Making Sense of Mono No Aware

Unlike in the West, religion can be a lot more abstract in the Oriental sense, and the lines between religion and philosophy (or a way of life) can often be blurred. Case in point is Shinto, the erstwhile Japanese state religion still subscribed to by 80 percent of the population. While the Western understanding of religion is often linked to the idea of a singular founder (Jesus, Mohammed, or Siddhartha Gautama, for instance) and the adherence to a particular sacred text or scripture (say, the Bible, Koran, or the Torah), Shinto has none of these; neither does it impose a didactic morality upon its followers. Its most essential goal is for adherents to be in touch with spiritual energy, or kami. One can do this by performing certain sacred rituals during weddings, funerals, worshipping at a shrine in the home or the community, or any other local festivals. While inextricably linked to nature, kami also has an ancestral element: deceased relatives are believed to turn into kami—or become part of nature—upon their passing.

As an integral part of Japanese culture, we see traces of Shinto not just among contemporary Japanese, a growing number of whom claim to no longer adhere to a particular religion, but also among fictional Japanese characters. For this report, I’ve decided to delve into the Hugo Award-winning “Mono No Aware” by Chinese American author Ken Liu. This short story was originally published in the 2012 anthology The Future Is Japanese and has since been republished in Ken Liu’s own anthology, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (2016), as well as Lightspeed magazine’s website.   

Plot Summary

Hiroto Shimizu is the last Japanese man aboard a ship traversing space in the wake of Earth’s annihilation—an event that took place when Hiroto was only a boy. The Hopeful’s destination is a star called 61 Virginis, still approximately three hundred years away, and which only the descendants of those aboard—the last survivors of humanity—will be able to settle and populate.

Flashbacks play a major role in the narrative. It is through these that we witness Earth’s final days from the perspective of a young Hiroto, with an asteroid dubbed “the Hammer” rapidly hurtling toward the mother planet. Only eight years old, Hiroto is stirred awake by his father, who orders him to pack his things as the government has called for the evacuation of villages everywhere—including their native Kurume. It is only when the villagers are herded into a temporary evac zone they find out, via an announcement from a disheveled prime minister, that the ships which were supposed to transport them safely out of the planet were in fact non-functional. The government had been cheated by the contractors tasked with the shipbuilding. While lootings and riots take place all over the world, Hiroto notes with pride that there was none of that in Japan; instead, upon hearing the announcement, “the crowd remained silent. A few angry voices shouted but soon quieted down as well. Gradually, in an orderly fashion, people began to pack up and leave the temporary campsites.”

Desperate to save their son, Hiroto’s parents arrange a meeting with an old American classmate of theirs, Dr. Hamilton. He meets up with them in Fukuoka and takes the boy with him as his parents watch on in sorrow. “Remember that you’re Japanese,” they tell him. Hamilton raises the boy as his own aboard the Hopeful, an American vessel. Hiroto is tasked with monitoring the solar sail that propels the ship through deep space. He also shares many aspects of the now-moribund Japanese culture to the children onboard and his girlfriend, Mindy.

Hamilton suddenly reports a large rupture in the sail, which, if unrepaired, could worsen and veer the Hopeful off course and away from their destination. Hiroto volunteers to patch up the damage, having now grown familiar with the sail after years of monitoring it. It only takes him a day and a half to finally reach the damaged portion, all the while experiencing visions of his father and expending a good amount of fuel. When he gets there, however, he faces a harrowing choice: either use his last remaining fuel to fuse the sail, or return back to the ship and try again some other time, consequently risking the entire ship.

Hiroto draws closer to his choice with the following words: “I’m exhausted. No matter how hard I push, I will not be able to make it back out here as fast. And by then who knows how big the gash will have grown? . . . I still have fuel in my tank, the fuel that is meant for my return trip.” His father’s specter tells him, “One stone cannot be in both places. You have to choose, son,” before allowing Hiroto to see the faces of all his long-gone countrymen: his mother, their neighbors, the prime minister, and many others. When he announces his decision to Dr. Hamilton and Mindy, both of them are equally relieved and saddened. Hiroto proceeds with fixing the gash in the sail before finally turning his radio off.

Understanding Mono No Aware

Mono no aware can be roughly translated to “the pathos of things,” or a sensitivity to the transience or impermanence of things. We see this played out on a societal level in the story upon the prime minister’s announcement of the ships’ non-functionality, and ergo the demise of the Japanese population. Instead of going ballistic and rioting, the Kurume denizens gradually take their leave. Although one may misconstrue this as resignation or despondency (as Mindy did), this can be read as the Japanese folks simply coming to terms with their own impermanence, recognizing that they are merely passing through this world, and their time has come to an end.

Hiroto too is often reminded of mono no aware through the flashbacks and visions he has of his father. The elder Shimizu often illustrates his points through the use of poems by the Japanese poet Basho (Nothing in the cry / Of cicadas suggests they / Are about to die) and classical Chinese poet Li Shangyin (The fading sunlight holds infinite beauty / Though it is so close to the day’s end). In fact, the best nutshell description we have of mono no aware comes from Hiroto’s father:

Everything passes, Hiroto…That feeling in your heart: it’s called mono no aware. It is a sense of the transience of all things in life. The sun, the dandelion, the cicada, the Hammer, and all of us: we all are subject to the equations of James Clerk Maxwell [Scottish scientist], and we are all ephemeral patterns destined to eventually fade, whether in a second or an eon.

Hiroto is inculcated with similar words as he makes his perilous and ill-fated trek up the sail:

Yet it is this awareness of the closeness of death, of the beauty inherent in each moment, that allows us to endure. Mono no aware, my son, is an empathy with the universe. It is the soul of our nation. It has allowed us to endure Hiroshima, to endure the occupation, to endure deprivation and the prospect of annihilation without despair.

               

It is lines like these that ultimately prompt Hiroto to wholeheartedly embrace his own fate and sacrifice himself for the benefit of those aboard the Hopeful.

“Mono No Aware” and Its Shinto Links

While not a specific tenet of Shinto, one can draw numerous links between it and mono no aware. An awareness of one’s impermanence, and the impermanence of other objects, is well in line with the respect and awe of nature that Shinto espouses. A frequently cited illustration of how one can make sense of mono no aware is through the traditional love of cherry blossoms. Although the leaves of the sakura may not be any more intrinsically beautiful as the leaves of other flowering trees, its leaves are greatly treasured and hyped about because of their transience, usually falling no more than a week after their first blooming.

Although Liu does not make explicit use of this sakura metaphor in his story, he allows Hiroto’s father to employ cicadas, sunlight, flowers, dandelions, stars, and the asteroid itself to illustrate this concept to his son. Nature symbols, after all, are inextricable from the Shinto faith.

The belief that a deceased person becomes a part of nature and transforms into a kami upon passing is exhibited by the long-dead Japanese who manifest themselves to Hiroto just a few moments before his own death. The elder Shimizu is the most prominent kami, playing a pivotal role in guiding Hiroto and reminding him of his own impermanence as he makes the arduous and dangerous trek to the solar sail. Perhaps one can even say that Hiroto reveres his father just like any traditional Japanese—or any Oriental raised in the Confucian tradition of ancestor worship—would place reverence upon an ancestor.

Conclusion

Liu’s “Mono No Aware” does a great job of illustrating what may otherwise be a bewildering concept to most other cultures, particularly those more attuned with Western ways of thinking. While several Western philosophies, concepts, and religious beliefs tend to place more emphasis on the self and the rational mind, mono no aware allows one to come to grips with their own impermanence and acknowledge that the individual is a part of a much greater whole.

It should be noted, however, that it’s not entirely clear whether mono no aware developed as an offshoot of Shinto practices, or vice versa. What can be discerned is that the isolated and precarious geography of the Japanese archipelago allowed its inhabitants to formulate a unique worldview that is part religious belief and part existential notion, just as many other Eastern cultures developed beliefs that blurred the lines between religion and philosophy. This “geographical effect,” if I may call it that, was best elucidated in a line spoken by the specter of Hiroto’s father:

We live in a land of volcanoes and earthquakes, typhoons and tsunamis, Hiroto. We have always faced a precarious existence, suspended in a thin strip on the surface of this planet between the fire underneath and the icy vacuum above.

Perhaps what is most sad about Liu’s “Mono No Aware” is that this poignant way of thinking (fictionally) dies together with Hiroto as he himself comes to grips with his own impermanence and makes the ultimate sacrifice.

Sources

Liu, Ken. “Mono No Aware.” The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories. New York: Saga Press, 2016. Print.

Parkes, Graham. “Japanese Aesthetics.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward N. Zalda. Stanford, 12 Dec. 2005. Web. 19 Feb. 2017. <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/japanese-aesthetics/>.

Sustana, Catherine. “Analysis of ‘Mono No Aware’ by Ken Liu.” About.com. Zergnet, n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2017. <http://shortstories.about.com/od/By-Genre/fl/Analysis-of-Mono-No-Aware-by-Ken-Liu.htm>.

“Shintō RELIGION.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Britannica, n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2017. <https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shinto/Ritual-practices-and-institutions>.

What Is The Ancient Japanese Religion Shinto? By Jennie Butler. Prod. Cailyn Bradley, Semany Gashaw, and Lauren Ellis. Perf. Trace Dominguez. Youtube. Seeker Daily, 23 Jan. 2017. Web. 19 Feb. 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoQqxdAbRS0>.