Ythrians And Cormorants
Japan And Avalon
Merseians And Russians (see combox)
Hauksberg And Hayato
Fanciful Comparisons: Ythrians And Japanese
In (Star) Wars, I compared a Kandemirian to a Japanese. I should also have mentioned another comparison: the Kandemirians squat before legless desks under arching leaves. (Poul Anderson, After Doomsday, CHAPTER SEVEN, p. 74)
Later, Anderson explicitly mentions Japan but in connection with Vorlak:
"'All Monwaingi writing does go from left to right, like English or Erzhuat, and not from right to left like Japanese or Vorlakka.'" (CHAPTER TEN, p. 103)
Erzhuat is a Kandemirian language. Having discussed number systems, the characters now discuss scripts. How many ways are there to write on a page? Left to right or right to left, obviously. Maybe up or down as well?
English language sf writers describing aliens can make them sound Asian, e.g., by calling places of worship "temples." A Japanese sf writer might refer to alien "churches." Really, of course, aliens should sound like nothing on Earth.
(Did I say this before? Once when I went to meditate in the Quiet Room of a Youth Hostel, I was joined by a Japanese man reading his Bible.) (I did. See Acculturation, Art And Horror and Passing The Time In Space.)
13 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I would need to check, but I think Hebrew/Aramaic is written from right to left as well.
It should not have surprised you, as it seems to have, to meet a Japanese Christian. There have been Japanese Christians, esp. Catholics, since about 1590 or thereabouts. They became fewer and were driven underground as a result of persecution by the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Sean
Sean,
Not a surprise. A source of amusement since I was practicing Japanese Zen.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I did wonder if you were surprised. Most people don't seem to expect to find Japanese Christians in Japan.
Sean
Sean,
Nygel was surprised to see white Muslims on our street.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And that is surprising to me! After all, the first Muslim, Mohammed himself, was white.
Sean
Sean,
But you know most people don't know that. I didn't.
Jesus would have been dark skinned, living where and when he did.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
If we can trust the Shroud of Turin, Our Lord was pretty plainly white (not that skin pigmentation matters a darn). And I suspect most people on the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean of that time had a Levantine look: black hair, brown eyes, olive complexion.
Sean
Sean,
Of course I doubt the Shroud but research on it must continue.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
As you know, I'm inclined to accept the genuineness of the Shroud. One bit of evidence being the PATTERN in which the cloth was woven, a pattern we know was common on the east coast of the Mediterranean of Christ's time.
Sean
Sean,
But the image of Christ on the Shroud looks as if it is based on Western European art. When the Shroud was first displayed, the local church authorities investigated and wrote a report in which they said that the artist had acknowledged how he had produced the image. The close correlation of the details on the image with the wounds as described in the Gospels suggests to me not that the Shroud is genuine but that the artist carefully based the image on the Gospel accounts.
Paul.
*Kaor, Paul!
I admire and respect the care taken by the authorities of the Church to guard against false relics. But the problem with the 1390 investigation of the Shroud was that the knowledge and technology then available could not truly ACCOUNT for the images we see on it. It was in 1898 that a photographer discovered that the image on the Shroud was actually a reverse negative. How could any artist do that in the 13th or 14th centuries? Also, another point I remember was that paints or inks would SOAK into materials like the linen used for the Shroud. But there was no indication found that whatever caused or was used for the image did any such soaking.
I think it is fair to say many questions about the Shroud remains and that it can't be so easily dismissed.
Sean
Sean,
There is the problem of how the Shroud could have got from Jerusalem to France and suddenly turned up and been displayed 1300 years later although there is one complicated theory to account for that. The church report at the time did say that the artist had said how he did it. Whatever he did, he somehow produced a negative that became positive when it was photographed.
The as yet unanswered questions mean that the Shroud should continue to be studied.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
We DO see some stories about various holy cloths associated with Christ being venerated by eastern Christians. So, I can imagine the Shroud being originally preserved in the Israel/Syria area before being taken to Constantinople, where we know many relics were collected. Next, I think it's likely the Shroud was one of the pieces of loot seized by the Venetians and Fourth Crusaders during the atrocious sack of Constantinople in 1204. I agree its whereabouts are unknown till it came into the possession of the House of Savoy.
But I simply can't see any 13th/14th century artist being able, in effect, to invent 19th century photography and its associated technology. NOTHING like that is reported of anyone. And I can't help but wonder if the investigators who wrote the report you mentioned were told false or mistaken information.
The more I read about the Shroud and things like first century AD weaving patterns, the implausibility of 19th century photographic technology existing 700 years earlier, or how whatever material comprising the images did not soak into the linen, etc., makes a material, this Earthly explanation harder to believe.
I continue to personally believe or accept that the Shroud is the actual burial cloth of Christ and that the images seen on it were "impressed" there by the power radiating from the now glorified and transformed body of the Lord as he was rising from the dead. That said, I certainly have no objection to studying the Shroud and trying to understand it.
Sean
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