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
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