ネイティブが教える英会話のジェムスクール☆Teachers☆

For a long time, I have been interested in getting solar panels on my house. They can be very expensive to install, but then you get free electricity. Or I can get a deal from a solar energy company. They install the solar panels for free, but they get to keep the electricity I make and sell it back to me. So it's not exactly like I get the electricity from the solar panels on my roof. It's more like I allow an energy company to build a small solar power plant on top of my house. But, at the end of the day, I will be paying less for electricity and my energy use will have a lower impact on the environment.

Another reason I was interested in solar power would be to have electricity during a blackout. But this does not work like I'd hoped. If a storm knocks down power lines, my solar system will automatically shut off. This is for safety: if my solar panels were still sending electricity out into the power grid, it wouldn't be safe for electrical workers trying to fix things.

Getting solar panels was a very long process. The company had to take a lot of measurements, make a plan, submit the plan to the local government for approval, and do a bunch of safety inspections. I called them in early May and the solar panels didn't get installed until late July. But when they actually came out to do the installation, that part took only five hours.




Thanks for reading!  

This month I wanted to write about two significant women from Japan’s past. One was the first official novelist, and the other was a famous dancer who is still represented throughout Japanese culture. Today I will be writing about Murasaki Shikibu and Shizuka Gozen.

Murasaki Shikibu was the first ever novelist, a poet, and a lady-in-waiting in the Kyoto imperial court during the Heian era. She is still famous today for her literary work The Tale of Genji . This is generally regarded as the first true novel ever written. During this time women were usually not taught Chinese. Murasaki showed a talent for this, though, and became fluent. Chinese in Japan during this time was similar to Latin in Europe, or Persian in the Arab world. It was the language of the clergy, elites, and government. Her success here must have been quite exemplary considering that her gender would have normally excluded her. She got married and gave birth to a daughter, but shortly after this her husband died. It was a very short marriage. She probably began writing The Tale or Genji around this time. At about year 1005 she was invited to be a lady-in-waiting for Empress Shōshi. Empress Shōshi is also a very interesting woman. A lady-in-waiting is a woman who is called upon to serve as a servant in the imperial court. Shōshi cultivated a following of many talented and exceptional women, the most significant being Murasaki. She served for five or six years, but later retired with Shōshi. Ten years after The Tale of Genji was completed it was distributed across Japan. Eventually it was considered a Japanese classic and an object of criticism by scholars. It was first translated into English in 1933. The work is fictional, but one can learn an awful lot about court life in Japan during the Heian era from it. The novel was written during the zenith of of this era, so her work is one of the most important resources for understanding this time period. I have included 浮世絵 (traditional Japanese paintings) of her, as well as two photos I have personally taken in 宇治市 (Uji city) of a statue commemorating her. When I first saw this statue, I immediately knew it was her, despite the fact that I couldn’t read the inscription at that time. She was an exceptional woman, and is still recognized to this day as an influential and important author.



Shizuka Gozen was a shirabyōshi and lover of Minamoto no Yoshitsune. A shirabyōshi is a court dancer. Minamoto no Yoshitsune is one of the main military leaders of the Genpei war. Shizuka Gozen is one of the most famous women in Japanese history, and she is often featured in literature and various forms of theater. She was born in Tango province which is situated in the north of what is now Kyoto prefecture. During a drought the emperor Go-Shirakawa invited 100 shirabyōshi to dance in order to bring rain. 99 of them failed, but Shizuka’s dance was successful in bringing rain. This is also the first time that she met Yoshitsune. After the Genpei war Yoshitsune fled Kyoto because his military prowess was considered to be a threat by his brother, the head of the Minamoto clan, Minamoto no Yoritomo. While he fled Shizuka followed, but was eventually captured by Yoritomo’s allies. She was then forced to dance for Yoritomo, but she preferred to sing songs of her love for Yoshitsune. This made Yoritomo extremely angry, but luckily Yoritomo’s wife, Hojo Masako, calmed him. This all occurred while she was pregnant with Yoshitsune’s child. Yoritomo declared that if the child was a girl, she would be allowed to live. If it was a boy, this child would be out to death. She later gave birth to a boy. In an attempt to protect the boy, he was given to Shizuka’s mother. There are two versions of what happened after this. One is that Shizuka then went to Kyoto and became a Buddhist nun. Her and her son were later killed by order of Yoritomo. The other is that she was welcomed back into court life benevolently by Masako, but eventually drowned herself in a river because she was so full of sorrow of the loss of Yoshitsune. Her life is commemorated in traditional Japanese puppet shows, Noh theater, kabuki theater, and popular culture. Her dedication to the man she loved is admirable, so much so that she is still remembered nearly 1,000 years later.



I wanted to write about these two because women in history are often overlooked, but these two ladies made quite an impression on me when I first read of them. I think next month I’ll write about another interesting women from the Heian era.

Thanks,

Jesse Street