Ten Foot Square Hut and Tales of the Heike
Ten Foot Square Hut and Tales of the Heike

Author:

Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

Published: 2011-08-30

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1462900763

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Readers of medieval Japanese literature have long been captivated by its romance and philosophy. In this volume, two acclaimed thirteenth-century classics, The Ten Foot Square Hut and Tales of the Heike, are presented in translation. The Ten Foot Square Hut (the Hojoki) takes its title from a four and half mat sized Tearoom, the size of the hut in which the hero of the story, Chomei, lives. It offers the memorable reflections of this sensitive aristocrat who has retired from a world filled with violent contrasts and cataclysms to find refuge in nature and Buddhist philosophy. Though this narrative was written 700 years ago, its message continues to have an astonishing timeliness. Tales of the Heike (selections from the Heike Monogatari) deals with the same period but from a different point of view, supplying the background of Chomei's meditations. It is a collection of episodic stories, written in poetical prose, related to the rise and fall of the Taira clan in twelfth-century Kyoto, one of the great turning points in Japanese history. The translations, by the late Professor A. L. Sandler, are complemented by an informed Introduction on the background to these masterpieces of Japanese literature.

Shades of the Past
Shades of the Past

Author: Harold S. Williams

Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

Published: 2012-02-14

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1462905013

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Prowling among these stories about Japan one finds riffraff and gentlemen, pirates and warriors, saints and sinners, smugglers and legitimate businessmen. All those, in fact, who made up the foreign communities of Japan in the early days. Harold S. Williams tells about them with the same inimitable humor, irony, drama and whimsy that made his earlier Tales of the Foreign Settlements such a popular success. With due regard for historical accuracy he recreates those fantastic days and the furor and fun with which they were filled. Here you can enjoy the privileged social status of belonging to the Victorian Volunteer Steam Fire Engine Company of Yokohama; you can join those Japanese pirates who were the first to meet Englishmen; arbitrate Japan's first labor dispute, involving foreigners, of course; witness the massacre of forty thousand Japanese Christians; revel in Nagasaki when it was the Paris of the Far East; travel over the Tokaido when it was the most picturesque and colorful of the world's highways; watch at close range each gruesome detail of an act of harakiri; dive for sunken treasures; watch the world's largest wooden vessel burn to the water line; marvel at one of the greatest advertising feats of all time.

Asian Animal Zodiac
Asian Animal Zodiac

Author: Ruth Q. Sun

Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

Published: 2012-02-07

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 1462903711

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This guide to the Asian zodiac gives a complete history and explanation of the zodiac as well as detailed instructions on how to read one's own animal signs. In much the same way that Westerners analyze their personalities and predict their futures by studying the positions of the stars under which they were born, Asians use the ancient animal zodiac to explain individual personalities and predict their futures. Originally the Chinese zodiac, this custom spread to all corners of East Asia. According to legend, the twelve years in the Asian animal cycles were named for the twelve animals who visited Buddha on his deathbed: the rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, cock, dog, and boar. This informative and delightful book examines each animal of the zodiacal cycle and describes its history, its virtues and flaws, its "all-too-human characteristics." Traditional tales from China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, and Vietnam illustrate each animal's personality as the people of those nations see it. With carts, descriptions, and stories in this zodiac book, the Western reader too may find useful wisdom in the Asian animal zodiac.