There are so many reasons why Don Quixote resonates so very personally with me. Not least of which is how much the book reminds me of Japan!
Think of a feudal world, where there is a class of sword-wielding warriors who protect the guy in charge when times are tough-- but mainly (when they aren't at war) have nothing much to do. Too high-born to work for money, they are allowed to boss the peasants around to their heart's delight. Like a hidalgo, a samurai could cut a man down on the road for refusing to step out of the way of his horse. Peasants were at the bottom of the totem pole. Warriors in Japan, like in Spain, were held by their own elaborate array of customs and practices that could easily be called "chivalric"... The way of the sword? Horses and damsels in distress? Well, I don't think there are damsels in the samurai stories, but you get the idea...
And what is a "masterless samurai," or ronin 浪人-- but a knight errant if only by another name.
Ever since I began reading Don Quixote, my mind keeps recalling stories of ronin wandering the countryside in seek of revenge or a new master to serve; and of their beautiful samurai swords and armor (O-yoroi). There was the bushido ethic. It is, anyway. an interesting overlap for me. And I can see why the novel became so incredibly popular in Japan.
Did you know that one of the better-known Japanese discount chain stores is named Don Quixote? The chain gots its name after the character in the Spanish novel because apparently the company was founded in an attempt to go against common sense and to engage in retail under a different business model. If you try and google, "Don Quixote" in Japanese, you will be inundated with information about the company--from recent store openings and sales and coupons to books about the company's unique style of business.
If you think about it, like Japan, Spain is a place without a lot of arable land. There isn't oil or gold--but somehow the people rose up at one time and became a global empire. Don Quixote was written about a hundred years after the reconquista was completed and seven hundred years of Muslim-rule over. But a hundred years is a long time and the novel Don Quixote is fundamentally a critique of the society of his times--among other things.
And so, I cannot stop thinking of Tora-san.
I am not afraid to admit that Otoko wa Tsurai yo (男はつらいよ, "It's tough being a man") is my favorite series of movies of all time. Blown along by the wind (フーテンの寅), Tora-san wanders here and there around Japan, getting into scrapes and endlessly failing to get the girl, what is he but the rejection of what was considered common sense at that time in Japan. He is --like Don Quixote-- a parody of the society of the time. Not young or handsome, not born in a particularly elegant locale, Tora-san turns away from the tediousness of the life that was expected of someone like him and instead takes to the road in search of romance, adventure and truth.... There is something so human about a person who simply wants to live big. To do things that matter. To love and set wrongs right. Like Don Quixote, Tora-san causes a lot of trouble--mainly to his family. And it is sad to see beautiful Sakura always ending up in tears... I cannot explain how deeply I love the idea of Don Quixote and Tora-san--such that if I was shipwrecked and could only bring one DVD and one book--it would have to be Tora-san and the Quixote. No question.
It is an issue of hope.
And this brings me to our class today. I think it might have been professor's best class yet. And please keep in mind that Professor Wey Gómez is the best public speaker I have ever met. He is a force of nature--speaking without notes, he has the students so engaged in a way I would not have thought possible in a humanities class at Caltech.
Today a few of the students were confused about Sancho Panza. "Why would he leave his wife and children to follow a madman," asked one student? It is not realistic that he would believe the words of such an unreliable person as Don Quixote, said another. They were clearly wondering about Sancho's rationality for in the end, was it reasonable to follow Don Quixote?My own thought was that as a peasant, it would have simply been difficult to say no to a social superior. But Professor explained that it was so much more than that. He said, imagine all the people who lived in crushing poverty. This was a feudal society where there were not many chances for escaping one's fate. He told of the people who would leave everything and embark on very dangerous voyages across the sea for the merest promise of a new life. They would travel deep inland for weeks and face untold dangers and most failed... either dying on the journey or becoming as poor in the New World as they were in the Old World. Why would they do it?
Well, he said, think of a gambler. Think of the way a person will keep gambling with a few wins for every hundred fails--but they keep going in hope. I was really thinking of the 2016 movie Gold with Matthew McConaughey and the way he talked everyone into believing in him and investing in him. It was such an incredibly quixotic thing. He has a dream that there was gold in a mountain in Borneo. And before you know it, people are giving them their life savings! His girlfriend lets him sleep live rent-free and stands by him when everything looks lost. Why would they do it? Well, because in the tedium and relentlessly soul destroying rat race of everyday practical life, This guy's dream lit them up. They gambled.
For the merest possibility of happiness (love or riches; adventure or chivalric principles), a person will leap. More often than not, it ends in destruction and tragedy but human beings will gamble, he said, for the faintest possibility of happiness. Indeed.
For more:ドン・キホーテと寅さん
This is probably degrading the level of discussion, but given the presence of a Carrasco in Don Quixoite and now your discussion of its resemblance to Japan I can't help but introduce you to the mascot for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles baseball team, Mr. Carrasco. I found this about him: “Mr. Carrasco is really a crow, but personally believes that he is an eagle, and first put on a mask when he saw that he did not look anything similar to other eagles.” Not to mix cultures but it puts a new twist to the idea of the Eagle Warrior of the Mexica. https://www.poppriceguide.com/guide/itmimg/2980_mrcarrascogoldeneagles.jpg
Posted by: Mr. Carrasco | 01/23/2018 at 07:24 PM