Michal Daliot-Boll
is a researcher of Japan and
the translator of the book "The Tattoo and More Dark Stories from Japan" (Asia Press).
Head of the Japan Section in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Haifa.
Serves as the chairman of the Israeli Association for Japanese Studies
Prof. Michal Daliot-Boll, as a researcher of Japan, where did your first interface with the country take place, and what attracted you to it?
"I came to Japan many years ago, as part of a trip. The place charmed me, and since then Japan has also been my wonderland, and as a grown woman it also gives me a 'room of my own,' to paraphrase Virginia Woolf. Japan is an inseparable part of who I am today. She can It is a difficult country to be in, but fortunately it has always welcomed me with a beautiful welcome. It is a country that fascinates me. In my current research I am trying to trace the origins of Japanese science fiction in the 19th century. One by one, I find works written by an elite of former samurai, who were very educated people, broad-minded, and sometimes wrote stories that were ahead of their time."
Besides being a researcher, you also translate works from the Japanese language.
"After I finished my doctorate, I accepted the invitation to translate the first book from Japanese as a personal challenge. After that I translated more books, and I saw that the translation allowed me a deeper entry into the study of Japan."
The work of translating from Japanese to Hebrew is known to be more complex compared to other languages.
"Compared to European languages, this is a language that is more foreign to the Israeli ear. The more culturally you distance yourself from the Israeli language, the more complex the accessibility of the language becomes, with no common words or sounds. To translate from Japanese sometimes requires significant work and research. Japanese is also written using Chinese characters, which can have several meanings or sounds, so even Japanese sometimes have difficulty reading them. The further back in time you go, the more difficult it becomes to read Japanese texts, just as it is difficult for us to read Hebrew written in the 19th century."
It sounds like the entry threshold for foreigners to the translation profession is high.
"High but not impossible. It requires a real immersion in the text - while clarifying its visible meanings and the world of associations it carries - with a desire to be faithful to it and bring it to the target language as accurately as possible, but also appealing and attractive to readers. I like to compare the translator to a medium who utters the voice of the writer, who may no longer be alive. Translation is an intellectual, emotional and poetic craft. Japanese translators in Israel, by the way, there are no more than a handful, share a real sense of mission to make accessible to readers in the most accurate way the whispers of the heart, the author's intention and spirit of the culture. In fact, I can testify that translations from Japanese to Hebrew are many times more accurate than translations from Japanese to English. The American publishing world, for example, allows more creative freedom for translators."
The last book you translated, "The Tattoo, and more dark stories from Japan" (Asia Press), includes three rather moving short stories. How was the decision made to compile them into one book?
"I chose three stories, written by three of the greatest Japanese writers of the 20th century - Tanizaki Junichiro, Akotegawa Ryunosuke and Enchi Fumiko. These are three of my favorite stories, they are powerful, bold and dark, and all three correspond with Japan the traditional".
and challenging her.
"Exactly. They give traditional Japan a modern interpretation that suits the zeitgeist in which they lived and their subjective sensibilities, thereby turning familiar images into their mouths. These stories present the reader with Japan as we have never known it. No longer a nostalgic and aesthetic image of a Japan that was and is no longer - the oriental and attractive Japan of heroic samurai or perfect women wrapped in kimonos, but a violent, sensual and shocking image.
"Just recently I finished lecturing in a course on Japanese cinema, and at the end of it we asked ourselves - is there such a thing as Japanese cinema or Japanese literature? Because in the end, behind the movies and books there is a universal mortality, which allows readers from all over the world to connect with their content: tracing the dark sides of the soul , the gap between what is visible and what is hidden from it, criticism of a patriarchal society, gender issues, the exposure of power structures in society. I think it can be argued that the themes in Japanese films and books are universal, but the cover is Japanese, which creates in the reader the feeling that he has not read such a story Never before: the smells, the houses, the landscape, and of course - the way people communicate with each other, the cultural codes - these are exciting and unfamiliar realms to the Israeli reader."
Restraint in the face of donism
The theme you mentioned comes up, for example, in the first story, "The Tattoo", which bravely expresses forbidden creativity. What does this story teach us about the human soul?
"Like many of Tanizaki's stories, 'Tattoo' also has a window into the writer's subconscious. In his stories, forceful erotic relationships between men and women are described, where often the woman is the strong one and controls the relationship. Often times, unusual hammers are also described. A noticeable element that came to my attention Expression is visibility and social-cultural conformity, while what lies beneath is stormy, roaring, on the verge of an explosion. In many of Tanizaki's stories, the possibility of giving expression in rooms to what lies beneath the surface is what gives a person the ability to continue living in a domineering and punishing society."
These are complex deaths. How does the world of literature accept you?
"The Japanese literary establishment admires the courage to go down into the recesses of the soul, into the most secret places of the human soul, and bring them out."
Referring to the third story, "Fateful connection between reincarnations - relics", one of his conclusions deals with the fact that men's instinctive desire is what drives their actions, and in fact - the same is true for women. This is a conclusion that should be treated as a social-political claim by the writer, and we also learn from it about the status of women in the country.
"This story asserts that women can indeed cover themselves with modesty and restraint of sorts as society expects and demands of them - but that just as instinctual desire drives men - even those who present an image of 'saints', so it burns in the bowels of women. These are quite dramatic statements about women in the Japan of 1958".
which were to some extent a step towards a slightly more liberal future, relatively speaking of course.
"Since the late spread of consumer culture in Japan, and especially since the 1980s, more young women have begun to actively oppose patriarchal social structures. More young women, especially educated and urban women, have begun to declare that they do not wish to become mothers, and that they choose not to marry. This activist behavior received many media echoes, and in turn led to a different kind of social imbalance.
"The patriarchy in Japan created repressed women, and the reaction to the patriarchy created a complete dissolution of the family unit and resistance of young women to it.
I think that one of the challenges of Japanese society is finding a middle way that will allow more balanced, flexible and inclusive relationships between the sexes.
The situation in Israel in this respect is still far from ideal, but it is much better in many ways than in Japan."
This extremism leads to a high suicide rate.
"The suicide rate there is one of the highest in the world, especially among men. Many attribute this to the demanding work culture and the social pressures on men. In my opinion, the most difficult pathology in Japanese society today is isolation and loneliness. We sometimes also see this in relationships within families and in marital relationships. This is a society with a cultural heritage a long history of restrained and restrained behavior. It is not certain that such behavior can add to work even today, when the hyper-consumer culture produces ideal Donist images, at the heart of which are interpersonal communication and the 'good life'. In my opinion, these gaps create a dissonance that creates social pathologies. Add to that The total devotion to cybernetic spaces, and you have a sure recipe for depression.
"The rocker Murakami addressed social hardships in Japan in his book 'Underground.' A clear life, and those who do not fit into one of them - fall without a social safety net to save them. This way people can quickly find themselves in a cult, or alternatively decide that they are fed up with life and commit suicide."
If we are talking about suicides, the second story in the book, "The curtain with the painting of hell", deals with a struggle for control between men in a position of power, the price of which is paid by a woman. The story ends with the hero's suicide, and nine years after it was published - his friend Akotegawa Ryunosuke committed suicide. Why, actually?
"Akutagwa was apparently schizophrenic, an unhappy man and also a great creator. Some of the qualities of his writing were probably an expression of his split soul. One might think that the hero of the story is how Akutagawa imagines himself - how as a writer he sells his soul to art, paying the highest personal price possible to pay, and in the end he commits suicide."
"Anime? It's mainstream"
If we refer to another, broader art, what do you think is behind the Japanese tattoo culture that has become known around the world?
"Japan has a magnificent tradition of tattoos, even though in mainstream society tattoos are taboo. In the traditional tattoo style known as irezumi, these are tattoos that spread over the entire body, very colorful, mythical tattoos, which include gods and demons."
Sounds morbid.
"The truth is that there is a lot of beauty in them. In the traditional style, even when the tattoos are spread over the entire body, they are designed to be well hidden under clothing. Traditional tattooing involves great pain and can last for many months. In Tanizaki's story, 'The Tattoo', which takes place in the pre- In modern times, those who choose to get tattooed are often associated with the lower classes. But on an ironic note, it is noted that some samurai also got tattoos, even though it was not accepted. Today in Japan, tattoos in the style of Irzumi are mainly associated with the Japanese mafia, the yakuza, and that is why tattoos in Japan are a kind of taboo."
Why do yakuza tattoo themselves?
"The tattoos associate them with the group and include traditional motifs identified with the yakuza. Of course, demons and gods also represent protection and strength. There are also women from yakuza families who get tattoos, although this is less common."
Tattoos, like animated films and comics, anime and manga, are part of the growing interest of Israelis in Japan. Directly related to this, do you also detect interest in the number of people who register for the Asian studies department?
"I recognize young people, even before the army, who are interested in Japan for the reasons you described. This is a trend that started already at the beginning of the 21st century. As part of my duties as chairman of the Association for Japanese Studies, we have been holding an international test for the past decade to test proficiency in the Japanese language.
Year after year there is an increasing number of high school students who take the exam and reach an impressive level of mastery of Japanese, which has more tools to learn it today.
Beyond that, I see that even my young parents already know what anime is.
20 years ago when I spoke about anime at conventions, people looked at me with amused eyes.
Today it has become mainstream."
As a researcher of Japan, how do you see the future of this special culture?
"The Japanese like to mock themselves with a certain affection that they suffer from 'stupidity resulting from continued peace,' and therefore do not appreciate all the good things in their country that are made possible by this continued peace. But most Japanese citizens are proud of their peace, and that their country is identified with a pacifist constitution. A big question is What will Japan look like under the policies of the current Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida. His current policy has two main pillars: the first - increasing military budgets, strengthening the army and developing military industries. Until recently, Japan was recognized as the beating dog of the global technological avant-garde. It would be unfortunate to see that the experience of Kishida will result in the country being identified with advanced military industries.
"The second pillar that Kishida promotes is support for changing demographic trends in Japan. It is well known that Japan is one of the countries that is aging at the fastest rate in the world, and Kishida is interested in encouraging childbirth. This is a complex task, because such a change in trends can only be possible with the help of changing deep social perceptions. It is not just about changing gender perceptions In Japan, the social perception is that raising children is demanding and bears the ultimate responsibility. It is clear that Japanese parents also love their children more than anything, but unlike, for example, the Israeli view, which sees children as a source of strength and bringing them into the world as part of self-fulfillment, it seems to me that in Japan the fear of raising children has turned bringing them into the world into a burden ".
For suggestions and comments: Ranp@israelhayom.co.il
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us