Returning via Tome: Japan
Travel, even casual, just checking things out for fun travel, you know, tourism, stokes the imagination. It’s probably a cliche to say that reading also takes you places, but for me, each contributes to a more rounded worldview. Reading about places I hope to visit someday or those I went to in the past through literature allows me to process my place in the world.
Revisiting past trips specifically continues the experience in a way, I feel, and during the pandemic years when future travel was a distant dream, I spent a lot of the isolation reading more about some of the places I’ve been. In particular, I sought out literature in translation from Japan. It’s been 8 years this September since my sister and I spent a few weeks backpacking through Japan from Tokyo to Sapporo and back through the rural Tohoku region of northern Honshu, site of the infamous Fukushima Nuclear plant. For the works of Japanese literature I read, my visit gave me a bit more context to picture the scenes and surroundings of the works, but also helped keep the trip fresh in my mind even now.
It was a good reminder that the world still existed outside of our bubbles. While things across the world have opened up more in recent months, including Japan itself, travel is becoming a bit more difficult, and fraught, in a world that continues to keep catching on fire due in large part to the fossil fuels that currently make such travel possible. I feel that reading about places will fulfill more of a role in our experience of the rest of the world, as it’s been for many people throughout history. One thing that struck me during the trip and as I read these recently translated books from Japanese authors was the strikingly different viewpoints represented by them, an aspect I even noticed in my focus on Japanese folklore and stories of yokai and yurei I read earlier this summer. Exploring these different perspectives from a country so often stereotyped for homogenous conformity is a strong expression of how no culture is uniform.
I feel it is all too common among both foreigners and the Japanese themselves to play up a certain unique cultural cohesion. The cliched proverb “nail that sticks up gets hammered down,” being a prime example. in other words. This is hardly an idea unique to Japan, though. The Australian term “tall poppy syndrome” comes to mind, and as a native of the American Upper Midwest, a certain cultural preference valuing social cohesion at the expense of self expression is all too familiar. Conformity and groupthink are no less present in US society despite whatever value we place on the ideal of “individual” expression. I don’t think the US is any more or less hospitable to the neurodivergent experiences Sayaka Murata works with in her books Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings, nor is Japan immune to the dehumanizing effects of houselessness in a late-stage capitalist metropolis as described by Yu Miri in her book Tokyo Ueno Station. Reading these works in translation exposes us, however inexactly, to different ways of thinking.
While an unstated theme in Sayaka Murata’s novels, her characters look at societal expectations and pressures through the lens of neurodivergence, including gender roles in relationships, education, careers, and daily life in general. Convenience Store Woman, for instance, published in Japan by Murata in 2016 and translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori in 2018, is a short but impactful novel drawing on Murata’s own experience working in convenience stores, ubiquitous shops called Konbini in Japan, throughout her life. Narrated by Keiko, a 30-something woman fulfilled by lifelong employment in what most perceive as a lowly service industry job, the novel is endearing and thoughtful as we follow Keiko through her routines, as she reflects through her outsider lens on how society views people like her.
As Keiko encounters confusion and consternation from coworkers, family, and friends about her lack of conventional ambitions and needs, from getting a more prestigious job, to settling down and finding a husband to start a family, there was a lot that resonated with me. Alienated as she is from “normal” society, she is remarkably perceptive and empathetic, even as she deals with her fellow outsider, the pathetic misogynist Shiraha whose misanthropic and broken view of the world seems all too familiar to anyone familiar with certain dark spaces of the internet. Despite this specific Japanese context, the novel feels relatable to anyone who has worked in retail or a service role.
Earthlings, in contrast, Murata’s 2018 novel translated by Takemori and published in English in 2020, is a bit more of a difficult read as Murata engages in a much darker critique of societal oppressions and abuses, what her character Natsuki refers to as “The Factory.” Murata takes her themes here in a much more extreme direction and she does not pull back in her depictions of societal taboos, which could make it a hard read for many, and for good reason.
Earthlings tells the story of Natsuki and her cousin Yuu, who after a childhood sharing vibrant fantasies about aliens in their summers at the ancestral family estate in the mountains of Nagano, live unfulfilled adult lives haunted by the traumas of abuse, physical, emotional, and sexual. As Natsuki and Yuu struggle to reconcile their unique perspectives with the dominant adult narratives of productivity and conventionality, the violence to which they’ve been subject for being unwilling or unable to comply hardens their desire to break free and leads them to a shocking rejection of all norms of behavior. Ultimately ambiguous about where their realities and fantasies diverge, the horrific places Murata goes conclude on a bleak note, making for a disturbing and troubling mood.
Looming large over contemporary Japan, the devastating earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 and the subsequent melting down of the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant still impact the daily life of the country, especially in the Tohoku region, a relatively isolated area from the rest of the country. Literature reflects this as well.
Two novellas written by Kimura Yusuke in the aftermath of the 3/11 disaster, Sacred Cesium Ground (2012) and Isa’s Deluge (2014) capture the conflicted feelings of the citizens of Tohoku and chronicle their continued trauma. Translated by Doug Slaymaker and published together in English in 2019, these stories evoke the anger, confusion, and sorrow of the loss of loved ones, homes, and the environment as the Japanese government failed their people in this time of need. Like Hurricane Katrina in the US, this disaster illustrated how easily governments can fail to react in times of need, whether through inaction or incompetence, leaving the people to adapt and rebuild themselves. I was intrigued by the human elements presented in these stories, how strong their cultural milieu was established in the translation, and how universal their experiences were. In Sacred Cesium Ground’s exploration of animal rights and agriculture in the wake of irradiation or Isa’s Deluge downwardly mobile fishing family, protagonists try to reconcile themselves to what can be described as a postapocalyptic moment in their own lives. Isa’s Deluge in particular, with its generational tensions, discussions of the Ebishi (an indigenous ethnic group once living in Tohoku before the influx of Yamato people in the medieval period), and a depressing high school reunion finding classmates struggling to gain meaning in their lives through pyramid schemes, feels very topical. Not happy subjects, it can feel a little anticlimactic but its post apocalyptic themes certainly resonate for me now in the wake of the global pandemic.
Yu Miri’s striking novel Tokyo Ueno Station, published in 2014 and translated into English by Morgan Giles in 2020, also draws upon the cultural and economic isolation of Tohoku and its relationship to the metropolitan core of Tokyo in the form of Kazu, a mournful and contemplative ghost haunting Tokyo’s Ueno Park. A laborer who moved to the city for work constructing Olympic games infrastructure in the ’60s who later fell into the park’s neglected homeless population, Kazu reflects on his life and Japan’s recent history.
A lovely, compassionate, and topical work, Tokyo Ueno Station paints a vivid, affecting portrait of contemporary Japanese society rich with cultural and historical detail and illustrates the deep problems shared by all of our modern industrial societies. Miri, from a Zainichi background (descendants of Koreans who have lived in Japan for generations without being accepted into Japanese society), writes with a critical but sensitive voice, exploring these vulnerable populations who fell through the cracks, people all too often ignored regardless of nation. Even with the deeply Japanese contexts of Amida Buddhist funeral rites, so much of the dilemmas faced by Kazu are all too familiar to me in my work as a librarian.
The novel also brought back strong memories of my own trip to Japan, spending a lot of time visiting both the museums and paths of Ueno Park and the rural mountains region of Tohoku, providing a lot of context I missed on the trip. As a whole, Miri’s work here transcends cultural barriers to evoke the confusion and grief of a young life lost too soon and the pain of poverty, all too often a hidden aspect of Japanese life.
Despite Japan’s stereotype as a nation of packed-in crowds and lack of space, as urban areas grow much of the Japanese rural interior has emptied, leaving abandoned homes and towns behind, causing the government to incentivize people to return. This is a situation familiar to me in the US Midwest. For a variety of reasons, even as major urban areas grow, the population shrinks in the countryside, making an already isolated population even more cut off from society.
In the fast paced but unsettling 2013 novella The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada, translated into English by David Boyd in 2020, this tension between rural and urban Japan is highlighted. After newly married Asa’s husband transfers jobs to another office closer to his tiny hometown in an isolated rural region a few hours outside Tokyo, she quickly finds it stifling and claustrophobic despite the increased space and access to the natural world of the countryside. With her husband at work and only her enigmatic inlaws for company through the sweltering summer, as her loneliness increases Asa begins to encounter strange and unsettling things and creatures in her explorations of her new neighborhood, from the local convenience store to the thick marshes near the river.
Eerie and atmospheric, with Oyamada deftly drawing on the strangeness of the setting, its isolation, and its droning cicadas, in the end, the story may be a bit too compact and ambiguous, abruptly ending before there was much of a resolution. I wish I had read this work after my recent binge on Japanese folklore sources, as I think that would have provided some interesting context to the things Aya encounters, whether they were real or reflections of her disturbed state of mind.
Visiting the northernmost island in the Japanese archipelago, Hokkaido, and its capital Sapporo, I was made more aware of a heritage of colonial settlement on the island, learning more about how the Japanese began to assert their control of Hokkaido as mainland Japanese settlers moved in during the late nineteenth century. As farming and mining interests began to wrest control of the island from the indigenous Ainu people, attempting to assimilate their unique culture by force, banning their language and traditions. During this period, the Japanese government even received assistance from the United States in their colonial efforts.
An interesting and action packed comic, manga artist Saturo Noda’s series The Golden Kamui focuses on this fraught dynamic in an entertaining but also informative style. Set around the turn of the twentieth century during a gold rush in Hokkaido, it follows Saichi Sugimoto, a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War as he attempts to discover a lost treasure stolen from the Ainu. Beset by criminals and mercenaries bent on claiming the gold for themselves, Sugimoto receives the aid of the young Ainu hunter Asirpa to survive the wilderness and recover the stolen wealth.
Reminding me of the introspective but pulpy work of Hugo Pratt, Noda’s work is full of lush historical details and tense showdowns, including intriguing asides exploring Ainu culture, making it a thoughtful exploration of the period through an outside lens. I’ve only read the first volume so far, but I’m definitely curious about how the plot continues.
“Art and knowledge know no borders.”- Genzaburo Yoshino, How Do You Live, 1937
An interesting place to end this discussion is with Genzaburo Yoshino’s gentle and humane 1937 novel How Do You Live?, translated into English by Bruno Navasky in 2021. Like many I suspect, I read this book curious about the inspiration behind acclaimed animator Hayao Miyazaki’s latest (last?) film from Studio Ghibli, released recently in Japan and coming soon to international theaters. With an introduction by Neil Gaiman, Yoshino’s intimate scope coupled with his thoughtful discussions on a variety of timeless ideals illustrates how his progressive novel still resonates with such artists as Miyazaki and Gaiman nearly a century after its publication.
Following a year in the life of a good-natured middle schooler Honda Junichi, nicknamed Copper, as he goes about his daily life at school and with his friends and family, the novel is punctuated by occasional letters from his uncle, a recent university graduate who uses Copper’s curiosity to contemplate various ethical and philosophical concepts and help him understand the meaning of his experiences. Hoping to guide him to making good choices in life, Copper’s uncle engages him in thinking about adult questions, which is all the more important as both class tensions and rising authoritarian tendencies begin to become evident in Copper’s school life leading to some tense situations. All in all, Yoshino builds a vivid and engaging picture of daily life in 1930s Tokyo, writing with a strong eye for personal details that bring the story to life almost a century later.
For a work written with an obvious didactic purpose of instilling ethics in middle school students, Yoshino goes beyond the typical scope of such literature to weave discussions of history, science, art, and philosophy both Western and Japanese into a life-affirming school story. Celebrating kindness and mutual support, through Copper and his friends, Yoshino models ways of living that resonate today. It is especially poignant that this humane novel centered on extolling both being true to your own beliefs in addition to considering the needs and experiences of others was published during a time of growing authoritarian militarism in Japan.
While the mood of the novel remains uplifting and hopeful, How Do You Live? was written under the clouds of impending historical doom and it’s hard not to look at its optimistic characters and think of the horrors that they will soon cause or endure or succumb to. In that way, it continues to feel relevant even almost a century later despite cultural and historical differences from its time and place. Our own societal tensions and violent conflict hang heavy. While we in the US have not yet (officially) begun to imprison people solely on their political beliefs (Yoshino spent more than a year in prison for attending socialist meetings), our classrooms have become ground zero in the creeping advance of authoritarianism and oppression, which makes Yoshino’s work celebrating kindness and mutual in all the more impressive.
These literary works as a whole provide a captivating window into the diverse experiences lived by people in modern Japan, revealing overlooked viewpoints to foreign readers and illustrating both their relatability and their cultural relevance to Japanese culture. This is a valuable thing to consider, to better understand other societies as well as our own. While Japan is not as diverse a society as the US or Canada, perhaps, and consensus and social harmony may be prioritized as distinct social goods, its people do not think in uniformity any more than any other place. Of course, we are all enmeshed in our societies to the extent that we rarely think about it. Works like the ones above can serve as both windows and mirrors, I feel.
I posted about other works of fiction in translation from before and after my trip to Japan here and here.