Yesterday, I visited Tanaka Jinja Shrine in Kyoto where mochi-ponding ceremony was held. People living around the shrine were gathering on the grounds of the shrine.
He is cooking glutinous rice (mochi-gome) in front of torii gate of the shrine.
After steaming glutinous rice, it is pounded with wooden mallets (kine) in a big mortar (usu). When I was shooting a video, mochi almost leaped out of the mortar, but an assistant of the mochi-pounder nicely caught it before it touched the ground.
After the mochi-pounding, they put small pieces of it into red bean soup (shiruko) and served it to the people gathered there.
This painting is a typical auspicious Japanese painting for the New Year. Depicted on the big turtle are a family of cranes and "the three friends of winter": pine, bamboo and ume plum. In pre-modern period, it was believed that cranes and turtles had extremely long lives, as there was a saying: "cranes live for 1000 years and turtles live for 10000 years (鶴は千年、亀は千年)". Thus, the turtle and the cranes are symbols of longevity. Of the "three friends of winter", the pine symbolizes endurance and longevity, the bamboo reflects strength and flexibility, and the plum evokes purity of character.
Japan Probe has posts concerning heart-shaped melons and watermelons being sold in Japan. They seem to be made by putting young fruits into heart-shaped molds and growing them in the molds.
Those posts remided me of an article [Japanese] concerning an ancient molded fruit being kept in a Buddhist temple in Japan. According to the article, Hōryūji temple in Nara has an ancient gourd pot called Hasshin Hyōko (八臣瓢壷), or a gourd pot of eight retainers. It has, on its surface, relieves of a hermit and eight famous retainers who served for ancient Chinese emperors. Research on the gourd pot has shown that the relieves were not carved by edged tools but made by growing the gourd in a mold template.
A number of molded gourds were made in China during the period of Qing Dyanasty (16-19th century), since the fourth emperor Kangxi (1654-1722) was fond of using molded gourds for his daily life. Accordingly, quite a few molded gourds made after the 17th century are being preserved in museums in China and Taiwan. The Hasshin Hyōko is, however, apparently older than those gourds, because a list of the treasures of the temple, which was edited by a Buddhist monk Kenshin (顕真) in 1238, included the very gourd pot Hasshin Hyōko. Thus, it is certain that the temple already had it in 1238. According to the above mentioned article, iconography of the relieves suggests that it was made in around 9th century. Although exact age is unknown, it is most likely that it is the oldest extant molded fruit in the world.
Kidai Shōran (煕代勝覧) depicted several disabled people in the City of Edo (present Tokyo) in the early 19th century.
In the Edo period (1603-1867) when knowledge on nutrition was lacking, considerable number of Japanese suffered from beriberi, or kakke (脚気) in Japanese. Beriberi is a nervous system ailment caused by a deficiency of vitamin B1 in the diet. Since wealthy people used to eat white rice lacking vitamin B1 as a staple food, beriberi was more rampant among them rather than among poor people, who used to eat brown rice. Symptoms of beriberi include weakness and pain in the legs, and those who suffer from them are unable to walk on their own. One such person is depicted in Kidai Shōran.
A man on a wheeled board is rowing it with sticks in his hands. It seems that the wheeled board was a common device for disabled people in pre-modern Japan; I have seen an another painting scroll, which was painted in the 15-16th century, that depicted a person on a similar vehicle. The decent clothes of the man in the illustration suggest that he is a relatively wealthy person - perhaps a retired merchant.
Another illness from which considerable number of people suffered was that of teeth. There were doctors who took care of teeth, but their remedy was basically just extracting the decayed teeth. How did those who lost teeth take their meal? Kidai Shoran depicts a solution for them - dentures. The scroll does not depict a denture itself but depicts a denture shop.
The sign on the shop reads from right to left, in accordance with Japanese writing custom at the period, "御入歯" (On-ireba), which means "denture" in English. Denture in the Edo period was wooden one as reported in the Japan Times last year. The following photo and quote is from the JT article.
A ditch in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture, has yielded a common form of early false teeth — an 18th century set of wooden choppers, indicating Japan, like other parts of the world, turned to wood in the days before gold and ceramic crowns.
The highly sophisticated carved wooden dentures found in Yokkaichi indicate elderly people of that time, before modern dentistry, were able to overcome tooth loss and the subsequent difficulty in eating.
The partial plate includes eight life-size teeth. It was carved out of boxwood and measures some 6.2 cm wide, 2 cm high and 5.5 cm deep.
The quality compares favorably with similar wooden teeth discovered elsewhere, demonstrating that the Japanese dental artisans' wooden teeth were among the best in the world, experts say.
Loosing teeth is not so a serious problem as other disability that may affect one's survival. Loosing eyesight was one serious problem in pre-modern period when social security system was lacking. The following illustration shows a sightless person in the Edo period. He is carrying a biwa lute (琵琶) on his back.
Sightless people in the Edo period used to join an organization which were run by sightless people themselves, in which they learnt techniques of massage to earn their living as masseurs. Also taught in the organization was how to play music instruments such as biwa lute and koto harp (琴, which was also called sō (箏)). If one was found to be talented in playing music, he was trained to be a musician so that he could earn his living either as a biwa player or as a koto player. Since Tokugawa Shogunate gave sightless people privilege to monopolize the businesses of masseurs and the biwa/koto players, sightless people could have relatively good income to make their living, and many famous sightless musicians appeared in succession during the Edo period. This webpage has a good article on the history of koto music in Japan; it mentions several famous sightless musicians in the Edo period. (Yatsuhashi Kengyo, Ikuta Kengyo, Yamada Kengyo and Kitajima Kengyo mentioned in the article are all sightless people, although it is not clearly stated in the text.)
The following video clip shows a koto music, "Rokudan no Shirabe" (Melody of Six Movements), composed in the mid-17th century by a sightless koto master, Yatsuhashi Kengyo (1614-1685).
Koto players usually stayed in their home, and there they earned their living by playing koto or by teaching people how to play it. In contrast, biwa players wandered through the country carrying their biwa lutes, as shown in the illustration mentioned above. They were like Celtic bards. Their major repertoire was the Tale of Heike, a historical epic of the 12th-century Genpei War. They chanted the historic epic accompanying themselves on the biwa lute. Some records say that it took 90-120 hours to chant the whole story of the Tale of Heike. Since it was a hard task for both the players and audience, biwa players usually performed several climax parts of the epic in a performance. The following video clip is a performance of the Tale of Heike by Nobuko Kawashima. Editing of the clip is rather poor but you would see how biwa performance was like.
As anyone would guess, it required a good memory to remember the whole text of the Tale of Heike. Some sightless people in the Edo period, however, went further to remember tons of classic Japanese texts. The one staying on top of them is a sightless scholar, Hanawa Hoki-ichi (塙 保己一) (1746-1821), who finished a 670-volume compilation of Japanese old documents, Gunsho Ruiju (群書類従), in 1819. You can read a concise biography of Hanawa Hokiichi in this webpage. Motoori Haruniwa (1763-1828), a pioneer of Japanese linguistics, is also a famous sightless scholar in the Edo period.
Let's return to the subject of music. Kidai Shōran (煕代勝覧) depicts another kind of Edo musicians. The people in the following illustration are Buddhist monks playing shakuhachi flutes in front of an umbrella shop. They are wearing baskets on their head.
They look mysterious, don't they? They are komusō (虚無僧), who are monks of the Fuke school of Zen Buddhism. Literal meaning of Komusō is "monks of nothingness". The following quote is from Wikipedia.
Komusō were characterised by the straw basket (a sedge or reed hood named a tengai) worn on the head, manifesting the absence of specific ego. They are also known for playing solo pieces on the shakuhachi (a type of Japanese bamboo flute). These pieces, called honkyoku ("original pieces") were played during a meditative practice called suizen, for alms and as a method of attaining enlightenment.
Since the Tokugawa shogunate granted komuso the privilege of traveling through Japan without hindrance, there were many komuso who were wandering throughout the country. It is believed that at least some of komuso were working as spies of the Tokugawa Shogunate seeking for intelligence of feudal lords who would possibly rebel against the Shogunate. In the late 1970s, NHK aired a TV drama series entitled "Naruto Hichō" (鳴門秘帖, or "Secret Note of Naruto"), main character of which was a komuso who were trying to get intelligence of a feudal lord who was trying to raise a rebellion against the Shogunate. I was totally absorbed in the drama when I was a child.
After the Meiji Restoration, Meiji Government banned the Fuke school of Buddhism suspecting possible connection of Komuso with the Tokugawa Shogunate. Later in 1888, however, a Buddhist temple for Komuso, Myōanji temple [Japanese], was allowed to be constructed in the ground of Tofukuji temple, which is a temple complex in Kyoto. So you can see Komuso in present Japan if you are lucky.
Japanese old instruments are not commonly practiced by the Japanese now, but there are some good players. The following video clip is from a performance by a biwa player Yukihiro Goto and a shakuhachi player Akihito Obama.
I will write about carts and vehicles depicted in Kidai Shoran in next update. The update will be slow as always. Please be patient!
Kidai Shoran (煕代勝覧) painted at c.a. 1805 depicted various people in the Edo period (1603-1867).
These people are commoners. The left panel shows two men and a male child. The left guy in the panel is wearing only kimono, and the right guy in the same panel is wearing a haori (羽織) jacket over his kimono. Wearing haori jacket was considered to be more formal than wearing only kimono. The style of wearing kimono without haori jacket was called kinagashi (着流し) and considered to be a casual style. On the right panel, two people are chatting with each other in a store in the kinagashi style. The man on the left is a merchant. Can you find an abacus, a necessity of merchants, in front of him? Japanese people had been using abacuses, or soroban (算盤) in Japanese, for calculation before electric calculators became popular in the late 1970s.
When people wore kimono, they considered it important to keep the lower part of kimono around the legs neat. Unintentional exposure of legs was regarded as clumsy and a bad manner even when they were working. When people do muscular labor, however, it is impossible to keep their legs unexposed. In such situations, they intentionally exposed their legs from the beginning by rolling the lower part of their kimono up above their waists. The lower part of the kimono was fixed at the waist by inserting it under the belt on the back. The man in the left panel is doing that. This style was called shirippashori (尻っぱしょり) and often regarded as manly and "cool". The man on the right is wearing a short kimono instead of doing shirippashori. Both men are wearing hachimaki (鉢巻), or Japanese-style headbands. They are for avoiding sweat to enter into their eyes.
The left panel shows a mother in a green kimono and her daughter in a yellowish one. They are wearing kimono in a formal way at the period; the mother, or a married woman, has a knot of the belt, or obi (帯), in front, whereas the daughter, or an unmarried woman, has the knot on her back. Since the knot in front interferes with the movement of the upper body, the habit of married women to make knots in front was gradually changed to make the knot on the back in the late Edo period. So women today make the knot on their back regardless of their marital status. Also seen in the illustration in the left panel is that the daughter is wearing a kimono with long sleeves, or furisode (振り袖). This habit that unmarried women wear long-sleeved kimono is still seen in Japan. The middle and right panels show women wearing scarves called okoso-zukin (御高祖頭巾). Okoso-zukin started to be in fashion among women in the 1720s-1730s, and it had been popular among women until Meiji period (1868-1912). The following photo was taken in the early Meiji period.
The women in the following illustration is carrying something wrapped in furoshiki (風呂敷).
They seem to have bought many goods. Furoshiki is just a large square cloth, but it is convenient for wrapping and carrying goods of various sizes. You can see how various goods are wrapped in furoshiki here.
The men in the above illustrations are samurai in full dress, indicating that they are on duty. They are wearing kamishimo jackets on the upper bodies and hakama trousers on the lower part of their bodies. Kamishimo was a jacket evolved from jinbaori (陣羽織) jacket worn over yoroi armor. The shoulder line of kamishimo was kept straight by inserting baleen. Both men are wearing swords on their waists. Samurai always wore two swords; one was a long sword, which is called katana (刀), and another was a short sword called wakizashi (脇差). Can you find two swords on the waist of each samurai?
These samurai are wearing hakama trousers. They are wearing haori jackets instead of kamishimo jackets, indicating that they are off duty. The samurai in the above illustrations would look to be relaxed when compared to the samurai in the previous illustrations, wouldn't they? Even when they are off duty, however, samurai almost always wore hakama when they went outside. It was a preparation for a possible accidental fight. If they fight in kinagashi style without hakama trousers, they would have to expose their legs during the fight, which was regarded as clumsy as I mentioned earlier.
These people are servants of samurai. Have you noticed that each guy is wearing only a single sword? Although I am not sure, their swords are probably wakizashi, or short swords, which were not regarded as katana. They are doing shirippasyori by folding the lower part of their kimono since they have to work around for their masters.
This is a tea stand on the street. On the right bench are two commoners. The man on the left bench is perhaps a samurai. The waitress serving tea is wearing a small red apron. We can still find similar tea houses in the grounds of some Buddhist temples in Kyoto.
Here I stop writing today. I will write more about people in Kidai Shoran in the next update. The update will be slow as always. Please be patient!
Kidai Shōran (煕代勝覧) is a 12-metre-long picture scroll which describes a street in the City of Edo (present Tokyo). It was painted approximately 200 years ago, ca.1805. The street corresponds to a part of present Chuo-dori street, which is between JR Kanda Station and Tokyo Metro Nihonbashi Station shown in red in the above map. The painting provides the exact location of buildings along the street and daily lives of people there at the time.
The above illustration is from the right-most part of Kidai Shōran. The bridge at the right side was called Imagawa-bashi (今川橋), or Imagawa Bridge. There is no bridge at the site now, but the name of the bridge remains as a name of a crossing. The following google street view shows a southward view from the Imagawa-bashi crossing, which corresponds to the leftward view from the bridge in the above illustration.
Can you differentiate samurai from commoners in the illustration? Samurai have swords on their waists.
The fashion and stuff in the Edo period may look strange for those who are unfamiliar with them. I'll get into some details of them in the posts to follow. Please don't expect, however, quick update in this blog; it takes much time for me to write anything in English.
The design of the newly-found screens is similar to a Jakuchu's missing work.
Folding screens in the above photograph were listed in an auction catalogue of Osaka Art Club (大阪美術倶楽部) issued in 1928. Notice that, whereas the tail of the elephant and the plants over the back of the elephant are drawn on the newly-found screen, they are missing on the one in the old auction catalogue. According to the catalogue, the screens had been owned by Baron Kawasaki in Kobe, Hyogo prefecture. They were knocked down to an anonymous person for 3,100 yen, which roughly corresponds to present five million yen, or 50,000 US dollars. After the auction, no one but the unknown owner has seen the screens.
According to Yomiuri Online, the pair of the newly-found screens has signatures saying: "Painted by Beito-ou, 82 years old (米斗翁八十二歳画)"; Beito-ou (Uncle Beito) was a Jakuchū's pseudonym that he used in his last years. Perhaps, in the last years of his life, he painted again the composition of the black whale and white elephant that he had once painted.
The followings are some of other Jakuchu's works for your eyes' pleasure.
Last month, I came across two elderly ladies related to the Japanese Imperial Family.
The first one was Empress Michiko. When I was walking along a road in Kyoto on November 2, I noticed policemen standing at every corner. I asked one of them if any incident had taken place there. He told me in an undertone: "Emperor is coming here soon". So I decided to wait for the Emperor and his party there. According to the policeman, the Emperor was staying in Kyoto for attending an event for celebrating the thousand-year anniversary of the Tales of Genji, and at the time the Emperor Akihito was to visit the tomb of Emperor Go-Nijō (reign: 1301-1308).
After a while, the party on vehicles passed in front of me. I could see Empress Michiko in one of the vehicles but I could not spot the Emperor who should have been in the seat next to the Empress. It seemed that the Emperor canceled the visit to the tomb as he wasn't in good health. Empress Michiko was smiling in the vehicle as always.
The second one was Atsuko Ikeda who is a younger sister of the Emperor. On November 22 - 24, I visited Ise Jingu shrine in the Ise city in Mie prefecture. Ise Jingu is a complex of shrines that is composed of many shrines centered on two main shrines, Naikū (内宮, or inner shrine) and Gekū (外宮, or outer shrine).
After staying in a hotel near Gekū, I visited Gekū in the early morning of November 23. There were again many policemen in the shrine area. They were all in the special uniform as the guards for the Imperial Palace and properties related to the Imperial Family. At first, I thought it was normal circumstances in the Ise Jingu since it is the place that the Emperor administers. However, when I entered the space in front of the main building, I realized that I happened to visit there in the midst of a special ceremony. Asking a guard in ancient uniform who was standing by torii, I learned that the ceremony was Niiname-sai (新嘗祭), or harvesting ceremony, that is held only once a year. The following quote is from the Web page of Ise Jingu shrine.
The Niiname-sai ceremony in Jingu is composed of both Omikesai and Hoheisai. These ceremonies are conducted in the name of the Emperor. The Niiname-sai is held parallel to the ceremony at which the Emperor officiates and offers the newly harvested rice to Amaterasu Omikami in the Imperial Palace. By partaking of the food offered he ritually receives the deity's blessings.
In front of the main building were sitting a priestess in ancient white clothes, a dozen or so of priests in the same white clothes and two people in authentic clothes for court nobles in the Heian period (8th-12th century). The latter two were emboys sent by the Emperor to report this year's harvest to the deities of the shrine. The priestess was the Emperor's younger sister, Atsuko Ikeda, who is saishu (祭主), or the most sacred person of the Ise Jingu shrine. Secularly, she is a wife of a zoo owner, Takamasa Ikeda, who is a direct descendant of the feudal lord of Okayama and the eldest son of former Marquis Nobumasa Ikeda. Mr. Ikeda liked to raise animals so much that he opened his own zoo named "Ikeda Zoo" in Okayama. Mme. Ikeda has been working as the wife of the zoo owner, and at the same time she has been working as the chief priestess of Ise Jingu shrine; Chief priestesses of the shrine has traditionally been chosen from women related to the imperial family.
Mme. Ikeda looked to have difficulty in sitting and standing during the ceremony as she is 77 years old. Those who were born to the imperial family seem to have some obligations even after they were detached from the royalty through marriage to commoners. Mme. Ikeda succeeded her ailing elder sister as the chief priestess in 1988. If it would have become impossible for Mme. Ikeda to work as the priestess, a daughter of the Emperor Akihito, Sayako Kuroda, may be succeeding.
Sayako Kuroda was reported to be fond of anime. In her marriage party, she wore a dress that was designed after the dress of the heroin of Hayao Miyazaki's anime, The Castle of Cariostro. She would be able to enjoy the role as a priestess to some extent if she succeeded.
MSN Sankei's IZA [Japanese] has an article regarding prefabricated Japanese-style rooms.
Traditional Japanese-style rooms have tatami mats on the floor and sliding doors called shoji and fusuma that surround the rooms, but newly constructed houses in Japan don't necessarily have Japanese-style rooms, as life-styles of young people are getting Westernized. When they want to have Japanese-style rooms after they purchased houses, they have to spend much money to re-form rooms. The prefabricated Japanese-style rooms are for such people. By purchasing the prefabricated ones, they can construct Japaense-style rooms in Western-style rooms. According to the article, the companies that developed the prefabricated rooms also have plans to sell them to foreign costumers.
You can see some more photos of the rooms in the following pages. Unfortunately, they are only Japanese-language Websites; I could not find any English-language Websites for the prefabricated Japanese-style rooms.JETRO has an English language description on the prefabricated room.
Perhaps any nation has a lot of narratives concerning old historical figures that have been used for ethical education. What is shown in the above Japanese-style painting is one such narrative in Japan. A samurai is looking for something in a river with his servant. The servant is carrying a torch, indicating that it is in the evening. When elderly Japanese see this painting, they can soon make a good guess that the samurai on the bridge is Aoto Fujitsuna (青砥藤綱).
------ Fujitsuna was a lord of small manors in Kanto area in the Kamakura period. Although he was wealthy thanks to his fertile manors, he lived a frugal life having simple clothes and diet. Instead of using his wealth for himself, he used it for giving foods, clothes and money to poor people.
Japan in the Kamakura period was governed by successive regents from Hojo clan. One day, concerning one of the manors of a regent, a conflict took place between the regent and a local officer. At the time, judicial decisions were made by a council that consisted of members chosen from lords. Fujitsuna was one of the members. In the council, almost all members supported the regent fearing his strong power, although the account by the local officer was reasonable. However, Fujitsuna stated the facts reasonably without fearing the power of the regent. As the result, the regent lost the case.
The local officer who was pleased with the unexpected winning gave Fujitsuna 300 kan of money putting them in tawara (a big bag made of straws). Seeing the money, Fujitsuna became upset. He returned the money to the local officer, saying: "The reason I stated my honest opinion in the council was just for the benefit of the regent. I never showed favor to you. Since I prevented the regent from falling in a bad reputation, the regent should give me a token of his gratitude. There is no reason for you to give me anything."
One evening, when Fujitsuna was walking on a bridge, he accidentally dropped coins of 10 mon. The coins rolled down into a river. Ten mon probably corresponded to about present 100 yen, or about one dollar. Samurai of his rank did not care about such a small amount of money. However, he ordered his servants to look for the money in the river. He handed 50 mon to a servant and made him to buy flaming torches. Lighting the torches, they finally found the 10 mon in the river.
People who heard of the event laughed at Fujitsuna, saying: "He bought the torches paying 50 mon in order to regain 10 mon. It was too small benefit from the large loss, wasn't it?" Hearing it, Fujitsuna, contracting his brows, said: "It only shows that you are interested in neither public interests nor charity. If I had not looked for the 10 mon in the river, it would have been lost forever. The 50 mon that I payed for the torches profited the merchant. There was no loss at all. It was a benefit to the public, wasn't it?" People got speechless with admiration.
One day, the regent had a dream in which a deity of Hachimangu shrine recommended him to patronize Fujitsuna as he is a man to be depended on. Accordingly, the regent decided to give Fujitsuna eight large manors. However, Fujitsuna rejected the offer, saying: "You decided to give me the manors according to the dream that you had. It follows that someday you might kill me according to a dream that you would have. I have not render any outstanding service. It would make me like a public enemy to accept such an offer when I have not achieved anything that matches the reward."
Other lords and officers who heard of his reply were ashamed of themselves. Since they never accepted bribes thereafter, the Shogunate could stably govern the country for a long period. --------
The above narrative first appeared in Taiheiki (太平記), a historical epic written in the late 14th century. Since then, it was used for the ethical education of people in the pre-modern Japan. Since the narrative was also adopted in the textbook of ethics after the Meiji Restoration and the textbook had been used in public schools until 1945, elderly Japanese are familiar with the story.
Note: If you read old Japanese language, you can find the original Japanese text of the Fujitsuna's story here in Volume 35 of Taiheiki. To find the Fujitsuna's story, search 青砥 (Aoto) in the webpage. Aoto Fujitsuna appears as Aoto Saemon (青砥左衛門) in Taiheiki. Saemon is after the Fujitsuna's title Saemon-no-jo (左衛門尉) as an officer of Saemon-fu (左衛門府).
Last Sunday, I harvested myoga (みょうが, 茗荷) grown on my balcony. Myoga (Zingiber mioga) that is used in Japanese cuisines is a close relative of ginger (Zingiber officinale). Unlike ginger whose edible part is rhizomes, myoga plants do not have fat roots. The part of the moyga plant that the Japanese eat is flower bud. Can you see the flower of myoga in the photo below?
Close-up view.
I could harvest eleven myoga from three containers last Sunday.
Raw myoga is used as trimmings for tofu, noodles and sashimi, but this time I made sweet pickle (amazu-zuke, 甘酢漬け) of myoga.
Recipe
1. Mix the followings in a container to make pickling solution. A half-cup (100 ml) of vinegar, 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 teaspoon of salt. Dissolve the ingredients well.
2. Slice each myoga longitudinally into two halves.
3. Boil the sliced myoga for 40 seconds in boiling water.
4. Drain the hot water off the myoga.
5. Put the boiled myoga into the pickling solution while myoga are still hot.
6. Store the myoga in pickling solution overnight in refrigerator. You can eat the pickle next day. The myoga in pickling solution can be stored for a month in refrigerator. Pickled myoga is usually served as thin shreds since it has rather pungent taste.
Myoga plants can be grown pretty easily in garden and in containers. Roots of myoga are sold in February to April in many homecenters and gardening shops in Japan. Just by putting the roots in soil, you can harvest myoga in summer every year, since myoga is a perennial plant. One essential thing that you should know to grow myoga plant is that it hates direct sunlight, so you should keep the plant in the shade. I am growing the myoga plant in the northern balcony of my apartment.
Concerning the closure of the Mainichi's WaiWai column, it may be worthwhile to describe how an average Japanese person (it's me) look on Japanese Weeklies and Tabloids. The following is a list of some Japanese weeklies and tabloids categorized into three groups.
(C) Asahi Geinou, Shukan Jitsuwa, Jitsuwa Knuckles, Tokyo Sports
Magazines in groupA have relatively reliable articles. Writers in these weeklies actually gather news materials and data to write their articles. They care not to be sued. These weeklies are both for males and females of all ages.
Magazines in group B has lower reliability than those in group A.
SPA! is a subculture magazine, main target of which is males in their 20s and 30s. Articles are mainly for entertainment; they may contain fictional stories. This magazine tend to publish controversial articles. I remember that I read an extremely disturbing interview to Issei Sagawa in this magazine in the early 1990s. In the interview, the interviewer, Taku Hachiro, made a talk with Sagawa in a yakiniku (barbecue) restaurant. In the middle of the dinner, Taku asked to Sagawa, "This meat is really good. Which do you think is better?". Sagawa replied, "Err...either one has its own taste. So I cannot say which is better." I also remember that SPA! had been advocating AUM Shinrikyo cult just for entertainment when many people were concerned about its cultic nature in the early 1990s. Also I remember column series published in the late 1980s that positively introduced Toyama Koichi as a left-wing extremist highschooler. Toyama Koichi's video circulated in the Japanese blogosphere last year when he stood as an anarchist candidate in the election for the Governor of Tokyo. I was really astonished when I noticed that he was that guy who had been known by the readers of SPA! in the late 1980s as an anachronistic left-wing extremist highschooler wearing a helmet and carrying a gebabou stick.
Main target of Shukan Gendai and Shukan Post is males older than 30. These magazines regularly contain nudity. Their writers usually gather news materials and data by themselves to write their articles on politics and economy. My impression is that they often twist news materials to make them meet their agenda. Articles on politics are always with anti-government taste. Articles related to sex contain fictional stories for entertainment.
Magazines in group C have little reliability. It is highly probable that anyone who sues these magazines for libel will lose the case. Any article published in them usually does not constitute defamation of character since few Japanese believe what are written in these magazines. A rare case that a plaintiff won was Professor Uekusa's case. Asahi Geinou reported several incidents of molesting by Prof. Uekusa in 2004-2006 after he was arrested for molesting in other cases. However, all of the molesting reported by Asahi Geinou were revealed to be groundless. Writers of Asahi Geinou made up the incidents just for entertainment using the name of Prof. Uekusa. The judicial decision was that the fictional reports in Asahi Geinou were defamation of character; some might believe the reports even though they were written in Asahi Geinou, since everyone at the time knew that Prof. Uekusa was a pervert.
Although Asahi Geinou has "Asahi" in its name, it has nothing to do with Asahi Shimbun, a major Japanese newspaper. I suppose that the name of the magazine itself is a joke, openly pretending to be related to Asahi Shimbun when everyone knows the magazine has nothing to do with Asahi Shimbun.
Shukan Jitsuwa and Jitsuwa Knuckles are called jitsuwa-kei (実話系) weeklies since they contain "jitsuwa" in their titles. Literal meaning of Jitsuwa is "true story", but stories in jitsuwa-kei weeklies are fictions related to extreme violence and sex written in the style of news reports and inside reports. They also have fictional inside reports of yakuza organizations. You can see cover illustrations of Jitsuwa Knuckles in this page (scroll down the page to find the cover illustrations).
Magazines in group C are not sold in usual bookstores. I know neither where they are sold nor who buy them. The blow job story and the beastiality restaurant story mentioned in the previous post originally appeared in Asahi Geinou and Jitsuwa Knuckles, respectively, both of which belong to group C.
Of the tabloids belonging to group C, Tokyo Sports has different taste than other magazines. It is a daily newspaper that is famous for its hoax articles. Some say that what are credible in Tokyo Sports are only dates of issues. It's sold in kiosks in JR stations with regular newspapers.
The problem of the WaiWai column was that it took stories from magazines in group B and group C out of literal and social context without putting a proper disclaimer. Especially problematic were articles from group C. The WaiWai should have put a disclaimer stating that they were fictions in the form of news reports and inside reports.
On June 21, the Mainichi Daily News decided to cease publishing the infamous WaiWai articles, responding to the criticism from Japanese people. Many of the articles in the WaiWai column had been taken from fictional stories from tabloids and skin mags published in Japan. Complaint from Japanese people was that, whereas many of the original Japanese articles were fictional stories, the MDN did not mention in their WaiWai articles the nature of the original articles. Since foreign readers do not know the nature of the magazines, they might think that the stories in the WaiWai articles were based on fact.
Foreigners who have enough knowledge on Japan also seemed concerned about the circulation of wrong knowledge derived from WaiWai articles. For example, Yudan Taiteki wrote in a thread on The Japanese Page,
by Yudan Taiteki on Tue 05.01.2007 5:12 pm (...) The one that I'm tired of seeing over and over again is this idea that it's normal for Japanese moms to give their sons oral sex during exam study time to decrease their stress. This concept is so absurd that you would think nobody could possibly take it seriously, and yet it seems like every few months I see someone bring it up as an example of how "messed up" Japanese people are. It apparently originated from a Waiwai article that was taken at face value despite a complete lack of sourcing (and plausibility), but because it fit in with this idea of Japan being a bizarre place, it was accepted without question.
Responding to this comment, doinkies and two_heads_talking wrote,
by doinkies on Wed 05.02.2007 1:30 am I find it preposterous that there are actually doinks out there who think everything in WaiWai is real... :@ But since Mainichi never says that the WaiWai articles really come from tabloids, I suppose people think they are real news articles. -_-
Another thing WaiWai often does is post articles about some odd, weird or gross item or business and say that said item or business is "wildly popular" in Japan, but never actually give the numerical data to prove this claim. I suppose it's because if they did, then people would instantly see that their stories are nothing but exaggerations.
and
by two_heads_talking on Wed 05.02.2007 9:40 am (...) I had never heard that as Japanese, but I had heard it from nearly every other asian country.. mainly china, thailand and vietnam. I never much believed it, but figured it was one of the "urban legends" that just gets a face life depending on which race is used to fuel it..
One doink who thought that what was written in the WaiWai article was true was an Australian writer, Ben Hills. In his book, “Princess Masako: Prisoner of the Chrysthanthemum Throne”, he mentioned the oral sex thing as a fact that was reported in the Mainichi Shimbun. Also there are tons of articles in Wikipedia that cite WaiWai articles.
The MDN issued an apology to readers for publishing "vulgar" articles, but it did not clarify the nature of the magazines that they used when they wrote the WaiWai articles, even though the latter was what had been requested by people.
Also made Japanese people upset was that, although the Mainichi announced punitive measures for people who had been responsible for the publication of the WaiWai articles, the Digital Media Division President was promoted the head of the Mainichi Shimbun Corporation on June 25, despite the fact that he had been the most responsible person for the WaiWai issue.
The most angry people against the Mainichi are Japanese women . They are trying to spread the information on how Mainichi had been making fun of Japanese women on the Mainichi's English-language Website. Also, they are making phone calls to the sponsors of the Mainichi, requesting to cease to provide on-line ad on the Mainichi's Website. Their effort seems to be successful right now. In the ad spaces on the Mainichi's site, I can find only internal links to Mainichi's own pages since last night. Also, even Japanese tabloids that WaiWai had been referring have started to make fun of Mainichi.
The Mainichi Shimbun is known among Japanese netizens to be the most active newspaper company in promoting the legislation of Internet censorship. Result of this "battle" may affect the fate of the Internet culture in Japan.
When I was walking on the Teramachi-dori in Kyoto, a couple of Westerners were watching something being displayed on the outer wall of a shop. What they were watching were T-shirts with names of (mainly) Western countries printed in Kanji, or Chinese characters.
Can you say the country names printed on the T-shirts? For your convenience, I have reproduced them below.
These country names in Kanji were devised when Japanese scholars translated European literatures in the late Edo period (19th century). These country names in Kanji had been used until 1940s, but they are rarely used now.
Yesterday, torch relay for Beijing 2008 was carried out in Nagano. Young PRC citizens living in Japan gathered in Nagano. They shouted their country name, "Zhung guo (中国)," waving PRC's flag, and followed Japanese carrying Tibetan flags.
Near the end of the video, a Japanese guy is claiming policemen to arrest one of the Chinese guy who allegedly attempted to rob his Tibetan flag.
Compare the above video with that of the Athens 2004.
It was a good decision that Zenkoji temple in Nagano refused to serve as the starting point of the torch relay.
Japanese Buddhists' Silent Protest held at the Zenkoji temple.
"Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)" by QUEEN. Freddie sings in Japanese at 1:58 and 3:02. Lyrics were as follows.
When I'm gone no need to wonder If I ever think of you The same moon shines The same wind blows for both of us And time is but a paper moon Be not gone
Though I'm gone it's just as though I hold the flower that touches you A new life grows The blossom knows there's no one else Could warm my heart as much as you Be not gone
Let us cling together as the years go by Oh my love my love In the quiet of the night Let our candle always burn Let us never lose the lessons we have learned
静かな宵に 光をともし (Shizukana yoi ni hikari wo tomoshi) いとしき教えを抱き (Itoshiki oshie wo idaki)
Hear my song still think of me The way you've come to think of me The nights grow long But dreams live on Just close your pretty eyes And you can be with me Dream on
静かな宵に 光をともし (Shizukana yoi ni hikari wo tomoshi) いとしき教えを抱き (Itoshiki oshie wo idaki)
When I'm gone they'll say we were all fools And we don't understand Oh be strong don't turn your heart We're all you're all we're all for all for always
Let us cling together as the years go by Oh my love my love In the quiet of the night Let our candle always burn Let us never lose the lessons we have learned
The following is "La Japonaise" sung by Freddie Mercury and Montsy Caballè.
Lyrics: Subarashii asa ga akeru (素晴らしい朝が明ける) Yoake ga yobikakeru (夜明けが呼びかける) Kokoro no izumi ga wakideru (心の泉が湧き出る) Yume no yo (夢のよう)
I feel the power of a stranger inside me A force of magic surrounds me This fountain within me is overflowing
Peaceful and inviting Beautiful and enticing Yoake kisetsu yume kibo (夜明け, 季節, 夢, 希望) Umi to hikari ga yondeiru (海と光が呼んでいる)
Rising sun you bless my morning with a smile A magic pearl from the seas Born in a willow breeze Loyal friend my guardian angel in the sky You've served me well all these years Greeting with both hands Trusting with no fears Till the end
Toi kuni no anata ni miserarete (遠い国のあなたに魅せられて) Amarinimo utsukushii yume no yo (あまりにも美しい 夢のよう) Itsumademo ii (いつまでも いい)
Ai no hikari kibo to yume (愛の光, 希望と夢) When everything is golden and everything is oh Fuji no yuki, Kyoto no ame, Tokyo no yoru (富士の雪, 京都の雨, 東京の夜) And everything is ah
Fire and beauty My only living treasure on this earth
Kibo hikari yume (oohh yume oooh) (希望, 光, 夢)
Asa ga hohoemikakeru (朝がほほえみかける) Itsumo kimi dake wa kokoro no tomo (いつも君だけは心の友) Toi kimi no omokage shinonde (遠い君の面影偲んで) Amarinimo utsukushii yume no yo (あまりにも美しい 夢のよう)
When everything is golden And everything and everyone is ahh
I wrote about the sculpture of Dainichi that was sold at Christie's for $14 million here and here. Concerning the sculpture, I recently noticed that an interesting discussion was going on at the bulletin board of the Japanese Medieval History Archives (in Japanese). The discussion was on an article in the International Herald Tribune. The IHT article was a detailed one that mentioned another sculpture of Dainichi, Kotokuji Dainichi, preserved in Ashikaga and that discussed which of the statues, the Kotokuji Dainichi and the one sold at the Christies, was the true sculpture that Ashikaga Yoshikane commissioned. The following is from the IHT article.
One well-known statue by Unkei, in particular, which is preserved in the town of Ashikaga in Tochigi Prefecture and is also a seated figure of Dainichi presents a distinct kinship to the newly "discovered" sculpture. Known as the Kotokuji Dainichi, Unkei's statue in Ashikaga has traditionally been assumed by Japanese scholars to be the statue which, according to a document of the later Muromachi period, was commissioned in 1193 by a Buddhist devotee from the town of Ashikaga, a certain Ashikaga Yoshikane.
Yamamoto Tsutomu, who had discussed Unkei's Kotokuji Dainichi in an essay on the Dainichi Nyorai, was gripped. When X-rayed, the newly discovered sculpture was shown to contain three dedicatory objects inside the hollow torso. These were a wood placard topped by a finial in the shape of a five-element pagoda, in turn containing a small rock crystal pagoda, and a rock crystal lotus bud mounted on a bronze lotus chalice pedestal. The five-element pagoda, Gorin-to in Japanese, literally "five-wheel pagoda," appeared in the late 12th century which contributed to circumscribe the period of the discovered sculpture. Most significantly, X-rays revealed that Unkei's Kotokuji Dainichi contained similar dedicatory objects.
The author seems to be a pundit of art. However, his argument get to be miserable when he become arrogant, as follows.
What truly excited Yamamoto was that the newly discovered sculpture fitted rather better the Muromachi period description of Unkei's Kotokuji Dainichi because its dimensions made it more plausible. It was 66 centimeters, or roughly two feet, high, while the piece in Ashikaga is only 32 centimeters high. True, the dimensions stated in the Muromachi period document, "three shaku," are understood by Japanese art historians to be equivalent to "three feet."
Whether wrong by two-thirds or just one-third, such loose evidence might perhaps be thrown out in a court of law. But to art historians who like to take the broad-minded approach, this is good enough. So, to quote Christie's very lengthy but very carefully worded entry, "Yamamoto concluded that the Muromachi document must point not to the Kotokuji statue but to this previously unknown masterwork."
According to a commenter at the bulletin board of the Japanese Medieval History Archives, it is commonsense among Japanese art historians that the size of Buddhism sculptures was described in documents in the medieval period as the height of the sculpture when it rose to its feet. As for seated figures, there was a commonly used method in the medieval period to convert the height of a seated figure into the true "height" of the statue. First, the distance from the bottom to the hairline on the neck was measured, then the distance was doubled. The doubled distance was regarded as the "height" of the statue. The distance from the bottom to the hairline was called hassaiko (髪際高). The hassaiko of the sculpture sold at Christie's was 45.5cm. Thus, its "height" (45.5 cm x 2 = 91 cm) is almost equal to "three shaku (= 90.9 cm)" described in the Muromachi period document. It is apparent that the sculpture was made as a seated figure of three-syaku Dainichi.
The author of the IHT article may have relatively rich knowledge about Japanese art, but not to the extent that he can make little of Japanese art historians.
This Webpage shows an article (in Japanese) of the Japanese art historian mentioned in the IHT article, Tsutomu Yamamoto, describing the details of the sculpture. Of course, the article mentioned the hassaiko of the sculpture that was used to calculate the "height" of seated statues in the Muromachi period.
As I wrote in the previous entry , a Wooden Buddha sculpture attributed to Unkei was sold for $14,377,000 at Christie's last week to Mitsukoshi Co. Ltd. However, Japanese news reports at the time reported that Mitsukoshi bought the sculpture being asked by an anonymous person to buy the sculpture.
On March 25th, a religious organization, Sinnyoen, held a press conference in the Ministry of Education to announce that the organization was the client of Mitsukoshi. According to a report [Japanese] on Jiji.com, Sinnyoen is planning to allow Japanese government to investigate the sculpture and after that they will publicly exhibit it at a museum that they are now constructing.
This morning I was excited reading a newspaper reporting that a Dainichi Nyorai (= Maha Vairocana) sculpture attributed to Unkei (1151 – 1223) was being sold at an auction in New York. What excited me in the report was the description that the Dainichi Nyorai sculpture was formerly in a temple in Ashikaga city. The reason it excited me is that an old document concerning the origin of a shinto shrine, Kabasaki Hachimangu Shrine, in Ashikaga city describes that in the beginning of the Kamakura period (1185-1333) Ashikaga Takauji's ancestor, Ashikaga Yoshikane (1154?-1199), brought an sculpture of Dainichi Nyorai to Ashikaga. I thought it was possible that the sculpture being sold at the auction could be the one that Ashikaga Yoshikane commissioned, although it was not sure at the moment since the newspaper did not describe where in the Ashikaga city the sculpture had originally been rested.
It seems a Japanese was able to buy the sculpture. The following is from Reuters.
Wooden Buddha sculpture sold for $14.3 million Tue Mar 18, 2008 6:02pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - A wooden Buddha sculpture set a new world auction record for Japanese art when it was sold for $14,377,000 at Christie's on Tuesday to Mitsukoshi Co. Ltd.
The newly discovered 26-inch (660 millimeter) sculpture of Dainichi Nyorai, the supreme Buddha, attributed to the sculptor Unkei, soared to nearly 10 times its low pre-sale estimate of $1.5 million at Christie's sale of Japanese and Korean art.
"History was made today," said Katsura Yamaguchi, Christie's International Director of Japanese and Korean Art.
"We witnessed enormous interest from clients worldwide who traveled from near and far to ... participate in this landmark sale," he added.
The previous record for Asian art at auction was $12.6 million. Tuesday's price, which included Christie's commission, also established a new record for Asian art sold at auction in New York.
The seated, Cyprus wood Buddha is believed to be the work of Unkei, considered one of the great carvers of the early Kamakura period of the 1190s, Christie's said. Part of a family collection in the northern Kanto region, before which it was kept in a temple in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, its existence was unknown until it was sold to a Buddhist dealer and then bought by the consignor.
NHK's night news reported the sculpture was originally in a Buddhist temple housed by Kabasaki Hachiman Shrine, as I thought. It is most likely that the sculpture was the one that Ashikaga Yoshikane brought there from Kamakura.
The statue is believed to have come from a temple during the Meiji period (1868-1911) when the government officially adopted Shinto as the state religion. Upon leaving the temple, it was a part of a prominent family collection in the northern part of the Kanto region. The statue’s existence was unknown until it was later sold to a Buddhist dealer and bought by the current owner. Suspecting the figure was hollow inside, the owner approached the curator at the Tokyo National Museum and it was discovered by X-rays that the figure contains three dedicatory objects, sealed inside the torso for over 800 years.
The three objects, a wood five–stage pagoda, crystal ball supported by a bronze stand, and a crystal five-stage pagoda, represent Buddhist symbols and are tied together with bronze wire. The wooden plague is likely to be inscribed with the date of the dedication and the name of the temple or donor, as well as the sculptor’s identity.
Ashikaga Yoshikane's name or his Buddhist name, Banna, might be written on the wooden plaque.
I visited Jōnangu (城南宮) to see Ume plum blossoms yesterday. Jyōnangu was a detached palace called Toba Rikyu (鳥羽離宮) or Jōnan Rikyu (城南離宮) that was originally constructed by Emperor Shirakawa (1053 – 1129). He ruled Japan as a cloistered emperor at the detached palace. It was also the place where the cloistered Emperor Go-toba (1180 – 1239) staged a rebellion called Jōkyū War in an attempt to overthrow the Kamakura shogunate in 1221. This detatched palace was also a stage of the Battle of Toba-Fushimi in 1868 at the very beginning of Meiji Era. In the battle, troop of Satsuma clan took up thir position here putting cannons at the ruins of the detached palace.
Weeping ume trees were in full bloom in the garden of Jōnangu.
Many Mejiro, or Japanese white-eyes, were pecking around at the core of flowers. Were they sucking nectar in the flowers?
The following is Serikawa shrine in the lot of Jōnangu. Sugawara no Michizane (845-903) who favored ume blossoms is enshrined in the shrine.
He is cooking glutinous rice (mochi-gome) in front of torii gate of the shrine.
