"Shikian Shunju," the 12th issue, 2012
The Shikian conservation society has published "Shikian Shunju." Shiki's belongings have appeared on a cover of each issue of "Shikian Shunju." Did Shiki think of the world while looking at a rather small terrestrial globe?
Ritsu, a sister of Shiki, and Shiki
Q: Could you talk about Ritsu, a sister of Shiki?
Ritsu became famous after being played by Miho Kano, an actress, in the TV drama "Saka no Ueno Kumo." Ritsu really selflessly attended Shiki. I think, however, they occasionally had quarrels because they were siblings. Shiki wrote something bad about her in his diary titled "Gyoga Manroku." However, he also wrote that he could not live if she did not take care of him even on a single day. It is interesting that they, the family of three, used to eat something sweet after Shiki and Ritsu had quarrels. After Shiki died, Ritsu entered a women's vocational school at the age of 32. She worked as a clerk after graduating from the school, and finally became a teacher at a sewing school. The school was the predecessor of Kyoritsu Women's University, and it is said that she was a responsible, excellent teacher. She also adopted a son of her uncle, and had the Masaoka family continue to exist.
Q: Did Ritsu get married?
Yes. She got married at the age of 15 and 19 years old before she went to Tokyo, and was divorced in about one year in both cases. She, together with Yae, her mother, went to Tokyo when she was 22 years old. Although some people said that she was divorced because she had to take care of Shiki, it is not true. Shiki wrote that Ritsu was not suitable for marriage, and that She was stubborn and unfriendly. However, their family doctor said, "Ritsu is more considerate than her mother."
Q: Were the flowering plants in the garden arranged and planted by Ritsu?
Yes, they were. Ritsu worked hard to plant those flowering plants. Her mother also bought flower seeds. Shiki's pupils, Fusetsu, Ogai, a daughter of Katsunan Kuga, the owner of Nippon, a newspaper, who lived next door, and a barber also brought flower seeds to Shikian.
A figurine of a one-legged frog ("Shikian Shunju," the 13th issue, 2013)
Shiki wrote about Ritsu in "Gyoga Manroku" (excerpt). (Courtesy of Kyoshi Memorial Museum)
Q: "Habutae Dango," a rice cake made from refined rice flour, appears in Shiki's "Gyoga Manroku" and Soseki's novels. Was it his favorite food?
Shiki was fond of sweets. He wrote in "Gyoga Manroku" that one day he ate a dozen of small sweet buns as a between-meal snack. What kind of bun was it? Habutae Dango was called "Imozaka Dango." Shiki expressed his anger at Ritsu in "Gyoga Manroku" that Ritsu did not gather Shiki's desire to eat Habutae Dango. Shiki composed a haiku poem, "The rice cake store at Imozaka, I lay down, Today's moon." Soseki also wrote about the rice cake in "Wagahai wa Nekodearu." It seems that he liked to eat meat and eels when he was healthy, but he loved sweets and fruits throughout his life.
Q: Did Shiki depict what he wanted to eat in "Kudamono-cho"?
Shiki dedicated himself to paint flowers and fruits, using colors presented by Fusetsu, in the summer up until shortly before he died. I think Ritsu was also difficult to take care of Shiki because he used to paint as he lay on his back. In addition to bananas and pineapples, which were precious gifts at that time, he painted vegetables, including eggplants and pumpkins, which they regularly ate. Beginning this September (2017), picture postcards can be bought at a store in Shikian. We also offer picture postcards of Kusabana-cho, so please look at those postcards.
Q: Was Ritsu an only sister of Shiki? How did the Shiki's family live after Shiki died?
Ritsu was three years junior to Shiki, and his only sister. Yae, Shiki's mother, and Ritsu looked after haiku, tanka and writing meetings as they always had been in the past after Shiki died. Although Ritsu adopted Chuzaburo, her cousin (the third son of Takusen Kato, a brother of Ritsu's mother), in order to have the Masaoka family continue to exist, Chuzaburo lived in the Kansai region, so Ritsu did not live with Chuzaburo, but did with her mother in Shikian. Ritsu left the Kyoritsu women's vocational school in 1923 when she was 53 years old. After that, she taught needlework and handicrafts to daughters of her acquaintances. Her former students at the Kyoritsu women's vocational school often came to see her after Yae died, and there are some pictures taken at the garden. The mother of Ayako Sono was also her student. Ritsu spent her tranquil final years while going to see children of Chuzaburo, keeping chickens in the garden and seeing kabuki, and died in May 1941 at the age of 71.
Ritsu (left), Chuzaburo (center), Yae (right) (Courtesy of the Shiki Museum)
The Masaoka family adopted Chuzaburo, the third son of Tsunetada Kato, a brother of Yae, who was also a guardian of the Masaoka family, as the head of the family. (1914)
Matsuyama, a hometown of Shiki, and Shiki
Q: Did Shiki have any chance to return to Matsuyama after settling here?
He moved in this house in 1894. He returned to Matsuyama in order to visit a grave of his father in March 1895 before going to the front during the Sino-Japanese War. When he returned to Japan from Qing, he almost coughed up blood, and swallowed the blood. As a result, he entered Kobe Hospital in a half-dead condition as soon as he arrived at a harbor in May. He moved to a recuperation facility in Suma, and then stayed at a house of Soseki, who worked as an English teacher at Matsuyama Junior High School at that time, for 52 days. That was his last visit to Matsuyama. (continued in the right column)
Shiki stayed on the first floor of "Gudabutsuan" (Soseki's house named after Soseki's haiku pen name), and Soseki on the second floor. They had some food, including barbecued eel, delivered, and Soseki paid for that. Shiki's haiku companions frequently visited the house, and held haiku gatherings, so Soseki also came down from upstairs, and joined the gatherings. When Shiki went back to Tokyo, he was presented a parting gift of 10 yen by Soseki, and composed the famous haiku, "Kaki Kueba, Kanega Narunari, Horyuji," or Eat a persimmon, And the bell will toll, At Horyuji, when making a stopover at Nara.
Q: Many materials of Shiki are stored in the Shiki Museum. How about Shikian?
I think the Shiki Museum has the largest collection. Also, Shiki's materials are kept in various facilities, including the National Diet Library. They are also owned by some individuals. Things that were used daily by Shiki and presented by his pupils and friends are stored in a warehouse of Shikian. When exhibitions related to Shiki are held, we lend those materials, responding to requests. The most popular one among those materials is a small terrestrial globe. Sokotsu Samukawa presented it to Shiki on New Year's Day of 1901, the previous year when Shiki died, in commemoration of the beginning of the 20th century, and Shiki was delighted with it. Its diameter is 7.5 cm, and about the size of a bitter orange. Shiki might put it the side of his sickbed, and turned his thoughts to Fusetsu in Paris and Soseki in London. The picture on the cover of "Shikian Shunju," the 12th issue, is a life-size one. I think Shiki also wanted to go abroad.
About the 150th anniversary of Shiki's birth
Q: Could you talk about some events to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Shiki's birth in 2017?
An exhibition displaying panels, titled "Wakaba no Shikian," is held annually in May. This year, an event titled "Keio Sannen Ino Boys," in which many people of unusual abilities who were born in the year of the Restoration of the Imperial Rule, including Shiki, Soseki Natsume, Kyokudo Yanagihara, Kumagusu Minakata, Koyo Ozaki, Rohan Koda and Gaikotsu Miyatake, were introduced, was held at the beginning of the memorial event. Young volunteer members of "Sora no Kai" created panels that introduced those seven people as well as making caricatures and life-size panels of those people of unusual abilities. The Shikian's atmosphere that was different from usual was popular among visitors.
Q: Were those people of unusual abilities acquainted with one another?
Naturalist Kumagusu Minakata studied at the same schools (Kyoryu Gakko and the Preparatory School of the University of Tokyo) as Shiki did. Rohan Koda was a novelist whom Shiki revered and asked to review Shiki's novel "Tsuki no Miyako." Koyo Ozaki, who was equal to Rohan, composed haiku poems that were entirely different from those of Shiki's, and became a famous novelist at an early age. Koyo also entered the Preparatory School of the University of Tokyo. Kyokudo Yanagihara was a classmate of Shiki at Matsuyama Junior High School, and started "Hototogisu," a haiku poem magazine. Kyokudo wrote "Yujin Shiki," or Shiki, my friend, and devoted the remainder of his life to make Shiki known to the public. Gaikotsu Miyatake was known as a defiant journalist. I think Gaikotsu wrote about people of the same age as he was, including Shiki, in his later years. Soseki Natsume, whom you all know well, was a close friend of Shiki's. Among those seven people, Shiki and Koyo died in their 30s. Gaikotsu and Kyokudo had a long life, and lived until around 1955. I talked mainly about Shiki. The event was a thought-provoking exhibition that reminded us of the age in which those people of unusual abilities lived.
A poster of the exhibition "Keio Sannen Ino Boys"
Q: Could you talk about "Hechima Ki" in September?
In this year's special exhibition to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Shiki's birth, besides "Saitan-cho," a visitors' book in which unpublished haiku poems and self-portraits are included, for New Year's visitors, Shiki's writing materials and a sword blade of a loaded cane that Shiki brought to the front during the Sino-Japanese War were exhibited under the title of "Shiki no Saitan." Shiki received the loaded cane from a former feudal lord before going to the front. We collected donations, and the rusted sword blade was polished by Koshu Honami (a living national treasure) so that its original glitter was restored. We held a press conference in August, and the event was reported in the media, including newspapers, so we had 3,200 visitors that were larger than usual. We were grateful for that. Also, we were impressed that many visitors came to see "Byosho Rokushaku ni Ikiru," an opera that celebrated the birth of Shiki, held on September 17 and 18 at the Taito City lifelong learning center. We presented a picture postcard of pictures drawn by Shiki (Kusabana-cho and Kudamono-cho) and a hometown postal stamp issued by Matsuyama City to each visitor to Shikian on October 14 that is his birthday.
Q: Do many people visit Shikian during "Hechima Ki"?
Yes. The month has the largest number of visitors in a year. Actual mementos and materials related to Shiki are displayed in Shikian during "Hechima Ki," so an atmosphere of Shikian becomes entirely different. May has the second largest number of visitors. "Wakaba no Shikian," an exhibition (displaying panels), is held in May, and it is the season of fresh greenery. October is filled with a flavor of autumn, in which loofahs and cockscombs still remain. I feel like Shiki is delighted when beautiful flowers bloom. We dispatch information about blooming flowers, exhibitions and events via Facebook, our Website and e-mail newsletter, so please come to see them. If you visit Shikian on winter or rainy days on which there are a few visitors, and leisurely look at the garden while sitting in front of the Shiki's desk, you can calm yourself down.
About the garden of Shikian
Q: I think the garden that was expressed in Shiki's haiku and tanka poems has not changed much, hasn't it?
Yes. It is a commonly asked question. Shikian was destroyed by an air raid in April 1945, so the garden is also not the same as before. Although people in charge of the garden tend trellis of loofahs, cockscombs, which were symbols of a view from the six-tatami-mat room that was Shiki's sickroom, and others in an attempt to restore the garden to the original state and show it to visitors annually, the garden has not been tidy since those days when Shiki used to say, "The small garden is my universe." Its atmosphere is the same as that of old days. I think, for Shiki, flowers, trees and plants and insects were friends which he lived with.
White-flowered bush clovers are the most beautiful in this autumn, but wild grasses, including hardy begonias, Japanese plume grasses, Antenoron filiformes, valerianaceae, thoroughworts and Japanese beauty-berries, also bloom in the garden. Those flowers, trees and plants vary with the seasons, so please enjoy a view from the glass doors. When the winter sunlight enters the six-tatami-mat room that was Shiki's sickroom, you can realize his delight that he felt when the sliding rice-paper doors were replaced with the glass doors. Shikian seems to be a strange space for visitors, in which they feel like Shiki still exists somewhere in this house, so they write something like that in the notebook.
"Shikian Shunju," the 12th issue, 2012
The Shikian conservation society has published "Shikian Shunju." Shiki's belongings have appeared on a cover of each issue of "Shikian Shunju." Did Shiki think of the world while looking at a rather small terrestrial globe?