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Each of the three orders a cake and another coffee.
During waiting, Tsubune suddenly talks, probably aiming to get rid of the
bad time right before with Mari.
"Do you know Chuta Itoh has relationship with Siem Reap in Camodia?"
Both of the ladies have got bright. They may remember the story of the
day Emperor Meiji visited Tokyo Imperial University (TIU) which Elderly
Suga mentioned at Eriko's residence the other day. That day Emperor passed
through the main gate Chuta made and took his lecture there.
"You must have made further investigation about him since then."
Eriko guesses. Besides, Mari seems to have got out of the previous stiff
look. She may have a saving grace to change her feeling quickly after the
chatting related to her matter. Partly due to youth, for sure.
Mari speaks.
"Well, why? I understand Dr. Itoh, when young adult, walked from China
through India and Europe for three years all right, but at that time he
passed Myanmar around there, not Cambodia, didn't he? I studied him, too."
She did some investigation in her own way.
Pleased with Mari's comment, Tsubune enters a long talk.
"You are right. Chuta did not pass Cambodia that time, but he came
to be deeply related to Cambodia later. Before this matter, I would like
to mention something interesting about him."
Chuta Itoh was not only an authority in the architecture world, but was
a man of various abilities like drawing pictures of ghosts every day and
good at English and German. Besides, he didn't stop anything he decided
to do until he was satisfied.
This is one example.
When Emperor Meiji visited TIU in Meiji 45 (1912), Dr. Itoh had a lecture
to the Emperor.
The subject was "Gion-shoja and Angkor Wat." He was the professor
there, aged 45. Perhaps he lectured showing the comical pictures of monsters
and ghosts of his drawing. |
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Both ladies are interested in his talk now. Satisfied more and more, Tsubune
sips another coffee, eats one bite of a cake, and talks further about what
he got lately.
"I don't ask if you know Gion-shoja, because it is impolite. Yes, it is a temple located in the Gion forest in India, where Buddha had a preach.
The opening lines of 'The Tale of Heike (Taira Clan)' are like this surely
as you know."
Tsubune reads the document he has brought.
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"The sound of Gion-shoja bells echoes the impermanence of all things;
the color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must
decline.
The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night;
the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind." |
Translated into English by
Ms. Helen Craig McCullough |
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Dr. Itoh referred to this temple associated with Angkor Wat in his lecture.
In early Edo period Mr. Shimano, an interpreter at Nagasaki, visited Cambodia
under the order of Tokugawa Iemitsu, the 3rd shogun. There, he drew a plan
of Angkor Wat and reported in mistake it was the Gion-shoja.
Several years after that, Morimoto Ukondayu, a samurai of Bizen domain,
visited Cambodia and left his brush writing at Angkor Wat.
The writing is unclear now because it was blacked out during the Pol Pot
administration, but some letters can be read vaguely like "Nippon"
(in Japanese letters). |
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Eriko: "What about you? How did you feel? You saw it before, right?
"
Tsubune: "Yes, I did and guessed so, partly because of the preconception."
He recalls that time, shifting his eyes to the garden.
Mari is now undoubtedly serious with the present story. It is difficult
to think back the previous love matter in her appearance.
Then Tsubune gets back to the topic of professor Itoh.
"So it comes to the relationship between Chuta Itoh and Cambodia.
Chuta is a person who was never satisfied with anything until confirming
it by his own eyes and feet. Since the journey from China through Europe
for three years and a half in his 20s, he was charmed by the architecture
of the two countries in all his life. The first was India and the second
was China. He made a certain evaluation on Romanesque architecture in Europe,
but rather criticized the architectures of Gothic and any other European
styles after it, and also American modern style. He was impressed by Gion-shoja
in India and charmed by the story in Japan related to this temple in Edo
period which must have led him to a pilgrimage of Angkor Wat. He visited
this place so often later, which would be a proof that he got deeper impression."
Tsubune shows a book to the two ladies. The buildings Chuta designed appear in each page.
"What is it?"
Eriko watches the note put between the pages. Kyoka (comical and satrical
tanka poem) or something?
"I copied it here because it was very interesting to me."
His excited feeling is obvious.
"Chuta was a good writer of anything, so he left the field notes on
his journeys and at every chance. They may well be said a diary, which
are huge documents much wider than my spread hands. It was lucky that they
could avoid being burned down during the Great Kanto Earthquake and the
Great Tokyo Air Raids."
He doesn't mind his extra introduction.
"They contain a lot of manga of ghosts, sketches and watercolor paintings,
and also such works are found as his own Chinese poems, tankas, haikus
and senryus with his jokes here and there."
One of the notes of his kyoka is as follows.
ホンコンと鳴く英吉利（イギリス）の狐見て
廣州ワンと吠ゆる仏蘭西（フランス）
葡萄牙（ポルトガル）マカオマカオと啼きにけり
紅雲（伊東忠太の号） |
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Looking at the fox of UK crying "Hongkong",
France barks "Koshu woof."
Portugal sings "Macao Macao." |
| Chuta Itoh under the pseudonym of Koun |
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Tsubune talks further about Dr. Itoh.
Chuta Itoh designed Tsukiji-Honganji, a famous temple of Jodo-shinshu sect,
built much later by the the request of Kozui Otani, the sect chief. It
is, as everybody understands, in the Indian-temple style. It is a very
unique building with unique monsters here and there.
Dr. Itoh also completed Gion-kaku (Gion Residence) in Kyoto seven years
before Tsukiji-Honganji, by the request of Kihachiro Okura at the same
time with this Okura Museum.
For the design of the Gion-kaku, he modeled the pike used at the Gion Festival
(very pupular now, too). I (Tsubune) really imagine that Gion-shoja and
Angkor ruins were in his mind through the work.
The pair of stone gardian dogs at the entrance are Southern-atmosphere,
and the ghost holding up the lump in the residence is all the same with
the ones in Kanematsu Auditorium, not in Japanese-atmosphere.
Firstly, the main gate of Tokyo Imperial University (TIU) built by Dr.
Itoh to welcome the visit of Emperor Meiji was, from my understanding,
designed modeling some part of Angkor Wat ruins, most probably from the
theme of his lecture then. |
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He shows several pictures of Gion-kaku.
....
Tsubune's talk continues forever.
"Kanematsu Auditorium was completed just before the start of Gion-kaku
and Okura Museum. The appearance outside is Romanesque-style in Europe,
but inside the equipment, sculptures, relieves, and especially the monsters
of Chuta original make me feel the smell of Hindu culture in India and
Khmer culture symbolized by the Angkor ruins."
Then he talks to Eriko.
"Don't you feel some atmosphere of Oriental temples in Kanematsu Auditorium
from such point of view?"
She keeps the sign of ambiguity.
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