Given the overwhelmingly positive response on the last Immersion Reading Project, I thought I’d do another one before the end of summer.
I decided on Tamura Toshiko’s short story "Ikichi”. Tamura was one of Japan’s most influential feminist thinkers and authors. The nuances in her writing are striking. She is one of my favorite Japanese fiction writers, but has for some reason been largely ignored by the greater public.
The story is a bit of a challenge, but extremely beautiful and very layered. Reading this might feel tough at times, but let’s help each other through it! Just take it one line at a time, and feel free to keep your own pace. Even if you don’t understand everything on your first try, the process of working through a text like this and reading it together will help you move forward in your studies. Just give a shot, you’ve got nothing to lose.
The immersion reading project will run for five days: Monday 30 August - Friday 3 September.
The story is about 14 (bunkobon) pages long. This works out to about 3 pages per day. Please use the link below to download the pdf file (apologies for the jumbled page orientation). The link will be up until 11 am on 30 August (Monday), Amsterdam time. After this time you won’t be able to get access to the file.
田村俊子「生血」
At the end of each day (9 pm Amsterdam time), I’ll post a discussion thread. Everyone is encouraged to read along, join the discussions, and post questions to these daily threads. The threads will stay open so that you can respond at a time that is convenient for you, but ideally, the bulk of the group discussion will take place within the 24 hours before next day’s discussion.
The daily discussions will replace the regular posts for the duration of the project.
Hopefully many of you will be able to join this second project. I look forward to your responses!
俊子, about とし in names, I think it comes from archaic ku-adjective 利し, which meanings many: sharp, intense, agile, clever... and which takes many kanji, and I suspect, many 名乗りs too: like in 俊子
Interesting author! I thought that you would choose another Murakami for the second round, or maybe you would snap and just make us all read Mishima Yukio 😂
I'm definitely joining this. I'm sometimes a bit lazy with the regular posts since the lack of context makes reading and understanding the situation harder than usual, but I had fun the last time. Hopefully I can spot some N2 grammar, since I'm now studying for it ^^
I will also give it a try thank you so much. At the moment I'm trying to analyse an other book;Life for Sale (Japanese: 命売ります, Inochi Urimasu) by Yukio Mishima, but I can always come back to that later. Now I will attempt joining your project and start reading right now. Thank you so much.
Hi Bunsuke ! Thank you for the new project ! I might start a little early ;) I fixed the orientation of pages in this PDF : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QGK9_EFXl06bqOnrNZZBNOcD7PK_WLBx/view?usp=sharing
Feel free to use this file !
Thank you so much, I tried turning the pages but couldn't do it. Now I can join in.
Hi Jon, thanks so much for this!! I really need to learn how to do this stuff, haha!
Learned from last time to start reading a bit earlier this time, looking forward to it!
Haha yes the sooner you can start reading the better! Hope you enjoy this one as well!
Downloading! 楽しみ！
たむらs
【田太他多夛 || 村邑邨】
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俊子, about とし in names, I think it comes from archaic ku-adjective 利し, which meanings many: sharp, intense, agile, clever... and which takes many kanji, and I suspect, many 名乗りs too: like in 俊子
Great! Hope you enjoy...
it will be my first time participating in smth like that, i'm looking forward to it!
Hi Elena welcome to the project! Really looking forward to your comments!!
Looking forward to start this one! Thank you again!!
You're very welcome, hope you like the story :)
〱It took me a while to figure this character out, vertical repetition mark
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_typographic_symbols
Yes, this one is very common, so worth remembering.
All about iteration marks https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/09/iteration-marks.html?m=1
What does it mean? Is it like 々?
It is a repeat sign, but it covers more characters than just one. you can use it to repeat larger sets of characters.
Interesting author! I thought that you would choose another Murakami for the second round, or maybe you would snap and just make us all read Mishima Yukio 😂
I'm definitely joining this. I'm sometimes a bit lazy with the regular posts since the lack of context makes reading and understanding the situation harder than usual, but I had fun the last time. Hopefully I can spot some N2 grammar, since I'm now studying for it ^^
Haha don't worry, I'm always calm and collected ;) I did think of doing Mishima, but I prefer Tamura's style much more. Hope you enjoy this one.
I will also give it a try thank you so much. At the moment I'm trying to analyse an other book;Life for Sale (Japanese: 命売ります, Inochi Urimasu) by Yukio Mishima, but I can always come back to that later. Now I will attempt joining your project and start reading right now. Thank you so much.
That is a great book! You'll enjoy it, no doubt. Great to read you'll join the project, I hope you will enjoy this short story.
Yay! Thanks Bunsuke! I look forward to this!!!
Hi Peter, you're very welcome! Curious to hear what you think of the story :)