Harp of Burma
Harp of Burma

Author: Michio Takeyama

Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

Published: 2011-12-20

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 146290355X

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Harp of Burma is Japan's classic novel of pathos and compassion in the midst of senseless warfare. Winner of the prestigious Mainichi Shuppan Bunkasho prize and the basis for the critically acclaimed film The Burmese Harp by Ichikawa Kon, Harp of Burma shares a powerful human story about Japanese soldiers on the front lines in WWII. Losing a desperate battle against British forces in the tropical jungles of Burma, the young soldiers discover that the trials of war involve more than just opposing the enemy. Distressed and disoriented by the alien climate and terrain, strange behavior of foreigners and the emotions stirred by the senselessness of war, their commander's ability to lead them in song helps them discover music's power to make even the most severe situations more tolerable. Even though they face the inevitability of defeat, singing the songs of their homeland revives their will to live. Through the story of these men and of the music that saw them through the war, Takeyama presents thought-provoking questions about political hostilities and the men who unleash them. Harp of Burma is Japan's classic novel of pathos and compassion in the midst of senseless warfare.

Japanese Fairy Book
Japanese Fairy Book

Author:

Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

Published: 1998-04-01

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 146291683X

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This compilation of twenty-one favorite fairy tales introduces the rich world of Japanese fantasy, a world of ghouls, goblins, and ogres; sea serpents and sea kings; kindly animals and magic birds; demons and dragons; princes and princesses. In "My Lord Bag of Rice" goldfish dancers and carp musicians delight the brave warrior Hidesato; in "The Mirror of Matsuyama" a lonely daughter endures her fate with the help of a "shining disc" given by her departed mother; "The Jellyfish and the Monkey" explains how that sea creature lost its bones; and the hero of "Momotaro," a tale familiar to every child in Japan, is born from a peach that washes up on a riverbank. Settings and characters vary from tale to tale but the effect of each story in this volume is the same—to transport the reader, young or old, to mysterious shores, magical kingdoms, and mythical lands. The Japanese Fairy Book is a wondrous introduction to Japan's rich fantasy tradition.

Japanese Things
Japanese Things

Author: Basil Hall Chamberlain

Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

Published: 2012-11-13

Total Pages: 461

ISBN-13: 1462908721

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Armchair travelers beware! Japanese Things will lure you out of your cozy, comfy home and chair to an unusual country with bewitching manners and customs—and once you have succumbed to its spell you will never be the same. Here in one neat package you will meet the flavor, charm, and piquancy of old Japan—a revised reprint of one of the indispensable books on Japan, by the late Prof. Basil Hall Chamberlain, eminent British scholar who in the latter part of the 19th century "taught Japanese and Japan to the Japanese." Many books in one, this monumental compilation contains such diversified subjects as Art and Abacus; Botany and Buddhism; Charms and Cherry Blossoms; Daimyos and Divination; Fairy Tales and Flowers; Gardens and Government; History and Hara-kiri; Law and Language; Marriage and Music; Poetry and Pottery; Shinto and Singing Girls (Geisha); Tea and Theater, and Writing and Wood Engraving. In this long-awaited reprint, in which the title has been changed from Things Japanese, the reader will encounter exquisite objects of daily Japanese life, the gardens and cultures of the fields, the harmony and balance in the fundamentals of day-by-day existence.

Jews in the Japanese Mind
Jews in the Japanese Mind

Author: David G. Goodman

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 438

ISBN-13: 9780739101674

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Why are the Japanese fascinated with the Jews? By showing that the modern attitude is the result of a process of accretion begun 200 years ago, this book describes the development behind Japanese ideas of Jews and how these images are reflected in their modern intellectual life

To Walk in Seasons
To Walk in Seasons

Author: William Howard Cohen

Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

Published: 2004-09-15

Total Pages: 76

ISBN-13: 1462912117

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To Walk in Seasons is designed to help the beginner discover haiku for himself, and eventually create his own haiku poems. It includes a lively and sensitive introduction on the nature of haiku. For individual study, or for use in the classroom, it also contains a study guide aimed at recreating the thought processes behind this terse, concentrated form. Mr. Cohen's poetry like his anthology illuminates poetic experience: To walk in seasons is to discover what's inside a split instant To walk in seasons; passing through a dry gate into a rainstorm. To walk in seasons is to wake and find you really are. Mr. Cohen's haiku and other poems have appeared in many well-known literary periodicals such as Literature East and West and American Haiku. He is the author of The Hill Way Home and A House in the Country, and his works have been praised by such eminent poets as Peter Viereck and Mark Van Doren. (He was elected in 1963 to membership in the Poetry Society of America) Mr. Cohen won the title of United States Olympic Poet, representing the United States in Mexico City in 1968, and in 1969 he honored at the World Congress of Poets in Manila.

The Scars of War
The Scars of War

Author: Richard H. Minear

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2007-07-09

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 1461645530

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Takeyama Michio, the author of Harp of Burma, was thirty-seven in 1941, the year of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Husband, father of children born during the war, and teacher at Japan’s elite school of higher education in Tokyo, he experienced the war on its home front. His essays provide us with a personal record of the bombing of Tokyo, the shortage of food, the inability to get accurate information about the war, the frictions between civilians and military and between his elite students and other civilians, the mobilization of students into factory jobs and the military, and the relocation of civilians out of the Tokyo area. This intimate account of the “scars of war,” including personal anecdotes from Takeyama’s students and family, is one of very few histories from this unique vantage point. Takeyama’s writings educate readers about how the war affected ordinary Japanese and convey his thoughts about Japan's ally Germany, the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, and the immediate postwar years. Beautifully translated by Richard H. Minear, these honest and moving essays are a fresh look at the history of Japan during the Asia-Pacific War.