A lively and informative dinner talk for WiK members was held on March 11 featuring Dutch academic, Mark Teeuwen, who is on leave from the University of Oslo as a research fellow at Kyoto University for six months. His topic was the Gion Matsuri and the politics of heritage. The talk covered the postwar emphasis in Japan on its status as a cultural nation, sparked by a conflagration at Horyu-ji in 1949. This led to such developments as the intangible cultural property and the ‘ningen kokuho’. This was all part of Japan’s self-image as a unique cultural entity.

One of the leading lights in promoting Japan in this way was the famed Folklore Studies scholar Yanagita Kunio, who envisaged the emperor as the embodiment of the nation (rather than a living god). Items selected as part of the national heritage included for the first time in 1977 two festivals, one of which was Gion Matsuri. Was it a people’s festival? A merchant’s festival? or a city festival? Its identity became part of a power struggle with political ramifications.

For Kyoto city hall the festival represented above all an opportunity for tourist promotion, and city subsidies effectively ‘bought’ control of the event, with the mayor promoted to a leading role in the ceremonies. The ‘ato matsuri’ which had been an important part of the tradition was abolished in 1966 so as to concentrate the tourist potential on one big event. It became a huge operation, necessitating the employment of 6700 police in all, payment for which comes out of taxpayers money. In this way a religious event, once controlled by Yasaka Shrine and the city’s merchants, has been made into a huge tourist event serving commercial rather than community ends.

Many thanks go to Mark for his entertaining, informative and insightful talk, which helped make for a great Kyoto evening. It was evident that he had much else to share, and we hope to draw on his range of knowledge again in future.

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Some of Mark’s publications…

• Watarai Shintô: an Intellectual History of the Outer Shrine in Ise (1996)
• Nakatomi Harae Kunge: Purification and Enlightenment in Late-Heian Japan (1998)
• Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami (1999), with John Breen
• Buddhas and Kami in Japan ‘honji suijaku’ as a Combinatory Paradigm (2002)
• Tracing Shinto in the History of Kami Worship (2002)
• Shinto, a Short History (2003)
• The Culture of Secrecy in Japanese Religion (2006)
• A New History of Shinto (2010), with John Breen
• A Social History of the Ise Shrines (2017), with John Breen

Gion Matsuri as tourist attraction

The following is taken from the website of Ad Blankestijn. Please see here for the original. It concerns a house Kyoto residents may be familiar with, namely the one in which Tanizaki lived next to Shimogamo Shrine on the eastern side. With its puzzling erotic relationships,  the novella makes a companion to another of Tanizaki’s Kyoto tales, namely The Key (Kagi, 1956). (Text and photo courtesy Ad Blankestijn)

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‘The Bridge of Dreams’ (Yume no Ukihashi, 1959) by Tanizaki Junichiro (Book review)

Tanizaki Junichiro wrote several top class novellas, such as The Reed-cutter (Ashikari), Arrowroot (Yoshino-kuzu) and A Portrait of Shunkin (Shunkinsho), but my favorite is The Bridge of Dreams, although also for an extra-literary reason: it is set in Shimogamo, a beautiful area in Kyoto where I lived in the 1980s. Tanizaki himself had lived next to the Shimogamo Shrine from 1949 to 1956 – his residence was called Sekisontei and he used this as the basis for the house and garden in The Bridge of Dreams. In this story, published in 1959, two of Tanizaki’s major obsessions are perfectly united: the search for a lost traditional Japan and the search for a lost mother, who combines the maternal with the seductive.

This is also what the title points at: the “(Floating) Bridge of Dreams” is the name of the final chapter of the Genji Monogatari, and here meant as a reference to the whole novel, which starts with the affair the protagonist has with his stepmother Fujitsubo. And the title is of course also a metaphor for the dreamlike quality of life and of the world of love.

[Bridge in the Shimogamo Shrine, Kyoto]

The story is set in the womb-like enclosed environment of a traditional house and garden where three people live: a father, his wife Chinu and their young son Tadasu (named after the forest of the Shimogamo Shrine). It is an isolated but perfect world, the ideal retreat, full of literary and historical allusions, on which the story is wholly focused – daily activities that fall outside this estate are usually not mentioned. The garden stands deep in a grove and is far removed from the dusty world. You reach it, of course, by crossing a narrow stone bridge.

Here Tadasu lives in the warmth and security of his mother’s embrace, a dim, white world:

The mingled scents of her hair and milk hovered there in her bosom, around my face. As dark as it was, I could still dimly see her white breasts. She would sing while I drifted off into a peaceful sleep, still clutching her breasts and running my tongue around her nipples. Gradually I would slip into the world of dreams.

By the way, the most conspicuous image of the pond garden is the water mortar, a bamboo tube that fills with water from a small stream where the father (and after growing up also Tadasu) used to cool his beer. When the pipe is full, it tips of its own weight and hits a flat stone with a characteristic clacking sound. Empty, it sways up again and the process repeats itself. Such devices were originally employed by farmers to scare away wild boars, but from the 17th century they were as ornaments incorporated in gardens, like the famous Shisendo garden in Kyoto – an enclosed hermit garden with which Tadasu’s estate has many elements in common. When Tadasu went to sleep, the distant, rhythmic clack of this water mortar would mingle with the voice of his mother singing a lullaby and would penetrate his dreams. It became therefore strongly associated with memories of his mother.

But humans are mortal and when Tadasu is only five years old, his mother dies. After a while, his father remarries and now something strange happens: he has his new wife impersonate the deceased one. She has to take the same name, Chinu, wear the same type of clothes and allow Tadasu to sleep with her in the same way he did with his own mother. She also plays the koto and practices calligraphy, like Tadasu’s first mother. And so the idyllic life in the enclosed paradise garden continues even after the intrusion of death, the stepmother conflated with the real mother… When he nurses on his stepmother’s breast, Tadasu again hears the clack of the water mortar – everything is again the way it used to be…

What happens further is not so clear, for Tadasu is an unreliable narrator – what he tells is true, but he doesn’t tell everything. Time passes and when he is eighteen years old and at high school, Tadasu learns that his stepmother is pregnant. A boy, Takeshi, is born, but the baby is soon sent away by his father to be brought up by farmers. A weird scene happens in the seclusion of a small tea house in the garden, where the stepmother has Takeshi suck the milk from her breasts, heavy so soon after giving birth. As a grown-up man, he is allowed to enter the milky white world of childhood again, now mixed with a decidedly erotic element…

Later that year, Tadasu’s father – who had been ill since more than a year before – dies and asks Tadasu to take good care of his (step-) mother. In other words, Tadasu is asked to take over the role of the father. By now, Tadasu has learnt his stepmother’s real name, and also that she was a geisha before she married his father. In order to keep up appearances (there is after all an outside world) Tadasu marries the daughter of their gardener, Sawako – but it is clear he is more interested in his stepmother.

A few years pass. Then the stepmother dies – she had a weak heart and was frightened by a centipede, while undergoing massage by Sawako. Tadasu now separates from Sawako and seeks out his half-brother, Takeshi, whom he decides to bring up himself. But he has to sell the large estate and instead moves to a smaller house near Honenin temple – not accidentally a place just as secluded as the first one.

The ambiguous story leaves us with several questions – the reader has to act as detective:

• Was the death of Tadasu’s stepmother homicide? Did Sawako kill her out of jealousy – Sawako who after all was a disparate element in the household, and who was treated very coldly by Tadasu? Was that the reason Tadasu decided on a separation?
• Whose child was Takeshi? Was he really Tadasu’s half-brother, or was he his son? There are some hints that Tadasu’s custom of cuddling up to his stepmother and suckling her breasts when he was a young boy, continued also when he grew up and then developed into outright lovemaking… On top of that, the father was already ill when the child was conceived. In addition, this would explain not only why the baby was sent away but also why Tadasu later decided to bring the boy into his house and take care of his upbringing.
• And, finally, the most radical interpretation: was it perhaps Tadasu himself who killed his stepmother rather than Sawako (the killing was of course in either case indirect, by dropping a centipede on her to frighten her)? There are indeed some hints that Tadasu was getting tired of her as she was getting plump and therefore was losing the image of his original mother… (while in Takeshi, Tadasu found the face of his mother again). Another fact supporting this interpretation, is that the negotiations for the separation from Sawako took two years and also that Tadasu had to sell his estate – in other words, he probably had to pay a large amount of money to Sawako and her family to buy their silence about the real events.

But the story does not give us any clear clue to the right interpretation, and in that vagueness lies its beauty. Life is a dream and dreams can be wild and convoluted, shimmering like a chimera…

P.S. Perhaps we can also see the secluded estate as a symbol for a traditional Japan that had been lost in the 20th century, a loss finalized by postwar Americanization.

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The Bridge of Dreams has been translated by Howard Hibbett in the collection Seven Japanese Tales (together with six other works by Tanizaki, including “A Portrait of Shunkin”), published in various editions by both Tuttle and Vintage. The novella is discussed in The Secret Window, Ideal Worlds in Tanizaki’s Fiction by Anthony Hood Chambers (Harvard University Press, 1994). The interpretations mentioned above are based on Chambers.

Peddling Papa: A Writer’s Tale of Selling His Book
by Simon Rowe

On a foggy November night, a ship named the MOL Grandeur hauls anchor and departs Hong Kong bound for the port of Kobe. Listed on its bill of lading are eighteen cartons of freshly-minted paperbacks, destined for the samurai castle city of Himeji in western Honshu.

Days later, the author of these books sits at his kitchen table counting the money in his bank account—then in his pocket. He looks at the Kobe Port customs clearance fee again, then takes out a hammer and smashes open his Hello Kitty money box. It is to be a case of ‘good night Hello Kitty’ for a thousand copies of Good Night Papa: Short Stories from Japan and Elsewhere (2017).

Only after a Camel-puffing deliveryman has taken the writer’s signature and left a pallet of cartons streetside does the full weight of his self-publishing caper hit him. With no marketing team, no distributor, and not a pair of sensible walking shoes to his name, he realises that he will have to become ‘salesperson of the year’ to break even.

At this point he could accept the wisdom of Lao Tzu and begin his journey of a thousand miles by haranguing friends and family to buy a copy of his book, thus making him feel that he hasn’t completely wasted a year’s savings. Then he remembers novelist Anaïs Nin words: “Good things come to those who hustle.”

“Hustle” becomes his one-word marketing plan. He sells copies of his book to his students. He sells them to the teachers at the university where he works. He even offers them to his community night classes, and to his surprise, they devour his stock voraciously. Some order extra copies for friends and family. Suddenly Lao Tzu’s journey is looking a whole lot shorter.

The big jumpstart comes when one of his night class students creates a ‘media release’ in Japanese. She sends it to her friend on the public affairs desk at City Hall, who then sends it on to a reporter at the provincial newspaper. Now, this writer is no Lafcadio Hearn, but the reporter, perhaps seeing some semblance in the long-term foreign resident who teaches at the local university and writes short stories in his downtime, sets up an interview.

The reporter focuses on the lead story (Good Night Papa), a tale set in Himeji’s much loved—and much despised—nightlife precinct called Uomachi, or “Fish Town”. Here, down the narrow streets of red lantern eateries, raucous clubs and bars, noodles joints and liquor stores, the tale of Papa Matsumoto, a down-on-his-luck call girl driver who picks up a mysterious passenger, unfolds with crime-noir intrigue.

When the newspaper story breaks the following weekend, every barman, bouncer and barbershop owner in Uomachi wants a signed copy. The writer starts taking books with him on his drinking missions. This proves unwise because, although the barflies are interesting people and buy his book, he ends up drinking the profits.

So he returns to the original marketing plan and buys himself a pair of sensible shoes. This time he adds leverage to hustle. He compiles a book profile in both Japanese and English, and with copies of the newspaper interview, takes his paperback to the university campus store of national book giant, Kinokuniya. The affable floor manager lends him an ear, and after reading the ‘pitch pack’, agrees to give Good Night Papa a six-month trial run.

Fearing dust will settle if he sits idle, the writer pins up fliers of his book around the university campus and leaves samples in the staff rooms to generate interest. The tactic works; two months later, a second order from Kinokuniya arrives. Buddha is smiling on the writer with sensible shoes.

With a toe-hold in the retail book market, the writer now approaches Kinokuniya’s rival, Maruzen-Junkudo, offering a similar deal: a 30% discount to the store on the recommended retail price of ¥1,500. Within a month, Good Night Papa is muscling up against Murakami and Mishima in the city’s busiest bookstore.

The writer uses Weebly to set up a website called mightytales.net and enables it with PayPay and Amazon buttons so his far-flung friends and acquaintances can purchase copies of the book. But, as good as this all sounds, his stock has hardly diminished. A new tactic is needed.

So the writer meets with the boss of the City Flea Market. The following week, in a predawn chill, amidst a lively encampment of antique sellers, venison burger chefs, blind masseurs and an hourly monkey act, he erects a small table with a red magician’s cloth. Onto this he arranges his books, sends out for coffee and waits.

The day’s takings barely cover the cost of the coffee. Sightseers, on their way to and from the castle, are not interested. He ponders this conundrum and the answer hits him like a velvet hammer. Social media.

He sets up an Instagram account and joins every Facebook group within a thirty kilometre radius, posting photos of the market with his book strategically positioned. The following week, foreign residents appear, JET teachers travelling down from their paddyland postings, retirees, as well as university teachers looking for something unacademic to read.

However, it is local residents who surprise; they gravitate to the stall in steady numbers, keen to brush up their English reading skills, curious to find out where the story of Good Night Papa will lead them in their town.

The power of social media becomes obvious. Leveraging this promotional tool, the writer sends out a request to his friends and acquaintances, asking them to photograph the book’s cover on their spring holidays. The images flow in—Good Night Papa in Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Trinidad, Tennessee and the Scottish Hebrides islands—and are promptly posted on Facebook and Instagram. Strengthening the image of Good Night Papa: Short Stories from Japan and Elsewhere as a ‘traveller’s companion’ becomes the long-term marketing goal. Book sales through www.mightytales.net grow steadily and the first Amazon and Goodreads reviews begin to appear.

Beyond the Sunday flea market and bustling bookstores of Himeji, howeveJapan’s big city booksellers beckon. The writer wonders: is there a place for his paperback on the world’s biggest book shelves?

A few weeks later, shoes polished, and hauling a suitcase filled with books, he boards a train to Osaka, City of Merchants, where he cold-calls on the book buyers of Kinokuniya, Junkudo and Tsutaya megastores. There is no time for nervous sweats or tongue-tied sales pitches; the managers are busy people. They watch, listen, feel the pages of the book, run fingers down the spine, finger the barcode, the ISBN…then they speak. ‘Look around you,’ says one. ‘Almost all of our stock comes through a few American and British distributors. It simplifies out paperwork…’

The writer looks around him; yes, he is a minnow in a salmon race. The big fish—literary prize winners, represented authors—swim gracefully by to the cash registers while the hatchling must make every inch go a mile on the smell of an oily rag. However, he has nothing to lose and everything to gain. So the writer offers free shipping. The manager listens. The writer offers to pay for return delivery of unsold books. The manager smiles.

Japan may be home to light-speed living, but when it comes to decision-making, stalactites happen faster. So the writer leaves his business card, titled “Storyteller”, thanks each book buyer for their time and returns to castle town.

The following week he sends emails thanking the managers of all the bookstores for their time. The replies are courteous, encouraging even; some of the staff have begun reading the book—and are enjoying it!

A year on, the writer is pleased to report that the mountain of books in his backroom has been reduced to a proverbial molehill, the first print run of a thousand copies of Good Night Papa: Short Stories from Japan and Elsewhere almost sold out. Bookstores in Kobe, Osaka and Tokyo are currently stocking. It is also selling well in New Zealand, Australia, and there is even a copy or two inside the Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore on Paris’s Left Bank. In Himeji, it sits in tourist kiosks, English language schools, cafes, a wine shop, and is even on sale at the Chamber of Commerce.

The independent writer’s journey, with a nod to Lao Tzu, has been a long and slow one, measured in single steps not leaps-and-bounds. Nevertheless, it has been a journey of learning, meeting people and receiving the ultimate accolade for all those hours spent writing, packaging and pacing city sidewalks in sensible shoes—that the reader enjoyed the book.

End.

On the Web:

Mighty Tales (author’s website) www.mightytales.net

Amazon Japan: Good Night Papa: Short Stories from Japan and Elsewhere

Also available at Kinokuniya (Shinjuku, Tokyo), Junkudo (Umeda, Osaka), Tsutaya (Umeda, Osaka – 2018), Kinokuniya (Kobe)

Other Media:

Simon Rowe: Adventures in Self-publishing, Tablo, March 2017.    Link