しあわせ

Confessions of a Yakuza by Dr Junichi Saga pub: Kodansha International Press

History books are so often about generals and leaders and battles and wars. The majority of histories of Japan seem to be about either World War 2 (variously known as The Pacific War, The Showa War, or The War against Japan. ) or the Tokugawa Samurai period.

These are neither. They are about relatively ordinary or even marginalised people from the first half of the 20th century, Late Meiji, Taisho and Showa periods. They are also first hand accounts of these peoples lives. It would appear that in Japan the good old days were niether all that good nor all that long ago.

There are 4 books I want to blog about.
The first is “Confessions of a Yakuza”.
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In the basement of Mitsukoshi Department Store on Lower Regent Street is JP Books which is probably the biggest Japanese bookstore in London if not the UK or possibly Europe!
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Remembering the Kanji 1 James W. Heisig. pub: University of Hawaii Press

Heisig is the Marmite (or Natto) of Kanji learning. It’s mostly a love it or hate it affair. It also seems to have cultish tones with talk of unbelievers and converts amongst its fans. 溜め息

But because it has so much written about it I decided to give it a try.
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よつばと！ 著:あずまきよひこ

More “Feel Good”-ness from しあわせ！

Yotsubato is a manga from the creator of my favorite anime “Azumanga Daioh“, Kiyohiko Azuma. It is about the day to day existence of a pre-schooler living in Japan with her adoptive father. (Yotsuba may not be Japanese herself). The manga’s subtitle is “Enjoy Everything”; which Yotsuba-chan surely does as only a five year old can. And so the look of delight on her face as she laughs ははは！never fails to cheer me up.

There are 7 volumes available. (I got mine while in Japan and via Amazon.jp In London you can get them at JP Books in Mitsukoshi.) Yotsuba always speaks in kana, sometimes mispronouncing words too. The adults speak in Kanji, but it all has furigana so it’s good for learners. The artwork is very clean and detailed line drawing that gives a good sense of Japanese life. — check out 第9話 「よつばと復讐」[Yotsuba and revenge] here.

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.

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.