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In the late 1990s, artist and poet Bruce Rimell travelled halfway across the world to live and work in Japan. There in his new home city of Uji, just south of Kyoto, he discovered a wonderful new world of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, as well as evocative myths and folktales, beautiful rivers and forested mountains. Losing himself in this ancient landscape, where the Uji River emerges from the mountains into a picturesque cultural scene, he soon discovered the traditional Japanese artform of the 短歌 tanka, the ‘short song’ arranged in five lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables, and he began writing these brief poems to reflect upon his emotional life, and to note his personal impressions of the historical region in which he lived. After two years in the country, he decided to return home to Britain, initiating a transformative period in his life. The 短歌 tanka struck him as an appropriate way to record these changes, particularly as the medium commonly evokes traditional Japanese cultural ideas of impermanence, transience and the fleeting nature of moments in time. As he departed from Japan, and settled back slowly into British life, sorrows of a life left behind, impressions of natural beauty, and failed love affairs, are all enfolded into a collection of poems – in Japanese, but with English translations and notes – that represents an emotionally sensitive work of memory, of reminiscence, and of もののあわれ mono no aware, the ‘sigh of things’, the delicate knowledge that everything in this fleeting, floating world eventually fades and passes away.
A Bowl for a Coin is the first book in any language to describe and analyze the history of all Japanese teas from the plant’s introduction to the archipelago around 750 to the present day. To understand the triumph of the tea plant in Japan, William Wayne Farris begins with its cultivation and goes on to describe the myriad ways in which the herb was processed into a palatable beverage, ultimately resulting in the wide variety of teas we enjoy today. Along the way, he traces in fascinating detail the shift in tea’s status from exotic gift item from China, tied to Heian (794–1185) court ritual and medicinal uses, to tax and commodity for exchange in the 1350s, to its complete nativization in Edo (1603–1868) art and literature and its eventual place on the table of every Japanese household. Farris maintains that the increasing sophistication of Japanese agriculture after 1350 is exemplified by tea farming, which became so advanced that Meiji (1868–1912) entrepreneurs were able to export significant amounts of Japanese tea to Euro-American markets. This in turn provided the much-needed foreign capital necessary to help secure Japan a place among the world’s industrialized nations. Tea also had a hand in initiating Japan’s “industrious revolution”: From 1400, tea was being drunk in larger quantities by commoners as well as elites, and the stimulating, habit-forming beverage made it possible for laborers to apply handicraft skills in a meticulous, efficient, and prolonged manner. In addition to aiding in the protoindustrialization of Japan by 1800, tea had by that time become a central commodity in the formation of a burgeoning consumer society. The demand-pull of tea consumption necessitated even greater production into the postwar period—and this despite challenges posed to the industry by consumers’ growing taste for coffee. A Bowl for a Coin makes a convincing case for how tea—an age-old drink that continues to adapt itself to changing tastes in Japan and the world—can serve as a broad lens through which to view the development of Japanese society over many centuries.
These seven essays by the most recent English translator of The Tale of Genji emphasize three major interpretive issues. What is the place of the hero (Hikaru Genji) in the work? What story gives the narrative underlying continuity and form? And how does the closing section of the tale (especially the ten 'Uji chapters') relate to what precedes it? Written over a period of nine years, the essays suggest fresh, thought-provoking perspectives on Japan¿s greatest literary classic.
Mini-set F: Philosophy & Religion re-issues 4 volumes originally published between 1926 and 1967. For institutional purchases for e-book sets please contact [email protected] (customers in the UK, Europe and Rest of World)
In recent years, there has been a noticeable and enthusiastic increase of interest in Buddhist temples and Shintō shrines in Japan. The legends of these temples and shrines are recorded in many historical manuscripts and these genealogies have such great significance that some of them have been registered as national treasures of Japan. They are indispensable to elucidate the history of these temples and shrines, in addition to the formation process of the ancient Japanese nation. This book provides a comprehensive examination of the genealogies and legends of ancient Japanese clans. It advances the study of ancient Japanese history by utilizing new analytical perspective from not only the well-known historical manuscripts relied upon by previous researchers, but also valuable genealogies and legends that previous researchers largely neglected.