Ethnography: いました！
I did promise myself that I would go back to a cute cat book and this one has a cat looking for friends, looking to find anyone who is like him.
For some reason, the cat seems to think that the best place to do that is at one of the many famous temples and shrines in Japan. Perhaps he is hoping to settle down and become a temple cat.
The first place he finds has a guardian dog statue outside, the second has a fox as a guardian, which seems like an odd choice to English people - foxes are so often what you are trying to guard against. The next temple has a mouse guardian at or beyond the torii gate, and again, not a good fit with a cat…
Finally, the cat reaches a temple of maneki neko cats, and they all chime back that they are like him and he finds his friends.
It’s a very good book for introducing animal names to new readers, whether small kids or adult learners. It also has actual photos of temple shrines and famous statues with a reference in the back. By coincidence this week, I saw a picture of another famous temple in Japan, with the temple gate sometimes under water depending on the e state of the tide. It was truly beautiful and very unusual but I was stunned to see that the kanji was the same as the one for tori for bird, just with an additional I on the end (which can be represented by another kanji but I saw it in its own a lot). I haven’t yet found out how a bird is a gate or vice versa, given that kanji usually only have one meaning. Perhaps to do with birds changing state and connecting the earth and the heavens… or it was entirely for the sound and not for the meaning because of being co-opted from another language. I will go to wiktionary or uncle Hangxie later…
Comments
Post a Comment