Hayama

Last October during a brief trip to Japan, I traveled to the town of Hayama on the Miura Peninsula just south of Tokyo. I was there to see a friend, but I'd always wanted to visit Hayama because of its association with the Japanese anarchist Osugi Sakae.

Many Japanese people haven't heard of Osugi Sakae. Some of those who have know of him because of what's commonly referred to as the Hayama Incident. This incident, which took place in 1916 and was centered on a teahouse in Hayama called the Hikage Chaya (and is therefore also sometimes referred to as the Hikage Chaya Incident), marked the climax of a bizarre experiment in "free love".

Free love was something Osugi had been reading and writing about for many years. As an anarchist, he blamed capitalism for perverting love and marriage and thought that true free love could only become a reality once capitalism was abolished. But Osugi couldn't wait that long. He decided it was time to put his ideas into practice.

In December 1915, Osugi, who'd been married to Hori Yasuko since 1906, began an affair with Kamichika Ichiko, a newspaper reporter and member of the feminist group Seito-sha (Bluestocking Society). Then in February 1916, he began another affair, with Ito Noe, also a member of Seito-sha and the wife of Dadaist musician and writer Tsuji Jun.

Kamichika Ichiko

Osugi set out three conditions on which the four-way relationship would be based: first, each individual in the relationship would be financially independent; second, each would live in their own dwelling; and third, each would allow the others complete freedom of action.

It seems that Osugi's enthusiasm wasn't matched by the three women involved. The relationship soon became bogged down in jealousy and financial difficulties. In November 1916 Osugi traveled to Hayama and took a room at the Hikage Chaya to work on a translation. He told Kamichika that he'd be alone. But when Kamichika arrived to check on him she found Ito in his room. Ito returned to Tokyo the following day. Kamichika stayed behind with Osugi. The two argued, and in the middle of the following night, Kamichika stabbed Osugi in the throat.

Osugi spent ten days recovering in a hospital in the neighbouring town of Zushi. The Hayama Incident caused quite a scandal and those involved were ostracized by many of their peers. Kamichika was tried and eventually sentenced to two years in prison. She later became a member of the Japanese House of Representatives. Hori ended her marriage with Osugi. However, Osugi and Ito continued their relationship and went on to have four children together.

On 16 September 1923, amidst the chaos that reigned in Tokyo in the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake, a squad of military police detained Osugi, Ito, and Osugi's six-year-old nephew. All three were beaten to death and their bodies thrown into a well.

Osugi Sakae, Ito Noe, and daughter Mako

Today the Hikage Chaya operates as an upscale Japanese restaurant. Apparently we weren’t the first customers to enquire about its links with Osugi Sakae, because when we did so the cashier produced a copy of an old magazine with a lengthy article about the Hayama Incident. Unfortunately the room where the stabbing took place no longer exists (or so we were told), so I had to make do with a few photos of the building's exterior.

Speaking of connections...

I'm not very good with names. It's only just dawned on me that Tom Stanley of Walk Japan Ltd., who co-created the previously clunky but now beautiful Nakasendo Way website, parts of which I printed off and used as a guide when we walked the Nakasendo in 2007, is Dr. Thomas A. Stanley, author of Osugi Sakae, Anarchist in Taisho Japan: The Creativity of the Ego.

I should explain that when I went to Tokyo in 1996 it was to do research on Osugi Sakae for a possible M.A. (Things didn't quite go to plan. I blogged about that year here and here.) Japanese anarchism in the Taisho period is a very specialized field, and although my efforts to contribute to it have been pathetic compared to those of Dr. Stanley, it seems remarkable that we're both interested in Osugi Sakae and the Nakasendo. I wonder if he likes Keith Jarrett?

Uncanny Resemblances Part 3: Depreciation of the NZ dollar against the yen and the descent from Usui Pass

Probable Tokaido schedule

After much fussing and fiddling, I've finally come up with a schedule for my Tokaido walk which I'm happy with. Two nights in Kyoto, followed by 25 days on the road (including two rest days), then two nights in Tokyo. I'll walk an average of just over 21km a day. The most distance I'll cover in a single day will be 28.6km, the least 12.1km. The route will take me over three main passes, although the highest of these (Hakone Pass) is only 846m, around half the height of the most difficult pass on the Nakasendo (which we conquered on Day 15 of the Nakasendo walk).

The main difference between what you see below and the original schedule I put together last year is the direction. I'd initially intended to start in Tokyo, mainly because we started in Kyoto when we walked the Nakasendo and I wanted to try walking in the opposite direction this time. But when I went to book my flights I found that it was going to be a lot more convenient to fly into Kansai airport (the closest international airport to Kyoto) and out of Narita (the closest to Tokyo) than the other way around. So Day 1 will be a repeat of Day 1 of the Nakasendo walk.

The next step is to book my accommodation. I guess I'd better start training, too.

Day 1: Kyoto - Kusatsu (25.7)
Day 2: Kusatsu - Minakuchi (24.8)
Day 3: Minakuchi - Seki (27.4)
Day 4: Seki - Shono (15)
Day 5: Shono - Yokkaichi (15.4)
Day 6: Yokkaichi - Kuwana (15.9)
Day 7: Rest day in Nagoya
Day 8: Miya - Chiryu (19.8)
Day 9: Chiryu - Okazaki (12.1)
Day 10: Okazaki - Akasaka (20.9)
Day 11: Akasaka - Yoshida (13.7)
Day 12: Yoshida - Maisaka (28.8)
Day 13: Maisaka - Mitsuke (23.8)
Day 14: Mitsuke - Kakegawa (18.7)
Day 15: Kakegawa - Fujieda (27.8)
Day 16: Fujieda - Fuchu (22.8)
Day 17: Rest day in Shizuoka
Day 18: Fuchu - Okitsu (17)
Day 19: Okitsu - Yoshiwara (27.1)
Day 20: Yoshiwara - Mishima (21.9)
Day 21: Mishima - Hakone-Yumoto (23.7)
Day 22: Hakone-Yumoto - Oiso (24.5)
Day 23: Oiso - Totsuka (25.8)
Day 24: Totsuka - Kanagawa (14.4)
Day 25: Kanagawa - Nihonbashi (28.6)

A spiritual (?) journey (Part 5)

Today, some 60 years after his death, George Ivanovich Gurdjieff remains a controversial figure. While many people claim to have benefited greatly from his teachings, others maintain that he was a charlatan who preyed on his followers' weaknesses. It's easy enough to dismiss the wackier critics who argue that Gurdjieff was the devil incarnate, but not as easy to ignore analyses such as this one, which describes Gurdjieff as advocating "an almost fascistic conservatism". Some of Gurdjieff's ideas, including his contempt for Western medicine and his belief in strictly separate roles for men and women, certainly don't seem particularly progressive. But I tend to agree with Webb that Gurdjieff was sincere, that it's conceivable that he was both a spy and a seeker of the truth. This is not to say that he always did what he said he was doing. What he actually did may simply have been an elaborate form of psychotherapy. It's interesting to note that on a number of occasions he supported himself by working as a hypnotherapist.

To me one of the most fascinating aspects of his story is that it highlights the fact that there are esoteric schools within all the major religions that teach that it's possible to achieve higher levels of consciousness and that the true role of religion is not to gain and convert as many followers as possible but to preserve these ideas and pass them on in their original form. This explains one of the defining characteristics of esoteric religions, which is that the transmission of ideas must take place directly from teacher to student and cannot be learned from a book. The secrecy of the ideas itself is not important, as this is just a side effect of the reality that they cannot be passed on other than in the context of the teacher-student relationship.

And so we return to my original post in this series, in which I referred to my fascination with Kukai, the Japanese founder of Shingon Buddhism. Shingon is one of the two main sub-schools of esoteric Vajrayana Buddhism, the other being Tibetan Buddhism. The esoteric Buddhism practiced at the Qinglong monastery in Chang'an where Kukai was initiated was introduced from India in the eighth century. Later, the same teachings were introduced into Tibet. If Webb's account of events is accurate, then Gurdjieff had close contact with Tibetan Buddhism, even serving as a Tibetan Buddhist monk for a time. Webb goes as far as describing Gurdjieff's indebtedness to Tibetan Buddhism as "the greatest single debt Gurdjieff owed to any existing system". The teachings Gurdjieff developed based on this knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism in turn had a profound influence on Keith Jarrett. (There's also speculation that Vajrayana Buddhism influenced the construction of Borobudur, a place that's long been a source of fascination for me, but whose story will have to wait for another time.)

There's something very satisfying about finding connections like these. But do these connections really mean anything, or are they illusions that we cling to because they reassure us that there's a semblance of structure in the chaotic world around us? One evening in the French city of Avignon, Keiko and I stopped outside an Indian restaurant to look at the menu. The Indian proprietor came out and starting chatting to us. On hearing that I was from New Zealand and Keiko from Japan, he said, "Ah, Japan, India and New Zealand form a triangle!" I laughed. "Yes, but any three countries would form a triangle." Then we went into the restaurant.

A tale of two festivals

I was just starting to get mildly enthusiastic about April's New Zealand International Jazz and Blues Festival (which despite the grandiose title is very much a local Christchurch event), mainly due to the participation of Mike Nock, a much-underrated New Zealand jazz pianist whose illustrious career stretches back to the 1960s, when he took over from a young Keith Jarrett as the pianist in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and who also led a seminal fusion group called The Fourth Way (is that a Gurdjieff connection?). But I've just seen the programme for March's Wellington Jazz Festival, which despite its far more modest title boasts a lineup that puts the Christchurch event to shame.

How's this for a weekend of fine jazz? Friday night: Mingus Big Band. Saturday night: Tomasz Stańko Quartet. Sunday night: Brad Mehldau Trio. And they've got Mike Nock too, playing in a concert with classical pianist Michael Houstoun. The only slightly disappointing thing about the programme is the description of Stańko as "the Polish Miles Davis". That's about as meaningless as describing Beethoven as "the German Mozart". Still, it's not as bad as the description of Keith Jarrett as "a classical Billy Joel" in this unenlightened review of Jarrett's latest triumph at Carnegie Hall. That's just wrong! The guy doesn't deserve to be at a Keith Jarrett concert. He should have given the ticket to me. And paid for my airfare to New York.

Naked ramblers face Swiss fines

A local Swiss government plans to take action against a sudden and apparently unwelcome phenomenon - naked hikers.

For the rest of the story, head over to the BBC News website.