Japanese Urban Culture
The Genroku era is a period of relative peace that reigned throughout Japan. At this time, Japan had closed its borders to the outside world, and the Bakufu have maintained its grip on power for decades. But even so, the Emperor rules the Japanese citizenry, albeit a symbolic one. Growth and urbanization began to revitalize the economy, after years of warfare and famine. Emerging classes began to dominate and influence traditional Samurai beliefs. Popular artworks and literature began to circulate not only throughout the ruling warrior classes, but among the wealthy merchant class as well. Throughout this gradual socio-political transformation, one form or entertainment captured the imagination and intrigue of audiences of all classes theatre.
Traditional Japanese theatre arts are an ancient time-honored set of performance practices passed down from one generation onto the next. Students master the stances and nuances in the language demonstrated by their teachers and successful actors experiment different variations of their own as they become part of the tradition.
The earliest recorded performances can be found in the ancient Japanese mythology. A sacred event depicted in the Kojiki (712) and the Nihonshoki (720), occurred in the mythological age of the deities. To induce the Sun Goddess to come out of a cave where she had hidden herself in anger at her brothers misbehavior, a female deity named Uzume put on a costume, stamped on an overturned bucket, became possessed, and, according to one version of the story, revealed her genitals. The divine audience roared in appreciative laughter, and the Sun Goddess, her curiosity aroused by this merriment, emerged from the cave, thereby restoring light to the universe.
Influences from China and Korea eventually reached Japanese shores, which became popular in the imperial court during the Nara (710-784) and Heian (794-1186) eras. Kabuki, which originally comprised of women actors but later replaced by men due to moral disruption, emerged around the 1680s as a major theater-form in the Osaka, Kyoto and Edo areas, and it respective actors became renown for their performances. Several great actors became associated with the plays, including the renowned Sakata Tojuro (1647-1709) who performed in Osaka and in other cities in a number of Chikamatsu plays.
Edo at the Time of Amijima
Here in Edo, merchants began to thrive at the turn of the Edo period. At days, merchants go about their businesses, selling and inquiring about their customers requests. Sometimes in these transactions, those who are married are assisted, and in some cases substituted, by their wives. At nights, some of the men venture out into the central districts, either to watch plays or to savor a drink or two. The bold ones would cross the bridge onto the pleasure quarters at Yoshiwara, where they cavort with courtesans in the vain hope of gaining their affections.
The political landscape of Japan changed after the Age of the Warring States. The first decision, made by Hideyoshi in 1591, was to remove vast numbers of samurai fighters from the villages that had provided men and materiel for continuing rebellion. The second decision was to tighten the leash on the daimyo --- as grave a threat to the peace as errant samurai --- by requiring their personal attendance on the hegemon. The policy was formulated, following Hideyoshis death and lacerating battles over succession, by the early heads of the Tokugawa house, who ruled from 1603 until 1868 under the imperially granted title of shogun. This mandate contributed to the rapid urbanization of three cities Edo, Osaka, and Kyoto. Edo prospered under the periodic visits to the imperial city by daimyos. The port of Osaka grew in size and became the center of the rice trade. Kyoto became the leading producer of fine goods. Extended manufacturing became widespread as demand from these cities rapidly grew.
The ruling class made contact with the lowly performers of the artisans, merchants and craftsmen bought and sold goods. During the conquests of Korea, Japanese troops brought to their shores substantial fonts of movable copper type, as well as books printed from them. Around the same time, Jesuit missionaries brought the Roman type to Japan, establishing presses for devotional and instructional literature in Kyoto, Nagasaki, and other towns. Japanese artisans may actually have printed a number of Confucian texts from the Korean type. The political intrigues as well as the social viewpoints of the day are immortalized in books, plays, and music. The urbanization of Japan was underway, amidst the existing class system and strict regulation by the Shogunate.
Merchants and Courtesans
On our way to the theater, Kohei told me about an incident back in Osaka. A wealthy merchant committed suicide after his seafood trading company incurred heavy losses and closed down. The merchant was notorious for pursuing amorous affairs during his stays in the pleasure quarters of Osaka. Their daughters were allegedly sold to the pleasure quarters. Kohei remarked that the merchants story would probably become the latest subject of Chikamatsus love-suicide dramas. But I knew that Amijima would become Chikamatsus last work on the love-suicide genre.
The merchant class, in particular, benefited the most from the cities growth. They acted as middlemen in much of the business doings of the city. As professionals, they took on government projects, moved commodities from one city or region to another and acted as money-lenders and speculators in the burgeoning of an affluent economy. Unlike samurais, artisans and farmers, the wealthy merchants earn respect, oftentimes admiration, of the townfolk by the wealth they amassed as trade between towns flourished through the river. The official class system in Japanese culture at the time did not take economic status into consideration and, in theory, the merchants were the fourth in a class hierarchy that comprised, above them, from the top, samurai, farmers, and artisans.
Wealthy merchants thus became the nouveau riche among the townsfolk, with considerable power and influence. Such impression, however, is not shared among the warrior classes, where money is regarded with distaste. Although warriors and merchants belong to different classes, some ronin or masterless samurai abandon the Way of the Sword to become merchants.
The pleasure quarters, described by artists as a floating world, are special districts occupied by trained courtesans. They offer their guests entertainment, leisure, indulgence, as well as pleasant companionship. They differ from the brothels in the West in that guests are treated with utmost courtesy and civility, with neither hint nor sign of vulgarity. In her book, Jacqueline Gibbons observes
The women of those quarters had many different gradations of status, and those with high class were often talented in song, dance, poetry recital, calligraphy, arrangement, the great art of the tea ceremony and, of course, sophisticated companionship. Indeed, unlike the western tradition of prostitution, these relationships often comprised institutionalized affairs that lasted over long periods of time. Problems, in the east as in the west, emerged when jealousy and love entered into the relationship, and when the couple might find that they could not live without each other.
Pleasure quarters originally had no fixed district until 1612, when Shogu Jingemori, repeated his request for a special district, stating that whorehouses scattered all over the city encourages negligence towards masters, embezzlement, theft, and kidnappings of children to be sold to whorehouses. The First Tokugawa Shogun relented and appointed him as the first Keisei-machi Nanusbi --- Director of the Courtesan Quarter, with a few imposed ground rules.
These classes of medieval Japanese society would become the subject of scrutiny and controversy in both Sonezaki and Amijima.
The Shakespeare of Japan
The play for tonight was titled Love Suicides at Amijima. The play tells the story of a paper-seller merchant who fell in love with a courtesan and vows to commit suicide with her. Although the names were changed, the story was allegedly based on real events. This is not the only tragicomedy that Chikamatsu had penned. Sixteen years ago, he wrote a play titled Love Suicides at Sonezaki, which had a similar scenario. Sonezaki was extremely popular among the audiences at the time of its debut, while Amijima garnered controversy , as well as scholarly interest for its insights on society.
Chikamatsu Monzaemon, a popular dramatist of kabuki and puppet-plays, is often regarded by scholars as The Shakespeare of Japan. His works include jidaimono (historical plays), some of which ran for more that a year. Modern students of the drama are more attracted by his twenty-four sewamono, or domestic pieces, which are brief, coherent, realistic plays, peopled not with the famous warriors, emperors, and nobles of the past, as are his jidaimono, but with merchants, prostitutes, farmers, and other members of the lower orders, familiar to Chikamatsus audiences from their own experiences. Chikamatsus works are rarely performed, mainly because of the declining popularity of puppet-plays. Today, several of his works survive as adaptations for Kabuki plays and film.
Love Suicides at Amijima (Shinju Ten no Amijima)
Considered to be one of Chikamatsus masterpieces, The Love Suicides at Amijima is a domestic play depicting love suicides during the Genroku period. Its predecessor, The Love Suicides at Sonezaki (Sonezaki shinju, 1703), was a retelling of an actual incident, and brought the genre to the mainstream. Unlike the latter, however, Amijima explores the intricacies of a love triangle by treating the wife, O-san, as a major character. Viewers are treated to a spectacle of music and drama, as the doomed lovers, between a well-to-do merchant and a courtesan of the pleasure gardens, are made to suffer from societys restrictions and taboos, until they meet their fate. The play had been revived on several occasions, expanding further the characters depths, before the love suicide genre was prohibited as a subject of plays in less than two years since its premiere. By the time it was revived, the popularity had waned.
The Social Code
Among the merchant class, the code of giri is strictly followed. Were it not for the complications brought about by giri, Jihei would not have pursued Koharu in Amijima, in the same way that Tokubei would not have gone to see Ohwatsu in Sonezaki both scenarios leading to their tragic fates.
Giri is the state of a person who is bound to behave in a prescribed way toward a certain other person. The content of this duty or obligation varies greatly according to the situation in which the subject of the duty is placed and of the person toward whom the duty is owed. The fulfilment of duty is of primary importance in medieval Japanese society. Its military origins were transformed to a civilian format. Previously, a military adherence to social rules means no major personal dilemma because discipline and questions were so clear-cut and institutionalized . So sacred is duty to members of all classes, that to cause shame means certain death. But death without honor becomes the center of conflict in some of Chikamatsus works. In Amijima, O-san, confessed to Jihei her part in having him separated from Koharu. She implored him to spare Koharu from dishonor by allowing him to visit the courtesan. She reveals to him in an excerpt
. . . When I saw that you had lost your head about her and were likely to commit suicide with her, I was overcome with grief. In desperation I wrote to her, beseeching her to sympathize with me and break with you, even at the cost of her love, and thus save you from so rash an act. Touched by my prayer she returned me a kind letter saying, that though you were her dearest lover, more precious to her that life, yet her sense of duty toward me and her sympathy compelled her to give you up. See, I carry her letter in the amulet case. Why suppose that such a woman should break her vow and shamelessly wed Tahei Woman is a constant creature and will not readily change her mind. Koharu will surely kill herself. She will die. How terrible Come now, save her from death You must, my husband.
Jihei was torn between his obligation to his family, having signed the Kumano Go no Muragasu vowing not to see Koharu again, and his wifes debt of honor to Koharu in seeking to prevent her from committing suicide. The tragedy was completed when O-san was forcefully divorced by her father, who treated Jihei as if he was no son-in-law.
In Chikamatsus Osaka, Gibbons explains Chikamatsus rationale for the tragedy
Chikamatsu suggests on many occasions that these obligations oppress the individual they divide peoples loyalties and interfere with human passion. . . Chikamatsu points to the dilemmas of contemporary society where peace reigns, yet where the family and obligations of loyalty threaten to crush the passions of individual men and women as they fall deeply in love or are deeply in debt in a world where there may only one way to namely, a love-suicide.
Both Sonezaki and Amijima seem to fault the Japanese tendency of adherence to the restrictions imposed on society as the primary cause of the tragedy. In his own way, Chikamatsu shows to his audiences how these restrictions create a class confrontation of sorts and constantly reminds them of their own humanity.
Ritualistic Suicide As the doomed couples lives finally ended, the crowd appeared to applaud the act and some even shed tears. Here, the taking of ones life is treated with sacredness and respect. To uphold his honor in the face of shame, a samurai is forced to disembowel himself.
Suicide in Japanese society tends to be revered if committed on the basis of authentic moral intentions. The overriding value of social and group harmony pushes Japanese of all classes to make sacrifices for the sake of the group. Thus, suicide is considered virtuous and necessary because it promotes the harmony and well-being of the group. It is seen as an act of selfless fulfilment of duty.
Samurais of medieval Japan were expected to value highly the virtues of loyalty and honor. Suicide is seen as a demonstration of loyalty, a generally accepted form of execution to clear ones name. Seppuku was the form of suicide used most commonly by the upper class samurai. In Amijima, the double-suicide performed by Jihei and Koharu is different from seppukku in that former is glorified in the samurai tradition the latter is seen as a pure, sincere act, which moves audience to tears. Chikamatsus glorification of a lovers suicide, is thought to have an impact on the high suicide rate amongst entertainment girls that had ever existed since he was in writing
The Saving Net of Buddha
As I left the theatre, I heard the womenfolk chattering. They both praise Koharu for her fidelity and O-san for her chastity in the face of indignity. Next, I listened to the men who had gathered. Their conversations were filled with affairs with women in the pleasure quarters and daring each other to go across the bridge to Yoshiwara. It seems that only a few people would concede that something is wrong with the Japanese medieval code of honor. But even fewer people would agree that Jihei and Koharu would be spared from suffering damnation for their acts.
Chikamatsu is relentless in plotting his characters and their tragedies, but he does not condemn their foolishness. Instead, he finishes the story with a possibility of salvation for his characters. The phrase Ten no ami means net of heavens, and is meant, among others things, as the saving net of Amida Buddha. This show of mercy is indeed a sharp contrast to the rigid Confucianist principles that inspired the code of Bushido among the warrior classes and the code of giri among the commoners.
The exoneration of suicide by Buddhists finds basis in their religions way of life. In defining suicides among persons, scholars note that such exoneration may only refer to an individual who have already cut off desire and by so doing neutralised their actions by making them incapable of producing further fruit. Meaning, suicide by an enlightened person does not bring about damnation in the afterlife, because of the purity and nobleness of their intentions. In Amijima, Jihei and Koharu cut off locks of their own hair as a symbol of a life as monks, and in doing so they severed their ties to their families and loved ones. Thus, they ceased to cling to the world, the self, and all other impermanent things and reject the false belief that the world and self are permanent. The final act was their separate performance Koharu by means of a dagger, and Jihei by hanging. They let go of their passions and desires, specially for each other, and died for the sake of no one but their own..
I returned to Osaka to prepare for my departure. A few days before I going back to the present, Kohei went to see me. He told me that the courtesan who allegedly caused the fish merchant to go bankrupt and commit suicide also killed herself, right at the place where he took his own life. He approved the act, saying that that woman should have done it sooner. Being an outsider looking into the Japanese mindset, it would be a struggle for me to fully understand suicide as a culturally prescribed role-behavior and not as a result of an emotionally disturbed mind. But the Japanese had a rich and colorful cultural history, and it must be studied and appreciated with an open mind.
Categories:
0 comments:
Post a Comment