Beyond the Mist

Beyond the Mist: for instance, looking at a Chuo Koron list of Japanese master-works, how many of them have been well translated into English? One could count them on the fingers of one hand. It may be that many Japanese think that this is because they would not be worth translating. But it is a mistake.

Dr. Daisetsu Suzuki almost single-handed put Japanese Zen on the Western cultural and intellectual map. He also introduced Chinese Zen. Before him, Zen had been quite unknown, and the influence of Suzuki’s work is inestimable. (He must be one of the most quoted authors in world literature.) Still earlier, Professor Jigoro Kano, also almost alone, taught the world Judo, and there too the effect has been great. But in both cases, there was no one to act as successor to these great pioneers. Whether in mastery of English or in the understanding of the West, there was no one of adequate ability. So that in both cases in the absence of an authoritative successor, movements were, at a too early stage, thrown back on their own resources.

When the British adopted things from abroad, they developed them, though we never rivalled the French in cooking, or the Italians in music. In politics, on the other hand, Britain overtook and surpassed them both. The English word Parliament comes from an original French ‘parlement’ which means talking together, but it is generally accepted that the origin of the modern Diets or Parliaments was in Britain.

Then again, in recent history, there are new things which are uniquely British. The legal system which most foreigners find hard to understand works in Britain smoothly. Sport is British, and –  more British than anything else – the ideal of the gentleman.

Being a gentleman has nothing to do with being an aristocrat. One who keeps his word, who always has consideration for others, who is ready to risk his life in defence of justice – he is called a gentleman. In other words, he has to side with the weak against the strong, and have the spirit of fair play, rather like chivalry. This fair play is something very English: we call it ‘sympathy for the under-dog’. And, in actual fact, when two dogs were fighting (a rare event today), the English people did intervene to stop the fight and rescue the defeated one.

In the same way, we can notice how many of the things which Japan adopted from China have been developed into something peculiarly Japanese. As an example, take the word for ‘purity’ (seiketsu), for which the Japanese adopted from China the Kango. The concept in Japan had not much to do with the Chinese idea. In fact, we do not find any parallel in the world to the Japanese love of purity. From ancient times, they have taken baths: it is only recently that the ordinary people in Europe began to do so. Even a great monarch, like the British Queen Elizabeth I at the end of the 16th century, hardly ever had a bath. In Japan long before that, Zen master Dogen wrote that ordinary people bathed every morning. The concept of spiritual purity had a connection with physical purity. The traditional clean lines of the Japanese shrines captivate the hearts of European visitors.

There is an illuminating example of this very point, namely the Japanese love of purity, in the translation of the Christian Bible. There is a phrase in English: ‘The Lord is in His holy temple.’ This becomes in the Japanese translation: ‘Shu wa sono kiyoki miya ni oreri.’ But the word ‘holy’ does not in fact mean ‘pure’; its associations are rather with awe and mystery. That this word ‘holy’ is rendered as ‘pure’ shows the long history of the concept of purity in Japanese thinking.

Britain has always thought it important to keep up outer appearances, and this is a point on which many European countries, especially in the south, do not compare. If you go to an English country village, you will find the streets neatly kept.

To return to the point about culture: it has to be admitted frankly that most of British culture is a product of the Continent. Greek and Latin were for a long time the backbone of higher education in Britain. Greek is no easy language, and so when confronted with some difficult jargon of the Law and so on, the ordinary man says: “It’s Greek to me”.  It reminds one of a Japanese saying: ‘It is chin-pun-kan’. Greek and Kanbun were the language of their respective classics, which the average man of today cannot understand.

There is an English word: ‘Frenchified’, meaning ‘made French’, used of something with superfluous frills, or heavily ornamented. The word perhaps reveals a sort of inferiority complex of the British people in the world of fashion, in as much as the centre of women’s fashion has been for so long: Paris. On the other hand, for men’s clothes, Britain has held the lead for many years, and today American men spend a great deal of money at the tailors round Savile Row in London.

Still there has been one field where the universally imported culture has been outdone. In the 1920’s, when Diaghilev first introduced the Russian ballet to Britain, English dancers had to change their names to Russian ones in order to get a chance of success. For instance, Alice Marks became a great ballerina under the Russian name Alicia Markova. Her partner, an Irishman, who also changed his name, made a great reputation as the ‘Russian’ Anton Dolin.

Today things are very different. British stars like Margot Fonteyn are known all over the world under their own names, and many international critics hold that the British Royal Ballet has surpassed the Soviet ballet.

There are even cases of a reverse current. Most of the cigarettes and tobacco sold on the Continent have got British names. In the field of smoking, at least, it certainly seems that the Continentals have confidence in the judgement of the British islanders.

© Trevor Leggett