Heian Literature

Genji Monogatari Sennenki
Number of episodes: 11
Website: http://genji-anime.com/
Japanese Air Date: January
Animation Company: Tezuka Productions (Hi no Tori), Tokyo Movie (Aishiteruze Baby)
Description: Adaptation of Murasaki Shikibu’s classic novel The Tale of Genji. It was originally planned to be an adaptation of Waki Yamato’s shouji manga series Asakiyumemishi ~ The Tale of Genji, but that idea was scrapped by the director.


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Well, I finally downloaded the older anime film a few months ago, and I wasn't terribly impressed with that. It unnerves me somewhat that there are only 11 episodes to this series, and that it was originally going to be an adaptation of such manga knockoff. But the show will be fansubbed and posted online, so it may be worth checking out? I just hope it has very good artistic direction, and is taken seriously.

I've been fortunate to have the chance to be able to study in the Kansai region this semester, and have been able to go so delightful places - many related to Genji Monogatari. Forgive for not posting these until now, but this community is so quiet I often forget that I am in it!

The first is the Costume Museum in Kyoto. There one can see a small scale reproduction of the house at Rokujo peopled by dolls in beautiful Heian clothes. Different scenes from the book are arranged in different parts of the house in different parts of the year. One can also try on an example of Heian clothing and get your picture taken in it beside one of two life-size dolls. This is the link to the museum's website.
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Another good place to visit is Uji. What was such a journey for Kaoru and Niou is these days a short train ride from Kyoto proper. Uji is very proud of it's Genji connection - one can take a walking tour and see the ten spots dedicated to each of the last chapters of Genji Monogatari, go to the Tale of Genji Museum, and see a statue of Murasaki Shikibu alongside the famous Uji bridge. Also of interest are Byodo-in Temple and Uji's famous tea.

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What blossoms
yet has no fruit
is the white wave of the reef
putting on
the sea god's head

-Ono no Komachi

1) What do you guys think about the Peter Greenaway Film "Pillow book"? Other than the really random sex, nudity, and arson, it's worth watching for the reenactments of a few sections of Sei Shonagons Pillow book. It doesn't last very long, but the visuals, costumes and music are all very well done.

2) I've since finished As I Crossed A Bridge of Dreams and didn't find it very enjoyable, not very memorable either.It's also pretty short, and I know that Murasaki's diary is also very short, so I'm wondering if her diary will be worth buying.

Hello everyone!

I'm kaguyahime, a new member, and I just wanted to introduce myself properly. I'm currently in my senior year of college, working on a Liberal Studies degree with an Asian History emphasis. This semester has seen a lot of Japan-based research for me already, between my Ancient Japanese History class, an independent project on kimono, a class about graphic novels (manga, anyone?) and a research paper due in December on the gagaku music and kagura dance of Shinto. I thought joining a few LJ communities that focus on Japanese culture would be a fine idea, giving me the chance to pick up some new information as well as meet some new people. You all seem so nice!

My LJ is mainly about all the research I'm involved in right now. I tend to post my nerdtastic papers and make progress reports about how I'm doing. If you're interested in any of that, please drop by my page, but I can't blame you if you don't want to...even I don't want to read my own papers! *laugh*

As for me, I'm a huge fan of Japanese history and literature, and have had a love affair with everything geisha since my days in high school. I have a soft spot for enka music, and I love the writings of Sei Shonagon and Lady Murasaki. They are truly role models to me.

I look forward to making some new friends and learning a lot from the community. Best wishes to you all; I'm glad to be here!

(Cross-posted like whoa)

I just joined this community and thought I'd write a small introductory post. I'm a sophomore in college, and my major is Japanese Language and Literature. Unlike most people in my major, I chose it because I love Japanese poetry and literature, especially . . . well, I guess I can't like EVERYTHING more than everything else, can I? I took Japanese Arts and Culture first semester, and we read some of Ise monogatari, Kagerō Nikki, Sei Shōnagon's Pillow Book and "Yūgao" from Genji Monogatari. We also read Heike Monogatari, and Kamo no Chōmei's An Account of my Hut, which I loved. I loved all of it, even the Noh plays we read which were sort of beyond me. Then I took a class on the Japanese Poetic tradition second semester, and did extra work with the professor. Every time we'd cover a new topic, I'd think "this is my favorite thing, ever!" By the end of the semester, I realized there wasn't anything I didn't like. I find the  Man'yōshū fascinating, and ancient and modern tanka, Chōka, Renga, haikai no renga, haiku and even free form and Kanshi. I was truly amazed to find a community of people that share these interests, so yay to all of you.

I do have a question - What translation of Genji Monogatari do you like best? I want to read the whole thing, but I want to know which translation is the most accurate. And also, has anyone ever heard of a version of Genji Monogatari with the Japanese, the romaji rendering AND the english translation, altogether?

Well, in Japan it is July 7th (since they are ahead of any of us that live in the US) and you know what that means...

The Tanabata Festival or Weaving Loom Festival (aka Star Festival or Hoshi Matsuri)!

It's a 7th month, 7th day festival by the Lunar Calender so it would be the 7th lunar month (so in some areas of Japan it is still celebrated around August 7th), but when Japan shifted to the Western Solar Calender (during the Meiji era) so in other areas it to the 7th day of the 7th solar month, or our July 7th (the majority of those that live in big cities now celebrate it to match the solar calendar).

This festival celebrated the annual meeting of the Weaving Maiden (the star Shokujo or Vega) and the Shepherd Boy (the star Kengyu or Altair)...both of them Celestial Beings. When these two lovebirds first met they fell in love and they were allowed to marry. But unlike most husband and wives, they never moved on to the next stage of their romantic relationship and were so entranced with each other that they forgot all their duties as weaver and shepherd and so the Middle Kingdom (Earth) was falling apart as well as the Celestial Kingdom for no cloth was being woven and no animals herded for food or for materials.

So the Yellow Emperor (the highest Celestial Being whose mortal representation on Earth was supposed to be a direct descendant of the Yellow Emperor as the Japanese Emperor was supposed to be a direct descendant of Amaterasu, the main deity of Shinto) moved them to opposite sides of the Amanogawa (River of Heaven or what we call the Milky Way, which during most of the year these two stars are seperated by to the naked eye when looking at the night sky) so that they could get their work done and harmony would once again be established in Heaven and in the Middle Kingdom.

The Yellow Emperor did allow the two to meet one night a year for a conjugal visit (the time of year when the two stars appear to be closest to each other in the night sky), but alas, there was no way for the Weaving Maiden and the Shepherd Boy to get across the Amanogawa, so despite the fact that they could meet once a year, they could not find a way to meet!

The Weaving Maiden was so upset that she cried and cried and could not be consoled. A Kasasagi (the Japanese equivalent of a magpie, I'm not sure which bird was in the Chinese original of the story) was touched by her misery and the plight of the two lovers, and so the Kasasagi then promised that all the magpies would create a bridge for her to cross to her lover on the night that the Yellow Emperor had allowed the two to meet. The Kasasagi then formed all the other magpies together and they made a bridge with their wings, which the Weaving Maiden (being a Celestial Being) was able to cross without harming the magpie.

If the weather was cloudy and the stars could not be seen then the bridge could not be formed and thus the lovers would have to wait another year to meet! So everyone (especially young women of a romantic bent and lovers who might be seperated due to earthly reasons) would hope that it would be a clear night on the 7th night of the 7th lunar month.

From what I understand they celebrated it in Heian Era, but I'm not sure of that off the top of my head. It is an imported holiday from China and since the Heians revered the Tang Dynasty as their cultural icon and since the festival was celebrated at that time in China I believe that the Heian court started to celebrate it too.

Since for us it isn't celebrated until tomorrow night our time...does everyone know about this festival or would you like me to post some links where you can find out about it here? If you do let me know. It's not celebrated much in Japan anymore, but some people still put out the sticks of bamboo with the little colored papers attached with their wishes written on them and I believe there are still special foods made during this time that people eat even if they've forgotten the meaning why these things were eaten on this day. Also, I'm sure some lovers (especially those on holiday in the country) who might get a clear view of the Milky Way and the stars Altair and Vega in the dark sky (if the night is not cloudy) might plan special outings on this night.

Or maybe I'm just an old romantic :)

JadeMurasaki

Konban wa (well here it is after 6 pm so it's evening for me)!

I'm so happy to find a LJ community where there are others interested in Heian and Kamakura era womens' literature and nikki/diaries/journals! I've read everything that is out there in the English translation form of nikki and read Seidenstecker's translation of "The Tale of Genji". I've done this not for school but for my love of reading about history and culture in general and when I started studying pre-Samurai/Edo/Tokugawan era culture and history (first book I rad was Ivan Morris' "The World of the Shining Prince") I found myself entranced with the Heian and Kamakura period. The first nikki I read was the "Kagero Nikki" and from there I read Murasaki's nikki, Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book, and various others including "As I Crossed the Bridge of Dreams" which this community is titled after. Then I started on the "Tale of Genji" and other shorter works of fiction from this era. There is no college around here that I could study these items until far into my study and since there is a very low population of Japanese here the two colleges that even offer classes on Japanese literature, culture and history from these periods offer few of them and they are either part of a general Asian studies major or a Japanese language major. You cannot take the classes unless you are going for a degree, and I already have one and even in-state fees for these two colleges are prohibitive for me. Thus, there is no one around here that I am able to converse about these things with and I'm spending tons of money on buying up every English translation of books on these time periods. I'm also teaching myself to speak Japanese, but what I really want to do is learn to read and write it. I'm having difficulties with the reading and writing part, but just bought some books that I hope will help me in learning in particular hiragana as that is what women's writings from this era were written in (due to the fact that almost no one taught the Chinese or kanji characters to women so they formed their own original written language based on Japanese sounds and not Chinese writing...but you probably all knew this) and then hope to be able to find forms of the nikki and fiction items I've read in English already written in hiragana (but translated into modern Japanese hiragana as I doubt I'll ever be able to find someone to teach me Heian era Japanese).

So, I've got a long road ahead (as if trying to read "The Tale of Genji" all the way through the first time, and in English did not take me a long time--ROLF), but I'm determined to at least learn modern Japanese hiragana if not the other modern forms of Japanese reading and writing.

Oh, my LJ name is jademurasaki, it's named after a Ultima Online: Samurai Empire character of mine, but the public part of my journal is mostly about my studies and real life. I chose Murasaki as I love that name and I love her writings. Jade is my favorite stone. I wear it almost every day...and not the dyed kind. I have both nephrite and jadeite jade all in white or various light greens (jadeite) and a couple of dark green (nephrite) pieces. At the time I created this LJ I couldn't find the Japanese word for Jade, but now I know it, but I don't feel like paying to change my LJ member name for the third time (I changed it to fit this to begin with).

I went to Japan for three weeks in October 2001. I hope to go back someday and spend as much time as I can while I'm there studying more about in particular textile and clothing history in Kyoto (they have a kimono and textile museum there that I was not able to go to because the friend I went there with didn't want to go there). I did get to see the Heian era Byodo-in in Uji, which was truly a lovely experience. Uji is just south of Kyoto and a great day trip. They talk about Uji quite a bit in "Genji". We also had cha-soba (soba noodles made of green tea) at this cafe across from the subway exit in Uji. If any of you ever go there it is a wonderful restaurant! Everything they sold had tea in it (Uji is the most famous place for green tea production). The cha-soba was cold and delicious for what turned out to be quite a hot (but at least not humid) day for mid-October. Also had ice green tea with a special liquid sweetener (it was made from beet sugar) that was lovely. I could have eaten it all day. And of course finished off the meal with green tea ice cream...a treat I had become addicted to before I went to Japan and has stayed one of my favorites to this day. In the first hotel we stayed at in Tokyo they actually had small cup size Hagaan-Daaz green tea (you could also get vanilla) containers in the vending machine, which since I had horrid jet lag the first couple of nights I made use of!

Okay, enough of my blithering, I'm just so happy to find this community!

JadeMurasaki

i was so happy and glad to find this group--i thought i must be the only person in the world to love heian and kamakura period women's literature. just out of curiosity, did anyone else see onmyoji? i know its off topic but i really loved seeing all the costumes, the houses, etc. i also saw a webpage for a costume museum in kyoto that has a miniature replica of genji's house, and it has images of the dolls and different scenes from the book. http://www.iz2.or.jp/english/ i have been drooling over it.

According to my dear Steph, there's a live action/made for tv or some other sort version of The Tale of Genji, in which Genji is played by a woman. Can anyone confirm or deny?