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05：過去と世間に負い目がある者

池田光穂

5


                    Debtor to the Ages and the World

In The English Language we used to talk about being ‘heirs of the ages.’
Two wars and a vast economic crisis have diminished somewhat the
self-confidence it used to bespeak but this shift has certainly not
increased our sense of indebtedness to the past. Oriental nations turn
the coin to the other side: they are debtors to the ages. Much of what
Westerners name ancestor worship is not truly worship and not wholly
directed toward ancestors: it is a ritual avowal of man’s great
indebtedness to all that has gone before. Moreover, he is indebted not
only to the past; every day-by-day contact with other people increases
his indebtedness in the present. From this debt his daily decisions and
actions must spring. It is the fundamental starting point. Because
Westerners pay such extremely slight attention to their debt to the
world and what it has given them in care, education, well-being or even
in the mere fact of their ever having been born at all, the Japanese
feel that our motivations are inadequate. Virtuous men do not say, as
they do in America, that they owe nothing to any man. They do not
discount the past. Righteousness in Japan depends upon recognition of
one’s place in the great network of mutual indebtedness that embraces
both one’s forebears and one’s contemporaries.

It is simple to put in words this contrast between East and West but it
is difficult to appreciate what a difference it makes in living. Until
we understand it in Japan we shall not be able to plumb either the
extreme sacrifice of self with which we became familiar during the war
or the quick resentments which Japanese are capable of in situations
where we think resentments are not called for. To be a debtor can make a
man extremely quick to take offense and the Japanese prove it. It also
puts upon him great responsibilities.

Both the Chinese and the Japanese have many words meaning ‘obligations.’
The words are not synonyms and their specific meanings have no literal
translation into English because the ideas they express are alien to us.
The word for ‘obligations’ which covers a person’s indebtedness from
greatest to least is _on_. In Japanese usage it is translated into
English by a whole series of words from ‘obligations’ and ‘loyalty’ to
‘kindness’ and ‘love,’ but these words distort its meaning. If it really
meant love or even obligation the Japanese would certainly be able to
speak of _on_ to their children, but that is an impossible usage of the
word. Nor does it mean loyalty, which is expressed by other Japanese
words, which are in no way synonymous with _on_. _On_ is in all its uses
a load, an indebtedness, a burden, which one carries as best one may. A
man receives _on_ from a superior and the act of accepting an _on_ from
any man not definitely one’s superior or at least one’s equal gives one
an uncomfortable sense of inferiority. When they say, ‘I wear an _on_ to
him’ they are saying, ‘I carry a load of obligations to him,’ and they
call this creditor, this benefactor, their ‘_on_ man.’

‘Remembering one’s _on_’ may be a pure outpouring of reciprocal
devotion. A little story in a Japanese second-grade school reader
entitled ‘Don’t forget the _on_’ uses the word in this sense. It is a
story for little children in their ethics classes.

    Hachi is a cute dog. As soon as he was born he was taken away by
    a stranger and was loved like a child of the house. For that
    reason, even his weak body became healthy and when his master
    went to his work every morning, he would accompany him (master)
    to the street car station and in the evening around the time
    when he (master) came home, he went again up to the station to
    meet him.

    In due time, the master passed away. Hachi, whether he knew of
    this or not, kept looking for his master every day. Going to the
    usual station he would look to see if his master was in the
    crowd of people who came out whenever the street car arrived.

    In this way days and months passed by. One year passed, two
    years passed, three years passed, even when ten years had
    passed, the aged Hachi’s figure can be seen every day in front
    of the station, still looking for his master.

The moral of this little tale is loyalty which is only another name for
love. A son who cares deeply for his mother can speak of not forgetting
the _on_ he has received from his mother and mean that he has for her
Hachi’s single-minded devotion to his master. The term, however, refers
specifically not to his love, but to all that his mother did for him as
a baby, her sacrifices when he was a boy, all that she has done to
further his interests as a man, all that he owes her from the mere fact
that she exists. It implies a return upon this indebtedness and
therefore it means love. But the primary meaning is the debt, whereas we
think of love as something freely given unfettered by obligation.

_On_ is always used in this sense of limitless devotion when it is used
of one’s first and greatest indebtedness, one’s ‘Imperial _on_.’ This is
one’s debt to the Emperor, which one should receive with unfathomable
gratitude. It would be impossible, they feel, to be glad of one’s
country, of one’s life, of one’s great and small concerns without
thinking also of receiving these benefits. In all Japanese history this
ultimate person among living men to whom one was indebted was the
highest superior within one’s horizon. It has been at different periods
the local seigneur, the feudal lord, and the Shogun. Today it is the
Emperor. Which superior it was is not nearly so significant as the
centuries-long primacy in Japanese habit of ‘remembering the _on_.’
Modern Japan has used every means to center this sentiment upon the
Emperor. Every partiality they have for their own way of living
increases each man’s Imperial _on_; every cigarette distributed to the
Army on the front lines in the Emperor’s name during the war underscored
the _on_ each soldier wore for him; every sip of _sake_ doled out to
them before going into battle was a further Imperial _on_. Every
kamikaze pilot of a suicide plane was, they said, repaying his Imperial
_on_; all the troops who, they claimed, died to a man defending some
island of the Pacific were said to be discharging their limitless _on_
to the Emperor.

A man wears an _on_ also to lesser people than the Emperor. There is of
course the _on_ one has received from one’s parents. This is the basis
of the famous Oriental filial piety which places parents in such a
strategic position of authority over their children. It is phrased in
terms of the debt their children owe them and strive to repay. It is
therefore the children who must work hard at obedience rather than as in
Germany—another nation where parents have authority over their
children—where the parents must work hard to exact and enforce this
obedience. The Japanese are very realistic in their version of Oriental
filial piety and they have a saying about _on_ one receives from parents
which can be freely translated ‘Only after a person is himself a parent
does he know how indebted he is to his own parents.’ That is, the
parental _on_ is the actual daily care and trouble to which fathers and
mothers are put. The Japanese limitation of ancestor veneration to
recent and remembered forebears brings this emphasis on actual
dependency in childhood very much to the fore in their thinking, and of
course it is a very obvious truism in any culture that every man and
woman was once a helpless infant who would not have survived without
parental care; for years until he was an adult he was provided with a
home and food and clothing. Japanese feel strongly that Americans
minimize all this, and that, as one writer says, ‘In the United States
remembering _on_ to parents is hardly more than being good to your
father and mother.’ No person can leave _on_ to his children, of course,
but devoted care of one’s children is a return on one’s indebtedness to
one’s parents when one was oneself helpless. One makes part payment on
_on_ to one’s own parents by giving equally good or better rearing to
one’s children. The obligations one has to one’s children are merely
subsumed under ‘_on_ to one’s parents.’

One has particular _on_ too to one’s teacher and to one’s master
(_nushi_). They have both helped bring one along the way and one wears
an _on_ to them which may at some future time make it necessary to
accede to some request of theirs when they are in trouble or to give
preference, perhaps to a young relative of theirs, after they are dead.
One should go to great lengths to pay the obligation and time does not
lessen the debt. It increases rather than decreases with the years. It
accumulates a kind of interest. An _on_ to anyone is a serious matter.
As their common saying has it: ‘One never returns one ten-thousandth of
an _on_.’ It is a heavy burden and ‘the power of the _on_’ is regarded
as always rightly overriding one’s mere personal preferences.

The smooth working of this ethics of indebtedness depends upon each
man’s being able to consider himself a great debtor without feeling too
much resentment in discharging the obligations he is under. We have
already seen how thoroughly hierarchal arrangements have been organized
in Japan. The attendant habits diligently pursued make it possible for
the Japanese to honor their moral indebtedness to a degree that would
not cross the mind of an Occidental. This is easier to do if the
superiors are regarded as well-wishers. There is interesting evidence
from their language that superiors were indeed credited with being
‘loving’ to their dependents. _Ai_ means ‘love’ in Japan and it was this
word _ai_ which seemed to the missionaries of the last century the only
Japanese word it was possible to use in their translations of the
Christian concept of ‘love.’ They used it in translating the Bible to
mean God’s love for man and man’s love for God. But _ai_ means
specifically the love of a superior for his dependents. A Westerner
might perhaps feel that it meant ‘paternalism,’ but in its Japanese
usage it means more than that. It was a word that meant affection. In
contemporary Japan _ai_ is still used in this strict sense of love from
above to below, but, perhaps partly due to the Christian usage, and
certainly as a consequence of official efforts to break down caste
distinctions, it may today be used also of love between equals.

In spite of all cultural alleviations, however, it is nevertheless a
fortunate circumstance in Japan when _on_ is ‘worn’ with no offense.
People do not like to shoulder casually the debt of gratitude which _on_
implies. They are always talking of ‘making a person wear an _on_’ and
often the nearest translation is ‘imposing upon another’—though in the
United States ‘imposing’ means demanding something of another, and in
Japan the phrase means giving him something or doing him a kindness.
Casual favors from relative strangers are the ones most resented, for
with neighbors and in old-established hierarchal relationships a man
knows and has accepted the complications of _on_. But with mere
acquaintances and near-equals men chafe. They would prefer to avoid
getting entangled in all the consequences of _on_. The passivity of a
street crowd in Japan when an accident occurs is not just lack of
initiative. It is a recognition that any non-official interference would
make the recipient wear an _on_. One of the best-known laws of pre-Meiji
days was: ‘Should a quarrel or dispute occur, one shall not
unnecessarily meddle with it,’ and a person who helps another person in
such situations in Japan without clear authorization is suspected of
taking an unjustifiable advantage. The fact that the recipient will be
greatly indebted to him acts, not to make any man anxious to avail
himself of this advantage to himself but to make him very chary of
helping. Especially in unformalized situations the Japanese are
extremely wary of getting entangled in _on_. Even the offer of a
cigarette from a person with whom a man has previously had no ties makes
him uncomfortable and the polite way for him to express thanks is to
say: ‘Oh, this poisonous feeling (_kino doku_).’ ‘It’s easier to bear,’
a Japanese said to me, ‘if you come right out and acknowledge how bad it
makes you feel. You had never thought of doing anything for him and so
you are shamed by receiving the _on_.’ ‘_Kino doku_’ therefore is
translated sometimes as ‘Thank you,’ i.e., for the cigarettes, sometimes
as ‘I’m sorry,’ i.e., for the indebtedness, sometimes as ‘I feel like a
heel,’ i.e., because you beat me to this act of generosity. It means all
of these and none.

The Japanese have many ways of saying ‘Thank you’ which express this
same uneasiness in receiving _on_. The least ambivalent, the phrase that
has been adopted in modern city department stores, means ‘Oh, this
difficult thing’ (_arigato_). The Japanese usually say that this
‘difficult thing’ is the great and rare benefit the customer is
bestowing on the store in buying. It is a compliment. It is used also
when one receives a present and in countless circumstances. Other just
as common words for ‘thank you’ refer like _kino doku_ to the difficulty
of receiving. Shopkeepers who run their own shops most commonly say
literally: ‘Oh, this doesn’t end,’ (_sumimasen_), i.e., ‘I have received
_on_ from you and under modern economic arrangements I can never repay
you; I am sorry to be placed in such a position.’ In English _sumimasen_
is translated ‘Thank you,’ ‘I’m grateful,’ or ‘I’m sorry,’ ‘I
apologize.’ You use the word, for instance, in preference to all other
thank-you’s if anyone chases the hat you lost on a windy street. When he
returns it to you politeness requires that you acknowledge your own
internal discomfort in receiving. ‘He is offering me an _on_ and I never
saw him before. I never had a chance to offer him the first _on_. I feel
guilty about it but I feel better if I apologize to him. _Sumimasen_ is
probably the commonest word for thank you in Japan. I tell him that I
recognize that I have received _on_ from him and it doesn’t end with the
act of taking back my hat. But what can I do about it? We are
strangers.’

The same attitude about indebtedness is expressed even more strongly
from the Japanese standpoint by another word for thank you,
_katajikenai_, which is written with the character ‘insult,’ ‘loss of
face.’ It means both ‘I am insulted’ and ‘I am grateful.’ The
all-Japanese dictionary says that by this term you say that by the
extraordinary benefit you have received you are shamed and insulted
because you are not worthy of the benefaction. In this phrase you
explicitly acknowledge your shame in receiving _on_, and shame, _haji_,
is, as we shall see, a thing bitterly felt in Japan. _Katajikenai_, ‘I
am insulted,’ is still used by conservative shopkeepers in thanking
their customers, and customers use it when they ask to have their
purchases charged. It is the word found constantly in pre-Meiji
romances. A beautiful girl of low class who serves in the court and is
chosen by the lord as his mistress, says to him _Katajikenai_; that is,
‘I am shamed in unworthily accepting this _on_; I am awed by your
graciousness.’ Or the samurai in a feudal brawl who is let go scot-free
by the authorities says _Katajikenai_, ‘I have lost face that I accept
this _on_; it is not proper for me to place myself in such a humble
position; I am sorry; I humbly thank you.’

These phrases tell, better than any generalizations, the ‘power of the
_on_.’ One wears it constantly with ambivalence. In accepted
structuralized relations the great indebtedness it implies often
stimulates a man only to put forward in repayment all that is in him.
But it is hard to be a debtor and resentments come easily. How easily is
described vividly in the famous novel Botchan by one of Japan’s
best-known novelists, Soseki Natsume. _Botchan_, the hero, is a Tokyo
boy who is teaching school for the first time in a small town in the
provinces. He finds very soon that he despises most of his fellow
teachers, certainly he does not get along with them. But there is one
young teacher he warms to and while they are out together this new-found
friend whom he calls Porcupine treats him to a glass of ice water. He
pays one sen and a half for it, something like one-fifth of a cent.

Not long afterward another teacher reports to Botchan that Porcupine has
spoken slightingly of him. Botchan believes the trouble-maker’s report
and is instantly concerned about the _on_ he had received from
Porcupine.

    ‘To wear an _on_ from such a fellow even if it is for so
    trifling a thing as ice water, affects my honor. One sen or half
    a sen, I shall not die in peace if I wear this _on_. . . The
    fact that I receive somebody’s _on_ without protesting is an act
    of good will, taking him at his par value as a decent fellow.
    Instead of insisting on paying for my own ice water, I took the
    _on_ and expressed gratitude. That is an acknowledgement which
    no amount of money can purchase. I have neither title nor
    official position but I am an independent fellow, and to have an
    independent fellow accept the favor of _on_ is far more than if
    he gave a million yen in return. I let Porcupine blow one sen
    and a half, and gave him my thanks which is more costly than a
    million yen.’

The next day he throws a sen and a half on Porcupine’s desk, for only
after having ceased to wear the _on_ for the glass of ice water can he
begin to settle the current issue between them: the insulting remark he
has been told of. That may involve blows, but the _on_ has to be wiped
out first because the _on_ is no longer between friends.

Such acute sensitivity about trifles, such painful vulnerability occurs
in American records of adolescent gangs and in case-histories of
neurotics. But this is Japanese virtue. Not many Japanese would carry
the matter to this extreme, they think, but of course many people are
lax. Japanese commentators writing about Botchan describe him as
‘hot-tempered, pure as crystal, a champion of the right.’ The author too
identifies himself with Botchan and the character is indeed always
recognized by critics as a portrait of himself. The story is a tale of
high virtue because the person who receives _on_ can lift himself out of
the debtor’s position only by regarding his gratitude as worth ‘a
million yen’ and acting accordingly. He can take it only from ‘a decent
fellow.’ In Botchan’s anger he contrasts his _on_ to Porcupine with an
_on_ he had received long since from his old nurse. She was blindly
partial to him and felt that none of the rest of his family appreciated
him. She used to bring him secretly little gifts of candy and colored
pencils and once she gave him three yen. ‘Her constant attention to me
chilled me to the marrow.’ But though he was ‘insulted’ at the offer of
the three yen he had accepted it as a loan and he had never repaid it in
all the years between. But that, he says to himself, contrasting the way
he feels about his _on_ to Porcupine, was because ‘_I regard her as part
of myself_.’ This is the clue to Japanese reactions to _on_. They can be
borne, with whatever mixed feelings, so long as the ‘_on_ man’ is
actually oneself; he is fixed in ‘my’ hierarchal scheme, or he is doing
something I can imagine myself doing, like returning my hat on a windy
day, or he is a person who admires me. Once these identifications break
down, the _on_ is a festering sore. However trivial the debt incurred it
is virtue to resent it.

Every Japanese knows that if one makes the _on_ too heavy under any
circumstances whatsoever one will get into trouble. A good illustration
is from the ‘Consulting Department’ of a recent magazine. The Department
is a kind of ‘Advice to the Lovelorn’ and is a feature of the _Tokyo
Psychoanalytic Journal_. The advice offered is hardly Freudian but it is
thoroughly Japanese. An elderly man wrote asking for counsel:

    I am the father of three boys and one girl. My wife died sixteen
    years ago. Because I was sorry for my children, I did not
    remarry, and my children considered this fact as my virtue. Now
    my children are all married. Eight years ago when my son
    married, I retired to a house a few blocks away. It is
    embarrassing to state, but for three years I have played with a
    girl in the dark [a prostitute under contract in a public
    house]. She told me her circumstances and I felt sorry for her.
    I bought her freedom for a small sum, took her to my home,
    taught her etiquette, and kept her as a maid. Her sense of
    responsibility is strong and she is admirably economical.
    However, my sons and daughter-in-law and my daughter and
    son-in-law look down on me for this and treat me as a stranger.
    I do not blame them; it is my fault.

    The parents of the girl did not seem to understand the situation
    and since she is of marriageable age they wrote wanting her
    returned. I have met the parents and explained the
    circumstances. They are very poor but are not golddiggers. They
    have promised to consider her as dead and to consent that she
    continue in her situation. She herself wants to remain by my
    side till my death. But our ages are as father and daughter and
    therefore I sometimes consider sending her home. My children
    consider that she is after my property.

    I have a chronic illness and I think I have only one or two
    years to live. I would appreciate your showing me what course to
    take. Let me say in conclusion that though the girl was once
    only a ‘girl in the dark,’ that was because of circumstances.
    Her character is good and her parents are not golddiggers.

The Japanese doctor regards this as a clear case of the old man’s having
put too heavy an _on_ upon his children. He says:

    You have described an event of daily occurrence. . . .

    Let me preface my remarks by saying that I gather from your
    letter that you are asking from me the answer _you_ want, and
    that this makes me have some antagonism to you. I of course
    appreciate your long unmarriedness, but you have used this to
    make your children wear the _on_ and also to justify yourself in
    your present line of action. I don’t like this. I’m not saying
    that you are sly, but your personality is very weak. It would
    have been better to have explained to your children that you had
    to live with a woman,—if you couldn’t help having one,—and not
    to have let them wear the _on_ (for your remaining unmarried).
    The children naturally are against you because you have laid
    such emphasis on this _on_. After all human beings don’t lose
    their sexual desires and you can’t help having desire. But one
    tries to overcome the desire. Your children expected you to
    because they expected you to live up to the ideal they had
    formed of you. On the contrary, they were betrayed and I can see
    how they feel, though it is egoistic on their part. They are
    married and sexually satisfied and they’re selfish to deny this
    to their father. You’re thinking this way and your children the
    other way (as above). The two ways of thinking don’t meet.

    You say that the girl and her parents are good people. That is
    what you want to think. One knows that people’s good and evil
    depend on the circumstances, the situation, and because they are
    not at the moment seeking an advantage one can’t say they’re
    ‘good people.’ I think the girl’s parents are dumb to let her
    serve as concubine of a man about to die. If they’re going to
    consider their daughter’s being a concubine, they ought to seek
    some profit or advantage from it. It’s only your fantasy to see
    it otherwise.

    I don’t wonder the children are worried about the girl’s parents
    seeking some property; I really think they are. The girl is
    young and may not have this in mind, but her parents should
    have.

    There are two courses open to you:

        1) As ‘a complete man’ (one so well rounded that nothing
        is impossible to him) cut off the girl and settle with
        her. But I don’t think you could do that; your human
        feelings wouldn’t permit.

        2) ‘Come back to being a common man’ (give up your
        pretensions) and break up the children’s illusion about
        you as an ideal man.

    About the property, make a will immediately and state what the
    girl’s and the children’s shares are.

    In conclusion, remember that you are old, you are getting
    childish, as I can see by your handwriting. Your thinking is
    emotional rather than rational. You want this girl as a mother
    substitute, though you phrase this as wanting to save her from
    the gutter. I don’t think any infant can live if its mother
    leaves—therefore, I advise you to take the second course.

This letter says several things about _on_. A person once having elected
to make even his children wear an extra heavy _on_ can change his course
of action only at his own risk. He should know that he will suffer for
it. In addition, no matter what the cost to him of the _on_ his children
received, he may not lay it up for himself as merit to be drawn upon; it
is wrong to use it ‘to justify yourself in your present line of action.’
His children are ‘naturally’ resentful; because their father started
something he couldn’t maintain, they were ‘betrayed.’ It is foolish for
a father to imagine that just because he has devoted himself entirely to
them while they needed his care, the now-grown children are going to be
extra solicitous for him. Instead they are conscious only of the _on_
they have incurred and ‘naturally they are against you.’

Americans do not judge such a situation in this light. We think that a
father who dedicated himself to his motherless children should in later
years merit some warm spot in their hearts, not that they are ‘naturally
against him.’ In order to appreciate it as the Japanese see it, we can,
however, regard it as a financial transaction for in that sphere we have
comparable attitudes. It would be perfectly possible for us to say to a
father who has lent money to his children in a formal transaction which
they have to live up to with interest, ‘they are naturally against you.’
In these terms too we can understand why a person who has accepted a
cigarette speaks of his ‘shame’ instead of saying a straightforward
‘Thank you.’ We can understand the resentment with which they speak of a
person’s making another wear an _on_. We can at least get a clue to
Botchan’s grandiose magnification of the debt of a glass of ice water.
But Americans are not accustomed to applying these financial criteria to
a casual treat at the soda counter or to the years’ long devotion of a
father to his motherless children or to the devotion of a faithful dog
like Hachi. Japan does. Love, kindness, generosity, which we value just
in proportion as they are given without strings attached, necessarily
must have their strings in Japan. And every such act received makes one
a debtor. As their common saying has it: ‘It requires (an impossible
degree of) inborn generosity to receive _on_.’


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