Category Archives: Japan

by | 16 September 2010 · 6:54 am

The Strength of Edo-period Culture

From Edo Culture: Daily Life and Diversions in Urban Japan, 1600–1868, by Nishiyama Matsunosuke, trans. and ed. by Gerald Groemer (U. Hawai‘i Press, 1997), pp. 8-9:

The strength of Edo-period culture is not to be found in extant artifacts of the era. Rather, its strength lies chiefly in its spectacular breadth and diversity. This was a period of unprecedented cultural prosperity. Even the general public took part in leisure pursuits and played an active role in the creation of new cultural forms. The average commoner read books or visited the theater; some even wrote haiku verses and senryū (seventeen-syllable comic verse) or performed musical genres such as gidayū, kato bushi, shinnai, or nagauta. Others went on pilgrimages sponsored by religious associations (kō) and toured distant places. The Edo period saw a rise in the quality of culinary fare that commoners consumed; clothing and housing too showed marked improvement. Even the poor managed occasionally to indulge in the luxury of purchasing a “custom-made” comb or an ornamental hairpin. The demand for such cultural items fostered the development of a highly refined handicraft industry. Never before had there been such an extraordinary variety of hand-made cultural artifacts in Japan.

Even in remote areas in the countryside or on distant, isolated islands, inhabitants cultivated rare varieties of flowers and trees and marketed unusual rocks or curiosities. As Suzuki Bokushi (1770-1842) noted in his Akiyama kikō (Autumn Mountain Travelogue, 1831), people in every corner of the land were busy manufacturing local specialties. Such articles were being produced, one by one, by thirty million people. By the late Edo period this activity had stimulated an unprecedented development of the transportation network. Mountain roads, waterways, and sea routes were extended in all directions to every nook and cranny of the country. Indeed, the construction of footpaths during the late Edo period can be seen as a kind of symbol of this golden age of handicraft culture.

No doubt, Japan today boasts a high level of culture. But the price has been high as well: severe environmental pollution and the wholesale destruction of nature. Until the end of the Edo period, red-crested cranes could still be seen soaring through the skies over the city; swans and geese flocked to Shinobazu Pond in Ueno Park. Foxes and badgers were found everywhere, and cuckoos (hototogisu) flourished in such numbers that their song was considered a nuisance. Even during the late Meiji period the water of the Sumida River was clean enough to be used for brewing tea while boating. Human activity imparted only minimal damage to nature. Viewed in this way, Edo-period culture seems almost ideal.

Certain elements of the Edo-period cultural heritage were vulgar, no doubt, but a more comprehensive view of the period reveals an almost infinite number of admirable qualities. Nevertheless, after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, governmental policies of modernization and westernization dictated a wholesale rejection of the preceding feudal era. Even the best elements of Edo-period culture were deemed outdated and vulgar and were thought to require prompt and thorough extirpation. That the true value of Edo-period culture could not yet be properly assessed had much to do with the lack of any inquiry into its origins and actual conditions. Recent research, however, has shown that Edo-period culture was outstanding in its own way and not at all inferior to the culture of earlier or later periods.

Leave a comment

Filed under art, Japan, language, literature, music, scholarship, travel

by | 6 September 2010 · 5:00 pm

Wordcatcher Tales: Birds for Trains

“So what is a shirasagi, anyway?” I asked the JR clerk in Nagoya Station who had initiated our rail passes and booked reservations on the Shirasagi Limited Express to Hida Takayama. “Could it be a white rabbit (shira- ‘white’ + usagi ‘rabbit’)?” She had no idea. But I should have known it would be a bird.

Before the advent of the Shinkansen bullet trains in 1964, the most famous limited express train along the Tokaido Main Line was the Tsubame ‘swallow’. In fact, the Japan National Railways (JNR, 国鉄) used a swallow logo on its bus system and called its professional baseball team the (Kokutetsu) Swallows. Two other notable limited express trains we rode in those days were the Hato ‘dove’ and the Kamome ‘seagull’.

Most express trains were named for destinations, like the Miyajima Express that I used to ride home to Hiroshima from boarding school in Kobe, but the fastest limited express trains tended to be named for birds. The first bullet trains went for even speedier names: Kodama ‘echo’ (speed of sound), Hikari ‘flash’ (speed of light), and the latest, postmodern-sounding Nozomi ‘desire’. But regional bullet trains have revived a lot of the old limited-express bird names: Hayabusa ‘peregrine falcon’, Kamome ‘seagull’, Toki ‘crested ibis’, Tsubame ‘swallow’.

On our latest trip, we were in the Hokuriku region, off the Shinkansen grid, where the fastest trains are traditional limited expresses, so we encountered several bird-named trains that were new to me. Shirasagi can be translated ‘snowy egret’ (Egretta thula), although sagi labels the whole family of herons (Ardeidae), as in aosagi (lit. ‘blue heron’) ‘gray heron’ (Ardeia cinerea).

Coming back to Kanazawa from Nanao on the Noto Peninsula, we rode the Sandābādo/Thunderbird, whose name left me a bit nonplussed until we paired it with Raichō ‘rock ptarmigan’ (Lagopus muta), a limited express that runs from Osaka through Kanazawa to Toyama. Thunderbird began operations as Super Raichō (Thunderbird), and Raichō (雷鳥) literally translates as ‘thunder bird’. The rock ptarmigan is a symbol of Toyama Prefecture’s Tateyama, one of Japan’s 三霊山 Sanreizan ‘Three Holy Mountains’, along with Fujisan and Hakusan. (Doesn’t the Rock Ptarmigan sound like a good name for a smaller version of Ford’s SVT Raptor?)

Another limited express we rode between Kanazawa and Toyama was the Hakutaka, whose name is always written in kana, not kanji, and whose train cars carry an emblem with the English words “White Wing.” The name evokes an old Tateyama legend about a white hawk (白鷹, which would normally be pronounced shirataka), but also evokes the name of a long-distance train, Hakuchō (‘white bird’ =) ‘swan’ that used to run all the way from Aomori (where the swan is the prefectural bird) via Ueno and Kanazawa to Osaka. The name Hakutaka was independently used for trains running on the leg between Ueno and Kanazawa until that leg was disrupted by the extension of the Shinkansen toward Nagano and Niigata in 1982. In 1997 it was revived for limited express trains running along the Japan Sea coast between Fukui and Niigata prefectures.

The first Japanese long-distance trains to receive names seem to have been the Fuji and Sakura, which began running between Tokyo and Shimonoseki in 1912, but were not named until 1929.

The first train named Hato ‘dove’ was an express on the South Manchuria Railway (満鉄 Mantetsu) running between Dalian and the new (in 1932) Manchukuo capital, 新京 Shinkyō (now Changchun). The limited express on that route was named あじあ Ajia ‘Asia’.

POSTSCRIPT: The first trains named Hikari and Nozomi were Mantetsu expresses running between Busan (釜山) and Shinkyō (新京). (Japanese Wikipedia offers very detailed coverage of Japanese train systems, past and present.)

And, speaking of Imperial Japan, many of the same bird names were used for Hayabusa-class torpedo boats built between 1900 and 1904 that served so well in the Battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War.

Leave a comment

Filed under industry, Japan, language, military, travel

by | 4 September 2010 · 11:40 am

Wordcatcher Tales: Two Lakes Ōmi, Near and Far

Japan’s largest freshwater lake, 琵琶湖 Biwa-ko ‘biwa lake’, got its current name from its elongated shape, which vaguely resembles that of the biwa, a Japanese lute, sharper at one end, rounder at the other. But the older name for the lake and the land around it (now Shiga Prefecture) was Ōmi 淡海 < awaumi ‘light (= freshwater) sea’. (Compare the native Japanese reading for 湖 ‘lake’ mizu-umi lit. ‘water-sea’ and the Sino-Japanese compound 淡水 tansui ‘freshwater’).

The older name, Ōmi, still shows up in a host of local place names—Ōmi-Hachiman (近江八幡), Ōmi-Imazu (近江今津), Ōmi-Maiko (近江舞子), Ōmi-Shiotsu (近江塩津), etc.—but nowadays it’s always written as 近江 lit. ‘near-bay/inlet/river’. (江 is the e of 江戸 Edo lit. ‘bay-door’.) What’s up with that?

Well, it turns out there was another notable freshwater lake near Hamamatsu in what is now Shizuoka Prefecture. To the Kinki hegemons of the Nara and Heian periods, it was the 遠つ淡海 Tōtu-ōmi ‘far freshwater sea’, later shortened to 遠江 Tōtōmi ‘far waters’, which was also the name of the surrounding province.

The lake closer to the capital was distinguished as the 近つ淡海 Tikatu-ōmi ‘near lake’, shortened in writing to 近江 ‘near waters’, but pronounced simply Ōmi, since it was, after all, The Lake (like ‘The City’).

Nowadays, the two lakes are no longer sibling rivals. A major earthquake in 1498 breached the narrow shoreline that separated Lake Tōtōmi from the ocean, leaving its waters brackish, though still very productive. It now goes by the rather prosaic name Lake Hamana (浜名湖 Hamana-ko ‘shorename-lake’), while Lake Ōmi sports a more poetic moniker, Lake Biwa: 琵琶湖 Biwa-ko ‘lute lake’.

Leave a comment

Filed under Japan, language

by | 1 September 2010 · 5:06 am

On Rewriting While Translating

From Edo Culture: Daily Life and Diversions in Urban Japan, 1600–1868, by Nishiyama Matsunosuke, trans. and ed. by Gerald Groemer (U. Hawai‘i Press, 1997), pp. 3-4:

In translating I have striven to remain faithful to the spirit rather than the letter of Nishiyama’s prose. Some therefore may wish to label this book an adaptation rather than a translation. Nishiyama writing style is stiff and often thrives more on a general tone of enthusiasm for the subject than on logical connections between sentences or paragraphs. Such a style, informed by the conviction that a good point bears repetition and that the relevance of an example need not be clarified until the very end of a section, entirely rules out literal translation. I have thus pruned judiciously, rewritten, rethought sentence and paragraph order, but refrained from adding anything substantially new to Nishiyama’s writing. The only exceptions to this rule are a few brief definitions of terms unlikely to be known to a nonspecialist Anglophone readership and, moreover, the endings of Chapters 7, 8, and 9. In the original, these chapters simply stop when Nishiyama has run out of things to say. Such a writing style, common enough in Japanese academic prose, often irritates Western readers, who tend to prefer more synthetic conclusions. In these chapters, therefore, I have added summaries of Nishiyama’s major points, thereby bringing the chapter to a smoother close while not adding anything new.

Since the studies translated here were not conceived by Nishiyama as forming one volume, much material is repeated. In some cases I have simply excised such duplication. The largest cut occurs in Chapter 6. Here I have eliminated or moved to other chapters most of the information that is presented in the first half of the original study, which repeats much of what has already been translated as Chapters 1 through 5. All major changes have been discussed with Professor Nishiyama, who himself occasionally suggested alterations and corrections.

Documentation in the original studies is often lacking and sometimes erroneous. In an effort to complete as many references as possible, I have started from scratch. Unless otherwise indicated, therefore, all notes are by the translator. Rechecking sources has allowed me to uncover several errors and misprints, which have been silently corrected after confirmation by the author.

The selection of illustrations and maps, the transcription of musical examples, and the production of the glossary are also my responsibility. Other editorial additions include dates and footnoted biographical information on individuals, details of geographical location of small towns and villages, variant names and performance dates of kabuki plays or musical works, and dates of publication of books. Names of individuals have presented a special problem, since Nishiyama endows the use of pseudonyms (geimei) with a special significance. Edo-period writers, actors, musicians, and artists often assumed a large variety of pseudonyms, forcing the translator to select one of several names for the sake of consistency. I have generally selected the name most likely to appear in biographical dictionaries.

Translating the titles of books or kabuki plays presents yet other obstacles. Titles of novels, plays, or collections of poetry are often the source of cryptic puns—and in cases where a work no longer exists, the exact reading and meaning of the title are anybody’s guess. For extant books I have usually followed the reading of titles found in the Kokusho sōmokuroku. Kabuki titles are given in the version most likely to appear in kabuki dictionaries; alternative titles are given in the notes. A rough translation of a title’s most obvious meaning follows the original in parentheses; when such a translation appears in italics, this indicates that the book has been published under this title in English. The reader should note that the names of Buddhist temples end with the syllables ji, in, tera, or dera; Shinto shrines often end with sha, gu, or miya.

1 Comment

Filed under Japan, language, publishing, scholarship

by | 16 August 2010 · 4:30 pm

New Scholarship on Wartime Kabuki, 1931–1945

The latest issue of Asian Theatre Journal (via Project MUSE) contains a review (by UCLA’s Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei) of James Brandon’s myth-shattering new book, Kabuki’s Forgotten War: 1931–1945 (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2009). Here are a few snippets to give a flavor of how stunningly revisionist the book is.

It was in 2002, at a conference honoring the work of Leonard C. Pronko, that I first heard James R. Brandon present the extraordinary research he was doing on kabuki during what the Japanese call the Fifteen-Year War, the last four years of which encompass the Pacific War of World War II. I will never forget the shock waves in the room as he showed slides and told us about a wartime kabuki play called Three Heroic Human Bombs. Here were kabuki actors performing in 1932, dressed in modern military uniforms, looking for all the world like realistic film actors, carrying bombs as they slogged through mud and barbed wire toward a glorious suicide during Japan’s war in China. And then he told us about other new plays from that period, starring famous kabuki actors performing alongside (gasp!) actresses—not onnagata, but females from shinpa and shingeki. The actors wore realistic, contemporary costumes without a trace of kabuki’s makeup or wigs, and there was nary a musician in sight. How could these contemporary propaganda plays about military exploits and home front patriotism be kabuki? We all thought we knew what kabuki was, but suddenly the hard-earned knowledge of about a hundred scholars was totally shattered….

As Brandon correctly notes, the war years have been studied extensively from many cultural and political perspectives, but this is the first book in any language (including Japanese) to focus on the wartime history of kabuki. Despite a few notable exceptions, in most Japanese histories of kabuki, “the war years are simply erased” (p. x)….

The book demonstrates kabuki’s often enthusiastic complicity with Japan’s militarist and imperialist exploits during the 1931–1945 war years, and also puts the situation of kabuki in clear historical perspective. During the early, successful years of the war, kabuki actors and playwrights were in great demand, and they performed many jingoistic, patriotic works. Nevertheless, most actors chose to remember things differently after the war. Brandon quotes from Ichikawa Ennosuke II’s postwar memoir: “The five years of the Pacific War was a dark period, a time of suffering for performers.” Brandon then comments:

Like most others, Ennosuke did not see himself as a participant in the war. Forgotten were his morale performances in Manchuria, flying to China to gather authentic war material, and the many heroic-soldier roles he enacted in war plays. In portraying himself as a victim of the war and dwelling only on the horrors of the war’s end, Ennosuke (and others) erased the victorious years, 1931–1943, when life was good for kabuki artists because of the war.

During the war, kabuki continued its centuries-long tradition of “overnight pickles” (ichiyazuke), plays based on contemporary events that were written and staged within weeks or even days of the actual occurrence. An early wartime “overnight pickle” (when things were still very good for kabuki) dealt with the 1942 capture of Singapore aided by the daring exploits of a young Japanese man whom the popular press dubbed “The Tiger of Malaya.” Brandon notes that more than one hundred kabuki overnight pickle plays were written and set during the Fifteen-Year War….

Brandon argues that official support for such morale-boosting kabuki performances, despite overwhelming evidence that Japan was nearing a disastrous defeat, offers a case study supporting the contention that without the atomic bombing, Japan would never have surrendered. He notes that the Japanese cabinet voted numerous times to continue fighting despite the destruction of nearly half of Japan’s urban areas and devastating losses in the Pacific. He offers the bizarre case of playwright Kikuta Kazuo, who wrote many anti-American, prowar plays for both Shōchiku and Tōhō, as further proof that the government was in total denial regarding Japan’s imminent defeat. Kikuta described what it was like to be one of the last members of the Japan Dramatists’ Association to remain in Tokyo after massive American firebombing began in March 1945. The Bureau of Information considered the Dramatists’ Association’s purpose to be “to gain victory in the war.”

1 Comment

Filed under art, Japan, nationalism, publishing, scholarship, war

by | 15 August 2010 · 5:08 pm

Will Japan Surrender Its Economy This Time?

Japan surrendered 65 years ago today, after decades of initially triumphant and then draining military conflict marked by official denial of any possibility of losing militarily until the very day of surrender. A recent op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor by a financial investment researcher suggests Japan is going to lose its formerly triumphant economic “war” in the same way (with lessons for the U.S. and other debt-ridden economies).

Investors are understandably scared of the sovereign debt crisis unfolding in Europe, but they are ignoring a more definite and significantly larger sovereign debt catastrophe that is about to hit the world’s third-largest economy: Japan.

The prelude to Japan’s current crisis began in the early 1990s when its housing and stock market bubbles popped, leading to recession.

For the next 20 years, using flashy names like Fiscal Structural Reform Act, and Emergency Employment Measures, and Policy Measures of Economic Rebirth, the government cut taxes, increased spending, and borrowed money to finance itself. Once or twice the government found fiscal religion and raised taxes; however, the economy stuttered and taxes again were lowered and the stimulus story continued.

Today, 20 years into endless stimuli, the Japanese economy is beset by the same rot it was then, except that its debt has tripled – the ratio of debt to gross domestic product (GDP) stands at almost 200 percent, double those of the United States and Germany, and second only to Zimbabwe….

A country that has ballooning debt needs to have an expanding economy to help the country outgrow its debt burden. Economic growth is driven by two factors, productivity and population growth. Though the Japanese economy may continue to reap the benefits of productivity, population growth is not in the cards.

Japan has one of the oldest societies in the developed world; every fourth Japanese person is over 65 years of age, and the population is shrinking. Due to cultural mores, workers are largely compensated not on merit but on seniority. Thus, young adults marry later in life, and have kids later.

This helps explain why the Japanese birthrate is one of the lowest in the world, a meager 1.37 per woman, well below the 2.1 figure needed to sustain a population….

Though debt has tripled over the past two decades, government spending on interest payments has not changed; in fact it even declined a little in the mid-2000s. This happened because the government’s average interest rate paid on its debt declined from more than 6 percent in the 1990s to 1.4 percent in 2009.

This is about to change. Historically, more than 90 percent of Japanese government-issued debt was consumed internally by its citizens, directly or through its pension system. In the 1990s, the savings rate was very high, pushing the mid-teens, but as people get older, they retire and start drawing down their savings and pensions. Today, the Japanese savings rate is approaching zero, and will probably go negative in the not-so-distant future.

The Japanese economy operates on the (soon-to-be-proved-false) assumption that the government will always be able to borrow at low interest rates. As internal demand for debt evaporates – and it’s approaching this level already – the Japanese government will have to start hocking its debt outside Japan.

When it does, it will face a rude shock in the form of higher interest payments. Japanese 10-year Treasuries now yielding 1.0 percent will not stand a chance against US or German bonds of the same maturities that yield 2.89 percent and 2.59 percent, respectively….

Along with China, Japan is the one of the largest holders of US government debt, and its demand for our fine paper will decline. Most likely, Japan will start selling Treasuries. And to make things worse, Japan will start competing with the US, not just in cars and electronics, but for buyers of sovereign government debt. Japan will export inflation, inflation will rise globally, and so will interest rates.

Had I written a similar article five years ago, I would have been “wrong,” as today the Japanese economy is still ticking. Timing bubbles – and Japan is in the late stages of an enormous debt bubble – is very difficult, as bubbles tend to last longer than rational observers expect. But every year that the Japanese bubble doesn’t burst and debt swells, the eventual pop just grows more catastrophic.

Japan is past the point of no return; its fiscal and demographic problems were created over decades and will take decades to be resolved. In the meantime, its citizens will pay the painful price. Japan is proof that a country cannot borrow itself to prosperity.

Leave a comment

Filed under economics, Japan, U.S., war

by | 10 July 2010 · 1:15 pm

Wordcatcher Tales: Akasuri

At the end of a long day’s excursion last summer that included being caught in a downpour in Kyoto’s Arashiyama district, my friend and host suggested we visit her favorite local bathhouse back in Osaka. I hadn’t been to a Japanese public bathhouse in many years, and this was the fanciest one I have ever been to.

It had a noisy game room below but a large expanse of many different indoor and outdoor pools on the top floor. I sampled most of them during the hour I had until my appointment for a massage: the hot tub, the cold tub, the large outdoor pool under the dark sky, and the line of individual tubs, quickly retreating from the first one I tried, which greeted my entering leg with a mild but unexpected electrical charge. There weren’t many of us in the men’s side; I often had the tubs to myself. Finally, worried about missing my appointment, I sat marinating in the rosemary herbal pool, which had a clock on the wall big enough for me to read without my glasses.

垢擦り akasuri ‘cloth/pumice/loofah for rubbing body’ (lit. ‘scurf-chafing’) – My friend, who went in the women’s side, had chosen the basic akasuri exfoliating rubdown, rather than the Swedish or shiatsu or other massage. I had never tried that one, so I chose the same. She had told me that the masseuses on the women’s side were middle-aged ethnic Koreans. In fact, I would guess the bathhouse complex itself was owned by members of Osaka’s huge ethnic Korean population.

The masseuses on the men’s side were also sturdy middle-aged ladies. I didn’t ask their age or ethnicity. In fact, I was far too relaxed to be as inquisitive as I often am in Japanese restaurants. There was only one other man on a massage table when I showed up, and a different one on another table by the time I finished. In the meantime, the masseuse abraded every inch of my skin—apart from face and genitals (always carefully covered by a washcloth)—first with an astringent, then with a light oil.

By the end my skin felt as smooth as it ever has in my adult life. Although I was a little bit too raw in a few places, I felt ‘grime-free’, that is, 垢抜け akanuke ‘elegant, urbane’. A proper chafing leaves one more refined, as in 人擦れ hitozure ‘(person-abrasion =) sophistication’, even too refined, as in 悪擦れ waruzure ‘(bad-abrasion =) oversophistication’. But improper chafing can leave a 擦り傷 surikizu ‘(scrape-wound =) abrasion, scratch’ or a 床擦れ tokozure ‘bedsore’.

The more generic term for traditional ‘massage’ or ‘masseuse, masseur’ in Japanese is 按摩 anma lit. ‘press-rub’. The two kanji for ‘rub’ and ‘scrape’ combine in the Sino-Japanese compound 摩擦 masatsu ‘friction’, as in 摩擦音 masatsuon ‘fricative sound’.

Leave a comment

Filed under Japan, language

by | 8 July 2010 · 9:49 am

Wordcatcher Tales: Noukanshi, Encoffiner

納棺師 noukanshi ‘encoffiner’ (lit. ‘closing-coffin-master’) – I learned both a new Japanese word and a new English gloss from watching the Japanese movie, Departures (おくりびと Okuribito lit. ‘sender, dispatcher’, 2008), about a cellist who became an encoffiner. I initially scoffed at its premise and was not overly impressed by its Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2009, but decided to give it a try, as much for its potential musicality as its morbidity.

It far exceeded my expectations on both counts. Although quintessentially Japanese in so many ways, it could be adapted to every other human culture on earth—even Neanderthals, who buried their dead with some indications of ritual. The original cello score by “Joe Hisaishi” (久石 譲 = Kuishi Joe < “Quincy Jones”) was an added bonus, as was the interview with the director, so full of surprises. Highly recommended, despite being recent and award-winning!

In Japan, the 納棺師 noukanshi ‘encoffiner’ is hired by the 葬儀屋 sougiya ‘funeral director’. Not so long ago (perhaps even nowadays), anyone who was hired to handle dead bodies, or even leather, would have been of outcast status, although until recently the family of the deceased would more likely have been responsible for preparing the body.

In fact, a more traditional, less exalted, and more sexist term for the same role appears in the 1996 novel by Aoki Shinmon that inspired the film, 納棺夫日記 Noukanfu nikki (‘encoffiner diary’). The 夫 fu on the end of 納棺夫 noukanfu literally means ‘man, husband’ (in the latter meaning usually pronounced otto or fuu) but implies a manual laborer, as in 田夫 denpu ‘peasant (field hand)’, 農夫 noufu ‘farmer (farm hand)’, 牧夫 bokufu ‘herder (ranch hand)’, 漁夫 gyofu ‘fisherman’, 工夫 koufu ‘coolie, workman’, or 車夫 shafu ‘rickshaw man’. As one might expect, the role of encoffiner is often performed by women.

In the film, the encoffiner—in full view of the assembled family—carefully exchanges the deceased’s bedclothes for a typical sleeping yukata without ever showing more than the corpse’s head, feet, and forearms; then reaches under the yukata to wipe down the body and plug its orifices; then carefully dresses the body in funeral garb, applies cosmetics, arranges the hair, crosses the feet, and clasps the hands to make it ready for placement and viewing in the coffin. After the wake and religious funeral, the body is cremated inside its wooden coffin.

The job title of the noukanshi is not easy to translate into English. Although he prepares the body for public viewing, he doesn’t embalm it (out of public view in a morgue), so ’embalmer’ is not a good gloss. Although he performs a comforting ritual in the family’s presence, he handles only one phase of the death ritual, unlike today’s multitasking morticians, undertakers, or funeral directors. Nor does he add any religious message, as would an imam, pastor, priest, or rabbi. So encoffiner seems as good a gloss as any. Even though most of its attestations in cyberspace seem to postdate this film—as does 納棺師 in Japanese Wikipedia—the related term encoffinment (especially premature encoffinment!) has a longer pedigree.

Leave a comment

Filed under Japan, language

by | 4 July 2010 · 11:21 am

The Making of “Uncle Goat”

From: Comfort All Who Mourn: The Life Story of Herbert and Madeline Nicholson, by Herbert V. Nicholson and Margaret Wilke (Bookmates International, 1982), pp. 137-140:

We sailed for Japan on the Flying Scud with two hundred fifty goats. Dick Clark, an expert photographer, was on board with color movie film to record the trip. When it was over he edited some two thousand feet of film into “Ambaassadors of Peace,” the record of our trip with the emphasis on “baa.” Besides Dick and his camera there was Al Brower, a ventriloquist with his doll Bill, Les Yoder, a Mennonite young man who came along to help, and Ty Nagano, a Nisei.

We arrived in May, which happened to be kidding time. We started with two hundred fifty goats and landed with two hundred sixty five! Just before we reached Yokohama, I was called from bed in the middle of the night. There was trouble in the maternity ward. I found “Temperance,” given by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, in agony. She was having a breech delivery. Everyone was standing around not knowing what to do, so I rolled up my sleeves to help. I managed to get hold of the kid’s legs and pulled while Temperance pushed, and out came a beautiful large doe. We named her Kiyoko, which means “pure.”

When we landed in Yokohama, there was a welcome meeting for us. On that occasion, I told the story of a young Nisei girl, Satomi Yasui, and her family in America who had raised four goats for our project. The Japanese Vice-Minister for Agriculture who was present at the meeting told me afterward that I should tell the story over the radio for the children’s hour. So I went to the NHK (Japanese Broadcasting Company) office in Tokyo, but I was told that getting clearance for me to speak on the air would take six months.

Instead, I told the story to a newsman, a reporter for the women’s hour, and to a young man for the children’s hour. The young man elaborated on my story in his talk over the air. Another man heard the program and wrote it down for a large children’s magazine, adding even more changes. Finally, with more additions, the story was put into a fifth grade reader, and I became known as “Uncle Goat.”

In the reader, the story was no longer about Satomi, but about a boy named Harry whose father had been killed in the war with Japan. It was a very touching story about the sympathetic love of a lad who sacrificed to send a goat to the children of the man who had killed his father. In later years the printing of that story in the reader opened the way for me to speak in many schools all over Japan where I might otherwise never have had the opportunity….

At Honolulu [on the way back home to the States] I was “bumped off” the flight for someone of higher priority. It was four days before I could get another flight, so I used the time to tell the people in Hawaii about the goat project. The Okinawans living in Hawaii sent me a total of $35,000 for goats as a result of that visit. With the money, Heifers for Relief was able to send over five thousand goats to both Japan and Okinawa. After four wonderful days I made it back to San Francisco just in time to help send off the next load of goats.

2 Comments

Filed under education, Japan, NGOs, U.S., war

by | 4 July 2010 · 8:08 am

The Heifer Project’s First Goats for Okinawa

From: Comfort All Who Mourn: The Life Story of Herbert and Madeline Nicholson, by Herbert V. Nicholson and Margaret Wilke (Bookmates International, 1982), pp. 127-129:

An organization called Heifers for Relief, sponsored by the Church of the Brethren, decided to accept my offer to raise money and take goats to war-torn Japan.

Milk was in desperately short supply overseas and the Japanese children were being severely affected by the shortage. Ordinarily the Heifer project sent only bred heifers to ravaged areas. In this case, goats answered the need more readily, so goats were sent for the first time in its history. Later they sent all sorts of farm animals to many countries and aided poor farmers in the United States as well.*

When I received approval of the goat project I went to work. I raised a good part of the money and bought most of the goats myself. Then I gathered a little group of men to accompany me on the first trip. Sim Togasaki, a Nisei from San Francisco, wanted to come because he needed to make contacts in Japan for his importing business. Although he knew nothing about goats, he was a hard worker and a great help because he spoke fluent Japanese. Ted Roberts, a dairyman who had always been interested in the Japanese, and Paul McCracken, a goat expert, also came with us. Paul was a Quaker, too, so I was glad to have him along. My son Samuel also came. He took color slides everywhere which later were a great help in raising money for more goats.

In October, 1947, we arrived in San Francisco ready to load up for a trip when we found, to our great disappointment, that the Army had decided to send us to Okinawa rather than Japan! The following load would be scheduled for Japan. That disappointment was to become God’s surprise for us. What lay ahead was a wonderful adventure.

The Army had built pens for our two hundred goats on the rear deck of the Simon Benson, a small liberty ship which was not in good shape. We had a rough trip across the Pacific and were very relieved when we reached Okinawa safely. Later we learned that on its next trip the ship had split open! It was easy to believe.

Our arrival in Okinawa was an unforgettable experience. The harbor at Naha was full of sunken ships. The city had been completely destroyed. We could only stare in shock and pity.

We received a warm welcome and were greeted by the governor and other dignitaries. It was a delight to discover that Mr. Shikiya, the governor, was a Christian. After the ceremonies, in which we presented a goat to the community, we milked the remainder of our goats and took the milk to an orphanage.

We discovered that we were to be housed at the Military Government Headquarters across the island from Naha. Our escort there was a former missionary to Japan, Everett Thompson, who was in charge of LARA (Licensed Agencies for Relief in Asia). The occupation forces did not want to work with a lot of separate relief organizations, so they formed this agency to coordinate all relief efforts. The Heifer project joined LARA, as did the Church World Service, the Friends’ Service Committee, and many others.

At the Military Government Headquarters we were taken to the officers’ quarters. What a surprise to discover that we goatherds were classed as colonels.

* Nicholson seems to have been unaware that the Heifer project had already been sending horses and chickens as well as cattle to war-torn Europe in 1946.

2 Comments

Filed under Japan, military, NGOs, religion, U.S., war