Reading Notes: Japanese Mythology Unit, Part A

Hello!

Earlier in the semester I got to read one of the stories from the Japanese Mythology Unit and really enjoyed it. So, when it was on the list of options for this week I was excited to get more into it. So, I chose it for my part A reading. I think the neatest part about these stories is that they start out with the creation of the earth and the gods and then continue through time to explain the creation of humans, Emperors, and then stories of the Emperor Yamato.

Out of all the stories I think that I enjoyed the stories of Yamato the best. At the beginning of his story, I liked it because there was something relatable about him dreaming of a beautiful mermaid and a cave that he never found after waking up. To me it reminded me of when you are having a great dream, you wake up, and although you try to remember what made you wake up feeling so happy, you can’t. It feels like if you just tried hard enough maybe you could find the memory, but you can’t. That is how I imagine Yamato must have felt returning to that shore again and again looking for the mermaid. Then, after a time he must give up and leave to marry Tacibana. Although I can’t recommend marrying someone when you’re actually still hung up on a mermaid, I think that this scenario is also very relatable to the human experience of giving up unattainable ideals for reality and considering mermaids don’t exist it is even more analogous.

For a story this week, I think it would be interesting to take the same idea as Yamato, his mermaid, and his wife and turn it into a modern story, maybe of two people meeting on a bus or in a bar, but one not being able to find the other again. I could also switch the gender of the characters, making the one searching for the “mermaid” a woman, and the “mermaid” a man.

On the other hand, I could take the “moral” of the story, as I see it (giving up unattainable ideals for reality) , and spin just that into a story. Like someone searching for the perfect college/house/dog/dress etc. and eventually having to learn to be happy with an option they have versus shunning them all for an ideal they won’t attain.

The photo at the beginning of this post is a picture of the Kaguraden of the Shinto Shrine Atsuta-jingū traditionally thought to house the possessions of Yamato after his death.

Bibliography

Romance of Old Japan by E. W. Champney and F. Champney (1917)

Photo Credit

By Bariston [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

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