I wrote "Modern Japanese is mixture of the traditional Japanese "やまとことば", classical Chinese, and European languages." in a previous journal.(id:yagian:20110409:1302298443) Soseki Natsume "夏目漱石"(http://goo.gl/V9n1Y), who is though…

Today I'll write about a waka(和歌) written by Saigyo Hoshi(西行法師). Waka is the most popular and traditional Japanese short verse. (http://goo.gl/8ewy5) Saigyo Hoshi is a famous Kajin(歌人), waka poet. He was born as a member of the ari…

I have read a critic about Haruki Murakami's short story "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" and this earthquake in The New York Times. ("Super-Frog" By JOEL LOVELL March 22, 2011 http://goo.gl/ZiS6k) "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" is contained in his anth…

I've finish reading J. D. Ballard's books "Miracles of Life" (http://goo.gl/AAknC) and "Rushing to Paradise" (http://goo.gl/4isEa). Now I'm trying "The Kindness of Women" (http://goo.gl/uefzb). In my school days I had been taught how to un…

I'm reading J. G. Ballard's book "Miracles of Life". He was born in Shanghai and his family was captured by Japanese army in World War 2. He wrote about it in his novel "Empire of the Sun". His experience was real, but it was so severe tha…

Recently I am learning English and becoming interested in people who are in between different cultures. I have read stories of drifters from Japan to foreign countries in the Edo era and of diplomats coming to Japan from Europe at the end …

I read Mayuko Sano's book "Alcock in Edo". In this book she wrote about Sir Rutherford Alcock who was the UK's first minister in Japan, and arrived in Edo at the end of the Edo Era. I found a person in this book who appeared in Ryutaro Iwa…

Eric Hobsbawm showed the fact that many of “traditions” which are widely believed to have a long history are invented in modern times in his book “The Invention of Tradition”. Yusuke Wajima applied Hobsbawm’s method to the Japanese “tradit…

I read the news that a new edition of “Huckleberry Finn” which replaces the word “nigger” to “slave” has been published by the New York Times. (http://nyti.ms/eIkby) I think that it is a very complicated problem. The editor who made the ne…

I read Ryutaro Iwase's “Robinson of the End of Edo Era; Drafts in Pacific Oceans Before and After Opening Japan”. This book is continuation of the same author's "Robinson in Edo Era; Stories of Seven Drafts". He wrote about drifters in the…

The library of my elementary school had a shelf, which was full of non-fiction books with blue backs. I have read all of them. In that time I loved to read incredible stories. I studied cultural anthropology in my university (, but I dropp…

I am now reading book to educate myself as I wrote in my last weblog (id:yagian:20070415:1176604209). This week I have read Stephen R. Covey “I have read Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” (Running Pr ISBN:0762408332) in this week. I…

Recently I feel like educating myself, and I have read some of “self-help books”. Now I read Takashi Saito “The Method of Utilization of Information by Three Color Ballpoint pen ” (Kadokawa ISBN:4047041351). This book is very useful at lea…