Go to this entry for Final Paper II

For some strange reason, I can't post to my Japanese Lit and Trans blog. It keeps trying to post to my Pre-departure blog. So here is the link to my entry:

http://letsflytojapan.blogspot.com/

 

It's the first one. Hopefully that works.

Final Paper I

    When authors in our texts write traditionally, I want to look at why they would do that and, in what texts of our reading we see this in. In my second finals paper, I looked more at traditional authors, but it's interesting to see how modern authors have incorporated traditional aspects into their modern pieces. For example, in order to better understand what I would be trying to analyze in modern texts, I thought about if I were a modern author (well, I'm modern, not an author though…) why I would personally decide to write using traditional elements. An example I came to would be trying to describe how to work something (like a new fangled telephone) by describing older models. Perhaps because I live in a society where everything is here and now, I can't easily come up with an example in my own life that pertains to why a modern Japanese author would use traditional elements in their own works. However, I know that in Japanese society, tradition is still heavily valued, so it makes sense that we see tradition in modern works – a sort of way to taking the authors and the readers out of the current world with all its chaotic change and placing them back in a time that is still recognized and stable.

    The first author in our text that isn't exactly modern by today's date does show a modernity to the values of today. Higuchi Ichiyo's "A Snowy Day" was written in 1893, and the traditional values that we see here are tied with marriage and relationships. To write "A Snowy Day," even though there is no year stamp on when the setting is, there is a sort of sadness in the tradition of marriage. Tama's aunt wants her to stay away from her teacher, even though they are just friends and aren't thinking about taking it beyond that level. Because of Tama's aunt and the tradition, she ultimately marries him because what else could she do. Tradition stated that was what should occur, and if it didn't then that would be causing (it was) chaos in their little village. Not marrying him would have made her stand apart from the rest of the village girls, and even if she has to be lonely and marry him in the end because she doesn't love him, which we see in her reflection on her happiness in relationship to the snow falling, she must marry him so she doesn't seem different. In stories where the modern authors write about tradition, and traditional values, it provides us here today in the modern world something to cling onto in our past. I'm sure the fact that I can't personally come up with a story about my family traditions means that I am so deeply embedded into them, that the only time I'll ever realize it's a tradition is when I accidently break it – something that'll separate me as a person from others.

    In my society today, children are encouraged to stand out from their peers and be different, but in Japanese society, things are different. It's okay to go along with the crowd in Japan. In "The Dancing Girl," by Mori Ogai, we see a physician that leaves Japan for Germany. He says, "Once a person grasped the spirit of the law, I grandly said, everything would solve itself." In reflection to the overall theme of the piece, we could easily substitute the word law, with the word tradition. The narrator tries to be independent, but the department he works for try to change that. He's not allowed to be different, and when he goes ahead and continues to try and remain different, he is punished when upper management hear that he is seeking company from a dancing girl. We also see Elise, because her family doesn't have enough money to pay for the funeral of her father (a thing they must have because of traditions evoked), and was beaten when she refused a man's proposal to help gain the funds for a funeral. We see through this story a man that wants to be with his love, but because his friend, Aizawa, says that it is unacceptable if he is to get his fortune restored, that he must abandon her for the sake of tradition. Elise tries to hold him there by saying that even though he has left her, shouldn't her love – their child keep him there? This shows the tradition that Elise holds and hopes to exploit to keep Toyotaro at her side. However, because Aizawa has said to the count that Toyotaro has no attachments in the country, Toyotaro can't go against what his friend has said, because his friend said it so it's not only tradition of what is expected, but also the obligation to his friend that has him leave Elise mad with her mother.

    In "The Dancing Girl," Toyotaro faces obligation as well to his friend as well as keeping with tradition. It's fine at first with his other colleagues that he goes to a dancing girl, even if they don't know of the affair, however, when the rumor twists then he is punished to where he is offered paid travel back to Japan – almost as if taking him away from Germany will fix him and bring his senses back. It's sort of like when you meet the perfect guy and you really, really like him, but then you introduce him to the parents and they don't like him…so you start doubting if he's the one. Now, it could go either way. You could marry him and know that every time you went to their house for holidays, they would heartily disapprove and there'd be snide remarks around the table…but you'd be happy, or you could dump the guy you thought was perfect and keep searching for someone that made the parents happy and hope that you were happy too.

    Modern authors have incorporated tradition into their pieces, because it's something their audience can relate too, even in the future. We're always trying to cross the line to define tradition. How many times have you ever done something so outrageous and when you ask why the heck the group did it (dragging you into it), the answer has always been tradition. I mean, think of all the stupid stuff that people have done in the name of tradition, and then think about whether it's stupid because it's something you personally wouldn't do, or because it's dangerous to the point of killing you? Most times, when people say that a tradition is stupid it's because of the former reason, not the latter. These people that try to step away from tradition for that reason are often looked down upon, but when society is constantly changing, even being able to hold on to this single moments provides some sort of stability for many groups of people. In Japan, where tradition is imbued into everything pretty much, the fact that people spend time doing it provides a steady hold to the society, where even some traditions are more modernized to keep up with the times.

Mujou and its Influence on Today's Culture

“The Doctor: ‘Sonic Blaster. Fifty-first century weapons factory at Villengard?’
Captain Jack: ‘You’ve been to the factories?’
The Doctor: ‘Once….’
Captain Jack: ‘Well, they’re gone now, destroyed. Main reactor went critical and vaporized the lot.’
The Doctor: ‘Like I said, once….there’s a banana grove there now. I like bananas. Bananas are good.’”
- Jack and the Doctor, Season 1 (2005) Doctor Who, ep 8


“He could feel a special affinity to the banana plant, which like himself was lonely and defenseless, torn by the storms of this world. It symbolized the fraility, the tranciency, of his own life – as he liked to picture it.”
- Shively, on Bashou.

Mujou…a Buddhist concept has been discussed in class since the very start of the semester, but to properly grasp it and to be able to truly utilize it and understand it in the world that we live in today, I feel that it’s important to look at how it is expressed in our own culture. Surprisingly, while we have older media (such as: haikus and other forms of poetry) that we’ve analyzed to bits, I feel that by mixing this older form of expression of mujou with today’s pop culture (relevant material related to our interests, and pop culture meaning the twentieth and twenty-first century) that, forgive me for almost sounding redundant, we can see how this idea has permeated in our lives.

First, what is mujou? Mujou, quite simply, I define as being a state of change, where ultimately everything dies, but is always in a constant state of change. For example, Kamo no Chomei writes, “the current of flowing river does not cease, and yet the water is not the same water as before.” (Traditional Japanese Literature 624) The water acts in the concept of mujou, because it is never the same. Every time you step in the river, the water is always different...always changing, always flowing.



Here, Disney’s tale of Pocahontas, we see how mujou affects her life. Her father wants her to be steady, “like the river”, but Pocahontas disagrees, because the water of the river is constantly changing. Instead, she wants to be like the river, to be able to change constantly, and not to be “steady”, like her father points out, and marry, settle down and stick to what her father has planned. And, we also get the “house” imagery. “For a handsome sturdy husband who builds handsome sturdy walls” is the opposite of mujou. Instead, Chomei would say that the more dilapidated the home (“hut”) the more it becomes a symbol for what mujou represents. A handsome sturdy home is not meant to change, so it cannot represent what mujou stands for. Fortunately, Pocahontas meets John Smith, who then gets injured and has to be sent back to England to recover, and manages to keep her life constantly in a pattern that reflects mujou (especially when she goes to England and meets John Rolfe and has to decide between the two – as soon as she decides, her life then becomes “steady”).

For other modern culture references, I think a great example of a movie that has touched a lot of young girls hearts, seen even today, and doesn’t symbolize the concepts of mujou, is Disney’s The Little Mermaid. However, I do think that the Hans Christian Andersen version does better represent mujou. This is interesting, because, the former movie is very popular, and some see it as the ultimate love story, but while the latter version is what the former is based on, it isn’t popular. One version symbolizes mujou and one does not.

Strangely, it is the happier tale that doesn’t. Does this mean that if we are happy, we aren’t able to live in a state of constant mujou?



This, for those that are unaware, is the Disney retelling. After rescuing the prince, the mermaid says “what would I pay to stay here beside you,” and of course, after making this point, meets the sea witch and goes through the change of becoming a mermaid to a human, willing to sacrifice her life – and her voice, to be able to be a part of this world. The fact that she does get to be a part of his world, and the prince does fall in love with her, negates what could have been an awesome representation for mujou. If she had actually given up her life, then that would have been very mujou.



Now, in this Hans Christian Andersen version, the mermaid cannot sacrifice the prince’s life to save her own, and so ends up killing herself to become sea foam so she can continue to be with the prince, even though her love is unrequited.
The quote that I used, between the Doctor and Jack, in the opening of my paper, I believe reflects Mujou to Bashou and today’s society, using the television series Doctor Who. Bashou is compared to a banana because he was a very lonely person, much like the Doctor who is referred to as “the Oncoming Storm,” especially to his enemies, and the “lonely angel,” by his companions. The Doctor feels the need to fill this loneliness by taking on “companions”, people that he allows to travel with him. What makes the Doctor a very good reference when talking about mujou, perhaps one of the best modern references, is the aspect of time in the series.
The Doctor is a Time Lord, so he’s able to travel through time. This does leave some complications though, especially where the companions are concerned. Because of the difference of time, the Doctor is constantly meeting new companions, but can never stay with them because he will always outlive them. The Doctor has a way of cheating death, where he regenerates and changes his body (very mujou). He’s “old enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one. In the end you just get tired. Tired of the struggle. Tired of losing everyone that matters to you. Tired of watching everything turn to dust. If you live long enough, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone.” (Doctor Who 2005, Season 3, Episode 6)
Another very mujou part of Doctor Who is the fact that, before the meet him, his companions live their lives in almost complete ignorance to what is out there beyond what they experience every day. Rose, his first companion of his ninth regeneration, even goes as far to say, “for the first nineteen years of my life, nothing happened. Nothing at all, then I met the Doctor…the man who could change his face. And he took me away from home. Showed me the whole of time of space; I thought it would never end.”

I admit, that while I do have a certain obsession with television and movies, knowing what I know now about mujou and what it entails from our readings in class, everything I see now I try to look at in terms of mujou. That’s why I think it’s important to see how it relates to some of our media today, particularly movies, since they are a reflection on how our society operates today. When we watch movies, we’re supposed to be able to relate to the main characters. When I watch Doctor Who, the people we are supposed to relate with are the companions. We’re supposed to feel their loss when the Doctor leaves them, another mujou point, and knowing this, are we supposed to live our lives living through mujou, especially since we can’t really avoid it?


(This took longer than expected to format >>. Hopefully, my explanation of mujou and it's relationship to today's culture is okay. Mujou is a very open topic =D)

Thursday 2/25

LOVE POEMS! Can we see a trend to my favorite type of poems?


1034:
If this jewel thread of life
is to break, let it break:
living on
would be to endure
love's torment alone.

-Princess Shokushi


This is such a sad love poem! Looking at MJL's context of the first line, if you interpret them to mean life, that means that she's willing to just end her life so she doesn't have to go on living alone! That fact that she compares her life to jewel? That may mean that it is like a jewel in the fact that the speaker's life may be pretty, like a jewel, but it is cold. If you've ever held a jewel, they don't keep warmth at all, just like she isn't able to keep love =(

Analysis of a few Kokinshu love poems:

Love. Let’s analyze it, specifically in poems. Poems today written for love are usually cheap things found inside greeting cards. Their convenient, quick, and no thought is required in picking one up and handing them over to a lover. Just sign you name and away you go.

It wasn’t like that in Japan.

Or, correction: it wasn’t like that in Japan at the time the Kokinshu was written. The Kokinshu is a collection of poems, organized into books. Smart poems, written in a few lines, on numerous topics. But, we’re on the topic of love. The Kokinshu contains a few sections on just love poems, written back and forth to lovers. The love poetry of the Kokinshu is like the come-hither flirtatious glance of today.
I think the love poems of the Kokinshu that best represent the ache of love (well, they all do in this section, but these are my favorite) are poems 761-767. I chose these collectively since all six show the desperate longing of a love that seems to remain unrequited.
First, poem 761:
One hundred times or
more I hear the fluttering
of the snipe’s wings
as I count the lonely hours
till dawn when you have not come

I think my heart just broke reading this. How sad! We don’t know the author’s gender, or even the narrators, which creates a poem that everyone can easily identify with. While this approach is more appropriate for the greeting cards of today, the language and the symbolism brings it away from that and give it a greater meaning. One hundred times the speaker hears the fluttering of the snipe’s wings. A snipe is this:

(http://mtkilimonjaro.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html)
Aw! Look at how cute. But to hear its wings beat for one hundred times? Interesting in the choice of birds the speaker uses; a snipe, according to Wikipedia, is very difficult to catch. This could perhaps suggest that the speaker finds it very difficult to catch the eyes, or maybe the heart, of their wanted. In the lonely hours of dawn, suggestive of an absent lover, could mean that the lover has left them, or has grown bored with them. The mention of dawn though could not only mean the lover (the person the speaker is referring too) has lost interest, but the speaker as well.

Time is very symbolic in these Japanese poems. Similar to the mention of the seasons, time is a great way to measure the passion displayed by the speaker. Showing the time moving towards dawn is symbolic of a closing relationship, I feel, while showing the time progressing from dusk shows a relationship that is beginning to take off and is full of passion. Around midnight is the climax of the relationship. What solidifies a cooling of passion in this relationship of the speaker is the fact that the speaker is alone in the poem. Waiting as their lover has stood them up. This leads to my analysis of the next two pieces of poetry: what keeps the lover away?

Poem 762:
cutting us apart
now like the trailing ivy –
can he mean to part
sending me not even a
whisper on the blowing wind

and, Poem 763:
upon me falls a chill
untimely rain drenching my
flowing sleeves is it
that autumn has come early
to his heart freezing our love
Written by anonymous, I’m still going to look at these as a set, as they embody a reason for the absence of the lover. I’ll be referring to the poems simply by their numbers, 762 and 763 respectfully. 762 shows an almost physical reaction for the reason of the lover’s absences, not necessarily relating to poem 761. The words cutting and trailing ivy seem to suggest that the relationship did last for a while. The latter choice of words give the image of a lazy relationship (perhaps the other party wasn’t very serious) and the former word choice shows an abrupt end to it. The man the speaker is referring to shows an almost one sided break in the relationship. He won’t even talk to her, as referenced by not even a whisper on the blowing wind. Apparently he doesn’t even have to do much to talk to her, because the wind is blowing, a most redundant phrase.

763 shows another man who has left his lover. The speaker feels a chill of rain on their sleeves. A very untimely rain. This most likely means he’s broken the speaker’s heart sooner than they expected, since it’s referred to as untimely. Untimely changes a part of the meaning of the line, since if it was just rain, then the speaker was prepared for apparent heartbreak, but untimely suggests that is came quicker than expected. We see seasons in this poem instead of hours, and, as I’ve mentioned before in a previous entry’s analysis, Autumn is the phase where everything begins to die. It’s not winter, so the passion the woman and the man feel is not quite dead, but it’s getting there – autumn has come eary/to his heart. Concluding the poem with freezing our love suggests that the speaker may be starting to feel the same way towards the man because it uses the word our. If the word his had been used, that would have suggested she still was interested.

Poem 764 continues this idea, but instead of both parties having been interested at one point, this piece shows the love is unreciprocated:
though the mountain spring
is shallow-hearted I am
not why does my love
never visit only his
refection appears to me
Mountain springs are usually crystal clear, so we get an image of a pure love and the second and third lines indicate a great amount of love is present. Although, interesting is the use of the phrase shallow-hearted. She’s not, but why mention shallowness to begin with? Maybe this is a stretch, but perhaps her lover is ashamed to visit because he’s ugly/deformed – ill mannered even! The fact that his reflection shows in a mountain spring….a spring normally ripples over rocks, and when you cast a reflection on it, usually the reflection remains steady, although the water is not. It’s all very romantic!

Or perhaps, it is a love that cannot be grasped. How difficult it is to catch running water – it just trickles out of your hands until only drops remain in your palms. We’ll never know for sure why the lover doesn’t appear to the speaker. However, poem 765 shows us another nongendered perspective where we can hypothesize that the speaker is being held away from their lover because of complications derived from both parties.

Poem 765:
I wish I had sown
grasses of forgetfulness
when we first met if
only I had known how hard
it would be to see each other

This poem, I feel, is a bit more sexual than the others. I say this because of the first two lines. The fact that he wishes he had sown grasses, not seed, I think means that the two slept together. Grass indicates something that takes time to grow. If speaker had said sown/seeds, that would be a heavy indication that the speaker wanted to have a passionate encounter with the other person. By saying grasses, we get a more long term feeling, since grasses indicates time taken to grow, and that they have time to grow. By adding forgetfulness shows a regret that they hadn’t tried to strengthen their relationship, added to the fact that they cannot see each other because of complications. I suggest that both parties are experiencing complications, not just the speaker (because if it were just the speaker, than it may suggest that the speaker doesn’t really want to see the other), because of the last line. Instead of using the word you, the speaker uses the word other, supporting my claim that it is because of both parties.

While love today is cheapened by ambiguous greeting cards, love in the era of when the Kokinshu was written wasn’t. There is more emotion in these poems, showing a hurt, desire, and pleasure that comes from one, or both parties. While the majority of the poems I selected were majorly of the hurt and desire persuasion, just the fact that these speakers were able to write about love shows the possibility that they felt the pleasure of it too. Forgive me if I sound cliché, but that’s tragically romantic!


*And wow, none of this was formatted correctly. As soon as I figure out how to, I will.

Poetry Analysis Pt II

Poetry Analysis Pt I: Poem 289

Does the autumn moon
cast its light so starkly
on the mountain's edge
that we may count
each colored leaf that falls?

-Anonymous

I chose this next poem because the author was anonymous, and because the poem ends in a question - it is one big question (and, perhaps possibly because I read it almost after the previous poem and I liked this one the best following it first...but that's only part of the reason). Also, I find it interesting that the topic is unknown. This leaves it open to various interpretation. At face value, I see the words autumn, moon, leaf and draw assumptions that the the poem is about the simple turn of the season. However, since this is found in the Love section of the Kokinshu, I will instead turn my attention to what these words can mean in accordance.

First, the cycles of a relationship can be compared to the turning of seasons:

Spring - Flirty glances, small poems of longing, doe eyes. Basically the crush phase.
Summer - Hot, passionate romps.
Autumn - The cool down period...you no longer live together, but you do occasional drivebys at his old home, hoping to catch a glimpse before you hit up Taco-Bell before it closes at 2am.
Winter - You've broken up and are now eying that jerk's older, more understanding brother.

and, now the time of day/night can be split into two categories:
Daylight - everyone knows about your affair.
Moonlight - you're still adept at hiding your affair, but your parents may be suspecting.

I take this to mean, that since this is in the autumn, the relationship is rapidly cooling, slowly coming to light in other circles. The fact that there is a good deal (starkly) of moonlight falling on something so large as a mountain? the cat must be getting out of the bag soon. I personally like the adverb, starkly. Because it reminds me of the term stark naked. Everything's out in the open, exposed. The relationship is no longer fun and the leaves are not only rich and brightly colored, but they are falling, one by one - dying almost as they fall.

Poetry Analysis Pt I

Since the assignment was to select a poem from Kokinshu, I chose two poems from the Love section: 274 and 289. I chose the first one because the topic was elaborated on, and the second because it was not. I thought, in addition to analyzing the pieces, it'd be nice to do a small comparison between the two.

Poetry Analysis Pt I: Poem 274

Looking at flowers,
waiting for my love
I took the blossoms
for the white
sleeve of his gown.

-Ki no Tomonori

What I find interesting about this poem, is the kind of sadness in it. Obviously, it's about a person, presumably a woman? although this poem was written by a man, waiting for their lover. They wait so anxiously and so passionately, that they see their lover in everything, including the blossoms. Now, why is their lover taking so long? I was hesitant to say this at first, but I think we can see the reason based on the type of flowers that are mistaken for sleeves. I'm going to assume they are Cherry blossoms, which I've normally seen pictured as pink, but a quick google search tells me that they can be white as well.

Because they mention cherry blossoms being seen instead of the lover, perhaps we can assume that the lover has left her? From my understanding, and another google search, the blossoms bloom right before they are about to die. Maybe the love the other shared is no longer requited, which is why he fails to show up? A dying love; it's almost too tragic. Also, the lover is/is expected to wear a white kimono.

Googling white kimonos in wiki, I came across this interesting tidbit of information:

"Mofuku

The mofuku is a formal garment intended for mourning. It is made of pitch black silk, without any embellishment other than the 5 kamon. The obi, obijime, obiage, zori, and handbag are also black. The mofuku is worn on the days of the wake, funeral, and cremation of the deceased in a Buddhist funeral ceremony. Due to white being symbolic of death in Japan, the mofuku was formerly a white garment; however, the modern mofuku is now a black garment, to contrast with the white kimono of the dead."

Maybe the reason why she can't be with her lover anymore is because she is dead. If her lover were to be wearing this garment, then maybe he is mourning her passing.

First Post

Hello everyone! This blog is for the Japanese Literature and Translation course taught by Doctor Mizenko.

This is just a test post to make sure everything is running smoothly and that I know I'm posting things correctly to this blog.

-Lisa