Making things difficult, and then developing skill to overcome the difficulty.

There is a Japanese characteristic which puzzles many of us foreigners: making things difficult, and then developing skill to overcome the difficulty.

When I first lived in a Japanese family, I was surprised to see the wife and daughter one day very carefully unwrapping some presents which the family had received. They were in boxes from department stores, and they had been wrapped in the Japanese style, with many small folds in the wrapping paper.

The two Japanese women wanted to see what was in the boxes, and, as they explained to me, they would pass on some of the presents to other families. “In Japan, we have a bad custom of giving too many presents,” the daughter told me, “so everyone is giving more than can be comfortably afforded. So, we pass them on. But it would be a disgrace for this to be publicly known – though privately everyone knows it. So, we must open the parcels without disturbing the creases of the paper, so to see what the present is. If we decide to pass it on, we put it back very carefully, so that it looks as if we had bought this at the department store ourselves.”

I asked: “Then why do not the department stores wrap the things up more simply, as we do in the West? Why so many folds?”

She answered: “The things are wrapped up with many folds in order to make it very difficult for anyone to unwrap them, look at what is inside, and then wrap them up again and pass them on. If this is not done very carefully, the department store wrapping paper does not come into the exact original folds. Then it is clear that the parcel has been unwrapped, looked at, and re-wrapped. If there is an extra fold in the paper, it shows at once, and the receiver knows that this has been looked at, and rejected, and passed on.”

I said: “So you have developed this skill in unwrapping them, in order to overcome that difficulty?”

“Yes,” she said, “it is part of the training of women in a family. We learn it when we are young. Everyone knows, of course, that a present received has possibly been passed on, but we admire the skill by which the original wrapping looks undisturbed.”

I watched fascinated as they gently opened one end of the parcel, very gently and gingerly so as not to disturb the original folds. Then they slowly teased out the box of light wood, as if extracting a tortoise from its shell. Indeed, the paper in its original folds did look just like an empty shell. They delicately opened the box and inspected the contents. I did not see them make any notes, but they perhaps memorized what was in each box. The box was closed and then very softly eased back into the ‘shell’, and the opened end tactfully closed up in just the original folds.

I thought afterwards about what I had seen. The department store folds the paper in many folds in order to prevent just this opening to inspect, and then re-closing. A British department store wraps up a parcel with only few folds, so that it is easy to re-pack it after looking inside. But the Japanese style is to prevent that. Nevertheless, Japanese women have developed a high degree of skill which over comes the difficulty.

(I suppose in these affluent days in Japan, this does not happen so often: the families can afford to buy fresh presents each time.)

When I grasped what I had seen, I began to perceive something similar in many areas of Japanese life.

When I began to study calligraphy, I found that the Japanese use a pointed brush – unlike many of our Western painters. But one of the first things a student has to learn is to ‘conceal the point’ when he begins a stroke. He does not bring it down and then move it straight across the paper: he brings it down, and then makes a few small movements, with the brush almost stationary. That conceals the fact that the brush has a point. It takes quite some practice to learn how to do this.

This is another example of making something difficult, and then developing skill to overcome the difficulty.

When I said to a teacher: “Why not have a brush without a sharp point?” he did not reply. He just looked at me and said nothing.

An expert in the No dancing once told me that the eye-holes in the mask are so small that it is difficult for the actor to keep his sense of direction on the stage. He said that this is one reason why there is always a wooden pillar near the middle of the stage; even through the small eyeholes of the mask, the actor can catch a glimpse of the pillar, and so he knows where he is. He added that once they had tried performances without the pillar, but the actors could not be sure where they were, and one even fell off the stage!

I was just going to say: “But why not make the eye-holes in the mask bigger?” when he lowered his voice a little, and leant forward. I recognized the signs, and I thought to myself: ‘Now I am going to hear something extraordinary and specially Japanese.’ And certainly, that is what happened.

He told me that the expert actors develop a special sensitivity in the soles of the feet, so that as they slide their feet over the stage, they can feel the grain of the wood of the stage; thus they know the direction exactly. They can do this even through the tabi which they wear.

We were sitting in a sushi shop at the time, and he showed me the counter with the grain on it. He said this was similar to the wood of the No stage, and I rubbed the palm of my hand along it, to try to distinguish the direction of the grain. It was not easy, and I could imagine the difficulty for a No actor, who after all cannot simply rub his feet on the ground – he has to be walking or standing according to the plot of the drama.

The expert said that it takes long years of practice before the No actor develops this sensitivity in the feet.

Well, after expressing my admiration for this feat, I still asked my question: “But why not make the eye-holes of the mask a bit bigger? It could easily be done with transparent plastic so that the mask would look just the same to the audience.” He just looked at me, as the calligraphy teacher had looked.

Of course, in other cultures there are examples of difficulties which take many years of training to overcome. When I was about five years old, I showed some musical ability, and my father found me some very good music teachers.

One of them had been a famous concert pianist, and he once said to me: “You’ve got some talent. Now I ask you to do one thing. I know that you young kids want to play jazz and rag-time (these were just becoming a craze in the 1920’s). If you do your regular practise of exercises, and the classical pieces for me every day, I don’t care if you play that nonsense of jazz as well. But promise me one thing. Whenever you play, even jazz, always sit exactly in the middle of the piano as I have taught you, and always sit upright.”

He did not explain why he said this, but somehow his words impressed me, and after that I always did sit properly at the piano, exactly in the middle, even when I was playing popular music.

When I was 15, I was beginning to play some difficult music. In one piece by Albeniz the pianist has to strike a high C sharp octave with the right hand, and at the same time a very low C sharp octave with the left hand. Normally, if there is a very high octave to strike, one looks there, and if there is a very low one, one looks to the left, to guide the hand on to the keys. But in this piece, they have to be struck at the same time.

I tried looking to one side and getting that one exactly, and guessing the distance with the other hand. But, generally, I would miss with the hand I could not look at.

Then my teacher said: “You’ll never do it that way”.

“But what else can I do?” I asked.

“Shut your eyes,” he said. I shut them.

“Now hit that high C sharp octave, with your eyes still shut,” he ordered.

“I can’t,” I said, “I don’t know where it is.”

“Yes, you do”, he told me. “Try”.

So, I tried with my eyes shut, and after a few hesitant attempts, I found if I threw my arm out with confidence, I could always hit it exactly. Then I was able to hit both octaves, together, with my eyes shut.

He said: “You can do that because you have always sat in just the same place at the piano. If sometimes you had sat an inch or two or one side, you would not have this ability to know the distances exactly.”

This is a little like the story of the No actor’s training, isn’t it?

But there is one big difference. In the Albeniz piece, the double octave is part of the music; there is no way by which it can be made easier.  And it is not put there deliberately to create difficulty.

Whereas with the Japanese examples, there seems to be a sort of system: make things difficult deliberately, so that it will take years of training to overcome them.

The department stores could wrap up the goods more simply, the brush could have no point, or the eye-holes in the mask could be made bigger. That would easily solve the problem. But Japanese culture gets a special satisfaction in creating special difficulties, and then overcoming them by skill which takes years and years to develop.

Why do Japanese do this? I have often wondered about it. Perhaps the reason is contained in the words ‘and then overcoming them by skill which takes years and years to develop.’ Young people cannot do it, so the difficulties have been created by seniors as a means of keeping young people down. By the time young people have learnt the skill to overcome. the difficulty, they are seniors themselves, and have an interest in keeping their own juniors down. I admit that we have this tendency in Britain too, though we do it by other methods than creating technical difficulties.

Well, that is the guess of a foreigner.  I wonder what do Japanese people themselves think?

© Trevor Leggett