this is my zuihitsu responding to hiraga gennai’s the theory of farting. it was written as an assignment for my early-modern japanese literature course at brigham young university.

Gennai’s The Theory of Farting cracked me up. I read it while sitting at work in the lab, and everyone must have thought I was a little crazy, all red faced and gasping for breaths. If Gennai’s goal was to get his audience to laugh out loud at the things he was writing, he certainly was successful with me. For some reason my oldest sister and I have joked about similar bodily functions for most of my life. This exasperated our mother to no end when the topic was brought up at the dinner table. Even now we are constantly sending somewhat crude jokes and experiences to each other over email. I really have no idea why we find these things funny. It’s a perfectly normal bodily function that everyone experiences. It’s as normal as swallowing or blinking our eyes. Why in the world then has flatulence become a humorous topic that transcends time and cultures? I’m not sure if I have an answer for that.

But Gennai wasn’t just going for “slapstick” style comedy. I think part of what makes The Theory of Farting so hilarious is how he treated the topic with such seriousness. Lines, delivered in sincere, somber ways, like “Heavens and earth thunder; humans fart,” are amazing in the way the mix both poetry and humor (I suppose one could say it’s “a mixture of art and fart”…). I feel that the true genius of Gennai’s work is how it’s really about itself. In Japanese Literature class, we had a very interesting discussion about censorship when we talked about Modern-style Lousy Sermons in class. One thing I wanted to say, but didn’t, was the importance of who decides what is quality and of artistic value. I posted after class,

government censorship of the media: we can’t trust them with our money but we can with our morals?

Certainly a very similar discussion might occur with a discussion of The Theory of Farting in class, in particular concerning the samurai’s response to the farting man’s show. The samurai feels that such an act is disgraceful and insulting to real artists. The same thing was and is probably said by many who read The Theory of Farting itself. Gennai has written a pseudo serious piece about a crude topic in which a crude topic is treated pseudo seriously. He is directly satirizing the people who will be upset at his satire. This makes The Theory of Farting both extremely comical and spot on satire.

I would like to return to the subject of media censorship for a moment. One of the most interesting examples of censorship, at least in LDS culture, was the editing of the film Saving Private Ryan for the Varsity Theater here on campus. My parents, active members of the LDS faith, own the full unedited version of this film despite its R rating. We have at times viewed the film as a family and discussed its message. These have probably some of greatest experiences for me that influenced my feelings on war and violence. Many scenes in the film are difficult to watch even today in our desensitized world. I feel like the movie holds deep meaning, and my parents feel that since it is “of good report or praiseworthy,” it is something they should own. Would the movie have the same meaning without the scenes of extreme violence and warfare? Sure, it has some excellent themes of patriotism and honor, but a whole aspect of the film would be lost without the depictions of the horror of war. An edited version of the film would contain just a fraction of the depth. I’m glad the edited version of the film was not shown, and I plan to someday sit down with my children once they are mature enough to hopefully help them have the same experience as I.

The Theory of Farting touches on this exact topic. It makes the reader ask if there is possibly any value in a man farting on stage just like we could ask if there is any value in showing extreme violence on the big screen. One difficult question is what kind of violence is of value? The narrator talks about how farting is certainly a base subject, but how the farting man has turned it into an art form to full of meaning. Can anything be turned into a meaningful work of art? In my opinion, Saving Private Ryan turned violence into art, but perhaps thats just because I agreed with the meaning I saw: violence and war are terrible things and should be avoided at all costs. Could someone find a movie glorifying violence also to be a work of art? I think that attempting to censor Saving Private Ryan is a bad idea because it ruins the message, but in a way I am just like the samurai in the story. He talked about how plays and literature should only teach good morals, which is kind similar to how I would never agree that something like a Quentin Tarantino film should ever be shown at the Varsity Theater. I’ve seen a number of Tarantino films and while I can certainly see some interesting themes and even artistic value, it seems like in many of them the language, violence, and sexuality are gratuitous. The piece of literature that I am laughing at is in many ways making fun of me.

Another level to this discussion: can a work that treats a subject lightly or comically be of the same worth as one that treats a topic somberly? Today in class South Park was brought up. My sister (unsurprisingly) is a huge fan of the series so I’ve watched a number of episodes with her. Many times it’s crude and vile, yet it’s one of the sharpest commentaries on society in existence. A favorite episode of mine is about the online game World of Warcraft. It’s hilariously funny and shows the real stupidity behind addictions to these sorts of video games. Should I show this to my children to teach them this lesson just like I want to show them Saving Private Ryan? On a more related topic, should we be reading a story about farting just to learn a lesson about morals and art? These are questions without black and white answers, and I’m grateful for that. It makes life much more interesting, and often times gives me a lot to laugh about.

this is my zuihitsu responding to matsuo bashō’s the narrow road to the deep north (oku no hosomichi, 奥の細道). it was written as an assignment for my early-modern japanese literature course at brigham young university.

As an engineer, I tend to see things in terms of processes, parameters, and systems. To me, a frog jumping in a pond¹ is an input to a system with an output of waves with a certain period, amplitude, etc. Yet for some reason I found myself fascinated by Oku no Hosomichi. The engineer in me has looked at all the other texts I’ve read so far for this course and has coldly analyzed their subjects, their cultural and societal environments, etc. Oku no Hosomichi actually evoked some emotions in me (something terribly dangerous for an engineer I should point out). Perhaps it’s because I have also stood looking out over the fields at Hiraizumi and thought about its ancient past or because I have also hiked along the paths of Nikkou Mountain. But I have also wandered through the Gion district of Kyoto, and I certainly did not feel the same way when I read Life of a Sensuous Man. I want to talk about the reasons I think Oku no Hosomichi meant something to me.

We talked about Bashō’s “hyōhaku no omoi” in class and I think I have felt a similar “wanderlust”. I am not trained in ancient Japanese literature, so my comparison can only go so far, but I think I have felt and do feel some of the same things he felt. Bashō felt a pull to the North. It wasn’t just a journey in search of the ancients. It was a journey in search of the same things the ancients sought. The big question is what was it that the ancients sought in the North. I think there is something romantic about the North. I was raised in Wisconsin, so to me, south was Chicago and civilization and north was Canada and the wild. As a child I loved staring at maps for hours (it helped me win my school’s geography bee multiple times), especially maps of northern countries. I always wondered what the frigid coasts of Siberia and Greenland must be like. Even now I catch myself using Google Earth to zoom in on small islands in the Bering straight just to see what’s there. I’ve seriously considered on multiple occasions taking off to work on a salmon boat in Alaska. The North’s distance from civilization and remoteness, its ruggedness and raw natures all give it this romantic appeal. I can’t see why it would not have had the same romance to the ancient Japanese people. Each step towards the North was one away from Kyoto and civilization and one step nearer the frontier, the Ainu, the unconquered.

But attributing my feelings to the “romance” of the North is certainly too shallow of an understanding. Oku no Hosomichi is not a story of grand discovery of new places. Bashō wrote about the people he met along the way, his feelings when seeing both famous and non-famous places, and just small events and observations. If he had been merely seeking the ancients, he would have stuck to the same famous historical locations and paths, and he would have given them the same meaning as the ancients had. Yet he sought out new places and new meanings. I’ve felt that desire during my travels. Over Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, my friends and I went to Zion National Park on a road trip. The scenery was beautiful and we took plenty of pictures. But the most interesting part of the trip for me was pulling off the interstate at Parowan to grab breakfast at the Parowan Cafe. The town fascinated me. After breakfast I insisted we wander around a bit to look at the old churches and buildings along the main road. I wondered what type of people lived there and what the people who first lived there were like. To most people driving to St. George or Las Vegas, Parowan is a blip on the radar, but to me it was a place full of mystery and interest. I think Bashō felt the same way about some of the places he went. He saw the places the ancients saw, but he also saw the places they passed by, and he assigned a meaning to both.

I suppose it’s impossible to talk about Oku no Hosomichi without touching upon the haikai verses spread throughout. The engineer in me says poetry is typically something that I fail to grasp. My most accomplished poetry was a set of “haiku” about the characters in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Obviously I didn’t quite understand the point of haiku at the time. But after experiencing and studying Japanese culture for the past seven years, I think the meanings of these poems are beginning to become more clear to me. Bashō could take the scenes he saw and imbue them with new meaning and depth in only 17 syllables. This is what made him great, and honestly I feel a little jealous of his skill. All I could come up while staring at the Hikaridō was “that’s pretty cool looking” and then I snapped a few pictures. I wish I could found some hidden depth in the scene in front of me.

After I finished reading Oku no Hosomichi, I posted the following:

new life goal: backpack the same trail that bashou took in oku no hosomichi.

What I liked so much about this reading was that it helped me realize that it was exactly what I wanted to do. My romance with the “North”, my interest in places off of the beaten path, and my desire to find deeper meanings in my experiences seemed to me to be some of the same things that Bashō was feeling. I suppose I could say, as cheesy as this sounds, that this story of a journey brought out the desire inside of this cold, analytical engineer to be a “poet”. Someday I really do hope to backpack the same path as Bashō. I probably will forgo the haikai poems (I only need to dig up some of those haiku about Big Nurse to show why), but I hope to be able to find the same things that Bashō did.

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1. bashō’s most famous haiku:

   furu ike ya
   kawazu tobikomu
   mizu no oto

   (an ancient pond / a frog jumps in / the splash of water) ↩︎

zuihitsu (随筆), roughly translated as “follow the brush,” is a free-flowing, personal essay. the first zuihitsu was written by Sei Shōnagon back in 11th century heian period kyoto. for my japanese class this semester, we wrote three zuihitsu in response to the works of literature we were reading. to be honest, i loved doing them. usually i hate writing essays. we also had to write two analytical essays for the class and both were just torture. this post that i sent after finishing my senior project final report sums up my feelings on literary analysis essays pretty well:

writing technical documents isn’t all that bad. none of the “how can I BS about this without repeating myself to fill all five pages?!”

anyway, the zuihitsu were a completely different story. i approached them almost like blog posts, and i went away from each of them with a much greater appreciation for the story i was responding to. they were fun to write. i am going to post the three zuihitsu i wrote for the class on my blog, and i plan to continue writing them for all the books/movies/etc that i consume from now on. i hope you enjoy reading them as much as i enjoyed and will enjoy writing them.

really interesting pictures from inside north korea.

[Editor’s Note: I actually don’t know if this is the correct URL. I originally used a URL shortener which subsequently shut down. This is my best guess.]

so on a random whim i ate mcdonalds tonight. it’s been like three years. all i had was a chicken sandwich. the way my stomach is gurgling right now i am pretty much regretting it.

well, i dunno, i’m actually craving some more now..

i think i might actually spend money on a mac twitter client. goodbye lounge, it was fun while it lasted

good sign for star trek fans:

“J.J. nailed it… The audience gave the film a spontaneous five-minute standing ovation.”

even with my trip to wisconsin and school craziness, i’ve had time to play with friends. to celebrate my acceptance to wisconsin, michelle, ariel, kenji, and laura went out to red lobster. i was thoroughly upset that the all you can eat shrimp was no longer around, but it was still fun chilling like the good old times. i really don’t know why red lobster has become a tradition for us, but now that pudding on the rice is gone, it’s all we’ve got.

bunch a weirdos.

michelle, ariel, and i hit up watchmen the night after. it was crazy and long. the next day after sleeping in, michelle, ariel, and i drove up to park city and met up with our old friend preston. we wandered around, ate some food, checked out some shops (i really wanted to buy one of the $300 cowboy hats!!), etc. chilling with friends keeps me sane.

hello moose.

and then last weekend during my decompressing from the senior project competition, i went on a double date with kenji. our dates were laura and her sister. it was just fun and chill. for the first time ever i went to the bean museum on campus. it was full of dead animals, which really made me question it’s claimed mission of promoting animal appreciation.

lolcat caption waiting to happen!?

my friends are great and i will miss them.

four days after getting home from wisconsin, my senior project was due. talk about crunch time. i dunno if i ever talked about what the project was: we programmed a truck to autonomously navigate a course of colored pylons. my biggest responsibility was the control and navigation of the truck. sadly i didn’t do as well as i had hoped. i made too many assumptions about the quality of the input i would be receiving from our vision subsystem, so the whole thing quickly turned into me hacking on code to get it to work. i tried implementing a PID controller to get better control over our throttle, but that just turned into a rat hole. anyway, come day of the competition we were at least driving courses, albeit slowly. we completed the first two courses in 4th place, but we ran into a major snag on the fourth course. our vision couldn’t detect even the first pylon of the course! the lighting had changed in the garden court over the day and we were driving blind. so i quickly hacked together what i lovingly called “blind faith” mode that essentially just weaved back and forth until it found a pylon. it actually worked and we got a pretty awesome time! in the end we still got 4th, but it was a very close 4th. i was happy we at least finished.

testing out a simple course the night before.

vroom!

team “i can has rayzkar?”, proud to have finished the courses.

as you all probably know, i’ve been accepted to the computer science masters program at the university of wisconsin. i flew out last weekend to check out the school. it was actually really exciting, and some of the systems research they are doing looks awesome (for example this). united almost kept me from getting there by canceling my flight last minute, but my mom saved the day and helped me with a $750 last minute ticket on southwest. it was worth it. i also got to hang out with my good friend aaron and with my parents, which was nice. here are some pics from the tour of the state capitol:

fancy wancy conference room.

one of the wings of the capitol. i like the badger.

the dome. no cheese up there!

hello again faithful blog readers. sorry i’ve been so terrible at keeping this thing updated. i have been doing a lot of microblogging though, so if you don’t follow me on twitter (or if you are in the dark ages and still don’t twitter), you should do that. i’ve had a crazy last couple of weeks. i’m splitting it up into a couple of entries so you can enjoy each one at your own leisure! stuff that happened:

• trip to wisconsin
• senior project competition
• playing with friends
• realizing i’m almost done with provo! (coming soon!!)