Extra Reading Diary: Folklore of Laos

For the extra reading diary, I chose the Folklore of Laos unit, mainly because it is such a small country and I was curious as to what kind of stories could come out of an area like that. Here are my thoughts.

So I kind of skimmed around the titles and the first one that caught my eye was The Man In the Moon, partially because I love Kid Cudi and it reminds me of his album, Man on the Moon.

Kid Cudi's Man on the Moon album

But regardless, the story is an explanation for the face on the moon seen on the light side. The basic premise is that a blacksmith got tired of being a blacksmith one day. So he asked a wise man who controlled everything to be a stone on the mountain, then several others things, until eventually he asked to be the moon. The guy got tired of the blacksmith asking to be different things, so he got stuck being the man in the moon. Thus you have the face on the moon. Kind of an interesting way to explain how it got there!

Then I read The Origin of Lightning, because I was kind of curious how they would explain lightning based on the last story. Basically a man's wife dies and is reborn as a young girl. When it came time for her to marry, her husband came from heaven in the form of an old man. Her wreath (symbolizing who she would marry) landed on his head and everyone made fun of him. But he and his daughter rose into heaven. The father of the girl tried to shoot them down, which is what is really happening when lightning strikes.

I really didn't enjoy that story too much, it was super confusing trying to figure out who was who and what was what, but that's probably the first story I've read all semester that I didn't really understand! 

The other stories were kind of interesting, but to conserve the amount of space this takes up, I won't go into all that! 

Week 6 Storytelling: The Jewel of Fate

At this point, Takeuchi was worn out and embarrassed at his shortcomings. How could he lose the Jewel? It was the only thing he was supposed to take care of, and he had failed. He could never show his face in the capital again. Unless he could somehow get it back, perhaps? No, that is hopeless, he thought to himself.

So there was only one logical course of action -- suicide. In Japan, one's honor is the most valuable possession he or she can have. Lose it, and it doesn't matter how many worldly possessions you have, none of them matter. Without honor, you are lost.

Takeuchi, being a high minister in the courts, knew the customs of his land very well. His heart was dead-set on ending his life on this night. But he was not aware he was being followed by a young fisherwoman, Tamatori. She had always been quite fond of Takeuchi, but never acted upon it for fear of banishment from the realm.

"We can get the Jewel together!" Tamatori exclaimed just as Takeuchi had drawn his sword. "Just don't give up yet, there's still a chance to find it."

"I suppose you're right," Takeuchi agreed. "Where do you think it is?"

"I see a light shining through the waters not far from here," Tamatori explained. "We should head there as quickly as we can to ensure no one gets there before us!"

So the two made haste towards a small island not far off the shore. Just on the other side of it, they could clearly see the Jewel of Fate broadcasting its glorious light through the shimmering waters towards the heavens.

"We must figure a way to swim down there without alerting the beast that guards it," Takeuchi stated calmly, "or surely we shall both perish on this night."

Thus the two devised a plan. Tamatori would swim down to grab it, then bring it back halfway to the surface where Takeuchi would protect them both with his blade and successfully restore his honor. Once it was agreed upon, the pair dove into the depths, using the light from the Jewel as a beacon.

When she got close enough to grab the Jewel, the vicious sea-dragon Mizuchi brought all manner of grotesque creatures towards Tamatori to hinder her from bringing the Jewel to Takeuchi. She struggled to maintain her hold on the Jewel as the monsters of the deep attacked her in unison.

Mizuchi, the sea-dragon.

(As depicted in Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers)

But at that exact moment, Susanowo had been watching these events unfold. He had always had a particular hatred for Mizuchi, so he found this the perfect opportunity to anger the dragon. As Tamatori swam up, he summoned a powerful whirlpool which surrounded Tamatori and Takeuchi, ensuring their safe return to shore.

The two then headed back to return the Jewel to its rightful place. Along the way, Tamatori made her love for Takeuchi known, and he deemed her a Princess he would be honored to call his wife. And the two lived on a great many years together, she a Princess, and he a man with his honor intact.

Author's Note: I used The Quest of the Jewel as the basis for my story. In the original, Tamatori goes to get the jewel by herself, and ends up killing herself to protect it because dragons can't interact with anything dead. This seemed a bit cruel to me, as she sacrificed her life for a man who may not have necessarily deserved it (he did lose the jewel after all). Also, I added in the presence of Susanowo; he wasn't involved in the original story at all, but I thought it'd be an interesting twist to include another famous Japanese god.

Bibliography:
Romance of Old Japan
E.W. Champney and F. Champney
1917

Reading Diary B: Japanese Mythology

For Reading Diary B, I will be going over some things I found interesting from the Japanese Mythology unit.

The first thing that stuck out to me was The Labors of Yamato, mainly because it was almost half of the unit (five stories). I focused on two of them: The Demon Boar and The Grass-Cleaving Sword. One thing that's interesting about this series of stories is they are intermixed with riddles that help tie some of the story together.

Anyways, in the Demon Boar, Yamato can't find the Island of the Golden Apples so he was pretty upset. He couldn't find anything that he really wanted to do; the hunt didn't excite him anymore. Until someone mentioned a demon boar that no one could kill. The high priestess warned him that he wouldn't be able to hurt it except for at its tail. So Yamato sent a whole army to kill this thing. Everyone died, except for him. He eventually got stuck between the boar and a cliff, so he hid behind a tree. When the boar walked past, he cut off its tail and forced it to run off the cliff to its death.

The story was good, but what really makes a better story is the details. Just a few examples: a scent of thyme floated on the breeze; mighty mountains loomed their time-scarred battlements against the cloudless sky. These are just from one paragraph, so you can see how the story is just lined with descriptive phrases.

The Grass-Cleaving Sword is similar to the Demon Boar in terms of details. Every other phrase is a descriptive one, describing either the atmosphere or what's actually happening. This story really showed how one of Japan's gods was able to conquer the elements, something the Japanese hold dearly in terms of their connection with nature. Yamato's people are caught in the middle of a raging fire. They are also being trampled by stampeding deer. Eventually the fire surrounds the men. Yamato takes his blade and cuts down a lane of grass to separate the fire. Then, the wind starts blowing the fire towards the enemies that were pursuing Yamato and his men, and they succeed in defeating the enemy. Thus, The Grass-Cleaving Sword.

Yamato and Susano'o

Reading Diary A: Japanese Mythology

For Week 6, I've chosen to do the unit on Japanese Mythology. I went to Japan my freshman year of high school and had a blast, but we didn't learn too much in terms of mythology or ancient tales! So when I saw the chance to read more in-depth on Japanese culture, of course I jumped at it. Here are my thoughts on a few of the stories from the first half of the unit.

When I was doing brainstorming for the storybook project, I read the Eight-Forked Serpent of Koshi. This story originally intrigued me because of the way the gods are depicted. Rather than being omnipotent beings, they are depicted as very human-like and having many problems similar to what mortal people experience. One of the only differences that I could tell from gods and humans was the size of the gods. They are massive beings, with the serpent in this particular story being described as 

having a tail that drags "over eight valleys and as many mountains.” Perhaps because their gods were so much like the Japanese people is why they related to them so much. Who knows! 

Also, that paragraph above this one and I couldn't get it to format right, so that's kind of unfortunate. 

:(

Izanagi and Izanami from what I could tell was Japan's creation story (as every culture has). Izanagi is the God of the Heavens, and his wife, Izanami, is the Goddess of Love. Together they created the earth, moon and sun, along with every living creature that inhabits the world. In this story, the islands of Japan are children of the couple as well. But of course, no creation is complete without some sort of conflict. One of their daughters, Amaterasu, was put in charge of the High Plain of Heaven (which she accepted quite eagerly). One of their sons, Susa-no-wo was put in charge of the Moon and the seas (he wasn't too happy about this at all). 

Izanagi (link includes many other important gods and goddesses)

Eventually, the gods get upset with Izanami because they felt she treated the mortal humans as equal to the gods. They tried to banish her to a life of mortality, so she fled to a mountain and gave birth to the Fire God, Kagu-tsuchi. Knowing he was evil, she then birthed the God of Water to calm Kagu-tsuchi's fire whenever he got too angry. Then she died. Izanagi tried to revive her, but he was unable to. Thus he lived the rest of his life in despair.