Above, my instructor is showing a better spacing among the sections of a written ancient Japanese poem. The poem was brushstroked by a male veteran classmate. He has been working on it to enter into a prestigious newspaper contest. I envy his fine brushstrokes, so I want to show it to you. This class is held twice a month at the Yokohama Asahi Culture Center. This is one art that does not require speaking Japanese. In fact, some people practice shodo through mail correspondence.
It's a poem, and a visual art. Spacing and contrasting dark and fading light brushstrokes matter a lot in this art. Sometimes, it flows like a gentle stream, and sometimes, the flow becomes quite dynamic.
This is the last section of the previous poem and the author's red stamp. Someday, I want to draw like the author and stamp my own. See the center line. The top two letters are written as 天の (amano). It is the same as my name. It can mean a milky way, or the heavenly field. The poem probably describes the ancient tale of July 7th. In the romantic story, a couple meet once a year over a milky way if it does not rain.
Above, this scroll was done by a young female classmate. She is also a veteran. She started shodo when she was young, and in this class, she has been coming for 10 years, she said. I admire her work everytime I see her. She wrote some of the hundred poems called Hyakunin-ittushu. Can you see golden pieces sprinkled on the washi(rice) paper? In any arts, we can escalate in spending more money if we choose to.
Well, last month, I became an official student at the 10th rank in shodo! I just submitted my first work. Big deal? Yes, it is! Above sample is from my textbook called Wakanroeishu, and I'll be working on it next. The sample is more than 1000 years old, and it looks easy, but it's actually very difficult. Below is my rough translation of the ancient poem. I wish to rid of my ego and become as innocent as the author of this poem. Well, at least, I'll try to be during my shodo practice.
My love knows no direction and no ending.
To see you is the only thing I can think of.
19 comments:
Keiko, The brushstroked poem looks like rain falling down the page. It doesn’t look easy at all. I could see how it would be a challenge to perfect something that seems to have a spontaneity to it. It’s unbelievable that it is both a poem and visual art. Of course since I cannot read the language, for me I only see the visual art aspect.
I like that amano can mean milky way or heavenly field. That is such an inviting image.
Ah, yes, now I see the golden pieces sprinkled on the washi paper. There is a different type of energy in her scroll. It feels loose and free, yet instead of feeling like rain to me, it feels more like tree branches with electricity running through them.
Hurray, Keiko! How exciting that you became an official student at the 10th rank in shodo. Congratulations! I look forward to seeing your work!
I love the poem. It’s beautiful.
Rebb,
It is always a joy to listen to a foreign perspective. The brushstokes like crying is so right to the point. I've been quite critical of the sentimentalism in arts, but crying can be joy and laughter also. And I miss my childhood when I cried my heart out. Cry, rain, and river flow are all wet. Wet is in all arts all over the world, but probably more in Japanese arts like seasons.
By the way, the 10th probably means the bottom! I didn't ask the instructor because I was afraid.
By the
Keiko, I like how you bring all the different forms of wetness to the forefront. Do you not cry as much as you did in your childhood? I still cry and it feels good. I cry easily during certain movies. And isn’t it a funny feeling when you cry and then start laughing all in the same breath. Whoosh!
I feel much earth in you...
The 10th is the 10th—at least you are there :)
Rebb,
I wish I can cry like a baby. I envy you. Don't ever change it.
The most recent book that made my eyes well up was "Homeland is the Mother Tongue" by Fujiwara Masahiko. He is a mathematician and a bestselling author, and he is the second son of Fujiwara Tei who wrote also a bestselling non-fiction about her hell-like evacuation experience with her three small children from China after WWII. I talked about this in my old RR blog, but she tied her baby on her back and held one luggage on one hand and her two year old son's hand (the mathematician) in the other. The five year old walked alone, and they passed the 38th parallel on foot. When I'm depressed, I think about a scene in that book. I'm glad she wrote it. The struggle is unique to each person, but I can't cry by reading most of modern memoirs.
The translation has the complex yet sharp-looking simplicity of a Haiku.
The written art form, apart from demonstrating different hands writing, are fascinating. Does this written form demand a particular delicacy as an integral part of the meaning of what is written?
ZACL,
I appreciate your interest.
"Does this written form demand a particular delicacy as an integral part of the meaning of what is written?"
We try to follow the text of Wakanroeishu (published in 1028) as close as possible. Our aim is to write the exact copy of the text which is considered as the most beautiful kana writing. I think the particular delicacy I feel in this art is that the natural flowing line with right tension and contrasts at the proper points cannot be achieved if I persist with my ego, so to speak, at least while writing the text. The poem is innocent, and the state of mind required for the brushstroke is also innocence. But to achieve that innocence demands discipline.
Copying and memorizing is a big part of our culture. I used to be very critical of it. But, individuality is not lost after ego is gone. The thinking behind it is that removing ego entirely, only then true individuality reveals. That’s my interpretation of Japanese arts.
I think that we lock that innocent world, the art, and the nature into the shodo like ocha (tea ceremony), and we enjoy pretending that we live in such high-spririt, artistic world just for a while we practice shodo.
Ego = the self. So, it seems the art requires the person to lose oneself in it. Maybe I am wrong,however, it appears to be to be another style of meditation.
ZACL,
I think most people think ego is self. And most of us including me live that way. But, to practice kana shodo or any Japanese traditional arts is based on the idea that ego is not equal self. Self has ego and individuality. Losing ego does not mean lose oneself. The concept is that through discipline, we can shed ego so that our pure individuality remains.
Do of shodo means the way. I think it's the process of that discipline.
I can understand why you say meditation. That's true. Come to think of it, I think anything we are completely focus on the thing we are doing because we like it and we want to improve on the art or craft, I think there is that quality. Don't you think?
Last week in my poetry club, I started a discussion about Japan on a small number of psychologists and very few universities offers clinical psychology training. So, many westerners go to therapists or counselors for their personal problems, but growing up in Japan, I never heard anyone went to such therapy until I came to the U.S.
I think shodo, chado (ocha or tea ceremony) and other traditional arts are the forms of therapy. Yes, they are therapeutic. It isn’t easy to remove ego from ourselves, but during the practice, at least, we can fool ourselves to be in the selfless, high-spirited world.
About losing oneself, do not worry. The westerners who practiced a Japanese traditional art for a long term never turned Japanese. So, you are safe.
Great sense of humour. I did not ever feel unsafe in this post area.
There is a variation of therapeutic thought here, all valid and probably, culturally appropriate.
ZACL,
I love British movies. I enjoy watching lively London scenes as well as coastal scenes of the unforbidden sea. It's so far away and foreign to me, but it's great to know that somewhere out there near the sea, the blogger who wrote "Socks Reunited" is interested in kana shodo.
London is a moving sea of people and life. When I visit, not often now, I love the buzz. It soon becomes clear to me though, that I have become a stranger in my own land.
ZACL,
I feel the same for Yokohama and Tokyo. The time has changed so much, and so much, I didn't know growing up.
Keiko, An interesting discussion you started with your poetry club. I have often wondered what types of psychological issues came up across cultures. I tried to look into it many years ago, but stopped. But I saw enough to realize that as with language, each culture has it’s own unique cultural/personality battles to contend with. But you raise something that I wasn’t aware of and that is the small number of psychologists in Japan, but come to think of it, that makes absolute sense with the arts being so prominent, and as you point out, they are therapeutic.
I am half-way into a book that I finally pulled out of my pile. It’s called “The Strangeness of Beauty” by Lydia Minatoya. She is a Japanese American. I looked at the flap again and she received doctorate degrees in both counseling and psychology. How ironic.
This is a work of fiction that is told as the narrator’s “I” story in the form of a diary. Anyway, I have flagged many pages, and thought of you and your experience. One of the pages that speaks to her title says, “Victor reminded me of Tadao. Like my husband, Victor had a gift for turning uncertainty into adventure. The Japanese have a word for such skills. We call it “myo,” or the art of creating “strange beauty” (pg. 78).
Not only did I find this beautiful, I felt as though many lights went off in my head at this concept. I like it. I’m hoping that all the Japanese cultural points in the book are true. I will share more with you later because I find it so fascinating and I want to know if what I’m reading has some truth to it.
Keiko, An interesting discussion you started with your poetry club. I have often wondered what types of psychological issues came up across cultures. I tried to look into it many years ago, but stopped. But I saw enough to realize that as with language, each culture has it’s own unique cultural/personality battles to contend with. But you raise something that I wasn’t aware of and that is the small number of psychologists in Japan, but come to think of it, that makes absolute sense with the arts being so prominent, and as you point out, they are therapeutic.
I am half-way into a book that I finally pulled out of my pile. It’s called “The Strangeness of Beauty” by Lydia Minatoya. She is a Japanese American. I looked at the flap again and she received doctorate degrees in both counseling and psychology. How ironic.
This is a work of fiction that is told as the narrator’s “I” story in the form of a diary. Anyway, I have flagged many pages, and thought of you and your experience. One of the pages that speaks to her title says, “Victor reminded me of Tadao. Like my husband, Victor had a gift for turning uncertainty into adventure. The Japanese have a word for such skills. We call it “myo,” or the art of creating “strange beauty” (pg. 78).
Not only did I find this beautiful, I felt as though many lights went off in my head at this concept. I like it. I’m hoping that all the Japanese cultural points in the book are true. I will share more with you later because I find it so fascinating and I want to know if what I’m reading has some truth to it.
Rebb,
"Myo" is a quite common word to say strange, but I think it became famous because Suzuki Daisetsu, a philosopher and a scholoar of Zen Buddhism introduced it to the west. He studied in England, and his wife was a British.
Also, I met a Japanese woman about my age in the poetry club. She said she had never seen any lawyer in Japan, and where she grew up had no bank.
Keiko, you haven't posted for so long! (Admittedly I haven't commented on your blog for so long too.)
But I wish you would. And I wanted to ask about Yasujiro Ozu's 'Tokyo Story' which I watched yesterday: a film almost comically slow-moving, but all the more moving for that. It had a magical effect and seemed to describe human relationships at a universal level in the most surprising and completely anti-Hollywood way.
Have you ever seen it?
Vincent,
Thank you for the encouragement.
It's hard for me to blog from Japan, so I usually do a little. But I write more stories in Japan.
About "Tokyo Story," yes, I saw it about eight years ago or so. Takamine Hideko is in the photo of my parent's Wedding reception. She happened to be in the same place and my aunt asked her to join in the photo, so the photographer took two different kinds of photos. I don't own it, but one is in Japan, and the other is in the U.S. The actress diappeared from the lime light because of some insensitive public, but I think she is still living in Kamakura.
Vencent,
I don't know what I was thinking.
Her name is Hara Setsuko! I know so well, yet I wrote the name of other actress.
Thanks for this information, Keiko. I looked up the name to see which part she plays and it is the most sympathetic character in the whole film, Noriko.
It's thanks to you that I've got interested in films like this. You are truly a cultural ambassador!
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