Sei Yamamushi and the Quest for the Golden Plum Pagoda

The Great Hanafuda Famine

In the later decades of the 19th century, central Japan was inflicted with several famines caused by rice harvest failures that led desperate villagers to resort to eating a variety of household products, including popular hanafuda playing cards printed on thick rice paper. Mixed with some water and spiced with a touch of ginger, the hanafuda cards provided enough nutrition to stave off the worst effects of the famine for many; and for the Notindo company that manufactured the cards (not to be confused with the more famous Nintendo company that made its hanafuda cards out of high-fiber maple pulp which, although edible, tasted like logs) the famine turned into a windfall opportunity.

The founder of Notindo, Nobuko Yamamushi, was a stern man who loved nothing more than to bark at his workers from dawn to dusk, then go home and bark at his wife and two sons. He found many things to bark about, and as his sons grew up, they increasingly found ways to be absent from the nightly harangues. In somewhat uncharacteristic behavior for a Japanese woman, Michiko Yamamushi barked back at her husband and sometimes refused to feed him any hanafuda cards, and a family story tells of one night when she struck the great man across the face with a live carp then walked out, never to return. As is often the case with family stories, this one proved to be in error in one central fact, because Michiko did return and continued to give her husband hell for the rest of his days.

But the boys, Sei and Rei, wouldn’t have noticed because they had found something more to their liking in the hills outside Kyoto, and that’s where they spent increasing amounts of their time as they grew beyond childhood and into adolescenthood.

They discovered the secret cave of Moji the wizard by chance one day as they were hunting beetles for their jar collection.

“Look, Sei,” exclaimed Rei as they pushed deeper into the forest than they had ever gone before, “what’s that?”

“It looks like a cave, Rei,” said Sei, and he stepped forward cautiously. Later, telling of the escapade to his own son, Sei confirmed that he had been hoping to find a secret cave with a magical wizard living inside, so he was neither surprised nor frightened as he stepped forward and peered inside the moss-draped entrance. Suddenly, a bat flew out of the dark cave interior and smacked Sei on the nose before fluttering off.

“I really hate bats,” spat Sei, wiping at his face.

“You don’t say,” said Rei.

“I do too, you dolt,” said Sei, (whose name was pronounced “say” and yet whose confusion over the words was historically unlikely as the word that translates into “say” in Japanese sounds nothing like his name.)

“Who comes bungling into my home?” bellowed a voice from within.

“Eek,” squeaked Rei.

“It is the Yamamushi brothers,” Sei announced boldly while Rei slapped him in the back of the head for being such a brazen fool.

“You don’t go around telling cave-dwelling hermits your name,” hissed the older brother, but Sei just smiled.

From behind the green mossy curtain emerged a face with a beard so long it looked like a horse’s tail. The wizened man pushed back the moss and glared at the boys. He couldn’t have stood more than three and a half feet tall and he resembled a shriveled up fruit in a dirty kimono.

“Of the hanafuda-making Yamamushis?”asked the wizard, for Sei had already decided that the man was a wizard.

“Oh, yes. Most definitely. That’s us, at your service. Do you play?”

“No, but I eat, and unless you get me some cards for my dinner I may just have to eat the two of you!”

“Eek,” said Rei, again.

“I have some right in my kimono pocket,” announced Sei. He handed over a packet and the old man beamed.

“You should come in,” said the wizard. “As it so happens, I’ve been waiting for you.”

…thus ends the first chapter excerpt of the Quest for the Golden Plum Pagoda