Japanology Plus

Hello, and welcome to Japanology Plus.
I'm Peter Barakan.

This is the second of two episodes about
the region of Izumo in western Japan.

This time, I'm in the city of Matsue to
learn about one of its former residents,

Lafcadio Hearn, whose writings
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

helped to introduce aspects
of Japanese culture to the West.

He was especially attracted by
the supernatural elements

in Japanese folklore,

and is best known in this country
for a book of chilling ghost stories.

If the idea of that disturbs
you as much as it does me,

you may want to leave the lights on.

Izumo
Land of the Supernatural

At the end of the 19th century,

a writer from Ireland helped
to introduce Japan to the wider world.

Lafcadio Hearn.

He became a Japanese citizen
with the name Koizumi Yakumo.

He first came to Japan in 1890.

After many centuries,
the age of the samurai was over,

and society was rapidly modernizing.

Japan was turning into
a different country.

Foreigners working in various
fields were invited to Japan

to share their cultural
and technical expertise.

Hearn arrived as a magazine reporter,
but soon became an English teacher.

He developed a deep
appreciation for Japan

and wrote many books about
aspects of his adopted homeland

that he found especially interesting.

Much of his written work

described a traditional culture
that Japan was moving away from.

His writing introduced cultural
and aesthetic sensibilities

that were largely unknown
in other parts of the world.

In subsequent years,

physicist Albert Einstein
and anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss

became fans of Hearn's work.

His descriptions of Japan appear to
have made a lasting impression on them.

In one book,

Hearn describes a place he called

“The Chief City
of the Province of the Gods.”

That city was Matsue, in the Izumo
region of Shimane Prefecture.

Matsue is also known
as the “City of Water.”

It emerged as a castle town
in the 17th century.

It was here that Hearn found
his first job as an English teacher.

He wasn't in Matsue for long,
living here for only 15 months.

But the city inspired
a lasting love of Japan.

We'll visit his home:
a former samurai residence.

Peter will be shown around
by an old acquaintance.

Bon-san, nice to see you.

Hello.

It's great to see you again. Welcome!

Koizumi Bon, a folklorist and professor,

is actually Hearn's great-grandson.

This way.

Oh, it's lovely isn't it?

A nice garden.

Hearn wanted to live in a former samurai
home, with a Japanese-style garden.

So he looked around,
and this is what he found.

Hearn spent a lot of time
in the traditional garden.

He took pleasure in observing the changing
appearance of the trees and flowers

as the seasons passed.

Do we know much about

what his daily life was like
when he was living here in Matsue?

He taught at a school every day.

But after coming home,
he changed into Japanese clothing,

and relaxed on a cushion,
with a long Japanese pipe.

He'd light it up,
and gaze out at the garden.

I would say that those were
very happy days for him.

The garden was beautiful.

But to Hearn, that was
only one aspect of its appeal.

He liked insects, especially those that
make sounds, like crickets and cicadas.

He referred to higurashi cicadas
as “twilight musicians.”

They can be heard in the late afternoon
in particular, and he really loved them.

Hearn took a keen interest in listening
to the sounds of small creatures.

I'd call that a distinctive
element of his personality.

The sound of insects seems
to have resonated with Hearn

as it does with many Japanese people.

The author had an affection
for the ephemeral.

It seems possible that

his upbringing helped to shape
that aspect of his personality.

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn was born in 1850,
to an Irish father and a Greek mother.

At the age of 4, his parents separated,

and Hearn was taken in by his great-aunt.

At 16, an accident
blinded him in his left eye.

That left him feeling very self-conscious
about his appearance.

But it wasn't the only consequence.

A partial loss of sight seems to
have inspired an interest in the unseen:

the supernatural world beyond
human understanding.

And the place where Hearn felt
the strongest connection to that realm

was Matsue, a land of ancient
tales and mysteries.

He was fond of this shrine.

In fact, he came here almost every day.

This is Jozan Inari Jinja.

It's dedicated to a deity
of rice cultivation.

He would go for walks around
the shrine, or visit on the way to work.

He especially liked the fox statues.

Oh wow, I didn't even notice these.

There's hundreds of them.

Yes.

The statues are lined up
all around the shrine.

Foxes have long been seen
as servants of the deities.

They're sacred animals,
associated with the supernatural world.

Let's get closer...

See that?

Oh, hole in the wall?

Yes.

What's that for?

Unseen foxes are said to live inside.

They get in and out through that hole.

In Japan, foxes are seen
as special animals.

They're said to have
supernatural powers.

Anyone who blocked
that hole would be cursed.

If a fox were to appear from within,
people said, it would be pure white.

Hearn wrote about that.

The Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum.

This facility in Matsue exhibits various
objects that Hearn acquired in Japan.

Here are some of his
Japanese tobacco pipes.

The metal tips have engraved motifs.

This one bears the image of an ogre.

Hearn collected over 100
exquisitely detailed pipes.

In Japan, long, thin pipes
like this are called “kiseru.”

Do you know what this is?

No.

It's a paper toy called
a “spirit lantern.”

It's a woman, isn't it?
On the left, at the top.

With the bulging eyes,
and what looks like a beak.

And she's got horns coming out her head.

I'm not quite sure what they are,
but it's pretty weird.

The lantern features fun pictures
of uniquely Japanese entities

known as “yokai.”

These otherworldly
beings fascinated Hearn,

who kept this lantern
on the desk in his study.

The drawings...the whole style
of the thing is absolutely unique.

I mean, I don't think anything
like this existed outside Japan, did it?

I don't think so.

Japan has an unusually wide variety
of ghosts and other scary entities.

They've been worshipped
as gods and feared as monsters.

Spirits like this are very familiar
figures in Japanese culture.

And I think Hearn found
that quite comforting.

In fact, I think they resonated with him.

Hearn wrote about these spirits
in Kwaidan—a collection of ghost stories.

He gathered tales of the supernatural
from Japanese folklore,

then set about retelling
them in his own words.

Here's a story associated with
an old temple close to Hearn's home.

Long ago, a giant turtle would emerge
from the temple each night.

It would then go in search
of people—and eat them.

When confronted by the temple's head
priest, the turtle cried out in distress.

“I can't stop myself.”

Having confirmed
the turtle's desire to stop,

the priest placed a heavy
stone on its shell,

preventing it from moving ever again.

Hearn was told stories
like this by Koizumi Setsu,

a member of a former
samurai family in Matsue.

Setsu went on to become his wife.

At night, she would recount stories that
Hearn later turned into written works.

OK, please have a look at this.

30 years after Hearn died,

his illustrations of various
yokai were discovered,

and they were published in this book.

Hearn didn't just write about yokai;

he drew pictures of them too.

This is a rokuro-kubi,
a flying yokai with a winding neck.

Heike-gani are crab spirits
bearing the faces of warriors

who were defeated in battle.

This is Yuki-onna.

Ah, the famous...
one of his famous Kwaidan stories.

The name “Yuki-onna”
literally means “snow woman.”

When Setsu's grandfather was a child,

he was out on a snowy day.

He saw an eerie figure,
and was so shocked he ran back home.

After hearing that story,
Hearn became fascinated with Yuki-onna.

Here's the story that Hearn
retold in one of his books.

On the night of a great snowstorm,

a beautiful woman in white appeared
before two woodcutters.

It was Yuki-onna.

With her icy breath, she froze
the elderly woodcutter, taking his life.

But she spared the younger woodcutter,
saying, “Tell no one what you saw.”

And with that, she disappeared.

Time passed.

The younger woodcutter married
a young woman called Oyuki,

and they embarked
on a happy life together—

until one fateful evening.

Forgetting the warning of Yuki-onna,

the woodcutter told his wife
about the woman in white

that he had encountered years earlier.

His wife replied furiously,

“That was me!”

And she vanished,
disappearing without a trace.

Generally speaking,
in his ghost stories,

it seems that he was not
necessarily trying to scare people.

What do you think he was trying to say?

Well, I'd say that you're right.

He didn't publish ghost stories
in English in order to scare people.

Within each of those tales is a certain,
what should I say...truth.

The Yuki-onna story tells us
that with the supernatural,

there are rules that humans must follow.

If you cross a line,
there are consequences.

Humans need to be humble
in the face of nature,

darkness, and the unseen world.

We should approach those
realms with a sense of awe.

I think that's what Hearn wanted to say.

Hearn's ghost stories convey his desire

for people to treat
the unseen world with respect.

And in Matsue, that idea
is being passed on.

Good evening.

Hello.

My name's Ichijo.

I'm a storyteller for
a Matsue ghost tour.

For several years now,

Ichijo Yasuko has been telling Hearn's
ghost stories as a tour guide in Matsue.

This is the setting for one of
his stories, a temple called Daio-ji.

This temple has over 400 years of history.

Hearn listened to many
stories told by his wife,

but this was one of his favorites.

“The Woman Who Buys Syrup.”

There once was a small candy shop.

Every night, at a late hour
when the shop was about to close,

a very pale woman would step inside.

She had a blue-ish face
and wore a white kimono.

She would hold a small amount
of money and a small, dirty bowl.

“This is all the money I have,”
she would say.

“Please, can you sell me some syrup?”

The candy seller grew concerned
about the woman's pale complexion.

So one night, he gathered
some friends, and followed her.

She led them to a tomb
in the temple's graveyard.

And all of a sudden,
from within the ground,

they heard the sound of a crying baby.

In a panic, they opened the tomb.

Within, they saw the corpse of the woman
who nightly visited the shop.

And next to her was a living baby who
had been miraculously born in the tomb.

The townsfolk thought,

“Ah—she wasn't able
to breastfeed her child.

That's why she rose from the grave.

To get syrup for her baby.”

A mother's love is stronger than death.

It's a good story. It's a good story.

Hearn liked it too.

Whenever he heard it,
he'd have tears in his eyes.

It's kind of interesting to be exposed
to that world sometimes,

because the world that
we normally lived...live in

is the very visible part only.

That's true.

At first, I was just a guest
on the ghost tour.

Oh.

I was really drawn into it.

I became a storyteller and guide.

And I've ended up feeling
a lot closer to Hearn.

I'll think, “Ah, he would have
walked down this very street.”

So he's evolved from
being an unfamiliar figure

to someone who somehow
seems like a close friend.

From your point of view, what do you
think he was trying to tell us?

He wasn't talking about spirits who
nurture grievances or curse somebody.

He was talking about wanting to
make things right even after death.

That comes across
to people very strongly.

It's something we can all understand.

People listening to these
tales will often tell me,

“I really identified with that.”

Some of the messages in
his stories clearly resonate.

The beauty of Matsue's scenery
was another way

in which Hearn felt connected
to the unseen world.

He particularly loved Lake Shinji
in the early morning.

In the misty, mysterious
environment of the lake,

he could picture a host of spirits.

He'd see dim reflections
in the water's surface.

And to him, they might
appear to be ghostly figures.

Some reflections
would have been of small boats,

fishing for clams in the lake.

It's an early morning scene that
hasn't changed for hundreds of years.

The clams are regarded by local people
as a blessing from Lake Shinji.

Hello.

Ah, hello.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you too.

How long have you been doing this?

Around 18 years.

Yano Junichi quit a conventional office
job to take over the family business.

He's nearly 70, but he still goes
out on the water every morning.

Is this something that a total amateur,
like myself, can do?

It takes strength and stamina,

but we even organize
workshops for young kids.

Oh really?

I'm sure you'll be fine.

OK, let's have a go.

So let's go fishing for “shijimi”
—clams enjoyed by Hearn himself.

There's no wind at all.

The conditions are perfect.

So how do you actually
catch the shijimi...the clams?

We have a pole.

Attached to it is a basket with spikes.

You pull the basket along the lakebed.

I don't...you have it at an angle
and you drag it along the floor. I see.

Let's just see how heavy it is.

Oh, it's heavy!

The pole is eight meters long.

With the basket, it weighs ten kilograms.

Oh it's going quite a way down,
isn't it?

Pulling the basket along the lakebed
lifts clams out of the mud.

Use the spikes on the basket...

Drag it...oh, it's quite heavy.

Now push.

And then you push it out again.

The job takes a lot of physical effort,

but you must also be gentle,
to avoid damaging the clams.

Let's see how Peter did.

Oh, amazing!

What did we get?

Enough for a round of applause.

That's hard work.

If you're going to be doing
that until you fill one of these,

that is seriously hard work.

Peter will now enjoy a bowl of soup
containing plenty of shijimi.

All it needs is a touch of seasoning.

It was prepared by another fisherman:
Kuwabara Masaki.

Itadaki masu.

Oh, it's excellent.

It's delicious.

That's perfect just as it is.

You don't need to add
anything to that at all.

Are you aware of Koizumi Yakumo?

My primary school textbook had
his story “Hoichi the Earless.”

In class, we learned that he helped
to spread Japanese culture

to other parts of the world.

And what about you?

In winter here, you can catch icefish.

The lake's famous for it.

Apparently Hearn enjoyed icefish soup.

When it was served, the lacquerware bowl
would make squeaky noises.

Hearn would say, “Isn't that amazing?
The fish are crying!”

People would laugh and say
it was the bowl crying.

The fact that we still
have these anecdotes

shows how much he meant to us here.

In one of his books,

Hearn described local boats
in the morning mist as ghosts.

Have the fishermen heard about this?

I can picture it.

In the morning mist, people are
out on the water...he saw that,

and thought the boats looked like ghosts.

That's right actually, yes.

Apparently,
he wrote “the ghost of a junk.”

And a ghost is yurei.

And a junk is a kind of fishing boat,
or small boat, with a sail though,

and I don't think they use boats
with sails on Lake Shinji, do they?

Not for clam fishing.

But the pole we use when collecting clams
may have looked a bit like a mast.

Ah, maybe.

In the mist, you can't see clearly.

How do you feel about your profession
being described as the ghost of a junk?

Oh, I like the mystery of it.

It's probably less about actual ghosts,

and more about an otherworldly feeling.

I think so, yeah.

Matsue: a beautiful place

with a connection to the realm of
the supernatural.

In this city, Hearn discovered
aspects of Japan

that even Japanese people
sometimes overlooked.

His work continues to
capture the imagination.

He kind of seems to me like
the original Japanologist.

People often refer to his
open-minded attitude to Japan,

which was pretty rare back in 1890,

and is probably still not all
that common in the 21st century.

He reminded us that, in addition
to the world that we can see,

there's another parallel
and fascinating world that we can't.