Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan - Lafcadio Hearn

2023年02月10日

今日はLafcadio Hearnの「日本の面影」を見ていきましょう。日本人の笑顔は、永久に続く "Sourire Figé（凍った笑顔）"ではなく、社会階層によって異なる、定められた礼儀作法である。歴史的に見ると、武士は目上の人や親しい友人には笑顔を見せず、神職や貴族は厳粛な態度で接していた。しかし、上流階級の人々は、私生活ではもっとリラックスして礼儀正しくしていた。会話中の笑顔は、無私の心、忍耐力、他人への思いやりを大切にする日本社会における礼儀と優しさの象徴である。皮肉や冗談、残酷なジョークなどは日本文化では受け入れられず、個人の欠点やミスも嘲笑の対象にはならない。このような道徳的方針は意見の平凡さを強制する傾向があるが、社会的要件に対するより広い理解によって規制された場合、最高で最も幸福な結果を生むのである。西洋の生活は、良くも悪くも激しい感情をもたらし、より包括的な社会的つながりをもたらすことができる。しかし、これは一時的な感情でしかない。ですから、日本に住む西洋人が西洋の生活にある種の憧れを抱いていたとしても、日本文化を部分的に理解している人にとっては、日本での生活の方がより快適なのです。(English) Today, let's take a look at Lafcadio Hearn's "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan". The Japanese smile is not a permanent "Sourire Figé(Frozen Smile)," but a regulated etiquette that varies according to social class. Historically, the samurai reserved their smiles for superiors and intimate friends, while the Shinto priesthood and the nobility maintained an austere demeanour. However, the upper classes were more relaxed and polite in private life. Smiling in conversation symbolises the importance of courtesy and kindness in Japanese society, which values selflessness, patience and consideration for others. Sarcasm, irony and cruel jokes are not accepted in Japanese culture, and personal shortcomings or mistakes are not subject to ridicule. Although this moral policy tends to enforce mediocrity of opinion, it produces the highest and happiest results when regulated by a broader understanding of social requirements. Western life can bring intense emotions, both good and bad, and a more comprehensive range of social connections. However, this is only a temporary feeling. So even if Westerners living in Japan have a certain longing for a Western life, life in Japan is more comfortable for those who partially understand Japanese culture.

Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan - Lafcadio Hearn

The Japanese Simile - IV

But the Japanese smile must not be imagined as a kind of "Sourire Figé(Frozen Smile)," worn perpetually as a soul mask. On the contrary, like other matters of deportment, it is regulated by an etiquette which varies in different classes of society. As a rule, the old samurai were not given to smiling upon all occasions; they reserved their amiability for superiors and intimates and would seem to have maintained toward inferiors an austere reserve. The dignity of the Shinto priesthood has become proverbial, and for centuries the gravity of the Confucian code was mirrored in the etiquette of magistrates and officials. From ancient times the nobility affected a still loftier reserve, and the solemnity of rank deepened through all the hierarchies up to that awful state surrounding the Tenshi-Sama, upon whose face no living man might look. But in private life, the demeanour of the highest had its amiable relaxation, and even today, with some hopelessly modernized exceptions, the tray officer will resume at home, in the intervals of duty, the charming habits of the antique courtesy.

The smile that illuminates conversation is a small detail of that courtesy, but the sentiment it symbolizes is the more significant part. Happen to have a cultivated Japanese friend who has remained in all things genuinely Japanese, whose character has remained untouched by the new egotism and by foreign influences. You will probably be able to study in him the particular social traits of the whole people - observe that, as a rule, he never speaks of himself and that, in reply to searching personal questions, he will answer as vaguely and briefly as possible, with a polite bow of thanks. But, on the other hand, he will ask many questions about yourself; your opinions, your ideas, even trifling details of your daily life, appear to have a deep interest for him; and you will probably have occasion to note that he never forgets anything which he has learned concerning you. Yet there are certain rigid limits to his kindly curiosity and perhaps even his observation: he will never refer to any disagreeable or painful matter, and he will seem to remain blind to eccentricities or minor weaknesses if you have any. To your face, he will never praise you; but he will never laugh at you nor criticize you. Indeed, you will find that he never blames persons, only actions in their results. As a private adviser, he will not directly attack a plan he disapproves of but is apt to suggest a new one in some such guarded language as: "Perhaps it might be more to your immediate interest to do thus and so. "When obliged to speak of others, he will refer to them in a curious indirect fashion by citing and combining several incidents sufficiently characteristic of forming a picture. But in that event, the incidents narrated will almost certainly be of a nature to awaken interest and create a favourable impression. This indirect way of conveying information is essentially Confucian. "Even when you have no doubts," says Li-Ki, "do not let what you say appear many other traits in your friend requiring some knowledge of the Chinese classics to understand. But no such knowledge is necessary to convince you of his exquisite consideration for others and his studied suppression of self. Among no other civilized people is the secret of happy living so thoroughly comprehended as among the Japanese; by no other race is the truth so widely understood that our pleasure in life must depend upon the happiness of those about us and consequently upon the cultivation in ourselves of unselfishness and of patience.

For this reason, sarcasm, irony, and cruel wit are not indulged in Japanese society. I might almost say that they have no existence in refined life. A personal failing is not made the subject of ridicule or reproach; an eccentricity is not commented upon; an involuntary mistake excites no laughter.

Stiffened somewhat by the Chinese conservatism of the old conditions, this ethical system was indeed maintained to the extreme of giving fixity to ideas at the cost of individuality. And yet, if regulated by a broader comprehension of social requirements, if expanded by scientific understanding of the freedom essential to intellectual evolution, the very same moral policy is that through which the highest and happiest results may be obtained. But as practised, it was not favourable to originality; it tended to enforce that amiable mediocrity of opinion and imagination that still prevails.

Wherefore a foreign dweller in the interior cannot but long sometimes for the sharp, erratic inequalities of Western life, with its more enormous joys and pains and its more comprehensive sympathies. But sometimes only, for the intellectual loss is more than compensated by the colonial charm; there can remain no doubt in the mind of one who even partly understands the Japanese that they are still the best people in the world to live among.

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For the Japanese, smiling is a form of etiquette taught from an early age and is part of the "culture" of spending time with anyone, including superiors and peers, in any situation without friction. Conversely, not smiling and looking unhappy is disrespectful to the other person. It is because it 'causes worry and suffering to those who favour you'.

At first, Yakumo himself could not understand, for example, why a Japanese maid who had lost a child would smile and talk about the death of her child. But as he got used to life in Japan and understood the meaning of that smile, he put himself in the mother's place and expressed her feelings in the following way.

This smile is an expression of a last-ditch attempt to maintain decency, even as one's self is being suffocated. This smile means: 'Please don't bother us if you think something unfortunate has happened to us. Please forgive us for telling you this without any thought of rudeness.'

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The reality of Shinto lives not in books, rites, or commandments but in the national heart, of which it is the highest emotional religious expression, immortal and ever young. So far, under all the surface crop of quaint superstitions, artless myths, and fantastic magic, there thrills a mighty spiritual force, the whole soul of a race with all its impulses, powers, and intuitions. Who would know what Shinto is must learn to understand that mysterious soul in which the sense of beauty and the power of art and the fire of heroism and magnetism of loyalty and the emotion of faith have become inherent, intrinsic, unconscious, instinctive.

Trusting to know something of that Oriental soul in whose joyous love of nature and of life even the unlearned may discern a strange likeness to the soul of the old Greek race, I also trust that I may presume some day to speak of the excellent living power of that faith now called Shinto, but more anciently Kami-no-Michi, or "The Way of the Gods."

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Japanese Title: "The Visage of Japan"

It means,

"The shadows of Japan's past:

Remnants of a bygone era.

A Japan that has faded away, a ghost of its former self.

Bringing to mind images of an unfamiliar, archaic Japan."