Shōjō

This article is about the Japanese word for orangutan and the legendary creature. For other uses, see Shojo (disambiguation).

A shōjō (猩々 or 猩猩) is the Japanese reading of Chinese xing-xing (猩猩) or its older form sheng sheng (狌狌, translated as "live-lively"), which is a mythical primate, though it has been tentatively identified with an orangutan species.

A shōjō standing on a giant sake cup, and using a long-handled sake ladle to pole through a sea of water or sake; detail from a whimsical Edo-period painting.

Some Western commentators have regarded the shōjō sea spirit with a red face and hair and a fondness for alcohol as part of native Japanese folklore. However, shōjō as sea-dwelling spirit was a fictional setting in the Noh play Shōjō, a possible embellishment of the Shan Hai Jing stating this orangutan could be found on a particular seaside mountain. And liquor-drinking was always associated with this beast in China since antiquity.

Nomenclature

The Chinese characters are also a Japanese (and Chinese) word for orangutan, and can also be used in Japanese to refer to someone who is particularly fond of alcohol.^[1]

A Noh mask called the shōjō exists (cf. §Noh); also, in Kabuki, a type of stage makeup (kumadori) is called the shōjō.^[1]

Development of lore

The shōjō has been represented as a sea spirit with a red face and hair and a fondness for alcohol as part of Japanese folktale tradition.^[2]

It has sometimes been misconceived as purely native Japanese folklore and superstition, particularly by commentators of the netsuke craft art, since the shōjō is a popular subject for these carvings.^[3][4] Though the conception of the shōjō as an alcohol-loving fairy living in the sea may have passed into folklore,^[4] it has its antecedent in the medieval literature or theater, namely the Noh play Shōjō, which is set in Ancient China,^[5] which in turn derives from the Chinese counterpart, xingxing:

There is no question whatsoever that shōjō's love of liquor derives from the xingxing of Chinese literature,^[6] and a number of ancient sources can be listed.^[9][10] The being dwelling in the sea is a uniquely Japanese adaptation, but it might have been inspired by the statement in the Shan Hai Jing that it is found on a southern mountain bordering the sea.^[8]

Xingxing

 

A drawing of a shēng shēng father and child from a 1596 edition of the Shan Hai Jing.

The xingxing (xīng xīng; 猩猩) written shengsheng (shēng shēng; 狌狌) in older writings is found in a number of pieces of Chinese literature, dating back to several centuries B.C.

Shan hai jing

The shengsheng^[11] or xingxing^[12][13] (狌狌), also given the English-translated name of "live-lively"^[14][15] are mentioned in three passages of the Shan Hai Jing ("Classic of Mountains and Seas").^[16]

According to Book One, or Classic of the Southern Mountains the shengsheng resembles a yu (禺) or long-tailed ape, but has white ears. It is said to crouch while walking, but to be able to run like humans, and eating it imparts quick-running ability.^[17] It is said to inhabit Mount Zhaoyao 招摇之山 or "Raiseshake", which is the first peak of Queshan 鵲山 or Mount Magpie [range].^[14][13]

Elsewhere:

Drift Forest is 300 leagues square. It lies east of the land of the live-lively apes. The live-lively apes know the names of humans. These animals are like hogs, but they have a human face.

— Book Ten--The Classic of Regions Within the Seas: The South (p. 135)

There is a green animal with a human face. Its name is live-lively.

— Book Eighteen--The Classic of Regions Within the Seas (p. 192)

The Chinese character Birrell translates as "green" (青, qīng) is also used to refer to colors that in English would be considered "blue," (see Distinguishing blue from green in language) and that illustrator Sun Xiao-qin (孫暁琴, Sūn Xiǎo-qín), in Illustrated Classics: Classic of Mountains and Seas (经典图读山海经, Jīng Diǎn Tú Dú Shān Hǎi Jīng) chose to portray the xīng xīng from this same passage as having blue fur.^[18]

Bencao Gangmu

The xingxing (猩猩) is mentioned in the Bencao Gangmu ("Compendium of Materia Medica", 1596), and identified as referring to the orangutan by modern editors/translators.^[19][20] The work's compiler Li Shizhen remarked that xing-xing (猩猩) was formerly written sheng sheng (狌狌),^[19][20] hence, Unschuld emends the authentic pronunciation of "猩猩" to be "sheng sheng".^[20] Curiously, Strassberg did the opposite, and rendered "狌狌" as xingxing.^[12]

The Bencao Gangmu describes it as resembling a dog or [rhesus] macaque (獼猴), having yellow fur like the ape (yuan; 猨), and white ears like a pig.^[20]

It cites Ruan Qian (阮汧) from the Tang dynasty period regarding the method the Vietnamese locals in Fengxi (封溪) county used to capture the xingxing. They would leave straw sandals and liquor by the roadside to lure them; the creatures examine these goods but go away at first, but they return to try on the sandals and drink the wine, at which point they can be captured. When it comes time to eat one of them, they would push the fattest one forward, and they weep.^[20][21][22]

Japanese literature and art

Noh play

 

A Noh mask of the shōjō.

The Kyōgen-influenced Noh play shōjō is set in Ancient China,^[5] specifically on the banks of the Xunyang River (潯陽; present-day Jiujiang) in Morokoshi (唐土; present-day Jiangxi Province).^[23][26]

Plotline

A man is instructed to sell wine (sake) at the market to become wealthy. The protagonist (shite) shōjō disguised as human buys from him in large quantity, but his face never becomes flushed despite the heavy drinking. The sake-seller who has turned wealthy asked his great patron for his identity, and the shōjō reveals to him he is a spirit living in the sea.

The sake-seller seller seeks out the spirit at an estuary by the seaside. The shōjō appears in its true form, drinks the sake, getting drunk and dancing ecstatically, then rewarding the sake seller by making his sake vat perpetually refill itself.^[5][27]

Costume

The Shōjō Noh mask with a red tinge on its face, it is worn by the lead (nochishite) playing its part of the shōjō,^[24] and used exclusively for this lead role, but nowhere else.^[23][5][a] The costume of the Shōjō follows an overall red-color theme, a big red wig, and red clothing.^[5]

Variant

The variant to the Noh play, known by the title Shōjō midare or simply Midare (乱, 'Disorder') is actually only involves alternate choreography or staging (kogaki [ja], in Noh jargon). The usual chū-no-mai (中之舞, 'medium dance') gets replaced with a special midare dance during the ha 3 dan (破三段, '3rd developmental act').^[b][5][23]

Folk art

The Shōjō doll was sometimes displayed alongside the red Daruma doll, red paper gohei, etc. on a altar to the Hōsō-gami (放送神) during the Edo Period.^[29] The Shōjō doll was a hariko (papier-mâché) like the daruma, and the industry for manufacture is said to date to the c. 1700s or earlier (Genroku era).^[30] It was considered a lucky item (engimono), placed on the hearth (kamado), and was supposed to contract the pox in place of the family.^[30]

The shōjō has also been a popular subject for the Nara ningyō, which is a type of wood-carved doll that is color-painted.^[31]

Wakan sansai zue

 

A picture of a shōjō from the Wakan Sansai Zue from the early 1700s.

Terajima Ryōan's encyclopedia Wakan sansai zue (1712) included and entry for "shōjō", with illustration (cf. fig. right). The caption was accompanied by the Chinese pronunciation rendered in katakana (suin suin スインスイン), but also claims a Japanese name shōjō (written 象掌).^[32] It is clear the entry draws from Chinese sources, especially the Bencao Gangmu, and its prefacing remarks argues that the beast is actually yellow-furred (as the Bencao Gangmu states), rather being red color as has been believed according to popular notions in Japan.^[32]

The opening text proper states that the shōjō is known to occur in the mountains and valleys, in the land of the Ailauyi (Chinese: 哀牢夷, a people in western Yunnan) and "Fengxi xian" (封溪縣 county) in Jiaozhi (交趾, present-day Northern Vietnam),^[33][32][34] but the beast occurring in Fengxi, Vietnam was already given in the Bencao Gangmu, as aforementioned.^[20] And the local Vietnamese strategy of leaving straw sandals (zōri) and wine (sake) in order to lure the orangutan for capture,^[33][32] is also taken almost verbatim from the Chinese source.

Folklore

White sake

 

"Shōjō" by the sea, drinking sake, from a 1908 illustration of "White Sake," a Japanese folktale."

A group of shōjō as sake-loving sea spirits are featured in a Japanese folktale entitled "White saké" published by Richard Gordon Smith (1908). It occurs in an anthology which, folklorist A. R. Wright was convinced, faithfully recorded tales substantially as they were told by the oral sources, whether "fishermen, peasants, priests, or others".^[35]

A summary is as follows: A gravely sick man had a dying wish to drink sake. His son searched near Mount Fuji and met the red shōjō, who were having a drinking party on the beach. The shōjō gave him some sake after listening to his plea. Since the sake revived the dying father, the son went back to the spirit to get more sake each day for five days. A greedy neighbor who also wanted the sake became sick after drinking it. He forced the son to take him to the shōjō to get the good sake. The shōjō explained that as his heart wasn't pure, the sacred sake would not have life-restoring benefits, but instead had poisoned the neighbor. The neighbor repented, and the shōjō gave him some medicine to cure him. The father and the neighbor brewed white sake together.^[2]

Popular culture

Several plants and animals have shōjō in their names for their bright, reddish-orange color. Examples include several Japanese maple trees, one of them named shōjō-no-mai or "dancing red-faced monkey" and another named shōjō nomura or "beautiful red-faced monkey."^[36] Certain bright reddish-orange dragonflies are named shōjō tonbo (猩猩蜻蛉), meaning "red-faced dragonfly."^[37] Other names with shōjō refer to real or fancied connections to sake, like the fly shōjō bae (猩猩蠅) that tends to swarm around open saké.^[37]

In Hayao Miyazaki's animated film Princess Mononoke, talking, ape-like creatures struggling to protect the forest from human destruction by planting trees are identified as shōjō.^[38][39]

Shōjō appeared in a 2005 Japanese film The Great Yokai War.^[40][41]

The Japanese artist Kawanabe Kyōsai, who was also known for his heavy drinking and eccentric behavior,^[42] humorously referred to himself as a shōjō.^[43]

The March 30, 2012, episode of the television series Supernatural, "Party on, Garth", features a shōjō, although this shōjō appears to have features more associated with the onryō.

See also

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shōjō.

• Inari
• Kami
• Yōkai
• List of legendary creatures from Japan

Explanatory notes

1. However, this has also been worn to portray a red-faced ghost of a youth.^[28]
2. The Noh is supposed to consist of five acts or dan, obeying the Jo-ha-kyū principle: 1 introductory jo act, 3 developmental ha acts, and 1 climactic kyū act.

References

Citations

1. Shogakukan Daijisen Editorial Staff (1998), Daijisen (大辞泉) (Dictionary of the Japanese language), Revised Edition. Tokyo: Shogakukan. ISBN 978-4-09-501212-4.
2. Smith, Richard Gordon (1908). "XXXVIII. White Saké". Ancient Tales and Folklore of Japan. London: A. & C. Black. pp. 239–244.Reprint edition, Kessinger, Whitefish, MT, no date
3. Earle, Joe (1998). "The Shōjō". An Exhibition of the Robert S. Huthart Collection of Non-Iwami Netsuke. London: Barry Davies Oriental Art. p. 9. popular Chinese subjects — kirin , baku , sennin , karako , ashinaga.. easily outnumber native subjects such as shōjō, kappa, ..
4. Volker, T. (1975) [1950]. "The Shōjō". The Animal in Far Eastern Art and Especially in the Art of the Japanese Netsuke, with References to Chinese Origins, Traditions, Legends, and Art. Leiden: E.J. Brill. pp. 141–142. ISBN 90-04-04295-4.
5. Serper, Zvika (2005–2006), "Japanese Noh and Kyōgen Plays: Staging Dichotomy", Comparative Drama, 39 (3/4 Early Asian Drama: Conversations and Convergences): 350–351, doi:10.1353/cdr.2005.0028, JSTOR 41154287, S2CID 191584456
6. Wang Donglan (2005), p. 148.
7. Liu An (2010). "13.12". The Huainanzi: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early Han China. Translated by Major, John S.; Roth, Harold; Meyer, Andrew Seth. Columbia University Press. pp. 920–. ISBN 9780231142045.
8. Wang Donglan (2005), p. 132.
9. On the tract where Huainanzi, Lecture 13. Fanlun (氾論訓 "Boundless Discourses") states that xingxing (orangutan) "knows the past but does not know the future 猩猩知往而不知来",^[7] and Gao You (高誘)'s annotation (212 AD) here provides that "The xingxing is the name of a beast in the north (recté 'south'), with a human face and beastly body of yellow color. [Confucius] Book of Rites says the xingxing is able to speak yet not separate from beasts and birds, seems to walk and run like humans, knows the names of humans, and has a taste for liquor 猩猩北方獣名、人面獣身黄色、禮記曰、猩猩能言不離禽獣、見人往走、則知人姓字、又嗜酒".^[8]
10. Bencao Gangmu citing Ruan Qian (Tang Dynasty). cf. infra.
11. Tsai, Julius Nanting (2003). In the Steps of Emperors and Immortals: Imperial Mountain Journeys and Daoist Meditation and Ritual. Stanford University. p. 21.
12. Strassberg, Richard E., ed. (2018). "2. Xingxing" 狌狌. A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas. University of California Press. pp. 83–85. ISBN 978-0-52029-851-4.
13. The Classic of Mountains and Seas 山海经. Translated by Wang Hong 王宏; Zhao Zheng 赵峰; Chen Cheng 陈成 (into mod. Chinese). Hunan ren min chu ban she. 2010. p. 30. ISBN 9787543870864.
14. Birrell tr. (2000), P. 2
15. Birrell tr. (2000), p. 236: "Live-lively (hsing-hsing): A type of ape. The translation of its name reflects the phonetic for ‘live’ (sheng) in the double graph. It is sometimes translated as the orangutan. [Hao Yi-hsing (郝懿行)] notes that its lips taste delicious. He also cites a text of the fourth century AD that gives evidence of their mental powers and their knowledge of human names: ‘In the Yunnan region, the live-lively animals live in mountain valleys. When they see wine and sandals left out, they know exactly who set this trap for them, and, what is more, they know the name of that person's ancestor. They call the name of the person who set the trap and curse them: “Vile rotter! You hoped to trap me!”".
16. Birrell tr. (2000).
17. Birrel tr. "There is an animal on the mountain which looks like a long-tailed ape, but it has white ears. It crouches as it moves along and it runs like a human. Its name is the live-lively. If you eat it, you'll be a good runner".^[14]
18. Wang Gong-qi (王红旗, Wáng Gōng-qí), commentator; Sun Xiao-qin (孫暁琴, Sūn Xiǎo-qín), illustrator (2003). Illustrated Classics: The Classic of Mountains and Seas (经典图读山海经, Jīng Diǎn Tú Dú Shān Hǎi Jīng). Shanghai: Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House. ISBN 7-5326-1172-8.
19. Li Shizhen (2003). "Drug 51-54 Xingxing". Compendium of Materia Medica: Bencao Gangmu. Vol. 5. Translated by Luo Xiwen [in Chinese]. Foreign Languages Press. pp. 4128–. ISBN 9787119032603.
20. Li Shizhen (2021). "Four-legged Animals III. 51-52. Sheng sheng" 猩猩. Ben Cao Gang Mu, Volume IX: Fowls, Domestic and Wild Animals, Human Substances. Translated by Paul U. Unschuld. University of California Press. pp. 920–922. ISBN 9780520379923.
21. Zheng, Jinsheng; Kirk, Nalini; Buell, Paul D.; Unschuld, Paul Ulrich, eds. (2018), Dictionary of the Ben Cao Gang Mu, Volume 3: Persons and Literary Sources, University of California Press, p. 375, ISBN 9780520291973
22. "lower-alpha"
23. Matsuda, Tamotsu [in Japanese] (1990). Nō・Kyōgen Masks 能・狂言 (3 ed.). Gyōsei. pp. 237–238. ISBN 9784324018149.
24. Noma, Seiroku [in Japanese] (1957). "The Shōjō". Masks. Arts & crafts of Japan 1. C.E. Tuttle Company. p. 9.
25. Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1951). The Battles of Coxinga: Chikamatsu's Puppet Play, Its Background and Importance. Cambridge Oriental series 4. Translated by Keene, Donald Keene. aylor's Foreign Press. p. 185, n88.
26. Wade-Giles romanization is Hsün-yang (潯陽) but this has been transcribed as "Hsin-yang River".^[24] "Hsin-yang, now called Kiukiang", i.e., Jiujiang is also mentioned alongside shōjō in Chikamatsu Monzaemon's puppet play The Battles of Coxinga.^[25]
27. "NOH & KYOGEN -An Introduction to the World of Noh & Kyogen". .ntj.jac.go.jp. 2002-04-24. Retrieved 2016-09-20.
28. Faure (2011), p. 60, n49.
29. Faure (2011), pp. 51, 60
30. Nihon dentō sangyō kenkyūsho (1976). "XXXVIII. White Saké". Nihon no dentō sangyō 日本の伝統産業 (in Japanese). Vol. 2. Tsūsan kikaku chōsakai. p. 425.
31. Pate, Alan Scott (2008). Japanese Dolls: The Fascinating Word of Ningyō. Tuttle. p. 244. ISBN 978-4-8053-0922-3.
32. Terajima Ryōan [in Japanese] (n.d.) [1712], "40. Gūrui & kairui: Suiko" 四十 寓類・怪類：猩猩, Wakan Sansai zue 和漢三才図会, vol. 27 of 81, fol. 13a–13b
33. Wyatt (2017), pp. 76–77.
34. Terajima Ryōan [in Japanese] (1985) [1712], Wakan Sansai zue 和漢三才図会, vol. 6, Heibonsha, p. 148, ISBN 9784582804478
35. Wright, A. R. (30 June 1909), "(Book Review) Ancient Tales and Folk-Lore of Japan by Richard Gordon Smith", Folklore, 20 (2): 249–252, JSTOR 1254136
36. Vertrees, J.D. and Peter Gregory (2001). Japanese Maples: Momiji and Kaede (Third Edition). Portland, OR: Timber Press. p. 214. ISBN 978-0-88192-501-2. Here, Vertrees and Gregory translate shōjō as "red-faced monkey" rather than "orangutan."
37. . Archived from the original on 2015-05-03. Retrieved 2017-07-14.. (Accessed September 18, 2008).
38. "『もののけ姫』を読み解 (Mononoke Hime o Yomitoku)" [Reading Princess Mononoke]. Comicbox (in Japanese). 1997. Retrieved 2008-09-21.
39. "Princess Mononoke" Movie Pamphlet (『もののけ姫』映画パンフレット, Mononoke Hime Eiga Panfuretto) (in Japanese). Tokyo: Toho Company Product Enterprise Division. 1997.
40. . 2005「妖怪大戦争」製作委員会. Archived from the original on 2008-09-22. Retrieved 2008-09-28.
41. "yokai gallary 猩猩". (株)角川クロスメディア. Retrieved 2008-09-28.
42. Hiroshi Nara (2007). Inexorable Modernity: Japan's Grappling with Modernity in the Arts. Lexington Books. pp. 34 p. ISBN 978-0-7391-1842-9.
43. Brenda G. Jordan; Victoria Louise Weston; Victoria Weston (2003). Copying the Master and Stealing His Secrets: Talent and Training in Japanese Painting. University of Hawaii Press. pp. 217 p. ISBN 978-0-8248-2608-6.

Bibliography

• Birrell, Anne (tr.), ed. (2000). The Classic of Mountains and Seas. Penguin Books. ISBN 9780140447194.

• Faure, Bernard (2011). "From Bodhidharma to Daruma: The Hidden Life of a Zen Patriarch". Japan Review. 11 (23): 45–71. JSTOR 41304923.

• Wang Donglan (2005). Nō ni okeru Chūgoku 能における「中国」. Tōhō shoten. ISBN 9784497205018.

• Wyatt, Daniel J. (2017). "Creatures of Myth and Modernity: Representations of Shojo in the Meiji Era". New Voices in Japanese Studies. 9: 71–93. doi:10.21159/nvjs.09.04.

External links

• The Obakemono Project