Seeing red
29th November 2009
This piece clocked in with about 500 more words than a newspaper column could take so I threw the underwear and other bits out.
I am now throwing them back in.
...
As the days get colder, the trees look warmer. Red and orange have been kindling in the leaves since the start of November and now the flicker has burst into full flame. Like a traffic signal, it stops me, puts me on alert. More than at any other time of the year, I am alive to red now.
Item: lipstick, one tube. Shade, rose mystiqueIt says rose mystique on the bottom of my lipstick but I have no idea where it comes from or why rose should be mystical.
The Japanese word for lipstick is kuchibeni: mouth red.
In the Heian period, which began with the move of the capital to Kyoto in 794, noblewomen reddened their lips and rouged their cheeks with benibana – safflower.
The plant also yielded a scarlet-pink called kurenai. Though cloth dipped in the dye came out bright, the colour did not last. Kurenai was a metaphor for fickle love.
Item: Shinto shrine. Name, Heian Jingu
The main building was built in the style of the Chodo-in, the Great Hall of State in the Heian palace, down to the vermilion pillars, walls and beams.
Red in Japan took a Chinese turn in the seventh and eighth centuries. Inspired by palaces and temples in the empire, the Japanese painted their official buildings the same colour. Red became a symbol of authority.
Item: vermilion ink paste, one boxVermilion, or shu, has been part of this country’s colour palette for millennia. Then as now, it is the pigment applied to the hanko seals stamped on documents to show official approval.
The Japanese use hanko like people in other countries use signatures. When a parcel arrives, for instance, they do not sign the delivery slip but stamp it with their hanko, leaving their name in red.
Item: under-kimono with phoenix motif. Material, silkThe signal red of the juban leaps off the computer screen. You’re not likely to find scarlet underwear like this in shops today as the fashion is for white or pastel robes to be worn under the kimono.
But online kimono store Ichiroya still stocks vintage
red juban, sometimes offset by a snow-white collar.
In feudal Japan, commoners were banned from wearing red. Those who defied the law to do so had to hide their bright robes under drab blues or browns. A preference was born for the subtle, for a flash of scarlet when the hem of a woman’s kimono flicked up – and not for an expanse of red worn openly.
Item: armour surcoat, embroideredHigh-ranking samurai in the late 16th century saw no need to hide their enthusiasm for red. Taken by the intense scarlet of carpets and cloaks belonging to the Europeans who reached Japan’s shores, they were quick to lay their hands on the material. It was turned into surcoats that were often heavily decorated. The samurai wore these jimbaori not under their clothes but over their armour.
Item: bench, covered with red felt
De rigueur for any shop selling sweet snacks and tea to passers-by. May be accompanied by a large red umbrella. Wherever it is found, the red bench spells rest, sugar and caffeine – all of which help you back on your feet and on your way.
Item: eating establishment, inexpensiveI was walking home and because it was 5pm in November, I was walking home in the dark. Two women approaching from the other direction stopped at an entrance lit by a huge red lantern, studied the menu beside the door then went inside.
The red lantern – aka chochin – has given its name to the eating places where it is displayed. At an aka chochin, you can get a drink and something more substantial than a bowl of nuts without your wallet going into shock.
Item: the sunIf you ask a Japanese child to draw a picture of the sun, chances are, it will be coloured not yellow but red like the sun in the national flag. Known popularly as hi no maru – the sun’s circle – the flag also appears in the form of a boxed meal, the hi no maru bento.
To make one, simply plonk a red pickled plum in the centre of a rectangular bed of white rice. It’s probably the easiest bento to do but these days, if a mother sent her child off to school with just that for lunch, there would be repercussions. (Rice and pickled plum are usually part of a bigger bento with other ingredients.)
Item: red bean riceSekihan – rice steamed with azuki beans, which turns it pink. Eaten on special occasions such as festivals and weddings, it is sometimes given to girls to mark their first menstruation.
To say ‘Let’s have sekihan’ is to call for a celebration.
Item: red thread, invisibleThere is an East Asian belief that an invisible red string connects each of us to the person who is our soulmate or life partner. In the Japanese version, the red string of fate is tied to the last finger.
Whether the thread exists has not been proven one way or the other. It’s hard to tell with invisible things.
Item: post boxJapan isn’t the only country to have red mail collection boxes – it’s only sensible to make them eye-catching.
But sometimes when I drop a letter through the slot, my mind drifts. I think of names stamped in vermilion, invisible strings and the words that connect.
Item: Japanese expressions with the word ‘red’As in English, red in Japanese denotes danger, embarrassment, shame and cashflow problems (akaji – red letter – refers to a deficit).
But there are also expressions such as aka no tanin (red stranger, or a complete stranger), makka na uso (red falsehood, or an arrant, barefaced lie) and aka hadaka (red naked, or stark naked).
Red is not a colour of half-measures; it means total, utter, clear.
Item: noren curtain hanging over bathhouse entrance. Colour, maroonI live in a neighbourhood old enough to have public bathhouses – relics of a time when not everyone could bathe at home. Though the wooden houses in this area are blackening with age, they are still standing and those who live in them keep the bathhouses in business.
The women’s side of the bathhouse is marked with a maroon noren; the men’s curtain is blue. This holds true for baths and toilets all over the country: black or blue for men and every shade from pink to russet for women.
As I pass the old bathhouse one evening, a woman, hair still damp, emerges with a little girl in her arms. She puts the child in the bike seat behind hers then pedals off into the night, her cheeks flushed from the heat of the bath.
Item: baby, strapped to motherThe baby behaves beautifully. Well, apart from the way she throws things to the ground. Endlessly patient, the café waitress keeps picking them up and the girl’s mother keeps apologising.
Before they leave, I take a photo of mother and child. What’s her name? I ask. Akane, says her mother. Akane – the Japanese word for madder and the deep red the plant yields.
Akane-chan, I say. The baby blinks at me.
Because newborns often look ruddy, the Japanese call babies aka-chan. It translates to something like Little Red.
Item: the bodhisattva Jizo, statue ofSaid to have originated as an earth god in ancient India, Jizo was later absorbed into the Buddhist pantheon. The Japanese Jizo is a benevolent, smiling figure, worshipped as a protector of travellers and children, in particular those who die before their parents do.
Jizo statues are a common sight in cemeteries and beside roads. They can be recognised by the red bib tied around their neck and scarlet cap they may also be wearing. Parents leave the bibs and caps and other offerings to thank Jizo for a child saved or as a plea for protection for a child they can no longer see.
Item: gateway, called toriiThe entrance to most Shinto shrines is marked by one or more torii. The gateway, which generally consists of two crossbeams supported by two pillars, symbolises the boundary between secular and spiritual. To pass under a torii and towards the shrine on the other side is to move from the world of humans to that of the gods.
Many torii are vermilion – the same colour as the divided skirts worn by the shrine maidens who perform the sacred dances there.
Item: blood
The colour we carry in our veins that takes us from aka-chan baby pinkness to the years of exciting underwear, burning scarlet underneath, until we fall autumn-spent to the ground. But even there red is waiting for us. It stands, running its hands over its crimson vestments, then delivers us to the gods.
Item: old bones, paintedGraves from the Yayoi period, generally dated as lasting from 500 BC to 300 AD, and from the Kofun era (around 250 AD to 538 AD) were coloured vermilion inside. The same pigment was applied to bones of that time – a painted prayer that the colour of the living would help the dead return to life and go on to the next
Item: ...
Omake
Arashiyama shop front.
Silk scarves in a dyer's shop.
