枕草子

Yesterday my teacher talked about the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon (枕草子) written by a Japanese lady 清少納言 one thousand years ago. In Louis Frideric's Japan Encyclopedia, the entry on her is : 'Writer (Kiyohara Akiko, b. ca 965), lady-in-waiting to Empress Fujiwara no Sadako (977-1000?) . . . [She] is the author of the unforgettable Makura no soshi (The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon) . . . Her "pillow book" inaugurated a new literary form called zuihitsu; in it, she used remarkably pure language to give innumerable details on life in the Heian court, court customs, and events that took place while she was in the empress's service. She became a Buddhist nun when Fujiwara no Sadako died.'

枕草子 has many sections, the section taught yesterday was called "The Hateful Things" (にくきもの）. In a single sentence or in one paragraph, it records different things that Sei Shonagon herself finds hateful. One thing under this category is when shamans pray in such a low voice that it becomes drowsy. This paragraph shows us one kind of treatment that a Japanese might expect to receive when he fell sick, and shows that exorcising was a common practice in those days, before the Japanese are known internationally for their brand name products such as Toyota cars and Sony home electronics.