Senryo MikanThe Thousand-Ryo Mandarin
千両みかん（せんりょうみかん）
In the heat of summer, the young master of a large shop takes to his bed. When his secret wish is finally drawn out of him, it is simply, “I want to eat a mandarin orange.” The head clerk runs all over town looking for one out of season, and the single orange he finally finds is priced at a thousand ryo...
The story
In the hottest part of the sixth month, the young master of a large shop falls ill. The doctor says, “It is an illness of the mind. He has some wish on his heart, and if it is granted he will recover.” But when his father, the old master, asks him, the young man says nothing.
So they call in Sahei, the head clerk, who grew up with the young master. Promising not to laugh and to make the wish come true, Sahei gets it out of him: “I want to eat a mandarin orange.” Sahei, who was sure it would be about a woman, is relieved and boasts, “I’ll fill the whole room with them for you.”
But the old master says, “In the middle of summer, where will you find a mandarin?” If Sahei fails, the young master may lose heart and die, and that would make Sahei guilty of killing his master’s son, a crime punished by crucifixion upside down. Pale with fear, Sahei rushes into town. After running into the wrong shop and being told that mandarins come from a wholesaler, he finally reaches a mandarin wholesaler.
In the storehouse are mandarins stocked since winter, but almost all of them are rotten. The one perfect fruit they find is priced at a thousand ryo. The old master pays at once, saying no price is too high for his son’s life, and the young master eats it happily and quickly recovers.
The mandarin has ten segments, so each one is worth a hundred ryo. The young master eats seven and gives the last three to Sahei: “For my parents and for you.” Holding the three segments, Sahei steps into the corridor and starts to think. Even after years of service, when he is finally set up in his own shop, the money he receives will be modest. Yet in his palm sits three hundred ryo...
The sage the punchline, contains spoilers
Tap to reveal the punchline
Sahei takes the three segments and disappears.
The sage (the punchline) is not a spoken line but an action. Swept up by the thousand-ryo price, Sahei comes to believe that three ordinary segments of fruit are a three-hundred-ryo treasure. The fun of the story lies in watching his sense of value go completely askew.
Kamigata and Edo
The plot is almost the same, but the place names and the way the mandarin comes to cost a thousand ryo differ.
| Kamigata | Edo | |
|---|---|---|
| Where he searches | The Tenma vegetable and fruit market appears | He searches for a wholesaler in the streets of Edo |
| Why a thousand ryo | At first the wholesaler offers it for free. When the clerk insists on paying, he is told that as a sale it cannot go for less than a thousand ryo | The wholesaler names the price himself, citing the cost of keeping a whole storehouse of fruit since winter |
Key scenes original dialogue written for this site
The young master’s wish
- SaheiYoung master, I promise I won’t laugh, and I won’t tell a soul. What is it you want?
- Young master...I want to eat a mandarin.
- SaheiA mandarin? Is that all? I’ll pile the room full of them for you.
The old master’s scolding
- Old masterSahei, what month do you think it is? Where will you find a mandarin in the dog days of summer?
- SaheiAh...
- Old masterYou promised, so go and find one. If my son loses heart and dies, you’ll have killed your master’s son.
- (The clerk hunches his shoulders, wipes away sweat and gets to his feet.)
How much per segment
- Sahei(Watching the young master’s mouth) Ten segments for a thousand ryo, so one segment is a hundred... There goes another. A hundred ryo, gone in one bite.
- Young masterSahei, share the last three among Father, Mother and yourself.
- SaheiYes, sir. ...Three segments. Three hundred ryo.
This is not a transcription of any storyteller's performance. The plot and the sage follow the classic version. All lines were written for this site.
Notable performers
- Kokontei Shinsho V1890–1973EdoOne of the performers whose recordings survive.
- Kingentei Basho X1928–1982EdoOne of the performers whose recordings survive.
- Katsura Beicho III1925–2015KamigataOne of the performers whose recordings survive.
- Katsura Shijaku II1939–1999KamigataOne of the performers whose recordings survive.
