Hi friends!

The weekend is over and I’m somewhat relieved but also somewhat nervous about the week ahead. I’m almost done packing the tea bags to send to the participants (if you are in Singapore, it’s not too late to sign up) and I manged to get a little reading. So over the past two days, I have:

Finished two more chapters of The Tale of Genji, to just before he goes into exile. And right now my feelings about Genji are negative, given that the Lady Rokujo is finally taking steps to get over him and he decides to re-pursue her now. He’s basically being an ass, though I seem to recognise his behaviour as being fairly modern.

I have also reread How to be Normal by Guy Browning. The humour is very dry (very British, but I may be wrong) and I love it.

Right now, I’m also rereading Essays in Idleness. It’s a fairly famous work of Japanese literature and I’m hoping to be able to more clearly define what I learn about Japanese culture from this, but so far two things have struck me. One is this quote:

“The pleasantest of all diversions is to sit alone under the lamp, a book spread out before you, and to make friends with people of a distant past you have never known.”

And the second is entry 69, on the holy man of Shosha and how he hears of the beans talking to the bean stalks which are cooking them. It reminds me a lot of the story involving Cao Pi and Cao Zhi, where Cao Zhi is ordered to write a poem in seven steps. This is the poem that he wrote:

煮豆燃豆萁 Burning beanstalks to cook beans

豆在釜中泣 The beans in the pot cried

本是同根生 We’re both from the same root

相煎何太急 Why are we chasing each other to death?