There are a countless amount of cultures in the world, each with its individual quirks and ideals, and perhaps the easiest way to understand the numerous amounts of cultures is by examining and reading their literature. There is an enormous amount of information crammed into the poems, books, and plays that share the secrets of their culture. In particular, the book of Kokoro, written by Soseki Natsume, and Changing Seasons, a poem by Princess Nukada, shares with us a culture on an opposite side of the world, Japan. The story itself was written in an entirely different language and time period, and although it is sometimes hard to spot the similarities, there are parallels with our western culture as well. The cultures of Japan and the United
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The languages themselves are completely different. Japanese uses characters upon vertical lines when writing, rather than our use of letters upon horizontal lined paper. Throughout the story, there are many words in japanese such as “Sensei”, “Ojosan”, and “Okusan” rather than their English counterparts of teacher, miss, and madam. The translator left them as their Japanese forms perhaps to give the reader a greater understanding of the culture. Hand in hand with language, is writing and literature. The overall feeling of the book is extremely flowy and there is an enormous amount of imagery. The poem I read as well was almost entirely imagery that painted a lovely picture. Rather than being a book about keeping the audience’s attention and have many side plots like many of the movies and stories in the United States, Kokoro seems to simply be a tale that wants to take its time in telling itself. The plot is not rushed, and even at times it is slow, but it has an extremely elegant yet simply feel that leaves you satisfied in the end. In our culture we seem so produce movies and books based on action and riveting plot twists such as The Hunger Games or any of the Marvel movies. Personally, I grew up on Japanese movies and the culture of Japan was very prominent in Hawaii, and therefore I enjoyed the book very much and am able to comprehend and adapt to the different literature quite
The languages themselves are completely different. Japanese uses characters upon vertical lines when writing, rather than our use of letters upon horizontal lined paper. Throughout the story, there are many words in japanese such as “Sensei”, “Ojosan”, and “Okusan” rather than their English counterparts of teacher, miss, and madam. The translator left them as their Japanese forms perhaps to give the reader a greater understanding of the culture. Hand in hand with language, is writing and literature. The overall feeling of the book is extremely flowy and there is an enormous amount of imagery. The poem I read as well was almost entirely imagery that painted a lovely picture. Rather than being a book about keeping the audience’s attention and have many side plots like many of the movies and stories in the United States, Kokoro seems to simply be a tale that wants to take its time in telling itself. The plot is not rushed, and even at times it is slow, but it has an extremely elegant yet simply feel that leaves you satisfied in the end. In our culture we seem so produce movies and books based on action and riveting plot twists such as The Hunger Games or any of the Marvel movies. Personally, I grew up on Japanese movies and the culture of Japan was very prominent in Hawaii, and therefore I enjoyed the book very much and am able to comprehend and adapt to the different literature quite