In our western world it would be unthinkable. Each is an individual and not many would conform to such a mold. I am grateful for it too.

The cocoon is put into boiling water to kill the butterfly before it can make its way out by cutting a hole through the layers of silk. The whole cocoon is just one long thread.

At night we joined the parade of all the villagers and walked to a pasture way up where the cows were spending their days until the winter. There was music, yoddling and merriment while sweet things were passed around.

"Legends attributed the initial discovery and use of silk to Huangdi and his wife Leizu, at the very source of Chinese civilization. To study the history of sericulture and textiles, there is an abundance of archaeological evidence. The silkworm appeared in Neolithic sculptures and on vessels as a decorative motif. A silk cocoon cut in half by a sharp knife was found in 1926 in Xiyingcun, Xia county, Shanxi province, dating back to 5,600-6000 years ago, and the species of the silkworm is bombyx mori, the domesticated silkworm. Parts of a primitive loom were found from sites in Hemudu, Zhejiang province, about 4,900 BC and in Liangzhu cultures. Parts of the machine for reeling silk were found in a Neolithic site at Qianshanyang in Zhejiang province, dating about 2,750 BC, where the earliest fragments of silk were also found, making the site a landmark of silk production in the south. The earliest finds in the north were made in a Yangshao site at Qingtaicun, Rongyang county, Henan province with silk fabric wrappings around the body of a child, dating about 3,500 BC. It is certain that around 5,000 years ago, silk was used to produce garments."

"Guilds. Guilds are to be found in every part of China, some of them dating back for thousands of years. They are divided primarily into three classes, the trade unions, clubs of fellow provincials in an alien city, and associations of merchants for the regulation of trade: the last is more rarely found than the others, while the trade guilds predate the rest by hundreds of years. All craftsmen become members of the guild of their craft: in certain cities the craft is in the hands of aliens who are not allowed to divulge its secrets to the natives. The administration is carried out by a manager, a committee, and a paid secretary who arranges all legal defence, apportions grants for charity, and approaches officials. The revenue is obtained by means of a regular subscription according to the financial standing of the person, and taxes and fmes of the members. In addition members may be called upon for extraordinary subscriptions for funeral or doctors' expenses. Members who are caught stealing or in any shady practices are fined heavily and may be expelled or even in severe cases executed. The basic idea of Chinese guilds is to promote general wellbeing among the members and to protect them as far as possible in everything. The four most famous guilds are the Canton Guild, the Shansi Guild, the Shantung Guild, and the Ningpo Guild."

"Earliest records show a spoon shaped compass made of lodestone or magnetite ore, referred to as a 'South-pointer' dating back to sometime during the Han Dynasty (2nd century BCE to 2nd century CE). The spoon-shaped instrument was placed on a cast bronze plate called a 'heaven-plate' or diviner's board that had the eight trigrams (Pa Gua) of the I Ching, as well as the 24 directions (based on the constellations), and the 28 lunar mansions (based on the constellations dividing the Equator) . Often, the Big Dipper (Great Bear) was drawn within the center disc. The square symbolized earth and the circular disc symbolized heaven. Upon these were inscribed the azimuthal points relating to the constellations. Its primary use was that of geomancy (prognostication) to determine the best location and time for such things as burials. In a culture that placed extreme importance on reverence for ancestors, this remained an important tool well into the 19th century. Even in modern times there are those who use this divination concepts of Feng Shui (literally, of wind and water) for locating buildings or fortuitous times and locations for almost any enterprise. There is a story that the first Chin emperor used the divining board and compass in court to affirm his right to the throne. Primarily, the compass was used for geomancy for a long time before it was used for navigation.



Ancient Chinese alchemists realized that the magnetite ore would point towards a magnetic north. Their understanding was not total, since they thought that there were north pointers and south pointers. 'The lodestone follows a maternal principle. The needle is struck out from the iron (originally a stone) and the nature of mother and son is that each influences the other, and they communicate together. The nature of the needle is to return to its original completeness. As its body is very light and straight, it must indicate straight lines. It responds to the chhi by orientation, being central to the earth and deviating in various directions. To the south it points to the Hsuan-Yuan constellation, hence to the hsiu Hsing and therefore to the hsiu Hsu in the north, along the axis Ting-Kuei. The yearly differences follow the elliptic, and all such phenomena can be understood.' (from Master Kuan's Geomantic Instructor), 8th century CE."

The Chinese seemed to be a people ready to follow the rules and law, behaving with rectitude for the most of the time. Their way is so different from the Mediterranean individualism that always believes laws are for others and tries to get personnal benefits all the time.

"The Chinese have a unique system of categorizing illnesses that is widely divergent from its Western counterpart. The philosophy behind Chinese medicine is that man lives between heaven and earth, and comprises a miniature universe in himself. The material of which living things are made is considered to belong to the "yin", or female, passive, receding aspect of nature. The life functions of living things, on the other hand, are considered to belong to the "yang", or masculine, active, advancing aspect. The functions of living beings are described in terms of the following five centers of the body: 1."heart" or "mind" (hsin); this refers to the "command center" of the body, which manifests itself as consciousness and intelligence; 2."lungs" or "respiratory system" (fei); this system regulates various intrinsic functions of the body, and maintains cybernetic balance; 3."liver" (kan); this term includes the limbs and trunk, the mechanism for emotional response to the external environment, and the action of organs; 4."spleen" (p'i); this organ system regulates the distribution of nutrition throughout the body, and the metabolism, bringing strength and vigor to the physical body; and 5."kidneys" (shen); this refers to the system for regulating the storage of nutrition and the use of energy; the human life force depends on this system. This theory is used to describe the system of body functions, and as a whole is referred to as the "latent phenomena" ( ts'ang hsiang).





"The passage of the seasons and changes in the weather can have an influence on the human body. Those having the most pronounced effect are wind (feng), cold (han), heat (shu), moisture (shih), dryness (tsao), and internal heat (huo "fire"). Excessive or extraordinary changes in the weather harm the body, and are referred to as the "six external disease-causing factors" (liu yin). On the other hand, if mood changes within the individual, such as happiness(hsi), anger(nu), worry(yu), pensiveness(szu), grief(pei), fear(k'ung), and surprise(ching) are too extreme, they will also harm the health. These emotions are called the "seven emotions"(ch'i ch'ing). In Chinese medicine, the six external disease-causing factors, interacting with the seven emotions, form the theoretical foundation of disease pathology. These theoretical models, coupled with the "theory of latent phenomena," are used to analyze the patient's constitution and his illness, and diagnose the exact nature of his overall physical and psychological loss of balance. Based on this analysis, the doctor can prescribe a method to correct the imbalance. The object of Chinese medicine is the person, not just the illness. In Chinese medical thinking, illness is only one manifestation of an imbalance that exists in the entire person.



"According to Chinese legend, Shen Nung, the Chinese father of agriculture and leader of an ancient clan, took it upon himself to test, one by one, hundreds of different plants to discover their nutritional and medicinal properties. Many of these turned out to be poisonous to humans. Over the millennia, Chinese have used themselves as guinea pigs in this same way to continue testing plants for their properties of inducing cold(han), heat(jeh), warmth(wen), and coolness(liang). They classified the medicinal effects of the plants on the various parts of the body, then tested them to determine their toxicity, what dosages would be lethal, and so forth."

"One question that has been of active interest to historians is why the Industrial Revolution occurred in Europe and not in other parts of the world, particularly China. Numerous factors have been offerred including ecological, governmental, and cultural. Benjamin Elman argues that China was in a high level equilibrium trap in which the non-industrial methods were so efficient as to prevent usage of industrial methods with high capital costs. Kenneth Pommeranz in the Great Diveregence argues that Europe and China were remarkable similar in 1700 and that the crucial difference which created the industrial revolution in Europe were sources of coal near manufacturing centers and raw materials such as food and wood from the New World which allowed Europe to economically expand in a way that China could not."

" In order to get a handle on ancient Japanese history, it helps to consider that it is driven by outside influences. The first involved the settlement of Japan by a group of peoples from the Korean peninsula in the third century BC. Overnight they transformed the stone-age culture of Japan into an agricultural and metal-working culture. These early immigrants are ultimately the origin of Japanese language and culture.



" The second great push in Japanese history was contact with China from 200 AD onwards. From the Chinese, who demanded that Japan be a tribute state to China, the Japanese adopted forms of government, Buddhism, and writing. While Japanese culture ultimately derives from the immigrants of the third century BC, the bulk of Japanese culture is forged from Chinese materials—a fact that will drive an entire cultural revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as scholars attempt to reclaim original Japanese culture from its Chinese accretions.



"The overwhelming fact that suffuses every aspect of Japanese culture is its geography. Japan is a series of islands—the group consists of over 3000 islands of which 600 are inhabited. The four main islands, Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido dominate Japanese history, however. The largest island is Honshu, but the overall geographical area of the inhabited islands is less than California. The climate is pleasantly moderate, for the islands lie in the path of the Black Current which flows north from the tropics. All the islands are mountainous and subject to a variety of natural disasters, especially earthquakes and tsunamis. The mountainous terrain leaves its mark on Japanese culture; since the mountains provide natural and difficult barriers, political life in Japan centered around regional rather than national governments. The earliest flowering of Japanese history took place in the low-lying plains on the island of Honshu, especially the Yamato plain in the south—a region that gave its name to the first 'official' name for Japan, Yamato. There the very first Japanese kingdom arose and provided the basis of future Japanese civilizations."

Here we say that we have a culture starting 5000 years ago. This is true. But the roots go deeper and in so many other directions than could be guessed by a cursory glance.

Two or three weeks recess sounds good.

"The most powerful feeling in China today is hatred of foreigners; the most powerful process today in China today is imitation of foreigners. China knows that the west does not deserve this flattery, but the age offers to all nations the choice of imperialism or vassalage."

About the use of computers, I would say that not many people my age, who have not used it at work, would start now to learn the use of a computer. But children all get exposed to it and it has become the standart present to give one's children at age 12 or 13. One more generation and they all will forget the time when not all houses had one.

"The Heian government established a military system based on local militias composed of mounted horsemen. These professional soldiers were spread throughout the country and owed their loyalty to the emperor. They were "servants," or samurai. An important change occurred, however, in the middle of the Heian period. Originally the samurai were servants of the Emperor; they gradually became private armies attached to local aristocracy. From the middle Heian period onwards, for almost a thousand years, the Japanese military would consist of professional soldiers in numberless private armies owing their loyalty to local aristocracy and warlords. The early samurai were not the noble or acculturated soldiers of Japanese bushido , or "way of the warrior." Bushido was an invention of the Tokugawa period (1601-1868) when the samurai had nothing to do because of the Tokugawa enforced peace. The samurai of early and medieval Japan were drawn from the lower classes. They made their living primarily as farmers; their only function as samurai was to kill the samurai of opposing armies. They were generally illiterate and held in contempt by the aristocracy."

" Bushido is comprised of a system or standards of moral principles that became the soul of the Samurai, during the feudal periods of Japan. It developed over the centuries from the influences of Zen Buddhism, Confucianism, Shinotism, and the expression of these affectations, had their medium in the visual and literary arts such as painting, poetry, and living the way of life (Bushido) they chose to take. Each of these gifts molded and shaped Bushido, as a moral standard of conduct to follow.



" Influencing Bushido, Zen Buddhism lent to the Samurai a very Stoic disposition. This Stoicism was realized out of a genuine respect for life and also for death. Death, an inevitable eventuality of our own lives, is as much a part of nature as is life. It gives us an added level of thought and meaning to our existence. With the advent of death, there is the introduction of life. There are strong human emotions of anger, remorse, and detachment, etc., that are associated with death that complicate its understanding. However we are gifted by these very same feelings, that allow us to appreciate life and the things we enjoy and love. We most notably appreciate the things we take for granted once they are gone forever. The Samurai trust and faith in nature was because of the great admiration and respect for both life and death."

"3. When you receive the Imperial commands, fail not scrupulously to obey them. The lord is Heaven, the vassal is Earth. Heaven overspreads, and Earth upbears. When this is so, the four seasons follow their due course, and the powers of Nature obtain their efficacy. If the Earth attempted to overspread, Heaven would simply fall in ruin. Therefore is it that when the lord speaks, the vassal listens; when the superior acts, the inferior yields compliance. Consequently when you receive the Imperial commands, fail not to carry them out scrupulously. Let there be a want of care in this matter, and ruin is the natural consequence."

The descriptions from Durant bring to mind texts about the Inquisition as well as doings during the Roman wars.

Remorse... how do they check if it is genuine?

Jere, was any DNA research made with the Ainu?

"Word History: When William Tyndale translated aiskhron kerdos, 'shameful gain' (Titus 1:11), as filthy lucre in his edition of the Bible, he was tarring the word lucre for the rest of its existence. But we cannot lay the pejorative sense of lucre completely at Tyndale's door. He was merely a link, albeit a strong one, in a process that had begun long before with respect to the ancestor of our word, the Latin word lucrum, 'material gain, profit.' This process was probably controlled by the inevitable conjunction of profit, especially monetary profit, with evils such as greed. In Latin lucrum also meant 'avarice,' and in Middle English lucre, besides meaning 'monetary gain, profit,' meant 'illicit gain.' Furthermore, many of the contexts in which the neutral sense of the word appeared were not that neutral, as in 'It is a wofull thyng . . . ffor lucre of goode . . . A man to fals his othe [it is a sad thing for a man to betray his oath for monetary gain].' Tyndale thus merely helped the process along when he gave us the phrase filthy lucre."

See through, platform shoes, micro skirt, of course we still remember those, as well as the "holes" cut off strategic places in garnments. We still see rainbow colored hair on teens and nail varnish of all hues, sometime a different one for each finger and toe. Piercing, tattoes, and what next.

I remember that trousers and specially jeans were forbidden wear at school because it was considered too suggestive. Girls used to wear them under their skirt and removed the skirt as soon as they passed through the school gates. The nuns could do nothing about it althought they tried to hint the conduct grades would be lowered.
Bubble

The first tea seeds were brought to Japan by the returning Buddhist priest Yeisei, who had seen the value of tea in China in enhancing religious mediation. As a result, he is known as the "Father of Tea" in Japan. Because of this early association, tea in Japan has always been associated with Zen Buddhism. Tea received almost instant imperial sponsorship and spread rapidly from the royal court and monasteries to the other sections of Japanese society.

Tea was elevated to an art form resulting in the creation of the Japanese Tea Ceremony ("Cha-no-yu" or "the hot water for tea"). The best description of this complex art form was probably written by the Irish-Greek journalist-historian Lafcadio Hearn, one of the few foreigners ever to be granted Japanese citizenship during this era. He wrote from personal observation, "The Tea ceremony requires years of training and practice to graduate in art...yet the whole of this art, as to its detail, signifies no more than the making and serving of a cup of tea. The supremely important matter is that the act be performed in the most perfect, most polite, most graceful, most charming manner possible".



Such a purity of form, of expression prompted the creation of supportive arts and services. A special form of architecture (chaseki) developed for "tea houses", based on the duplication of the simplicity of a forest cottage. The cultural/artistic hostesses of Japan, the Geishi, began to specialize in the presentation of the tea ceremony. As more and more people became involved in the excitement surrounding tea, the purity of the original Zen concept was lost. The tea ceremony became corrupted, boisterous and highly embellished. "Tea Tournaments" were held among the wealthy where nobles competed among each other for rich prizes in naming various tea blends. Rewarding winners with gifts of silk, armor, and jewelry was totally alien to the original Zen attitude of the ceremony.



Three great Zen priests restored tea to its original place in Japanese society:



1.Ikkyu (1394-1481)-a prince who became a priest and was successful in guiding the nobles away from their corruption of the tea ceremony.

2.Murata Shuko (1422-1502)-the student of Ikkyu and very influential in re-introducing the Tea ceremony into Japanese society.

3.Sen-no Rikkyu (1521-1591)-priest who set the rigid standards for the ceremony, largely used intact today. Rikyo was successful in influencing the Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who became Japan's greatest patron of the "art of tea". A brilliant general, strategist, poet, and artist this unique leader facilitated the final and complete integration of tea into the pattern of Japanese life. So complete was this acceptance, that tea was viewed as the ultimate gift, and warlords paused for tea before battles.

Women in Samurai Japan


In early Japanese history, women play an important role. As well as the Queen Himika referred to in Chinese sources, there are other accounts of Queens and Empresses, historical or legendary, ruling unaided and in their own right as sovereigns and war leaders of Japan. These accounts continue up to the 8th Century, when the Empress Shotoku is said to have fallen so far under the control of a certain Buddhist priest, a Rasputinesque figure called Dokyo, that he was almost made her successor before the ascendant Fujiwara clan had him removed from the country. At that point, the Fujiwara took steps to make it impossible for a woman to rule alone in Japan, and there are no later accounts of strong or effective Empresses.1



But while there are no more great Empresses, this is not the end of women's role in the history of the Samurai. There are a number of great historical wives and mothers to Emperors, and until the 13th Century at least, women retained equal inheritance rights, even if they could not hold the Imperial throne. In the 12th Century it was Hojo Masako, widow of Minamoto Yoritomo who brought the Hojo regents to power. Masako - like many samurai widows - became a Buddhist nun on her husband's death, but her influence remained so strong that she became known as the general in the nun's habit. It was also a Minamoto's wife, Tomoe Gozen, who was one of Japan's most celebrated female warriors.



Through the course of Japanese history, the lot of women declined considerably from these heady days. During the Sengoku Jidai, the chief importance of women was in political marriages. Once in their husband's household however, it would be a woman's duty to spy on him for her family, placing her in an awkward and potentially dangerous position. Samurai wives would be responsible for raising children in the traditions of their class and family. They would also have control of the household finances, but this was primarily because commerce was considered beneath a samurai himself. A samurai woman would also learn to fight, but only in defence of her home.



By this time, equal rights were a thing of the past. Only men inherited, and adultery was defined as a wife sleeping with another man; a husband could only commit adultery with another man's wife. A samurai wife was expected to show the same loyalty to her husband as he did to his daimyo; as phrased in Nitobe Inazo's 1905 study of Bushido, she would annihilate herself for him, that he might annihilate himself for the daimyo. The shorthand was that the wife should act as though nothing but duty to her husband mattered to her.



Still, a wife's lot was better than that of a concubine, who would be held to the same degree of loyalty, but treated little better than a servant; an unmarried daughter might expect little less. In the event of a samurai's death, the women of his household might also be expected to commit ojigi, a form of Sepuku ritual suicide for a woman, in which she would thrust a knife through her throat.



From the 17th Century, women seem to have been regarded as essential for the production of children, but precious little else. Many writers of the time held that a man can never truly love a woman, and based on this principle a growing cult of homosexuality (as an institutionalised, rather than a personal sexuality) arose in the period, despite official condemnation. In particular, sexual relationships between a master and pupil seem to have become commonplace among the samurai class, and the importance of women in the life of men to have been further sidelined as a mere distraction.



Tales of women of courage and power continue up to the Meiji Restoration, but are far more scattered than in early history. Most common are women dying bravely in defence of their home, or sacrificing life, honour or dignity for the sake of her husband. A late example is Nakano Takeko, who distinguished herself in combat, wielding a naginata (a bladed polearm) in defence of a beleaguered Shogunist stronghold during the Meiji Restoration. She was finally shot in the chest, and asked her sister to decapitate her to avoid the disgrace of capture.



1 This is currently a matter of great debate in Japan as the child of the Crown Prince is a female.

It is hard for me to answer if the religion has survived in spite of the communism. I don't know. The people I meet are those who came here on the law of return. They should be Jewish. Many do not know much about it, and the youth certainly do not look interested by it. I suppose it would be the same for the other religions.

Jere - The Memoirs of a geisha was written by an American, Arthur Golden.

Justin - from your typing fingers to the ear of God! May we have sane women taking the reins and striving for a more peaceful future.

Mal, you do know how to find fascinating sites, thanks.

Here is a site from the CIA to check each country we are visiting. I found it very complete modern info, even if not too up to date.

" The key to Buddhahood in Zen is simply self-knowledge. The way to gain self-knowledge is through meditation (which is what the word 'zen' means). Now, 'meditation' is one of the cornerstones of Buddhism, where, under the name dhyana , it forms the final and most important aspect of gaining enlightenment. But Zen (in Chinese, Ch'an ) or Meditation Buddhism granted meditation an exclusive importance not ascribed to it in other Buddhist schools. This is indicated by its very name: all other Buddhist schools either take their names from important Scriptures (such as the Lotus sect, which takes its name from the Lotus sutra) or from a philosophical position (such as the Consciousness-only sect) or an individual philosopher (such as Nichiren), whereas Zen takes its name from the practice of meditation.

"Meditation, which was a means to an end in other Buddhist schools, became the end in itself in Zen: meditation was Truth realized in action. As a result, Zen readily dispenses with the Buddhist scriptures and philosophical discussion in favor of a more intuitive and individual approach to enlightenment. Meditation, however, is a strict religious discipline: the mind must be made sharp and attentive in order to intuit from itself the Truth of Buddhahood. Part of this discipline involves waking up the mind of the disciple, making it aware of the things around it. There are several ways of doing this: motorcycle maintenance, hard labor, travel, and, in Japan, the koan, which is a question and answer session between disciple and master which involves sudden beatings and illogical answers all in an attempt to wake or stimulate the disciple's mind to make it ready for the discovery of the Truth inside."

I liked the detail about the clogs color showing the level of experience of a geisha, much like the color of belts in karate.

She and her husband did not take an organized tour but visited by themselves. In Kyoto they went to visit a Japanese temple famous in that the head is some monk/priest/lama who received a revelation. Since he and his temple have become great supporters of Israel even visiting often and collecting funds for our children. This place is called the House of Peace. The head abbot told them of a museum in Fukuyama (sp?), very little known, which commemorate the 1 ½ millions of children lost in the Holocaust.

The couple went there and were impressed by the display and most of all to learn that groups of students are brought there regularly to learn about the holocaust and make sure that it won’t happen again. While they were there, such a group arrived with their teacher. When they heard that the Israeli was a survivor of the Auschwitz camp (he had the number tattooed on his arm) the students asked him to tell them about it. There, in the middle of the exhibition hall, standing, he lectured for almost two hours in English with one of the students translating in Japanese for those less fluent.

The woman said, there was neither a fidget nor a whisper during the whole time. They begged him to continue when he thought it was too long. At the end, the abbot took a harmonica from his pocket and played the song “Dona, Dona” on it. Almost all, the Israelis included, had tears flowing by then.

I thought I would share this with you.

"More precious in a woman is a virtuous heart than a face of beauty. The vicious woman's heart is ever excited; she glares wildly around her, she vents her anger on others, her words are harsh and her accent vulgar. When she speaks it is to set herself above others, to upbraid others, to envy others, to be puffed up with individual pride, to jeer at others, to outdo others,--all things at variance with the 'way' in which a woman should walk. The only qualities that befit a woman are gentle obedience, chastity, mercy, and quietness.



"From her earliest youth, a girl should observe the line of demarcation separating women from men; and never, even for an instant, should she be allowed to see or hear the slightest impropriety. The customs of antiquity did not allow men and women to sit in the same apartment, to keep their wearing-apparel in the same place, to bathe in the same place or to transmit to each other anything directly from hand to hand.



"Let her never even dream of jealousy. If her husband be dissolute, she must expostulate with him, but never either nurse or vent her anger. If her jealousy be extreme, it will render her countenance frightful and her accents repulsive, and can only result in completely alienating her husband from her, and making her intolerable in his eyes. Should her husband act ill (1) and unreasonably, she must compose her countenance and soften her voice to remonstrate with him; and if he be angry and listen not to the remonstrance, she must wait over a season, and then expostulate with him again when his heart is softened. Never set thyself up against thy husband with harsh features and a boisterous voice!



"The five worst maladies that afflict the female mind are: indocility, (2) discontent, slander, jealousy, and silliness. Without any doubt, these five maladies infest seven or eight out of every ten women, and it is from these that arises the inferiority of women to men. A woman should cure them by self-inspection and self-reproach. The worst of them all, and the parent of the other four, is silliness.



"Woman's nature is passive. This passiveness, being of the nature of the night, is dark. Hence, as viewed from the standard of man's nature, the foolishness of woman fails to understand the duties that lie before her very eyes, perceives not the actions that will bring down blame upon her own head, and comprehends not even the things that will bring down calamities on the heads of her husband and children. Neither when she blames and accuses and curses innocent persons, nor when, in her jealousy of others, she thinks to set up herself alone, does she see that she is her own enemy. . . . Again, in the education of her children, her blind affection induces an erroneous system. Such is the stupidity of her character that it is incumbent on her, in every particular, to distrust herself and to obey her husband."

"He did not talk about the faults of others. . . .
He cared for nothing but books.
His life was uneventful."

The under leaves of the lespedeza
When the dew is gathering
Must be cold:
In the autumn moor
The young deer are crying.

"On his deathbed Ikku enjoined his pupils to place upon his corpse, before the cremation then usual in Japan, certain packets which he entrusted to them. At his funeral, prayers having been said, the pyre was lighted, whereupon it turned out that the packets were full of firecrackers, which exploded merrily."