Month: September 2009
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Shinto Controversies Course — 7th Lecture
Today, the Kokugakuin Shinto controversies course restarted after the summer break. Today’s lecture had two main parts, and an introduction. The introduction was Professor Okada telling us about his summer holidays. One of the things he did was visit an archaeological dig in Hamamatsu (I think), where a number of festival-related items had been unearthed.…
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Silver Week
Japan is now in the grip of Silver Week. People familiar with Japan will know about Golden Week. This happens at the end of April and beginning of May every year, when several public holidays come together. First, there’s Showa Day on April 29th, then Constitution Day on May 3rd, Greenery Day on May 4th,…
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More Pictures
Sonoe has been taking photographs of Mayuki again, and they are online on her blog. As usual, the text is in Japanese, but the pictures are cute in any language.
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Magic Words
Yesterday and today, Yuriko was in Kyoto on a study trip with her kimono course. She should be back in a few minutes, but Mayuki has decided to watch a video again while she waits, so I have a few moments to write a blog. And I haven’t written anything about Mayuki for a while,…
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Shinto, by Ian Reader
This book, in the series Simple Guides, is, as you would expect, a simple guide to Shinto. It is very short, and took me about an hour to read, and thus can only hope to cover a basic outline of Shinto. However, if you know nothing about the religion, that’s exactly what you need to…
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Politically Stable
Japan has had four prime ministers in my daughter’s lifetime. My daughter is not yet two. This might not sound like a politically stable society, but have you heard about riots in Japan? Street protests? Internet campaigns to impeach the Prime Minister because he was born in Mombasa? This is, I think, true political stability.…