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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Visual Art Ceci n'est pas un samouraï

Posted by Jen Graves on Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 2:09 PM

This is not a samurai, even though he said he was a samurai. Liar!

From the Nobuhiko Yoshizumi exhibition currently at Paper Hammer.

Courtesy the artist and Paper Hammer
From the Nobuhiko Yoshizumi exhibition currently at Paper Hammer.

Okay, he didn't lie. I lied. He is Daruma. And this is the reader email that called me out (thank you, reader, and sorry):

...this has been bugging me for a while but please let whoever ... wrote the "fierce samurai" kite article on Seattle Art and Performance Quarterly Vol 1 No 3 Fall 2012 [know] that the red kite man pictured is NOT A SAMURAI. Just because something is japanese doesn't mean its a samurai, hoss. It's Bodhidharma, aka in japan DARUMA the founder of zen buddhism, who cut off his eyelids, and they grew into the ground to become the first green tea plants.They're common in restaurants and at presidential ceremonies (maybe not so common in restaurants now), in japan.

Every green tea is in his honor, y'all.

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I did that with my foreskin. Tea anyone?

Posted by Pope Peabrain on October 2, 2012 at 2:29 PM

Samurai is just a fancy word for servant, actually.

We conflate it with our images of knights, as do the Japanese now (see their manga and anime), but originally all it meant was servant, with a rice stipend. The swords started with just one, and all the pretty or fierce images came later.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on October 2, 2012 at 2:34 PM

A green tea plant is the same as a black tea plant, or an oolong tea plant. It's just a tea plant.

Posted by catsnbanjos on October 2, 2012 at 3:34 PM

Jen Graves loves to talk about out offended she is all the time about perceived racist slights (Pendleton blankets OMG so racist), but she can't even tell a samurai from a daruma? LOL

Posted by yourepretentious on October 2, 2012 at 3:48 PM

This iconography is typical Bodhidharma for Japan. The red cloak and the wide "barbarian" a.k.a Indian eyes (chinese/japanese words, not mine) are the giveaway.

Posted by dirac on October 2, 2012 at 3:55 PM

My tea-drinking is not to be construed as an endorsement of severing one's eyelids.

Posted by long-time reader on October 2, 2012 at 4:49 PM

OMG! I had no idea that daruma = Bodhidharma! Thank you slog (and correcting reader) for enlightening me.

Posted by Nitidiuscula on October 2, 2012 at 5:03 PM

Daruma are also sold with blank eyes. You make a goal or a wish and paint one eye, and paint the other after the goal/wish has been accomplished.

Posted by erly on October 2, 2012 at 6:13 PM

And let us all remember that Buddhism is so much more reasonable than other religions because it's not a religion, it's a philosophy. Have a cup of tea and chillax.

Posted by thatsnotright on October 2, 2012 at 9:12 PM

@9, Buddhism is a religion too, with deities, myths, rituals and an afterlife. Millions of people pray to Shakyamuni Buddha and any number of other buddhas and bodhisattvas for relief, for luck, for health. One need not subscribe to any of it to be a Buddhist, but to say it's not also a religion is a falsity.

Jen, did you want to correct the original post as well, or no?

Posted by Andy on October 3, 2012 at 9:43 AM