Saturday, 10 October 2020

Going Home

There is an old Chinese poem. It goes:

少小离家老大回，乡音无改鬓毛衰
儿童相见不相识，笑问客从何处来。

I left home young, now old, I return care free, My tongue unchanged, my hair now thinner be.

Unknown I am to the boys and girls I meet, Smiling they ask, “Sir, from whence come thee?”

Presumably this bicycling salaryman hasn’t been away at the office quite that long, but then again, knowing Japanese office demands, I wouldn’t be surprised…

But rather than Chinese poetry, maybe he has a simplier tune echoing in his head

Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho
It’s home from work I go

Although bicycle usage perhaps isn’t as high as the stereotype, it still is a pretty common way to get around, even for businessmen. The idea of seeing a businessman in a nice suit and tie on a bicycle might seem somewhat comical (or sad1) in the States, but it is a common enough occurrence as to be normal in Japan2.

  1. One is reminded of the Margaret Thatcher quote, “Anyone who rides the bus after 25 is a failure.” A harsh opinion from the Iron Lady. It doesn’t seem farfetched to think she may have extended that quote to riding a bicycle to work.  ↩

  2. Nested in the bicycle basket was his briefcase. As in the US, hard briefcases went out of fashion a couple decades (or more) ago, but you still see them occasionally, especially with older folks. The type of bicycle he was riding—and the most common type you will see in Japan—is casually referred to as a mamachari (ママチャリ, literally “mom’s bike”). Despite the name, everyone uses them. They aren’t stylish, but they are solidly constructed and work well.  ↩

Friday, 2 October 2020

Once Upon a Time in the East

Welcome to Rokusho Shrine (六所神社), the beautiful family shrine of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Or at least the entrance to it.

Once upon a time in the East, a man named Tokugawa Ieyasu was a pretty big deal. He would go on to conquer Japan in 1600 and be declared shōgun in 1603, and his family would continue to rule the country until 1868 when the emperor took charge again1.

Long before he rose to that height, however, he was known as Matsudaira Takechiyo, and he was born in Okazaki Castle, in Mikawa, near Nagoya. The shrine in the photo was his family shrine.

Because of that connection, after he became shōgun, this shrine became much more popular. The Tokugawa government protected it and fixed it up, renovating the buildings in the shrine complex and adding more. Only the most powerful regional lords were allowed to actually enter the shrine. All others had to be content to simply look at it and pray from the outside.2

This gate in the photo is a great example of a rōmon gate, which is common at the entrances to larger or more important shrines. Rōmon gates are two storied gates, but the second story is often sealed and not accessible. The shrine itself is still popular these days, mostly with pregnant women, as a visit here is suppose to bless them with an easy childbirth and gives them hope that their own child will grow to be as successful as Ieyasu.3

  1. This would be the Emperor Meiji, grandfather to Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa), and he was only a young man when this event went down so it is debatable how much say he had in things, at least in the beginning. The emperors of Japan have mostly been puppets since ancient times, so he would go on to be the first Japanese emperor in many centuries to actually hold some degree of power.  ↩

  2. Only lords whose domains produced more than 50,000 koku of rice were allowed to enter. 1 koku (石) is roughly equal to 5 bushels, approximately 180 liters, which was considered enough to feed one person for a year. Koku of rice produced was basically the measure of power in pre-modern Japan. 50,000 koku would have been equal to about 9,019,534 liters or 255,953 bushels. That’s a lot of rice.  ↩

  3. And, perhaps, also conquer Japan someday.  ↩

Wednesday, 30 September 2020

Star Wars Groove

Just when you thought you’d heard every variation of the Star Wars theme, here is a groovy 1978 remix of the Star Wars soundtrack from Osamu Shoji. Shoji was best known for his Jazz/Synth fusion anime records, and this follows suit. It’s weird, but delightful.

Tuesday, 29 September 2020

The Art of Getting Things Done (Haiku-Style): Buson, fireflies, and the fleeting light of learning

學問は尻からぬけるほたる哉
gakumon wa shiri kara nukeru hotaru kana1

great learning
quick to vanish
like the light of a firefly
—Buson2

That is a painting by Buson to go along with the poem. Buson often painted the haiku he wrote, a combination called haiga (俳画).

This is a summer haiku, given by the kigo hotaru (蛍, firefly). It is autumn as I post this, but as I was reading a book on Buson today I came across this and wanted to take a crack at it.

Most of us think of haiku as always serious, but there is plenty of fun to be had in the form. This one is Buson having fun and making a bit of a joke. The joke hinges on the second line, shiri kara nukeru, which means the same as our idiom “in one ear, out the other”, but literally says “coming out of the butt”. Now the connection to fireflies becomes clear, with their bums that light up.

There’s more at work here though. There is famous Chinese talltale about a fellow named Che Yin (车胤), a man from a poor family who couldn’t even afford candles to study by at night. The story goes that he caught fireflies and wrapped them in a cloth bag so that he could read at night.

The idea from this old story is illustrated by the phrase keisetsu no kou (蛍雪の功) which literally means “firefly snow success” and is used when your hard work and study has paid off or for expressing the effort itself. There is also a monthly journal for passing the entrance exam for university that has been published since 1941 called keisetsu jidai (螢雪時代), literally “firefly snow era”.3

The person in Buson’s haiku is not quite as studious as old Che Yin, however, and appears to be dozing off. Perhaps he is distracted by the fireflies and is, instead of studying, composing a haiku.

Most translations of this haiku tend to try to be literal, attempting to include the joke or at least some mention of “butt” or “ass”, for shock value I suppose. I usually also try to translate literally, but I don’t think that works so well for this one. At the risk of losing the humor, I choose to simply go with the suggestion that the gains of studying are just as temporary as the light of a firefly.

But maybe we can do better. The great Keigu4 often gives multiple translations of a single haiku, reasoning that it is nearly impossible to show all the meanings of the original Japanese in any one English translation. I might do the same, also offering this one to try to hint at the humor of the original:

learning
like a firefly’s light
easily escapes me

By the way, Buson originally published this in an anthology created in honor of the 13th anniversary of the death of Kikei, who was the father of his disciple Kitō. Buson purposely wanted to include many humorous haiku in the anthology in order to stand out from the usual more somber memorial anthologies. Isn’t that fantastic?

  1. See: Pronunciation of Japanese  ↩

  2. See: a note on translations  ↩

  3. “Snow” because whereas the light of fireflies enable you to study at night in summer, the moonlight reflecting off the snow enables the same in winter. Reading or studying with the aid of snow is from yet another old Chinese story, that of Sun Kang (孙康), who was in the same situation as Che Yin but used snow to help him instead of fireflies.  ↩

  4. That is Robin Gill, who has published a number of wonderful (and huge) tomes of translations, and writes under the pen name Keigu (敬愚, “Yours foolishly”)  ↩

[Last updated: 3 Aug 2025]

Thursday, 24 September 2020

The Great Wave

Speaking of Hokusai, here is an interesting video looking at what is probably his most well-known and most popular print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa.

If interested in more, The Great Wave off Kanagawa is popular enough to have its own Wikipedia entry.

There is more in the archives