Bridge to the Gods (eBook)

Tales from Kyushu

Andrew Peter Thomson (Autor)

Graeme James Ryan (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2019 | 1., First
394 Seiten
Ryan Publishing (Verlag)
978-1-876498-77-1 (ISBN)

Infos

At the far north of Asia lies Japan, the mysterious land Marco Polo called Zipangu. When Europeans first visited Japan in the early 1500s it was the large island of Kyushu where they made landfall and began meeting both ordinary fishermen and farmers as well as the samurai and their lords. Kyushu was the gateway into Japan.

Yet Kyushu was more than just an entry point for Europeans. It was the stepping stone for the prehistoric immigrants to Japan who came from the Mongolian steppes and from other parts of Asia. It was also the gateway for Chinese culture, tea, and rice cultivation.

A few years ago a foreign man settled in Kyushu alone and began to explore.

He found a host of things that elude the casual visitor — Christian samurai, Japan’s first ancient rice field, its first tea bushes, yakuza gangsters, and the island where James Bond concealed himself disguised as a Japanese fisherman.

These various tales from Kyushu are mixed with the author’s contemporary life filled with earthquakes, typhoons, and worries about North Korean missiles.

Looking after his elderly Japanese parents-in-law from week to week provides a rare glimpse into daily life in rural Japan.

Bridge to The Gods: Tales from Kyushu is the best book to come out of Japan in decades. To understand this beautiful yet puzzling country you have to understand Kyushu.

Inhalt

Map of Japan    iv



Map of Kyushu    v



Glossary of Japanese words    vii



Introduction        xiii



One    After the Earthquake    1



Two    Lawyers    13



Three    In search of the kamikaze    25



Four    Origins    45



Five    Kyushu on the palate    55



Six     Yakuza    67



Seven    Tea    85



Eight    Rice    105



Nine    Shinto — the Way of the Gods     119



Ten    Cousin Kyoko’s Orchard    161



Eleven    The Teacher and the Defacing of the Graves    175



Twelve    The Kirishitan Relics    199



Thirteen    Looking for Confucius     213



Fourteen    The Admiral    239



Fifteen    The Earthquake    257



Sixteen    James Bond and the Search for Kissy Suzuki    269



Seventeen    Japan’s Gettysburg    289



Eighteen    The Challenge of Air-Conditioning    303



Nineteen    Preparing For War    311



Twenty    Elections    331



Twenty-one    The Stones of Miyazaki    353



Afterword        375

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.7.2019
• Mitarbeit: Designer: Luke Kenneth Harris
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Freizeit / Hobby ► Sammeln / Sammlerkataloge
• Schlagworte: Japan • Japanese culture • Japanese history • Kyushu • North Korea
• ISBN-10: 1-876498-77-3 / 1876498773
• ISBN-13: 978-1-876498-77-1 / 9781876498771