Category: Digging for Myth

Stories and folklore that I’ve personally researched or dug up. My experiences.

The Melon Princess and The Heavenly Demon

I’ve got quite a few subscribers to my blog who aren’t following me on other social media thingies, so I wanted to post a little update.

Aside from my podcast (Uncanny Japan), I have this other side hustle I’m very passionate about. That is, digging up obscure Japanese folktales, translating, retelling/reimagining them, and then recording them with cool background music. They are offered as one of the rewards for my 5$ and up Patrons.

It occurred to me, though, recently that if you weren’t a Patron, you’d have no idea what a Bedtime Story sounded like. So my Tech Guy and I decided to do one for free. This is the PG-rated version of “The Melon Princess”. The R-rated version (much more flay-y) will be available to my Patrons.

My job is the stories. I do all that mentioned above. But the audio editing, the super nitty gritty stuff that makes it sound so cool is my Tech Guy, Rich Pav. Then there is the background music, haunting and beautiful. That would be courtesy of my son, Julyan Matsuura.

If you have a few moments and some earbuds or headphones, pop those puppies in and lie down on a sofa or nearby bed, get comfortable and listen to me tell you the story of “The Melon Princess and the Heavenly Demon”.

The podcast episode that explains what the heavenly demon (amanojaku) is, is right here.

Thank you,

terrie

November’s Been Good — Goro Awase

My November Uncanny Japan podcast was about goro awase (語呂合わせ), a kind of Japanese, number word play. I give a few examples there and thought I was done with the topic when yesterday during every single one of my classes I heard the elementary school students ask kids from other schools if they had been given a free package of katsuo bushi – (kastuo bushi is dried and smoked tuna flakes. My town is kinda famous for producing them).

Anyway, I finally asked what was up with that. Why would they be given a package of dried tuna flakes? And why would ALL the elementary schools be giving them out?

The answer I got was brilliant.

The kids told me that it was November 24 (11. 24)  or “ii fushi” Day. “Ii” meaning good and “fushi” sounding somewhat like katsuo bushi.

That got me thinking about the post I did on Facebook about how November 22 (11. 22) is considered “ii fufu” Day, which is “Happy Married Douples’ Day”, I guess. Since November is 11, and 11 is one one or ii in Japanese, meaning good, I figured there have got to be a whole bunch of other interesting play-on-words days this month.

Here are a few of the keepers:

11.8 Good Teeth Day – ii ha いい歯

11.9 Good Ventilation Day – ii ku (ki) いい空気 (kuki meaning air)

11.10 Good Toilet Day – ii to (ire) いいトイレ

11.12 Good Skin Day – ii hi fu いい皮膚

11.26 Good Bath Day – ii fu ro いい風呂

11.27 Good Carp Day – ii fu na いい鮒

11.29 Good Meat Day – ii ni ku いい肉

I know it’s the end of the month so we’ve missed a lot of these. There are only a couple more days left, but I notice I’m writing this on Good Bath Day. So go one, take yourself a nice, long and good bath. Tomorrow you may thoroughly enjoy some carp and then two days after that appreciate meat on the 29th.

 

 

 

 

Newsletter and Updates

Sign up for my blog updates and never miss a post.

Thank you for subscribing.

Something went wrong.