Plenty of Nothing

Uimamu

Uimamu was a ritual of greeting performed when Ainu were called before the Matsumae authorities. That's the Matsumae mon on the backcloth. The painting was done by Hirazawa Byozun in 1867. Source.

Otsu-e

Source. Otsu-e were folk art paintings done on popular themes, and were prevalent from the 17th to the 19th century. This set of ten themes looks like the precursor of those limited edition postcards that come with manga tankobon on release day. You can follow that tangent here.

Mokujiki

Mokujiki (1718-1810) fulfilled a vow to carve 1000 Buddhas, travelling rural Japan and leaving distinctive smiling Buddhas wherever he went. In the early twentieth century his work was rediscovered by Soetsu Yanagi, founder of The Japan Folk Crafts Museum where some of Mokujiki's smiling Buddhas can be seen today.

Tsubouchi Shōyō

Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859 - 1935), playwright, professor and critic, translated Shakespeare into the language of kabuki, and had a long-running argument with Mori Ōgai. Source.

Van Horne Family Hanging Scroll

A Japanese hanging scroll showing William Cornelius Van Horne and family plus art dealer Akusawa Susumu, ca. 1890. Source.

Hideko Takamine

Hideko Takamine starred in Twenty-Four Eyes (1954), the movie within a movie seen about four minutes into Jun Ichikawa's Tugumi (1990) which was based on Banana Yoshimoto's novel Goodbye Tsugumi. See Tugumi here.

Hanako to Anne

A still from the TV series Hanako to Anne about the life of the Japanese translator of Anne of Green Gables, Hanako Muraoka. Source.

Recycled Golf Course

This solar energy farm in Japan used to be a golf course. Source.

Chiho Osawa

Japan captain Chiho Osawa. Source.

It's the 2022 Winter Olympics. Let's follow Japan's women's team. Japan are ranked sixth, which makes them the top team in Group B. Japan's games are:

2022/2/3        Sweden [1 - 3] Japan

2022/2/5        Japan [6 - 2] Denmark

2022/2/6        China [1 - 1] Japan    [China win in the shootout.]

2022/2/8        Japan [2 - 2] Czech Republic    [Japan win in the shootout.]

2022/2/12      QF: [Finland 7 - 1 Japan]

[Japan finish the tournament in sixth place.]

Chiho Osawa plays for Luleå in the Swedish women's league (SDHL), as do Sara Grahn, Johanna Fällman, Melinda Olsson and Emma Nordin of the Swedish national team. Nana Fujimoto plays for Färjestad, but none of the Swedish team do. The rest of the Japanese team play for Japanese clubs: nine of them for Seibu Princess Rabbits, six for Peregrine, five for Cygnus, two for Daishin and one for Kushiro Bears. All the Swedes play in Sweden except for three who play on US college teams.

Josefine Persson and Sofia Skriver of the Danish national team are Osawa's teammates on Luleå. Altogether eleven play for Danish clubs, ten for Swedish clubs, and four for US college clubs.

Twelve of the Czech players play for Swedish clubs, and only three for Czech clubs.Six play for US college clubs, two in Russia, one in Finland and one in China.

All the Chinese players play in China. China are ranked between 18th-place Netherlands and 19th-place Poland, but are here as hosts. I saw the Chinese team in Ottawa in the late 1990s when they were ranked about 7th in the world. They played the University of Ottawa Gee Gees, who were about 7th in college hockey and the Ottawa Raiders who were about 7th in the old NWHL, and the games were about even.

[Japan vs Finland, previous tournaments:

2008/4/5        Finland 6 - 1 Japan    2008 Women's Worlds

2004/3/31      Finland 1 - 0 Japan    2004 Women's Worlds

1998/2/9        Finland 11 - 1 Japan    1998 Winter Olympics]

Ise Monogatari Flashcards

Source.