May 28, 2009
Kurosawa Archive Opened
Kurosawa Production and Ryukoku University have opened an archive site dedicated to the great film director Kurosawa Akira. Photos from Kurosawa's life, stills from his films, copies of articles, notes Kurosawa made, and drawings of scenes have been included in the database. The site is only in Japanese. I had a look but must say it is very bare bones. There are permalinks for each item, so you can point to them from your website, but you are not allowed to download (at least, I could not find such items) or embed - but at least the site is not password protected.
May 25, 2009
The Six Temples of Okazaki Park, Kyoto
Once upon a time, Okazaki Park, now known for its museums and zoo, was filled to the brim with with the most beautiful temples of the land...
No, there is nothing left of them, the Six Temples or Rokushoji of late Heian times - history has been at its most cruel here. Shirakawa, the first politically active Retired Emperor (In), began building the first of the six in 1075, in the Shirakawa district of Kyoto, northeast of the Imperial palace - where we now find Okazaki park.
In the next century, six huge temples and two residences were built here by the successive emperors Toba, Sutoku and Konoe. As these so-called Retired Emperors had replaced the Fujiwara regents as the "power behind the throne" (with a young child emperor) the temples were also centers of government.
As a sign of the times, they all carried the Chinese character "sho" or "katsu," victory, in their names. The temples were not simply established as acts of piety, but rather as ways of protecting income from imperial estates and a certain way of life, as John W. Hall says in Medieval Japan. The building of these large temples served as a way to extract support from aristocratic families as well as to justify to use of public taxes for the imperial house.
In historical order, the six temples were:
Hosshoji, officially dedicated after two years of building activities in 1077, by Emperor Shirakawa. At Hosshoji, the main hall opened on a lake and consisted of a large center chapel flanked on each side by corridors of many bays - a bit like Byodoin. The main image here was a 9.5 meter tall Vairocana Buddha as in Nara's Todaiji. The Lecture Hall housed a Shaka Trinity, the Godaison Hall statues of the esoteric Five Kings of Light.
On the opposite side of the pond was an Amida Hall with nine Amida statues as in Joruriji. Later a Yakushi Hall was added and on an islet in the pond a spectacular octagonal pagoda soared nine stories skyward. There was also a sutra repository containing a copy of the complete Buddhist canon.
Hosshoji stood at the location of the present Kyoto Zoo and the school grounds north of it. Initially, the temple flourished greatly as the family temple of the Imperial House. The downturn began in 1208, when a thunderstorm caused a fire. This was followed by the weakening of the Imperial power after the Jokyu Disturbance of 1219. The Onin War added the finishing touch, leaving no trace of the wonderful architecture and marvelous statues and other art treasures.
Sonshoji, in 1102 by Emperor Horikawa. Sonshoji was laid out on a plan similar to Nara's Kofukuji. It stood in Okazaki Park at the location of the present Kyoto Kaikan. This was the second largest of the six, after Hosshoji. Besides a Golden Hall, Kodo and Middle Gate there were a Kannon hall, a Yakushi hall and a Godai Hall (again dedicated to the Five Kings of Light). Like Hosshoji, this temple started weakening in the middle Kamakura period.
Saishoji, in 1118 by Emperor Toba. Characterized by the presence of three pagodas, besides the usual Golden Hall, Yakushi Hall and Godai Hall. Stood along the road to the present Heian Shrine. This temple was destroyed by fire in 1219.
Enshoji, 1126 by Taikenmonin, the wife of Emperor Toba. This temple also had three pagodas - a five-storied pagoda flanked by two three-storied pagodas on an east-west axis. The Main Hall was dedicated to the Five Buddhas, there was a Yakushi Hall and a Godai Hall. Stood where now the Kyoto Municipal Museum is. The temple's fortunes weakened from the mid-Kamakura period.
Seishoji, 1139 by Emperor Sutoku. The details about this temple are vague, although there were at least a Golden hall, Lecture Hall, sutra repository and bell tower. The temple was destroyed by fire in 1219.
Enshoji, 1149 by Emperor Konoe. This temple counted a Golden hall, pagoda and Ichijikinrin Hall (One Syllable Golden Wheel was an esoteric Buddhist deity). In 1163 a hall with nine Amida statues was added. The pagoda and Golden hall burned in 1219, the whole temple was lost in 1225.
Try to dream up Okazaki Park in the late 12th century: six huge temples with in total at least eight soaring pagodas, halls with magnificent statues, of the quality of Byodoin and Joruriji... A Buddhist art paradise... and nothing whatsoever is left of it. Why? The temple's power in the politics of the day was too prominent, they were bound up with the fate of the system of government by Retired Emperors that was replaced by shogunal rule in the Kamakura period. To destroy a political system also its symbols had to be destroyed...
[Hiraizumi was another place where beautiful temples were destroyed]
No, there is nothing left of them, the Six Temples or Rokushoji of late Heian times - history has been at its most cruel here. Shirakawa, the first politically active Retired Emperor (In), began building the first of the six in 1075, in the Shirakawa district of Kyoto, northeast of the Imperial palace - where we now find Okazaki park.
In the next century, six huge temples and two residences were built here by the successive emperors Toba, Sutoku and Konoe. As these so-called Retired Emperors had replaced the Fujiwara regents as the "power behind the throne" (with a young child emperor) the temples were also centers of government.
As a sign of the times, they all carried the Chinese character "sho" or "katsu," victory, in their names. The temples were not simply established as acts of piety, but rather as ways of protecting income from imperial estates and a certain way of life, as John W. Hall says in Medieval Japan. The building of these large temples served as a way to extract support from aristocratic families as well as to justify to use of public taxes for the imperial house.
In historical order, the six temples were:
Hosshoji, officially dedicated after two years of building activities in 1077, by Emperor Shirakawa. At Hosshoji, the main hall opened on a lake and consisted of a large center chapel flanked on each side by corridors of many bays - a bit like Byodoin. The main image here was a 9.5 meter tall Vairocana Buddha as in Nara's Todaiji. The Lecture Hall housed a Shaka Trinity, the Godaison Hall statues of the esoteric Five Kings of Light.
On the opposite side of the pond was an Amida Hall with nine Amida statues as in Joruriji. Later a Yakushi Hall was added and on an islet in the pond a spectacular octagonal pagoda soared nine stories skyward. There was also a sutra repository containing a copy of the complete Buddhist canon.
Hosshoji stood at the location of the present Kyoto Zoo and the school grounds north of it. Initially, the temple flourished greatly as the family temple of the Imperial House. The downturn began in 1208, when a thunderstorm caused a fire. This was followed by the weakening of the Imperial power after the Jokyu Disturbance of 1219. The Onin War added the finishing touch, leaving no trace of the wonderful architecture and marvelous statues and other art treasures.
Sonshoji, in 1102 by Emperor Horikawa. Sonshoji was laid out on a plan similar to Nara's Kofukuji. It stood in Okazaki Park at the location of the present Kyoto Kaikan. This was the second largest of the six, after Hosshoji. Besides a Golden Hall, Kodo and Middle Gate there were a Kannon hall, a Yakushi hall and a Godai Hall (again dedicated to the Five Kings of Light). Like Hosshoji, this temple started weakening in the middle Kamakura period.
Saishoji, in 1118 by Emperor Toba. Characterized by the presence of three pagodas, besides the usual Golden Hall, Yakushi Hall and Godai Hall. Stood along the road to the present Heian Shrine. This temple was destroyed by fire in 1219.
Enshoji, 1126 by Taikenmonin, the wife of Emperor Toba. This temple also had three pagodas - a five-storied pagoda flanked by two three-storied pagodas on an east-west axis. The Main Hall was dedicated to the Five Buddhas, there was a Yakushi Hall and a Godai Hall. Stood where now the Kyoto Municipal Museum is. The temple's fortunes weakened from the mid-Kamakura period.
Seishoji, 1139 by Emperor Sutoku. The details about this temple are vague, although there were at least a Golden hall, Lecture Hall, sutra repository and bell tower. The temple was destroyed by fire in 1219.
Enshoji, 1149 by Emperor Konoe. This temple counted a Golden hall, pagoda and Ichijikinrin Hall (One Syllable Golden Wheel was an esoteric Buddhist deity). In 1163 a hall with nine Amida statues was added. The pagoda and Golden hall burned in 1219, the whole temple was lost in 1225.
Try to dream up Okazaki Park in the late 12th century: six huge temples with in total at least eight soaring pagodas, halls with magnificent statues, of the quality of Byodoin and Joruriji... A Buddhist art paradise... and nothing whatsoever is left of it. Why? The temple's power in the politics of the day was too prominent, they were bound up with the fate of the system of government by Retired Emperors that was replaced by shogunal rule in the Kamakura period. To destroy a political system also its symbols had to be destroyed...
[Hiraizumi was another place where beautiful temples were destroyed]
May 22, 2009
Elsewhere on the web
The Japan Times has a useful article about the kanji used for the names of fish and how to remember them - a great help in the sushi bar!
Interesting article in The New Yorker: How David beats Goliath - When underdogs break the rules.
55 Ways to get more energy (from Zenhabits) - there should at least be one that works. I was quite energized by my recent visit to the U.S.
Frugalista Japan on the low value of 100 yen stores.
Interesting article in The New Yorker: How David beats Goliath - When underdogs break the rules.
55 Ways to get more energy (from Zenhabits) - there should at least be one that works. I was quite energized by my recent visit to the U.S.
Frugalista Japan on the low value of 100 yen stores.
May 21, 2009
Haiku by Takahama Kyoshi
Do you know haiku poet Takahama Kyoshi (1874-1959)? He was a central figure in the 20th century, claiming the conservative part of Shiki's heritage (including the magazine Hototogisu), and with strict hand lorded it over the haiku world, in feudal and good political fashion starting a new dynasty as he was succeeded as "haiku emperor" by his daughter and other family members... (Sato Hiroaki calls him "the dictatorial inheritor of the conservative wing of the Shiki circle").
So far I had never been very enthusiastic about Kyoshi's haiku. I felt strengthened in this view by the fact that there have been no studies or translations dedicated to Kyoshi in English. Kyoshi wrote 50,000 haiku and many are occasional verse where he uses a place name as filler. One could just as well fill in another name. Other haiku by Kyoshi are very pompous, perhaps an indication of the man's character, but also a deadly sin in a genre that should be full of karumi.
But I recently found two articles on the web that at least partially changed my opinion. The most important one is a translation of 101 exceptional haiku of Kyoshi by Katsuya Hiromoto of Keio University and published in one of the university's online magazines. Another article by the same author gives a biography of Kyoshi.
The second article is on the Kyoshi Memorial Museum website which carries detailed discussions of 15 of his haiku (plus again a biography).
Here are some of Kyoshi's simplest and therefore best haiku (in my own literal renderings):
[Classic Haiku by Miura also contains translations of several haiku by Kyoshi.]
So far I had never been very enthusiastic about Kyoshi's haiku. I felt strengthened in this view by the fact that there have been no studies or translations dedicated to Kyoshi in English. Kyoshi wrote 50,000 haiku and many are occasional verse where he uses a place name as filler. One could just as well fill in another name. Other haiku by Kyoshi are very pompous, perhaps an indication of the man's character, but also a deadly sin in a genre that should be full of karumi.
But I recently found two articles on the web that at least partially changed my opinion. The most important one is a translation of 101 exceptional haiku of Kyoshi by Katsuya Hiromoto of Keio University and published in one of the university's online magazines. Another article by the same author gives a biography of Kyoshi.
The second article is on the Kyoshi Memorial Museum website which carries detailed discussions of 15 of his haiku (plus again a biography).
Here are some of Kyoshi's simplest and therefore best haiku (in my own literal renderings):
tohyama ni | hi no ataritaru | kareno kanaThe last two haiku even are humorous!
on distant hills
the sun shines down:
barren field
gyohzui no | onna ni horeru | karasu kana
falling in love
with a bathing woman:
a crow
doka to toku | natsu-obi ni ku wo | kake to koso
with a thud
she untied her summer sash:
"write me a haiku here!"
[Classic Haiku by Miura also contains translations of several haiku by Kyoshi.]
Back from the U.S.
Last week I was for business in San Francisco and Los Angeles - a breath of fresh air after all the hysteria of bio-hazard suits and mouth cap mania in the bell jar that is Japan.
There was a Barnes and Noble close to my hotel in LA and I stacked up on some books related to the city. That is how I made the acquaintance of the crime novels of Michael Connelly, whose "maverick LAPD homicide detective" Harry Bosch is quite a character. Think Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer. The plots are dark and tense as Bosch ("Hieronymus" after the Dutch painter) has to fight inside enemies as well and anyway is not the easiest character to get along with colleagues. I started with The Black Echo, and it tastes like more.
[Interview with Michael Connelly]
Talking about crime, one thing that struck me in the U.S. was how safe the country in fact feels as long as you keep out of the wrong neighborhoods. Offices and warehouses on industrial estates were unlocked - yes, in the daytime, with people around, but in Amsterdam you will find them bolted even during the day. Is it because law enforcement in the U.S. is stricter than in the rather lax Netherlands? Another striking contrast with Holland where people nowadays even seem to take pride in being ill-mannered is of course the friendliness and politeness I experienced on the West Coast. Professional politeness in fact was not very different from Japan (but much better than in the "Old World"), while the level of friendliness and openness is of course much greater.
There was a Barnes and Noble close to my hotel in LA and I stacked up on some books related to the city. That is how I made the acquaintance of the crime novels of Michael Connelly, whose "maverick LAPD homicide detective" Harry Bosch is quite a character. Think Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer. The plots are dark and tense as Bosch ("Hieronymus" after the Dutch painter) has to fight inside enemies as well and anyway is not the easiest character to get along with colleagues. I started with The Black Echo, and it tastes like more.
[Interview with Michael Connelly]
Talking about crime, one thing that struck me in the U.S. was how safe the country in fact feels as long as you keep out of the wrong neighborhoods. Offices and warehouses on industrial estates were unlocked - yes, in the daytime, with people around, but in Amsterdam you will find them bolted even during the day. Is it because law enforcement in the U.S. is stricter than in the rather lax Netherlands? Another striking contrast with Holland where people nowadays even seem to take pride in being ill-mannered is of course the friendliness and politeness I experienced on the West Coast. Professional politeness in fact was not very different from Japan (but much better than in the "Old World"), while the level of friendliness and openness is of course much greater.
May 20, 2009
Two links on Japanese literature
The Japanese Literature Publishing Project is an interesting site, with profiles of translated authors and news from the world of Japanese literature - and even some translations of short stories. Worth reading is also this take on Japanese literature in 2008.
Backnumbers of the New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies are available via their Archives - such as this article by Andres Hock Soon Ng on ghostly elements in Murakami's Wind-up Bird Chronicle and Yoshimoto's Love Songs.
Backnumbers of the New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies are available via their Archives - such as this article by Andres Hock Soon Ng on ghostly elements in Murakami's Wind-up Bird Chronicle and Yoshimoto's Love Songs.
May 6, 2009
The Paraverse of Robin D. Gill - countless haiku and various intercultural musings
The publishing industry is unfair, especially in our day, when only superficial bestsellers count. There is only one solution for serious authors: self-publishing. That is what Robin D. Gill has been doing with a vengeance and so far he has seven beautiful books to his account. They are a mixture of Blyth, the proliferous haiku translator of the fifties and sixties of the 20th century, and Laurence Sterne, known for his endless notes and asides. In other words, if you like big, wide-ranging and intellectually stimulating books, this is your fare!
Robin D. Gill is an American who for a long time lived and worked in Japan as acquisitions editor and translations checker. During that period, he learned perfect Japanese and published seven books in Japanese mainly about intercultural misunderstandings based on mistranslations and differences in language. Since then back in the U.S. (Florida), he is spending his time writing immense books for that self-publishing venture, Paraverse Press.
One of his earliest and most interesting books is RISE, YE SEA SLUGS! In this hefty tome he compiles and translates 1,000 (yes, one thousand) haiku on a single natural theme, the sea slug (namako, as Gill discusses more aptly called "sea cucumber" but that is an awkward term in translation). Here and in his other translations he follows the golden rule set of
Robin D. Gill's next blockbuster was TOPSY-TURVY 1585, 611 ways Europeans and Japanese are contrary, a translation and of course explication with countless notes and asides, full of humor, of Luis Frois's famous intercultural treatise (Tratado) - the first look at Japan from an European point of view. Luis Frois was a 16th c. Portuguese Jesuit who spent all of his adult life in Japan and wrote from a standpoint of cultural relativity, with lots of appreciation for Japan. Gill examines the validity of his "topsy-turvy" claims and then plays around with them - as the author himself proclaims:
Robin D. Gill wrote five other books which I will just mention briefly, as I hope to come back to (most of) them at some other time: FLY-KU! about just one haiku, the famous verse about "to swat or not to swat" by Issa:
The next book was as a gimmick published under two different titles: The Woman Without a Hole & Other Risky Themes from Old Japanese Poems and Octopussy, Dry Kidney & Blue Spots. So be careful that you don't end up buying both, because they are exactly the same - just select one with the title you prefer! This is a collection of 1,300 senryu, again with original texts, translations and explanations. The theme is "dirty" - very much so, so skip it when you have sensibilites that can be offended! - the senryu that Blyth in his two volumes with senryu translations could not publish (by the way, why are these books by Blyth never republished? I have been waiting for them for decades!). These senryu with their obscure obscenities are very difficult and Gill has again pulled off a terrific feat. From the insatiable sex drive of Empress Shotoku (with her priestly lover Dokyo) to Ono Komachi, the famous poetess who was considered as "holeless" by senryu authors - this is the perfect literary pendant to shunga. The book can again be sampled on Google Books or bought at Amazon.
Gill has compiled to more haiku books, one on sakura, cherry blossoms (Cherry Blossom Epiphany), the other on the theme of the Fifth Season, New Year (The Fifth Season). I am still waiting for them to arrive and really looking forward to them, but for now I can't say more about them.
Finally, his first book was a smaller volume on intercultural stuff (and the impossibility of translation), called Orientalism and Occidentalism, where he also draws attention to the Occidentalism from the side of the Japanese. In comparison with the other heavy salvos, this is the slightest volume, but especially the notes are interesting. If you like Blyth, you will also enjoy Robin D. Gill - even more so, as he is more humorous and challenging. If you feel smothered by long asides and digressions, you can easily skip them as there will be enough book left - and the prices are very reasonable anyway. But you will loose something good as well: Gill's references include interesting artifacts of obscure Japanese lore.
Why isn't this amazing scholar with his deep knowledge of Japanese culture on the payroll of a major university? Why are his books not published by Harvard or Stanford UP, or even Hawai'i UP? And why, once published, doesn't one major "established" reviewer bother to review them? Check it out and if you like his books, you can support Robin D. Gill in his further publishing ventures (I have had no contact with him yet, but on his website he says he needs it!) by actually buying the books - they are all available on Amazon Japan and Amazon.com, as well as on the B&N website! What do you think about these books?
Robin D. Gill is an American who for a long time lived and worked in Japan as acquisitions editor and translations checker. During that period, he learned perfect Japanese and published seven books in Japanese mainly about intercultural misunderstandings based on mistranslations and differences in language. Since then back in the U.S. (Florida), he is spending his time writing immense books for that self-publishing venture, Paraverse Press.
One of his earliest and most interesting books is RISE, YE SEA SLUGS! In this hefty tome he compiles and translates 1,000 (yes, one thousand) haiku on a single natural theme, the sea slug (namako, as Gill discusses more aptly called "sea cucumber" but that is an awkward term in translation). Here and in his other translations he follows the golden rule set of
- providing the Japanese version of all translated haiku
- a romanization
- a literal translation
- and finally, often not one translation, but several possible versions, all in beautiful English (this is what he calls "paraverse").
mui ni shite namako ichiman hassen sai and the translations: dolche far niente idle sea slug lives for eons longevity staying put the sea slug makes it a long way sage government doing nothing the sea slug rules a million yearsBut I will say no more about it here as I intend to write a full review after I finish (and digest) this huge book. You can find parts of the book here on Google Books to try it out.
Robin D. Gill's next blockbuster was TOPSY-TURVY 1585, 611 ways Europeans and Japanese are contrary, a translation and of course explication with countless notes and asides, full of humor, of Luis Frois's famous intercultural treatise (Tratado) - the first look at Japan from an European point of view. Luis Frois was a 16th c. Portuguese Jesuit who spent all of his adult life in Japan and wrote from a standpoint of cultural relativity, with lots of appreciation for Japan. Gill examines the validity of his "topsy-turvy" claims and then plays around with them - as the author himself proclaims:
"Readers with the intellectual horsepower to enjoy ideas will be grateful for pages discussing things like the significance of black and white clothing or large eyes vs. small ones, while others who seek quirky facts will be delighted to find, say, that the women in Kyoto were known to urinate standing up, or Japanese horses had their stale gathered by long-handled ladles, etc., [..]"To give another example, from "We eat everything with our fingers; The Japanese, men and women, from childhood, eat with two sticks" I learned that our modern cutlery dates from well past the 16th century - it only became common in the 19th c., and initially forks were considered as decadent instruments of the devil as I discovered when I delved even more deeper into it myself - Gill's musings can be great jumping-off points to other discoveries. This is the perfect book to dip into now and then, but you may find it so interesting that you keep reading longer than you intended to!
Robin D. Gill wrote five other books which I will just mention briefly, as I hope to come back to (most of) them at some other time: FLY-KU! about just one haiku, the famous verse about "to swat or not to swat" by Issa:
yare utsu na hae ga te wo suru ashi wo suru and here is the translation by the author: lord, don't swat! the fly prays with his hands and with his feet!Gill discusses many translations by other authors and introduces hundreds of other haiku about flies and fly swatters. His discussions range from natural history to haiku history (who was the first to notice that flies rub their limbs together?), but his "most important accomplishment is demonstrating how translation into English must either ruin poems by stripping words of their meaning or anthropomorphize them." In other words, there is nothing maudlin about Issa's haiku, it is purely an observation - and Issa did swat flies! Sample it on Google Books or buy it via Amazon!
The next book was as a gimmick published under two different titles: The Woman Without a Hole & Other Risky Themes from Old Japanese Poems and Octopussy, Dry Kidney & Blue Spots. So be careful that you don't end up buying both, because they are exactly the same - just select one with the title you prefer! This is a collection of 1,300 senryu, again with original texts, translations and explanations. The theme is "dirty" - very much so, so skip it when you have sensibilites that can be offended! - the senryu that Blyth in his two volumes with senryu translations could not publish (by the way, why are these books by Blyth never republished? I have been waiting for them for decades!). These senryu with their obscure obscenities are very difficult and Gill has again pulled off a terrific feat. From the insatiable sex drive of Empress Shotoku (with her priestly lover Dokyo) to Ono Komachi, the famous poetess who was considered as "holeless" by senryu authors - this is the perfect literary pendant to shunga. The book can again be sampled on Google Books or bought at Amazon.
Gill has compiled to more haiku books, one on sakura, cherry blossoms (Cherry Blossom Epiphany), the other on the theme of the Fifth Season, New Year (The Fifth Season). I am still waiting for them to arrive and really looking forward to them, but for now I can't say more about them.
Finally, his first book was a smaller volume on intercultural stuff (and the impossibility of translation), called Orientalism and Occidentalism, where he also draws attention to the Occidentalism from the side of the Japanese. In comparison with the other heavy salvos, this is the slightest volume, but especially the notes are interesting. If you like Blyth, you will also enjoy Robin D. Gill - even more so, as he is more humorous and challenging. If you feel smothered by long asides and digressions, you can easily skip them as there will be enough book left - and the prices are very reasonable anyway. But you will loose something good as well: Gill's references include interesting artifacts of obscure Japanese lore.
Why isn't this amazing scholar with his deep knowledge of Japanese culture on the payroll of a major university? Why are his books not published by Harvard or Stanford UP, or even Hawai'i UP? And why, once published, doesn't one major "established" reviewer bother to review them? Check it out and if you like his books, you can support Robin D. Gill in his further publishing ventures (I have had no contact with him yet, but on his website he says he needs it!) by actually buying the books - they are all available on Amazon Japan and Amazon.com, as well as on the B&N website! What do you think about these books?
Here is an interview with Robin D. Gill at Simply Haiku. When you check out the archives, you will see Gill also wrote a column for this magazine, Haiku in Context.
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