Japanese

FROM Japanese

Genfukei

 

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“What is your genfukkei (mental scenery)?” When asked this question, many people may remember the landscapes of their hometowns where they spent their time in childhood.  Genfukei are often remembered not just as visual scenes but also as scenes along with memories of the five senses, of colors, smells, sounds, textures and tastes.

 

The bank along a river covered with dandelions, or the landscape of rice paddies where rice stalks are swaying slowly in the wind.  The landscape of a harbor where gulls are flying and the red sun sets over the edge of the horizon.  The alley of a downtown in evening twilight with scents of suppers coming from surrounding houses.  These landscapes remind us of the nostalgia remaining inside us and the deep impressions of every year of life. 

 

 “Japan’s genfukei” is an often used phrase.  In this case, genfukei refers to some of the most popular landscapes as “spiritual homes” for Japanese.  In most cases, such landscapes are rural landscapes with rice terraces or rice paddies.  The landscapes with lush greenery including rice paddies, streams, ponds and satoyama exist in the consciousness of Japanese people as “peaceful landscapes.”

 

In the past, fireflies were commonly seen in Japanese rice paddies.  The food web was sustained as agricultural chemicals were not used for agriculture.  Clean streams, deciduous forests, mosses on leaves and stones, insects and snails growing there, and larvae of fireflies living on them.  Grown-up fireflies flying with flashes on summer nights.  Not limited to the flying of fireflies, various landscapes drawn by the blessings of “biodiversity” where humans live in harmony with nature are often engraved in our hearts as adorable spiritual landscapes even though we have never lived in them.  This may be due to our intrinsic feelings.  We are healed when we sense the colors, sounds or smells in the ecosystem.

 

Little green breeze, what a good day, butterflies are flitting through the sweet peas

Rainbow-colored fields, my little sister is picking up leaves with her tiny fingers

(Japanese rhyme, words by Katsura Shimizu, music by Shin Kusakawa)

 

We can find a lot of genfukei in rhymes and school songs that are thought of as important in Japanese culture.  Most of these song lyrics were written when Japanese nature was rich in greenery.  Beautiful landscapes and living things such as insects, fish, birds and animals nurtured there are freely living in the songs.  Just by hearing first some phrases, Japanese genfukei pervade us.  That is why these songs have been sung for many years although we learnt them when we were only children.                          

 

 

 (Yuri Hoshiba)

Japanese