For all Japan lovers!?

Question

Please, try to tell me without google's help
1.Your favorite historical event in Japanese history?
2.Your favorite historical personage?
3.Your favorite classical work?
4. Your favorite pre & post WW2 writer?
5. Your favorite Japanese craft?
6. Your favorite Japanese traditional art, and which school do you prefer?
7.Your favorite Japanese myth and fairy tale?
8. The festival in Japan you wish to see most?
9. The traditional Japanese instrument whose sound you enjoy most?
10. Your favorite poet from Manyoshu or Kokinshu/Shinkokinshu?

I love Japanese culture and want to know if there are people with similar interests , or I'm just too old -fascioned?

Well, don't try to answer all of the quiestions, I know they are too much.Just trying to see how many people have similar interests to mine.

Answer 1

1.Your favorite historical event in Japanese history?

Google enters Japan, actually make that skype.... did wonders for my phone bill.

2.Your favorite historical personage?

Saigo Takamori (aka the Last Samurai... really)

3.Your favorite classical work?

ai shiteru (kome kome club)


4. Your favorite pre & post WW2 writer?

Soseki

5. Your favorite Japanese craft?

ukiyoe


6. Your favorite Japanese traditional art, and which school do you prefer?

shodo

7.Your favorite Japanese myth and fairy tale?

Japan is a democracy

8. The festival in Japan you wish to see most?

ohara matsuri

9. The traditional Japanese instrument whose sound you enjoy most?

niko (actually chinese)

10. Your favorite poet from Manyoshu or Kokinshu/Shinkokinshu?

心ぐき ものにぞありける 春霞 たなびく時に 恋の繁きは
Kokoroguki mono ni zo arikeru harukasumi tanabiku toki ni koi no shigeki wa

Answer 2

1. This is not just one event, but sort of a historic trend, I suppose: I think the most interesting is the fact that Japan is continually looked down upon by other nations, but then rises above the nations that claim to be superior. Japan did this long ago with China, and more recently with the United States. Arguably Japan hasn't risen above the U.S., however, I don't think the U.S. could rise as a world power as fast and efficiently as Japan if it suffered an equally devastating blow as it did in WWII.
2. Hojo Masako is interesting.
3. Confessions of Lady Nijou (haven't read many classical works, but her autobiography is good)
4. I'll admit, I have read much Japanese literature (and I don't remember authors well, either), but pre-war: Lady Nijou, post-war: Koushun Takami (Battle Royale author)
5. Origami can be fun if I have the time.
6. The geisha/maiko dances, performances, and training are interesting traditional artforms.
7. Oh, I like a lot of them. Momotaro is great, partly because I stayed in Okayama prefecture, so it has sentimental associations for me. Yuki Onna is good. I also like a lot of the very early stories that don't really appear to have a point, like the one about the water spirit that roamed around a lake at night and touched the faces of people who had fallen asleep until one night they caught him, tied him up, and he revealed that he was a water spirit and simply turned into water and was never saw again.
8. Definitely the cherry blossom festival/viewing.
9. Taiko drums. High energy is nice.
10. My favorite poet is Kobayashi Issa, but he's not part of the Manyoshu or Kokinshu, and I've not read much from them. Certainly not enough to remember various poets, so I suppose I cannot properly answer this one.

I did not use google to look up any of my answers. (perhaps that is obvious? haha) I have learned from this that I need to read more and that I need to pay more attention to historical figures, especially their names. haha. Good question(s). They definitely made me think.

:)

Answer 3

Well, I'll answer the few things that come to mind.
I'm interested in the Yayoi period, bc supposedly men and women were equal and also dressed alike, right down to the Princess Leia hairdos and long gold earrings.
I like the old fairytale where the guy follows this young girl into a beautiful palace and marries her, but it turns out she was a fox that bewitched him, and he was actually living under his own house. I also like another story where a guy leaves his wife, feels sorry and returns years later. He enters their old house in the middle of the night and she welcomes him into her arms. . .but then the next morning he awakes to find himself in a ruined house lying next to her skeleton.
I like most Japanese handicrafts, but at the moment am interested in making kimekomi ningyo.
I love the sound of the shamisen. I also love taiko and would take that up as my hobby if I had the chance.
I love the dances performed by geisha and maiko, I know there's a technical name for it, but I don't know it. Most people seem to find it boring, but I LOVE the music and the dance.
I also love bon odori and the music associated with it.

I guess you can tell I have not studied Japanese culture in school!

Answer 4

Interesting. I don't think even Google could tell me MY favorites...

1. WWII
2. Saigo Takamori (He is from where I am living now.)
3. Most traditional Ukioe
4. None. I just can't get into the Japanese style of thinking.
5. Origami
6. Martial Arts. Aikido
7. Momotaro
8. Snow festival in Hokkaido.
9. Koto
10. None. As I said, I'm not much into literary Japan.

I have basically moved to Japan and now call Japan my home. It's like natives don't go to the touristy places in their towns, I don't think about Japan in that way anymore. Japan is just home. If I were still in the states, I would probably be interested in those things as you are. Now, I am too close to bother.

I really respect you for keeping your interests alive. Keep it up! Maybe you can come and live what you are learning (if you are not already here, that is).

Answer 5

1. The Boshin War

2. Benkei

4. Pre-war it's Ryunosuke Akutagawa-now pherhaps underated by the Japanese themselves. Post-war it's Haruki Murakami-a lightweight to some, but novels like "Hitsuji no boken" and "Norway no mori" really turn my crank. He may have been a pulp-fiction guy, but Rampo was a very interesting man whose writing is probably underappreciated just because he did the horror and detective genre.

5. yakimono

6. bunraku

8. the log-riding thing in Nagano

Answer 6

i love japan too we should get together and talk but uhh i still need to learn more about that

Answer 7

thats to long to amswer for 10 pts so I'll just take da 2