The Heian games, or what then shall we do?

February 28, 2007 in Uncategorized
Tags: Blogging, Culture, Japan

The Heian cultural games and how they are relevant to our own pursuit of intellectual companionship on the web.

To me, you have been the best thing about blogging: you, with your similar cast of mind, you whom I have been able to meet thanks to this clunky medium. It makes meetings easy: we take a look at a few of stories on each other’s blogs, our profiles and we know instantly: here is someone we want to talk to. It’s a more effective method for selecting worthwhile friends than the usual method – trying to sift through the thousands of chance encounters at work or parties. The blogosphere lives up to its one promise: it does help us find each other.

But there is, I hear it from many, a dissatisfaction: this isn’t enough. One wants more than this. As Conrad wrote to me recently:

I want a Republic of Letters. Not so much a movement. More a society. I guess the germ of my thought was, there are all these intellectual types all over the world–some might be writers or artists, others scholars, and others even accountants or concrete engineers–but they all like thinking and reading–maybe they all have a dry sense of humour, somewhat cynical–but they don’t know too many like themselves. The Republic wouldn’t be polemical, and wouldn’t need a manifesto; it would be more like a Freemasonry, a society, a network. I communicate rather casually with several of my readers all over the world–NYC, Germany, Australia, Thailand, Mauritius, Sweden, the UK, etc. Well, wouldn’t it be great if we all knew each other, and could communicate within a formal (though not rigid) structure? Books could be put out, paid via subscription from all members. Dinner parties could be held, professional and personal help could be offered. The interpersonal connections would be not merely by chance, as is the case with most friendships, but through adherence to certain common beliefs–though unlike in a movement or artists’ group, there would be no unified goals, no “head”, no one purpose. Membership could be by group (electoral) invitation, perhaps kept down to say 50.

We need more than just several dozen isolated blogs sprinkled with occasional comments, comments which rarely add up to conversations; plus, maybe, a little sporadic correspondence, in twos or threes. One wants a society, a salon, whatever you call it, a place where good posts can be made and read, yes, but where also interesting conversations can happen, where the posts add up to something, to a give and take, to a learning experience, yes, but also good camaraderie, genial social interaction.

Now, thanks to Ivan Morris’ The World of the Shining Prince, Court Life in Ancient Japan, a sort of background to Lady Murasaki’s Tale of Genji (Japan’s oldest novel and perhaps it’s greatest classic), I have entered a world in which people had that sort of society. It makes me green with envy and sigh with longing.

Here are some of the more memorable quotes from the Morris book regarding the Heian cultural games.

1

The high culture of Heian was admittedly the preserve of a very small number of people. In this respect tenth-century Japan is hardly exceptional among aristocratic societies. What makes Murasaki’s world so unusual is the way in which refined standards of cultural expression and performance had become generally accepted values among members of the ruling class. Artistic insensitivity damned a gentleman at the Heian court as fatally as did a reputation among the nobility of the West. Genji and his friends are all critics, and one of their pleasures is to engage in judgments (sadame). Sometimes (as when a group of young men meet in the palace on a rainy night) they will exchange critical observations about different types of women; but far more often the objects of their discussions are paintings, books, styles of musical performance. The women are not behindhand in this and the Pillow Book describes the ladies of Empress Sadako’s court engaged in heated judgments about books and picture scrolls.

That it was a small society was probably one key to its success. In small societies membership can be selected for suitability, controlled, and policed for interest and affability. Since everyone known everyone else, and since they are all friends, they can say to each other: nah, that’s boring. It is very light-handed policing, but it is policing all the same.

Further, curious fads are more easily embraced by a small group; and they in turn become part of the group definition: we engage in sadame, they don’t. We talk about Thomas Nashe, they don’t. The mechanism eggs members on to ever further departures from the dreariness of ordinary life. The group takes on a different kind of life, a separate reality.

In Heian Japan, that separate reality – the aesthetic games people played – gradually spilled into the public sphere, converting the whole state into an adjunct of the game:

The rampant aestheticism of the period extended even to the day-to-day activities of the government, in which the officials were expected to perform stylized dances as part of their duties.

There is a suggestion for our own public life in there somewhere (I’d like to see stylized ritual dances at the next WTO meeting, or a paper on Thomas Nashe presented), but the more significant point is that a good cultural game can change our world.

2

That judgments could be a central part of social interaction is perhaps one of the greatest differences between now and then.

Today we all accept the dictum that de gustibus etc. But that rule applies to large gatherings of strangers, not small intimate societies of friends. Because friends, in twos and threes, talk of little else but the things they like. And for excellent reasons: first, to learn about each other (that he likes tulips, say, tells us something about him, but also tells us to get him a tulip on his birthday); second, to learn about new kinds of things we could enjoy if we tried, to widen our own pleasures; third, to have something engaging to talk about with our friends, to draw them closer together. Conversations about likes and dislikes bring people together in ways in which the discussions of the latest round of trade-talks do not. Likes and dislikes, also known as hobbies and passions, connect us.

Few such discussions can emerge on internet, which is simply too public a medium for intimate exchange of this sort. There are all sorts out there. You see, a smaller group is needed.

3

One important thing about discussions as games is that they have to be engaging, even heated, but light; they must be fun; polished and learned, yes, but not serious.

In some ways the Heian attitude comes close to the Reinaissance ideal of sprezzatura, which disdained the musty and the academic, insisting that learning must be lightly, negligently worn; in this respect the Heian aristocrat may perhaps be compared to the European gentleman of another age, who knew his Latin and his Greek, was familiar with classical mythology, and could quote his Horace and Virgil, but who eschewed anything that smacked of the pedantic.

(…)

Sensibility also preceded profundity, aesthetic experience inevitably being more prized than abstract speculation.

I, for one, sin in this area more then the rest. This should give me a pause.

4

(A suitably long pause).

5

The issue, more broadly, is style.

Arthur Waley goes so far as to say that the real religion of Heian was the cult of calligraphy; and there is no doubt that most writers of the time have far more to say about people’s chirographic skill than about piety. A fine hand was probably the most important single mark of a ‘good person’, and it came close to being regarded as a moral virtue.

Calligraphy, I think, is here a symbol, or a model, for the style of conduct in small groups in general. A fine hand can stand for fine conversation: for saying things in an engaging, genial, and considerate manner, since the point is to say something interesting, yes, but above all, to please. It is more important to be pleasing than to be right.

This is especially important on internet. Modern English is laden with irony which, in written form, without the clues of facial expression and body language, and perhaps a glass of something in hand, often fails. But then again, within small groups, where everyone knows everyone else, this ceases to be a problem. Knowing each other, we can trust each other. We stop reading irony as offense because we know that it could not possibly be the latter.

I should borrow a page from the Heian art of letter-writing:

A great body of artistic convention accompanied the preparation and sending of a letter. First, it was necessary to choose paper of proper thickness, size, design, and color to suit the emotional mood that one wishes to suggest, as well as the season of the year and even the weather of a particular day. The calligraphy was, of course, at least as important as the actual message, and often the writer had to make numerous drafts with different brushes before producing the precise effect he wished. The nucleus of the text was usually a thirty-one syllable poem whose central image was some aspect of nature that delicately symbolized the occasion. Having finished his letter, the writer would carefully fold it in one of the accepted styles.

If I dress my thoughts with great care, my readers will get more pleasure from undressing them. For unless we expend a great deal of attention on style, how can we expect others to expend attention on consuming it? We must put thought and effort into our part of the business if we hope to get anything in return. And this goes for the conversation, too. A reply should be as well thought-out as the original topic. Yet, my comments on your blogs are usually hasty, careless and superficial.

Yet, interaction with friends can be a sort of ritual and rituals can be pleasing in their own right. When preparing lovingly a carefully crafted letter, we are not only guided by our recipient’s expected pleasure, the very act of preparing such a letter can be a pleasure in itself.

(And another thought: should I include a 31-syllable poem from now on in all my communications? Or can the pictures in my posts stand in for the poem?)

6

So, what games did they play?

Several parlor games called for verbal ingenuity and a knowledge of the classics. Nazo consisted in a series of conundrums posed by two opposing teams. In infutagi one of the players would cover a character in a Chinese poem, and the aim was to guess the hidden word from the context, the rhythm, and one’s own poetic erudition. There was a similar game in which one part of the character was covered while the contestants tried to guess the remainder.

A large category of games was known as comparisons (awase). At firs they had been mainly comparisons of things (mono-awase), such as flowers, roots, seashells, birds, and insects. The root-comparing contest (ne-awase), for example, was an ancient and rather formalized game played during the Iris Festival and the Firth Month. The guests were divided into two teams, left and right. Iris roots were submitted in pairs by members of each team, together with appropriate poems, and carefully compared for beauty, length, and rarity. Specially appointed judges decided which team had produced the finest roots, and prizes were awarded to the winning side. Like most Heian social occasions, this was accompanied by a good deal of music, wine, and amorous dalliance.

The other comparisons of things followed the same general pattern. Thus in a small-birds contest (kotori-awase) member of each team produced little song birds which they had raised at home; they were compared, two by two, in terms of plumage, color, and voice, and the side that had entered the greatest number of rare and beautiful birds received a prize.

Now, how’s that for a parlor game? This (minus the judges) is pretty much what we do already. Here is my beautiful, interesting, fascinating thing. What’s yours?

(And it needn’t be anything earth-shatteringly important. Iris roots will do).

In Murasaki’s time comparisons were increasingly devoted to products of art and craft, like fans, incense, paintings, and poems. Poetry contests (uta-awase), which had started in court circles in the ninth century, became popular during the tenth.

(…)

The topics were posted several weeks in advance, and even before the announcement the contestants had usually prepared verses on likely subjects – all of which must have removed some spontaneity from the proceedings. During the contest itself, the entries from each of the two sides were recited in pairs by official readers and recorded for posterity; the judge’s decision, and also the reasons for it were also sometimes recorded.

Well, it needn’t be poetry, either. It could perhaps be a Chinese painting or a Bronzino portrait or some obscure text. And it needn’t be our own. It could be a found object – an essay of Plutarch’s say, upon which one stumbled the way someone else may have upon a rare and beautiful iris root.

But, while light in garb, it does have to be of a certain type of content. There are groups and conversations we won’t join because of the topic. But you know that already: the reason why you are reading this is because we have already found our topics.

It goes back to the matter of taste: what some bloggers talk about interests us a lot more than what others do. A common taste for certain sorts of things, you see, is what binds us.

But I am repeating myself.

More interesting perhaps is to note the way these poetry contests were organized. The games didn’t just pick up out of the blue. Someone selected the topics first, then everyone else joined in. In the salon of Mme Arman that person was Anatole France. Monsieur, Mme Arman would say, what can you tell us about today? He then told them about his newest cultural enthusiasm (“my adventures”, he called it), and everyone went from there. There needs to be a structure, however informal. A judge, a moderator, a deadline. Things do not just happen – or they do rarely. A guiding hand is needed.

7

A somewhat less formal type of poetry contest was the ensho-awase, in which the contestants were divided into two teams, which men on one side and women on the other. Each player would recite a love poem to a member of the opposing team, who was then expected to produce a prompt reply using the same mood and imagery. As a rule, the sentiments were conventional and not intended to be taken seriously.

Well, doesn’t this sound like great fun?

Yet, it’s hard to do these days, as the art of the flirt (or pretend love-making) all too often turns out to be the real thing. But one can toy with romance without meaning to seduce: they knew how to do it then, ergo, there must be a way today. (And in any case, seduction works best when it is not too seriously intended).

But I really want to speak more broadly. As with flirtation, so with everything else: the games – the conversations – needn’t serve a purpose, an end. They are the end in themselves. Because we make best friendships when we are not trying to; but join together in some abstract practice, like a game.

8

One feature of Heian games appears both especially desirable and especially lacking. It is illustrated by the following game:

The most popular outdoor pastime for Heian gentlemen was a form of football known as kemari. The players arranged themselves in a circle and kicked a leather ball among each other, the aim being to prevent it from touching the ground. The Scrolls of Yearly Observances show a group of noblemen playing kemari under a roof of cherry blossoms. They are dressed in elaborate court robes of blue and silk, and their black lacquered bonnets perch precariously on the back of their heads; two of the gentlemen carry fans. There is a look of great concentration on their white, round faces, but their movements appear to be slow and graceful. Kemari tended to become art rather than a casual game, and some practitioners attained a high degree of skill. The chronicles record that in 905 when a group of young noblemen played kemari in the presence of the emperor, they passed the ball two hundred and sixty times without letting it touch the ground, which we can safely take to be an all-time record.

This, like all of the games above, is a special kind of cooperative game: a game in which all players play on the same team (even if there are notionally two teams), whose common goal is to keep the game going.

And conversations are of course just that sort of game.

This is perhaps the single biggest problem with blogosphere interactions: they are hard to sustain. Comments rarely turn into conversations; a good exchange (if you find one) rarely lasts more than three messages, four tops.

Why? Are we too busy? Are there too many blogs to go to each day? Do they load too slowly?

Or are the comments too hasty? Few have the time to think for several days about a reply before replying. And if they do, well, they find, the conversation has died out, everyone is talking about something else, somewhere else.

And what about that signing-in business, and the word-verification code which one has to type in before his comment is accepted, and which dyslexics (like me) have to type in several times before they get it right? (I have given up more than once).

It’s just too hard to keep up for us and our interlocutors. For how often have we surfed back to somewhere where we have left a carefully crafted comment only to discover that it had not yet earned a thoughtful reply? Technology can be as much disabling as it is enabling.

Conversations, we sometimes assume, are things that just happen because that seems to be the way they unfold in real life. But this is not the case: they are made; and we can never get more out of them than we ourselves are prepared to put into them. If someone suggests a topic, it is our job to play it. Ah, for a technology which would make it easier to do!

9

Like Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano, men like Genji and Niou, with their profound sensibility, their wide connoisseurship of the arts, and their skill in performance, were the ideals of a class and an age.

Yes, but it is such a pretty ideal, we can all understand it from a thousand years away. And, in fact, we already strive for it, but in doing so labor individually, in isolation. How nice it would be to do it as a group effort and to get some really good conversations going. Don’t you think?

So, dear friends, shall we get out our papers, brushes, and ink, don our lacquered paper hats and your silken robes, a fan at the ready, and – go at it? And how?