| Samurai Movies (15) |
January 13, 2022
|
| When he watched a movie on DVD named 'Yaji Kita dochu Teresko', he came up with an idea. Yaji and Kita are men's names that appear in a very famous novel in the Edo period. The novel's name was 'Tokai dochu hiza-kurige'. Dochu means 'on the way of a travel', 'Tokai' was the largest and most frequently used passenger road between Edo and Kyoto. He didn't know what 'hiza-kurige' was, but everybody in this country knows the name because the name was in the textbooks at school. When he was a high school student, he read this book. He couldn't remember the story, but he could remember that he laughed and laughed, it was a good story of two citizens who caused trouble during their travel. Maybe this movie followed the original story, he guessed, although he didn't know what 'Teresko' was. After watching the movie, he figured out that 'Teresko' was an unknown animal, like 'Nessie' in England. The movie was so-so. It was released in 2007. The director had made several good movies and he watched many of them. He thought he was a very good director because he insisted on details, like Akira Kurosawa. So, he decided to check the scenes of the movie one by one carefully in order to study about Edo things: Scene 1: River An old man and an old woman were on a small wooden boat. They were wearing kimonos. The man's hair style was 'chonmage', a unique one, now you can see them only on sumo wrestlers. He had heard that the chonmage of samurai and the chonmage of citizens were a little different, but he couldn't tell the difference from this  guy, though. The woman's hairstyle was also unique, you can only see the style on a bride on her wedding day, if she chooses this traditional style. The boat was a small wooden boat. At that time, there must have been many types of boats. In this country there are a lot of rivers, but at that time there were few bridges. They wanted cross to the other side, so they took this boat. While riding, a large unknown thing that was in the river approached the boat. Scene 2: Street in Downtown There was a crowd that surrounded a person who was writing with a brush and ink on a sheet of paper interviewing a person who had seen Teresko. He was a journalist. The Edo period newspapers were called 'kawara-ban'. 'Kawara' means a slate for roofs, 'ban' means 'publishing'. They used earthen plates to inscribe letters on them, then burnt it, and then used it as a printing block. One passer-by in the scene was a fish-monger, on his shoulder he carried a long pole that had two bamboo baskets on each end which contained fish that were wrapped in bamboo leaves to keep their freshness. Scene 3 : House and Garden There was the old man, who had been on the boat, kneeling on a portable straw mat in a garden with white gravel. A samurai was wearing a 'haori' on his upper part of the kimono, and s 'hakama' on the lower part. This costume was only for higher ranking samurai at work or ceremonial events. He was sitting in a tatami mat room. The open room faced the garden. The room didn't have any sliding doors or pillars. This layout was a typical one for judgement. He, the judge, was called 'bugyou'. He could question a person without any obstacles in the way while sitting in a comfortable tatami-mat room. He had heard that after the Meiji Revolution, opening some ports, travelers came from abroad, and what they were impressed by most were tatami-mats. At their inn, they would always ask a clerk what these white things were. A tatami-mat consists of two types of plants, straw and 'igusa'. Straw is used as a body of a tatami-mat after being pressed into about 5 cm thick. 'Igusa' is used for the front after being woven. Tatami mats have some features: ・They were dry and clean so people, even infants, can directly sit or lay on it without a cushion or a chair. ・They keep a certain warmth and coolness so you can be on it without socks. ・They have a certain spring and firmness, so you can lay down on it directly. At night you can use a futon to sleep on and then put it away in the morning, so you can use the room functionally. (To be continued ...) |
| |
No.461
*figured out :分かる
*insisted on :こだわる
*slate :石版、屋根材
*inscribe :刻み付ける
*printing block :版画などの版
*passer-by :通行人
*fish-monger :魚屋
*gravel :砂利、小さい敷石
*obstacle :障害物
* functionally :機能的に