(Originaly written May 25, 2007)
Today, Tochigi took down its last koi nobori, the carp-shaped flags flown in Japan to celebrate Boy's Day. Tochigi goes all out for the event and some of the biggest koi nobori I have ever seen in Japan are flown here every year in front of the festival float museum in the center of town. They are huge and span the courtyard, making for quite a sight on a windy day. Smaller carp flags are also hung up above the length of the Uzuma River that flows through town-- and it is so breathtaking to see them "swimming" in the famous May winds.
In April, we put out Adonis' carp flags. It's one of my favorite customs, a custom that unfortunately is dwindling out for families. Nowadays, very few families fly the flags anymore-- preferring instead the indoor displays of samurai helmets (think darth vader) and boy's day dolls.
The origins of the tradition-- like so many others in Japan-- goes back to ancient Chinese culture. In China, May 5 is known as the Duanwu Festival (which is written using the same characters as the Japanese tango no sekku 端午節). So, we know that both the custom of marking the 5th day of the 5th month, as well as the word itself arrived in Japan from China-- very long ago. However, in China, the "Double Fifth" festival it is celebrated in a much different way-- as the day is not connected to children or boys at all, as it is in Japan.
Most people recall the great scholar Qu Yuan ( 屈原; ca. 340 BC - 278 BC) of the Warring States Period. This great poet, scholar and Minister of the ancient State of Chu (楚) is famous for two things. Known as the "father of Chinese poetry", he compiled a great anthology of ancient poetry and songs (often compared to Japan's Manyoshu), known as Chu Ci (or Songs of Chu),
The other act for which he is known and which is still appreciated today, was his suicide, committed in protest of the corruption of the government. Qu qas deepely revered by the people of Chu for his honesty, integrity and wisdom in the face of corruption and personal slander, and when his body was found floating in a river, the local village people were greatly distressed. After trying in vain to save him, they vigilantly tried to keep his body from being eaten by fish or taken by a river monster or dragon by beating loudly on drums and throwing sticky rice wrapped in leaves into the river to divert any hungry creatures in the river.
Give or take 2000 years, this act of the villagers is still be celebrated by the Chinese community around the world in the form of the Dragon Boat Festival. From China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea to Boston and Vancouver and San Francisco, on May 5th (or according to the modern calendar in early June), the Chinese race dragon boats along the river to the sound of thunderous drums. We have a man who believed so strongly in political integrity and scholarship that he would give his life for his beliefs, and we have a village who worked together to ensure his body had a peaceful end.
The legend of Qu Yuan is remembered down to today without much variation from places as faraway as Singapore and Korea to Boston and Vancouver.
Why, then, was it so altered in Japan? And what has an ancient scholar born 300 years before Christ and 2000 years of dragon boats have to do with Japan's koi nobori?
It needs to be repeated that Japan has a very unique place in the history of the ancient world. The Land of the Rising Sun has long existed at the terminus of the Great Silk Road, where the music, customs, religions, and art from ancient Rome through the great Buddhist Kingdoms of Central Asia from Tashkent to Kashmir and Dunhuang, and of course China-- almost everything somehow made its way to Japan. And, there, because of the unique character of the Japanese, was carefully preserved. Indeed even today when one wants to study the cultures of those kingdoms long since lost, one must come to Japan. From Tibetan religious symbols and mantras to the ancient music and dances of Central Asia, really one of the few places they can be studied is in Japan, where they have been preserved, protected and admired down to today.
However, because Japan was almost completely isolated for most of its history, cultural details were blended together or altared in unique ways.
In ancient China-- much as in ancient Rome, May was the unlucky month (our Western custom of June weddings harkens back to this ancient Roman custom of never marrying in May.) In China, the reasons are too complicated to go into here, but suffice to say that May was one of the most dangerous times of the year-- according to various forces of astrology and yin-yang philosophy. May fifth, because it was a double 5, was thought to be particularly potent so from Han dynasty times onward, people will take to the hills to gather medicinal herbs and picnic outdoors.
Plants and herbs thought to ward against evil (like garlic against vampires) played a central stage and dolls and tigers were made out of yomogi plants (the mugwort) and Iris flowers were floated in rice wine and orchids floated in bathwater. For at least 2000 years, yomogi and iris in particular have played a central role in warding off disease and evil during the month of May.
This custom traveled to Japan where it became customary at court and among the aristocracy for a 1000 years or more to hang mesh bags full of yomogi and iris under the eaves of houses as well as placed under one's pillow at night. The bags, put out in May were left there all the way till the Double Nine in September (when they were replaced by chrysanthemum flowers). You still see this in Kyoto's Gion festival-- well, most people still take an Iris leaf bath with their boys too around the fifth of May.
In Japan, because these customs were celebrated alongside of native agricultural customs that centered on the worship of female rice gods, in the beginning May 5th was a female dominant holiday. During the Medieval period with the rise of the Samurai ruling class, the festival was completely transformed into one more in line with samurai values.
Because the word for Iris (shobu 菖蒲) is a homonym with the word for "martial" (shobu 尚武) the samurai adoted that flower as well to be a symbol for the newly-transformed holiday.
Obviously the transformation is not decided by committee. Who knows how these things happen. But the agricultural religious practices of ancient times were amalgamated with the martial philosophy of the samurai to become what we now know as Boys Day. The health and prosperity of boy's were prayed for with the display of very martial decorations (samurai swords, hemlets, and arrows, along with dolls of famous fighters like K's Benkei and Momotaro!) Even the leaves of the iris were likened to arrows.
It wasn't until the Edo period that koi nobori came into the picture. At last, I arrive at where I was going!
Why are carp the ultimate symbol in Japan for boys (and masculinity), the martial spirit and of overcoming obstacles standing in the way of success?
Well, again going back to China. In ancient Chinese mythology there was a place known as Dragon's Gate. Dragon's Gate existed at the top of a towering waterfall. It was said that all kinds of river creatures mingled at the base of the Falls, but it was only the carp alone that was able to climb up the waterfall to reach Dragons Gate and be turned into a dragon. Because of the fish's great strength as well as its association with overcoming obstacles, the carp has remained a great symbol of virility and success in life.
In Buddhism the carp are seen as a symbol of overcoming traps that stand in the way of enlightenment. In the words of the Great 11th century Buddhist teacher Nichiren:
In China there is a waterfall called the Dragon Gate. Its waters plunge a hundred feet, more swiftly than an arrow shot by a strong archer. It is said that thousands of carp gather in the basin below, hoping to climb the falls, and that any which succeed will turn into a dragon. However, not a single carp out of a hundred, a thousand or even ten thousand can climb the falls, not even after ten or twenty years. Some are swept away by the strong currents, some fall prey to eagles, hawks, kites and owls, and others are netted, scooped up, or even shot with arrows by fishermen who line either bank of the wide falls. Such is the difficulty of a carp becoming a dragon.
Life is hard. The Buddhists are always overly pessimistic, though. I embrace the image in the non-Buddhist, more popular way; in that, to me, the life truly worth living is the one where one has a goal (dragons gate) and where-- one will at least try to overcome the many obstacles that will without fail appear to stand in the way (for what is a goal without obstacles?) That is life. Keep your eye on the ball and don't give up too easily because just as the determined carp can SWIM UP A WATERFALL-- so too can we humans attain a life truly worth living.
A life worth living-- what does that even mean?So often, I go on and on about the need to study to K. That is because that has always been my way. Books, writing, thinking and travel. That has been my watery path to dragons gate. For K, the goal and path may be very different.
I am a huge fan of Ken Noguchi, the great Japanese mountaineer. A school dropout, he went on to truly climb the great waterfalls of the world! After having attained the great Seven Summits by the time he was in his mid-twenties, he went on to become one of Japan's most out-spoken environmentalists and activits. He does truly great work. After climbing Everest only to discover a mountain of garbage at the top-- and then (insult upon insults) to learn that a great part of that trash was left there by Japanese climbers. This inspired him to devote his life to environmental protection and activism. My favorite story of him is the one Makoto loves to recount.
On the top of Mount Fuji, in the unbelievable trash pile up there, he found trash left by the prime minister of the time. What did he do? Something quite un-Japanese and in-your-face. He sent the trash back to the prime minister with the note, "I think you forgot this."
Of all the lives worth living we could talk about, the one with some sense of purpose (passion), I believe is the one truly worth aiming at. Whether you achieve your goal or not, and even whether it uplifts those around you are secondary concerns, I think.
Just to be able to see dragon gate-- even blinded by mist from the bottom of the falls-- isn't that the goal?
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