Posts Tagged ‘Language’

Tatewaku…a little more

January 16, 2013

Apparently there’s this tatewaku 「竪沸く」and this one 「立枠」which I “tested” and wrote about yesterday .  It revealed those wavy lined images seen on kimono, obi, woven and worked also in sashiko and shibori.

To explain a bit,  Neki (Neki desu) commented on tate this morning and then for curiosity  I went back to Mary Parker’s book and lo and behold there was tatewaku in a different set of kanji:  「竪沸く」- back to the dictionary.

This tate 「竪・たて」is (via Jim Breen):

(1) the vertical; height; (2) front-to-back; length; (3) north-to-south; (n,adj-no) (4) vertical (relationship); hierarchy; (n) (5) (See 経糸・たていと) (weaving) warp.

This waku・沸く・わく means “) to grow hot (of water, etc.); to boil” – think steam – vertical steam – rising steam, hence, that rising steam pattern.

So, to test it out, I input the kanji on Google search and went for the images – they were mostly practical images having literally to do with building, engineering…that kind of thing, but there were a few with that ‘rising steam’ pattern.

With this 「立枠」kanji I had more textile related results.  Who can say?  It’s an ancient language and languages are always changing and then again, there are so many different contexts.

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Posted in craft, culture, Language | 4 Comments »

Art Speaks Japanese

July 20, 2008

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I am about one month away from starting class again. That means I’m in my midsummer. I’ve accomplished a few things on my “list” but it’s time to start thinking about the academic ones as well. My department chair also asked me to think about a few things which involves (if I’m smart) some writing. If I do it early it’ll help in developing my goals for the new school year.

I’ve recently found a curriculum developed in New South Wales with the Japan Foundation, called Art Speaks Japanese. It seems a refreshing perspective from the usual. I really want to bring more of the arts into the classroom and this seems like a good way to do it. It uses images from the Art Gallery of NSW but they are broad enough in topic that students could find similar images on-line or elsewhere if they wanted. It’s always an experiment and it seems we never have enough time to teach what is needed. It goes far too quickly.

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Posted in Art, Language, The classroom | 2 Comments »

Rakugo

May 2, 2008

ImageKatsura Kaishi is a Rakugo-ka or what’s known as a Rakugo actor. He just finished a performance (in English) at the University of Montana in Missoula. I know this because my son saw it and pronounced it “great” and that I should be jealous. I responded that I definitely was. I would love to have seen this performance even if it was in English. I’ve only just begun to really appreciate that kind of theater as it requires a lot of focused listening, at least on my part. I confess, I really don’t understand it, but I enjoy it nevertheless. What I do understand is that it’s authentic and it not only serves but comes from the people. It’s local theater and I’ve recently come to appreciate it through watching a new NHK asa-dora or morning drama (really, a soap opera), called Chiritotechin. Several years earlier I had been exposed to a short piece called Jugemu. At the time, I was completely intimidated by it, as it was suggested that it would be something I could teach my own students. Later, in watching Chiritotechin, I saw it performed.

As I said earlier, I have to really listen to get it, and I really don’t. The language, the humor is sometimes obtuse and then again it’s sometimes in dialect, maybe even old, so that the story for the most part, escapes me. Still, the actors take on at least three personnas or more and they could be of different sexes and ages. The actors, storytellers, dress in kimono and haori, sit on a zabuton (cushion), and use only a cotton hand towel and a fan as props. The magic is in their words, voice, gesture and body language, performed sitting on a single cushion.

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Posted in Artists, Language | Leave a Comment »

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