The guidebook introduces the most precious academic collections in Kyushu University.
You see lots of pictures of the followings: horizontal scrolls (emakimono) which are described in some schoolbooks in Japan, rare and antiquarian books deriving from foreign culture and millions of specimen of insects all over the world.
We also would like you to see the following database on rare book collections:
http://catalog.lib.kyushu-u.ac.jp/en/search/browse/rare
The selection includes popular Japanese folk tales such as Momotaro (Peach Boy) and Kaguyahime (The Shining Princess) both in plain Japanese and in English.
The tales lead you to enjoy talking with Japanese students and come in touch with an aspect of premodern Japanese culture.
Murakami Haruki is a contemporary Japanese novelist and his works have been bestsellers in Japan as well as internationally.
In addition, he is an iconic figure of Japanese postmodern literature for his unreal, humorous work focusing on the loneliness and empty mindedness of Japanese people in last 20th.
This book is his maiden work, written in 1979. Similar to many of his other works, it has a story written in the first-person, called “I novel” which is Japanese traditional type of novel.
If you want to learn about Japanese culture or mentality, please do have a look!
If you can’t understand what Japanese people are thinking, you should read the book. For example, in Japanese society, there is often a big gap between one’s true intentions and words.
What the Japanese are thinking? Why they does so?
In the book, Ruth Benedict, who is American cultural anthropologist, clearly analyzed Japanese thinking pattern and the antecedents in terms of “shame culture”.
Although today, that is often criticized for a strong bias against Japanese society, it is a monumental work about Japanese mentality.
I was only 15, when I first saw Jakuchu’s paintings.
A teen-ager who rarely reads newspapers, eyes were glued to the newspaper. But the reality was bitter.
It was in Tokyo, and I was 2years-old citizen of Fukuoka. Few years later, Jakuchu-exhibition was finally held in Fukuoka.
It was like a dream and I was grinning for a few days. All of his paintings are marvelous.
But this time, I fell in love with the Rain Dragon(p52). Not like the other dragons, he’s so cute, unique and funny.
This book introduces various kinds of pictures and art-works related to Tōkaidō, one of the most famous road in Japan.
From Hiroshige Utagawa to Shikō Munakata, and modern artists.
I was deeply impressed by the work of Nara Yoshitomo in p109. At first sight, it is cute, but… What do you think?
Robot, Spaceship, Invention, Future, Dream, ... Shinichi Hoshi, a famous novelist in Japan, has developed Japanese SF mind from 1950s.
He wrote over a thousand short-short stories. Japanese students are very familiar with his works because some of them appear in elementary school or Junior high school textbook.