Sunday, April 5, 2015

High Time for a Haiku


Spring Greenery

You take my tears when
You leave for grief. It's envy--
You are free to go.


The scholarship has caught up with the euphemisms around the Floating World. Here's a great article with extensive interviews of the curator of an exhibition currently at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum. A few details: Most Yoshiwara prostitutes were sold into it as young as age 7, trained for several years, and were put to work by their teens. And they didn't last long; there's a mass grave from those times found outside the district, with the remains of more than 21,000 people "without connections," mostly women, mostly in their 20s.

If you'd like to learn more about human trafficking today, this group is a good source.

Image: From the Ukiyo-e Tarot, created by Koji Furuta. A really good deck, variation on the Waite so it's easy to learn, but carries its own meanings as well.

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