Trad footwear, foreign words, furoshiki & the ancient world of Go or Othello!

A noren curtain using the lily theme!

This week’s content is mostly just content. That’s right! No news of note on the Japanese travel scene. But you can expect Japan to get a bit more expensive by Christmas. The yen has fallen from 161 to the US$ to about 145 at present. And that drop only kicked in in late July . . . So, do remember that Japan has zero inflation so the prices don’t change but the currency rates sure can!

The topics covered in this post include:

-a great essay on traditional Japanese footwear and how shoes in Japan signify a lot!

-and we have a short blurb on how the Japanese borrow words from foreign languages and turn them into katakana mysteries to the foreigners who hear them . . .

-next up is an excellent overview of Japanese furoshiki wrapping clothes, which can be used to wrap wine, turned into a handbag, or become the wonder in a picnic!

-finally, we have a long read historical article (i.e., best suited for afficiandos of chess or checkers or Othello, OK?) about the Japanese go tournaments played at Edo (Tokyo) Castle, and often with the Shogun in attendance! High tension for sure! Learn more!

Content by Ian Martin Ropke, owner of Your Japan Private Tours (est. 1990). I have been planning, designing, and making custom Japan private tours on all five Japanese islands since the early 1990s. I work closely with Japan private tour clients and have worked for all kinds of families, companies, and individuals since 1990. Clients find me mostly via organic search, and I advertise my custom Japan private tours & travel services on www.japan-guide.com, which has the best all-Japan English content & maps in Japan! If you are going to Japan and you understand the advantages of private travel, consider my services for your next trip. And thank you for reading my content. I, Ian Martin Ropke (unique on Google Search), am also a serious nonfiction and fiction writer, a startup founder (NexussPlus.com), and a spiritual wood sculptor. Learn more!

An essay on traditional Japanese footwear

Footwear plays an interesting role in daily Japanese life as a way of marking the transition between different kinds of interior and exterior spaces. For example, before entering a house, outside shoes are removed. After stepping into the interior family space, inside slippers are put on. And before using the restroom one takes off the inside house slippers and puts on a special pair of "bathroom slippers". One classic error of foreign guests is to forget to change back to the regular slippers after leaving the rest room. This situation, of wearing the bathroom slippers into other rooms, represents bringing something unclean into a clean area and provokes either laughter or disgust, depending on the host family. So strong are the divisions between spaces, articulated by changes in footwear, that if a person leaves the house in a hurry, laces up their shoes, and then remembers a forgotten item, rather than step on the interior floor in their outside shoes they will crawl on their hands and knees, with their feet held up high to retrieve the forgotten item.

Nor are these distinctions limited to personal space. An American journalist, giving birth to a baby in Tokyo, was issued a pair of slippers when she was admitted to the hospital in labor, and was required to change to slippers of another color when she entered the delivery room. Special shoes for specific situations are also part of the cultural picture. While I was living in a mountain village, I watched a bride dressed in a wedding kimono and wearing very high wedge sandals bid a formal farewell to her neighbors. When she finished she walked away slowly, assisted by a woman on each arm. A crowd of village woman walked behind her. "When you got married, was it like this?" I asked one of them. "Oh, yes, just like this I needed help to walk. Oh those shoes!"

Walking through Kyoto’s legendary Gion geisha district you may catch a glimpse of a geisha. Take a look at her feet. If she is wearing very high clogs, she is an apprentice geisha or maiko. This custom dates from the period when apprentices were children, and wore tall shoes to add to their height. Nowadays, maiko are young women, who walk gracefully and unassisted in high clogs.

Shoes are also connected to Japanese beliefs about health. Older people have pointed out to me that walking in geta or backless sandals requires the wearer to flex the foot with each step just to keep the footwear from falling off. This repeated flexing is thought to contribute to good health, and some believe that wearing Western shoes (which do not require this muscular movement) is less healthy. A contemporary approach to the health and footwear issue can be seen in slippers featuring inside soles covered with beige plastic nodules. Positioned to stimulate health-promoting pressure points, the nodules produce sensory stimulation to mild pain, depending on the wearer.

Borrowed words in the Japanese language

Languages are hungry beasts, constantly gobbling up the sense and sounds of other languages. Japanese has proved to be particularly hungry. In fact, it would be difficult to find another language that has swallowed as many foreign words. Such loan-words are called gairai-go in Japanese, and are always written in katakana (Japan’s 48 character syllabary developed by 9th century priests as an aid to simplifying difficult Chinese texts).

Modern Japanese life is full of such English loan-words. For example, consider this hypothetical situation: two young people, perhaps tea-nay-ja (teenager), are out on a day-to (date). She might be wearing a wan pea-su (one piece, now a general term for a dress) or, if the day-to is going to be more formal, she might don a type of dress called an ee-bu-nin-gu (evening). A tie-to su-ka-to (a straight or close-fitting skirt) is also a possibility. Her legs will probably be clad in su-tok-in-gu (stockings). He might be attired in su-rak-su (slacks), sha-tsu (shirts), and ja-kay-to (jackets). Despite the fact that pa-kin-gu (parking) in Japan is by no means easy, as likely as not, the couple will opt for a do-rai-bu (drive) in the pu-rai-ba-shi (privacy) of their own kaa (car).

While all of the above are fairly close to their English equivalents, there are many gairai-go words that require a lengthy acquaintance with modern Japanese life before they can be understood at all! Here are some cryptic examples: o-ru ba-ku (all back): the slicked back hair-style sported by older Japanese businessmen; o-ru-do mi-su (old miss): an unmarried woman, 30 years-old or older; ee-may-gee-da-un (image down), what happens when a cockroach crawls across your table at an expensive French restaurant.

Japanese furoshiki wrapping cloths

The Japanese are famous for the skill and beauty with which they wrap even the most ordinary objects. Visiting a department store after the hiring season one can see new employees struggling to master the elegant art of diagonal paper wrapping. Years ago, the book, How to Wrap Five Eggs, with its striking photographs of Japanese objects, became a classic of the coffee table book genre. Until about 80 years ago, the furoshiki, a simple piece of cloth, played a starring role in this realm.

People used this square of fabric to carry things, instead of the suit cases, handbags, brief cases and plastic supermarket bags we use today.

By folding, twisting and knotting it in a variety of styles, the same furoshiki, on different occasions, could become the ideal carrying case for a watermelon, a rectangular box, or a pair of sake bottles. This of course meant that the user had a higher level of participation in the process: a shopping bag is simply an object to be filled with merchandise while a furoshiki is an object to be transformed according to its function. It is this more active use of the hands and imagination that is valued by those hoping to preserve this folkway.

Along Kyoto’s Muromachi Street (center of the JulyGion Matsuri festival), center of the kimono shop area, young men on bicycles pass by with kimono fabric wrapped in these cloths. Japanese lunch boxes, or obento, are wrapped, together with chopsticks, in a smaller version of the furoshiki. Lawyers in the courthouse are said to prefer carrying their documents in furoshiki rather than in briefcases.

Furoshiki still play an integral role in traditional gift giving. A gift is presented wrapped in furoshiki, which the recipient later removes and wraps around another gift which is given back to the original giver. Thus, its use expresses the Asian value of reciprocity. Another way in which its use is rooted in Asian culture can be seen in the folding method employed when presenting formal gifts. For congratulatory occasions the cloth is folded with the right side on top, while for occasions of condolence the left side is uppermost. The former is aligned with the Yang principle of Asian cosmology, connected with birth, spring, and summer, and the latter with the Yin principle, connected with death, autumn, and winter.

Because their designs are so appealing many people now use furoshiki as accessories such as scarves and hair bands. In home interiors they function as decorative wall hangings, table cloths and covers for computers. The smaller lunch box cloths are used by Western people as table napkins.

Places to Buy Furoshiki: All high-end departments stores (Takashimaya, Daimaru, Isetan, Mitsukoshi). Just ask!

The historical drama of Go games at Edo Castle

There are various theories about the origin of Go. Legend points to China more than 4000 years ago. It first arrived in Japan during the Nara-Heian periods (710 to 1185 AD).

Go was particularly popular aristocratic hobby and was described in the literary works “Genji Monogatari” (The Tale of Genji) and “Makura-no Soshi” (The Pillow Book).

In the war-filled Muromachi period (1333–1573 AD), Go began enter the homes of samurai families and ordinary people, and even other games using Go boards and Go stones were born.

In the civil war Sengoku period (1573-1603)), Go was used to plan the strategies and tactics of samurai war. Japan’s legendary warlords Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu all liked to play Go.

Edo Castle, in what we know as Tokyo today, was the venue for annual tournaments of go and shogi but only a sketchy history of those decades remain. The author of all these fragmentary records is the fifth head of the house of Hashi, called Hashi Kei the third. The oldest go or shogi or records cover the thirty-four years from 1674 to 1708.

In 1612, at the beginning of the Edo period (1603–1868), the Tokugawa shoguns created Four hereditary "houses" to teach the game of Go: Hon'inbō, Hayashi, Inoue and Yasui. These four houses (iemoto) competed against each other throughout the 300-year Edo period.

Professional matches between the four houses, and other high-profile ranking players, were called oshirogo ("castle Go"), because they were held at castles of the shogun.

Many of the official go records of this era do not discuss the attendance of the players at the Castle of the Shogun, the record does not deal with the ordinary life of the players. Even so the author of these records faithfully recorded what he actually heard and saw at the games.

Therefore, we are able to learn many facts and details hitherto unknown to the history of go and shogi. The aim of the records was not merely to inform the posterity. They also served as documents when a new superior (the Commissioner of Temples and Shrines) requested information about game precedents.

The tournaments at the Castle were held regularly from 1667 onwards, seven years before the record fragments were written. At that time the officially sponsored houses of go and shogi were obliged to move from Kyoto to Edo. This was the time when many medieval leftovers in the administration were removed by new provisions. Correspondingly, the roles of the players too seem to have taken a definite shape then.

The head of the Yasui House, Sanchi, being 57 was the senior among the go-players and thus held the title of go-dokoro. This was the highest title among players often endowed in connection with the rank of meijin (lit. `man of [highest] fame'). However, in contrast to the traditional opinion, Hashi sources testify that it cannot be regarded as an official title endowed by the government. A junior Yasui, Santetsu, later became astronomer of the Shogunate and changed his name into Shibukawa Shunkai. At that time, he was 36. His younger brother Chitetsu, 33, later became the third Yasui. Monny?, 35 and second head of the Hayashi house, was a pupil of Yasui Sanchi. Inseki, 26, took over the house of Inoue but was actually the younger brother of Daisaku. Shunchi, by 22 the youngest player, was from the Yasui house. The difficult interrelations of master-pupil and blood-lineages certainly urged the utmost caution regarding the pairings at the Edo Castle tournaments.

Another document fragment starts with an account of the pairings for the annual tournament in front of the Shogun, which was planned by the go and shogi houses themselves. Two propositions were put forward. One was identical with the pairing of the previous year: Yasui Sanchi vs. Honin’bo. In that year, however, the game could not be decided within the scheduled time.

To avoid such an `unpleasantry' another pairing was put forward either. In fact, up to 1691 it was very rare that all Castle Games were finished at the Castle. In most cases some games were continued at a different place, for instance in 1672 at the residence of the Commissioner Toda Tajima-no-kami. In 1674 it was finally decided that the Castle Games should be held on the 20th day of the 11th month.

Three days before the scheduled game, however, Yasui Santetsu informed the tournament officials in a letter that his condition had turned extremely bad, so he would not be able to attend the tournament in the Castle at the 20th day. His opponent refused to play anyone else!

In due course, the day before the Castle Games, a letter from Honin’bo reached Sankei. Honin’bo maintained that due to a terrible food poisoning he would not be able to appear at the Castle. Thereupon, a letter by the Commissioner informed the players that the games would be postponed until the 24th, since both, Santetsu and Honin’bo, had fallen ill. The final pairing would be decided on the 23rd according to the State of Affairs.

The tournament was finally held on the 24th in the Kuro-shoin Hall of Edo Castle. In spite of the detailed accounts of the preliminaries, the games themselves are described very scantly. Just names and results are mentioned. One of the “sick” players played. Honin’bo did not appear at all, not even as an `observer.'

Like in all the other records, rather than commenting on the actual games, the author is mainly concerned with the audience, in particular the ranks of the individual members of the government watching. In 1674, he could proudly report that the fourth Shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna deigned to visit the games personally. This was in fact highly unusual. In spite of the pretext that the tournaments were held in front of the Shogun, in all other we do not find his presence mentioned.

The traditional sources of go and shogi history have never informed us of the treatment the players received when playing the Castle Games. Sankei's reports, however, mention luxurious meals in the morning and in the evening, served on precious table-wear. These meals were called `two soups, seven vegetables' which may sound a little bit misleading. In fact, they consisted of two courses both composed of seven vegetables plus three kinds of grilled food differing according to season.

Formalism in those days was not so strict to forbid any changes, so from 1682 on only `two soups, five vegetables' were served. This down-ranking notwithstanding, we may call the treatment of the players out of proportion compared to their modest income.

When the games finished, the players first had to offer their gratitude to the inspectors (metsuke) who were responsible for safety and control inside the Castle. After leaving the Castle, they had to pay another visit of courtesy to the Senior and Minor Advisors and to the Commissioner of Temples and Shrines.

The wave of Westernization and modernization during the Meiji Restoration of 1868 resulted in the dissolution of the official iemoto Go system. Since then, the popularity of the game has fallen to about the same a chess or Othello anywhere else . . . In the wake of this upheaval, the Hon'inbō title was transformed into a tournament title and winning this title means you are #1 in Go for that year!

As you can see and easily imagine the working of the Japanese court was not unlike the workings of the palaces of London or Paris . . . And games like go and shogi continue to be played and used strategically today. Even at the CIA, if you believe Hollywood . . .