Bashō 6/8/13

Japan is a fantastic place. It seems that many of the depictions of Japanese culture in America center on the electronics and technology of the country, and the stereotypes of the Japanese schoolgirls that watch anime and the businessmen who read comics on the bus are rampant. Websites tell about the vending machines on every street corner and singing toilets in every bathroom. In fact, Japan seems to be an old world country in most aspects, rather than the cutting-edge world that Americans imagine when they think of Tokyo. Much of the country is farmland and traditions are old and die hard. Families have had the same home for many generations and prepare to pass it on to their children or grandchildren before they have even been born.

The video below really does a fantastic job of emphasizing the history of Japan. The silkscreen prints shown depict life as it was and how it still is for much of the rural area of the country. The landscapes, filled with forested hills rising out of the sea, despite the unnatural qualities that they possess, are true to life and dot much of the coast of the country even today. The imagery of the sakura (cherry blossoms) is a sacred one for many people in Japan, and families will travel far and wide to the most well known orchards to see the trees when they are in full bloom. The koto music is iconic for Westerners and to the Japanese as well, because the instrument (along with the Shamisen and the Taiko Drum) is native to the country and is deeply ingrained in the culture.

All of this imagery is interspersed with quotations from Matsuo Basho's poetry. The works chosen for the video are snapshots of daily life for the people of Japan. The poetry is beautiful and the imagery reads as though Basho is observing and writing throughout the daily activities of the people and animals around him. The combination of Basho's works and the imagery of the silkscreens and the music really are able to create a solid image of Japan. Although Basho's works and the silkscreens utilized are hundreds of years old, they are able to show the viewer where Japan was as a country and who the Japanese people of the time were. In many cases, the imagery and the poetry are able to show the viewer what rural Japan still is and show that the traditions that the people still follow are much older than one may initially believe.