しあわせ

I’ve been wondering lately if I should allow comments here. This is actually the second time I’ve posted this piece. I pulled it the last time.

At first I used WordPress more as a content management tool. しあわせ started as a static website. I can’t remember why I decided to shift to WordPress actually.

This is just hobby stuff really. I spend rather than make any money on it. I’m not even sure why I’m shouting into the void of the web about these various topics. Something to do I guess. The 21st century equivalent of writing manifestos on a wall.

But I saw a video of a presentation by Liz Strauss at WordCamp Dallas and I think her call of “C’mon Let’s Talk!” inspired me a bit.
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Hiroshima by: John Hershey pub: Penguin

In January I visited Hiroshima. I’m not sure I wanted to. I was going there on a recommendation of a friend to see bugaku at Miyajima shrine near Hiroshima. I was afraid Hiroshima would be too depressing; maybe upsetting; maybe just too macabre to be a tourist at the worlds first nuclear destruction.

In the event, what I found was a vibrant modern city not overly dominated by it’s past. Yes there are memorials, and a museum, but oddly I didn’t find it depressing as I expected. It’s strange knowing what happened, seeing what survived. There’s the famous A-Bomb dome. The bank, and in the grounds of Hiroshima castle, trees.

And people survived.
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Autobiography of a Geisha by Sayo Masuda pub: Vintage

Second in my short series about social histories of Japan.

Usually when you think of geisha you have an image of elegance in Kyoto. And geisha are adamant about how their function is not about sex. This woman’s life was very different. She was an onsen geisha and it was almost all about sex, albeit that her art put her a step above the common prostitutes. Her life was also one of slavery in all but name.
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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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やった！

d=====(￣∇￣*)bｲｴｰｲd(*￣∇￣)=====b

I passed JLPT3 with 70%, a comfortable pass.
That listening score is low, but not bad considering I don’t think I really understood anything. But I would really have preferred to pass that section as well.
I must do some work on it.
JLPT2 next…
…decade sometime. It’s a huge leap.