intertribal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
intertribal) wrote2008-10-23 12:04 pm
intertribal) wrote2008-10-23 12:04 pm
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from Iwasaka and Toelken's "Death Customs in Contemporary Japan"
This is what scares me.
Lucky for the character if the ghost can articulate a request that the witness can then fulfill; in many cases, the witness is an innocent passerby who is simply assaulted by a ghost whose uncontrollable passion results from the way he died, or the fact that the proper rituals were not observed in her behalf. But from the Japanese perspective, the apparently innocent victim may not be entirely exempt from involvement, for he or she is a member of the living, that group of people whose obligation it is to celebrate the souls of the dead. In this dramatic sense, anyone alive is fair game for the approach of a ghost.
This reminds me of this book I bought at Gramedia when I was nine or so. I read it with my babysitter and did not finish it or bring it with me because it was saying things like, "if you stand in the door during a rain, you will..." and it scared me too much. It was a large book.
Actions, clearly, are powerful, but the same is true for words and phrases; one does not serve someone else three slices of anything because mikire, "three slices," also means "to cut the body." One should never write three pages of anything, or four pages (shimai, which also means "final end"). One never refers to a single slice of food, for hito kire also means "to stab someone." Departing on a trip on the seventh day (nanoka tabidachi) is unlucky since it suggests the seventh-day funeral observance. Because the words for four and nine (shi, ku), people in many parts of Japan avoid uttering the phonemes for these numbers in contexts where the meaning seems ambiguous.
It is important to remember that these ambiguities exist in conversation and not in writing, because the characters for these words and indeed quite different. Thus, the word for "comb," kushi, when written, does not contain the characters for death and suffering but, when spoken, its sound triggers complicated cultural associations which are not part of the literal meaning.
Associations surrounding the comb (kushi) are numerous and rich, and are illustrated in several of the legends in this collection. Combs seem to take on the personality or spirit of their owners and so their appearance in connection with a ghost is more than a matter of fashion or decoration. Further, in combination with deeply held ideas about the importance of hair and hairstyle, the comb suggests imagery which cannot be grasped easily by outsiders.
Suddenly the whole long black hair thing makes a little more sense. :(
Lucky for the character if the ghost can articulate a request that the witness can then fulfill; in many cases, the witness is an innocent passerby who is simply assaulted by a ghost whose uncontrollable passion results from the way he died, or the fact that the proper rituals were not observed in her behalf. But from the Japanese perspective, the apparently innocent victim may not be entirely exempt from involvement, for he or she is a member of the living, that group of people whose obligation it is to celebrate the souls of the dead. In this dramatic sense, anyone alive is fair game for the approach of a ghost.
This reminds me of this book I bought at Gramedia when I was nine or so. I read it with my babysitter and did not finish it or bring it with me because it was saying things like, "if you stand in the door during a rain, you will..." and it scared me too much. It was a large book.
Actions, clearly, are powerful, but the same is true for words and phrases; one does not serve someone else three slices of anything because mikire, "three slices," also means "to cut the body." One should never write three pages of anything, or four pages (shimai, which also means "final end"). One never refers to a single slice of food, for hito kire also means "to stab someone." Departing on a trip on the seventh day (nanoka tabidachi) is unlucky since it suggests the seventh-day funeral observance. Because the words for four and nine (shi, ku), people in many parts of Japan avoid uttering the phonemes for these numbers in contexts where the meaning seems ambiguous.
It is important to remember that these ambiguities exist in conversation and not in writing, because the characters for these words and indeed quite different. Thus, the word for "comb," kushi, when written, does not contain the characters for death and suffering but, when spoken, its sound triggers complicated cultural associations which are not part of the literal meaning.
Associations surrounding the comb (kushi) are numerous and rich, and are illustrated in several of the legends in this collection. Combs seem to take on the personality or spirit of their owners and so their appearance in connection with a ghost is more than a matter of fashion or decoration. Further, in combination with deeply held ideas about the importance of hair and hairstyle, the comb suggests imagery which cannot be grasped easily by outsiders.
Suddenly the whole long black hair thing makes a little more sense. :(
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