How far Lord Minamoto no Muneyuki had fallen. His grandfather was the former Emperor Kōkō‚ and his father the Imperial Prince Koretada‚ yet in the year 894 A.D. Muneyuki found himself reduced to commoner status by his uncle‚ the reigning Emperor Uda‚ and would spend the remainder of his years as a courtier and minor official of the Lower Grade of Senior Fourth Rank. It was a precipitous fall from grace‚ the shame of which he would have felt keenly in all the fibers of his organism. Such reduced circumstances did‚ however‚ provide him with the spare time needed to produce classical waka poetry‚ so Muneyuki’s place in history was secured after all‚ not by his illustrious ancestry‚ his magistracies‚ his provincial governorships‚ or his time as Master of the Right Capital Office‚ but by his collection of carefully-polished poetic jewels‚ the Muneyuki ShÅ«‚ and his literary correspondence with fellow waka poets Ki no Tsurayuki and Lady Ise. One of Muneyuki’s most finely-wrought works‚ on a melancholic winter theme‚ would be included as the 28th entry in the classical anthology Hyakunin Isshu‚ or One Hundred Poems‚ One Poem Each:     山里は 冬ぞさびしさ まさりける 人めも草も かれぬと思へば Yama-zato wa Fuyu zo sabishisa Masarikeru Hito-me mo kusa mo Karenu to omoeba A mountain village In wintertime‚ so lonely and cold The grasses and the people Have grown withered and distant So my thoughts run It was evidently still winter in Lord Muneyuki’s weary heart as he reflected upon the miseries of the hibernal season of the calendar‚ and of his life. For Kawabata‚ there was an invigorating beauty to be found in the supposed desolation of the Snow Country’s winter-blasted landscape. In 1835‚ the ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai would illustrate Muneyuki’s poem as part of his last‚ sadly unfinished print series based on the Hyakunin Isshu anthology. Whereas the Heian period poet had emphasized the isolation of wintertide‚ the Edo period artist’s color woodblock print depicted a group of five hunters or foresters — or possibly bandits — sporting straw sandals‚ straw leggings‚ and indigo-dyed cotton tunics‚ all huddled around a bonfire blazing beneath the eaves of a snow-encrusted hut. The smoke from the fire wafts up and away‚ the thick undulating billows subtly suggestive of the ever-present threat of an avalanche. It is a menacing landscape‚ reminiscent of the eight Buddhist freezing hells‚ which include Arbuda (where your skin blisters)‚ Atata (where you shiver ceaselessly)‚ Uptala (where your skin turns as blue as a blue water lily)‚ and finally Mahapadma (where your icebound body finally shatters into a thousands shards of jagged glinting flesh). (READ MORE from Matthew Omelesky: Aristotle Never Existed?: The Chinese Aversion to History) We should bear in mind that both Minamoto no Muneyuki and Katsushika Hokusai were city-dwellers. The former hailed from Kyoto‚ and his notion of an isolated winter hamlet was drawn from the nearby communities of Mount Atago‚ Mount Hiei‚ and the Kitayama Mountains north of the ancient capital. The latter was from Edo (later Tokyo)‚ and preferred summertime‚ as evidenced by his illustrations of Edo’s shimmering midsummer days and nights‚ including one of his most skillful surimono woodblock prints‚ Cage of Fireflies at Dawn in Summer (1800). Even Hokusai’s beautiful and (literally) haunting jisei‚ or farewell poem‚ composed shortly before his death‚ assures us that ひと魂で ゆくきさんじや 夏の原 Hitodama de Yukukisanji ya Natsu no hara As a ghost Shall I lightly tread  On summer fields Muneyuki and Hokusai shared a bleak vision of winter — with its barren landscapes‚ weather-imposed isolation‚ skin-chafing wind‚ empty larders‚ creeping frostbite — that was the product of lifetimes spent in humid subtropical zones. Yet farther to the north‚ in Japan’s Snow Country‚ attitudes towards winter are necessarily more nuanced. ***** Known prosaically as the gōsetsu chitai‚ or “heavy snow area‚” and rather more euphoniously as the yukiguni‚ or “snow country‚” the region situated between the Japanese Alps and the Sea of Japan‚ running from Japan’s Fukui to Akita prefectures‚ contains some of the snowiest places on the planet. The cities of Tokamachi and Aomori‚ for example‚ can receive 460 and 312 inches of snow annually‚ respectively‚ while the most elevated terrain in the Hida Mountains is blanketed with a staggering 1‚500 inches of snow per year. At the height of winter‚ Japan’s snow-belt is marked by altogether otherworldly landscapes‚ particularly at sites like Mount Zaō‚ where horizontal icicles and falling snow turn ordinary conifers into ghastly juhyō‚ the famous “snow monsters” that gather on the slopes like an army of pallid ghosts. Perhaps the most enduring portrayal of this region was provided by Yasunari Kawabata‚ whose novel Yukiguni‚ or Snow Country‚ was initially serialized between 1935 and 1937 in the BungeishunjÅ« and Kaizō magazines‚ before appearing in its final form in 1948. Kawabata’s masterpiece‚ set in the hot spring resort town of Yuzawa‚ begins with the immortal lines 国境の長いトンネルを抜けると雪国であった。夜の底が白くなった。 Kokkyō no nagai tonneru wo nukeru to‚ yukiguni de atta. Yoru no soko ga shiroku natta. Edward Seidensticker‚ in his 1956 English translation‚ rendered this as‚ “The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country. The earth lay white under the night sky‚” though since the word “train” does not actually appear here‚ a more accurate interpretation might be: “When I passed through the long tunnel at the provincial border‚ I found myself in snow country.” And Kawabata’s second sentence literally refers to the “bottom of the night‚” while making no reference to the earth‚ so “the depths of night were bathed in white” might be preferable‚ in an attempt to preserve at least something of the original’s exquisite rhyme. Even if his translation was occasionally loose‚ Seidensticker was a sensitive interpreter of Kawabata’s artistry‚ noting in his introduction to Snow Country that  Kawabata has been put‚ I think rightly‚ in a literary line that can be traced back to seventeenth-century haiku masters. Haiku are tiny seventeen-syllable poems that seek to convey a sudden awareness of beauty by a mating of opposite or incongruous terms. Thus the classical haiku characteristically fuses motion and stillness. Similarly Kawabata relies very heavily on a mingling of the senses. In Snow Country we come upon the roaring silence of a winter night‚ for instance‚ or the round softness of the sound of running water‚ or‚ in a somewhat more elaborate figure‚ the sound of a bell‚ far back in the singing of a teakettle‚ suddenly becomes a woman’s feet. From his memorable first sentences to the novel’s forceful finale — “As he caught his footing‚ his head fell back‚ and the Milky Way flowed down inside him with a roar” — Kawabata highlighted these sudden flashes of disconcerting beauty. Early in the narrative‚ the protagonist Shimamura‚ a cosmopolitan Tokyo dilettante and connoisseur of Western ballet‚ enters into a very different world‚ a forest of sugi‚ or Japanese cedar‚ in which the evergreens threw up their trunks in perfectly straight lines‚ so high that he could see the tops only by arching his back. The dark needles blocked out the sky‚ and the stillness seemed to be singing quietly. The trunk against which Shimamura leaned was the oldest of all. For some reason all the branches on the north side had withered‚ and their tips broken and fallen‚ they looked like stakes driven into the trunk with their sharp ends out‚ to make a terrible weapon for some god. For Kawabata‚ there was an invigorating beauty to be found in the supposed desolation of the Snow Country’s winter-blasted landscape. Writing in Japan‚ the Beautiful and Myself (1969)‚ Kawabata described how the excitement of beauty calls forth strong fellow feelings‚ yearnings for companionship‚ and the word “comrade” can be taken to mean “human being.” The snow‚ the moon‚ the blossoms‚ words expressive of the seasons as they move one into another‚ include in the Japanese tradition the beauty of mountains and rivers and grasses and trees‚ of all the myriad manifestations of nature‚ of human feelings as well. And he identified with the late Heian period poet Saigyō Hōshi‚ of whom it was said “cherry blossoms‚ the cuckoo‚ the moon‚ snow: confronted with all the manifold forms of nature‚ his eyes and his ears were filled with emptiness … My own works [Kawabata added] have been described as works of emptiness‚ but it is not to be taken for the nihilism of the West.”  Of all the books in my personal library‚ among the most cherished is my well-thumbed copy of Suzuki Bokushi’s Hokuetsu Seppu (北越雪譜)‚ or Snow Stories from North Etsu Province. In Japanese aesthetics‚ the term yÅ«gen‚ literally “dim” or “deep” but indicating something more like “mysterious insight‚” describes an emotional response to the beauty of the universe that leaves one at a loss for words — the consummate challenge for a logocentric novelist. Kawabata succeeded admirably in the regard‚ as when Shimamura first catches a glimpse of Snow Country from the window of his train: In the depths of the mirror the evening landscape moved by‚ the mirror and the reflected figures like motion pictures superimposed on the other. The figures and the background were unrelated‚ and yet the figures‚ transparent and intangible‚ and the background‚ dim in the gathering darkness‚ melted together into a sort of symbolic world not of this world. The visual equivalent of Kawabata’s prose can be found in the works of the Muromachi period Zen monk and painter SesshÅ« Tōyō. I am thinking in particular of his Winter Landscape‚ executed in 1470 and now on display in the Tokyo National Museum. Using nothing more than the soot from burnt pine twigs‚ a touch of resin‚ a sheet of washi paper‚ and his trusty brush‚ SesshÅ« captured that preternatural feeling of midwinter yÅ«gen. Using quick‚ jagged brushstrokes‚ and almost completely eschewing curvilinear forms‚ the Zen monk depicted a modest temple nestled in the foothills of an imposing cliff‚ with the entire landscape enshrouded in what Kawabata would later call “a faint white mist‚ as though lighted by the Milky Way.” (READ MORE: November Nights: The Legacy of Henry Chapman Mercer) Towards the bottom of this consummate example of sumi-e ink painting‚ we catch a glimpse of a figure in a broad hat‚ his outline produced by only a dozen or so short‚ impossibly confident brushstrokes‚ as he stoically mounts a winding flight of steps towards the temple. The overall effect is not as harsh as in Hokusai’s Hyakunin Isshu winter scene‚ but a foreboding atmosphere prevails‚ produced by the plunging‚ barbed lines that represent the rocky face of the soaring cliff‚ and the weathered‚ withered tree limbs that would indeed “make a terrible weapon for some god.” Once again‚ it is worth noting that Yasunari Kawabata was born in Osaka‚ lived in Tokyo and Kamakura‚ and died in Kanagawa‚ while SesshÅ« Tōyō was born in what is now Okayama Prefecture‚ trained at the Shōkoku-ji Temple in Kyoto‚ and left this world at the Tōkō-ji Temple in the city of Hagi‚ all very far from Snow Country. They were sensitive observers of the yukiguni region and its mysterious profundity‚ more sensitive than Minamoto no Muneyuki and Katsushika Hokusai‚ I would suggest‚ but they were not natives of Snow Country either‚ and while they have taken us further into that region‚ we have not yet arrived at its heart. To get there‚ we will need another guide: Suzuki Bokushi‚ the nineteenth-century textile merchant‚ ethnographer‚ natural historian‚ and poet who made it his life’s work to chronicle life in Japan’s snow north. ***** Of all the books in my personal library‚ among the most cherished is my well-thumbed copy of Suzuki Bokushi’s Hokuetsu Seppu (北越雪譜)‚ or Snow Stories from North Etsu Province‚ which appeared in 1986‚ in an unfortunately now out-of-print English translation by Jeffrey Hunter and Rose Lesser‚ as Snow Country Tales: Life in the Other Japan. The scion of a family of wealthy cloth merchants‚ Bokushi was born in 1770 in the town of Shiozawa‚ which straddled the old Mikuni highways and is presently incorporated into the mountain town of Minamiuonuma in Niigata Prefecture. Bokushi had been blessed with congenital wealth but not with samurai status‚ and sought to better his station in life through literary endeavors‚ making contacts with the late Edo-period intelligentsia and exchanging haikus with poets. For some forty years he worked on his magnum opus‚ Hokuetsu Seppu‚ a sprawling work of human geography and natural history published in two volumes‚ the first appearing in 1837‚ and the second in 1841‚ just before his death the following year. Bokushi took pains to acknowledge the challenges nature poses in this inhospitable terrain. “We exhaust ourselves and our purses‚” he wrote‚ and “undergo a thousand pains and discomforts‚ all because of the snow. The great extent of our sufferings will be revealed to you as this work unfolds.” He tells of the immense efforts required to clear away the huge snowfalls‚ “a far from elegant task‚” and the so-called “snow womb” tunnels that enable townsfolk to move about. (These days the largest snow womb‚ the Yuki no Otani or “Great Valley of Snow‚” can be found along the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route‚ running some 1‚620 feet between sixty-six feet-high walls of snow.) He tells of the dangerous mizu agari‚ or “rising water‚” when villages located near rivers experience devastating floods after the first snowfall of the season. And of course he tells of snow whirlwinds and avalanches. “What frightening things avalanches are‚” Bokushi warns‚ so violent that “their victims may have their heads and limbs torn right off.” Life in Snow Country may have been precarious‚ but it was not devoid of pleasures‚ like the theatricals in the snow Bokushi detailed with such enthusiasm. Before the performances‚ the actors would “gather together and go to the river to pray for clear skies by breaking through the ice and dousing themselves with the icy waters‚” and during performances “little girls plied the crowd calling ‘Ice‚ ice!’ Green leaves lined their baskets‚ which were filled with lumps of frozen snow that they were selling as a refreshment. How marvelous‚ I thought: selling ice instead of tea!” The weather was no impediment to religious celebrations like the Blossom-Water Festival‚ held in honor of newly-wed couples‚ when well-wishers would gather together as the bridegroom was to be splashed with frigid water‚ masked dancers cavorted with wooden pestles decorated as phalluses‚ and the valleys resounded with joyous song: Happy‚ happy be the young pine tree. Your branches flourish‚ Your needles grow thick. For Bokushi and his fellow Snow Country-dwellers‚ the winter landscape was far from dead. They played shuttlecock and battledore in the snow‚ ate yaki onigiri (roasted rice-balls) in the middle of blizzards‚ and produced some of the finest textiles in the world‚ ojiya chijimi‚ by bleaching ramie cloth in the snowfields. They hunted bears‚ foxes‚ and deer in the snow‚ cautiously avoided wolves‚ followed the life cycle of salmon‚ and kept an eye out for the feeding grounds of migratory snow geese. (READ MORE: A Dialogue With the Dead: Gary Saul Morson’s Wonder Confronts Certainty) Look closely‚ Bokushi urges the reader‚ and you will see signs of life everywhere‚ even in the snow itself. “We have snow insects in Echigo‚” he noted‚ which “begin to make their appearance in the snow at the beginning of the year‚ and when the snow melts they‚ too‚ disappear‚ their life cycle bound to the snows.” (I am aware of the dance of the delicate yukimushi‚ or snow bugs‚ members of the aphid genus Prociphilus and harbingers of Japan’s first seasonal snows‚ but I am unsure precisely which insects Bokushi is referring to here‚ though I will defer to his natural historical expertise.) And beyond the pale of civilization lurked supernatural entities‚ or yōkai‚ including ghosts‚ ape-like beasts‚ and a flying cat-demon with a flaming tail that was vanquished by the heroic Abbot Hokko back in the sixteenth century. Still‚ it is never lonely‚ if you know where to look‚ and remain open to the spirit of yÅ«gen and the essence of the landscape. For Yasunari Kawabata‚ the northern Snow Country evoked feelings of emptiness and nothingness‚ related to the concept of yohaku (“empty space”) in a painting or textile‚ or the ma (“pause”) in a shakuhachi bamboo flute composition. The Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han‚ in his 2007 essay collection Absence: On the Culture and Philosophy of the Far East‚ followed suit‚ contrasting the quintessentially Asian “culture of absencing” with “occidental culture‚ which is centered on essence.” There is some truth to this contradistinction‚ and I am reluctant to find myself at odds with Kawabata and Han‚ but we cannot look at Japan solely through the lens of Zen Buddhism. After all‚ the indigenous religion of that country‚ Shintō‚ is not predicated on absence but on essence‚ in the form of the supernatural entities‚ or kami‚  who inhabit all things. In Bokushi’s Hokuetsu Seppu‚ we encounter a society that does not view its environment as empty‚ but fiercely alive‚ in spite of the relentless assaults of nature. Winter is not a dead season. Writing in The People’s Paper on November 25‚ 1934‚ the Czech writer Karel ÄŒapek cautioned his readership that We look at it only from a human‚ or in other words wrong‚ perspective when we say that in autumn nature resigns herself to dying‚ or bunkum like that. First‚ nature is lucky because nine times out of ten she doesn’t die‚ and second‚ she doesn’t indulge in such a sentimental weakness as resignation. Quite the opposite‚ she goes at it‚ incredibly active and determined‚ as if she meant to say: What kind of talk’s this! We must get ready; we must gather and mobilize all our strength to be able to defend ourselves. It’s impossible without sacrifices‚ we’ll give up all our foliage‚ we’ll tighten our metabolic belts‚ we’ll draw our glucose‚ starch‚ and all those chemical compounds into our roots. To work‚ to work! Grieving and lamenting won’t help. It may hit us any minute now‚ but when it does‚ it will find us with ripened wood and capable of endurance‚ but capable of sprouting‚ too‚ and fit to flower the moment we get out of the blasted winter. To persevere and have the groundwork done for next spring‚ that’s our watchword. Determination‚ endurance‚ perseverance — all might serve equally well as watchwords for the denizens of Japan’s Snow Country‚ past and present. At times‚ even a lifelong resident of the yukiguni like Suzuki Bokushi might lament how  buried as the houses are in snow‚ they are so dark it is hard to see your hand in front of your face. Though we have been born and raised in this world and dwell here year after year‚ we still grow depressed and dazed buried under the snow‚ and it is not by any means pleasant. When‚ halfway through spring‚ we clear away the snow and for the first time in months the sun’s rays come flooding brilliantly into our lives‚ we feel as if we have come out at last into the human world again. Snow Country in winter is in some ways estranged from the human world‚ whereas what Bokushi calls the “rich and prosperous cities” are “graced year after year with the bright green and white of willows and plums.” That is not because the yukiguni is a land of withered indifference‚ or pristine emptiness‚ but because it is a land full — to brimming over — with kami and yōkai‚ and dominated by the forces of nature. It is there that the Fires of Hell Valley burn mysteriously in the distance while great icicles grow indoors‚ dragon lights flicker like fireflies about the summit of Mount Yone while boulders lie stacked like “twisting dragons and raging tigers‚ a scene too strange and wonderful to describe‚” and the Heavenly River of the Milky Way arches overhead‚ and then flows down your throat with a celestial roar. A mountain village in wintertime may be cold‚ as Lord Minamoto no Muneyuki rightly observed‚ and the grass withered‚ and visitors absent. Still‚ it is never lonely‚ if you know where to look‚ and remain open to the spirit of yÅ«gen and the essence of the landscape. The post Snow Country in Japan appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.