The form of puzzles

Honkaku is a century old Japanese tradition of clever and complex crime novels which are posed as a puzzle to the reader. The word means orthodox, and the genre was named so because the books followed the ten commandments of Fr. Knox rather strictly. Early Japanese honkaku writers were influenced by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Gaston Leroux, and John Dickson Carr, and paid homage to them by mentioning them by name in their books. During the 1970s the form was slowly supplanted by police procedurals. But it was revived in the 1980s as shin-honkaku, which retained the golden rule that the reader should know everything that the detective(s) find, but otherwise violated one or more of Fr. Knox’s ten commandments.

Repeating shapes make an interesting photo I thought, and even better if they are a little different from each other. I liked these ema, plaques at a temple which are hung up to convey wishes to the gods, but the uneven light presented a bit of a challenge. They remind me of Bill Crowther’s puzzle “You are in a twisty little maze of passages, all alike.”

The Tattoo Murders (1948) by Akimitsu Takagi
The Inugami Curse (1972) by Seishi Yokomizo
Murder in the Crooked House (1982) by Soji Shimada
The Decagon House Murders (1987) by Yukito Ayatsuji
Silent Parade (2018) by Keigo Higashino

I spent the last month reading five Honkaku novels by five of the most well known Japanese practitioners. Most of the novels were set in the time period of their publication, except the one by Yokomizo, which was set in the late 1940s. The books follow the forms of classic criminal mystery stories. They are either locked room mysteries or, as in three of them, are set in an isolated house. Like in most western cosy mysteries, the detective is an amateur who manages to outperform the police. I found the mysteries to be pretty well constructed. Although I’ve seen or read many similar stories, even the older novels kept me guessing for a large part of the book. Even when I could guess who the murderer was, I could not get a neat answer which tied all the elements of the mystery together.

Today’s Japan is the home of kawaii, cute little things. It is part of degrowth, with an aging population supported by an economy which is the fourth largest in the world. It supports a comfortable and insular life for most people. The texture of the weathered wooden shelf on which these glossy little industrial items are displayed made an interesting statement about today’s Japan.

As a non-Japanese, I found the settings to be as interesting as the mystery in all these books. Some required detailed knowledge of the culture. For example, I had to stop once to look up the meaning of a six (or ten, or twelve) tatami room. It was fascinating to go from Shimada’s argument why no Japanese house has a genuinely locked room to Ayatsuji’s mystery which has a western style house with perfectly locked rooms. Starting from situations arising in post-war Japan, through social changes between early and late 80s, and into the more comfortable society of the pre-pandemic 21st century, there are elements of the puzzles which would be difficult to transport to a different society.

The old forms remain. At the entrance to a high rise block of flats, I saw that a tiny space has been carved out for greenery. Between the street and the stairs was this beautifully shaped and trimmed tree, itself a composition in repeated elements. Thoughtfully laid out gardens have always been part of Japanese culture. They often play a role even in imported forms like the honkaku.

It was a pleasure to make the acquaintance of Yokomizo’s detective, Kosuke Kodaichi, who is a celebrity in his home country, and to meet again the very popular Manabu Yukawa (why doesn’t a mystery writer in the west ever think of a detective named Charles Einstein?) whom I first saw in “The Devotion of Suspect-X”. The Tattoo Muders was an interesting read because it kept introducing character after character who could be the detective (when he came on the scene eventually, it was clear that the rest were Watsons). I’m glad I decided to read these books. I’m looking forward to adding Japanese honkaku to my normal mix of reading.

Saved from the midden

Archaeologists find out a lot about everyday life in the past from excavating rubbish heaps. If I imagine myself to be an archaeologist sifting the rubbish dumped into a hard disk this year, then I could decide to show you these little pieces that might interest you. The featured photo shows the Phewa lake in Pokhara at sunset with the Annapurna range towering over it.

This one was just a mass of criss-crossing lines. I liked the pattern made by palm leaves against the sky, especially since the ones in front were beginning to dry out and had an interesting pattern as a result.

This really is a piece of everyday life in the Asakusa district of Japan. I was waiting to cross a road and a lady with her big shopping basket came by on a bicycle. She’d clearly left her child at home and, in the story I made up as I took the photo, had dashed out for groceries before going back to make dinner.

I was happy with this photo because the bird was in focus in spite of a lot of crossing branches in front. My first tentative identification was a rare flycatcher (at least near Dehradun, where I took the photo). But it turns out to be the lovely, and more commonly seen, verditer flycatcher. It’s most beautiful feature is the lovely teal of the feathers on its back, and they are not visible here.

The last light on the peaks to the west of Pangong Tso in Ladakh presented a calm view. Near the lake the temperature had already started falling, although the high peaks were still in the sun. Nothing much was happening, and this seemed to catch the mood.

Kabuki no Okuni

Start walking towards the Kamogawa river from the Nishiki food market, cross the river over Shijo, the Fourth Bridge, and, there, right at the mouth of Gion is the birthplace of Kabuki. On the riverbank to your left is a statue of Izumo no Okuni, the famous Okuni of Izumo, who is said to have invented Kabuki. On your right, across Shijodori, you see the Minami-za, a theater first built in 1615 CE, and the home of Kabuki. If you walk down the riverbank next to it, you’ll see a little stone memorial at the spot where Okuni is said to have performed daily in the years before her disappearance in 1610 CE.

An Art Deco style mural in front of the Minami-za

Okuni is an interesting figure. The daughter of an ironsmith, she joined Izumo district’s historic Shinto shrine as a shrine maiden and became well known for her dancing. She was sent to Kyoto to raise money for the temple by putting on performances. This was apparently a time-honoured way for temple to raise funds. Okuni is said to have done that, and expanded her repertoire to include sketches and small stories, appearing daily at the spot which is marked by the memorial stone. This was the beginning of Kabuki.

The statue of Okuni of Izumo next to the Kamogawa river

Accounts record that she collected a band of misfits, prostitutes and women without support, and trained them in Kabuki. She refused to go back to Izumo, although she regularly sent money back to the temple until she disappeared mysteriously in 1610. Kabuki remained a form practised by women, who took on male roles when required. In 1629 women were banned from performing, and Kabuki became an exclusively male form. Even today male performers take on female roles when required.

Miniami-za: early afternoon is not the busiest of times at the theatre

We wallked on to Shijo and took a photo of the Minami-za from the head of the bridge. Every evening we had seen its lights shining bright through rain, but this was the first time when we saw it in good weather. I took a photo of the mural at its front door. The theatre was the first home of Kabuki, and incorporated several innovations of that time: a runway leading through the audience from the back to the stage, trapdoors on stage for sudden appearances and disappearances, and even a rotating stage. The current structure dates from 1929, and was renovated extensively about thirty years ago.

Since I have only a distant photo of the doors of Minami-za, I add here a photo of the doors of the nearby Pontocho Kaburenjo which is now run by the Pontocho Kabukai Association. The theatre was built within a year of the most recent incarnation of Minami-za. This is one of the places where you can see the springtime Kamogawa Odori, a series of shows put up by Geikos and their apprentice Maikos. These include traditional dances as well as Kabuki-like shows. We are not supposed to call them Kabuki, because although they are Kabuki in form, under the rule from 1629, only men can perform Kabuki. You can see a glimpse of the show in the serial “The Makanai” (2022) made by Hirokazu Kore-eda. “We should see a show the next time we come,” The Family said. We will.

The Meiji Emperor’s experiments with food

One of the oddest sights in the enormous Shinto shrine to the Meiji Emperor is a display of all the French wine casks that he collected. You cannot miss the symbolism that this collection stands across the path from his collection of sake barrels. The notion of Japan was being invented during his lifetime and every story about the emperor that is told today was part of this attempt at nation-building. Wakon yosai (Western learning, Japanese spirit) was the slogan of the time, as Japan adopted not only industry but also ways of living. And food became part of this politics.

Among the animals who live between heaven and earth, there are those that eat meat and those that do not.  Those such as lions, tigers, dogs and cats take meat as their food, while those such as cows, horses and sheep eat the five grains and the fruits of plants and trees.  In all cases, this is a matter of naturally endowed disposition.  Human beings, as the lords of creation, eat all of the kinds of food, including the fruits of grains, plants, and trees, the meat of birds, fish, and beasts.    This too is a matter of naturally endowed disposition, and if one turns against this disposition and eats only meats, or again, eats only the fruits of grains, plants and trees, then without fail one will fall into a state of physical weakness, be afflicted by unexpected diseases and die.  Even if one’s life is not shortened in this way, one will live a worthless life as an invalid, a life without pleasure.

Fukuzawa Yukichi (On Eating Meat, 1870)

One tradition that was invented then was the new year address by the emperor. The first of these was made on New Year’s day 1873 (predating the invention of the Christmas address in 1932 by the British king George V) and was memorable for two things. The first was that the emperor appeared in a western-style military uniform and a western haircut instead of the traditional robes. The second, and equally momentous announcement was that the emperor had begun to eat beef and pork. This upended a thousand year old Buddhist convention according to which farm animals were not eaten, but wild animals could be hunted and eaten. This was part of the political move to de-legitimize Buddhism, which had become associated with the Shogunate, and establish Shintoism as the state religion. It was a strong enough statement that ten militant Buddhist monks tried to storm the castle and were killed in the attempt.

A menu from 1904 for a dinner hosted by the Meiji Emperor for the visiting Prince Karl Anton of Hohenzollern

But that means all the things that many things that one takes as quintessentially Japanese, tonkatsu (deep fried breaded pork cutlets) for one, the exquisitely marbled Wagyu beef and the whole mysticism attached to it for another, are quite as invented as the more modern things that I loved in Japan. Why not embrace the earthy flavour of adzuki-filled croissants, amazing tamago sando from conbinis, fabulous Tokyo Banana cream-filled sponge cakes, and the like? The Family says she draws a line at kari raisu. We found space in our checked in for many of these things, along with nori, bonito flakes, and furikake dressing.

Jizo and Inari

Past the main temple complex of Kiyomizu Dera, the hondo and the Okunin hall, a path continues along the mountainside. From the spectacular platform of the temple we’d looked out at a sea of greenery, Japanese maples mostly, and seen a three storied pagoda far away. The path curved around to it. As we walked we passed these kawaii (adorable) statues of a monk who everybody seemed to want to give money to. These are the modern images of Jizo, the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha.

A visit to the three storied Koyasu pagoda is said to ease childbirth, a story that is associated with the dream of a medieval empress. The pagoda was beautiful against the crisp blue sky, such a rarity for me in Kyoto. And from here I could look across that sea of green and see the main buildings of the temple, with the other three storied pagoda standing over it.

Jizo, the bodhisattva Kshitigarbha, is said to spend his time rescuing souls from every one of the hells. One aspect that has become prominent in Japanese culture is that he helps souls who died as children and cannot reach heaven on the strength of their own good deeds in life. It is because of the belief that Jizo is the protector of children (in My Friend Totoro, Mei takes shelter at a Jizo shrine when she is caught in the rain) that people stuff money into his robes and mouth (to pay the boatman over the rivers of afterlife). Dressing the older stone statues of Jizo in red cap and cape is believed to be a donation of your own good deed to help the souls of children. The path curved down the valley fairly steeply and there were Jizo statues everywhere. Except at one spot, where we saw an Inari shrine.

Inari Okami, the great goddess, is one of the oldest and perhaps the most popular Shinto belief. She is the goddess of fertility and agriculture, of tea, sake, and industry, and of foxes. Even an uncultured gaijin like me can figure out an Inari shrine by the fox guardians. We walked in through the torii, the spirit gate, and looked at the shrine. The goddess of fertility is a natural presence near a pagoda which eases childbirth, and a path dedicated to dead children. Shinto and Buddhism are not easily separated in Japan.

Yoshoku-ya: western food in Japan

It was easy to laugh at a typical mis-spelling in the village of Nikko when we walked down the highway from the Toshogu shrine to the railway station. After all, we’d just had a wonderful washoku (traditional Japanese) meal of gohan (boiled rice) with miso soup and several accompaniments. But then I tried to convince The Family that western food was really worth trying in Japan. I’ve not usually been disappointed by any of the food I’ve had in Japan.

We walked into a fairly large pizzeria (spelt correctly, of course, we were in the Ginza!). We always have a salad at dinner and this one had the Japanese bite-sized pieces of a generic western salad. Nothing particularly Italian about it. The Roman-style thin-crust pizza was exquisite, indistinguishable from what The Family had fallen in love with in Rome. We’d been adventurous in ordering one with a Neapolitan Margharita topping. The tomatoes were flavourful, the mozarella seemed fresh (we are not purists, but I would like to know where in Tokyo they make this), and the basil was replaced by the more Roman topping of aragula leaves. The Family would not accept my choice of a Tiramisu for the dessert, but held out for sharing a panna cotta. It was nice and wobbly as it is meant to be. The Family asked “But why smother it with so many other flavours?” Indeed, although each component was very well done, there seemed to be too many. We’d walked into a mirror world of food. It was the Golden Week, when all of Japan is closed (except restaurants, shops, and other touristy places) and everyone travels. Half the people here were foreigners, but the other half seemed to be young Japanese couples from out of Tokyo. Was this adaptation of Italian food particular to the restaurant, or is it widely done this way? The pizza told us one thing, but the salad and dessert seemed to say something else.

In Kyoto, on the other hand, we definitely experienced a traditional yoshoku-ya. This style of restaurants comes from the 1870s, when Japan decided to open to the west, and adopting western food was seen to be progressive and modern. An English menu was procured with great difficulty (in spite of us protesting that our phones could handle the translation) so it seems that tourists don’t want to have anything to do with Meiji-vintage Japanese-western food. But we thought that the slightly-out-of-season sakura spaghetti would be an interesting thing to try. “Absolutely no curry rice,” The Family decreed, shunning the British-inspired mess that was imported as western food in 19th century Japan. So we ordered a plate of korokke (croquets) and one of katsu (cutlets). We never did get to taste the other favourite at yoshokus, the gratin. Next time around perhaps.

Kiyomizu Dera

Kenshin, the monk, is said to have been prompted in a dream to meet an ascetic at the foot of a waterfall on mount Otawa in the year 778 CE. The story goes that the ascetic handed him a piece of wood, which he carved into a likeness of Kannon and installed in the hut of the ascetic. This is the founding story of Kiyomizu Dera, the Clearwater temple. But there is more. The general Sakanoue no Tamuramaro is said to have met Kenshin in Higashiyama while hunting deer, and was lectured on the sanctity of all life. Being converted to a devout follower of Kannon, he then erected the main part of the spectacular temple that you see in the featured photo.

Behind these stories is a clearer history. The emperor Kammu shifted his capital from Nara to Kyoto in order to get away from the monks of the Kofuku-ji temple who interfered in politics. However, Kenshin, of that sect, had already established a temple in the mountains outside Kyoto. Kammu’s general Sakanoue built the temple, and gave it a connection to the emperor by reassembling the emperor’s hall in Nara as the hondo (main hall) of the temple in the year 798 CE. The butai, platform, is said to be built on 12 meter high pillars of the trunks of keyaki, Japanese Zelkova (Zelkova serrata). It’s a 13 meter drop to the bottom from the edge of the platform, and during the Edo period 234 people are recorded to have jumped from the platform with 200 surviving the drop. These leaps were prompted by the belief that a survivor’s wishes are granted. The custom was banned by the Meiji emperor in 1872. The Family took the photo of the famous butai from a subsidiary platform at the Okunin hall.

Shakyamuni

Bodhisattva

Jizo statues

This hall had a beautiful statue of the Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha. You can see it in the photo above. I like the wooden lattice roofs above the heads of statues in temples; this was no exception. Nearby was a smaller statue of a Bodhisattva, perhaps Amitabha. Behind this hall was a gallery filled with Jizo statues. The Jizo is an interesting cult, which seemed to me to be as widespread as that of Inari. I’ll write about it another day. The view of Kyoto from this subsidiary gallery is wonderful, and rivals the view from the Ginkaku-ji. There is a 3.5 Kms long path higher up the hills, the Higashiyama Yūhodō, which I plan to do some day. That should have some nice views too.

Bearded Iris

Somewhere on the streets of Kyoto we passed a small private garden with this bearded Iris. I understand that the way to recognize one is to count the petals. They have six, of which three are upright, three droop, and the drooping petals have a line of filaments, the beard, which guide insects to the nectar. As far as I know, this is not a natural species, so I’ll not quote a binomial.

Clearwater temple

Kiyomizu Dera, the temple of clear water, was at the center of life in Kyoto in the 8th century CE, when it was first built. It seems to remain at the center of life even now. Life has changed in the intervening years, moving from an emphasis on the invisible spirit, to the all-too-visible images on social media. In my mind the difference is captured in the images above and below. Above, a dragon guards the clear water drawn down to allow pilgrims to clean themselves before entering the temple. Below, a couple sits in front of the entrance, the Niomon, to take a selfie.

We had put off our visit to this temple until our last day in Kyoto, but now I was glad that I had. The crisp light of a cold spring day was exactly right for a visit to one of great sights of Kyoto. In all my visits to the city, I’d never before taken the road up from the Gion to this temple. For a first visit we could not have chosen a better day.

The Seiryuu, the statue of a dragon in blue stone, is very special. This fearsome form is said to be taken by Kyoto’s guardian Bodhisattva, Kannon, in her aspect as a protector. I made a beeline to it, and was happy with the soft light on the stone. The bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshwara, somehow morphed into the female Guanyin when he crossed the Himalayas from India to China. And then Guanyin turned into Kannon in crossing the sea to Japan. And somehow, spiritual power was turned into physical power in this statue. In spite of all the stretching of the original, it is a marvellous statue. Perhaps one day I will come here for the festival when it is carried around the temple.

The entrance area to the temple has a famous three story pagoda, representing the stages of spiritual life. As we passed through the Niomon, I stopped to take a photo of the bell tower and the pagoda framed by the gate. From the platform around the bell tower I could didge around to get lovely views of Kyoto. These buildings are all fairly recent, built between the 16th and 17th centuries. The eastern mountains, Higashiyama, are full of such wonderful views of the city.

As we’d made out way to the temple up Chawanzaka, Teapot Lane, we saw crowds of young people dressed in flowery kimonos coming up with us or walking back. Clearly such a lovely day was a great draw. At the temple these three young women were getting ready for a few selfies. They reminded me of Indian teenagers dressing up in sarees and taking their own photos to post on social media. I’m sure that was what this was all about.

Kushikatsu

We wondered what to eat for our last lunch in Japan. We’d had the usual things that one can get. The Family wanted a last tamago sando, the very popular Japanese egg salad sandwich that she’d grown very fond of. I wanted an onogiri, a rice ball, with a pickled sour plum inside it. Should we have a last lunch at a convenience store, a conbi? That would have been a culturally appropriate thing to do. But then, we hadn’t had deep fried skewers, kushikatsu, during this trip at all. We stood on the windy concourse of Kyoto station, where we’d just bought tickets for our evening train to the airport, and discussed lunch. Deciding on kushikatsu was easy, since we knew there was a branch of the Kushinobo chain somewhere in the enormous mall that rose above us.

We took our place at the bar and made our choices. The chef explained that we would get a series of the fried skewers, depending on our choice. The Family chose a chicken option, and I took the fish. A server put two settings in front of us- steaming hot miso soup (quite welcome on a cold spring day), pickled veggies, fresh cucumber and lime, clearly meant to moderate the deep fried marathon to come, jars of katsu and soya sauce. The chef had a tray of panko in front of him. He rolled each skewer in it after lifting it from a pan of egg and flour batter before dipping it into the fryer. Ovo-vegetarians may be happy to know that in Japan vegetable oil is used for deep frying, so vegetarian kushikatsu is a thing.

By most accounts, kushikatsu was invented in Osaka, perhaps a hundred years ago. That’s long enough for the Kansai-Kanto rivarly to have kicked in, and a separate Tokyo style to have evolved. Kushinobo is an Osaka based chain, so it had the usual things, a skewer each of lotus stem, pumpkin, asparagus, chicken, octopus and fish, some more chicken for The Family and a little more fish for me. Is this the most memorable food to come out of the Taiso era? I wonder.