I thought I’d have more notes reading this book like I did when I read Lafcadio Hearn’s “Japan, An Attempt At Interpretation.” The books were different in that this book didn’t get into the culture very much and just related tales, which, inherently teach us about Japanese culture but not to the depths of An Attempt at Interpretation.
There is one serious drawback to the enjoyment of the beauties of the Japanese country, and that is the intolerable affront which is continually offered to one’s sense of smell; the whole of what should form the sewerage of the city is carried out on the backs of men and horses, to be thrown upon the fields; and, if you would avoid the overpowering nuisance, you must walk handkerchief in hand, ready to shut out the stench which assails you at every moment.
This type of fertilizer is still used in North Korea – Night Soil is what they call it. It is details like these which give better insight into what life was truly like, unlike the sanitized and beautified version of history taught in the history books.
Through all this discourse about temples and tea-houses, I am coming by degrees to the goal of our pilgrimage – two old stones, mouldering away in a rank, overgrown graveyard hard by, an old old burying-ground, forgotten by all save those who love to dig out the tales of the past. The key is kept by a ghoulish old dame, almost as time-worn and mildewed as the tomb over which she watches. Obedient to our call, and looking forward to a fee ten times greater than any native would give her, she hobbles out, and, opening the gate, points out the stone bearing the inscription, the “Tomb of the Shiyoku” (fabulous birds, which, living one within the other – a mysterious duality contained in one body – are the emblem of connubial love and fidelity). By the stone stands another, graven with a longer legend, which runs as follows…
Speaking upon the subject once with a Japanese gentleman, I observed that we considered it an act of indecency for men and women to wash together. He shrugged his shoulders as he answered, “But then Westerns have such prurient minds.“
Yes, everything is a ‘sin’ in the Western world. It took me a long time to understand the strength of the Puritan strain that runs through the USA. We’re hanging by the ‘secular’ designation as a government, by a very tenuous thread that has been under assault for decades and which could finally snap with our current administration.
Having said so much, I will now try to give some account of the famous Yoshiwara 13 of Yedo, to which frequent allusion will have to be made in the course of these tales. At the end of the sixteenth century the courtesans of Yedo lived in three special places: these were the street called Koji-machi in which dwelt the women who came from Kioto; the Kamakura Street, and a spot opposite the great bridge, in which last two places lived women brought from Suruga. Besides these there afterwards came women from Fushimi and from Nara, who lodged scattered here and there throughout town. This appears to have scandalized a certain reformer, named Shoji Jinyemon, who, in the year 1612, addressed a memorial to the Government, petitioning that the women who lived in different parts of the town should be collected in one “Flower Quarter.” His petition was granted in the year 1617, and he fixed upon a place called Fukiyacho, which, on account of the quantities of rushes which grew there, was named Yoshi-Wara, or the rush-moor.
If you know much about Japan then you most likely know that the Yoshiwara is the ‘soapland’ district. I know of it but I didn’t realize how far back the history goes. There mentions of this place are numerous in even the limited historical books I’ve read about Japan. I was curious to see that prostitution was never a big deal but how attitudes (and the law) have changed in Japan. I’m not sure if it is due to the ‘puritan’ influence of the USA after WWII or general enlightenment that those women in that profession could probably use public support and help. Maybe a bit of both?
Singers remained longer in harness, but even they rarely work after the age of thirty, for Japanese women, like Italians, age quickly, and have none of that intermediate stage between youth and old age, which seems to be confined to countries where there is a twilight.
I’ll disagree here. I find that Japanese age MUCH more slowly than Western women. I find this true for Asians in general, not just the Japanese.
A fisherman enters, and in a long recitative describes the scenery at the sea-shore of Miwo, in the province of Suruga, at the foot of Fuji-Yama, the Peerless Mountain. The waves are still, and there is a great calm; the fisherman are all out plying their trade. The speaker’s name is Hakuriyo, a fisherman living in the pine-grove of Miwo. The rains are now over, and the sky is serene; the sun rises bright and red over the pine-trees and rippling sea; while last night’s moon is yet seen faintly in the heaven. Even he, humble fisher though he be, is softened by the beauty of the nature which surrounds him.
What says the proverb? “He who bears a jewel in his bosom bears poison.
So soon as this was over, the lay clerk sat himself down by the hanging drum, and, to its accompaniment, began intoning the prayer, “Na Mu Niyo Ho Ren Go Kiyo,” the congregation fervently joining in unison with him. These worlds, repeated over and over again, are the distinctive prayer of the Buddhist sect of Nichiren, to which the temple Cho-o-ji is dedicated. Thy are approximations to Sanscrit sounds, and have no meaning in Japanese, nor do the worshippers in using them know their precise value.
