first lesson
THEORIES OF “NIHONDZINRON” IN JAPANESE BILLS
In the near future, the Japanese government plans to put into circulation new-type banknotes with new “faces.” Gradually, such money will supersede the existing banknotes of the 1984 model. An interesting feature of Japan is that the banknotes depict the “nichondzinron” theorists [I], great enlighteners, people who made a huge contribution to the formation of the Japanese worldview during the Meiji period.
Why aren’t banknotes, for example, the first Minister of Finance of this period or the first president of the First National Bank? After all, these people had to re-create the financial system of Japan according to the Western model. “According to the results of the American trip, Deputy Minister of Finance Ito Hirobumi [II] proposed urgent reforms in the financial sphere, namely, to pass a law on the issue of government securities, create modern Continue reading
MASAHIRO YASUDA AND HIS THEATER “YAMANOTE”
With this pensive, phlegmatic (as it seemed to me when I first met) man I first met in the summer of 2000, during the Moscow Theater Olympics. Having put Meterlinka’s Blue Bird at his Yamanote Theater in Tokyo, he wanted to talk with one of the Russian theater specialists and find out how Stanislavsky’s performance at the Moscow Art Theater looked like. Translator Yukiko Kase, a very nice girl who graduated from the philological faculty of Moscow State University here in Moscow and defended her dissertation on Gogol’s work, called me and asked for a meeting.
The day we spent partly at my home, analyzing the little that we managed to get about the Mkhatov’s “Blue Bird” (sketches of costumes and scenery, photographs, memoirs of the participants), partly in the Kuskovo park, the summer cottage of Count Sheremetyev.
Communication was intense. The percentage of questions Yasud asked was many times greater than the percentage of questions I asked him. Therefore, it will be more accurate to determine the nature of our conversation as his questions and my monologues. And the subjects of interest were such that, when satisfied, they meant global calculations and they Continue reading
BORN EARLIER, Sensei
Who do you think this is? “Born before” preserves the wisdom of generations and transfers it to others. They go to him for advice. He is respected and loved. This is as important a person as parents, and sometimes more important. Guessed?
Of course, this is a teacher, and in Japanese – sensei.
By default, we translate this word as “teacher, teacher,” but for the Japanese it contains a whole world of relationships built on respect, reverence and love. Parents give life, and Sensei teaches us how to live. Even in the fairly recent past, many noble Japanese tried to give their children to teachers and mentors early, so that children could learn the wisdom of life earlier. The mentor became the second father. If there weren’t those who were “born earlier”, then there wouldn’t be all that we have now, that’s why the Japanese treat Sensei with reverence, catch Continue reading
