This is part 22 of a series following a three-month journey the length of Japan, beginning in northern Hokkaido and finishing in the south of Kyushu. This extract from a forthcoming book concerns Fukuoka, which in the form of Hakata … Read the rest
Category: Emperor (imperial family) (Page 1 of 8)
For lovers of Japanese literature, the Kanmon Straits mean above all the tragic climax of Tale of the Heike. The fourteenth-century epic is Japan’s great equivalent of The Iliad and charts the rise and fall of the … Read the rest
Kyoto’s Ryoan-ji houses the most famous rock garden in the world. Sadly the World Heritage site is closed at present, because of the Coronavirus crisis. Not many people know, … Read the rest
In the middle of Kyoto is a large area of parkland containing the Former Imperial Palace, where lived Japanese emperors from 1331. Following the Meiji Restoration, the young … Read the rest
Ino Okifu
It was after speculating about Jofuku and Jimmu that I was startled to find, courtesy of Wikipedia, that I was by no means the first to think that their stories may have overlapped. It turns out that a … Read the rest
Jofuku and Jimmu
Two legendary figures, one Chinese and one Japanese. One on the quest for immortality, the other on the path of conquest. According to tradition, both ended up traversing the Inland Sea … Read the rest
The following is the introductory section of a paper by distinguished scholar Klaus Antoni first published in Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 47, 1988: 123-136. The article entitled “Yasukuni-Jinja and Folk Religion: The Problem of Vengeful Spirits” can be read … Read the rest