Category: LEARNJAPAN

Fujiwara no Michinaga is an important figure that always appears in Japanese history textbooks. While he was a powerful man who held political power, he was also known as a man of culture who loved poetry and waka poems and passed on his valuable literary works to the modern age.Fujiwara no Michinaga is an important figure that always appears in Japanese history textbooks. While he was a powerful man who held political power, he was also known as a man of culture who loved poetry and waka poems and passed on his valuable literary works to the modern age.Fujiwara no Michinaga is an important figure that always appears in Japanese history textbooks. While he was a powerful man who held political power, he was also known as a man of culture who loved poetry and waka poems and passed on his valuable literary works to the modern age.

View More JAPANESE SAMURAI / Fujiwara no Michinaga

Do you know someone who is famous for haiku?  In Japan, there are several people that are famous for their haiku.  Among them, Matsuo Basho, who was active in the Edo period (1603-1867), is known worldwide for developing haikai, the original form of haiku.  

In this article, we will introduce who Matsuo Basho was and what his masterpiece “Oku no Hosomichi” (The Narrow Road to the Interior) is all about.

View More JAPANESE SAMURAI / Matsuo Bashō

What would you do if you were asked to choose between attempting to shoot an arrow through a fan 70 meters (230 feet) away and being killed if you failed, or committing seppuku (Japanese: “self disembowelment”)? There was a man in the past who was faced with such an ultimate choice. This article will introduce a man named Nasu No Yoichi, who succeeded in making that choice.

View More JAPANESE SAMURAI / Nasu no Yoichi