Big Sound Temple
Japan
Japan N - Z
Riots, Rice
From July to September, 1918, large mobs across
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Rōnin, the Forty-Seven
The events that culminated in all but one of the fabled forty-seven rōnin committing mass seppuku began at the start of the eighteenth century. For it was then – in either March or April – that the Shogun Tsunayoshi Tokugawa instructed two daimyo or feudal lords to receive an envoy sent by the Emperor. As both daimyo were rather young and inexperienced concerning matters of court etiquette, however, Tokugawa also appointed an official named Kira Kozuke-no-suke Yoshinaka to assist them.
History records that Yoshinaka was a particularly unpleasant individual: vain, arrogant and continually demanding bribes to do his job properly. He took an instant dislike to one of the young daimyo – a man named Asano Takumi-no-Kami Naganori – and thus needled him as often as he could. After a couple of months of persistent slights and humiliations, Naganori reacted by drawing his dagger and lunging at Yoshinaka. Although the main injury was to Yoshinaka’s pride (he otherwise received only a superficial wound to the face), the Shogun ordered that Naganori pay for his loss of temper by committing seppuku.
Once a daimyo had performed seppuku, his castle was declared forfeit to the Shogun, his family disgraced, and his servant samurai made to become rōnin. Forty-seven of Naganori’s samurai weren’t prepared to give in so easily, however. They considered that it should have been Yoshinaka who’d received such a harsh punishment, and not their master. They even considered rebelling against the Shogun and defending the castle to the death, until Naganori’s younger brother Daigaku requested that they comply with the Shogun’s order.
Out of respect for Daigaku, the samurai obeyed. They left the castle and went their separate ways, but not before making a solemn and secret pact…
Over the following months, a paranoid Yoshinaka attempted to keep an eye on as many of the rōnin as he could. For he was certain that they were planning an act of revenge against him. And yet Yoshinaka’s spies reported that the dispersed men had become monks, street vendors, and even beggars and drunks. On occasion other samurai, recognising the men, went so far as to physically attack them, disgusted by their apparent lack of courage when it came to avenging their master’s death.
Finally, however, Naganori’s former Chief Councillor Oishi Kura-no-suke Yoshio decided that enough time had passed. He secretly summoned the other forty-six men who’d sworn to avenge their master’s death, and together they set out on their mission.
Early in the morning of December 14, 1702, in driving snow, the forty-seven rōnin attacked Yoshinaka’s opulent residence as he was giving a tea party. Yoshinaka had over sixty guards to protect him, and yet the rōnin managed to defeat them without sustaining any loss to life or limb themselves. Yoshinaka was found cowering in a closet with his wife and two female servants; the rōnin dragged him outside, and there in the snow offered him the chance to commit seppuku – a noble, warrior-like death. Yoshinaka only shivered and begged for mercy, however, so that in the end Yoshio was obliged to cut off his head. This the rōnin then took to Naganori’s tomb at Sengaku-ji (the ‘Spring-hill temple’). Yoshinaka’s head was washed in a well and placed before Naganori’s tomb, thereby symbolising that revenge had been exacted. The rōnin then allowed themselves to be captured by the Shogun’s forces.
Tsunayoshi Tokugawa found himself in a quandary concerning how to deal with the rōnin. The story concerning the former samurais’ actions quickly spread throughout
Finally the Shogun realised what he had to do. The rōnin would be permitted to commit seppuku, thereby maintaining their honour. Only the youngest of their number would be spared, on account of his age.
After they’d killed themselves the rōnin were placed in tombs alongside their master; the one man who’d been spared finally joined them when he died of natural causes aged seventy-eight. Their tombs at Sengaku-ji can be visited to this day.
--------------------Sasuke, Sarutobi
In finest ninja tradition, no one seems certain whether or not Sarutobi Sasuke actually existed. Often mentioned in the stories told to children in the early twentieth century, he remains to this day something of a staple in manga (Japanese for ‘comic’).
Sarutobi means ‘monkey jump’, and legend informs us that the young Sasuke was in fact raised by monkeys, thus inheriting their agility and ability to swing from tree to tree. Pity the poor swordsman who later had to face the ninja Sasuke had become – for as he ducked and dived here, there and everywhere, it proved quite impossible to kill or injure him.
Sasuke was (in fact, or maybe just in fiction) an associate of Kirigakure Saizō, who was the smoother, more handsome and more debonair of the pair.
Kirigakure, incidentally, means ‘hidden in fog’; clearly, with their respective powers, he and Sasuke were a formidable couple of fighters.
While in
A) The ‘James Dean’ of the Japanese scooter-world, who revs his underpowered hog while wearing a black helmet that could only ever have got that scuffed and battered with a little assistance from some sandpaper and a small hammer. Expect to see some example of ‘biker nihilism’ to be displayed on the rider’s leather jacket – which, having been translated into 'Japanese English', may well be virtually incomprehensible. For example: ‘Sometimes live just lived hard on the road too much’.
Give yourself an extra point if James Dean is trying to light a cigarette while at the same time changing lanes.
B) A man and woman in their late teens or early twenties, long hair commonly streaked blond, neither person wearing a crash helmet. As they’re young, healthy and good-looking, obviously nothing so trivial as a road accident is ever going to befall them.
Give yourself an extra point if the young man (who’s invariably the driver) reaches behind him to offer the woman a light for her cigarette, while at the same time trying to turn a corner.
C) A black-robed monk or priest, pushing his machine (also usually black) to its very limits as he hurries to a meeting, service or funeral that he’s already a couple of minutes late for.
Give yourself an extra point if – while waiting at some traffic lights – you see the priest or monk surreptitiously flick his cigarette butt away when he thinks that no one’s watching.
D) An immaculately-dressed young businesswoman, riding her flawlessly clean machine at exactly fifteen miles an hour, unmindful of the mile-long queue of traffic behind her.
Give yourself an extra point if the colour of her helmet matches that of her scooter. Give yourself a million points if you ever once observe her smoking in her entire life.
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For just a few Japanese, declared Professor Hiroaki Ota (who coined the term ‘Paris Syndrome’), the sudden exposure to the legendary Parisian temper – in the form of a brusque waiter or taxi driver, for example – can prove catastrophic. The Japanese Embassy in Paris subsequently admitted that it receives approximately thirty ‘distress’ calls a year, and had on several occasions been obliged to find a doctor who could issue a sedative, to allow the Paris-shocked Japanese tourist to be able to get to Charles De Gaulle International Airport and thus back to nice, safe, polite Japan. However, the Embassy was quick to add that, of the approximate one million Japanese who visit
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Tameemon, Raiden
Considered one of the greatest rikishi (sumo wrestler – literally, ‘strong man’) in history, Raiden Tameemon (1767 - 1825) was born Tarokichi Seki to a poor farming family. His father was as fond of sumo as he was sake; and so when his son became a 6’ 5” giant while still in his mid-teens, he could not have been more delighted. Seki began training at a local ‘sumo stable’, though was soon taken to Edo (the old name for
Enthusiastic consumption of the rikishi’s staple diet of chankonabe – a stew which contains meat, fish and vegetables, served with copious quantities of rice – meant that he achieved a weight of around 370 pounds, and under his ‘fighting name’ of Raiden (‘thunder and lightening’) he won every tournament in which he competed from 1793 through to 1800. Eventually sumo officials were forced to ban him from performing a number of his favourite moves, in an attempt to allow another rikishi to win.
January 26, 1948: shortly before closing time, in Shiina, a suburb of
The ‘dysentery inoculation’ was in fact cyanide: ten people (including a child) died at the scene and two more later in hospital. Police arrested a painter named Sadamichi Hirasawa on August 21, after he was tentatively identified as having been ‘Jiro Yamaguchi’ by several eyewitnesses. Hirasawa at first confessed to the crime, but then quickly recounted, claiming that he’d been tortured by police. Eyewitness reports were also questioned, with it being reported that one man was pressured by police to change his initial statement ‘the suspect resembles Hirasawa’ to ‘the suspect must be Hirasawa’. (My italics.)
In spite of this Hirasawa was convicted of the crime and in 1950 sentenced to death. His defence quickly mounted numerous petitions for a retrial, and, although the death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court of Japan in 1955, a succession of Justice Ministers – who must approve an execution – would refuse to authorise the carrying out of the sentence.
Hirasawa would still, however, spend the rest of his life in prison, passing the time painting and writing an autobiography entitled My Will: the Teikoku Bank Case. He died (of natural causes in a prison hospital) in 1987, aged ninety-five.
Controversy continues to surround the ‘Teigin Bank Incident’. It has long been suspected that the actual perpetrator was in fact a former member of the notorious ‘Kempeitai Political Department and Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory’ – a Japanese wartime organisation more commonly known as ‘Unit 731’. Concerned with the development of chemical and biological weapons, Unit 731 were responsible for tens of thousands of deaths during the Second World War, especially at Pingfan, the ‘Asian Auschwitz’ in Manchuria, where around a quarter of a million Chinese were murdered.
In his 1985 book Flowering of the Bamboo, American journalist William Triplett argued that the use of cyanide in the Teigin Bank Incident pointed to the murderer having been a former member of Unit 731. Triplett also provided hard evidence that the Japanese police had themselves suspected this and attempted to conduct their investigations accordingly – but had been stopped by none other than the
The police were instead ordered to find a fall-guy. And in Sadamichi Hirasawa they found one.
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Toba-Fushimi, The
The idea that Yoshinobu Tokugawa – the 15th Shogun recently deposed from power by the Meiji Restoration – would continue (albeit discreetly) to assist the newly-formed government in decision-making, was one that was hotly-contested by several hard-line, pro-Imperial samurai. They were able to have much of Tokugawa’s land taken away from him – until, so provoked, Tokugawa forces engaged in hostilities with the Imperial army that lasted four days.
But in scenes that would inspire part of the 2003 movie The Last Samurai, the Tokugawa men attempted to pit such traditional weaponry as the katana (sword) against rifles and the Gatling machine gun. Inevitably, the Imperial army had obtained a clear victory by January 31, 1868. The Tokugawa forces had also been demoralised by the sight of Imperial banners being displayed by the enemy, which (they mistakenly believed) appeared to indicate that even the Emperor was against them. (The banners had in fact been issued without either the Emperor’s permission or knowledge.)
Tsutsumi, Yoshiaki
Born May 29, 1934, Tsutsumi was in 1990 listed by Forbes as being the world’s richest man, following a series of real estate investments made by the taikun (‘tycoon’ – literally, ‘great lord’) during Japan’s ‘economic bubble’ in the late 80s.
Aged thirty, Tsutsumi had inherited the Seibu Corporation from his father. Soon his empire included a chain of hotels, railways, construction firms and a baseball team – the Seibu Lions. But following his arrest in March 2005, he pleaded guilty to conspiring to falsify Seibu Railway’s fiscal 2003 financial statements and engaging in insider trading.
The judge at the Tokyo District Court declared that Tsutsumi’s thirty-month prison sentence would be suspended for four years – it was apparently taken into consideration that Tsutsumi had done much to promote tourism within
Tsutsumi received a further indignity in 2007, when a decline in his financial fortunes caused him to be removed from Forbes’ list of billionaires.
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Yasuke
An African slave, possibly from
Yasuke (the name ‘given’ to him in
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Yakuza
Technically speaking yakuza means ‘useless’, or ‘good for nothing’, though it’s best not to remind your average chinpira (a low-ranking yakuza gangster) of this.
Some yakuza would prefer to see themselves less as criminals and more like ‘Robin Hood’ -type figures, preying only upon the rich and in times of trouble helping the ordinary populace.
For example immediately after the great Kobe earthquake of 17 January 1995, when a local yakuza syndicate quickly came to the assistance of those that needed it with food and other essential supplies. Indeed, it was widely noted at the time that the yakuza’s response was quicker than that of the government’s.
But there’s nothing very altruistic about the majority of the yakuza’s activities. They’re involved in all the usual grey areas of the underworld: extortion, prostitution, debt-collection and worse.
Some yakuza will buy stock in a large company and then threaten to sit in on the next shareholder’s meeting, and perhaps ask a few embarrassing questions about the Managing Director’s current marital difficulties, should they not be paid a large amount of money to stay away.
And in any part of a Japanese city that only really comes alive after dark, when young women dressed in ‘schoolgirl’ or ‘cowgirl’ outfits stand outside expensive bars and try to entice in passing custom, the yakuza’s presence is obvious. They also infest the world of pachinko, attracted by the vast sums of money that can pass daily through such pachinko ‘parlours’.
But generally speaking, the average person in the street comes into direct contact with the yakuza only in a situation that can best be described as ‘unfortunate’.
Take for example a young married couple with whom my wife and I are friendly, who were driving home late one night when they were involved in a minor collision with a jet-black gangster mobile.
Out jumped the driver – who obviously thought that wearing shades at midnight was a good idea – to demand that the shaken couple reimburse him for the scrape down one side of his car.
‘Look at the damage you idiots have caused!’ he berated them, although the scrape was clearly weeks old. Besides which, it was the chinpira who’d caused the minor accident by jumping a red light in the first place.
But the next day the couple asked their insurance company to pay up, fearful that they’d otherwise just get a knock on their door at midnight.
My wife also remembers the evening when two yakuza thugs came to the temple where her father was head-priest (a position now held by her brother). Even my wife and her brother, then aged no more than twelve, recognized the men for what they were, due to the previously mentioned swagger and also because one had a somewhat shortened little finger.
(When the Postman Pat and later Bob the Builder cartoons were considered for export to Japan, it was planned to add another digit to each of the characters four-fingered hands to avoid scaring children. The yakuza act of yubitsume – ‘finger shortening’ – itself dates from a time when four intact fingers were necessary to get a decent grip of a sword handle. Making someone lop off part or all of their little finger in punishment for some transgression therefore ‘weakened’ them. Nowadays, however, it’s more likely to impede an errant mobster’s golf swing.)
My late father-in-law invited the two men into his office, where they stayed for about an hour. And most of what passed between them will forever remain a mystery. My wife’s father only ever revealed that he informed the pair, politely – as they sipped hot green tea, smoked cigarettes and perhaps nibbled on a cake or two – that they would not be getting any money from him or the temple, now or ever.
And then the yakuza left, never (touch wood) to return.
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Zen
禅
Zen is everything, and at the same time it is nothing. It is not ‘white light’ or some divine higher state of consciousness, and yet it can – on its absolute lowest levels – provide the superior state of mind that we require to properly engage in such esoteric pursuits as poetry (for example haiku), painting, chadō or the ‘way of tea’, shodō and the martial arts.
With reference to this last example, many expert martial artists attribute their feats of tameshiwari - wood and stone 'breaking' - as a way of ‘moving Zen’.
So in this case, what exactly is Zen? Surely it must be something, if it can be moved. Well, don’t take the word of someone just because they can break five paving slabs using only their little finger (although it’s probably a good idea to at least look as though you’re taking them seriously).
No, we have to find the answer ourselves. Because Zen is indefinable. It exists – if it can be said to ‘exist’ at all – in a completely rarefied atmosphere, a vacuum. It demands that we free our own mind, absolutely, from all worldly concerns, if we are to stand a chance in infinity of finding it. Allow the mind to learn for itself the very reason for its existence and its capacity for conscious thought – for when you find Zen, you will have left the child’s toy that is ‘conscious thought’ a billion miles behind.
Shed yourself of all desire, all wants and needs; an ascetic’s lifestyle is not even close to what you’ll have to lead if ever you hope to attain Zen. There are monks the world over who spend upwards of eight hours a day in seated meditation, their eyes semi-hooded but never closed (because in all seriousness, closing your eyes does tend to encourage sleep).
Fix your thoughts on nothing; thoughts are nothing but a distraction from Zen. Does the goldfish think of anything beyond its immediate, necessary physical functions – to swim, to breathe, to eat? And does it suffer because it has no ‘conscious’ thought? (I’m not suggesting here that goldfish commonly attain Zen-level Enlightenment, by the way. In fact, they probably wouldn’t know what Zen was if it knocked on their bowl and waved at them.)
Zen has no defining parameters, no shape or form. If ever you think you are close to attaining Zen, then you are mistaken, for Zen has nothing that can be recognized. Only when you become Zen will you truly know it for what it is. Try to grasp it, and away it moves. Allow the mind and all it contains to dissolve into nothingness – a true nothingness – and you have Zen.
Then these words, and the countless millions of others that have been scribbled over the centuries to describe Zen, will be rendered no important to the real meaning of Zen than the scratching of an ant in the earth. For Zen can never be described, only experienced.
Which makes the thought of me writing any more seem rather pointless, really.
