Shukado Newsletter No.7 Genji#3
Dear customers and friends,
Ohayo-gozaimasu, good morning from Ginza,Tokyo
This is Shukado Newsletter No.7 from "Japanese-finearts.com by Shukado".
Today I will continue to talk about the Tale of Genji or Genji Monogatari.
For these several years, Japan's imperial family has been suffering from some problems with their family affairs. The most serious problem is the Crown Princess Masako’s mental illness. She might have lost mental health after the wedding with the Crown Price Naruhito. The reason of her illness is said to be that rigid and outdated traditional rules of the imperial family puzzled the Crown Princess who used to be an intelligent and active diplomat agent before her marriage. But nobody knows the real reason.
Last week the top-ranking officer of the Imperial Household Agency made a comment at the press conference that the Crown Prince Naruhito’s family should pay more frequent visits to their parents, the Emperor and Empress, and make more opportunities that they could meet their grandchild, Princess Aiko. It was surprising that a mere bureaucrat advised the imperial family what to do and we could imagine there was a something serious problem happening in our imperial family.
On last Saturday, which fell on his birthday of 48 years old, Naruhito spoke to the media that he would try to increase their visits to the Emperor, but refused to talk further about it because, he said, that is their private matter.
Although, in my personal view, the problem of the imperial family does not seem to matter to non-Japanese nationals, most Japanese people are seriously concerned about the future of imperial family or of this nation. However, to tell the truth, when I was a teenager, I thought I do not have anything to do with the imperial family or imperial system of Japan, or I even thought that the imperial system in Japan was nothing but useless.
As I grew up, off course, I changed my mind. Because I came to know that Japan needs the imperial system to maintain its unity as a nation. That is the reason even General Douglas MacArthur did not destroy our imperial system. In Japan, the imperial family (or system) is still recognized as more important symbol of the nation of Japan than the Constitution of Japan or anything else.
The legitimacy of emperor is enhanced some cultural symbol. In another words, admiration for noble of royal dynasty is assured by imperial culture, which large people love. Very important one of them is The Tale of Genji.
The story and writing style of Genji is very beautiful, but the content is full of love and hate relations and crazy behaviors in a way.
The Hikaru Genji or “Shining Genji”,the main character, has so many love affairs that he seems to be in a kind of mental illness. But he does not think himself “fickle”, but faithful and caring. Actually, he gained popularity among women due to his honest and caring attitude and his exceptional handsome features make him even more attractive. Although in those days there was a practice of polygamy, his curiosity and obsession to women went too far and people around were perplexed by his behavior.
When I read the beginning of story, his love affairs seemed to be as a part of his follies of youth. But as the story develops, his behavior seems to be over the top. For example, he dared to kidnap his favorite noble girl called Murasaki no Ue to his house and married her, or he had a love affair with a wife, Fujitsubo, of his father, the Emperor. Genetic father of the boy born to Fujitsubo was Hikaru Genji, but this fact was kept secret between Fujitsubo and him. After a while, the boy became the Emperor and Hikaru Genji gained his political power.
Such conducts which sometimes contradicted with his careful personality caused a lot of interpersonal conflicts including mental sufferings and jealous for his lovers, political jousting, political battle among imperial member, death of his lovers and acquaintances and escape to the priesthood. Reading through those dynamic interpersonal relations and the death of Hikaru Genji, readers see the subtleties of human nature through human’s infinitive desire with constant changes as well as the beauty of passions and humor. Every character appears in the Tale of Genji gets old and dies in the end regard less of how they live their lives. Even after Hikaru Genji passes away, the story goes on. This reminds the readers of the sense of mortality or “monono aware” which means the sadness, the fleeting beauty in life and nature and deeply takes roots at the base of Japanese culture.
In my opinion, the most notable thing with the Tale of Genji is that if this story were to be written as a modern literature, it might be a very grotesque story, but the writing style of the Tale of Genji is very subtle and nothing is depicted in a revealing manner. Various love affairs and strong passions are described through waka (Japanese poetry) and conversation through misu (bamboo blind) in a very indirect way. This makes a great contrast with modern films (e.g. Quentin Tarantino’s), which are full of violence. Although this story is very long and contains some odd episodes, in my view, its writing style gives sophisticated and beautiful impressions to the readers.
There are lots of paintings depicting some scenes of the Tale of Genji and the most famous one is the Genji Monogatari Emaki (the Picture Scroll of the Tale of Genji). With each painting, stories and emotions of the characters are depicted in a very suggestive way and tricks were made with them by the artists so that the people who do not know much about the story or children just see those paintings as pretty or nice.
A good example of this is our recommended item, the byobu (http://www.japanese-finearts.com/item/list2/107006610/) depicting two scenes from the Tale of Genji. The left panel shows the scene of Asagao and the right panel Momiji-no-ga.
In the episode Asagao, Hikaru Genji let a child to play with snow in the garden and talk about the old stories to his young wife Murasaki-no-ue (a kidnapped noble girl). Hikaru Genji told her not to worry too much about his flirtation because she was suffering from mental illness from such behaviors. Although this scene of show play is usually depicted for this volume Asagao, it is not much to do with the main story of this volume. In the main story, Hikaru Genji fell in love with a lady called Asagao but he was dumped by her then this snowy scene comes next followed by his mother in law whom he had an affair with appeared in his dream and said not to tell their secret to her. Even though the snow man which the child made is nothing to do with the main story, it was often depicted in the artworks based on the Tale of Genji. The snowy scene looks very beautiful and heartwarming; however, the sufferings of Murasaki-no-ue are hidden behind this scene.
The scene of Momijino-ga is one of the most beautiful and gorgeous ones in this story. Hikaru Genji and his best friend Kashira-no-Chujo performed an excellent dance called Seigai-ha on the celebration of the Emperor’s birthday. Fujitsubo, who was pregnant with Hikaru Genji’s child, saw their rehearsal because she can not see it at the ceremony. Fujitsubo who was suffering from this secret saw his wonderful performance and was fascinated by his beautiful figure. His dance with outstanding beauty at the stage enchanted the most of audience and he gained his fame to be promoted in the Imperial court.
It is not sure whether the scene depicted with this byobu is the rehearsal or the actual stage, but seeing the little number of audience, this looks like the rehearsal. If so, the Emperor and Fujitsubo, who were viewing this rehearsal, are not depicted with some kind of intention. This artwork just focused on the beauty of the dance but it does not give the details of Fujitsubo’s sufferings or even her existence in the view.
This byobu’s painting emphasize just on elegant and pleasant feelings with dainty motif and for the people who do not know much about the story, they just see the gorgeous beauty in this artwork. This representation technique is a typical one to hide the complicated love and hate story of love affairs like the Tale of Genji to be subtly presented to viewers for appreciation.
I my opinion, the writing technique used by Murasaki-shikibu still has some kind of charm more than just writing a long story for us after 1000 years since it was created.
In Japan, we celebrate the Doll Festival on the March 3rd. This festival is one of the traditional events that tells the gorgeous scenes of the Imperial culture. In another words, it is a festival which transformed the world of Genji into a popular event.
It is fun to decipher what kind of traditional Japanese theme is actually expressed or depicted in such artworks. It is something like the Da Vinci Code that was in fashion a few years ago, isn’t it?
By the way, looking at the current royal family again, they are considered as role models for the Japanese national. Therefore, they may see their family issue is representing the collapse of the Japanese family system and feel anxiety. The Crown Prince refused to give details of the issue at the press conference saying “this is a private matter”. This remark gave unfavorable impression of him being irresponsible as a royal family member. However, there have been a lot of earthly stories such as political tactics and power struggles around the Emperor like the story of Genji and the Imperial system faced several crises after the Heian period. Current Imperial family also has their problems with modern issues. The Japanese people should be more relaxed to see their problems. The most serious issue for the current Imperial family is the succession to the throne and their legitimacy. I hope that they come up with a solution to this issue harnessing the combination!
of traditional and modern wisdom.
That’s all for this week!
See you next week!
**We are sending Shukado News Letter - the information of
new arrivals.
If you would like to join our mailing list, please visit here:
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/mail/join.htm
backnumber:
http://japanese-finearts.blogspot.com/
---------------------------------------------
Japanese Fine Arts.com by SHUKADO
Address: Sone Building 7F, Ginza 6-4-8, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0061
TEL:(international number)+81-3-3569-3620 FAX:+81-3-3569-3621
email: info@japanese-finearts.com
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/
ONLINE GALLERY SYUKADO (Japanese)
http://www.syukado.jp
master@syukado.jp
Shukado President's Blog(including backnumber of Shukado News Letters)
*Blogger site
http://japanese-finearts.blogspot.com/
*Ichiroya site
http://www.ichiroya.com/blog/Chiaki/
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Shukado News Letter No.6 Genji#2
Dear customers and friends,
Kon-nichiwa,hello from Ginza,Tokyo
This is Shukado Newsletter No.6 from "Japanese-finearts.com by Shukado".
It has been really cold in Tokyo. As for this year, it is said that it is colder in northern hemisphere than that of previous years. Last week, the news said that there was a snowfall in Afghanistan causing a serious damage for local residents. What is the weather like in your country?
About 80 days has passed since we opened our website. We are very happy to receive many purchase orders from many countries. As we expected, we have biggest number of orders from U.S. while we saw orders coming from Canada, Germany, Czech Republic, Spain, Austria, Holland, Switzerland, etc. We would like to extend our sincere gratitude for our customers. Thank you very much! I feel that this is the benefit of the age of Internet where we can exchange e-mail and trade with people from allover the world!
To our surprise, we have not received any order from U.K. and France. People from those two countries first discovered the value of Japanese fine arts in the old times. We are looking forward to the orders from customers in those countries!
By the way, let me refer to the continuation of my writing on “The tale of Genji”. I have been researching The Tale of Genji in order to write this news letter since last week. To be honest, I am puzzled to find out that the world of the Tale of Genji spreads in a massive scale like a little cosmos.
The Tale of Genji a very long novel consisting of 54 volumes or chapters. In addition to that, as the time passed, the story of the 54 volumes developed and expanded as if 54 children of Murasaki-shikibu had their individual children and, 1000 years later, numerous amounts of descendants are living in 2008.
For example, if you search “Genji” or “The Tale of Genji”with Amazon U.S., you will get quite a lot of hits. You will be able to find several translations, videos, games and more.
I also heard that, in France, a richly bound book of The Tale of Genji translation by René Sieffert with wonderful artworks taken from various kinds of The Tale of Genji picture books was published last year.
http://www.amazon.fr/Dit-Genji-coffret-volumes-monogatari/dp/2903656371
The overseas impact of The Tale of Genji has been seen around only about these 100 years. Not to be mentioned, in Japan, there are countless numbers of goods related to The Tale of Genji including manuscripts of the original writings, translations made in later periods, paintings and picture books depicting characters and scenes from the Tale of Genji. The images of the Tale of Genji are used as graphic designs for kimono and other products.
When Japanese culture and the source of power in Japanese politics are discussed, many people often mention that there is a “vacuum” or “emptiness” in the center. At the time of Murasaki-shikibu, the Emperor had a political power in Japan. After a while, “Shikken”or Emperor’s political advisors became de-facto rulers. Then Shikken’s reign was taken over by samurai warriors and samurai’s reign continues for about 700 years. However, in theory, the Emperor was always considered as a greatest political figure.
Some academians say that “The Tale of Genji” played a very significant role for the “story” or “illusion” of Emperor’s political governance. Although I have not looked this theory in detail, if I were to believe in this story, I, as a Japanese national, would feel very much like taking close look at The Tale of Genji once again.
It can also be said that “emptiness” also exists in the structure of “The Tale of Genji” itself. As I mentioned in the previous newsletter, its original manuscripts do not exist at present. Even direct manuscript of the original does not exist. Current “The Tale of Genji” was re-constructed from variations derived from manuscripts passed down from generation to generation surviving war fires.
By the way, the manuscript written at the time when The Tale of Genji was written looks like this:
http://japanese-finearts.blogspot.com/2008/02/part-of-genji-monogatari-emaki-national.html
This is a part of scripts from “The Tale of Genji Picture Scroll” which was created in the area near the imperial palace in early 12th century and is the oldest existing manuscript of the tale. This scroll is designated as a National Treasure.
Although this script is written in very elegant and dainty Higarana or Japanese phonetic alphabet, most of Japanese people in the modern time can not read such writings.
Modern Hiragana consists of about 50 letters (the combination of 5 vowels of a,i,u,e and o and 9 consonants of k,s,t, etc. ). Since Hiragana was invented as phonetic alphabet writing by simplifying shapes of Chinese characters, there were several different letters for one sound. In the Heian period, there were approximately 300 letters with Hiragana. After a wile, in the Meiji era, the number of Hiragana letters was reduced to current number of 45 letters to be taught at schools. Since then, old Hiragana letters became obsolete and Japanese people became incapable of reading old scripts.
Even if you can read old Hiragana letters, it is extremely difficult to understand its meaning since old Japanese grammar is quite different from that of modern Japanese and the relations between a subject and a predicate is further vague with old Japanese.
Therefore, Japanese people in the modern time have double or triple obstacles in having a clear picture of original “The Tale of Genji.”
Despite its difficulties in understanding the meaning, don't you think the strikes of the writing look very elegant and beautiful? Calligraphic works from the Heian period are exceptionally beautiful. Therefore, even now, Japanese people appreciate their beauty and treasure manuscripts, scrolls and dankan (a piece of calligraphic work) created in this period. You can see such artworks in the museums in Tokyo and Kyoto.
From art dealer's view point, I would like to touch upon their market value. Beautiful calligraphic works from this period are priced around a couple of million yen (several tens of thousands US dollars). As for very precious ones, even a piece of such artwork is highly valued for a few billion yen (a few million US dollars). Unfortunately, it is prohibited to export many of such artworks (designated as National Treasures or Important Cultural Assets) by Japanese government. It is pity that overseas readers of this newsletter can not purchase them even though having enough money. But don't be disappointed. We are hoping to introduce you some super class calligraphic works from this period in the near future. Please wait for a little while until then.
Sorry, I went off the main topic. Let me get back to it.
To be honest, in reality, there are not many Japanese people who completely understand the content of The Tale of Genji. On the other hand, there are millions of modern Japanese translation, manga comics and paintings based on it. Additionally, various kinds of artworks in a wide range of genre influenced by the tale can be seen now. Therefore, it can be said that most of Japanese people are living unconsciously with the influence of its images and stories,
However such influential existences of the“Emperor”and “The Tale of Genji” serving as binding tools of Japanese people’s mind do not stand out in the society. This may be very Japanese phenomena that important figures are always low-key. In addition, Japanese people do not think so seriously about their main belief, “Buddhism”. While many people have funerals in Buddhist style, Christian style wedding is the most popular followed by Shinto or Buddhist style wedding. Although I sometimes pray for God, I am actually not aware of what sort of God I am praying for.
Making additional comment on the “emptiness” in the core, except Prime Minister Koizumi who had stayed in the office until last year, many of our previous Prime Ministers did not have strong leadership and their stints were very short. This may be due to the fact that Japanese people have temperament to avoid having a strong leader and, as a result of this, a low-key person always serves as a de-facto leader. I do not think this is a very good thing for Japanese politics.
I got off the track too much. I shall stop writing this newsletter here.
For your reference, this year marks 1000th anniversary of the compilation of The Tale of Genji and its anniversary symposium as well as exhibitions and lectures will be held this year. Please visit the website as below for more details.
http://www.2008genji.jp/iinkai/english.html
http://www.pref.kyoto.jp/2008genji/index.html
The topic of The Tale of Genji will continue next week.
**
We have Two NEWS.
News One: Shukado Catalog No.13 / Early Spring of 2008 Edition was just published last Friday!
Why don't you see that:
https://www.syukado.jp/en/catalog/index.html
News Two: Our staff, Ikuko Kuwata just married Smoky (American) YESTERDAY!
http://japanese-finearts.blogspot.com/2008/02/ikuko-just-married.html
She is our customer servicer for overseas and also in charge of editing the Shukado Catalog, the latest edition of which was just printed on last Friday!
Please BLESS her and her new husband!!
**
Everyone, please take care of yourself in the cold weather. I also wish the people in the warm country their well-being!
See you next week!
Chiaki Tanaka
**We are sending Shukado News Letter - the information of
new arrivals.
If you would like to join our mailing list, please visit here:
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/mail/join.htm
backnumber:
http://japanese-finearts.blogspot.com/
---------------------------------------------
Japanese Fine Arts.com by SHUKADO
Address: Sone Building 7F, Ginza 6-4-8, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0061
TEL:(international number)+81-3-3569-3620 FAX:+81-3-3569-3621
email: info@japanese-finearts.com
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/
ONLINE GALLERY SYUKADO (Japanese)
http://www.syukado.jp
master@syukado.jp
Shukado President's Blog(including backnumber of Shukado News Letters)
*Blogger site
http://japanese-finearts.blogspot.com/
*Ichiroya site
http://www.ichiroya.com/blog/Chiaki/
Kon-nichiwa,hello from Ginza,Tokyo
This is Shukado Newsletter No.6 from "Japanese-finearts.com by Shukado".
It has been really cold in Tokyo. As for this year, it is said that it is colder in northern hemisphere than that of previous years. Last week, the news said that there was a snowfall in Afghanistan causing a serious damage for local residents. What is the weather like in your country?
About 80 days has passed since we opened our website. We are very happy to receive many purchase orders from many countries. As we expected, we have biggest number of orders from U.S. while we saw orders coming from Canada, Germany, Czech Republic, Spain, Austria, Holland, Switzerland, etc. We would like to extend our sincere gratitude for our customers. Thank you very much! I feel that this is the benefit of the age of Internet where we can exchange e-mail and trade with people from allover the world!
To our surprise, we have not received any order from U.K. and France. People from those two countries first discovered the value of Japanese fine arts in the old times. We are looking forward to the orders from customers in those countries!
By the way, let me refer to the continuation of my writing on “The tale of Genji”. I have been researching The Tale of Genji in order to write this news letter since last week. To be honest, I am puzzled to find out that the world of the Tale of Genji spreads in a massive scale like a little cosmos.
The Tale of Genji a very long novel consisting of 54 volumes or chapters. In addition to that, as the time passed, the story of the 54 volumes developed and expanded as if 54 children of Murasaki-shikibu had their individual children and, 1000 years later, numerous amounts of descendants are living in 2008.
For example, if you search “Genji” or “The Tale of Genji”with Amazon U.S., you will get quite a lot of hits. You will be able to find several translations, videos, games and more.
I also heard that, in France, a richly bound book of The Tale of Genji translation by René Sieffert with wonderful artworks taken from various kinds of The Tale of Genji picture books was published last year.
http://www.amazon.fr/Dit-Genji-coffret-volumes-monogatari/dp/2903656371
The overseas impact of The Tale of Genji has been seen around only about these 100 years. Not to be mentioned, in Japan, there are countless numbers of goods related to The Tale of Genji including manuscripts of the original writings, translations made in later periods, paintings and picture books depicting characters and scenes from the Tale of Genji. The images of the Tale of Genji are used as graphic designs for kimono and other products.
When Japanese culture and the source of power in Japanese politics are discussed, many people often mention that there is a “vacuum” or “emptiness” in the center. At the time of Murasaki-shikibu, the Emperor had a political power in Japan. After a while, “Shikken”or Emperor’s political advisors became de-facto rulers. Then Shikken’s reign was taken over by samurai warriors and samurai’s reign continues for about 700 years. However, in theory, the Emperor was always considered as a greatest political figure.
Some academians say that “The Tale of Genji” played a very significant role for the “story” or “illusion” of Emperor’s political governance. Although I have not looked this theory in detail, if I were to believe in this story, I, as a Japanese national, would feel very much like taking close look at The Tale of Genji once again.
It can also be said that “emptiness” also exists in the structure of “The Tale of Genji” itself. As I mentioned in the previous newsletter, its original manuscripts do not exist at present. Even direct manuscript of the original does not exist. Current “The Tale of Genji” was re-constructed from variations derived from manuscripts passed down from generation to generation surviving war fires.
By the way, the manuscript written at the time when The Tale of Genji was written looks like this:
http://japanese-finearts.blogspot.com/2008/02/part-of-genji-monogatari-emaki-national.html
This is a part of scripts from “The Tale of Genji Picture Scroll” which was created in the area near the imperial palace in early 12th century and is the oldest existing manuscript of the tale. This scroll is designated as a National Treasure.
Although this script is written in very elegant and dainty Higarana or Japanese phonetic alphabet, most of Japanese people in the modern time can not read such writings.
Modern Hiragana consists of about 50 letters (the combination of 5 vowels of a,i,u,e and o and 9 consonants of k,s,t, etc. ). Since Hiragana was invented as phonetic alphabet writing by simplifying shapes of Chinese characters, there were several different letters for one sound. In the Heian period, there were approximately 300 letters with Hiragana. After a wile, in the Meiji era, the number of Hiragana letters was reduced to current number of 45 letters to be taught at schools. Since then, old Hiragana letters became obsolete and Japanese people became incapable of reading old scripts.
Even if you can read old Hiragana letters, it is extremely difficult to understand its meaning since old Japanese grammar is quite different from that of modern Japanese and the relations between a subject and a predicate is further vague with old Japanese.
Therefore, Japanese people in the modern time have double or triple obstacles in having a clear picture of original “The Tale of Genji.”
Despite its difficulties in understanding the meaning, don't you think the strikes of the writing look very elegant and beautiful? Calligraphic works from the Heian period are exceptionally beautiful. Therefore, even now, Japanese people appreciate their beauty and treasure manuscripts, scrolls and dankan (a piece of calligraphic work) created in this period. You can see such artworks in the museums in Tokyo and Kyoto.
From art dealer's view point, I would like to touch upon their market value. Beautiful calligraphic works from this period are priced around a couple of million yen (several tens of thousands US dollars). As for very precious ones, even a piece of such artwork is highly valued for a few billion yen (a few million US dollars). Unfortunately, it is prohibited to export many of such artworks (designated as National Treasures or Important Cultural Assets) by Japanese government. It is pity that overseas readers of this newsletter can not purchase them even though having enough money. But don't be disappointed. We are hoping to introduce you some super class calligraphic works from this period in the near future. Please wait for a little while until then.
Sorry, I went off the main topic. Let me get back to it.
To be honest, in reality, there are not many Japanese people who completely understand the content of The Tale of Genji. On the other hand, there are millions of modern Japanese translation, manga comics and paintings based on it. Additionally, various kinds of artworks in a wide range of genre influenced by the tale can be seen now. Therefore, it can be said that most of Japanese people are living unconsciously with the influence of its images and stories,
However such influential existences of the“Emperor”and “The Tale of Genji” serving as binding tools of Japanese people’s mind do not stand out in the society. This may be very Japanese phenomena that important figures are always low-key. In addition, Japanese people do not think so seriously about their main belief, “Buddhism”. While many people have funerals in Buddhist style, Christian style wedding is the most popular followed by Shinto or Buddhist style wedding. Although I sometimes pray for God, I am actually not aware of what sort of God I am praying for.
Making additional comment on the “emptiness” in the core, except Prime Minister Koizumi who had stayed in the office until last year, many of our previous Prime Ministers did not have strong leadership and their stints were very short. This may be due to the fact that Japanese people have temperament to avoid having a strong leader and, as a result of this, a low-key person always serves as a de-facto leader. I do not think this is a very good thing for Japanese politics.
I got off the track too much. I shall stop writing this newsletter here.
For your reference, this year marks 1000th anniversary of the compilation of The Tale of Genji and its anniversary symposium as well as exhibitions and lectures will be held this year. Please visit the website as below for more details.
http://www.2008genji.jp/iinkai/english.html
http://www.pref.kyoto.jp/2008genji/index.html
The topic of The Tale of Genji will continue next week.
**
We have Two NEWS.
News One: Shukado Catalog No.13 / Early Spring of 2008 Edition was just published last Friday!
Why don't you see that:
https://www.syukado.jp/en/catalog/index.html
News Two: Our staff, Ikuko Kuwata just married Smoky (American) YESTERDAY!
http://japanese-finearts.blogspot.com/2008/02/ikuko-just-married.html
She is our customer servicer for overseas and also in charge of editing the Shukado Catalog, the latest edition of which was just printed on last Friday!
Please BLESS her and her new husband!!
**
Everyone, please take care of yourself in the cold weather. I also wish the people in the warm country their well-being!
See you next week!
Chiaki Tanaka
**We are sending Shukado News Letter - the information of
new arrivals.
If you would like to join our mailing list, please visit here:
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/mail/join.htm
backnumber:
http://japanese-finearts.blogspot.com/
---------------------------------------------
Japanese Fine Arts.com by SHUKADO
Address: Sone Building 7F, Ginza 6-4-8, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0061
TEL:(international number)+81-3-3569-3620 FAX:+81-3-3569-3621
email: info@japanese-finearts.com
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/
ONLINE GALLERY SYUKADO (Japanese)
http://www.syukado.jp
master@syukado.jp
Shukado President's Blog(including backnumber of Shukado News Letters)
*Blogger site
http://japanese-finearts.blogspot.com/
*Ichiroya site
http://www.ichiroya.com/blog/Chiaki/
Ikuko Just married!
Our staff,Ikuko just married yesterday. She is in charge of customer service for overseas,so usually contact you when you order our items with English or Russian.(She is very good at Russian language. She have been in Phillipine in her childhood for several years and also in Moscow for some years as a Ph.D. student of Russian art history.)
Why do not you bless them?!
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Shukado Newsletter No.5: Genji
Dear customers and friends,
Kon-nichiwa,hello from Ginza,Tokyo
This is Shukado Newsletter No.5 by Japanese-finearts.com
Everyone, how is everything going with you?
Super Duper Tuesday is taking place in the US! Many Japanese people are watching how it is going with great interests. For my personal opinion, I would like to support Barack Obama as a Democratic presidential candidate, but I would like to find out more about him and to make sure whether he is truly a good candidate for US presidency for Asian countries including Japan. Although people in the world including US citizens must be fed up with the current accidental president, news candidates must have both positive and negative faces.
To change the topic, we had a sudden snowfall in wide area of Japan this Sunday.
I was staying at the hotel in the Miura peninsula on my family trip at that time. We had a first heavy snowfall (may be 10-15 cm high) after a while there since early morning on Sunday and I could not drive my car which I drove from home to the hotel. Then I had to leave our car there and returned home with my family by train.
This is the reason of delayed issue of this newsletter. However, never mind, there is a proverb “better late than never”.
By the way, do you know something about “Genji Monogatari” or “The tale of Genji”?
“The tale of Genji” is often referred to as the oldest long novel in the world. This story was written by one Japanese lady about 1,000 years ago. The readers of this newsletter may already know about this.
It is said that the author completed writing this story in 1008 so this year is the 1000th anniversary of its completion. Although I do not know details of them, I heard that various kinds of conferences concerning “The Tale of Genji” are going to be held in Japan and academics from all over the world will meet at the conferences.
”The tale of Genji” deeply takes its root in the Japanese culture. I believe that a “nation” and an “ethnic group” are brought together by some kind of “stories”. As for Japan, “Imperial system” under “the single lineage” is a typical one of those.
Like history of other countries, Japanese history witnessed continuous power struggle wielding military and political power and frequent turn over of samurai regimes. Although substantial reign of Japan had been held by samurai warriors between the 12th century and 19th century, even when bloody conflicts occurred, every head of the regime never tried to override the authority of “Emperor”. Also at the time of “Meiji Ishin” (Meiji restoration) when the samurai regime was replaced by the modern political regime, the revival of Imperial political power was the cause for the new government. Even when Japan was defeated by the US, Emperor Showa who was considered to be responsible for the war was not brought to justice as a war criminal and, in current Japan, the “symbolic Emperor” system still continues.
I feel that since Japan has not experienced annexation by other country, Japanese people do not have strong sense of national identity crisis and do not often
think about what sort of efforts they should make to preserve and strengthen their national identity.
However, from ancient times, politicians know that we need stories that everyone can believe in order to make them share the common philosophy of the nation and become its true “nationals.” Or it may be more precise to say that politicians believed the needs of the stories. The typical of them is the absolute Emperor.
For all of the Japanese people, the significance of Imperial or aristocratic reign can be found in the “Heian period” when the nationals enjoyed 400-years-long peace in Heian-kyo and its Imperial culture.
In my opinion, “Tale of Genji” is the epitome of this Imperial culture.
Although this story said to be written by a court lady called “Murasaki-shikibu”, the original copy of her writing does not exist now. Or even manuscript directly copied from the original does not exist either. From studying indirect manuscripts (copies of such manuscript), people guessed to reproduce the text of “The tale of Genji” that we currently read.
It is said that the story of “The tale of Genji” is divided into three parts: Part one where beautiful son of Emperor “Hikaru-genji” gains his political fame while he experiences love affairs with many ladies, part two where he goes through various predicaments and dies after his hard days and part three which tells the story of his descendants.
To be honest, I believe that only limited number of Japanese people have read all of the story with the book written nearly in the original form. It is a very long novel and various different versions of the same chapter exist. Even more, only one in 10,000 Japanese can perfectly understand old writings and grammar.
Therefore, many different versions of this story were translated in modern Japanese. Since the Edo era, the modern versions had been printed and even in modern times, many novelists wrote this story in modern speech. Even with such modern versions, they are very long so I believe that not many people have read through them. To tell the truth, I am still studying to read the entire story in original speech.
Although only a few people read the entire story, “the Tale of Genji” has a great influence on picture scrolls, ukiyoe, manga and other things representing Japanese culture.
Also, every leader of the Kamakura, Muromachi and Edo shogunate claimed that they are from the lineage of the “Genji” family, therefore the name “Genji” was used as the proof of their legitimacy. In current Japan, although people no longer openly refer to their lineage, “The tale of Genji” is the story of the “blood” which has been passed down for generations in Japanese society.
That is all about the “Tale of Genji” for this week. I shall talk a little more about the story next week.
Before my ending remark, I would like to introduce you this week’s recommended item.
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/item/list2/107006610/
Small sized byobu screens, which depicts some of the scenes taken from “Momiji-no-ga” and “Yuugao” of “The Tale of Genji.” They would look very dainty if they were placed in your room as partitions. They were allegedly created around the mid Edo period. How about decorating your room with those elegant screens?
I will explain the stories of “Momiji-no-ga” and “Yuugao” next week.
When you receive this newsletter, the result of the Super Duper Tuesday may be revealed. What will happen? Keep watching it!
Thank you for reading this newsletter to the end.
See you next week!
Chiaki Tanaka
**Backnumber of Shukado News Letter and president diary
http://japanese-finearts.blogspot.com/
http://www.ichiroya.com/blog/Chiaki/
---------------------------------------------
Japanese Fine Arts.com by SHUKADO
Address: Sone Building 7F, Ginza 6-4-8, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0061
TEL:(international number)+81-3-3569-3620 FAX:+81-3-3569-3621
email: info@japanese-finearts.com
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/
ONLINE GALLERY SYUKADO (Japanese site)
http://www.syukado.jp
master@syukado.jp
Shukado Co,. Ltd. site (Japanese only)
http://aojc.co.jp
Kon-nichiwa,hello from Ginza,Tokyo
This is Shukado Newsletter No.5 by Japanese-finearts.com
Everyone, how is everything going with you?
Super Duper Tuesday is taking place in the US! Many Japanese people are watching how it is going with great interests. For my personal opinion, I would like to support Barack Obama as a Democratic presidential candidate, but I would like to find out more about him and to make sure whether he is truly a good candidate for US presidency for Asian countries including Japan. Although people in the world including US citizens must be fed up with the current accidental president, news candidates must have both positive and negative faces.
To change the topic, we had a sudden snowfall in wide area of Japan this Sunday.
I was staying at the hotel in the Miura peninsula on my family trip at that time. We had a first heavy snowfall (may be 10-15 cm high) after a while there since early morning on Sunday and I could not drive my car which I drove from home to the hotel. Then I had to leave our car there and returned home with my family by train.
This is the reason of delayed issue of this newsletter. However, never mind, there is a proverb “better late than never”.
By the way, do you know something about “Genji Monogatari” or “The tale of Genji”?
“The tale of Genji” is often referred to as the oldest long novel in the world. This story was written by one Japanese lady about 1,000 years ago. The readers of this newsletter may already know about this.
It is said that the author completed writing this story in 1008 so this year is the 1000th anniversary of its completion. Although I do not know details of them, I heard that various kinds of conferences concerning “The Tale of Genji” are going to be held in Japan and academics from all over the world will meet at the conferences.
”The tale of Genji” deeply takes its root in the Japanese culture. I believe that a “nation” and an “ethnic group” are brought together by some kind of “stories”. As for Japan, “Imperial system” under “the single lineage” is a typical one of those.
Like history of other countries, Japanese history witnessed continuous power struggle wielding military and political power and frequent turn over of samurai regimes. Although substantial reign of Japan had been held by samurai warriors between the 12th century and 19th century, even when bloody conflicts occurred, every head of the regime never tried to override the authority of “Emperor”. Also at the time of “Meiji Ishin” (Meiji restoration) when the samurai regime was replaced by the modern political regime, the revival of Imperial political power was the cause for the new government. Even when Japan was defeated by the US, Emperor Showa who was considered to be responsible for the war was not brought to justice as a war criminal and, in current Japan, the “symbolic Emperor” system still continues.
I feel that since Japan has not experienced annexation by other country, Japanese people do not have strong sense of national identity crisis and do not often
think about what sort of efforts they should make to preserve and strengthen their national identity.
However, from ancient times, politicians know that we need stories that everyone can believe in order to make them share the common philosophy of the nation and become its true “nationals.” Or it may be more precise to say that politicians believed the needs of the stories. The typical of them is the absolute Emperor.
For all of the Japanese people, the significance of Imperial or aristocratic reign can be found in the “Heian period” when the nationals enjoyed 400-years-long peace in Heian-kyo and its Imperial culture.
In my opinion, “Tale of Genji” is the epitome of this Imperial culture.
Although this story said to be written by a court lady called “Murasaki-shikibu”, the original copy of her writing does not exist now. Or even manuscript directly copied from the original does not exist either. From studying indirect manuscripts (copies of such manuscript), people guessed to reproduce the text of “The tale of Genji” that we currently read.
It is said that the story of “The tale of Genji” is divided into three parts: Part one where beautiful son of Emperor “Hikaru-genji” gains his political fame while he experiences love affairs with many ladies, part two where he goes through various predicaments and dies after his hard days and part three which tells the story of his descendants.
To be honest, I believe that only limited number of Japanese people have read all of the story with the book written nearly in the original form. It is a very long novel and various different versions of the same chapter exist. Even more, only one in 10,000 Japanese can perfectly understand old writings and grammar.
Therefore, many different versions of this story were translated in modern Japanese. Since the Edo era, the modern versions had been printed and even in modern times, many novelists wrote this story in modern speech. Even with such modern versions, they are very long so I believe that not many people have read through them. To tell the truth, I am still studying to read the entire story in original speech.
Although only a few people read the entire story, “the Tale of Genji” has a great influence on picture scrolls, ukiyoe, manga and other things representing Japanese culture.
Also, every leader of the Kamakura, Muromachi and Edo shogunate claimed that they are from the lineage of the “Genji” family, therefore the name “Genji” was used as the proof of their legitimacy. In current Japan, although people no longer openly refer to their lineage, “The tale of Genji” is the story of the “blood” which has been passed down for generations in Japanese society.
That is all about the “Tale of Genji” for this week. I shall talk a little more about the story next week.
Before my ending remark, I would like to introduce you this week’s recommended item.
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/item/list2/107006610/
Small sized byobu screens, which depicts some of the scenes taken from “Momiji-no-ga” and “Yuugao” of “The Tale of Genji.” They would look very dainty if they were placed in your room as partitions. They were allegedly created around the mid Edo period. How about decorating your room with those elegant screens?
I will explain the stories of “Momiji-no-ga” and “Yuugao” next week.
When you receive this newsletter, the result of the Super Duper Tuesday may be revealed. What will happen? Keep watching it!
Thank you for reading this newsletter to the end.
See you next week!
Chiaki Tanaka
**Backnumber of Shukado News Letter and president diary
http://japanese-finearts.blogspot.com/
http://www.ichiroya.com/blog/Chiaki/
---------------------------------------------
Japanese Fine Arts.com by SHUKADO
Address: Sone Building 7F, Ginza 6-4-8, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0061
TEL:(international number)+81-3-3569-3620 FAX:+81-3-3569-3621
email: info@japanese-finearts.com
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/
ONLINE GALLERY SYUKADO (Japanese site)
http://www.syukado.jp
master@syukado.jp
Shukado Co,. Ltd. site (Japanese only)
http://aojc.co.jp
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Sudden strong snow
Today I have been to " ichigo-gari "(strawberry hunting) at a small farm in Miura Hanto Peninsula. with my wife,two daughters,wife's mother and wife's brother's family. That is some kind of my duty to my family .. "kazoku(family) service".
We had stayed one night yesterday, but on the morning of today, we saw much snow was falling down outside the window! Soon after breakfast we tried to drive our car home, but then already there were too much snow on the ground around the hotel to drive, so we were compelled to leave our car at the hotel and go home by train.
Next week I must went there again and let our car move home. Sigh...
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