The First European Description of Japan, 1585 (62 page)

42. Our sacks for wheat and barley are made of cloth; in Japan they are made of straw
.

Sackcloth in Europe was largely made from hemp, flax, cotton and, to a lesser extent, goat hair; the latter material was made into undergarments that were irritating and unpleasant and thus favored by penitents who sought to mortify their flesh. In Japan, nobody grew hay for sacks. Rice straw, wheat straw, etc. all are “hay” and all kindly helped to carry themselves to market.

43. When we warm our hands, we turn the palm of the hand toward the fire; the Japanese turn the back of the hand to the fire
.

In
Chapter 1
(
#45
) Frois pointed out that Europeans were reluctant to bare so much as a leg when warming themselves, while the Japanese did not hesitate to expose their entire posteriors to a fire. Backside, back of the hands—perhaps this “backward” approach to warming oneself is “real” and meaningful, but we are not sure about either.

44. Among us, when one delivers a long message, the messenger is either standing or kneeling; in Japan this is done with both knees on the ground and almost prone, with one hand on the mat and the sleeve rolled up on that arm, and with the other hand lightly rubbing the exposed arm
.

It is still common practice in Europe for commoners and lesser nobility to kneel before a religious or secular authority such as a bishop or king.

The fly-like rubbing mentioned here by Frois with respect to the Japanese may be a custom borrowed from the Chinese. While in China Cruz observed, “The common courtesy is, the left hand closed, they enclose it within the right hand, and they move both hands repeatedly up and down towards the breast, showing that they have one another enclosed in their heart.”
⁸³
In Japan, only the merchant—the most Chinese trade—seems to have done a lot of this rubbing. And in Japan, it is not a point of etiquette that most Japanese seem able to explain, as with the Chinese and their heart metaphor. Like the practice of hissing between the teeth still found among old Japanese men, it would, rather, seem to be a way of showing that one is as tense as one should be in a formal situation, facing one's superior. As we have seen, the Japanese seem to feel, however unconsciously, that being tense is the most important element of being respectful.

45. Among us, when men are speaking, they stand up straight with one foot in front of the other; in Japan, when two men talk, the inferior must have his feet together, his arms crossed at the waist, his body bent forward and, depending on what the other is saying, he must make little reverences like women do in Europe
.

There are actually two contrasts here, one of which has to do with the relative importance of body language in Japan as compared with Europe. In the West,
an inferior need not advertise subordination so much with body language; in most parts of sixteenth century Europe there were sartorial codes; what you wore, including your hair, signaled your place in society. The other of Frois' contrasts reflects a Western tendency to speak in monologues, while the Japanese mostly converse in bite-sized chunks of sentence, punctuated by the listener's “yeahs” and grunts, each of which is accompanied by a bob of the head and a slight bow (more emphatic on the part of the inferior). If the listening party forgets to, or does not know enough to grunt, the Japanese speaker stops talking.

46. Among us, we use a different towel for cleaning the face than the one we use for the feet; when the Japanese bathe, they use the same towel for everything
.

Marques notes that wills from sixteenth-century Portugal testify to the fact that people of means made daily use of napkins and towels, some “for wiping the hands” and others “for wiping the mouth.”
⁸⁴
A separate towel for the feet, as Frois indicates, might make sense given that the majority of homes in sixteenth century Portugal had floors of beaten earth. By contrast, the floors in Japanese homes consisted of mats or
tatami
.

47. We clear our noses with the thumb or index finger; because they have small nostrils, they use their little finger
.

Frois must have liked this contrast, as he used it earlier (
Chapter 1
,
#4
). It is doubtful that nostril size was the main reason the Japanese used the “pinky” finger. Because the Japanese already used their pinky for cleaning their ears, it perhaps made sense to use the same digit for cleaning the nose. And speaking of ears, we might mention that the Japanese have tiny wooden scoops, which mothers and wives often use to remove wax from the ears of their children and husbands, respectively.

48. We carry out formal courtesies with a calm and serious face; the Japanese always, and without fail, do so with their little artificial smiles
.

This is essentially a repetition of
#35
above. As we have seen, Europeans in the sixteenth century—and perhaps more precisely, the expanding business class that sought the privileges of the hereditary aristocracy—were preoccupied with what Greenblatt has called “Renaissance self-fashioning.” The Jesuits, in particular, became champions of self-fashioning; moderation and composure were central to the “rules of civility” taught in their schools throughout Catholic Europe.
⁸⁵

Arguably it is easier to hold a grin than to maintain a grave demeanor, so a “little artificial smile” is no stranger than feigned indifference. What is curious about Frois' characterization of the Japanese is that it is at odds with the stereotypical image of the Japanese from the nineteenth-century, who appear as glum-looking as your glummest Puritans.

49. We store our wine in tightly sealed barrels on boards up off the ground; the Japanese keep their wine in large-mouthed vessels with no lid, buried in the ground up to the rim
.

The bottom of the Mediterranean is littered with a seemingly endless supply of ceramic jars (
amphorae)
that were used by the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans to transport wine from one end of the Mediterranean to the other. The Romans are credited with discovering that wine stored in oak barrels often took on a delightful complexity and was a lot smoother. The Romans also were quick to realize that storing the oak barrels in caves, below ground (but up off the ground) kept the wine from spoiling too quickly.
⁸⁶
Note that storing wine in bottles with corks did not become widespread in Europe until the eighteenth century with the large-scale production of standardized glass bottles.

With respect to the Japanese side of this contrast, Frois seems to be describing what was at the time a centuries-old Japanese tradition of making “black” vinegar from sake. The vinegar was made by mixing brown rice sake with water and “seed vinegar” (vinegar from a previous batch) and then pouring it into large (378 liter) earthenware crocks that were buried partially in the ground. The top third of the jar was exposed and was warmed each day by sunlight, which itself was moderated by grass that was allowed to grow up between the jars.
Kuro-so
or “black vinegar” is still produced in this traditional way on the island of Kyushu,
⁸⁷
where Frois lived for years.

50. Our pelts are colored with dyes; the Japanese color theirs very well using only the smoke from burning straw
.

Tannins extracted from the boiled bark, leaves, and fruit of various plants and trees (e.g. oak, chestnut, walnut) were commonly used to dye animal pelts in Europe. According to Okada, one of the main “straws” used by the Japanese to dye pelts was pine needles.

51. Our cane is of little use, except for making distaffs for spinning; in Japan it [
bamboo
] is a delicacy added to their soup
⁸⁸
and is used for bows, arrow shafts, flooring, roofing, ladders, containers for oil, vessels for wine, woven mats, tea whisks, and many other things
.

A distaff was a simple stick or piece of cane about three feet long that held the unspun flax or wool fibers that were fed onto a spindle or spinning wheel. As Frois indicates, the Japanese found innumerable uses for their “cane” or bamboo. Only recently have Westerners begun to appreciate this largest member of the grass family (e.g. bamboo is now wildly popular as flooring).

52. Our gifts that are sent in little boxes have no string to keep them closed; in Japan they are tied with string or bound in paper, and in Ximo the containers are bound with women's sashes
.

Small wooden gift boxes, which were used to convey and protect such things as a prayer book, date back to the Middle Ages in Europe.
⁸⁹
Wrapping gifts with a
sash, as they apparently did in
Ximo
(western Kyushu), was and is an exceptional practice. But one thing is certain: The Japanese, who are famous for transforming a single sheet of paper into a work of art (
origami
), are the most avid wrappers on earth. To shop in Japan is to be amazed at the variety of packaging. Every culture has areas where creativity runs wild. In Japan gift-wrapping is one of those areas.
⁹⁰

53. We cool our foreheads with rosewater; the Japanese use a handful of wine
.

Marques notes that rosewater was very popular in Moslem lands during the thirteenth century and apparently was introduced to Portugal and Spain around this time.
⁹¹
Here as elsewhere Frois used the word “
vinho
” when referring to
sake
, which is made from fermented rice.
Sake
and rosewater (recall that the latter is made from distilled roses) both contain alcohol, which as it evaporates adds to the refreshing feel of a liquid applied to the skin.

54. Among us, when someone drinks a cup of water, we give them a spoonful of a confection or a slice of preserved fruit; in Japan when someone drinks rice wine, all one needs to give him is a single confection or something of similar size
.

Having a small piece of dried fruit or a spoonful of quince jelly with your cup of water no doubt took your mind off the fact that the water smelled, tasted terrible, and was likely to make you sick (as noted, Europeans drank a lot of low-alcohol wine and beer because the water was unsavory). In Japan, sake often is accompanied by salty tidbits, not sweet ones. In this contrast, however, Frois seems to be focusing not on sweet vs. salty but how Europeans drank what amounted to a sizeable cup of water (
púcaro
) with their “tasty bit,” while the Japanese had what amounted to only a sip of sake with their equally minimal food.

55. We in Europe show friendship by presenting a friend with a handful of roses; the Japanese give only a single rose or carnation
.
⁹²

Frois highlights a real difference in the two cultures. However, it is difficult to say whether the difference arises from different aesthetics (less is more, for the Japanese) or the simple absence of a tradition in Japan of cut flowers, other than those used for artistic creations, i.e.
ikebana
.

The vases which hang so gracefully on the polished posts each contain a single peony, a single iris, a single azalea, stalk, leaves and corolla, all displayed in their full beauty. Can anything be more grotesque than our “florist's bouquets,” a series of concentric rings of flowers of divers colours, bordered by maiden-hair and a piece of stiff lace paper in which stems, leaves, and even petals are
brutally crushed, and the grace and individuality of each flower systematically destroyed.
⁹³

Reading Isabella Bird's strong statement it is possible to suggest a symbolic explanation for the gift of a single flower—it suggests the person receiving it is likewise the only one in the giver's mind. There was one notable exception to the single flower versus bouquet contrast that Frois neglects to mention. Tree blossoms were presented by the branch. A finely shaped and considerably large-sized branch would be the best present.

56. We place a large amount of beijoim [
incense
] directly on the fire; the Japanese put a few pieces of águila [
agar wood incense
] the size of two or three kernels of wheat on a very thin plate of silver set upon hot coals
.

The benzoin and aquilaria trees of Southeast Asia produce a resinous sap and heartwood, respectively, which have been prized as incense for millennia by European and other civilizations. The Chinese characters for benzoin read “ease-breath-scent.” It was correspondingly nicknamed in English “friar's balsam” and used for respiratory ailments. Okada writes that the Japanese only used benzoin in combination with other aromatics, and more interestingly, that the idea was to hear—not just smell—the tiny kernel of scent, which was sometimes even smaller than a grain of rice. What Frois describes as a thin plate of silver was a Chinese invention or “tray” that was called a “silver leaf.” The profligacy of European perfuming was partly due to the fact that vast quantities were used to smoke out disease-causing “bad airs.” The Japanese only used that much smoke for mosquito smudge.

57. We are very free with our anger and have little control over our impatience; they are singularly in control of themselves and are very restrained and discreet
.

It is too bad that Frois did not say more about Japanese self-control and why Europeans seemed to boil over so quickly. There are parts of Japan where people fly off the handle quickly, as well as splendidly uptight parts of the West; but the contrast, on the whole, still holds. Even the Jesuits tended to be “immature” compared to the Japanese and Chinese, who judged maturity on the basis of one's self-control.

58. In Europe, if by some stroke of luck a married or single woman finds refuge in a gentleman's house, there she is protected and aided and kept safe; in Japan, if women seek refuge in the house of any lord, they lose their freedom and become his captives
.

The Council of Europe estimates that one-fifth to one-quarter of all European women have experienced physical violence at least once during their adult lives. Today between a third and half of all women in the United States can expect at some point in their lives to be victims of domestic violence. The situation may have been worse in early modern Europe.
⁹⁴
It was not uncommon for mothers and daughters to suffer at the hands of husbands and fathers, prompting the battered women to seek refuge in a monastery, church, or the household of what was
hoped was a sympathetic noble. It is comforting, but perhaps naïve, to believe that European nobles were mostly gentleman, as Frois suggests.
⁹⁵