Sado: Japan's Island in Exile Page 12

  Trying to understand their dialect was like cracking code. At first I could only catch two or three words out of a sentence, and had to guess the rest from the tone and gestures of the speaker. But as the meal progressed and the sake bottle circulated, my hosts got a better grasp of my ability and began to make allowances for it in the way they phrased their questions. There were many that they wanted to ask, driven partly by curiosity about the unfamiliar world from which I came, and partly by the wish to have their own dimly remembered impressions and certainties confirmed: that it rains in England more than in Japan, that the Queen is a more visible figure than their own Emperor, that London is regularly obliterated by pea soup fogs, that English people always carry umbrellas, that English houses are bigger than those in Japan, that American English is a variant of the British tongue and not vice versa. At the same time, they sought new information against which to compare their own circumstances: what did English people eat, what kinds of fish did they catch, how much money did fishermen earn, what kinds of boats did they use, and was it true that eldest sons did not always live with their aged parents, and if so, who cared for the old? Once the conversational ice had melted, they showed themselves much more inclined to talk and ask questions than their compatriot, the urban salaryman, whose repetitive routines and weighty corporate responsibilities effectively drain him of whatever natural curiosity he may ever have had.

  By the time I had said my farewells and got back on the road, it was ten o'clock and I was drunk. Clumps of yellow rock lilies leaned out from the cliffs as though pointing, directing my attention to the sea. A dozen or so village women in wide-brimmed hats were drifting around the rocks offshore in their little circular taraibune, searching the seabed for sazae shells and seaweed. I watched them for a while in a stupor, then stumbled unsteadily down the road past long racks hung with ribbons of seaweed drying in the hot sun, coming eventually to the chunky whitewashed lighthouse at Sawasaki, the extreme southwest point of the island.

  A footpath from the road to the lighthouse led across a headland with a couple of small fields where yugao were being grown — low, straggling plants with heavy, gourdlike fruits that lay on individual beds of straw on the ground. The base of each plant was carefully wrapped in its own straw jacket as well, to preserve it from cold, wet weather, and pests. Two old women were weeding the margins of the field side by side, hacking their way along the hedge with tiny sickles; they acknowledged my greeting with a wave, but without interrupting the rhythm of their work.

  I sat on the edge of the headland and looked down at the shore. It was another chaos of jumbled chunks of lava, all pitted and gnawed and scooped out by the sea into shallow caves, long, narrow gullies, circular sink holes, and deep pools where huge clumps of tawny orange weed heaved slowly up and down with the rise and fall of the incoming sea. Behind me was a grassy bank bordered by sweet-smelling rockroses; I leaned back and closed my eyes, lulled by the buzz of insects and the soft sloshing of the waves on the rocks below.

  ***

  When I awoke, an hour later, the effect of my alcoholic breakfast had completely gone. It felt like the start of a new day. I shouldered the pack once more, took up Snake Frightener, and banged my way back onto the road leading away from the lighthouse. It climbed steeply up the hill above the village of Sawasaki, which lay at the head of a deep inlet with 20 or 30 small boats drawn up at the top of a wide concrete landing stage. A new coast road was under construction, so that in a year or two this old one would lose most of its traffic and revert to its original character as a quiet lane linking unvisited hamlets and isolated farms. The seaward side was edged with tiny fields, picked clean of weeds, while the mountain side had steep, lava-walled cliffs that had fallen away in some places to reveal layers of rich red earth lying on top of the volcanic rock. In some places the soil stratum was 20 feet deep or more, topped with a mass of tangled trees and shrubs that testified to its excellent fertility. No wonder this southern tip of Sado has yielded the best archaeological finds: the earliest inhabitants, no matter how primitive, would have gravitated here naturally, building their settlements where the farming was good, the weather benign, and the living easy.

  The road climbed steadily upwards, winding in tight loops first to the left, then to the right. Apart from birds and insects, there was no sound; no traffic passed in either direction, and when gaps in the hedge allowed a view of the surrounding fields, there was no-one to be seen at work. At last I reached the crest of the hill and stopped to look back along the coast I had walked that morning. In the far distance I could see the inn where I had dined the night before and the long beach of Sobama where I had slept the night. But the village that had entertained me for breakfast was out of sight, tucked away beneath the cliffs.

  Ahead, the road began its descent with a long, looping curve. A footpath plunged down into shady woods on my right, providing a shortcut across the loop, so I slithered down the steep embankment and followed it through the trees. The path was evidently little used; it was overgrown with grass, and every few yards I had to stop and brush huge spiderwebs aside with my hand. After a couple of minutes I emerged onto the road again, beside a small wayside statue of Jizo whose rough plinth of rock made a narrow ledge for two pale blue vases containing offerings of bright orange lilies. And while I was standing there looking at them, I heard a sound from somewhere down below the pines on the other side of the road — the slow, deep booming sound of a drum.

  Percussion is generally agreed to have been the world's first form of instrumental music, and in Asia especially, drums have a long history of functions beyond simple entertainment. In ancient times, the territory of a Japanese village was defined by the area in which a drum beaten at an agreed spot was audible, and the sound of the drum was a signal used to call the inhabitants together. Even today the custom still survives in remote places (although most villages use a modern PA system), and every country festival features an element of taiko, in which both adults and youngsters take it in turns to pound large, deep-toned drums with short, thick, heavy drumsticks. But a tiny wooden sign pointing down a track on the other side of the road told me that what I could hear was no festival practice. Carved in the sign was the single word "Kodo."

  The track descended steeply through the pine woods and emerged onto a patch of land that had been cut from the hillside into three flat terraces. On each level stood a building: at the far end was a modern structure, obviously residential; in the middle stood something that looked like a school assembly hall; and closest to where I was standing, with a rectangle of bare earth in front of it that was evidently destined to be a garden, was a curious black-and-white building that managed to look brand new yet venerable at the same time.

  I walked over to it and peered in at the open door. There was a vestibule with a hard earthen floor where shoes were removed, a large, timber-floored hallway with a high ceiling supported by heavy black beams, and a wide wooden staircase at the back. A long rack with individual lockers for the shoes was fixed to the wall by the door, and on top of this lay an old stereo tape deck playing soft flute music. I called out a couple of times and waited, but no-one came. When I stepped out into the sunshine again, I looked across the garden and there, halfway up an embankment on the far side, stood a small man in a large straw hat prising weeds out of the earth with a long-handled hoe. I called out again and this time he turned, leaning on his hoe like a staff and shading his eyes with his palm across his forehead.

  I walked across to where he was standing. "Can I help you?" he asked.

  "Well, yes," I said, "perhaps you can. I was just walking along the road up there when I heard something that. . . That sounded like a drum. So I came down the track there to see what it was."

  The man looked at me with an air of quiet amusement. "Well, that's what it was," he replied. "A drum."

  There was a pause.

  "This is Kodo Village," he went on. "You knew that, of course. You saw the sign up by the road."

&n
bsp; So much for my attempt to play the innocent traveler who had stumbled upon the place by accident. Kodo is famous and has no need of uninvited visitors. What would happen next would be another nosy intruder being sent brusquely on his way.

  The man looked me up and down, taking in my dusty, unkempt appearance. "What are you doing on Sado?" he asked.

  "Just walking," I told him. "Walking around the island."

  "You look like you need a rest," he said, laying the hoe down on the ground. "Come inside for a while. I'll make us something to drink."

  "I don't want to interrupt your work," I said.

  "I know," he answered with a smile. "But I want you to. I feel like taking a break. I used to play the drums myself, but I retired last year. Takes it out of you, the drumming. So now I'm the gardener here. My name is Morita."

  The inside of the building was dark and cool. Morita led me into a room with a brightly polished wooden floor and heavy beams in the walls and ceiling. He handed me a thin cushion to sit on and gestured to me to wait. After a few minutes he returned with a slim white coffeepot, two tiny cups, and a bowl of sweets, which he placed on the floor between us.

  "What kind of house is this?" I asked him. "I've never seen one quite like it."

  He laughed. "I'm not surprised," he said. "It's a rare sort of house. I don't even know if there's another one like it in Japan. It's an old Noh theater. We found it in Hamochi, a few miles from here. It was disused — there hadn't been a performance in it for years — so we bought it, took it to pieces, brought it here by truck, and reassembled it. Took a long time. Just to set up the basic structure took nearly a month. Look how heavy the beams are! If we'd known how much work it would be, we would probably never have started."

  He poured the coffee out into the little cups and pushed one over to me. And then, because he knew I wanted to know, he told me about Kodo.

  The seeds of this remarkable musical community were sown some 25 years ago, when the youth of Japan was gripped by the spirit of the 1960s. It was a time of social and political ferment: there were demonstrations against the continuing American occupation of Okinawa, more demonstrations against the Vietnam War, and a general atmosphere of protest against the growing national obsession with material success. Art, theater, film, and literature all provided fertile ground for trying out the new theories of alternative culture, and oddball social experiments were sprouting up all over the country like toadstools.

  In 1970, an entrepreneur called Tagayasu Den came up with the idea of conducting a summer music school on Sado. As well as attracting musicians, he hoped it would generate interest in the island itself — perhaps create some work for a few of the islanders and help to stem the steady flow of youngsters leaving to look for jobs on the mainland. Fifty or so people took part in the summer school, and by the time it was over, a core group of about a dozen young men had made up their minds to stay on Sado and set up a permanent community. They planned to live a spartan, frugal existence and devote themselves to studying the ancient art of the drum. Ondekoza was the name they chose for their group, ondeka being island dialect for "Demon Drum."

  Taking up residence in a former school building, the community embarked on a lifestyle that was as spartan as any of them could have wanted, and then some. At twenty years older than the others, Den was the natural leader, and the regime he established was strict. Tobacco, alcohol, and personal relationships with the opposite sex were all banned. So was personal money; any assets belonging to group members were pooled. And on top of the rigorous program of musical study, there was plenty of physical exercise, including long cross-country runs before breakfast every morning.

  While other experimental communes bloomed and then quickly withered all over Japan, Ondekoza hung in there and survived. Despite its nonmaterialist principles, some income was necessary, and Den devised various schemes to obtain it, including pestering big companies to support the revival of "traditional" Japanese music. This idea met with approval in conservative boardrooms, but aroused suspicions elsewhere. People speculated about the group's true motives. Were they emperor-worshipping rightist fanatics? Dangerous left-wingers plotting a revolution? Adherents of some bizarre religious sect?

  The truth was much more simple. Ondekoza's religion was wholly focused on the drum, and the ascetic way of life was adopted for no more sinister purpose than to hone minds and bodies in the service of performance. As time went by and their skills grew, they studied other musical forms, instruments, and dances, and assimilated them into their repertoire.

  The natural development of the group should have been a growth in confidence and maturity, and a parallel relaxation of the stern daily discipline. But if this was what they wanted, it was the opposite of what they got. Den's role as leader made him increasingly autocratic. He also invested their meager earnings from performances in a series of unsuccessful films. By 1981, the others had had enough. There was a series of painful confrontations leading up to a final break. Den departed in a huff, taking both the drums and the name with him. The remaining members recast their community in a more democratic form and adopted a new name — Kodo, which means "heartbeat."

  Morita reached for the coffeepot and refilled our little cups.

  "I guess I was lucky," he said. "By the time I arrived here, Den had already left. It was winter. I was camping out by myself on the beach near Mano. That's where I met the group — they used to come down to the beach to run. We talked, and I decided to join them. It was hard at first. The financial problems hadn't been sorted out, and the group was working to get hold of new equipment. Once we'd done that, things got easier."

  This seemed a very modest way of putting it. What happened in fact was that Den's traumatic departure unlocked precisely the blend of community spirit, dedicated professionalism, and musical excellence that he himself had wanted to build. The new group made its debut at the 1981 Berlin Festival and went on to perform before packed houses in Japan and overseas — New York, London, Paris, Madrid, Rio. Today, having given something like 2000 concerts in 30 different countries, Kodo has become Japan's most widely traveled and acclaimed musical ensemble, with an international reputation that sells thousands of recordings and brings invitations from any and all of the world's most prestigious concert halls.

  "Nowadays, we're on the road a lot of the time," said Morita, "but we're always here at the end of August, for the Earth Celebration. You ought to come along. It's not just Kodo. Groups and performers come from all over the place — Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines, Puerto Rico. It's all about learning new styles, trying new ideas, mixing instruments, exploring the whole world of percussive music. I'll show you."

  He rose and left the room, returning quickly with a brochure about the previous year's festival. On the front cover was a poem, written in Japanese and English. The title was "Roads across the Sea."

  Dreaming of lands beyond the line where sea meets sky

  We load our ships with the rhythms of our home

  To trade with people who dance to different tunes

  Listen to our dreams, help us build these bridges.

  "It's quite a party," he went on. "More and more people come every year. Including, nowadays, local dignitaries — town councilors and so on. Quite a change from the old days. So we're always here on Sado at the end of August. And we always come back to spend the winter here, too. Up until a couple of years ago, we were based in an old school, a few miles from here. But we needed more room, so in the end we bought this bit of land to live on, have a purpose-built place to practice and try to be self-supporting." He chuckled quietly. "Not as easy as it sounds, though. The land looks fertile enough, all covered with trees and bushes, but cultivating it is another story. It's completely virgin, you see — never been used for anything. No natural fertilizer, no worms, not even much water. We don't use any artificial fertilizer, so the only way to get it going is by natural crop rotation, using the crops that people on Sado have always grown — clover, barley, things l
ike that. It's a slow process. Come on outside, I'll show you round."

  We went out into the sun again, and I followed him up a narrow footpath that he himself had cut into the forest. There were a few cedars and several thick clumps of tall, powdery green bamboo, but most of the trees were deciduous, growing out of a rich, deep bed of ancient leaf mold. "I'm a complete beginner at all this," Morita admitted. "Don't know the names of most of the plants, and tend to forget a lot of the ones I learn. But I'm getting better, little by little. This one, for instance," he bent down, indicating a low, spreading plant with leaves like a nasturtium, "is called fuki. If you boil the stalks and peel them, you can eat them as a vegetable. And that tree there, with those hard gray spikes sticking out of the trunk, is tara-no-ki — be careful you don't touch it. And then there's this shrub here. It's called. . ." He screwed up his face and scratched his head. "Can't remember. But pick a few of the leaves and rub them between your fingers." The leaves were tiny and fleshy; they left a yellow smear on my fingers that smelled of lemon. "Good for cooking," said Morita.

  Were there any animals in the forest? "Not many," he said. "Fewer than I expected, anyway. There are tanuki, of course, and weasels, and rabbits. And a few snakes. But no monkeys — at least, I've never seen one. And no foxes, either. They say that there have never been foxes on Sado."

  Morita's path described a wide circle through the trees and came out at the top of an embankment overlooking Kodo Village. We slithered down and walked across his garden. Here and there, thin seedlings of clover were struggling to establish themselves, but most of the cleared land was bare, hard-packed earth, sandy orange in color. It looked to me as if Morita was pecking at the problem. The whole place needed to be properly ploughed before there would be any chance of raising decent crops.