Akikawa Nikki

Here is a link to my Queen's Prize Entry for 2016. Format is PDF.


Woman wearing a sode-zukin from the NHK taiga drama "Yoshitsune".

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3ihUlPBxSXTUEVHYUtmUXFlYWM/view?usp=sharing

Unexpectedly
The gathering clouds darken
Hear the thunder roll!
No escape, the rain must fall
Shuddering, my shoulders curl

link: Yoshitsune descending on heedless Dannoura; Unexpectedly, no escape

I like rain, but not thunderstorms. This one was particularly vicious.

Arm as a pillow
I gaze at your sleeping form
Blessedly peaceful
My midnight vigil begins
While you doze like an infant

Notes: link Hand reaching to arm as a pillow.

Arm as a pillow is a makurakatoba, indicating sleeping with someone, often after intercourse.

The "feeling" is actually more comic in effect than early classical Japanese poetry, but believe me, it was truly felt.

The world keeps spinning
All things alight in their time
Nothing is constant
Even the darkest night is
Pierced by the radiant stars

Notes:

Link: "The world turned upside down" to "the world keeps spinning".

Alight can mean "to descend" or "to come off of", or it can also mean to "suddenly chance upon". The ambiguity is purposeful.

This poem counters the negative uncertainty of the previous poem with a more positive feeling.

Misty-eyed, I wait
Trembling to hear the news
Today, tomorrow
It all has become the same
Distilled into one moment

Notes:

Ties to the previous poem: Misty-eyed from "Mist rising", repeating the theme of "future becomes the past" by emphasizing the loss of the sense of time passing.

My cat Nabiki fell ill suddenly and I had to take her to the vet. Since they had to fit her in between appointments, I ended up waiting all day, sick with worry about her.

Buddhism teaches that time is a human construct that causes suffering. There is no yesterday or tomorrow, only today, only this moment we live in. Unfortunately, this minute was all about anxiety and sorrow.

Battling con crud from Worldcon this week. I'm supposed to be doing a translation for someone, but my brain is so fuzzy that I haven't been able to concentrate, so I've been sewing on part of my Queen's Prize Project, which is on zukin (hoods). I'm doing the sode-zukin (which is the wimple kind of zukin that I did for that paper I wrote years ago), the zukin from The Maple Viewers (and yes, what those ladies are wearing ARE zukin--I've found modern variants), a mousu (which looks like a sode-zukin, but are larger) and if I have time, a kato no kesa 裏頭（か［くわ］とう）の袈裟（けさ）, which is what the sohei warrior monks wore. The kanji translates as "a kesa worn on the head". Kesa is a Buddhist religious garment usually worn over kimono as a kind of apron.



Sode-zukin example from the NHK taiga drama Fuurin Kazan.

I'm really excited about this last one--I kept wondering why I would sometimes see seam lines on what usually looks like just a rectangular white cloth tied around the head. It's a kesa! And kesa are usually sewn with what is called the rice-field pattern. And THAT explains the seam lines!



From the NHK Drama Yoshitsune, the Warrior Monk Benkei is wearing a Kato no Kesa.

The only thing is I will have to sew like the wind to get the thing done in time and with the pattern, that's going to be tricky. Plus I still have to write up the information, in a simple format since this is not a literary entry. But I still have almost 3 weeks. I might skip the mousu (which I don't have as much info about, just an entry from the Japanese Costume Museum) and concentrate on the kato no kesa instead.

Ingibiorg, who also does Japanese poetry here in Calontir, did a poetry exchange with me this summer and asked if she could enter it as an A&S entry for Cattle Raids (an event up in Lincoln, Nebraska where she lives). We each wrote up explanations about our respective poems and how we took elements from each other in the exchange. I think she was going to present the poems on some marbled paper or something? Anyway, no word as to how that turned out. I hope she got some good feedback, since most people tend to ignore poetry entries.

Another answer to a FB question, this time about the process that goes into making the colorful paper that poetry is often written on, like this 10th century example from the collected poems of Lady Ise:



The paper is dyed (by various methods: sukizome (adding pigments at the time of production), hitashizome (soaking paper in liquid dye), hikizome (applying dyes with wide brushes), and fukizome (spray-dyeing) or marbled (Suminagashi 墨 流 し), then collaged in a technique called chigiri-e (ちぎり絵). It was (and is) hugely expensive--the washi (mulberry paper) has long fibers and is strong enough to withstand that much treatment.

I don't know the kanji yet for sukizome, hitashizome, hikizome, or fukizome, which came off of the Tokyo museum website in an English description of an exhibit. These are very specific and technical terms, so they aren't found in general dictionaries and I will have to dig about a bit to see if I can track down the kanji for the words. The paper I've gotten from Nihon Shuji tends to only be simply dyed.

To reproduce this kind of paper would be a major project by itself, certainly!

I'm taking a course on Rare Japanese Books via Futurelearn. It's a lot more intensive than I had originally thought, but also a LOT of good information. I have a book on Japanese bookbinding that shows how some of this is done, but it was incredibly useful to see videos of these various types of books and how they work.

Noooo! I was just going to write a little article for the local Shire of Cum an Iolair newsletter about the Tanabata festival. I figured I'd mention a few period celebratory practices, and of course I want to cite where I found them. Problem is...Tanabata was POPULAR. I've found mentions in at least 5 diaries, plus it looks like Tale of Genji has something, and I'm betting Eiga Monogatari does also, but of course it doesn't have a subject index. Found an article on JSTOR arguing that Tanabata came to Japan _before_ the commonly-stated date of 755 AD, based on the number of poems in the Man'yoshu (the last of which is dated 759 AD). And poems! Lots of poems. Man'yoshu, Kokinshu, probably more. Lady Daibu's diary has an entire chapter of poems devoted to Tanabata (51 poems!) And there's a Noh play on the subject, too.

This is just supposed to be a little write-up about the festival. I think I'll keep it simple, but there's enough here for a decent research paper.

I was answering a question on the SCA Japan FB page and thought I'd record my answer here as well, since I just spent about an hour translating Japanese webpages.



(I found this image on a Google Search. It is from a Japanese photo blog, looks like someone taking pictures at the 2014 Jidai Matsuri parade. The photographer's handle is EGACITE and his blog is here.)

According to the Costume Museum's Japanese website, that particular headgear is called katsura tsutsumi 桂包　(かつらづつみ). Katsura is a village, tsutsumi is a long wrapped cloth. According to legend, the women of Katsura began wrapping their heads this way back when the Empress Jingu conquered the three Han states in Korea--the original wrapping was her belt (literally 腹帯 (ふくたい) fukutai = abdominal band, bellybelt, maternity belt, per WWWJDICT translation). It goes on to say that there is no evidence that the legend is true. Here's a link to a different translation of the page. And yes, as Mistress Saionji says, it's a long wrapped rectangular cloth. (Side note: Zukin are a different type of headdress--it literally translates to "hood" and was mostly seen on women who had taken Buddhist religious vows of some type.)

Here is a translation I did off of another Japanese page that was defining the term katsura tsutsumi from the Daijirin 3rd Edition: Wrap the head from behind with a long cloth such as a towel, Knot in front, then pull back the remainder on both sides of the face. This was customarily worn by common women of the Muromachi period. “Katsura” [which can mean wig] comes from the village of Katsura.

And a partial rough translation from the Encyclopedia Nipponica: A woman’s headdress from the late middle ages. Wrap the head like a headband in a long white cloth, tied a bit lower in the front. It is also called “Katsura-maki”. From Katsura Village in the Kyoto Western Suburbs. The custom was supposedly begun by fishwives and candy sellers carrying their wares. Legend claims it was bestowed on the women of Katsura by the Empress Jingu, who conquered the Three Han States (in Korea). Pictorial evidence shows this a custom of common women rather than those of the aristocracy, and there are many depictions of common women so attired.

There's more, but I have to get back to real life. Didn't realize there would be so much out there on a simple search. Here's the webpage where I found the above two definitions.