Month: October 2010
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Shinto Traditions Course — Ise
As the Shinto Traditions course at Kokugakuin University approaches its end, it has been covering the really big traditions within Shinto, the ones that it is hard to miss. This week’s lecture was about the shrines connected to Ise. The Grand Shrines of Ise enshrine Amaterasu Ohmikami, the kami of the sun and the legendary […]
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Sitting on Trains
As I have mentioned before, there is a rumour on the internet that Japanese people will refuse to sit next to obvious foreigners on trains, even when the train is very crowded. As I have also mentioned before, I see no evidence that this is true. Today, I wish to report further evidence. Japanese people […]
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Nyotai Daijin and Wakamiya Hachimangu
Yesterday we had another meeting of the various chairpeople of the Representative Assembly, and afterwards I took advantage of being in southern Kawasaki to visit a couple of the shrines there. One of them, Wakamiya Hachimangu, is a little notorious, due to the nature of a second shrine found in the grounds, so the pictures […]
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Shinto Traditions Course — Tenjin
This week’s Shinto Traditions lecture at Kokugakuin University was on Tenjin. Tenjin is, these days, best known as the kami of passing entrance exams, but originally he was Sugawara no Michizane, a scholar and politician of the late ninth and early tenth century. The Sugawara family were mid-ranking aristocrats in Heian Japan, with hereditary jobs […]
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Finally, Real Discussions
I’m afraid this post is a week or so late, but on the 26th September we had another meeting of the Kawasaki City Representative Assembly for Foreign Residents. This was the fifth meeting of the assembly, and we finally got on to actually discussing issues, at least in the Life and Society subcommittee. As you […]