Even Monkeys Fall Out Of Trees: John Naka’s collection of
Japanese proverbs.
This is a book I’ve heard mentioned but never had the chance
to read. Out of curiosity, I was doing
some online comparison shopping; see what the going price for John Naka’s
seminal works on bonsai, Bonsai Techniques I and II were going for on the open
market. It was a figure I can’t even
begin to afford. I own volume I but have
not read II in many years and would like to flip through at least, so searched
my local libraries. Imagine that –a highly
specialized book that has been out of print for at least a decade-they didn’t have
it. It wasn’t even available through
interlibrary loan!
What was available from a few places was this little volume. Collected in one place are all the proverbs
and bits of wisdom that Naka used so often in life and in teaching and just
talking about bonsai. As author Nina Shire Ragle makes plain, life and bonsai
were pretty much one the same for Naka.
Ragle uses a typical Naka incident to begin the book: Naka
is on stage in front of a large crowd,
600 people crowded into a darkened auditorium, all eyes on the master as
he considers how best to shape the tree he is working on. He takes wire and wraps it around a branch,
all the while narrating into a microphone hanging around his neck. He gives the wired branch a few pushes and
shoves, then steps back for a better view.
Deciding just what adjustment
needed made, he grasped the branch again and applied pressure…and the
microphone sent the resulting loud snap! as the branch separates from the
tree. The audience sits in stunned
silence, and Naka says “Saru mo ki kara ochiru” Even monkeys fall out of trees!
The realization-and explanation that even the most knowledgeable
person can make a mistake is indicative of the humble and self effacing spirit that Naka would present through out
life. Ragle repeats a descriptive phrase
that Naka used in reference to himself-a teacher and student of bonsai. Naka considered that he was always improving
his knowledge, and that the learning could
come from any place or source. This
was a man who never discouraged his grandchildren from playing among his trees,
saying that any damage that might occur from youthful accident would be an improvement
on the design.
Naka was born in the US, spent his boyhood in his ancestral homeland-where
he learned bonsai first hand from his grandfather-and then returned to the US
as a young man ( his family essentially exiled
him to avoid conscription into the Imperial military forces). Fluent in Japanese
and English, fluent in American and Japanese culture, there could be no more
effective bridge between the two lands and a sure and able teacher of the
bonsai art
Bits of wisdom repeated over an over say something about the
culture that creates them ,and the individual that uses them. A few samples of
the wise words:
Raise grain instead of writing poetry
A fish’s mind is water’ mind
Better to walk in front of the hen than behind the ox.
If a student wanted to do something foolish-or impossible,
Naka’s response was usually “That’s trying to graft bamboo to tree” in other
words, impossible. A related phrase that describer wasted effort-like wiring
spruce was “pounding a nail in a cup of rice”.
Better the head of a chicken than the tail of a tiger-better
to be the best humble thing than a second rate great thing. Naka used this phrase often to describe what
he called chicken bonsai-Elm, Maple or other deciduous tree and tiger bonsai
Juniper, Black pine or other conifers.
Many of the proverbs contained in this witty book are of
ancient origin, going make years or sometimes centuries. Some of these ancient
pearls of wisdom would be ‘tweaked’ by Naka to align more closely with a bonsai
lesson. Here’s how he adapted an old Chinese phrase “If you want to be happy
for an hour, get drunk. To be happy for a day, get married. To be happy for a
week, kill a pig and eat it. To be happy forever, grow bonsai”.
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| A Naka self portrait. |
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