(no subject)
Miyazaki Tōten, My Thirty-Three Years' Dream: The Autobiography of Miyazaki Tōten, trans. Etō Shinkichi and Marius B. Jansen (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982).
A fascinating autobiography and historical record; Tōten (born Miyazaki Torazō) felt with a burning passion that China was to play an imperative in East Asian & world affairs, and must be 'liberated.' But I think he actually meant it like that in a lot of ways - not necessarily as some euphemism for Japanese imperialism. He was friends with Sun Yat-sen, and part of Sun's early objectives was need for Japanese support. Unfortunately, the pre-1911 revolutionary attempts failed; Thirty-Three Years' Dream was published in 1902, so the events set off by the Wuchang Uprising must have seemed far off indeed.
It's honest, funny, sad - beautifully written (well, beautifully translated, and I assume it's even prettier in Japanese). In comparison to a lot of these sorts of records, Tōten comes off as human.
My main purpose was to get away from the offensive mannerisms, talk, and actions of these obnoxious friends I had left behind, and the boarding school simply provided the cheapest way I could do it. To put it most simply, I used a place of learning as an inexpensive hiding place in which to nourish my despair. In this purpose I succeeded. But I failed in the first objective, because I merely exchanged four or five obnoxious companions for forty or fifty who were equally objectionable. I managed to get out of the mud puddle only to end up in the privy. For that school turned out to be not just my individual cut-rate lodging; it was also bargain lodging for a community of sex maniacs. So I often thought of the poet's lament, "What I once deplored now looks attractive in my recollection." (19-20)
His letter to Sun Yat-sen at the end is heartbreaking, as are many bits and pieces in between. Of course, the introduction clues us in that we're not exactly looking at a cheerful read:
"Mt. Yoshino!" the poem goes; "The booming bell scatters the cherry blossoms." Yet the wind drives petals before it too, and it is wrong to blame the priest alone who sounds the bell. Some rejoice to see a branch heavy with blossoms, laden as though with snow; others delight in the wild blizzard of blossoms before the wind. Ten cases, ten tastes: each of us is stirred according to his spirit. The blossoms themselves, however, are not sensitive to this, but quite indifferent to it. Let me be like those blossoms.
Blossoms are beautiful. They are splendid when they rival fallen snow on cherry branches, and splendid when the wind drives them in a mad swirl of storm. But for me all this is past now, a dream of my life that is over. How should I bring it back? Am I not a blossom that has fallen in the mud?
Alas, half my life is gone, like fallen blossoms. I smile when I see the face in my mirror, and say to it, "You look like someone who might do great things, but the fact is that you lack courage. You look as though you might be a hero, but you haven't been able to achieve a thing. Imposing height and a splendid frame have been wasted on you, for your soul is puny. Your actions have seemed generous and noble, but your spirit is womanlike and timid. What it comes down to is that you're a great non-hero of the realm." A, a non-hero of the realm? Only that face and I!
Then let us sing together of fallen flowers,
let us act out a play of fallen flowers
let us gather the flowers of Musashino,
yes, let's, let's ... (3-4)
A fascinating autobiography and historical record; Tōten (born Miyazaki Torazō) felt with a burning passion that China was to play an imperative in East Asian & world affairs, and must be 'liberated.' But I think he actually meant it like that in a lot of ways - not necessarily as some euphemism for Japanese imperialism. He was friends with Sun Yat-sen, and part of Sun's early objectives was need for Japanese support. Unfortunately, the pre-1911 revolutionary attempts failed; Thirty-Three Years' Dream was published in 1902, so the events set off by the Wuchang Uprising must have seemed far off indeed.
It's honest, funny, sad - beautifully written (well, beautifully translated, and I assume it's even prettier in Japanese). In comparison to a lot of these sorts of records, Tōten comes off as human.
My main purpose was to get away from the offensive mannerisms, talk, and actions of these obnoxious friends I had left behind, and the boarding school simply provided the cheapest way I could do it. To put it most simply, I used a place of learning as an inexpensive hiding place in which to nourish my despair. In this purpose I succeeded. But I failed in the first objective, because I merely exchanged four or five obnoxious companions for forty or fifty who were equally objectionable. I managed to get out of the mud puddle only to end up in the privy. For that school turned out to be not just my individual cut-rate lodging; it was also bargain lodging for a community of sex maniacs. So I often thought of the poet's lament, "What I once deplored now looks attractive in my recollection." (19-20)
His letter to Sun Yat-sen at the end is heartbreaking, as are many bits and pieces in between. Of course, the introduction clues us in that we're not exactly looking at a cheerful read:
"Mt. Yoshino!" the poem goes; "The booming bell scatters the cherry blossoms." Yet the wind drives petals before it too, and it is wrong to blame the priest alone who sounds the bell. Some rejoice to see a branch heavy with blossoms, laden as though with snow; others delight in the wild blizzard of blossoms before the wind. Ten cases, ten tastes: each of us is stirred according to his spirit. The blossoms themselves, however, are not sensitive to this, but quite indifferent to it. Let me be like those blossoms.
Blossoms are beautiful. They are splendid when they rival fallen snow on cherry branches, and splendid when the wind drives them in a mad swirl of storm. But for me all this is past now, a dream of my life that is over. How should I bring it back? Am I not a blossom that has fallen in the mud?
Alas, half my life is gone, like fallen blossoms. I smile when I see the face in my mirror, and say to it, "You look like someone who might do great things, but the fact is that you lack courage. You look as though you might be a hero, but you haven't been able to achieve a thing. Imposing height and a splendid frame have been wasted on you, for your soul is puny. Your actions have seemed generous and noble, but your spirit is womanlike and timid. What it comes down to is that you're a great non-hero of the realm." A, a non-hero of the realm? Only that face and I!
Then let us sing together of fallen flowers,
let us act out a play of fallen flowers
let us gather the flowers of Musashino,
yes, let's, let's ... (3-4)