Learning from SHOGUN

Learning from Shǀgun Japanese History and Western Fantasy Edited by Henry Smith Program in Asian Studies University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, California 93106 Contents Designed by Marc Treib Contributors vi Copyright © 1980 by Henry D. Smith II Maps viii for the authors Preface xi Distributed by the Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street, New York, Part I: The Fantasy N.Y. 10017 1 James Clavell and the Legend of the British Samurai 1 Henry Smith 2 Japan, Jawpen, and the Attractions of an Opposite 20 Illustrations of samurai armor are David Plath from Murai Masahiro, Tanki yǀryaku 3 Shǀgun as an Introduction to Cross-Cultural Learning 27 (A compendium for the mounted Elgin Heinz warrior), rev. ed., 1837, woodblock edition in the Metropolitan Museum Part II: The History of Art, New York 4 Blackthorne’s England 35 Sandra Piercy 5 Trade and Diplomacy in the Era of Shǀgun 43 Ronald Toby 6 The Struggle for the Shogunate 52 Henry Smith 7 Hosokawa Gracia: A Model for Mariko 62 Chieko Mulhern This publication has been supported by Part III: The Meeting of Cultures grants from: 8 Death and Karma in the World of Shǀgun 71 Consulate General of Japan, Los William LaFleur Angeles 9 Learning Japanese with Blackthorne 79 Japan-United States Susan Matisoff Friendship Commission 10 The Paradoxes of the Japanese Samurai 86 Northeast Asia Council, Henry Smith Association for Asian Studies 11 Consorts and Courtesans: The Women of Shǀgun 99 USC-UCLA Joint East Asia Henry Smith Studies Center 12 Raw Fish and a Hot Bath: Dilemmas of Daily Life 113 Southern California Conference on Henry Smith International Studies Who’s Who in Shǀgun 127 Glossary 135 For Further Reading 150 Postscript: The TV Transformation 161 vi Contributors vii Sandra Piercy is a graduate student in English history of the Tudor- Stuart period at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her dissertation, “The Cradle of Salvation: Domestic Theology in Elgin Heinz is a consultant on the preparation of educational mate- Early Stuart England,” is in progress. She is also co-editor of King, rials about Asia. He is a former teacher of Asian studies at the high Saints, and Parliaments: A Sourcebook for Western Civilization, school level, and was a member of a team which wrote Opening 1050-1715. Doors: Contemporary Japan (The Asia Society, New York, 1979). David Plath is professor of anthropology and Asian studies at the William LaFleur teaches Buddhism and Japanese thought in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. For two decades he Department of Oriental Languages at UCLA. Mirror for the Moon has been studying modern Japanese lifeways, and his latest book (New Directions) is his translation of poems by Saigyo, a monk of on the subject is Long Engagements: Maturity in Modern Japan, twelfth-century Japan. He is currently working on a book entitled issued by Stanford University Press in 1980. The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan. Henry Smith teaches Japanese history at the University of Califor- nia, Santa Barbara. His current interest is the history of urban cul- Susan Matisoff is an associate professor in the Department of ture in Japan, and he has recently written “Tokyo and London: Asian Languages at Stanford University, where she has taught Comparative Conceptions of the City” (in Albert Craig, ed., since 1972. She is the author of The Legend of Semimaru, Blind Japan: A Comparative View). He is currently preparing a book Musician of Japan, and her research centers on the Muromachi entitled Views of Edo: Transformations in the Japanese Visual through Tokugawa periods with a particular interest in drama, oral World, 1700-1900. and folk literature, and popular culture. Ronald Toby is assistant professor of history and Asian studies at Chieko Mulhern is associate professor of Japanese language and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he teaches literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is Japanese history. Part of his current research on the interaction the author of Kǀda Rohan, a literary biography of a modern Japa- between domestic politics and foreign relations in the Tokugawa nese writer, and of “Cinderella and the Jesuits: An Otogizoshi period has been published as “Reopening the Question of Sakoku; Cycle as Christian Literature” (Monumenta Nipponica, Winter Diplomacy in the Legitimation of the Tokugawa Bakufu,” Journal 1979). She is currently editing a volume entitled Female Heroes of of Japanese Studies, vol. 3, no. 2 (1977). Japan. viii European Voyages to Asia Japan in the Era of Shǀgun ix Preface “History is today and tomorrow. You know, if you don’t read history, you’re a bloody idiot.” James Clavell in conversation May 16, 1980 This book is intended for those who have read James Clavell’s Shǀgun and who are curious about its educational significance as “A Novel of Japan.” Although Shǀgun, with its generous serving of sex, violence, and intrigue, is in the mainstream of current popular entertainment, it is set apart by a certain instructional tone. For one thing, Shǀgun provides a wealth of factual information about Japanese history and culture, information which is probably new to the majority of its readers. But Shǀgun is informative in a prescrip- tive sense as well, since the gradual acceptance of Japanese culture by the hero Blackthorne bears the clear implication that the West has something to learn from Japan. We hope that the following essays will be of special interest to those who, like ourselves, are professional teachers of Japanese history and culture. It was largely the influence of our students that led us to consider Shǀgun for its educational uses. My own experience is perhaps typical: uneasy over the depiction of the Japanese samurai as sadistic and uncaring of life, I was initially unable to read past the first two hundred pages of Shǀgun. Only when pressed by inquisitive students did I read the entire novel and come to understand that the initial image of the Japanese as “barbarians” was a foil for the hero’s eventual understanding that Japan is not only civilized, but maybe even more civilized than the West. In short, the PREFACE xii central theme of the novel itself turned out to be exactly our busi- so, we have tried to extend the point in time depicted in the novel xiii ness: learning about Japan. into a line of historical process extending over the century For educators, it is useful to understand Shǀgun if only because 1550-1650, and often beyond. This period of history is of great so many people have read it. Based on our own experience, any- importance in terms of institutional and cultural innovations, many where from one-fifth to one-half of all students who currently enroll of which paved the way to the long Tokugawa peace and to what in in college-level courses about Japan have already read Shǀgun, and the twentieth century is generally understood as Japanese “tradi- not a few of these have become interested in Japan because of it. tion.” Whether tea ceremony, Confucianism, castle towns, screen With over six million copies of Shǀgun in print (and more sure to paintings, geisha, Zen gardens, or many other key features of the follow after the television series), it would appear that the Ameri- ancien régime, each emerged out of the era of Shǀgun. So for the can consciousness of Japan has grown by a quantum leap because professional as much as for the popular historian, the period of of this one book. In sheer quantity, Shǀgun has probably conveyed Shǀgun is of great interest, and focuses our attention on the funda- more information about Japan to more people than all the com- mental question of how historical change takes place, and why. bined writings of scholars, journalists, and novelists since the I would like to put forth a personal suggestion that the idea of Pacific War. At the very least, an understanding of Shǀgun may “learning from Shǀgun’“ may be relevant not only for a general help those of us involved in education about Japan to better under- audience but for the world of scholarship as well. Many academic stand our audience. scholars of Japan will have much the same reaction to the title In the subtitle “Japanese History and Western Fantasy,” we are Learning from Shǀgun as professional architects had to Learning drawing attention to two different aspects of “learning from from Las Vegas (by Robert Venturi and others, 1973), a sense of Shǀgun.” Our approach to fantasy in Shǀgun is essentially anthro- surprise—and even indignation—at the thought of “learning” from pological, viewing the novel as a contemporary American phenom- popular culture. The point, of course, is that architects should learn enon; in Chapters 2 and 3, David Plath and Elgin Heinz explore from Las Vegas, and historians from Shǀgun, not because they are some of the theoretical issues involved. We emphasize that we intend ‘popular, but because popular culture helps professionals reflect on nothing derogatory in our use of the word “fantasy.” After all, a their basic priorities—not unlike the way in which Blackthorne, in fertile imagination is an indispensable component of the historical learning from Japan, clarified his own values. For Venturi and his mind, whether that of a novelist like James Clavell or that of aca- colleagues, the extravagant use of decorative signing along the Las demic scholars like ourselves: how else can we gain real understand- Vegas strip suggested the importance of communication and sym- ing of people in different times, or of different cultures? The real bolism in architecture and served as a critique of the overemphasis task is to recognize, analyze, and reflect upon our imaginative pro- on purity and formalism among modernist architects.

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