Lecture for Shizuko's Daughter

In previous semesters we've had folks bring up some notes as well about Yuki's friendship with Sachiko and why she idolizes her. One point that came up was a question about whether or not Yuki was attracted to Sachiko. When I first read this book I too paused over their relationship and wondered if there was anything romantic in terms of how Yuki views Sachiko; later I dismissed that reading and instead just saw Yuki looking up to Sachiko as someone she could respect and even idolize at first. While we can't say for sure whether or not Mori intended this question to come up, we do see at the end of the book Yuki's romantic relationship with Isamu. Some of you may have noticed a trend in adolescent literature about younger teens, particularly females, idolizing a slightly older person of their same gender. (We see this with Elva from Barefoot Heart as well.) This is common for many teems and is likely something many of us have experienced at some point. Last fall one of my students, Marissa, brought up an interesting discussion point when she talked about how perhaps Yuki sees Sachiko as someone she could have become had her mother not died. Marissa talked about scenes where Yuki notices Sachiko's long hair and her warm slightly sarcastic relationship with her mother. We of course instantly flash back to Yuki's mother fixing her hair and creating all of the clothes for Yuki. This is an important parallel to notice and a very perceptive point.

Another main theme we have been discussing is the necessity of "saving face” in Japanese culture. Many articles tell us about how the culture revolves around the male figurehead of the family and there is the implication that they rule over their wives. Yet with Yuki's father, Hideki, we read in him a real sense of powerlessness. He struggles with how to connect with Yuki and seems completely unable to please either his daughter or his second wife. So many of you have a great conversations taking about the power that Hanae has over her husband and why he fears her. It is a unique and unexpected gender dynamic that we see developing in Shizuko's Daughter here. 

Some Huge Generalizations about Infidelity in Japan

I noticed that many students feel little sympathy for Hanae, so I want to comment on that. I would like to preface this by pointing out that we all judge others based on our own cultural norms, and often we are oblivious to the fact that other cultures have different values that ours. For example, looking (not that far back) much of our country was horrified with the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal because their behavior was different from what we had been taught was right. While we were shocked and horrified as a country, people from many other industrialized countries were amused and they wondered why these events were even news-worthy.  "Big deal!" was their response.  It's natural to judge the values of other cultures when they are so different from our own, but I'd like to ask you when you are reading the following to try thinking "They are not inherently wrong. They are just different." I know this can be hard and certainly there are values that we hold that feel right to us no matter what. In our readings though let's simply try opening our minds a little to different cultural norms and expectations. We do not have to agree with them, but we should consider the context or the climate of a culture's norms when we analyze how our characters are reacting to those standards and attitudes.

The following are thoughts shared by another professor of this course, who lived and taught in Japan for a number of years. Take it with a grain of salt:

Perhaps like anywhere, Japanese family culture is different in the countryside than in the city. Fathers of families who live outside of cities tend to be home more and have closer relationships with their children. In the city, "salaryman" (business man) culture keeps men at work late (they usually can't leave until after their bosses leave) and requires them to go drinking with their co-workers and clients regularly if they want to be successful. It is not unusual for Japanese men to come home very late at night. In fact, it is a disgrace for a businessman to come home early because it means that he is not successful at work; nobody invited him out! I know of a man who lost his job in Tokyo and got dressed and headed out as though he was going to work every day. He came home early, but still his wife would bang pots and pans in the kitchen at around 11:30 pm so the neighbors would think he had just returned home. Homes in Tokyo are very close to each other, so yes, you can hear what is going on at the neighbor's place. "Saving face" is very important in Japan.

Because city men don't spend much time at home, they sometimes don't build strong relationships with their children. In many cases, the wife (who usually sleeps with the children instead of her husband) and children are a unit and it's them against him. In this way, Shizuko's close relationship with Yuki was not unusual. Also, it was not unusual for Hideki to take a mistress. Secretaries are almost always single (they're called "OLs" - Office Ladies) and it is not unusual for their loyalties to their bosses to extend beyond the office. You could even say that in some cases it is expected.  In other words, infidelity just happens.

"Omiai," or arranged marriages are still common in Japan. It is said, and I've heard it more than once from Japanese men, that once a Japanese wife has had her children, she has no use for her husband other than financially. (Some American men would say the same thing, I'm sure.) Because the marriage starts out as a business agreement rather than a "love match" (and sometimes never becomes a "love match"), many Japanese wives aren't bothered about their husbands relationships with other women. Because divorce is not common, the "other woman" isn't a threat. To sum up, extramarital affairs among city men are often tolerated. I don't think it is the same in the country

So, the relationship (or lack thereof) between Hideki and Hanae wasn't that unusual for their culture.  And I might add, it's not just the Japanese who are behaving this way.  I saw the most straight-laced church-going American men succumb to these values and have office romances while they were living in Japan.  To them, after a period of time in Japan, it seemed acceptable.   And that's not all -- I saw more than one American couple divorce during their tenure in Japan simply because the husband assimilated too well into the target culture. (Their wives didn't assimilate so well!)

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Abandonment and Dysfunctional Parents in Young Adult Literature

One thing that I'd like to discuss is how we certainly do not want to generalize and assume that the books we read about a particular culture reflect all those within the culture. That would be unfair. Actually, it is not uncommon for books about teens and for teens, no matter what the culture, to show some parents in a rather unfavorable light. The parents might abandon the children either emotionally or physically. This of course allows the adolescent to venture out on his own to find himself or herself. There have been a number of articles written about this, but one of the most interesting is found in ALAN Review (Spring 1997). The title of the article is "Finding Your Way Home: Orphan Stories in Young Adult Literature" by Dirk Mattson.  http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/spring97/s97-17-Mattson.html

At the time the article was written, Mattson was a Junior High School English Teacher working on his doctorate in English Education at ASU, so he was certainly familiar with what young people are reading. Mattson reviewed 3 different kinds of stories where young adults are either physically or emotionally abandoned, and outlined an archetypal story framework with several stages.

1. Losing the parent

2. Establishing the orphan

3. Confronting the enemy

4. Finding a seeming peace

5. Providing help to another

6. Rejecting one life for another

Although Yuki in Shizuko's Daughter may not fit all these stages, she seems to fit several of them. Isn't that interesting?  

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If you are interested in young adolescent lit:

Here's a listing of recent acquisitions in Children's and YA Literature at Osterlin Library, NMC.

The visual imagery that Mori employs is similar to another adolescent lit writer An Na. If you enjoyed Mori's book take a look at An Na's book, A Step From Heaven. In both of their metaphors and similes, nature was a main component. Both are very visual with appeals to all the senses. The sea is a reference point, as well as grass and flowers to both authors. Successfully, both authors invite the reader to join the scene, to see the view, and smell the scents. A few of the passages that came alive to me are below.

Both An Na and Mori use nature and appeals to the senses for imagery in their writing.  Metaphors and similes are common to both, too.  We see water and the sea as a reference point, as well as grass and flowers in both books.

As a past student noted, "Successfully, both authors invite the reader to join the scene, to see the view, and smell the scents."   Below are some quotes illustrating some of the above ideas:

"The priest's black robe ballooned around him and made him look like a buoy riding on the sea” (12).

"The large sleeves spread out like the wings of a huge bird” (18).

"She could almost smell the wisteria blossoms on the other side of the temple buildings, in the arbors near the pond. The breezes of May would carry their scent all the way to the temple gate” (25).

"The rain was coming down with enough force to shatter the fragile cups of flowers. The bruised petals would scatter over the asphalt walkways” (29).

"Yuki tried to imagine the large purple irises rising up on the long spikes like flames on candles, hundreds of them coming up from the wet ground. She thought of jumping over their purple fire” (40).

". . . her legs sailing like a pair of graceful arcs” (45).

"Packed in plastic bags with air holes, the flowers reminded Masa of butterflies in a jar, their colors faded as thought they had turned into bits of paper” (73).

Interpretation of the scene where Yuki and Hanae get ready for the wedding: