Shades of the Past

by Harold Williams

  Some of the ladies fidgeted. Some hastily swallowed their tea scalding hot. A few almost choked, whether from suppressed laughter or from the rock-buns is not recorded, and one, seated behind the president, distinctly giggled. Finally the ladies of the committee felt that they knew as much about certain aspects of ukiyoe as did Utamaro or Kiyo-naga, and the meeting was hastily brought to a close.

  Immediately O'Rorke had departed, Mrs. Brown-Brown, the president, rose—she always did when she had a momentous statement to utter—and announced that owing to the proximity of several typhoons, the lecture had better be postponed. Sine die were the exact words she used. And then, consternation dawning on her, she hastened home to examine the pictures on her wall. She was gratified to see that they were copies of masterpieces, the originals of most of her prints were in the best museums of Europe. But, oh the shame! She decided that they would all have to be removed. Before that bad resolution took shape, the vicar arrived for tea.

  She hastily pressed him into a chair other than the one he usually occupied. His back was then to the worst of her pictures—in truth they were really the best! It was all very disturbing for her, because the chair that he then occupied was without an antimacassar, and the vicar did use rather much pomade. Then while attempting to concentrate upon what the good vicar was saying, she wondered whether his thoughts also might be straying to that wisp of hair. At times with a shock and a blush she realised her eyes were wandering to other parts of the prints. She blamed herself for inviting that horrible Mr. O'Rorke to lecture. If only he had been content to talk vaguely but beautifully on art, as did previous lecturers, the ladies could have gone home drunk on rhetoric, but happy.

  It became plain to Mrs. Brown-Brown, as doyen of the afternoon tea party circles on the Hill, that oiran might be all very well on the walls of the British Museum or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, but not—certainly not—on the walls of her drawing room. She disapproved of her walls becoming a picture gallery of the dubious friendships formed by gay young bloods and old roues of the eighteenth century. This she confided to her friends, but of course in more delicate phraseology.

  And so there was a time during the latter part of the last century when a certain type of Japanese colour print quietly disappeared from the walls of the drawing rooms of upper Yamamoto-dori and Kitano-cho. That period coincided with the time when the local sales of such pictures went into a slump.

  But the happenings at that committee meeting were not a well kept secret, and were followed shortly afterwards by a sudden blossoming forth of pictures of oiran on the walls of bachelor messes. That period corresponded to the time when local sales made a spurt. In fairness to the bachelors it must be emphasized that they showed real appreciation of that form of art. They concentrated only upon the best—mostly Utamaro prints, many original copies of which were then being exhibited in that most eminently respectable of all places, the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

  And so it may be said, with mild exaggeration, that it was the bachelors of Kobe who quite unknowingly over a number of years—about four decades to be exact—kept alive in certain foreign circles in Kobe a true understanding of those woodblock prints that depict the ladies of the Yoshiwara. But as one harvest of bachelors succeeded another, so the knowledge of the artful little devices introduced by the ukiyoe artists into their pictures of the gay ladies of the Tokugawa era became forgotten. The expert knowledge of Mr. O'Rorke was lost; and the prints became nothing more than just pictures on the wall.

  This historical record would be neither complete nor accurate if I did not conclude it with the sombre statement that during the nineteen-thirties—which years marked the beginning of the era of Strip Tease—the oiran gradually disappeared from the bachelor establishments, their places being taken by pinup girls, abducted from the pages of Esquire, all of whom shivered distressingly during the cold winter months.

  THE TOURISTS

  LOOKED

  AROUND

  When I came on shore, the first place I entered into was a publick house, where they drunk tea, and that very plentifully.

  CHRISTOPHER FRYKE, 1683

  It has been said, somewhat maliciously I think, that just as the discovery of gold in Australia gave an impetus to immigration to that empty continent, so in a sense did the discoveries of Pierre Loti start the tourist traffic to Japan. It may be recalled that Julien Viaud was an officer on the French war vessel "Triomphante" which was laid up in Nagasaki harbour for repairs during the summer of 1885, during which time the gallant officer took a great deal of interest in some phases of Nagasaki life and recorded his discoveries in a treatise entitled Madame Crysantheme, using his pen name of Pierre Loti modestly to cloak his dalliance ashore. However all that may be, it is a fact that towards the end of the last century shortly after Madame Chrysantheme made her bow, the tourist trade began to flow into Japan, and a definite need was felt for guidebooks in English to warn new arrivals in advance of what lay in wait for them and to guide their steps after arrival here.

  In saying those early guidebooks warned the tourists of what lay in wait for them, I am speaking entomologically and allude to the great emphasis made in those early books that a plentiful supply of Keating's Flea Powder should be carried. Japan was not of course the only country in those days where the flea population was active and prolific. Other countries had them also—both trained and untrained. However from the frequent references to fleas in all the early guide and travel books it is evident that legions of the untrained variety had taken up lodgings in the Japanese inns of those days.

  To say that those guidebooks guided the tourist after arrival to every temple and sight worth seeing would be an over simplification. The fact is those early books were the work of profound scholars, mostly Britons, and contained such a mass of information that plagiarists ever since have had an almost bottomless barrel from which to dig out material. Those guidebooks, the first of which was published in 1881 by Ernest Satow and Lt. Hawes, later revised and published as Murray's Handbook for Travellers in Japan, did in fact contain all the information necessary to enable the tourist to understand all the best things to be seen, and it was not the fault of the authors if some saw things they should not have seen!

  Terry, an American, produced an excellent guide in 1914, which was later revised and expanded. Unfortunately its place has since been taken by less interesting Japanese guidebooks and it is now rarely seen. The tourist who travelled with Terry was never bored and always had on hand a mass of readable material. His description, for example, of the world-famed institution that existed in Tokyo in the district adroitly named Yoshiwara (good luck moor) runs to over six pages of material of which the following is an example:

  Through these sometimes palatial entrances hung with rich satin brocades, one glimpses alluring vistas of reposeful interiors; of lotus pools and tinkling fountains; tiny landscape gardens and arched bridges: of cool flower-embowered, perfumed retreats, dimly lighted, through which barefooted women patter; or reclining with studied carelessness, suggest Ionian bathing scenes or other spectacular situations that disturb the shallow noodle of the salaciously disposed.

  The daytime scene is described by Terry as follows:

  During the forenoon of a sunny day brilliantly coloured sleeping garments are hung out to air from the balconies of many of the houses, while the capricious sultanas.... are reposing in the crepuscular shadows of the inner rooms.

  Terry was evidently a man of vision, because although writing at a time when many women still dragged their skirts in the dust he advocated the wearing of silk bloomers and short skirts. He mentions this apropos mountain climbing, and not the fleas which he describes as being "inordinately hungry."

  In 1933 the Japan Tourist Bureau produced an Official Guide which has since been revised twice. It was an excellent publication modernised to meet the needs of the modern tourist who flits at high speed from point to point, but it lacked the interesting and intimate facets of some
of the earlier guidebooks. Being an official guide it would have its readers believe that there has never been a Yoshiwara in Japan, and being an official publication it could not use the common-sense and generally accepted Hepburn system of spelling Japanese words, but instead adopts the incredible official system whereby Fuji is written Huzi.

  Back in 1896 the enchantingly gay light opera, The Geisha by Sidney Jones, was staged at Daly's Theatre, London, and ran for 760 performances with Marie Tempest as O-Mimosa San. Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado had already appeared, and Puccini's Madame Butterfly was shortly to make her debut. All three were good advertisements for Japan and played a part in boosting the tourist trade. But all three had been staged amid scenes of such fairy-like Oriental charm, of paper houses decorated with paper lanterns and invariably set among cherry trees blossoming at all seasons, with Fujiyama in the background always snow-capped, that it is not surprising tourists ever since have been amazed to find that houses in Japan are built of something more substantial than paper and that drab shades are the prevailing colours, and even more so since the native costume has been abandoned for western dress.

  Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado could not be staged in Japan in prewar days, but during the Occupation days of 1946 when it was produced for the first time by the U.S. Army Services at the Ernie Pyle Theatre in Tokyo, it set a mark for historical accuracy in costumes that most likely will never be equalled again—"the gentlemen of Japan" and some of the principal characters being dressed in costumes or outfitted with appurtenances loaned by the Imperial Household Museum at Ueno.

  Tamaki Miura, as Japan's first prima donna, did something to introduce abroad correct costuming and atmosphere into the production of Madame Butterfly, but unfortunately she found western food so agreeable that she fast put on weight and eventually became a very stout Cho-Cho San and about twice the weight of her lover, Lieut. Pinkerton!

  The Geisha, a light and charming opera, fit to be viewed by the pupils of any young ladies seminary, carried in the music the lilting strain of the Chonkina dance of Nagasaki teahouse days. The nature of the real Chonkina dance thus came to be whispered about much in the same way as the drawings on the walls of that room in the ruined city of Pompeii, which is off-limits to ladies. Many a prospective male tourist to Japan thereupon pencilled in his pocket-book the cryptic note—"See Chonkina!"

  (After John Paris wrote his novel Kimono in 1921 all the secrets of the Chonkina were stripped bare. It must be left to the specialists to trace the transition from the Chonkina dance to the strip tease shows, the fan and bubble dances, and acts in ermine panties that attract tourists these days and cause pulse to flutter and eyebrows to rise.) Elsewhere in the same notebook was probably pencilled the simple address "No. 9 Yokohama." Perhaps picked up surreptitiously or maybe gleaned from a reading of Kipling's poetry where, in "MacAndrew's Hymn," are the lines:

  Judge not, O Lord, my steps aside at Gay Street in Hongkong... Jane Harrigan's an Number Nine, The Reddicks an' Grant Road.

  Japanese addresses are among the greatest riddles of the country, the solution of which often defies the united efforts of the local police and the oldest residents in the district, but "No. 9 Yokohama" was never in that category. Any rickshaw-man in Yokohama could have taken the tourist there at any time of the day or night—indeed the rickshaw-man would have hauled him there in any case even although he had asked to be taken to the Seamen's Mission. The pedicab drivers of to-day are often guilty of much the same trick.

  Lest any wayward reader should hereafter seek to locate No. 9 I hasten to add that it burst into flame shortly after noon on 1st September, 1923, following the great earthquake that wiped out old Yokohama.

  It is as true to day as it was fifty years ago that the vast majority of tourists and visitors to Japan are more interested in the scenic spots, the countryside and the temples of Japan than anything the gaily lighted night spots have to offer, although those who live in the port cities and see the highly organized efforts of the legion of touts to present the seamy side may think otherwise.

  The tourists of fifty years ago were a hardy type. Armed with guidebooks and maps they did not hesitate to tramp the country roads, if there was no horse-cart or rickshaw available to get them to their destination. "Pushing into the interior" was the expression used to describe some of their activities.

  They conscientiously visited all the best sights between Nikko and Miyajima taking up to two months or more to do Japan as against about three days by the modern tourist, but of course hotel prices were cheaper then. The ladies "Ah-ed" and "Oh-ed" in front of each temple whilst some of their husbands furtively ogled the Japanese lasses. They were friendly to all, interested in everything and with the aid of their guidebooks they came to understand most of what they saw. Frequently on their return home they wrote books about Japan, but as they had dipped freely from the guidebooks the results were not always as bad as one would expect.

  Armed with one of those quaint Japanese-English conversation books that covered most social activities such as gossiping in a public bathhouse or enquiring after the health of a stationmaster, they had no fear of travelling about the countryside and staying at Japanese inns. Certainly at times they made mistakes and knocked at the wrong door, mistaking bathhouses and less respectable establishments for inns, but it was all a great adventure. If some of the ladies may have innocently remarked that their mosquito nets were too large, no Japanese Lothario would have been brash enough to take advantage of the remark, which was an old-time invitation in Japan!

  On their departure most of them of course took souvenirs and curios according to their taste but ever mindful of customs inspection and duties at destination. Probably the first recorded case of a misadventure with customs on the part of a visitor returning from Japan occurred over 300 years ago when the English Customs in 1614 made an embarrassing discovery on examining the baggage of Capt. John Saris, commander of the "Clove," one of the ships of the English East India Company, on arrival back in England after a voyage to Japan.

  Certainly the pictures and the objets d'art that were found in Capt. Saris' luggage were of such a type that the governors of the East India Company did not offer him another appointment, and in fact they burnt the collection in public. It is lamented by connoisseurs in such things that history, beyond describing them in general terms, does not record in detail the precise nature of the pictures and carvings that tickled Capt. Saris' fancy. It is therefore not possible to decide whether or not the governors of that venerable Company were just stuffy or whether the collection really was "a great scandal to the Company."

  Surprisingly enough that tireless and most accomplished traveller of all times, Karl Baedeker of Leipzig, never visited Japan, which explains why there is no Baedeker's Handbook for Travellers to Japan. Possibly the reason was language difficulties. The fact is—and this is not generally known—that the only languages that Karl could speak were English, French, German and Italian fluently, with more than a good working knowledge of Greek, Latin, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Russian, Spanish and Hungarian and with a somewhat lesser knowledge of Basque, Finnish, Turkish and Arabic and a smattering of some of the languages of India!

  That he never visited Japan is to us a disappointment. Knowing how keen an advocate he was of the wearing of long underwear by gents on all occasions, we might otherwise have been tempted to formulate the whimsical theory that the popularity of long underwear in Japan could be traced to Karl Baedeker of Leipzig!

  PILGRIMS

  ANCIENT

  AND

  MODERN

  On the top of a Hill was the Temple of Quanon.

  Jesuit letter, 1585

  The reason why men continued doing evil rather than good was revealed to the Japanese as far back as the 8th century, which is a long time ago by any standard of comparison.

  A Buddhist abbot, known as Tokudo Shonin, seemingly died, but, as his body did not grow cold, his disciples watched over him for three days and three night
s. On awakening he described how, during his trance, his soul had been borne to the Underworld and there the whereabouts of the Thirty-three Holy Places especially cared for by Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy, were revealed to him. As none before knew of the existence of those places, men had continued to fall into hell as plentifully as raindrops fall in a thunderstorm. Anyone, however, who makes a single pilgrimage to those Thirty-three Places would, in addition to acquiring great merit, radiate light from the soles of his feet and gain strength sufficient to crush all the one hundred and thirty-six hells into fragments. That is the legend.

  About two centuries after this revelation an emperor actually set out on the pilgrimage and thus established in the minds of the people a practice which over the centuries brought a continual stream of visitors and revenue to thirty-three temples which otherwise would have been little known—an advertising feat that has rarely been matched.

  Whether or not the rewards for those who complete the pilgrimage are as great as promised is a matter of belief and experience.

  Many years ago I performed the pilgrimage, but modesty precludes my drawing attention to the results! At this date I will confess to having visited the last two temples on the list by proxy, a device that is commonly resorted to by many. Certainly I entered into the deception with some misgivings, yet in my simplicity I had hoped it would pass unnoticed by the gods. That however is another story.

  The only other case that I have had the opportunity of examining at close range is that of my wife, who completed the pilgrimage some sixteen years ago, without cheating. I must however in all truth admit my disappointment at the results. Merit, and especially any increase in merit, is a virtue difficult to measure at all times, except in oneself! Certainly she did not radiate any light from the soles of her feet. I can only conclude that she had failed in some technicality, possibly in chatting and joking with the priests instead of a proper attention to the special hymn that should be recited at each temple.