Utagawa Kunisada (1786–1865) was one of the most successful designers of ukiyo-e woodblock prints in the 19th century, even surpassing his contemporaries Hokusai, Hiroshige, and Kuniyoshi.
Interestingly, while Hokusai was always held in high regard by foreign collectors, at the end of the Edo period (1603-1868) the other three were felt to be vastly inferior. However, in the 1930s, Hiroshige was reevalued, and in the 1970s, the works of Kuniyoshi followed and both began to be regarded as masters of the art just like Hokusai. Only Kunisada had to wait until the 1990s, when his reputation in the West was aligned with that of the Japanese.
About 60% of Kunisada’s works are prints of kabuki actors and scenes, another 15% are bijin-ga, images of beautiful women, and for some 15 years, he dominated portraits of sumo wrestlers and effectively a monopoly on scenes from “The Tale of Genji”. Here are some of his prints.
Yesterday, I went with a friend to the exhibition “Secrets of the Kimono The Advent of Yuzen Dyeing” currently on at the Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto. Besides numerous kimono created from the Edo period until today, they had maybe 50 “pattern books” from around 1700.
Those are woodblock prints showing kimono designs, and people could use them to order a kimono. All of them were in black and white and didn’t have a huge amount of detail. Many of them had a design centered on plants or floral design.
And my friend could name most of these! For somebody like me who barely knows roses from chrysanthemums, that’s absolutely impressive. If you want to try as well and you’re in Kyoto, the exhibition is until September 15.
Fukuoka University Hospital, during WWII. Dr. Jiro Suguro is a talented young intern working with tuberculosis patients. He has taken a liking to an elderly female patient and is shocked when Dr. Asai, one of the assistants, wants to perform a new procedure on her, which is likely to kill her. However, when a much younger patient dies at the hand of department head Prof. Hashimoto, the risky operation is postponed. Ostensibly to further research, but also to secure a promotion for the department head (and himself), Asai contrives a number of vivisections on a group of American prisoners. When Suguro is asked to assist at the operations, he is appalled, but at the same time unable to decline…
This book still haunts me, even though Endo avoids describing the actual murders of the Americans. Instead, we’re in the room when the operation on the young woman fails, so we have a pretty good idea what is happening later. Extremely insightful in the mind of a psychopath is the confession of Dr. Toda, another intern present at the operations. In the end, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Suguro, who seemed to be a genuinely caring person caught up in the whole thing against his will – and haven’t we all been there before?
Sadly, this novel was not created in a vacuum. Endo based it on a true story that happened in 1945 at Fukuoka University Hospital, where the survivors of a downed American plane were killed in the name of science.
Shusaku Endo was born in 1923 Tokyo, but lived in Manchuria for the first 10 years of his life. After his parents’ divorce, he returned to Japan, where he became a Catholic in 1934. From the time he was a student, he published his writing in literary magazines, and eventually he became chief editor of one of them in 1968. He often went abroad for work, and his perspective as an outsider and Catholic has strongly influenced his novels. He is considered part of the Third Generation, the third group of influential Japanese writers who appeared after WWII. Endo received the Akutagawa Prize for “White Men” in 1954 and the Tanizaki Prize in 1966 for “Silence”. He died in 1996.
You can get this book from amazon, but I’m warning you, even 80 years after the war, it’s not an easy read.
I’m still busy with my big project, and last week, I went to the library for some “real” research. In other words: I looked up a few scientific articles on my topic that I couldn’t find online.
For all of you who don’t know: Scientists publish their research in journals (after lengthy peer review). These journals are sold to libraries, mostly research libraries of universities, but some other libraries also carry them. Depending on the journal, the libraries get them monthly or quarterly; there are also special editions of conference proceedings.
The latter are usually already bound by the publisher, since they are made available to the participants during the conference (I recommend, just for the smell alone: Springer LNCS – Lecture Notes in Computer Science). The other journals are bound by the libraries themselves into large books containing at least one, but sometimes several, years of a journal’s output. This makes looking at the “real” journal so much more fun than doing it online: You can browse a year of two of it and often discover other papers that are related to your current research.
Now, if you want to see one of those papers, you go to the library and ask for the book they made – journal title, year and volume is usually enough. If you’re lucky, the journals are in open access, so you can just pull them off the shelves. Otherwise, they are somewhere in storage (often underground, books are heavy) and the librarian has to do the picking for you.
In my case, I had to ask a librarian for help, unfortunately. There is something almost magical of wandering among shelves and shelves of volumes that all look the same, their only distinguishing factor the number on the spine. I would’ve loved to do that, but it wasn’t possible. This time.
It was nice to go back to uni, so to speak, and I’m expecting to do more research like this. It is fun and oddly soothing – I guess I’m still a researcher at heart.
When I woke up this morning and staggered into my kitchen, I found a dead cockroach in the middle of the floor. Pumpkin was unconcerned, but to be fair, he’s not allowed in the kitchen during the night.
Anyway, I really hope it’s one of these scenarios: It died from old age (not likely given how it looked), dropped dead because it had too much of my blackcaps, or it committed suicide (is that a thing with roaches?)
If it was neither of these, then there is probably another HUGE hunting spider hiding out in my kitchen. Or it’s worse, and I have mukade centipedes lurking somewhere…
In other news, I’m pretty busy with some writing assignments right now, hence the short post. Don’t worry, I’m otherwise fine, please hold off from the “are you still alive” emails for a while.
Update a week later: The most likely potential culprit has been identified. It was either the massive spider I found in my bathroom two days later, or it was the massive spider I found in my kitchen on Monday. How I know there were two? Because I promptly (well, more or less, the screaming and shaking always takes a while) dispatched the first, the second could be coaxed into the garden with minimal effort (but a lot of shaking after the fact).
That makes 3 massive spiders in my house within 2 weeks. I really hope there aren’t any more…
Yesterday was Obon, or rather, Kyoto’s Daimonji fires. On five mountains surrounding Kyoto, huge bonfires are lit to send the ancestors back home to the netherworld after their visit to Earth.
For the first time since I moved here, I went to see the Daimonji. Not to the very best spot – that would be too crowded – but just down to the river, where the large “dai” is clearly visible, if a bit from the side. (Old photo below.) As a bonus, I also got to see the two neighboring fires, the “myo-ho”, which are always a challenge to see fully because they are pretty low on their mountains.
Even though I’m not religious, watching the fires light up is always moving, and I can’t really say why. And I’m not the only one who feels this way. This time, I’ve seen people folding their hands in prayer while looking at the fires, and even small kids are less boisterous than could be expected otherwise. It’s a good feeling, almost like we’re all a big family, united before something bigger, whether we call it god or nature or just death, maybe.
It was drizzling when I was out, and today we had a couple more showers, so I guess summer is over or at least will be taking a back seat for a while. Pumpkin has already started to climb onto my office chair and tuck in behind my back sometimes, but he seems to get too hot rather quickly, so he goes back to sleep underneath my desk.
Sorry for going AWOL for a month. I was very busy during Gion Matsuri with lots of appointments. Now the festival is over, I’m busy catching up with all the things I didn’t have time for in July. And we’re in the middle of a heatwave to boot, so things are going slower than usual as well.
Even Pumpkin, who is an elderly gentleman and doesn’t move with much vigor in general, takes it super easy these days. He’s now trying to find the coolest spots in the house to sleep in. Sometimes that’s under my desk. Sometimes that’s in my office’s oshiire. And sometimes it’s … I have no idea where. He does come when I call for him, though. Sometimes.
In other news, my new residence card has arrived past the due date for renewal and telling banks and other official places that yes, I am indeed legally here again, please don’t shut me down, took less time than I had feared. Now that I’ve been through the process once, I’ve learned a few things that will help me keep my cool in case there are more delays in the future.
I will try to keep posting here in summer regardless of all the things I need to do – including staying cool. Just in case I can’t, don’t worry, I’m just busy with all kinds of stuff – I’ll keep you posted when I have something to show for it.
As my visa is up for renewal in mid-July, my immigration lawyer and I usually start the procedure in late May. Last year, it took only two weeks from application to approval.
This year, when nothing had happened by the end of June, I started panicking. Apparently, since last October, the visa procedures have lengthened considerably, and some of the reasons cited are increased applications and reduced staff at the Immigration Offices.
By now, the Immigration Office publishes average waiting times every month: For a business visa like I have, it’s currently 37 days; an application for a permanent visa can take up to 18 months, three times as much as when I first came to Japan and looked into this.
And there is nothing you can do about it, they simply say “please wait until we get back to you…”. Obviously, this makes sense, since answering emails or calls that just want to know how long it will still take will delay the process even more. Still, it is frustrating, even knowing that there is a grace period of two months after the expiration of the visa, where the (former) visa holder can stay in the country while waiting for a response from the Immigration Office.
Anyway. I’m glad to report that my visa was extended yesterday, less than a week before its expiration. Waiting so long became quite stressful, and now I’ll have to wait for another two weeks until I get my new residence card. Let’s hope things will get better next time I have to apply for an extension of my visa.
To complement last Wednesday’s post, let’s talk about another ubiquitous Japanese summer accessory: Handheld fans.
The first use of hand fans can be traced back 4000 years to Ancient Egypt; already Tutankhamun cooled himself with those – or rather, had slaves who thus laboured for him. In China, fans were invented around the 8th century BC, and from there, they eventually made it to Japan. Old tomb paintings from the 6th century AD count as the oldest depictions of fans in Japan currently known, but it’s conceivable that they were used much earlier.
At that time, all fans were rigid ones, nowadays known as uchiwa. Just like today, they were often made from silk or paper and became lavishly decorated. Nowadays, people wearing kimono stick their uchiwa into the back of their obi when they need their hands free. This makes these fans very popular with advertisers; sadly, these versions are usually made of cheap plastic.
Trust the Japanese to take a foreign concept and improve upon it: The folding fan is a truly Japanese invention. Some time between the 6th and 9th century, the so-called akomeogi was created by tying thin strips of wood together. These fans could be quite large – about 30 cm in length – and were intended for ladies of the court. The number of blades an akomeogi could have was dictated by the rank of its owner, and soon, sumptuary laws had to be passed to curb excessive decorations.
In the 16th century, sensu folding fans were introduced to Europe by Portuguese merchants, and while they were seen as a must-have fashion accessory for a long time, their popularity has declined greatly in the West.
However, hand fans were always more than just fashionable accessories to keep cool. In fact, the heavy akomeogi were rather unfit for that particular purpose. Instead, they helped their owner to hide from unwanted advances – or to send encouraging messages to more appreciated recipients. From the beginning, fans also had ritualistic uses in shinto ceremonies. One of these has been handed down (no pun intended) through gunbai – a military leader’s signal fan – all the way to modern sumo referees.
Speaking of ritualistic use, I must mention tea ceremony, of course. The tiny sensu there are never opened, yet are important in demarcating one’s space at various times during the ceremony.
And then are all the traditional Japanese performing arts where folding fans play a leading role. From noh and kabuki to Japanese kyomai dance they convey formalized emotions. In rakugo they are the only prop besides tenugui towels, and the harisen, a giant paper fan, is made only to hit people with in manzai comedy.
As I said above, hand fans are still an important accessory here in Japan. Sensu from fabric or paper come in thousands of different designs and make for perfect souvenirs. Fans entirely from bamboo create a lovely sound when used, and the large fans used in Japanese noh turn into decorative items. Whatever you go for, whatever you do with your fan – the choice is yours.
Summer has arrived in Kyoto, and it’s been blistering hot the last few days, a few showers here and there notwithstanding. From now until the end of next week at least, we’re looking at 37 degrees with bright sunshine every day. Thankfully, the nights are cool enough, so sleeping is still possible. However, the heat itself is exhausting, even Pumpkin, who now spends his days hidden deep in my office cabinet, looks more sleepy than usual. And the kids next door who usually pitch baseballs back and forth for hours every day are not venturing outside right now either.
Although I’d like to do the same, I do have to go out regularly, to work, to go shopping for me and Pumpkin or to simply escape to my favourite library. While I try to avoid the heat of the early afternoon, it’s not always possible, and to my chagrin, I have made a rather painful discovery: My nice 10 mm hairstyle, cool(ing) as it is, does not provide much scalp protection…
As a remedy, I have two options: Go full-scale Japanese lady and use an umbrella. Or buy a sun hat. Since I’m very much a hands-free kinda girl and umbrellas are really cumbersome on a bicycle, I decided on a sun hat.
Interestingly, finding one was surprisingly challenging: First, I need one small enough so I can wear it on the bicycle without losing it, but still big enough to provide some protection for my neck. And second, I seem to have a surprisingly small head (I’m talking circumference, never mind my ego) compared to the average Asian. And it’s true: I have old photos where my small face stands out among all the Koreans around me. I wonder if that’s me or if that’s a general thing…
Anyway, after some looking around, I found a good sun hat of the right size and proportions. Believe it or not, this is my very first such purchase after living in Asia for 16 years! And the best part of it: I got it for just 300 yen in a second hand shop. So, from now on, I’ll be wearing a sun hat on my trips to the grocery store and the library. Give it a bit more time still, and I’ll blend in perfectly with the locals!
