For the most part, I was delighted to find and read Michio Takeyama’s Harp of Burma. It was a refreshing story that had two dominant points of view, and choosing between them was made an explicit part of the book. It had a strong ethical dimension, and its characters seemed caught up in a fight they didn’t understand, but which they felt obliged to endure and they made the best of a difficult situation. In addition, it satisfied several interests of mine. First, I was looking for an accessible (and well-translated) novel about Japan that addresses one of the few times when U.S. history texts even mention Japan; second, I wanted to discuss contemporary (though also classic) human dilemmas about choosing industrial progress over sustainable living; and third, I sought a text that explored the value of a religious life and the role of mendicant orders of monks.
Synopsis
The Harp of Burma, written in 1947and first published as a serialized story for children in a literary magazine, is an acclaimed post-war novel about a company of Japanese soldiers who become stationed in Burma during World War II. Unusual among most military units, this group of soldiers is musical and, under the leadership of their captain, would sing daily together to keep up morale and carry rudimentarily made instruments. One very talented soldier, a corporal named Mizushimi, learns to play the harp (and even made one and learned to play it from local harpists) and uses music to distract British forces while they are traveling through the countryside at the end of the war.
It is Mizushima about whom the book is written, since the captain had chosen him to be separated from his now-captured company in order to help persuade another Japanese unit to suspend resistance, now that the war was over. Being clever, resourceful, and hardy, he clambers up a steep mountain to find them, through their gunfire, but he is unsuccessful in convincing them to surrender. Wounded in the crossfire between the British forces and the holdout troops, he is found and cared for (sometimes for ulterior ends) by native Burmese. It is his ability to blend in with the Burmese that enables Mizushima to find his way back to the city, Mudon, where his comrades are held, but also to disguise himself as a Burmese monk, giving him protection and ultimately sanctuary and conversion in his post-war persona, having decided to remain in Burma and not return home with his comrades to Japan.
His harrowing return to Mudon and his growing awareness of the staggering numbers of unclaimed Japanese corpses enlighten him to pursue higher, more religious goals, so his religious “disguise” becomes his badge of honor.
The story, mostly told through the point of view of the Japanese soldiers, reveals their strong national identity and also their attachment to their missing comrade. Questions about his disappearance and ongoing absence gnaw at them, and occasional visits from a distance by a monk who resembles him provoke them to wonder about and discuss his whereabouts.
It is in these inquiries that the debate about the “proper way of life” is presented and debated, and the mere possibility that Mizushima has chosen to become a Burmese Buddhist monk gets the company thinking about their and their country’s choices. Having invaded Burma, Japan becomes the colonizer, holding superior beliefs about the relative merits of their civilization and culture. Though the soldiers have had first-hand (and therefore less culturally dismissive) experience there in the war, they long to return home to familiar ways of life and a promising postwar identity, pledging to do their part to rebuild their homeland.
Finally, just before their departure, Mizushima reveals himself to them and informs them of his decision. He sends them another companion (a parrot) and a letter, presented at the end of the story, to explain what he experienced and his reasons for staying behind.
In 1956, Kon Ichikawa made the story into the Japanese language film, The Burmese Harp, which popularized the story internationally. In 1966, the book was translated into English. It was awarded the Mainichi Shuppan Bunkasho Prize, and the film was also award-winning and internationally recognized.
Educational applications
Many themes in the Harp of Burma impressed me. First, the use of music in wartime for positive or humane ends connects it to an anti-war literary tradition. Second, the occupation forces who are (at least partially) “won over” by their more intimate interaction with a conquered people gives it an anthropological dimension. Finally, the explicit comparison (by Japanese) of the official policy to modernize and give up traditional values, emphasizing industry and capitalism over religious practices and concerns, with an alternative, less militaristic societal direction is a refreshing perspective on a commonly perceived homogenous, ambitious, and populous society.
In my classes, I intend to explore these themes with my ESOL students, as they are international and many come from war-torn nations, some of which are in Asia. My unit will include a Socratic seminar and a follow-up essay. Studying The Harp of Burma satisfies several aforementioned goals that I’ve had in my ESOL teaching.
This novel pairs well with the (untranslated) film, which is almost entirely faithful to the story, except for part of the story of the monk’s return to Mudon after his failed attempt at saving the rebellious Japanese unit. In fact, I enjoyed watching the film in segments after reading each of the four chapters in the book, and so I intend to include segments of the film to reinforce some of the episodes in the novel with the students.
If I decided to study this novel aside from teaching much about the history of World War II and instead teaching it as a modern war novel with the above-mentioned themes, I would concentrate on teaching students its geography and topography, colonization, major players (countries), and predictions of post-war reconstruction.
For my part, knowing very little about Burmese history, I initially enjoyed reading the Harp of Burma immensely, and was surprised that it could question the official Japanese rationale for their expansion into the Asian mainland. Yet, after having read more about the Japanese invasion of Burma, I saw that it as a sanitized portrayal of the Japanese campaign there. The perspective of the main character turned Buddhist monk who sees his duty to care for the overwhelming numbers of Japanese corpses that were left actually seems to overlook the numerous corpses of the many villagers who were themselves massacred by the Japanese forces. At least, it begs the question, what kind of suffering was imposed on the Burmese people during the war?
For more advanced students, I would include this dimension of the story, perhaps with primary source documents or interviews with Burmese (now Myanmar) refugees. In addition, students would learn about Burma’s political transformation from British colony to Japanese subject to independent government to totalitarian state and now to its slow transformation into a less repressive, perhaps more democratic system of government.
A companion text/film to use as a comparison is the documentary Singing to Survive (later made into a film, Paradise Road) about the internment of the women (and families) of Dutch (and English-speaking) workers (ie, colonists) who formed a choir during their imprisonment by the Japanese for nearly 4 years.