Tag: Japanese Poetry

A Brief Introduction to Japanese Cherry Blossoms

As spring approaches, people eagerly anticipate when cherry blossoms (sakura in Japanese, 桜), but as I have learned recently in my book, the Hyakunin Isshu Daijiten, there are many types of sakura, some of them even referenced in the Hyakunin Isshu. Let’s explore a few and learn how to spot one versus another.

If you’re curious about how to even spot a cherry tree, my alma mater has a nice video introduction from the Pandemic era on spotting various trees in your own neighborhood:

A Brief History Lesson of Cherry Blossoms

Cherry blossoms have been a part of Japanese culture for a very long time, but were not always revered as they are now. In antiquity, the plum blossom, imported from China, were more highly revered as one can see in the Manyoshu, but over the centuries the roles reversed. The tradition of outings to view cherry blossoms is credited to Empress Jitō (poem 2). Nowadays, this tradition continues as ohanami (お花見), and can be a fun outing with friends and family or co-workers. In places like Ueno Park in Tokyo, the grounds are crowded with picnic blankets, visitors, and plenty of food and saké to go around.

The most famous, most iconic poem about cherry blossoms was composed by Ariwara no Narihara (who also wrote poem 17):

JapaneseRomanizationTranslation
世の中にYo no naka niIf in all the world
絶えて桜のTaete sakura nothere were of cherry blossoms
なかりせばKanarisebano trace anywhere
春の心はHaru no kokoro waah, how truly peaceful then
のどけからましNodokekaramashispring would be for everyone!
Translation by Dr Josha Mostow and Dr Royall Tyler from the Ise Stories, the poem is also number 53 in the Kokin Wakashū.

Varieties of Cherry Blossoms

Big thanks to this site for providing additional references. I also relied on some details from the Hyakunin Isshu Daijiten book I’ve used for the blog.

Yoshino Cherry

The most common, most well-known type are the Somei Yoshino (ソメイヨシノ) or “Yoshino Cherry” in English:

(Photo by Tak1701d, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

This is a relatively recent variety that was bred for gardening, then gained popularity abroad. It is named after the famous village of Yoshino. For many, this is the classic “cherry blossom” and the one you’re most likely to see outside of Japan.

Yae-Zakura Cherry

Another famous example is the Yae-Zakura (ヤエザクラ):

(Photo by Raita Futo from Tokyo, Japan, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

The term yae (八重) means something like “eight layers” or “eight levels”, which helps describe it’s thicker, multi-layered blossoms. It is also the subject of poem 61.

To be honest, yae-zakura are my personal favorite.

Kanzan Cherry

A popular variety that I only learned about recently is a hybrid variety called the kanzan (カンザン, sometimes archaically spelled Kwanzan). I didn’t find this one online at first, but was able to take a photo during a recent visit to the University of Washington.

This variety was, similar to the Yoshino, a relatively recent variety, and a result of hybrid breeding with Ōshima cherry. What makes this one interesting is the both the rich pink color, and the multiple layers of blossoms (similar to the Kasumi cherry below).

Fugenzo Cherry

Taken at the University of Washington in 2026

Another variety descended from the Ōshima cherry is called the fugenzo (フゲンゾウ, “Fugen’s elephant”) variety, sometimes called the shirofugen (シロフゲン, “white Fugen”) variety. The name is derived from the pistil of the flower resembling the shape of an elephant’s trunk, and since a revered bodhisattva named Fugen rides a sacred white elephant, that’s how it got its name.

Mountain Cherry

Another example of cherry blossoms, that’s lesser-known in the West are the wild cherry trees, or yama-zakura (ヤマザクラ) also known as the “Mountain Cherry”:

(Photo by 阿橋 HQ, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

If you compare the Yama-zakura to the classic Yoshino Cherry, you can see the color is a little more faded, kind of whitish in comparison. I think I have also read somewhere that the leaves and blossoms of a mountain cherry sprout at the same time, compared to a Yoshino Cherry where the blossoms comes first.

In antiquity, when the nobility of the capitol would go on a cherry blossom viewing, these are the trees they would most likely go to see. They are the subject of poem 66 as well.

Shidaré-zakura Cherry

Another iconic variety of cherry blossoms are the shidaré-zakura (シダレザクラ), or Hanging Cherry:

(Photo by Sakaori, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

You often see these grown in very scenic places, as well as on the grounds of Buddhist temples or Shinto shrines. The way the hanging branches sway in the wind is a sight to behold.

Kasumi-Zakura

One interesting variety that I was unaware of, until researching for this blog was the kasumi-zakura (カスミザクラ):

The word kasumi is a poetic term for haze or mist, especially a spring mist. You can see how the blossoms hang down somewhat, and are particularly large compared to other cherry blossoms varieties. They also seem to have a two-tone quality, where the edges are deeper color than the middle.

Fuyu-Zakura

Another example I wanted to share is an unusual variety that blooms in spring, and in winter, called the fuyu-zakura (フユザクラ):

This cherry variety, also known as a gobazakura (コバザクラ) has white blossoms and blooms both in April, and also in December.

Kanhi-zakura

Taken by me at University of Washington in April 2025

While visiting the University of Washington in 2025, I found another variety I hadn’t noticed before. This variety is listed on UW maps as “Hisakura”, but in digging around in Japanese I found that a more common name is Kanhi-zakura (カンヒザクラ), also called Taiwan-zakura (タイワンザクラ) after the island of Taiwan. The name Hizakura (ヒザクラ) is also used. As the name implies (and according to Wikipedia), this variety is found all over East Asia, including Taiwan, and blooms somewhat early. Based on my visit to the UW I can confirm this as an amateur cherry blossom nerd.

Amanogawa Cherry

Taken by me in my neighborhood, April of 2025

Yet another variety I stumbled upon recently in 2025 is the Amanogawa (アマノガワ, “Milky Way”) variety. You can see an extra layer of petals in this one, similar to the Kanzan variety, but a lighter, softer color. I couldn’t find much detail about this variety but it appears to be a form of sato-zakura plants also known as the Ōshima cherry, similar to the Kanzan and Fugenzo varieties.

Conclusion

There are many more varieties of cherry blossoms than listed here, but many are obscure or only known to botanists and experts. Also, it’s important to point out that Korea also has a venerable cherry blossom tradition, though I confess I don’t have much information.

In any case, when spring comes, see if you can identify the different cherry blossoms you see. You may be pleasant surprised.

I “Dew” Love You: Manyoshu Poem 88

This is a great example of a poem that’s very beautiful and sincere, yet also carries a darker history.

Original
Manyogana1		Modern
Japanese		RomanizationRough
Translation3
秋田之秋の田のAki no ta noLike the
穂上尒霧相穂の上に霧らふ うHo no é ni kiraumorning dew atop
朝霞朝霞Asakasumirice plant buds,
何時渡邊乃方二何処辺の方にItsue no kata niwhenever will my
我戀将息わが恋ひい止まむんWaga koi yamanlove for you evaporate?

This poem was composed by the wife of Emperor Nintoku, Iwanohimé no Ōkisaki (磐姫皇后) in the 4th century. Emperor Nintoku was a semi-legendary Emperor2 who was known for his sagacity and for his very long reign. They are both interned in famous Kofun mausoleums, Nintoku in Osaka (shown below), and Iwanohime in Nara:

Copyright © National Land Image Information (Color Aerial Photographs), Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons

Empress Iwanohime was a very devoted wife, and wrote many other love poems to Nintoku as collected in the Manyoshu. Another example here is here, book 2, poem 85:

Original
Manyogana4		Modern
Japanese		RomanizationRough
Translation
君之行君が行きKimi ga yukiYour imperial outing
氣長成奴日長くなりぬKenagaku narinuhas gone on rather long, hasn’t it?
山多都祢山尋ねYama tazunéShall I come out
迎加将行迎へえか行かむMukae ka yukanto meet you?
待尒可将待待ちにか待たむんMachi ni kamatanOr, shall I wait for your return?

This poem sounds rather playful, and Iwanohime evidentially misses her husband and longs to see him again soon.

However, my book on the Manyoshu explains that the Iwanohime was also very clingy and jealous, since Nintoku had a frequent tendency to sleep around. In one infamous story recorded in the Kojiki, Nintoku slept with his own half-sister, Yata no Himémiko (八田皇女), while Iwanohime was away on family business. When she found out, she was quite furious and returned to her ancestral home, and refused to see him later when he apologized. Later, when Iwanohime passed away, Nintoku married that half-sister.

At first glance, Iwanohime’s poetry to Nintoku feels like a case of love and devotion, but given the stormy relationship they had, my book on the Manyoshu strongly implies that these poems also betray a sense of clingy desperation too.

P.S. Apologies for the terrible pun in the title. 😋

1 Sources: http://manyou.plabot.michikusa.jp/akinotano-honoheni.html and https://manyo-hyakka.pref.nara.jp/db/detailLink?cls=db_manyo&pkey=88

2 As noted in this post, the rulers of old “Yamato” were not actually Emperors are retroactively called emperors in later history since it is a single, continuous lineage with the modern Imperial family.

3 Apologies for any mistakes here.

4 Sources: https://manyo-hyakka.pref.nara.jp/db/detailLink?cls=db_manyo&pkey=85 and https://jti.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/manyoshu/Man2Yos.html and http://manyou.plabot.michikusa.jp/manyousyu2_90.html

Love Triangles and Forbidden Fields: Manyoshu Book 1, Poem 20

Now that the year is winding down, I have had time to catch up on some personal projects, and that includes watching the anime Chihayafuru. In season one episode 12, I was surprised to see one of the characters recite a poem, not from the Hyakunin Isshu, but from the Manyoshu, so I wanted to share it here:

Original
Manyogana1		Modern
Japanese		RomanizationTranslation
茜草指あかねさすAkanesasuThe crimson sunset
武良前野逝紫野行きMurasaki no yukisets these forbidden fields
標野行標野行きShime no yukiaglow.
野守者不見哉野守は見ずやNomori wa mizuyaWave not,
君之袖布流君が袖振るKimi ga sodé furufor the guards might find us.
Translation provided by Chihayafuru

This poem was composed by Princess Nukata (額田王, Nukata no Ōkimi), who was the wife of Emperor Tenji (who composed poem 1 in the Hyakunin Isshu). According to Chihayafuru, Princess Nukata had formerly been married to Tenji’s younger brother, Prince Oama (大海人皇子, Ōama no Miko). Although they had separated, Prince Oama snuck into the Emperor’s lands and waved to her. She was worried that they would be seen, hence the poem.

But, here’s where things get interesting: Princess Nukata recited this poem at a banquet attended by her husband, Tenji, and her ex-husband Prince Oama. What’s going on?

My book on the Manyoshu provides further context. Prince Oama and Emperor Tenji had a …. complicated relationship. Tenji was ambitious and wanted to strengthen his own family lineage, so he pressured Prince Oama to marry his daughter Princess Unonosarara better known as Empress Jito (poem 2 of the Hyakunin Isshu). Tenmu was thus forced to marry his own niece. Further, Tenji designated Prince Oama as his heir until much later when he finally gave birth to a son. Later, after Tenji’s passing, the son was made Emperor briefly, but Prince Oama quickly raised an army and marched on the capitol and became the next Emperor, Tenmu.

Nonetheless, this poem is brilliant because of the visual imagery, but also relatable feeling of unresolved feelings towards someone you still care about.

But as we shall see, the story doesn’t end there… stay tuned.

1 Source: https://art-tags.net/manyo/one/m0020.html and https://tankanokoto.com/2019/04/nukata.html

Playing Karuta Solo Has Its Benefits

Having played Karuta now for three months and against a variety of opponents, including computer opponents, I realize that I get otetsuki (お手付き, “penalties”) a lot. Like, a lot.

In one in-person game, I was nervous and got eight penalties which is simply painful. Even when playing against the computer on hard mode, I get 2-4 penalties at a time.

I had 4 this particular game (the red X’s shown). 🤦🏼‍♂️

Anyhow, after finishing some other long-term projects recently, I’ve been investing time to practice karuta, and to grow and develop my skills. One of my big goals has been to reduce penalties as much as possible, and so after some introspection, I realized that my biggest issue, besides being nervous and jumpy, is that i don’t pay attention enough to the reader.

As folks who have been following the blog know, the key to playing karuta is to know the kimari-ji syllables, those first, unique syllables each poem has to distinguish from other poems. Until you hear those syllables, you can not be 100% sure which poem is being read, and if you guess wrong, you get a penalty. Sometimes, I got lucky and guessed correctly, obviously though, sometimes I guessed wrong.

Memorizing the kimari-ji is the first step. You also have to recognize them when you hear them, and hopefully faster than your opponent.

I decided this month that I wanted to invest more time in discipline and listening skills, and less on speed, so I have switched to playing “solo mode” on the online karuta app. There are other ways to do this of course, but the point is that I am playing against a “goldfish”.

Why a goldfish?

A “goldfish” is a term in Magic: The Gathering, for when you are practicing against a completely passive opponent. They are there, but do nothing. Like a goldfish. 🐠

If you play solo mode on the online karuta app, you are not pressed for time. You can slow down, pay attention to the reader, and then take the card when you recognize it. It is also a good way to catch your bad habits, test your different card arrangements, etc. It’s a surprisingly handy tool for improving your game.

Also, it’s a great way to analyze your play style. when playing “solo mode” against the computer, I still got jumpy and took a penalty.

Further, as your listening improves, your speed will gradually improve, but it does require a touch of patience, and a willingness to sacrifice speed over accuracy. I need this. My accuracy is poor, and speed cannot fix that. If I don’t play more accurately, I will continue to suffer loss after loss.

Even when I practice fuda-nagashi drills, I realized that I had to slow down a bit, or I would mis-identify cards again. It’s important to recall cards quickly, but if you mis-identify a card, then it’s not worth it. Better to accurately recall the correct kimari-ji, even if slower.

So, if you are learning karuta, and you feel like you are struggling, stop, backtrack, slow down, and focus on playing good karuta, not fast karuta. With a bit of time and patience, it should pay for itself.

P.S. Special thanks to the crew on the Competitive Karuta Discord group (Discord invite link here) for their helpful advice, much of which was incorporated in this blog post. ☺️

Personal Growth

After playing some recent matches with the good folks at the Competitive Karuta Club (Discord invite link here), and also in person with the Seattle Karuta Club, I realized that, as of writing, I’ve been learning to play for 11 weeks. It felt longer somehow. I even double-checked the calendar and, sure enough, it has only been eleven weeks from my very first karuta experience.

In that time I have managed to memorize all 100 kimari-ji. It wasn’t always easy, and I recall some of them faster than others, but practicing fuda-nagashi does help.

Further, I haven’t won a single match yet (online or in person), but I feel like more confident than before, am more aware of my opponents card arrangement (tei’ichi 定位置), sometimes able to keep track of cards that have already been read, and even take a few cards now and then. My rate of penalties is still higher than I like, but that’s still a work in progress.

In short, I have grown as a Karuta player. Not a lot, but it’s nice to look back and actually see progress.

Using the analogy Fire Emblem: Three Houses again, if I may,* there is a part of the story where your students have the option to face the dreaded Death Knight. Unless your student’s name is Lysithea, very few characters can defeat the Death Knight without considerable luck and strategy. It’s not that the characters are weak, they’re just not ready. So the game encourages you to know your limits, and just skip if you’re not prepared. Much later in the game, when your characters are much stronger, you will encounter the Death Knight again and have a much better chance to emerge victorious.

In the same way, battling an advanced player in Karuta probably won’t result in victory, but those little incremental wins, each card taken, each penalty avoided, is still a sign of growth.

As a game, karuta is more difficult to learn upfront compared to things like Magic: the Gathering, Pokemon TCG, etc. However, once you pass that hurdle, it becomes a game you can carry with you the rest of your life. You don’t have to keep buying new sets of cards, dealing with “power creep” with new card sets, etc. The 100 poems of the Hyakunin Isshu have been around for centuries and will continue to be around for many more. The more you play, the more your skills refine. There’s no rush, come as you are, enjoy the poems, learn a little bit each time.

Finding a community of players isn’t always easy, but the budding international community continues to grow and we are always welcoming new people.

If you’re unsure, feel free to take the plunge anyway. Hopefully, you’ll be glad you did. I was.

P.S. featured photo taken at Ryonaji temple in Kyoto, Japan, in summer of 2023.

* the best part of owning your own blog is that you can write whatever silly stuff you want. 😋 Also, if you own a Switch, please try FE:3H. It’s a pretty neat game.

The Manyoshu: Japan’s First Poetry Anthology

Centuries before the Hyakunin Isshu was compiled and before official Imperial anthologies such as the Kokin Wakashū were promulgated there was the Manyoshu (万葉集) or “collection of ten thousand leaves”.

Link to publisher here.

The Manyoshu is the oldest extant poetry collection, completed in 759 CE for the pious Emperor Shomu, and has much that resembles the Hyakunin Isshu, but also much that differs. I have been reading all about it in a fun book, which is in the same series as this one.

The Manyoshu was purportedly compiled by one Ōtomo no Yakamochi (大伴家持, 718-785), author of poem 6 (かささぎの) in the Hyakunin Isshu, but it’s also likely that he only compiled the collection toward the end, and that others were involved too.

Sadly, English translations are very few in number and usually quite expensive. Translating the Hyakunin Isshu hard enough, and this is even more true with a larger, more obscure volume like the Manyoshu.

Format

The Manyoshu is a collection of poems from a diverse set of sources, including members of the Imperial family and the aristocracy, but also from many provinces across the country and people from many walks of life. In fact, 40% of the poems in the collection are anonymous, with sources unknown. It also includes a few different styles of poetry:

  • 265 chōka (長歌), long poems that have 5-7 syllable format over and over (e.g. 5-7-5-7-5-7…etc), until they end with a 5-7-7 syllable ending. These are often read aloud during public functions. Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (柿本 人麻呂, 653–655, or 707–710?), who wrote poem 3 in the Hyakunin Isshu, was considered the foremost poet of this format, but the longest was composed by one Takechi no Miko (高市皇子) at 149 verses.
  • 4,207 tanka (短歌), short poems as opposed to the long poems above. The “tanka” style poems are usually 5-7-5-7-7 syllables long, and are what we see in later anthologies such as the Hyakunin Isshu. At the time, they were often included as prologues to long poems above. The Hyakunin Isshu is entirely tanka poetry, by the way.
  • One an-renga (short connecting poem),
  • One bussokusekika (a poem in the form 5-7-5-7-7-7; named for the poems inscribed on the Buddha’s footprints at Yakushi-ji temple in Nara),
  • Four kanshi (漢詩), Chinese-style poems often popular with male aristocrats that contrasted with more Japanese-style poetry.
  • 22 Chinese prose passages.

Additionally, these poems were often grouped by certain subjects:

  • Sōmonka (相聞歌) – Originally poems to enquire how someone was doing, but gradually involved into couples expressing romantic feelings for one another.
  • Banka (挽歌) – Funerary poems honoring the deceased.
  • Zōka (雑歌) – Miscellaneous poems about many topics. Basically everything else that is not included into the other two topics.

Manyogana

One of the interesting aspects of the Manyoshu compared to the later Hyakunin Isshu, and other related anthologies, is the written script used. When people think of karuta or Hyakunin Isshu, they think of the hiragana script, but the hiragana script didn’t exist in the 8th century when texts such as the Manyoshu, the Kojiki or Nihon Shoki were composed. Such texts were composed purely using Chinese characters, but in a phonetic style native to Japanese later called Manyogana. Confusing? Let’s take a look.

The book above explains that in Manyogana, Chinese characters such as 安 and 以 are read phonetically in the Manyoshu as “a” and “i” respectively. Even modern Japanese people can easily intuit this.

Then you get more difficult examples such as 相 (saga) and 鴨 (kamo) in Manyogana. These are more obscure, but still possible for native Japanese speakers to understand them.

Then you get much harder examples such as 慍 (ikari) and 炊 (kashiki).

And finally you get even more difficult examples such as 五十 (also read as “i“) and 可愛 (just “e“). My wife, who has an extensive background in Japanese calligraphy, struggled with these.

In any case, words in the Manyoshu were all spelled out using Chinese characters like this, with no phonetic guide. You just had to know how to read or spell them, and as you can imagine this was a clunky system that only well-educated members of the aristocracy could make sense of. However in spite of its issues, this system of phonetic Chinese characters is how the later hiragana script gradually evolved.

Technique

When we compare the Manyoshu with the Hyakunin Isshu, there are many similarities. Both have tanka poetry (5-7-5-7-7 syllables), and cover a variety of topics. Further, both collections make good use of pillow words. In fact the same pillow words you see in the Hyakunin Isshu, such as hisakata no (poems 33 and 76), also show up centuries earlier in the Manyoshu:

Original ManyoganaModern JapaneseRomanizationRough Translation1
和何則能尓　　我が園にWaga sono niPerhaps
宇米能波奈知流梅の花散るUme no hana chiruthe plum blossoms will
比佐可多能ひさかたのHisakata noscatter in my garden
阿米欲里由吉能天より雪のAma yori yuki nolike falling snow
那何久流加母流れ来るかもNagarekuru kamofrom the gleaming heavens
1 Amateur translation, apologies for any mistakes

This poem, incidentally was composed by Yakamochi’s father, Ōtomo no Tabito, when he organized a flower viewing party at his villa (book 5, poem 822).

Another commonality, the book explains, is the use of preface verses or jo-kotoba (序詞) where the first verses are just one long-winded comparison to whatever comes after. Poem 39 in the Hyakunin Isshu is a great example of this since the first 3 verses describe various grasses in order to make a point: that love is hard to hide.

The Manyoshu used this technique as well:

Original ManyoganaModern JapaneseRomanizationRough Translation
千鳥鳴千鳥鳴くChidori nakuJust as the plovers’ cries
佐保乃河瀬之佐保の川瀬のSabo no kawase noalong the wavelets
小浪さざれ波Sazare namiof the Sabo river
止時毛無やむ時もなしYamu toki mo nashinever end,
吾戀者我が恋ふらくはA ga ko furaku waso too are my feelings of love.
Author: Ōtomo no Saka no Ue no Iratsume (大伴坂上郎女), book 4, poem 526

Historicity

Similar to the Hyakunin Isshu, the Manyoshu covers a fairly broad span of history, but much of it is now pretty obscure to historians. Even so, the poems in the Mayonshu can be grouped somewhat reliably into 4 specific eras:

  • first half of 5th century to 672 CE, starting with the reign of Emperor Nintoku onward.
  • 672 to 710 CE
  • 710 to 733 CE
  • 733 to 759 CE

These periods mostly coincide with certain authors who contributed poetry, but also appear to have breaks due to historical events such as conflicts, temporary political upheavals, etc.

Differences with the Hyakunin Isshu

Although there are many commonalities between the Hyakunin Isshu and the Manyoshu, there are also differences. The most obvious is that the Manyoshu is a mixed-format collection, so it includes poetry other than Tanka style. Another difference is its broad sources for poetry, not just contributions by the elite aristocracy.

However, the book above notes that on a technical level there are other differences.

For example, the use of “pivot words” frequently used in the Hyakunin Isshu ( poems 16, 20, 27, and 88 for example) is a technique that is almost absent in the Manyoshu. Similarly, puns are also rarely used.

Legacy

As the largest and earliest extant poetry collection, it set the standard for Japanese poetry that people were still studying and emulating centuries later. Poems such as 22, 64, and 88 are all examples that use themes or poetic styles that closely resemble poems in the Manyoshu.

Further, compared to more polished anthologies that came later, the Manyoshu’s bucolic and unvarnished content has often been revered by later generations (including Japanese nationalists and Shinto revivalists in the 19th century) for getting to the “heart of Japanese culture”.

The book has been a great read, with amazing illustrations, and it helps show how the roots of the Hyakunin Isshu, including a few of its early authors, lay centuries earlier in the Manyoshu.

Traditional Colors in Japan

Japanese, as a distinctive language, has developed a wide variety of colors to describe the world around it. Consider the lines of the iconic poem 17:

Chihayaburu kamiyo kikazu tatsuta-gawa kara kurenai ni mizu kukuru to wa

Unheard of even in the legendary age of the awesome gods: Tatsuta River in scarlet and the water flowing under it.

Translation by Dr Joshua Mostow

In the book Hyakunin Isshu Daijiten, which I mentioned here, it explains that the fourth verse, karakurenai (唐紅), is in fact a traditional color word in Japanese. The Chinese characters read something like “Chinese (lit. Tang Dynasty China) scarlet or vermillion”. There is no one-to-one equivalent in English.1

You can see an example of what karakurenai looks like on this amazing website, among other tradition colors. You can also see a list of colors on Wikipedia as well. Both sites also include the HTML codes (a # sign, followed by 6 alpha-numeric characters) if you want to reproduce yourself. For example using the HTML hex code #C91F37 I get:

karakurenai

In truth, many of these colors would be obscure to modern audiences, except in some literary circles, but some, such as yamabuki-iro (山吹色, “golden yellow”) are still used in common vernacular. Further, as is common with other Asian languages, colors green and blue are often conflated (e.g. 信号は青, shingō wa ao, “the traffic light is blue/green”).

In any case, try it out the website above, and see what other colors you might find!

P.S. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Update: I decided to update the blog appearance and apply a new background color based on the HTML codes above. For the blog background color, I am using Haizakura (灰桜, code #d7c4bb).

1 Similarly, I bet some English tradition colors would have no translation in Japanese. Such is the way with language and cultures.

My First Karuta Competition

I’ve been running this blog since 2011, but until very recently I had no idea other non-Japanese people around me even knew about the Hyakunin Isshu, let alone play the competitive version. I honestly thought I was the only one around.

Enter the local karuta club called the Seattle Karuta Club (homepage).

I stumbled upon their website last month, and being intrigued, came to a recent session. The people at Seattle Karuta Club were super nice and helped me get acquainted with my first game. My first opponent was Lore, one of the founding members. Above, you can see a view of my side of the board as we were setting up. I call this arrangement the “chaos strategy” because I had noooo idea what I was doing. 😅

Another view of me overlooking my cards and trying to make sense of them.

One of the things that immediately struck me was that the torifuda (取り札), that is the cards you take, have no marks to distinguish hiragana て versus で, or ち versus ぢ, etc. I presume this is by design, and yet after all this time I had simply never noticed before. 😅 In any case, my brain struggled to make sense of my board for the first few minutes until I started to pick out verses I knew. But it was too little, too late.

The card on the right, the yomifuda (読み札) uses normal Japanese syntax. The card on the left, the torifuda (取り札) is very streamlined for visual simplicity.

Further, I realized quickly that knowing a poem, and being able to listen to a poem are two different skills. If your ears aren’t tuned to the reading, you’ll totally miss a poem you might otherwise know. For example, poem 24 is near and dear to my heart, but when it did come up in a match, my brain registered it much too slow.

So, in the end, I lost 25-0. Lore was amazing. They really knew their stuff, and not only helped me through etiquette and good arrangement strategy, but also some pointers about what to listen for, mnemonics, etc.

Afterwards, the club members and I had a fun chat about all things related to the Hyakunin Isshu, how folks met, and so on. I was surprised by how many people were inspired but the Japanese anime Chihayafuru (which embarrassingly, I never watched 😅), and how useful that anime is for learning strategy.

Then, abruptly, we had to relocate venues due to shutting down from inclement heat, and club member Rachel gave us all a ride. Thanks Rachel!

For my second match, I played again Kiri, another founding member. As with Lore, Kiri was another sharp player and super nice. Kiri also drew amazing illustrations on the back of their cards. This is recommended by the club to help keep track of one’s own deck versus others, but Kiri definitely went the extra mile. 😊

My match with Kiri was similarly 25-0, but this time around, my brain had adjusted somewhat to the rhythm of poetry recitation, and I could pick out a cards I could now recognize. Further, I started to develop a crude strategy for arranging my cards. I haven’t covered the concept of kimari-ji in this post but have one coming up soon. That’s a topic worth its own blog post (or three).

I knew going into this I’d be poorly prepared, but I also really wanted the experience, because I knew reading about and watching YouTube videos just wasn’t enough. Even if I got clobbered, I’d learn a lot and the Seattle Karuta Club did not disappoint. I genuinely had a great time and was fired up about learning Karuta for next time.

After I got home, I busted out my decks from Japan and starting practicing a few things, including listening, kimari-ji and so on. Also, my daughter had some old copies of the manga Chihayafuru in Japanese which I am borrowing.

Issue 1 of the Chihayafuru manga, Japanese version
A special edition of the manga, devoted toward learning to play Karuta.

All in all, competitive karuta was super fun. Compared to my days playing Magic the Gathering where it was all about money, and competitive dude-bros, “grifters”, “grinders”, etc, the karuta scene, by contrast, was much more about fun.

Rachel, Kiri and Lore were all solid, no-nonsense players, but they knew how to have fun and make people feel welcome too. I can’t tell you the last time I was at something like this that didn’t make you feel dumb or awkward. Everyone is learning together.

Further, compared to a hobby like Magic, Karuta has more cost upfront (for a deck, goza mat, etc) plus memorizing the kimari-ji, but then that’s it. It becomes something you just enjoy and perfect over a lifetime. Further, the deeper you go, the more you get out of it.

So, I am already thinking ahead toward the next meeting, and practicing for my next game.

Thank you Seattle Karuta Club!!

Poetry Contests in the Heian Period

Throughout this blog, I’ve alluded many times to poetry contests, called uta-awase (歌合), as the origin of many of the poems of the Hyakunin Isshu. These contests were a popular past-time among the nobility of Nara and Heian periods of Japanese history, and onward. The first such contest was recorded as far back as 885, and became a staple of nobility since.

The poetry contest was a ritualized affair, and worth exploring here.

An excerpt from an illustrated copy of the Tales of Ise showing two contestants in a poetry contest, with an incense brazier on between. The lady here serves as the judge of their poetry.

This image comes from an illustrated copy of the classic Japanese text, the Ise Monogatari (Tales of Ise)1 and shows an example of a typical poetry contest. The contestants sit facing one another as a pair, while some contests had multiple pairs facing off.

Presiding over the contest was a judge or hanja (判者) who would provide a topic for the contest. A small incense brazier would burn between the two contestants (方人, kata-udo), who would each come up with one poem to fit the given theme. Each participant would also trash-talk the opponent’s poem while praising their own, or their Allie’s (if multiple sets of participants). Basically, an ancient Japanese rap-battle. Once the winner was declared, the contest could go another round, and each contestant would come up with another poem.

According to the Hyakunin Isshu Daijiten, the longest recorded poetry contest during the classic Heian Period was said to have continued for 1500 rounds! This contest, called the sengohyakuban uta-awase (千五百番歌合, lit. “Poetry contest in 1500 rounds”), was organized by Emperor Go-toba (poem 99, ひとも). Participants included Teika (poem 97, こぬ), Shunzei (poem 83, よのなかよ), and Yoshitsune (poem 91, きり), among countless others.

In more formal settings, usually held at the Imperial palace,2 with a director overseeing the contest (a tokushi, 読師), with the poems and their theme recorded by a scribe (kazusashi, 籌刺) who sat off to the side. Musical accompaniments were often added to formal poetry contests, too. Finally, the particularly good poems often ended up later in Imperial Anthologies.

You can see an example of an Imperial uta-awase from a popular manga here:

You can also see examples of re-creations of an uta-awase in this Kyoto museum here, specifically here. This blog also has a nice example photo here.

1 Image and main image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and Chester Beatty Library, Public domain.

2 These are specifically called dairi-uta-awase (内裏歌合)

Memorization Progress, February 2023

Hello dear readers,

My progress in memorizing the Hyakunin Isshu poems, for the sake of learning to play karuta, continues, but since returning to the US, it has taken some twists and turns.

When I got back home, it became clear how busy my day to day life is compared to Japan, where I didn’t have to worry about work commitments, and had fewer natural distractions from hobbies, projects, etc. So, my original strategy of learning one poem a day quickly unraveled.

Further, as the number of cards I memorized has grown (38 out of 100 as of writing), the effort to review them all has grown too. As the number grows even larger, it gets harder and harder to review all of them daily.

So, I started switching to a spaced-repetition style of learning to help manage the load. This means I focus more on the cards I still need to improve on, and focus less on the ones I know well, while still reviewing periodically. To accomplish this, I needed a way to not only organize my cards, but also manage the progress of each one.

I brushed off one of my old Legion brand deck boxes from when I used to actively play Magic the Gathering (yes, I am a giant nerd).

Inside, I used a few card dividers (some borrowed from other deck boxes) into sections. The section in the back represents cards that I know well and can recite with little or no effort. The section in the middle represents cards I am still struggling with. The section in the front is the “new” queue: cards I have yet to learn but have lined up next.

I mostly focus on the middle queue, since I am actively learning them, but not comfortable enough yet to move them to the “back” queue. I also review the back queue from time to time, and occasionally have to move cards from there to the middle queue in situations where I feel a poem needs a bit more active review. I also try to add a new card from the “front” queue every 1-2 days.

This process took some trial and error to get right, and it may not work for everyone, but it has helped me regain my pace in memorizing the Hyakunin Isshu after some interruptions after coming back to the States.

My original goal was to finish by end of April, and this is still possible, but I have lost some time and now I am hopeful I can memorize all one hundred poems by June.

But, time will tell…