Matsuo Basho is known for his haiku, poetry consisting of 17 syllables divided into lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. However, he is also famous for his travel memoirs, especially The Narrow Road of the Interior. Basho (1644-1694) was the son of a minor samurai and studied poetry, Zen Buddhism, Chinese learning, history, and Japanese literature….
Category: History
That Was How Much?! The Surpising Cost of Things in Japan During the 1900s
This seems like a strange question, but examining costs of items and salaries can offer interesting insights into history. I came across this information while I worked on approximating a reasonable cost for an item in one of my stories. The detail matters for the plotline, so I wanted some accuracy. The data in this…
The Diary of Lady Murasaki
Murasaki Shikibu wasn’t her name. Like many female writers in history, we don’t know her real name. Murasaki, however, is a nickname derived from her greatest work The Tale of Genji. She lived during the Heian period, a cultural flowering period in Japan between 794-1192. She was a contemporary with Sei Shonagon and Akazome Emon, two of…
Miyamato Musashi’s “The Way to be Followed Alone” (Dokkodo)
Miyamato Musashi’s work “The Way to be Followed Alone,” or Dokkodo, is the samurai’s lesser known work next to The Book of Five Rings (Gorin no Sho). Musashi is a ronin, or masterless samurai, and considered to be the best samurai who lived. Musashi was born around 1584. His father was named Hirata Munisai, and his mother was called…
Hideyoshi’s Wife Kitanomandokoro: the Woman Who Changed Japan
Kitanomandokoro was the first wife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of the men who helped unify Japan during the Warring States period. Kitanomandokoro proves an interesting person, namely because we have her voice and can see her influence. She had a special marriage of respect and even love with Hideyoshi as evidenced by surviving letters….
Japan’s Mysterious Jomon Period
The Jomon Period is the era before writing that extends from the late Pleistocene to 410 BCE. Little is known about the religious and daily life of the earliest Japanese peoples. But they left us with the best-studied and oldest ceramic sequences in the world. Some of the oldest dates to around 15,000 years ago…