The Japan Journals: 1947-2004

by Donald Richie

24 september 1955. Nakayama, for that is his name, wanting to catch the early morning train to Shinjuku, let himself out of the inn. I slept until nine, then walked along the beach and looked at the single island, distant in the bay. The children form processions behind me wherever I go, and occasionally mimic me when I have difficulty with my geta. A young man, burned black by the sun and wearing only a pair of pajama-like suteteko trousers, comes by and I ask him about the island. It is a deserted island though tourists sometimes go there in the summer. Then, since I apparently look longing, he offers to take me out in his boat.

  It is a large boat with nets piled in it and green glass floats shining in the sun, and is powered by a small motor that makes tiny gray smoke rings in the still summer air. When we reach the wide sea there are small waves, though the bay is flat, and the boat bobs and dips until we reach the island with its pink cliffs and deep blue trees. There, in water so clear that the bottom is sharp at twenty feet, we swim and try to dive for that red stone just under me. I cannot get down even halfway, but the young man says he can go four times his own height. Once he tried five times, but that hurt his ears. “There, you see,” he says—holding up the red stone.

  He takes good care of me, as though he has been entrusted with some large and probably breakable object. He warns me away from the brightly colored jelly fish, informs me when a large wave is coming in, and tells me not to step on a spiny sea urchin so large it looks like a mine.

  Later we dry in the sun and I learn that he is twenty-three, and has left little Shibushi only once, and that was to go up the coast and fetch a boat back home. We talk about Tokyo and he asks which is best: Asakusa or Ueno. And so he echoes the poet of more than a century past who asked: Asakusa ka? Ueno ka?

  Dried, beginning to burn, we go up and lie in the shade of a palm. I had noticed that his suteteko, being thick cotton, are still damp from the swim, and so I suggest he take them off and hang them on a branch to dry. He does so.

  *

  Later, in the afternoon, I take a train around the coast and eventually reach Miyazaki, where I board a rattling bus down to Aoshima, a drop-shaped island appended to that rough coast. It is made of diagonally stratified rock base—shelves along the sea, looking like steps set sidewise and leading nowhere. The bus girl obligingly informs us that they are called the devil’s washboard. In between are other formations, bigger, rounder, browner. I am suddenly reminded of something—but what? It is round and brown and very nice indeed. What could it be? Then I remember. Yes, chocolate pudding, drying out.

  It is near sunset when we reach Aoshima, windy but not cold. It is like an atoll, with palm trees and white sand. It looks man-made, a vacationland to be called something like Tropical Paradise. But it is apparently natural, just a bit of Samoa that somehow floated north. I stay at the big white hotel across the causeway and eat a local fish.

  In the evening I go for a walk and am joined by one of the cooks, whose name is Yamanaka, who strolls with me along the darkened beach and says it is lonely there. He sings one of the local songs, which sounds lonely indeed. Then he wants me to sing a lonely song. Stephen Foster, he says. What he really wants is “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.” Though I cannot remember the words, I do know, I discover, all of “Camptown Races,” which I render. He thanks me, but says it did not sound very lonely.

  Later we shop in the empty tourist arcades and buy some beautiful and indecent objects—cups you turn over to discover a coupled couple, an articulated vagina disguised as a shell, and a sake cup with a mushroom-shaped penis attached. One is to suck the sake from the mushroom head.

  25 september 1955. In the morning Yamanaka, having made breakfast, accompanies me across the long white bridge to the island itself. It is covered with tropical foliage, but one cannot get into it, I discover. One walks around the perimeter—all of us, since it is Sunday and the buses have come. Yamanaka buys me a towel, as he noticed I had forgotten mine in Kagoshima. I give him one of my articulated vaginas. Then he puts me on the bus for Miyazaki.

  Miyazaki is noted for its clean, wide streets. There is, it turns out, just one of them, and it stretches—clean and wide—for miles and miles, and I finally find the place along its inordinate length where the express bus to Beppu stops.

  Beppu—lots of small, squat and sickly looking palms, many frame, stucco buildings, and miles of neon. Like Atami. Lots of folks strolling around in yukata with nothing at all to do.

  26 september 1955. In the morning Beppu looks less garish, but also less attractive. It looks, in the new light, like a town with a hangover. The wandering revelers in yukata are now back in their clothes, serious, responsible, paying bills. I sit and sip coffee at a shop by the sea, and over me Rachmaninoff rains. When I look out I see the steamer coming in from Osaka, right on time. It will dock precisely when it is supposed to.

  The boat is crowded with school children, all leaving Beppu for the first excursion of the year—all the way to exotic Kansai. Yes, I have been there, I say when asked. I saw Kyoto live. No, the Golden Pavilion is not made of real gold (this in answer to a first-year student), but it looks like it. No, I do not know how much a geisha costs (this in answer to a high school junior)—his chances of acquiring one are, in any event, slight.

  The ship sails through the afternoon sea, a white scroll of foam at its prow. By morning Osaka will be outside my waiting porthole and my Kyushu trip will be over.

  In 1956 Richie published Where Are the Victors? and in 1958 appeared (in Japanese translation only) his first book on film, Eiga Geijutsu no Kakumei (The Cinematographic View). He had also met Joseph Anderson, and the two of them began the research that would result in The Japanese Film: Art and Industry (1959).

  Writing in the Japan Times and appearing in magazines abroad, Richie began to be known outside Japan and consequently met interested visitors. Although he apparently kept some journals during this time, these were mainly about film matters and were used in later books and articles. He did, however, keep notes about the visitors. These pages were to make up a volume to be called The Sociable Lions. Some of them were later incorporated into The Honorable Visitors (1994). Below are some that were not.

  truman capote, 1955. His trip got off to a bad start. He had not known that a visa was necessary. Consequently he was refused at the Tokyo airport, had to return to Guam, wait there until the visa was issued, and only then was allowed into Japan.

  Cecil Beaton and I went to pick him up. Truman had originally come with Cecil, who had known all about necessary visas and had acquired one. Consequently he had already been here three days. “It is so nice here, Truman,” he said. “You will like it.”

  “I doubt that very much,” he said, “this country is very chintzy about its visas.” Truman had already lost three days of a two-week stay. He now glared about the airport. “All I can say is that you certainly wouldn’t know they’d lost the war.”

  “One of the things the matter is that no one here is taller than Truman,” said Cecil next day. “He needs someone taller than he is.” We were waiting for the American author. I was taking them sightseeing. “It tends to keep him in line. Otherwise, it is fine. All the chairs fit him. Even the toilets.”

  Truman, when he appeared, did not, however, think it fine. Complained. The water tasted funny. Was I absolutely certain that it was all right to drink it? I was? Well, I’d better be. It was all on my head—his subsequent illness, death, who knew what?

  On the Ginza, Truman talked about New York and Paris. In the Hama Detached Palace grounds, about Fontainebleau and the Villa d’Este. On the boat up the Sumida, about friends in far places that neither Cecil nor I knew, and, in Asakusa, about his wretched publisher.

  But then he suddenly turned, peered about at the lanterns, the distant temple, and the cherry blossoms. “Why,” he said with some surprise, “it is a veritable fairy-land.” The appreciation lasted for a time and he bought an imitation geisha wig. “Oh, no, not for me, my dear. For fun!”

  On t
he way back to the Imperial he entertained us with stories. All were grisly. An especial favorite of his, he told us, was the one about a mother and son. They were like pals, went everyplace together. Then one day, out on the pier of some Long Island estate, people saw them feeding the birds. The gulls collected in great flocks. She was waving her umbrella in presumed greeting. Investigators later found them there, their eyes picked out, faces almost unrecognizable. They had indeed been “feeding the birds.”

  “You know, he told me that story in London last year, and again on the flight over,” said Cecil later, shaking his head. “It seems to have some meaning for him.”

  “Anti-pally-mothers,” I said.

  “Or sons,” said he.

  “At any rate, it is pro-bird.” Then, “You said that one of the things the matter was that no one was taller than he is. What are the other things?”

  “Oh, no,” said Cecil kindly, mouth pursed with concern, “You are not to take him so seriously. He is like that, you know.”

  “He is?”

  “Why, yes, of course,” said Cecil smiling, as though disclosing before me one of the facts of life. “You wait. After we have gone out of an evening he will much improve.”

  So we went out of an evening. Cecil enjoyed himself and was seemingly pleased with the results. Truman wasn’t. He was rude, sent the boy back, spat out, “Little pussy cats!” and went off to bed alone.

  One of the things the matter, as Cecil would have said, was that Truman had nothing to do. He had come over because Cecil was coming. At the last moment he got the New Yorker to finance the trip by suggesting he interview Marlon Brando, now on film location near Kyoto but at present too busy to see him.

  Cecil on the other hand was so busy that he had little time for Truman. His trip was financed by Vogue and he was supposed to be photographing Japanese high society. Since Japan has no high society except for a few potted royals and the sedate wives of robber barons he was busy indeed—searching everywhere. Consequently Truman was much alone, a state which did not agree with him.

  “Hello,” he drawled into the receiver. “It’s me again. Bet you think I don’t do anything but telephone. But I am so bored. I cannot tell you how bored I am. So I just called up to have a chat. . . .”

  I told him I would like to chat but that I couldn’t right then.

  “Oh, really?” Disbelief followed by resentment. “Well, in that case . . .” Then, anxious at being once more alone, “Still, just a minute or two is all right. Right? You know what Barbara Hutton said last time when I was there?” I did not know what she had said but I soon learned.

  What I did not understand about Truman was how anyone could go to a new country, any country, and pay so little attention to it. He was supposed to be some sort of reporter, at least he was reporting for his magazine, but he stayed entirely in the Imperial, ate there, slept there. And, he never asked a question.

  “But he’s always like that,” said Cecil, wondering at my complaint. “You really do not know him very well, do you?”

  “No,” I said.

  Several days later I was to take Truman out shopping. I phoned up from the lobby. “I am not going,” said the small, petulant voice. Asked why not, he sighed and with the air of beginning a long story said, “Well, I was washing my hair . . .”

  Then he stopped. “My neck. It’s my neck.” I said that the Imperial had a stable of masseurs. “I would not let them touch me,” said Truman virtuously. “But you may come up,” he added.

  Instead, I persuaded him to come down. We sat in the coffee shop. Truman was cross, tired, and bored—he looked ten years old, and acted it. “I don’t see why you came here anyway,” I finally said.

  He looked at me, wonderingly. “Why to do Brando, of course.”

  “Not to see Japan?”

  “Why no,” he said, as though mystified that anyone should think anything so unlikely. Then he looked at me severely. “Look, I have seen Japan. And I may just as well tell you that I do not like a country that has little cocks.”

  “I beg your pardon?” I said.

  “Little cocks, little cocks!” he repeated irritably, his high tight voice carrying through the coffee shop. “This country has little cocks. Not a single tenpenny among them!”

  “A what?”

  “A tenpenny!” he said then, seeing that I did not understand the expression; and pleased, as always, to be explaining, his expression softened, a slight smile appeared, and—now that it was much too late—he lowered his voice.

  “A tenpenny? Why that’s what we call them down South. You see, you get it there and you lay it on a table or something and if you can line up ten pennies in a row on its back, then it’s called a tenpenny. Understand?”

  I understood. Pleased, Truman then told me again what Barbara Hutton had said, went on to other topics of equal interest, and was in good temper when we said goodbye.

  The mood did not, apparently, last. When the interview with Brando came out in the New Yorker I saw that black bile had returned and that the actor was being made to pay for all that Japan, or perhaps Truman himself, wasn’t. Yet, a note from Cecil seemed to indicate otherwise. “Saw Truman at a party. Charming as usual. So full of Japan. Told most wonderful stories of Asakusa, of Kyoto. Made it all so real. Says he is thinking of doing a book.”

  sacheverell sitwell, 1958. We were talking about Japan. Or, rather, he was. I was not saying much because I could not understand what he was saying. Never having heard a true upper-class English accent, I could make nothing of the long-drawn vowels, the swallowed syllables, and the sudden spurts and equally sudden stops. Words appeared here and there—“geisha,” “cunning carp,” “little paper triangles,” “Mount Fuji”—but I, not comprehending their context, could extract no meaning.

  That I could not understand did not deter him. He sat with his head thrown back, his nose high, and his eyes half closed, and delivered what I thought were probably his opinions. Nonetheless I was disappointed. I had admired his writings and wanted very much to know what he thought of Japan. He seemed to be thinking a lot, he was talking so much.

  Seeing my predicament, his wife kindly took me to one side while he talked on at the others. Since she was Canadian I had less difficulty with her accent.

  “Sir Sacheverell seems very interested in Japan,” I said.

  “Knows it. Backward and forward. Studied it for years.”

  “Probably a book will be appearing then.”

  “Oh, undoubtedly.”

  Then in order to demonstrate that I in turn knew something about him I began to talk about his book on southern baroque art. At the same time I marveled that she, who spoke English so well, could apparently understand everything that he said.

  She turned and smiled, aware that she was interpreting. “He is speaking of those cunning ivory cages into which singing summer insects are placed to cry away the dwindling day.” I was struck with the sentence and wondered whether it was hers or was, perhaps, a literal translation.

  In order to interest her I told her about two kirigirisu, a kind of katydid, I once had. Perhaps she would tell Sir Sacheverell and it would amuse him. I had, I told her, forgotten to give them their daily slice of cucumber and when I came home I thought them gone. The cage was empty. Or, it appeared empty. Actually, it was not. There in the corner were the two heads in a pool of green slime, still gnawing at each other’s necks.

  But my story did not interest her. At least she did not translate it. He was still talking to the others, all of whom apparently understood him. I caught “marvelous brocades” and “cunning little match boxes.” Lady Sitwell’s interest was, after my little story, turning elsewhere and so, in a perhaps ill-advised attempt to divert it again to myself, I again started talking about her husband’s books.

  In so doing I said that I liked his essay on romantic ruins and particularly liked his pages on Hubert Robert.

  “Who?” she asked suddenly, sharply.

  “Hubert Robert,”
I repeated, innocently, pronouncing the name as though the French painter had been an Englishman—or, perhaps, an American.

  “Who could that be? Did he ever write about anyone named . . . Oh, I see. Oh, this is just too precious. Sachy, Sachy, you simply must hear this.”

  Sachy stopped in mid-rumble, turning an unfriendly eye upon her. “I know, I know,” she said, having apparently been warned not to interrupt, but all the same certain that this time it was quite worth it.

  “This is simply too exquisite. Do you know what this gentleman just said to me? He was speaking of Hubert Robert. Yes, goggle you well may. You see, he obviously has seen the name written—in something of yours. And so, oh, it is so darling, he speaks of Hubert Robert.”

  Seeing the look on her husband’s face, she filled in. “It is of course Hubert Robert he means,” she said giving the name its proper French pronunciation. “But isn’t that too dear?”

  He smacked his lips and allowed that it was, then turned and resumed the monologue. I too turned, and went and sat down in the next room.

  Later, not so much later, his book came out. The Bridge of the Brocade Sash was its name. It was about cunning little matchboxes (a whole chapter on them) and ornamental carp and grand geisha. It was also about the Japanese character. He observed that often the Japanese are given to unintentional rudeness when the foreigner gets something wrong about their culture, mispronounces a word, for example. And that confronted with a new culture that they cannot understand (the English, for example), they make many a laughable gaffe.

  romola nijinsky, 1958. Big fur hat, swathed to the neck, jeweled fingers, and a pleasantly carnivorous expression. She looked like a witch, but a familiar one, the one perhaps from Hansel und Gretel.

  Her friend with whom she was traveling, was a very tall, manly, German photographer and big game hunter. She was playing Hansel to Romola’s witch. No Gretels in sight, but they were looking.“Every day,” she said. “We go toTakarazuka, we sit in front, we look, we watch. Ach, how lovely. Romola, she never get tired and so near, just across from hotel here. Yesterday one smiled. Today we go and smile again, perhaps we meet.”