In English-speaking countries, children might read Grimm or Andersen, or for modern authors, Roald Dahl, C.S. Lewis, Astrid Lingren, Dr. Seuss, Beatrix Potter or even people like R.L. Stine. What do Japanese children read? What helps inform their world view and shape their moral spirit? Well, some of the same stories do get translated and Japanese children are exposed to them to different extents, but what about Japanese literature written by Japanese people?

If you were to ask this question, one of the first names to pop up would be Mimei Ogawa. He was born in 1882 in the north of Japan in a cold and harsh climate, a place called Niigata. He became the first Japanese author to be recognized as solely devoted to children's literature as a professional. His real name is Kensaku. One of his colleagues named him Mimei. The colleague who christened him so claims it means "meditating child," but if you take the literal definition of the characters, it can read "not quite bright yet" or if you just go by the ear, it can sound like the modern Japanese polite, professional expression for "early morning," often heard in the news.

A young Mimei Ogawa

Mimei's most famous story is arguably The Mermaid and the Red Candle. This story shares some similarities with Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid. If you were to compare the two, despite the arguments that Andersen's tale originally ended in tragedy, Mimei's story sounds like it was written by the biggest, most depressed Eeyore on the planet when contrasted with the jubilant tone of the more famous mermaid.

Let's compare their openings, shall we?

Andersen:

Far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as crystal, it is very, very deep; so deep, indeed, that no cable could fathom it: many church steeples, piled one upon another, would not reach from the ground beneath to the surface of the water above. There dwell the Sea King and his subjects. We must not imagine that there is nothing at the bottom of the sea but bare yellow sand. No, indeed; the most singular flowers and plants grow there; the leaves and stems of which are so pliant, that the slightest agitation of the water causes them to stir as if they had life. Fishes, both large and small, glide between the branches, as birds fly among the trees here upon land. In the deepest spot of all, stands the castle of the Sea King. Its walls are built of coral, and the long, gothic windows are of the clearest amber. The roof is formed of shells, that open and close as the water flows over them. Their appearance is very beautiful, for in each lies a glittering pearl, which would be fit for the diadem of a queen.

 

The Sea King had been a widower for many years, and his aged mother kept house for him. She was a very wise woman, and exceedingly proud of her high birth; on that account she wore twelve oysters on her tail; while others, also of high rank, were only allowed to wear six. She was, however, deserving of very great praise, especially for her care of the little sea-princesses, her grand-daughters. They were six beautiful children; but the youngest was the prettiest of them all; her skin was as clear and delicate as a rose-leaf, and her eyes as blue as the deepest sea; but, like all the others, she had no feet, and her body ended in a fish’s tail...

Mimei:

Mermaids don't just live in the southern seas. They also live in the northern seas.

 

The northern seas were blue. One time, on a rock, a mermaid rose and looked out over the seas while she rested.

 

The moonlight that leaked from between the clouds was lonely, it shone upon the waves. No matter where you look, endlessly, huge waves moved, coiling and roiling.

 

"What a lonely view," thought the mermaid. "We're not very different from humans in form. If you compare us to the fish and the beasts of rough and surly temperament that live on the very bottom of the ocean floor, you would certainly know how much closer we lean, in spirit and body, toward humans. But even so, why must we be made to live together with the rough beasts and fish in the dark, cold sea where our spirits are liable to wilt?"

 

In the long years and months till now, always living with no one to talk to, always wishing for the bright surface of the ocean, the mermaid's feelings could hardly be contained. So, on nights when the moon would shine brightly, it was her perpetual habit to float on the surface of the ocean, rest upon the rocks, and indulge herself in various day dreams.

The translation is mine. (The majority of Mimei's work is in the public domain.)

According to various sources who knew him at the time, Mimei Ogawa was the picture of the classic misanthropist: he did not have many friends, loved to study (particularly Chinese letters and fairy tales), was short-tempered and didn't mix well with groups of people. When he moved to Tokyo, he rethought his values, being influenced by Russian literature, he strongly sympathized with the plight of the proletariat and allied himself with a similar movement in Japanese literature. He wrote novels as well, but his many, many short stories (over 1000) are more famous.

His stories were constantly about miserable, depressed people running into misfortune and tragedy; they almost always ended unhappily and reflected Mimei's own sorry life. He craved literary attention, but didn't receive much for quite a while. He lived a very poor life and constantly struggled to survive, cursing the bourgeoise. He wrote in the style of famous tales for children, but did not claim that they were children's stories.

Then in 1926, after becoming involved with his alma mater's club on children's literature, he declared himself solely devoted toward literature for children. After the war ended, Japanese politicians looked for leaders to bring up morally upright Japanese citizens and Mimei was selected, in 1946, to become the first leader of the Japanese Organization for Children's Scholars, further finding praise in 1951 as a bungaku-kourousha, something like a purple heart the Japanese government awards people who make significant cultural contributions to the country. It literally means "cultural laborer." Can you smell the irony?

His fables and stories became even more popular and were praised among a much wider group of people. He was extolled as the premier and best teller of children's stories. He became something of the model, the example for everyone else to live up to and enjoyed fame and money like no other time in his unhappy poor, miserable life untill that point.

Funny thing, though. If you compare the stories before he was widely noticed and praised, and after, there is a notable difference. The stories afterwards are filled with silliness and happiness and have mostly abandoned any of the romantic imagery and woe-is-me, the-world-is-a-horrible-place-kids aesthetic of his earlier stories. Critics nowadays tend to view his later work pretty harshly, whereas his many depressing stories where characters meet awful fates (written from roughly 1914 to 1926) are viewed as masterpieces. Why is this? Would you like to hear a sample of one of his post-I'm-a-children's-writer-look-at-me stories? "There is a box that is wonderful! It can do or be almost anything. This little boy is so happy because this box is wonderful and mysterious!" I'm paraphrasing, but that's literally all there is of a one-page short story he wrote in the later time period.

Even still, some of his stories contain remnants of his past tortured soul and there are a couple that stand out. However, nearly every short fable he wrote before his revelation in 1926 is amazing. I used to beg my mom and dad to read The Mermaid and the Red Candle. To me the sadness and unhappiness in the story was beautiful.

Unfortunately, for Mimei, he went out not with a bang, but a long, embarrassing whimper, something like the sound a balloon makes when it is let out of air. Just at the time of his death in the early 60s, a new group of children's writers emerged who shunned quite a few of the old guard and claimed their writing was facile, amateur and could not compare to the greats. In a shocking, controversial and absolutely pivotal book called Children and Literature, Mimei was demonized as a petty charlatan who was too drunk on his own sorrow to write appropriate, realistic children's literature. The clincher? Some of them were from the same college Mimei studied at and where he had headed the club for children's literature. This publication had a massive influence on children's literature from that period on. You can still find people arguing hotly about it. Mimei's reputation has recovered nicely since then, as the movement that that lasted almost 20 years and began after Children and Literature started to fade into yet another new movement.

One wonders what would have happened to both Mimei's reputation and his work if he had remained an obscure, struggling writer.

Children and Literature

His childhood home was at the foot of a mountain slope and his father built a temple to enshrine a piece of the famous Uesugi Kenshin (some recognize him as a famous general in Japanese civil wars) soul. The temple was built at the top of a sharp incline, so it was a tough trip to the top. In Niigata, at that time, when a child was born, it wasn't expected that they would live very long, so they were often given to other houses temporarily. Mimei (at the time he was known as Kensaku) was given to a candlemaker's house.

This inarguably influenced The Mermaid and the Red Candle. In the story, the mermaid we were introduced to is the pregant mother of our main character. She abandoned her newly-born daughter near a small shrine, thinking that although it will be painful to part with her child, it will be better for her to live in the utopian world above ground where she believes humans are saints compared to her world. A candlemaker and his old wife lived near the foot of a mountain where a shrine was built. Mimei paints this scene of fisherman buying candles to make their way up the mountain as they walk up a forest of pines that creak in the wind, and how the red flames of the candles can be seen from many miles away.

One day, the old woman decided to thank the god of the shrine, because without the shrine, they would not be able to sell so many candles and earn their livelihood. On the way back from the shrine, she found the abandoned mermaid. Both candlemakers reasoned that the mermaid is a gift from god to them and despite not being human, they decided to raise the mermaid because her face looked pretty and human like theirs, and because they thought the god of the shrine might punish them if they don't. She grew into a beautiful, quiet child, but in order to hide her mermaid origins, they confined her to the back of the shop. They explained to visitors that she was too shy and thus the customers were only allowed to see her face. Nevertheless, the townspeople were enchanted by the candlemakers' young daughter and began to frequent the candle shop more often just to see her beautiful face.

The young mermaid saw her father working to create the candles and her mother working to sell them. She thought that if she drew pictures of her spontaneous dreams and thoughts, even more customers would come to buy the candles. The old candlemaker let her use red paints on white candles and she drew scenes of seaweed, fish and seashells that, despite nobody having shown or taught her of, she painted with stunning clarity and beauty.

These candles became the talk of the town and before long, a strange rumor began to spread. If one bought a candle from the candlemaker's shop and took it to the shrine on the top of the mountain, burned the candle until only a small remnant was left, that remnant would act as a talisman to ward off trouble at sea. No sailor would meet storms or squalls if they carried one of the remnant's red candles invoked at the shrine. In fact, they would meet nothing but good fortune. Before long, the candlemaker's shop became famous through the known world and customers crowded the shop from day to night. Nobody spared a thought, however, toward the mermaid who worked wearily all day long and all night long, till the very tips of her fingers were sore. She often looked out her window toward the sea, yearning for it, longing for it, tears in her eyes.

The Mermaid and the Red Candle

After a time, as the fame of the shop spread, it attracted the attention of a showman from the south. Whether he had heard it or seen through the disguise, he knew the candlermakers' daughter was a mermaid. He approached them and offered a very large amount of gold to buy the mermaid. At first, they refused, saying that if they gave her up, the god would punish them, but after he came again and convinced them that mermaids were unlucky and would eventually bring misfortune on them, they relented. The mermaid did not want to go, but no matter how she pleaded that she would work all day and night to sell candles, the candlemakers would not listen to her and remained resolute. At night, she would look at the sea in sadness and often felt that something was calling her toward it, but when she looked out the window nothing was there. One night, the showman came to take her away, bringing an iron jail cell to imprison her with in his wagon. He reasoned that since he had used such a cell for wild beasts such as tigers and lions, and the mermaid was no different from such beasts, she belonged in such a cage. When the mermaid saw it, she was so horrified she put all her might into painting the candles at her feet, but it was no use -- she was dragged into the cage and in the commotion, red paint spilled all over the candles. After that night, the only thing left behind of the mermaid's life in that town were a couple of completely crimson candles.

In middle of the same peaceful night, the old candlemaker woman was awoken by a "knock, knock!" at the door. Opening it, she found a woman with a pale face and long, beautiful black hair pleading to buy a candle. Never wanting to pass up the chance for money, she opened the candle box and took out one of the mermaid's red candles. Under the light, she was surprised to find that the woman's black hair was soaking wet, but after looking long and hard at the red candle, the woman gave her coins and left. After checking the coins in stronger light, the old woman noticed they were in fact seashells. Thinking she had been tricked, she flew out of her shop in anger to confront the woman, but could find her nowhere. That night, the sea and sky changed. Just as the showman was putting the mermaid in her cage on the ship, the sea burst alive in a fit of furious storms. The candlemakers mused that the ship would go down and in the morning, they found it to be true: all around, many ships had sunk to the bottom of the ocean in a storm no one had seen in many a year.

In a curious change, now when red candles burned at the shrine atop the mountain, the seas would awaken in a rage of storms unlike any the world had seen. Even still, occasionally someone who had heard of the luck of the mountain shrine would come to light a candle, but it always ended in tragedy and death. Soon, rumor spread that the god had cursed the town and the shrine. No one came to buy candles. The candlemakers' shop went out of business. Eventually, the shrine and the town were abandoned into ruin and rot. But even though nobody dare approach the cursed place anymore, people reported strange stories. On cloudy nights when the stars cannot be seen and it rains all night long, dancing and floating above the waves, the flames of a red candle can be seen to rise, slowly and inexorably to the cursed mountain shrine and burn malevolently throughout the night.

(Resources: This collection and this collection of Mimei Ogawa stories don't seem to be widely in print any more. I cannot vouch for the former, but even though the latter can be found at Amazon, I don't recommend the foreword or cultural notes. They seem to be blinkered with a hilariously exaggerated orientalism. Modern Japanese Stories: An Anthology contains only one of Mimei Ogawa's stories, but he's in there alongside many other award-winning luminaries, giving you an idea of the stature he commands in his homeland. This is an audio recording The Mermaid and the Red Candle in Japanese. While I cannot find any free online sources for this story, you may enjoy listening to how it sounds for a Japanese child to hear this story read to them. The place that corresponds to the part of the story I translated is from 20 seconds in to the 1:44 mark in the first audio file.)

That's it for now! See you again later! Good night and good luck!