• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.40
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• pp.7-39
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• 2015

A kite in Japanese is the octopus. The reason is that when they saw the tail of the kite, they remembered the foot of octopus. And this kinds of associative action is called a mitate(見立て) in Japanese. Mitate is similar to metaphor, but these two concepts are somewhat different in causing laugh. Korean and Chinese comedic story's metaphor cause laugh by similarity of two things, but Japanese comedic story's mitate cause laugh by dissimilarity of two things. Chinese and Korean comedic stories focus on 90%'s similarity of two things, but Japanese comedic stories focus on 10%'s dissimilarity of two things. So, in this paper, I tried to consider the mitate of comedic stories of East Asia, and I found that there are the following three features. First, we can see the tendency of Chinese and Korean comedic stories's mitate concern on the human body's physical weakness. But, Japanese comedic stories subject to not the human body's physical weakness but the human's professional or identification temperament. Second, East Asian's comedic stories mitate which related character and word play came from the method of decomposition of Chinese characters, for that area's people have used Chinese characters for a long time. However, there are different cases in Japanese comedic story's Chinese characters mitate, where that characters mitate is combined with two different type's characters, for example, to associate one Chinese character and another Japanese characters, hiragana or katakana. Third, there are next type's mitate which came from misunderstanding of Chinese characters, it can be seen in Chinese and Korean comedic stories. Perhaps, this pattern related with Chinese three syllable's character pattern, which is a Chinese traditional word and character play.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.56 no.7 s.106
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• pp.79-95
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• 2006

The relationships between costumes and literature are the remarkable characteristics in the history of Japanese costumes. Among them, the literary designs which have literary subject matters seem unique to Japan. In Japan, the history of the literary design traces far back and its examples are abundant in various literatures in the Heian era. It is particularly notable that the literary designs take a relatively large part of Kosode pattern in the pre-modern period, the Edo era, which can be cleary seen in Kosodehinagata-bon, a collection of Kosode pattern of those era, in addition to various sources of extant relics or paintings. These literary designs lie the tradition of the literary lyricism as aesthetic sense in the japanese costume history. The literary lyricism means the lyrical mood evoked by literature. The purpose of this study is to examine how the literary lyricism which has supported those literary designs was formed and developed. The literary designs on costumes related with the relationships between literature and formative art, for example painting. Those typical example, which started in the literature tournament, utaawase, was devised for matching up with the character of the assembly. They continued as a sort of the intellectual amusements. In the pre-modern period, the literary designs developed In relation to not only subject matters but those expression. Moreover, it shows the extremely typical example that a series of Kosodehiinagata-bons, consisted solely of literary designs, was enjoyed as a device of reading materials like poem anthology.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.27
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• pp.59-79
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• 2012

China and Japan are geographically close and the two countries had shared the Chinese Character Culture and the thoughts of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism since the ancient age. They also actively exchanged culture in various areas. Some cultural exchanges had been caused by surrounding environment and culture had been introduced to other country in a natural way; while some cultural exchanges had been forcibly introduced through artificial process. It is believed that such cultural phenomenon must have had impact on the make-up cultures of the two countries and it was assumed that there must have been commons and differences in the make-up cultures of the two countries. This study explored the historical background of the Ching dynasty of China and the Edo Age in Japan, which are in the same time frame, and studied the aesthetic consciousness of the two countries at the time. Then the make-up style of ladies in the two countries had been studied to find out how their aesthetic consciousnesses had been expressed in the make-ups of the two countries. Then the commons and differences in make-up skills between the two countries had been identified. According to the study results, the main stream of aesthetics during the Ching dynasty in China can be classified into Confucianism aesthetics and Taoism aesthetics. On the other hand, the main stream of aesthetics during the Edo Age in Japan can be classified into "mitate(見立)", "ikki(いき)" and "garumi(かるみ). The skin care in the make-up culture of Ching dynasty in China was based on "rouge (?脂, yanzhi)" and "powder(粉, fen)". The Ching ladies loved the make-up style using rouge. It had been same both in the high society and common people. The eyebrow care was delicate and curved so that the feminine beauty with elegant spirit could be emphasized. The lips had been expressed to be smaller and the ladies tried to express elegance and reliability, rather than frail and tender feminine image. The skin care in the make-up culture of Edo Age in Japan focused on even applying of white powder so that the face would look soft. The eyebrow make-up was a very important part of the make-up. The shapes of eyebrow had been advanced in various styles and there had been eyebrow make-up styles such as "crescent-shaped brow (三日月), "crane style brow (鶴眉) and "Tang style brow (唐眉). The lips had been applied of thick red color, imitating the make-up skill of the ladies in the entertainment business. The lips make-up skill expressing the lips in two colors had been quite popular. Among the make-up skills during the Edo Age in Japan, the "black teeth (齒黑)" can be said as the most unique make-up style of Edo Age.