EmishiThe Emishi (also called Ebisu and Ezo), written with Kanji that literally mean "shrimp barbarians," constituted an ancient ethnic group of people who lived in parts of Honshū, especially in the Tōhoku region, referred to as roughly "deepest part of the road" in contemporary sources. The first mention of the Emishi in literature that can be corroborated with outside sources dates to the 5th century AD, in which they are referred to as (毛人 - "hairy people") in Chinese records.
Fujiwara no Teika, better-known as Fujiwara no Teika (1162 – September 26, 1241), was a Japanese anthologist, calligrapher, literary critic, novelist, poet, and scribe of the late Heian and early Kamakura periods. His influence was enormous, and he is counted as among the greatest of Japanese poets, and perhaps the greatest master of the waka form – an ancient poetic form consisting of five lines with a total of 31 syllables. Teika's critical ideas on composing poetry were extremely influential and studied until as late as the Meiji era.
Renhō, commonly known by her given name, Renhō, is a Japanese politician and former journalist who is a current member of House of Councillors. She was the leader of the now-defunct major Japanese opposition party, the Democratic Party. Born Hsieh Lien-fang () in Tokyo to a Japanese mother (斉藤圭子) and Taiwanese father (謝哲信), she studied at Aoyama Gakuin in Tokyo from kindergarten through university. She enrolled in the law faculty of Aoyama Gakuin University and graduated in 1990 with the B.L. degree in Public Law.
Japanese pitch accentJapanese pitch accent is a feature of the Japanese language that distinguishes words by accenting particular morae in most Japanese dialects. The nature and location of the accent for a given word may vary between dialects. For instance, the word for "now" is [iꜜma] in the Tokyo dialect, with the accent on the first mora (or equivalently, with a downstep in pitch between the first and second morae), but in the Kansai dialect it is [i.maꜜ]. A final [i] or [ɯ] is often devoiced to [i̥] or [ɯ̥] after a downstep and an unvoiced consonant.
HachimanIn Japanese religion, Yahata (八幡神, ancient Shinto pronunciation) formerly in Shinto and later commonly known as Hachiman (八幡神, Japanese Buddhist pronunciation) is the syncretic divinity of archery and war, incorporating elements from both Shinto and Buddhism. In Shinto religion, he is mortally Emperor Ōjin (応神天皇, Ōjin Tennō) by birth who reigned in the 3rd–4th century and the son of Empress Jingū (神功皇后, Jingū-kōgō), later became deified and identified by legend as "Yahata-no-kami" meaning "Kami of Eight Banners", referring to the eight heavenly banners that signaled the birth of the divine and deified emperor, and is also called Hondawake (誉田別命).
Adzuki beanVigna angularis, also known as the adzuki bean (アズキ), azuki bean, aduki bean, red bean, or red mung bean, is an annual vine widely cultivated throughout East Asia for its small (approximately long) bean. The cultivars most familiar in East Asia have a uniform red color, but there are also white, black, gray, and variously mottled varieties. Scientists presume Vigna angularis var. nipponensis is the progenitor. The wild ancestor of cultivated adzuki bean is probably Vigna angularis var.
Oku no HosomichiOku no Hosomichi (奥の細道, originally おくのほそ道), translated as The Narrow Road to the Deep North and The Narrow Road to the Interior, is a major work of haibun by the Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō, considered one of the major texts of Japanese literature of the Edo period. The first edition was published posthumously in 1702. The text is written in the form of a prose and verse travel diary and was penned as Bashō made an epic and dangerous journey on foot through the Edo Japan of the late 17th century.
Saigyōwas a famous Japanese poet of the late Heian and early Kamakura period. Born Satō Norikiyo in Kyoto to a noble family, he lived during the traumatic transition of power between the old court nobles and the new samurai warriors. After the start of the age of Mappō, Buddhism was considered to be in decline and no longer as effective a means of salvation. These cultural shifts during his lifetime led to a sense of melancholy in his poetry.
HaniwaThe Haniwa are terracotta clay figures that were made for ritual use and buried with the dead as funerary objects during the Kofun period (3rd to 6th centuries AD) of the history of Japan. Haniwa were created according to the wazumi technique, in which mounds of coiled clay were built up to shape the figure, layer by layer. Haniwa can also refer to offering cylinders, not the clay sculptures on top of them as well as the "wooden haniwa" found in Kofun tumuli.
Yakuza, also known as 極道, are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them 暴力団, while the yakuza call themselves 任侠団体. The English equivalent for the term yakuza is gangster, meaning an individual involved in a Mafia-like criminal organization. The yakuza are known for their strict codes of conduct, their organized fiefdom nature, and several unconventional ritual practices such as yubitsume or amputation of the left little finger.
