Once Upon a Time in Japan. Japan Broadcasting Corporation NHK
Magical Hood” freeing the snake is taken as an act of mercy. It is the snake’s fate to be born a snake, and we should not expect it to act in any other way than a snake must act. We should not despise it, but treat it equally as we do other animals, including humans.
And as for the monkey in “The Monkey and the Crabs,” he may be crafty and wily, but that’s simply his nature. As someone born in the year of the monkey, I felt somewhat uncomfortable translating this story; but in the end the monkey is contrite, so I heaved a sigh of relief as I finished it.
Though I have emphasized the universal qualities underlying these folk tales, there is one thing very Japanese about them that I learned from what is now nearly 50 years’ contact with Japan and its people.
When you share a meal with other people, the last slice of sashimi is often left on the plate in the middle … or the last grapes or the last pieces of chocolate. People abstain from taking these because they do not wish to be seen as being selfish. Sharing by its nature involves compromise and sacrifice. Maintaining the harmony and good nature of the group is more important than satisfying any individuals. Selflessness is, perhaps, the finest Japanese quality.
This quality pervades these stories, and I think that this is the very thing that the world today is in need of more than anything else. Now is the time when we must not draw all of the resources to ourselves, but make sure that there is enough to go around for all humans and all other creatures on the planet.
Dear readers, you too may experience here the pleasures of first encounter with these wonderful stories. May the children reading them see their beauty and wisdom. And may the adults experience a sublime, if brief, second childhood together with them.
ROGER PULVERS, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, JUNE 2015
A Magic Key to Wonder and Reality
BY JULIET WINTERS CARPENTER
Once when I was a little girl of about ten, my birthday came when I was on a trip somewhere with my daddy. To my surprise and delight, he took me to a dime store and said I could pick out my own present—anything I wanted. (I suppose there was a price limit, but then again, dime stores weren’t exactly Tiffany’s.) I remember unhesitatingly selecting a big book of fairy tales and folklore. What may have happened to that book, and whether it had any Japanese tales in it, I’m not sure. But later on I came to love Japan’s mukashi banashi—“tales of long ago”—as much as any Western fairy tales, or more.
Why do children love fairy tales and folk tales? Perhaps because of their overwhelming strangeness, and at the same time their reassuring administering of justice. Folk tales are a magic key that opens doors of wonder and reality. While delighting in fantasy and whimsy, readers (or listeners, since the tales are above all meant to be told) are exposed to all manner of human behavior, and learn to be critical of characters’ choices. Tales are the starting-place of wisdom, and their lessons are universal. These three beloved tales from Japan, known to every child, are sure to delight readers of all ages and backgrounds.
As in other countries, the fox in Japan is a cunning trickster, and in “The Fox and the Otter” he gets his comeuppance and then some. This humorous story may call to mind the classic Brer Rabbit stories, but there the weaker trickster—even more cunning than his oppressors—is the hero, and he uses his wiles to get away. Here the fox is in the spotlight, and it is his own greed that does him in—as perhaps the patient otter knew it would.
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