Shades of the Past

by Harold Williams

  The recent Italian movie production of Madame Butterfly with Italians playing the American parts, with Japanese in all the Japanese roles, with Takarazuka revue girls in the parts of the geisha girl bridesmaids, and with Japanese technicians and consultants to provide stage settings that will appeal to both Western and Oriental audiences, without inviting too devastating criticism from either, has set "a new high." It is indeed a spectacular production. The settings were in fact so distractingly beautiful that we were frequently compelled to shut our eyes and seek escape, until we became sufficiently composed to concede to the producers the poetic and operatic licence to which they are entitled.

  For those who delight in criticising, there is a little scope. The gardening experts may have been outraged at the sight of cherry-blossoms bursting from a tree with bark suspiciously like that of a pine. Electricians may have been astonished at the brilliant illumination that a few old-fashioned andon—vegetable oil lanterns—were able to provide, and the U.S. Navy paymasters in the audience, if there were any, must have wondered how a lieutenant had come by the cash to maintain a love-nest that even a reckless rear-admiral would have hesitated to embark upon. Experts in eugenics might quibble with the casting of a fair-haired blue-eyed child as Cho-Cho's son, but biologists could explain him as one chance in a million. Personally we would have liked to see Cho-Cho San handle the telescope with greater skill, more as her naval lover would have done, and less like a drunken sailor. That is all.

  The sartorial experts, however, must have been puzzled at the incongruous dress of U.S. Consul Sharpless. Why he should have been given trousers of a 1954 cut, instead of the fashionable stove-pipe type of more than half a century ago, is not clear. Certainly he was provided with elastic-sided shoes in order to be able the more readily to slip them off when entering the Japanese mansion, and so avoid a diplomatic incident by walking on the tatami with shoes on. Not, however, Pinkerton, when on their wedding night he carried Cho-Cho San across the threshold, or rather the engawa. Certainly a stir spread through the audience, both Japanese and foreigners alike, as they spotted his loutish behaviour. But Cho-Cho San was evidently enjoying the experience so much that we personally think he would have been a cad had he dropped her to take off his shoes.

  In striding across Japanese tatami with shoes on, he may have remembered that better men than he had done the same. It all started in 1856 with U.S. Consul-General Townsend Harris who did not believe that the dignity of a great nation could be upheld by an envoy shuffling about in stocking feet. Later the Bishop of London apparently felt the same about the dignity of the Church, and still later George Bernard Shaw definitely felt the same about the dignity of George Bernard Shaw. On one occasion in Tokyo, when he entered a Japanese mansion, a female servant padded behind him with a small carpet on which she hoped he might be persuaded to stand, but Shaw, with his characteristic perverseness, maintained a stride that always kept him about three feet ahead of the carpet.

  However, let us return to the Italian film.

  This superb production did at least make one thing abundantly clear. It left no doubt as to why Pinker-ton propositioned Cho-Cho—a fact that was never clear to us before as we used to watch the fatty tissue of some double-chinned European soprano vibrating as she lingered on the top notes. Furthermore it was possibly one of the few occasions on which Pinkerton was physically capable of carrying Cho-Cho about in his arms, so lithe and exquisite was she.

  Incidentally neither Cho-Cho San nor her beautiful bridesmaids had their necks (or their faces) plastered with white powder as the make-up of that period would have required. The modern style make-up rendered them immeasurably more beautiful. Certainly it confirmed a theory we have long held, radical though it is to Japanese, namely the most delectable part of a geisha is not her neck!

  Again we repeat this Italiano-Japanese production is a most beautiful presentation of a famous opera. But let it stop at this. Let it not in the future be reproduced on any grander or more beautiful scale. Let the millionaire mansion be not increased in size to that of an imperial palace surrounded by a moat. Let not all the flowers in the Japanese floral calendar be scrambled and all bloom at once, or the number of Cho-Cho's bridesmaids be increased from twenty to a hundred.

  If the opera reaches any greater heights of beauty or exaggeration the surrealists will surely take revenge, as they have always done, and will produce something brutally realistic and more in line with stark facts.

  Instead of Lieut. Pinkerton, U.S. Navy, we would then most likely have a deserter from some old tramp, one of the bums and beachcombers of Nagasaki days. His confidant not a U.S. Consul, but one of the many foreigners who in those days drifted, generally drunk, on the edge of the fringe of the mercantile community. The marriage broker would be one of the usual rikishaw pimps, and the marriage-nest not a millionaire's mansion, but a disorderly four-and-a-half mat room above the rikishaw stand near Dockside.

  The time about 8 a.m. A blowsy girl would be gazing vacantly across a coal dump at the rear of the rikishaw-stand. Her father, a rikishaw-man, would be sipping tea from a chipped teacup. Instead of singing, "Some day he'll come" she would be heard to mutter in Japanese, not in Italian, "That guy'll never come back!"

  Pierre Loti and his Chrysanthemum, also G.I. and his gal are, or were, real personages. Pinkerton and his Butterfly are fictional characters. Nevertheless the people of Nagasaki have discovered what the people of Spaarndam in Holland also discovered, namely that the demands of tourists must be met. The Dutch built a statue of Hans Brinker, the famous but mythical boy who is credited with having saved the land by plugging the leaking dyke with his finger. The Japanese of Nagasaki have recently discovered the house where the fictional characters Pinkerton and Butterfly lived together. Now American tourists, and some others also, make pilgrimages to this mecca every day, and sigh and wonder, and sigh again, as they gaze at this newfound love-nest of poor Butterfly.

  This article appeared in The Mainichi on 8th July, 1955, as a review of the spectacular film Madame Butterfly—produced by the Japanese film company, Toho, in conjunction with the Italian companies Rizzoli Films and Gallone Productions.

  LET'S

  CLIMB

  FUJI

  The Countrey of Japan is.... mountainous and craggie, full of rockes and stonie places.

  Rev. Arthur Hatch, 1623

  "He who has never climbed Fuji is a fool He who climbs it twice is a greater fool" There is an odd mixture of truth and fallacy in this whimsical proverb.

  Few people are fortunate enough to make the ascent and descent of Fuji-san in perfect weather. Even if fortunate with the weather, climbers see only two routes at the most, and so one ascent may whet the appetite for another.

  Not unlikely the conditions under which Fuji had to be climbed in the feudal days of a hundred years or so ago were so arduous that nobody but a fool would have thought of climbing it twice.

  Mount Fujiyama, meaning Mount Fuji Mountain, was the redundant manner in which the less well informed foreigners of the early days, and for several decades thereafter, referred to the peerless mountain of Japan.

  The first ascent of Fuji by a foreigner was made in 1860, when Sir Rutherford Alcock, first British Minister to Japan, exercised his right of travel in the interior by visiting that mountain. The party which set out from Yedo comprised in addition to the British Minister, seven other Britishers, one of whom was a botanist. Also there were a large number of Japanese, including one of the vice-governors of Yedo and several minor officials, an interpreter, palanquin bearers, grooms, porters, servants, and followers, and a troop of pack horses. Of course most of the members of this lengthy procession waited at the base of the mountain. The climbers on arriving at the top of Fuji "having sufficiently recovered breath, we proceeded to climb to the highest point of the crater, where Mr. Alcock's standard bearer unfurled the British flag, while we fired a royal salute from our revolvers in its honour and concluded the ceremony by drinking the health of Her
Gracious Majesty in champagne iced in the snows of Fusijama." So wrote one of the party.

  This article appeared in The Mainichi on Aug. 16, 1955.

  The English botanist appears to have been particularly busy, because on returning he listed the botanical names of seventy-six different plants seen on the mountain.

  The next ascent by foreigners was six years later in 1866, when a party of Europeans slept one night on the mountain and were absent from Yokohama just eight days, as compared with about twice that time taken by the Alcock party.

  In October (which is dangerously late for climbing), 1867, Sir Harry Parkes, who had succeeded Sir Rutherford Alcock as Minister, climbed Fuji accompanied by his wife and a large party of friends. All routes up the mountain are divided into ten sections known as stations, and as it was a holy mountain, women were not then permitted to climb higher than the eighth station. Lady Parkes was certainly the first foreign woman, and possibly the first of her sex, to reach the summit.

  In the decades that followed, the climb became increasingly common among foreigners but trips then required more organization than at present. Among the most essential items to be taken along was a bag of charcoal and a can of Keatings Flea Powder. The early guidebooks and descriptions of the climb devoted much space to the famous Fuji fleas, but DDT has now robbed Fuji of its greatest terror.

  In 1906 a Japanese won a wager by riding to the summit on horseback and since then there have been many other stunt ascents.

  In July, 1917, the Tokyo Jiji newspaper sponsored a race from Tarobo, above Gotemba to the summit and offered prizes of ¥200, ¥70 and ¥30 to the winners. Of the 700 applicants, all Japanese, twenty competitors were selected after careful physical examination. The winning time was two hours thirty one and one half minutes, a record to that date.

  Despite the introduction of the much publicised bus services and other so-called conveniences and marks of progress, the conditions that prevail today are in some respects so much worse than those of one hundred years ago that it is not surprising it is still said that only a fool would climb Fuji twice.

  However in the days when those inveterate travellers Yajirobei and Kitahachi of Hizakurige fame were touring around Japan, they could at least approach the mountain over soft leaf-strewn paths, view the gorgeous scenery and breathe the cool air, fragrant with the perfume of wild flowers. How different is travelling today when the initial stages are covered in a criminally overloaded bus, jammed so tight with suffering humanity that all pious thoughts are obliterated from one's mind and the only view is that of the back of somebody's neck. Amid the noise of tortured gears and the stench of overheated bearings, one now approaches this sacred mountain cramped in a bus that pitches and tosses along a road as primitive as those of the middle ages.

  From Kawaguchi-ko railway station, one of several approaches to Fuji, the bus ride is for over two hours through superb scenery—ever changing vistas, successive belts of vegetation, shady forests, a riot of wild flowers and great rhododendrons—and yet little of this can be seen by those inside the buses, so jammed are they with standing passengers. Although a spare bus may be held in reserve, the operators will not permit it to depart until all standing room in the previous bus is crammed tight. In callous disregard of public safety and the repeated warnings of tragic accidents elsewhere, the operators risk the lives of many that they may gain some additional profit. Possibly a time will come when the long-suffering Japanese public may no longer suffer greedy or ignorant transportation operators to insult and torture their bodies and minds by herding them into public conveyances like so many cattle into a stockyard.

  There are many foreigners who have climbed Fuji twice or thrice—I know of one who has climbed it five times—and if the trip with all its inconveniences should so appeal to foreigners, how much more must it appeal to Japanese whose culture and art are so closely associated with that great mountain. But the vast majority of Japanese who climb Fuji are either students or persons in their 'teens or early twenties. If the average Japanese has not been able to climb Fuji in his student days, he is generally content—and not without reason—to remain a fool and view it from a distance. Of course there are exceptions. Aged people can be seen making the ascent, and even blind people climb Fuji with the assistance of friends.

  All prices on the mountain are fixed by the local tourist association and perhaps one should not begrudge the keepers of the mountain huts their livelihood under difficult conditions, nor forget that the season is a short one of little more than two months and that they do at times have unexpected losses in the way of storm damage during the winter. Nevertheless the charge of ¥350 for little more than a square yard or so of floor space and the use of a futon during a few hours of rest, although well within the reach of most foreigners climbing the mountain, seemingly was beyond the pocket of most of the Japanese climbers, many of whom slumbered outside the huts in the cold awaiting the dawn. That ¥350 was an excessive charge may also have been evidenced by the energy with which some of the touts sought customers.

  The charge in 1941, according to the Japan Tourist Bureau's Official Guide for that year, was ¥3 to ¥4 "including supper and breakfast." In 1880 accommodation on Fuji was 20 sen per person per night including rice.

  That touts have long been a nuisance along Japan's highways and particularly at the most important scenic centres is recorded by Hiroshige and other famous woodcut artists of the past, but it is something new to meet touts whose livelihood is so lucrative that they can afford to be tipsy while at work, and yet that seemed to be the condition of many who annoyed me whilst waiting for the first bus on the first stage of the ascent and whilst resting at several of the huts on the way up during night-time. The following morning on the way down I saw the same men sober, but at another hut I observed with some astonishment that the hut-keeper and his wife were drinking a large bottle of beer (retailed there at ¥270) with their lunch and had opened a small bottle of lemonade (retailed there at ¥50) for their child. That they should drink high-priced stock, which had been brought up the mountain at such cost and effort, seemed to betoken a degree of prosperity not usually enjoyed by such folk.

  That the U.S. Forces have long been in these parts was evident from the aggressive and prosperous touts who pressed their unwelcome attentions and their crude English on me.

  "Hey, Bud, you sleep my house!"

  Such was the greeting that was spluttered in an alcoholic spray into my face at close range at "Lucky Seven" Rest House on the Seventh Station. Such English as spoken by low type touts was not a feature of climbing Fuji in prewar days but such annoyances, unfortunately, are now the experience all too frequently of foreign travellers in Japan.

  Yet it is possible that even such crudities in English may serve as a convenience to those foreigners who, knowing no Japanese whatever, would otherwise feel a sense of helplessness, and are content to suffer such familiarities, and the humiliation (unintentional though the rudeness may be) of having their wives and daughters addressed by such touts in English that might well be reserved for pom-pom girls.

  It is interesting to recall that the narrator, attached to Sir Rutherford Alcock's party when they climbed nearly a hundred years ago, wrote:

  We did not meet with a single instance of rudeness or incivility on the part of the people, nor did we, during the whole course of our journey to the top of Fuji and back again to Yedo meet a. drunken man.

  That names such as "Lucky Seven," better bestowed on saloons of the port cities, and that other crudities of western culture should have found their way along the pilgrim path to Fuji-san was to me distressing, but I thanked the native gods that not all the traditions of the past have been lost. There are still many pilgrims pious enough to dress in the traditional white clothing; there are some who recite a prayer at every few steps. "May our six senses be clean and undefiled," and some wisely add the supplication "May the weather continue fine." Climbing Fuji during bad weather can be dangerous, and being marooned f
or a couple of days in one of the huts during a typhoon would, at the current prices prevailing on the mountain, be ruinous for the pockets of many climbers.

  Fortunately the traditions of the past are not forgotten even by the great majority of climbers who, like the writer, set out in a spirit of pleasure rather than on a religious pilgrimage. Almost everybody who climbs Fuji carries a pilgrim's staff, sold at the fixed price of ¥80, from which dangle on a rayon ribbon two tinkling bells, in lieu of the pilgrim's brass bell of old, and which cost a trifling ¥20 extra. The majority of climbers cannot afford to purchase food or refreshments at the prices that rightly advance as one climbs skyward, but nevertheless few climbers set out without budgeting themselves for the fee of ¥10 at each station for a stamp to be branded with hot irons on the staff. A flag, which can be purchased on the summit for ¥50 is attached to the staff for the descent. This is a modern touch that commercialism has introduced into the pilgrimage, but I must confess from experience that the self-satisfaction that one derives on the descent from the display of the flag in proof of achievement to those climbing upward is well worth ¥50.

  Long ago an overweight foreign tourist, infuriated at having been persuaded to attempt the ascent of Fuji, dubbed it "that colossal heap of humbug and ashes," but if for humbug we substitute garbage, there could be no quarrelling with the truth of the epigram. The trash and garbage that litters this great pilgrim-way offends the sight at every step and yearly it grows worse.

  When Hokusai painted his famous Hundred views of Fuji over a century ago, there may have been some litter of wooden bento boxes and such like trash, but it would soon have disintegrated and would have been washed away by the next melting snows. Under present conditions of modern food packing the unsightly mess of empty food cans and bottles is a steadily accumulating mess and constitutes a hazard for those who move off the regular paths.