The forest of black pine Ⅱ

　　　It is a forest called "Matsubara (forest of "Japanese Black Pine") of the rainbow" here.
　　　It is said that it was named by the total arc form. 　

　　　Here is Karatsu-shi, Saga Prefecture.

　　　Beginning, Terazawa Hirotaka of the feudal lord of the Karatsu feudal clan of the 17th century planted trees as a windbreak forest, and to arrest shifting of the sand.

　　　The person who felled a tree of this forest became the death penalty.

　　　The collection of fallen leaves as the fuel was assigned to a severe limit.

　　　The felling is limited now.

　　　The black pine lengthens while falling down to the landside by the wind from the sea.

　　　Pine needles gatherd by the manual labor swells in the ground.

　　　The part of Genkai Seminational Park. The forest of the black pine spreads out in the shape of an arc for about 5km (3.1Mile) in length.
　　　Because it dies when grass grows on the land as for the pine, it is weeded and cleaning by the hand of the person.

　　　The forest of black pineⅠ, please click here.

" Beauty " Japanese Calligraphy

　　　"美" (bi, or utsukushii). It is translated as the beauty.

　　　This character is written by Kanzi, Regular script.

　　　"A sheep" (top half) and composition of "the big" (bottom half) are "the beauty".
　　　"The sheep" has the meaning of "the animal of the sacrifice" with an animal used as a gift in religious service.

　　　Please look at other form Semi-cursive script of the this calligraphy, click here.

The autumn full moon "mei getsu"

The autumn moon lived in art as the representative thing which symbolized the autumn beauty of the Far East from the ancient times.


Man'yōshū tanka collection(oldest existing collection of Japanese poetry), The Tale of Genji, Waka(poetry), Haiku, etc.
The autumn chief character was always the moon.

"Autumn Haiku" Kobayashi Issa

This haiku is written by Hiragana and Kanzi letter, Semi-cursive script.
It was created by Kobayashi Issa.
He is one of the most famous haiku poets.

The reading of is as follows.
名月(めいげつ)を　とってくれろと　　泣(な)く子(こ)かな。　 小林一茶
meigetsu wo　　　totte kurero to　 nakuko kana　　　 kobayash iissa

This haiku means a thing such as interesting next.

My child cries that I take the autumn splendid full moon to me.

This is one of the works which are the most famous in haiku.

I think that this haiku expresses two things.

The autumn moon is beautiful so that even a child praises the beauty.

And, though child is selfish, I love him. (He loses his child looked forward to.)

The next haiku is famous in his work, too.

It is a work of a profound meaning.
露(つゆ)の世は　　露(つゆ)の世(よ)ながら　さりながら
Tsuyu no yo wa 　tsuyu no yo nagara 　sari nagara
The world of dew --
A world of dew it is indeed,
And yet, and yet . . .

Expression beyond the common sense is possible by short words in the world of the haiku.

The preparations in the next season

Small Tanada reclamationed by the seashore side.
Here is Hirado-shi (Hirado-Island), Nagasaki Prefecture.

Hirado-shi is famous for the passing away Christian (Kakure Kirishitan) of the Edo era. 　It is a place related to Francisco de Xavier deeply.



The rice after having harvested it is drawn off to keep it.
This is already threshed.

There are a lot of beautiful church and remains of the Christian such a mountainous district and isolated islands.



An original keeping way is still left in this area.

They Christian still does life to respect tradition.



This work to perform in an inconvenient area needs very severe labor. This straw becomes the manure of the next year.

Francisco de Xavier propagated Christianity for the first time in 1549 at the Far East. Nagasaki has a great many Christians.
Almost anyone knows him in this country, even if don't know the name of the prime minister and not a Christian. It may be his influence that Spain and Portugal are very popular in the Far East.