Category: Japan
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A Wedding and The Grand Shrines of Ise
Last weekend we went on a little trip. One of Yuriko’s cousins was getting married in Gifu (near Nagoya), so we went to that, and then extended the trip a bit to go to Ise and visit the shrines. The wedding was on Sunday, so Yuriko and Mayuki went to Nagoya on Saturday to stay…
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Archaeology and the Kogoshui — Shinto Texts Course
Yesterday we had the third Shinto texts course, this time looking at the Kogoshui and the archaeological background. The Kogoshui may not be familiar even to people who know a bit about Shinto, so I’ll say a bit about it first, as the lecturer, Professor Sasao, did. The Kogoshui was written in 807 by Inbe…
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Pensions
Last Sunday was the first meeting of the Kawasaki Representative Assembly of Foreign Residents of this fiscal year. The first meeting should have been in April, but after the earthquake quite a few of the representatives were temporarily out of Japan, and the city authorities had a lot of other things to organise, so it…
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Shinto Texts Course — The Kojiki and National Learning
Yesterday we had the second lecture in the Shinto texts course, and it was also about the Kojiki, this time from the perspective of National Learning, and more specifically from the perspective of Norinaga Motoori. Norinaga Motoori was one of the four great scholars of National Learning, a scholarly movement in the Edo period that…
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Hair Brush
Mayuki’s hair brush was finally delivered a couple of weeks ago. This isn’t a brush for Mayuki’s hair. It’s a brush made from Mayuki’s hair. These brushes are a Japanese custom. Apparently, many years ago, the best writing brushes were made from the first hair cut from babies. This was because the hair was of…
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Shinto Texts Course — The Kojiki and Archaeology
The Open College course on Shinto at Kokugakuin University has started again today, and the theme for this year is Shinto texts. They are working through in roughly chronological order, and thus starting with the Kojiki, which was completed in 712 (so next year is the 1300th anniversary). The last lectures will cover important twentieth-century…
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2:46: Aftershocks
I just found out about this book via the Guardian, and I’ve already bought my copy. As the page will tell you, it’s a collection of personal reactions to the March 11th quake from people across the world with some connection to Japan. Most of them were in Japan at the time, and a fair…
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Matriculation Ceremony
There are a number of aspects of Japanese society that seem a little odd from a British perspective. One of them is the fact that Japanese kindergartens have matriculation ceremonies. And uniforms. Today was the matriculation ceremony for Mayuki’s kindergarten, so she had to get dressed up in her uniform for it. I took most…
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Delays? Sometimes
Tokyo really is almost normal now. There are still power cuts, and the trains are still running at about 70–80% capacity, but when I went in a convenience store to find Pringles for Mayuki last night, it had lots of bread, as well as still having some other empty shelves, so distribution seems to be…
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Returning to Normal?
In a sign of the steady return of normality to this part of Japan, NHK was showing programs that weren’t news about the earthquake this morning. Tepco think they will avoid power cuts today, as well. Yesterday, Yuriko managed to buy some more milk for Mayuki, and I have three hours of lessons today. That’s…