THE HIGH AND LOW OF CAPITALISM 253

Carted around by her ound his waist

Both are looking to b,
With the girl schemin
,gers for a ride,
,n the side.
Don't glance back as gets hitched!
Wait for the ride back home ,v .,, ___ _, your pitch.
One wrong turn and you'll flip this cart into a ditch!
Oppekepe, oppekepeppo, peppopo!
You learned Western words, but not what they meant
Simply eating bread won't bring enlightenment.
You want to know the urgent business at hand?
Bringing freedom to all the people in our land!
What we need is vision, not more bureaucracy.
Your inept leadership has us all feeling antsy.
Let's move to the forefront of science and innovation,
And show those foreign powers they're no match for our nation!
In the name of our sacred land-Japan! po! po!
Kawakami Otojiro
Lead Performer of the
(National Theater, Japan Arts Council, Tokyo)
TRANSLATED BY DYLAN McGEE
ln Darkest Tokyo
MATSUBARAIWAGORO
Matsubara lwagoro's ( 1866-1935) In Darkest Tokyo (Saiankoku
no Tokyo) was an immediate success. Ten days after it first ap­
peared on November 9, 1893, it was printed a second time.
Three months later, it was issued again. Numerous reviews
praised its realism and freshness, and, in 1897, a partial English translation
published by a certain F. Schroeder, editor of the weekly Eastern World, in­
troduced this Japanese best seller to English readers.
In Darkest Tokyo is a firsthand account of the slums of Japan's new
capital.Matsubara himself did not naturally belong to this world of day la­
borers, itinerant entertainers, and pilgrims, but he was poor.Like so many
other Meiji-period writers, he came to Tokyo from the countryside (Tottori
Prefecture in this case) to make a living as a self-made literatus and intellec­
tual. He was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of the influential
writer Koda Rohan (1867-1947), and to be hired by Tokutomi Soho,
brother to Tokutomi Roka, as a staff writer for Japan's first general newspa­
per, the Citizen's News (Kokumin Shinbun).
In order to write about the denizens of darkest Tokyo, Matsubara chose
to live and work with them. This hands-on approach was the very reason
Soho employed him. His up-close-and-personal account of life among
Japan's urban poor on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War (1895) was ground­
breaking. Yet it was not exactly as he claimed: an account "of things never
before seen, ...and my observations of them necessarily unprecedented and
novel:' There were precedents.
Realism was central to the development of modern sensibility, and an
evolving realistic impulse had already begun to widen the sphere of literary
topics. Before Matsubara's In Darkest Tokyo was Sakurada Bungo's (1863-
1922) The World of the Poor, A Recorded Investigation of the Slums of Hunger
and Cold (Hintenchi Kikankutsu Tankenki) and two other journalistic pieces.
Sakurada's study of the urban poor was serialized in the progovernment
newspaper Japan from August to November of 1890, and was published as
a book in June 1893. Matsubara's similar study was serialized from Novem­
ber 11, 1892, in Citizen's News1 and was added to and published as a mono­
graph in November of 1893 by Min' yusha Press. Today, both books are
considered early classics of progressive thought.
If In Darkest Tokyo is the more notable of the two, it is because it in­
fluenced not only socialist thought but also literary realism. Writing in
254 PART Ill THE HIGH AND LOW OF CAPITALISM 255

the first person about Tokyo's dark side, Matsubara was a precursor to in-spending the night in an insect-infested lodging house and finding em­
naturalists such as Tayama Katai, who would follow ten years later with ployment at a shop that sells leftovers to the hungry masses. In later chap­
" human-nature-revealing" confessional I-novels. If Matsubara's work has ters, he goes on to report on the lives ofmoney handlers, thieves, rickshaw
been delayed in its consideration as a literary text, it is probably because the pullers, and others. The industrial boom that followed the Sino-Japanese
darkness that Matsubara both describes and lyrically evokes in In Darkest War was yet to come, so Matsubara does not describe male factory workers
Tokyo is pointedly political and journalistic. It is reportage (kiroku bungaku) or the many young women who contracted tuberculosis as they labored in
rather than the more dramatic "griefnovels" ( hiai shosetsu), "serious novels" the silk mills that earned Japan a place in the international economy.
( shinkoku shosetsu), and "conceptual novels" (kannen shosetsu) that pointed
�( CSI)�
out life's bitter realities during the latter half of the 1890s. As rediscovered
here, it points forward to not only naturalist texts but also to the proletarian
literature ofthe 1920s.
TO SLEEP OUTDOORS OR IN A CHEAP LODGING HOUSE
In style, the work is high yet low, rhetorically elevated yet focused on
the mundane. Its prose is rich in Chinese characters and grammatically con­ To speak of armies of mosquitoes and fleas is to fall back on the usual cli­
fusing in the way so many Meiji-period texts are in their trial-and-error evo­ ches. In truth, I am at a loss for words to describe the noisy attacks of
lution toward what eventually came to be modern Japanese literature. By mos­quitoes and the unbearable fleas and lice that I experienced during
this point in time, illustrations enhance the text rather than vice versa, but my stay in a cheap lodging house. All night long, I rubbed my sleepy eyes.
the inclusion of figures was still deemed essential. The images included I slapped my neck, rubbed my underarms, reached around to my back,
here were created by the Kubota Kinsen (1875-19S4), who was active in scratched my legs, sat up to the left, rolled to the right, tried getting up,
the genre ofJapanese-style painting (nihonga). He was still in his teens at tried lying down, stood up, shook out my clothes. Endless discomfort
the time oftheir creation. His father, the well-known painter Kubota Beisen made my mind a blur. Unable to sleep, I spent the entire night tossing this
(18S2-1906), was staff illustrator for the Citizen's News and drew a salary way and that. Truly, this is the reality oflife in the slums.
seven times that ofMatsubara's. Although I wanted to wash up in the morning, there was no decent
Both the Min' yusha Press and Citizen's News were owned by Soho. Pop­ washbasin for me to use. The only thing available was a rusted tin pan sitting
ulist in thrust, they were a thorn in the side ofthe first Matsukata Masayoshi beside the outhouse, along with a small pail for scooping up warm dirty
administration, persistent in their criticism of corruption and scandal. Fol­ water. I felt no desire to use either, even to rinse out my mouth, so I exited as
lowing the war with China, however, which Matsubara had covered as an
overseas correspondent and written about in his My Account of Calvary Dust
(Seijin Yoroku, 1896), Soho was appointed, in 1897, to be a member ofMat­
sukata's second administration, which lasted less than two years. Feeling
betrayed by Soho, many readers ofthe liberal Citizen's turned away; and Mat­
subara and numerous others on the staff were let go. The paper itselfcontin­
ued until 1929, becoming increasingly conservative and eventually aligning
itselfwith the Meiji oligarchs.
Matsubara landed on his feet, finding workat Ohashi Otowa's Hakubunkan
Publishing Company as a writer and editor. He edited and contributed to A
True Record of the Eastern War (Toyo Senso Jikki), an account of the Boxer
Rebellion of 1900, then became the editor of the monthly magazine Girl's
Education (Jogaku Sekai) in 1901, a job he continued to do for the next six­
teen years. In addition to journalistic pieces, Matsubara wrote short stories
and novels. But it is In Darkest Tokyo for which he is remembered. The
translated portion here comes from the early chapters, where he is settling Instruments ofthe poor: wooden boards are used as shoes (Collection ofYasunori Tan-o)
256 PARTIII
soon as the front door opened. I ran at full tilt this way and that, breathing
the fresh air until I located a well where I was finally able to wash my face.
As a student of poverty, I presented a most cowardly figure. Seeing so
many things for the first time, I found myselfastonished by the monstrous
quality oflife in the slums. I was afraid even to be near the old candy ped­
dler who picked lice from his body and crushed them with his teeth. How,
then, was I to have the wherewithal to care for some beggar stricken with
leprosy? My single night ofsleeping in the lodging house filled me an endless
desire to be outdoors with the soft grass for my bedding. Think of it. How
can even the relatively well-off day laborer or construction worker, these
men with the strength of demons and bodies of steel, afford to pay the
three sen per night for a spot in one of these hovels, seeing how they
cannot pay for three meals a day or for clothes?
Ofcourse, even though accosted by fleas, lice, mosquitoes, stench, fet­
idness, and oppressive heat, one finds that a place indoors has certain ad­
vantages over even the soft, cool, beautiful luxuries ofa natural bed. What is
more comforting than being able to enjoy the vagaries ofthe weather, and
to experience the sheer elegance ofthat one night in a thousand spent upon
a bed of grass? Still, even though one cannot argue against the luxury of
nature's soft verdant mattress, one must admit that, when used night after
night, such a bed would become nothing but dew-drenched thorns. While
the challenge ofbeing pickled alive in a foul steam ofmalodorous bodies is
something one might be able to endure, it is quite impossible to tolerate for
long the lonely vastness of earth and sky, where one's only friends are the
stars in the dead ofnight. Indoors, the attack ofmosquitoes and fleas poses
a suffering that is great indeed, yet even this is not so terrible as the disgust­
ing feeling ofsnakes, frogs, and toads crawling around in one's bed.
Come to think of it, Saigyo, that wandering holy man of old whom I
held in my heart as one who had accomplished true freedom, said in a poem,
"My only friend / is the moon ofthis winter night- / seen after the storm /
in my lonely dwelling / among the mountains:' Then there is Basho's song
ofthe bright moon, also a masterpiece that is forever upon our lips. Gazing at
the brightly shining moon in the clearing sky at morn, he too went through
the trouble of carrying a big pack on his shoulder. I myselfwas looking for­
ward to a dream world oftravel-hat in hand, leaning on my walking stick.
But, thinking ofthat now, I must say that I have fallen to the level ofordinary
men. Even if one lived alone in a "deep mountain village" with nothing to
eat, one would not feel much poetry in one's bones. Even ifl were to wander
around a pond all night while observing the bright moonlight, I would not
take in and retain such a beautiful sight unless I had a hut or bed to give me
rest. Even Saigyo, upon sleeping under the stars for three nights in a row,
THE HIGH AND LOW OF CAPITALISM 257
would begin to yearn for a spot in a boarding house. As for Basho, were he
to spend three nights gazing at the moon, he too would lose his dislike ofa
rented roof, even with its army ofmosquitoes, its fleas and lice.
Ah, the cheap lodging house. The day laborer, the construction worker,
and the temporary hand-these bachelors of the boarding house are not
unlike Saigyo on the third night. And had they experienced Basho's third
night on the road, they would also yearn for a resting place among fleas and
lice. Heat and stench are meaningless to them. Neither do they complain
about being treated like animals, given one mat per person to sleep on, or
even crammed ten people into a five- or six-person room. For them, such a
communal space is a jeweled platform on which to lie down and to spread
one's body; it is a place to recover from fatigue and to gain energy for the
next day. Determined to live a hundred years, such people consider a torn
futon to be a brocade quilt, and a piece ofdiscarded lumber to be Kantan's
miraculous pillow ofdreams.
HOUSING AND FURNISHINGS
As I thus considered various theories about the pros and cons ofspending
the night under the stars versus in a cheap lodging house, I wandered from
hovel to hovel. Finding a home proved to be a real challenge. First of all, I
had no idea about where I was going. Second, I lacked a magic compass that
might point me to exactly the right place. Coming to the conviction that
studying various people's means oflivelihood would provide the most effi­
cient way to proceed, I made my way through this and that corner of the
slums, letting no place escape my investigation. In this way, I happened to
stumble upon numerous objects ofsuch intricacy and beauty as I had never
before encountered in all my days, not at any exhibition hall, demonstra­
tion space, or studio. Truly, I had never before seen such marvelous natural
objects, such wonderful manufactured goods, such surprisingly impressive
handmade articles.
Dear reader, do not laugh. For life is truly sacred, and poverty is a most
solemn reality. There is no great distinction to be made between the fancy
balls held at the Deer Cry Pavilion and the commotion that takes place in
the kitchens of the poor. On the other hand, laughing at the silliness of
fancy balls is mere rudeness, while laughter directed at the kitchens of the
poor must be called cruelty ofan extreme sort. Ah, what do we know about
the homes of the poor? What do we understand about their possessions,
their clothing, their food? What we do know about how they live?
Dear reader, I must leave a great deal to your imagination. For until
now, the domiciles and furnishings of the poor have not been captured in

258 PARTIII
pictures nor recorded in any book. In today's world, although we have no
shortage of exhibitions, art shows, and conventions, the dwellings and pos­
sessions of the poor have never been accurately represented. The world has
its share of renowned painters who have given us images of ladies playing
instruments, nobles feasting, flowers and birds, mountains and streams; yet
none of them has ever depicted the furnishings of the poor. Similarly, the
world has many great writers who have written enthusiastically about tal­
ented men of letters taking baths, beautiful women being given in marriage,
and of So-and-so Kusunoki waging his noble battles. But has anyone ever
written about actual living conditions? This reality is not to be seen at any
exhibition or convention. It is not depicted by any painter nor described by
any novelist. As a special world of things never before seen, such matters are
entirely new, and my observations of them are necessarily unprecedented
and novel.
Precisely because of the possessions of the poor, my eyes and ears have
received a baptism. Ah, the shacks of the indigent are little more than enclo­
sures of boards, nine feet across, and situated in places dilapidated beyond
description. The floors are low to the ground; the uprights barely enough
to support roofs that seem ready to fall in at any moment. Their tatami
mats are tattered around the edges and have straw protruding from their
corners; yet, just the same, they receive the crowds of people who kneel
upon them. From the walls hang Buddhist altars tied up with ropes, and
from the ceiling dangle consecrated baskets that house the gods. With such
objects, the denizens of the slums maintain their enduring devotion to the
deities and spirits.
Most surprising are their household items, things one might well call
"prized possessions:' I speak of earthen pots as forlorn as a leper's counte­
nance, kettles with rims broken like old roof tiles, serving trays without
edges, bowls with chips in them, every one. A broken bowl for grinding
sesame seeds has been made to serve as a hibachi for heating. A vase's cracks
are patched over so it somehow holds water. And what of the umbrella,
this essential instrument of daily use? Its spokes are patched with rags of
every sort, so that the mechanism can barely open and close. As for
footwear, the clogs of the poor are nothing but pieces of wood tied with
rope, and patches of bamboo strips strung together and fastened to the
feet. Perhaps bedding is the best example of the lack of daily necessities
that plagues the poor. The very quilts that serve as portals to the
mysterious world of sleep are pains­takingly patched together from old
towels, bundling scarves, and scraps of fabric taken from old umbrellas, all
pieced together in a way that keeps their cotton stuffing from falling out.
THE HIGH AND LOW OF CAPITALISM 259
Such are the day-to-day objects of the poor. People of the world
might laugh at such extreme neediness; and no doubt there are those who
find the lives of the poor amusingly colorful. Still, think for a minute of the
suffering that makes these lives supposedly like a comedic scene. Truly,
the poor are forced by their daily lives to express such indigence; and their
need causes them to live in a way that might seem comical to others. Yet
know that every aspect of their existence is circumscribed by the word
"need." That is, everything about their lives occurs within the realm of dire
exigency. The poor, are they not simply managing their affairs in order to
cope with a trying situation?
From pieces of wood and rope come clogs. Is this not their way of deal­
ing with need? With strips of paper and glue, they patch up the cracks in the
earthen pots with which they cook. Is this not their miserable resourceful­
ness at work? Those who are not moved by the misery that inspired the sculp­
tures of Michelangelo or Left-handed Jingoro are said to lack the ability to
understand art. Consequently, we must consider cruel the derisive laughter
of those who look at the possessions of the poor and, without understand­
ing the inspiration behind them, dismiss them as clumsy stage props for our
amusement. Although we might consider ugly and without merit bedding
that is patched together from umbrella scraps, when it comes to the inspira­
tion that went into its creation, it is not so unlike the work of the great mas­
ters in their answer to a similar need. In this way, the poor live their entire
lives within the confines of exigency.
Money is something that flows through society, but very little currency
stays with the poor. The value of finely crafted goods and beautiful objects
is said to be determined by the market, a mechanism that allows people
to find what they want. Yet it is as if the right to make use of this structure
has been taken away from the poor, the accumulation of riches remaining
far out of reach-like flowers in a mirror or like the reflection of the
moon upon water. Thus, while the needy live in cities where great
concentrations of wealth exist, they themselves seem to inhabit a desolate,
still unsettled wilderness. Homely and crude were the fur boots purchased
by Lieutenant Colonel Fukushima in Siberia, or so I am told. If by chance
such footwear were to be worn on the streets of Tokyo, they would
quickly become the laugh of the town. Yet when traversing the hungry,
cheerless Mongolian plains, such footwear would have been a necessity
for Lieutenant Fuku­shima, who traveled six hundred miles with them on
his feet. For him they were a treasure of a lifetime, something to be
carefully preserved. Likewise, the cracked vases and broken bowls of the
poor. They are found useful in the similarly hungry and cheerless desert
of darkest Tokyo. For those who
260 PART!!! THE HIGH AND LOW OF CAPITALISM 261

drink soup and sip gruel from such vessels, they are items of great value, pre­
cious possessions hardly deserving of the passerby's derisive laughter.
I might mention that only by visiting the hovels of the poor does one
come to know what people who lack purchasing power actually own. Pieces
of rusty tin gathered from here and there, along with lengths of scorched
sheet metal fished out from the rubble of a burned building serve as
patches for leaky roofs. A sake barrel without its lid serves as a washbasin;
old roof tiles make up a homemade hearth; and sacks for Indian cotton are
stretched over the tatami floor for use as bedding. All these paint a
most misera­ble scene.
One thing that can be considered of their own vintage are the wheeled
wagons that the disabled use to travel to work. Wooden gutter covers pro­
vide the sides, and lengths of bamboo make a floor. Two poles, attached
front and back, serve as axles for the wheels that are nothing but cross-cut
slices of pine trees. Punted over the ground with a stick, the vehicles move
forward with a clamor. Assembled in the fashion of Robinson Crusoe, these
wagons for the disabled are their indispensible means of moving through the
desert. W hen compared to the foreign-made jinrikisha, painted black and The outhouse is right in front of a tenement (Collection ofYasunori Tan-o)
equipped with metal spokes and wheels, these handmade carts are clearly
more intricate, requiring ten times the effort to construct.
neighborhood, the majority are rickshaw pullers, day laborers, and con­
struction workers. Add to these those who gather discarded materials for a
OCCUPATIONS ON POVERTY STREET
living-trash buyers and refuse collectors, tobacco pipe sellers, tinkers, um­
Like Sakurada Bungo, who performed his own investigation of the slums, so brella repairmen, basket makers, tinsmiths, lacquer artists, pottery repairers,
too did I walk this world from one back alley to another, from one hovel to and tissue makers. In addition, there are also traveling minstrels, itinerant
the next. I happened to come upon a dead end and a sight that made me storytellers, puppeteers, peep show operators, lion dance trainers, loan
step back in surprise. Built in this nondescript location was the so-called sharks, rental dealers, vendors at festivals, fortune-tellers, moxa doctors,
communal toilet, or public outhouse. To repeat a point I made earlier about masseurs, abortionists, and poster artists. There are religious travelers of
the slums in general, the tenements are very much like the four-wheeled various stripes-"Thousand Temple" pilgrims, Buddhist devotees, Shinto
cars of a steam train bound for nowhere. Having neither a discernible front worshippers-and ballad singers, old fish and vegetable freshen-uppers,
nor back, the buildings here leave no decent passageways for human comings melon and eggplant vendors, dried fish and firewood hawkers, baked sweet
and goings, since they all have been built in a series of mazes and cul-de-sacs. potato peddlers who also deal in utensils and pots, small shopkeepers who
No wonder, then, that we hear no complaints when a toilet is established gather children around them to sell cheap crackers, nighttime street salesmen,
right in the middle of a precious roadway. Viewed by the residents of the· used clog dealers, secondhand clothing merchants, match box fillers, tooth­
surrounding shacks, the outhouse provides neither the fragrance of south­ pick whittlers, sandal strap sewers, lithograph printers, stocking sellers, cigar
ern winds nor the blessings of sunlight and moon, but, rather, only a con­ rollers, fan makers, pot scrubbers, scrap paper gatherers, and other small­
stant stench. time businesspeople of a number too great to mention here.
As we might expect, the outhouse is provided as a free service by the I have noted dozens of different ways to make a living in this world; and
property owner, who busily does what he can to get as much rent from his though the number of preferable professions is not small, the most success­
land as possible. For those who live here, this must be recognized as an act ful people among those listed here make no more than twenty to thirty sen
of benevolence. Of the people whose journeys have brought them to this per day, while the least successful make only five or six. How, then, are they
 262 PART Ill
supposed to have the wherewithal to let in even one newcomer and
provide him with employment? If organizations existed to bring people
together and to promote healthier working conditions-whether a day
laborers' group, a rice pounders' guild, or an acrobats' or peep show
operators' organ­ization-we might expect that the poor would
immediately bustle about to join a group as newcomers and to be given a
job. But here in the slums, as there are no fully developed
profession-based organizations for this or that line of commerce, I see that
my concerted efforts as a student of Poverty College must take me to
another campus. I must leave this place for an­other, postponing my
ultimate investigation of poverty to a third semester of coursework.
DAY LABOR AGENCIES
I left Shitaya and traveled to Asakusa, where I inquired at a certain con­
struction office on Abekawa Street. I put in an application but was rejected,
the reason given was that all the jobs had already been taken. I next visited
a boss at a similar office in Hanakawado, but they also were dealing with
too many workers as it was, so no one took the time to talk with me. My
next stop was the office of a well-trusted boss who resided on Umamichi
Street. Hoping to join a group of acrobats and outdoor peddlers, I made
another application for work; but this too seemed to go nowhere and fi­
nally came to naught.
By way of these efforts, I came to learn a few things about my fellow
travelers and their poverty. As if suddenly struck by inspiration, like a
schoolboy who clings to his English dictionary while plowing through
Mill's Considerations on Representative Government I resolved to plunge my­
self without hesitation into the darkest reaches of Tokyo's monstrous slums
in order to accomplish a thorough study of the poor. What was I to expect?
I would go to the darkest monster-ridden neighborhood in all of Tokyo­
no, perhaps in all of Japan-the carcass of an anachronistic world, a place
whose name you will not likely hear from the lips of any gentleman-a
monstrous cavern that is a crystallization of all that is vile in this world. It
is a shared cave where life's many victims, along with various demons, ·
gods of temptation, and slaves of lust fight one another over the hearts of
men. It is where Tokyo's secrets-no, Japan's secrets-no, the entire world's
secrets-are gathered together as if to flare into one great final battle in
which the gods of temptation and the servants of evil vie with one another
in full fury!
Once one steps over into this other world, as represented by the depths
of this monstrous slum, one sees the ragged patterns that exist on the re-
THE HIGH AND LOW OF CAPITALISM 263
verse side of life's elegant brocade of lies. I wanted a close look at the world
of human passion in its overflowing warped state, to see the madness of a
melodramatic suicide play with its veneer of beauty ripped off. This is the
sort of topic that ought to be discussed in ordinary conversation, while en­
joying a meal or a few puffs of tobacco. Think of it, right there, no more than
a few feet in front of me was an institutional labyrinth that might teach
me the secrets of the world. Seeing this, I jumped to my feet, jettisoned my
original plan, and resolved to march directly to the devil's lair. Those, at
least, were my fearless thoughts, yet the reins of fate held me back even as I
chomped at the bit. I reflected. If I haven't had opportunities to serve my
brothers and sisters until now, how was I supposed to be able to serve de­
mons? And ifl didn't know even the simplest things about the lives of the
poor, how was I to make sense of the complications of evil that faced me?
In spite of myself, I started off with this thought filling my body and soul.
On to the caves of hunger and cold, where the world is in tatters for as
far as the eye can see! I left Asakusa and returned to Shitaya. I then went to
Yamazaki Street in Ueno, and from there I made my way to Miyashita in
Nezu, then to Yanagimachi in Koishikawa, to the back streets ofDentsuin,
Akagishita in Ushigome, then Choenji and Tanimachi in Ichigaya. Having
traveled through these slums that form a perimeter around the cityj I finally
came to the place that is said to be the inner city's greatest cavern of hunger
and cold, Samegahashi in Yotsuya.
Once in Samegahashi, I visited a boss named Kiyomizuya Yahei whom
I had heard of earlier. Yahei was from the country, and had spent his life
working in construction. He was a kind man. Because of his compassion, he
had won the trust of the poor, and his word carried considerable authority
among them. Although I had never met him before, he helped me with my
plan to become a laborer. "You can't make a living by playing:' "Young
people should never be afraid of work:' Living by these words of wisdom,
he had enough influence to open the doors that allowed me to find work at
a neighborhood leftover food shop.
Ah, the slop shop. What exactly are leftovers? I am simply referring to
the uneaten food that comes from large-scale kitchens. Dear Reader, what
words best describe the poor? "Hungry and cold;' "shabby;' "homeless;' "un­
presentable"? I believe that the term "leftovers" is the most appropriate
term for representing the concerns of the impoverished. And there, right
before me, was the one place that made a reality of "leftover rice" and
"leftover vegetables" -the very essence of poverty. Seeing no reason to
hold back, I forged ahead.
First of all, what did such a shop look like? If one approaches from the
west, one finds a house slightly off the street but not far from the entrance to

The Leftover Shop: Exterior ( Collection ofYasunori Tan-o)
The Leftover Shop: Interior ( Collection ofYasunori Tan-o)
THE HIGH AND LOW OF CAPITALISM 265
the slums. In the relatively large open space out front, five or six straw mats
are laid on the ground; and spread on top of them is rice that has turned
sour drying in the sun. It looks like crumbled yeast, but is actually unsold
rice, being parched for sale as food storage for even more desperate times.
I imagine this represents, for the poor, a way to brace for unexpected disas­
ters. The house itself is leaning over, and would probably collapse were it
not for the boards that keep it propped up. The walls are dilapidated, and
the roof is covered with moss. The eaves are rotten and in some places en­
tirely missing so that those who come and go wonder if clods of dirt won' t
fall down on their heads.
The shop's dimensions are like that of a farmhouse, where the yard out­
side is much larger than the rooms inside. Two-thirds of this space is filled
with numerous earth-carrying baskets, shallow basins, soy sauce barrels,
large urns, rough jars, and other vessels for holding leftover food. Unsani­
tary in appearance, these vessels are arranged in no noticeable order. Filthy
though it is, this broken-down house was the perfect place to get a glimpse
into the lives of the poor; it was a museum of unsurpassed quality for the
collecting of information.
Allow me to add. Due to the kind efforts of Boss Yahei, whom I had
never met before, I was able to become a guest worker at this leftover house.
His wife was a kind, rustic woman, who carried a baby on her back as she
led me to the shop. To me she said, "Give it two or three days, and see how
things work out:' And to my employer she noted, "He's just a beginner. Take
care ofhim:' Treating me as the neophyte that I was, she deftly let me know
who was in charge. Two or three days later, she came back to check up on
me. ''Are you going to make it? If it's too hard, we could find someone else:'
She thus comforted me with her kindness. Time and time again I partook of
her compassion.
THE SLOP SHOP
From that day on, with Yahei's introduction, I became an employee at the
leftover shop. Every day at eight in the morning, at noon, and at eight in
the evening, three of us would push a two-wheeled cart loaded with large
"rifle baskets"-long and about a foot across-buckets, basins, soy sauce
barrels, and other containers to the rear entrance of the Military Academy.
Our job was to load up the food that had been left over from the day's
three meals and to bring it back to the shop. For someone like me, who
had never lifted anything heavier than chopsticks before, suddenly
becoming a mem­ber of this hardworking crew was no small challenge. I
had to keep up with the others no matter my degree of fatigue. Not having
the knack for physical
266 PART/I!
labor, I kept making childlike errors that displeased my boss. Since this was my first semester at
Poverty College, I knew that I had to exercise patience; and, by and by, I became accustomed to
the routine. The miserable ones who came to buy the leftovers
from us even started to
call me "Clerk! Clerk!" as a sign of their respect. That's how much the leftover
food meant to those who referred to it as "army rations," an old term used for
meals once served at the various military headquarters located throughout
Japan.
Our shop would purchase the food from the Military Academy for fifty sen a basket
(approximately 56 kilograms, or 123 pounds); and we would then sell this for about fifty-six sen.
Of course, the great advantage of dishes other than rice was that they were disposed of "free of
charge:' Be that as it may, the food came from a huge kitchen that served over a thousand people,
including students and teachers. Sometimes we would get five or six baskets ofleftover rice, not the
usual three baskets, along with soup, pickled radish slices, crusts of bread, fish bones, and burned
rice. It was hard work putting into containers all the food that was carried out to us by a small
regiment ofmen.
What of the people who purchased these leftovers from us? They were all
from neighboring slums, and their regard for what we brought them was
remarkable. In their eyes, the food was as precious as bear paw and phoenix
marrow. When we would pass by with our cart, they would worship it as
ifit were an imperial palanquin. Old and young, men and women, they
would stand on both sides of the road holding baskets, wooden bowls,
stacked lac­quered boxes, rice containers, small buckets, pottery bowls,
and covered pots. We could hear them whispering, "Here they come.
They got lots today. Quick, let's go:' They would fall in line behind us, but
when we arrived at the shop, a huge crowd of people would already be
waiting. As soon as those people caught sight of the cart, a roar would
go up, as if everyone there had been waiting for Lieutenant
Fukushima's homecoming. They would fall back and let the cart go
through, but soon were upon us with their baskets and pots: "Me first:'
"Give me two sen's worth, please:' "Three sen's worth over here:' "Give
me one kanme of rice:' "Pass me half a kanme." How could I describe the
way they stuck out their buckets over the shoulder of the per­son ahead
of them and tossed their coins with an underhand throw? It re­minded
me of the vegetable market at Kyobashi, or the fish market between
Nihonbashi and Edobashi-yet the confusion here was even more
glori­ous. Side dishes, pickles, boiled fish-we sold these by the
handful. We scooped soup straight out of the barrel as if it were cloudy
sake. We weighed rice on a scale, but when things got hectic we just
guessed at the amounts.
In essence, leftover rice and vegetables were otherwise disposed ofby the
academy without any charge and given away to the needy. But when
THE HIGH AND LOW OF CAPITALISM 267
purchased by a shop like ours, they became a valuable commodity. I was
amused to learn that our customers appreciated them so much that they
gave the various kinds ofleftovers nicknames-"tiger's pelt," " kid's haircut,"
"cook stove;' "chilled sashimi:' To be sure, there is something odd about
putting sliced turnips on top of leftovers and bestowing them with some
fancy new name. "Kid's haircut" is what they call the chopped off ends of
radishes, cucumbers, and eggplants-slices that still have the stems and
roots attached to them. "Chilled sashimi" ( arai) is another name for the rice
that gets washed out of the bottom of a pot, and "cook stove" refers to the
crust on a loaf of bread, which does look like an earthen stove when you
hollow the insides out. As for "tiger's pelt," here's a touch of poor people's
humor to consider. It's their name for burned rice. When cooking in giant
vats, it is impossible to make a good batch of rice without burning some of
it. Like the coat of a tiger or leopard or some such animal, the crusty layer
that inevitably sticks to the bottom ofthe pot develops dark markings.
Whether tiger's pelt or cook stove, this leftover food is viewed as a pre­
cious commodity that the poor are willing to fight over. The saying "Burn­
ing katsura wood to boil jewels" well describes the luxurious life ofthe rich.
But those who actually do such a thing are not the wealthy but the poor. It is
they who are on the borders ofextreme poverty, hunger, and cold. It is they
who actually cook jewels and burn katsura wood. Why? First ofall, consider
the extraordinarily high cost ofthe one or two sen of charcoal, firewood, or
pickles that the poor customarily purchase; then consider how small the
amounts of rice and cracked wheat they buy are. It is said that cooking for
ten or twenty people in a large kitchen allows one to acquire rice and fire­
wood economically, making it possible to stay within budget. By contrast,
in the kitchens of the poor, if one must make do with a few coins a day in
order to buy ingredients, then the indigent will always be purchasing their
firewood and charcoal as ifthey were pearls.
Yet how can we expect the impecunious denizens of the slums to stay
alive if required to boil pearls for dinner? This is why the leftover shop is a
merciful savior for the miserable and their penniless kitchens. A day's food
for a family of five would include seven kilograms of rice, plus two sen of
side dishes and one sen of pickles. This comes to about fourteen or fifteen
sen per day. If they actually were to buy the ingredients for these meals, the
cost would come to around thirty sen per day. For this reason, the success
of the slop shop continues to be a bright spot in this tale of the poorest
of the poor.
TRANSLATED BY CHARLES SHIRO INOUYE