Happy Holidays to all of you! I hope your time is going well!
We seem to have a new Christmas tradition in our house. Something goes wrong around Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve 2021, my sons and I were visiting my mother when I got a call from my wife that the stove wouldn’t open. She’d preheated it for dinner and somehow it had locked shut. It wouldn’t open even after it cooled down. My wife pulled off an amazing Christmas dinner with a toaster oven.
Christmas Eve 2022, an overnight deep freeze the prior night froze some of the pipes in our house. We were eventually able to thaw them. Christmas Eve Eve this year, the main pipe that drains our kitchen sink broke. (We were able to get a plumber on Christmas Eve.) Next year, I want to celebrate out of town.
WHEN NORTH IS EAST
My wife recently returned from Japan. One of the gifts she brought me back were two mid-17th century maps of Osaka, in honor of the book I’m doing set in Osaka. The maps have been framed and are showing as they are supposed to be displayed once hung. There’s just one thing: the tops of the maps are EAST.
To show the difference, I’ve added a modern-day map below.
At the top of the modern map, you see the river at the top with the greenish park on the right side (Osaka Castle). However, on the 17th century maps, the river is vertical on the left side with Osaka Castle still near the top of the map but towards the left. This was how ancient and medieval Japan oriented itself. Their “north” was east.
You also see this in the most famous title in Japanese history: shogun. The complete “shogun” title was “Seii-tai-shogun.” This means “generalissimo who subdues barbarians from the east.” This title first appeared in the 8th-9th century. Look at the historical map below from 750 AD.
The area being subdued is the whitish area on the main Japanese island. Though north to us, it was east to the Japanese of the time period, as if the country was conceptualized with a vertical split (with a line through the Kyoto area).
One last thing, my in-process book, The Samurai’s Soul, is set in late 16th century Osaka. The land area shown in the lower two-thirds of the old 17c maps is mostly farmland in the late 16th century.
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SOCIAL MEDIA
As always, please check out my latest Japanese history posts on social media. Click here for Instagram. Click here to reach my YouTube channel. Some recent YouTube videos are below.
What Is The Best Version of The 47 Ronin
The Scottish-Japanese Romance Behind Two Japanese Whisky Brands
Japan’s Remaining Original Castles
Did Sumo Referees Once Unalive Themselves After Bad Calls
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Please send emails to walt@waltmussell.com.