East Meets West

Japan has always even a fascination to the outside world. For close to a century, they have been isolated and kept up with their own traditions. Even though forced to be into the modern world and befriend other outside countries, Japan still managed to keep its traditional charm and strong identity throughout the years. The Japanese identity is powerful and present in everything that they do. Pop culture, tradition, and arts are all apart of Japanese identity. Zeami Motokiyo’s play, The Shrine in the Fields, is living proof of Japan’s heavy blend of tradition and beauty in the world of art. Every little bit of Japan’s culture in the Edo period springs to life and comes out to play in this masterpiece in the theatre. It is so Japanese that one could just look at the first page and guess automatically what country this play originates from.

The play focuses around a priest, a village girl, and Miyasudokoro all going to this shrine in the fields. Motokiyo focuses mainly on religion. In Japan, the two main religions are Shinto and Buddhism. A priest is wandering around and decides to worship at a shrine. He is facing a torii. A torii is a gateway to a shrine in Japan. They are tall and red. One cannot miss them if they tried. The season is also late autumn. In Japanese literature and art, nature and emotions are the most persistent subjects known to the people. They are everywhere in poems, paintings, and stories in Japan. In this case, the girl laments about the flowers being dead and gone once the autumn is over. She seems to hate the winter so much because of it. Also in the play, there are pieces of Japanese vocabulary that reoccur throughout the play. For example, the girl first comes in with a fukai mask on her face. Fukai means deep in Japanese. The word is usually coupled with mori, which means forest. It would seem that the girl is a lady of the forest and her mask is an example of where she lives and what her nature is.

Another feature to The Shrine in the Fields that proves to stay within the culture of the Japanese is that it is so simple. The whole play is one act with only three actors in it. The only scene that is the focus of the play is Sagano in Yamashiro Province in a field. Japanese always seem to go for the simple angle of literature and art. Haikus, tankas, stories, and paintings are all simple. Usually, that is a bad thing. It seems to say that the artist did not really try to do anything with their work. He or she was lazy and did not really care about their work. But, the Japanese see things differently. They used not rely heavily on complex things. Instead, they always chose the simple route and ran with it there. To the modern’s eye’s surprise, it worked just so beautifully. Simplicity is the best way to go in art. The Japanese have understood that so well for many years. Even though, their world has become far more complex than it used to be centuries ago, they still managed to keep things simple from time to time.

The Shrine in the Fields is a heavy and rich blend of culture. The Japanese are very proud of their background and love to show it off in everything that they do. Art is just another way for them to exercise their pride and joy in their culture. The Shrine in the Fields does that very well in every way.