Social Semiotics Vol. 19, No.

2, June 2009, 213229

RESEARCH ARTICLE Tiny buds whispering: flowers in contemporary Japanese culture and ideology
Debra J. Occhi*
Miyazaki International College, Miyazaki, Japan (Received 16 October 2007; nal version received 25 June 2008) Japans poetic practice not only expresses verbal beauty and deep historicity, but also maintains the power to express cultural ideals and goals of the state through the use of naturehuman metaphors. The political use of nature imagery as a template for human motivation and cultivation was described during the Heian period (CE 7941185) and continues to the present day. This paper focuses on contemporary examples of the use of flowers to represent people and thus to motivate and construct specific behaviours and outcomes to seem as natural and inevitable as blooming. One set of data derives from participatory fieldwork in events leading up to the launching of a city councilmans political campaign; the second is taken from nationally popular songs and public responses to those songs. Analysis shows how nature provides the basis for cultural logic in support of gendered as well as more generalized ideological statements designed to motivate and cultivate contemporary Japanese people. Keywords: Japanese; ideology; metaphor; nature; gender

Introduction Natural and seasonal imagery are inescapable elements of the verbal beauty found in Japanese poetry. This trait has often been attributed to a generalized love of nature, attributed to Shinto, a religion that, as Sugimoto describes, includes elements of animism, the veneration of spirits which are believed to dwell in people and in non-human beings such as trees and rocks (2003, 255256).1 Even nowadays, natural and traditional imagery form inescapable elements of popular cultural expression. For example, Moeran and Skov (1997) describe the use of Mt Fuji, geisha, and sakura (cherry blossoms) in contemporary Japanese print media as not only orientalist but also consumerist symbols. In Bauman and Briggs (2003) analysis, the development of linguistic ideologies forming Anglo-American modernity formulates an opposition of the traditional (including poetry, folklore, and pre-modern beliefs) to the modern. In their characterization, animistic sentiments play no part in modern discourse. Lakoff and Johnson show how metaphors have been discredited as a consequence of the privileging of objectivity, whose roots are traceable to Platonic thought, notwithstanding the Aristotelian fondness for metaphor (1980, 189190). In modernity, much of the western literary tradition (which includes the Greek myth of Narcissus,
*Email: docchi@miyazaki-mic.ac.jp
ISSN 1035-0330 print/1470-1219 online # 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/10350330902816475 http://www.informaworld.com

214

D.J. Occhi

the Welsh Blodeuwedd [Flower-Face] from the Mabinogion, and Robbie Burns simile My luve is like a red, red, rose) has been ideologically distanced from globalized, rationalized, Anglo-American modern sensibility. However, animistic statements maintain an emotive import in the structuring of Japanese cultural logic (cf. Clammer 2000, 208; Fujiwara 2005). We see in contemporary Japan that tradition appears to co-exist unproblematically as a style choice alongside more recent developments or imports. And, rather than setting nature in opposition to culture, Japan links them overtly and maintains poetry and folklore as part of its contemporary identity.2 For instance, the recent best-selling manners book for young business women, Josei no Hinkaku (The elegance of women), exhorts its female readers to learn the names of flowers and plants and to read the Tale of Genji, which is replete with Heian nature imagery and allusion (Bando 2006). The ideological power of nature imagery in popular discourses to espouse proper behaviour has still not yet received the level of attention that the aesthetic potential has enjoyed, particularly in analyses of contemporary Japanese language and culture. Several prior studies have laid the groundwork for such claims. First, the underlying humannature metaphor is clearly present in Japanese, as analysed by Hiraga (1999) in an examination of historical poetry. She points out that in Japanese we see not only personification of nature as human (a phenomena also attributed to English in Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 3334) but also the inverse, that PEOPLE ARE NATURE (ANIMALS, BIRDS, FISH, INSECTS, PLANTS, etc.) (Hiraga 1999, 467). This metaphorization has clearly reached the level of an integration network involving metaphor as well as other kinds of cognitive mapping, which include conventional and innovative parts and are transmitted over generations (Fauconnier and Turner 2008, 54). Contemporary literature on Japan also takes up the notion of a humannature link, sometimes stating explicit claims to metaphor but rarely its hortative potential. In a summary discussion of the Japanese language, Inoue includes a section entitled Some Japanese Expressions Reflecting Love of Nature with a list of the unusually rich vocabulary and seasonal expressions with which the Japanese typically begin a letter (1987, 296298). Kalland discusses Culture in Japanese Nature by analysing nature metaphors and their various associations (e.g. the cherry blossom indicating the transience of life), but not how such metaphors may define ideologically correct behaviour (Kalland 1995, 243257). Historically, nature has been used as an ideological tool in political discourses. In Thomas view, most Japanese political thinking . . . idealized state structures that evinced the values of both nature (in some form) and culture (again, in a specific form) simultaneously (2001, 222).3 That is, nature discourses are potentially linked to the goals of the state. This potential, following poetic legacy, hearkens to the Heian (CE 7941185) conception of the humannature link, which produces a specific organization related to the cultivation and domestication of wild growth (LaMarre 2000, 161). Cultivation and domestication are applied to nature; for example, in the creation of gardens and of bonsai from landscapes and trees that would ordinarily grow wild. Such practices were seen as symbolic of the cultivation and domestication also deemed necessary for humans. Data analysed below support the argument that this ideology obtains to the present day. In Foucauldian terms, the nature discourses examined here form a statement, a function of existence that properly belongs to signs and on the basis of which one

Social Semiotics

215

may decide, through analysis or intuition, whether or not they make sense (Foucault 1982, 86). The root of nature statements in Japanese may even be traced back to the etymology of kotoba (word/s) as koto no fa (leaves of words) (Takeuchi 1999, 13). According to Ki no Tsurayuki, a compiler of the (Heian period) circa AD 920 classic poetry compilation Kokinwakashu , these leaves originate in heart-seeds (LaMarre 2000, 13, 161). These sentiments indicate the potential for linkage between nature and language itself. Flowers and blossoms in Japanese, in Maynards analysis provide a macro-metaphor, basic, overarching, and at the same time elusive, deeply emotive, and difficult to specify (2007, 171). It is exactly this combination of emotive force and underspecification that provides a powerful potential for ideological messages of various kinds to make sense when linked with specific examples of the humannature metaphor. One notable example of the hortative power of nature metaphor is found in examining the history of Japanese World War II (WWII) fighter pilots who engaged in suicide missions. Ohnuki-Tierney4 has examined the aestheticization of sakura (cherry blossoms) overtly used as nationalistic symbols of glorious death, symbolically potent in the motivation of the WWII tokkoutai (i.e. kamikaze pilots). As she states, It was the flower with which to think and feel (Ohnuki-Tierney 2002, 282; original emphasis). The power of cherry blossoms in official ideological discourses produced during WWII originated from the entrenched metaphor of humans as natural objects and especially as flowers and their blossoming. This again contrasts to modern western associations, which gender nature as female while contrastively aligning males with culture. Specific data on contemporary cherry blossomhuman imagery will be discussed below. The following section will show more generally how flowers, along with the humannature metaphor, are used in contemporary post-WWII Japanese ideology. Some of the data will show how flowers may align with and structure ideologies of gender, for, as Rosenberger points out, The differences between men and women are constructed in relation to different aspects of nature, giving the impression that gender relations are synonymous with natural relations (1997, 147). For example, the general notion of blooming as an indicator of success may become specified in the present day not as death for a fighter pilot but as marriage for a woman, alluded to in the title of the housewives magazine Saita (bloomed). Flowers in various contexts Flowers are widely used in contemporary Japan as symbols of goodness, particularly indicating success. Teachers will draw a flower to indicate a perfect score on a student paper called hanamaru (lit. flower circle).5 The ongoing discourse of flowers and their blooming that reverberates through various texts, herein excerpted from political campaigns, poetry, and popular music, will give us insight into cultural ideology of the naturehuman relation as it operates today. Furthermore, the use of symbols as pleasant as flowers in support of various cultural ideals suggests the workings of what Sugimoto describes as friendly authoritarianism, which relies on joyful, amusing, and pleasant entertainments such as songs . . . to make sure that authority infiltrates without obvious pains (2003, 272). Although these metaphors are rooted historically in poetry, they

216

D.J. Occhi

emerge today in everyday speech and are reflected throughout popular culture. They remain an important part of emotive language, and thus retain power. The construal of humans as flowers in Japan is subject to shifting, although non-random, interpretations, and its underlying strength lies in the representational and emotional construal not only of humans as nature but of culture itself as natural (Occhi 2000). When culture is presented as aligned with natural phenomena through metaphor, culturally appropriate outcomes are naturalized as well. Through poetic association, representations of nature become more than real nature. They become parts of an ideology (Asquith and Kalland 1997, 25). Ackerman discusses the use of nature references in historical poetry that index the seasons as indicators of correct attitudes and social behaviours in Japan (and in East Asia generally) (1997, 50). His argument hinges on the notions of change and transformation. Thus temporal context and interrelation are crucial to understanding the significance of any particular natural phenomenon mentioned in poetry or song. For example, the ume (plum blossom) and uguisu (bush warbler) are among the first flowers and birds to appear in the spring, and are mentioned first in the shiki no kyoku (Song of the Four Seasons) that every budding koto player learns. Although the ume is strong against cold weather, the action of the uguisu (i.e. working in contrast to the passive ume) works to scatter these blossoms. Ackerman argues that these and other images in the shiki no kyoku:
point to a state of aroused emotion which is always followed by some kind of disappointment . . . In other words, they depict the world as a never-ending series of ups and downs. However, the concept of human beings traditionally held in Japan (and East Asia) demands that one does not simply accept the fact that all things are ephemeral and transitory but also reflects upon it in order to strive for a superior state of mind in which transitoriness is no longer the central problem of existence. (1997, 4546)

Blooming as success in a political campaign Against this backdrop, individuals may also draw on the same process to metaphorize personal goals as natural. My first example of data shows how an individual aligned himself with flower metaphors and other appropriate seasonal imagery as part of a political campaign. In so doing, he created a symbolic field on which others could draw to bolster the sense that his own success was appropriate, indeed natural. The data comes from a visit to Sendai, my first field-site, in the early spring of 2003. I had come to do some fact checking on some data from prior fieldwork; therefore, the data presented here is both emergent and arose by chance. Since the husband of one of my friends was up for re-election as city councilman, she asked me to spend some time at the election office. As I entered the office I saw that one wall was decorated with a large paper cut-out of a cherry tree with blossoms, reminiscent of the decorations one may see on the walls of kindergarten classrooms.6 The office is within walking distance of a park where 400-year-old cherry trees bloom each spring, to the delight of revellers who enjoy eating obento (box lunches) and drinking beer or sake while sitting underneath the blossoms. The walls of the office also sported posters of the councilman with his campaign theme atarashii kaze (a fresh breeze), depicting an earnest, smiling Hiroshi as the apparent breeze swept his necktie over his shoulder, underscoring the word kaze. Since he has no party affiliation that would provide a

Social Semiotics

217

predetermined sense of identity on which he could draw, he must construct and maintain an image that portrays him as a trustworthy, hardworking individual. In fact, his theme for the prior campaign had constructed his image as actively masculine: otoko wa ugoku (a man moves). For a full day I sat at a table with other volunteers, folding red and white origami cranes to cover a large bulletin board with V5 indicating his fifth projected victory. After 16 years in office, the freshness of the breeze should perhaps not be examined too deeply,7 but the construction-paper cherry tree on the wall deserved a second glance. On the trees branches were whole flowers or petal shapes on which were written the well wishes of other volunteers. These included the typical exhortation Gambare! (Hang in there!) and other more personalized remarks signed by their authors. Before leaving that night, we were given the task of writing our own and affixing them as well. Once the days labours at the office ended, we went to the councilmans house where a party was held for volunteers, with plenty of food, beer and sake. During this feast, several attendees paid verbal tribute to councilman Watanabe and family. I, for one, am deeply indebted to their kindness, since he and his wife helped me during dissertation fieldwork in their neighbourhood some years earlier. Many other attendees had particular tales of how the Watanabes had helped them as well. We were urged to share details about our social connection to them and, more especially, our feelings of obligation. Late in the evening Mr Kumagai, one of the oldest men present and the head of the campaign office, spoke, ending his remarks with a free verse he had composed in honour of the host (Example 1 below). Before the party ended, both Mr and Mrs Watanabe offered haiku verses in reply (Examples 2 and 3 below). The overall theme of these poems, which echo the word haru (springtime), is that, just as the flowers will inevitably bloom, Mr Watanabe would succeed in his quest for re-election which he did. Mr Kumagai entwined seasonal, military, and locally specific themes in the first poem. He was certainly old enough to have been exposed to the ideological use of sakura during WWII. Possibly he was also referring to the war in Iraq that had begun two days earlier and had been a topic of discussion throughout the party. In his verse he also imagines the candidate, Hiroshi Watanabe, as a local warrior. This military invocation aligns the campaign with local history as well. There is a park in this neighbourhood through which a spring-fed creek flows, where Date Masamune and his troops stopped for a rest before going forth to conquer Iwakiri Castle some 400 years ago.8 The poem clearly draws on that scenario, since the party took place shortly before the campaign officially began. Hiroshi was thus aligned with Date Masamune and recognized as a hero in his own right, who must go into battle to win re-election. Both the councilman and his wife responded to this poem in kind. Notably, Akemi takes up the floral theme most strongly while Hiroshi refers to a boat trip out to sea; both themes are gender-appropriate, aligning with the data on enka that will be discussed in the next section. The final verse (Example 4 below) was composed by Mr Kumagai the following morning back in the campaign office, where the construction-paper cherry tree with blossoms full of supporters encouraging wishes was displayed.

218
Example 1. Kumagai-sans first verse

D.J. Occhi

sengumo yo yaku moriageru As the clouds of war finally build up miyaginoku no atari hone o yasumuru sho gun The general who rests his bones around Miyagino-ku watanabe hiroshi Watanabe Hiroshi bo chu hima ari sengoku bujin no tashinami A taste of leisure amidst toil; the grace of a military man of the civil war haru ga sumitadayo ryo A retreat as spring drifts in ginzuru wa dare zo Who will do the singing?

In this first poem, along with the military themes described above, is a clear invocation of the tradition of Heian poetic contests. This is fostered through the use of ginzuru, glossed as sing above but also meaning to chant, or recite. After all, Japanese poems are often sung and can be referred to as songs (uta). The term tadayo in the third lines drifting in of spring connotes the wafting of fragrances, particularly those of flowers. The retreat while literally the councilmans abode, is termed ryo , which invites the notion of a charyo teahouse where traditionally poems would be shared. So in these few lines, the Watanabes house party was transformed into a traditional poetic space, with Hiroshi as the sho gun relaxing in grace while an evocative whiff of springtime perfused the scene. Finally, and appropriately to the scenario he has framed, Kumagai-san throws down the gauntlet for the poems that follow. Metaphorically speaking, he is also calling for vocal support of the candidate in the coming election season as well. Hiroshi activates his own image in the next poem with a vision of the near future. Having rested as described in Example 1, he returns to activity and does so with the support of friends. He envisions them rowing a boat together; this brings to mind the image of communal fishing, another traditional Japanese male activity requiring bravery and teamwork. It also alludes to the challenge that lies ahead as well as the ongoing support that he clearly needs to win re-election. As fishermen hope to return to port with a big catch, so does Hiroshi hope to return from his campaign victorious. Of course, he locates this activity in haru no umi, the spring ocean.

Social Semiotics
Example 2 Hiroshis poem

219

morotomo ni Together with friends izakogi iden In time of need; rowing forth [into the] haru no umi Spring ocean

Hiroshis wife Akemi follows with a poem that provides the obvious port for her husbands imaginal journey and also indexes Kumagais poem by directly mentioning Hiroshis district of Miyagino. She further recalls the imminent blooming of her husbands projected campaign success by focusing on flower buds soon to bloom. This focus also indexes her femininity; again, as we shall see in the section on enka, women are also envisioned as flowers. More interesting is her use of sound symbolism in the first two lines. Sayasaya has a potential double meaning. It could be a reduplicative pluralization of saya pod, which would make the first two lines read pods and buds whispering. Additionally, it could be the onomatopoeic sayasaya, which refers to the sound of thin, light things making contact, like silk cloths or bamboo leaves that may rustle softly in a breeze. This further characterizes the buds as tiny, which suits their potential to be envisioned as cherry blossoms. Sayasaya and sasayaku (whisper) share sound symbolic properties, which motivate sasayakus interpretation as a soft sound. The image of whispering buds, soon to bloom in Miyaginokus springtime brings to mind the impending start of her husbands campaign and the inevitable discussions about it. It also refers to the paper cherry tree inscribed with supporters words of tribute that decorates the campaign office wall.
Example 3. Akemis poem

sayasaya to Pods/Softly tsubomi sasayaku Tiny buds whispering haru no miyagino Spring in Miyagino

The following morning, Mrs Watanabe and I returned to the campaign office where I received written copies of these spontaneous poems. When we checked these with Mr Kumagai, he added this final poem:

220

D.J. Occhi

Example 4. Kumagai-sans second verse

asahi sashi Rays of morning sun sakura tsubomi no The sakura buds tsubuyaki no koe Murmuring voices

Here we see a reinforcement of Akemis message reflecting the changes that transpired since the previous evening at the start of the first official campaign day. Kumagai-san frames the time as morning, which reflects the time of day, the start of the campaign, and the springtime as the morning of the year. He has shifted the temporal context while maintaining the interrelation. He clearly defines the buds as sakura (cherry blossoms). And he takes their voices up a notch from a whisper (sasayaku) to a murmur (tsubuyaki). This creates a lovely resonance between tsubomi and tsubuyaki, similar to Akemis use of sayasaya/sasayaku. It also implies that talk of Hiroshis inevitable success will increase along with the supporters words of encouragement as the paper sakura bloom on the campaign office wall. Watanabe went on to a successful re-election. As a lifelong local resident and long-term incumbent with an unblemished record as councilman, his success itself was not so surprising. However, the degree to which he was able to motivate his volunteers to concur and to act in concordance with what may first appear as purely decorative imagery underscores the potency of floral symbolism and associated discourses. The volunteer party took place in early spring on the eve of the official announcements for candidacy, and, not surprisingly, just before the actual cherry blossoms had begun to bloom in Sendai. This particular partys setting10 provided a stage propitious for other behaviours historically associated with cherry-blossom viewing such as the spontaneous composition of verse (Ohnuki-Tierney 2002, 3334). Although not all elections occur in spring, the timing of this election coincided with other events that naturally begin in spring which also employ the floral motif. Better-known examples of roles typically taken on during spring in Japan are educational and work-related. The fiscal year begins in April. Since new jobs, promotions, and transfers as well as the beginning of the new school year coincide roughly with the sakuras blooming season (1 April), they can be associated with the metaphor of blooming as success as well. Cultural prescriptions in music and magazines Springtime also metaphorically refers to the early phase of human courtship in Japanese. In a recent article on marriage, the phrase Nagai haru no ato ni kokusai kekkon de musubareru (to be linked in international marriage after a long springtime) was used as the title of an interview with a couple who took nine

Social Semiotics

221

years from the time of their first date to finally marry (Say 2002, 10). Indeed nine years of springtime would be quite a while! What the notion of haru as romance prior to marriage also includes, however, is the idea that, as White (2002) asserts, with marriage the relationship undergoes a shift away from romantic blossoming and towards bearing fruit (i.e. parenthood). White concludes that for contemporary young women:
the decision to marry has little to do with marital companionship, romance, or even sex and more to do with the sense of incompleteness they might feel without a child . . . she usually sees childbearing as closely connected to marriage. (2002, 105)

The success indicated by blooming is also construed as romantic in the context of the emotional language found in the musical genre of post-WWII enka (romantic nostalgia music). Enka is called nihonjin no kokoro (the heart/soul of Japanese) (Occhi 2006, 151). It is typically consumed by middle-aged and retired folk, those people with sufficient life experience to appreciate its ongoing themes of nostalgia and romantic despair. Arntzen describes the deep interconnectedness between humans and nature found in classical Japanese poetry, affirming the immanence of the natural world and the human communitys link with it (1997, 64). Enka draws on this tradition, describing the post-WWII traditional heterosexual pair bond and sexual division of labour through nature metaphors. Enka was the mainstay of performative singing at community festivals during my fieldwork in Watanabe-sans neighbourhood from 1997 to 1999 (Occhi 2000). One of the prevailing images of women in enka is as flowers. This characterization is not limited to enka; many common expressions rely on the flower as metaphoric of women, including the generic name Hanako (lit. flower child), widely used in Japanese as the Jane in Jane Doe is used to show how application forms should be completed in (American) English. The portrayal of women as flowers points not only toward ideals of floral beauty but also to the associated notions that comfort is found in a fixed location as well as the need for shelter from harsh weather. Both of these associations resonate with the common title okusan (wife), which translates as honoured one inside as well as an older and less favoured term for wife, kanai (lit. inside the house). Men in enka (and traditionally, by occupation) conversely endure as creatures of the outdoors who tend to travel by boat (as in Example 2 above). Here are a few typical excerpts from enka lyrics overtly depicting women as flowers:
Example 5. Yukiguni Koiningyo Snowcountry Lovedoll Kegare o shira-nu hana no wagami wa itoshii stain OBJ know -NEG flower GEN my body TOP dear hito to aa saku inochi person with sigh bloom life Knowing no stain, my flowerbody, my life will bloom with my sweetheart. (Banjo 1994)

The woman in Example 5 has described her body as a flower (hana no wagami) that has been kept protected. Pure and stainless, she awaits her lifes blooming success that will only occur together with her beloved. In the songs title she is also described as koiningyo (a love doll). Perhaps she is the kind of sheltered young woman

222

D.J. Occhi

typically described as a hakoirimusume (a daughter-in-a-box) who has been closely guarded by her family.
Example 6. Sakariba Nagareuta Song of the Drinking Quarters Nasake no hana ga ame ni utare-te chit -te love GEN flower SUBJ rain DAT beat -GER scatter-GER yuku go The flower of love is rainbeaten and scattered. (Yuki 1998)

In Example 6 the woman has loved and lost. The nasake no hana (loves flower) she refers to is indeed linked to her body, since elsewhere in the song she alludes to having spent the night with the fellow who has scattered her petals and left. Among Japanese terms that translate as love, nasake contains notions of sympathy. In this song she has been taken in and deceived, as is typical of women in enka who find themselves in the sakariba (drinking quarters).
Example 7. Hito Koishigure Love Drizzle Mizore ni furue -te inochi no kagiri haka -nai drizzle DAT shiver-GER life GEN limit last-not hana mo sak -o to suru wa flower even bloom-HORT with do SFP Shivering in the drizzle, even the short-lived flower tries to bloom to the full extent of its life. (Satomura 1998)

Once again the woman who has loved and lost is a flower beaten by rain. Yet her urge to love is unstoppable, just as the flowers blooming is unstoppable. After all, in Ichikawas (1998) hit Hana Ranbu (Mad Flowerdance), we are told that a womans springtime is a mad, happy dance of flowers (onna no haru no mabushisa ni shiawase ranbu, hana ranbu). Enkas use of nature clearly reinforces a moral narrative in which happiness for women is found through marriage and the concomitant protection of men, just as a flower is happiest when not beaten and scattered by rain. Going out drinking, conversely, will not lead a woman to happiness. The discourse of women as flowers is one of the Foucauldian statements that attempts to make modern Japanese marriage make sense.11 These narratives of gender found in enka, which many women younger than middle age claim to disdain, echo in other genres as well. So whether or not women like enka, the implicit message included in the description of women as flowers becomes a message from everywhere and thus from nowhere as in other cases in Japanese where nature is used to define a cultural ideal. In casual conversation one hears phrases such as sakaseru12 hito (the guy who makes you bloom meaning the beloved). This metaphor clearly motivated the title of the housewives magazine Saita13 (bloomed). The implication of this is, of course, that the successful Japanese woman is married and, as a protected okusan (person inside (the house)), performing fulltime domestic labour. Such idealization

Social Semiotics

223

of post-WWII traditional heterosexual relationships reverberates throughout the discourse of enka and elsewhere. In these romantic construals of flowers and springtime we see a particular ideology of gender and of femalemale relationships, conflated with more general ideas that marriage equals success. Just as Hiroshi Watanabes election results were personally predicted by the blooming of flowers, so is marriage and domesticity more generally framed as success predicted for women in enka and in more widely circulated discourses.14 The desirable outcome from either personal or cultural perspectives can thus be construed as natural and inevitable by the use of floral imagery. Many Japanese women below middle age whom I have known claim to hate enka music precisely because of its valorization of female marital domesticity, just as they continue to vote with their feet by delaying or forgoing marriage (White 2002). However, those hobby enka singers whose lives and attitudes do concur with the discourse of enka claim that this attitude is in fact normal and that the younger folks will come around to the truth in time (Occhi 2000). Women I interviewed who claimed to disagree with enkas message objected to the use of gendered personal pronouns in the lyrics, and not to the nature imagery per se. The most objectionable pronoun was the male-to-female use of omae (you), which signifies male dominance.15 However, much as consultants may have complained about omae and other pronouns in enka, the use of these pronouns echoes the nature statements to which no complaints were given. Although individuals may reject the gender ideology found in enka, the metaphorical themes it contains (like women as flowers) are drawn from the larger realm of Japanese verbal beauty, and are not themselves rejected outright. It is not surprising, therefore, to find nature statements not unlike those found in enka in other contemporary genres of music as well. When each flower carries different seeds Metaphors of flowers and blooming can also appear in songs devoid of any specifics on what blooming may entail. From them a variety of personal construals are possible. A number of these emerged in faxed messages sent to a radio station by listeners responding to the top popular song for 2003. This pop tune, sung by the thirty-something boy band known as SMAP, is called Sekai ni hitotsu dake no hana (Just one flower in the world). It had been used as the theme song in a 2003 Fuji television drama starring Kusanari Tsuyoshi, one of SMAPs singers, entitled Boku no ikiru michi (My (masculine) life-path). The first lines of the chorus from this song shows that although the flower is clearly metaphorically indicating a person, unlike the enka tunes cited above the result of the blooming metaphor here is underspecified:
Example 8a.

sekai ni hitotsu dake no hana, hitori world in one-thing only GEN flower one-person

224

D.J. Occhi

hitori chigau tane o motsu REDUP different seeds OBJ carry

Just one flower in the world, each one carries different seeds. (Makihara 2003)

The song begins with a description of flowers in buckets at a flower sellers. Of course, the flowers represent people; a point the songwriter soon makes obvious through a shift in the use of counters. Note that the word one in the second half of the first line in Example 8a is written/sung with the term meaning one person (hitori) as opposed to hitotsu (one thing), which was used earlier in that line to refer to the flower. Further options for counting the flower could include ippon (one long thin thing), or, better yet, ichirin (one flower). Hitori is only used when counting people. The use of hitori is a poetic twist that would typically be considered ungrammatical, since flowers and people are counted differently. It is employed here to make the metaphor crystal clear: these flowers are people. The lyric continues:
Example 8b. sono hana o sakaseru koto dake ni that flower OBJ make-bloom fact only isshokenmei ni nareba ii try-hard if so good If (one) will only try wholeheartedly just to cause that flower to bloom, that will be good. (Makihara 2003)

The flower that is, oneself is subject to an exhortation that it should be made to bloom, again, by the self. Thus the statement is that each person is different and yet, each should similarly devote efforts to blooming. This lyric makes a clear appeal to what McVeigh calls compartmentalization, through which apparent conformity (in his example, the wearing of uniforms) belies individuality (McVeigh 2000, 187). Stating that each flower is unique appeals to the notion of individuality. However, each individual is a flower (i.e. as opposed to being one of an assortment of various things) and is given the exhortation to devote full life energy (isshokenmei) to success, framed once again as blooming and thus as natural. However one may choose to make ones flower bloom, all must bloom. This song has been overwhelmingly successful.16 Introduced in March 2003, it sold 20,000,000 copies throughout the year and was the final presentation in the 2003 Kohaku (red/white) multi-genre song contest broadcast yearly by NHK, the national broadcasting service, on New Years Eve. Its success as the top song for the year pushed it back to the top of the sales charts for the first few weeks of 2004 as well. Oricon Entertainments website17 offered the following summation: koko no hana o sakaseru koto ga daiji to utau, karera no hana wa migoto ni sakihokotte iru kara settokuryoku arimasu yo ne (Their song Its important that each flower blooms, is so convincing because their own [SMAPs] flower has bloomed so splendidly). This comparison echoes attributes of the song itself as a cognitive blend, in which, as Maynard describes, an extended narrative about flowers in buckets or bouquets is blended with the overarching narrative jinsei ni hana o sakaseru (lit. to make ones life blossom) (Maynard 2007, 179180).

Social Semiotics

225

As I was driving my car on the afternoon of New Years Eve 2003, the top song rankings were being announced on a nationwide broadcast of Joy-FM radio. After this songs title was announced as Number 1 and the song was played, the announcers read faxed messages from listeners who described how they had been personally inspired by it. One woman said that she quit her dead-end job and began pursuing a more personally meaningful career. Another female listener named her , meaning first flower, in the hopes that she would be baby daughter Kazuka a flower of the twenty-first century. According to Eye-Ai entertainment magazine, this song was used at high school graduation ceremonies as well (Ito 2003). Since the song does not specify a particular kind of outcome, listeners are free to construe it individually. Yet they must construe it according to the ideology that insists that people are flowers and that flowers bloom. A flower like me Flower and other nature references in popular songs that follow the formula of blooming as success, perhaps romantic, are innumerable. Let us consider as a final example a lyric sung by a female artist released during the same period as the previous song to illustrate how the women as flowers image may fare in the pop music genre favoured by younger generations. [U]nder the sun/under the moon was performed by Do As Infinity (2002) (DAI, one of the many popular groups produced by Tetsuya Komuro) with a female vocalist (Tomiko Ban), spending five weeks as the fifth-top song in Japan in that year. In this case the relevant lyric is watashi rashiku hana o sakasoo (Ill make bloom the flower that befits me/Ill bloom as I see fit). While the underlying nature statement is similar to that seen in enka lyrics, we see again that as in the SMAP song the outcome of blooming is not overtly specified, and is therefore open to individual construal. However, the use of the adverb rashiku (derived from the noun rashisa, typicality) here is worth a closer look, especially given that the lead singer of DAI is female. Rashisas adjective form -rashii is used to describe something that behaves or acts as typical of its kind; for example, when a childs silliness is called kodomorashii (childlike). Jugaku (1983) has analysed rashisa finding that not only does it describe categorical typicality (that something acts as you would expect it to), but that rashisa also serves as a constraint mechanism on behaviour, especially womens behaviour, by setting forth ideals for typicality to which women are expected to conform (Jugaku 1983, 47). Once again the nature statement, however tied to seeming notions of individuality, comes with conformist strings attached here not only to the inevitable striving for success but, specifically, towards a feminized type of success. Hybrid vigour Nature is thus used as an ideological tool, making specified outcomes and behaviours seem necessary and inevitable while also creating a sense of beauty in various genres of contemporary Japanese popular expression. Flowers and their blooming describe humans and their successes. The rich legacy of Japans poetic

226

D.J. Occhi

practice is promulgated not only in song lyrics but also in multimodal expressions asserting natural outcomes. The city councilmans campaign theme of blooming cherry blossoms described earlier is just one example. Nature statements take a ready position, in Bourdieus field of cultural production, between producers and consumers (1993, 45). That is, individuals produce nature statements in popular songs and other expressive genres, which are unproblematically accepted by consumers. Moreover, this position occupies a homologous position in both the fields of cultural production and of power. Cultural products containing nature statements can promote goals of the state, which may be as generic as capitalistic striving for betterment or as specific as traditional marital domesticity for women. These statements, as we have seen, are also powerfully employed by individuals for their own ends. Whether the intended motivation is towards an underspecified notion of success or a more particular kind of success such as marriage or election victory, the use of nature as motivator and cultivator of Japanese continues. By considering these contemporary examples, we can see that both the imagery of flowers and of their blooming are used as metaphors for human success that have maintained currency in contemporary Japan. Blooming takes on a sense of inevitability, thus strengthening the metaphor as a form of cultural logic that forms the basis for ideological statements. The nature of the success can follow well-known formulae, particularly those of gender or while underspecified gain a broader appeal without losing potential reference to tradition. Thus flowers reveal their symbolic power, as the whispering of tiny buds conveys louder statements of ideology.

Acknowledgements
The author thanks Dr Janet S. Shibamoto Smith, Dr Gary B. Palmer, and Stephen J. Davies for their advice in the development of this paper; the NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant #SBR 9729002 and Reizo Shibamoto for research assistance on enka, the MIC Travel Fund for follow-up support, and her consultants. The author is also grateful for the helpful comments of the reviewers and of audiences present where this research has been presented. The usual disclaimer applies.

Notes
1. However, Sugimoto rightly lists religion under mass popular culture given the propensity of individual Japanese to espouse belief in and employ practices of multiple religions (2003, 255256). 2. An impressive example of Japans insistence on preserving folklore in fostering its contemporary identity is presented in Mizoguchis (2006) analysis of the use of the prehistoric Himiko myth in the construction and promotion of the Yoshinogari Historical Museum. 3. Thomas is specically referring to politics in the Tokugawa period (16031868) and afterwards, but notes in her analysis that Tokugawa theorists hearkened back to works on Confucianism, Taoism, even the Tale of Genji in anchoring their interpretations of nature; thus we can posit continuous linkage with Heian thought. 4. Her earlier works on naturehuman metaphor include analyses of monkey imagery (Ohnuki-Tierney 1987) as well as that of rice (Ohnuki-Tierney 1993). 5. The circle is another image of goodness, contrasted with the batsu (X mark), which indicates a wrong answer. But circles readily give way to owers. See, for example, how

Social Semiotics

227

6. 7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

they are embodied in the Sanrio cartoon characters Bad Batsu-Maru (bad X-O) (who is not evil, but rather ambiguous) and Good Hana-Maru (good ower-O). Seasonal decorations are an important part of the de cor of school classrooms and are often exhibits of student work (White 1987, 67). I was told that this reference to newness referred to and, thus, linked the candidate to, the general trend of governmental reform sweeping Japan at the time. Date Masamune (15671636) is arguably the most famous daimyo of the Tohoku region, who in 1600 took up residence in Sendai castle. Although the castle itself is now gone, its site is still a major tourist attraction, set high atop Aoyama with a commanding view of the city. Dates feudal stronghold was based in Sendai; his clan continued rulership of the area until the Meiji Restoration (i.e. Date Munenari, 18181892). The word morotomo may have been literally , which would clearly mean with friends; Akemi was recalling Hiroshis utterance in his absence. Writing morotomo in kana phonetic script also creates resonance with a poem from the Heian Hyakunin Issyu (100 poems by 100 poets), which begins similarly: morotomo ni ahare to omohe yamazakura hana yori hoka ni shiru hito mo nashi (there is no one who shares this plaintive feeling but me and the mountain cherry blossoms) which is thought to have been written in Nara at Mt Omine by someone who had just emerged from a period of religious austerities. Having attended several parties at the Watanabes during my prior stay in Sendai, I had never witnessed an exchange of poetry, although other performances such as singing karaoke and dancing to others songs were common. Other, less poetic ways of making sense include a variety of patriarchal practices, legal and/or customary, that still guide men and women towards marriage and inhibit divorce (Sugimoto 2003). The grammar is: saku (to bloom), sakaseru (bloom  causative, to make bloom), and saita (bloom  past, bloomed). Saita started publication in 1998. Note, in a soccer-based metaphor for making a successful goal, womens marriage is termed gooru in (goal in). However, the use of omae in this way is not uncommon in rock lyrics. In 2007 this song remains immensely popular and is a common part of amateur public singing performances. Oricon Entertainment provides music rankings services. The second-ranked song, incidentally, was called Sakura (cherry blossom) and had been used as the ending theme of a TBS drama during 2003.

Notes on contributor
Debra J. Occhi, a linguistic anthropologist specializing in Japanese, is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Miyazaki International College, Japan. Her research interests include cognitive and cultural linguistics, popular culture and media, ideology, gender, regionality, emotion, nature, and education. She earned a PhD in 2000 at the University of California, Davis, with a dissertation based on fieldwork conducted in Sendai, Japan, on post-WWII enka music and its appeal to hobby singers. One branch of her current research investigates gender, dialect, and ideology; another project examines multicultural liberal arts education in an English-as-a-Foreign-Language context in Japan.

References
Ackerman, P. 1997. The four seasons: One of Japanese cultures most central concepts. In Japanese images of nature: Cultural perspectives, ed. P.J. Asquith and A. Kalland, 3653. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press. Arntzen, S. 1997. Natural imagery in classical Japanese poetry: The equivalence of the literal and the gural. In Japanese images of nature: Cultural perspectives, ed. P.J. Asquith and A. Kalland, 5467. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press.

228

D.J. Occhi

Asquith, P.J. and A. Kalland 1997. Japanese perceptions of nature: Ideals and illusions. In Japanese images of nature: Cultural perspectives, ed. P.J. Asquith and A. Kalland, 135. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press. Asquith, P.J. and A. Kalland eds. 1997. Japanese images of nature: Cultural perspectives. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press. Bando, M. 2006. Josei no hinkaku. Tokyo: PHP Press. Banjo, T. 1994. Yukiguni koiningyo . Tokyo: Tokuma Communications Japan. Baumann, R., and C.L. Briggs. 2003. Voices of modernity: Language ideologies and the politics of inequality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. 1993. The eld of cultural production. New York: Columbia University Press. Clammer, J. 2000. Received dreams: Consumer capitalism, social process, and the management of the emotions in contemporary Japan. In Globalization and social change in contemporary Japan, ed. J.S. Eades, T. Gill, and H. Befu, 20323. Melbourne: Trans Pacic Press. Do As Innity. 2002. Under the sun/under the moon. Tokyo: Avex Trax. Fauconnier, G., and M. Turner. 2006. Rethinking metaphor. In Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought, ed. R. Gibbs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Foucault, M. 1982. The archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on language. Trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon. Fujiwara, M. 2005. Kokka no hinkaku. Tokyo: Shinchosha. Hiraga, M. 1999. Blending and interpretation of haiku: A cognitive approach. Poetics Today 20, no. 3: 46181. Ichikawa, Y. 1988. Hana ranbu, Tokyo: Teichiku. Inoue, K. 1979 . Japanese: A story of language and people. In Languages and their speakers, ed. T. Shopen, 241300. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Ito, S. 2003. Spotlight. Ei-Ai, 5. Tokyo: Rivereld. Jugaku, A. 1983. Nihonjin no kii waado rashisa. Kokugogaku 133: 4554. Kalland, A. 1997. Culture in Japanese nature. In Asian perceptions of nature: A critical approach, ed. O. Bruun and A. Kalland, 24357. Surrey: Curzon Press. Lakoff, G., and M. Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. LaMarre, T. 2000. Uncovering Heian Japan: An archaeology of sensation and inscription. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Makihara, N. 2003. Sekai hitotsu dake no hana. Tokyo: Victor Entertainment. Maynard, S.K. 2007. Linguistic creativity in Japanese discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. McVeigh, B.J. 2000. Wearing ideology: State, schooling, and presentation in Japan. Oxford: Berg. Mizoguchi, K. 2006. Archaeology, society and identity in modern Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moeran, B., and L. Skov 1997. Mount Fuji and the cherry blossoms: A view from afar. In Japanese images of nature: Cultural perspectives, ed. P.J. Asquith and A. Kalland, 181-205. Surrey: Curzon Press. Occhi, D.J. 2000. Namida, sake, and love: Emotional expressions and Japanese enka music. PhD diss., University of California, Davis. Occhi, D.J. 2006. Heartbreaks destination: Tohoku in the poetic discourse of enka. In Wearing cultural styles in Japan: Tradition and modernity in practice, ed. J. Traphagan and C. Thompson, 15170. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Ohnuki-Tierney, E. 1987. The monkey as mirror: Symbolic transformations in Japanese history and ritual. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ohnuki-Tierney, E. 1993. Rice as self: Japanese identities through time. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ohnuki-Tierney, E. 2002. Kamikaze, cherry blossoms, and nationalisms: The militarization of aesthetics in Japanese history. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rosenberger, N. 1997. Interpretations of nature and the legitimation of gender differences: Natural links in the Japanese social eld. In Japanese images of nature: Cultural perspectives, ed. P.J. Asquith and A. Kalland, 14565. Surrey: Curzon Press. Satomura, R. 1998. Hito koishigure. Tokyo: Sony Records. SAY no. 232, Tokyo: Seishun Shuppan.

Social Semiotics

229

Sugimoto, Y. 2003. An introduction to Japanese society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Takeuchi, L. 1999. The structure and history of Japanese: From yamatokotoba to nihongo. Essex: Pearson Education. Thomas, J.A. 2001. Reconguring modernity: Concepts of nature in Japanese political ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press. White, M.I. 1987. The Japanese educational challenge: A commitment to children. Tokyo: Kodansha. White, M.I. 2002. Perfectly Japanese: Making families in an era of upheaval. Berkeley: University of California Press. Yuki, K. 1998. Sakariba nagareuta. Tokyo: Burning Publishers and Million Planning.