The First European Description of Japan, 1585 (10 page)

6. Europeans take pride and honor in their beards; the Japanese take pride in a little tuft of hair that is bound at the back of their heads
.

European men invested considerable time in their beards, which were not only shaped in various ways, but waxed, curled, perfumed, starched, stiffened, dyed,
and powdered.
⁹
Men even swore by their beards and criminals such as “fornicators” were punished by having their beards publicly removed with a sharp axe.
¹⁰

At the time Frois wrote Japanese hair fashion was about to change, with more and more samurai switching from a Chinese-inspired, half-loop ponytail (
queue
), bound at the back of a shaved forehead (as per Frois), to a topknot folded forward, which stood up freely like a brush and usually was cut short and controlled with wax.
¹¹
This
chonmage
or “bobbed-bent” style became common during the Tokugawa era (1603–1867). On TV “Easterns” or
chambara
,
¹²
which remain popular in Japan, there is often a dramatic moment when the sword wielding villain's
chonmage
is cut off by the “good guy” or victor. Despite an obvious psycho-cultural investment in the top knot, in less than a generation after Perry opened Japan to the West (1854), Japanese men abandoned the top knot in favor of western hair fashion.

7. Among us, men always keep their hair groomed and consider it an affront to have it removed; the Japanese remove their hair with tweezers, enduring pain and tears in the process
.

Although European men wore their hair relatively short (i.e. off the shoulders) during much of the sixteenth century, they still made sure it was carefully arranged. Elites often had the heads of their vassals and slaves shorn to symbolize their subordination.
¹³
The Japanese
queue
and top knot were accentuated by shaving the front of the head, which apparently also entailed removing hair with a tweezers.

8. Among us there are many men and women who have freckles; the Japanese, while fair[-skinned], rarely have freckles
.

Europeans initially considered the Japanese “white” or, as Frois here phrased it, fair. Perhaps because the Japanese were, and are, especially anxious about marks on the skin (folklore attributes it to vengeful female ghosts), Japanese women and noblemen traditionally have taken great care to keep their skin soft and white. Even today it is common to see Japanese farmers wearing not only a hat, but underneath it a towel that drapes down both sides of the face. The idea that the Japanese have
yellow skin dates to the late nineteenth century. This notion was popularized in the United States during World War II, when American films and propaganda went to extremes to dehumanize the Japanese, who often were pictured and spoken of as “little yellow-bellies.”
¹⁴

9. Among us it is rare for a man or woman to be pock-marked; among the Japanese it is very common and many lose their sight from the pox
.

By 1585, smallpox largely was a disease of childhood in both Europe and Japan.
¹⁵
It is not clear why the Japanese would have suffered more than Europeans from blindness and pock-marks, common complications of
Variola major
(the more serious form of the disease). Because the smallpox virus is variable, it is possible that Japan experienced a particularly virulent outbreak of the disease in the 1530s or 1540s, a generation or so before Frois arrived in Japan.

10. Among us it is considered unclean and uncivilized to have long fingernails; Japanese men, as well as noblewomen, wear some [of their] nails like talons
.

European elites may not have cultivated long, shovel-like pinky-nails, as among the Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, but they were well manicured nevertheless. To otherwise have the hands of a laborer was incompatible with gentility.
¹⁶
Long fingernails were not nearly as common among the Japanese as Frois implies. Most Japanese depicted in
ukiyo-e
prints,
¹⁷
for instance, have nails cut so short that the meat of the finger-tip is clearly visible. It was mostly priests, nobles and merchants (the last were despised by the samurai, but wealthy enough to do no manual labor) who boasted long fingernails, particularly on one or both pinkies.

11. Among us, facial scars are considered a deformity; the Japanese are proud of their scars, and because the wounds are poorly treated, the scars look even more deformed
.

Fencing was part of the curriculum in many secondary schools in Europe and students often stoically received and then proudly displayed facial “smites.” Nevertheless, it would be hard to find a nation more
macho
than sixteenth-century Japan. This “toughest dudes around” attitude continued throughout the Tokugawa period (1603–1868) and is one reason why Japan never was colonized by the West. Today, one still finds scars at work in popular culture; Japanese sitcoms and comic books frequently show a scarred
yakuza
or
chinpira
(a
yakuza
underling) intimidating people (usually in the subway).

Men's clothing

1a. We dress the same throughout the four seasons of the year; the Japanese change their dress three times a year: natsu katabira, aki-awase, fuyu kimono
.

This is the first and only time in the
Tratado
that Frois sub-sectioned a chapter, numbering his distichs anew. To avoid confusion, we have given the distichs in this subsection, which continues to the end of the chapter, a letter designation (e.g. 1a, 2a, … 63a). Although Frois implies that the entire subsection concerns clothing, at least a third of the distichs focus on accessories that were a significant part of elite male identity, such as swords and fans (the latter in the Japanese case). Another third pertain to behavior: distichs about spitting, for instance, or sitting or standing in the presence of servants, or removing one's hat or shoes as a matter of courtesy. Frois in this regard seemingly understood that identity was mostly learned and performed and yet in mysterious ways still tied to one's God-given body and soul.
¹⁸

Today we still acknowledge that “clothes make the man [or woman].” During Frois' day clothing was held to have even greater power; what you wore not only conveyed your identity (e.g. noble, servant, prostitute, executioner), but seemingly had the power to transform an individual.
¹⁹
Sumptuary laws, which attempted to restrict elite access to particular fabrics, jewels, furs, and other luxury items, still were in effect in many parts of Europe during Frois' lifetime.

In this first distich, Frois is reflecting on seasonal changes, correctly noting that Europeans generally shed or donned additional layers of clothing (i.e. a coat or mantle),
²⁰
whereas the Japanese changed the dress itself. Although today many non-Japanese use “kimono” to refer to all robe-like clothing, Frois understood that the Japanese used specific terms. The
natsu
or “summer”
katabira
is an unlined, gauze-thin robe or gown, ideally suited for sultry weather. As noted in the following chapter (
#2
,
#7
), the
natsu-katabira
also could serve as a head covering. Today the closest thing is the
yukata
, which is worn at home, at certain festivals, or at hot-springs resorts.

The
aki-awase
or “autumn combo” is a more substantial two-layered robe that can properly be called a kimono. It was “officially” worn for about nine days in mid-October (the Japanese observed certain formal dates for changing dress), perhaps partly to air it out before it was stuffed with cotton (or flock silk in the case of nobles), thereby converting it into a
fuyu-kimono
or winter kimono. At the start of “summer,” on what was called “clothes-change” day (
koromogae
), this stuffing was removed, converting the winter kimono into a
hatsu-awase
, or “first combo.” Frois simplifies by jumping straight to the inner layer, the
katabira
.

2a. Among us, to wear clothing made from printed fabrics would be considered foolishness and nonsense; among the Japanese everyone except the bonzes and old men with shaven pates wear clothing made from printed fabrics
.

Europeans with money certainly wore brocades and silks with printed designs. However, wool was the principal material for clothing in Europe and was typically rendered attractive and expensive by dying.
²¹
(Cochineal from the Americas made it possible to produce cloth dyed in breath-taking shades of red.) When Frois speaks of “us,” however, perhaps he was thinking mostly of Jesuits, who consciously wore cassocks made of simple black cloth.
²²

Frois' Jesuit contemporary, Rodrigues, noted that some Japanese kimonos were handsomely decorated with floral and striped patterns, solid colors, and often featured gold designs intermingled among crimson and violet flowers.
²³
Men's attire in fifteenth-century Europe could also be colorful, as evident from Botticelli's painting “Adoration of the Magi,” which features the artist and members of the Medici family in brilliant togas and other colorful attire.
²⁴
Perhaps by 1585, as Frois suggests, Europe had embarked on what J.C. Flugel
²⁵
has called “the great masculine renunciation” or graying of male fashion. During the Tokugawa era in Japan (1603–1868), strict sartorial laws were enacted that paralleled trends in Europe.

In the 1960s and 1970s, most Japanese were appalled at the revival of color in Western menswear. Such fashion was dismissed as a product of excessive individualism. Through all of this, only the young Japanese construction worker and the truck driver remained true to their pre-modern Japanese roots. Today you can still find them wearing purple and orange trousers and “wild” hairdos. (University students in Japan also tend to dress informally or colorfully; once out of school, however, they very rapidly make the transition to colorless adulthood.)

3a. Among us a new look in clothing is created nearly every year; in Japan styles are always the same, without ever changing
.

European elites were indeed fashion conscious and apparently quick to embrace new styles, even if it meant securing a new sword to match the latest fashions.
²⁶
Actually, Japanese dress was constantly changing, but in different ways from European fashion. There was less variety in the overall forms but as much or more change in the color and designs inside and out. What were subtle yet significant changes in clothing went unobserved by Frois and other Europeans.

Today the Japanese consider themselves–for better or worse–particularly prone to fads or “booms,” as they call them. In the hey-day of Japan-as-Number-One, when newspapers referred to Europe as a museum, Japanese intellectuals went so far as to call the West a tradition-bound “stock culture” incapable of coping with the new. The Japanese not only reversed the hoary stereotype of the sleepy changeless East and the active protean West, but, as befits a stereotype, they made it intrinsic to civilization.

4a. Among us it is customary to wear a coat over our doublets and shirts; the Japanese wear a very lightweight, open-fronted sambenito made of a printed fabric over their thin robe or kimono
.

A doublet was a snug fitting and often padded jacket (to enhance the chest) worn over a shirt, and under an overcoat or mantle when outdoors. Doublets could be made of rich textiles and decorated with embroidery or fur.
²⁷
Frois labored in this contrast to describe what is apparently the Japanese
haori
(literally “wing weave”). The
haori
might be said to resemble an open-fronted
sambenito
, which is a smock worn by penitents in Europe. The
haori
is lightweight, and while it ties in front, it remains slightly open.

5a. Our sleeves are narrow and extend to the palm of the hand; those of the Japanese are wide, and in the case of men, women, and the bonzes, they reach only halfway down the arm
.

As Frois notes below (
9a
), European clothing was generally tight-fitting, a pattern that Marques attributes to the new armor that was worn in the late Middle Ages (the armor necessitated tight-fitting undergarments).
²⁸
Wide sleeves were a long-established tradition in Japan; short sleeves apparently only became fashionable during Japan's century-long warring period that preceded the arrival of Europeans in the 1540s. For most of Japanese history, sleeves extended to near or even past the wrist, although men may never have worn their sleeves quite so long as women.

6a. Our breeches or underwear have an opening in the front; those of the Japanese have an opening on either side and a small loin cloth or front knot
[missing text].
²⁹

Breeches that fastened around the leg just below or above the knee were popular in Europe during Frois' lifetime. The Japanese had something similar called
momohiki
(literally, “thigh-pullers”), which apparently were worn for formal occasions. High-level administrators wore another type of formal trousers (
hakama
). Whether
momohiki
or
hakama
, Japanese bifurcated clothing did not fasten in the front, but rather on the sides, where the flaps or panels are tied together. Unfastened, the part above the crotch opens up completely.

For the most part, commoner or noble, the Japanese man was comfortable in his loincloth, which, to quote Rodgriques,
³⁰
was “merely a sash, silk for the nobles and linen for ordinary people.” The loincloth often was the only thing worn in summer, and this was true even as late as the early Meiji period (1868–1912). Nevertheless, the Japanese felt a need to prove themselves to be a “civilized” people to a West that ignorantly (especially considering its own Greco-Roman tradition) equated clothing with culture, and this resulted in a crackdown by Japanese authorities on the loincloth as an outdoor garment. By the time Japan proved itself “civilized” by defeating Russia in 1905, the Japanese themselves did not care to see loincloths in public. Today loincloths are only worn by men performing ablutions on Shinto religious retreats or on pilgrimages.