51–60 of 63 posts
Anyone can get to know their own locality on this intimate level. I've been spending more time in my yard, and it's really incredible seeing the waves of new plants and animals arising and dissipating over the months. Yesterday I was watching the birch tree behind my back porch losing its leaves (much earlier than most of the trees around). The lawn has large colonies of plants that I didn't see a single specimen of…
I know this is kind of silly, but it annoys me a bit to see this portrayed as some creative innovation of the Japanese on top of some ancient Chinese system, when it's really just a simplification of the Confucian text Yue Ling: https://ctext.org/liji/yue-ling The Yue Ling is a beautiful text, and it speaks to an aspect of Confucianism which I find fascinating, which is the idea that the ideal scholar-official should…
Isnt that what the article is about? Or do we have to find the first person to talk about seasons?
I first learned about the microseasons during my second year in Japan when I was wandering thru Tokyo one day in February, and had an experience that introduced me to the bush warblers singing microseason. I was looking for this bookshop owned by an older woman named yumi, who supposedly had a collection of ancient poems and stories, many of which encompassed the lore of the 72 kō (I never did end up finding it, sadl…
I first learned about the microseasons during my second year in Japan when I was wandering thru Tokyo one day in February, and had an experience that introduced me to the bush warblers singing microseason. I was looking for this bookshop owned by an older woman named yumi, who supposedly had a collection of ancient poems and stories, many of which encompassed the lore of the 72 kō (I never did end up finding it, sadl…
> It is pretty beautiful how such small, centuries-old traditions seem to abound in Japan, where the condition of the west seems to be a state of persistent impermanence. Orientalism at its finest... First of all, "the west" is not a single monolithic block, but dozens of countries, each one with its own peculiarities. Second, Western countries also have plenty of traditions, in the case of Europe going back centurie…
While of course different, this still reminds me a lot of almanacs of yore, some of which were somewhat poetic in character
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Ainu are distinctly not “Japanese” genetically. It’s at least the difference say (pulling this out of my ass, may be better examples) between Germanic and Celtic peoples in Europe. Only they were too evenly matched geopolitically and so one never managed to erase the other. Roma and Hebrews on the other hand… probably more like the Ainu than not.
I am aware of the Ainu, though I'm certainly not an expert on the topic. Wikipedia suggests that there may be 25k to 200k Ainu people in Japan, which would be 0.02% to 0.16% of the population; and supposedly the language is nearly extinct. So my point about Japan being monoethnic "for all practical purposes" still stands, as Ainu culture is not widespread enough to make a difference. I suspect the broader point you'r…
This description of poly-ethnicity applies to Japan more than I think you realize.
Food in the southern prefectures is pretty different from food in the northern prefectures. Particularly Hokkaido and Okinawa have very different food cultures than a lot of places on Honshu. Likewise the architecture and structure of towns, cities, etc varies pretty significantly. Okinawa is practically a concrete jungle and Hokkaido has a lot of red brick buildings that wouldn't be out of place in Russia or Europe. Cities in both prefectures are much more car centric than in cities of comparable densities in the other prefectures.
Even just on Honshu you have things like which side of the road/sidewalk you walk on or which side is the up vs down stairs being different by which prefecture you are in. Likewise, there are pretty significant differences in cultural customs and dialects between prefectures. A word or phrase will have a fairly substantial weight behind it in one prefecture but simply be light/playful in another, or vice versa.
But then the media being largely the same regardless of where you are in the country is pretty similar to the US.
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Point being that there is a lot of cultural variance in Japan that gets reduced to a perception of a monolithic culture even within the regions that are predominantly composed of Yamato Japanese people.
But when you start looking at regions like Okinawa, Hokkaido, Kagoshima, or the Izu-Ogasawara islands, you realize that they have far too different of cultures to be assumed to be minor variations of one mono-ethnic culture.
I know this is kind of silly, but it annoys me a bit to see this portrayed as some creative innovation of the Japanese on top of some ancient Chinese system, when it's really just a simplification of the Confucian text Yue Ling: https://ctext.org/liji/yue-ling The Yue Ling is a beautiful text, and it speaks to an aspect of Confucianism which I find fascinating, which is the idea that the ideal scholar-official should…
> Originally taken from Chinese sources, these are still well-known around East Asia.
> The names were also originally taken from China, but they did not always match up well with the local climate. In Japan, they were eventually rewritten in 1685 by the court astronomer Shibukawa Shunkai.
Japan did import A LOT of cultural things from the ancient Huaxia civilization (which makes sense, as they were pretty close geographically), and they're usually pretty clear about that.
I do think it would be hard to trace back to the first person who discovered "seasons" though...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To me the entire calendar seems at least a month too "fast". For example: August 8–12 涼風至 Suzukaze itaru Cool winds blow When early August anywhere in mainland Japan more closely resembles Satan's armpit, with extreme heat and humidity and a distinct lack of cool breezes.
It is worth noting that the day after December 2, 1872 was January 1, 1873. That's when Japan switched to the Julian Calendar. August 8 before that was... in September.