{"id":1557,"date":"2009-01-02T16:20:13","date_gmt":"2009-01-02T23:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/?p=1557"},"modified":"2009-01-01T16:28:43","modified_gmt":"2009-01-01T23:28:43","slug":"himeji-in-glimpses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/2009\/01\/himeji-in-glimpses\/","title":{"rendered":"Himeji in Glimpses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/img_1679trim.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/img_1679trim-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"himeji castle\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1558\" srcset=\"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/img_1679trim-800x600.jpg 800w, https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/img_1679trim-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/img_1679trim.jpg 1400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;There is one place in Japan where it is thought unlucky to cultivate chrysanthemums, for reasons which shall presently appear; and that place is in the pretty little city of Himeji, in the province of Harima. Himeji contains the ruins of a great castle of thirty turrets; and a daimy\u014d used to dwell therein whose revenue was one hundred and fifty-six thousand koku of rice. Now, in the house of one of that daimy\u014d&#8217;s chief retainers there was a maid-servant, of good family, whose name was O-Kiku; and the name &#8220;Kiku&#8221; signifies a chrysanthemum flower. Many precious things were entrusted to her charge, and among others ten costly dishes of gold. One of these was suddenly missed, and could not be found; and the girl, being responsible therefor, and knowing not how otherwise to prove her innocence, drowned herself in a well. But ever thereafter her ghost, returning nightly, could be heard counting the dishes slowly, with sobs&#8230;<BR><br \/>Her spirit passed into the body of a strange little insect, whose head faintly resembles that of a ghost with long disheveled hair; and it is called O-Kiku-mushi, or &#8220;the fly of O-Kiku;&#8221; and it is found, they say, nowhere save in Himeji&#8230;<br \/><BR>&#8230;the people of Himeji say that part of their city now called Go-Ken-Yashiki is identical with the site of the ancient manor. What is certainly true is that to cultivate chrysanthemum flowers in the part of Himeji called Go-Ken-Yashiki is deemed unlucky, because the name of O-Kiku signifies &#8220;Chrysanthemum.&#8221; Therefore, nobody, I am told, ever cultivates chrysanthemums there.&#8221; (Lafcadio Hearn, 1894, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1604247487\/rpcman\" target=\"_new\">Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan<\/a><\/em>, p. 363)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;There is one place in Japan where it is thought unlucky to cultivate chrysanthemums, for reasons which shall presently appear; and that place is in the pretty little city of Himeji, in the province of Harima. Himeji contains the ruins of a great castle of thirty turrets; and a daimy\u014d used to dwell therein whose [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[121,93,149,165,92],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1557"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1560,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557\/revisions\/1560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}