Back in the day, the Japanese royals kept their own entertainment of actors. A meal with the Prince might be saki, always warm, for if it was cold, it was a sign that not much was to be consumed and festivities were not in a genial manner.
One would dip their cup from the bowl, and the obligatory rice, fish and soup were consumed, and other things were picked at, the entertainment would begin.
There is a play in Japan which goes by the translation of The Three Cripples. Yes today we would have something odd like The Three Handicaps or The Three Physically Challenged, but in reality the Japanese had it right as the story is about a benevolent philantropist who announces that he will employ three cripples to benefit their lives.
Three imposters seeing the welfare way to an easy life preying on the naive good deed doer, appear in disguise of a lame man, a blind man and a dumb man.
They are put in charge of their employers store houses and he soon enough is away on business and pleasure, where the three discover they all knew each other from the past in being rogue gamblers.
They soon enough break into the rice whiskey store house, and decide upon a plan to break into the other store houses and make a grand plunder.
The saki flows freely and long, and the plans fall into a drunken stupor where all soon enough pass out drunk.
The owner returns and discovers what his cripples have been up to, but the cripples being confused in all the turmoil, make the mistake of choosing the debilitation which is not theirs. The blind becomes dumb, the lame becomes blind and the dumb becomes deaf. A little startling to have one who can not speak, suddenly start speaking, but not able to hear.
The employer realizes he has been taken advantage of and soon the proper administration of justice prevails upon the criminals.
Japan has always had it's own unique Aesophs Fables, in those perfectly attuned vignettes which are easy to comprehend in good and evil. The Magnificent Seven starring Yul Brenner and Steve McQueen started out as the Seven Samarai.
I recall my Beloved Uncle being in Japan telling the story of the Japanese Police coming across a citizen in need of some martial attention, for whatever infaction there was, but the Police were quite thorough for in judo they simply slammed the violator onto the concrete a few times, and that seemed to settle the matter without any need for the courts.
Japan was always quite a heinous place to foreigners, but in all the Japanese are, I sincerely am saddened upon looking at her now, like a Geisha now old and gone from the flower of her youth.
I much prefer a martial Japan. A Japan of rice paper houses filled with little children and their having some menacing nuclear bombs, and some very smart modern Zeroes flying into outer space, capable of obliterating China before the saki gets cold.
The world really was a much better place with British and Japanese Empires, the Americans in the middle, the Dutch exploiting south Asia and Germans managing things not British with the French making wine and cheese, while the Chinamen short stepped around with Russians drinking rivers of vodka.
Sea superiority as in England, Japan and America, led to a better world, as two little islands could not march to make trouble and Americans were too busy making money to want to occupy other lands.
I feel sad to have experienced the beginning of the end of the world in 1980 and watched it all decompose to this seeping corpse as the maggots drop off. I knew it when the fields were green, but where I live in the future the dusts cast a shroud upon all the lands.
The last great age has passed upon the human calendar. The benefit is the end will come before the Japanese and English become extinct like the unicorn.
I do hope the Japanese let some blood in the final feud. It would be good to finish it that way.
As an additional note:
President Theodore Roosevelt while at the White House, started "wrestling" with Asians. The wrestling was Judo, and the combatants were military men from Japan.
Roosevelt got into a match and tried choking off his opponent, who accomplished the task first, much to Teddy's throat's soreness.
He was covered with bruises and quite beat up in his playtime, but one of the wrestlers entered the United States military academy. This was 1905, and he thought a great deal of the President's young son and wrote him a short note and sent a gift one holiday.
America was on the best of terms with Japan under Theodore Roosevelt, but by the time Franklin Roosevelt had manipulated things a world war was engaged in, which is the worst of diplomatic disasters.
The letter is a reminder who Japan was and still is, if she would be properly treated correctly.
"My dearest boy:
"I received your nice letter. I thank you ever so much. I am very very
glad that you have receive my small present.
"I like you very very much. When I have been in Jiudo room with your
father and you, your father was talking to us about the picture of
the cavalry officer. In that time, I saw some expression on your face.
Another remembering of you is your bravery when you sleped down from a
tall chair. The two rememberings can't leave from my head.
"I returned here last Thursday and have plenty lesson, so my work is
hard, hard, hard, more than Jiudo.
"I hope your good health.
"I am,
"Sincerely yours,
"A. KITGAKI."
agtG
