Farts. Nobody talks about them, but everyone makes them. Several times a day, in fact. (Don’t hold it in, you’ll poison yourself.) But it’s also true that nothing brings down your social standing as quickly as breaking wind (except spilling your drink on your crotch). The fart has also entered into the modern Japanese lexicon.
For instance the word ‘onara’ means ‘the honourable sound’ which actually means ‘fart’, while a wrongdoer who pretends to be innocent is described by ‘he o koite, shiri o subomu’, which literally means, ‘having farted, he closed his arse’.
At one time, this taboo subject was actually made the focus of art, and on a topic that was trending way, way back. He-Gassen (while ‘gassen’ may sound like ‘fart’, it’s actually ‘battle’. It’s the ‘he’ that means ‘fart’), drawn 200-400 years ago, was likely a form of bellyaching about the encroaching influence of Europeans, showing the rampant xenophobia of that time. For your perusal (and it’s not an April Fool’s joke),
fart battles,
the Edo period version of the ‘hit-and-run’,
windy battle strategy
and stink bombs (one dude literally lost his shoe).
Toss this in the face of any philistine who claims that art history is boring. There’s value in farts: in the 90s, a collection of fart scrolls sold for $1,500 at the famous Christie’s auction house.
But the Japanese weren’t the only ones fascinated by this bodily function. The French have a book called “L’Art de péter” – or “The Art of Farting” – which is described as a “theoretical-physical and methodical essay, for the use of constipated persons, melancholic ladies, and all those who are slaves to prejudice.” Published by Pierre-Thomas-Nicolas Hurtaut anonymously in 1751, it’s a satirical and humorous pseudo-medical essay exploring all things farty – different types, their sounds, smells, and potential social implications – in an exaggerated manner.
Now doesn’t that blow your mind?
By Vincent Tan
