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Japan Through Writers’ Eyes

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By James Hadfield

Here’s a parlor game for Japanophiles with a taste for pedantry. Pass around a copy of Elizabeth Ingrams’ anthology "Japan Through Writers’ Eyes" and see who can find the richest pickings among its generous panoply of errors.

The introductory pages of the Tokyo chapter alone are full of them: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel is said to have been destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, when in fact it was one of the temblor’s most famous survivors; the dates of Tsunayoshi Tokugawa’s reign are mixed up with those of the Genroku period (and even these are a year off); we’re told that the Tokyo Olympics was held in 1968 (it was 1964); Japan’s wartime prime minister is called Togo (it was Tojo); Hongo is described as being near somewhere called “Ochanimizou” (sic). And so on.

Smugness aside, it’s a crying shame that an otherwise promising collection should be so thoroughly derailed by editorial sloppiness. The mistakes above aren’t even the most egregious. This must be the first anthology I’ve come across that mentions a title in its back cover blurb — Yukio Mishima’s "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion" — which isn’t even included in the book. Whoever’s responsible for that cock-up deserves a good thrashing, possibly along the lines of the “classic Osaka epithet” cited by Alex Kerr in one of the book’s livelier passages: “I’m going to slash your skull in half, stir up your brains and drink them out with a straw.”

It’s a testament to the strength of the writers included in the anthology that these errors don’t entirely diminish its appeal. Ingrams’ curatorial skills far exceed her talent for factual accuracy, and if you skip the chapter introductions, "Japan Through Writers’ Eyes" is actually a damn fine read. She’s compiled an impressive selection of writings, ranging from diaries to fiction to poetry, covering the length and breadth of Japan—from Takeshiro Matsuura watching an Ainu bear hunt in Hokkaido to Chizuko Oyasato remembering the first wartime air raid on Naha in Okinawa. Haiku poet Matsuo Basho, that inveterate wanderer, makes frequent appearances, as do such literary heavyweights as Natsume Soseki, Shusaku Endo and Yasunari Kawabata. Mishima, incidentally, gets all of three paragraphs.

Some of the most illuminating passages are by foreign writers. Engelbert Kaempfer, who came to Japan in 1690 as a physician for the Dutch East India Company, supplies a hilariously droll account of a meeting with the shogun: “Crouching on his knees, [the captain] bent his head to the floor and then, like a lobster, crawled back in this very same position, without one word being exchanged. This short, miserable procedure is all that there is to this famous audience.”

British diplomat Sir Ernest Satow is no less acerbic when surveying the expat community in Meiji-era Yokohama: “The experience of men and manners which saves the dwellers in Little Peddlington from believing that others are deliberately plotting to inflict insults on them is seldom attained before middle life, especially when Little Peddlington happens to be located in an Eastern land, where the mind’s growth comes to a standstill and a man’s age is virtually to be reckoned by the years actually spent in the mother country.”

Some things never change. Other highlights are many; whether it’s Alan Booth wrestling with the legacy of Hiroshima, Rey Ventura chronicling the experience of Filipino gangs in ’80s Yokohama, or Rudyard Kipling detailing the work of artisans in Kyoto: “‘There is also a cheap cloisonné to be bought,’ said the manager, with a smile. ‘We cannot make that. The vase will be seventy dollars.’ I respect him for saying ‘cannot’ instead of ‘do not’. There spoke the artist.”

Moments like these are enough to merit "Japan Through Writers’ Eyes" a recommendation—just. There’s no doubting the quality of the writers (and writing) assembled here. Shame about the company they keep.

This review originally appeared in Metropolis magazine (www.metropolis.co.jp).

© Japan Today

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You should read my blog. My eyes are much more open than this stuff.

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Yes even the thought of your blog sounds more interesting then this book.. lol i'll probably read the book though, see if its any good before i judge it^^

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"The introductory pages of the Tokyo chapter alone are full of them: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel is said to have been destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, when in fact it was one of the temblor’s most famous survivors; the dates of Tsunayoshi Tokugawa’s reign are mixed up with those of the Genroku period (and even these are a year off); we’re told that the Tokyo Olympics was held in 1968 (it was 1964); Japan’s wartime prime minister is called Togo (it was Tojo); Hongo is described as being near somewhere called “Ochanimizou” (sic). And so on."

Any book about Japan that has more errors than a typical Wikipedia entry on the country is not worth buying.

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