C M Y CM MY CY CMY K
EDITORS' LETTER Eric NaokoAkotoMabon & Kyoko Yoshida
A high-tech ancient stillness Pico Iyer
Ainu Othello: The story of a play Alison Watts
CONTRIBUTORS' BIOS
INTERVIEW With Mari Katayama Naoko Mabon
FICTION Heaven Mieko Kawakami Wen Yuju 042
MARI KATAYAMA
Novels about Tokyo Yu Miri
Proud
01608060407
| Assistant
077069048035
CONTENTS FEATURESSPRING 2021 080071064
The extraordinary, ordinary life of Nakahara Toshiko Thomas Lockley
Trimmed Juliana Kase
ESSAY
022060028053
Editor-in-Chief & Director Eric Akoto eric.akoto@litrousa.com Fiction Editor Michael Aliprandini Michael@litrousa.com | Online Editor online@litrousa.com | Advertising sales@litrousa.com | Designer Brigita Butvila @2BDesigner | Cover Image by Mari Katayama, bystander #016, 2016 ©Mari Katayama. Courtesy of Akio Nagasawa Gallery | Contents Page Image by Mari Katayama, on the way home #001, 2016 ©Mari Katayama. Courtesy of Akio Nagasawa Gallery | General Enquiries +1 646 519 2452 | Subscription Enquiries subscriptions@litrousa. com | All other enquiries info@litrousa.com | Address 33 Irving Place, New York NY 100003, USA © Litro Media 2021 | ISSN number: ISSN 2687-735 X
Art
ARTIST
A history of African Haiku Adjei Agyei-Baah
POETRY Tian MutsuoAkehiroRyoichiYuanWagoShiraiTakahashi
A letter to cross the plastic ocean from Japan to Hawai‘i via Hungary Yoshiro Sakamoto
themselves while benefiting from those on the frontlines who keep services running.
ERIC AKOTO
Beginning in early 2020, Covid-19 spread across the world, becoming a pandemic that has claimed, at the time of writing, over 2.7 million people globally. The two countries with the highest death tolls are the USA, with 554,899 dead, and Brazil, which has an official death toll of more than 292,856. All of these numbers will be higher by the time you read this.
4 | LITRO
Eric Akoto
Just as it has exposed the strengths and frailties of global systems, the virus has exposed deeply ingrained historical, societal, and institutional racism. It has disproportionately taken the lives of black and brown people, not least because more of them have been on the frontlines during the pandemic, in hospitals and care homes
The world changed between the initial planning and the delayed completion of this issue.
and as all kinds of key workers. The virus, and the economic hardship that has chanceshavebetter-offfarpeoplepeople,wake,followedinevitablyinitsharmspoorparticularlyofcolour,morethanthewhomuchmoretoinsulate
EDITOR'S LETTER
Into this already fraught period came further upheavals. On May 25, 2020, the world witnessed, at the hands of four Minneapolis police officers – under the knee of one of them – the brutal, horrifying murder of George Floyd. Such atrocities are not new, but a wave of outraged protests and marches unlike any that had gone before erupted across many US cities, defying bans on mass gatherings, shouting clearly Black Lives Matter! Ever since those horrifying scenes of police brutality against an unarmed black man went viral, Americans in every state, from small towns to major cities, have been gathering and marching to protest state-based violence against black people. In March 2021, it was announced that the city of Minneapolis would settle a
lawsuit with George Floyd’s family for $27 million (£19 million). The trial of the police officer accused of killing Floyd is set to begin at the end of March.
The Black Lives Matter protests have not stopped at the doors of these states. They’ve taken place across Europe and as far away as New Zealand and Japan, with protesters showing solidarity, drawing parallels to racist violence in their own countries, and highlighting the struggle to dismantle the racist present and the racist past – as in Bristol, England, when the statue of a slavetrader was rightfully torn down and thrown into the river. This is the biggest global collective demonstration of civil unrest in reaction to state-based violence in our generation’s memory. And it is no overnight occurrence – remember Trayvon Martin in 2012, who was killed by Florida police as he walked home from a convenience store carrying iced tea and Skittles. His death and the lack of accountability were catalysts of the movement, which was formed with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter in protest of his killer’s acquittal. There is a sense that the unifying theme, for the first time in America’s history, and globally, is that black lives matter at last. Things have to change, and perhaps this can be a long, long overdue reckoning with the past and present, a genuine turning point. With Joseph R. Biden’s election to
The protests were given further impetus by last year’s US Open winner (and 2021 Australian Open winner), the black Japanese tennis sensation, 23-year-old Naomi Osaka. Winning grand slams is nothing new for Osaka; it’s her activism on and off the court that distinguishes her, and the face masks she’s worn while playing during the pandemic record a tragic litany of black and brown American men, women, and children who have been killed by police. Osaka’s first-
black man, died of shotgun wounds after he was chased by two white men while jogging in Brunswick, Georgia. In her fourth-round match, Osaka honoured Trayvon Martin, and she would defeat her quarter-final opponent honouring the death of George Floyd. In her semifinal appearance, Osaka honoured Philando Castile, who was fatally shot in July 2016 by a Minnesota police officer during a traffic stop. Osaka recovered from losing the first set to claim her second US Open championship while wearing a mask bearing the name of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy who was killed by police gunfire in November 2014 in Cleveland, Ohio, while he was holding a toy replica pistol.
EDITOR'S LETTER
the US presidency, it is hoped that real reform of American institutions is possible after a four-year period which saw white supremacy condoned from the highest echelons of American power.
round match of the US Open saw her wear a mask honouring Breonna Taylor, a black woman killed by police officers who burst into her apartment in March 2020. For her second match, she stepped into the Arthur Ashe Stadium wearing a mask that read Elijah McClain, the name of a 23-year-old massage therapist who was stopped by three officers in the Denver suburb of Aurora in August 2019 as he was walking home from a convenience store with an iced tea. He died in police custody after being put into a carotid hold, which restricts blood flow to the brain. Osaka wore Ahmaud Arbery’s name on her face mask as she walked out for her third- round match against Marta Kostyuk. Arbery, a 25-year-old unarmed
EDITOR'S LETTER | 5
So as we turn our pages to Japan, Naomi Osaka we salute you!
At the same time, we are still in an ongoing crisis of global warming, racial and gender inequality, and many other critical social issues, such as how to deal with radioactive waste and – as Yoshiro Sakamoto’s essay mentions – how to tackle marine pollution from plastics. The pandemic has forced us to rethink our way of living –how we once were, and how we can possibly be now and hereafter, as one of many living organisms on earth.
In this issue, we have a truly amazing lineup of contributors to respond to the issues that we face in the context of Japan today. They span different locations, fields of profession, and cultures, reflecting the complex societal ecology of this small island nation. Although most of the contributions were written or prepared before the pandemic, together with you, the readers, we hope to collectively imagine an alternative map of the drifting islands today.
her 2016 residency on Naoshima island in the Seto Inland Sea, which is also pictured in the essay by Pico Iyer. Katayama photographed the hands of members of Naoshima Onna Bunraku, a traditional puppet theatre performed exclusively by women from the Naoshima region, printed them onto material, and sewed them into a multiarmed soft sculptural object. In later pages, you can read Naoko’s interview with Mari.
While Mari was inspired by bunraku puppeteers’ bodies and hands back in 2016, throughout 2020, we have been experiencing the absence of physicality and human warmth as well as the limitation of locomotions under lockdowns and the new social-distancing normality. Many of us now spend lots of time at home and most of our social activities happen in virtual realms within our domestic environment. A domestic space – this ambiguous realm can be a bounded area of safety and freedom one day, and a walled cage or prison the next. Yet, it is still a location for us to receive visits from outside world – whether scheduled or unexpected.
The cover artist is Mari Katayama. Katayama is known for selfportrait photography created with hand-sewn objects and decorated prostheses. She uses her own body as a living sculpture. Born with a rare congenital disorder, Katayama chose when she was nine years old to have both of her legs amputated. On the cover, Katayama is sitting on a beach wearing a soft object with many arms and hands as if they were part of her own body. This was one of the artistic outcomes of
We hope our Drifting Islands issue finds its way to visit to your home – ideally physically but even virtually – so that it can connect us over distance while your hands or eyes travel through each page.
1 Islands with a perimeter longer than 100m at high tide. Based on the information published in 1987 by the Japan Coast Guard.
Note: In accordance with Japanese custom, in several works in this issue the family name is given first.
GUEST EDITORS' LETTER
Kyoko’s Poetry Dispatch (www.kyokoyoshida.net/archives/219) has started to respond to this period of isolation and lack of anything we can physically touch and hold in our hands. It is a series of small handmade booklets of poems, which she randomly posts to her friends’ home addresses. It is a little, surprising visit. Like birds and small animals living on the canal in neighbourhoods, venturing out of their former territories and ending up napping on our doorstep. These visitors cannot replace our families’ and friends’ visits, so they remind us of our isolation and may even intensify our loneliness, but they are all the more precious because they reveal that this loneliness connects us.
NAOKO MABON, KYOKO YOSHIDA
today Japan consists of over 6,800 islands1. At a time of change and crisis, how can we see and write about Japan? Is it still as golden as Marco Polo described and imagined? Is it a land that goes beyond “Sushi”, “Manga” or “Geisha”? In which direction is each island of Japan drifting?
6 | LITRO
Last but not least, we send our deepest gratitude to all the writers, translators and artists who joined our endeavour to shape this Drifting Islands issue. We also thank Editor-in-Chief & Art Director Eric Akoto, as well as the team at Litro, particularly Assistant Editor Barney Walsh and Designer Brigita Butvila, for inviting us to join such a special opportunity.
Reportedly,
We started planning this special issue at the end of 2019. It almost feels that 2019 was a totally different era compared to where we are today at the end of 2020. Not only taking away a colossal number of lives and livelihoods, coronavirus has caused postponements and cancellations of numerous events across the world, including the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Not knowing the new dates yet, Japan has lost a central driving force to reconstruct its unified national imaginary once again, after the 1964 Olympics showed the world Japan’s miraculous recovery from the ashes of the World War II. Instead, pre-existing weaknesses, gaps and corrosions that the country has been suffering for the past twenty-five years have come to the surface.
EDITOR'S LETTER
CONTRIBUTORS' BIOS | 7
PICO IYER is the author of fifteen books, translated into twenty-three languages. In 2019 he brought out two books on Japan, where he's been based for thirty-two years, Autumn Light and A Beginner's Guide to Japan. These supplement the book he wrote after his first year there, in 1988, The Lady and the Monk.
ADJEI AGYEI-BAAH is a Ghanaian lecturer, translator, editor and currently a PhD student at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. He is the co-founder of Africa Haiku Network, Poetry Foundation Ghana and The Mamba Journal (Africa’s first international haiku journal). His maiden haiku collection Afriku was commended by Professor Wole Soyinka, Africa’s first Nobel Prize Literature laureate, in 2017 at The 1st Asian Literature Festival, held in Gwangju, South Korea.
YU MIRI is one of Japan’s most critically acclaimed and best-selling writers. She has published numerous short stories, plays, screenplays and essays as well as novels. She earned the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s top literary honour, in 1997 for her short story “A Family Move”. She is a current bookstore owner and former radio host. Her English debut novel Gold Rush was published under “Miri Yu”. She is based in Fukushima.
MIEKO KAWAKAMI is the author of the internationally best-selling novel, Breasts and Eggs, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and one of TIME’s Best 10 Books of 2020. Born in Osaka, Kawakami made her literary debut as a poet in 2006, and published her first novella, My Ego, My Teeth, and the World, in 2007.
© Brigitte LACOMBE
JULIANA KASE is an artist based in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Her awkwardartandcategories,disciplines,thefieldresearchesseveralhistory.definedlimitedherbackgroundNipo-BrazilianguidesinterestinblurringboundariesbyculturesandSheworksinlanguages,andbeyondtheofart,becausedivisionofartbyorinrigidbetweenartscrafts,andbetweenandlife,areallideas.
© Tuguo OGAVA
MARI KATAYAMA is an artist known for self-portrait photography created with hand-sewn objects and decorated prostheses. Born with a rare congenital disorder, she chose to have both legs amputated at age nine. Katayama’s works have been exhibited internationally, including at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019). The cover image is from the series bystander (2016), inspired by Naoshima Onna Bunraku, a traditional puppet theatre performed exclusively by women from the Naoshima region of the Seto Inland Sea.
SELECTED CONTRIBUTORS' BIOS
“AMA WARMING UP AFTER DIVES, 1954 ©FRANCIS HAAR
8 | LITRO
Half
A LETTER TO CROSS THE PLASTIC OCEAN FROM JAPAN TO HAWAI‘ I VIA HUNGARY
a year has passed since I came back to Kyoto. I remember, with a certain nostalgia, the welcoming atmosphere of your home in the heights of St. Louis Drive and the beautiful views that your terrace offered me: incredibly blue skies, the endless Pacific Ocean, and a sea breeze suffused with gentle Honolulu sunlight. I also remember the amusing white blouse, reminiscent of a jellyfish, that you were wearing. You told me that your mother Yoko, a sculptor, had made it for you. Winter here in Kyoto is truly cold. But the plum trees have started to bloom, and I feel spring is just around the corner. Legend has it that a plum tree flew all the way to Dazaifu in one night to comfort its former owner, Sugawara no Michizane, who was in exile. Behind my flat is a shrine dedicated to him. I wonder whether the huapala or plumeria would fly to me too. I miss those beautiful Hawaiian flowers and the tropical islands. I’mwriting this letter with certain sadness, as I have to tell you that we can’t invite you to Kyoto and host your talk on that unprecedented environmental crisis. I am so sorry. And I am so worried too, not only about the coronavirus itself, but also for this indeterminate cloud hanging over us. We are asked to exercise restraint, and yet we are not allowed to decide anything by ourselves. It’s as if some foul, viscous membrane has wrapped itself around our minds, our bodies, and our relationships, immobilising us and enervating society. I think this pandemic is more of a mental and spiritual affliction than a medical one.
made of some rough, impermeable material, and the music, too, grows discordant. You twist your body and struggle to get out of the cocoon, in vain. What an intense ending! I thought I would suffocate too.
*
I was shocked to see that Kamilo beach, where adorable seals would have been peacefully basking in the sun otherwise, was covered with plastic waste. Regrettably, some of the plastic bottles had Japanese labels on them. Further out, in the deep blue sea, microplastics 1 mm or smaller float along, invisible to the naked eye. Sea turtles, fish, birds, whales, even we ingest and accumulate them, and all of our bodies are being compromised as time goes by. You told me that some fish had adapted to plastic waste and spawned on them to make a new ecosystem, though there were also some who were born inside a plastic bottle and grew too large to swim out of it. It’s a tragicomedy, isn’t it? Nature might have decided to include plastics in its systems. But
Aloha, Monika!
Translated by Sayuri Okamoto
I’m strongly concerned about the current situation in relation to the coronavirus, and I believe my sentiment is akin to yours regarding the marine pollution caused by plastics. I often recall the short film you sent me. It is a beautiful and disquieting picture. You, like a fetus, are curled up as if in a transparent cocoon filled with amniotic fluid or seawater. You are waiting eagerly to be born, to be able to hear some gentle music. But gradually, you become aware that the cocoon is
ESSAY ESSAY | 9
You made the film Transparency with your parents, the artists Tom and Yoko Haar, to increase awareness of an environmental issue that still does not receive adequate attention: marine and coastal pollutions caused by plastics. But the film spoke of much more than that. It was an apocalyptic expression that the sea would no longer be the sea we used to know – a womb of our humanity, or our spiritual “home” or “mother” – due to the permanent contamination of foreign matter that severed the great circle of life there. Your film is an urgent warning that losing the sea, the heart of our lives, would mean losing our humanity. That compelling artistry was what moved me to invite you to Kyoto to talk about your work and your initiative EATA (Environmental Awareness through the Arts). To borrow your film’s metaphor, I feel that our sense of the world is being gradually hindered or blocked by some bizarre membrane (you could say the anxiety around the new coronavirus is also a symptom of that blockage). I wanted to share your warning, as well as the hope of new connections, with my community in Kyoto.
YOSHIRO SAKAMOTO
Standing on the waste-covered beach of Kamilo, speechlessly, I thought of the photos of the sea and ama female divers of Ijika taken by your grandfather, Francis Haar. Through those images, he documented the lives of ama who dove every day to catch offerings for the Ise shrine and for themselves. I say “documented”, but it was not a pragmatic report of the ama’s job. Instead, his photos are an thetheirextremesacredenjoyedwomenportrayalempatheticofyoungwhotrulybeinginthesea,despitethehardnessofoccupation.Inpicture,
how long would it take, even if the sea and plastic waste could find some way to coexist in harmony? And would we still call it Nature?
*
ama are cheerfully chatting around the fire burning near their hut after their labours. Looking at the those howandcamera.vialookingareofisphotos,atmosphereintimateinthoseIfeelFrancismirroredintheeyesthosewomenwhosympatheticallybackathimthelensoftheI’mtouched,thenwonderhegotsocloseto
ESSAY
“MOTHER AND CHILD”, 1940 ©FRANCIS HAAR
ama, to their hut that traditionally had been closed to men, and to their joy which he eventually shared with them over a big catch. The same question comes to my mind when I see other portraits made by him, such as the picture of an old woman in a village in his native land of Hungary, her age shown in the number of wrinkles on her face, or the picture of a hula dancer in Hawaiʻi, the terminus of his wanderings, or the portraits of poor workers living downtown. The gaze he exchanged with his subjects gives light to their lives, their joy, and their sadness.
Some years ago, I visited Ijika with a photography book Mermaid of Japan, which Francis published in 1954. The old residents of the old port town were so surprised by the book and informed me, excitedly, “This is ‘Grandma Imasuke’, and here you see ‘Grandpa of Toraya’!” My wife, son, and I were shown around the town until we finally visited time,oneNagisa,atsheatopin“That’ssaidgrandfather.Sheafreshlyholdingaalive.theImasuke”,“GrandmawhowasonlymodelstillInherpictureasyounglady,shewasagarweeds,harvested,withsmileonherface.rememberedyourSheonlyinasmallvoice,me”,inaroomherhousestandingthecliff,andthencasthergazesilentlytheremotesea. Iwaswithmysonwhowasonlyyearoldatthatandthe ama took great care of my “very cute” boy. They even invited us to their hut. Half a century had passed since Francis visited the town, but they still dove into the sea every day to catch turban shells and abalone. It was fun to see my son bite into a live abalone with his newly emerged teeth, which made it writhe in surprise... The ama were no longer naked, nor did they wear the traditional white dress (they wore black wetsuits instead). But they still tied the tenugui washcloth with the talismanic symbol of seman doman around their heads and offered prayers to the sea with mugwort leaves, looking just like handmaidens of the gods, as they used to be regarded. Although concerned by aging and the shortage of successors, the old ama were so blithe and filled the hut with their laughter that
10 | LITRO
“AMA” DIVER, 1953 ©FRANCIS HAAR
My visit to Ijika, however, was also tinged with sadness. A beautiful little port that your grandfather had depicted was no longer there. Part of the coast had been demolished and covered with concrete, thanks to the construction of a big port in the 1960s. Even ama were forced to do the heavy labour at the quarry. They were perhaps remembering the lost beauty of Ijika as they stared eagerly at the pages of Francis’ book.
I was just so happy being there.
About two weeks before Kilauea’s massive eruption, I was walking on a lava field under the Puʻ u ʻŌʻō volcanic cone. The plateau’s infertile rocky ground made me feel that I was on the surface of another planet. As the sun reached the horizon and gradually descended, the sky turned jade green. It was a mysterious sunset. The moonlight reflected on the ground shone silver and made a path of light. There were many cracks in the ground and they looked like gashes that were still burning. I felt I could see the tremor of the air, even in the night. My heart beat fast when I saw the lava flowing very slowly from the hilltop. I climbed up next to one of the volcanic vents and sat on a rock to see the lava flowing to the distant sea. Far ahead, on the surface of the sea, was a ring of moonlight.
ESSAY ESSAY | 11
Above all, I had a bitter feeling when I found waste scattered around their hut. Next to it was a pure fountain from which ama used to draw sacred water to moisten their throats and wash the seawater from their bodies. But it was no longer in use; they now had their own modern water supply. And so the fountain became a rubbish dump. Ama simply and blindly believed that the sea, which has kept them alive, would purify everything, even plastics. They who have lived in and inseparably from the sea threw everything into it, despite the fact that they are the ones who will suffer when their catch is only a tenth of what it used to be. The “way of the god” running from the hut to the sea is littered with plastic bottles and ice cream cups. Ama offer their prayer to the sea even today. I believed that traditional wisdom is one way to reconnect modern humanity, in all its vacuity, with the world. But the rubbish around the ama’s hut made me rethink my belief.
*
In April 2018, Kilauea erupted and swallowed the southeastern part of the main island of Hawaiʻi. It was as if the goddess of volcanoes and fire, Pele, had lost her temper at the indiscriminate acts committed by humans against both sea (Ke Kai) and island (Ka Aina). The southeast coast of the Big Island was engulfed by the torrents of lava, which must have melted abandoned plastics. It was as if the sea had been purified by divine flame, and researchers saw such an effect when they measured the level of plastic pollution immediately after the eruption. But another report, which was made in less than two months’ time, shocked them: pollution was back to as high as 70% of pre-eruption levels. The report shows us the severity of marine pollution, and I imagine it is even higher today.
ESSAY
“‘IOLANI LUAHINE DANCING A SEATED HULA”, 1961 ©FRANCIS HAAR
12 | LITRO
The sea and volcanic islands are full of inexhaustible mystic energy that moves our soul deeply. I wonder how the swelling amount of plastic waste would interfere with the chain of life there. The marine life in the waters around Hawaiʻi has been reduced dramatically because of plastic waste and other factors. In Japan, enigmatic sea walls resembling the Great Wall of China hinder our vision of the sea. Much is lost, and I wonder how we can feel the bounty of the world as your grandfather did. Francis’ oeuvre makes me feel strongly that we have to recover our sensibilities.
*
ESSAY ESSAY | 13
On a night when all were joined in one spirit, the legendary Kumu Hula (Master of Hula), ‘Iolani Luahine, danced a sacred night hula in the flickering light of bonfires, the shadow of wave crests undulating and retreating into the darkness behind her. She looked as though she was one with the breath of the volcano. Through the lens, your grandfather, Francis, stared fixedly at the mystic dance with his unclouded eyes, and that film is now said to be the portrayal of ‘Iolani Luahine with the most Ola (life). I recall the lava flow that I saw whenever I watch this film. Both the lava flow and ‘Iolani’s dance show the sanctity of the universe. I remember that an old man who was at the volcanic vent before me said to me: “We used to see hula dancers dancing the night hula in front of this flow of fertility.”
“LIVING DOLL” WITH “KOKESHI” , 1953 ©FRANCIS HAAR
I remember a drawing Francis had done of you as a little girl. I am truly grateful that you took it out from your drawer of treasured memories and showed it to me. That was the last work by Francis Haar, the exiled photographer who had voyaged from Hungary to France, Japan, and finally Hawaiʻi, devoting his life to capturing the warmth of the world in pictures. In that drawing, I felt that he preserved your warmth with strong empathy. From the image, I felt his hope, wish, and confidence for and in you and your future. You had only a few but very heartwarming memories of your grandfather who had passed away when you were ten. He did not stop producing images even when he was suffering from Alzheimer’s and losing the memories of his lifelong journey filled with shining encounters. His soul needed to make images. You as a young girl followed him with a brush in your hand. Your grandfather added his to yours, and the two of you made many drawings together. You remember, though vaguely, the softness of his palm, the Diamond Head, the panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean, and the back of an artist bending over a sheet of drawing paper on which colours were scattered. When they had a posthumous exhibition of Francis’ drawings, they printed your portrait on the invitation card. I imagine that you touched and retraced the warmth of the world with your grandfather’s hand guiding yours, and perhaps that has inspired you as an artist.
There is another story that you told me about your grandfather. He loved to play the harmonica, you said, and he had a collection of harmonicas from different periods and places. When he went out in
COLOR PENCIL DRAWING OF HAYDEN MANGO, 1996 ©FRANCIS HAAR ONE OF THE MANY DRAWINGS MADE DURING HIS FINAL YEARS
Janka and Gergely live in Doma no Ie with their three cheerful kids.
*
coming to Japan, Gergely studied architecture at an academy of art in Budapest, just like your grandfather. I remember it was someone called Francis Gergely who first introduced Japan to your grandfather. What a curious coincidence! Gergely Péter Barna studied traditional Japanese architecture and engaged in conservation of cultural heritages. He is now searching for a way to re-energize the relation between people and materials by mixing Japanese traditional techniques and wisdom (of miyadaiku, carpenters who specialize in temples and shrines, for instance) with digital technology and applying it to our daily life. He is concerned about the reduced intimacy between people and things in this consumerist society. He renovated an abandoned house and transformed it into a community space called “Doma no Ie (house with earth floor)” for artists, architects, and locals to gather and relax in.
14 | LITRO
There are not enough words to express my deep respect for the long and unparalleled journey that the Haars have made over the generations. From Hungary to Japan and then to Hawaiʻi, your family has travelled across linguistic frontiers and inherited the memories of the islands, oceans, and the sentiments that your parents and grandparents had experienced. As for the cross-border network through which your parents, Tom and Yoko, and you are trying to restore the seas, I imagine the desire arises out of your family’s own transoceanic story. To my mind, this initiative is a light of hope shone into the darkness of our time.
“LOTUS BOY”, 1953 ©FRANCIS HAAR
DRAWING OF BAMBOO SHOOT, 1996 ©FRANCIS HAAR
ESSAY
We couldn’t make it happen this time round, but I am looking forward to having you in Kyoto once this turmoil is over. The group that I wanted to introduce you to is full of potential. We represent a range of unique specialisations, and our gaze is directed at the future. We have an engineer trying to make organic building materials out of hyphae, a researcher who has launched a project called “Retro Future”, a research-and-practice project of forgotten ideas of alternative technology advocated and then forgotten in the modern era, an artist looking for a sustainable mode of urban life, a promoter who builds international bridges between artists and scholars, and so on. It was a young Hungarian couple, an architect named Gergely Péter Barna and his wife and cultural practitioner Janka Barna Sinka, who brought us together.Before
Honolulu with his friends from Central and Eastern Europe, he would take his favorite harmonica with him, playing it and dancing, and they would fondly reminisce about their homeland on the opposite side of the world. Incidentally, your name is “Haar Monika” if you read it in the Hungarian order (surname first), which is the same as Japanese. I wonder if that’s where your name came from: your grandfather’s prized collection, and his nostalgia. Perhaps your music and artistry were given to you along with that name.
On full moon and new moon nights, by an old mochi tree in the middle of the garden, we gather around a bonfire and talk about the environment, politics, and life, with a spoon in one hand and bread in the other – Janka bakes amazingly delicious sourdough bread. Gergely came to Japan to study Japanese architecture and traditional techniques, but there is also his despair at the current state of Hungary under the heavy-handed and xenophobic Orbán administration.
Everything seems to be on a journey, including people, of course. Bearing the burden of a weighty history, one sets out, is drawn to the unknown, and sometimes one finds the truth unexpectedly, just as your grandfather did and just as Gergely and Janka do. One learns things from the people and places that one visits, and tries to lead a life that leaves a better world to one’s children. Doma no Ie is one place for such a journey. It’s called ie (house), but instead of a closed construction, it’s a space where wanderers meet and share the wisdom they have collected. The doma (earth floor adjacent to the entrance) is here but it is always “with” somewhere else: it is connected to the front of another ie, to the Haars’ house atop a hill in Honolulu. We are on our respective journeys wherever we are, even when we are at home. Our memories and thoughts travel far and cross somewhere in the distance.
ESSAY | 15 ESSAY
Monika Haar is a pianist, music teacher, and environmental advocate based in Honolulu. She recently produced a music video, Transparency featuring her choreography and compositions. With this video, she aims to raise awareness about marine pollution and plastic waste. Monika is currently planning a performing arts festival in Honolulu and New York with a focus on environmental issues.
Gergely said at our first gathering: “Tradition is like a braid, a knot of the countless events that have occurred since the distant past. These events include trees, water, light, fire, bacteria, time, any and all strands of time. That is why it is never a fixed thing. It can be re-tied into something more relevant to us, even at this moment.”
Monika, I am waiting for you here in Kyoto.
Me ke aloha pumehana, 3 March 2020 Yoshiro Sakamoto
The people who gather there have come to Kyoto from places such as Germany, France, the UK, Italy, and other regions of Japan, along with local Kyotoites. In Doma no Ie, we hear many languages being spoken: English, Hungarian, German, Romanian, Italian, Korean, standard Japanese, and the Kyoto dialect. The language situation of Gergely and Janka’s three children is particularly interesting. They have two first languages, namely, Hungarian and the Kyoto dialect, which is pretty different from standard Japanese. My son’s mother is from Germany and she speaks to him in German, but his first language is the Kyoto dialect. At Gergely and Janka’s, we see many kids playing together. Most of them speak the Kyoto dialect, and that is the most cosmopolitan language in this house. Obviously, though, they don’t really need a language to play together. I’ve learned from them that the branding of “Japanese” or “Japaneseness” is an utter nonsense that only adults use and rely on. I imagine the bright future of those kids, and that comforts me and cheers me up in this phase of our life.
pushing deep into the future, the stunning “art island” of Naoshima leads you into the best of the Japanese past.
the sea on one side of you and, the first time I visited, slopes flooded with the rich scarlets and oranges and russets of late autumn on the other – and come to a cool glass-andconcrete box placed in the middle of an empty parking lot. You get your ticket, then walk for six or seven minutes up a spotless, deserted driveway, past a garden featuring Monet’s favorite flowers from Giverny,
PICO IYER
You’ve surely never seen anything like the Chichu Art Museum, tucked away on the remote, silent island of Naoshima, in Japan’s Inland Sea. You walk along a narrow mountain road – the great blue expanse of
A HIGH-TECH ANCIENT STILLNESS
16 | LITRO
up to a long series of high, grey, enclosing tunnels designed by the maverick architect Tadao Ando. All the workers around you are wearing white and, being mostly Japanese, stand as silently and motionlessly as installations along the corridors. There are few doors or windows to be seen, and you’re not allowed to use ink in the museum.
By
You proceed along these industrial spaces
JAMES TURRELL
WATER LILY POND C.1915-26
Two black birds suddenly bisect the blue. A fleece of cloud drifts past. The small room, you realize, is always changing, and transfixing. A yellow butterfly appears, and becomes an event.
me deeper into the classic old Japan I sought out when first I moved here. The three very distinctive artists, I realized, all work together (in the Japanese way) so you soon lose a sense of who is who; but each enhances and throws light on the other, so the whole becomes something greater than the sum of its parts. This was not a competition but a choir. By framing a piece of Nature, Turrell (like Monet) was doing just what a wooden gateway does in a Japanese garden, giving it shape by imposing sharp limits. And in all the rhyming pieces – as throughout the museum – I was reminded of the classical Japanese principle of emptiness: take nearly everything out of a room and what remains ESSAY
ESSEY | 17
Walk out of “Open Sky” and back to Monet around the corner, and you see that the Impressionist is really doing a Turrell: separating out a great rectangle of Nature and watching how it’s transformed by the changing light. Return from Monet back to Turrell, and you see how the blue has softened in the past ten minutes, and the American is showing us, as the Frenchman did, how much Nature is a work of art, if only we can wake up to the fact.
“...THE STORY OF HOW THE ART ISLAND –ONCE KNOWN AS THE “NAOSHIMA CULTURAL VILLAGE” – CAME INTO BEING MIGHT ALMOST BE A PARABLE ABOUT HOW TO TURN THE OLD INTO THE VERY NEW, THE POOR INTO THE SUMPTUOUS AND THEN THE NEW INTO THE OLD AGAIN...”
So many museums offer you something to see; this one, I came to feel, was teaching me how to see. And as I began walking round it on a radiant December day, I realized that nowhere I had seen in my quarter-century of living in Japan had, unexpectedly, taken
for a while – every now and then a dazzling rock garden flashes out beside you – and then come to a set of rooms built underground and illuminated only by natural light. In one of them are five late Monet Water Lilies, all framed in stark white Greek marble and coaxed out from the background by shaded light from an opening high above. In another is a single 7-foot granite sphere at the center of a huge chamber, installed by the American “land artist” Walter de Maria, surrounded by 27 wooden sculptures covered in gold leaf. Thanks to the light coming into the room, the piece changes every time you walk towards it, around it, implicating you in the act of creation. The only other three galleries are devoted to installations by the contemporary American master of light, James Turrell. In the most remarkable of them, “Open Sky,” you enter a small space, silent as a church, and sit on a pew against one of its four grey walls. Then you look up to where a small rectangular slab has been cut out of the ceiling, to reveal the sky.
CLAUDE MONET,
18 | LITRO
CLAUDE MONET ROOM, BENESSE ART SITE, NAOSHIMA, KAGAWA, JAPAN
ESSAY
hills around the Chichu Art Museum, you can see its huge chimneys belching smoke into the otherwise cloudless sky).
“...WHEN FIRST I BEGAN CHICHU,THROUGHWALKINGTHEI’LLCONFESS,APARTOFMEWASUNNERVED;THEWHOLEEXPERIENCESEEMEDALITTLETOOCONTROLLING,TOO UNSPARING AND SELFCONSCIOUS,FASCISTIC...”EVEN
But in 1985 Tetsuhiko Fukutake, the founder of a publishing company in the nearby town of Okayama, joined with the then mayor of Naoshima, Chikatsugu Miyake, and decided that the very neglectedness of the place made it a perfect opportunity, a tabula rasa. They would take the entire southern part of the island and convert it into a cultural and educational centre (the northern part, true to allegory, has been home, since 1918, to a huge Mitsubishi copper refinery, and occasionally, from the
Though Fukutake died six months later, his son Soichiro took over the project and, in 1988, invited the self-taught Ando to design, in effect, a whole swatch of its southern half. It was an inspired choice. Fukutake had visited the “Church of the Light” Ando had designed in a small, non-descript building in suburban Osaka. On a typically grey, forbidding wall, the architect had simply cut out one long, thin horizontal strip, and one long, thin vertical. Every morning, when the sun comes up, the two straight openings form a glowing, living cross, and the almost empty slab of concrete becomes an uncanny spiritual
ESSAY
becomes a revelation, everything. “The less there was to see,” as Don De Lillo writes in his mystical novel, Point Omega, of a man at a slowed-down screening of Psycho in a New York gallery, “the harder he looked, the more he saw. This was the point.”*
I’m rightly notorious among my friends as the worst person in the world with whom to go to a museum; set me in the Prado or the Met, and I’m instantly stealing towards the café. At the wondrous Art Institute of Chicago, some years ago, I spent two hours in the gift shop and never even made it to the galleries. Yet in Naoshima, I became a stranger to myself. My first stop, within an hour of arriving on the island, was, by chance, the Chichu Art Museum, and I stayed there till the doors were closing on me (the Monets, as the sun began to fall, becoming as massive and sepulchral as Rothkos, almost black). Next morning I was the first to arrive at the solitary ticket office, and for four hours I just walked back and forth between “Open Sky” and the “Water Lilies” and de Maria’s reflecting sphere.
I would have stayed all day if I didn’t have other things to do, so alive and transported had I become. And when I walked back along the deserted mountain road to my hotel, Benesse House, twenty minutes away, everything I passed seemed an astonishment. A white heron out on the rocks looked like an installation. The 88 Buddhas a local artist had placed by the side of the road, made out of industrial waste, stopped me in my tracks. The sea itself, the outline of islands in the distance, had become a marvel. I’d walked along the same stretch of road on my arrival, less than 24 hours before, and noticed nothing much at all.
ESSAY | 19
Soonillumination.Andowasinstalling 10 Mongolian yurts on a beach in Naoshima, as if to suggest that this outpost of traditional Japan would be a home to the world; you can stay in them, for not very much money, even now. In 1992 he built the Benesse House Museum, including ten hotel rooms on its second and third floors, so that guests could wander around the galleries after nightfall, or simply enjoy the museum’s holdings above their beds. Then, in 1995, he added an Annex (now called Oval), which took his futuristic classicism even further: to get to one of the six rooms there, you find a secret door on the second floor of the museum, open it with a special key, ride a private, sixseat monorail to the top of a mountain –and find yourself with a dazzling view of the sea below, and a nearby roof that offers 360-degree views over much of the island, its bays and the winking lights of fishing boats drifting slowly across the water.
Then, he built Benesse House, more regular hotels, a few minutes away, with rooms along the beach (Fukutake had long since changed the name of his company to “Benesse,” his phrase for “ Well-Being”). Each of the chic structure’s 49 rooms looks out on the sea, and there is original art in
When I wandered down a grey Ando corridor to the museum’s tiny café – a small room with a single blond-wood bench placed in front of a long horizontal window
looking out on the blue sea – I couldn’t tell at first if I was looking at a Monet pond or a Turrell sky.
The story of how the art island – once known as the “Naoshima Cultural Village” – came into being might almost be a parable about how to turn the old into the very new, the poor into the sumptuous and then the new into the old again. In the early 1980s, Naoshima was just another forgotten island, with three thousand or so people on it, more or less left behind by Japan’s fast-rising new economy. When Donald Richie, the great American writer who lived in Japan for the better part of 66 years, visited in the 1960s, he saw at first (he describes in his classic book, The Inland Sea) nothing but an old man sorting through dried squid, on a “sad little island” so small you can walk to all its sights in an hour.
True to Ando’s sense of these places as the object of a “pilgrimage” – you take off your shoes to enter the room full of Monets, for example, and walk through a large, darkened, entirely empty antechamber just to get to it –Naoshima is a long way from everywhere. I live in Nara, which looks, on the map, very
every room, as well as along the corridors. Walk to the bathroom and you pass eerie light sculptures, and minimalist photographs of seascapes that take you into a quiet, meditative state of mind.
Instead, a 40-minute walk from Benesse House will bring you to a local village, Honmura, that is all old wooden houses, laid out on a grid after a fire in 1791, surrounded by Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. The place could not look more like a (rare these days) vision of traditional Japan. But as a series of hyper-contemporary artists have been invited to come in and make installations around the village, an ancient castle town that seemed out of date a generation ago, and a little embarrassed about its antiquity, has been reborn as a haven for the most up-to-date visitors.
And everywhere you look, as you stroll between Benesse House and the Chichu Art Museum, you come upon other art: an unworldly glass cube stands alone on a beach; a giant fiber-glass Yayoi Kusama “Pumpkin” adorns a pier; at one point, a Hiroshi Sugimoto series of black-andwhite photographs of the horizon – “Time Exposed” – is hung up on the cliffs, so that wind and seaspray and Time itself can have their way with it. Very soon you are losing all sense of what is officially in the museum and outside it, and coming to see everything with the reverent attention you might bring to a canvas on a wall.
The beauty of the idea is that every aspect of the complex comes from the same imagination, which means that all is of a piece. The hole in Oval’s roof echoes and deepens the space in Turrell’s “Open Sky.” And the brilliance of the notion is to realize that two contemporary foreigners, associated with the American Southwest, and a 19th century Frenchman, are all working with the same principles of light and sky and emptiness to create works of reflection more Japanese than many Japanese artists are.
And just as the works in the Chichu Art Museum are changing with every hour of the day – following the organic rhythms of Nature more than the more static declarations of Art – so the whole island is perpetually in development, as if to invite a closer and another view. In 2010 a new Ando structure came up in a field to house the Lee Ufan Museum, featuring minimalist rock-andlight works by a Korean artist (with spaces, characteristically, called “Shadow Room,” “Silence Room” and “Meditation Room”). That same year, the Setouchi Triennale was inaugurated to invite international artists to come, every three years, to set up installations in Naoshima, and on eleven other islands across the Inland Sea, and two port towns. A whole large region is being made new with the Pygmalion eye of art.
*
But after a while I came to see that this sort of immaculate selection was, in fact, what made the place so special; by surrendering a part of yourself, you open up much more. Indeed, the place helped to explain all Japan and the heart of Japan’s pragmatic perfectionism, which can seem inflexible and
This is not a designed city like those famous white elephants Brasilia and Chandigarh. It’s more like the quintessential Japanese traditional meal, in which you are served five tiny, exquisite, seasonally perfect items and each one, consumed slowly and deliberately, sets off detonations inside you.
close to the Inland Sea. But still I had to take a bus, a train, another train to Kyoto, a bullettrain to Okayama, then a local train and a ferry and a bus to complete my five-hour journey (those coming from Tokyo can fly to Takamatsu, eight miles from Naoshima, but still need to take an occasional hourlong ferry from there, and then a bus to get to Benesse House). The island is ever more favored by black-clad trendies from New York and Milan – as well as the chic young Japanese art students I see at local Lou Reed concerts – and yet the typical Japanese has never heard of it, and might express little interest in something so far from the gogo-excitement of clamorous modern urban Japan. There are few convenience stores on Naoshima and no video arcades; you can call a taxi, but are reminded, if you do, that there’s only one on the entire island.
Slip into a centuries-old tatami building in Honmura, and you may find a towering Statue of Liberty bursting through the floor. Go to the local Shinto shrine on the hill and you see an illuminated glass staircase that Hiroshi Sugimoto has constructed underground, as if to link the old to the new and our world to the next. Visit the site of a former Buddhist temple and you’ll come upon another unworldly Ando and Turrell construction. You walk into a room of absolute darkness and, hand against a wall, are led towards a bench, on which to
20 | LITRO
sit. For eight or ten minutes you stare into the distance and make out nothing. Then slowly, very slowly, you realize that the space is not empty, after all; a cool blue rectangle is pulsing against the wall at the other end. It takes time and stillness and attention, Turrell is suggesting, to (quite literally) see the light.
When first I began walking through the Chichu Art Museum, I’ll confess, a part of me was unnerved; the whole experience seemed a little too controlling, too unsparing and self-conscious, even fascistic. All choices are eliminated, and all openings erased; it’s easy to feel as if there’s no escape from the mind of Tadao Ando. In certain rooms only one person is allowed to enter at a time. “You feel like you’re in a laboratory,” said a lawyer from Melbourne, as we watched white-clad women disappearing down the long, steel-grey corridors, as if to the Starship Enterprise’s control room.
ESSAY
In the Chichu Art Museum, by comparison, each work becomes part of the others and disappears into a whole. As the afternoon began to wane, tubes of light appeared along Ando’s grey, cold corridors and in one place produced a great field of light.Every now and then, it’s true, I was
when I went to dinner that evening, I walked past 15,000 blue glass cubes – a newly installed artwork – that gave me back a shivery reflection of myself. Even I had become a museum-piece! And when, my last night on Naoshima, I climbed up to the roof above Oval, I realized I hadn’t felt so calm, so opened out, so quietly ecstatic in years. Indeed, I wondered if I’d ever been in JapanThebefore.next morning – inspired by the island’s sense of attention – I hurried out before dawn to see how the rising sun would set off golden reflections on two great de Maria spheres placed inside a custom-built Ando underground structure on the beach.
ESSAY
CLAUDE MONET
rule-bound to many an outsider until she finds the freedom within that. The effect is like that of stepping out of a clangorous city street and into a silent meditation room. The only time I’d ever felt this kind of intimacy –and luxuriousness – was when I stayed in the super-lavish 17th century Tawaraya ryokan, or traditional inn, in Kyoto.
ESSAY | 21
Indeed, when I made it to the Benesse House Museum at last, and came upon a stunning collection of modern art – a Warhol, a Hockney and a Rauschenberg hung in a single small room – my first response was disappointment. Each of the works was striking, but each took me into a completely different world from the others. I started thinking about which one was my “favorite” and I lost any sense of whether I was in Santa Monica or Zurich. It was like hearing several loud, distinctive voices all shouting at once.
The whole event became so exciting I almost missed the characteristically tasteful and impeccable breakfast served in the Museum. By then I couldn’t have told you if I was in the future or the past; I knew only that I’d found at last the Japan of stillness, clarity and perfection that can hide within the most everyday, and super-contemporary, of details.
reminded that architectural conceits are sometimes made to be seen and not lived in. My first morning in Benesse House, I found the nozzle in my shower so ingeniously contrived that I wrestled with it for several minutes before inadvertently spraying the entire room with a kind of rainforest effect. When I moved to Oval, I had to call the front desk (four minutes away by monorail) just to find out how to open the door to my terrace – and, having succeeded at last, realized it would be no easy thing now to closeButit.
22 | LITRO
Only that first note was left inside my pencil case. After that, they were taped to the inside of my desk, clinging to the underside, where my hand would easily detect them. Whenever I found a note, I got goosebumps. I scanned the classroom, careful not to get caught, but it always felt like somebody noticed my reaction. I was overtaken by a strange anxiety, at a loss for how to act.
was a dumb idea, and all my other thoughts crowded that particular one out of my mind, leaving me feeling even worse.
“What were you doing yesterday, when it was raining?”
day toward the end of April, between classes, I unzipped my pencil case and found a folded triangle of paper between the pencils.
“We should be friends.”
MIEKOHEAVENKAWAKAMI
Translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd Illustrations by Emma Coyle
The note had to be a prank, but I had no idea why those guys would try something so subtle after all this time. I sighed in my mind, settling into the usual darkness.
One
FICTION | 23
I unfolded it to see what was inside.
All the same, checking each morning for a new note became my little ritual. I started coming in early, when there was no one in the classroom, and it was quiet, a faint smell of oil in the air. It made me feel good to read those little letters. I never lost sight of the possibility that this might be a trap, but something in those notes made me feel safe, however briefly, even with all my distress.
At the start of May, just before vacation, I got a note saying “I want to see you. Meet me after school. I’ll be there, from five to seven.” There was a date and a simple, handdrawn map. I could hear my heart throbbing in my ears. I read the note so many times that I could see the words before me, even when I closed my eyes. I spent the rest of the day wondering what to do, and thought of nothing else during recess, to the point where my head started to hurt and I lost my appetite. There was no doubt in my mind that when I showed up at the spot, Ninomiya and his crew would be there waiting, ready to deliver the beating of a lifetime. Seeing me show up, they’d circle around and revel in their latest game at my expense. Things were only going to get worse.
“If you could go to any country in the world, where would you go?”
But I couldn’t just forget it.
When the day came, there was nothing I could do to settle down. The whole day in class, I kept an eye on Ninomiya and his friends as best I could, but I couldn’t detect any significant change in their behavior. Eventually one of them noticed and said,
FICTION
“I want to see you. Meet me after school. I’ll be there, from five to seven.”
Pieces of paper the size of a postcard with simple questions written on them. I always went to the bathroom to read them. I would’ve thrown them away, but unable to decide where, I ended up stuffing them behind the dark blue cover of my planner.
That’s all it said. Thin letters that looked like little fishbones, written in mechanical pencil.Ifolded it up hastily and slid it back into my pencil case. Taking a breath, I paused a second before looking around the room as casually as possible. The same group of classmates joking around and howling, the usual break between classes. I tried to calm myself down by repeatedly straightening my textbooks and notebooks, then I sharpened a pencil, taking my time. Before long, the bell rang for third period. Chairs screeched across the floor. The teacher walked into the room and class began.
Nothing seemed different after the notes started.Almost every day, Ninomiya and the others made me carry their backpacks, or kicked me like it was nothing, or whacked
me on the head with their recorders, or made me run around for them. But the notes kept showing up, and the messages grew longer. They never used my name, and they were never signed, but when I took a good look at the handwriting, I started wondering if maybe it wasn’t Ninomiya or any of those guys, but someone else entirely. But I knew it
“You mean making dinner?”
I had some time to kill, so I walked back to the tree-lined street. I sat down on a metal bench, let out a huge sigh and breathed in slowly. I kept thinking how I’d made a mistake coming here, but if I hadn’t, and Ninomiya and the others didn’t get their way, I’d pay for it in the end. I told myself it didn’t really matter what I did. Nothing would change.
“Sitsilently.down,” Kojima said. I nodded and tried, but I couldn’t sit right on the tires.
“Whale Park. See? The whale’s right there. Well, I guess I’m the only one who calls it that.” She laughed. I imagined myself saying
“You want to eat soon?”
“I’m glad you came.”
“You know the name of this park?”
I sighed again and looked up, feeling a little dazed. Not long ago, the trees were just a bunch of black trunks, but now their leaves were showing, and when the wind blew you could hear them sway. I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes, then looked up the street again. The world, as usual, was flat and lacking depth. My eyes took in the scenery like a postcard, but when I blinked, it slipped from view, replaced by a new scene.
I shook my head.
My town has a big tree-lined street that goes on for blocks and blocks.
“The Kojimaletter?”wasshort, with kind of dark skin. She never talked at school. Her shirt was always wrinkled, and her uniform looked old. She never stood up straight. She had tons of hair, and it was totally black. So thick it never fell flat. The ends stuck out in every direction. She had this dark spot under her nose, like dirt or maybe hair, and she got made fun of for it. The girls in class picked on her for being poor and dirty.
“No. I need to go to the library for a bit. We can eat later.”
By the end of the day, I was so worked up that I was feeling queasy. As soon as last period was over, I ran almost all the way home. As I was running, I asked myself if I was really going, what the hell I was doing, but no matter how I thought it through I couldn’t say for sure. I had the feeling that anything I chose to do would turn out wrong.When my mom saw me come home, she said hi from the couch where she was sitting and then turned back to the TV. I said hi back. A voice on the TV was reading off the news. It was the only sound in the house. Every room was quiet, same as always.
between them a sandbox not much bigger than a mattress, littered with candy wrappers and plastic Amongbags.thetrash,
A little while later, still basically unable to think, I returned to the spot. I saw someone sitting on the tires with her back to me. A girl in her school uniform. This threw me off. I looked around the lot for somebody else, but
“I didn’t think you’d come,” Kojima laughed, smiling uneasily. “Were you weirded out?”Icouldn’t think of what to say, so I shook my head. For a minute both of us just stood there
“I’ve been in the kitchen all day,” my mom said.
I could make out all these dry clumps of dog or cat crap. The way the sand stuck to them, they almost looked like tempura. I tried to count the individual nuggets, but new ones kept popping up. The whole sandbox was probably full of them. Then it hit me. Whoever called me here might force me to eat them. The back of my throat burned. I emptied my lungs, in an attempt to make the taste of the crap go away, but the thought alone made me sick.
This is the route I took to school. To get to the meeting place, you turned left exactly halfway down the street with the trees, onto a side street leading to a sandy lot that barely qualified as a park. Since I had left the house at four, there was no one at the spot when I arrived. I took the chance to catch my breath. There was a kind of bench made from tires on their sides, and a concrete whale, and
The mouth of the whale was big enough for two people my size to fit inside. The paint had worn away so much you couldn’t tell what color it used to be. People had tagged its back and its head with permanent marker. The lot fell in the shadow of an old apartment complex, and the ground was almost black, like something rotting.
there was no sign of anyone.
“It’s not like I have something to tell you. I just thought we should talk, the two of us. Honestly, I feel like we both needed it. I guess I’ve felt that way for a long time now.”
FICTION
Kojima stumbled every few words. I realized this was the first time I had heard her voice. The first time I had ever seen her face straight on. It was also the first time I had ever talked like this with a girl. My palms were moist, I was sweaty all over. I didn’t know where it was safe to look.
24 | LITRO
I wondered if my dad was actually coming home for once, but decided not to ask.
I approached her cautiously. When I stopped near the mouth of the whale, she heard my footsteps and turned to face me. It was Kojima. From class. She stood up and looked me over, dropping her chin slightly. I did the same.
“Hey, what’re you looking at?” and whipped one of his classroom slippers at me. It smacked me in the face, then dropped to the floor. He told me to pick it up, so I did.
Her voice wasn’t high or low, but it was firm, like there was something at its center, holding it together. I kept on nodding. Kojima noticed and seemed reassured.
I grabbed the carton of grapefruit juice from the fridge, poured a glass, and drank it at the counter. My mom looked over and told me to drink it at the table. A few seconds later, I heard the sound of fingernails or maybe toenails being clipped.
“Uh-huh. Can’t you smell it? My first pot roast, tied up with string!”
“Happamine.” She sounded like she was sighing, but never broke her smile as she looked down at her feet. In my head
myself to ask. Sweat dripped down my back. Kojima smiled. She looked really happy to hear my answer. She let out a breath and told me she was glad. Then she stood up from the tires and brushed off the back of her skirt with both hands. Her skirt had these huge creases crossing the lines of the pleats. The pockets of her blazer were bulging with what looked like scraps of tissue.
We stood there for a while, not saying anything. I could hear crows cawing somewhere far away.
I was, like, happy what? I wanted to ask
“I want to be friends,” she said, looking at me. “I mean, if you’re okay with that.”
“Can I write you another note?”
I didn’t understand what she was saying, but I agreed. I felt a surge of misgivings. What did it mean for us to be friends? What was a friend supposed to do? I couldn’t bring
her what she said, but I wasn’t sure of when or how to ask. I wound up saying nothing.
“You’ll write back?”
FICTION
“Yeah,” I said. This time I spoke at the right volume. What a relief.
“Yeah.” I nodded.
it. Whale Park. “Like I said, I’ve wanted to talk for a while. That’s why I wrote you those notes. But I didn’t think you’d really come. I’m kind of in shock right now.” She was rubbing her nose and speaking faster than before.Inodded at this.
FICTION | 25
“Yeah,” I said. My voice cracked. My face was
“Andhot. give it to you?”
Class was over, but I turned around, because I had no choice, as rotten as I felt. One of Ninomiya’s friends grabbed me by the neck and dragged me back into the classroom. This happened all the time. Ninomiya was in the middle of the room, sitting on a desk. That was his style. When he noticed me, he laughed, then said “Hey buddy.” He told me to shove a stick of chalk up my nose and draw something hilarious on the blackboard with it, something that would make them shit their pants. His friends all cracked up. One of them dragged me to the blackboard and the rest of them circled around to watch.
“Not so fast, Eyes.”
Kojima“Bye.” smiled and looked at me, then made a tiny wave, spun around and booked it up the side street leading to the street of trees.She didn’t look back. Not even once. In my eyes, it looked like there were two of her, almost overlapping, getting smaller and smaller. I wasn’t sure how long you were supposed to watch someone walk away, but I watched until I couldn’t see her anymore. I could still see the square bottom of her skirt swing like something heavy, swatting the backs of her calves. Even after she had completely disappeared, the bulky action of her skirt stayed with me.
FICTION
I’d known Ninomiya since elementary school.Even then, he was the center of attention. He was the best athlete in our grade, but he also got straight A’s, and he had a chiseled face that anybody would consider beautiful. We were all supposed to wear a navy sweater, but he wore whatever color he wanted. His hair came down to his shoulders. His older brother, three years ahead of us, was even more popular. The two of them were school celebrities. Ninomiya gave off a special aura. There was always a crowd of kids who wanted to be friends with him. When we
26 | LITRO
FICTION
him get worked up like the rest of the kids. For reasons I didn’t understand, he watched gym class from the bleachers. While he was no match for Ninomiya, he had a face that anyone would describe as handsome, and both of them were at least four inches taller than me. Momose always had this expression that told you nothing about what he was thinking. He never bullied me directly. He just stood off to the side, crossed his arms and“We’vestared. got places to be,” said Ninomiya. “We’ll have to save your masterpiece for another day. Make all three pieces of chalk disappear, and you can go.”
entered middle school, he started wearing his hair tied back and making girls laugh with his jokes, but it wasn’t just the girls. When Ninomiya told a joke, everyone who heard it laughed. He was always at the top of the class, and took upper-level classes after school while the rest of us were struggling with our homework. None of us could keep up with him. Not even the teachers.
They kicked me in the knees and thighs, but never hit the same place twice. One of them booted me in the chest, like he was checking to see how soft I was. They pushed me, threw me into a wall. I staggered and crashed into a desk. Happens all the time, I told myself. It’s nothing. It happens. I waited for it to
Ninomiya and his friends just watched, laughing like crazy.
Pullingend.me
FICTION | 27
I stood there paralyzed and silent.
I did this for all three pieces. One of them yelled “Lemonade! Lemonade!” and brought me a plastic cup streaked with paint and full of a dirty milky liquid. Chalk dust dissolved in water. Pushed against the wall, cup pressed into my face, I drank it all. As the liquid traveled down my throat, I felt the urge to vomit, and the next thing I knew I had thrown everything up. Tears and spit dripped from my nostrils and my eyes. Dry heaving, both hands on the floor. One of the guys asked me what the hell I was doing and stepped back, but he was clapping. Cheering. They pressed my face into the mess and said “Clean it up.” Everyone was smiling, laughing.
Ninomiya told the others to stick two of the pieces of chalk up my nose. He waved the third piece in front of me like a sardine and said “Come on, Eyes, where’s your please and thank you?” He kicked me right in the knee, with the instep of his foot.
“Hurry up.”
“You never learn, do you? We’ve been doing this how many years now?”
Ninomiya threw up his hands in disgust. His friends doubled over laughing. They couldn’t get enough of this. That’s when I saw Momose, standing with his arms crossed, a little ways behind the wall of kids. Momose had shown up in middle school. His grades were just as good as Ninomiya, and I heard they went to the same advanced after-school classes. I had never exchanged words with Momose. He was always with Ninomiya, but he never said much, and I never saw
Whether they were kicking or punching or pushing me, Ninomiya and his friends were careful not to ever leave a mark. When
I got home and saw I had no bruises, I always wondered where the hell they could have learned this kind of trick.
Thus far I had been forced to swallow pond water, toilet water, a goldfish, and scraps of vegetables from the rabbit cage, but this was my first time eating chalk. It had no smell or taste. They yelled at me to chew faster. I closed my eyes and broke the chalk apart inside my mouth, focusing on chewing, not on what it was. I heard it crunch. The broken pieces scraped the insides of my cheeks. My job was to keep my jaw moving and to swallow, so I swallowed. Chalk coated the inside of my mouth.
up by my hair, they forced the chalk up my nose and made me eat the other piece. I bit it with my front teeth.
NAOKO MABON
28 | LITROINTERVIEW WITH MARI KATAYAMA “tools”, 2012, STILL IMAGE FROM VIDEO WORK, 3:54 ©Mari Katayama. COURTESY OF AKIO NAGASAWA GALLERY.
Mabon: Another significant point of this bystander series, I think,
In the early morning of late February, a little before the COVID-19 pandemic so powerfully spread to lock down European cities, I was fortunate enough to have a chance to speak to Mari Katayama, the cover artist of the issue, who in mid March 2020 won this year's prestigious Kimura Ihei Photography Award.
Katayama: In recent years, there have been gradually more and more things that I cannot do myself. Parenting is one example. So
Until about 2016, “do everything myself” was my motto. I set a rule, to always release the shutter myself, which at the same time constrains me. That rule is still valid today. But I realised around the time of working on Naoshima that I cannot live without asking someone for help on other things. The more occasions I had to go out from home and engage with communities and people in the outside world, the more I felt that I lived within a web of human-made society and within the limit of what one person can do. So the shift has occurred alongside the art-making process. Ah, but wait. Maybe because I felt like that in my daily life, then the art-making process might have changed accordingly to asking for a hand from others. Or maybe this has happened simultaneously in both life and work.
N
INTERVIEW | 29
aoko Mabon: Mari, thank you for giving up your time for this interview today.
the shift, I think, is a positive consequence of my sort of surrender to things that I cannot do on my own. The topic jumps a little, but since I was little, I had been the kind of person who gives things up quite easily. I was really into Manga, illustration or fashion in the past, but gave all of these up in my teens. I thought “I don’t think I can become a Manga artist or an illustrator. I don’t think I have a standout sense of fashion,” so I quit. When you make a clean break like that, I think you can move on and concentrate more on the next thing. If I still made Manga or illustration, perhaps I wouldn’t have achieved what I create now. Giving up something leads us to the next thing. For me, this is one of the positive actions.
Hereissue.
Mari Katayama: Thank you very much too.
Mabon: Thank you also for agreeing to come on board for shaping Litro’s World Series together with us. It is really exciting to have your work for the cover of our Drifting Islands issue. Especially this particular piece from your bystander series, which was developed during a residency in Naoshima in 2016. In the piece, you seem to have just landed on the Naoshima beach, in front of the beautiful backdrop of the Seto Inland Seascape, with the little pointy Ozuchi island floating at the top right, and The Great Seto Bridge connecting Okayama and Kagawa prefectures in the distance. At first glance, the image seems merely beautiful, but there is more to it than that. In the photograph, your facial expression doesn’t seem to be completely happy yet you hold strong eyes, while your upper posture is upright as if indicating a tension or firm will within you. As this body language may suggest, Naoshima, although it is now known to the world as “Japan’s art island”, had suffered from air pollution by smoke from a copper smelter, as well as a shrinking and aging population. On Teshima, another island within the same Naoshima island chain, for a long time there had been the largest legal case in the country about the disposal of industrial waste. Thinking of the relation to and the direction of the theme of Drifting Islands, we therefore thought this image is the perfect face for our
INTERVIEW
I would like to ask you a few questions relating to the work, so that this interview will naturally become an introduction of you and your practice to the readership of Litro magazine, which is not necessarily exclusive to a contemporary visual art audience.
Mabon: One of the factors that makes the bystander series stand out – possibly a turning point – in your artistic trajectory is that this is the first time you feature bodies that are not your own in your photographs or work. Up until this series, mostly you alone had been creating self-portrait photography amongst a flood of embroidered objects and decorated prosthesis in your personal space. I recall you mentioned that, even though you gained a result you never achieved on your own in the end, you were a little scared by and took some time to understand and accept the shift. Can you tell us about this shift in the dynamics between yourself and others, and the impact that it has brought?
At the beginning of the residency programme on Naoshima, I was thinking I should make something to do with Naoshima. At the same time, I really didn’t want to disturb the people of Naoshima with what I will make. Naoshima has been characterised as the “art island” of Japan. However, I think that just coming in from somewhere else and disturbing the beautiful rules and rhythms of the local life there is not an artist’s privilege, it is just blasphemy. I really wanted to avoid that. So I focused on the approach of “borrowing” and “listening to their stories”. The overall project took a whole year to complete. I think the first visit was in Autumn 2015. To begin with, I was given an introductory lecture on the Setouchi region and Naoshima. After that, I visited Naoshima about ten times altogether. One week stay for each visit. I took a long time for research too, over one month. Then it gradually became apparent that the society and lives of people here are, in many aspects, tightly interconnected. The scale of my project became bigger and bigger at the same time. It felt like a circle of people holding each other’s hands, which got bigger and bigger.
When I first visited the company, as an introduction of myself and what I do, I showed them pictures of the latest series at the time, shadow puppet, and explained that the concept of this series is the versatile characteristic of hands – they function in many ways, they can be anything, they can break and recreate at the same time. But it wasn’t received so well and somehow made them feel that I might misinterpret their well-established Bunraku dolls and use them carelessly. Actually, I took quite a lot of photographs of the faces of Bunraku dolls while I was researching. Since they have many dolls, the company members were saying that pictures of the faces would be very useful when they sort out the archival material of each doll. So I took photographs to help them. But I didn’t use those doll-face pictures for my new work. Instead, I asked if I can photograph the puppeteers’ hands. The relationship with them never became bad, but we built a relationship while sometimes probing each other, sometimes doubting each other.
30 | LITRO
is your source of inspiration, Naoshima Onna Bunraku, which is likely the only Bunraku company in Japan run exclusively by women. Seemingly there were two main points that you found striking when you visited them. First was seeing them saying how important it is to remove your own existence as a puppeteer, by wearing all black while performing. And second was seeing the importance and versatile ability of the puppeteers’ hands. Sorry for this long question, but could you tell us a little bit about your experience with the group?
Naoshima is now known as an art island, and so the locals have had various experiences of art. Many have good feelings about art but when there are supporters, this means that there are opponents too. It is obvious but it gave me, as an artist, a very important influence. I think this recognition has also influenced my artistic production and activity. The recognition towards the fact that society is not only composed of a good side. When there is a good side, there is always a bad side. I have built my communication with the members of Naoshima Onna Bunraku, and in the end they have supported me tremendously. At the opening of my exhibition, they came with
Katayama: This might repeat what I said, but I put extra care into what I do on Naoshima because I wanted to avoid becoming an artist who just comes into a particular local culture, creates disturbance, and leaves. I spent much time on research and listening to stories. However, I was not accepted at all, in the beginning. Before my first visit, I told my rough ideas, such as “hands” and “dolls”, to the coordinator of the host organisation. She told me that Naoshima’s Bunraku puppet dolls are quite large, but have no legs. Puppeteers’ hands are a substitute for legs. Normally three puppeteers hold one doll. For instance, they put their elbows into the doll’s Kimono to represent the knees of the doll. Another person will make noise with their hands to express the sounds of steps. Some dolls have legs but mostly they are operated like that, she told me.
Mabon: As this Litro World Series is focusing on contemporary Japan, I wanted to ask about your view of Japan. For a long time while working as an artist, for instance from your High Heel Project to your series on Naoshima or the Ashio copper mine, I feel that you have come across many aspects of the country such as histories, systems and future hopes. Also, last January, you had your first solo exhibition outside of Japan, at the White Rainbow gallery in London, and later at the Venice Biennale in Italy, and a solo exhibition at University of Michigan Museum of Art in the USA. I myself feel that once you step out of a situation, you see it better. And as you work more often outside of your country of origin, I wonder if you now think about Japan more often or see your background better. This is another broad question I am afraid, but can you tell us a little bit about your view towards Japan?
Katayama: Hmm, it’s not an easy question to answer… I lately think “But then, why am I still here?” The negative feeling towards Japan is growing, yet I am still here, in Kunisada in Gunma. It is not that I like Japan. Instead, how do I say, I think this place just suits me. It is possible that there are other places in the world that could also suit me, but when I think of my living pattern right now and of my family, living here is after all the most comfortable choice. Indeed there are many things in politics and cultural affairs that disappoint us in Japan. In terms of culture, I recently feel that artwork cannot become artwork in this country, probably because art professionals such as artists and people who value artworks are not cared for properly.
INTERVIEW
Bunraku dolls and opened Kusudama (the decorative paper balls to open at celebratory occasions) with the dolls. In the end, we became very close. I spent almost every day with locals. We still exchange emails.
Mabon: Although Litro features visual elements such as
For example, even if an artist claims this cup is an artwork, the cup cannot become an artwork without professionals who are able to judge its worth, such as curators or critics. But I think there is a tendency that the country is only trying to protect works that have been already established and valued by someone else. This is seen not only in the contemporary art world, but also in arts and culture in general. There is no collectiveness growing amongst artists who work overseas, for instance. There is no occasion to share our experiences or information of the overseas art world, which means there is no discussion on how we can keep going as artists. It is actually a little doubtful whether Japan is a country where artists who gain experience overseas would like to come back to. So, when thinking of my daughter’s future, I sometimes wonder whether we should go somewhere abroad for her. Indeed, the more I have a chance to go and work overseas, the more I think about Japan. But definitely not optimistically.
INTERVIEW | 31
INTERVIEW
“bystander #013”, 2016 ©Mari Katayama. COURTESY OF AKIO NAGASAWA GALLERY.
“bystander #004”, 2016 ©Mari Katayama. COURTESY OF AKIO NAGASAWA GALLERY.
32 | LITRO
photography and comics, it is primarily a creative platform for literature such as short stories and poems. I wonder if we could ask about your relationship with literature –either reading or writing – such as novels, creative writings or poems?
“...THERE IS A LEVEL WHEN YOU SAY “HAPPY”. I WAS THEREFORE BELIEVING THAT, AS SOON AS YOU TURN YOUR FEELINGS INTO WORDS, THEY BECOME ALL LIES. THIS BELIEF HAD MADE ME ONLY HAVE SMALL, UNIMPORTANT TALK WHEN I HAVE CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS...”
INTERVIEW
Katayama: First of all, about words. I hadn’t really trusted the power of words. When we say “apple”, one person might imagine a red apple, the other might think of a blue apple, while another imagines a green
Mabon: Composing it in a physical manner.
Katayama: Yes, I was. When I was in a band. In bands, usually there are two types of people. One type comes from music, and the other comes from words. Music types would say “No, we cannot fit four words here” (laughs). For example, when we want to say spring, summer, autumn, winter, there is a moment when the music type can say “We need to cut winter”. Even though you complain “No way, it will become three seasons rather than four and it will change the whole context”, sometimes it is fine for the music type. It is not
Mabon: Maybe words don’t go through your brain. Sounds more like the words go through your body.
Mabon: I read the text, and somehow imagined that you must be someone who has been reading constantly since you were little.
Last year, I had a talk event with the novelist Keiichiro Hirano and read his novels. They are so wonderful. I first read Artificial Love (2010), and At the End of the Matinee (2016). I read his essays too. They are novels, but I just got surprised to see how much you can describe what you think. This is just what I felt, but I was astonished by the power of words. To me, books had been objects I used to collect information. I am otaku (geek), you see. Rather than reading literature or culture and arts, to me it is more for information. Same with music, I listen to music to check it out and get new information. So I had almost never really appreciated novels or texts in a way like appreciating a favourite painting or a particular pianist of classical music. But lately, I have more moments of learning, for instance through Hirano-san’s amazing works and how to deal with words for my daughter. This led me to write texts myself. I have just finished writing a text looking back at the last five years of my artistic journey.
INTERVIEW | 33
Katayama: I suppose I am such an otaku. When I focus on reading only one book, I get bored. So when I read, I read this, and this, and this, something like that. But once I got drawn into it, I read the same book all the time, over and over. Same with music. When I read a book to collect words as data, I read as if I am taking photographs. It is like picking those words by photographing them in high-speed. Music is similar. I memorise a song through my throat. My throat remembers the melody so I can sing instantly. The lyrics are remembered by the throat too. I recall what the song says by singing, because lyrics first come into my ear and are memorised through my throat. Rather than thinking in my head and singing, it is like converting what you heard through the throat into words. Maybe this is not so ordinary. For example, my husband, who is a DJ (HIROAKI WATANABE aka PSYCHOGEM), says he can’t identify the lyrics here. Indeed it is incomprehensible when I hear or think in my head. But once I sing, I know it. It might be the same with words.
Mabon: Were you writing lyrics when you were a singer?
Katayama: Yes, perhaps. I recall the scenes described in a book in my head. Making installation plans for exhibitions too. When I make a plan, while walking in an empty exhibition venue, I input the images of the venue in my head first. Then back in home, while looking at the photographs I took in the venue on my computer, the reproduction of what I saw in the venue will be built in my head as a 3D imagination.
Katayama: In my opinion, we can only say “I listen to the music”, when we have followed the sounds of all the instrumentals involved. Same with books. I think we can only say we’ve read a book when we have memorised the lines of characters in the story. So in terms of quantity, I have indeed read so much so far, but I don’t know if I can say that I have properly read them, or like them. This is because once I realise that I like it, I read it so many times, like thirty times. Lately I am obsessed with a series of Manga called I Want To Hold Aono-kun So Badly I Could Die by Umi Shiina (2016–), and oh my goodness, how many times have I read it, definitely more than thirty times. Before going to sleep, I usually read from volume one to six. And before I know it, it’s something like three in the morning (laugh). I am so excited to read volume seven and when I think of it, it makes me almost unable to sleep. But recently my interest is gradually shifting
Mabon: Goodness, that sounds impossible!
INTERVIEW
apple. The words are so loaded. There is a level when you say “happy”. It may be a lie when you say “happy”. I was therefore believing that, as soon as you turn your feelings into words, they become all lies. This belief had made me only have small, unimportant talk when I have conversations with friends. Of course I speak more properly in an interview like this. But when I speak with friends, I could make funny stories without any problem, but was scared to tell them my opinion or thoughts. I didn’t really believe in the power of words like that. But nowadays I recognise that people don’t get what you are trying to say if you don’t clearly tell it to them. Nothing new really, but people don’t know until you say “yes” or “no”. This realisation is very much related to the fact that I became a mother. To make things easy to understand for my daughter, how can I say? When she asks “why”, what is the clearest explanation to use? I now spend more time on choosing my words for her, and this is gradually making me trust words.
to Fargo (2014–). It is a TV drama series based on the film directed by the Coen brothers. The series hasn’t started recently, but I started watching lately and now can’t stop. I watch one season, and usually watch the same season again before moving to the next. Similar with novels. I usually read three or four novels simultaneously.
Katayama: Yes, I think so. That is why, when someone says please place this work on the right, I become confused. Something like which side should be on my back?! It is confusing because I am always in my 3D imagination myself. Maybe this is the same as when I read a book. Words and body are so intimate. Like how I learn song through my throat.
the reason of course, but band activity didn’t quite work out for me so well, and I quite quickly gave up.
INTERVIEW
Mabon: So you are more the word type person?
“on the way home #005”, 2016 ©Mari Katayama. COURTESY OF AKIO NAGASAWA GALLERY.
According to one Japanese-English dictionary, “bystander” can also indicate “Waki”, the supporting role in a traditional Noh play. There are some rules for Waki: it is an opposite role to Shi’te, the principal role; and Waki never wears Omote, the mask. Shi’te wear masks most of the time, as they often play phantom characters such as gods, spirits, vengeful ghosts and ogres. On the other hand, Waki don’t wear masks because they are usually illustrated as characters living in real life. Hence Waki is an existence standing on the same side as the audience, which acts as a mediator connecting the audience to the separate world created on the stage. Similar to the female puppeteers of Naoshima Onna Bunraku, wearing all black to try to be invisible, Mari Katayama is also someone who, while putting herself a little aside, is devoted to play the role of “bystander” mediating in between us, the viewers, and her creative world – no matter whether in the form of visual art, music or written, spoken or sung words. The conversation with Mari was provocative – and now I can’t wait to listen to their new record!
Katayama: I am planning to release a debut music CD this year. I know that I just said I gave up on music, but I like music after all. When I was seriously making music in the past, I always felt that I was half-baked. My husband is a music professional, and we have been talking about doing something together for a while, so it just became more realistic in these days. Another intention is that I just simply love what he creates. I just want to make the most comfortable environment for him and his creation. If we can do something together, even better. We just made a club event SPHERE together in Takasaki in Gunma, but we wouldn’t like to limit the locations or situations for the activities. But also, I guess that I am responding to a physical urgency. Within our bodies, it is quite obvious to us when we can do something only now. So I thought maybe quicker action is better, and I am now thinking to try to focus on music-related activity for next ten years. The experience there will definitely become an influence for my visual art activity, so I think that having periods for different activities may not be a bad idea at all. I do what I would like to do, while continuing to work on art on one side. I believe that both creative activities – music and art – are connected. Maybe vinyl is better than CD, actually? Yes, vinyl it is!
34 | LITRO
Katayama: Yes, I suppose so.
Katayama: Thank you very much!
Mabon: That’s all for now. Mari, thank you very much indeed for your time. It was such a pleasure to be able to talk with you and hear more of your in-depth stories and thoughts, beyond what we can see through the finished artwork. Thank you so much!
Mabon: Last question. Do you have anything that you forgot to mention or you would like to say here? Also, if you could tell us a little bit about your ongoing or future plans and developments, that would be great.
In the depths of the sky, the sputtering sun tires of waiting for pure nudity, As mold stealthily spreads across the far side of the moon, A rotten tree conceives the forms of mushrooms.
POETRY | 35
POEMS
TIAN YUAN Translated by Jordan A. Y. Smith
The scent of falling plums does not get wet from plum-rain season, A stutter of raindrops on wind-bent umbrella Yearns to travel the Silk Road, The only thing wet is the horizon vanished underfoot. Mountains conceal the wind’s echo, And like a sponge, greedily suck up the rainwater.
TSUYU PLUM RAINS
Tree leaves resolutely weather the green-deepening raindrops,
A breeze brushing over the sea and onto the land teases stamen and pistil of the yozakura and leaps over the high castle wall to carry the whisperings of petals far off into the dawn.
Tiny flames, the yozakura blooming in the sky and on the water light up the darkness before our eyes. The towering castle has long lost its majesty, and the blood of history ceases to provoke trembling.
CHERRY BLOSSOMS IN THE NIGHT
Above the white, the pale red like the first blush on a girl’s cheek, softly warming the chill of a spring night, pushing the winking stars even further away.
Moonlight’s lamp is lit, branchtips flicker into flames. The earnestness permeates silence, the earnestness exudes grace.
36 | YOZAKURALITRO
So lively as they traverse the moonlight and the skin of night and flow through the interstices of the flock of petals
No force can hinder the yozakura bloom, not even ten-billion tons of darkness could suppress their frail petals. Not even the Milky Way pouring down could extinguish their yearning for freedom.
POETRY
The stagnant water reflects the yozakura from below, reviving memories of currents.
OCTOBER
The last leaves have shed, quarreling into the wind’s funeral, mournful face after mournful face, decaying in the mid-prayer silence.
I pause in front of a window shut tight, grieving the fact that the birds in the treetops have nowhere to hide their singing voices.
Like a cat moving in tiny steps, October falls silent, Fleeing from color heading for darkness.
The fiery fragments in bright foliage on distant mountains
POETRY
One of my shoes floats eternally on the surface of the western river, a ship with no one aboard, filling people’s breasts with loneliness.
POETRY | 37
combust because that heart of magma at the mountain’s core is beating.
The wind steps into shoes a cloud dropped, too loose for its feet, glides over the river surface, stumbles over a wave and falls, sinking to the bottom.
The drowned wind grows colder than the riverbed, whips out bubbles colder than the depths, scattering the fish far and wide.
In the middle of the white wall, it is raising its head. The living beauty it brought out after death. Its eyes that once darted to harmonize sunlight, were unmoving.
In one corner like the crutch of a tree, blood had flowed, congealed, a so-called nominal power, representing maleness.
The white wall like an enormous axe, Cutting away all flesh below the neck, ushering all the more wind into the attentive ears.
Beauty wiped away the memory of blood’s raw smell. The flowing clouds drifted from the retinas, the once breathing nostrils hardened fast. Its mouth tightened to preserve the silence.
THEPOETRYDEER
I stand facing the wall, wishing I had some magical means by which to transform this white wall into grassland and sketch the line of a river and send this deer back upstream to its forest home.
38 | LITRO
POETRY | 39
In one night nightmares blow away in the wind
In one night hope placed before the despairing
In one night, the lake dries up
In one night, the pond overflows starlight
In one night, the horse escapes its bridle In one night, the path is blocked In one night, the snow melts away In one night, the cloud scatters
In one night, the wild horse returns to the grasslands
In one night, the goddess falls to the world of mortals
In one night, the traveler dreams of home In one night, the ideal is realized In one night, the harbor welcomes back the sinkingship
In one night, the rose sheds every last petal In one night, the maiden loses her virginity
In one night, the lingering spirits find a land to rest in peace
In one night all battlefields become the children’sparadise
ONE NIGHT
In one night, the stars become raindrops In one night, the ghostly flame defies the darkness In one night, the wasteland becomes rich fields
POETRY
In one night bread placed before the starving
In one night, the camel dies of thirst In one night, the hero draws suspicion
In one night, the tulip makes love’s proverb bloom
Everything in the world began with a hand.
Before the hand was born the world was all tranquility perhaps. After it became a hand rocks and trees and plants were made into all types of tools, until final the world revealed its Whenform.arrows for shooting beasts and fowl were set fly at humans, the world began to crumble. And earthenwarethen and bronze were made, letters were invented, glass and textiles and paper. Everything in the world today is here thanks to the hand.
By the hand’s movement, the world is built and destroyed. Hands traverse the world round, yet no matter how they move, they can never return to the past.
Before being called “hand” it was a foot, they say, before becoming a hand the word hand itself did not exist.
By the hand’s labor, humans are able to travel anywhere they please, be it to the ocean’s floor, the sky, the stars, or thefuture.
The hand is humanity’s universal language, with the body’s heat, with love, patting a child on the head. Lovers join hands. When someone falls, you help them up. When someone is lost, you point them on their way.
HANDPOETRY
The original home of civilization is the hand, that vestige of memory. The Neolithic Hemudu and Cerveteri necropolis, They Pyramids and the Great Wall, and so on and so on, all born of the human hand.
40 | LITRO
Hands touch everything, cuddling infants
do not try to change the reality of being hands, nor do they try to change the fact that desire rules. And as hands are humans’ second face, once in a while, we should look in the mirror.
POETRY
and placing flowers for the dead, putting on rings and removing rings, signing and affixing seals. At times, hands are linked to grim verbs, to steal to strike to snatch to strangle to slap to Handsstab
POETRY | 41
YU MIRI
NOVELS ABOUT TOKYO
novel Tokyo Ueno Station, published in English in April this year, is the fifth novel in my Yamanote Line series. The Yamanote Line is a loop line that runs around Tokyo’s centre, one round trip taking nearly sixty minutes to cover 34.5 km and twenty-nine stations. On weekday mornings at around 8am, peak commuting time, trains come roughly every two minutes, yet every train is packed as full of people as sardines in a can.
42 | LITRO
The
Line, and the despair of characters who have been kicked out of that life and go through those ticket gates, as if heading to the centre of the line’s circle, then find themselves standing on the cliff’s edge of the Theplatform.main character in “Goodbye Mama”, a woman who has separated from her husband and is raising a small child (JR Takadanobaba Station, Toyama Exit); the man in “JR Gotanda Station East Exit”, who works for a securities company and can’t speak to his wife at home; the high-school girl in “Waiting for Someone” who runs a website for finding people to commit mass suicide with; the homeless protagonist from Fukushima in Tokyo Ueno Station – just before the Yamanote Line train pulls into the station, the announcement warning people to stay behind the yellow line reverberates in his ears. Whether he takes the step forward to his death or returns to life, I leave to the reader’s imagination.
Translated by Morgan Giles
I have a feeling that the novel I’m planning to write this year will be the last in the Yamanote Line series. This one will be The Outer Loop of the Yamanote Line. I’m thinking about making the main
And some characters who would later go on to appear in the next four works in the series make an appearance in “The Inner Loop of the Yamanote Line”. I depicted the vast array of lives that radiate outward from the ticket gates of stations on the Yamanote
My Yamanote Line series started in 2003 with “The Inner Loop of the Yamanote Line”, a short story about a woman who is considering jumping in front of the Yamanote Line. She goes into the bathroom at a station, masturbates, gets back on the train, gets off at the next station, masturbates, and so on. When I summarise it like that, it seems like a ridiculous story, but it’s my portrayal of Eros and Thanatos through a character who has been shut off from life.
The theme at the core of the Yamanote Line series is suicide, which takes the lives of nearly 20,000 Japanese people every year. The Imperial system, symbol of the Japanese people, and the 2011 nuclear accident have also had deep effects on the stories. These two things create a multilayered sphere in Japanese society, and the power that lures in the central part of that sphere comes from the defeat of World War II.
O-sen, a seventeen year old girl, somehow survives, but as the fire draws near she hears an infant crying and selfishly decides to
ESSAY | 43
On weekday mornings at around 8am, peak commuting time, trains come roughly every two minutes, yet every train is packed as full of people as sardines in a can.
The two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are widely known as the decisive factors in Japan’s defeat, but the reality of the Great Tokyo Air Raid, which took place on the night of March 10th, 1945, killing more than 100,000 people and injuring more than a million, comparable to the atomic bombs, is not well-known.
Yanagibashi Story, Yamamoto depicts the great fire that occurred in Edo in 1703, but the areas affected by that fire and the Tokyo Air Raids overlap. The way that Yamamoto, who personally experienced the Tokyo Air Raids, depicts the flames has a power that is true to life.
ESSAY
My connections to the air raids are deep: on the night of the Shitamachi air raid in March, I was by chance in Asakusa; when it happened in Yokohama, I was there; I have witnessed mountains of corpses. When corpses are so numerous, they become physical, no longer terrible or strange.
character a woman who has killed her ex-husband’s new wife. Written intermittently over sixteen years, the Yamanote Line series began with “The Inner Loop of the Yamanote Line” and will end with The Outer Loop of the Yamanote Line.
The novelist Takehiro Irokawa, born in Tokyo in 1929, wrote this in the story “After the Air Raid”, part of his debut The Suspicious Visitors’ Book:
Characters that appear in The Suspicious Visitors’ Book include an old woman who has been burned out of her home who boasts, carrying a bundle on her back, that no matter where she is burned she will most certainly crawl out and continue on; the ghost of a woman who looks down on the stopped train tracks from the burnt fields at the furthest reaches of vision; and a woman picking flowers in a vacant lot who then plucks away all the petals and leaves, holding just the stems. Takehiro Irokawa does not necessarily affirm only those who exist, nor does he deny those who do not exist. This short story collection stands on the borders of life and death, good and evil, conveying not a sense of tension but of liberation.
Frightening moments came, entirely like the onslaught of an avalanche. Many went in desperation to the river, but most unfortunately it was high tide, and many drowned as soon as they entered, one after another; a man who clung desperately to a stone wall was bathed in sparks, and in his attempt to brush them off was carried down to the depths. Some, perhaps confused, leapt straight into the flames, crying something as they went. Every piece of baggage left nearby gave off great gusts of smoke, burning the people cowering near it. Piles of stones and the ground were so hot that they could not be touched, and when water was poured upon them, all things gave off steam.
Shūgorō Yamamoto (born 1903 in Yamanashi Prefecture) wrote Yanagibashi Story in the year after the defeat. The setting is the area around Ueno and Asakusa, but this story takes place when Tokyo was still called Edo. (Edo was renamed Tokyo in 1868, the first year of the Meiji era. That same year, the Meiji Emperor, who had lived in the Kyoto Imperial Palace, moved into the Edo Castle, formerly the Tokugawa Shogunate’s castle and the governmental headquarters of the Edo Shogunate. It was then renamed “Tokyo Castle” and “The Imperial Castle”; after Japan’s defeat, it was titled the Imperial Palace.)In
Everywhere there are roads which one cannot walk without crossing corpses. Charred corpses, corpses split open like pomegranates, corpses enveloped in smoke turned into wax dolls. Family members pass by crying, the noises they make seeming to come from the pits of their stomachs. But at the time, I had simply become used to the corpses themselves.
Because the Yamanote Line is a double circle. The loop that runs clockwise is the outer loop, while the loop that runs counterclockwise is known as the inner loop. Located at the centre of this double circle, in the hole of the donut, is the Imperial Palace where the Emperor lives, covering an area of about 115 hectares, surrounded by a fence, making it a structure that cannot be approached or seen. A dense forest thrives around the palace. As per the wishes of the Showa Emperor, who was a biology researcher, the forest area has been left almost to nature since 1937. The Imperial Palace is a space apart: located within the centre of Tokyo, yet preserving the original flora and fauna of the Kanto Plain.
after Osamu Dazai’s death. The Second World War forms the border between modern and contemporary Japanese literature. Osamu Dazai is recognized as a modern writer, and Murakami as a contemporary writer, yet Dazai was active as a novelist after Japan’s defeat, until his life was brought to a close by his death at his own hands.
The tomb of the Tokugawa family, located at Zojo-ji Temple, which Osamu Dazai selected as one of Tokyo’s eight scenic sites was also destroyed in the Tokyo Air Raid. Its grandeur seems to have been comparable to Nikko Toshogu (a world heritage site in Tochigi Prefecture).Threeyears after the end of the war, Osamu Dazai jumped into the Tamagawa Canal (a waterway that used to supply water to Edo) in Mitaka, Tokyo, and killed himself.
The main character of “A Shinagawa Monkey” is Mizuki Ando, a twenty-six-year-old who works at a Honda dealership. She and her husband live in an apartment complex in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, and sometimes she forgets her own name. She goes to a counseling center established by the local council and goes for a session with a counselor. She’s asked if she remembers any incident in relation to names, and she reveals that a fellow student who killed herself in high school had given Mizuki her name tag.
44 | LITRO
Was it not an affirmative self-realization that in the ultimate stand of human pride, something within me had suffered almost unto death? […] “Now you’ve got nothing to worry about!” I cried. From now on if any difficulty arose in their marriage, I was an outlaw who didn’t care about his standing; I would be their last source of resolve.
“I can feel someone there, someone who is with me but whose face I can’t ever see, who is supposed to have moved on to another world, but still I feel their breath, so near.”
Takehiro Irokawa passed away in 1989, but I wonder if he and Haruki Murakami had a close relationship while he was alive. After all, both of them famously love jazz and wrote books about the genre.
“Eightin. Views of Tokyo” ends with a scene where he goes to Zojoji Temple in Shiba Park, Minato Ward, to see off his sister’s fiancé as he departs for the front.
Every time I get off at Shinagawa station, this always comes
In Tokyo, everyone is trying to beat the clock. It makes me feel like I’m going on a one-way road in the same direction as everyone else heading straight to the future, or that I’m nothing more than the hand of a clock going around and around in a circle, symbolized by the circle of the Yamanote Line. In these stories, Murakami depicts a world rowed across by the past and the present like a lake, with light like the moon, reflected and quivering on the surface, filled with the water of the
“Hanaleipast.Bay”, about a mother who travels from Tokyo to Kauai, Hawaii to bring home the body of her nineteen-year-old son whose right leg was eaten by a shark while he was surfing, is a story with a mysterious feeling to it, a loss, a hole that is not shrunk by time; seeming instead, ever so slightly, to swell.
Osamu Dazai (born 1909 in Aomori Prefecture), in “Eight Views of Tokyo”, looks back at ten years of living in Tokyo, moving from rented house to rented house, along with the names of the areas he lived
The Yanagibashi (“willow bridge”) of the title appears only in the last scene. The confluence of the Kanda and Sumida Rivers in Tokyo’s Taito Ward is the area with the largest number of deaths due to the fire. The residents of the area pleaded to the local government that if there were a bridge, they could escape to the other side of the river in case of fire, and the result was Yanagibashi. The story ends on the day of the celebration commemorating the completion of the bridge, but the bridge itself is never described.
The counselor investigates, and the culprit turns out to be a monkey – but reading the rest of the story, I remembered the story “My Monkey, My Cat” by Takehiro Irokawa, depicting a world of hallucinations brought about by chronic narcolepsy.
ESSAY
pick up the baby. By taking care of children whose parents or their whereabouts are unknown after the fire, O-sen loses her fiancé and receives the cold treatment from the people around her.
“The people will gather to celebrate Yanagibashi, crowding together, lively and buzzing, outwardly.”
She returns home and opens a cardboard box at the back of her closet, looking for the envelope containing both of their name tags, but she can’t find it.
I read the works of Osamu Dazai, Shugoro Yamamoto, and Takehiro Arikawa repeatedly as a teenager, before I became a novelist. I learned about the landscapes of the Tokyo Air Raid and the burn marks left in the post-war era through their novels. Sometimes, they are more vivid in my mind than the Tokyo that I’ve seen in my real life.
The advertisement that appeared in newspapers at the time of its publication said:
It is this last line that brings out O-sen’s sadness.
Haruki Murakami’s Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, like Takehiro Irokawa’s The Suspicious Visitors’ Book, is a collection of stories where the living and the dead appear and disappear, like hide-and-seek.
Following on from the births and deaths of those three authors, it is remarkable that Haruki Murakami was born in 1949, the year
You board the train as rain falls on Shinagawastation
ESSAY ESSAY | 45
Your dark shadows cross the ticket gates Your white hems flutter in the darkness of thehallway
to my lips: a poem called “Rain Falling on Shinagawa Station”, by Shigeharu Nakano.
The signal changes colour You board You depart You Sayonara,leave Shin Sayonara, Kim Sayonara, Lee Sayonara, Miss Lee
Go, hit that hard thick smooth ice Let flow the water long dammed up The shield behind the proletariat of Japan
The sound of the sea louder now in the setting sun The pigeons, wet from the rain, come down from the roof of the depot
The rain pours over the paving stones and falls on the dark surface of the sea The rain disappears on your hot cheeks
Sayonara, Shin Sayonara, Kim
UntilSayonarathe day we cry and laugh with theofdelightretribution
Sayonara, Lee Sayonara to the other Lee You’re returning to the land of your parents Your country’s rivers freeze in the cold winter Your rebellious hearts freeze in this moment of parting
You, wet from the rain, remember the Emperor,chasing you
The green signal goes up in the blustering rain Your eyes sharpen in the blustering rain
You, wet from the rain hair glasses remember his hunched back
On August 29th, 1910, Japan annexed the entire Korean peninsula taking it under colonial rule for roughly thirty-five years. For those thirty-five years, all Koreans, including my grandparents, were barred from using Korean names or speaking Korean. Countless Koreans were required to do harsh forced labour or were killed because of their resistance or attempt to escape from it.
46 | LITRO
The Earth Diver, the religious historian Shin’ichi Nakazawa (born 1950 in Yamanashi Prefecture) traces prehistorical topological maps on top of present maps and uses this to produce a deep analysis of the city of Tokyo. The title is based on a myth involving a grebe diving into the water and taking mud from the bottom to create land after a flood occurs and engulfs the world. Nakazawa writes in the prologue:
In “Waiting for Someone”, the fifteen-year-old protagonist goes to the smoking area at the bottom of the stairs to the temporary platform and has a cigarette.
And then, from the next platform, “Railway Song”, the melody to signal that the train is about to depart begins to play.
ESSAY
In his poem, Nakano depicts Shinagawa Station, the starting point for those returning to Korea, newly liberated from colonial rule by the defeat of Japan. It’s not clear what port the trains headed for when they left Shinagawa Station, but every port was full of Koreans waiting for ships to take them home. Warehouses, temporarily turned into reception centers, were full of people, and many Koreans had no choice but to sleep outside. Conscripted soldiers and workers were given priority to board return ships, but for the many people who waited weeks and months without their turn coming up, the only option to set foot back in their own country quickly was by entrusting themselves to “black boats”, often fishing boats. In October 1945, a boat carrying Koreans was hit by a typhoon and overturned, causing a sad incident in which 168 people died. Thousands of Koreans died in accidents at sea without ever making it home.
Yamanote Line” and “Waiting for Someone”, I made the main character stand on this temporary platform.
In “The Inner Loop of the Yamanote Line”, the woman goes into the bathroom at the end of this temporary platform, takes a knife wrapped in a towel out of her bag and, after a deep breath, presses the knife’s edge to her throat.
In two of my Yamanote Line stories, “The Inner Loop of the
When the war ended, nearly two million Koreans were in Japan. By March 1946, almost 1,400,000 of them had returned to the Korean Peninsula.
Around Shinagawa station, there was only sea. An embankment was built in the sea, rails were built on the embankment, then the station; gradually more and more land was reclaimed from the sea, and now it is very much a business area, thick with high-rise buildings. But when I stand on the platform at Shinagawa, I feel like I’m standing on a pier looking out at the sea. I feel like I can hear the sound of the waves.In
I thought that I myself must become a grebe. The land known as the human mind, made using mud, is again sinking into the water. So I must dive into the water again and take a fistful of mud from the bottom. […] The city known as Tokyo is well suited to a society born from unconsciousness. When unconsciousness intrudes into waking consciousness, people see dreams. In an earth diver society, circuits have been created everywhere allowing dreams and realities to come and go freely. The distant past and the present are together in the same space, ignoring the sequence of time.
The girl and the woman both pass by this temporary platform.
Shigeharu Nakano (born 1902 in Fukui Prefecture) was a poet who was part of the pre-war Proletarian literary movement. After the war, he said this in an interview:
I had no knowledge of Korean, yet I could speak to Koreans without any particular inconvenience. The Koreans who listened to me speak understood Japanese better than some Japanese people do, and I became used to the idea that I could get by speaking only Japanese. I had wondered where this had come from, but when it was happening I would completely forget that I had ever wondered. In short, I had the entitlement of a Japanese person who was part of the people who had stolen their country. It is certainly true that they would’ve been able to understand my complaints, as is the fact that I could not say then that I could understand to the same level their complaints.
In Japan, each station has a different melody signifying that a train is departing. Some stations have chosen to use a simple bell or electronic sound, but many have chosen instead to use famous songs that have some connection with either the station or the history of the surrounding area. Shinagawa station’s melody is “Railway Song (Tetsudo shoka)” because in 1872, the station that the first steam train in Japan departed from was Shinagawa. “Railway Song” was written in the Meiji period, going through each of the stations one by one, all 399 of them. The lyrics mention the historic sites, folklore and specialty products around each station.
Shinagawa station at present has ten platforms, including those for bullet trains, but until 2015, platform 9 served as a temporary platform for trains like special ones for school groups, and usually it was deserted. I feel perhaps it is this temporary platform where the Koreans in “Rain Falling on Shinagawa Station” waited for their train.
TOKYO NOBODY, then, may be a near-futuristic, apocalyptic photo book.
ESSAY ESSAY | 47
But the Nankai Trough, which causes large earthquakes and tsunamis on a roughly eighty-eight-year cycle throughout history,
In the last chapter, “The Emperor/Imperial Palace in the Forest”, Nakazawa shares a beautiful vision.
Although in the urban area the emperor, living like a gentle keeper of the woods in the depths of the forest untainted by the noise of the world surrounding him, sends transmissions out to the world one day after another. “Our Japanese civilization, like mushrooms, like slime mould, aims to take what has been created by the global civilization, break it down, and bring it back to nature. It is a somewhat quirky civilization, and I am the symbol of such a people’s will.”
What will become of the nuclear reactors on the Pacific coast?
In Tokyo Ballad, And Then by Shuntarō Tanikawa (born 1931 in Tokyo), monochrome photos taken by the poet of street corners in Tokyo during his twenties and thirties are showcased alongside poems he has written since his seventies.
The photography collection TOKYO NOBODY by Masataka Nakano (born 1955 in Fukuoka Prefecture) is simply images of Tokyo without any people. And the places he chose are not on the outskirts, they are bang in the middle of Tokyo, the most populous city in Japan. These photos were taken over an eleven-year period, at times like the end of the year or during the long string of public holidays known as Golden Week when people living in Tokyo return to the countryside or go away for a vacation. The cityscapes and main streets of Shibuya, Aoyama, Shinjuku, and Ginza, places I’m quite used to seeing, appear instead like ruins where time has stopped.
Tokyo was a fjord-like coastal area. Even as landfill allows urban development to progress, shrines and temples remain in their original places, unable to be demolished. Nakazawa calls these places which are not easily affected by the corrosion of time and progress “places of nothingness”. By overlaying a Jomon period map, we can see that this “place of nothingness” was once the tip of a cape or peninsula protruding into the sea. In the Jomon period, people felt spirituality in these little capes sticking out into the sea, located their cemeteries and sanctuaries to worship the gods there, and it was these places that later transformed into shrines and temples.
When I look back over these old photographs, I sometimes encounter the image of someone close to me who is now gone. At those times, what I feel is a poetic emotion, mixed with sadness and loss. Poems and photographs, unlike novels, do not move along with time, but instead try to conquer time by stopping it for one second.
I sat in plastic chairs on café terraces Pregnant with limitless episodes History repeats, the happy ending is miscarried Below the consciousness of people living in the city The sea and the desert always lurks
The books about Tokyo I’ve written about here (including my own) are all ones that deal with death, the dead, negative memories, andNow,time.
Living in a city that was not Tokyo There wasn’t a day I didn’t think of Tokyo Stories of cities that are not Tokyo Were just distant cousins of Tokyo stories In the streets of metal and stone I never forgot the city of wood and paper As my heart grew fonder of grass mats and floorcushions
The official name of the nuclear power plant that caused the accident is Tokyo Electric Power Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. As the name suggests, all the electricity generated at the nuclear power plant was supplied to the metropolitan area; not one kilowatt was not used in Fukushima. It is obvious that the cause of the accident lies in how the city of Tokyo operates and the lifestyle of its residents, but not only was there no momentum for rethinking either, Tokyo sees the reality of Fukushima as none of its business.
In 2000, when this photo book was published, it was often described as showing “a near-futuristic landscape of Tokyo”, but after March 11th, 2011, I imagine many will see also the “restricted areas” in Fukushima, uninhabited towns designated as such due to radioactive contamination from the nuclear plant explosion.
I’ll leave you with a poem from Tokyo Ballad, And Then.
has not caused a large earthquake in the last seventy-three years, so there is a 70-80% chance of a magnitude 8–9 earthquake occurring within the next thirty years.
When that time comes, what will become of Tokyo?
In the afterword to this book, Tanikawa writes:
the city known as Tokyo is progressing toward the glorious future that is the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but Tokyo also has a dark past. In order to take back time from the force that is politics, we have to shake up the past and reawaken it.
Translated by Jeffrey Angles
SOUNDPOEMSINTHE WIND
One day it happened A certain word disappeared Even now, soil is still buried In the soil of my garden Words are buried within words What must we do to dig Soil from soil and words from words? I whispered this question to the telephone poles The wind strummed the telephone wires And the wires rang in the wind
RYOICHI WAGO
48 | LITRO
POETRY
as I take a clock apart a distant army forms a line & starts to march open a aascapsizesameanwhile&hurtadolescentburnsisasstarts&hardbackscarredbookmyunbornuncletodevelopcyanotypesthetriangleIusetomeasurewounded,adistantriverboys&sacredgirlsoneanotherinconcretewaysacourtyardpuddlestirsinthebreezeshipinadistantbottleIsuckonapieceofcandymothvanishesinthewindowsofafar-off
POETRY | 49
PERSPECTIVE THAT WILL NOT END
still not speaking my childhood sobs hysterically & lies prostrate on a table
it simply disappears
as I make a line of new erasers the world grows heavy
if I try to crack an egg the drying rack on the roof of a far-off hospital lies where it has fallen
as I collect only pencils far off in the distance a small government collapses
school
something that will not end
as I begin to boil milk a new species of crab walks straight across a far-off sandy beach
POETRY
still furious a bank teller smashes his calculator & tears up a map of the Silk Road
prisoners wordlessly form a line & set off for their workplace while the guards’ legs cramp
I only understand the sorrow of bare feet the profiles of the dead are next to me, close by
a minke whale’s bowels grow empty on a clear day among the ghosts of the corn fields, the silence of the season bares its teeth & roars in anger
as I go to comb my hair a beetle starts to spread its wings on the landing of a distant staircase
the lighthouse on the cape casts its light in this direction while beyond it stretches an uninhabited land everything, broken, writhes below a chicken’s belly
50 | LITRO
something that will not end
one vending machine standing next to another has run out of change
try to put on a damp cloth & the names of distant seas have changed
a freshly painted fishing boat waits for the waves’ irony while floating on water
(there is something that will not end there is something that will not start neither nearby nor far away)
POETRY
a single beach sandal lies in the road before my house it has taken a tumble & Dadaism burns
love kills the universe & vomits & in the distant shallows of a black sea a great white shark loses its memory
vast dreams quietly hold their silence something that will not end will not start an incomparable atrocity quietly sneers
something that will not end something that will not start neither near nor far away
in an unclouded mirror the pretext of the friction of the expanding universe grows wet & falls, so far away
I chew a new stick of gum with the glittering light of dawn wanting to destroy it
POETRY | 51
try squinting & peering into the distance you’ll break the back of your mind with a hammer like you’re breaking it with a hammer from the back
in the present eyes, ears, noses & mouths of roses
a waterfall of abstract flower garlands is near forgetfulness, cached away inside, bares its fangs & rages dim in madness along a distant harbor road
even farther from here, not knowing else what to do a wolf with frozen front paws lets his anger run
things will smash to smithereens your eagerness to hold a grudge will rule over you
forms become invisible the shadows of men raised by wolves are far away
something that will not end will not start the blowing breeze quietly betrays us something that will not end will not start the flowers of a dogwood quietly scatter something that will not end will not start clouds that boil up and disappear quietly break apart something that will not end will not start a sparrow that sings incessantly quietly has large wings something that will not end will not start the open ocean reduplicates waves that quietly vanish something that will not end will not start a drop of whiskey has quietly fermented barley’s regret something that will not end will not start a single cedar tree, unloved, stands quietly on a hill
something that will not end something that will not start neither near nor far away perspective is still skewed something that will not end something that will not start
POETRY
52 | LITRO
year, another birthday. Another year since my great uncle passed away. For nineteen years now, and forever more, we share this anniversary.Theday
Mr Shiraishi called me by my name in Chinese, I felt like I’d been put under a spell, as if I was somehow special. Ever since I started school, I’d always introduced myself
− You know, Zhōu Xīn yí, you’re an extraordinary girl.
− Granddad’s Japanese was so fluent, I said, not pausing for a moment to think of my great uncle. − He spoke it so much better than my mum and dad, who both still speak like foreigners even though they’ve lived here so long already.
Mr Shiraishi’s compliments never failed to give me the flutters. From around that time, my friends, few to begin with, became fewer still, but I didn’t particularly care. So long as Mr Shiraishi was beside me, people could say whatever they liked. Mr Shiraishi himself seemed aware of the influence he had on me, and I don’t doubt for a moment that it gave him pleasure too.
Almost, that is.
*
Dusk is the love child of day and night, Mr Shiraishi whispered in my ear, and I purred back in his: When the wild things come out. It was the perfect time of day for us to be walking together outside, side-by-side with our fingers entwined. Our destination was a place down an alleyway at the end of a long sloping road that ran alongside a Shinto shrine. Had it been an auspicious day, there would have been far more passersby, but on that day we had the entire street to ourselves.
It was Mr Shiraishi who broke the uncomfortable silence. He was just fulfilling his duty as the teacher in the room, doing his best to save one of his students’ misjudged words from giving rise to unneeded animosity. But from the very start I could already feel him undressing me with his eyes.
“Shin-ee.” That’s how Mr Shiraishi called me. The Chinese pronunciation, with the “ee” at the end reaching upwards.
TranslatedPROUDWENYUJUbyThomas Brook
Another
It was about half a year before my great uncle passed away that Mr Shiraishi and I grew close.
with the Japanese reading: “Shū Kin’i” for 周欣怡. Mr Shiraishi was the first Japanese person to say my name the Chinese way.
There was a single man on the road,
FICTION | 53
I kept chattering on about my grandfather, almost giddily, buoyed by the idea that I alone possessed a rare insight into the world.−Granddad learnt Japanese long before I was even born. That’s right, in Taiwan, back when it was a Japanese colony.
Xīn Wheneveryí.
Within weeks of our first intimate contact, I was well versed in the workings of the love hotel. I lived with my parents, and Mr Shiraishi with his wife and children, so it was only in those compact rooms, shut off from the outside world, where the two of us could get the privacy we needed.
My grandfather was my mother’s father; my great uncle my father’s uncle.
Once again on that very afternoon – on the day my great uncle was to pass away – I set off with Mr Shiraishi towards one of our rendezvous spots.
Mr Shiraishi enjoyed encouraging me to do this talk. I, for my part, was quite aware of my ability to choose a topic he liked and speak about it in a way that would please him. I enjoyed it too, back then. Mr Shiraishi made me feel like I was the most sensitive and intelligent girl in the world.
my great uncle took his last breath, I, having just turned twenty, was absorbed in a monologue about my grandfather. My grandfather used to boast to me about how he had once been Japanese. My great uncle, on the other hand, lectured me about how he’d been turned Japanese. The two were not brothers.
− You should all listen carefully to what Shū san has to say. She knows what she’s talking about, and she talks about it well.
− My mother’s cousin used to call the neighbourhood stray dog “Tanaka”, and would beat it with a stick. She couldn’t forgive the Tanaka Kakuei government for betraying Taiwan and getting cosy with China, so she gave the poor dog hell. And so my mother, after coming to Japan, would think of that cousin whenever she met a person called Tanaka.The classroom sank into silence. I looked across to the students opposite me, and a few of them looked down at their desks. The entire room went chilly. I’d said the wrong thing. Ever since I was a child I had the habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, no matter how hard I tried to fit in and avoid making a scene. I’m just glad – to this day in fact – that none of the ten or so other students in the room had the name Tanaka.
dressed in dirty rags, with his head hung low; by his side was an old bowl into which a few coins had been thrown. He was sat, it appeared, with his legs crossed, but as Mr Shiraishi and I noticed more or less at the same time, one of them was missing. He took a glance at us, but then quickly averted his gaze, and mumbled something incoherently. Mr Shiraishi was ready to keep on walking, but I stopped him and motioned with my eyes towards the sign propped up next to the man.IFOUGHT
Mr Shiraishi was always revealing to me a me I never knew existed. Telling me how kind and sentimental I was. As if he’d forgotten that he’d just compared her to me, he continued to badmouth his mother.
− She’s a country bumpkin, so whenever it’s a national holiday she hoists up the Japanese flag. Just because that’s what everybody’s done since as far back as she can remember. That’s the kind of person my mother is. No ideas or beliefs of her own. That’s the problem. It’s always people like that you’ve got to watch out for, those are the real dangerous ones. And the easiest for the state to control...
− What if he’d been Taiwanese...
It was my first encounter, I think, with a so-called “wounded returnee”. Actually, I can’t be sure. As I stood there vacantly Mr Shiraishi drew close to me and said in a hushed voice: If he was for real he’d be a lot older; he’s way too young – but he didn’t go so far as to stop me from giving the man some of my “charity”. I dropped a one-hundredyen coin into the old, cracked bowl on the ground by his side. He murmured something but didn’t look up. I saw the underside of his only foot glinting a dull gold colour in the remaining light.
DEAR GOVERNMENT OF JAPAN. PLEASE PROVIDE FAIR COMPENSATION TO TAIWANESE VETERANS OF THE IMPERIAL JAPANESE ARMY WHO DO NOT POSSESS JAPANESE
He“ore”,thedimhowborn,timethoughtmuchaskedfortalkingwhoborn,paternalhimdaygranddaughterdeepthewithold,lives“Japanesetherebirthday,UntilveteransmartyredofotherandVETERANSCOMPENSATION—ASSOCIATIONNATIONALITY!FORFORTAIWANESEOFTHEIMPERIALARMYIstoppedinmytracksasIglancedupsawthebold,handwrittenletters.OnthesideofthewallweretheinnergroundstheshrinededicatedtothosewhohadthemselvesforJapan.TaiwaneseoftheImperialJapaneseArmy.thatday,onlydaysbeforemytwentiethithadneveroccurredtomethathadbeenTaiwanesewhofoughtfortheEmpire”;whohadgiventheirowntoprotecttheEmperorofJapan.Anotherechoofmyownvoice.−Yougetit?UpuntilhewastwentyyearsmygranddadwasJapanese.MygrandfatherwasalwayseagertotalkmeinJapanese.HelikedtoshowofftorestofhisfamilythattheJapaneseburiedwithinhismemorystillmadesensetohisnowbeingraisedinmodern-Japan.HeespeciallylikeditwhenIcalled“Ojī-chan”:“Granddad”inJapanese.MygrandfatherpassedawaybeforeIwassoitwasonlymymaternalgrandfatherIcoulddirectlycall“Ojī-chan”.IwasintoMrShiraishi’schest.Iwaitedhimtonodbeforecontinuing.Once,Ihim:HowcomeyourJapaneseissobetterthanMummyandDaddy’s?Heforawhileandthenreplied:Alongago,beforeyourmotherhadevenbeenOjī-chanwasJapanese.“Ojī-chan”ishereferredtohimselftoo.IcouldseeMrShiraishismirkinginthelight.−Well,ifyouaskme…He,onotherhand,alwaysreferredtohimselfasthemostmasculineJapanesepronoun.clearedhisthroatandthensneered.−
54 | LITRO
As I lay upon the bed, staring at the ceiling – some of what was left of the daylight filtering through the single, sealed-shut window – my thoughts drifted back towards the one-legged man.
− I’ll put it plain, she’s a dumbnut, he said, his tone growing ever less sympathetic. − If the Japanese government ever said to me,
FICTION
Only a few days prior, I had been walking alongside an imposing wall, which was taller than me and seemed to go on forever. Here and there, posters had been plastered onto its grey surface. Probably due to long exposure to the elements, the writing on them had begun to expand, and it looked as if they might fall down at any moment.
Anything’s better than a Japanese. That was one of his sayings. Mr Shiraishi was always mocking Japan and Japanese people.−Even though you’re Japanese?
I didn’t say anything in return. I’d learnt from our half a year of liaisons that that was the best way to make Mr Shiraishi feel like I was giving him my undivided attention.
FOR THE JAPANESE EMPIRE, BUT THE GOVERNMENT WON’T HELP ME NOW. SPARE SOME CHANGE FOR THIS POOR OLD SOLDIER.
− It’s because I’m Japanese! He laughed, his mouth opening at one side. − Back when I was a boy... he continued, while stroking the inside of my thigh. Mr Shiraishi was eighteen years my senior; a massive gap for me at the time. − ...I often saw veterans playing harmonicas and accordions outside on the street, whenever there was a festival at the local Shinto shrine, among the stalls selling toys and junk food. All of them wearing white robes, every time. There was always at least one who was missing an arm or a leg. If they were real veterans, my father would say, they’d be receiving proper compensation, they’re all just fraudsters; but my mother still gave them her change. Even if they’re not telling the truth, they’re still amputees, she’d say. My mother was just like you, Xīn yí –way too sentimental.
Too sentimental?
in which the emperor’s voice was broadcast on radio for the very first time, not only in Japan but in Taiwan too, my grandfather had been just twenty years old.
My grandfather’s Japanese, as he reminisced to me about his youth, was far more fluent than that which my mother and father spoke, and it sounded far more refined. I remember thinking, in a mixture of adoration and pride: Granddad is just like a Japanese person.
− Taiwan was Japan’s first colony. Your granddad, Xīn yí, he was a victim of Japanese imperialism.
Every year in the summer my parents took me on a trip to Taiwan. My grandfather would look over my shoulder as I worked on the homework assignment for my Japanese class. He followed the hiragana characters I had written on the page, reading out the sounds one by one – he-i-se-i, ga-n-ne-n –and then he must have remembered the year of his own birth – sho-u-wa, ga-n-ne-n. He said to me:
Mr Shiraishi stroked my face by the corner of my eye. − What are you thinking about?−Why do you ask? I reply, and he touches my −lips.Another man?
− Granddad was the same age as you are now. When I went to school that day, my teachers all said that today is a truly magnificent day...
I felt my voice catching in my throat.
you’ve got to do service in the armed forces, I’d get out of this hole without a moment’s notice. Whose life is worth giving up for a country like this?
The more I worked myself up, the more infantile my voice and body language
− So Granddad, until he was twenty, had really been Japanese.
− Now it’s “Heisei gan’nen”, Granddad was a “Showa gan’nen” baby. Granddad was a “Showa gan’nen” baby, now it’s “Heisei gan’nen”.Toput it another way, during the summer
became.−So what about me? Am I a real Japanese? Or am I just a fake? Come on, tell me! Which am I?It wasn’t enough for me to just plead with Mr Shiraishi; I started to flap my legs up and down as though I was having a tantrum, until he extended his arms and stroked my tummy, the way someone might try to settle a small child. I took a few deep breaths, as if to show him he had succeeded in calming me down. It wasn’t that I was faking my emotions. But if I had really tried to, I could have managed to keep them in check. However, I knew that Mr Shiraishi liked it when I lost control. As if that was irrefutable evidence that there were things I could only ever confide in him; that there was nobody except he himself who had the capacity to accept me fully for who I was – to feel like that gave Mr Shiraishi an elusive high. And that’s why, at the time, I also needed him. I needed a place where I could expose myself completely without reservation. − Granddad... I started to say again, but was cut short by Mr Shiraishi’s unaffected tutting. − Just another dumbnut.
− Now it’s “Heisei gan’nen”, the first year of Heisei. Granddad was a “Showa gan’nen” baby.At the age of nine, my grandfather’s expression delighted me no end and I repeated it again and again.
Which means that this would be the seventy-fifth year of the Showa era.
− But now I realise of course it was only because I never really thought of my granddad the same way I thought of Japanese people that I could think something like that in the first place. Just like the way I thought of my parents, I only ever saw my granddad as Taiwanese, never really truly Japanese. But for Granddad it was different. As he saw things, he really had been Japanese. He told me so that day, several times. Before I turned twenty, I had really been Japanese, he said. So when I said to him, you’re just like a Japanese person, how must he have felt?
A country like this, I say to myself, the words not reaching my mouth. I feel Mr Shiraishi’s gaze, and say the words again silently. A country like this. I FOUGHT FOR THE JAPANESE EMPIRE. The words from the man on the street’s placard spring back up in my mind. So what did he give up his leg for? What if in fact he was “for real”? But I couldn’t bring myself to start this conversation with Mr Shiraishi, and I remained silent. Mr Shiraishi lifted up my legs, and I felt all of my strength slipping away. As I felt my breath seeping out, I closed my eyes shut, and suddenly noticed the backs of my eyelids were brighter than usual. That’s when it hit me. I’m twenty years old. If the Showa era hadn’t ended, what year would it be now?−Your granddad was born in the first year of Showa.Asalways, my grandfather was referring to himself as “Ojī-chan”.
− Don’t be stupid – well... actually yes. Maybe I was. I was thinking about my grandfather. And the Japanese Emperor. When my grandfather said to me: Your granddad remembers the day when His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Japan was born, I was just nine years old.
A victim?
FICTION
“...HE LIKED TO SHOW OFF TO THE REST OF HIS FAMILY THAT THE JAPANESE BURIED DEEP WITHIN HIS MEMORY STILL MADE SENSE TO NOWGRANDDAUGHTERHISBEINGRAISED IN MODERN-DAY JAPAN...”
FICTION | 55
− He’s the same age as the Republic of China!My great uncle was born the year after the Xinhai Revolution, in other words the same year in which the Republic of China’s calendar begins. The year I turned twenty was the eighty-ninth year of the Republic of China.Eighty-nine years old.
My mother’s voice was almost placid; it took me a while to register what she had said.
− What happened to Goh-dyuu-gon?
I arrived home just before it struck midnight. Somewhat deterred by the fact the lights were still on – it was unusual for my parents to be up so late – I peered into the living room and saw my mother and father both sat up wide awake. As I braced for a scolding, I heard my mother say to me:
− He finally passed away, my father replied, his voice just as flat.
As I remained silent and still, my father smiled at me. − There’s no need to be so tense. He’s gone to the Pure Land, he added, his voice a bit brighter.
Outside, the sun must have set completely; the window was pitch black. I quietly patted my thighs, now damp with sweat, to which Mr Shiraishi, who kept talking, seemed oblivious. For a while, I continued to lie there saying nothing.
− Wa tia oo. (I understand.)
− Your granddad was born in the first year of Showa.Which means, it must have been the last summer I spent with my grandfather. I remember him coughing heavily. Don’t get your granddad so excited, my mother chided me. Despite having been told by his doctor in no uncertain terms that he was to ease off his smoking, my grandfather, much to the consternation of my onlooking relatives, would reach for another cigarette, while saying in Japanese, “Mō ippon dake” (Just one more). And as he puffed away, the very picture of contentment, he would always announce:−Waga ringon, tabako shi, rippun ei meekyah za hoh! (You can’t beat a Japanese cigarette!)Every time my mother travelled back to Taiwan, she would take a carton of Mild Seven with her for my grandfather. Later she admonished herself, saying if only she’d known how bad her father’s lungs were she would’ve never encouraged him to smoke. And then she’d remark, sadly shaking her head: Why did your grandfather have to pass away so soon, when your great uncle keeps on going...Mygreat uncle was born fourteen years before my grandfather and managed to outlive him by a whole ten years.
− Goh-dyuu-gon died.
− Just like always, he smoked a cigarette before taking his nap. Even now, the stub of Goh-dyuu’s final cigarette is lying in his ashtray.That’s how my aunt announced my great uncle’s death to my father.
I can picture the yellow box of cigarettes that my great uncle always had by his side. My great uncle was even more of a heavy smoker than my grandfather. And a lot more talkative.−Come along, young lady.
− Kin’i. You hear? Japan turned its back on Taiwan twice. Twice! First it was the Emperor. Then Tanaka Kakuei. You understand? We were abandoned.
− Hao guai. (Good girl.) Kin’i, you’re
*
56 | LITRO
his funeral and all of the associated travel arrangements. As far as I could tell, neither of them was particularly fazed by my great uncle’s passing away. To think of the state my mother had been in back when my grandfather died of lung cancer, the difference was palpable. My grandfather, who was my mother’s father, passed away when I was ten years old.
FICTION
My great uncle also referred to himself as “ore”. Though I didn’t really understand even half of what he was saying to me at the time, I can still hear his voice now – ten’nō heika, tanaka kakuei. I also remember thinking at the time that it sounded just right when he said “ore”. Although my grandfather could speak Japanese just as well, he would never call himself “ore”. It wouldn’t have fit his character. The more formal “boku” would have suited him far better, but he didn’t call himself “boku” either. At least when he was talking to me, he always, without exception, referred to himself as “Ojī-chan”. My grandfather liked it when I called him “Ojīchan” too, but my great uncle was different. Although his Japanese was completely fluent, he much preferred it when I replied to him in Taiwanese.−Kin’i.You’re a smart girl. You live in Japan. But you’re also Taiwanese. Even if people say to you that you’re like a Japanese person, don’t you forget that you’re Taiwanese. Okay, Kin’i. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?
As I soon learned, the notice of my great uncle’s death had arrived little more than half an hour before I had, and my parents had stayed up to discuss what to do about
We all know how old Goh-dyuu-gon is, my mother and father had often said.
Certainly, there’s no denying that he had a good running.
According to my aunt, who lived with my great uncle, earlier that afternoon my uncle had been nodding on and off in his rocking chair as usual, but when she went to call on him after preparing dinner, she noticed he’d stopped breathing.
Among all of my cousins on my father’s side, I received the biggest share of my great uncle’s affection. It’s because he can speak Japanese with you, everyone would say. As soon as he saw me a smile would reach across his face, and he’d call to me in Japanese, “Oide!” (Come over here!) He’d sit me on his knee, one arm around my waist, the other holding a cigarette, and the words would flow out of his mouth.
*
− We’ve got heaps of documents in the old format; better than throwing them away, isn’t it, the office worker said to me with an awkward smile. It had only been one week since the new era had officially begun. A colleague standing next to me muttered that it was about time they just had done with it all and switched everything to the Western calendar. She wasn’t alone; it was quite common for my work friends to show disdain for Japan’s “unique” calendar – to use it was to show your support for the Japanese imperial system. I myself, however, can’t deny that I still have a soft spot for “Showa” and
“Heisei”.−Your granddad was born in the first year of Showa.Mygrandfather looked over my shoulder as I wrote the characters for “Heisei” on my homework sheet.
− If the Japanese government ever said to me, you’ve got to do service in the armed forces, I’d get out of this hole without a moment’s notice.
*
− It’d be such a waste for someone like you to just live an ordinary life, Xīn yí.
My great uncle, on the other hand, lectured me about how he’d been turned Japanese.−Sowhat about me? Am I a real Japanese? Or am I just a fake? Come on, tell me! Which am I?As I soaked in the bath that night, it occurred to me that it might have been at the very moment Mr Shiraishi was stroking my tummy that my great uncle passed away. The more I thought about the possibility, the more convinced I became of the fact. Actually, I’m sure beyond an inch of a doubt. Even if there’s no sense in me banging on
I took those words as my cue. I made up my mind and left him.*
...What am I wasting my time thinking about? I handed in the paperwork and headed back to my office. The graduate student I was using as a teaching assistant was waiting outside; she passed me the reaction sheets from the class I’d just finished. Back inside my room, I leafed through the fifty-
about it now when there’s no way to prove it, for some reason, and I can’t explain why, at that moment it was as clear as day to me. I hear Mr Shiraishi’s voice. Your granddad, Xīn yí, he was a victim of Japanese imperialism.
such a bright young lady.
I lay submerged in the bath, eyes closed, picturing the ashtray with the stub of my great uncle’s last cigarette. I took a few deep breaths. Mr Shiraishi doesn’t understand. To think that you can throw something away is just proof that you believe with your body and soul that it belongs to you entirely. In other words, Mr Shiraishi really is a bona fide, hundred percent genuine Japanese. Whether he wants to admit it or not, it’s a fact. I slowly opened my eyes, and was struck by how seductive my own naked body looked. As I flailed my arms, splashing the water around, and pinched myself, I suddenly saw again the golden light reflecting upon the sole of the one-legged man I’d passed earlier that day. Watashi no ojī-chan tachi – My granddads. What am I thinking, I thought to myself. I felt like I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. So maybe, in fact, I hadn’t really wanted to cry in the first place.
Conscious of the crossed-out characters at the top of the page next to the new era name, I filled in today’s date. And then I remembered that it was my birthday. Although in recent years it hadn’t always occurred to me, today, for some reason, it struck me that it had been exactly nineteen years since my great uncle passed away.
Once I’d realised that I wasn’t actually so different from my peers, neither in my kindness nor my sympathy, I also noticed that the words of my lover, which had previously made me feel so special, began to feel a lot less sincere. Mr Shiraishi was just looking out for himself. He always had been. He was never going to leave his wife for me. Even had I not made this discovery, by the time I reached my mid-twenties I was already drifting away from Mr Shiraishi.
FICTION | 57
FICTION
The characters for Heisei – 平成 – had been crossed out with two diagonal lines.
− Your granddad remembers the day when His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Japan was Couldborn.heever have imagined that the Heisei era would end like this, on a day decided far in advance, while the previous Emperor, his junior in age, was still in good health and of sound mind?
My great uncle ruffled my hair and then lit up another cigarette. Although I couldn’t read Chinese I could read Japanese, so when I looked at the writing on my uncle’s cigarette I could imagine the name of the brand: “chōju” for 長壽 . I was good at reading Chinese characters. The grown-ups all used the Chinese pronunciation: “zhǎng shòu”. Unlike my grandfather, my great uncle only smoked Taiwanese brands. Once my uncle had finished talking to me and let me go, my mother and father, even my aunt, would discreetly praise me for putting up with him for so long. My cousins too would thank me, as though I had sacrificed myself for them. I myself was more than happy to listen to my great uncle’s stories. One day, I realised, when my great uncle said “ore”, although sometimes he was indeed referring to himself, some of the time he was actually meaning Taiwanese people in general.
− When we went to school, they told us to become Japanese. Kin’i, you understand what I’m saying? We were taught that we should live for Japan, that we should live for His Majesty the Emperor. That’s what our Japanese teachers told us. So that’s what we did – that’s what I did – we tried to become Japanese. I had to – we had to – become Japanese.Mygrandfather used to boast to me about how he’d been Japanese.
− What happened, Xīn yí? You’re not as cute as you used to be.
− Well it’s certainly been a long time. Sorry, I took a moment to remember. And how is Mr Shiraishi these days?
Later, I realised. His father had probably told him in advance that all he need do was say his name. But I assumed he was just another student with a question about the class, and simply encouraged him to continue. Caught off guard, he explained:
− He told me to pass on his best wishes. My dad said that I absolutely have to sign up for your class, Ms Shū. I’m really looking forward to learning a lot.
FICTION
A wide smile beamed across the young Shiraishi’s face, and I knew instantly. The boy has no idea.
− My name is Shiraishi Takahiro...
Mr Shiraishi would talk about his wife the same way he talked about his mother. I took a deep breath and looked the young Shiraishi in the eyes. Even for a first-year student, he had a baby face.
− Sensei. To tell the truth, before I came to your class I’d never really took an interest in Asia. But I realised after hearing your lecture that I have a duty to make myself more knowledgeable. And so, you see...
“...WHEN WE WENT TO SCHOOL, THEY TOLD US TO BECOME JAPANESE. WE WERE TAUGHT THAT WE SHOULD LIVE FOR JAPAN, THAT WE SHOULD LIVE FOR HIS MAJESTYEMPEROR...”THE
odd sheets of paper.
− Well, whatever your father says, you don’t need to feel an obligation to come to my class. You can make your own decision, please.Whether out of complacency or a genuine interest I cannot say, but a month later Shiraishi Takahiro was still attending my class. Once, as I was tidying up my things at the lectern, he waved at me like he might to one of his classmates, and called over: See you next week, Sensei! Although there was something charmingly innocent about a young student who clearly wanted to show off to his friends that he was on friendly terms with his teacher, I just nodded, lightly so as not to encourage him. A few days later, Shiraishi Takahiro came knocking on the door of my office.
− I would never call myself a patriot. Nationalism is just the final stronghold of the ignorant.Inthename column, as expected, was “Shiraishi Takahiro”. I had to chuckle to myself. Some things really do run in the family.The young Shiraishi called over to me at the end of my first lecture, after I had finished explaining the schedule and contents of the class and was preparing to leave the room. I turned to face him and was met by an intense gaze. I’d never seen him before.
58 | LITRO
− My son is the spitting image of me. Not just in looks, but in character too. Fortunately, my wife seems to have found her purpose in life by doting on him. For an ordinary woman like her, that’s about as good as it gets.
All of the comments were in the same vein. At first, I was despondent, but the more I read the more I felt my resolve hardening. This is really how the majority think, and that’s why I’m here to teach history – why I have a duty to teach my students how to face up to history themselves, even if it means, at times, demonstrating my own lived experience in front of them. Finally I came across the odd one out.
− Whenever I go abroad, I always come back feeling more Japanese than I felt when I left. It may have its flaws, but Japan is the country where I was born and raised, and I feel at home here. For me, and for most Japanese people, “patriotism” is just a natural emotion.Ihad to stop myself from grimacing and remind myself that the comments I had my students write were just a reflection of my teaching. At the start of term, over eighty students had signed up for my class on “Japan within East Asia”, but the number present seemed to dwindle each week.
− When I searched online, I found there were a few print versions for sale on auction, so I decided to put in a bid. I’m going to make it my mission to visit as many of the red locations on this map as I can. First, in the summer vacation, I’m going to visit Taiwan.
− I want to be able to feel pride in my country as a Japanese.
− When my dad saw your name in the syllabus, he said it brought back lots of memories.Hestraightened himself up and announced his father’s name. I swallowed. The boy was around the same age I had been during my fling with Mr Shiraishi. He didn’t seem to have any ulterior motives; if anything he seemed to want to befriend me. I quickly tried to calculate what was going on. Does he really not know? Or is he just pretending?
The boy certainly has a lot of respect for his father. That’s probably why I couldn’t help myself from issuing what was probably an unnecessary warning.
Unable to conceal his excitement, the young Shiraishi began to unfold a world map he had brought with him. “Republic of China” and “Manchukuo” – written in the old, pre-war script – flashed before my eyes, and I instantly recognised it as a replica of the 1936 atlas produced by the Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun. It was a map I had introduced in the class a few weeks prior, and although it may not have been titled “Empire of Great Japan”, it highlighted all of the Japanese “territories” – Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan – in the same crimson colour as the Japanese archipelago.
− So what about me? Am I a real Japanese? Or am I just a fake? Come on, tell me! Which am I?Wanting to stamp out that needy voice, rising up from the depths of my memory, I strode forward with a newfound determination, a spring in my step.
− What a map, eh? When I look at this map, I feel like I can really grasp that Japan is just a part of Asia. You told us in class, Sensei, about how your granddad was forced to learn Japanese; that that’s how they tried to turn him into a Japanese person. But no matter how perfect his Japanese became, he would never be treated as a true Japanese. When I heard that, I got so angry. It’s just stupid to think that Japanese people are special, when we’re all the same – we’re all Asian.
− I’m sorry. I haven’t time.
FICTION
extraordinariness, had just spread out in front of me. I wasn’t thinking of the crimson areas, but the area shaded yellow. I was thinking of the Taiwanese men who had fought as Japanese imperial subjects against the Republic of China Army; and who, despite managing to emerge from that conflict with their lives intact, had failed to return to their homeland and were now reduced to begging for the charity of strangers in a foreign country.Thetwentieth year of the Showa era. The year of Japan’s defeat, in which Taiwan was returned to the Republic of China.
That’s when it hit me. Today is the anniversary of my great uncle’s death. Since the day he passed away nineteen years ago, my birthday and the anniversary of his death have been, and will be forever more, the very same day. My students and I don’t really have so much between us. When I was their age, before I turned nineteen, I didn’t know anything, almost anything about my place in the world. And then, another revelation. Without me even noticing it, I’d managed to live longer than the entire period that not only my grandfather, but also my great uncle had lived as “Japanese”.
“...IT WAS A MAP, AND ALTHOUGH IT MAY NOT HAVE BEEN TITLED “EMPIRE OF GREAT JAPAN”, IT HIGHLIGHTED ALL OF THE “TERRITORIES”JAPANESE − SAKHALIN, THE KURIL ISLANDS, THE KOREANANDPENINSULATAIWAN...”
FICTION | 59
handwriting seemed to run in the family. I put the reaction sheets in an envelope and left my office. Outside, to the east, I saw the clear white shape of the moon in the sky. The sky itself was still light.
But what a nerve his father has – sure, it was a long time ago, but what makes him so cocksure that I’m not going to tell his prized son about the way he treated me twenty years ago? Or better yet, that I’m not going to try and tempt him myself? If I were to return that impassioned gaze, how would the young Shiraishi – so much more innocent than his father – react? I felt a chill run down my spine. As if I was going to waste my precious time like that.
It doesn’t matter who his father is; Shiraishi Takahiro is just one among my many students. I don’t have any inclination to become more familiar with him than I absolutely need to.
I began to picture the world map that the all too innocent son of that oh so arrogant man, so convinced of his own
My own mind was drifting elsewhere; to the large yellow area on the map marked “Republic of China” and the smaller characters written just below it, reading “China Proper”. The eleventh year of Showa. Back when my grandfather and his friends were just young boys, the Japanese and Chinese “territories” were more expansive than today. Before I knew it, the young Shiraishi had crept up to my side. I heard his voice right beside my ear.
The young Shiraishi’s impassioned speech and burning gaze began to make me feel uneasy. I had to interrupt him when he started to talk about his father again.
− I don’t want to be held back by my Japaneseness.Eventhe
That’s when my grandfathers ceased to be imperial subjects of Japan.
− Xīn yí, please just promise me that you’ll follow your own path. You don’t need to get trapped trying to live somebody else’s dream, stuck in an ordinary marriage with an ordinary man.
Shiraishi Takahiro spoke with a glint in his eye. Perhaps he had forgotten that he was talking to his teacher – for he was referring to himself as “ore”, too. Again, I nodded slightly to indicate my understanding, but this time with a smile. Encouraged, he continued with his declaration.−Sensei.I remember you telling us all in the very first class. Your granddad was Taiwanese but spoke Japanese fluently, right? But half the population of Japan today doesn’t even know that Japan used to possess its own colonies in Asia. And building relations with other countries in Asia has to begin with an understanding of that fact...
The thirty-fourth year of the Republic of China.Mygrandfather was twenty years old. My great uncle thirty-four.
60 | LITRO
欠片
JULIANA KASE
加瀬ジュリアナ小川チエミ/訳
TRIMMED
he Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine (directed by Takahisa Zeze, 2018). I’m glad I watched this movie. Much more than the story of female sumo wrestlers who existed in Japan a hundred years ago, as the synopsis has it, the vision we have is of Japan in the Taishō era. Poor and full of possibilities, of dreams of freedom, of art forms still occupying the river banks, rice fields, and open sky instead of concert halls, concrete and glass institutions, tourist attractions for the general public – the imported mode as everything you essentially see there today.The film portrays the end of an era, the end of a culture of its own, where dressing your clothes was an everyday option, not a costume for formal occasions. The body we see there is free, dancing in spontaneous gatherings; the music was improvised without schedule, one could speak loudly or with strangers, not following the clock. Women were strong and such was the standard of beauty.
This field of the Possible was the world of my grandparents’ childhood and youth, at an age close to this film’s protagonists’. This is the Japan that they brought with them, like most of those who immigrated to Brazil. Looking for what? An extinct possibility? A freedom that could be lived on board, that could no longer find space on Neitherland?wrong nor right, I believe, they farewelled a State Policy that dismissed mouths hungry for rice and screaming, and found another that needed only labouring hands, not human beings. Here they lived the life of discrimination, which showed its worst side during the Second World War by making us suppress language, communication and pride in the way of living we inherited from the ancients, by keeping us silent or obliterating everything that could appear Japanese.
T
Translation by the author in collaboration with the editors
(continued on p.62) (p.62 につづく) 『菊とギロチン』(瀬々敬久監督, た。許されなかった。日本を思わせるものは全て消し去られこと、会話すること、祖先代々の生き方を生きることは二次世界大戦の間に惨い差別を受け、自分の言葉を使うの人間ではなく労働力だけを求める国策と出会った。第ることに飢えていた者を必要としない国策と別れ、生身い。食べものに飢えていた者や自分の意見を声高に述べかったのだろうか。ろうか。故郷ではもう味わえない自由を船中で経験した何を探しに来たというのだろう。消えていった可能性だした時そういう日本の欠片を一緒に持ってきた。彼らはた。ほとんどの移民と同様に、祖父母がブラジルへ移住じられた。理想的なのは強い女性であった。わなくてもよかった。女性は強くて、それが魅力的に感大きな声で知らない人と話したり、約束は時間通りに行踊っていた時代。曲はその時に即興で演奏されていた。時代。体が自由に動き、打ち解けた雰囲気の集まりでが特別な行事で着る衣服ではなく日常生活で着るものの方で機能している。り入れられたもので、今の日本では何もかもがそのやりる必要のある芸術ではなかった。後者は他所の国から取り、コンクリートやガラス造りの劇場や美術館を訪問す晴れた空にあった。鑑賞するためにある値段を支払ったであふれていた時代でもあった。芸術は海岸、田んぼ、日本も見られる話だ。貧しく、可能性や自由を夢見る人日本に生きていた女性力士の話だというが、大正時代の品を見てよかったと思う。あらすじによると100年前の2018年)。この作この作品はある時代の終わりを描写している。着物この何でもできそうな世界は祖父母の世界であっ祖父母が選んだ道は正しいとも間違いとも言えな
A'e kwery towe katu State Policy, a’e kwery oikó katu upe ko'apy onhimbawyky riwé. Eiwa oiko wai ara py ma Second World War eiwa ndodjaywuiry tsapikwa-rupi, ndepoweiry ma Japanreko araka’e py ma nhanderamoe odjaiko, Japanreko nhamoin Porã nhande korantsu riwe.
he Chrysanthemum a'e the Guillotine (directed by Takahisa Zeze, 2018). Kowa film aetxa Porã ramõ. Synopsis omboparare txondaria sumo regua oikó ma 100 araguydje kykwé py, ogweru awii Japanreko wa'ekwe Taishō araka'e py oikó. Ndepoweiry pirewa, arae aema a'ekwery oikó nhandereko, odjapoma teri arte yy rembé py, aroi djatya aetxa, ywa aetxa awii, concert halls e'y, concrete gwi tarã glass institutions, tourist attractions ywypory oetxa ãwã – the imported mode, ko'ay Ary ore roetxa riwé ywyporyKowareko.
Esse campo do possível era o mundo da infância e do adolescer dos meus avós, em idade próxima aos protagonistas do filme. Este é o Japão que eles trouxeram, assim como grande parte dos que imigraram ao Brasil. Buscando o quê? Uma possibilidade que se extinguia? Vivendo uma liberdade a bordo que não encontrava mais refúgio em terra?
film omombe'u ta marai pa kowa'e ara opawa'e, ma emoima nhande matitiró Iporãwa'e, costume e'ywa ore upé. Nhanderete re oikó katu, djeroky katu onhimboaty, orerombopu katu mborai ete ma, orerodjaywu Porã wa djoe-djoe pamé rewé, oikó e'y clock
T
O
O filme retrata o fim de uma era, o fim de uma cultura própria, na qual trajar a sua vestimenta era opção cotidiana, e não fantasia para ocasiões formais. O corpo se mostra livre, dançando em reuniões espontâneas, a música se improvisava sem hora marcada, podia-se falar alto, ou com desconhecidos, não obedecer ao relógio. As mulheres eram fortes, e tal era o padrão de beleza.
(continua na p.63)
Crisântemo e a Guilhotina (dirigido por Takahisa Zeze, 2018). Foi bom ter visto esse filme. Muito mais que a história de lutadoras de sumô que existiram no Japão há cerca de cem anos, como a sinopse descrevia, a visão que temos é a do Japão na era Taishō. Pobre, cheio de possibilidades, de sonhos de liberdade, de formas de arte que ainda ocupavam as margens das águas, os campos de arroz, o céu aberto, e não as salas de espetáculo, instituições de concreto e vidro, atrações a preços turísticos para o público em geral – o modo importado que essencialmente é tudo o que se vê lá hoje.
Translation by Kwaray O'ea
Kunhãgwe embaraete katu upeitxa Iporãwa'erã. Kowa ary txeramoe, txedjaryi kwery oikowae’ekwe marun pa kunumi gwe’i, marai pa films protagonists’ oiko aragwydje py merami. Eiwa ogweru Japanreko ko'apy Pindóreta (Brazil) upeitxa eiwa ogweru ãwã Japan reko ko'apy. Mba'ewa reka? Possibility opa merami? Ndepoweiry ma omanhã nhandereko katu ywyrupi?
Nem erro nem acerto, creio, se despediram ali de uma política de Estado que dispensava bocas famintas de arroz e de gritos e encontraram outra, aqui, necessitada de mão-de-obra apenas, não de seres humanos. Viveram a discriminação que mostrou sua pior face durante o período da Segunda Guerra Mundial e que nos fez suprimir a língua, a comunicação, o orgulho de viver um modo de vida herdado dos antigos, para guardarmos calados ou sumirmos com tudo o que poderia aparentar japonês.
(amboaé kwatiá 63py) ESSAY | 61
JULIANA KASE
JULIANA KASE
APARAS
NHIMOMBYRE
もの「nhandewa」観が未だに残っている。ブラジルに生き延びている305る。しかしながら、同国にある別の文化の中に昔の価値旗に書かれているように。文化の死、肉体の死。正に“秩序と進歩”。ブラジル国紙、化粧品を無視する民族は同じ政策で苦しんでいる。で快適に生活しながら歴史の繰り返しを見ている。金やで、逃れるのは無理であった。そして今、私たちは都会接触を絶った。に“思い通り”の人生を手に入れたが、故郷の知識とのに自身を任せてしまう全ての者と同じく、私たちはついみ、進歩主義的な社会に「同化」した。資本主義の勢いながらブラジルの言葉を話す存在になった。都市になじた肉体からも遠ざかった。しかしここで日本人の顔をし国の巨大都市から離れ、奔放な欲求の欠片を切り取られ私たちは各々が閉じこもるマッチ箱で構成される島とはいえ、それはここでもあそこでも起こった現象私たちは日本・日系文化の中に常に葛藤を抱えてい1民族には高齢者への敬意、自然の見方や自然の神性、感謝の気持ち、手仕事の重視、集団で個人の問題と向き合うこと、純粋でいながら自信に満ちた人生観、芸術と日常生活の融合への観照、などの習慣がある。生きることに必死になること。「人生はそれ自体が目的で、手段や結果ではない」（MassaoOhnoによる推薦文,LeydeZorowichRibeiroLutti『Síssi:AMeninaIluminada』,1997年)。それが日系人として懐かしく感じるというなら、「nhandereko」（トゥピ・グアラニー語で「私たちの生き方」）を守らないといけない。私たちの守れなかったことが何になり得たかを見れるかもしれない。 ESSAY
In our transmuted Japanese and Japanese-Brazilian culture, there is no place without conflict. However, what was valuable for us one day survives in our sister cultures. Among the 305 nhandewa1 ethnic groups that remain in Brazil today, there is still respect for the elders, the vision of nature and its divinity, the feeling of gratitude, the knowledge of the hand, the collective as a measure for individual actions, a less malicious look, confidence despite naivité, the contemplation of art amalgamated with the usefulness of everyday life, the only ambition of living, that is “Life as an end in itself, not as means or circumstance” (flap text by Massao Ohno for the book Síssi: A Menina Iluminada written by Leyde Zorowich Ribeiro Lutti, 1997). If something sounds familiar and nostalgic to us, we have to defend the nhandereko (our way of life in TupiGuarani, which is not plural for nothing) in the way we didn’t defend our own, for there we see what we could have been.
We saw it all happen here and there. There was no escape for us. Now, comfortably settled in the city, what do we watch? The repetition of history. Other people – whose ways of life also diverge from the logic of gold, paper, and cosmetics – are still under the judgment of the same Policy: cultural or physical death. “Order and Progress”, as the Brazilian flag has it.
Note: The author thanks Jérôme Florent, Sam Collier and Leslie Mabon.
1 されています。ニーの言語や文化に同義語がないものは英語のまま残注：ら700万人が減少したと推測される。た。現在その数は300以下である。520年間で200万人か土地に到着した時、現地住民は1000以上の言語を話し族」を意味する。欧州人が後にブラジルと命名した「nhandewa」はトゥピ・グアラニー語で「先住民トゥピ・グアラニー語版においてトゥピ・グアラ
62 | LITRO
1 Nhandewa is how native people call themselves in Tupi-guarani. In the year 1500 of the Christian calendar, the year of the arrival of Europeans on the coast of the land that was later called Brazil, there were more than 1000 different languages spoken by the local population. Today, there are fewer than 300, a decrease estimated as between 2 million and 7 million people in 520 years.
We moved away from the individual matchboxes that would form the megalopolises of the island country, and from the body trimmed from the edges where just the libido was located. But here we became Japanese in the face, Brazilian in language, assimilated in the cities, integrated into the progressive society, finally, “successful” and distant from the knowledge of the land, as all who put themselves under the steamroller of capitalism do.
Djaiko porã e’y nhande culture tsapikwa py transmuted a’e tsapikwa-pindoreta gwi are. A’e rire iny nhandereko amboae cultures ikywy. Ko’ay ary apy pindoretare oiko riwe 305 ethnic nhandewa1, rereko djapytsaka teri ko nhanderamoe kwery, etxa porã ka’agwy pame, mba’ewe ka'agwy oikore, oikwaa djaiko porã, odjapo emba’eapo, nhanhimboaty onhimbawyky djoupiwe’i, etxa porã e’y wai wai re, kowa-ary odjapoma pende mba’emo riwe, pereko riwe. “Nhandereko djareko eté riwé” (Massao Ohno kwatia nambi gwi, Síssi: Kunhã oendy, Leyde Zorowich Ribeiro Lutti mbopara gwi, 1997). Iny wa nhande mba’emo merami, djadjareko nhandereko (which is not plural for nothing) nhande ndodjapoiry arae a’egwi riré arae nhande odjapo wa’erã.
Ore roetxa pá oko wa kykoty a’e ko’apy, ay, ndepoweiry escape nhande upe, ore rogwapy Porã tentã py, mba’ewa roetxa? History orepete djiwy. Perata amboae nhandekwery diverge from the logic awii, kwatia gwi, cosmetics gwi, a’e gwi rire policy ojudged teri: culture omano tarã nhande rete awii. “Order and progress”.
1 Aragwydje gwi 1500 Christian calendar gwi, marun pa ywypory kwery omae ko’apy yyramoe rembere koriwé orerenoe Brazil, ko’apy idjãywu wa’erã 1000 amboaé languages. Ko’ay ary, ndepoweiry ma as between 2 million and 7 million rete gwi 520 aragwydje py oatsa.
1 Nhandewa é a autodenominação, em tupi-guarani, para se referir aos povos originários. No ano de 1500 do calendário cristão, ano da chegada dos europeus na costa da terra que se chamou tardiamente de Brasil, havia mais de mil línguas faladas pela população local, e hoje há menos de trezentas. Isso representa, portanto, um decrésci mo do que se calcula entre 2 a 7 milhões de pessoas em 520 anos.
Nos afastaram das caixas de fósforos individuais que formariam as megalópoles do país insular e do corpo retificado das arestas onde justamente se encontrava a libido. Mas ficamos aqui japoneses de face, brasileiros de língua, assimilados nas cidades, integrados à sociedade progressista, por fim, “bem-sucedidos” e distantes do conhecimento da terra, como todos os que se colocam sob o rolo compressor do capitalismo.
ESSAY | 63
Nhanderamõe nhanderdjaryi kwery redju maramo, eiwa towe ma nhandereko ko'ay Japan apy – Japanrenda tentã re Tata mikin merami petein rete riwé oreko ko'ay-ary rete ko'ay gwi opo'i pota gwi. Onhimombyré Japan nhande rowa, Brazilian idjãywu-rupi, assimilated tentã py, omoin progressive society py, a'e gwi riré, “Pirewa arienté” mombyryre gwi roikwaa mbarii ywyregwa, arae ke oikó pamé steamroller capitalism gwi.
Nota: A autora agradece a Gutemberg Medeiros e a Álvaro Machado.
Na nossa transmutada cultura japonesa e japonesa-brasileira não há lugar sem conflito. Porém há sobrevida do que teve valor para nós um dia em nossas culturas irmãs. Dentre as 305 etnias nhandewa1 que restam no Brasil atualmente, ainda há o respeito aos anciões, a visão da natureza e o que nela há de divino, o sentimento de gratidão, o saber-fazer manual, o coletivo como medida para as ações individuais, um olhar menos malicioso, confiante embora ingênuo, a contemplação da arte amalgamada à utilidade do diaa-dia, a ambição unicamente de viver “a Vida como finalidade em si, não meio ou circunstância” (texto de orelha de Massao Ohno para Síssi: A Menina Iluminada de Leyde Zorowich Ribeiro Lutti, 1997). Se algo soa familiar e nostálgico para nós, há que defender o nhandereko (nosso modo de vida, em tupi-guarani, que não é plural à toa) da maneira que não fizemos, pois aí está o que poderíamos ter sido.
Nota: Na versão em tupi-guarani as palavras deixadas em inglês não encontram correspondentes na língua ou na cultura tupi-guarani.
ESSAY
Vimos tudo isso acontecer lá e aqui, não houve mesmo escapatória para nós. Agora, assentados confortavelmente na cidade, a que assistimos? À repetição da história. Outros povos –cujos modos de vida também destoam da lógica da prata, do papel, do cosmético – ainda estão sob o jugo da mesma política: a morte cultural ou a física. “Ordem e Progresso”.
Note: In the Tupi-guarani version, a few words are left in English because there are no equivalent words in Tupi-guarani language and culture.
64 | LITRO
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ADAM ISFENDIYAR
AINU OTHELLO: THE STORY OF A PLAY
ESSAY | 65
This was no mean task, as company members had scattered far and wide since 2011. Shimodate, however, decided it was a chance to return to their mission of building a replica of the Globe, and therefore an opportunity not to be missed. He gave the call and the actors responded.
A professor of English at a Japanese regional university dreams of building a replica of the Globe. He rallies supporters to the cause and founds an amateur acting troupe that, with permission from the Royal Shakespeare Company, is called The Shakespeare Company. The company’s adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays gain popularity, and in 2000 they stage Macbeth of Mt Osore at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Tragedy strikes in 2005 when the professor is widowed with three young daughters. He struggles on without his muse to write an adaptation of Othello called Atui Othello. This is the last play the company performs before the great earthquake and tsunami of March 2011. They give travelling performances in disaster zones for a year and then disperse. The professor continues holding workshops at schools in stricken communities and prepares the manuscripts of his adaptations for publication.
Afterwards I met Professor Shimodate in person and my curiosity about the company was further piqued. He was debonair, and spoke English with a refined accent that in my Australian ears can only be described as posh. I was intrigued by the stark contrast between the lines of dialect he had written for the plays, and the elegant English that came from his lips. He seemed an anomaly in this regional Japanese city, but who was I to talk, since I too am from a country background, and my in-laws also speak Tohoku dialect. I should know that capital cities do not have a monopoly on sophistication, cosmopolitanism and learning; ergo country does not equal bumpkin, nor does dialect equal inferior or uneducated.
Tohoku dialect, not standard Japanese. The incongruity of hearing Shakespeare in such familiar, earthy language and novelty of seeing the characters as sushi company president, indigenous Ainu, feudal retainer and so on was a shock, but the plays were recognizably Shakespearean and as theatre it worked! In less than ideal conditions – basically a large conference centre auditorium with daytime lighting – the actors gave performances that were suffused with an energy and atmosphere that mesmerized the audience. As one we were drawn in; laughed, were moved and swept away by the drama.
ALISON WATTS
once was a play first performed four hundred years ago in England. It became known worldwide until eventually it was translated in an island country of Asia, and returned transformed to its country of origin. For the last four years I have been a fascinated observer of the story of this play. Let me tell you more, but first, some background notes...
A respect for linguistic cultural diversity – the right to speak in one’s own language and reclaim the identity shaped by that language – has been one of the pivotal cultural about-turns of this century. In Japan, however, though a multitude of dialects and languages are spoken, national discourse is dominated by one of Tokyo’s dialects, which became the language of government, power and education long ago. It was designated “standard” when centuries of rule by the Tokugawa Shogunate ended in 1868 and the new imperial Meiji administration set out to unify the country. Generally speaking, one does not hear dialects spoken on national TV, except in the context of their quirky or entertainment value, and never will you hear the news read in anything other than standard Japanese. The Tohoku dialect is actually a group of dialects spoken in the northern region of Japan known as Tohoku, and not all of them are mutually intelligible. Historically, Tohoku dialects have had a negatively provincial image; a long way from the highbrow language of Shakespeare.
Shimodate, however, had an epiphany about language when he was studying Shakespeare at Cambridge in 1992. He observed how a London restaurant serving – in his opinion – inexcusably inauthentic ramen was a huge hit with British customers, while dinner
There
I had seen performances by professional Japanese theatre troupes, but nothing like The Shakespeare Company. We were treated to scenes from The Merchant of Venice, Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear – five plays, not four, as it turned out. The setting for most of these adaptations was Tohoku, and they had been translated into
Forward to 2016, when I first encounter The Shakespeare Company at an international translators conference in Sendai, where the company is based. Sendai is a city of approximately one million, 300 kilometres north of Tokyo in the Tohoku region. One of the conference organizers had been unable to forget the company’s version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream she had seen twenty years earlier, and persuaded Kazumi Shimodate, the professor, to stage ten-minute excerpts from Shakespeare’s four great tragedies as the keynote speech.
ESSAY
Atui Othello was staged twice in 2010, but Shimodate believes in the power of place, and insists on performing plays in the location where they are set, which in this case was Hokkaido. He was uneasy, however; how would Ainu people react to a troupe of Japanese actors staging a play about them, complete with derogatory language, on their home ground? He flew to Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, to inspect a theatre for a performance, but when the manager failed to turn up he took that as a sign and cancelled the theatre booking. The date he had booked for was March 20, 2011, nine days after the earthquake.
– THE RIGHT TO SPEAK IN ONE’S OWN LANGUAGE AND RECLAIM THE IDENTITY SHAPED BY THAT LANGUAGE – HAS BEEN ONE OF THE PIVOTAL CULTURAL ABOUTTURNS OF CENTURY...”THIS
glimpse in 2016 of the play that was to become Ainu Othello lasted merely ten minutes. Atui Othello, as it was still called – atui being the Ainu word for “sea” – had a recognizably Ainu flavour because of Osero’s (Othello) and Dezuma’s (Desdemona) costume and the few words of Ainu sprinkled in the dialogue. But it was not much to judge from.
In 2008 the Japanese government officially recognized the Ainu as a distinct culture for the first time and in 2019 passed a law recognizing them as an indigenous people of Japan, which now obliges it to protect the Ainu cultural identity and ban discrimination. However, the legacy of one hundred and fifty years of discrimination and cultural suppression remains, and it is no wonder that contemporary relations between the Ainu and Japanese peoples are fraught.
ESSAY
Myborn.first
by the Japanese government, Japanese settlers poured in and they were forced to assimilate. The traditional Ainu culture and lifestyle was suppressed, and the Ainu language pushed to the brink of extinction, to the extent that it is listed by UNESCO as a critically endangered language.
66 | LITRO
This was the first time Shimodate had set an adaptation outside of Tohoku. Othello had long been on his agenda but he could not find exactly the right setting to fit the theme of racial discrimination. Hokkaido, however, had potential because of its history and on a research trip there in 2009, he found inspiration. The setting would be Hokkaido in 1860, when it was called Ezo, and it would be the tragedy of an ethnic Ainu general called Osero, who was raised by a Japanese retainer of the Sendai Clan, stationed in Hokkaido at the Shogunate’s behest to defend the land against Ainu rebellion and incursions by the Russians. Osero, who serves in the Sendai Clan force, falls in love with Dezuma, the Japanese daughter of another clan retainer.
guests reacted to his own painstakingly concocted authentic soup and noodles with mere politeness. London-style ramen for Londoners and Japanese-style ramen for Japanese... What could that mean for Shakespeare? It dawned on him that Tohoku audiences might prefer hearing Shakespeare in Tohoku dialect, with stories they could relate to. Shakespeare was, after all, supposed to be for everybody, not just scholars and the cultural elite. This was the beginning of his translating Shakespeare’s plays into dialect with plots adapted to regional history and locations.Shimodate’s hometown is only sixteen kilometres from Sendai but the dialect spoken there is different. He translates the plays into his dialect and the actors accordingly adapt the lines to their own. This approach is a defining characteristic of The Shakespeare Company, and what makes their performances accessible to audiences in Tohoku, while those outside the region appreciate the local flavour and liveliness it gives the However,productions.thestarting point of all this
“...A RESPECT FOR CULTURALLINGUISTICDIVERSITY
Ainu are the indigenous people of Hokkaido, but in 1869, when it was annexed
Five years passed and Atui Othello disappeared from the stage, until 2016 and the conference breathed life into it and the company again. It also led to much-needed funding, and so Shimodate, deciding that revision was necessary, along with a new name for the play, set out on a research trip to Hokkaido two months later, in the summer of 2016. A series of fortuitous coincidences – and thereby hangs another tale – lead to his meeting Debo Akibe, an Ainu activist, craft cooperative manager, and dance troupe director amongst other things, at the Lake
was Shimodate’s dream of building a theatre. And not just any theatre, but a replica of the Globe. For him it is the ideal venue, a playhouse on a human scale, somewhere that can be a centre for community drama and education, and a place where people will gather from around Japan and the world to perform in Tohoku. For the last thirty years he has focused on this goal with an inventiveness and energy that draws others into the whirlpool of his vision and creates a self-perpetuating force. He often invites people from all walks of life to his home, to eat and talk over ramen. It was here he first shared his dream of building the theatre, and the idea of The Shakespeare Company was
In January 2018 I witnessed the result of their collaboration at the premiere performance of Ainu Othello in Sendai. It was unforgettably powerful. I was transported to Ezo in 1860, a world I knew nothing of, yet it felt as real and relevant as the world outside the theatre doors. Judging by the long, thunderous applause at the end, everybody else in the audience felt the same. A highlight for me was the music and dance performed by Pirikap, the Ainu dance troupe Akibe had invited to join the production. Shimodate and Aikbe’s candid talk on stage at the end also added to the drama of the evening.
ESSAY | 67
ESSAY
One of Akibe’s motivations for collaborating was to ensure the authentic representation of Ainu culture. I had had only the most cursory exposure to it before, but I knew that every aspect of what I saw on stage, from the set, props and costume to music, dance and song, was genuine, and it gave me a sense of Ainu culture being something that was alive, not a museum piece.Akibe’s contribution however was more than a stamp of cultural authenticity. He added Ainu language to the script and insisted that the historically correct discriminatory language Shimodate had cut be restored. Akibe has personally experienced much discrimination, but believes there is no point shirking from the fact it existed, and can only be eliminated through being brought into the open in the first place. His schooldays and experience of seeing Ainu people bully each other led to his suggestion that Yago (Iago) be of mixed Ainu-Japanese heritage, a masterstroke that added to the psychological complexity of
POSTER OF AINU OTHELLO BY THE SHAKESPEARE COMPANY JAPAN. AT TARA THEATRE, LONDON, 2019.
Akan Ainu village. Akibe only agreed to meet Shimodate at a friend’s request, and had every intention of fobbing him off. But Shimodate’s zeal and enthusiasm won out. Akibe not only cooperated on the script of Ainu Othello, as the play was now called, he eventually became co-director as well.
In July 2018 the long-delayed Sapporo performance took place, at a time when the 150th anniversary celebrations of the naming – or annexing, depending on your point of view – of Hokkaido were imminent. Approximately one hundred of the Ainu community were in the audience of 360 and the performance was deemed a success. Unfortunately I could not be there, but one significant change I heard about was the Pirikap members having speaking parts in addition to performing dance and music.
ESSAY
DIRECTORS, CAST AND STAFF IN LONDON. PHOTOGRAPHY BY THE SHAKESPEARE COMPANY JAPAN.
In August 2019 a group of fourteen actors and staff travelled to the UK to stage a shorter, leaner version of the play. Akibe was unable to go and Shimodate handed the baton of director to Verma. Thus on entirely neutral ground for the first time, the cast underwent intense rehearsal as Verma gave a whole new polish to an already remarkable production. The experience appears to have been profoundly constructive for both Japanese and Ainu cast members, who said that Verma gave them new insight into performing and introducing culture, showing how the smallest of changes can
Yago’s motivations and betrayal of Osero, and magnified the resonance of this character for a modern globalized audience.
Alas I was not at the London production either, but I was privileged to view a recording. There were many differences, but most significant and moving for me was to see the four women of Pirikap fully integrated into the performance; their voices audibly speaking Ainu, their music and dance as essential to the play as any character. The final scene was so quietly tragic and beautiful, that watching at home alone in my living room, tears filled my eyes and I spontaneously burst into applause.
make an enormous difference.
68 | LITRO
Ainu Othello is about love destroyed through jealousy and prejudice, while the story of Ainu Othello is about breaking down obstacles of time, language and history to create art. But in the Ainu language “Ainu” means human, and ultimately is all about human drama and the human need for stories. Happily, it seems the collaboration between Pirikap and The Shakespeare Company will continue, so there will be more plays and more stories.
Another outcome of the Sapporo production was an invitation to stage Ainu Othello in London. Jatinder Verma, Artistic Director at the Tara Theatre and long-time friend and advisor to Shimodate, travelled there specially to see it. Verma, who had cofounded the theatre in the 1970s in response to racism, believed it was a timely production in the midst of rising racial tensions on the eve of Brexit.
“...THE EXTINCTION,LANGUAGEWASANDAINUTRADITIONALCULTURELIFESTYLESUPPRESSED,ANDTHEAINUPUSHEDTOTHEBRINKOFTOTHEEXTENTTHATITISLISTEDBYUNESCOASACRITICALLYENDANGEREDLANGUAGE...”
The play continued to evolve. In June of 2018 I saw it again in Tokyo and could tell there were changes. The death scene of Dezuma, which sent shivers down my spine, was one in particular that stood out. It was enacted to a groaning chant that was apparently sung at a battle in 1789 and traditionally handed down.
POETRY | 69
Before you left this morning, you said, “Look,” and held up
Growing smaller, fading—
No satchel on your back but dressed for ceremony: white shirt black shorts— a special day
To show how much you’d grown between first grade and sixth: A length of red ribbon dangling from your fingers. We spent the Thirty-threeseparatelytimesame centimetres of time
A red ribbon. The school nurse made one for each of you
AKEHIROPOEMSSHIRAI
I andwave,open a window
But lookthenback again
YouPerhapsknew your father would be watching still
You cross the road and follow the low stone wall to school my child
THIRTY-THREE CENTIMETRES OF TIME
You turn your back. I watch you walk away
Translated by Louise Heal Kawai & Matt Treyvaud
I Youwatchgreet the people you meet and, just about to disappear, you turn your head a shade, glance back
I wave to you again, my child you walk on, even smaller now
Until the wall collapsed, no one believed that it would fall But who now still believes that it never will be gone?
I still believe the dream: within the next ten years, all island bases gone
POETRY
THE MOMENT WE WISH IT
70 | LITRO
The moment we wish it the bases will be gone leaving grassy hilltops— you’ll sit, and freely watch the setting of the sun
I still believe the dream that what they called impossible will change, one day, to done And who then will believe that they never will be gone?
How well I know the things they call impossible can change, one day, to done
ADJEI AGYEI-BAAH
nature reminded him of the traditional life of the Japanese people that the contemporary world has started to forget. According to Sono Uchida, it was the belief of haiku poets in Japan that nature does not belong to men, but rather it is men who belong to nature. In that respect, men should always revere nature and live in harmony with it.
In 1980, during his stay in Dakar, Uchida wrote this haiku:
Haiku
His haiku pursuit in Senegal was supported by the first President of Senegal, His Excellency Léopold Sédar Senghor, who was also a great friend of haiku.
ESSAY | 71
firmament covered of Saharan dust white sun does not move (translated from the original Japanese, source unknown)
in Africa is growing nowadays. And as a “new” art finding roots in Africa, credit could be given to Sono Uchida, the prominent Japanese haiku poet and diplomat, who thirty years ago in Senegal initiated a haiku contest in the French language, which in those days was the only international haiku contest on the African continent. Later, there as an ambassador, he also promoted haiku in Morocco, among other places he was posted to. Being a haikuist himself, he founded The International Association of Haiku, Japan with his friends in 1989 to support the development of cultural and human exchanges through the works of haiku.During his three-and-a-half-year mission as an ambassador of Japan, he had always felt that Senegal would be a fertile ground for the growth of haiku. The image of the Senegalese people adapted to
A HISTORY OF AFRICAN HAIKU
72 | LITRO
– Emmanuel Jessie Kalusian (IAFOR Vladimir Devidé Haiku Contest 2015, Commended)
The existence of Kenya Saijiki provided a foundation for the country’s poets to grasp the aesthetics of haiku art and thus to be able to write about their local seasons, their immediate environment and their culture, which they shared on the world stage through participation in competitions and contributions to journals, blogs and magazines. Haiku is even included as part of the national curriculum for Kenyan secondary schools.
Haiku activities in West Africa in recent years have been dominated and championed for the most part by Ghanaian and Nigerian poets in international circles, primarily through regular posting on various haiku societies’ and associations’ websites, on social media platforms, and by participating in international contest and kukai, with some of their haiku taking the topmost, runner-up and honourable mention positions. Mention can be made of early African haiku poets like Nana Fredua-Agyeman (Ghana), Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah (Ghana), and Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa (Nigeria), all of whom had written and published in journals, and later Emmanuel-Abdalmasih Samson of Nigeria, who invented what he termed “mirror haiku”, a technique that would be found in many other haiku cultures around the world.
– Barnabas Ìkéolúwa Adélékè (Cattails May 2016, Editor’s Choice Haiku)
roasting sun the egret’s measured steps in buffalo shadow
– Adjei Agyei-Baah (The Heron’s Nest XVIII.1, The Heron’s Nest Award 2016)
the homeless man tides up his new residence approaching storm
Haiku Activities in East African Countries Haiku activities in Kenya emerged strongly from around 2006, spurred by Dr Gabi Greve in Japan, the Director of the World Kigo Database, and Susumu Takiguchi, Chairperson of the World Haiku Club. Isabelle Prondzynski, a member of the World Haiku Club, founded Kenya Saijiki, an internet discussion forum collecting a kigo database (i.e. saijiki) for Kenya and similar tropical regions, in early 2006 under the direction of Dr Greve. The group began with some 100 members with six local coordinators, and it has stabilised and grown from there.
Mensah, Ghana (Ambrosia 4) crackingharmattangreen buds from a tree
Isabelle Prondzynski also initiated the Haiku Clubs of Nairobi, with Patrick Wafula, a Kenyan teacher, as coordinator of these clubs. Wafula (the 2010 Shiki Kukai runner-up awardee and a professional teacher at Bahati Community Centre as well as a member of Kenya Saijiki) and Caleb Mutua (a gifted Kenyan haijin and journalist, who became the first Kenyan to be published in Shamrock Haiku Journal in 2011) are among the leading lights of Kenyan haiku.
full moon –cumulus clouds slowly form a wolf
Haiku Activities in West African Countries
Here are few samples of their early published haiku in various journals around the world:
Among the contemporary haijin who followed these early advocates, and who remain front-runners of African haiku, are Adjei Agyei-Baah (Ghana), Celestine Nudanu (Ghana), Kwaku Feni Adow (Ghana), Kojo Turson (Ghana), Emmanuel Jessie Kalusian (Nigeria), Barnabas Ìkéolúwa Adélékè (Nigeria) and Precious Oboh (Nigeria), all of whose work appears regularly in prominent journals and among winners in international contests.
blackout evening the moon lights up outdoor conversation – Kwaku Feni Adow (Babishaiku Contest 2016, First Prize) midday shower a cow’s hoofprint quenches the dove’s thirst
the swift’s home in the –paintedwall–overNanaFredua-Agyeman, Ghana (Simply Haiku 4.4)
empty –myscatteredmatchboxesinthemudnewcommunityJacobKobinaAyiah
– Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa, Nigeria (Shamrock 15)
– Patrick Wafula (Shiki Kukai 2010)
ESSAY
(Source: Dennis Brutus Collection at Worcester State College, Worcester, Massachusetts, Publications and Printing Services Worcester State College Press Third Edition 2010)
on the campus lawn, fresh anthills surrounded by fresh mushrooms
In the middle of the night Two frogs are croaking At least I have some company – Cynthia Chigiya, Zimbabwe
monsoon rain rinse the beggar’s eyes clearer petitions
sunny savanna the lion starts to yawn then roars
Haiku Activities in South African Countries Haiku emergence is the southern part of Africa might similarly have been inspired by the activities of Japanese ambassadors and visiting Western teachers and academics.
Dennis Brutus, for instance, during an early visit to China in 1973, was influenced by haiku. And as a political racial advocate, he employed this terse poetic genre to communicate intimate moments of his memories of a lost, fleeting love, and a wish for reclamation:
Nambozo Nsengiyunva. The Foundation organized the second international haiku contest solely for Africans to promote haiku. Its first contest was judged by Adjei Agyei-Baah, a Ghanaian poet with an international reputation who is also a co-founder of Africa Haiku Network.
Similar mention can be made of the enormous contribution of Ted Goossen, a professor from York University with a specialty in Modern and Contemporary Japanese Literature, who brought Japan’s culture to Zimbabwe through public and academic lectures, on subjects as diverse as the tea ceremony and ancestor worship to writing haiku. Goossen’s lectures yielded results, as he returned to his country with some delectable Africa haiku written by his students as a memoir:
– Caleb Mutua (Shamrock 18)
A pool of water Covered with wings Where did the flying termites go?1 – Takvra Whande, Zimbabwe
The Japan Information and Culture Centre attended the very first meeting of Kenya Saijiki in 2006, and in recent years has been supportive in inviting members of Kenya Saijiki to cultural events providing information about Japan.
That gentle touch on your cheek many years from now: ashes from my urn.
– Judy McIntosh, Tanzania (“Our Daily Online Haiku,” USToday.com January, 2003)
ESSAY | 73
The Haiku Clubs of Nairobi regularly invite new haijin to join, and have thus passed on their love of haiku to ever-new populations over the past ten years. They meet at least twice yearly in an all-day kukai. They now have active members in several regions of Kenya, as well as writing haiku when travelling to neighbouring countries.
– Mercy Ikuri, Kenya (5th Japan-Russia Haiku Contest 2016, Honourable Mention)
the bully walks slow to the principal’s office second time this week
Zambia (The 17th HIA Haiku Contest 2015, Honorable Mention)
ESSAY
In South Africa at least six haijin have published work. Once prominent on the scene in the late ’90s was Wilhelm Haupt, who wrote in Afrikaans and published in the Netherlands. One of his early haiku published in a Dutch journal is:
Though not much is known about haiku activities in other East African countries, some individual poets have emerged on the international scene: a dyinggatherscommitteeincelebrationbuffalo–NshaiWaluzimba,
Recent haiku activity from the East African region includes the founding of the Babishaiku Contest, organized in 2016 by Babishai Niwe Poetry Foundation, a Ugandan-based NGO dedicated to the promotion of African poetry, founded by Beverley
– Roundsquare Chomulet, Somalia (Mamba Haiku Journal 1)
a crusted pier points to where the moon just was – Moira Richards (A Hundred Gourds 4:2)
74 | LITRO
Daddy, come quick and look: The sky is so full of God’s footprints – Wilhelm Haupt (Vuursteen 1998/3)
Gus Ferguson is an African cartoonist, editor and pharmacist from Cape Town, South Africa. He edited the poetry journal, Carapace. A typical example of his verse is found below:
o haiku without counted syllables: spring without breakthetheonlyhaikoewêreldjie:swallowsseventeenstepstotopofFujiroosterhasadailynotchinhisthroat,
smallfaith beetle, huge ball of dung he rolls it, thrusting it with the finest sand
long live the king vultures are circling just to frustrate them I shall survive one more day
Through a hole in a borrowed tent the Milky Way (In a Borrowed Tent)
Dr. Marié Heese published Haiku for Africa in 2014 (Unisa Press, South Africa) and excerpts the collection can be read below:
haiga, and has published two haiku books, In a Borrowed Tent (1994) and Of Little Consequence (2007):
My greetsgrandsonthefridge first last night’s chicken (Asahi haukuist Network, January 6 Issue, 2017)
after nobodybirthtold her, she will carry the child for the rest of her life
ESSAY
Moira Richards (George, Eastern Cape) writes mostly tanka and linked verse. She once served as renku editor for Simply Haiku, and a co-convenor of the annual online festival of women’s poetry in South Africa. Some of her pieces among other renku participants can be found here:
Collecting mushrooms my knife blade reflecting mist swirling through the pines (Of Little Consequence)
he crows get dawn color
Other haikuists from Southern African countries recorded in contests and journals include:
Daniel Hugo, an Afrikaans poet, occasionally writes haiku in Afrikaans. He was a specialist announcer/producer for Radiosondergrense, the national Afrikaans radio, and was also responsible for the literary programmes “Leeskring” and “Vers en Klank”. He was also an editor at the publishing house Protea Boekhuis. Below are sample pieces of his random written haiku:
o haiku without nature and the seasons: frog without pool
Gus Ferguson should be martyred But not with wood and nails he should be wrapped in lettuce leaves and thrown amongst his (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gus_Ferguson)snails.SteveShapirowriteslovelyhaikuaswellas
A poet from South Africa whose haiku began appearing in journals in 2015 or so is Clifford W Lindemann of Broederstroom. Among his most recent publications are: Dusk and the moon smiles at the evening star Venus blinks (Asahi haukuist Network, December 30, 2016)
The above haiku and books demonstrate the presence of haiku in South/Southern African countries but no significant activities had been recorded yet in countries such as Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, and Swaziland.
scorching sun… a leaf in search of a shadow – Ali Znaidi, Tunisia (The Mamba Haiku Journal II)
(Theinasirocco…birdbathingthecamel’surineInternational
Ali Znaidi is a Tunisian secondary school English teacher and Arabic translator whose haiku and other Japanese poetry forms have been prominent on the international scene recently, appearing in many international journals and placing in contests as well. Below is some of his best-known work: full rainbowsunshine…perishing into butterflies(GrandPrize, Non-Japanese Division, 8th Yamadera Bashō Memorial Museum English Haiku Contest)
Matsuo Bashō Award 4th Edition 2016, Honourable Mention)
Zambia (The 17th HIA Haiku Contest 2015, Honourable Mention)
ESSAY | 75
Another lemon tree In another country My gazes are desires – Mohammed Bennis, Morocco (World Haiku 2007 No.3)
Haiku Activities in North African Countries
In the middle of the street Suddenly I am lost – Jacob Nthoiwa, Botswana (University of Botswana English Department, 2003)
The 11th World Haiku Association Japan Conference and the 5th World Haiku Seminar (April 29, 2016, Itabashi Green Hall, Tokyo) included poet Abdelkader Jamoussi, an envoy of the Moroccan Embassy in Japan, who discussed the development of haiku in Morocco, and announced the 2nd Morocco Haiku Seminar. His paper “Is Arab Haiku Possible?” explains the poetic tradition of the Arab world and the wide possibility of future of haiku
There also exist haiku poems written in Arabic (and yet to be translated into English), from Arab poets from Syria, Morocco, Iraq, Jordan and Tunisia, to be found in Poetry Letters Magazine (Arabic ed.), No. 3, July 2015, “special issue” (The Arabic Haiku). Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan, and Western Sahara still remain a greenfield where haiku seeds have yet to drop.
1 Rainflies/ishwa are termites which grow wings in the evening after it has been raining. During the day they lose the wings and go underground.
I looked around me
– Lize Bard, Namibia (Haiku out of Africa, https:// wandererhaiku.wordpress.com/ November 29, 2016)
Arabic Haiku”)] acknowledged Arabic haiku as a distinct form of poetry by publishing, for the first time, haiku by eleven Arab poets from Syria, Morocco, Iraq, Jordan, and Tunisia.
Examplesthere. of haiku from Northern African countries include:
Haiku has not remained solely in the heartland of Africa but has travelled to North African countries as well. The aforementioned Sono Uchida served as Japanese ambassador to Morocco as well, where he initiated a haiku contest that might have been the first haiku competition to have emerged from the Arab world.
Madagascar (The Heron’s Nest theyXVII.3)roam hand in hand in their deep connectedness our thoughts and our minds
In spite of this, haiku is still a relatively “new” practice in Arabic literature. The first book of haiku translated from the Japanese appeared in 2010 by a Syrian writer, Muhammad Adimah. Though most Arab haiku poets use the three short lines structure, this has not always been considered a strict rule. Literary critics in the Arab world have not reached an agreement yet whether the haiku written by young poets can be considered a new form of poetry or merely a different name for (the already popular) flash fiction. In July 2015, Poetry Letters Magazine [“A study on Arabic Haiku”, Poetry Letters Magazine (Arabic ed.), No. 3, 2015, p. 47–54; Poetry Letters Magazine (Arabic ed.), No. 3, July 2015, “special issue” (“The
a –dyinggatherscommitteeincelebrationbuffaloNshaiWaluzimba,
ESSAY
African –inelephantssummertrumpetthedustyplainsRakotomahefaDiamondra,
From Africa to America
76 | LITRO
His watershed collection, Haiku: This Other World, appeared in print, however, only in 1998.
The second such association was perhaps the Nigeria Haiku Society, formed in 2004 by Jerry S. Adesewo. The society, recognized and duly certified by the Association of Nigerian Authors, was officially inaugurated on June 2, 2005 by the thenJapanese Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Akio Tanaka, at his residence, during the prize-giving ceremony of the 1st Haiku Poetry Contest organized in collaboration with an Abuja-based edutainment outfit, Arojah Concepts, for FCT Schools. It has since ceased activity.
Acknowledgement:
Formation of Haiku Societies and Associations in Africa
Senegal has a tradition of “short talk” poetry, with no rule relating to syllable count as in haiku, but with rhyme and rhythm repeated, and engaging in much wordplay. Such poems were recited at occasions such as weddings and baptisms. The Japanese Embassy saw an opportunity to connect traditional Japanese and Senegalese cultures by encouraging the creation of haiku in relation to the traditional oral poetry of West Africa.
Haiku’s spread in Africa can be observed not only in publications but through the formation of societies and associations as well. Haiku activities seem to have spread faster in West Africa compared to the other sub-regions. Senegal most likely formed the first haiku society in Africa, since the Embassy of Japan in Senegal has records of a haiku contest dating back to 1979. This contest is widely recognized as a Senegalese cultural events, and 2017 marks the thirtieth year it has been held. Participants from previous contests had been from various countries, but a greater representation came from Senegal and Cameroon.
ESSAY
A third such organization is the Ghana Haiku Society (GHS), founded by Adjei Agyei-Baah and Celestine Nudanu in 2016 with the sole aim of promoting haiku in Ghana and making it an acceptable new poetic genre in literature studies in both high schools and universities.
Note: Due to the limited space, we could not include all the contents of the essay in the printed issue. To read the full text, please visit the online issue through the QR code (page 5 & 83).
Poetry Letters Magazine (Arabic ed.), No. 3, 2015, p. 47–54 Poetry Letters Magazine (Arabic ed.), No. 3, July 2015, “special issue” (the Arabic Haiku) http://www.sn.emb-japan.go.jp/itpr_ja/haiku2017.html
Richard Wright, a black American author, discovered haiku in 1959 when the South African Beat poet Sinclair Beiles handed him R.H. Blyth’s four-volume Haiku. This new poetic genre came as a revelation to him. Wright specialist Jianqing Zheng writes, “Immediately after Beiles’s introduction, there was an enthusiastic intensity of haiku writing in Wright’s life in Paris. Wright was ‘completely incapable of stopping’ his new obsession with haiku though he was very sick at the time.” Wright seems to have had no other source of information about haiku and no one with whom to discuss his work. Still, Wright produced some 4,000 haiku, 817 of which were selected by the poet himself for publication.
The author is grateful to Patrick Wafula (Kenya), Maria Steyn (SA), and Charles Trumbull (US), for provision of research materials, and to all my haiku friends (Celestine Nudanu, Emmanuel Kalusian, and Justice Joseph Prah) at home who peer reviewed this work.
July 2015 saw the birth of “African Haiku Network” by two young Africans, Emmanuel Jessie Kalusian, a Nigerian ICT instructor with specialties in computer programming and networking, and Adjei Agyei-Baah, a Ghanaian lecturer from the University of Ghana Distance Learning Centre, Kumasi Campus, with the purpose of promoting and teaching haiku in Africa. In February 2016, The Mamba Haiku Journal, Africa’s first international haiku voice, was launched, bringing the global haiku community’s attention to haiku growth in Africa. Even before that, mention must be made of Nana Fredua-Agyeman’s blog, “Haiku from Ghana.” Fredua-Agyeman was one of the first Africans to be published in a Western journal (Simply Haiku 4.4, in 2006). Mention should also be made of Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah, Ghanaian editor of Rough Sheet Tanka Journal, who had written and published under the pseudonym “Sitting Mountain”, who was published shortly thereafter (Simply Haiku 7.4, 2009).
Sources: Ahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_in_languages_other_than_Japanesehttps://kenyasaijiki.blogspot.com/2006/12/kenya-haiku-clubs.htmlhttps://kenyasaijiki.blogspot.co.ke/2006/12/african-haiku.html?m=1studyonArabicHaiku,
Rarely points to such pleasure-filled harbors
RUIN
But when I close my eyes, they come alive again Countless burning gazes, feverishly whispered words
From place to place, I drifted through my youth Tethering my line to the bar’s footrest, I encountered Many eyes, lips, thighs before setting off again I learned many aspects of Greek love before I forgot Now decades later, the bow of desire’s boat
But these tiny colonies grow full with just ten people Shinjuku, Shibuya, Shinbashi, Ueno, Asakusa—each night hopping
Translator’s note: The places in Tokyo that Takahashi mentions in this poem are the neighborhoods where Tokyo’s gay bars, saunas, and other gathering places are located.
Translated by Jeffrey Angles
POETRY | 77
After so much time, I find that I’ve become The distorted ruin left by those colonies of love
POEMS FROM ONLY YESTERDAY
MUTSUO TAKAHASHI
Long ago, the Greeks built cities and colonies Dotting mountainsides and coastal shores Sparks flew from there to this city in what is now the Far East
But when I close my eyes, they come alive again Countless burning gazes, feverishly whispered words
I learned many aspects of Greek love before I forgot Now decades later, the bow of desire’s boat
78 | LITRO
RUINPOETRY
From place to place, I drifted through my youth Tethering my line to the bar’s footrest, I encountered Many eyes, lips, thighs before setting off again
Rarely points to such pleasure-filled harbors
Long ago, the Greeks built cities and colonies Dotting mountainsides and coastal shores
After so much time, I find that I’ve become The distorted ruin left by those colonies of love
Sparks flew from there to this city in what is now the Far East But these tiny colonies grow full with just ten people Shinjuku, Shibuya, Shinbashi, Ueno, Asakusa—each night hopping
Translator’s note: The places in Tokyo that Takahashi mentions in this poem are the neighborhoods where Tokyo’s gay bars, saunas, and other gathering places are located.
Those delirious nights and youthful afternoons Decades later, have suddenly drawn close Near me are not just those hours from long ago The underworld, once so unknown, has suddenly drawn close (Now that I notice, I have descended into it too)
DECADES LATER
This morning, decades later, I heard a rumor about you A rumor you died completely, utterly alone— You with whom I exchanged such warm whispers and embraces You who, even so, betrayed me in such a cruel, calculated way (Wasn’t, however, the backstabbing entirely mutual?)
POETRY POETRY | 79
There, you and I are just as young as before What differs is that we haven’t yet loved one another Therefore, we have not yet betrayed one another And when we collide, we merely pass right through
Nakahararefugees.Toshiko
As the senior of three maids, she attended the lady of the house, a former geiko (the name given to geisha in Kyoto) and teacher of ikebana flower arrangement, on high-society visits and in her flower classes. Her job was to carry the mistress’s handbag and other apparel. The young Toshiko was in a kind of heaven of beauty and sophistication, and was even allowed to taste the delicate Kyoto sweets left after the tea parties to which she accompanied the ikebana teacher.
The master of the house was a former colonel in the Imperial Army, a gruff but kindly and unpretentious man who always dressed in simple kimono and worked tirelessly in the family business. His family were originally samurai from Aizu, a tough northern domain annihilated during the civil wars of the 1860s, and he followed his ancestor’s austere and unostentatious ways. The colonel encouraged Toshiko to read by giving her access to his books.
was born in 1922, the fourth of nine children in a farming family. They owned their own land, and hence were not considered poor, but they were most certainly not rich either. One of her fondest childhood memories is of a trip with her sister to Mount Daisen, often called “Western Fuji” for its distinctive volcanic peak, so similar to the sacred mountain. It was only a journey of thirty kilometers by bus, but to the young Toshiko was a transition to a wondrous different world.
THE EXTRAORDINARY, ORDINARY LIFE OF NAKAHARA TOSHIKO
On
Even by the standards of the day, this was unusual. Daughters were normally at least consulted before being married off. But that was not her father’s way and she obeyed.
Shijiazhuanggoing.was a strategically important city and, since its capture in 1937, a key headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army. Strong fortifications were erected. The city was surrounded by trenches and barbed wire, and 5,000 concrete pillboxes were built in its defense. Not only was it a Chinese city, built in a radically different way to Japanese cities – of brick rather than wood – but it felt like a city at war. Extremely daunting to a girl brought up in rural Tottori and serene Kyoto.By the time Toshiko arrived, the Japanese civilian community, many of whom, reflecting the multiethnic empire, were in
80 | LITRO
THOMAS LOCKLEY
Shortly before finishing primary school at the age of 12, Toshiko was sent to work in Kyoto, Japan’s ancient capital, as a maid in a steel merchant’s household. Although she was a servant, her legal rights were respected and she finished primary school there. For the rural girl, the more refined Kyoto education was a shock, but Toshiko learned new skills such as how to operate an abacus.
April 15th 1945, a heavily pregnant Nakahara Toshiko arrived home to Kurayoshi, Tottori Prefecture, western Japan with a small child on her back. It had been a long and arduous journey. By rail from northern China, through Manchuria, and down the Korean peninsula by ship from Busan to Hakata in Kyushu and then again by train to Kurayoshi. Some 2,500 kilometers. Surprisingly, her husband Toshio, a staff officer in the Imperial Japanese Army based in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, had been given special permission to accompany her.
One day, out of the blue, when she was twenty, a message arrived telling Toshiko to return home immediately to Kurayoshi. On arrival, to her great surprise, she was informed that she was to be married the next day to Nakahara Toshio, a staff officer based in Shijiazhuang, China. The day after the ceremony, they left for his posting.
Toshio had inherited a large tract of land, which he hoped would provide amply for his family after he returned shortly to his posting in Hebei.Butit was not to be. Disaster had struck. Unbeknown to him, an elderly aunt, who had been taking care of the land in his absence, had sold it. The cash value was wiped out amid hyper-inflation. The Nakaharas were suddenly transformed into homeless, povertystricken
There were four sons; the eldest two attended the University of Tokyo, the third Doshisha University in Kyoto, and the fourth, who had a fondness for animals, studied agriculture at Hokkaido University. This was an extremely prestigious family educational record. Indeed it would still be today.
Having been a maid herself only a matter of days before, she was now the mistress of a Chinese house, with a servant of her own. Her new husband worked in the Japanese military world, prosecuting the Second Sino-Japanese War, and left his young wife to manage the household alone. The elderly serving woman who helped her did not speak a word of Japanese, so Toshiko had to learn Chinese fast – at least, just enough to keep the home
The Nakaharas had arrived back in Kurayoshi to a warm welcome from Toshiko’s mother, and on July 17th 1945, their second daughter Masae was born. Toshiko begged her husband not to return to China. His emotions must have been in turmoil, Toshio was a man who did his duty come what may. But which duty should he prioritize ? His country or his family?
The return of seven million new mouths to feed from former imperial territories did not help the situation. The hikiagesha, returnees, were often stigmatized, made scapegoats for the defeat and disaster. Many felt they had become unwanted aliens in their own country.
The Nakaharas were in penury, their land was lost, and only a small and dilapidated rental property remained to provide a tiny income. The family had no fixed abode of their own and flitted between the houses of relatives, trying not to outstay their welcome. They did not even have their own futons, so an aunt donated her old kimonos to be filled with straw and made into bedding. Toshiko’s husband made do with his old armyAtuniform.leastasmembers of a farming family, they had just enough food to survive. They certainly could not have afforded the black market prices that were being charged for the most basic Post-warnecessities.Japanwas
in ruins. Industrial capacity was at 10% of pre-war levels. Most cities were reduced to shouldering embers. Infrastructure of every sort was in tatters, and the massive psychological blow of defeat and national destruction hovered over everything. For the first time ever, Japan was the object of foreign occupation. The Allied occupation was in fact relatively benign, and
However, by 1945 Japan was on the verge of defeat. Although news was strictly controlled, it was clear that the Americans were approaching the home islands. Nobody talked about it out loud, not to the young wife of an officer, but all knew the end was nigh. A second pregnancy gave Toshiko a chance to return to Japan, and luckily her husband was granted leave from his duties to accompany her.
Had they not left China then, they would have likely been victims of the massive upheavals that accompanied the collapse and disintegration of the Japanese Empire only a few months later. In the chaos, thousands died. From starvation, in the surprise invasion by the Soviet Red Army, and in reprisal attacks by the liberated locals, although in China proper these were relatively restrained. Thousands of children were separated from their families and adopted into Chinese households. The identification and repatriation of these castaways lasted until the 21st century.
There was little work to be had for a former soldier, and Toshiko’s husband struggled. One day, she happened to see a police recruiting poster. Toshio was not keen on the idea, but he had little choice in the matter, there was no other way to provide for his family. On October 1st 1945, he applied, took the tests and was successful. He was transferred in succession to the two biggest cities in Tottori Prefecture, Yonago and then Tottori City itself. The family stayed in
Kurayoshi.Atlastamodicum of stability had been established, but junior police salaries were low, prices were sky-high, shop shelves were bare and times were still hard. Two
fact Korean, numbered well over 10,000. There were even, surprisingly, other people from Tottori Prefecture (the least populated prefecture in Japan). Military families were well provided for, enjoying standards of healthcare – including the best possible maternity provision for the birth of the Nakahara’s first daughter Chie – and food no different (and later in the war perhaps far better) than in the home islands.
He stayed in Kurayoshi.
ESSAY | 81
ESSAY
Less than a month after Masae’s birth, Japan surrendered.
huge imports of food from North America ensured that very few people actually died from starvation. But it initially seemed like one more nail in the coffin.
“...ONE DAY, OUT OF THE BLUE, WHEN SHE WAS TWENTY, A MESSAGE ARRIVED TELLING TOSHIKO TO RETURN THATSHEIMMEDIATELYHOMETOKURAYOSHI.ONARRIVAL,TOHERGREATSURPRISE,WASINFORMEDSHEWASTOBEMARRIEDTHENEXTDAY...”
Prior to the surrender, while the war raged far away, resources in this quiet and peaceful corner of Japan had already been strained. Food was directed to the cities further south and east. Fertilizer production was curbed in favor of munitions. The military commandeered anything they could. Everything went into the war effort. Post-war, conditions deteriorated further. Those in the cities and surrendered combatants on distant battlefields were starving. In fact more Japanese soldiers died from hunger than in battle over the course of theThewar.Japanese were not alone. All over Asia, in China, India, and elsewhere, the war caused tens of millions of deaths from hunger, both through shortages arising from conflict, and through governments’ administrative incompetence.
The family still helped them out with food, sending wind-fall fruit to feed the growing girls. Sometimes Toshiko’s elder brother took the girls on trips to the nearby seaside and camping in the mountains.
The wars that the Japanese military and state engaged in during the 1930s and ’40s are well known, indeed infamous. The civilians caught up in the machinations of the powerful had little choice but to do their duty as they saw it, and ultimately to survive.
representative of the lives of millions of Japanese women of the age whose stories are rarely told, especially not in languages other than Japanese.
“Sweet one. I am glad you only had daughters.”Thisarticle is based upon several interviews with Nakahara Toshiko in 2011, a year before her death. The memories of Kinoshita Masae, the daughter who she bore within her on the long journey back from China, and her granddaughter Junko Lockley, as well as various other family stories, contributed to this article.
more daughters arrived, Tokie and Miyako. Toshiko’s husband could not help feeling disappointed at not having a son, and complained bitterly to her.
This is one small attempt.
Perhaps her one luxury was sweets. She always retained the sweet tooth developed as a maid to the fine lady in Kyoto all those years ago. The last thing she ever ate was yokan, a sweet jelly from the famous Tokyo confectioner Toraya, which Masae fed her on her last day of consciousness.
Before he died, Toshio told his wife, “お 前。女の子だけで良かった。”
“...THE FAMILY HAD NO FIXED ABODE OF THEIR OWN AND FLITTED BETWEEN THE HOUSES OF RELATIVES, TRYING NOT TO OUTSTAY THEIR WELCOME...”
82 | LITRO
ESSAY
Nakahara Toshiko died in 2012 at the age of 90, seven years after her husband passed away.
Women like Nakahara Toshiko worked hard, overcame adversity and nurtured the children, and grandchildren who would change a militaristic empire into a strong and prosperous, peaceful nation. Their praises are rarely sung, but they deserve to be.
Nakahara Toshiko’s story is that of a normal life lived in troubled times. It is
Japan recovered, then flourished, and so did the Nakaharas. Chie the eldest daughter married and moved to Hiroshima, the other three daughters went to university and became teachers and medical professionals, then started families of their own. In the 1980s, Toshio was decorated by the emperor for his police service, and Toshiko accompanied him to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo for the award ceremony.
Life became easier, but Toshiko never forgot the hard times. She spent her life working hard to bring up her children, support her husband, and grow vegetables for the table. She would visit multiple shops daily to find the cheapest prices and always kept an eagle eye on interest rates so as to get the best return for the family’s savings. She was still working her small field and garden vegetable patch well into her eighties. It was a life with few luxuries, exemplified by the time a few years before her death that her granddaughter, Junko, tried to knead her grandmother’s tired shoulders. After a few minutes she said, “That is the first time anyone has given me a massage.”
DON'T MISS OUR NEXT ISSUE Visit us online at www.litromagazine.com and become a member so you never miss an issue. For general requests and information call us on 646 519 2452 or email us at info@litrousa.com Litromedia Litro Magazine | Lab@LitroMagazineLitromedia VERSIONDIGITAL VERSIONPRINT DOWNLOAD NOW TO ACCSESS EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
