CHUSHINGURA CONTINUED

The story of the 47 ronin was re-enacted all over Japan yesterday; everybody wanted a piece of that nobility. In Edo (Tokyo), where the major events took place, in Ako (Hyogo Prefecture) where Asano and his samurai came from, in Yamashina where Ooishi lived during the year of planning, in Kyoto where he and others hung out in apparent dissolution, and anywhere else in Japan where the social medicine of this legend of loyalty and honor could serve to strengthen the body public.

At Sengakuji, just a spear's throw from where I used to live in Tokyo, all the relatives of the 47 ronin came as they do every year to burn incense and bask in the spirit of their ancestors. As one tv commentator pointed out, in terms of their times these ronin were criminals and seriously violated all sorts of laws, from murder to forced entry, but now they are heroes to a hero-needing nation, as it turns to this tale of 'criminals' for strength.

And what an incredible tale it is. It was all traced out in Yamashina yesterday, starting with Asano's injurious attack on the cruel and overbearing Kira in the Edo Palace. For this transgression of etiquette, Asano was ordered to commit seppuku (ritual suicide).

Ooishi and the dishonored ronin then began plotting to avenge their lord. Their fortitude, integrity and willingness to forsake everything to restore their honor, a quality distinctly lacking in the leaders of today, made this event all the more poignant and meaningful to a public whose leaders seem to be more like Kira than Asano.

But it was strange to a westerner like me to see, at Ooishi jinja in Yamashina (where Ooishi had lived and prayed and where yesterday's samurai parade ended), all the demure ladies in kimono dancing their delicate and sensual steps around the bloody cloth, slung from a spear, that held the 'head' of Kira.

CHUSHINGURA

Today is the 300th anniversary of perhaps the most famous folkloric event in Japanese history, as depicted in the great Kabuki play Chushingura and countless movies. December 14, 1702 was the day of the Uchi-iri (break-in), when in the icy hours before dawn Ooishi and his fellow samurai broke into the home of the cruel Kira and avenged the death of their master Asano. For a year previously, Ooishi and many of his followers had lived apparently dissolute lives and been mocked for their faithlessness; Ooishi had renounced his wife and children and lived with a mistress, frequented the pleasure quarters of Gion in Kyoto and carefully acquired a reputation for weakness and loss of integrity. During this time he lived in what is now Oishijinja in the small town of Yamashina just over the mountains from Kyoto (the famous road from Yamashina to Kyoto was the forest "road" in the movie Rashomon). (Just saw the gray-haired eldest descendant of Ooishi on tv, wearing a plaid shirt, looking quite elderly handsome). We are off now to Yamashina, to take part in the hours-long celebrations. More later...