Session 5B: Japanese Literature 8-1-08

[Anonymous]

The account of Japanese culture was fascinating. Sewing their own robes, having layers of garb, the courting, marriages etc. The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon includes multiple plots. These I could read to my students and analyze. Also, the poetry from the Six Collections could be read and analyzed in terms rhyme, mood and tone. I enjoyed reading Tales of Ise, parts of this could be read aloud to my students. Great material to compare/contrast Japanese and American Literature.

[Anonymous]

I enjoyed the discussion thoroughly today!! It takes alot of exposure for my students to understand something that is not literal, where everything is pointed out or easy to determine. I enjoyed the Pillow Talk exerpts for this reason. I am curious about the different Genji writings now, and want to look for examples to read and examine for myself. It would be nice to have a group, like our class, to discuss it though. I learned the term "Monga" today and thanks to a classmate will be saying it in my head as ...."and Bingo was its name, oh" Most students would love to discuss anamie and monga. I like the idea of students drawing out scenes and having another student write the dialogue in the bubble or vice versa. And who can resist writing to fill in....." and I really dislike it when...." That is just classic for writing or acting short skits. I think because the examples are short, it is not threatening to students, especially those who are not strong in language arts, and they will be motivated to learn and write this style.

[Anonymous]

Listening to Professor Mikaye made me remember why I love/why i majored in literature. She is a very moving and enlightened speaker. I enjoyed hearing her perspective. It is great to see the connection between literature and history and how quite often the two cannot be separated in order to complete understanding. As much as I like to say that I am not interested in history, my love for literature makes that statement impossible. For, in order for me to really understand and appreciate most of the literature I read, I must have an understanding of the history. So, while a lot of the lesson today dealt with history, that history enabled me to understand the writings I had tried reading before hand.

[Anonymous]

this lesson was great for me. my mind is just moving nonstop on the possibilities for intergrating japanese literature into the literature i teach. i love the connection between the poetry and the sonnets. i'm now considering this as the route i will take for my lesson plan for this course. the more we learn in this course, the more possibilities that come to me. i guess this was the intent of our instructors, to get me to implement many lessons with many connections. my mind will be filled with so many possibilities, i will have no choice but to use many or all of them. well, time will not permit me to use of all of them, but i'm thinking their will be many changes to my next year's curriculum.

[Anonymous]

This is a wonderful topic to conclude the first week of the seminar. I am familiar with the writers and books presented by Prof. Miyake.
I studied "Genji Monogatari"in original classic language. We had to take a one-year course on "Genji Monogatari". So fortunately I tasted the original language. I also studied "Makura no Sooshi" in my Japanese literature class in Japan.

Now I am in America, and teaching American and international students. I must use English to teach them the classical literature. Prof. Miyake taught me her teaching style and wonderful ways to communicate with students. The web site she provided us are very interesting and useful.

Using "manga" is easy and a more popular way to introduce "Genji Monogatari" to American students, but it reduces the original beauty of the language. For the purpose of introducing Japanese literature to American students, this is one of the tools we can use.
Just a little comment: I don't like Akatsuka Fujio's manga: "Genji Monogatari". The drawing lacks beauty, Osaka dialect is not suitable for this literature; they destroy the real "Genji Monogatari".

I checked 'youtube" and Liza Dalby's web sites. They are interesting and I can show them to my students (not like some of "manga" that have x-rated pictures.)
All the famous literature presented by Prof. Miyake is interesting and fascinating. Thank you very much!

[Anonymous]

The writing during the Heian Period was all about the aristocrats. The aristocrats were the producers, consumers and subjects of all of the writing in the period. This only accounted for 1 tenth of 1% of the people – a very small minority of the people. So, I am very curious about the ordinary people. What was life like for them?

I teach US History, US Government and Economics so I do not see how I can incorporate this information into my curriculum (although I would love to share the Pillow Book with my students, it seems like an classical text that students would really be able to connect to). Despite my inability to use this in my classroom, this was a very fascinating and informative session.

[Anonymous]

As Professor Lynne Miyake impressed on us that, the Heian Period was the golden age of literature and was the “windows into the Japanese society and culture.” It was a time of incredible peace and prosperity, 1/10 of the population could read and were literate; which were the top 10th of the royal court. Women had to be very literature for the politics in marriage; it was all about who they married to attain land. Women could own land by inheritance and had limited power because men had to administer it. The reason men administered was that they were the only ones who knew how to speak the borrowed Chinese language, women weren’t allowed. Men held onto power of the land because they could do almost anything with the land this way. They produced and influenced others because they set the premise for laws and ways things needed to be done. In daily life, nothing political was supposed to be written. To open a letter, was done, by opening with the seasons. Men also wrote in the form of diaries. It recorded protocols of business, social issues, and history in tale form. This was handed down from father to son. I thought the idea that romantisizing and courting a woman by writing to convey that feeling was romantic and the women could keep them as love letters. This was their only way to communicate because they never saw each other because it was all arranged by their parents.
What was interesting for me was that women wore up to 24 layers of clothing and that is why they were carried a lot when they were outside. They mostly went out for pilgrimages on a cart with their robes hanging outside of it. This was to show their dyeing skills. While inside the house they moved around on their knees. I wanted to know why they powdered their faces with white instead of a natural color, so I searched the web.
The most interesting fact that amazed me was that they blackened their teeth with lead compound to hide their bad teeth.
During this time that the kids were raised with the women’s family. They had time to write poetry, play music, sewing and dyeing cloth, incense making, and were distinguished by their handwriting and were considered beautiful.

[Anonymous]

Meeting Professor Miyake at lunch, I knew I was in for a ride. As Pailes has pointed out, she not only knew my name but promised that she'd check my knowledge of the readings at some point during the lecture! Genji Monogatari is something that I don't currently cover in my program, and, given the wealth of materials presented here, I think that it would be an interesting mini-unit of study for my third- and fourth-year students, who are focused on what it really means to be Japanese through various historical and contemporary perspectives.
A highlight of the lecture that I starred in my notes was that, with the onset of the Kamakura Period and Japan's descent into war and strife, the Japanese kept the Heian nobles and families! Professor Miyake's explanation was that "The Japanese don't throw things away." This is a tradition that continues to the present day, as the homeless in Tokyo's parks can be found playing the last generation of video game consoles! A wonderful cultural link from the 12th century to today.

[Anonymous]

The piece of information which really stood out from Prof. Miyake's lecture and readings is the fact that a woman is credited with creating the world's first novel. At that point I had great confidence in the egalitarian possibilities of the Japanese culture. But of course, with the rise of the warrior period women were once again silenced. Short lived, yet, not non existent.

The assigned poetry, when first read, seemed so depressing to me. They were full of melancholy, loss, regret, and acquiescence.

Even as I look,
The bright colors of cherry blossoms
And maple leaves disappear:
Autumn twilight deepens
Over a thatched hut by the bay

OR

no flowers show their
beauties in the lonely mountain villages
though spring has come
the very notes of the mountain
thrush are cheerless

As our lecture progressed, Prof. Miyake, helped me understand the idea of simplicity, which was later touched on by Prof. Pitelka. The poems create clear images that then evoke clear emotions. I absolutely want to go back to them at a later date and stud/appreciate them further.

Yes, like the rest of us I will certainly be making use of The Pillow Book of Sei Shinogan. It would certainly be accessible to my ELD students and fun for my honors kids. It would be interesting to see what different students find adorable or hateful. I also want to make use of The Lady Who Loved Insects as a short story about being true to who you are while at the same time exposing students to Japanese Literature. The ending or lack thereof lends itself to an opportunity for students to finish the story.

[Anonymous]

Prof. Miyake's use of mangaimmediately caught my attention. I always have a smattering of students who read manga and just last week I saw a group of girls acting out their favorite stories. Genji Monogotari has always been something I have covered in passing; it was the first novel and all that. I searched Amazon.com for the manga and one that Prof. Miyake had shown was availible (not any more) for about $60. The anime for which Ms. Ko has posted the web address in the second post on this thread, though long out-of-print, is available at Amazon.com as well starting at $89.95. Guess I'll have to settle for an illustrated edition.

The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagonis a piece of literature that is on film, or at least a small segment of it. There is an 8 minute segment for the "11th Century: the Age of the Sword," in the Milleniumseries which gives a real/reel feel for life at the Heian Court. Students are always amazed/grossed at the makeup styles for men and women at the court, and the lists of Ms. Shonagon are followed closely. Millenium, though out of print, is usually available:http://www.amazon.com/CNNs-Millennium-Boxed-Set-Millenium/dp/B00001IVFT but can be quite pricey. Fortuneately the series contains a great deal that can be used in the 7th grade curriculum.

Guess I'll have to haunt the net until something on Genji, that I want and can hook students, with shows up.

[Anonymous]

Professor Miyake's lecture brought up some interesting points for me, and since everyone else pretty much covered the lecture, I will only enter two that I plan to use in the classroom.
-The idea of the importance of letters was wonderful. As in, full of wonder. I remember thinking a few years back, how great it would be to have a letter written to me by my father. He died in 1995, and I remember coming across a small post-it note on which he'd written some directions for me. I still have the post-it. So. I think as a writing lesson, I will create a letter that the students will have to write. I will begin the lesson by discussing the importance of letters, which is something no one in high school currently will remember. Now, 'snail' mail is a pejorative. Writing a letter to someone, for whatever reason, can be a powerful thing. I will be sure to cover the fact that Japanese women were in charge of writing because they were in charge of their households. Right now, writing a business letter is part of the curriculum. What about taking it a step further, and writing an IMPORTANT personal letter?
-We do a reading segment on the concept of beauty and for discussion starters, we view several different models from current fashion magazines, to analyze and draw up a list of things that are currently considered beautiful...thin body, long hair, toothy grin, etc. I could incorporate the 24 layers of fabric - which is bewildering itself - into a discussion of what kind of machinations it takes to accommodate fashionable beauty, like, 5 inch stilettos. Must one 'suffer to be beautiful,' or no?
These will be good additions to the lessons.

[Anonymous]

How wonderful it was to find an excerpt from The Pillow Book in the Primary Source Handbook section of my World History Textbook. During our discussion on this piece of Japanese literature I wrote down in my notes that I should pick this up; it sounds like such a wonderful and interesting read! When I was looking for an excerpt from Machiavelli to use as a homework assignment, I came across this passage from "Hateful Things." Who knows how many times I passed this up not giving it a second glance.

During our lecture from Professor Miyake I was wondering how the book got its name. The side note in my textbook states that the term pillow was used to refer to the diaries of this time period.

[Anonymous]

AShapiro:

Hey you can use the Pillow Book in class to create a model for a Pillow Book with a theme in your class. For example, you can make a pillow book for in government for Campaign Financing (what person likes and doesnt like), Political Parties, Types of Government, etc. It introduces students to Asian Literature while sticking to you standard.

[Author]

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