「内海」
“Naikai” [Inland Sea]
JAPANESE TEXT:
Medoruma, Shun. “Naikai” [Inland Sea]. Mabuigumi [Soul-Stuffing]. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1999. 187-224.
1. Introduction
Medoruma Shun’s “Naikai” [Inland Sea] first appeared in the Kumamoto Nichinichi Shinbun (a local newspaper in Kumamoto Prefecture in Japan) as a serial novel in 1998. The following year, it appeared in Mabuigumi [Soul-Stuffing], a collection of Medoruma Shun’s short stories. The story describes the homecoming of a young man, who experienced a death in his family and left his village. The story poses a question to readers, “Can people live alone?”
As the title implies, the setting of “Naikai” [Inland Sea] is a village that faces an inland sea. The village is likely to be Nakijin Village because Yaganna Island, an actual island in the Haneji Inland Sea (near the northern part of the Okinawa mainland), appears in the story. For the most part, the story is narrated from the point of view of the main character, a twenty-one-year-old man. The man looks back on the past, and the plot unfolds with his recollections. For this reason, the time and place shift with each change of scene.
When the man is four years old, he escaped to the village with his mother because his father was violent and the mother could not endure it any more. After being left in the care of his grandmother in the village, he lived there for fourteen years. During that time, his mother and grandmother die. As soon as he graduates from high school, he moved to an apartment in Naha City to forget about the village. Three years later, he met a twenty-year-old woman. They begin to talk about their past and become close. One day, she asks him to take her to the village. Even though he is confused by her request, he decides to visit there with her.
2. Characters
Watashi (the first-person narrator and protagonist) 私
An introverted young man, who lives for fourteen years in a remote Okinawan village. He suffered domestic violence in his youth. Even though he meets a woman whom he can confide in, his hard experience makes him afraid of being like his violent father. When he moves to Naha City, he leaves the mortuary tablet in his empty house. Because inheriting the tablet is considered important in Okinawa, he feels guilty about the tablet left behind. One day, the boy sees an apparition of his mother, and shortly after that, she takes her own life.
Father 父
The protagonist’s father, who keeps tropical fish at home. He frequently behaves violently toward his family. The protagonist feels hatred and animosity toward him, and remembers him as a black shadow or black mass. The narrator goes to see him, when he is hospitalized in serious condition.
Mother 母
The protagonist’s mother, who escapes with the narrator from her husband. She commits suicide the day after they visit the village. She is interred in a tomb separated from the ancestral grave. (Usually, when someone dies at the village, he or she is supposed to be put in the ancestral tomb.) After her death, the narrator occasionally sees his mother’s apparition, carrying an umbrella and keeping an eye on him with a smile.
Grandmother 祖母
The protagonist’s grandmother, who weaves bashōfu (a cloth used for producing summer clothes, Japanese cushions, and mosquito nets) for approximately forty years. After her lover leaves her, she takes care of her child (the narrator’s mother) by herself. Although she lives with the narrator for fourteen years, she is reticent about talking about herself and her child.
Genkichi 源吉
The narrator’s grandmother’s older brother, the only person left in the grandmother’s family. He lives in a village about two kilometers (approximately 1.24 miles) west of the village, where the grandmother lives, and visits the grandmother once or twice a week. He lost all his relatives, including his wife. His sister (the narrator’s grandmother) and he live together.
Onna (Woman) 女
An unnamed woman, who is one year younger than the narrator. In the past, she became pregnant by a violent boyfriend and decided to have an abortion. She meets the protagonist at a café where she works in Naha City. At the end of the story, she asks the protagonist to visit his hometown with her.
3. Plot Summary
The protagonist, an unnamed young man, recalls when he first visited the village with his mother when he was four years old. In the early morning, his mother wakes him up and begins to pack their bags in preparation to escape from her violent husband. The protagonist feels lonely as he thinks about his friend, who lives on another floor in the apartment. After leaving, they get on a northbound bus. Dozing off, the boy remembers tropical fish swimming in a small aquarium, which his father owns. The tropical fish remind him of the domestic violence he and his mother suffered. He has the uncomfortable sensation that his father’s shadow is chasing the bus. Some female students chat on the bus. (189-91)
When they finally arrive at the village, they get caught in a sudden shower. While taking shelter under an awning near the bus stop, he notices his mother approaching him with a light-blue umbrella. (The boy sometimes sees another apparition of his mother even though his real mother is alive. It is unclear whether this is a twin or a figment of his imagination.) Even though he tells his mother about the apparition, she does not seem to be surprised. Therefore, the protagonist assumes that she cannot see it. The mother with the light-blue umbrella passes them and smiles. When the rain stops, they start down a path to the village, where his grandmother lives. He turns around again and again to look at the other mother as they walk through the sugar cane fields. (191-3)
That night, he visits his grandfather, takes a bath, and goes to bed early. The next morning, he wakes up to the sound of voices outside the house. He moves towards the voices and finds his grandmother talking with a man. She tells him to stay home in a disturbed voice and goes somewhere with the man in a car. He suddenly recalls his father’s aquarium and the tropical fish that were drugged to death by his mother. The night before they left the apartment, he had seen his mother drinking alcohol and gazing at some tablets. For a long time after the grandmother leaves, he crouches down in front of the house and waits for his mother. However, she never comes back. After her funeral, he visits the east of the village that faces an inland sea to see his grandmother and her brother, Genkichi. For the first time, he sees Yaganna Island, which is filled with the villagers’ graves, including the grave of his mother. Looking at his mother’s grave about fifty meters away, he sees her apparition with a light-blue umbrella standing in the shallows between the shore and the island. She smiles and disappears into the island. (193-5)
The narration jumps to when the protagonist is twenty-one years old. As soon as he graduates from high school, he moves to an apartment in Naha City. Since a café opens near his apartment, he begins to have dinner there frequently. Although he has worked at a supermarket for three years and saved some money, he loses most of it by playing an arcade game in the café. One day, a twenty-year-old woman, who works at the café, speaks to him at the supermarket. She tells him not to come to the café because wasting money on gambling is ridiculous. From that day, every time he goes to the café, she checks whether he plays the game or not. When they meet at the supermarket again, she asks him to go shopping with her. (195-7)
They become intimate and often call on each other. The woman confides in him about her past: her school days, her work experiences, a violent former boyfriend, and so on. She asks him to tell her about his past, family, and life in the village. He tells her how his life in the village was, and what happened to him until now. When he goes to see a doctor to get a diagnosis for his erectile dysfunction, the doctor says it is caused by his fear of being like his father. The doctor says that he needs to forgive his father and accept himself. He remembers the scene of his father hitting his mother with an ashtray and regrets the fact that he just cried and did not help her. As he gets to know the woman, he has more conflicted feelings. Nevertheless, she encourages him by saying that he does not have to be worried. The more he values her, the more he fears his inner violence. One night, she asks him what he would do if he saw the apparition of the woman. He had told her earlier about the apparition, and she had told him not to tell her if he sees it. (197-200)
The narration jumps to when the protagonist was fourteen years old. Yaganna Island, a deserted island in the Haneji Inland Sea, has more than a hundred graves. When a villager dies, he or she is supposed to be laid to rest in a tomb on the island. Every year around April, Okinawan families and relatives gather at their family graves to console the sprits of the dead, in a ceremony called shīmī. As part of the festivities, they sing Okinawan folk songs to the accompaniment of a sanshin, a three-stringed Okinawan musical instrument, and dance an Okinawan folk dance called kachāshī. The narrator visited his mother’s grave every year with his grandmother and Genkichi. The grandmother was a person of few words. Even when the narrator entered junior high school, she avoided the subject of his mother’s death. However, he strongly suspects that his mother died by suicide because the village has a custom that a person who commits suicide cannot be put in the same grave as their ancestors. (201-3)
One day, he hears a rumor that someone heard a woman singing on Yaganna Island at night. That night, he goes to the beach with his friends to see if the rumor is true. He finds many villagers on the beach coming to listen to the voice. Just after ten o’clock, he hears someone singing on the island in a plaintive voice. None of the people can guess who is singing. Even more people gather the next night, but out of fear no one tries to determine the voice’s identity. The next night, he finds a woman with long hair standing and singing in the gloom of the island while he listens. He does not tell anyone what he saw and goes home. Early the next morning, he wakes up and races to the beach. When he arrives, he notices that the woman with long hair is hanging dead from a tree on Yaganna Island. (203-6)
In his high school days, the main character had a part-time job to earn money for his grandmother, who cultivated crops and wove bashōfu, a cloth used to make summer clothes, Japanese cushions, and mosquito nets. Although they live together for a long time, the grandmother is reluctant to talk about herself. (207-9)
He hears the grandmother’s story from Genkichi when ūkui, an annual observance in Okinawa to send off the sprits of ancestors, takes place. That night, Genkichi invites him to go see the spirits. They enter a steep forest and ascend the peak, overlooking the sea. When the protagonist glances at his house, he sees his mother’s spirit floating in the air. After that, the spirit goes back to Yaganna Island. Genkichi starts to talk about his own life and the grandmother’s life. He says that they lost their parents when they were young. Although he got married, he lost his wife before having a child. He tells the protagonist that the grandmother’s only lover left her when he found out she was pregnant. However, she gave birth to his child and raised her by herself. Genkichi expresses his deep remorse for the death of the protagonist’s mother. (209-12)
After Genkichi dies in December of that year, the grandmother becomes more and more debilitated. Yoshi, the protagonist’s neighbor, tells him that the grandmother sometimes roams around speaking to herself. On the morning after he heard this, the grandmother dies in clothes wet with seawater. He finds two tropical fish on the bed and one more in her sleeve. A doctor says that she seems to have died as a result of myocardial infraction. (213-5)
The narration jumps to when the protagonist is twenty-one years old. In the café, the woman asks the protagonist to take her to the village. He agrees; however, he is upset about the request because he has left behind not only his house, but also the mortuary tablet, which he was supposed to protect. Moreover, he has been trying to live without thinking about the village. He recalls when she confessed that she had had an abortion: When she tried to tell her former boyfriend that she was pregnant, the boyfriend suddenly hit her and took her cash card from her. Then she decided to have an abortion, and she finally broke up with him. She says that no one can exist alone. He is still afraid of his father’s shadow. (215-8)
Four days before the protagonist visits the village with the woman, he gets a call from his father’s sister. Hearing about the seriousness of his father’s condition, he visits the hospital to see his father for the first time in almost fourteen years. Looking at his decrepit father, he has mixed feelings. He touches the father’s face but feels nothing. However, touching his father’s beard reminds him of happy times. When he leaves the hospital, the father’s nephew strongly states that he does not regard the protagonist his relative. (219-22)
The main protagonist visits the village with the woman. On the way to the village, she tells him that she wants to walk. He lets her out and follows her in the car. Witnessing the shattered village, he feels guilty for not coming back for such a long time. They go to retrieve the mortuary tablet from his old house. After they pray at his family altar, they go to the beach, where they pray and offer incense sticks. Glancing at Yaganna Island, he notices a boy looking at him. The boy grows older as he climbs the hillside. Finally, he realizes that he is the boy. (222-4)
4. Setting
The main setting is a village in the northern part of the Okinawa mainland. Medoruma hints that the village is in the eastern part of Nakijin Village through his description of Yaganna Island, an actual deserted island in the Haneji inland sea. Yaganna Island, which is about twenty square meters and thirty-meters high, plays an important role in the story. Traditionally, Nakijin villagers built graves on Yaganna Island to bury the dead. Today, the island has more than a hundred tombs. People in the village ford the shallow sea and visit their families’ graves on the island every April.
Part of the story takes place in Naha City, where the protagonist lives for three years after he graduates from his high school in Nakijin Village. When the narrator returns home for the first time, he finds that the appearance and atmosphere of the island has dramatically changed. The decreasing population there makes the village decline. It causes not only nature, but also houses in the village to fall into decay. The narrator goes for the mortuary tablet he left in the village and regrets that he did not visit earlier. Those descriptions show the situation that Okinawa faces, such as depopulation in rural regions, and the problem of succession of the family altar and tablet. Although Medoruma rarely mentions dates in the story, some descriptions imply that the story takes place in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
5. Cultural Background
Mortuary tablet
In Okinawa, people place much emphasis on ancestor worship. Part of such worship includes taking care of the family’s mortuary tablets. In “Tōtōmē no minzoku gakushū kōza,” Namihira Eriko states that Okinawan people call the mortuary tablet guwansu or tōtōmē in their dialect. Guwansu means “original” while tōtōmē refers to a “precious person,” so that the mortuary tablet symbolizes one’s precious ancestors, including the first one (136). In fact, the mortuary tablet is often placed on a family alter and is used to list the names and death dates of the deceased people. Therefore, mortuary tablets also play an important role in recording information about ancestors.
Many Okinawan people feel that passing the mortuary tablets down to the eldest son is the ideal system. In other words, although there are exceptions as in the case of the narrator, male descendants usually inherit the mortuary tablets. To Okinawans, inheriting the tablets means inheriting the history of the entire family. In the story, the inheritance places a burden on the narrator. Although he was in a situation where he should have inherited the mortuary tablet, he left it behind in the village and has not returned. That is not just because he had negative memories of the village. One of the reasons comes from his physical and psychological problems. The fact that he has erectile dysfunction as a result of trauma during his childhood means that he may not be able to pass down his inheritance to the next generation. When he returns to the village, he realizes that he has an obligation to the future generations (223).
The character Genkichi says that the sprits of the dead are watching over them (211), and in fact, many Okinawan people believe that their ancestors exist close to them and protect them from disease. For Okinawan people, taking care of one’s mortuary tablets is perhaps the most important way to respect one’s ancestors and roots.
Munchū
Okinawan people value blood relationships, which are called munchū. Munchū refers to a paternal group that includes those with the same ancestors. In “Tōtōmē no minzoku gakushū kōza,” Namihira Eriko states that the history of munchū dates back to the seventeenth century. The Ryūkyūan government (Okinawa was called Ryūkyū up until 1879) tried to establish a genealogical department to establish a status system that separated the samurai class from the peasantry. The government permitted only members of the samurai class to construct family trees. As a result of this policy, the upper class became more aware of their origins or paternal bloodlines because their ancestors’ achievements had a huge effect on their social success. The trend among the upper class, which places emphasis on a paternal bloodline, is said to have lead to the munchū system (104-5). All members of a munchū are supposed to be buried in the same tomb, which is called a munchū baka; however, the burial of a person who died in an accident or committed suicide in the same tomb with the ancestors is forbidden. In “Yuta to mainichi,” it is explained that Okinawan people believe that burying such unfortunate people with the sacred ancestors will lead to disaster for the family. In “Nakai,” the narrator’s mother cannot be buried in the munchū baka. Instead, she is buried in a separate tomb nearby.
6. Point of View
The entire story is narrated from the protagonist’s point of view, except for one scene in which the woman tells the protagonist about her violent former boyfriend. In that scene, the narration switches to her point of view. Switching the point of view makes the woman’s bitter experience more vivid. Although the narrator describes the past as if he were there now, the interpretations and explanations of the scenes sometimes seem to be those of a twenty-one-year-old man.
7. Symbolism and Imagery
The Aquarium and Fish
The aquarium, which the narrator’s father owns, repeatedly appears in the story as a symbol of absolute power. For example, when the narrator and his mother lived with the narrator’s father, they feel trapped and could not stand against his father’s domestic violence—as if they were small fish trapped in an aquarium. Moreover, the night before the narrator and his mother escape from the boy’s father, the mother kills the fish in the aquarium. This foreshadows her later suicide. In this way, the fish, which only live in the small aquarium, symbolizes the suppressed mental state caused by the violent father. Not only the aquarium, but also even the smell of the ocean makes the narrator feel stress. For example, when he smells the ocean, it reminds him of the taste of blood because his father used to hit him. When the protagonist’s grandmother dies, tropical fish were found in her clothes. Medoruma uses the bright color of the tropical fish to contrast with the dark side of the story.
The Apparition
The protagonist sees his mother’s apparition not only after she dies but also before. When the protagonist confides to the young woman that he saw his mother’s apparition, she asks him not to tell her even if he sees it. That is because she thinks the apparition is a portent of death. At the very end of the story, the protagonist sees his own apparition. This perhaps portends the protagonist’s death.
The black mass (shadow)
The black mass or black shadow symbolizes violence. When the protagonist was young, he used to be hit by his father. Because of such an experience, every time the protagonist remembers his father, the father only appears as a black mass or shadow in the protagonist’s memory. Moreover, the more intimate the protagonist becomes with the woman, the more he suffers and worries. This is because he thinks if he becomes like his father, his potential for violence will erupt and he might hurt her.
Umbrella
Umbrellas appear at the beginning and end of the story. They symbolize the past and future. When the protagonist was young, he sees his mother’s apparition with a light-blue umbrella. However, as time goes by, he no longer sees the apparition. At the end of the story, he visits the village with the woman with a yellow umbrella because he decides to face what he experienced in the village with the woman. The umbrella suggests that the protagonist’s change of attitude toward life has become more positive.
8. Criticism
“Naikai” has a lot of characters who feel isolated because of losing their family or relatives. However, that is not the only reason that they are lonely. In the story, some descriptions of discrimination among relatives appear. When the protagonist’s mother died, her body could not be buried in the ancestral grave. In the village, people who commit suicide or die unnatural deaths have to be buried separately from others. Moreover, when the protagonist visits the hospital to meet his father, the father’s nephew says that he does not regard the protagonist as a relative. These scenes show that the protagonist and his mother suffer discrimination from relatives. In “Okinawa: kusa no koe, ne no ishi”, Medoruma points out that although some people say that Okinawa does not have much discrimination, they have it all wrong. In fact, Okinawans have often discriminated against people from remote islands or those from lower social classes. There is also prejudice against women, disabled people, foreigners, people of mixed blood, and social minorities. Okinawan discrimination amongst relatives and other prejudices have deep roots (251). Medoruma criticizes people who simply have a stereotyped image of Okinawa as a place that is rich in nature, cheerful and gentle, open to outsiders, and so forth. However, Medoruma’s story also makes clear that Okinawa has many problems, such as environmental destruction , landfill construction, a declining population in rural area, and prejudice in communities.
9. Themes
Connecting with others
“Naikai” poses readers with a simple question, “Can people live alone?” Most of the characters live with a sense of isolation. The protagonist thinks that living all alone is the most important thing when he loses all his relatives. After that, he moves to Naha City and leaves behind his family’s mortuary tablets, so that he can forget all that happened in the village. Similarly, his grandmother raises her child by herself because her partner left her. The starkest example is the protagonist’s mother, who kills herself in order to keep her family problem secret from everyone. Genkichi loses his parents and his wife, and he dies childless. The young woman develops a feeling of isolation and suffers violence from her ex-boyfriend when she becomes pregnant. When the protagonist develops a deep relationship to her, he begins to worry that he will become violent like his father. In other words, he feels conflicted about living with the woman. Medoruma also shows how the characters face and attempt to overcome their feelings of isolation. For example, the protagonist decides to meet his debilitated father even though he is scared and anxious. Moreover, he decides to visit the village, which is full of bad memories for him, in order to inherit the mortuary tablets. In a conversation with the protagonist, the woman says that people cannot live alone and are not alone even if they die. The title—“Naikai”—may imply that people are connected to others, just as every inland sea leads to the open sea.
10. Discussion Questions
1. Why does the woman want to visit the village with the narrator? What does the narrator finally agree to visit the village?
2. Why can’t the narrator’s mother be buried in the ancestral tomb?
3. Why does the narrator feel guilty about leaving the mortuary tablets behind in the village?
4. Why does the narrator decide to visit the hospital to meet his father?
5. Why does the father’s nephew strongly state that he does not regard the narrator his relative?
6. Why does the narrator see his own apparition at the end of the story?
11. Works Cited
Kojima, Yōsuke. “Medoruma Shun ‘Mabuigumi’ Iyasarenu ‘Yamai.’” Nihon kindai bungaku to yamai. Chiba daigakuin jinbun shakai kagaku kenkyūka kenkyū project seika hōkokusho No. 184. Chiba: 2009. Downloaded May 2012.
Matsumoto, Osamu, and Tōbaru Chieko. “‘Brazil ojī no sake’ ni okeru katari no jūsousei to yomi no keisei” [On ‘narrative’ and ‘narration’ of the story “Brazil ojī no sake” as a teaching material]. Hyōgen kenkyū No.80 Tokyo: 2004. Downloaded May 2012.
Medoruma, Shun. “Kono jidai ni, kono basho de.” Okinawa bungakusen : Nihon Bungaku no ejji kara no toi. Ed. Okamoto Keitoku, Takahashi Toshio. Tokyo: Benzei shuppan, 2003.
---. “Naikai” [Inland Sea]. Mabuigumi [Soul-Stuffing]. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1999. 187-224.
---. “Okinawa sanbi no uragawa” ikitsuzukeru shima no sabetsu kōzō. Okinawa/kusa no koe ne no ishi. Kanagawa: Yoshiki shobō. 2001. 249-252.
Miyakawa, Kōji. “Ōshiro Tatsuhiro and the yuta literature of Okianawa.” Nihon daigaku daigakuin sōgō shakai jōhō kenkyūka kiyō No.10. Tokyo: 2009. Downloaded May 2012.
Namihira, Eriko. “Tōtōmē no minzokugaku kōza” Okinawa: Borderink 2010.
Okamoto, Keitoku. “Shomin no me de toraeta Tennōsei.” Gendai bungaku ni miru Okinawa no jigazō. Tokyo: Kōbunken, 1996.
Shinjō, Ikuo. “Haha o migomoru musuko: Medoruma Shun ‘Mabuigumi’ ron.” Kakuran suru shima jendā teki shiten. Tokyo: Shakai hyōronsha, 2008. 195-227.
“Yuta to meinichi.” Web. 18 December 2012.
Original Report by Shuntarō Tamamoto. Edited and revised by Kasumi Sminkey.