A Japanese Mirror

by Ian Buruma

  What a wonderful child!

  He fought until the very end

  With the pride instilled by his mother,

  Infused with the Japanese blood of three thousand years

  (‘The Kamikaze’s Mother’)

  Yamato Shinko does manage to beat the bigger man in the end with his bamboo sword. The place of the final battle is … Ganryu island, the very spot where Miyamoto Musashi killed Sasaki Kojiro. Yamato does not kill his opponent, though. Instead, beating him against all physical odds, he shows him the Way to true manhood.

  ‘Your example of perseverance has purified my heart’, the reformed bully says gratefully, as he lies next to his victor on the beach, hand touching manly hand. Just then the sun rises from the sea, the red rays beaming gloriously as in the Imperial Navy flag: the spirit of Yamato is victorious again, the shame of the surviving kamikaze wiped out.

  One of the most extraordinary manifestations of koha worship is not a legend or comic story, but actually takes place, once a year, in an old baseball stadium in Osaka. Every August since 1915 (apart from an interruption during the war, when baseball was deemed foreign and frivolous) the entire Japanese nation becomes excited about high-school boys trying to win a baseball tournament.

  There they stand, the fifteen-year-old koha heroes, in straight rows, heads identically shaven, unsmiling faces staring straight ahead, flags held proudly aloft, and songs solemnly sung. Television commentators muse about the ‘purity of youth’ and ‘sincerity of spirit’. It is all eerily reminiscent of those similar rows of wolf-faced German youths, described by their leader as ‘lean and slim as greyhounds, lithe as leather and hard as Krupp steel’.

  These shaven baseball youths are the objects of a cult in Japan that has little to do with sport; it is the cult of youthful purity. Long articles appear in the press about the austerity of their training, and ominous tales are told of entire teams disqualified because one person got drunk or fooled around with a girl. Famous critics and writers, even in such left-leaning periodicals as the Asahi Journal, out-do each other in literary hyperbole describing the ‘essence’ of this national event. To cite just one example out of many, the film director Shinoda Masahiro called the high-school heroes ‘Japanese gods’ and the baseball park a ‘holy ground’ where the game is propelled by ‘divine power’.4

  It does not make much difference if it is judo, swordsmanship or baseball: it is the process that counts, the spiritual education. One of the great propagandists of this yearly feast was a journalist of the Asahi Shimbun, a leading Japanese newspaper. Though sometimes referred to as ‘the Voice of God’, his actual name was Tobita Suishu. This is what he wrote about his beloved event just after the war: ‘If high-school baseball should become just a game, it would lose its essential meaning (hongi). High-school baseball should always remain an education of the heart; the ground a classroom of purity, a gymnasium of morality. Without this spirit, it will lose its eternal value.’5

  No wonder an obituary of this master mentioned that he taught Japanese youth ‘not only how to throw and hit a baseball, but also the beautiful and noble spirit of Japan’.6 And no wonder that the present chairman of the Highschool Baseball Association let it be known that it is ‘official policy’ not to let foreign reporters into the ground. Presumably they would sully the holy purity of the event.

  The spiritual purity of koha adolescents can lead to far odder things than baseball, however. Let us turn once more to the world of make-believe: a film made in 1966 by Suzuki Seijun, called ‘Elegy to Fighting’ (‘Kenka Eregee’). The hero of this still very popular movie is typically koha: a close-cropped, humourless, sexually frustrated schoolboy called Kirokku. Growing up in the turbulent 1930s, Kirokku has two passions: violent fighting and a very pure girlfriend. The two passions are intimately related for his love is more than just a platonic obsession. It is the worship of an idol, so inhumanly pure that it cannot be physically expressed. Every time she comes near him, he stiffens like a terrified soldier on parade. ‘Michiko, oh Michiko,’ he writes in his diary, ‘I can’t relax with a girl, so I fight instead.’ Whenever there is a gang fight against another school, Kirokku leads the way, jumping on his enemy from trees like a mad bushman, smashing people’s skulls with bamboo swords, or running wild in the class-room, clearing the way with his primitive version of karate chops.

  Yet he is not simply a bully, for his emotions are always pure, his actions dictated by his heart. And, true koha type that he is, he is not afraid of pain himself. In one scene, after being rude to a brutish military instructor, he is made to walk barefoot over a path strewn with nails. The hero does not flinch.

  The film is a witty and straightforward account of his fighting schoolboy career until the last scene, which is rather ambivalent. It dawns on the boy that there are bigger fights than the schoolyard squabbles which he finds increasingly pointless – like Musashi, Sanshiro and all the rest of his comrades in arms, he no longer finds just winning enough; there has to be a spiritual awakening to give it all meaning.

  One day he walks into a coffee-shop near his school. In the corner he sees a stranger reading a newspaper. He does not know why, but the man is like a magnet, mesmerising Kirokku by his presence. The man is none other than Kita Ikki, the radical nationalist and theorist behind the militarist coup of 1936, during which several cabinet ministers were assassinated. Kita himself was to be executed.

  In the next shot, Machiko, the hero’s idol, comes to say goodbye before entering a convent (they are from a southern part of Japan, where a number of Catholics still live). On her way back she is caught by a heavy snowstorm. Picking her way on a narrow road, she is roughly pushed out of the way by a column of marching soldiers on their way to spread the Japanese Spirit in China. The cross she wore round her neck is trampled on by their heavy, stamping boots. Then, suddenly, we hear an announcement at the local railway station: it is 26 February, 1936, the day of the militarist uprising.

  The juxtaposition of these events is confusing, for it is unclear what the director really means to say. Is he implying that the pure violence of the adolescent is robbed of its purity once it is put to use by a corrupt society (the marching soldiers, the coup)? Perhaps, but if so, it is not suggested anywhere that the cult of the koha is in any way connected with that peculiar form of Japanese militarism which led to the attempted coup in 1936.

  Perhaps the presence of Kita Ikki suggests that the incident itself is an example of youthful purity. Although, as we shall see later, that is indeed a widely held belief in Japan, it is unlikely that Suzuki subscribes to it. Perhaps the clue lies in something Suzuki himself once said: ‘I hate constructive themes. Images that stick in the mind are pictures of destruction.’7 Thus the film is literally an elegy to fighting, to the innocent violence of youth. It is a nostalgic yearning for that period in life when one can be self-assertive without being punished too severely, that time of grace before the hammer of conformity knocks the nail back in. The hero is still innocent, because his feelings are sincere.

  The purpose or effect of this sincerity is secondary to the emotion itself. As the father says when he watches his son, Yamato Shinko, fight like a madman: ‘I bet it’s for some childish cause, but at least he’s throwing himself into it with all his heart.’ Thinking back to his own kamikaze days, he turns to the reader and says: ‘Yes, the boy’s certainly got my blood in his veins.’

  The pure schoolboy using his fists or his bamboo kendo sword to settle his scores evokes such nostalgia precisely because the Japanese, perhaps more than most people, realize that as an adult in the corrupt world, he will no longer be able to behave in this way. And besides, however hard, stoical, manly and macho he may be, there is always one person who is finally stronger; the only one to beat the fanatic ex-kamikaze comic-book martinet at his own kendo-bashing contest is that sweetest, meekest, softest of creatures … his own wife, the mother of Yamato.

  9

  The Loyal Retainers

  Honour, obl
igation and sacrifice form the basis of the most popular play ever written in the Japanese language: ‘Chushingura’ or The Tale of the Forty-Seven Ronin.’ But before we enter into the details of this extraordinary drama, it is necessary to reflect a little upon the meaning of social obligations in Japanese life.

  To begin with, every Japanese is born in debt: first of all to his ancestors for keeping the family going, next to his parents for bringing him into the world. Until the end of the Second World War he would have been in debt to the emperor, as the supreme father, too, but this burden has been lifted now. This kind of debt by birthright is called on.1

  There is another kind of on which one passively collects, as it were, as one goes along. On is owed to teachers, helpful relatives, the baseball coach, the landlord, professors, matchmakers and go-betweens, company directors, in short anybody who does one a good turn in the course of one’s life. Life in Japan is to a large extent ruled by these mutual debts and obligations. And people can be quite ruthless about them, as one can easily find out to one’s cost. It is quite possible, for instance, for a person to receive a phone call from an old acquaintance reminding him of a favour done for him years ago, followed by a request for a favour in return. He might have quite forgotten about that favour, and the request might come at a very inconvenient moment, but, if he wants to survive in Japanese society, it is essential for him to comply.

  Not only do favours have to be returned, but they must be returned in kind. This is called giri: a sense of honour; a sense of duty; a debt of gratitude. Too large a favour would put the other person in debt and too meagre a return would not be enough, and would even possibly be taken as an insult. The potential for one-upmanship here can be imagined and indeed many Japanese have turned it into a fine art, outfoxing each other in a never-ending competition for the most advantageous debts. Politicians have to be past-masters to be effective. The national passion for presenting gifts is of course part of this game and foreigners over on business, being deluged with expensive watches, jewels and other luxurious knick-knacks do well to remember that it is easier to give than to receive, for it puts the obligation firmly on the recipient.

  It is not always easy to distinguish this custom from real bribery, particularly when cash changes hands. It is a common practice, for instance, for mothers to pay substantial fees to teachers in return for a helping hand in securing a place for their children in prestigious schools. This is just one example of semi-institutionalized bribery. There are many, many more, from paying landladies to rent an apartment, to offering cash to politicians to arrange an aeroplane deal.

  Society is also ruled by the duties and obligations of hierarchy. This is not strictly a matter of favours; it comes closer to the debt one owes one’s parents. Japanese groups are structured very much like families, with the senior members playing the part of parents over the juniors who are the children. It is expected, however, that childlike submissiveness by the ‘children’ is rewarded by parental indulgence from the top. This can make life at the top as strenuous as at the bowing and scraping bottom; more so, perhaps, because the responsibility for anything that may happen, even if it is entirely beyond his control, rests on the broad shoulders of the parent. Children, after all, have no responsibilities.

  This is why real power is often difficult to locate in Japanese organizations; it is diffused as much as possible so that nobody has to take complete responsibility for anything, and thus risk losing face. The nominal head, whether a company director or the emperor himself, is usually a powerless symbol, a kind of talisman, an ikon on the wall, a vacuum like the empty chamber in the holiest part of a Shinto shrine. Ultimate responsibility lies in that empty space; in other words, with nobody.

  None the less, although real power is slippery, the hierarchy itself is not. And because people define themselves in terms of the hierarchy and the group any attack on the system is an attack on themselves. In this sense one owes giri to oneself, or rather to one’s position in the hierarchy, which often comes down to the same thing. A personal loss of face means the entire group loses face. This clearly will not do, so people go out of their way to avoid it. It means, among other things, that individual incompetence is often tolerated to an astonishing extent. Others will discreetly cover up for the offender.2

  This network of social obligations, duties and debts, largely Confucian in origin but thoroughly Japanized in time, is far more complex than this bare outline suggests. Relationships on different levels, depending on rank and age, are all subject to different rules, which in turn much depend on time and place. There is an endless amount of nuances and subtleties in the social code, not all of which can be rationally explained. Although the code was devised to avoid the unexpected – the scourge of Japanese life – the Japanese are not simply etiquette-crazed robots either. In the end much comes down to what the Japanese call kan, feeling. When a confused foreigner asks a Japanese how he knows exactly the right tone to adopt to a certain person, the Japanese will cock his head to one side, hiss through his teeth, stress that foreigners could never understand, and then mention the word kan.

  In a way he is right. For to acquire this sensitivity it is almost a necessity to be brought up as a Japanese, to have one’s brains plugged into the social computer bank, as it were. The code is internalized in the same way that Christian morality is internalized in most Westerners. But when a Japanese is unplugged, by going abroad for instance, the computer can go berserk, for unlike Christian morality the Japanese code is not thought to be universal – it applies only to Japanese.

  The problem with obligations is that they can conflict. What happens, for example, if a favour owed to a friend clashes with the debts towards one’s parents, or one’s employer? And what happens to the obligations of politicians belonging to a faction led by a man so deeply involved in a bribery scandal that he has to be removed from the party in order to save it? This is exactly what happened in the case of ex-prime minister Tanaka. The answer is that while the leader, Mr Tanaka, has to be officially removed, his faction bearing his name remains as strong as ever. (So, at the time of writing, does Mr Tanaka himself, but behind a safe screen.)

  The worst case is when obligations go against one’s feelings of humanity, ninjo. Or, more precisely, when the conflict between different obligations results in inhumanity. Then the computer can even go haywire in Japan itself. Kabuki plays are full of characters obliged to kill their own children to save their lords or sell their wives to brothels to repay their debts. This conflict between giri and ninjo, duty and humanity, is one of the basic themes of Japanese drama. This was true of the traditional theatre of the Edo period; it is, by and large, still true today, on television, in books, comics and films. It is a problem the Japanese still wrestle with, both actually and vicariously in the imagination.

  And this, finally, brings us to that archetypal giri-ninjo play, its bible, so to speak: ‘The Tale of the Forty-Seven Ronin’.3 Almost every writer on Japan, from Ruth Benedict to Arthur Koestler, has used this play as a model and, perhaps a little perversely, I shall follow in their illustrious footsteps. One just cannot avoid ‘Chushingura’. For rarely, if ever, has one story captured the imagination of an entire nation to this degree; certainly no single story has caught as many aspects, as succinctly, of Japanese life, as this one.

  Like many Japanese legends, it is based on historical fact, but has gone through as many different versions and interpretations as Shakespeare’s plays. These, in brief, are the facts: On 14 March 1701, a country baron called Asano Naganori, whilst preparing an official reception for an imperial envoy from Kyoto, attempted to assassinate another nobleman, senior in rank, called Kira Yoshinaka. He only managed to wound the older man, but this was still such a serious breach of etiquette that the shogun ordered Asano to commit suicide in the ritual manner by slitting his belly. His lands were confiscated and his retainers set adrift as ronin, literally ‘wave men’, masterless samurai without a job.

  All they could
do now was plot their revenge. Kira knew this and had them closely watched. Nevertheless after much patience, deprivation and cunning they managed to break into his mansion on one unusually snowy night in the winter of 1703, and killed him. Their mission finally accomplished, they were arrested without further fuss and after some serious deliberation it was decided that they too, like their master, could disembowel themselves.

  This was an act of great clemency, for seppuku, better known in the West as hara-kiri, belly-slitting, was an honourable warrior’s death and not the punishment of common assassins, which is, of course, what they really were. Apparently the shogun was swayed by reasoning such as this by the Confucianist scholar Ogyu Sorai:

  For the forty-six samurai to have avenged their master on this occasion shows that they have followed the path of keeping themselves free of taint, their deed is righteous … if the forty-six samurai are pronounced guilty and condemned to commit seppuku, in keeping with the traditions of the samurai … the loyalty of the men will not have been disparaged.4

  The loyal retainers, after dying their gory deaths, intestines spilling out of their gaping stomach wounds, became instant folk heroes. And they have remained so ever since. People still make pilgrimages to their graves, crying a ritual tear when contemplating the melancholy beauty of the forty-seven cherry trees planted in their memory.

  Already in 1706, only three years after the event, they were immortalized in a puppet play by Chikamatsu. Kira became Ko no Moronao and Asano, Enya Hangan. After that a new play came out almost every year, but the finest and most famous was ‘Chushingura’, written in 1748 by three men, the most important of whom was Takeda Izumo. This play is still performed every New Year in the puppet as well as the Kabuki theatre. It has also been filmed countless times and, like the play, is usually screened around New Year, the most ‘Japanese’ of feasts. And it is still part of every Japanese schoolboy’s mythology through comics, books and television serials.