しあわせ

Haiku Edited by David Cobb, pub: The British Museum Press

When I went to Crafting Beauty at the British Museum I couldn’t afford the £800 sake sets but I bought this little book.

I’ve attempted a couple of haiku in Japanese, but somehow I don’t think the form lends itself to love poetry and the reaction is more one of amusement than anything else! Oh well.

Most people are familiar with the 5,7,5 sylable structure, but maybe not with the seasonal words, kigo, and cutting word, kireji. I also wonder about the syllable count. Apparently 17 isn’t a hard and fast rule. Also how do you count a glottal stop? or a long vowel? or n? How important are verbs and particles; there’s very little space to express things. What’s not said as is often the case in Japanese is just as important.

This book is essentially a gift book. It has a short essay about haiku, then the bulk of the book is haiku and illustrations from the museum’s collection. Each haiku is given as calligraphy, a romaji version and an English version. The haiku in the book are arranged into the four seasons. There are also notes on the authors and suggestions for further reading and Internet links such as The British Haiku Society. (which is unfortunately an out of date link)

It’s nice little book to dip into. The poems are short enough to explore reading in Japanese and figuring out the kanji. Maybe you could even try writing haiku in Japanese. You might not produce great poetry but it’s an interesting thing to try.

My favorite haiku in the collection is a modern one by Hino Soujou
見えぬ眼の方の眼鏡の玉も拭く

If you are interested in Japanese poetry you may also be interested in Love Songs from the Manyoshu.

If attempting your own poetry this online saijiki of seasonal words is interesting.

Basic Kanji 320 Corresponding to JLPT Level 3 Meguro Language Center

Well it does exactly what it says on the cover. The bulk of this book are the 284 kanji needed for JLPT3, plus an extra 36 kanji that might also be tested. (The wording on the MLC site suggested to me that they were prediciting 36 kanji out of the 284 that might appear on this years test. Alas that is not the case. )

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The program for the 51st LFF has been published and bookings open at the end of this month.

This year I see 7 films from Japan listed as well as 2 shorts. None of which I’ve seen before although a couple of directors I’m familiar with; such as Kitano Takeshi, the famous actor/director; Nobuhiro Yamashita, the director of リンダリンダリンダ; and Masayuki Suo, the director of Shall We Dansu.

Does Your Soul Have a Cold? Sun 21 Oct, Tue 23 Oct Documentary.
EXTE – hair extensions Thur 25 Oct, Fri 26 Oct
Glory to the Filmaker Thur 18 Oct. Kitano Takeshi
I Just Didn’t Do It Fri 26 Oct, Mon 29 Oct. Masayuki Suo
Matsugane Potshot Affair Tue 23 Oct, Wed 24 Oct. Nobuhiro Yamashita
Mourning Forest Sun 28 Oct, Tue 30 Oct
Vexille Sat 20 Oct, Sun 21 Oct. CG Anime

Ticket prices are from £6, £8.50 or £11 depending on time and venue.

––old event––
the links that were in this post are no longer active and have been removed

めし dir:成瀬 巳喜男　1951

After going to the NFT Naruse retrospective and being dissapointed in the film I saw, I’ve finally managed to see some of his films on Eureka DVD.

めし, made in 1951 is much better than When a Woman Ascends the Stairs.
Visually not very exciting, but this film has more of a sense of place. Parts of it were even shot on location in Osaka. It was interesting to see places I recognised such as Dontonburi, Shin Kabukiza and the Kuidaore Ningyo.

The characters were believable and this time I could empathise with them. Maybe unusually for any film of this period the major characters are women. The men are definitely the supporting cast and apart from the husband character very much in the background. Indeed this is a recurring motif for Naruse.

The story mainly is about a young housewife, Michiyo, who is dissatisfied with her endless lot of cooking and cleaning for her husband. They are not well off and live in a small house. And yet the husband isn’t a bad man. Maybe a bit absorbed in his job and newspaper but not demanding and quite sympathetic and even kind. Michiyo’s dissatisfaction is made worse when a young niece comes to stay after running away from her home in Tokyo. The young girls freedoms (and possible designs on the husband) do not make for a happy household.

It is an interesting period film. I think maybe the attitudes would be unknown and strange to modern Japanese. The resolution I found very Japanese but true to it’s time I’d say.

As usual worth a rental.

どんどん読めるいろいろな話　著者: 秋元美晴、糸川優、寺島ミチ子、(ISBN4-8386-0368-1)

Part of my ongoing 100万字 project. Slightly daunting at first as it is completely Japanese. But I found I could understand most of the introduction so I bought it. There are 11 stories in it. I reckon the level is about post JLPT3 in terms of grammar but maybe a little higher in terms of vocabulary. It has the story 「注文の多い料理店」which I have previously read in the レベル別日本語多読ラブリー series. This version is a little harder overall but still doable at my reading level so I’m pretty confident in reading the rest of the stories. I’m looking forward to reading an excerpt from Souseki’s “I am a Cat”「我輩は猫である」

Everything has furigana which is useful. There is even a little plastic sheet you can put over the page that will block out the furigana so you can test your ability to read without them. Unlike the NPO books there are footnotes. These explain unknown words either by using pictures or by explaining the word in simpler Japanese or very rarely by giving the English.

My only complaints about the book are quite minor. It would be nice if the illustrations were either colour or line drawings. And the typeface the book is set in is slightly small; for beginners a larger size would be easier. However it does seem to be the standard size Japanese novels are set in, so maybe it’s good to get used to it.

花と怒濤　dir:鈴木清順　1964

Suzuki Seijun is best known for a very strong visual style seen in such films as Tokyo Drifter, and Branded to Kill that ultimately got him fired from his studio. And in more recent years has made Pistol Opera and Princess Tanuki, both of which are very visual but fairly incomprehensible I think.

This film is from the period just before Tokyo Drifter and his split from Nikkatsu Studios. It was towards the start of his collaborations with Production Designer Takeo Kimura. Seijun was making an enourmous amount of B movies at this time. Mainly in the Yakuza genre. Essentially these were to Japan what the B Western was to America. He made about 3 a year under an incredible 40 day schedule. (Contrast this with todays films where directors will seldomn make 1 a year and schedules from pre production to post production lasts many months if not well over a year and many millions of dollars)

So on the face of it this is standard Yakuza fare. Love story, gangs, fights, cops, period feel. But something of the director’s talents shine through and you get really interesting visuals and something more than a B-movie.

His later films are much more visual masterpieces but the story in this one is easier to follow. Worth a rental.