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Sunday, February 11, 2007
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Pleasing Things - How am I like a lady-in-waiting from ancient Japan?
It's exciting to think about what people were like in different cultures in the past. Are they like me? Did they have goals and motivations and dreams that I would understand? If some rift in time tossed us together how would we get a long? In a way, books our are rift in time. I recently traveled back in time when reading The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon. Sei Shonagon was a lady-in-waiting for a 11th century Japanese empress and she wrote a book about her life in court.
In her time writing a book was rare for a woman. It's even rarer for the book to survive, so people must love it or it would have long ago crumbled into dust. What's do readers find so enchanting? Sei Shonagon chronicles how completely poetry was integrated into elite culture, the vast separation between elites and commoners, the vast difference in roles of women and men in her time, the political structure of the court, the passing of seasons, the cycles of religious observance, and the ever tangled web of humans just trying to get along.
It's hard to imagine a more different life between hers and mine. Both products of our times, I found myself continually recoiling at how effortlessly she dismissed anyone of a lower class than her, be they ugly, or poor, or just oafish. Yet there was an envious amount of beauty in her time as well. They would take walks at night to enjoy the moon. The would make snow piles in the winter and watch them melt as the seasons changed. They would compose a poem on the spot to make more remarkable any occasion. They would have poetry contests. A common game was to give a line of an old poem and see who could remember it. Far different than surrendering to must see TV.
They also had an amazing form of 11th century instant messaging. A network of pages would take letters, deliver them quickly and bring back a reply. The receiver would often be expected to compose a poem on the spot. You would be judged by the quality of your reply. These poems would be shared in the court and gossiped about by all. Sei Shonagon excelled at this game because she was a master poet and quick wit. The messages would fly around the court and between houses, linking everyone together much like email and instant messaging do today.
As different as we are, there were many passages in her book that crossed the gulf of time and connected with me. One such section is called Pleasing Things, which is where she describes what she finds pleasing:
- Finding a large number of tales that one has not read before.
- Acquiring the second volume of a tale whose first volume one has enjoyed. But often it is a disappointment.
- Someone has torn up a letter and thrown it away. Picking up the pieces, one finds that many of them can be fitted together.
- One has had an upsetting dream and wonders what it can mean. In great anxiety on consults a dream-interpreter, who informs one that it has no special significance.
- A person who is very dear to one has fallen ill. One is miserably worried about him even if he lives in the capital and far more so if he is in some remote part of the country. What a pleasure to be told that he has recovered!
- I am most pleased when I hear someone I love being praised or being mentioned approvingly by an important person.
- A poem with whom one is not especially intimate refers to an old poem or story that is unfamiliar. Then one hears it being mentioned by someone else and has the pleasure of recognizing it. Still later, when one comes across it ina book, one tihngs, 'Ah, this is it!' and feels delighted with the person who fist brought it up.
- I look for an object that I need at once, and I find it. What a joy!
- When one is competing in an object match (it does not matter which kind), how can one help being pleased at winning?
- I realize that it is sinful of me, but I cannot help being pleased when someone I dislike has a bad experience.
- I am more pleased when something nice happens to a person I love than when it happens to myself.
- I greatly enjoy taking in someone who is pleased with himself and who has a self-confident look, especially if he is a man. It is amusing to observe him as he alertly waits for my repartee; but it is also interesting if he tries to put me off my guard by adopting an air of calm indifference as if there were not a thought in his head.
- Entering the Empress's room and finding that the ladies-in-waiting are crowded around her in a tight group, I go next to a pillar which is some distance from where she is sitting. What a delight it is when Her Majesty summmons me to her side so that all the others have to make way!
When I read this list I can't help but a get a big warm smile on my face. What she finds pleasing I too would enjoy. It doesn't mean we are the same, but I think we could comfortably sit down, drink some tea, and talk about poetry and life for while. Assuming I was of the right class and rank of course!
10:21:12 AM 
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© Copyright
2007
todd hoff.
Last update:
3/20/2007; 12:46:23 PM.
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