Mao – Borderless

Death came to Richard Hughes a little over a quarter century ago — precisely on 4th January 1984. For his friends it was more than a personal loss, not just the occasional twinge of sorrow. It was a permanent bereavement. Richard Hughes was the foreign correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review from 1971 to 1983 and was one of Asia’s top-notch reporters.

Born to an Irish mother and Welsh father, Hughes combined Catholicism and Calvinism. Hughes was a pressman, complete and unassuming. He began his life with a writing job in the public relations department of the Victorian Railways. He soon joined the Melbourne Star (he was reported to be cracked, leaving PR for journalism is like running away from sea to go to school). Then he joined Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and was sent to Tokyo. Hughes reported the events of World War II. After the war ended, he continued reporting for other wars — particularly, the Korean War (1950-53).

His journalistic stints hovered around The Economist and The Sunday Times. Like all great reporters, scoops were his forte — the best known being an exclusive interview in Moscow with Burgess and MacLean, both British men who spied for the USSR. Later he shifted to Hong Kong and began writing his weekly columns.

Richard Hughes was more than a pressman. A towering personality who loved his job eminently, he was equally in the company of eminent people. Ian Fleming who was penning his James Bond thrillers was Hughes’ foreign editor and John le Carre wrote him into his books. Dikko Henderson of the Australian Secret Service in Fleming’s You Only Live Twice (1964) and Old Craw in Le Carre’s The Honourable Schoolboy (1977)are none other than Dick or Richard Hughes.

The life of Hughes as a reporter spanned many decades, most of which was spent in Asia. Hughes wrote extensively about Asia and his memoirs of those decades are chronicles of some important happenings in the continent. From hilarious events to the macabre ones, Hughes wrote about them and with great elan.

Hughes was an avid China-watcher and in most of his reports China figured prominently. Even the first report he filed on 16 October 1971, carried a commentary on Chairman Mao Zedong’s health and Lin Biao being anointed heir-apparent.

The year 1972 was, like 2008, the Chinese year of the Rat. Hughes wrote rather assertively: “The late Comrade Marx may not have heard of this celestial law of the animal calendar, and Chairman Mao himself does not refer to it in any of his manifestos; but stubbornly it persists, real and abiding, if non-ideological.”

President Nixon was visiting Peking early 1972. Hughes in his ingenious style commented: “The Chinese comrades have their own Maoist version of champagne, which was available in an alleged nightclub in a hutung behind the old Peking market as late as 1957; but the less said about that bastardized product the better for the Washington-Peking detente.”

In yet another of his weekly columns, Hughes described how Comrade-Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia (1922-2012) feared and distrusted the communists and the Vietnamese (Hanoi and Saigon alike) more than he feared or distrusted the Americans and the West.

Hughes’ oeuvre spanned from small little facts to great tributes. His piece on the death of Mitsugoro Bando VIII, the 69-year-old Kabuki actor, which he wrote in February 1975,was not only an homage but it carried an incisive analysis of the cause of this theatre personality’s death-eating fugu or Japanese globefish. Mark these details which Hughes had appended in his dispatch:

“Globefish poisoning is caused by tetrotoxin, usually found in fugu liver or ovaries, which can be far deadlier than potassium cyanide and causes violent paralysis. Since 1958, when a total of 289 diners suffered from globefish poisoning in Japan and 167 died, only licensed cooks have been authorized to prepare fugu dishes.”

Hughes was once expelled from the press galleries of both the Senate and the House of Representatives in Canberra because of his critical remarks about an irresponsible Senate vote against John Curtin’s Labor government. As he was re-seated after being exonerated in the galleries, he was not only delighted but gave this bit of information in his column that the Canberra press is one of the friendliest in the world.

Richard Hughes’ dispatches were not always matter-of-fact reporting; some of them were comical and conversational. One such backdrop was the lunar zodiac in which Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou were born.

Here is another account of Kim II Sung of North Korea (1912-94), who was speculated to have disappeared from public life owing to an incurable malignant neck cancer. Hughes wrote:

“Many of my barefoot spies in Peking and Seoul believe that when Kim II Sung sought medical advice in Rumania in 1974, he was told that he could expect to continue in public office for only two more years. This story certainly helps to explain his family-cult buffoonery and the controversial promotion of his 37-year-old son Kim Jong II as his successor.”

A September-1978 column of Hughes takes us to what happened in Indonesia in the late sixties — Ratna Sari Dewi, the one time Tokyo geisha hostess and the third wife of the late president Sukarno, denouncing the CIA for complicity in the abortive 1965 communist coup. In the same vein, Hughes wrote eulogistically about President Suharto: “He sought to retire Sukarno, the father figure of Indonesian revolution, with relative dignity and avoid humiliation of the man who had been the country’s voice for two decades. But Sukarno, that arrogant hypocrite, never gave Suharto credit for his characteristically Indonesian perception and generosity.”

No newspaper columnist can ever keep himself aloof from writing about newspapers themselves. So, when Hughes attended a reception of Shimbun’s 35th anniversary celebrations he was nostalgic about the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan and how it had grown to a strong 250-member association by 1946. In a similar vein, he argued in one of his reports in November 1981 that the world’s first daily newspaper was not The Times but the contest was between west and East Europe or Korea. Based on various sources Hughes resolved that The Leipziger Zeitung (Korea) was the world’s first daily newspaper.

Richard Hughes’ last column was on the charade by former Australian prime minister Harold Holt’s espionage and his submarine escape to China. He, no doubt, called him a patriotic Aussie and recalled their friendship from the debating days of Melbourne. This column was submitted on 15 December 1983 and after which he never returned to write those brilliant columns once again.

Hughes columns were hilarious and sensitive to prevailing situations. He touched those niceties of life which he could handle with great aplomb. Whether it was the slave children of old Shanghai, plunging pathetic, claw-like hands into vats of boiling water to prepare silk cocoons for spinning or the Teikoku poisoner who massacred a bank’s staff for a haul of US 80 dollars, Hughes’ columns were down-to-earth.

No wonder he was called the ‘barefoot reporter’!

Bhaskar Parichha is a journalist and author of No Strings Attached: Writings on Odisha and Biju Patnaik – A Political Biography. He lives in Bhubaneswar and writes bilingually. Besides writing for newspapers, he also reviews books on various media platforms.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

By Danielle Legault Kurihara

My father-in-law’s passing, when I was pregnant with his grandson, served as a sort of personal consecration. The Japanese family entrusted me with tasks and responsibilities from the moment of his death to the moment, three days later, when we picked his bones out of the ashes. All differences of nationality and religion flew out of the window.

Being married to the third son of a Japanese family, you could say I’m very low on the totem pole. When my mother-in-law married the eldest son of this clan in 1947, she had prestige but she lived to serve. She gained some measure of glory by giving birth to all those boys in the tatami room, but she was still the last one to use the bath water after her parents-in-law, her husband and her three young sons had soaked in it. She laughs about it now but when I asked her about Great-Grandma’s antique hand-painted silk kimonos, she said she made a big bonfire in the garden after her death and burned them all.

We got the call in the middle of the night. Otoosan had passed. As soon as my mother-in-law stepped into her husband’s room at the Veterans Hospital, or Veteru as it is called in Japan, she put everybody to work. His body had to be washed and his face shaved. My husband took me to the other side of the curtain and offered a chair. “You don’t have to do this”, he said. I could hear my mother-in-law instructing her sons. They worked in silence. I sat in the dark.

Otoosan, an architect, a father of three sons and a former soldier and prisoner of war, lived the final years of his long life in the Veteran Hospital. I had only met him once before in his home where he was spending the day as an outpatient. This man, whose powerful physique held memories of a four dan black belt judoka, was strapped in a chair, being fed by his wife. My husband said in a loud voice: “Otoosan, this is my wife. She’s Canadian”. He looked up, showed no reaction on seeing my Caucasian face and the family giggled: all in a day’s work. His son, a three dan black belt himself like a chip off the old block, took over feeding his Otoosan spoonfuls of lukewarm miso soup, their knees touching, their eyes meeting.

First Task

For my first task, after the family finished taking care of Otoosan, I was asked to sit at his bedside and wait with him while the family filled out paperwork in the office. Before leaving, my mother-in-law turned to me and said gently, “He should not be alone, you understand”. They left in the wake of two black clad white-gloved funeral employees who had appeared on cue from the shadows. There we were together, and it seemed like a moment to reacquaint myself with Otoosan, now wrapped in a pristine white sheet, only his tranquil face showing. I stared at him for a long time and finally whispered domo. It can mean hello or thank you or a mix of both. I read once that this greeting was used during the Edo Period to express a feeling of confusion or unsureness about the person one was addressing.

Second Task

For my second task, to my great surprise, my mother-in-law asked me to accompany Otoosan in the van transporting him to the family home while the others went to the funeral support company. Why me, the foreign wife married to the third son? But everybody had a part to play in this family event and at that moment, the responsibility fell to me. I climbed into the white van to do my job.

My father-in-law and I could never have imagined making this trip together. Not in our wildest dreams. Not only were we practically strangers to each other, but we came from vastly different worlds, him an elderly Japanese man and me, a thirty-something pregnant French-Canadian. Together we crisscrossed the empty streets in the cold white van, side-by-side, his body wrapped in a shroud on a futon near me. In winter, three am is a dark and deep hour but I was told Otoosan was still here among us, in the realm between two worlds. He had just begun his last pilgrimage. Knowing this, I somewhat felt less forlorn traveling through the winter night, so far away from my country and my own cultural bearings. But that’s beside the point. I had a responsibility to fulfill.

Third Task

The porch light was on, the house already wrapped in black and white stripped cloth swaying in the dark as Otoosan was carried inside his home through the front door. He was laid to rest on a futon in the tatami room, two decorative lanterns like fancy bookends framing his bed. A black-and-white photo of Otoosan looking strong and serious sat in the middle of an altar among candles, chrysanthemums and fruit. In the pale yellow light of the lanterns, we dressed him in his white pilgrim garb for his 49-day journey to the Pure Land, following a hierarchical order. His wife put a white cap on his head and rice in the small pouch hanging from his neck, his sons smoothed out the white coat folded in reverse, and I slid, as best as I could while kneeling on the tatami, white cloth slippers over his feet. This was my third and last task of the night. The wake would start tomorrow. My husband, looking sad and exhausted, said, “We will sleep here next to him. Go home to get some rest.”

Fourth Task

The next day I stepped over the rows of slippers now crowding the spotless entrance step of the family home like a military parade. My mother-in-law, in her formal black silk kimono stamped with the family crest on the back collar, glided between the tatami room and the adjoining kitchen on her blinding white tabi socks. A diminutive powerhouse, married to an eldest son. I looked down at my rather homely nondescript black maternity dress.

For my fourth task, she directed me to take down from the cupboards the fancy sets of dessert dishes and tea cups, wash them thoroughly, dry them rigorously and set them out on the table. “Don’t break anything!” she chided with a smile in her eyes. I also had to wipe clean the large decades-old bone china serving platters and stack them with oranges, the locally-grown fruit. I took a certain pleasure in displaying them in a Jackson Pollock style. One way or the other, I knew they would be rearranged.

Early evening, relatives and acquaintances arrived in black suits and dresses to whisper condolences to my mother-in-law who bowed deeply to each guest. The mourners filled the tatami room, all sitting seiza before Otoosan. Leaning in, they greeted each other quietly.

Suddenly there was a commotion. The priest strode in like the phantom of the opera, his magnificent black kimono robes and glitteringvestment swooshing around him. We snapped to attention, backs straight, holding our Buddhist rosaries between clasped hands. He greeted us, kneeled in front of Otoosan and started chanting in a loud sonorous voice. I was sitting on a stool in the back. I could never sit seiza and being pregnant did not help my cause.

It seemed like the chanting lasted forever. Just as I started dozing off in the stuffy incense-filled tatami room, my husband began to heave. I realized with horror that he was trying to suppress what looked like a maniacal laugh. Eyes staring ahead, his mouth half-closed, he repeated several times in a strained voice, “Snoopy, look, Snoopy!”. From the ceiling lamp a small plastic Snoopy wearing a red fireman hat was dangling from a string just above the bald head of an old uncle. My husband left the room to bawl in the bathroom. I sat on my stool thinking about the Japanese character in the movie Snow Falling on Cedars, how his stereotyped stoic face had changed his fate.

Fifth Task

After the service I strolled into the kitchen to get a drink. There stood one of the elder female relatives, erect in her black kimono. She had now officially taken over duties while my mother-in-law was busy chatting with the guests. I had met her only once and this time she looked at me with what seemed like shiny panther eyes, ready to pounce. In a flash I was thrown into the deepest end of the hierarchical senior-junior relationship: Cinderella, the wife of the youngest son. Serve more tea! Boil more water! Offer sweets! Wash these dirty cups! I was learning humility on the spot, my only stunned response being a weak Hai! I began shuffling around in my black stockings, looking busy and alarmed, set on doing my duty. A Mao slogan popped into my head: Serve the People, for I was living a cultural revolution of my own. I just could not imagine this scenario happening in my country.

The wake lasted two more days. People came and went, and we ate our meals together just two meters away from Otoosan. We re-arranged flowers, sat near him and chatted. He was never alone. Some family members talked to him. On the morning of the fourth day, the family lined up from the house to the hearse. Otoosan exited his home feet last to the mournful sound of the car horn. No birds, no wind.

For the ceremony at the large funeral hall, the priest recited the sutras in front of Otoosan’s photo and a magnificent flower display. So many mourners, in slippers, paid their respect with incense and prayers at Otoosan’s casket. Each person brought incense grains three times to their forehead before finally depositing them in the incense burner. After the eldest son gave the customary speech, we lined up in order of importance to receive condolences. I was last of course but wholeheartedly included. “You must be Yoshiro’s wife,” some of Otoosan’s elderly friends exclaimed, naturally mistaking me for the second son’s spouse, the one working abroad.

We followed the hearse to the crematorium and, huddled together in front of Otoosan, we said goodbye to his earthly envelope before he was sent off for cremation. In the meantime, we all gratefully sat down to a feast of large bento lunchboxes filled with rice balls, potato salad, fried chicken and pickles. Relatives from far and near sat close to my mother-in-law, some lay back on the tatami, some loosened their ties and belts and others had loud conversations over the long low tables. I sat on a stool devouring my food. Pregnancy made me hungry.

Sixth Task

Finally, we were called in to pick Otoosan’s bones from the ashes and transfer them to an urn. As he handed me a pair of large chopsticks, my husband said, “You don’t have to do this”. But I wanted to do it. By that time, I had had four days to acquaint myself with Otoosan and with death while going about my tasks in the living family home. The family put Otoosan’s bones in his urn in a matter-of-fact way. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

On the 7th day of his passing, a sunny winter day, we stood in front of the imposing family grave while the eldest son placed Otoosan’s urn alongside those of his forefathers, under the heavy slab of rock at the foot of the stone monument. Only first sons and their wives are included. It looks like my husband and I will have to find our own resting place in Japan.

I think my mother-in-law worries that her eldest son’s eldest son will not be able to carry on the tradition of caring for the family grave. He doesn’t have a son to continue the lineage, only daughters. But then again, my mother-in-law stoically goes with the flow of life and change. I was part of this flow. Twenty-three years after Otoosan passed on, she apologised for imposing on me the task of riding with him from the hospital to the family home. On the contrary, it was an honour.

I fulfilled my role as the third son’s wife the best I could to assist the Japanese family mourn Otoosan. On my next trip to the home country, it wouldn’t kill me to brush leaves or snow off the headstones of my loved ones, bring flowers or have a look at their urns through the glass. I might linger and tell them about me, my son, the Japanese family. I also need to discuss my resting place among them. Who knows, maybe my husband and my son will come from Japan to help me.

Glossary

Sieza – formal Japanese sitting posture (on your knees)

Hai—Yes in Japanese.

Danielle Legault Kurihara, a Quebecker, lives in Japan. She writes about her expat life and her bicultural son. She writes for him.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.