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On October 23, 1915, twenty-thousand suffragists marched on Fifth Avenue in New York City demanding the right to vote.

In the photo there is Komako Kimura (1887-1980), a prominent Japanese suffragist, who arrived from Japan to help out her sisters in America and joined in the parade.

Kimura came from a poor traditional Japanese family, who had arranged a marriage for her when she was 14 years old with a man she had never seen. Like many women in Japan during that time, she was expected to obey the traditional customs. She was expected to be obedient, she was expected to follow the same traditions that generations of her forebears had followed before her.

But, on the way to the marriage ceremony, Kimura had other thoughts. She would slip out of the carriage and go into hiding. She sold her wedding finery and bought a ticket to another city. There, she started a career as a dancer to support her finances.

She then again defied Japanese convention by eloping with a young doctor. She would become a writer, publishing a novel, then edited a woman's magazine in Tokyo, called Shin Shin Fujin, the first publication in Japan of its kind asserting women's rights. It would be so controversial that the magazine would be suppressed.

The conservative government of Japan then started watching her and would refuse her to hold suffrage meetings in the streets of Tokyo.

She would also become a well-known actress in her country who would take on daring roles. Again, the government would step in, telling her that she needed to stick with nice and mild roles befitting of women at that time.

She responded to that edict by opening her theater to the public without fee. She would be arrested and put on trial. The government, however, never knew what they were truly dealing with: Kimura would defend herself, providing arguments that were so well thought out that her trial would receive much publicity. Because of her, the word "suffrage", previously unspoken before in Japan, would be carried into the remotest districts of the empire.

Her magazine Shin Shin Fujin (The New True Woman) also criticized marriage and was the first Japanese publication to deal with the use of birth control. She was very clever and planned everything so thoroughly that whatever government did to stop her just backfired on them. She’s a genuine hero.

She's an interesting figure because not only she was a political activist, but an alleged psychic healer.

In 1909, she and her husband moved to Azabu in Tōkyō to form the cult "Kanjizaishū" [観自在宗] in the future (completed in 1935 with the help of Prof. Pierre A. Bernard of Barkley University) where she would dress up as the Buddhist deity Daikokuten and would manipulate the visitor's Chaḷabhiññā or the "Six Supernatural Senses" in humans which allow Komako to influence their mind as she please.

Even when she established the Shin-shinfujin-kai, she did so with Kōshi Miyazaki [宮崎 光子] as part of the members, who's the wife of a self proclaimed "prophet" Toranosuke Miyazaki [宮崎 虎之助].

In addition:

I had to look more deeply into Mrs. Komako's life because... What OP posted was like reading a Shakespearean tragedy piece (minus the murder and old English jokes). The way she was portrayed here was more of a Byronic heroine than a real person.

I had to read biographies of her in Japanese to figure it out and... who ever wrote this first (assuming that it's a blog content copied and pasted from elsewhere) turned her into some kind of a fictional character emerging from tragic background as if her achievements alone didn't convince people to admire her already... and here are what I've gathered so far:

(screen shot of a short biography of her in PDF below that I read in order to separate facts from myths also reference to my objections):

1. "Kimura came from a poor traditional Japanese family":

Starting off with an obvious contradiction which made me question the legitimacy of this post after reading about her academic records and her supposed traditionalist family. Why would someone as poor as Komako could afford let alone allowed to go on a language school and study abroad? By the way, these academic pursuit of her took place before she became an actress because she went to a Christian school in 1906 to prepare for going to America (which she went on in 1917) to study when she became an actress in 1913 at Asakusa (Tōkyō).

Just as I thought, absolutely no mention of such family financial background in any of her biographies. In fact, her relative Mansaku Kimura [木村 萬作] who's a local merchant always supported Mrs. Komako's academic endeavor. That's why she had the fund to enroll in Kumamoto Women Highschool [熊本女学校] or today's Kumamoto Faith High School [熊本フェイス学院高等学校]. Not something a poor family can afford nor allowed by traditional Japanese family in general of that time period because education wasn't a priority for women.

2. About Mrs. Komako's Arranged Marriage:

She wasn't in any kind of arranged marriage. In fact, the only thing that her parents objected was her being in a civil marriage with that "young doctor" who's in fact Hidekatsu Kimura [木村 秀雄] and giving birth to their first son: Shōji Kimura [木村 生死]. By the way, Hidekatsu's year of birth is 1882 while Komako's year of birth is 1887. So, who's younger?

The truth is, she was always fascinated to Hidekatsu and she married him as soon as he arrived back to Japan from America then moved to Tōkyō where they established the spiritualist cult "Kanjizaishū". Not fleeing her unwanted marriage by buying a ticket with the money she got from selling her wedding fineries (whatever they're supposed to be) to some random city of god knows where.

3. "defied Japanese convention by eloping with a young doctor."

What "Japanese convention"? There were no such "convention" of shaming or disapproving women for marrying a younger men (let alone a young doctor) during Komako's era. Sure, there are novels such as "Nogiku-no-haka" [野菊の墓] (1906) by Sachio Itō [伊藤 左千夫] or "Kokoro" [こゝろ] (1914) by Sōseki Natsume [夏目 漱石] which portrayed a tragic romance between older women and younger men as these 2 characters struggle in their love relation due to unacceptance from their surroundings, but these are all fictional narratives that only reflected fringe instances in Japanese society and not the culture as a whole.

4. About her multiple arrests:

Couldn't find a single information of her getting arrested or censored by the the Japanese government. Maybe the government during the Taishō Period wasn't too fond with her political stance, but the fact that there are no records on her date of arrest, case title, and court rule makes this whole "Komako standing up to the law despite of punitive actions by the authority" more of a trope to boast her character than a real life event. Not to mention the vagueness in what acting role she played to get arrested.

Shinto Beginner Pack / Shinto Starter Guides

Hello everyone,  I have compiled a series of documents for those new to Shinto. There is a total of 12. The following writing is also found in the first document “0. Preface and Orientation” in the package. I will possibly post some of the other articles I have written here on this blog, but ultimately I’ve made this as I will be going on a long-term break, stepping away from the broader Shinto community and only going to focus on Konko Faith, and events at my shrine, and personal writings at my own pace. The information contained in these documents has been gathered from my mere 10 years of study and experiences of Shinto practice, especially from my teachers and mentors, and my 6 years of experience licensed and ordained as a Shinto priestess of Konko Faith. (For Shinto learning, this is hardly a long time).  At the time of writing this, I’m a 28 year-old Canadian. I still have so much to learn and be taught. So please do not take this as me writing a complete, perfect guide. I have dated all the documents to show the time they were written and the information therein will evolve and grow in the future as well. There are some documents not written or compiled by me, too. I am deeply grateful to the authors of these documents for the valuable information that can help orient beginners to Shinto, and about home practice. These documents were especially and particularly compiled for those who live far from shrines. Even if you read through these documents, it will only provide you with a very bare bones understanding that has not really begun to scratch the surface of really deeply understanding Shinto with your heart.  There will always be more things to learn and understand, it is a lifetime period of learning, training, and most importantly: experiencing. I sincerely urge you as well to reach out to other priests and shrines, get involved in the Shinto community where you can. If you are blessed to live near a shrine, please get involved with the shrine and visit, as you will learn about Shinto so much easier there and experiencing than only reading. I have learned all I know thus far from other priests, elders, and mentors, and experiences thanks to their involvement in my life. Thank you so much. Sincerely, Rev. Olivia Bernkastel

I cannot recommend this any stronger!

Mrs. Bernkastel is someone I know for a while and she’s highly educated in the study of Shintō, even more so than myself!

This beginners pack is the best way to familiarize one’s self with Shintō.

Please reblog and share elsewhere!

A secret to more fluid speaking in Japanese

Adding よ or ね at the end of your sentences can help soften and add a more natural sound to your spoken sentences! よ is like adding “I tell you” and ね is like “right?” (Keep in mind, these are usually at the end of informal sentences, but you can add them after です as well!)

Here are some examples:

これかわいいね！- This is cute, isn’t it!

日本語は難しいよ - Japanese is hard I tell you!

この食べ物は美味しいですね - This food is delicious, right?!

この花はきれいですよ！- This flower is beautiful I tell you!

Already that makes sentences sound less stiff and even adds personality~

Also, avoid ending sentences with just だ as it sounds like an anime villain and not natural

An important caveat to “yo” and “ne” that isn’t explicitly stated above:

“Yo” implies that the listener either is unaware of or disagrees with what you said.

Aさん：この宿題の締切は明日だよ〜 (This homework is due tomorrow.)

Ｂさん：えっ?!来週じゃなかったの？（汗）(what?! It’s not due next week? *Concern*)

“Ne” implies the opposite, that the listener is either aware of, or that they are in agreement with what you said.

Aさん：この宿題の締切は明日だね〜 (This homework is due tomorrow.)

Once I was out with my hostmom and we saw a lady with a super cute dog, and I told the lady ワンちゃんとてもかわいいですよ！Afterwards, my hostmom was like, “Why did you use よ? She owns the dog so I’m sure she already thinks it’s cute too. ね would have been better.”

A very minor thing, but it’s those minor things that really help us sound more fluent!

dear all my Learning Japanese fellow! I have a good news for you!

I found a website where you can read raw manga BUT it is bilingual! you can switch the language right when you're reading. I also usually use rikaikun to assist my reading here!

Explanation of words that mean visit

（～に）寄る（よる）To drop in, stop by somewhere for a quick visit (among various other meanings and compound words).  –>私は帰宅の途中で彼の家に寄るつもりです。I’m going to drop in at his house on my way home (you probably wouldn’t use 立ち寄るhere because it is a planned future visit).

（～に）立ち寄る（たちよる）To drop in, stop by somewhere for a quick visit (“I dropped by the bookstore to pick up a book,” not “….to do some research”).  Compared to 寄る, (1) has a stronger feeling of being unplanned or by coincidence, and (2) can be used to mean “just to look” rather than actually buy a coffee or check out a book (etc.) –>彼は外出するたびに、その本屋に立ち寄る。Every time he goes out, he drops in at the bookstore.

寄り道（よりみち）（を）する　To make a detour on the way (often on the way home), to make a detour.  At first it looked a bit like 立ち寄るto me but after some reading is clearly pretty distinct: 立ち寄り is to drop by a specified place, 寄り道 is to make a detour but none of the sentences I found even mentioned a place, only that they were going “somewhere” instead of directly to their destination (which is why I didn’t specify the particle—there is never an object as far as I could tell). –>寄り道しないで、家にまっすぐ帰りなさい。Don’t stop by somewhere, come straight home.

(person を) / (place に) 訪ねる（たずねる）　To visit.  Used for when a person visits another person or a place, usually with a purpose.  Subject (the visitor) has to be a person.  Object (the visitee) can be a person or place.  One post I read said that place objects take the particle に but many sentences use を with（だれか）の家 ・～のところ.

（～を・に）訪れる（おとずれる）To visit, or to arrive for more abstract things such as a certain season, an opportunity or, say, death.  More passive, less purposeful than 訪ねる.  Subject (visitor) can be either a person or thing.  Object (visitee) is optional. –>死はすべての人に訪れる　Death comes to all men.

（～を・に）訪問（ほうもん）する　To visit or call on.  More formal, usually a visit for work such as a doctor making home visits. Object is often a place or building.

（～に）伺う（うかがう）To visit or call on (humble speech).  Can also mean “listen to” or “ask for” in which case the object (what you’re asking for—a reason for something or an order at a restaurant, for example) take the particle を.  You might hear the staff at a restaurant say “伺いします” when they come to take your order.

I do a word every day at work. I’ve been using this one a lot this year.

How to Use the Sumikko Gurashi Kanji Dictionary

A Sample Page Spread

This is what the dictionary content looks like! The image below shows two facing pages. As you can see, each page contains 2 kanji.

Dictionary Features

☆ This dictionary contains 1026 kanji that Japanese children learn in elementary school, from grades 1 through 6.

☆ Kanji are arranged in order by radical within each grade level. Radicals are arranged in order of number of strokes.

☆ Contains a ton of information about kanji, including how to read (i.e. pronounce) them, how to write them (i.e. stroke order and the types of strokes), and the shapes and names of composing radicals

☆ Full of adorable すみっコぐらし illustrations on every page!

My First Kanji Dictionary with Sumikko Gurashi!

みんな、こんばんは！

先週、私の新しい漢字本を来ました！すべての本はすみっコぐらしのです～ すごくかわいいです！ホラ～

その本は初めての漢字辞典です。辞典は1026小学校の漢字があります。

すべての辞典で日本語です。もちろん、読むのが難しいですが、フリガナがあります。いっぱい新しい単語を学ぶことができます！楽しみしています！

それで、すべてのページはとてもかわいいすみっコぐらしたちのイラストがあります。うわー！(´▽｀*)♡

目次と「漢字辞典の使い方」ページを訳しました。みんな、訳するのが欲しいですか。教えてね！♪　

言葉：

Crafts of Okinawa

I just wish I could learn every language and all the histories and about everyone's food and folklore and... 😔 but i only have one brain and it is small and malfunctioning

６ヶ月前から、また日本語を習うことになりました

Who knew studying Japanese consistently would bring results? I have been passively studying Japanese for about 6 months now and basically got back up to the level I was in university. It’s not all completely there because I have been pretty passive about it until about two weeks ago. But I realized I have actually progressed when I did an N4 reading exercise my tutor sent me and finished it before I sat down at my desk. Now we are moving on to N3 material.

I finally decided to fill in my gaps of knowledge. I am going to focus on a few things. I have been gradually slipping things into my schedule.

In the future, I need to add more listening comprehension practice. I also feel like I need to go over more collocations. I would also like to work on my accent. I will have to add all of this later. Otherwise, it just gets too overwhelming and I might burnout.

I won’t lie and say that this is easy. I do have goals for my Japanese that keeps me going. I suppose the first 6 months have been just a practice round of what I can do if I just learned passively. So, for the next 6 months I guess we’ll see how much I can learn if I am an active learner. I am just going to continue to see what works. How has everyone else been with their Japanese language learning adventure?

11.5) The に Particle [Part 1]

While が is the most important particle in Japanese, に may hold the title for being the most versatile. It has A LOT of uses. But fear not true believer, I have a post (or a few) to help you understand the many uses of に!

Let’s start out slow, shall we? In this post, I only have 2 uses to tell you about, marking existence and marking movement. The interesting thing is that you may not see the connection at first, but it’s there (at least in a Japanese way of thinking). Because I have so many examples for you, the vocabulary for this post won’t contain the verbs; I’ll put all of them together a little later in the post.

【Existence】

に is used to mark a place of existence. Back in this post about the particle の, we talked about “Location Noun Phrases.” These are nouns connected to location nouns (such as 上, 下, 外 etc.) with the particle の. Even though my examples there only used the location noun phrases as topics, they are more often used to say where someone or something is located.

For example, the English phrase “on the table” would become 机の上 in Japanese. If we want to make a comment about that location, we attach the は particle. However, if we want to say that something is located there, we need the に particle. If we wanted to say that a cat is located there, we would say:

いる is used because the subject (the cat) has a will of its own. For non-living things (and plants) that don’t have a will of their own, ある is used. A more extract example would be:

It’s the same idea. が marks the subject of the sentence while ある or いる tells us that it exists and に tells us where. Example 2 additionally made the place the topic. This leads to the nuance that we are talking about things that exist in the universe.

As you can see, the same is true when you want to talk about things / people that are not located somewhere. Note that the は particle is often used in sentences with negative verbs like ない or いなかった.

【Destination of Movement】

The remaining uses of に all have a common connection, which is movement. The first time Japanese learners are introduced to に, it’s usually in sentences where there is some form of movement. In these simple sentences, に marks the destination. Here are some examples:

*In example 7, 帰る simply means the subject is returning home, we don’t know whether the listener is at home or not. In example 8, the に bundle marks the destination. If you want to state the origin point, you would use から. 

【The Result of Moving Yourself】

Now here is the interesting part that will tie movement and existence together. In Japanese, the idea of existing somewhere is not limited to the verbs ある and いる. There are a lot of other verbs that express existence - it’s just that the existence is a result of some kind of movement. Take a look at this example:

Let’s say a 4-year old asks you, “What’s the difference between arriving somewhere and being somewhere?” First off, that child is very smart. But when you actually think about it, the idea of arriving somewhere is not really different from existing there. (I think the difference is that “arriving” carries with it the idea that there was some travel or movement prior whereas simply existing somewhere doesn’t tell us how the person got to that point.)

With that in mind, the following examples also show us the result of some kind of movement. Notice how に marks where the subject ends up after the movement.

【The Result of Moving Something】

Our next set of examples are closely related to the last section’s examples with one difference: Now instead of a person moving, an object is moved and then exists somewhere. Because this implies that the object has no volition of its own, our old friend the を particle will show up.

Here are some examples where the end result of some kind of movement is existence somewhere else:

*In Example 14, though the cat is alive and would normally have volition to do something, in this case it is treated like an object. Poor cat! In example 18, even though dipping is for a second or less, the noodles will exist in the soup for that short period of time. In example 19, かける has the image of showering something completely over something else. 肉に would then mean that the meat will exist inside the “shower of salt”. 🙃

【Clothing】

There are a whole set of verbs that have to do with putting on and wearing clothes, accessories, footwear, etc. I’m planning on writing a separate post about them but for now, it’s good to realize that they all fall into the category of moving something in order to make it exist somewhere - that is, on a part of the body. With these verbs, if there is a に it will be attached to the body part because that is the “destination” for the article of clothing. Most of the time though, this に bundle is omitted because it’s obvious from the verb and the article of clothing.

【The Verbs】

The に that marks the location of existence works together with only certain verbs. It would be very strange to say 家に食べる。The reason is that 食べる is not the correct kind of verb that works with に. Here are the verbs we have seen so far:

I do want to mention something that you will inevitably run into. Using these verbs in the past tense obviously describes a past action. Using them in the non-past (dictionary) form can either indicate a future action or a habitual action. 

However something interesting happens when you change these verbs to their て form and then attach いる. Again, I plan to go into more detail at a later date, but there are 3 possibilities:

Here are some examples:

【Conclusion】

Well that was a lot, wasn’t it!? I gave you a lot of examples but I hope it’s easy to see how they all are related. Whether there was some sort of movement (moving yourself or moving an object) or not, the end result is always existence. I think this is the key to understanding the に particle because it always marks the location of the existence. If you keep this in mind, you won’t end up asking yourself “why do they use に HERE?” all the time. No one needs all that!

As always thanks for your time and see you next post!

Rice & Peace,

– AL (アル)

Evening Moon at Nakanoshima, Sapporo (Sapporo Nakanoshima no yuzuki), from the series “Collection of Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition (Nihon fukei shu higashi Nihon hen)”, Kawase Hasui, 1933, Art Institute of Chicago: Asian Art

Bruce Goff Archive, gift of Shin'enkan, Inc. Medium: Color woodblock print; oban

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/197350/

Kaneko Misuzu was an influential figure in the development of dōyō, poetry and nursery rhymes that could be enjoyed by children and adults alike. She published some 90 verses before her untimely death at the age of 26, most of which were buried in obscurity following her passing. Years later, a decades-long search by a devoted fan uncovered over 500 new verses, some transcribed in Kaneko’s own handwriting.

Kaneko Misuzu: Rediscovering the Life and Work of Japan’s Poet for Children

STARS AND DANDELIONS

Deep in the blue sky, like pebbles at the bottom of the sea, lie the stars unseen in daylight until night comes. You can’t see them, but they are there. Unseen things are still there.

The withered, seedless dandelions hidden in the cracks of the roof tile wait silently for spring, their strong roots unseen. You can’t see them, but they are there. Unseen things are still there.

おつかい｜Errand

Learn Japanese grammar point: あっての

This is an excerpt from JTest4You’s N1 Grammar Ebook.

Instead, you can say👇

Polite:

いえいえ

(ieie)

Casual:

ぜんぜん

(zenzen)

Polite&formal

とんでもないです

(tondemonaidesu)