Film director Roger Pulvers (Mainichi/Hiroshi Maruyama)

       By Damian Flanagan

       "The Unmaking of an American," an autobiographical work by the well-known writer, director and filmmaker Roger Pulvers was recently published in Japanese.

       It's a fascinating book, but reading the various newspaper reviews of it, one small detail of Roger's life story caught my eye. Roger, having moved to Japan in the 1960s, apparently befriended the distinguished playwright and author Hisashi Inoue and began staying at his home. Even after Roger moved to Australia in the 1970s, it seems he often stayed in Inoue's home when he returned to Japan.

       Like a young Luke Skywalker being sent to reside and learn in the home of his master Yoda, Roger was following in a time-honoured tradition of the "shosei" student moving into the home of his sensei.

       The tradition in Japan is that you don't just admire from afar the mind of your (usually male) mentor. In an ultimate act of devotion and intimacy, you physically move into his space. You eat when he does, and sleep under his roof. You absorb around the clock all his thoughts, and immerse yourself in his world and his books. You adopt as your own the rhythms of his life as if to almost fuse your body with his as an ultimate sign of respect.

       Hisashi Inoue (Mainichi/Takeichi Kimitaka)

       This type of thing can easily provoke misunderstandings. In 1901, when a 34-year-old Natsume Soseki was studying in London, he took weekly private classes in literature with an Irish tutor called William Craig, one of his few forms of contact with the outside world. Unhappy with his own boarding house, at one point Soseki asked Craig whether he might move into his flat with him. To Craig - who nervously muttered something about not having a spare room - the request must have thrown him into a mild panic. Suddenly having a 34-year-old man move into his living space must have appeared quite a commitment and imposition.

       Yet Soseki was actually paying Craig the ultimate compliment. Although Soseki was already a distinguished figure back home in Japan, he was offering to live like a kind of disciple to his sensei Craig in London, moving into his personal space to maximise his complete absorption of all his sensei's wisdom and knowledge.

       Having had his offer of moving in with his sensei turned down, Soseki soon afterwards stopped attending the classes completely and retired to the complete solitude of his boarding house room. Craig had spoken vaguely of one day wishing to visit Japan, but of course that visit never happened and only four years after Soseki returned to Japan, he read of Craig's recent death in a newspaper: A poignant moment of lost opportunities.

       In the case of Roger Pulvers, the two-way fruition of the shosei-sensei relationship did occur. Living in Australia, Pulvers apparently arranged for his sensei Hisashi Inoue to spend a term at his university in Canberra as a visiting scholar. He wrote however of how his sensei was a man utterly in love with books, who spent most of his time in Australia in his research room reading. After he left Australia, Pulvers kept for himself the name tag "H. Inoue" which had marked the door to his sensei's personal space.

       William Craig (Public Domain)

       So intense was the admiration felt by Pulvers towards Inoue that he recounts that at one point he thought of taking Japanese citizenship and taking the name "Hiroshi Inoue", like a son or younger brother to his sensei. After Hisashi Inoue's death, possessing the name tag that used to adorn his door must have been the closest equivalent to feeling like he still possessed the space in which his sensei once lived and worked.

       Japan is a culture where personal space is generally prized and respected, and, to some more emotionally effusive cultures, it can sometimes seem a little stand-offish and reserved. But it's always worth bearing in mind that cultural norms usually have their flip sides. In Japan the intense respect held towards a sensei can prompt an intense unity and a collapse of physical and mental distances into an intellectual intimacy with few equivalents in the West.

       @DamianFlanagan

       (This is Part 38 of a series)

       In this column, Damian Flanagan, a researcher in Japanese literature, ponders about Japanese culture as he travels back and forth between Japan and Britain.

       Profile:

       Damian Flanagan is an author and critic born in Britain in 1969. He studied in Tokyo and Kyoto between 1989 and 1990 while a student at Cambridge University. He was engaged in research activities at Kobe University from 1993 through 1999. After taking the master's and doctoral courses in Japanese literature, he earned a Ph.D. in 2000. He is now based in both Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, and Manchester. He is the author of "Natsume Soseki: Superstar of World Literature" (Sekai Bungaku no superstar Natsume Soseki).

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