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Of Arcs and Circles

Book Review by Rebecca Otowa

OF ARCS AND CIRCLES: insights from Japan on gardens, nature, and art
by Marc Peter Keane (Stone Bridge Press, 2019)

The first thing I noticed about this book is that it is made up of essays, similar to Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard, which I loved back in the 70s. The voice reminded me of Annie’s, and the way each essay talked about things I had never noticed before was also reminiscent of these earlier books. So I was personally disposed toward Of Arcs and Circles immediately.

My experience of reading it was that this isn’t a book to be devoured as one does a bag of potato chips. Each essay requires time and peace, and rereading, to connect with its essential views, which may hide lessons of a very surprising sort. In this, as well, it was a lot like Annie Dillard’s work for me.

An American landscape architect who lived and worked in Kyoto for many years, Marc Peter Keane has designed gardens of various kinds, written several books about Japanese gardens including Japanese Garden Notes and The Art of Setting Stones, has produced works of art, and has been also involved in preserving traditional environments and cultural heritage. He has made gardens which are also installation art in New York and elsewhere, and is working on a garden in a prestigious hotel in Kyoto. (To see pictures, check out his website at www.mpkeane.com) Because of his work in stone, wood, ceramics, and plants, he is uniquely suited to writing a book about nature and the benefits of noticing the small details of his environment.

His book has several themes, some of which I will endeavor to enumerate here as I experienced them. One is juxtaposition. The decaying farm equipment and the encircling vines. The discarded can and its inhabitant, a small lake fish (both described in “Solace for the Tumbling Mind”). The present view of the old house being demolished and Keane’s personal memory of the flower-arrangement teacher, a friend and mentor, who lived there (in the title essay, “Of Arcs and Circles”). The anemometer and how it stacks up against the movement of trees as an accurate predictor of weather (in “Wind in the Trees”).

Other themes cover the importance of grounding oneself in the physical world, the senses we are given, dancing the intricate dance of being alive within the place we find ourselves. The exquisite detail, down to bark and annular rings, of a piece of sumi charcoal which both is, and is not, the parent tree (“Wind in the Trees”); the intricacy of a reflection seen for an instant in a shop window (“Little Secrets Everywhere”); or the psychological effect on long-ago people, when colors were not a common experience, of bright cinnabar vermilion painted on a shrine gate among all that brown and green (“On Torii Gates”). His eye lights upon the beauty of tiny movements and forms and he spins them out into mental configurations, like a group of wasps making a paper nest. Tiny movements, tiny details, tiny forms. The descriptions of the natural forms, and the mental configurations that these evoke, are themselves fleeting and ephemeral, not weighed down with judgment or gravitas.

Of course, there are moments of elucidation arising from Keane’s extensive knowledge of Japan. This would have to be mentioned as another theme in the book. As examples, I will mention the comparison of the meanings of the words “garden” (in English) and “tei-en” (in Japanese) which serve to illuminate the contrasting views of this space (“A Garden by Any Other Name”); the small details of customs and human interaction, such as the way to show respect at a rural shrine (“Solace for the Tumbling Mind”); the form and meaning, in effect, the history, of a torii gate which leads into the sacred space we call a shrine (“On Torii Gates”).

Occasionally Keane’s writing broadens out into moments of enlightenment which link the natural world, with all its details, to spiritual universes of meaning, though these are never forced or didactic. I especially enjoyed the essay entitled “There is No Such Thing as Art”, as it so precisely put into words my own feeling, which is that art is a process rather than an object to be bought and owned, a process of losing oneself in the act of creation, a moment of oneness between the creator and his medium, which becomes the whole world. This is amply borne out in the penultimate essay, “Wheels Turning”, in which he becomes the creator who is enjoying, playfully and yet philosophically, the process of creation at the potter’s wheel of his wife.

There are pithy little epigrams and pages of what could be called stream-of-consciousness writing. There are trees, insects, and snakes. There is wind and there is water. There are rustic farmers and sophisticated tea masters, a small boy with a dragonfly resting on his upturned finger and a temple cat that prompts a train of thought about where cat food comes from.

In the end, I think Keane would agree that his book might just as well be written in the swirls of earth or the movement of leaves as in the words he chose. Writing, for him, I sense, is a creative process in which he effortlessly weaves words and essays from his experiences with eyes, hands, and the natural world; and yet the making of the book itself is secondary to those experiences. It’s a joy to follow these experiences along with the author. And this reader is looking forward to reading this book again, slowly and peacefully, and to translating his words and ideas into my own in my corner of the material world.

God is in the Details III: Heavenly Bamboo (around 2015) watercolor by Rebecca Otowa

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For Marc Peter Keane’s homepage with a list of publications, click here. For his Wikipedia page, see here.

Zoom bonenkai 2021

On Sunday Dec 22 twenty two members tuned in for WiK’s first ever Zoom social event. The bonenkai 2021 saw out in style what has been a difficult year in many ways. 

Our annual bonenkai bash is not only a way of dispelling the demons of midwinter but of showcasing WiK’s multifarious talents. This year there was a difference in that we were celebrating at home in front of a screen. Of course we missed the human interaction, but it enabled us to bring our farflung membership together for a gathering without the danger or difficulty of having to travel home afterwards. It was great to have so many share in the spirit of solstice celebration by making merry with fellow Kyocentrics around the world.

Performances were up to five mins in length and featured the following talents…

Mark Richardson read a poem by Thomas Hardy plus one of his own (a fable)
Jann Williams is a David Bowie fan who danced, appropriately, to Let”s Dance
Ed Levinson read his own uplifting haiku and short poems, inspired by nature
Eric Bray danced with a female partner to his own musical composition
Video by Rebecca Otowa and Karen Lee Tawarayama singing in perfect harmony
James Woodham read his own poetry inspired by life near Lake Biwa
Video by Robert Yellin in a powerful one-take reading with Bizen pot appreciation
Lisa Wilcut read a charming conversation she wrote from the viewpoint of a child
Lianne Wakabayashi talked of her relationship with Kyoto artist, Teruhide Kato
Jorrell Watkins read his own poetry in a fast paced verbal feast
Mayumi Kawaharada read her haiku, as performed recently with a jazz group
Ted Taylor read out his limericks, including a special one for WiK (see below)
Ken Rodgers read a selection of his recent poetry (see here for the contents)
Mark Hovane spoke of the poet Ryokan and of Kyoto’s last changing maple leaf

Ken Rodgers, whose Grace Notes poems were one of the highlights of bonenkai 2021

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Limerick for WiK – a limerwik by Ted Taylor

Some Writers in Kyoto there were
And others a fair bit further.
At their desks hours spent
Yet can’t cover the rent
But at least we have these events.

Ken Rodgers poems

Ken presenting at the WiK bonenkai, 2021

GRACE NOTES
A few weeks ago a title for a collection of short writings unexpectedly suggested itself: “Grace Notes.” Then I realized that what it implied didn’t quite fit anything I actually had on hand, so I’ve been scribbling in a notebook, exploring where this might lead. Here are some examples, as shared via Zoom for the WIK bonenkai, Dec. 19th.

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WILLOW TWIG

In my early teen years, for no special reason,
I stuck a willow twig in damp ground.

Many decades later, my sister sends
a photo. A spreading tree
shades the entire back lawn.

I look around my Japanese house.
Every piece of wood I see here
—tokonoma pillar, shoji door frames,
unpainted stair risers, desk, kitchen table, chair-legs
—could all suddenly sprout leaves
and put down roots.

Like I did
here in Kyoto.

******************

GENERATIONS

Sakahara:
a long valley with no houses;
ancient fields

Scattering barley grains
into shallow furrows
I sense spirit presences;
look up, look around.
No one’s there

Only myself — just one
of a crowd of generations
bending their backs to cultivate
this same soil, with seeds saved
from last year’s harvest

******************

OHARA

Autumnal forest ridgelines illuminated 
by sunshafts through form-shifting clouds,
etherial golden glow,
flanked by deep shadow

Blue smoke rising from fields below
our soy-field browning, beans secretly yellowing

I flip open my little camera-case, 
take photo after photo

But why this ceaseless urge
to record pure transience?
To frame selected fast-vanishing views
of this vast continuum? To write images
into memory?

One lifetime, a blink of the eye.
Ichi-go, ichi-e.

Late into November
crickets silent now
butterflies still zig-zagging
— at home everywhere

Late into November
crickets silent now
butterflies still zig-zagging
— transients pursuing transience
just like me

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AT HOKOJI
Hokoji temple in Kyoto was the site of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s Great Buddha (the Daibutsu), a seated statue and building larger than Nara’s. It was completed in 1612, then was destroyed and rebuilt multiple times, until its final version (a crudely-carved yet immense head) burned in 1973. [Also mentioned in my essay, ‘Sanjusangendo, Revisited,’ in Structures in Kyoto, WiK Anthology 4.)

A signboard floorplan shows
the location of the lotus-throne,
now an unkempt grassy mound crested
by the sawn stump of a massive tree

Bush clover attracts tiny butterflies;
a purposeful helicopter passes overhead
and is gone

Slow drumbeats, then a chanting voice
from neighboring Toyokuni shrine.
Birdsong too;
traffic from Higashioji barely audible.
A tiny breeze clatters leaves.

In the absence of the Daibutsu,
in the midst of the city; such stillness.

Form is emptiness; emptiness is form.
Absence, presence; presence, absence.

The Buddha wasn’t ever here;
and was never not here.

After nearly 40 years in Kyoto
I’m finally beginning to get the message.

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For other pieces by Ken, see this travel article, or this D-Day memoir, or this celebration of Kyoto Journal’s 30th anniversary and its 100th issue, these Open Mike pieces and his latest work here.

Photos below of the 1973 Big Buddha fire sourced from a Kyoto city site, which carries more information in Japanese.

Authors who belong to Writers in Kyoto

Shinrin-yoku in Squirrel’s Forest

by Robert Weis

The most pleasant surprise when I moved to the city from the countryside was to discover that, just five minutes’ walk from my home, there is a wood, hidden and nestled in a small stream valley, miraculously escaped from the frenetic urbanisation that is rampant in these parts. I had often wondered whether it was the right decision to move from the countryside with its majestic forests of Luxembourg’s Little Switzerland to the city, despite the convenience of being so close to my workplace. I was afraid that I would miss the silent strolls after work, where I would refocus on the world, the analogous and primitive one, and not the virtual or sophisticated one in which I moved during most of my day as a good productive Citizen. That day, therefore, when I went under the thick canopy of beech leaves, which were beginning to change colour despite the mildness of this early autumn, I felt reassured: I had found a ‘world that looked like the world’, the one I had left behind for an unknown future. The familiar presence of the beech trees, the constant flow of water and the moss-covered sandstone rocks that emerged here and there made me feel good and showed me that the path I had taken was the right one. The immersion into the natural surroundings reminded me of lessons learnt in Japan, where Shinrin-yoku, or Forest Bathing is an officially recognized therapeutic practice since decades. In the following months the grove became my refuge when I needed to clear my head, to breathe fresh air, to tread on organic soil, to observe the changing seasons: the necessary desolation of the winter grey, the bright fresh green of the first leaves in April, the coolness of the shade and water on sultry summer days, the mushrooms and the colours of the leaves in autumn. The thing that struck me most, however, was to discover that the forest was also the refuge of several squirrels, who often came to the gardens of the houses, where perhaps walnut trees grew. But they would always come back here to the wood, just as me, and I would stop and watch their joyful presence, the rustling in the leaves, a quick movement, a lively look. And it gradually became a ritual, going to the squirrel forest, and I realised that I needed this simplicity of being in the world and breathing and watching my local kami, the spirits of the forests, and nothing else. And the atmosphere of the forest became a metaphor for a space of inner peace, and I began to eventually imagine it in stressful moments even when I couldn’t physically be there. I closed my eyes and it was all there, the colour of the leaves, the movements of the squirrels, the almost imperceptible sound of the water running over the stones. And every time I felt at home, and nothing made me regret the past. So time went by and today it’s been five years that I live near the forest and that the forest lives inside me. And nothing has changed, and nothing will change my world, until the squirrels stop hiding their nuts for the winter, until the nettles stop coming out in March after a long break to end up right in my soup, until the water flows, always unchanged, but never the same.

As long as this world exists, all we need is a squirrel forest for our senses and mind to bathe in.

Writers in Kyoto Members Discuss with Tokyo Poetry Journal Co-Founders and Editors (November 28th, 2021)

While accessible in only a couple of hours, the wide metropolis of Tokyo sometimes feels a bit conceptually distant from quieter, more conservative Kyoto. Both cultural hubs of Japan, however, have vibrant literary communities which are of great benefit to each other by way of networking and knowledge sharing. Writers in Kyoto was delighted to have the opportunity to host a relaxed and friendly Zoom session at the end of last month with Tokyo Poetry Journal (ToPoJo) co-founders and editors Taylor Mignon and Jeffrey Johnson to gain insight and inspiration from their experiences. This Zoom session was moderated by Lisa Wilcut (winner of First Prize in the 2019 WiK Kyoto Writing Competition for her poem Okuribi) and was also attended by nine other WiK members, many of whom also compose poetry. This was another example of how Zoom has enhanced our reach in the pandemic age, enabling us to connect with valued speakers in various regions.

ToPoJo is a biannual publication of poetry, art, reviews, and criticism founded in 2015. Their activities also include live readings incorporating the spoken word of the poets with live musical, improvised accompaniment. Over the years ToPoJo has been covered by the Japan Times, Tokyo Weekender, Wall Street International, Writers in Kyoto, and others, and as a team they have published eleven journals to date on an eclectic range of topics including Music and Poetry, poetry of the Heisei Generation, Japan and the Beats, and Poetry and Butoh. Volume 11, centered on submitted poetry, is scheduled to appear soon. Jordan A.Y. Smith will serve as Editor-in-Chief for Volume 12 (Translated Poetry).

The session began with two short video clips of Taylor’s and Jeffrey’s poems, each set to musical accompaniment. The video of Taylor’s “Buttered Young, Battered Jung” was written in collaboration with Todd Silverstein and has an added soundscape by David Severn. Saxophonist Bob Sliwa provides a background to Jeffrey’s poems, one containing a line translated by Nobel Prize-winning Mexican poet Octavio Paz.

Discussion flowed around many topics including poetry as an art form, the journal’s concept and style, the literary community formed through ToPoJo, the mechanics of running the journal, how submissions are handled, how the editors balance their professional lives and their poetry, and about the ToPoJo live events which have gained such a positive reputation over time.

On discussing the aims of the journal, Taylor explained that while he respects haiku, it is his wish to break the stereotype that this is all Japan has to offer. He deeply appreciates, for example, the cutting-edge material developed in the process of the country’s industrialization, preceding the surrealist movement. Bareku (“breaking propriety verse” of the 1700s), he says, gives a glimpse into the true nature of the Japanese. Having studied under Cid Corman, Taylor became intrigued by syllabic meter experimentation and the lack of adjective usage. He’s also fascinated by the work of the Han Geijutsu group, the Fluxus movement, avant-garde poetry, art, film, Japanese works in the Taisho Period, and the Beats. As there are still so many areas that have not been examined, Taylor hopes to bring many underexposed works to light instead of continuing to reinforce the same stereotypes.

All ToPoJo team members work as volunteers and duties are shared, with the editing of volumes taking place on a revolving basis. Each editor chooses the theme of their volume and proceeds in accordance with their own style. The chosen theme provides the overall flavor as the volume takes form, but the content may vary. When asked about how they balance their poetic activities with their academic work, Jeffrey interestingly stated that the analytical functions he uses as an academic are “turned off” in his mind when he’s creating poetry. Taylor, while working at a university, views himself as more of an outsider and as part of the counterculture of music and art, having an interest in teaching creative writing and composing his own. He also sees possible future growth in Modernist Japanese art education.

The costs of printing and distributing ToPoJo are covered mainly through the research funds allotted to many of the team (in their university academic posts) and online events (most of which are new volume launch parties). As much as possible, the journal contributors read their pieces, at which time some of them have their first chance to perform with musical improvisation. At several launches ToPoJo has welcomed Sam Bennett (a local percussionist), Morgan Fisher (keyboardist), and Masahiko Shimaji (bass player). Other venues for performances have been the open mic events “Drunk Poets See God” at Bar Gari Gari (Setagaya) and at an English pub What the Dickens (Ebisu). It is through such spoken word events that Jeffrey and Taylor believe a strong community has formed around poetry in Tokyo.

Overall, covering the costs is challenging. Unfortunately, major bookstores in Japan will not distribute journals. Therefore, it’s quite difficult to find outlets willing to carry the journal, and finances take a hit when copies are sent overseas due to additional shipping. While Volume 10 is being offered digitally, the rest remain on paper (despite the high printing costs) because the ToPoJo team considers it to have been the best option so far. There have been innovative steps along the way, however, to align print copies with the virtual age. Volume 3 (Poetry and Music) has QR codes on the pages which allow the reader to access the audio version of the poems, with musical accompaniment, as they read along.

For those interested in submitting their work to the journal for consideration, a list of guidelines can be found on the journal’s website. Taylor and Jeffrey said that prospective contributors should be sure to submit through the proper route (email) and are advised to submit between three to five works at a time, so the selection committee is able to gain a broad picture of the individual’s poetic ability. Submitting more than one piece will increase one’s chances of acceptance for publication. Another important tip is that all works published by ToPoJo have some connection with Japan. Although the content itself doesn’t always have to speak specifically of the country, there should be a connection to Japan in the author’s bio.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the session was when we touched on the idea of possible ways that poets of Writers in Kyoto can contribute to ToPoJo in the future. Taylor said that while the journal began in Tokyo, he has an interest in the poetic traditions and social history of Japan at large. Might there be a role for a Kyoto Editor? Jeffrey also suggested the idea of a ToPoJo Kyoto Edition for his next stint as Editor-in-Chief. There are many nuggets of wisdom to be shared between the members of ToPoJo and Writers in Kyoto, so we hope that this session served as a doorway to possible areas of literary collaboration in the future. Perhaps a fabulous launch party in downtown Kyoto?

Thank you, Taylor and Jeffrey, for a richly informative and inspiring discussion!

The full video of the November 28th Zoom session is below. To access a full list of ToPoJo volumes, click here. To view different online order options, click here.

Writings about Kyoto, whether by Japanese or foreign observers

Edward Bramwell Clarke in Kyoto

By Yuki Yamauchi

Rugby in Japan, courtesy Wikicommons

Edward Bramwell Clarke (1874-1934), a Briton born in Yokohama, is remembered as one of the people who introduced rugby to Japan, and his name was often seen in news articles related to the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

A graduate of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, Clarke was also an intellectual giant. Having returned to Japan, he started his teaching career at Keio Gijuku University in 1899. He also taught at several schools including the First Higher School of Tokyo, where novelist Soseki Natsume was among his colleagues.

However, it was not until 1913 that the Tokyo-based educator got a foothold in Kyoto. His teaching career in the city started at the Third Higher School. In 1916, he was appointed, alongside Tatsuo Kuriyagawa as successor to Bin Ueda, who had taught English literature at Kyoto Imperial University (now Kyoto University).

Clarke dedicated himself to teaching students about English literature and its history. As recalled by his students, the Briton called himself a Victorian, liked to take a close look at books by Alfred Tennyson, George Meredith, Robert Browning and Rudyard Kipling, and esteemed Lafcadio Hearn, who had corrected Clarke’s compositions briefly in 1890 when the boy went to Victoria Public School in Yokohama.

A student of his recollects what the British professor was like at Kyoto Imperial University around 1919:

Unable to walk well, Prof. Clarke always went to school by rickshaw. Even during each ride, he could not stop reading. I never saw him there without dozens of books on the vehicle. The driver often yawned in the school yard while waiting for the return of his client. According to the rickshaw man, Prof. Clarke’s only hobby was to go just once every two weeks to his favourite barbershop on the premises of Kyoto Station in those days, and then dine at a restaurant on the second floor before going back home.
(Extract from an essay by Shuji Yamamoto in Kyoto Daigaku Bungakubu Gojunenshi (Fifty Years of the Faculty of Letters, Kyoto University) (1956)

Rugby was of much significance to Clarke until 1907, when he was forced to have his right leg amputated due to severe rheumatism. Thereafter his athletic vigour turned into energy to study English literature.

Meanwhile, a Japanese who studied under Clarke for 22 years wrote his recollection of the British educator:

I am sure that no one is as willing to practice self-sacrifice as Prof. Clarke, in order that everyone can know the enjoyment of learning and the pleasure of knowledge. However busy he was or whenever he was sick in bed, he took the trouble to welcome any student for as long as he could and talk and listen to his guest. Without getting bored in the least, he answered any questions however trivial or troublesome. He had only this one hobby. Probably because of this, he was always kind enough to lend anyone, if they hoped to read, various rare books he had collected with considerable passion.
(Extracted from an essay dated April 29, 1934, by Hojin Yano in Shikyucho: Zuihitsushu (1948))

In Kobe Shimbun (May 17, 2016), there is a further clue to the character of Clarke. According to an article, he made meticulous and detailed corrections to any English writing by his students, no matter how bad it was. In addition, the rugby-loving professor was extremely strict with students who cheated with their thesis; just as the sport fostered his sense of fair play, he could not tolerate any wrongdoing in the playing field or dissertations.

On April 26, 1934, Clarke suffered a brain haemorrhage and passed away two days later. It was just days before his move to Kobe – his daughter and her children lived in the city and Arima, one of Japan’s renowned hot spring resort areas, was his favourite summer retreat. His funeral ceremony was held at St. Mary’s Church, Kyoto, near Heian Jingu shrine, as reported on the front page of Kyoto Imperial University Newspaper (May 5, 1934). He is buried in the Kobe Municipal Foreign Cemetery, and his gravestone bears the following epitaph:

Life’s race well run
Life’s work well done
Life’s victory won
Then cometh rest

Though he sleeps in Kobe, Kyoto is still connected to the professor through the Clarke Collection – more than 5,000 books on English literature in the Library of Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University. There is also a bust, completed in 1935, of a man of such extraordinary knowledge that his friends nicknamed him ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica Clarke’ after the EBC initials of his name.

Edward Clarke, courtesy Wikicommons, a lover of rugby and of learning

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For an introduction to Yuki Yamauchi, please click here. For his piece on Portraits of Uji, click here. For his portrait of prewar academic critic, Tatsuo Kuriyagawa, click here. And for his piece on theatre and film director, Akira Nobuchi, click here. He has also written on the history of Gion Higashi.

Authors who belong to Writers in Kyoto

IN THE POOL

By Lisa Twaronite Sone

I had expected her.

I knew exactly who she was, when she came wandering into the old school one day.

She saw my janitor’s uniform and realized I belonged there, but she wasn’t quite sure what to say to me. They never are.

“Can I help you?” I asked as kindly as possible, putting down my mop.

“I…I work in the office tower next door,” she said haltingly, but of course I already knew that.

I had seen the young woman with the long hair standing next to the window, every day around lunch time, eating her apple and enjoying the view from the 20th floor. She was always looking at the mountains in the distance, with a little smile on her lips.

But then one sunny day, she looked down, and noticed them — the children, in the abandoned swimming pool on the roof.

After that, I saw her watching them, unable to believe her eyes. She didn’t tell anyone else what she saw, of course. They never do.

“This building…” she was asking me now, her voice slightly trembling. “When did they stop using it as a school?”

“More than 30 years ago,” I said. “There weren’t enough kids anymore, in this part of the city. So now it’s used for city offices, and storage.”

“There’s an old pool on the roof…” she started to say, but she didn’t know how to put into words what she wanted to say next.

So I helped her out.

“You see the children.”

“YES!” she said, in a loud exclamation of relief that surprised both of us.

“Most people can’t see them,” I said, “but you’re not the first. And probably not the last. You thought maybe it was just the way the sunlight was hitting the water, right?”

She nodded.

“But then you saw their faces. There weren’t any kids standing around the pool, and yet in the water, you could clearly see their reflections? Nine of them, and then ten, right?”

“I counted twelve,” she said. “Who are they? Are they ghosts? Did they drown in the pool?”

“No one ever drowned in this building’s pool,” I said. “I asked the people in charge about that. I don’t think those kids are alive anymore, but they all died somewhere else, not in the pool.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Look, all I know is that no one died in the pool. And in the 18 years I’ve been working here, you’re the ninth person who came to ask about kids in the water who aren’t really there. I can see them sometimes, too, and you know what I think?”

She didn’t encourage me to continue, but I did, anyway.

“I think that when people die, their strongest memories live on. When these people died, some of their happy childhood memories remained here. And that’s what we see now, in the water. These memories.”

This seemed to satisfy her. She nodded slowly, thanked me, and walked away.

I didn’t tell her everything. I never do. I didn’t want to upset her by telling her that usually, the only people who can see the children are those about to join them.

In fact, the only exception to this so far is me — I’m still here, and I don’t know why. The other eight people, though….they all passed on, within a few weeks of talking to me.

And I can still see all eight of them, too. Well, it’s nine now.

On bright sunny days, I can go up to the roof, and there’s the line of kids reflected in the murky green rainwater, in their old-fashioned swimsuits and bathing caps.

There’s 15 of them now. Their faces are laughing, and they’re eager to jump in — who wouldn’t be, on a bright, sunny day? It’s definitely a happy childhood memory they would keep for the rest of their lives, strong enough to linger on after them.

Then I look up at the office towers, and I can see all of the faces reflected in the windows. There’s that nice old man who was hit by a car, and there’s that chubby, middle-aged mother who dropped dead of a heart attack.

The weekend after she came to the school, the woman with the long hair was lost at sea, in a boating accident. I saw her picture on the news.

Now whenever the sun is shining, I see her there at her window on the 20th floor, eating her apple. She’s always looking at the mountains in the distance, with a little smile on her lips.

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For an interview with Lisa about her writing with Reuters, see here.

Featured writing

Masterpiece: Gardens as Art

by Stephen Mansfield

Once you introduce a concept, aesthetic ingredient, or color palette into Nature in the form of a garden, you stir the wilderness, the primal pot. A space probe does something like that with the universe.

It likely never occurred to eighteenth century European collectors and literati, entitled beneficiaries of a meticulous, favorably constructed civilization, to question whether gardens were works of art. It was assumed they took their assigned place alongside painting, sculpture, classic recitals, and more mystical forms of religious devotion. That colossus of Regency era English garden design, Humphry Repton, declared “Gardens are works of art rather than of nature.” The Japanese would doubtless define their most accomplished gardens as works of art, but with the proviso that they are always framed with a vision of nature in mind.

The condition defining almost every garden construct is that it be a place of repose and beauty, an alternative, transcendent world. Mention of the topic is unlikely to conjure images of the late film maker, Derek Jarman’s garden in Dungeness, stricken among rental allotments on the withering salt flats and shingle of the Thames Estuary. Jarman’s choice of recycled or requisitioned objects for his creation, were locally sourced, and included flint, driftwood, shells, rusty tools and mooring chains, the horticultural elements featuring cactus, gorse, elder, hawksbeard, and blackthorn. The garden’s borrowed views are lines of electric pylons and a nuclear power station. John Cage defined art as practically anything that stimulates an aesthetic experience. Jarman’s garden, with its magic circles made of dragon-toothed flint, charred driftwood sticks, and beds of scarlet pelargoniums is, indeed, a masterful creation, its beauty in the harmonizing of fantastically disparate elements.

Art, nature and landscape gardening are inexorably linked. In her book, Italian Villas and Their Gardens, Edith Wharton wrote that gardens, “must be adapted to the landscape around them.” Reflecting on the blending of elements in gardens, she comments on the “subtle transition from the fixed and formal lines of art to the shifting and irregular lines of nature.”

The persistence of Japanese gardens as a design form, embodies the notion that landscapes are not imitations of the natural world, but coexisting forms that harmonize art and nature. In so doing, the Japanese landscape gardener, an artist in nature, goes a step further, holding up a mirror to aspects of our own human nature. Constructing a Japanese garden provides the opportunity to create a form that might be called organic art, by reworking, reinterpreting aspects of encountered nature. A substantive diversity of forms, ranging from scenes created according to the strict directives of ancient garden manuals, to modern, iconoclastic designs, is reflected in the Japanese garden and its search for a place in the world of applied and fine art.

A feature of major, iconic works of art is their tendency to break with precedents. Designing within the parameters of tradition, emblematic landscapes, like the aristocratic Vaux-le-Vicomte, the temple installation of Ryoan-ji, and the circuit garden of Katsura Rikyu, both in Kyoto, are examples of older leaps in innovation associated with art. Among those who designed gardens were Buddhist priests, calligraphers, tea masters and painters, applying the common aesthetics of their disciplines to garden templates. Created in the 15th-century by Sesshu Toyo, a titan in the Japanese art world, the Joei-ji temple garden in Yamaguchi City, clearly replicates the visual vocabulary of his ink monochrome landscape canvasses. The placement of flat-topped stones, contrasting with upright rocks on a flat plain, creates an energetic imbalance, embodying the transition in Japanese landscape art from its restrained, static qualities to assertive, soaring peaks, rock faces and horizontal ledges. Much admired for their formal accomplishments, but also for a degree of refreshing abstraction, Chinese paintings were avidly collected by the ruling class during the Kamakura era. The more static, abstract gardens of the period were profoundly affected by these imported works. Inspired by Sung dynasty painters, nature in the garden gradually became subordinate to the vigorous standards of art.

The landscape equivalent of sculpture might be the stone garden, which has been compared to an art installation. The perdurance of the stone garden is a factor worth consideration. Like art appreciation, the hermeneutic aspects of viewing gardens vary. Loraine E. Kuck, reflecting on the enigmatic stone gardens of Kyoto, for example, concludes in her 1968 book, Japanese Gardens, that the usage of natural rocks in creating designs will be recognized as one of the most important art forms. Interestingly, many of the gardens with the strongest aspirations to art are, like Japanese woodblock prints and netsuke, the smallest. Sacheverell Sitwell, visiting Kyoto in 1959, declared its gardens, “the great works of little masters,” the results in his view, superior to those in Europe.

Like exhibits found in museums or galleries, gardens, like bonsai, are bequeathed, curated by generations of owners, custodians, and patrons. Like a painting by one of the old masters, a Titian, Schongauer, or Carracci, work requiring periodic restoration, gardens require sustained attending. Even the hard, sculptural forms within a garden, subject to air pollution, the effects of time, even vandalism, are vulnerable.

The aesthetics of Japanese gardens and the more spiritual aspects of art, converge in Tokyo’s Nezu Museum. Built to exhibit a fine art collection of tea ceremony utensils, Chinese bronze ware, and Buddhist sculpture, its garden feels a little like hallowed ground, a dense, spiritually-infused plot of greenery ingeniously disassociated from the city. Adding to the sense of entering a verdant sanctuary, is an air of profound antiquity, emanating from the placement of beautifully carved and incised Buddhist stone work throughout a garden that doubles as an open-air gallery. Here, we randomly encounter a sandstone Standing Buddha Triad dating from China’s 6th century Northern Wei Dynasty, a Seated Bodhisattva, precisely dated 1466, or a Muromachi era Japanese Ksitigarbhas carved panel.

A sub-division of visual art, Japanese gardens present a natural, even cosmic order that is not immediately apparent to the casual visitor. When we talk about the art of gardening, the emphasis is not on gardens as art objects, but the process of designing and making a landscape, which requires an order of skill that is artistic.
Japanese gardens are by definition, both restrictive and liberating, delineating space and setting out permissible routes through them, while at the same time expanding our perception of interpreted nature. Some visitors, accustomed to a different set of aesthetics, have questioned the authenticity of Japanese gardens, which are intended among other things, to manipulate our senses. This, of course, is precisely what art does when we allow it to enter our lives. The art of gardening is the art of life itself.

*********************

In After Act, Stephen considers virus related literature in a pandemic world.

For a review of his life in writing, given as a lunchtime talk for WiK, see here.
For a review by John Dougill of his book, Stone Gardens, click here.

For a short treatise on light and dark in Japanese culture, see here. For a review by Josh Yates of Stephen’s book on Tokyo: A Biography, see here.

For Stephen Mansfield’s review of the WiK Anthology 3, Encounters with Kyoto, please click here.  For his amazon page with a list of his books, please see this link.

Writings about Kyoto, whether by Japanese or foreign observers

Robert MacLean

Isobar Press is not only a specilist publisher of poetry, but of poetry with a Japanese connection in particular. According to its website, it “publishes poetry in English by Japanese and non-Japanese authors who live (or have lived) in Japan, or who write on Japan-related themes.”

One of their recent publications is by former resident Robert MacLean, and here is the blurb…

Waking to Snow by Robert MacLean tracks twenty-five years of living in Kyoto. The poems are arranged roughly chronologically, in four sections, following the rhythms of the seasons, of Zen practice and sesshin retreats, along with poems about brief returns to Canada to visit aging parents, childhood memories, and academic and married life. Throughout, many poems attempt to decipher ‘the lost languages’ of nature: rice-seedlings, snails, chickadees, flowers, cicadas, heron, crickets, a bush warbler, an abandoned kitten, stars, trees, weather, wind, snow. At the very heart of the book is ‘Still’, a stunningly powerful sequence of eighteen poems describing the anguish of a stillbirth.”

Isobar and Robert MacLean have kindly given permission to post here one of the poems in its entirety, and I think those of us who love Kyoto will readily relate to dog-walking along the Kamogawa.

My First Guide to Kyoto

Next-door neighbour’s
pug-nosed Sakura
tied up all day
whimpering beneath
the stairwell: no
way to treat the
earliest cherry blossoms

in Kyoto.
So I take him for a walk –
rather he takes me,
charging like a stunted
rogue elephant
to the Kamo river’s
ecstasy of in-

visible smells where
he poops three times, each
with more strain,
panting and slobbering as
he drags me along
at the end of his
taut leash. Oh

we’re sailing now
past some thin old folk
playing a kind of croquet
near the bridge in the ancient
newborn sun,
past some kids crouched
bouncing a ball and chanting,

past endless blocks of
jumbled houses,
blue-tiled roofs glinting
like dragon scales. By now,
Sakura’s zonked, able
to scrawl his faint
signature only at irresistible

spots, so we wend
our way home:
small dun dopey boggle-eyed
dog with fur
radiating in tufts,
deep gaze thank you
to each other.


Featured writing

Memoirs of a Japanese Nurse pt 3

The Memoirs of a Japanese Nurse on the Western Front (pt 3)

Hajimeko Takeda’s Notes by a Japanese Nurse Sent to France

Translated by Paul Carty & Eiko Araki, edited by Freddy Rottey & Dominiek Dendooven

In Stand To! 122 (April 2021), the introduction, context and postscript of Hajimeko Takeda’s memoirs as a Japanese nurse in France were published, and in Stand To! 123 we presented the first part of  then full translation of her account. This is the second and final part, as originally published in the local newspaper Fukuoka Shimbun between May 25 and June 6, 1919.

[8]

       We tried every means to comfort patients who could not move at all. We gave them every sort of daily necessities and amusements. Things to eat and drink, a variety of cigars or flowers were also given to them as presents. Some gifts were sent to them by benefactors both from home and abroad. Others were given from volunteer nurses in the hospital or contributed from members of our own corps. Mr. Ishida, former Japanese Ambassador to France, donated newspapers and magazines. Newspapers contributed by every newspaper office situated in Paris were distributed by a baroness Loulou Lasole(?) with her own hands to every sickroom and office inside the hospital every day. On top of that, an enormous amount of books and magazines were incessantly coming from every quarter. One volunteer nurse was always supplying flowers as did some others. Those were distributed to every sickroom and were used to decorate every bedside, which comforted disabled patients. Toys and other items to entertain the patients came in one after another and relieved the tedium of patients who had nothing to do.

       Raphia, horsehair, glass beads, and gassed yarn were contributed by the Society for the Wounded, which also taught patients how to make elaborate things such as baskets, coasters, watch bands, rings, and bracelets. Sometimes a woman in charge from the Society bought those things made by patients at a certain price and displayed them at a certain place to sell to kind people. This was a good idea to relieve the tedium of patients and also make some profits. The stalls displaying and selling the products of the patients were also set up opposite our hospital. Many of the passersby bought them. School girls bravely hawked those products on the streets with a basket filled with the goods hanging from their shoulders.

       On Christmas Eves volunteer nurses made Christmas trees and decorated them with something like ‘pipe purses’ and ‘knife handkerchiefs’ wrapped in paper. Sometimes, we made handicrafts in Japanese style or played the game of drawing lots and sometimes separately comforted patients. Besides, we gave them shirts and socks, and when they lacked them at the time of leaving the hospital, French volunteer nurses would give those items to patients or Japanese nurses used money from our charity collection to buy those goods. Picture postcards of our hospital, which we gave patients when they were discharged from hospital, were appreciated as the only memento.

        At the time of Easter, French people made it a practice to give eggs and sweets, so in our contingent we gave egg-shaped confectionaries together with cigarettes at this time of the year. We were often invited to a tea party privately or by various organizations such as the supporters’ association of the sick and wounded soldiers. Music is one of the most favored activities of the French people. Therefore, patients were invited to concerts and various entertainments by the President, the government-general in Paris of the Ministry of War, various newspaper offices, and supporter groups. At the time of invitation Japanese nurses and French probationary nurses accepted the invitations and accompanied the patients. In addition, free admission tickets to plays, variety shows, and films were given freely to us–far too many to accept.

[9]

        I will write about my curious fate with my girls’ school teacher from France, Sister Borcha. After I finished elementary school, I entered Hakkaikan, the predecessor of the present Hakkai girls’ school in Kumamoto City. Sister Borcha was president there. Besides being my teacher, she took great care of me besides being my teacher. While I was a student there, I practiced making handicrafts like embroidery. So after I became a nurse, I went to the school to help make some embroidery.

        When I was going to Paris this time, Sister Borcha gave me a lot of advice. At Kumamoto Station where I departed, she said, “You, Takeda san, are like my daughter. You are going to my country”. Far from her own country for forty years, she has devoted herself to charity work in Japan and will continue to devote the rest of her life. With her eyes filled with tears, thinking about her dear country, she said, clasping my hands, that her nephews as many as six had gone to the front.

        I may meet her nephews after I arrive in France, and would tell them how Sister Borcha was doing, I thought. Fortunately I chanced to meet one of them! On one of our first days in Paris, snow lay as deep as 2 shaku (about 60 cm) on the streets of Paris, and the tall buildings were all mantled in snow. We received about 10 newly wounded soldiers and our Japanese Hospital was busier than usual. There was an extremely gallant young man in my charge. We were talking about the stories of our life to pass the time. To my surprise, he was one of the nephews of my respected Sister Borcha, called Lesker(?) ! He clasped my hands, shedding tears and anxious to know how she was doing. He was overjoyed as if he had met his own aunt.

        There is another moving story of Mr. Lissel, a young officer aged 25. He was living in a quiet village, four kilometers to the north east of Paris, writing books and working at a newspaper publishing company in Paris. In the same village lived one of the most beautiful girls, called Mirla. who was 22. They were deeply in love and their parents allowed them to be engaged while they were very young. The couple was waiting for Mirla’s graduation from girls’ school and their happy life together afterwards. Young people living near Paris talked about them walking happily together around the park. The couple were waiting for the days when they would laugh at being an object of envy.

        Unfortunately, however, the Great War hindered their long awaited marriage. This war brought a sad dispatch to the couple who were playing in their own paradise: Call-up papers were sent to Lissel. However much they hated to be separated, Lissel had to cope with the emergency of the country and was to stand at the front exchanging his accustomed pen with a bayonet. Lissel distinguished himself everywhere on the battle field and was applauded as a brave soldier in the French Army. Being at the same time tenderhearted, he always dreamed about following the winding path of a Paris park, even after sleeping in the battlefield far from home. Though tired with the afflictions of war, he always cherished his memories of Mirla. At midnight in the camps when even insects stopped humming and buzzing, he never forgot to write a beautiful letter to Mirla filled with his emotions.

[10]

       Every time his sweetheart Mirla saw wild geese coming, she spent night after night missing her Lissel, I hear. Both of them prayed for the day to come when church bells would ring out announcing the coming of peace and they could talk again happily holding each other’s hands. I don’t know what God thought about looking down at the couple, but Lissel lost both his eyesight due to some shells launched by the German Army, and was sent to our JRC Hospital. How Mirla was grieved by this bad news! She was inconsolable when she came to the hospital in great haste.

       She could never have dreamt of her lover blinded thus lying on a pure white bed. Over the past few days, they embraced their happy memories together. Tears welled up in our eyes when we saw pitiful Mirla clinging to Lissel and crying loudly. Her dream of seeing the day of his triumphant return proved vain. Who could have imagined that she would shake hands again with her lover by the help of us nurses from a foreign country? It was when I was changing a dressing, as it was my turn, Mirla pounded the door like a mad woman and rushed into the room crying “I am Mirla!” That image of Mirla sobbing heartbroken haunts me even now.

 Mirla didn’t like the idea of her lover being tended by foreign nurses, and at the countess’ permission she put on a white nursing uniform with a red cross on the day she came to see Lissel. She devoted herself to nursing  Lissel night and day, but Lissel ’s eyesight was pronounced incurable. It is hard to describe their grief and sorrow.

Though his wounds were completely cured, both of his eyes remained closed, but nevertheless he was allowed to leave hospital as he was. Young Parisiennes frivolously adored a flamboyant life, but Mirla flatly gave up her life in such a world. Fully understanding that she had already devoted herself to Lissel, she bravely held a wedding soon after he left hospital. This news spread to the world of Parisian ladies so that the movie entitled Sacrifice to the Blind was produced. Here I will write down Mirla’s letter to myself which I received back in Japan:

“Dear Mademoiselle Takeda, how have you been getting along lately?

   Please remember Paris sometimes. The photo of our wedding I gave you in 

memory of us must be still in your wicker trunk, and every time you see it you must recall us and tell Japanese girls about us. Lissel and I always talk about you and our dear memories. When you come to Paris some day, don’t fail to visit us, and see how we are living. Lissel ’s eyes are not opened, but he is very good at playing the violin. Please write to me also. If I read your letter, how happy he will be. I wrote these sentences as Lissel told me. Please let me know the address of your chief doctor. Bye now. Mirla”

     This is all written in her letter. If they knew that all this was written in a Japanese newspaper, how would they feel! I will hand down this tale as a “Romance in Paris.”

[11]

       At 2:00 a.m. on January 28 th, in the 4th year of Taisho [1915][1], a car ran at full speed in the streets of Paris, sounding the emergency alarm. This alarm was to announce an air raid by German airplanes, and at this all the city became completely silent.

        On that day I was on duty. In the hospital, all the lights went off at the sounding of an alarm which announced an air raid. It sounded like a notice of death. Curiosity overcame fear, and I rushed to the eighth floor in the pitch-darkness to have a look around from the railings. Not a sound was heard on the streets of Paris covered with snow as deep as 2 shaku, and snow was still falling from the dark sky.

        At this time while I was watching, there came a dark shadow far away in the north-east of the sky. Hardly had I noticed it before the French defense airplanes searched, with blue fierce searchlight, for the German airplanes every corner of the sky. Meanwhile the German airplanes tried to flee from the searchlight, approaching Paris at one time and taking turns of flying for a while and retreating. Even British airplanes, trying to attack German airplanes, were recognized in the far distance when the searchlight happened to shed light clearly. Even the dark sky was thus heavily guarded.

        In front of our Japanese hospital was the l’Arc de Triomphe, where the soldiers were garrisoning the city of Paris. They fired guns in midair, and at the sound of gunfire the German planes, exhibiting adroit piloting, disappeared into the clouds.

        Even though it was wartime we had never thought about hearing the roar of gunfire at midnight in the city of Paris. We all felt relieved as the German airplanes retreated, but again the emergency alarm rang out even harder than before. Not only inpatients but we nurses felt done for, and some of us even wrote a letter home intended to be the last. I also thought I might not be able to set foot on the soil of my mother country again. I may be killed by an enemy bullet in a country far away from home; me, a woman working just as a nurse for philanthropy! Though I was prepared to die, hot tears streamed down my cheeks.

        We nurses all gathered in the same room, and in low voices with our faces pallid we discussed the possibility that we might not return home. When I remember it now I cannot but tremble. At the second sound of the emergency alarm we struck our heads out from the window, and found the city was like a scene of carnage. More than ten German planes were flying this way and that way dropping bombs all over the city, while French garrisons were shooting gunfire in return.

        Fortunately our hospital escaped damage, but according to the survey next day, ten places in the city were bombarded and presented a terrible sight from which we must avert our eyes. We saw one of these horrific sites near our hospital, which was a house of a police lieutenant. His wife and three children, and two policemen who happened to be staying there were miserably reduced to ashes without any traces of flesh. Neighbors who dared to look at the site or heard about the tragedy all trembled with fear.

       After that, the air raids continued, but one of the best French aviators shot down many German planes. Unfortunately, this courageous French aviation officer’s plane was shot down by a German plane and he fell to the ground. He was sent to our hospital, but after completely recovering he showed his experience and skill again. We heard with joy that the very next day after leaving our hospital he brought down two German planes. While this aviation officer was in our hospital, we heard a detailed account of airplanes, but here I will refrain from writing that down.

[12]

       How our relief corps impressed French people both high and low I hesitate to tell, but I will try to give you some idea. Our arrival was reported by Paris newspapers and the flag of the Rising Sun fluttered on the top of Hotel Astria. From that day people came to our hospital continuously to have a look. The reason why so many people visited seemed to me that, as they did not know much about Japan, out of curiosity many people came to see what the newly established Japanese hospital was like. They found out that many kinds of medical items—more than they had expected—were arranged in good order and that those items had been brought from Japan. All the visitors were impressed by the fact that, from the operating room to the wards, order and cleanliness were maintained, and that all the patients wore clean white Japanese-style gowns. They heard from patients themselves or volunteer French nurses how our corps were nursing the patients kindly, and visitors left our hospital quite pleased at what they had seen.

      Thus, those who were satisfied with our hospital fetched their friends or people involved in nursing. In this way people came to see our hospital continuously. Among them there were some who brought their friends or acquaintances and guided them around as if it were their own hospital. When we were making the rounds with a doctor, they accompanied us and admired our skill at dressing. I don’t know how the news spread, but the Italian Red Cross came to us especially to find if there was any special way of dressing. So our chief doctor explained to them how to bandage a head or a joint which were difficult places to bandage.

        Well, this is almost all I want to tell you about our corps, but I would also add an episode in the ward. At that time we had a patient called Henri Gibier, corporal of the artillery, wounded at Douaumont (Verdun) and brought to our hospital. Wounded by a shell on the chest, his heart was damaged. The only way to save his life was a dangerous operation.

Dr. Shioda asked,

 “Is his family living far away?”

 “In a place called Hiji Gueillet.” 

 “How far is it?”

“… kilometers.”

 “Then we have time.”

He ordered someone to call for his parents. That was midnight. Immediately a car departed but it was delayed as there was an accident on the way.

        While doctors were waiting impatiently, we nurses pressed down on his heart. Each nurse worked for five minutes and the work continued for nine hours. The next morning his parents arrived in a car and could embrace their son. They agreed to the operation. The corporal of the artillery, lying down on the glass operating table, narrowly escaped death.

[13]

        Ten months after we came to France, which was November in the fourth year of Taisho, there came a rare opportunity of the enthronement of the Emperor of Japan[The enthronement ceremony was delayed for various reasons]. When I came to this foreign land, I was thinking fondly of the country where I was born, sometimes shedding tears either in the long autumn nights or at frosty early mornings. I was a champion of homesickness in our corps, as myself and others recognized. When I looked up at the sky from the window during a sleepless night, stars were glittering like silver sands sprinkled, but no lights or voices at all on the streets or in the buildings. It was Paris in wartime, dreary and soundless in every corner of the city.

      The battle situation was reported every day in a newspaper extra. When I watched some family members gathering around the extra edition to find out how the father or the husband was doing, I could not but shudder at the miseries of the war. Hotel Astria, now a Red Cross flag flying over it, used to be a meeting place of ladies and gentlemen from all over the world, who drank tea or wine night and day. There you could always hear a mixture of foreign languages under the bright lights. That hotel was long gone. Isn’t it extremely ghastly that the hotel was now a place where soldiers, bathed in blood, were hospitalized?

        In the meantime we Japanese relief corps were invited to the delightful ceremony of the enthronement held at the Japanese embassy in France. All the members of our corps gave three cheers for the Emperor in Japanese, which must have been conspicuous even in Paris where foreign languages mixed in confusion.

        After the ceremony we went back to our hospital, and soon various kinds of entertainment began. Parisians were surprised at the performance of a sword dance by doctors: above all Dr. Mogi’s “Sutego” eclipsed most professionals. Nurse Sone borrowed a dress from a countess and performed a dance which she had never learned. All the patients hailed her with cheers of “banzai” childishly. We all had a hilarious time. When Shoji-san,

Araki-san, and Sone-san played “Tokiwagozen”, the mother of Yoshitsune, the audience was so noisy that we could hear nothing, but when Araki-san clung to the sleeve of Tokiwa crying “Mommy, mommy”, shivering with cold, there was a burst of applause on the floor. Everybody was so excited that even a patient with maimed legs fell from his bed.

     The entertainment over, we all gave three cheers for the Emperor in Japanese including the patients.

[14]

        After passing seventeen months in a foreign country, finally there came time for us to return to Japan. On July the 10th, in the 5th year of Taisho [1916], we were to leave Paris. We each put our things into wicker trunks which we had brought from Japan and closed them using all our strength while joy spilled out in spite of ourselves. For the first time in my life the depth of the expression “to long to fly like an arrow back home” was fully understood

        The Governor of the French Red Cross, His Grace Duke of Novogue[2]. came to our hospital with Mr. Bertain, and presented each member of our corps with a letter of appreciation. He also gave us the most moving and friendly words on behalf of the Red Cross. Our chief doctor Shioda thanked with deep sincerity the French authorities, and vowed that he would certainly report the kindness of the French Red Cross to the Japanese Red Cross and Japanese people. Though the Duke was ninety-five years old at that time and could not see clearly, he took the trouble of coming to our hospital himself, to which we were deeply moved.

        At our farewell party, Mr. Godard, vice minister of the Army, conferred a French decoration on us all. When the dining room was opened at seven thirty p.m., we were all seated including the one hundred and twenty-five representative guests from French civil and military officials. When the dessert was served, Dr. Shioda made a speech. He was followed by His Excellency, the Ambassador, and the last speaker was the vice minister, Godard. Both of them said in sincere flowing eloquence that our Japanese hospital was one of the most excellent hospitals in France and expressed deepest thanks for our effort to the country.

        On June the 27th, our chief doctor and other medical staff, were received in an audience by the President of France, and shook hands with him. The President said to them courteously, “I know you all as I met you in the hospital. I thank you who came all the way from the Far East to engage in relief work of our wounded soldiers. I want you to express my thanks to other members of your corps staying here, to the head office and Japanese people when you go back to Japan.’ This much I have heard.

        On June the 30th a memorial service for those soldiers who died in our hospital was held in the chapel of the hospital. At seven thirty in the morning we gathered at the chapel, and were moved to tears by the emotional speech of lieutenant Wisneg, who was in charge of the ceremony. On the evening of that day, a farewell tea party was held in appreciation of the services of the orderlies and general employees. All the orderlies sang together “Kimigayo”, Japanese anthem translated into French, and in response to this we nurses played “La Marseillaise”. It was a joyful banquet indeed. After the banquet some orderlies were overjoyed with tears and were so grateful to us for being treated so hospitably. We nurses wept with them in sympathy.

       On July the 6th, His Excellency the Ambassador Matsui treated all members of our corps with a sumptuous Japanese-style meal. While we were in France nothing was more pleasing than eating Japanese dishes. Whenever we ate Japanese food, we wept longing for our country.

[15]

        We thus spent the last few days and on July the 10th it was time for us to depart. We got on a 16:50 train at Saint-Lazare Station heading for Le Havre. Ambassador Matsui and his wife, Secretary of the Japanese Embassy, Military and Naval attaches to the Embassy, Dr. Sŭre the medical section chief of Paris Government-General, Mr. Bertin the president of French-Japanese Association, Baron Sakatani, all voluntary nurses, all nurses of military service and Japanese residents in France sent us off. Surprisingly many wounded soldiers who had difficulty in walking came to see us off leaning on a stick: they had been treated first in our hospital and then were moved to a hospital further north.

       I thought, “Once we part today when can we meet again? This may probably be the last time we see each other.” I felt yet more deeply a heartbreaking sorrow. All the French volunteer nurses, reluctant to part from us, said with tears, “Don’t say such a sad thing as never coming back to Paris, but tell us that you will come back some day—if it is only to comfort us.” Like a child would, they clung to us tightly. All of us left Paris feeling brokenhearted.

        Next day, at 14:00, we arrived in London by ship, and on July the 17th we embarked on “Fushimimaru” which we had boarded on our way to Paris. Heading for Japan, we arrived at the Cape of Good Hope on August the 7th, and via Singapore safely returned to Kobe on August the 13th.

        It took twenty-two months or six hundred and seventy-six days for us to depart from Japan and back again. First of all, it was a great pleasure to have safely done our duties. Finally we heard the sounding of whistles and signals to announce the arrival of our ship at Yokohama Port. Without having the same experience no one could understand how we felt at that time. When we departed from Yokohama, it was freezing winter, but on the day of our return it was midsummer. Summer clouds whirled high above, and even the frightening peal of thunder sounded like a drum from the sky welcoming our return home. When we saw the mountain shadow in the far distance, we were all overjoyed with tears streaming down onto the back of our hands.

        We heard big cheers of “banzai” from welcoming people at Yokohama Port, and I thought there might be a general stir in Japan at our coming back. The Emperor was greatly interested in our duties in France, and made a poem for us, which was the greatest pleasure to us. The honor we received from the Imperial family was more than we deserved.

***********************

[1] As she was not yet in Paris on this date, “the 5th year of Taisho〔1916〕” is correct. There were aerial bombardments above Paris on 27 January according to Wikipedia, not on 28.

[2] Actually the Marquis de Vogué

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