What is Left Unsaid: Cultivating Diaries, Poems, and Food

Throughout the course of Japanese 70, we have encountered a series of literature and film that depict a range of genres that cultivate different relationships between humans and food. Upon reflecting, and perhaps due to personal taste, I believe that, from this range of genres, the genre of diaries is the most effective for cultivating a relationship with food. The reasons are its poetic nature, subjectivity, casualness, and accessibility. Above all, I believe the diary genre establishes a personal and intimate relationship between people and food. Specifically, I refer to My Years of Meats and Vibrator to demonstrate this relationship.

In My Year of Meats, we get a personal account from Jane regarding her development of a new cooking program and her encounter with the Flowers family. According to Jane, “While you are shooting them, they are your entire world and you live in the warm, beating heart of their domestic narratives, but as soon as you drive away from the house, away from the family all fond and waving, then it is over” (Ozeki 35-36). This statement marks the intimacy that Jane develops with the program, the family, the wife, and the food. Her accounts are subjective, giving others a perspective from a multitude of perspectives. This leaves the readers the possibility of judging on their own to consider what is left unsaid and what it means.

In addition, her comments, because they are subjective, are also personal. This creates another level of intimacy in which the feelings of Jane are directly portrayed without further manipulation and editing, in contrast to the reshaping publicity in Giants and Toys. Moreover, the interludes of Sei Shōnagon’s diary poems attach a poetic element to the diary genre. Such elements create a sense of brevity, succinctness, and ordinariness, avoiding the distant and unfamiliar feelings typically associated with serious and formal methods.

Shot 1: Food Creating Social Connection on Truck

Similarly, we observe the same type of casualness and ease of access in Vibrator. Rei Hayakawa and Takatoshi embark on a road trip after their random acquaintance at a convenient store. They slowly break the ice with the help of soju, cigarette, and chips. This natural tendency of desiring to eat is complemented with our natural tendency to establish relationships and connections with others. Another important aspect of Vibrator is Rei’s constant self-conscious voices. They represent her innate feelings, without any disguise, and can be seen as a form of mental diary that reminds us again of poetic elements similar to The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon.

In conclusion, I believe the diary genre creates an intimate relationship between people and food. The diary genre lends naturally to the understanding of food through personal accounts and experiences in which we can freely interpret according to our tastes and beliefs. To serve as an extension, I point to the current technology in which personal blogs are so accessible and easy to create, forming a platform in which many foodies share their experiences and thoughts on food. Pictures are not only easily embedded on the blogs, open platforms also enable bloggers and readers to share comments and feedback regarding specific articles. Truly, we have seen how the traditional form of a diary book has transformed in our current generation, marking a more open and interactive yet personal relationship between people and food.

Diaries: Bringing the Past into the Present

Illustration of Sei Shonagon, author of The Pillow Book

            As Japanese author Sei Shōnagon once remarked in her renowned Pillow Book, “I put things down as they came to me” (Ozeki 1). In My Year of Meats, Ruth Ozeki utilizes Sei Shōnagon’s historic Pillow Book diaries to create a compelling narrative, unraveling a story about the dynamics of cultural realities. Focusing mainly on two contrasting protagonists, Jane and Akiko, My Year of Meats explores and uncovers cultural similarities and differences between Japanese and American culture. Ozeki’s use of The Pillow Book diaries, full of spontaneous jottings, unites the two narratives into one cohesive unit by inspiring the choices and actions of both respective protagonists while simultaneously revealing contrasts between historic realities and perspectives with those of a more modern era.

            The novel begins with Jane Takagi-Little, a Japanese-American documentarian directly inspired by Sei Shōnagon’s raw and uncensored perspective on life. At the start of the novel, Jane is hired by a Japanese company as the creative producer of a new television show, “My American Wife,” aimed at portraying the daily activities of stereotypical all-American housewives. Because the show broadcasts an illusory portrayal of happy American households to a Japanese audience, Jane detests the artificiality of the program. While the show focuses on upholding appearances, Jane imagines Shōnagon, “the master thief…watching [her] slipping in and out of darkened rooms and steal from people’s lives” (Ozeki 32). Like Sei Shōnagon, who defies social norms as “the sort of person who approves of what others abhor and detests the things they like” (Ozeki 1), Jane is an advocate of documenting life as is. As a documentarian, Jane prefers to reveal the undersides of situations and events, raw and unedited.

On the other side of the globe, Akiko, the wife of “My American Wife’s” producer, is a Japanese housewife who essentially serves as a foil to Jane’s anti-mainstream, artistic nature. Although she was once a manga artist, she became a housewife after marriage, dominated by her demanding husband. Unlike Jane, Akiko is rather meek, never “at all sure of anything, even of her likes and dislikes” (Ozeki 39). But like Jane, Akiko finds inspiration in Shōnagon’s Pillow Book. Akiko believes that “Shōnagon was so sure of herself and her prescriptions” (Ozeki 38) that she found comfort in reading her multitude of spontaneous, insightful lists. Although Akiko often attempts and fails to create her own lists, Shōnagon’s certainty ultimately serves to empower Akiko, giving her a sense of independence and authority.

Completed in 1002, the observations and thoughts displayed in Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book serves to inspire the lives of both Jane and Akiko, nearly ten centuries after the diary was completed. As a diary portraying the thoughts of a Heian court lady as they flowed from her mind to the pages of the notebook stored under her pillow, Shōnagon’s certain and realistic thoughts empower and unite the two main protagonists and their narratives. Through the use of observational diaries, Ruth Ozeki brings together two highly contrasting personas to create one cohesive narrative that ultimately reflects the cultural and inspirational connection between the past and the present.

A Modern Sei Shonagon?

            Ruth Ozeki incorporates the older genre of diary literature in her book, My Year of Meats, in order to give the reader a more personal insight into the life and personality of Jane Takagi-Little, one of the characters in the book. Diary literature is an older genre used by Heian court lady and writer Sei Shonagon in her well-known work, The Pillow Book. Ozeki opens up each chapter with a short passage from Shonagon’s book and relates it to the rest of chapter, and Shonagon is also a source of inspiration for the character Jane.

            Ozeki uses the first-person narrative of diary literature when she is telling Jane’s story, which allows the reader to connect with Jane and directly read her mind and feelings as she tells her account of her year as a coordinator for “My American Wife”. Jane also goes into her background. She tells us she is biracial, half Japanese and half white, and throughout the narrative the audience sees how she struggles with this but also has come to accept it, and even embraces it. Her struggles mostly come about how other people treat her, for example when an American WWII veteran asks her, “What are you?” she replies, “I…am…a…fucking…AMERICAN!” and it is obvious that she is offended by this question, even though as a biracial person, she probably gets this question often (7). The audience also sees how she is proud of being half and sometimes feels “brand-new—like a prototype” as the world will all be eventually all racially mixed (9).

            Jane tells the reader that she admires Sei Shonagon, who inspired her “to become a documentarian, to speak men’s Japanese, to be different” (9). Just as Shonagon wrote in the “Chinese writings” only used by men back in the Heian era, Jane speaks in men’s Japanese, and dares to be different in Japan, a society which has more emphasis on conformity and tradition compared to American society.

            The third chapter of My Year of Meats opens with a passage from The Pillow Book, “A thief has crept into a house and is now hiding in some well-chosen nook where he can secretly observe what is going on” (17). Jane relates to this thief as she “slip[s] in and out of darkened rooms and steal[s] from people’s lives” but also calls Shonagon the “master thief” (18). In diary literature, the author is not only limited to her own life, but also any lives she comes in contact with, whether the other party wants to or not. Jane can be seen as a modern parallel to Shonagon, who observed and wrote about the happenings in the Heian court as she viewed them without sugarcoating her language, just as Jane accounts her Year of Meats with direct feelings along with her experiences with her Japanese bosses and American families she worked with, withholding no indiscretion.

            Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book is an inspiration for My Year of Meats, both to the style and also to the character in the book.

The Diary: A Personal, Descriptive Literary Genre

“…odd facts, stories from the past, and all sorts of other things, often including the most trivial material…”

— Sei Shōnagon, The Pillow Book, c. 1000 A.D.

Sei Shōnagon’s c. 1000 AD work titled The Pillow Book is a highly detailed diary that prototypes the narrative form of Ruth L. Ozeki’s novel titled My Year of Meats. For example, The Pillow Book as a diary, is subdivided into many sections that are simply labeled with heartfelt thoughts and emotions such as: Pleasing Things, Shameful Things, and Hateful Things, that directly and personally engage the reader. Similarly, the first person point of view found in My Year of Meats is aggressively personal in the sense that it is bluntly detailed and honest. For example, on pages 35-36 of the novel, the following excerpt demonstrates how My Year of Meat’s narration forcefully places the reader in a confidant position:

“…You are doing a wife or two a week. While you are shooting them, they are your entire world and you live in the warm, beating heart of their domestic narratives, but as soon as you drive away from the house, away from the family all fond and waving, then it is over…that’s it. Easy. Done” (Ozeki 35-36).

Simply put, the “too much information” narrative style of My Year of Meats figuratively entraps the reader in a disturbing realm of truth and intimacy. Furthermore, the pronoun “I” (a manifestation of the first person point of view), is overwhelmingly present throughout the novel and so validates the text. That is to say, the word “I” personalizes the text. It transforms it into a private one-on-one conversation the reader trustingly accepts and identifies with.

Last but not least, the diary as a genre is a medium that grants agency. For example, Sei Shōnagon via The Pillow Book powerfully critiques Heian social norms and the Heian court itself. In addition, Shōnagon overstepped gender norms through her use of Chinese characters when writing The Pillow Book. Likewise in My Year of Meats, the protagonist Jane establishes herself as a symbol and dynamic embodiment of power through self-expression. For instance, Jane’s mixed ethnicity, a fact that she brings up many times, empowers her to critic her cultures, which she does quite openly. Also, Jane’s translating occupation empowers her in a feminist manner. For instance, when Jane translates and rewords Kato’s memos, such an act figuratively subordinates the male gender. In addition, Jane’s occasional bouts of elevated language (diction) equal Shōnagon’s Chinese character use:

“…We’d spend two or three days with her, picking through the quotidian minutiae of her existence…” (Ozeki 35).

Accordingly, the phrase “quotidian minutiae” quoted above empowers Jane but it also exposes her to scrutiny and critique, Shōnagon’s exact experience and fate after openly using Chinese characters.

In conclusion, the diary genre represented by Sei Shōnagon’s The Pillow Book, prototypes My Year of Meat’s narrative style. That is to say, My Year of Meats is in part a diary since it implements “I” narration and carefully details all things and matters both big and small.

Sei Shonagon: Streams and Lists

Ruth Ozeki’s My Year of Meats is a narrative that spans the three lives of different women through the creation and production of a cooking show starring American mothers cooking meat, which is advertised for Japanese families. The three women include the producer and creator of the show, named Jane; a viewer of the show in Japan, named Akiko; and an American mother named Suzie.

The beginning of the narrative begins with a passage from The Pillow Book, written by Sei Shonagon in 1000 A.D. Japan. In the passage, the court lady during the Heian period describes the beginning of her process of writing through the technique of stream of consciousness, stating that those seeing the book would think “now one can really tell what she is like” through her “put[ting] things down exactly as they came to me”(Ozeki,1). Shonagon is also described by Jane as a list-maker, creating them for what she calls “splendid things” or “depressing things” (Ozeki 14). These two elements of Sei Shonagon’s writing serve as models for Ozeki’s writing in this narrative.

The type of stream of consciousness continues throughout the narrative, being the model of writing that Ozeki uses. One example of this stream of consciousness can be found right after one of the narrators, Jane, brings up Shonagon. In this part, Jane talks about her own identity as American and Japanese, and her ability to “straddle this blessed, ever-shrinking world” through this dual identity (Ozeki, 15). This stream of consciousness about her identity seems to be a trademark of Shonagon and her own wish to be uninhibited in her expression of self through writing. Another example of this would also be found in Suzie’s choice in buying new bedding instead of keeping her old quilt. In this part of the narrative, we find her thought process laid out to us as to why she chose to get rid of the old quilt through her own stream of consciousness (Ozeki 24).

Another way that Shonagon’s work seems to serve as a model is through the use of lists that different characters use. We see Jane creates these lists when she is entertaining “John,” Akiko’s husband. In this scene, Jane finds “John” disgusting, creating a list in her mind of things that are “hateful,” “presumptuous,” and more (Ozeki 44). Lists are also made by Akiko in an attempt to free herself from her disappointing marriage (Ozeki 39). These lists seem to be important to the characters because their creation comes from being in negative situations. It may be that this gives them a sort of power, to characterize what is happening around them and help act on it in some way.

The streams and lists made by Sei Shonagon served as models for Ozeki in that we see the plot through the streams of the characters, and the characterizations in the “lists” of the characters. Suzie ends up being the only character without a list, ironically leaving her as the character with the most lost in the narrative. This may, then, have been done on purpose by the author to emphasize the need of lists for the characters.

Murasaki Shikibu (author of The Tale of Genji) on Sei Shōnagon

Shikibu’s diary contains this frank appraisal of Sei Shōnagon:

Sei Shōnagon was…dreadfully conceited. She thought herself so clever and littered her writings with Chinese characters; but if you examined them closely, they left a great deal to be desired. Those who think of themselves as being superior to everyone else in this way will inevitably suffer and come to a bad end, and people who have become so precious that they go out of their way to be sensitive in the most unpromising situations, trying to capture every moment of interest, however slight, are bound to look ridiculous and superficial. How can the future turn out well for them? (Diary of Murasaki Shikibu, p. 54).