The Twist of Impressions
A Day by a God
In Japan, there is a religion called Shinto. Shintoism believes that many gods of different sorts existed both in ancient Japan and still currently exist in the modern time. These gods would rules in different fields such as nature (mountains, oceans, earth, wind, fire water etc.), things in the daily lives of human beings (harvest, health, fertility, toilet etc.) and animals. Most Japanese people when they witness something positive or negative happens, they would either praise the gods or curse them. Such as when someone wins the lottery, they would thank the god of luck. On the other hand, when that person was robbed of his lottery money, he/she would curse the god of mischief. These deities are believed that they are a part of human lives and that they control the nature and events that happen to their lives. And the belief that gods affect human lives and reside amongst with humans is the premise of this short story by Kawakami Hiromi, a story of a man who experiences a whole day with a bear who walks and talks just like him.
Kawakami Hiromi was born April 1, 1958. As a writer, she first started a few short stories and compiled it to a collection. In 1994, “Kamisama”, which was also the name of the collection, was the first story she wrote. She then sent this story as an entry in an online literacy contest and won the competition and her story was published in a magazine. (page 16 Emmerich, 2008). Kawakami Hiromi is a really well known writer in Japan. She is well known for her “off beat” or peculiar way of telling fiction. Her stories would contain light-hearted slice of life events mixed with the supernatural and the extraordinary phenomenon. Kamisama tells a tale of a man who spends a whole day with a bear. Kawakami wrote this story with a thought on how human lives can go on uneventfully and then change so much through events around them. This led her to question if there are other beings that lead
In Japan, there is a religion called Shinto. Shintoism believes that many gods of different sorts existed both in ancient Japan and still currently exist in the modern time. These gods would rules in different fields such as nature (mountains, oceans, earth, wind, fire water etc.), things in the daily lives of human beings (harvest, health, fertility, toilet etc.) and animals. Most Japanese people when they witness something positive or negative happens, they would either praise the gods or curse them. Such as when someone wins the lottery, they would thank the god of luck. On the other hand, when that person was robbed of his lottery money, he/she would curse the god of mischief. These deities are believed that they are a part of human lives and that they control the nature and events that happen to their lives. And the belief that gods affect human lives and reside amongst with humans is the premise of this short story by Kawakami Hiromi, a story of a man who experiences a whole day with a bear who walks and talks just like him.
Kawakami Hiromi was born April 1, 1958. As a writer, she first started a few short stories and compiled it to a collection. In 1994, “Kamisama”, which was also the name of the collection, was the first story she wrote. She then sent this story as an entry in an online literacy contest and won the competition and her story was published in a magazine. (page 16 Emmerich, 2008). Kawakami Hiromi is a really well known writer in Japan. She is well known for her “off beat” or peculiar way of telling fiction. Her stories would contain light-hearted slice of life events mixed with the supernatural and the extraordinary phenomenon. Kamisama tells a tale of a man who spends a whole day with a bear. Kawakami wrote this story with a thought on how human lives can go on uneventfully and then change so much through events around them. This led her to question if there are other beings that lead
Bibliography: * Hiromi Kawakami, “Kamisama(God)”, Read Real Japanese Fiction; short stories by contemporary writers, edited by Michael Emmerich, Kodansha International, Japan, 2008, Print * Hiromi Kawakami, “God Bless You (2011)”, www.granta.com, March 10, 2012, Web.