Emperor's Birthday, Japan
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Emperor's Birthday (tennoo tanjoobi, Japan)
***** Location: Japan
***** Season: Mid-Winter, December 23
***** Category: Observance
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Explanation
December 23rd is the Emperor of Japan's Birthday. This is a National holiday in Japan. The Japanese trace the lineage of their Emperors back for over 2 thousand years.
Called tenno no tanjobi, the national holiday changes as each new Emperor takes power in Japan. The previous Emperor's birthday often becomes a new special holiday. For example, Emperor Meiji, the Emperor who took power at age 15 and whose policies were the subject of the rebellion in The Last Samurai, had a birthday on November 3rd. That is now Culture Day.
Emperor Akihito was born on December 23, 1933. He had four older sisters, but as the first born male, he was first in line for the throne.
According to tradition, he was taken from his family when he turned 3 and was raised by tutors and nurses. However, unlike previous royalty who were strictly kept apart from all "normal people", Akihito was in fact sent to school with regular children so he would understand better their plight and needs. He was only in grade school during World War II.
In 1959, Akihito decided to ask Michiko Shoda to marry him. Many were shocked at this, as Shoda was not an aristocrat. The family brought even more modernity into their lives when they chose to raise their 3 children at home with them, instead of sending them off into the hands of others.
In 2003, Emperor Akihito turned 70 years old.
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art15716.asp
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Ikebana made on the occasion of the Emperor's Birthday Celebration by the German Consulate in 2004.
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Worldwide use
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Things found on the way
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HAIKU
To be added later.
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Related words
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Proposed by: Erika Schwalm
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Please send your contributions to Gabi Greve
worldkigo@yahoo.com
posted by Gabi Greve @ 5/13/2005
1 Comments:
PMJS: Premodern Japanese Studies
quote:
Having assigned to my students Amino Yoshihiko's 1992 article,
"Deconstructing Japan," I recently went back to re-read some of Amino's other works.
I was struck anew by the boldness of his arguments, in particular, those regarding the mytho-notion of a Japanese mono-culture existing prior to the early modern era. There can be no doubt that Amino's work has had a profound impact on the field but I wonder if there is anyone who has taken up his torch with quite the same enthusiasm. I can't say I've seen strong echos of Amino-sensei in recent medieval scholarship.
I have a question along these lines. I recall years ago reading about how the word Tenno appeared quite early on (Asuka period?) but then fell out of use, only to reappear quite some time later.
I'd be grateful if someone could guide me back to where I might have read about this but more important, I'm curious about the broader implications of the word's invention, disappearance, then reemergence.
In particular, I'm most interested in gaining a better grasp of the significance of this "now-you-see-it, now-you-don't" type phenomenon within the context of the nexus that Amino claimed existed between the notion of a "tenno" and the "country" of "Nippon/Hi no moto."
Matthew Stavros
Read more of this discussion here
http://groups.google.com/group/pmjs/browse_thread/thread/84074de2ca7197b5?hl=en
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