sechan19 | Things I've Meant to Blog About...

...and then just haven't because of time-constraints.

I stayed up late during the World Baseball Classic final round to watch South Korea and Japan duke it out. It was an awesome game between two, extremely well-matched, rivals, both of whom put their heart and soul into it. I was on tenterhooks through most of the game, as I was rooting for both teams. Ultimately, I found the climatic end exciting, and I was happy for Japan. After all, South Korea took gold in the Olympic games last year. I was intrigued by an LA Times article that suggests that the South Koreans were more inclined to view the game in terms of political rivalry, while the Japanese were more inclined to see it as baseball match. I'm not sure if I completely accept that, given everything I know about the two nations' tangled history, but it was an interesting assessment of the situation, nonetheless. 'Baseball War' for Asia's Old Rivals. Via.

BibliOdyssey has posted some incredible scans of an Edo-period book that illustrates a vast collection of Japanese monsters (yokai). Given that a friend of mine and I just recently watched Miike Takashi's The Great Yokai War (Miike does children's films... there's almost nothing more hilarious and perverse) I've really had yokai on the brain. It was nice to see such gorgeous reproductions of them. Edo Monsters.

The annual display of treasures from the Shosoin in Nara once again drew a world-record-setting number of visitors: approximately 17, 926 per day. Last semester I took a course on the art of the Silk Road in China, Korea, and Japan, and the Shosoin collection is an incredible piece of that fascinating puzzle. Japan (and Korea) is rarely mentioned in the context of the Silk Road, but although the Japanese may not have sent many items west along the trade routes, they certainly received items. And as with many of their imports, they preserved and protected them. I'm often struck by how much we wouldn't know about the East-Asian continent if it weren't for Korea and Japan. It's no surprise to me that the Shosoin collection draws such crowds. I hope to one day be among them myself... Japanese Treasures Draw Astounding Crowds from Nara and Tokyo. PS: Thanks lordameth for cluing me into this website!

I have some more cool videos to post as well, but that's all for now. In about three weeks the semester's going to be over. I hope to blog like a fiend then. Until then... peace.