Showing posts with label Futon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Futon. Show all posts

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Okinawan Folktale: Nuggets of Gold

An Honest Man and Crooked One

 

 

bamboo stalks


Two men were walking the same road on a business trip.

The first one spotted gold shining under some brush along the way and kept walking.

He hoped that the rightful owner would find it.

The man walking behind him was clever and, wanted to take the gold for himself.

He stopped near the gold and bent over, pretending his stomach was in pain.

The first man stopped and offered to carry the sick man to his home nearby.

The crooked one thanked him but, said he could manage by himself.

When his friend was out of sight, he went to get the gold.

But, the gold was gone and, only a puddle of water remained under the bushes.

Thirsty, as he was, he sipped some of the water and, became violently sick.

With severe stomach cramps, he walked the short distance to his friend's house.

He lay down on a futon, taking advantage of his friend's hospitality.

Suddenly, the cramps became so severe, he pooped all over the futon.

His stomach felt better and, he ran home, leaving the mess in his friend's house.

When the honest man got to the house, there were golden nuggets on the futon.

He was surprised and, went to visit his crooked friend.

He told him, it was unnecessary to pay him for the use of his futon.

The crook figured, the honest one was, just trying to trick him into admitting he pooped.

So, he cleverly, changed the subject and, talked about the weather and business.

There was no more discussion about gold and, he was thankful, poop never came up.

The man with the nuggets got a watch dog to guard the gold.

The crooked man came to visit and the dog barked, chasing him away.

He picked up a rock and threw it, killing the guard dog.

Where the honest man buried the dog, bamboo began to grow and, it grew rapidly.

The tall bamboo, hit the god's goldmine in the sky.

Gold began pouring down the bamboo into the honest man's yard.

The crooked man begged for a sprig of this bamboo, to plant at his home.

The honest man gave him some of his bamboo and, he took it and, planted the cutting.

Within a week, the crooked man's bamboo was reaching into the heavens, too.

But, instead of hitting god's treasury, the bamboo poked a hole in god's toilet !



REFERENCE:

Okinawa Folk Stories ISBN978-4-99009-146-0



MORE FOLKLORE

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Having Sort of a Butsumetsu (仏滅) Day Today, Groan

One of Those Days in Japan

 

Today, it would have been better if I had just never got off the futon.  Ouch.

A Butsumetsu (仏滅) is the term used for a bad luck day.


You'll have to excuse the mess my desk is in.  Piles of inspiration keep getting piled on it.

Luckily, I cropped the rest of the office out of this photo.

Nobody really needs to see half of the junk scattered around the place.

When I came in this morning, I found this escaped science project, I had been working on.

The little critter, (I'm not sure what it is) is back in confinement, now.

We'll just have to wait and see if the cocoon hatches.

It hasn't moved in hours.

It could be dead. Or, I could have re-captured an empty cocoon.

And, whatever it is, may be crawling around in here, somewhere.

At any rate, I got tired of watching, nothing happen.

So, I decided to update my National Geographic Your Shot profile.

Totally unaware, that I was having a Butsumetsu day, I got online and started doing stuff.


Over at National Geographic, you can do all kinds of neat things to your profile.

Like, I took this picture of my camera waiting for a boat to appear on the scene.

They let you make any background you want, to spiff-up your profile photo.

So, that's what I did.

And, you can hook up links to your Facebook, Twitter and Google accounts.

So, I did that, too.

If you go over there to see me, just be careful about pushing social media buttons.

Some of them say stuff like 404.  That's an error.

Or, Sorry, this page isn't available.

Groan.

Now, I like to look at the bright side of things, most times.

The day is almost over and I have never had two days like this, in a row.

So, everything should be alright tomorrow.

That Butsumetsu stuff is really from Buddhist beliefs and I'm not a Buddhist.

Just, Butsumetsu things happen to me every now and then.


 Learn more about those days you shouldn't get out of bed at the links below.


Japanese Calendar Wiki 

Good & Bad Days in the Japanese Calendar




Monday, January 31, 2011

Flower: Sakura (桜) Okinawa, Japan (Photo) and a Little Secret


Sakura (桜) is the Japanese word for Cherry Blossom. Yesterday I posted a blog entry about my trip up Nago Mountain in Okinawa, Japan to get some photos in my collection of the Cherryblossom Festival.

To my surprise, over 6,000 people viewed that blog !  It's going to take all day for me to reply to the tons of emails I recieved so, today's post will just be a quickie.

Now, I don't know if the sudden popularity was because someone likes my warped sense of humor or people just like to see photos of Cherry Blossoms.

A little secret I'll let you in on: I usually don't put my best photos on my blog.  The best of the best don't go on the internet, anywhere. I hide stuff like that under my futon.

But, today I'm putting one of my favorites here for you to see. I'll probably enter it in a contest, too.

If 6,000 people view this I really won't care what the contest judges think of my photography. Hah !

But, if you like it and they do, too I'll be tickled pinker than a Sakura (桜) up on the mountains of Okinawa, Japan !

Visit my Homepage for THE PHOTO OF THE DAY