Feature Dialogue with Chizuko Ueno --Part III—

In commemoration of the publication of Lady Murasaki Shikibu and Her Desires

Chizuko Ueno with Junko Sakai

Various arousal points

Sakai

In that context, I have become more and more fond of Genji’s brother.

Ueno

Genji’s brother?

Sakai

Suzakuin, I associate him as someone like the Polaris type, you know.

Ueno

Alright, your inclination to Suzakuin can also be analyzed by referring to the Korean drama, Dae Jang Guem. (laughs) I picked up everything about Korean dramas by listening to others, since I know a Korean drama freak who never stops updating me with information I never asked for. (laughs)

The main character, Jang Guem was kicked out of the palace where she was serving as a cooking staff, but there is faithful Min Jung Ho, a man of standing, good-looking, reliable and so devoted to Jang Guem that wherever she goes, he follows. He always puts Jang Guem’s feelings as his first priority no matter what. You can call him Mr. At-my-side-forever.

Sakai

Nice!

Ueno

You bet! (laughs) There is such a man like Genji who is a flirter, but it is so hard to resist his charm that women feel like getting laid by him, and there is a man who isn’t exactly McDreamy, but he is always loyal, so women need both types at their disposal.

Sakai

Just like what Oborozukiyo did. She got laid by Genji and kept Suzakuin to protect her.

Ueno

That’s the easiest way for women to get by, isn’t it? The Tale of Genji covers such a type of woman among others who are all representing a variety of types to stimulate women’s arousal points. One of them, whom you threw in with the rest, is Gen-no-naishi, a nymphomaniac old maid. (laughs) Nowadays women cannot quit being “on the market” very willingly even when nearing age 40. By the way, I myself have passed age 60, if you must know. Lately the sell-by date for women has been unnecessarily extended. You don’t like this phenomenon, I guess since you wrote that old lady’s role so harshly.

Sakai

I scold those who don’t know when to give up, including myself. (laughs) I’m fond of the enlivened manner in which Lady Murasaki wrote about underdogs, such as Rokujo-no-miyasudokoro. I can read such parts from both a bullying side and a being-bulled side. I’m really convinced that she is so much better at talking down than praising.

Ueno

Another one of them whom you scolded is Onna-Sannomiya. She is easy, but it’s a well-bred easiness that I kind of like.

Sakai

She surely is well-bred, but she showed her true colors at the very end when she became a nun so decisively. Thanks to her presence, the ending of Genji’s life had a final brisk touch.

Ueno

The fatal cycle starting from the adultery between Genji and Fujitsubo ends with that between Onnna-Sannomiya and Kashiwagi. The retributive justice has been done at last!

Sakai

Good job, Lady Murasaki.

Ueno

She took revenge on Genji, and he got what he deserved.

Sei Shonagon will make a better friend

Ueno

Sei Shonagon and Lady Murasaki are often compared, since the former is an essayist and the latter a storyteller. Sei Shonagon picked topics from day-to-day life, and her writing was gracious yet acrimonious, and rather straightforward, whereas Lady Murasaki wrote caustic this and that in her diary, but her story was a production of her fevered imagination. Which one do you feel closer to?  

Sakai

I feel more sympathy with Sei Shonagon, so I would rather befriend her than Lady Murasaki. But I have realized that I have a similar insidiousness as Lady Murasaki and that what I hate about her is what I also hate in myself. 

Ueno

Aren’t you the first one to express such a radical thing in such a nonchalant manner?

Sakai

Am I?

Ueno

A young sociologist, Naomi Miyamoto Ph.D., recently wrote a book, “Takarazuka Fan no Shakaigaku: Sociology of Takarazuka Fans.” (published by Seikyusha) She also wrote another book, “Ueno Chizuko ni Idomu: A Challenge to Chizuko Ueno” (edited by Yuki Senda, published by Keiso Shobo) in which she stated, “Feminism is a movement that induces women to tell their own story in their own language, because they don’t want a third person to represent them anymore.” (Under the title of the norm of ‘the second class citizen,’ and ‘being cute’) She meant that feminism has been instigating the creation of female language that avails women to convey themselves, and as an alternative to male language, but she says that there is no need for that because there has already been a female language in Japan and the woman’s world has been completely functioning with that language.” She went further and said, “Japanese women haven’t needed a language created by feminism.” Isn’t it quite a challenge? (laughs)

According to Miyamoto, the norm of being cute lies at the core of women’s culture. Why is “being cute” the core of women’s culture? Because if you are being cute, you will never threaten others, and the message of being cute is that “I’m your subordinate, I don’t compete with you.” She says that was the traditional tool to facilitate women in their lives. For my part, I argued back to her and said, “Surely women’s culture is made up of such words like “usou! (no way),” “maji? (really?),” and “kawaii! (so cute!).” But the time when things can be expressed mainly with those words is over, and women now need an extended language to express their meaning.     

Sakai

Japanese women have continually handed down that notion ever since the Heian era, I think. “You’re being cute” makes you to subordinate to your counterpart. At the same time, women like themselves being cute very much.

Ueno

Those are the tactics for the women’s culture to survive! “Being cute” is a kind of armor to protect you from your enemies as well as to protect your self-esteem.

The territory of women’s culture in the media

Ueno

You have been writing a series of essays called,” Is He Single?” in the Shukan Gendai weekly magazine for quite a long time, haven’t you?

Sakai

I have been writing that series for six or seven years now.

Ueno

It is exciting that your essays stick out as an outstanding contribution to women’s culture, surrounded by men’s culture in the Shukan Gendai magazine. If the culture of “being cute” represents the non-threatening strategy to others, what if some male readers get disgusted with your essay?

Sakai

I don’t think that males read my essays, because I have never received any feedback from them.

Ueno

Do they just pass them over?

Sakai

I feel that men and women are living in different universes.

Ueno

For men, the women’s culture is very foreign. I really love my epilogue of the “Ohitori-sama Magazine,” published as a Bungeishunju extra edition. The title of that was “The Reverse Side of the Moon,” a metaphor of women’s culture that men will never able to see. I wrote, “I will give men a rare opportunity to get a glimpse of the women’s culture that really exists out there. But sorry, it’s in the men’s blind side.”

The mass media has been the men’s turf where a few isolated enclaves of women, such as you and Usagi Nakamura, the flag-bearer of the women’s culture, are battling hard for their existence. I think somehow the women’s territory is getting larger little by little lately. I also wonder how wide that could extend, because I’m afraid the territory of women’s culture can only grow as large as the men will allow.

Sakai

I’m just puzzled why men don’t understand the women’s culture even though we have explained it in such an easy and simple language. They just don’t get its fundamental basics.

Ueno

I guess they don’t get it because it is too foreign to them.

Sakai

I’m afraid so.

Ueno

Perhaps the degree of its foreignness is too high.

Sakai

I don’t know whether they pretend to read it and don’t, or they simply don’t get it even when they read it.

Ueno

I see. We are safe as long as the message doesn’t get through to the men. (laughs) What if they finally succeed in decoding our message?

Sakai

On the one hand, women can live rather easily because men don’t get it. I feel a little scared if the men diversify and take on more female-like perceptions, and if such men come to understand what the women really like.

Ueno

Well, they might. Women haven’t had any other option than learning the male language, which is foreign to women, in order to survive. Therefore, women become bilingual, whereas men remain monolingual since there is no need for them to master their counterparts’ language. The Tale of Genji interpretation project has been successful in terms of gender equality so far, but how might the Tale of Genji live out in the future world?

Sakai

More and more women are choosing to be fulltime homemakers lately, so I guess more women may realize that they have had hidden desires to be taken away, when reading the Tale of Genji. What is your opinion about that?

Ueno

As for the arousal points that the story is strewn with, those women younger than your generation may find them less and less sympathetic, I think.

Sakai

Don’t women in their 20s feel like being abducted by men anymore?

Ueno

I don’t know. Perhaps they feel like protecting the men instead? (laughs)

Sakai

Or they even feel like taking the men away. Perhaps they aren’t choosing the passive position anymore?

Ueno

I think they still do, but their ratio of active and passive may have changed.

Sakai

Well, then we can expect a completely new type of Tale of Genji interpretation some day.

(The End )

Original Article on the WAN Website (June 22, 2011)  http://wan.or.jp/ueno/?p=407

Translated by Yoshiko M.

Source: http://renzaburo.jp/yokubo/index.html

Feature Dialogue with Chizuko Ueno --Part II—

 In commemoration of the publication of Lady Murasaki Shikibu and Her Desires

Chizuko Ueno with Junko Sakai

Lady Murasaki Shikibu and Her Desires

Junko Sakai

Do women secretly wish to be raped?

Ueno

You explicitly wrote, “I wish a mishap of the Casanova-types.” It is a women’s dream that a man of power yet good looking get so badly tempted to make love to you, so did he to his true content. But after the love affair with you, he should die lonely and desperate, but your life should remain as secure and happy as ever.

Sakai

If I were forced to make love to Michinaga Fujiwara and dumped by him, then I knew I would wish him a mishap for certain. (laughs)

Ueno

Hmm, you thought Lady Murasaki would be no exception, and it progressed just as you thought. One interesting thing is that most female characters died unhappily.

Suetsumuhana was one exception that she lived free from jealousy, envy and poverty, wasn’t she?

Sakai

It was obvious that she wasn’t loved by Genji. The more a woman is loved by him, the more misfortune happens, right?

Ueno

Do you think that Lady Murasaki punished beloved women?

Sakai

I think that’s part of it.

Ueno

You say that Lady Murasaki envied Genji’s legitimate wife insidiously just like Rokujo-no-Miyasudokoro couldn’t help putting the death curse on Genji’s wife, Aoinoue.

Sakai

Lady Murasaki’s husband Nobutaka wasn’t a man of power at all and he died quite young. Nonetheless, she wasn’t even his legitimate wife. I guess she was quite envious to recognize happy wives.

Ueno

Aoinoue was cursed and killed for nothing. It was very unjust that such an innocent woman was killed for her man’s guilt.

Sakai

I guess that Lady Murasaki was taking so much pleasure when she was writing the chapter on Murasakinoue’s death. (laughs) I sensed her writing momentum in that part.

Ueno

Her death is one of the story’s highlights as it is also featured as a theme of yokyoku song.

Sakai

Had Rokujo not been, the story would not have taken such a course, so I really understand why Mariko Hayashi put the spotlight on that part.

Ueno

Yugao is also an unfortunate character, since she was kidnapped and killed by Rokujo’s evil spirit.

Sakai

When I read Yugao’s abduction, my deeply kept lava-like desire to be kidnapped was stirred. It was one of the motifs for me to write this book.

Ueno

It is a sensuality to feel when you are put in the situation totally out of your control. Once before, some women got together and looked at rape pornography targeted for men, and then we discussed whether women have a rape desire or not. We realized though that women pretty much get aroused by pornography. So we analyzed why that happened. Then we knew that we get excited because we are exempted from being responsible for our desire.

Sakai

You can say that it wasn’t me who was to blame…

Ueno

I have to be responsible for my desire if I take the initiative doing this, so I want to avoid taking initiative. You get raped, but you indulge yourself in pure fleshly pleasure. Well, lucky you! But only if everything is under your control.

Sakai

That means if you are attracted to the guy.

Ueno

Yes, attraction it is.

Sakai

No way to be raped by a man I never feel like making love to.

Ueno

The answer to whether women have a desire to be raped is yes and no, meaning that women want their own fantasized rape to happen. That’s it. But poor men misinterpret that and think women generally want that, and the men completely misunderstand women’s intention. The same theory can be applied to women, too. I was totally convinced with your logic when I read your book.

Sakai

I have been studying what this desire is in me and wondered if it is really a desire to be raped. Now I think it’s a universal desire of women that can be called a desire for consensual sex that appears to be rape.

Ueno

Looks like that.

Sakai

When I was a child, I was extremely interested in the scenes of a horror comic where someone was drugged with chloroform and taken away. (laughs)

Ueno

One of the points to stimulate your sensuality, I guess.

Sakai

Perhaps Yugao and Ukifune also had their inner points stimulated.

Ueno

But the abductor should never be General Higekuro. Such desire is not unusual for women, but it cannot be expressed and recognized if you are bound by political correctness. Having experienced the political correctness dominant phase, I now analyze women’s arousal by looking at pornography and discover many truths about women one after the other. This book of yours and my book, “Misogyny: Onnagirai,” are evidence that feminism in Japan has gone through some rough patches and has matured to let up on women to realize that we can express not only what is right but also what is hard to admit.

Sakai

I didn’t know exactly how to handle my own raw and contradictory desires, one of which, my feministic desire, gets stimulated by your books and the other one, which is a desire to be snatched away under the influence of chloroform, and this still lingers in myself.

Ueno

When my book “Misogyny; Onnagirai,” was published, various people told me that I finally, after many years of writing about the aging society and nursing care issues, wrote a book that struck right at the core of gender studies. But after 10 or 20 years, I didn’t return to the exact same place where I used to be. I used the concept of misogyny in that book, and it meant to accuse men, but at the same time, women have to face up to our own self-hatred. By doing that, I could write the dark side of women without feeling a restriction. It is not possible to write about women’s dark inside just by criticizing men, but along with feminism maturing, women have gained a concept by which we can analyze women’s self-hatred. There are tons of women’s dirtiness in my book, you know?

Sakai

Surely it has some cathartic effect as well as wounding me to the quick.

Ueno

When feminism was tied down by political correctness, I could only write about the bright side of women, and I shut my eyes to women’s abhorrent side. Today we have gained a tool to analyze women’s dirtiness and darkness, and we can express that, which is good, but you, Ms Sakai, have gone through the process of feminism maturity all by yourself. It is really an admirable achievement of yours.

Sakai

I have been aware of my feministic gut feelings, but I couldn’t avail myself to take a right action, or I easily relied on a man. I couldn’t sort out my own contradictions, which I have had quite a bit in myself.

Ueno

Everyone has. We are all human to be contradictory.

The man to be left behind alone

Ueno

Murasakinoue is also an unfortunate woman.

Sakai

She is one of the least desirable women to me.

Ueno

The least happy one despite that she must have been loved by Genji the most…alas. She was denied by her creator to become a mother, the only viable lifestyle back then if you were a mistress.

Sakai

That’s the cruelest aspect of Lady Murasaki. This denial of her becoming a mother is the most cold-blooded fate given to her compared to that of others such as being cheated or being a target of jealousy.

Ueno

One of Muraski’s cruel punishments is that Murasakinoue had to raise a child (Akashi no Himegimi) whose mother had an affair with Genji behind Murasakinoue’s back. It is extremely harsh both to the mother and the daughter because they had to be forcefully separated, and the foster mother who had no other options.

Sakai

Indeed, it is heart-breaking. As Murasakinoue poured all her affection out on the little girl, I cannot help guessing how her true feelings were and feel tremendous compassion for her. By the way, Murasakinoue herself was abducted by Genji when she was still a small child, but funnily, I wasn’t aroused at that incident as in the case of Yugao or Ukifune.

Ueno

It is nothing but child abuse, trust me!

Sakai

If an abductee is sexually mature, I can be excited about the abduction, but if a child is an abductee, it is certainly a crime. Genji could do that because he had the power.

Ueno

And he enclosed her completely just like we do to the cattle.

Sakai

I would say, “at least let her renounce the world to become a nun!”

Ueno

You have an intriguing standpoint about becoming a nun. Women couldn’t choose a man or couldn’t choose whose woman to be; there was no choice for women at that time. However, there was only one choice they could make by themselves, and that was to become a nun.

Sakai

Saving a way out for women could be their tool for survival, I guess. But poor Murasakinoue wasn’t even given that option.

Ueno

Another interesting aspect of Genji that you pointed out was that female characters took their initiative and denounced the world willfully in a brisk pace. On the other hand, Genji procrastinated to take action to become a priest even though he kept on saying that he would. You described Genji as “a man to be left behind,” and I liked that. 

Sakai

We know many such men; he has been saying he would divorce, but never does; or he has been saying he would quit his job, but would never does.

Ueno

Who did leave him behind? Every one of his women did. The worst revenge from women after betrayal by a man is leaving him behind.

Sakai

Lady Murasaki wanted Genji to be left behind all alone after every woman had died.

Ueno

Did Lady Murasaki have someone whom she wished to leave behind?

Sakai

(Chuckles) I cannot help wishing for a Casanova to be left behind alone. Lady Murasaki must have been surrounded by a number of men who could be the model of Genji, but she had such a man of confidence, Michinaga Fujiwara, very close to her. If I were her, I would feel for him just a little bit, yet I wouldn’t be able to suppress my urge for revenge against him to a certain extent.

Ueno

You wouldn’t let Genji die quickly and manly, instead letting his misery last longer and harder. You are quite mean, aren’t you?

Sakai

I thought it was a taste of Murasaki’s gentleness that Gengi’s death wasn’t clearly described.

Ueno

If you were in Lady Murasaki’s position, how would you treat his death?

Sakai

I am not a novelist, so I would write in a very vivid manner that he was struck by an unimaginable misfortune and died after hopeless struggles.

Ueno

So you would strip him of his glory and beauty.

Sakai

He becomes an emaciated and weary old man.

Ueno

First he gets old; then gets thrown out of power, gets abandoned by mistresses; and his body gets very frail …

Sakai

Alright, I wouldn’t mind letting him have one woman, say Suetsumuhana.

Ueno

No way, then you might create another version of Tosa Gengi by Tsuneichi Miyamoto. It would go like this, “not pretty but warm-hearted Suetsumuhana took care of Gengi till the very end of his life, oh well.” No, it’s not tragic at all. It’s a happy ending story. (laughs)

Sakai

I would like that Genji can only keep a woman who is so dull that he would rather wish to get rid of her. But he would never be allowed to have a compassionate and tactful woman such as Hanachirusato. (laughs)

Dream story for women

Ueno

Were you aroused at Ukifune’s indecisiveness when both Kaoru and Niounomiya declared their love to her? 

Sakai

Yes, I was. It was as if the fire flared up momentarily very bright before it was extinguished.

Ueno

That is certainly a story of women’s dream written by a woman. The reason why the Korean TV drama “Winter Sonata” was such a huge hit is this: first, a good-looking man has made a pledge of eternal unchanging love to the woman; second, the woman gets two such pledging men but is never able to pick one. These are the points that make female viewers aroused.

I heard that my friend watched this drama and got really frustrated and said, “Why on earth has this woman, Yoo-jin (Choi Je-woo), been so wishy-washy? She gets on both sides, to Kang Joon-sang (acted by Bae Yong Joon) and also to Kim Sang-Hyeok (Park Yong-ha). But you know, my friend, me being wishy-washy is one of the arousal points.   

Sakai

Another Ukifune. What will happen to Yoo-jin at the end?

Ueno

She finally chose Kang Joon-sang, but then he was involved in a car accident and became blind. To become blind means that Yoo-jin will be forever kept as young and beautiful in his memory. Thus, he will never be attracted by other women in the world. That makes him an ultimate yard bird to her. This is the ultimate arousal point for women! (laughs)

Sakai

That’s not her fault that he became blind.

Ueno

Exactly! This is one heck of a well-plotted story. I was deeply convinced and understood why this story is so appealing when I heard the screen writer was a woman. I happened to watch the episode of the famous Polaris story. Joon-sang gave Yoo-jin a Polaris shaped pendant top and said, “Look at the Polaris! It is always there and shining. I will be your Polaris and watch you and guard you forever.” (laughs)

What women are most worried about is the man’s change of heart, right? Genji often changed heart, but he kept his women’s life security. (laughs) Joon-sang dedicates himself to both his absolute love and the life security of his woman. Nonetheless, when he became blind, he had to rely on the women 100 percent. That is a total turnaround of their positions. Isn’t that a masterpiece?

Sakai

Absolutely, yes! You make me feel like watching the program right now. (laughs)

Ueno

They are both stories of women’s dreams – the Tale of Genji and the Winter Sonata. They are dream stories written by women. But look! There is revenge against men and bullies to women in the story. The books are worth reading with a pantoscopic and multilayered point of view. 

 

(This series to be continued)

Original Article on the WAN Website (June 22, 2011)  http://wan.or.jp/ueno/?p=407

Translated by Yoshiko M.

Source: http://renzaburo.jp/yokubo/index.html

Movie Review: 'Houri no Shima' - Things Destroyed by Nuclear Power Plants

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Houri no Shima (Holy Island)　(directed by Aya Hanabusa /2010) 

Things Destroyed by Nuclear Power Plants by Karin Koretsune

Iwaishima, in Yamaguchi Prefecture is a heart-shaped island located in the Seto Inland Sea.

30 years ago, a plan was drawn up to build a nuclear power plant on the shore of mainland merely 4 kilometers across the sea facing the island. Since then, the islanders continued to protest the construction of nuclear power plant.

The site for building nuclear power plants are targeted at under-populated areas considered to have no economic value. This movie depicts "things" that exist in a place considered by certain groups of people to have nothing.

Catching bream with a fishing rod is
common in Iwaishima.
“Welcome” says Mr. Shomoto,
“thank you so much for coming” 
as he reels each bream onto the boat. 
One and only female fisher on the island,
Tamiko, tells us, “The sea is our life
itself. It is our livelihood and it has
nurtured all of us.” These are the words
of people who live together with the sea.

On a mountain slope is a terraced paddy field constructed like a castle in the sky. There are piled up rocks about the height of a human being on a cliff. They were made by manpower since machines cannot enter the area. We were told that rocks were carried to the top and dropped.

The terraced paddy field took 30 years to make by Kamejiro, the grandfather of 77-year-old current rice grower, Manji Taira, who has been growing rice at this paddy since he was 7 years old.

Kamejiro predicted that this terraced paddy field will no longer be used after his grandson retires. He will not have any regrets if the paddy field becomes a moorland.　“City people strive for things bigger than themselves,” says Manji who knows the limitations of human power and will not try to control nature beyond his powers.

Manji always visits his friend’s house across the road to spend the evening drinking tea together. When he dozes off, a friend will gently put a blanket over him.

There are about 200 empty houses on the island. The reason for keeping the ownership of these houses is because many people wish to return to the island after retiring from work in the cities. There’s plenty of enjoyable time to spend with people on the island.

”The life on the island is behind the times and people on the island have been abandoned by their children and grandchildren”, say some people who tries to justify building the nuclear power plant. The reality is that there are no convenience stores or museums, but there is a strong will of the people to live cooperatively with the surrounding ocean and mountains. There are also warm human ties. There are people on the island who recognize these factors as important values and have secured them.

Another documentary film about Iwaishima, Ashes to Honey (directed by Hitomi Kamanaka/ 2010) recaptures the life on the island as how our society should function in the future. We should strive for a self-sustainable society that can exist together with natural environment. Furthermore, it shows a concrete way to remove all nuclear power plants, following the footsteps of Sweden. （The official site of Ashes to Honey in English can be accessed from here）

For those who say nuclear power plant is the answer to new industry necessary to urbanize the rural areas that have been left behind the times, please come and see the movie, Houri no Shima and find out what the islanders have valued over the years and discover whether the people will be truly happy or not after losing the things they value.

Original article on the WAN Website dated 8/16/11   http://wan.or.jp/reading/?p=4150

Translated and Adapted by M. Doioka