I think of Nishizuru Ihara

◆ Columnist of "Japan New Overseas Chinese Daily" Feng Wei

Ihara Nishizuru lived in the Edo period, but was immortalized in the history of Japanese literature. His "lustful" works can be called a milestone that cannot be surpassed by Japan's "natural hedonism" concept of life. In Japan, a "low-desire society", reading his works, I can't help but wonder: What happened to today's Young Japanese?

"Lustful Generation Of Men" (1682), a total of 54 times, is the debut of Ihara Nishizuru's "lustful things". "The Lustful Generation of Men" begins in the context of "when the lights go out, love is born": on a summer night when the protagonist Isonosuke was 7 years old, after the waitress turned off the lights, he asked the waitress to come close to him and said, "Don't you know that love is in the dark?" Since then, Seinosuke has had "intimate contact" with various women, and has experienced ups and downs, and has even been thrown into prison. But no matter what tribulations he encountered, his lustful nature was always unswerving.

The Lustful Generation (1686) is a dual to the Lustful Generation of Men. Ihara Nishizuru gives a nuanced description of women's psychological and emotional lives through the memories of the elder Niaharu. Ah Chun was born beautiful and was originally a palace girl. In the lustful environment of the palace, he "knew love" prematurely, fell in love with the young court warriors, and was expelled from the court because of this, reduced to the Qinglou, and became a fellow flower queen. Ah Chun was lustful all her life, and until middle age, she was still agitated and experienced: she had cheated with her husband with a wife, rejoiced with the lord of the family, married the monk who broke the vows, and made love to the old man with the flower armor. Sadly, however, she was never able to meet a man who could survive for life, and eventually committed suicide by throwing herself into the river, cutting her hair and becoming a nun after being rescued.

Ihara Nishizuru published The Lustful Five (1866). Through 5 independent short stories, this work outlines the tragic story of 5 women who either disregard the difference in identity and privately betrothed for life, or are trapped by love and martyrdom for love or "unrighteous secrets" elope and escape. Although the content of these stories is incoherent, they all revolve around the theme of "love against repression". Of the five women, 3 are unmarried girls from machi families. According to their own wishes instead of "the order of their parents and the words of the matchmaker", they fell in love with 3 teenagers in a proactive way, and achieved spiritual and physical unity in love. However, their love cannot break through the highly fixed and reinforced barriers of etiquette, and in the end they all end tragically. Two other married women, one of whom was bumped into by her husband during her first rendezvous with her lover. Although the two of them were not close at that time, the "secret communication" was originally guilty, so the woman immediately stabbed herself in the chest with a knife. The other is the merchant's wife, who falls in love with "Tetsuyo" (buddy) Shigeemon and has a skin-to-skin relationship with her husband when she goes to Edo to do business. After a relationship that, in her own words, "even if you die, you will bear the stigma", the two elope away, but are eventually arrested and executed.

Ihara Nishizuru's Tales of the Kingdoms (1685) also has a vivid description of eroticism. In the work, "The Long Song of the Ninja Fan", it tells the love story of a pair of unmarried men and women of different identities: a niece of a daimyo and a low-status samurai have an affair and elope together, living a life of male cultivator and female weaver in the remote area of Edo. Half a year later, the lovers were discovered by the people sent by the daimyo to track them down, and the man was beheaded that night and the woman was taken back to the daimyo mansion. The daimyo took him to a room and ordered him to commit suicide. But after waiting for a long time, she did not see any signs of suicide, so she sent an errand boy to urge her. The servant said to daimyo's niece, "Because you have eloped with someone, you must cut yourself off. Listening to the servant's words, the woman said, "I will not spare my life, but I do not think that what I have done is unjust." I've only fallen in love with one man since I was born. I miss and admire him because we are related. How can this be said to be unrighteous? If a married woman loves another man, or if she finds a man after her husband dies, then it can be called unrighteous. And I am a woman who has not fallen in love with another man, and I only love one man in my life, can this also be considered unjust? In addition, thinking of each other and getting married, this kind of example has existed since ancient times, what is my injustice? In the end, the woman was spared death and became a nun. (The author is a professor at the Department of History, Fudan University, and a researcher at the Center for Japanese Studies)