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.

The Craft Of Japanese Toy Making

A short but delightful video about a Japanese maker of traditional toys, mainly tops and related wooden toys.

A fourth-generation toy maker, Masaaki Hiroi, crafts intricate mechanical toys, no batteries required. At 80 years old, Hiroi only wishes he could live longer.

I hope there is a fifth-generation he’s teaching his craft to.

103 Hokusai Works Rediscovered

A collection of 103 original drawings by Hokusai has been rediscovered, part of what was essentially going to be an encyclopaedia.

The Great Picture Book of Everything was to have been a comprehensive way for the Japanese to have access to images of people, cultures and nature around the world – at a time when virtually no Japanese people had been allowed out of Japan for some two centuries – and virtually no foreigners had been allowed into 99 per cent of the country.

In that ultra-restrictive atmosphere, the project was to have given people an opportunity to explore a highly stylised printed version of the outside world as well as Japan itself.

Unfortunately it was never finished.

The project was abandoned in the 1830s – either because of cost or possibly because Hokusai insisted on reproduction standards that were difficult to attain.

You can see the entire collection at the Boston Museum of Art (link below). Some of these photos are amazing.

A few samples:

Here is the story from which I quoted above.

And here you can see fairly good scans of the collection online for free at the Boston Museum of Fine Art.

Wednesday, 23 September 2020

Autumn at the Shrine (Original Haiku)

Autumns can be magical in Japan, especially in places thick with Japanese maples, which turn a deep blazing red. Shrines, too, carry an otherworldly air with their quiet grounds and guardian statues. Combine the two and you get something really special, as I did in the following haiku:

狛犬よ友よともにや紅葉見る
komainu yo tomoyo tomo ni ya momiji chiru

komainu, old friend
let us watch the red leaves fall
autumn at the shrine
 — Tenjōka[1]

I enjoy spending time at the shrines of Japan. The smaller ones are usually quiet and peaceful. They might be located in busy areas, between buildings or next to busy roads, but they are crammed full of nature which often does a good job of absorbing much of the outside noise, leaving a sanctuary of sorts.

This photo is from a past autumn. On this particular visit, I was inspired to compose the haiku at the top of this post.

Some misc info about the stone statue you see. I have a post about this somewhere in my archives that I will restore one of these days, but until then…

Komainu (狛犬)[2] is a kind of lion-dog that protects against evil. The word itself means Korean Dog. Presumably when they came over by way of Korea with Buddhism, the Japanese thought they looked like dogs so named them accordingly.[3] In China they are suppose to be lions, hence the typical English translation lion-dog.[4] The lion is often associated with the teachings of the Buddha, where it is said that the teachings of the Buddha hit people like the roar of a lion.

There are always two komainu together, often flanking the entrance or path to a shrine: one with mouth open (阿, a), and one with mouth closed (吽, un). Together they represent the beginning and the end of all things or अ–हुँ (a-hūṃ) in Sanskrit, an idea also represented by the seed syllable that will be familar to many of you: ॐ (om).[5]

But—I hear you cry—why are Buddhist lion-dog guardian statues in a Shinto Shrine if they are, y’know, Buddhist? Ah, now there’s a question! One that will have to wait for next time, Grasshopper.[6]

So here we have a Buddhist lion-dog statue from Korea — originally from India, moving East by way of China — guarding a Shinto shrine and enjoying the leaves. Then there’s me, the strange foreigner who likes to talk to statues. Hmm.

[Last updated: 25 Sep 2025]

  1. That’s me! I’m playing with using it as a penname. See here.  ↩

  2. pronounced koh-my-new  ↩

  3. “Koma” likely referred to Korea as a whole, but some scholars suggest it may have specifically meant Goguryeo — one of the three Korean kingdoms at the time, and the one most closely allied with Japan.  ↩

  4. In English these statues are often (mistakenly) called “fu dogs.” The mix-up comes from a mistranslation long ago, probably confusing 獅 (shī, “lion”) with 福 (fú, “good fortune”). In China they’re properly called guardian lions (shī), which in Japan became shishi (獅子). Komainu is the more common Japanese term.  ↩

  5. अ–हुँ was transliterated in Japanese as 阿吽 (a–un). As you can see above, that word was then broken up to give each komainu their name. Often 形 (gyō, shape) will be attached, making their names 阿形 (agyō) and 吽形 (ungyō).  ↩

  6. preview: for much of Japanese history, Shinto was a part of Buddhism. If you are a history/mythology nerd like me and want the technical word for this, it’s Shinbutsu-shūgō (神仏習合).  ↩

There is more in the archives