Friday, November 06, 2020
Back Against the Stream of Time
Lafcadio Hearn, letter to Sentarō Nishida (November, 1893):
Meiji = era from 1868 to 1912
byōbu = folding screen
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I like little towns. To live at Tadotsu, or at Hishi-ura in Oki, or at Yunotsu in Iwami, or at Daikon-shimain Naka-umi, would fill my soul with joy. I cannot like the new Japan. I dislike the officials, the imitation of foreign ways, the airs, the conceits, the contempt for Tempō, etc. Now to my poor mind, all that was good and noble and true was Old Japan: I wish I could fly out of Meiji forever, back against the stream of Time, into Tempō, or into the age of the Mikado Yūriaku — fourteen hundred years ago. The life of the old fans, the old byōbu, the tiny villages — that is the real Japan I love.Tempō = era from 1831 to 1846
Meiji = era from 1868 to 1912
byōbu = folding screen
