School Study Guides

16

Japanese Book News

Number 17

Otôsan no gijutsu ga Nihon o

tsukutta!: Metaru karâ no enjinia-

den [My Father’s Skills Made

Japan: Stories about “Metal-Collar”

Engineers]. Mogi Hiroko. Shôgaku-

kan, 1996. 194\133 mm. 183 pp.

¥1,100. ISBN 4-09-290131-3.

This book profiles five members of

Japan’s (almost exclusively male) en-

gineering profession, the unsung men

quietly working backstage in the

drama of high-tech contemporary

Japan. At home they are regular fa-

thers; on the train they blend in with

all the other neck-tied commuters.

But when, as in this book, the spot-

light is trained on them, it reveals

lives unfolding with surprising rich-

ness.

The book is composed of inter-

views with the five men who have

played pivotal roles in such renowned

large-scale projects as the construc-

tion of the Akashi Bridge near Osaka,

the world’s largest suspension bridge,

to open in 1998; the development of a

linear motorcar which, traveling at up

to 517 kilometers per hour, will link

Tokyo and Osaka in about an hour;

and the laying of optical fiber cable

for international telecommunications.

The interviewees speak on a personal

level, recounting anecdotes from their

childhood days, relating their dreams

and aspirations, and revealing, as

only those directly involved could,

secret facts and little-known hard-

ships of their work.

The author, a young journalist, re-

gards her subjects with an unaffected

simplicity that prompts the reader to

share her sense of wonder. Although,

as the title suggests, the book is

written for children, adult readers

will also find it rewarding.

Sadô to jûjika [The Tea Ceremony

and the Cross]. Masubuchi Sôichi.

Kadokawa Shoten, 1996. 190\126

mm. 214 pp. ¥1,300. ISBN 4-04-

703270-0.

Sen no Rikyû (1522–91), founder of

the Sen school of tea ceremony, ele-

vated the act of making tea (cha no

yu) into the art of the tea ceremony

(sadô). He is credited with perfecting

the style of tea ceremony known as

wabi-cha, which, incorporating the

spirit of Zen Buddhism, prizes above

all else simplicity and a sense of ele-

gant solitude.

Rikyû lived at a time when, as Eu-

ropean culture made its first inroads

in Japan, Jesuit missionary activities

were at their peak, converting even a

number of daimyo to Christianity.

While some scholars have argued that

Rikyû himself may have been con-

verted, this author does not adhere to

that view. He does point out, how-

ever, that several of Rikyû’s foremost

followers were, and that Jesuit

records from the time include instruc-

tions to incorporate the tea ceremony

into missionary activities. Further-

more, the practice of passing around

the same bowl of thick tea for all par-

ticipants to drink from in the tea cere-

mony closely resembles the sharing

of the chalice of holy wine in the

Catholic communion service, and

was, moreover, first adopted around

Rikyû’s time.

This work thus describes how,

even in the tea ceremony, usually

considered the epitome of “unique”

Japanese culture, Japan’s cultural

forte is at work—namely, the absorp-

tion, amalgamation, and refinement of

elements from other cultures. The au-

thor is a university professor whose

area of special interest is the cultural

history of dolls.

Tatsujin tachi no Dai-Ei Hakubu-

tsukan [Great Minds and the British

Museum]. Matsui Ryûgo, Koyama

Noboru, Makita Kenji. Kôdansha,

1996. 188\127 mm. 308 pp. ¥1,600.

ISBN 4-06-258081-0.

Founded in the mid-eighteenth cen-

tury, the British Museum became a

monument to Western knowledge in

the modern era. With the museum

now facing major restructuring, in-

cluding plans to relocate the museum

library, this book looks at some of the

people involved in and associated

with the institution from its inception

to the present day and probes the sig-

nificance of the knowledge it sym-

bolizes. All of the coauthors are

bibliographers who, after graduating

from universities in Japan, studied in

Britain and are still engaged in re-

search there today.

According to the authors, the

British Museum was little more than

a grandiose bric-a-brac box when it

first opened. It matured greatly, how-

ever, both in appearance and content,

as Britain itself expanded in size and

power during the nineteenth century.

While its extensive collection, which

included writings from all over the

world, certainly contributed to its

early popular appeal, its greatest fea-

ture was the very fact that these items

were made available to the public as,

in a sense, common property. The au-

thors also maintain that, in addition to

many important figures within the in-

stitution itself, among those to whom

the British Museum owes its reputa-

tion were the prominent people who

availed themselves of it, including

Karl Marx, Charles Dickens, Sun

Yat-sen, Mahatma Gandhi and, from

Japan, biologist and folklorist Mina-

kata Kumagusu (1867–1941).

Cover design: Yamagishi Yoshiaki, Nakatsugawa Minoru

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