Chapter 1 Earthquake

Earthquake (jishin)

End of autumn –

an old woman carrying in her arms

sheafs of cut rice.

banshu ya

robā no tenaru

inaho kana

What you learn when you are very young, you will remember all your life. When I was still just a baby, I learned a great lesson from my grandmother. It happened during one of the worst disasters in our history.

The Japanese say there are four great terrors in life: jishin (earthquake), hi (fire), kaminari (thunder), and chichi (father). Of these, earthquake is dai-ichi no, number one. Japan is a land of earthquakes. Many of our mountains are active volcanoes, including Fuji-san, which last blew up in 1707, covering Tōkyō with ash. Japan gets about a thousand earthquakes a year, many of them in the Kantō region. A major earthquake happens in this area about every sixty years. On the first day of September 1923, Kantō Daishinsai, a Great Earthquake, measuring 8.2 on the Richter scale, struck the Kantō plain, including the port cities of Yokohama and Tōkyō, my hometown.

I was just a toddler, so I do not remember much of what happened, but my grandmother told the story of that momentous event many times.

It was very hot that day, with strong southerly gusts of wind blowing from a typhoon offshore. Summers were always hot and humid on the coastal plain, so houses were constructed to be light and airy. Our family kaku was a large two-story house with thick wooden posts and beams supporting a kawabuki roof thatched with miscanthus reeds. The thick thatch provided insulation from the summer sun. Between the widely spaced posts there were sliding screens made of wood and paper, white paper shōji on the outside and decorated paper fusuma partitioning the rooms inside. The formal kyakuma rooms on the sunny south side, reserved for meeting important visitors, were closed. But all the other screens throughout the house had been pushed aside to allow the breeze to blow freely through the house. This was our air-conditioning.

All over the city the midday meal was being prepared over charcoal fires. In our house the cook was preparing the meal on the big earthen kamado stoves. Even though the kitchen was on the north end, the cool, dark side of the house, it was quite hot standing over the glowing coals. Next to the rice chest there was a vase filled with fresh pine branches, a traditional offering to Kojin, the god of fire. If Kojin was not properly respected, this wild god might become angry and burn the house down. In a land of active volcanoes, earthquakes and houses made of wood and paper, fire is dai-ni no, the second greatest terror in life.

Inside one of the family rooms, my grandmother and mother were waiting for the meal to be served. They were sitting in the traditional seiza style, with legs folded under, on zabuton cushions placed on the thick tatami mats that covered the floor. They were stitching together a small quilt for the baby my mother was expecting, while I played with a small rice-filled silk ball made from pieces of my grandmother’s baby kimono.

Suddenly there was a violent shaking. In less than half a minute our world turned upside down. The solid earth beneath the house heaved upward like a quilt being shaken and we were all tossed around like rice-filled silk balls.

Just as suddenly, the earth stopped moving. That first shock wave was so strong that everything in the house was smashed to the ground. Fortunately, the thick timber posts and beams did not fall down.

As soon as the shaking stopped, my grandmother dashed to the kitchen to make sure the hot coals had not set the house on fire and she gave orders to put out the fires. Then she told everyone to grab their bedding and run outside into the garden, all the servants as well as the university students who lived in the ryō, the dormitory attached to the back of our house. It was not safe to stay inside. The aftershocks might still collapse the beams or the roof might catch fire from windblown sparks. Already fires had started in the neighboring houses and it was getting very hot.

On the altar in the family altar room there was a taraka-hako, a valuable treasure box made of black lacquer with gold metal trim on its double doors. Inside this box there was a zushi, a small carved sandalwood container, and inside this container there was a tiny sandalwood zō of Shō Kannon, our family deity. That box was the first thing Grandmother saved.

Grandmother directed the servants to haul the rice from the storehouse. The thick walls of the kura were made of white plastered clay designed to protect the building from fire. But Grandmother wanted to make sure our main source of food was completely safe. She told the servants to throw the bamboo bundles of rice into the well. It was a big well, about 1.5 meters across and 50 meters deep, lined with concrete. Even if the water got hot enough to boil, it would still protect the rice from burning up.

The whole city with its closely packed wooden houses caught fire within seconds. Tall columns of black smoke and flames rose everywhere. We lived on the edge of the city but it was still not safe to stay there. Grandmother directed the servants to take essential household goods and personal belongings and pile them on a daihachiguruma, a long cart with poles for pulling. I was tied on top and the servants hauled the cart. Grandmother and my parents ran alongside. We ran away from the burning city into the trees. We ran for several hours.

Many other people also ran away from the city, carrying whatever they could. The earth kept heaving for several hours. People on foot were thrown to the ground each time. Everyone tried to watch out for cracks, but there was a lot of dust, ashes and a strange acrid smoke that choked the air and made it difficult to see.

We fled to a hill called Asukayama, about ten kilometers from our house, where there was a big park. Many people camped out on that hill and watched the blazing hono-o engulf the city.

Over the next five days there were nearly a thousand after shocks. The shock waves, especially the first big one, collapsed the numerous wooden buildings, killing the people inside. 
But the greatest destruction and loss of life was caused by fire. We call fire, Edo no Hana, flowers of Edo, the old name for Tōkyō, because there have been so many disastrous fires in our city. This time, gas in broken gas lines ignited by charcoal fires caused the greatest conflagration. A typhoon wind whipped the flames into many separate firestorms that swept through the crowded city. Water lines broke, making it impossible to stop the inferno, which raged for two days. At least 140,000 people died.

We stayed on Asukayama hill for several days until the fires died down. When we came back we saw more big cracks in the ground, over a meter wide. It was very dangerous to walk around. People were afraid that if they fell into those cracks they would not be able to get out. The cracks were deep and sometimes the aftershocks closed them up without warning.

Most of the houses had burned to the ground, everything was gone. Our house was one of the few that had not burned. It sat in the middle of 2,000 tsubo of land, about 2.5 acres. Because our house was surrounded by a lot of land, it did not catch fire from the neighboring houses. It was kiseki-teki na, a miracle due to the blessings of Kannon-sama. Many people who had lost their homes took refuge on our land. Some of them were our neighbors.

Grandmother instructed the servants to take the amado, the heavy wooden storm doors, off the house to put over the cracks, with thick tatami on top, so people could sit on them. I remember how strange it was to see them sitting on tatami outside. Inside the house we are always careful to walk on tatami only in our split-toes tabi socks, so as not to damage or soil the delicate plaited straw mats.

The refugees had lost everything. They had nothing to eat. Grandmother had the rice that had been thrown into the well hauled up. It was wet but safe. She had it boiled and gave the taki dashi to the refugees. When the weather was not raining, they sat on the tatami on top of the shutters to eat their boiled rice. The homeless bomei-sha were very grateful for food and a place to sleep, even if it was outside.

Whenever I heard my grandmother tell the story about rescuing the rice and then giving it away to the people who did not have any, I thought my family did a great service. I feel happy that I grew up in such a family. From a very early age I learned the importance of jihi, helping others.