Sleeping Boy and Kite Flying

たこだいたなりですやすやたりけり 一茶
tako daita nari de suya-suya netari keri[1]

holding his kite
soundly and peacefully
sleeping
—Issa
[2]

Hiroshige - Kakegawa Kites Flying at Fukuroi
Hiroshige – Kakegawa Kites Flying at Fukuroi

Kite is a spring kigo (season word), so this is considered a spring haiku, but flying kites is traditional a New Years activity in Japan and so that is the time that might be first thought of when we hear the word.

It’s right there in the second verse of the New Year’s song (Oshōgatsu)

お正月には凧あげて
Oshōgatsu ni wa, tako agete
On New Year’s Day, we will fly kites

On the traditional calendar, Japan celebrated the lunar New Year and that was usually near the first day of spring, so you can see the connection.[3]

As sweet a scene as this haiku paints, it is actually bittersweet. Issa’s children all died young, too young to have enjoyed flying a kite. He wrote this in 1816, after they were all gone. He may have been sitting there one day close to New Years and thinking of them, wishing he had had a chance to watch them enjoy this traditional activity.

I can really relate to this haiku. When my boys were smaller they were always falling asleep clutching their toys close. Well, they still do that. When they were smaller it was usually toy cars or action figures; these days it is usually their Switch.

Some things never change, eh?


  1. See: Pronunciation of Japanese  ↩

  2. See: a note on translations  ↩

  3. Technically the system that tracked the seasons was a solar system whereas the calendar was a lunar system. As you might imagine, these two systems didn’t sync up exactly. For example, this year (2024) the first day of spring occurred about a week before the lunar new year.  ↩

Drunk and Playing in the Snow with Bashō

We may be into the traditional spring as I write this, but much of the northern hemisphere is still pretty cold right now. Thinking about that, I was reminded of this winter haiku the other day.

いざ行かむ雪見にころぶ所まで 芭蕉
iza yukan yukimi ni korobu tokoro made[1]

say, let’s go
enjoying looking at the snow
till we stumble and fall
—Bashō
[2]

Zojoji Temple in Snow by Tsuchiya Koitsu
Zojoji Temple in Snow by Tsuchiya Koitsu

This haiku has a few different versions. The one above appears in Bashō’s haibun Oi no Kobumi (“Knapsack Notebook”). He originally wrote it at a book merchant’s house in Nagoya. He was enjoying the effects of sake that evening and was in a jolly mood. When it started snowing and had accumulated a bit, he composed this poem and suggested everyone go outside for some snow-viewing (yukimi), an activity that was similar to Cherry Blossom viewing (hanami) or moon viewing (tsukimi); and just like those activities, usually involved ample sake.

With the last line he might be suggesting the alcohol will get the best of them and they will lose their balance, or that the snow will prove too slippery for them, or maybe both.

The Japanese begins with the repeated “yu” sound in yukan yukimi (“let’s go, snow viewing”) which gives it a light playful sound. He was drunk, after all, and this nicely captures the playful mood. I tried to capture this with my translation say…snow. Technically say would be iza, which is something like now, well and is used when a person has a sudden idea. We also something use say for this meaning, so it works. Adding a third s word in the last line continues the idea.

Spring (and Setsubun) Before the New Year in Poetry

We have an interesting phenomenon this year, illustrating one of the complexities in Japan’s old calendar systems. It’s not an uncommon thing, and as he often was, Bashō was there about 360 years ago to write about it.

春や来し年や行きけん小晦日 芭蕉
haru ya koshi toshi ya yukiken kotsugomori[1]

is spring here?
is the year over?
second-to-last-day
—Bashō
[2]

Early Spring - Takeuchi Keishu
Early Spring – Takeuchi Keishu

Today is Setsubun! It seems like I write about this day every year, so go read the write up I did last year. Suffice to say it is a spring celebration. Tomorrow is the start of spring, called Risshun!

Now the system that gives us Setsubun and the other microseasonal events I often post about (24節気) is a solar system, whereas the old calendar is a lunar system, so the first day of spring doesn’t always line up with Lunar New Year. This is what Bashō is talking about in his haiku above. He’s expressing some playful confusion at how it can be spring when the year isn’t over yet.

In his case, the two systems were only out of alignment by two days. This year is one of those years when it doesn’t line up, but it’s out of sync by more than two days for us. Lunar New Year isn’t until Feb 10th this year.

(Keep in mind Japan celebrated New Years with the Lunar New Year before switching to the Gregorian calendar in 1871 and changing the day to Jan 1st)

Most normal people didn’t really care. It was a curiosity when the two dates didn’t line up, but nothing to waste time thinking about. Poets, however: we tend to notice such things. In the haiku world, there are many kigo (season words) to describe times like this, when spring begins a few days before the New Year. This one from Bashō may be the most famous.

This is actually the first dated haiku we have from Bashō, written in 1662 when he was only 19 years old. At this time in his career he was all about the clever wordplay and allusions to older poetry, and that is on full display here as he is borrowing phrasing from one classic poem from the Ise Monogatari and is also pointing at another famous poem from the Kokin Wakashū. Both of these poems would have been fairly well-known in his day, so many readers would have easily gotten his jokes.

The second of those poems he is alluding to is by Ariwara no Motokata:

年のうちに春は来にけりひととせをこぞとやいはむことしとやいはむ
toshi no uchi ni haru wa kinikeri hitotose o
kozo to ya iwan kotoshi to ya iwan

spring has come
before the year’s end
the remaining days
do we call them
this year or last?
—Ariwara no Motokata[3]

Bashō would later move away from this kind of word play, but in his early years he loved it.

These days Japan no longer follows the same lunar calendar that much of Asia still does, so mention of this idea in haiku has probably all but disappeared. Japan does still follow the system of microseasons for many events, so celebrations of days like Setsubun are still pretty common.

By the way, if you are eating a sushi roll for Setsubun this year (again, see that linked post) then the lucky direction for 2024 is east-northeast.

Bare Branches ~ A Few Original Haiku

As always, for the past months I have been dutifully recording at least one haiku every day on my notecards. Sometimes more, but at least one.[1] Anyway, I usually just record the haiku and then immediately file them away in one of my haiku boxes. But sometimes I am lazy and just stack them in a pile on my desk. That’s what I am looking at now. Glancing through this pile, most are poor, but a few are a little better. Here are some of them with random photos.

bare branches
against the sky
waiting for spring

It was a grey day, having just rained and still overcast, portending more to come later. I went on a walk and found myself looking up at the trees, paying attention to all the bare branches. For some reason they were jumping out at me on this day.

i turn on the heat
in my son’s room
the balloon dances

A few days ago was my oldest son’s birthday. My wife picked up a birthday balloon for decoration. After we celebrated, he wanted to keep it in his room.

the screen beckons
but I look
away

The computer is always an addiction. Even when I don’t have any work, there is always the nagging feeling that there might be something I should be doing—writing something, working on my web page, reading about new cryptos to trade, etc.

the muse
grants me one more
haiku

Often when think I want to write a haiku, I have nothing in my head. It’s when I empty my mind, get rid of the desire to write, and start to observe things, that words start to pop into my head. In other words, nothing usually happens until I let go. I don’t know what triggered the words for this one, but it made me grin so I decided to write it down.


And another pile filed away. I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to going through these boxes to select some for publication, or if I’ll leave them for my kids to throw away after I pass on. But I keep adding them!

All photos from Hipstamatic, by the way, which is absolutely my favorite camera app.


  1. I’m sure the details of my haiku writing habit are on posts that I haven’t yet restored to this site. Oh well. One of these days I’ll write about my habit anew.  ↩

First Cultivated Eel Due in 2025

Do you like unagi? Do you like it enough to eat cultivated unagi?

According to the startup, the cultivated eel delivers the delicate texture and flavorful taste of the Japanese unagi eel (Anguilla japonica), renowned for its tenderness and rich flavor.

To demonstrate the potential of its new development, Forsea worked with chef Katsumi Kusumoto of Saido, a popular vegan restaurant in Tokyo, to craft two traditional Japanese dishes — unagi kabayaki (marinated grilled eel over rice) and unagi nigiri

I’d try it, I suppose. I am usually vegan, but is this food against that? Is cultivated meat still meat? It’s not from a living creature, so I suppose not. But I’ve seen arguments for and against from strict vegans.

At any rate, they are trying to make it available by next year when evidently the Japanese law will change which currently bans cultivated meat.

LINK: Forsea Develops World’s First Cultivated Eel Fillet, Plans Commercial Launch in 2025

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