Kristine Ohkubo's Blog
September 8, 2022
Nickname: Flower of Evil: 呼び名は悪の花
The Abe Sada Story
INTRODUCTION
When Japan transitioned from 264 years of rule under the military-led Tokugawa Shogunate (1603 to 1867) to the restoration of imperial power during the Meiji era, it embarked on a path of rapid modernization. This period produced dramatic changes in the country’s political, social, and economic institutions.
In the years that followed, Japan grew and evolved at an unprecedented rate, and its economy soared to levels that were previously unwitnessed in Asia. However, in a society that had historically been structured around a strict social hierarchy, the cost of this immense growth was primarily borne by its underclass—the women.
Once the shift of power took place, the Shogunate’s economy was restructured and its land tax system was reformed. Those who had paid taxes previously were issued certificates of ownership, but common lands became the property of the central government. Under the new law, taxes were paid in cash based on the value of the land rather than the value of the crops grown on the land. Utilizing the taxes collected from individual landholders, the new government invested heavily in industries such as silk and cotton production, railways, and mining. Japan’s industrial revolution created a critical need for laborers. The majority of the industrial workforce came from the rural farmlands.
The women who once helped their families on the farm were redirected to work in the factories. By 1900, 250,000 women worked in the textile industry. A little over a decade later that number swelled to an estimated 800,000.
These rural women were often underage, underpaid, and indentured to the factory owners. Indentured labor was not a new concept in Japan. Dating as far back as 1543, when the Portuguese first set foot in the country, a large scale slave trade had existed in which the Portuguese purchased Japanese as slaves and sold them overseas. This practice lasted throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Portuguese also purchased large numbers of Japanese women to bring back to Portugal for sexual purposes. Some of the Japanese women were sold as concubines to the Portuguese, lascar, and African crewmembers serving aboard the Portuguese vessels engaged in trading with Japan.
Dom Sebastian I, the king of Portugal from 1557 to 1578, feared that the slave trade was having a negative impact on Catholic proselytization in Japan and ordered that the practice be banned in 1571.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Imperial Regent, was disgusted by the fact that his people were being sold en masse into slavery. On July 24, 1587, he wrote a letter to Jesuit Vice-Provincial Gaspar Coelho. Coelho was a Jesuit missionary who replaced Francisco Cabral as the Superior and Vice-Provincial of the Jesuit mission in Japan during the late sixteenth century. In his letter Hideyoshi demanded that the Portuguese, Siamese, and Cambodians stop purchasing and enslaving Japanese people and return them to Japan. He blamed the Portuguese and the Jesuits for the slave trade and as a result banned Christian proselytizing altogether.
In 1595 Portugal passed a law banning Chinese and Japanese slavery, but various forms of indentured labor still existed.
Upon being recruited by the textile mills, the women’s families were paid a sum of money which they could apply toward paying off loans and defraying the cost of their living expenses. In reality, however, these advance payments were loans from the factory owners that the women were obligated to pay back. A typical contract lasting five to seven years would enable a family to receive an advance payment of ¥200 to ¥300.
On average, women working in the silk mills in 1875 were earning approximately ¥9 annually. By 1880, that figure nearly doubled. Wages were paid annually and the factories deducted an installment from these wages as a repayment for the advances that had been paid to the workers' families.
The women typically worked under grueling conditions and labored twelve to fourteen hours a day. They were often subjected to punishment by the factory inspectors. The punishment came in the form of fines and/or physical abuse and were applied to those women who appeared to have slowed down the production line or who seemed to be inattentive.
Further, the women were confined to company-owned dormitories where their day-to-day lives were governed by strict rules and regulations. The sanitary conditions in these dormitories were deplorable due to a lack of sufficient bathing and laundering facilities. Most of the dormitories were breeding grounds for lice and bedbugs, which aided to the spread of disease.
As a result, tuberculosis was on the rise in Japan during this period, particularly in the rural areas. The women would often contract the disease in the dormitories and infect others that they came in contact with after they returned to their villages to recuperate. Until the 1920s, tuberculosis was responsible for 40% of the deaths of the women living in factory dormitories and 70% of the deaths of the women who had returned to their villages.
Thiamine deficiency (also known as beriberi), a condition that causes disorders of the cardiovascular system and the nervous system, was also common during this period due to the poor diet the women were subjected to.
Many of the women attempted to run away from the factories, but they were chased down, captured, and returned to the factory owners. Several women committed suicide.
Due to their rural background, most of the workers were uneducated. By the 1900s many companies began to offer primary education to their female workforce, but this education was focused on learning skills that could later be utilized by the factories.
After the textile industry, the second largest employer of women during the Industrial Revolution was the sex industry. Prostitution was legalized by the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1617, and fathers had the right to sell their daughters to brothels.
Many families facing poverty, famine, and crop failure often resorted to selling their daughters to brothels in an effort to ease the family’s financial burdens. However, selling women to the brothels was not limited only to the families who were financially destitute. The affluent samurai families had established the practice of selling daughters whom they deemed to be sexually promiscuous to the brothels as a form of punishment.
During the Tokugawa (or Edo) period, the practice of infanticide as a form of population control had become prevalent in Japan. Farmers killed their second or third sons soon after birth in what was known as mabiki. Mabiki is an agricultural term used to describe the act of pulling plants from an overcrowded garden.
In northern Japan alone, between 60,000 and 70,000 cases of mabiki were recorded each year. Daughters were often spared, because they could be married off, or sold as servants, prostitutes, or geishas.
In 1842, the Shogunate banned induced abortions in Edo (Tokyo), but the law did not extend to the rest of the country until 1869. During the Meiji period, the government strived to promote a larger population in order to exercise greater military and political power in the world arena. The Meiji reformers enacted Japan’s first penal code in 1880, which criminalized both abortion and infanticide. An increase in the number of children being born in Japan during the Meiji period contributed to the number of males who could be inducted into the military and the number of females who could be sold to the sex industry.
Despite the legalization of the sex industry, the social attitudes to prostitutes did not change; many Japanese found it easier to blame the victim rather than the society that created the conditions for prostitution to exist.
In 1872, the Meiji government passed the Prostitution Emancipation Act as a response to foreign criticism of Japan’s sex trade. The new law freed geishas and prostitutes from being bound by contracts of indentured servitude. However, the law also left many women unemployed. With nowhere else to work, they returned to the brothels under similar contracts. The brothels had relabeled themselves as kashi zashiki gyo (room rental establishments).
Three years after the Prostitution Emancipation Act was passed, the government backtracked and once again recognized the legality of contracts of indenture for prostitutes.
Many major cities in Japan allocated specific districts on their outskirts to the sex industry. In 1883, there were 3,156 registered prostitutes in approximately 400 districts. By 1904, that number rose to 43,134. In the next two decades, the number increased to 52,325.
The rapid industrialization of Japan created a largely disproportionate ratio of men to women in the factory areas which fostered the growth of the sex industry.
In the 1890s, the Meiji reformers instituted a state-sponsored education system and along with the Home Ministry introduced the twin ideals of ryosai kenbo (good wife, wise mother). These ideals were carried over from the Tokugawa period, when women of the samurai class were considered catalysts for bringing either respect or shame to their families and to their clans. Samurai women were expected to be good examples of propriety and virtue to the members of their household as well as all other members of their clan. They were charged with serving their husbands well by bearing children for them and preserving the honor and lineage of their families. Women were discouraged from forming friendships or becoming intimate with anyone other than those individuals to whom they were introduced to by their parents or by middlemen acting on behalf of their parents.
However, the ideals of modesty, frugality, and purity embodied in ryosai kenbo were reserved primarily for the upper- and middle-class women; the lower-class women, who remained largely uneducated, were simply viewed as laborers required for the factories.
Although women endured repression and hierarchical subjugation during the Tokugawa period, it wasn’t until the implementation of the Japanese Mimpo (civil code) in 1898 that the subordinate status of women in society was formalized in the law. The new law not only deprived married women of their economic independence, it also further subjected them to the will of the head of the household.
Overall, the extent to which women could participate in society differed over time and in accordance to their social class. In eighth century Japan, it was permissible for women to rule. During the twelfth century, women were allowed to inherit property in their own names. This gave them a degree of freedom and considerable power over their lives. Furthermore, divorce and remarriage were not stigmatized. However, as a result of closer adherence to Confucianism and Buddhism coupled with the advent of samurai culture, the role of women in Japanese society was downgraded to a state of acquiescent confinement.
Beginning with the Tokugawa period and well into the Meiji period, when Japan embraced change and modernization, the social status of women drastically declined. The condition of the lower classes consisting of the impoverished rural women, the factory laborers, and the sex industry workers remained largely unchanged throughout the first half of the twentieth century.
Despite the benefits it gained, the industrial development of Japan came at an enormous cost to Japanese society. The system blatantly exploited the already repressed members of society—its women.
Abe Sada was born in Tokyo’s Kanda ward on May 28, 1905 (Meiji era). She was the seventh of eight children born to a family of tatami (straw mat) makers. She was raised amidst and forced to find a way to survive in a newly modernized, male-dominated, and misogynistic society.
INTRODUCTION
When Japan transitioned from 264 years of rule under the military-led Tokugawa Shogunate (1603 to 1867) to the restoration of imperial power during the Meiji era, it embarked on a path of rapid modernization. This period produced dramatic changes in the country’s political, social, and economic institutions.
In the years that followed, Japan grew and evolved at an unprecedented rate, and its economy soared to levels that were previously unwitnessed in Asia. However, in a society that had historically been structured around a strict social hierarchy, the cost of this immense growth was primarily borne by its underclass—the women.
Once the shift of power took place, the Shogunate’s economy was restructured and its land tax system was reformed. Those who had paid taxes previously were issued certificates of ownership, but common lands became the property of the central government. Under the new law, taxes were paid in cash based on the value of the land rather than the value of the crops grown on the land. Utilizing the taxes collected from individual landholders, the new government invested heavily in industries such as silk and cotton production, railways, and mining. Japan’s industrial revolution created a critical need for laborers. The majority of the industrial workforce came from the rural farmlands.
The women who once helped their families on the farm were redirected to work in the factories. By 1900, 250,000 women worked in the textile industry. A little over a decade later that number swelled to an estimated 800,000.
These rural women were often underage, underpaid, and indentured to the factory owners. Indentured labor was not a new concept in Japan. Dating as far back as 1543, when the Portuguese first set foot in the country, a large scale slave trade had existed in which the Portuguese purchased Japanese as slaves and sold them overseas. This practice lasted throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Portuguese also purchased large numbers of Japanese women to bring back to Portugal for sexual purposes. Some of the Japanese women were sold as concubines to the Portuguese, lascar, and African crewmembers serving aboard the Portuguese vessels engaged in trading with Japan.
Dom Sebastian I, the king of Portugal from 1557 to 1578, feared that the slave trade was having a negative impact on Catholic proselytization in Japan and ordered that the practice be banned in 1571.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Imperial Regent, was disgusted by the fact that his people were being sold en masse into slavery. On July 24, 1587, he wrote a letter to Jesuit Vice-Provincial Gaspar Coelho. Coelho was a Jesuit missionary who replaced Francisco Cabral as the Superior and Vice-Provincial of the Jesuit mission in Japan during the late sixteenth century. In his letter Hideyoshi demanded that the Portuguese, Siamese, and Cambodians stop purchasing and enslaving Japanese people and return them to Japan. He blamed the Portuguese and the Jesuits for the slave trade and as a result banned Christian proselytizing altogether.
In 1595 Portugal passed a law banning Chinese and Japanese slavery, but various forms of indentured labor still existed.
Upon being recruited by the textile mills, the women’s families were paid a sum of money which they could apply toward paying off loans and defraying the cost of their living expenses. In reality, however, these advance payments were loans from the factory owners that the women were obligated to pay back. A typical contract lasting five to seven years would enable a family to receive an advance payment of ¥200 to ¥300.
On average, women working in the silk mills in 1875 were earning approximately ¥9 annually. By 1880, that figure nearly doubled. Wages were paid annually and the factories deducted an installment from these wages as a repayment for the advances that had been paid to the workers' families.
The women typically worked under grueling conditions and labored twelve to fourteen hours a day. They were often subjected to punishment by the factory inspectors. The punishment came in the form of fines and/or physical abuse and were applied to those women who appeared to have slowed down the production line or who seemed to be inattentive.
Further, the women were confined to company-owned dormitories where their day-to-day lives were governed by strict rules and regulations. The sanitary conditions in these dormitories were deplorable due to a lack of sufficient bathing and laundering facilities. Most of the dormitories were breeding grounds for lice and bedbugs, which aided to the spread of disease.
As a result, tuberculosis was on the rise in Japan during this period, particularly in the rural areas. The women would often contract the disease in the dormitories and infect others that they came in contact with after they returned to their villages to recuperate. Until the 1920s, tuberculosis was responsible for 40% of the deaths of the women living in factory dormitories and 70% of the deaths of the women who had returned to their villages.
Thiamine deficiency (also known as beriberi), a condition that causes disorders of the cardiovascular system and the nervous system, was also common during this period due to the poor diet the women were subjected to.
Many of the women attempted to run away from the factories, but they were chased down, captured, and returned to the factory owners. Several women committed suicide.
Due to their rural background, most of the workers were uneducated. By the 1900s many companies began to offer primary education to their female workforce, but this education was focused on learning skills that could later be utilized by the factories.
After the textile industry, the second largest employer of women during the Industrial Revolution was the sex industry. Prostitution was legalized by the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1617, and fathers had the right to sell their daughters to brothels.
Many families facing poverty, famine, and crop failure often resorted to selling their daughters to brothels in an effort to ease the family’s financial burdens. However, selling women to the brothels was not limited only to the families who were financially destitute. The affluent samurai families had established the practice of selling daughters whom they deemed to be sexually promiscuous to the brothels as a form of punishment.
During the Tokugawa (or Edo) period, the practice of infanticide as a form of population control had become prevalent in Japan. Farmers killed their second or third sons soon after birth in what was known as mabiki. Mabiki is an agricultural term used to describe the act of pulling plants from an overcrowded garden.
In northern Japan alone, between 60,000 and 70,000 cases of mabiki were recorded each year. Daughters were often spared, because they could be married off, or sold as servants, prostitutes, or geishas.
In 1842, the Shogunate banned induced abortions in Edo (Tokyo), but the law did not extend to the rest of the country until 1869. During the Meiji period, the government strived to promote a larger population in order to exercise greater military and political power in the world arena. The Meiji reformers enacted Japan’s first penal code in 1880, which criminalized both abortion and infanticide. An increase in the number of children being born in Japan during the Meiji period contributed to the number of males who could be inducted into the military and the number of females who could be sold to the sex industry.
Despite the legalization of the sex industry, the social attitudes to prostitutes did not change; many Japanese found it easier to blame the victim rather than the society that created the conditions for prostitution to exist.
In 1872, the Meiji government passed the Prostitution Emancipation Act as a response to foreign criticism of Japan’s sex trade. The new law freed geishas and prostitutes from being bound by contracts of indentured servitude. However, the law also left many women unemployed. With nowhere else to work, they returned to the brothels under similar contracts. The brothels had relabeled themselves as kashi zashiki gyo (room rental establishments).
Three years after the Prostitution Emancipation Act was passed, the government backtracked and once again recognized the legality of contracts of indenture for prostitutes.
Many major cities in Japan allocated specific districts on their outskirts to the sex industry. In 1883, there were 3,156 registered prostitutes in approximately 400 districts. By 1904, that number rose to 43,134. In the next two decades, the number increased to 52,325.
The rapid industrialization of Japan created a largely disproportionate ratio of men to women in the factory areas which fostered the growth of the sex industry.
In the 1890s, the Meiji reformers instituted a state-sponsored education system and along with the Home Ministry introduced the twin ideals of ryosai kenbo (good wife, wise mother). These ideals were carried over from the Tokugawa period, when women of the samurai class were considered catalysts for bringing either respect or shame to their families and to their clans. Samurai women were expected to be good examples of propriety and virtue to the members of their household as well as all other members of their clan. They were charged with serving their husbands well by bearing children for them and preserving the honor and lineage of their families. Women were discouraged from forming friendships or becoming intimate with anyone other than those individuals to whom they were introduced to by their parents or by middlemen acting on behalf of their parents.
However, the ideals of modesty, frugality, and purity embodied in ryosai kenbo were reserved primarily for the upper- and middle-class women; the lower-class women, who remained largely uneducated, were simply viewed as laborers required for the factories.
Although women endured repression and hierarchical subjugation during the Tokugawa period, it wasn’t until the implementation of the Japanese Mimpo (civil code) in 1898 that the subordinate status of women in society was formalized in the law. The new law not only deprived married women of their economic independence, it also further subjected them to the will of the head of the household.
Overall, the extent to which women could participate in society differed over time and in accordance to their social class. In eighth century Japan, it was permissible for women to rule. During the twelfth century, women were allowed to inherit property in their own names. This gave them a degree of freedom and considerable power over their lives. Furthermore, divorce and remarriage were not stigmatized. However, as a result of closer adherence to Confucianism and Buddhism coupled with the advent of samurai culture, the role of women in Japanese society was downgraded to a state of acquiescent confinement.
Beginning with the Tokugawa period and well into the Meiji period, when Japan embraced change and modernization, the social status of women drastically declined. The condition of the lower classes consisting of the impoverished rural women, the factory laborers, and the sex industry workers remained largely unchanged throughout the first half of the twentieth century.
Despite the benefits it gained, the industrial development of Japan came at an enormous cost to Japanese society. The system blatantly exploited the already repressed members of society—its women.
Abe Sada was born in Tokyo’s Kanda ward on May 28, 1905 (Meiji era). She was the seventh of eight children born to a family of tatami (straw mat) makers. She was raised amidst and forced to find a way to survive in a newly modernized, male-dominated, and misogynistic society.
The Sun Will Rise Again
The Journey from Vanquished to Victorious
INTRODUCTION
Although President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Neutrality Act on August 31, 1935, further cementing the United States’ intention to stay out of foreign wars, he did explicitly state, “history is filled with unforeseeable situations that call for some flexibility of action.” In other words, if the United States wished to join any given conflict, it could do so under the pretense of exercising the right to protect its citizens.
While the rest of the world had been embroiled in some type of battle since 1939, the United States continued to maintain its neutrality while indirectly contributing to the Allies’ war effort. “Indirect contribution” meant freely selling arms to countries which the United States deemed as friendly. When the Lend-Lease Act was signed into law on March 11, 1941, it enabled the U.S. to step up its military exports to the British in an effort to aid them in repelling Hitler’s advancement toward England.
However, six years after the signing of the Neutrality Act, the unforeseeable situation which Roosevelt had eluded to came to pass, thus altering the United States’ stance on the war. Instigated by the Empire of Japan, the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, came to be known as “a date which will live in infamy.”
On December 8, President Roosevelt delivered a 10-minute speech in which he proclaimed, “The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.” The declaration of war on Japan was signed at 4:10 p.m. and the United States officially entered the war, which it had to fight on two fronts: in Europe and the Pacific.
What prompted the Empire of Japan to attack the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor? Was the attack really a surprise, or was it a carefully orchestrated event by Washington to anger the American public enough to want to go to war? What events unfolded leading up to Emperor Hirohito’s radio address on August 15, 1945, during which he announced the surrender of Japan to the Allies?
This book focuses on the Pacific War. It will lead you through the Empire of Japan’s provocation of the United States which led the United States to enter World War II, describe the gruesome events which unfolded on Japanese soil, provide you with comprehensive details of the hardships faced by Japanese Americans on American soil, and take you through the last stages of the war, which ultimately ended with the surrender of Japan.
You will learn about the Japanese mindset during and after the war, what life was like during the seven-year American military occupation of Japan, and what Japan and her people had to face as they struggled to rebuild.
When World War II concluded, Japan was battered and the morale of its people was at an all-time low. However, in the land of the rising sun, the sun will rise again.
INTRODUCTION
Although President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Neutrality Act on August 31, 1935, further cementing the United States’ intention to stay out of foreign wars, he did explicitly state, “history is filled with unforeseeable situations that call for some flexibility of action.” In other words, if the United States wished to join any given conflict, it could do so under the pretense of exercising the right to protect its citizens.
While the rest of the world had been embroiled in some type of battle since 1939, the United States continued to maintain its neutrality while indirectly contributing to the Allies’ war effort. “Indirect contribution” meant freely selling arms to countries which the United States deemed as friendly. When the Lend-Lease Act was signed into law on March 11, 1941, it enabled the U.S. to step up its military exports to the British in an effort to aid them in repelling Hitler’s advancement toward England.
However, six years after the signing of the Neutrality Act, the unforeseeable situation which Roosevelt had eluded to came to pass, thus altering the United States’ stance on the war. Instigated by the Empire of Japan, the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, came to be known as “a date which will live in infamy.”
On December 8, President Roosevelt delivered a 10-minute speech in which he proclaimed, “The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.” The declaration of war on Japan was signed at 4:10 p.m. and the United States officially entered the war, which it had to fight on two fronts: in Europe and the Pacific.
What prompted the Empire of Japan to attack the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor? Was the attack really a surprise, or was it a carefully orchestrated event by Washington to anger the American public enough to want to go to war? What events unfolded leading up to Emperor Hirohito’s radio address on August 15, 1945, during which he announced the surrender of Japan to the Allies?
This book focuses on the Pacific War. It will lead you through the Empire of Japan’s provocation of the United States which led the United States to enter World War II, describe the gruesome events which unfolded on Japanese soil, provide you with comprehensive details of the hardships faced by Japanese Americans on American soil, and take you through the last stages of the war, which ultimately ended with the surrender of Japan.
You will learn about the Japanese mindset during and after the war, what life was like during the seven-year American military occupation of Japan, and what Japan and her people had to face as they struggled to rebuild.
When World War II concluded, Japan was battered and the morale of its people was at an all-time low. However, in the land of the rising sun, the sun will rise again.
A Blogger's Guide to Japan
Introduction
For many, the island country of Japan is a far distant place characterized by temples, shrines, kabuki, Noh, tea ceremonies, ikebana, kimonos, geisha, and samurai. They often dream about visiting this alluring nation, but few actually have an opportunity to do so.
However, for those who do travel to Japan, it becomes a destination that they visit over and over again. As a matter of fact, Japan received a record number 12 million visitors in 2014 and is seeking to increase tourism up to 20 million visitors by 2020. With the Olympic Games scheduled to take place in Tokyo in 2020, that number does not appear far-fetched.
I had the pleasure of traveling to Japan on several occasions, fell in love with the country, and vowed to return many times. I approached each visit with wide-eyed enthusiasm, immersing myself in the local culture and learning about the history and traditions of this magnificent place that once I only dreamed about. I fell in love with Japan and its people and wanted to share my experiences with others so that they too would carve out an opportunity to someday travel there. I found that the easiest way to reach people in this age of technology and social media was by creating a blog. Thus, Traveldreamscapes was born.
I published numerous blog posts and photos gathered from my travels, which was received with so much enthusiasm by my readers that several asked me whether I had intentions of writing a book about my travels to Japan. At first, the idea seemed daunting but the more I thought about it, the more I gravitated toward the notion.
Certainly, there are countless travel books about Japan but I wondered how many were actually written from a travel blogger’s perspective. You will find that this book offers a different approach to introducing both new and seasoned travelers to Japan. I will give you the history and background of each place to help you develop a greater appreciation for the sites you visit. Not only will you learn about the popular destinations for tourists but you will also discover attractions off the beaten path. I will uncover festivals and traditions unique to each area and introduce you to local cuisines.
One of the best ways to immerse yourself in a culture is to sample its diverse cuisine. While traveling in Japan today, you will find many western chain restaurants as well as wester style eateries to choose among. Rather than settling for the familiar places, select a traditional restaurant frequented by the locals and sample some of Japan’s regional cooking.
Japanese cuisine has a vast array of local specialties known as kyodo ryori (郷土料理). These dishes are typically prepared using local ingredients and traditional recipes. Although many local ingredients are available nationwide these days and it is not uncommon to find regional dishes throughout Japan, you can still find true kyodo ryori to fulfill your adventures in gastronomy. After all, your travels should be an adventure where you actively engage in the traditions and offerings of a country rather than just observing them as a bystander.
The book is organized by region/prefecture so regardless of whether you are traveling for a week, a month or several months, you can use this book not only to plan your travels but also to explore further once you are there. Where available, the web page address, physical address, and travel tips will enable you to obtain current, detailed information for each venue.
It is my hope that this guide to Japan will awaken your curiosity about this beautiful country and encourage you to explore it on your own. To quote J.R.R. Tolkien, “Little by little, one travels far.”
Wishing you happy and safe journeys to Japan!
For many, the island country of Japan is a far distant place characterized by temples, shrines, kabuki, Noh, tea ceremonies, ikebana, kimonos, geisha, and samurai. They often dream about visiting this alluring nation, but few actually have an opportunity to do so.
However, for those who do travel to Japan, it becomes a destination that they visit over and over again. As a matter of fact, Japan received a record number 12 million visitors in 2014 and is seeking to increase tourism up to 20 million visitors by 2020. With the Olympic Games scheduled to take place in Tokyo in 2020, that number does not appear far-fetched.
I had the pleasure of traveling to Japan on several occasions, fell in love with the country, and vowed to return many times. I approached each visit with wide-eyed enthusiasm, immersing myself in the local culture and learning about the history and traditions of this magnificent place that once I only dreamed about. I fell in love with Japan and its people and wanted to share my experiences with others so that they too would carve out an opportunity to someday travel there. I found that the easiest way to reach people in this age of technology and social media was by creating a blog. Thus, Traveldreamscapes was born.
I published numerous blog posts and photos gathered from my travels, which was received with so much enthusiasm by my readers that several asked me whether I had intentions of writing a book about my travels to Japan. At first, the idea seemed daunting but the more I thought about it, the more I gravitated toward the notion.
Certainly, there are countless travel books about Japan but I wondered how many were actually written from a travel blogger’s perspective. You will find that this book offers a different approach to introducing both new and seasoned travelers to Japan. I will give you the history and background of each place to help you develop a greater appreciation for the sites you visit. Not only will you learn about the popular destinations for tourists but you will also discover attractions off the beaten path. I will uncover festivals and traditions unique to each area and introduce you to local cuisines.
One of the best ways to immerse yourself in a culture is to sample its diverse cuisine. While traveling in Japan today, you will find many western chain restaurants as well as wester style eateries to choose among. Rather than settling for the familiar places, select a traditional restaurant frequented by the locals and sample some of Japan’s regional cooking.
Japanese cuisine has a vast array of local specialties known as kyodo ryori (郷土料理). These dishes are typically prepared using local ingredients and traditional recipes. Although many local ingredients are available nationwide these days and it is not uncommon to find regional dishes throughout Japan, you can still find true kyodo ryori to fulfill your adventures in gastronomy. After all, your travels should be an adventure where you actively engage in the traditions and offerings of a country rather than just observing them as a bystander.
The book is organized by region/prefecture so regardless of whether you are traveling for a week, a month or several months, you can use this book not only to plan your travels but also to explore further once you are there. Where available, the web page address, physical address, and travel tips will enable you to obtain current, detailed information for each venue.
It is my hope that this guide to Japan will awaken your curiosity about this beautiful country and encourage you to explore it on your own. To quote J.R.R. Tolkien, “Little by little, one travels far.”
Wishing you happy and safe journeys to Japan!
Sanyutei Encho's “Botan Doro” (“The Peony Lantern”)
An Excerpt from "Talking About Rakugo 1: The Japanese Art of Storytelling...
The Japanese love telling ghost stories during the hot summer months, we Americans love ghost stories as we approach Halloween.
Sanyutei Encho, the master rakugo storyteller, opened up new possibilities for traditional Japanese storytelling and gained popularity for his original ghost stories and stories adapted from foreign literary works.
One of the most noteworthy of Encho’s stories was “Botan Doro” (“The Peony Lantern”), which he adapted into rakugo in 1884.
The original “Botan Doro” appeared in a compilation of ghost stories called Jiandeng Xinhua (New Tales Under the Lamplight) by Chinese novelist Qu You. The story entered the Japanese literary culture in 1666 after it was translated into Japanese by the Buddhist monk and author Asai Ryoi (circa 1612-1691). Ryoi, regarded as one of the finest writers of kanazoshi (a form of popular literature written with little or no kanji making it accessible to common people), incorporated the story along with Qu You’s other stories into his own vastly popular book called Otogi Boko (Hand Puppets).
In Ryoi’s version, a beautiful woman named Otsuyu and a young girl holding a peony lantern stroll by the house of a widowed samurai on the first night of Obon (the Japanese Buddhist tradition of honoring the spirits of one's ancestors). The samurai is instantly smitten with the woman and vows his eternal love to her. From that night onward, the woman and the girl visit the samurai’s house daily at dusk, always leaving before dawn.
An elderly neighbor grows suspicious about the mysterious visitors and spies through the bedroom door one evening. He almost faints when he discovers the samurai entwined in the arms of a skeleton. He reports the incident to a Buddhist priest, who convinces the samurai that he is in grave danger.
Afterwards, they place a protection charm on the house that prevents the woman and the girl from entering. The woman continues to come to the house each night and beckons her lover from outside. Unable to resist her charms, the samurai goes out to greet her and is led back to her house, a grave at a temple. When morning arrives, the samurai's dead body is found entwined with the woman's skeleton.
In the rakugo version, which was published as a stenographically transcribed story in 1886, a young man named Hagiwara Shinzaburo falls in love with the spirit of a beautiful young woman. Encho’s adaptation was particularly frightening because as he told the story, he used wooden clogs to imitate the footsteps of the beautiful ghost. The audience found this extremely disturbing because it was commonly believed that Japanese ghosts did not have legs. But by choosing to portray the ghost in this manner, Encho acknowledged that the source of the story was China and not Japan.
Order your copy of "Talking About Rakugo 1: The Japanese Art of Storytelling" to learn more: https://www.amazon.com/Talking-About-...
Talking About Rakugo 1: The Japanese Art of Storytelling
The Japanese love telling ghost stories during the hot summer months, we Americans love ghost stories as we approach Halloween.
Sanyutei Encho, the master rakugo storyteller, opened up new possibilities for traditional Japanese storytelling and gained popularity for his original ghost stories and stories adapted from foreign literary works.
One of the most noteworthy of Encho’s stories was “Botan Doro” (“The Peony Lantern”), which he adapted into rakugo in 1884.
The original “Botan Doro” appeared in a compilation of ghost stories called Jiandeng Xinhua (New Tales Under the Lamplight) by Chinese novelist Qu You. The story entered the Japanese literary culture in 1666 after it was translated into Japanese by the Buddhist monk and author Asai Ryoi (circa 1612-1691). Ryoi, regarded as one of the finest writers of kanazoshi (a form of popular literature written with little or no kanji making it accessible to common people), incorporated the story along with Qu You’s other stories into his own vastly popular book called Otogi Boko (Hand Puppets).
In Ryoi’s version, a beautiful woman named Otsuyu and a young girl holding a peony lantern stroll by the house of a widowed samurai on the first night of Obon (the Japanese Buddhist tradition of honoring the spirits of one's ancestors). The samurai is instantly smitten with the woman and vows his eternal love to her. From that night onward, the woman and the girl visit the samurai’s house daily at dusk, always leaving before dawn.
An elderly neighbor grows suspicious about the mysterious visitors and spies through the bedroom door one evening. He almost faints when he discovers the samurai entwined in the arms of a skeleton. He reports the incident to a Buddhist priest, who convinces the samurai that he is in grave danger.
Afterwards, they place a protection charm on the house that prevents the woman and the girl from entering. The woman continues to come to the house each night and beckons her lover from outside. Unable to resist her charms, the samurai goes out to greet her and is led back to her house, a grave at a temple. When morning arrives, the samurai's dead body is found entwined with the woman's skeleton.
In the rakugo version, which was published as a stenographically transcribed story in 1886, a young man named Hagiwara Shinzaburo falls in love with the spirit of a beautiful young woman. Encho’s adaptation was particularly frightening because as he told the story, he used wooden clogs to imitate the footsteps of the beautiful ghost. The audience found this extremely disturbing because it was commonly believed that Japanese ghosts did not have legs. But by choosing to portray the ghost in this manner, Encho acknowledged that the source of the story was China and not Japan.
Order your copy of "Talking About Rakugo 1: The Japanese Art of Storytelling" to learn more: https://www.amazon.com/Talking-About-...
Talking About Rakugo 1: The Japanese Art of Storytelling
