear all the short-sleeved clothes I have. Still I cannot warm myself. In a cold night like this, the parents of a person who is even poorer than I would be shivering from cold in hanger while his wife and children would be crying with weak voices. How do you make your living in such a situation?
People say the world is vast, but it appears to be small to me. People say the sun and the moon brightly shine on us and bless us, but they do not shine for me. Is this the case for other people, too? Or is this only for me?

I was born as a human being and I work just as other persons do. But I have nothing to wear other than sleeveless hemp clothes and seaweed-like ragged clothes. I have to live in a leaning, nearly collapsed house while having my father and mother sleep above my head and my wife and kids beyond my legs with straws placed as a mat on the ground. There is no fire at the kitchen and our rice cooker is left unused and covered with a spider’s web. They are begging for something to eat with feeble voices, but a whip-wielding village official’s voice is heard into our bedroom, just like the saying that a short thing should be cut even shorter. I wonder if leading a life in this world is really helpless like this.
(A personal translation)

This is a poem composed by Yamanoue Okura, a court official who was active early in the eighth century, when he was in his 60s. The long poem, which is included in Japan’s oldest waka poem anthology Manyoshu, takes the form of a dialogue between two poor men. Unlike other waka poets of his age, who made poems about their beloved and kin or about noble persons, Okura left poems about the life of ordinary people.
The spread of people who have newly become homeless in Japan is attributed mainly to the global economic crisis that began in the autumn of last year. But some domestic structural reasons may also be cited for the phenomenon, such as competition-oriented business practices and a lack of social systems, something like a safety net, to rescue jobless people and get them back to the workplace.
The streets at Ginza are filled with many shoppers toward the year-end shopping season, but their purse strings appear to be tighter. People at the Bank of Japan buildings are racking their brains for a prescription to stimulate consumers’ demand and pull the economy out of the current deflationary spiral. But it is unknown if and how soon they will be able to find an answer to the question.

New challenge for Japan: Who is truly qualified to serve public? Govt people or citizens?

Nov. 15, 2009

New challenge for Japan: Who is truly qualified to serve public? Govt people or citizens?

The nature-loving woman died of a recurrence of cancer last year after living an exciting but simple life as an interpreter for U.S. artists and a member of a citizens’ movement in her hometown. She was 56 and survived by her husband and a 17-year-old son. She died while watching the sea of her hometown facing the Pacific from her bed. It was about two weeks after she returned from the United States to live her last days with her family and friends in Japan.
Members of a local citizens’ group organized against a high-rise condominium project tried to field the woman, who was one of its leaders, as a candidate for a mayoral election believing she was qualified to do jobs to preserve the nature of the town. But her poor health and other reasons prevented them from realizing the idea. The group won a half victory in their movement against the project. They succeeded in getting the local government to pass a law to ban high-rise structures in the scenic seaside area, but they failed to do so for smaller buildings.
Grass-roots or citizens’ movements are not new ones in Japan. Citizens’ movements became active in the 1970s. Movements by citizens and volunteers have spread widely in recent years to various parts of people’s daily life, including care for children, support for the handicapped, the sick and the elderly, education of young people and the preservation of the nature.

The phenomenon comes at a time when people have become eager to know who is truly qualified to serve the public. It has been generally believed that jobs for the public are performed by national or local government officials, but the notion has come to be doubted as bureaucrats’ behaviors and their quality as public servants are under criticism. This is a reason why Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama called for exploring what he termed a “new concept of the public” in his recent inaugural address to the parliament. Who is truly qualified to serve the public or the common good? And what is the public after all in today’s society amid diversifying values? The main player in today’s Japan should be a people-oriented network society, with ordinary people ready to help each other at various places and occasions, Hatoyama believes.
In Japan, the emperor system represented the ultimate value throughout the periods except a few centuries ruled by samurai warlords.

From today, I will never look back on myself.
I will move on as a great shield of the Emperor.
(A personal translation)

This is one of a series of poems composed by “sakimori” soldiers and adopted for Japan’s oldest waka poem anthology Manyoshu, compiled in the eighth century. Imamatsuribe Yosofu, the author of the poem, is believed to be a noncommissioned officer who led a small sakimori unit.
The emperor system and based on the system, bureaucrats’ strong clout on Japan’s politics were in force in the prewar period, or to be more precise, until after the end of World War II in a different manner. Prime Minister Hatoyama, inaugurated in September, aims at a thorough review of Japan’s postwar politics calling for redefining bureaucrats’ role in Japan’s policy making to let them support and facilitate people’s various activities.
The woman and her husband moved to California in the 1970s and started their life there almost from scratch. She found a telephone interpreter’s job with AT&T and her husband became a craftsman. Meanwhile, her younger brother and his pop music band had become popular in Japan when the couple was trying hard to establish their life in America. She became to be known as the pop star’s sister when she returned to Japan after about 20 years of life in the U.S. “I was always cautious toward people who approached me only because my brother is a celebrity. I had found myself used shrewdly by these people for their purposes. But I had made up my mind to use all means available to stop the condo project,” she wrote in her first and last book, published a few months after her death.
My wife knew the woman, Eriko Iwamoto, and met her a few times through a local citizens’ group to provide mainly home stay support to visiting foreign youths. “She was just a common person and she didn’t look like a celebrity’s sister. She was not arrogant at all,” my wife said. She wanted to live longer, but her life must have been satisfactory because her activity inspired many people to work together to protect their life and preserve the environment, her friends believe.

Japan’s food self-sufficiency and fate of rice

Oct. 28, 2009

Japan’s food self-sufficiency and fate of rice


Rice was always close at hand to Japanese people since the ancient times. The annual plant, which originally came from the Indochinese Peninsula, has continued to support people’s food life in the land which became to be known as Japan and formed a part of its traditional culture.
Japan was called the Land of Golden Ears of Rice in the Japanese myths.
Rice, ine in Japanese or called kome as a grain, is among the so-called five major cereals, which also include wheat, millet, foxtail millet and barnyard grass, but it is far more important than any other grains. A mythical episode says that a goddess named Ohgetsuhime produced the seeds of rice and wheat, and adzuki bean and soybean as well as silkworm from various parts of the body when she died.

Rice is in the ear and leaning in one direction in the autumn field.
I want to lean on your love in despite of bad rumor about us.
Bad rumor about our love bitterly pierces my heart.
I have never done this before in my life,
but I will wade across a river at dawn to see my lover.
(Personal translations)

These are poems composed by Princess Tajima, who left a few poems about her unforgivable love with Prince Hozumi, her half brother, in Manyoshu, Japan’s oldest waka poem collection. The year of her death is unknown, but she was believed to be in her late 20s when she died in 708. Prince Hozumi went out in heavy snow one day to visit the grave of Princess Tajima. He made the following elegy while having a distant view of her tomb on a hill in Yonabari, a mountainous area which was to the south of her former residence near the Imperial Palace:

She must be feeling cold.
Snow! Please do not fall so heavily on Ikai Hill of Yonabari.
(A personal translation)

Paddy rice blooms tiny white flowers from June to July. When it bears fruit, the ears droop down due to its weight.
Many of Japan’s traditional festivals are linked to rice as people continued hard efforts over the centuries to increase rice paddies by cultivating wasteland, controlling river flows and building irrigation canals. Farmers held festivals from spring to autumn while praying for and thanking for a bumper harvest for rice, not other grains. Rice was important not only for Japan’s food life. It was also an indispensable, pivotal product for economic activity until the end of the Edo Era. The rice-oriented economic system in the period led to the launch of a rice futures exchange in Osaka, the commercial hub of western Japan, in 1730. This was the first futures market in the world.
Rice is the staple food for Japanese people now. Rice has been so important a part of Japan’s society and tradition, but its fate is far from certain at present. The environment is becoming more serious than before for rice growers amid a continuous oversupply and declining prices, while consumers’ preference for food is diversifying.
Rice has been a politically touchy issue in the recent decades amid pressure from abroad to open Japan’s heavily protected rice market to imports. But Japan’s policymakers believe that measures should be taken to continue Japan’s rice production in order to maintain Japan’s food self-sufficiency and food security. They also believe that rice farming has numerous functions to play, preserving the natural environment and maintaining the rural community. Japan’s food self-sufficiency is picking up in recent years, but it remains as low as around 40 pct.
The Democratic Party of Japan, which has come to power after a recent election victory, has made clear a policy of introducing a producer-specific subsidy system initially for rice to cover a gap between rice prices and costs. But opponents and experts doubt if the system will work well, warning it may rather invite a moral hazard among producers. Japan is expected to need more time to find an effective prescription for saving Japan’s rice farming and making its rice and rice farmers internationally competitive.

Bush clover and slow, simpler life in Japan

Oct. 20, 2009

Bush clover and slow, simpler life in Japan

Bush clover, also called Japanese clover, is an autumn flower loved by many waka poets since the time of Japan’s oldest waka poem anthology Manyoshu. Japanese have many flowers and herbs to enjoy in autumn, maybe more than in other seasons. Bush clover leads the so-called seven flowers of autumn, followed by Japanese pampas grass, kudzu vine, a pink, Patrinia scabiosifolia, thoroughwort and kikyo bellflower in that order. The grouping originates from a poem composed by Yamanoue Okura, a poet of the eighth century who left many waka poems in the Manyoshu anthology. (An explanation about waka poems can be found in an author’s note in the blog post published on April 11)

When I count on my fingers the flowers in bloom in this autumn field,

I find seven kinds of flowers out there.
(A personal translation)

This is the poem made by Okura, who specifically lists up the seven flowers in another poem. The poem collection contains a total of 4,516 pieces of poems in 20 volumes. Of this, about 1,700 pieces mention the names of flowers or herbs. Bush clover, called “hagi” in Japanese, appears in 142 pieces, more frequently than any other species. Second was the Japanese apricot and third was “nubatama” iris.
Otomo Yakamochi, believed to be the editor of the poem collection, also composed a poem which refers to bush clover. He was returning a poem extended by a girl known as “Hekino Nagae." The poems of Yakamochi and the girl follow:

A cluster of bush clover in bloom in my garden:

I nearly mistakenly let it fall before showing the flower to my love.
When autumn comes, dews fall on the ears of “obana” (Japanese pampas grass).

I feel as if I were disappearing so quickly as the dews

because of the sorrow of love to you.
(Personal translations)

Bush clover, which belongs to the pea family, is a deciduous shrub and blooms from late summer to early autumn.
Hagi has been referred to in many poems not only in the Manyoshu era but also in the later periods Why has it attracted Japanese poets so strongly? The chief reason is its pretty shape, which fits waka poems, experts say. Hagi has a weeping habit and blooms a lot of tiny red-purple (sometimes white) flowers on slender branches. This has appealed to Japanese poets and people over the centuries.
Bush clovers seen in Japan are less brilliant compared to North American-grown species, many of which extend fountain-like flower branches in bloom. The Japanese species are also lower in height, about 3 to 4 feet. This is another reason for its popularity in Japan because Japanese like small and fragile things.
Despite its pretty, fragile look, hagi is a kind of “pioneer” plant and at home to poor conditions, such as dry soil. This eager-to-live, admirable appearance pleases Japanese people.
Tourist spots in Kamakura, south of Tokyo, attracts many visitors including those hoping to enjoy flowers on weekends. Hagi can be found at not only famous spots but also other places, sometimes on the roadside and on the fences of houses. Hagi should continue to be loved in Japan, maybe more widely than ever, because Japanese tend to prefer a simpler, slow life in view of the forthcoming environment-oriented age.

Forecasts of warm winter unnerve business people in Japan

Sept. 29, 2009

Forecasts of warm winter unnerve business people in Japan


An official long-term weather forecast indicates that Japan will have warm weather toward this winter. This should be a source of headache not only for those working on winter businesses but also for people in industries like tourism. The Meteorological Agency of Japan recently said the El Nino phenomenon of a higher sea surface temperature in the central to eastern parts of the Pacific will linger in the months ahead.

The ongoing global warming has already tended to delay the colored leaf viewing season across Japan. Weathermen estimate Japan’s average temperature from autumn to winter has risen by 2 to 3 degrees centigrade over the past 30 years. Package tours to famous spots with maple trees are a main product for tourist agencies every autumn, but they are having difficulty determining the timing for organizing the tours because the start of the maple tree viewing season is becoming more unpredictable.

With neither warp nor weft fixed on the loom,

the young girls have woven beautifully colored autumn leaves.

The frost, please do not fall on the leaves.
(A personal translation)

This is a waka poem composed by Prince Otsu and included in Japan’s oldest waka poem anthology Manyoshu, compiled in the eighth century. The prince, who was known for his talent as a poet but died young, likened the red and yellow leaves spreading on the hills to a work by nymphs.
Kamakura, south of Tokyo, is a major tourist spot and the home to a samurai regime from the 13th to 14th centuries. Deciduous trees in Kamakura, including gingkoes at a small park in Nishi-Mikado, do not turn red or yellow until late November or early December.
Japanese people are becoming aware of the need to make their life environmentally friendly to stop the global warming. Some experts say it is already too late, but people look more interested in using recyclable and energy-saving products to reduce CO2 emissions. If the climate change following the global warming continues, Japan’s four seasons are feared to become less visible than now. If so, businesses linked to seasonal needs will also be jeopardized, thereby affecting the economy as a whole.

Many people are coming to understand the seriousness of the global warming, but business people are generally reluctant to work with the government’s new initiative to reduce Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25 pct by 2020 from the 1990 level. It is their turn to show their will to save the earth as corporate citizens.

Japanese having moment to relax in coolness in autumn

Sept. 22, 2009

Japanese having moment to relax in coolness in autumn


Autumn has come quickly this year to Japan. The mercury rises to about the same level as in summer in the daytime, but it is much cooler early in the morning and in the evening. Japan had a politically hot summer this year, paving the way for the first party-to-party transfer of power in 50 years. But voters are turning their eyes back to their busy daily life.
“Summer heats and the cold in winter linger, but only until the equinox days,” a Japanese proverb says. The autumnal equinox and the vernal equinox represent the full start of autumn and spring for Japanese, with Buddhist services held for ancestors during the equinoctial weeks.
The sky in summer was occupied by big columns of cumulonimbus or thunderheads, but they have been replaced by fleecy clouds on gentle autumn winds.
A waka poem included in the Kokinwakashu poem anthology of the Heian period goes:

There is no visible sign that autumn has clearly come,
but the sound of winds tells me so.
(A personal translation)

The poem, which leads the autumn section of the anthology, was composed by Toshiyuki Fujiwara, the poet who was active late in the ninth century. The poem depicts thin signs of autumn on a cool windy day, and it has been loved by many Japanese because of its intellectual but refreshing tone and rhythm.
Autumn has many faces for the season-conscious Japanese. Autumn is a season of art, a season of appetite, and a season for thinking calmly. People come up with the results of their studies during the hot summer.
As the dust of the crucial elections at the end of August is settling down, Japanese people are concerned now about the resumed spread of swine flu throughout the country. The death of a seven-year-old boy was linked to the epidemic this week, becoming the 18th fatal case in Japan. People should be busy watching the news about the flu and the course of new Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s initiative to revamp Japan’s politics in the months ahead.

Future of friendly relations between Japan and U.S. shaky?

Sept. 17, 2009

Future of friendly relations between Japan and U.S. shaky?

One little Japanese girl died in 1911 before going to America with her adoptive parents, a U.S. missionary and his wife, but people in Tokyo’s Azabu-Juban firmly believe her soul lives with a monument built in her memory in their town. Kimi Iwasaki, or Kimi-chan, died of illness at the age of nine at a Methodist orphanage in an area which is now a part of Azabu-Juban, uptown Tokyo. Local people, led by a group of shop owners, hoped to build a statue of Kimi-chan as a symbol of their “town of smile.” Her statue was set at a square in the heart of the town in February 1989. The 65-centimeter-high statue later became an icon of a charity, which has so far drawn about 11 million yen of donation.
Kimi’s story is only a tiny episode in more than 150 years of relations between Japan and the United States, but people in Azabu-Juban remember her story as their treasure.
The United States concluded a treaty with Japan under the Tokugawa shognate regime in 1854, becoming the first Western country to do so. The first chief of mission came to present his credentials to the shogunate exactly 150 years ago, in 1859. The treaty pulled Japan out of two and a half centuries of isolation under the Tokugawa regime. The Meiji government, which toppled the shogunate, strived for Japan’s modernization by inviting foreign scholars and engineers in various fields. Europeans made major roles in establishing political, social and other core systems in Japan. Americans were less visible in these fields, but they left their footprints mainly as educators and religious leaders. Charles W. Huett and his wife Emma, said to be Kimi’s adoptive parents, were among U.S. missionaries who disseminated Protestantism in Japan. They operated mainly in Hokkaido, northernmost Japan, early in the 20th century.
Kimi is said to be the model of a famous children's song. Titled “A little girl wearing red shoes,” the song was published in 1922 with the lyrics written by poet Ujoh Noguchi. Kimi’s mother, Kayo, was an unmarried mother. When she decided to marry a young settler farmer in Hokkaido, she sent Kimi away to be raised by the Huetts through her father-in-law. At least she believed so, and her daughter was to go to America with the adoptive parents. But Kimi’s poor health (she had contracted tuberculosis) kept her from traveling to America. Kayo later came to know Ujoh, the poet who wrote the lyrics, and told him about her daughter. She believed this became the song.

The little girl was wearing red shoes, and she has been taken by a foreigner to his country.

She got on a boat at Yokohama, and she has been taken by a foreigner to his country.

She must be blue-eyed now and she must be living in the foreigner’s country.

Whenever I see red shoes and whenever I see foreigners, I think about the little girl.
(A personal translation)

Relations between Japan and the United States have continued to develop while undergoing unfortunate incidents, notably the Pacific War from 1941 to 1945 or more recently, frictions over the U.S. military presence in Japan. But Japan-U.S. relations are expected to enter a new phase under Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s fresh regime, inaugurated this week. Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan put an end to the pro-Washington Liberal Democratic Party’s almost uninterrupted rule for the past 50 years in recent parliamentary elections.
Hatoyama hopes to establish a truly equal partnership between Japan and the United States. He is expected to move to review important security pacts with the United States. This has led observers to warn that relations between the two countries may become shaky from now on. In an attempt to eliminate U.S. policymakers’ concern about his policy stance, Hatoyama assured U.S. President Barack Obama in a recent telephone conversation that he is not anti-American. Actually, Hatoyama, the U.S.-educated scholar-turned politician, cites President John F. Kennedy as his most admired person.
Kimi’s episode came to be known in 1979, when a TV program producer in Hokkaido released a book about the girl’s fate based on her half-sister’s accounts and his own survey. The theory shown in the book was later challenged by one writer, who argued the story was a fabrication with no evidence linking Kimi to the U.S. missionary or the song. The criticism was “incorrect and really regrettable,” said Kimitoshi Yamamoto, a local shop owner who serves as manager for the charity in Azabu-Juban.
Kimi-chan’s statue was set at the square, Patio Juban, on a rainy day, recalls Yamamoto. Passers-by and shoppers were limited with many shops closed for a regular holiday. Someone placed 18 yen near Kimi-chan’s feet in the evening of the day. This was the start of a charity, said Yamamoto. Small amounts of money were found near the bronze and red granite statue almost everyday since then. The money from unknown donators has been contributed mainly to UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund.
Local elementary school children visit Kimi-chan’s statue as part of curriculums to study about their community. The children say, “I feel sorry for Kimi-chan,” and this reminds them of the preciousness of their life with their mothers and families, according to Yamamoto. “Kimi-chan is dead, but she tells us many things,” he said.
Relations between Japan and the United States have become solid and matured as a result of decades-long grass-roots interchanges across the Pacific on top of bilateral political and economic pacts. Their relations are unlikely to be damaged easily as Hatoyama is expected to devote his energies initially to forming ties of mutual trust with President Obama.

An author’s note: Following is a melody for the first four bars of the song, “A Little Girl Wearing Red Shoes”: CD-EflatF-G-G/G-AflatF-G-G/G-C-Eflat-C/D-D-D-x. C, D and E in the third and fourth bars are one octave higher.

Japan’s next prime minister Hatoyama looks to Asia

Sept. 4, 2009

Japan’s next prime minister Hatoyama looks to Asia

Yukio Hatoyama, 62, Japan’s incoming prime minister, hopes to reshape Japan’s diplomatic policy while focusing on its identity as an Asian country. His initiative, if successful, may amount to a review of Japan’s quest to be an influential member of the rich Western nations’ club since the Meiji Era. Japan is the only Asian country which succeeded in modernizing itself to counter waves of colonization by Western powers since the 19th century. This tended to cause the Japanese to give greater emphasis to Western values than Asian values. Japanese people sometimes forget even today that they are Asians. Japan’s hard work for nation-building since the second half of the 19th century was carried out under the slogan “Pull out of Asia to enter the Western world.” Hatoyama’s pro-Asia agenda may be called “Pull out of the U.S. dominance to reenter Asia.”
In an essay contributed to the Aug. 27 electronic edition of The New York Times, Hatoyama called for creating an East Asian community. “We must not forget our identity as a nation located in Asia,” he said. The East Asian region “must be recognized as Japan’s basic sphere of being.” He bases the idea on his pet word “fraternity.” Fraternity can be a principle that aims to protect countries’ citizens from the unrestricted market fundamentalism and financial capitalism which have caused human dignity to be lost, the new Japanese leader says.
U.S. policymakers in Washington have raised their eyebrows at what he broached in the essay. They fear that Hatoyama and his 11-year-old Democratic Party of Japan may move to reexamine Japan’s longstanding security alliance with the United States. The DPJ won 308 of the 480 seats of the all-important House of Representatives in a landslide in the Aug. 30 general elections. This put an end to the long dominance of the pro-Washington Liberal Democratic Party in Japan's politics. Hatoyama will be elected Japan’s next prime minister in the Diet, Japan’s parliament, on Sept. 16. In a telephone conversation with President Barack Obama three days after his election win, Hatoyama reassured him that the security treaty between Japan and the United States will continue to be the “cornerstone” of Japan’s foreign policy. But more time should be necessary for the two countries to fully understand each other under the new Japanese leader’s regime.

Hatoyama, a Stanford University PHD and a scholar-turned politician, entered politics in 1986 when he was 39. He will be the first Japanese prime minister with a scientific educational background. Hatoyama was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His father was a foreign minister, his grandfather was a prime minister and his great-grandfather was a lower house speaker and a samurai's son.
Hatoyama is nicknamed as “a being from outer space.” This reflects the fact that his character and behavior are unusual as a Japanese politician and hard to grasp. He does not care about being so called, though the term sounds slightly insulting. He sometimes introduces himself by using the nickname. This itself shows why he is called a being from outer space.
In the essay, titled “A New Path for Japan,” he referred to China’s increasing presence in the global political and economic scenes. He stressed that Japan should think how to maintain its political and economic independence when caught between the United States and China. He is well aware of the need for Japan to maintain good relations with China in order to establish the proposed East Asian community.

Relations between the two Asian powers became shaky from time to time in recent years over Japanese political leaders’ visits to a war-related Shinto shrine in Tokyo. Hatoyama has made clear that he will refrain from visiting the shrine, which has been criticized as a symbol of the militarist Japan. Japan owes numerous things to China through centuries-long interchanges. Japan made hard efforts in the ancient years to import China's cultures and knowledge. Some people sent on such missions to China lost their lives during voyages across the sea, while some others perished in China. Nakamaro Abe, an eighth century politician who served China’s Tang Dynasty, composed the following waka poem while longing for a return to Japan :

When I look at the night sky, the moon is shining far above,
the same moon as I saw on Mikasa Hill in Kasuga a long time ago.
(A personal translation)

Nakamaro was sent to China as a young student. He could never return to Japan and died in China after spending over 50 years as a top official of the dynasty there. The most vitally important things Japan imported from China include “kanji” Chinese letters. Japanese cannot express their language without kanji letters. Japanese have two separate kinds of letters—hiragana and katakana letters. These phonetic letters also originate from kanji letters. Some linguists advocated abolishing the use of kanji letters in the Meiji Era, but they failed. This episode is little remembered today. Elsewhere in the Chinese letter cultural zone, Korea invented its own letter structure, the Hangle alphabet, in the 15th century, and the use of Chinese letters is limited in their ordinary life today. Vietnamese adopted the Western alphabet to spell their language under French colonial rule. Japan’s continued use of kanji letters enables Japanese to “talk” with their Chinese friends by writing down sentences with kanji letters. This reminds them of the cultural closeness between the two countries.
Hatoyama will try to find a narrow path between the two difficult jobs of adapting the decades-old security alliance with the United States to today's political environment and building favorable relations with China. His pursuit of the dual missions is unlikely to be a success immediately. The Japanese voters who have given his party a mandate to renovate Japan’s politics must be patient until Hatoyama and the DPJ find an answer to their challenges related to its Asian and Pacific neighbors.

Fate of long-dominant LDP in question after crucial election

Aug. 28, 2009

Fate of long-dominant LDP in question after crucial election


Takeo Miki, who served as Japan’s prime minister from 1974 to 1976, was a nonmainstream conservative politician. Miki was one of the few Liberal Democrats who successfully tried to distance themselves from money politics. As a result, he was called “Mr. Clean.” The Liberal Democratic Party has ruled Japan’s politics almost uninterruptedly since 1955 when it came into being through a merger of conservative forces. But the party is on the brink of losing power now.
The party and its minor coalition partner have had a two-thirds majority in the all-important House of Representatives, the Lower House. The Lower House election, set for the coming Sunday, is expected to change Japan’s political landscape as voters are dissatisfied with the LDP’s failure to break with money-oriented politics and sever cozy relations with bureaucrats and interest groups. Political pundits predict that around two-thirds of seats will this time go to the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan.
Miki lived in an area in Shibuya, uptown Tokyo. His former residence, the Japanese-style house which is about half a century old, is opened to the public irregularly because his kin still live there. The district used to be a calm residential area, but the house is surrounded with big condos at present. It is next door to the fashionable Daikanyama area which attracts young people all the seasons. “It was just an ordinary house, wasn’t it?” my wife said. The house was not actually an ordinary house, slightly bigger than those of ordinary people, but it looked humble compared to the residences of other former prime ministers, some of them called “palaces.” Miki started his political career before the last war and underwent many hardships. But he came back every time.
Following is a waka poem composed by Michizane Sugawara, a noted scholar and a top court official from the ninth to early 10th centuries, when he was transported under guard to a place of exile:

There are many paths here and there on this hill,
but no one tells me “This way please. This road leads you back to the capital.”
(A personal translation)

Michizane, then deputy prime minister of the Emperor's government, lost a power struggle to be exiled. He could never come back and he died in exile.
One of Miki’s tough times came in 1942 when he managed to win a seat in parliament in an election monopolized by a body affiliated with the then Hideki Tojo government. Miki’s influence grew gradually in the postwar period, but his power base in the LDP was fragile until he came to power. He was handpicked to be prime minister by a caretaker of the LDP in a political vacuum after Kakuei Tanaka resigned in disgrace. His job was to salvage and clean up the LDP. It is far from certain if any salvager will emerge for the party after its expected defeat in the forthcoming election. But if a matured democracy with two equally influential parties is to be established in Japan, the LDP should be asked to train itself as a healthy opposition party from now on.

Deep division continues on how to mourn Japan’s war dead

August 20, 2009

Deep division continues on how to mourn Japan’s war dead


Japanese have two utterly different war-related facilities to visit on Aug. 15, the anniversary of the end of the last war. They are Yasukuni Shrine, the 140-year-old Shinto shrine, and the Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery, both located in Tokyo’s Kudan area, just north of the Emperor’s Palace. The shrine was run by the government until 1945 when Japan surrendered to the Allied Nations. Yasukuni attracts not only World War II veterans and bereaved families but also those belonging to nationalist and right-wing groups on the war anniversary every year. Nationalists were handing out fliers and soliciting signatures for their campaigns at various places around the shrine last week. The shrine was also surrounded by dozens of large vehicles with loudspeakers mobilized by right-wing groups, and hundreds of police officers were on the alert in the area. Many media people, Japanese and foreign, were also on hand to see what should happen among people at the shrine.
The shrine, dedicated to Japan's war dead since the Meiji Era, has been the pivot of decades-long debates on how Japan should mourn those who lost their lives in the last war. The situation has become more complex since Yasukuni enshrined in the late 1970s the 14 wartime leaders, including former Premier Hideki Tojo, who were tried as class-A war criminals in the Far East Military Tribunal. Japan’s Asian neighbors, such as China, have criticized Japanese political leaders’ official visits to Yasukuni as attempts to justify Japan’s wartime acts.
One foreign journalist, accompanied by an interpreter, was having a chat with a nationalist group member, who angrily asked him, “Do you know that Taiwanese guys made a fuss at this shrine the other day, at the place where the souls of Japanese soldiers rest?”
A group of former Navy pilots was posing for pictures beside the main building of the shrine after paying homage to their dead comrades. In their 80s, they were wearing a blue shirt with an anchor-and-cherry blossom emblem for their former squadron. They were trained at the Yokaren Imperial Navy school toward the end of the war. “The war came to an end when we were waiting for an order at the Atsugi airfield (southwest of Tokyo). We had already been unable to fly,” one member told the author.
The Chidorigafuchi Cemetery, a nonreligious facility built in 1959, attracted people hoping to mourn the war dead in a calm atmosphere. The facility is dedicated to about 2.4 million unknown Japanese soldiers and civilians who lost their lives outside of Japan in the war.

When I go on the sea, I see soaked bodies floating.
When I go on the hills, I see grass-covered bodies lying.
I am ready to die before the Emperor. I will never look back.
(A personal translation)

This is a part of a long poem composed by Otomo Yakamochi, an eighth century poet who contributed to compiling Japan’s oldest waka poem anthology Manyoshu. The passage became a song with a solemn, beautiful melody written by a Tokyo Music School professor. The song was played at every occasion when Japanese soldiers were sent to the front in the Pacific war.
At Chidorigafuchi, an old man was looking at a monument along a path leading to the cemetery. “Many Japanese soldiers died on foreign soil, at battlefields far from Japan. They did not die because of fighting. They died because of the lack of supplies. Japan really went on a reckless war,” he whispered.
Political party leaders have taken to the streets for campaigns toward the Aug. 30 election of the House of Representatives. The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan stands a good chance of dislocating the Liberal Democratic Party as the ruling party. The DPJ has made clear that it will propose building a new nonreligious national facility dedicated to the victims of World War II, abiding by the constitutional division of government and religion. The use of public money by a local government for offerings to Yasukuni Shrine was ruled unconstitutional by Japan's top court in 1997. Yasukuni is also faced with requests from Buddhist and Christian bereaved families and bereaved families of "Japanese soldiers" from Korea and Taiwan as former Japanese colonies that the names of their kins be removed from the shrine. Meanwhile, there are moves in the right-wing camp to rewrite Japan’s war-related history from a nationalist point of view. Calls are also growing for Japan to review its defense-oriented military capability amid an increasing nuclear threat from North Korea.
It is far from certain if and when Japan will be able to overcome the longstanding deep rift over the remnants of the last war.

Bon summer festival season starts in Japan

August 10, 2009

Bon summer festival season starts in Japan


The “bon” festival kid dancing contest started after sunset at a breezy small square in a shopping mall in a city near Tokyo, attracting about 50 summer kimono-clad children. The prize was to be awarded to the cutest dancers by a three-man judge. But it showered before the judges announce the result. The shower came so quickly that the kids, their parents and many viewers got wet before running under the eaves. But children looked happy and satisfied with the dance.
A series of bon festival events began across Japan early this month. The long “tsuyu” rainy season is over, and hot summer has come. The bon festival, a Buddhist festival, is dedicated to the dead, but Japanese have fun with related events, dispelling the heat of summer.
Japanese have developed items that can create coolness not only physically but also visually and auditorily to overcome the hot summer. They include “uchiwa” and “sensu” portable fans and “furin” small hanging wind bells. Set fireworks decorate the night sky in riverside and lakeside summer festivals.
The twitters of little cuckoos, a migratory bird that comes to Japan early summer, heralded the arrival of summer for people in the Heian Period 10 to 11 centuries ago.

A little cuckoo is singing just out there, reluctant to pass my house.
Because it is dark? or because he has got lost?
(A personal translation)

This is a waka poem composed by Ki Tomonori, a noted poet in the Heian Period, and included in the Kokinwakashu waka poem anthology compiled in the 10th century. People in the period looked forward to hearing the season’s first twitters of little cuckoos. People sometimes stayed awake throughout the night to hear their voices.
Japanese in the ancient times felt the nature just beside them. They knew how to live with the nature and how to be environmentally friendly. Japanese people are coming to realize today that they have to be more environmentally friendly, sometime at the expense of becoming inconvenient. In a recent government survey, 53 pct of the polled said Japan should switch to a recycling-oriented society even if its standard of living declines. More than 60 pct replied they use refillable products to reduce waste and refrain from free plastic shopping bags at stores.
“Uchimizu,” the water spraying custom, has been promoted as an effective means of cooling places around houses. A device called “suikinkutsu,” created by an Edo Period gardener, is drawing renewed attention. As the term literally means “water harp,” the device is designed to enjoy the echoing sound of water trickling down at the bottom of the basin buried underground.
Japan is a resources-poor country. The so-called three Rs campaign is going on to encourage the people to “reduce, reuse and recycle.”
More people may go out to enjoy evening breezes, rather than cooling in air conditioning at home. Summer bon festivals not only help people to stand the heat of summer but also give them “peripheral” effects including making friends and knowing more about the community. Bon festival events are hoped to be maintained for the coming generation because they have to be on good terms with the environment.

Japanese enjoy longest total solar eclipse this century

July 28, 2009

Japanese enjoy longest total solar eclipse this century

Iwojima Island, a World War II battlefield in the western Pacific, drew public attention across Japan last week as it hosted a spectacular astronomical event—a total solar eclipse. The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan provided images of the jet-black sun telecast from a ship near the island. NHK, Japan’s prestigious public TV network, continued to air images of the phenomenon from its staff on the island and aboard a ship in the waters. The total eclipse continued for about six minutes and a half before noon Japan time on July 22. Total eclipses this long will not occur any more this century, astronomers say. (The photo above was taken from NHK TV; an overlapped image of the sun completely hidden by the shadow of the moon and a sunset-like scene which appeared on the horizon in the surrounding area.)
Iwojima Island, located about 1,200 kilometers south of Tokyo, is one of the southernmost territories of Japan. Fighting between Japanese and U.S. forces on the volcanic island claimed tens of thousands of lives on both sides.
The Japanese media kept showing many Japanese who got excited about the unusual event and followed the so-called solar eclipse hunters. The latest total eclipse was the first phenomenon of its kind observed in Japan in 46 years. The total eclipse band started in India, cut across China and moved on to small islands south of the Japanese Archipelago, including Iwojima. Islands which are nearer to the main islands of Japan were covered by thick clouds or hit by rain. As a result, Iwojima unexpectedly came into the spotlight as a good place to observe the total eclipse. Partial eclipse was observed at many places on the main islands of Japan.

The previous total eclipse in Japan occurred in 1963 when Japanese people had only started getting back on their feet from the ruins of the last war. This time, Japanese adults and children equally enjoyed the solar eclipse, while experts welcomed the event as a chance to make children more interested in the sciences. Some people thought the supernatural event was a good, epoch-making opportunity to restart their life.

Japan’s oldest confirmed total eclipse occurred in the year of 975 in the middle of the Heian period. The Imperial Court then announced a general amnesty. The astronomical event was generally viewed as an ominous sign in Japan until early last century. In a 1950 short novel written by Yukio Mishima, one of the greatest modern Japanese writers, the heroin recalls that she got married with her husband, who lost his eyesight due to injuries in the war, while knowing a solar eclipse would occur the following day. Her parents disliked the date for their wedding and warned “You’ll bring on bad luck.”

The unpopular Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso dissolved the House of Representatives for a snap general election while knowing the total eclipse would occur the following day. The odds are against him, but Aso and his Liberal Democratic Party had no other choice. They had no time to enjoy the solar eclipse, either. They have to fight for a showdown with the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan throughout this summer.

Dark side of pet boom in Japan

July 16, 2009

Dark side of pet boom in Japan

My routine starts with the six-month-old Boston terrier on weekdays. I take the cat-like dog out for a walk for half an hour, sometimes longer, in the neighborhood. His friends include a four-year-old female bulldog. He shits twice, and I take it home and dispose of it. My wife and I sometimes take him to the beach, which can be reached with a 15-minute bike ride. I always tell him in my heart, “You were really lucky, weren’t you? You were luckier than other dogs.”
One can see pet shops with newly born dogs and cats in small display cages at almost every corner of major cities. The pet boom comes at a time when an increasing number of Japanese people want to have something to heal themselves amid strong stress in their daily life.

I make you my pet, because I hope you may be a means of remembering her, my unhappy love. For what are you crying this way?
(A personal translation)

This is a poem made by a young noble about his one-sided love with a princess in the Tale of Genji, a long novel of the early 11th century around the peak of the Heian Period. The novel fields a “very small, pretty Chinese cat” in an episode involving the two figures and the husband of the princess, Genji, who is the main character of the saga.

Kashiwagi, the young man, was invited to see an event at Genji’s lavish mansion one day and happened to have a glimpse of the princess standing behind a blind when a cat darted out from behind the blind and became entangled with its cord, lifting the blind and revealing the princess and her women inside. Charmed by her beauty, Kashiwagi unsuccessfully tried to approach her again. Hoping to obtain the cat instead, he persuaded the crown prince to seek the cat from the princess, Onna San no Miya, who is his younger sister. Kashiwagi, the intendant of the right gate watch, then succeeded in obtaining the cat from the crown prince.
The pet boom in today’s Japan has a dark side in which more than 300,000 dogs and cats are “disposed of” every year. Dogs and cats deserted by owners are collected at “animal protection centers” established by local governments. The collected pets have a week to wait for new owners in what they call “dream boxes” at the facilities. If nobody appears, death by gassing waits for them. The number of pets killed at these facilities has been declining in recent years. Animal Rights Center Japan and other related organizations are on campaigns to reduce the number to zero, but there are many hurdles to clear toward achieving the goal.

ARC, a 22-year-old nonprofit organization, set up a booth at a community fair in Kamakura, south of Tokyo, in July, trying to enhance the public awareness of various animal abuses. ARC blames breeders and pet shops and their money-oriented business for the continued killings of dogs and cats. But irresponsible owners also prevent the situation from being corrected. Owners should remind themselves that they keep living creatures, not things, experts say. The pet-related problems must be addressed as a matter which concerns the whole of society, not just persons interested, they say.
Kashiwagi always kept the cat around him and a few years later, he finally obtained an opportunity to sleep with the princess. This was against her will, but she gave birth to a boy baby before Kashiwagi dies. The novel gives no hint about the fate of the cat after his death.

Star Festival gives Japanese opportunity to dwell on future

July 6, 2009

Star Festival gives Japanese opportunity to dwell on future

The “tanabata” Star Festival amounts to an opportunity for Japanese people to dwell on their future. People put up branches of bamboo with their wishes written on small pieces of paper in front of their houses. Separately, tanabata summer festivals take place in major cities, attracting hundreds of thousands or millions of visitors. People enjoy strolling through streets lined by tall bamboo poles with decorated lanterns and streamers hanging
The star festival, observed in early July or early August in Japan, originally comes from a legend in the ancient China in which the star of the weaver and the star of the cowherd, known as Vega and Altair in the West, make a rendezvous only once a year over the Milky Way. Japanese people make wishes to the heaven while thinking of the long separated heavenly couple.

In Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, which hosts one of the biggest tanabata festivals, organizers, mainly local shop owners, set up several stands to accept wishes from visitors with a 100-yen donation. Their wishes, written on tanzaku long strips of paper, will be dedicated to a shrine after the end of the festival. A father wrote “Peace continue on my family,” while a young woman wrote “A good partner appear before me.”
Most tanabata festivals form part of serious efforts by the local business community to prop up their declining economy. A Japanese-style restaurant in Hiratsuka built its own bamboo decoration, inviting school pupils to hang tanzaku strips with their wishes on the bamboo leaves. “I would like to cross Amanogawa, just one time,” read the wish of an 11-year-old girl. The Milky Way is called Amanogawa, or Heavenly River in Japan. A waka poem composed by an unknown woman and included in the Kokinwakashu poem anthology of the early 10th century says:

Ferryman on the Heavenly River!
Please hide your rudder when my lover has arrived here
so that he may not return to the other side.
(A personal translation)

About 34,000 pieces of tanzaku paper with visitors’ wishes were collected in the tanabata festival in Hiratsuka last year. “We expect more wishes to be collected and dedicated this year,” said a young man in charge of the campaign. Organizers and visitors equally look more serious this year as Japan is struggling amid the global recession.
In July 2008,, the then Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda hosted an annual leaders’ meeting of eight major countries at a lakeside resort in northern Japan. He asked participants and their spouses to write their wishes on tanzaku strips of paper for a social function at the start of the event. “Our future be opened up with the wisdom of mankind,” Fukuda wrote. He stepped down two months later, however.

This year’s meeting comes at a time when the political climate is stormy for some participants, including those from Britain and Japan. Nobody knows what their wishes should be to overcome tough challenges facing the world.

Silk tree flowers in bloom at garden related to Empress Michiko’s lullaby

June 26, 2009

Silk tree flowers in bloom at garden related to Empress Michiko’s lullaby


A silk tree, or nemu-no-ki in Japanese, blooms from late June to July at the small Tokyo garden named after a lullaby written by Empress Michiko. This overlaps the tsuyu rainy season in Japan. The silk tree, with filament-like pink and white flowers, was on hand to receive a group of about 10 tourists on an occasionally sunny day in late June. (Readers may be advised to see the April 28 post on this blog site.)
The garden was opened at a site formerly occupied by the residence of the parents of Empress Michiko in 2004. “You can see the silk tree right up there. Tha tree is the same as the tree which was sung in Nemu-No-Ki-No-Komoriuta (Silk Tree Lullaby), the song based on the lyrics written by Her Majesty.” the guide of the group said. Silk tree flowers have a good fragrance. “The flowers lie scattered there. You can pick up some,” the guide said.
The lyrics of the lullaby were written by the Empress when she was a high school student. The song was published after she got married to Emperor Akihito, then the crown prince, in 1959. The song was quite different from old Japanese lullabies, and its warm melody and words quickly became popular.
Most of the famous old Japanese lullabies were songs sung by baby sitters in dialect. Baby sitting used to be a job mainly for small girls from poor villages. Separated from their families, they sang of their loneliness and the hardness of their jobs.
The Lullaby of Itsuki, one of the best known lullabies in Japan, was originally sung in a certain area in Kumamoto Prefecture, southwestern Japan. The song was collected by a local school teacher in the 1930s and became widely known in the 1950s. The most commonly heard version of the song follows:

/I’ll have to be here until the Bon, but no more after the Bon.
If the Bon comes early, I can be home early.
/I’m a poor person, but they’re rich.
Rich people with good sash and good clothes.
/If I died, who would cry for me?
Cicadas in a pine tree mountain in the back would cry for me.
/If I died, bury me by the roadside.
Passers-by would serve flowers for me.
/What flower to serve? Camellias readily available there.
Water would be obtained from the heaven.
(A personal translation)

There exist old lullabies in the true sense of the term, nursery songs sung by mothers, but the baby sitters’ songs are more widely known in Japan. Their sad songs have been seen as a negative trace of the Japanese history and culture and failed to be studied properly. But researchers stress the need to preserve a wide range of indigenous lullabies as part of Japan’s cultural assets before they disappear.
An NPO calls for taking a fresh look at the importance and effectiveness of lullabies for child-raising. It is said that Japanese mothers sing lullabies for their kids less frequently than ever and some mothers know few to sing.
Japanese mothers should not be totally accused for their unwillingness to sing lullabies. The situation is becoming harder for families with small children in Japan. Their income is on the decline amid the current global economic plight. The situation is even worse for fatherless families. A bill for reinstating a special welfare benefit for single-parent households is before the parliament, but it is far from certain if it will be enacted.
Mothers who raise their children singlehandedly are apparently too busy and tired to sing songs for their children. Their situation must be improved to give them a solid base for living and time to sing lullabies for their kids.

An author’s note: The Bon summer festival, usually observed in mid-August, is one of the happiest holiday seasons in Japan, especially for people like boys and girls sent as servants for unpaid domestic service, a practice seen until early last century. Servants were allowed to return home on a once-a-year leave in the Bon season.

Father’s Day in Japan and changing roles for Japanese fathers

June 20, 2009

Father’s Day in Japan and changing roles for Japanese fathers


Father’s Day is less recognized and observed in Japan despite increasing awareness about fathers’ important roles. The day honoring fathers has not officially been designated as a holiday in Japan, though various organizations are promoting related activities, including an anti-prostate cancer campaign. Japan was largely a male-oriented society until a few decades ago, but Japanese fathers are trying to find their desired positions in the family following changes in people’s social behaviors.
Japanese men are asked to do more for child care, education for children and housekeeping as a whole. Many young fathers are aware of such requests and ready to cooperate with their spouses. But there are actually a number of barriers for them to clear. In 2002, the government introduced targets for increasing the percentage of workers taking child care leave, 80 pct for women and 10 pct for men. The figure for females has already been met, but that for males remains far below the target. The percentage for male workers rose to a record high in 2008, but only to a meager 1.56 pct, according to a Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry survey.
Labor affairs researchers cite various reasons for the slow progress, including employers’ lack of knowledge or reluctance about using the child care leave system for male workers and fears about declines in income on the part of employees.
The situation is not necessarily pessimistic for Japanese fathers as a whole. “Men! Do not enter the kitchen,” once a frequently uttered word, is almost dead now. Many cooking books written for men are available at bookstores. Japanese fathers feel free about working in the kitchen now. Whether they can cooperate in housekeeping is becoming a requirement for good fathers.
Father’s Day events form part of the gift-giving season in Japan. This is a happy season especially for elderly fathers. An eighth century waka poem made by a young “sakimori” soldier sent to a remote area goes:

Dad and Mom!
Momoyo-gusa (a hundred years flower) in the backyard of your residence.
Please be alive for a hundred years just like them, until I return home.
(A personal translation)

Japan’s oldest waka poem anthology, Manyoshu (ten thousand leaves), devotes one of its 20 volumes to a series of poems composed by sakimori soldiers. These soldiers, mainly farmers from Eastern Japan areas, were drafted into armies in regions facing Korea from the seventh to eighth centuries. After finishing a three-year term, they were allowed to return home, but on their own expense. Some of them could safely return home, but others perished on their way home. It is unknown actually how the sakimori poems were collected for the anthology. It is unseen, either, whether the poem of the young soldier reached his parents.
A poem made by a different sakimori soldier follows:

I have come over here after leaving my kids who cried while clinging to the hem of my trousers, the children who are motherless.
(A personal translation)

A Happy Father’s Day Card came from my daughter staying in California, almost a week before the actual Father’s Day, June 21 this year. “It’s arrived so early. She is always smart and attentive to anyone.” my wife said. She has found not only a job but also a partner-to-be there. The card came with a message from the man. The addressee read it with a mixed but slightly happy feeling, while recalling a waka poem composed by Yamanoue Okura, an eighth century court official, about his kids. His poem follows:

There were no ways at all.
I felt distressed, so I tried to rush out of the house and leave quickly,
but my children were an obstacle.
(A personal translation)

Death of charismatic rock musician and “Saint” of Japan’s ancient poetry

June 13, 2009

Death of charismatic rock musician and “Saint” of Japan’s ancient poetry

The funeral of the 58-year-old rock singer and song writer has attracted more than 40,000 fans from across Japan. Many celebrities extended words of condolences on his death. Some of his books were reprinted after his death. And NHK, Japan’s public TV network, aired a memorial program for him featuring his pet phrase “Loving each other?” Kiyoshiro Imawano (born Kiyoshi Kurihara) was dubbed Japan’s king of rock and the living icon of Japan’s rock n’ roll music. He died of cancer on May 2 after three years of attempt for life.
Imawano continued to write songs in his mother tongue while keeping the linguistic characters of the Japanese language. He inspired the Japanese language by giving a new dimension to commonly used words in today’s Japan. Nobody dares to say that his achievement compares with that of Kakinomoto Hitomaro, the Saint of Japan’s ancient waka poetry. But he may be called a remote “disciple” of the legendary poet beyond many centuries.
Hitomaro was active in the late seventh century, composing waka poems mainly for Imperial family members. He also sang of the solitude and the sorrow of parting for himself. Waka poems before his age had been archaic. The poet played an immeasurable role in refining the rhetoric and knack of waka poems. A poem composed by Hitomaro when he saw the deserted capital of Shiga follows:

On the Sea of Omi,
plovers are playing with the waves in the twilight.
When you, the plovers, cry,
my heart languishes with the past things recalled.
(A personal translation)

The poem is a highlight of Japan’s oldest waka anthology Manyoshu (ten thousand leaves), which was compiled in the eighth century. The regime in Shiga, facing the Sea of Omi, actually a lake, had been toppled in a civil war decades before Hitomaro visited there.
Kiyoshiro wrote many anti-Establishment songs when he was young, but he also made songs with fine, warm melody lines. His 1980 hit song, “Transistor Radio,” says in part:

Woo, I was at a sunny place after skipping the class, lying on the rooftop.
The smoke of my cigarette was so blue.
My transistor radio was always in my inner pocket.
When she was opening her textbook,
the hot number came from the radio and melted into the sky.
Ah, no way to tell a feeling like this. No, no, no.
(A personal translation)

Kiyoshiro’s songs were loved by Japanese from various walks of life, but he always stressed the rock music must be “poisonous.” His cancer started with the throat and spread to other parts. He declined to receive an operation, however, because he did not want to lose his voice.
He was much happier than Hitomaro, who lived a mysterious life. The years when Hitomaro was born and dead are unknown. Researchers are still having difficulty clarifying actually what he was. One opinion says he was dead from penalty.
Imawano was survived by his wife and two children. Up-and-coming young musicians are seen performing at public places like parks and station squares. Their songs are expected to help evolve the Japanese language as young people are curious about speaking for themselves amid a host of economic and social difficulties facing Japan.

New love-related words develop among young Japanese people

May 30, 2009

New love-related words develop among young Japanese people


“Yubi-koi,” which literally means finger love, is one of brand-new words in use among young people in Japan. The term means love which has developed as a result of finger-touch cell phone mails. A new breed of abbreviated and shortened words is emerging amid changes in young people’s behaviors following the spread of mobile information devices. In Japan, words are long believed to have miraculous power. Will the series of words enrich or just confuse the language in Japan?
Waka poems of the earliest time, including love poems, were made when people hoped to express their wishes or wills to the gods while counting on the special power of the language. A poem extended from Prince Ootsu (663-686) to Lady Ishikawa and her return poem follow:

I got wet with dewdrops
when I was waiting for you, my love, on a mountain path.
I wish I were the dewdrops that you said wetted you
who were waiting for me on a mountain path.
(Personal translations)

The poems were included in the Manyoshu (ten thousand leaves) poem anthology, which came into being in the eighth century. Their rendezvous failed, but the couple came to love each other later. Another poem composed by Prince Ootsu and placed just after the two poems in the anthology says:

Our relations have been revealed by fortune teller Tsumori,
but while exactly knowing this would happen,
I had slept with her.
(A personal translation)

A newly published book collects a variety of new words spoken by young Japanese people, mainly teenagers. Besides yubi-koi, love-related words shown in the book include “rea-koi,” or real love, and “tomo-koku,” a declaration of love by a friend as a surrogate. “Byosatsu,” or killing in a second, means one falls in love with her or him at very first sight.
Prince Ootsu, a son of Emperor Tenmu, was known for his distinguished talent and popular among court people at his time. But he succumbed in a power struggle which followed his father’s death. He was “given a death” just after the incident, history says.
Poems exchanged by couples came first in the second volume of the Manyoshu anthology, followed by elegies, including those regarding the prince’s death. This indicates that love and death were close to each other for ancient people. A separate poem in the anthology suggests Lady Ishikawa was also loved by Crown Prince Kusakabe. But he also died young. Prince Ootsu had married Princess Yamanobe. She followed her husband to the grave.
Young people in today’s Japan are not exposed to such real threats of death, but they are faced with new kinds of harassment, such as stalking and sexual abuses. How to declare love for her or him is always the foremost issue of concern for young people. The Japanese language is flexible in accepting imported or new words to evolve itself. Young Japanese people, who have inherited a keen sense of the language from their ancestors, are expected to create new words further to express their feelings in their own way in the current information-oriented age.