Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War by Stephen R. Platt (book review)

Behind this beautiful, poetic title (reminding me of the Yuan-dynasty play "Autumn in Han Palace") lies a fascinating study of what was one of the most destructive and bloody wars of all time: the Taiping Civil War (so far in English called "Taiping Rebellion," but author Stephen R. Platt makes clear this was much more than a mere rebellion), which engulfed China from 1851 to 1864. It pitted the Chinese insurgents of the "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom" against the waning authority of the 200 year old Qing dynasty of the Manchus. In the course of the brutal war at least between 20 and 30 million people lost their lives - a death toll 30 times higher than that of the American civil war which partly took place in the same period. Most of the victims succumbed to the epidemics and famines caused by the civil war, but the number of direct victims of violence was also in the many millions. The rebels and the imperial forces that suppressed the uprising differed little in brutality and blood lust. It took the population in the region where the civil war raged (the provinces Jiangxi, Hubei, Anhui, Zhejiang and Jiangsu in central China along the Yangzi) 50 years to recover to its pre-1850 level. The destruction of cities and cultural monuments (Confucian and Buddhist temples and their art treasures) was also huge, although the conduct of the Taiping troops was not one bit worse than that of the imperial forces. The Taiping were no monsters (as was sometimes asserted) and life under the Taiping, for example in cities as Hangzhou and Shaoxing, was better than the unhappy fate of the citizens after those cities fell in the hands of government troops.

[Scene from the Taiping Civil War]

To compound the miseries of China's rulers, in the late 1850s Britain and France mounted a separate war against them over trading rights, which led to the infamous destruction and looting of the Summer Palace near Beijing - a shameful act of Western barbarism.

The main actors of the Taiping Civil War were:
- Hong Xiuquan, a Hakka from a poor village in Guangdong, frustrated in his ambition to become a scholar-official in the civil service. After reading a pamphlet which he had received from a Protestant missionary, Hong had a vision telling him he was the younger brother of Jesus and that he had been sent to rid China of the "devils", meaning the corrupt Qing government and the Confucian teachings. (Showing the pernicious influence of missionary activities in a foreign culture, as in a cross-cultural setting alien religious teachings can be completely misunderstood).
- Hong Rengan, Hong Xiuquan's cousin, who joined the Taiping forces in Nanjing in 1859 and was given considerable power by Hong. Interestingly, Hong Rengan had been the assistant of Scottish missionary and scholar James Legge and had helped him in his great work of the translation of the Confucian classics into English. Hong Rengan believed he could build a bridge between the Taiping and the British and therefore advocated a policy of appeasement that ultimately proved ruinous when there was no positive response from the other side.
- Zeng Guofan, who had set up a local irregular army in Hunan, which became the main armed force fighting for the Qing against the Taiping (the regular Qing army was too weak due to corruption). Zeng's personal army proved effective in gradually turning back the Taiping advance and retaking much of Hubei and Jiangxi provinces. After a long battle Zeng conquered the rebel capital Nanjing in 1864, putting an end to the war. He could have continued on to Beijing to topple the Manchu dynasty, but he remained loyal to the empire and lived out his last years as a scholar.
- British ambassador Frederick Bruce who after only a short sojourn in China, believed that the Qing dynasty was a force of civilized monarchy standing against a chaotic horde of rebels. Both Hong Rengan and Bruce thought they had a deep insight into each other's civilization, and both were wrong.
- Frederick Townsend Ward and Charles George Gordon, commanders of the "Ever Victorious Army," a small imperial army directed and trained by Europeans.

The army of the Taiping insurgents was characterized by tight discipline, puritanism, and fanaticism. The soldiers wore long hair (the braided tail imposed on the Chinese by the Manchus was taboo among the Taiping). Men and women serving in the army lived in separate camps and any sexual contact was punishable by death. The Taiping were filled with an ardent desire for reform. They dreamed of a sanctuary state based on social justice. In their fanaticism they remind me of the early Communists under Mao Zedong. The Taiping state eventually expanded to command a population base of nearly 30 million people.

At the same time, the Taiping Civil War was a total war. Almost every citizen who had not fled the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was given military training and conscripted into the army to fight against the Qing imperial forces. During this conflict, both sides tried to deprive each other of the resources which they needed in order to continue the war and it became standard practice for each to destroy the opposing side's agricultural areas and butcher the populations of cities. The Taiping were also extremely nationalistic and carried out widespread massacres of Manchus, so much that one could even speak of a genocide campaign.

Platt also shows that China in the 19th c. was not a closed system, but that the empire was deeply integrated into the world's economy through trade. China and the United States were Britain's two largest economic markets, and faced with the prospect of loosing both due to simultaneous civil wars, Britain abandoned its neutrality in China while allowing the U.S. Civil War to run its natural course. As usually is the case with interventions by Western powers in the internal affairs of other cultures, the unintended outcome was wholly undesirable: the fact that Britain saved the Manchus only meant that the Chinese were consigned to another five decades of oppression by a corrupt power. When the Taiping Civil War occurred, the Manchu Dynasty had reached the end of its tether and by preventing its overthrow, Gorden and his "Ever Victorious Army" arrested a normal and natural process. It was a huge mistake of Britain to help the Manchus in putting down the Taipings so that they could continue their corrupt and inept regime which hampered reforms and kept China weak. And it even didn't lead to increased trade for Britain - on the contrary.

So the overall picture of the Taiping Civil War is one of total devastation without any positive results - as is the case with wars in general. The tale of the foreign intervention and the fall of the Taiping is a tale of "how perceived connections across cultures can in fact turn out to be fictions," as Platt warns, and he concludes: "When we congratulate ourselves on seeing through the darkened window that separates us from another civilization, we sometimes do so without realizing that we are only gazing at our own reflection."

Blyth's A History of Haiku - is not a history of haiku

Reginald Horace Blyth (1898–1964) was the great pioneer of Japanese haiku. Born in Britain, he was a conscientious objector during WWI, a life-long vegetarian, flute player and devotee of the music of Bach. From 1925 to 1935 he lived in Korea (then occupied by Japan) where he studied Chinese, Japanese and Zen Buddhism. In 1940 he moved to Japan with his second wife who was Japanese. After interment by the Japanese during WWII, after the war he was Professor of English at Gakushuin University and became private tutor to the Crown Prince (later emperor) Akihito until 1964, the time of his (Blyth's) death. In these years, he did much to popularize Zen philosophy and Japanese poetry (particularly haiku) in the West. 

Blyth wrote six books on haiku (1949–52, 1963–64) and two books on senryu (1949, 1960), as well as seven books on Zen. Nearly all of his books were published in Japan, by Hokuseido Press, Tokyo. On haiku, Blyth first published his four-volume series divided according to the seasons (1949–52); later followed the two-volume History of Haiku (1963–64), which is the subject of this review.

Blyth opened up the world of haiku to readers of English and he fully deserves the fame of trailblazer. Many contemporary Western writers of haiku were introduced to the genre through his work, such as Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and Allen Ginsberg. Many members of the international "haiku community" also got their first views of haiku from Blyth's books, including James W. Hackett, William J. Higginson, and Jane Reichhold.

However, there are some serious problems with Blyth's interpretations of haiku. First and for all his strong bias regarding a direct connection between haiku and Zen. He saw haiku in fact as Zen poetry, and this mistaken view has influenced generations of followers of haiku in the West, putting them on a wrong footing. Hereby Blyth shows that he was a friend and disciple of D.T. Suzuki, who also saw Japanese culture wrongly through the lens of Zen.

No, haiku is not Zen poetry - when you want to read real Zen religious poetry, read Ikkyu, who (besides some too often quoted sexy poems) wrote heavy doctrinal verse in Chinese. Moreover, some of the greatest haiku poets, like Buson, Issa and Chiyo-ni were Pure Land (Jodo) Buddhists - the Jodo stance is especially clear in the haiku of Issa. And Basho, who did practice Zen Buddhism, seems to have felt that his devotion to haiku on the contrary prevented him from realizing enlightenment, instead of being in some way conducive to it). Today, no serious scholar in Japan or in the West sees haiku as "Zen poetry."

The other problems are that Blyth downplayed the contribution of women to haiku, and that he had very little interest in modern haiku.

Now to the present "History of Haiku." The problem here is that it is not a history of the genre at all! Blyth just quotes a number of haiku arranged by author, in chronological order. There is almost no information about those authors, and background information about how haiku functioned in the various periods, how it was written and consumed, something like a reception history, is totally lacking. Of course, the biographical approach was the traditional one in academics about 60-70 years ago - even Donald Keene suffers from it in his history of Japanese literature. But Blyth's books are even less than that: just a handful of haiku translated by author, and interpreted in Blyth's habitual way, via what he regarded as Zen. In other words, these two volumes are useless as a history of haiku...

Why then read these books? Because Blyth presents many, many haiku, and always carefully gives the Japanese text, a transliteration, and a translation. Those translations are generally very good. So for finding great haiku, his six books on haiku are a true treasure trove - many students and translators, also in other languages than English, have profited from that. But a history of haiku? No - such a history unfortunately still has to be written in English, 60 years after the death of Blyth.

 

Bushido is NOT the Soul of Japan - a critique of Nitobe Inazo

Nitobe Inazo (1862 – 1933) had a very impressive career as an educator (Sapporo University, Kyoto University, Tokyo University) and after that as a diplomat/politician (Japanese colonial government in Taiwan, League of Nations, House of Peers). He had studied for 3 years in the U.S. and was married to the American Mary Elkinton. But his fame today seems to rest mainly on a small book he wrote in 1900, "Bushido, The Soul of Japan," in which (as a Japanese Christian) he tried present a unifying, Japanese way of thought that could vie with Western philosophical and religious ideas. In writing this booklet, Nitobe was strongly influenced by Western ideas about chivalry (which never had a place in Japan) and the result is more fiction and fantasy than fact. 

[Nitobe and his wife Mary]

Bushido is a modern invention (by Nitobe and others in the 1890s) – even the term ‘Bushido’ was not generally used before modern times, and such a code – or even something resembling it – was never recorded in the house codes of the various feudal domains in the Edo period.

Bushido is popular among some Americans and Europeans, at least when one looks at the large number of books published in English on the subject, but the point is that Bushido is not a mainstream Japanese ideology and definitely not the ideology of the warrior caste (‘samurai’) in the past.

In the Edo period, the dominating philosophy of the samurai class (who were not warriors anymore due to the long peace, but had turned into nonviolent bureaucrats / administrators) was not a non-existent Bushido, but Neo- Confucianism. Neo-Confucianism was a rational, humanistic philosophy centering on filial piety. Other values, such as frugality, loyalty, discipline and trust, were also important (the seven virtues Nitobe mentions as typical of Bushido, are in fact Confucian: rectitude, courage, benevolence, politeness, sincerity, honor and loyalty). 

According to original Confucianism, the first duty of each person was towards the parents – that was the meaning of filial piety (in China, where Confucianism originated, the family was in fact more important than the state). Therefore it was one’s duty to preserve one’s life (the body one had received from the parents) and live to a ripe old age – self-immolation, including seppuku, was seen as a great evil. Bushido in fact turns the real philosophy of the samurai on its head. If asked what his personal convictions were, not a single samurai would have told you, “Well, Bushido, of course.” Bushido was pertinently not the ‘religion of the samurai.’

In the chaotic Warring States period in Japan, from the late 15th to the end of the 16th c., when many small states fought with each other for dominance under fierce warlords, personal loyalty between leader and warrior had been important – not a little bit of loyalty, but an absolute and totalitarian form of submission, as the times demanded. Death was seen as the ultimate demonstration of that loyalty, but the vassal received powerful protection and status in return.

In the 17th century, when the long Tokugawa peace started (one of the longest periods of peace in world history), this personal loyalty changed into a rather more general loyalty to one’s domain. There were a few exceptions – for example, a primitive thinker as Yamamoto Tsunetomo with his Hagakure and his philosophy of reckless death – but these were rare and heterodox instances – there was nothing mainstream about the ideas expressed in the Hagakure. The philosophy of death of the Hagakure was in fact unknown in its own time and deeply buried in forgetfulness, until it was unearthed in the early 20th century. And we all know to what terrible excesses the Bushido invented by Nitobe and others has led in the various aggressive wars Japan fought in the first half of the twentieth century, by forging an unholy link between the few Edo period ‘philosophers of reckless death’ with extreme nationalism.

So what about the “Forty-seven Ronin” and other famous samurai stories? Were these not very popular in the Edo period? Yes, but not among samurai. They were popular thanks to the Joruri (puppet theater) and Kabuki, two theatrical forms of the common people (not of the samurai, who had their Noh theater, in which we of course do not find anything resembling the Forty-seven Ronin story). Now Bushido was of course also not the ideology of the common man in the 18th century. Neither was he Confucian. But he liked a good story, and that is what these two types of theater offered: a tale of revenge ending in a battle, murder and mass suicide. Gruesome, but totally unconnected to daily life, as all good stories should be.

Read more about The Ako Incident and the Forty-Seven Loyal Retainers (Chushingura) at: https://adblankestijn.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-ako-incident-and-forty-seven-loyal.html 

 

 

Legends of Tono by Yanagita Kunio (review)

It is almost 100 years ago that Yanagita Kunio (1875-1962) wrote his famous "Legends of Tono" (Tono Monogatari) and to celebrate this the 1975 translation by Ronald A. Morse has now been republished in a beautiful expanded version. It is an excellent translation that captures the terseness and realism of the original. In addition, there are several introductions: a new one by the translator, and previous ones by him and Richard Dorson about the author, the book and its significance. There is also an extensive new bibliography and the text has been enhanced with some well-chosen photographs.

[Yanagita Kunio]

Yanagita Kunio was one of those privileged persons who married a well-to-do partner and could spend most of his life dabbling in his hobbies: literature and (increasingly as a real vocation) folklore studies. The early (1910) Legends of Tono stands on the borderline of these two activities: it is excellent literature but also a precious record of peasant life in the rural Tono area.

I would not in the first place call it legends, though - as Dorson says in his introduction, many of the 119 short pieces are rather "memorates," i.e. "remarkable and extraordinary experiences told in the first person." Although two fairy tales have been included as well, many of the records are not even stories, but flimsy pieces of things heard or seen. That makes the book all the more interesting as a real account of the world of Tono - both things seen and unseen... much space is taken up by the fear for the supernatural.

[Tono Furusato-mura]

We find the mountain god and deities who guard the home, such as oshira-sama; goblin's like kappa and tengu; weird behavior by monkeys and wolves; cases of kamikakushi, strange disappearances of people; and the superstition that whoever gets rich, the choja, must have had supernatural assistance. But there is also a story of a son who murdered his mother, a real and shocking happening.

We also can see Yanagita's fascination with mountain folk religion start in this book. The "memorates" were told to Yanagita by Sakai Kizen, a young native of Tono whom he met in Tokyo. Subsequently, Yanagita also visited the area, riding on horseback through the villages.

[Kappa in a scarf - statue in Tono]

Countless memorates like the above must have existed, but they have been wiped out with the brains that contained them. Thanks to the record Yanagita Kunio so carefully took only those about this small northern group of villages and market town of Tono have survived. It is no surprise that Legends of Tono is by far the most popular among the hundreds of scholarly books Yanagita wrote. The town of Tono now lives off these legends - it has based its tourist industry on them.

Bach: St. John Passion (1724)

Written during Bach's first year as director of church music in Leipzig, it was premiered on April 7, 1724, at Good Friday Vespers in the Church of St. Nicholas. The structure of the work is in two halves intended to flank a sermon. The anonymous libretto is based almost literally on the Gospel of John in Luther's translation (chapters 18 and 19) and presents the story from four different perspectives:

- Narrative perspective, expressed in the recitatives of the Evangelist and the characters, as well as in the dramatic choral parts (turbae);
- The contemplative perspective of the individual(s), expressed in the mostly lyrical arias;
- The devotional perspective of the congregation, in the form of well-known evangelical hymns (chorales);
- The exhortative perspective, embodied in the elaborate opening and closing choruses.

Bach continued to make changes to the St. John Passion, so that today there are four different versions (1724, 1725, 1728, and 1749). The St. John Passion is often compared to the St. Matthew Passion, which Bach would write a few years later. The St. John Passion is musically more dramatic and less contemplative (and perhaps less refined). This is because the Gospel of John is more dynamic than the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus in John is more of an actor and less of a prophet and teacher. Bach masterfully expressed the character of the St. John Passion in his music.

For John, Jesus is first and foremost the Son of God, carrying out a preordained mission on earth at the behest of his heavenly Father. Christ is presented as the eternal and omnipresent ruler who stands outside of human concepts of time. This characterization of Jesus by John is set down by Bach right at the beginning in the opening chorus, where there is no reference to His coming passion, but only to His kingship: "Herr, unser Herrscher."."

Jesus' suffering is also not a painful human suffering, but a necessary phase of his return to heaven: the crucifixion as the mechanical means by which the Son returns to the Father. The arrest of Jesus is treated very briefly. The inner conflicts of the Gethsemane prayer are absent, as is the kiss of the traitor Judas Iscariot. Instead, Jesus reveals himself to the servants of the high priests and asks them to spare his disciples. During the interrogation by Pontius Pilate, Jesus appears superior and indifferent to his fate: he refuses to make statements or answer with counter-questions. Even in the crucifixion scene, he appears sovereign and unaffected by human suffering. He carries his cross himself and does not have to endure ridicule. Instead, while still on the cross, he instructs his favorite disciple to take care of his mother. Finally, according to John, Jesus' last words are triumphant: "It is finished."

[Crucifixion with St John and Mary, Bartolomeo Cesi, 1590-1600]

PART I
(1) Opening chorus: "Herr, unser Herrscher ..." ("Lord, our master, ...")
(2-5) Arrest in the Kidron Valley (John 18:1-11)
(6-14) Denial, palace of the high priest Kaiphas (John 18:12–27)

Part II
(15-26) Court hearing with Pontius Pilate (John 18:28–40 and John 19:1–22)
(27-37) Crucifixion and death, Golgotha (John 19:23–30)
(38-39) Burial (John 19:31–42)
(40) Closing chorale: Ach Herr, lass dein lieb Engelein ... (O Lord, let your dear little angels ...)

Text & translation

Right at the beginning of the opening chorus, the woodwinds play the three notes E flat, D flat and G flat, which stands for "Soli (E flat) Deo (D) Gloria (G)": Bach is dedicating the composition directly to God.

The fierce character of the Gospel of John is interpreted by Bach through the use of so-called turbae: dramatic choruses in which Bach expresses the emotions of hateful people, hypocritical scribes, indifferent soldiers and teasing bystanders - true paintings in music. Bach uses this technique fourteen times in the St. John Passion.

The work has a deliberate symmetry. At the center of the five parts is the trial, with the confrontation between Jesus, Pilate, and the crowd. This trial scene is the central point of St. John's narrative, since it is here that Christ's kingship is judged. It is also the turning point of the story: Pilate withdraws; the outcome has now become inevitable. It is not the death of Jesus that is the dramatic climax, but the human actions that lead to it. In the middle of the trial, a chorale (22) interrupts the argument, which is a discussion of freedom and imprisonment. It is surrounded by two choral movements, both of which not only call for the crucifixion of Jesus, but also use the same musical motifs, the second time intensified. Again, in a repetition of similar musical material, a preceding Turba chorus explains the law, while a corresponding movement reminds Pilate of the emperor whose authority is challenged by someone who calls himself a king.

As noted above, the centerpiece of the work is (22), the chorale "Durch dein Gefängnis, Gottes Sohn" - we gain freedom through Christ's captivity. As the true Son of God, Jesus is glorified even in his passion.

What comes through in the performance is the inexorability of the events: everything happens with almost clockwork precision, in direct and necessary fulfillment of a preordained order.

Listen to: Van Veldhoven | Netherlands Bach Society




Choral Masterworks

Bach Cantata Index

Branding Japanese Food: From Meibutsu to Washoku (review)

After Cwiertka's impressive Modern Japanese Cuisine: Food, Power and National Identity, “Branding Japanese Food” is somewhat of a let-down. Katarzyna Cwiertka and co-author Miho Yasuhara have an ideological ax to grind, and in this book they do little else but grind their axes, chopping away at the rather innocent concept of “washoku.”

Now in my view it was an important milestone when Japanese cuisine was in 2013 added by UNESCO to their “Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.” In that listing Japanese food was described as “Washoku, traditional dietary cultures of the Japanese, notably for the celebration of New Year.” There is a longer definition which says something about “the form of the daily meals at home of the Japanese (consisting of rice, soup, side dishes and pickled vegetables), eating habits at annual events, celebrations and ceremonial occasions that strengthen the bonds between people in local communities (such as o-sechi dishes at New Year, or the joint mashing of rice cakes) and local specialties.” (read the full definition at the UNESCO website: https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/washoku-traditional-dietary-cultures-of-the-japanese-notably-for-the-celebration-of-new-year-00869)

I hoped that this registration and the positive news it generated would promote interest in Japanese food, and also en passant help that wonderful beverage, Japanese sake, spread further around the world (and I think it indeed did so, as it enhanced the soft power of Japanese culture). The Japanese government undoubtedly also hoped it would give the Japanese more pride in their own food culture, which is under siege from fast food and changes in society which mean people have less leisure to prepare this time-and-labor consuming cuisine.

Now we come to the present book. Rice is central to washoku, but the authors argue that for most of the Japanese population, white rice was only for a few decades in the modern period a real staple food (it was too expensive, so other grains, tubers and beans were added to brown rice). They also maintain that most meals do not consist of the holy washoku set of “one soup and three side dishes” (plus rice and pickles), as most people through history ate only one side dish or none at all. I don’t see the problem the authors have here: rice was sacred in Japanese culture, so whether it was a daily dish for everybody or not, is irrelevant: eating rice was the ideal (and the same is mutatis mutandis true for “one soup, three side dishes”).

Another problem is that the authors don’t understand that advertising and promotion is something different from academic work. They look at the promotion of local specialties (meibutsu) and souvenirs (omiyage) in Japan in the past and see a parallel with the promotion of washoku, for these specialties were often linked to historical persons or origins which were not always historically proven. Perhaps they were not – product promotion is after all different from historical research.

Then the authors are irritated by the term “washoku”. This term - complain the authors - was very little used until it was picked up by the committee preparing the UNESCO application. And although the definition of Japanese food in the application is broader, Cwiertka and Yasuhara maintain that in fact it was in the first place the elite Kaiseki “haute cuisine” which was registered. Again, so what? Kaiseki is the apex of Japanese food, and its ideology has pervaded Japanese culture. We are talking about “branding” here, not about scientific definitions. Registering “Kaiseki” would have been too narrow, and the advantage of calling Japanese food “washoku” was exactly that it was a little used and therefore open term. On top of that, it is a word easy to pronounce and remember also for non-Japanese – that is exactly what you want when you are branding something!

Finally, the authors blame their colleagues, Japanese food scholars, including the great food historian Isao Kumakura, for not standing up against these "problems." As argued above, I don't really see these concerns (or they are too small to get excited about), and I am glad that these Japanese scholars looked over the walls of their classrooms at the greater good: the effective promotion and branding of Japanese food.

See also this interesting review by professor Eric Rath: https://networks.h-net.org/node/20904/reviews/6128874/rath-cwiertka-and-yasuhara-branding-japanese-food-meibutsu-washoku

The Japanese Seasons: March

March (sangatsu) is also called Yayoi, meaning "plants grow luxuriantly." Plum blossoms are in full bloom and so are yellow rape flowers. Green plants also grow abundantly. The weather is getting warmer and a bit more spring-like. As cherry blossoms are seen later in the month, March is also called Sakurazuki, Kagetsu or Hanamizuki.

In the beginning of the month, on March 3, Hina Matsuri or the Doll's Festival is celebrated (also called Momo no Sekku or Joshi no Sekku). This day of praying for the growth and future happiness of young girls was originally a purification ritual. Dolls functioned as substitutes (katashiro) used to draw away impurities and malevolent spirits from people, and they were floated away in rivers and streams, or otherwise destroyed, taking human pollutants with them. Called Hina-nagashi, this custom is still observed in some regions of Japan, most famously Tottori Prefecture. Since the Muromachi period, this has changed into the custom to decorate sets of Hina dolls in the home, and enjoy certain foods as hishimochi (diamond-shaped rice cakes, colored red, white and green) and shirozake (sweet white sake).

Hina dolls are not ordinary dolls, but ceremonial dolls, a heritage of the family, sometimes handed down for generations. They are only taken out for the Doll's Festival and carefully kept in boxes during the rest of the year. They are usually put out in the second or third week of February and immediately taken away again the day after the Hina Matsuri. The classical way of display is on five or more tiered steps covered with bright red cloth. The dolls represent the imperial court, with the emperor and empress (dairi-sama) on the top row, ministers, court ladies and musicians. Around the dolls, several intricately made miniature household articles are placed. Not surprisingly, a whole classical set of hina dolls is very expensive.

In March, several museums in Japan hold hina doll exhibitions. The Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya, for example, brings out the Hina doll collection of the Owari Tokugawa family, and this is a very gorgeous set. The Kyoto National Museum also holds a smaller Hina doll exhibition, as does the Yodoko Guest House (Yamamura Residence) near Kobe. But the most attractive display is always in the Hokyoji Temple in Kyoto, where dolls originally belonging to imperial princesses are exhibited.

From March 1 to 14 the Omizutori festival is held at Nara's Todaiji Temple, part of an annual rite called shunie. The highlight falls on the evening of March 12 (at 19:00) , when monks light large torches made from pine branches and bamboo (taimatsu) and wave them around from the outer gallery of Nigatsudo, showering the spectators with sparks (this dance and waving of torches is called "dattan no mai"). After that, a water-drawing ceremony is performed at the well in front of the temple hall (on March 2, this water has been "sent" here in the Omizu-okuri ceremony held at the Jinguji Temple in Obama, Fukui). The Omizutori festival announces the beginning of spring. Note that the pine torches can also be seen on March 1-7 (also 19:00), when the crowds are considerably smaller. Read Basho's haiku about the Omizutori festival.

Feb. 15 in the lunar calendar is the day the Buddha passed on into Nirvana (Nehan), so temples usually commemorate this occasion in March. Several temples in Kyoto display large, colorful paintings called Nehan-zu in which the scene of Buddha's passage into Nirvana is depicted. Examples are Shinnyodo (3/1-31), Sennyuji (3/14-16), Tofukuji (3/14-16) and Honpoji (3/15-4/15).

[Botamochi]

On approximately March 21 falls Shunbun, Vernal Equinox or Spring Higan-e. This day, on which daytime and nighttime are of equal length, is thought of as the end of the cold weather and is also the Buddhist holiday Higan-e. On or close to this day, the Japanese usually visit the graves of their ancestors to clean the tomb and offer incense and flowers (ohaka-mairi). From the old ritual of offering food to the ancestors developed the custom of eating botamochi, a ball of soft rice covered with sweetened bean paste. This day is a National Holiday.

Also around March 21 usually falls the start of the Hanami or the flower viewing season. This is the time to go out and enjoy cherry blossoms. Originally it was a time to pray for an abundant harvest. People intently follow the news to see when the "sakura front" (sakura zensen) will roll over their heads. This is such an important event that there are many specific terms related to Hanami.

[Sakura in Ninnaji, Kyoto]

There are two more March flowers: Nananohana are the cruciferous yellow flowers of rape, which cover the fields in this season; and Mokuren, the lily flowered magnolia, which has large upright chalices for flowers, either light-red or white. It flowers just before the cherry blossoms start.

As regards foods that are in season, in March shells are delicious, for example hamaguri (Venus clams) or akagai (blood clams). Karei (flatfish) is also in season around the Doll's festival. Various sansai (mountain vegetables) can be plucked in the spring mountains (haru no yama) in this season, such as zenmai (royal fern) and seri (water dropwort). In the fields of spring (haru no no) also yomogi (mugwort) and warabi (bracken) are found.

The weather in March becomes more "spring-like" (haru meku) and light mists (usugasumi) may veil the hills. Note that early March is still the season of plum blossoms, until the cherry blossom takes over after Shunbun no Hi. Harusame is the word for a soft spring rain. Although there still are some cold days, nodoka (balmy) is the word for springtime.

The Dragon Scroll by I.J. Parker (review)

This book impresses me as a homage to the Judge Dee novels by Robert van Gulik - transported to the Japan of the 11th century. Judge Dee has been transformed into Sugawara Akitada, aristocratic scholar-official and sleuth; Ma Joong has become Tora (his enforcer) and Lieutenant Hoong is Seimei (the elder advisor).

The problem is that Akitada is made out to be just such a staunch Confucianist as the Judge Dee of Van Gulik (who is already more Van Gulik than Chinese), and an opponent of Buddhism. That doesn't fit Japan, where a syncretist mixture of Buddhism with the indigenous kami creed (now called Shinto) was the dominant religion in the 11th century - with some admixture of Confucian elements such as filial piety, but none of the strict Confucianism represented here (that came only much later, in the 17th-19th century). The negative view of the Buddhist clergy as criminals is based on Van Gulik's first novel, The Chinese Bell Murders, but was completely alien to 11th c. Japan. Except for a short period when State Shinto was created in the early Meiji period (around 1870) Buddhism was never negatively viewed by the Japanese.

The material culture of the China described by Van Gulik (the 7th-9th c. Tang dynasty seen through the lens of the 14-17th c. Ming dynasty, so already quite complicated!) has become Heian Japan. For example, the aristocracy did sometimes drink tea, as described by Parker, but that was not tea brewed in a pot as she writes, it was brick tea that was ground into a powder and then stirred into a froth in a tea bowl using a whisk (like matcha). The wine house and restaurant culture described in the novels simple didn't exist in Heian Japan, and there were no multistory houses. And "wine" should of course be sake - drunk warm.

Women lived in their rooms and didn't show themselves to men, even not from behind screens - men had to sit outside on the veranda and could not enter (except sometimes secretly at night). Often aristocratic women didn't even speak directly to men, they had their maidservants convey their words. In the novel a sweet potato is offered to someone, but sweet potatoes (satsuma-imo) only came to Japan in the 17th century. Courts of law were not held inside a courtroom as in China, but the magistrate would sit on the floor of the raised building close to the veranda and face the criminals who had to kneel outside in the gravel of the inner courtyard (see for example Kurosawa's film "Rashomon").

I could continue like that, but that would be childish. I.J. Parker was not a Japanologist, but, until retirement, Associate Professor of English and Foreign Languages at Norfolk State University in Virginia. She was interested in Japanese literature and in the Judge Dee novels and that led to the present project, which comprises about 20 novels and several short story collections. That is quite an achievement. She did document herself and the mistakes I mention won't bother an average English reader. "The Dragon Scroll" is quite a lively tale and covers a lot of ground. The detection elements are not very strong, but the novel offers a nice historical panorama. I read it almost in one sitting. I think I'd like to try one of the later novels and see how the author has developed.