A few more examples: "It will involve my face" (Kao-ni kakawaru), meaning "It will damage my reputation"; "for the sake of my face" (kao-ni menjite), meaning "for my sake"; "to sell the face" (kao-o uru), meaning "to sell oneself"; and "an impressive line-up of faces" (sosotaru kao bure), meaning "an impressive gathering." These and many other expressions reveal that in everyday Japanese speech the word "face" is in some ways a substitute pronoun for the self. It represents the individual's honor, his social position, and his character. "Face" in the emotionally charged Japanese language contains the notion of self directed toward others.
Hara (Belly)
If kao (face) represents the outer aspect of the Japanese personality, hara (belly or stomach) represents the inner self. This is not the physical stomach, as in the expressions "My stomach is empty" (Hara ga suita) and "beer belly" (taiko hara), but a conceptual "stomach," as in the expression "Let's spill our guts and talk" (Hara o watte hanaso). This means, "Let's present ourselves naked and talk, without hiding any of our thoughts or feelings from each other." The expression "He has stomach" (Hara no aru otoko da) implies that he has courage, that he's a person to be reckoned with. "My stomach is set" (Hara wa kimatte iru) expresses the subject's firm conviction about something, and conveys a picture of an immovable self. "My stomach is standing" (Hara o tatete iru) means that I am irritated, angry, or upset. In the classical Japanese essay "Tsurezure-gusa," by Yoshida Kenko, we find this passage: "If you don't speak your mind, your stomach will swell." Kenko is describing the anguish of keeping something inside and the consequences it can have for the inner self. When we express our anger, our face becomes contorted; but when we hold our anger in, our stomach becomes contorted, or "swollen." Of course, the physical stomach does not become swollen. It is the psychological or emotional self that suffers. Stomach refers to that self.
To have a "black stomach" means to be plotting something evil, to have a bad disposition, or to be in a perverse mood. When the Japanese say, "He's got a black stomach" (Aitsu wa hara-ga kuroi), they mean the person is crafty or is plotting treachery, and "stomach" refers to his inner intention.
The opposite expression is "His stomach is clean" (Hara ga kirei). This signifies that a person's nature is pure and noble, he is unable to perform a dishonorable or wicked act. It describes, of course, the self inside him. Therefore, "We can see through the stomach" (Hara ga sukete mieru) means "We can see through him"—we know what he's up to.
From the above we can conclude that "stomach" represents the interior self, with the strong implication that there is some part of that inner self that we wish to hide. For example, the expression "Can't you read my stomach?" (Ore no hara ga yomenai noka) implies that we want our partner to intuit our feelings, feelings we don't wish to express more directly. In this case, "stomach" refers to our intentions, and deep within these intentions lies the self that we do not wish to reveal.
From this concept of "stomach" developed haragei (the art of intuitive communication), a concept peculiar to Japan. The dictionary defines haragei as the expression that an actor puts into his performance—the psychological acting apart from the lines and gestures. These days, however, the term is used largely to describe the communications of politicians who, with dramatic gestures and vague catchwords, manage their political affairs. Among close associates in Japan, communication often takes place without complete verbalization. This is also known as communication by intuition, and it is an established mode of communication between husband and wife, daughter-in-law and mother-in-law, children and parents. This haragei—nonverbal, nongestural, intuitive communication—is the masterpiece of Japan's particularly emotional brand of human interaction.
Hara is the internal self, and for all purposes the real self. Further, this hara—the self that the person does not want to show to others—is his real intention (honne), while his face Qiao) is his public front (tatemae). This double structure of the self— the face and the stomach, kao and hara—is treated in greater detail later in the chapter.
In summary, then: (1) In the emotional Japanese context, direct self-expression is frowned upon. In place of direct expression, various forms of indirect expression have evolved and are still employed. (2) Kao and hara are the most representative examples of these indirect forms of self-expression, and they refer to different aspects of the self—kao to the external, public self and hara to the internal, private intention.
Seppuku and Suicide
While we are on the subject of hara, it may be appropriate to discuss seppuku (literally, "cutting the belly"), popularly known as harakiri in the West. For this phenomenon, too, will help to reveal the nature of the self in Japan.
On the surface, seppuku would seem to be a self-destructive act, but that is not necessarily the case. Two kinds of seppuku must be distinguished. The first is seppuku as a punishment for a crime, and the second is the self-willed act. As a criminal sentence, seppuku has existed for hundreds of years as the ultimate punishment of the warrior class. The most famous case of this sort is of course the incident shaped into the Kabuki play Chushingura, written by Takeda Izumo (1691-1756), which tells the story of the revenge taken by 47 samurai.
In the shogun's castle at Edo, a daimyo named Asano Takuminokami wounded another lord named Kira Kozukeno-suke who had grossly insulted him. For this act Asano was sentenced to commit formal seppuku. As a result, all his subordinate samurai became unemployed. These 47 loyal ronin (unemployed samurai), under the leadership of Oishi, made a plan to attack and kill Kira. The execution of the plan was not easy, since Kira was very much on his guard. But at last, early one snowy morning, Oishi and his followers stormed Kira's house in Edo and killed him. The shogun, Tsuneyoshi, sentenced the loyal 47 ronin to the honorable suicide that he thought would meet both the requirements of public law and the real wishes of the ronin— who must surely desire, having achieved their aim, to join their avenged lord in the next world. So Oishi and his men committed seppuku.
There can be nothing as barbaric as a punishment which forces a person to take his own life, and this is what seppuku is: the worst possible punishment for a crime. It is much more brutal and inhuman than the electric chair, the firing squad, or the gallows. For the hardy samurai class, however, it was not inappropriate. The Meiji Restoration abolished the samurai class and, accordingly, seppuku as a punishment for crime disappeared as well.