by Roseroberta Pauling
Harvest Moon Japan. A time for moon gazing ceremonies in the teahouses of Kyoto. Golden and full, as I drive home last night, the moon is calling out to me. Did you know that in Japan they say there is a rabbit in the moon? I could not see it last night? I looked, trying to make sure I did not go off the road, while the man in the moon gloated and towered over the city.
I could remember being told about this rabbit in the moon, while I was living in Japan. I looked for him over and over and over. One day, I finally asked a Japanese friend about it. How could I not see it, and she pointed to the floppy ears and said, "Can't you see him dancing." "Dancing." I had been looking for some big eyed, buck teethed face, and then for a minute, I saw him too.
If a Japanese person gets told about the man in the moon, what do you think happens? It is not very different you know. We see him looking out at us, and they are looking for this full figure?not some face grinning like an idiot out at us from the sky.
Things are like that; often they depend on one?s view. Actually, it is the
basis of the design of many Japanese gardens. You could stand one place and then walk across a bridge and look out and it was like you were in some kind of time warp, because things looked so different that it sometimes felt that the previous place had not even existed. Made with great care, those gardens had special significance to the Japanese way of thinking--well, it does to travelers too.
You know my father saw 'Memoirs of a Geisha' a while back now. He didn't
like it, and I thought that it was because it was about WWII, but that was not his reason. His reason was that he didn?t like glorified prostitution. Well, no matter how hard I tried to explain to him that Geisha literally meant artist and that any one time rite of passage was more of a ceremonial kind of thing, he wasn't buying it. That was his view on things, and he was sticking to it. "No way for a woman to loose her virginity."
I found it funny, considering they possessed so many qualities that he had
wanted me to be graceful, witty, entertaining, charming, poised, a perfect
hostess and entertainer who never overpowered the men in her company, but still could be sophisticated in their repartee--like a Japanese garden, so much depended on where one stood.
Well, I was not a geisha. I was an English teacher. At one point I taught an
English Conversation class to some of the biggest steel manufacturers in Japan. One high level executive in my class was going to be living in America for one year. I asked him, "so what will you miss most about Japan."
He said, "the flowers." "The flowers," and I looked at him confused.
He said again, "the flowers," and there was a glint in his eyes and the
image of a Japanese woman walking down the road in a spring print kimono flashed in front of my eyes, and I laughed realizing that it had been another rabbit moment. We shared a sudden innocent smile with each other that was filled with warmth, love and unfortunately cigarette smoke. It was the kind of smile that I rarely shared with men here in America. You would have had to have been there, I suppose.
Well, I was never going to be one of those delicate flowers. I could try every
diet under the sun and never was I going to be one of those petite beauties.
And, as much as my father hated aspects of the Japanese romance scene, I felt that he also was not hearing me about its greater virtues. I am afraid I never got a good report card in his eyes either. I was clumsy with big feet and other things and probably too American for him, even disrespectful. War does things to you to are often hard to put aside. There was no way that he would hear me about the delicate beauties of Japan and its subtle sensitivities. And, I remembered all the times he had tried to toughen me up by telling me that I was, "too sensitive." I often thought that I would have done better growing up there in Japan, but I was a Gaijin--foreigner, an outsider.
You know, the truth of the matter is that the Japanese really preferred a
crescent moon--due to all these delicacies-- and it reminded them of things
that we would never think of. Imagine a woman walking down the road in front of you, beautiful black hair arrayed on top of her head and held in place by lacquer and combs, wearing a beautiful spring print kimono whose collar just barely curves across her white powdered neck......Picture it now, this place below her hairline and above her collar powered white and crescent shaped, as she turns her head to the angle of her parasol. There she is almost floating in small steps down the street in front of you, leaving only the memory of a crescent moon, as you watch her from where you stand. That was Japan--full of ambiguity. You could go to August Moon viewing parties, and, yet, they loved the crescent moon.
You know in Japan people could become National Treasures. No seriously, there are 'Living National Treasures'. One Geisha had risen to such ranks. Can you image the honor if a whole country acknowledges you as a 'Living National Treasure'. It is like being knighted.
I had met one of those National Treasures through some of the in roads that I had made. You see having a famous teacher to study with was one of the ways to get a student visa. This woman was one of the most famous Calligraphy teachers in all of Japan. Really, what she taught was Sumiei, which is the same thing, only you are using inks to paint pictures, instead of Chinese characters.
At the appointed time, I met with her daughter at the subway station near the class. She stood there in front of me--still and straight in her school
uniform, on the tall side for a Japanese girl--and just as I was about to bow
to her she stuck out her hand and said, "How do you do," more like you
would expect from a Sumo Wrestler. We walked several blocks in awkward silence to the building where the class was. I told her I had brought a present for her mother which, I had been told that I should do. Her mother was at a desk in front of the class of students who were learning the long arduous process of mixing the solid block of ink with water to exactly the right consistency in the ink well. As I walked in with her daughter, she had been scolding a student.
In front of her was spread a long sheet of paper on which, she was making a painting of Japanese cherry blossoms. Every brush stroke was perfect. There was no excess of anything. As we bowed, she looked up at us and bowed her head toward the desk without rising.
Her daughter waved me to take a seat and she now stood tall and straight at the corner of the white board in front of the room. I mean there was no roundness to her. I watched the students struggle to do things precisely as she had told them, but more than anything, as she sprinkled real powdered gold here and there on the painting, I watched her and her daughter. The umbilical cord had not just been cut but, it was, as if, the cord between mother and daughter had been severed, and I could not imagine that that child had ever been a part of that woman's womb.
In Japanese, there is an expression 'heart is missing'. It does not have a
very nice meaning. Yet, national treasure or not, that is what I thought of
when I looked at them. I knew I could not become this woman's student.
Several months later, I was at a flower arrangement exhibition of a particularly famous style. The grand master had made a huge arrangement that was the main exhibit in the hall--an arrangement that stood taller then a human being. It was perfect in every proportion. I could imagine the women scurrying about to do everything precisely as he had asked and having brought exactly the flowers that he had required. I could imagine him placing them in the vase accurately, authoritatively and mathematically. But, again I felt heart was missing.
As I walked down the aisle, in the far corner was an arrangement that was
highlighted with blue iris, as blue as the sky. In fact, looking at it, you
could practically see the sky above it, and it seemed as if the breeze was
blowing through them. Every branch, every flower was placed in such a way that it was like it were sitting on the side of a stream, and one could feel the
water silently running through one's heart. There was nothing, but the sound of stillness--.a sound so loud that everything within one's being became quiet--the soundless sound, the mysterious silent sound that all great Japanese art was made of.
And, I imagine floating layers of material kneeling and silken on the surface in images of swans and pools and punk weeds--bowing to the flowers as she moves them softly as a cool breeze, with the image of a crescent moon bestowing its illusion of hidden treasures mixing with the fragrance of flowers.
(About the photo: I am still trying to back track where this one came from. I know it was an Alaskan shot of the sun and moon in the sky at the same time. If anyone recognizes it, I would be more then happy to give credit to the photographer here or take it down, but I thought it was so perfect on this story that I could not resist. I am trying to find him and have some idea where I might have gotten it. I will put it up, as soon as I know for sure.)
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