One thing behind the Japanese practice of treating houses as consumable rather than capital goods, intended to last one lifetime and then be replaced, is the legacy of centuries of urban culture in which it was understood that every building would be destroyed in a fire about that frequently so there wasn’t much point in using more relatively more precious building materials in trying to push durability further.
The longest non-JR train line in Japan runs a limited extra-slow service that’s themed as a parody of their limited express service
wait does Japan have the rabbit/turtle metaphor for fast/slow too?
Machine translated Japanese Wikipedia has this to say:
It is believed to have flowed into Japan after the latter half of the Muromachi period, when trade with Western Europe flourished, and it began to be known in the early modern period through translations of Aesop’s fables and the Tales of Isoho . It became known to the general public after it was included in textbooks in the Meiji era. It was published under the title “Absurd Great Enemy” in the Japanese language textbook for elementary school during the Meiji period . [1]
Sad update everyone, Tama recently passed away… An estimated 3,000 people, including railway officials, attended Tama the cat’s funeral on Sunday, days after she died of heart failure aged 16. [x]
For those who haven’t read articles about it, the local shrine elevated her to a god. She’s now the Eternal Stationmaster and patron god of the station.
Beautiful.
Now I’m crying thanks
and a new cat was hired right?
yep! her name is Nitama (essentially ”second tama” or “tama II”) and she served under Tama as an apprentice before being appointed her deputy
she works very hard
Everytime this crosses my dash, I reblog. It is the law.
Law
I’m crying at 11pm over train cats
Nitama, already now a mature cat (born 2010), has a protege named Yontama (fourth Tama, b. 2016). There is no information available for either the physical befellment or tragic self-disgrace which has removed Santama from contention.
^Nitama majestic, and below with Yontama
Yontama.
a legacy
okay but actually what happened to santama (or sun-tama-tama, which is her name because it’s a pun on santama) was that she was basically sent to train for the position in okayama and they liked her so much they refused to send her back
“Sun-tama-tama” (a pun off of “Santama”, lit. “third Tama”) was a calico cat sent for training in Okayama. Sun-tama-tama was considered as a candidate for Tama’s successor, but the Okayama Public Relations representative who had been caring for Sun-tama-tama refused to give the cat up writing, “I will not let go of this child, she will stay in Okayama.” [25]
As of September 2018, Sun-tama-tama is working as the stationmaster in Naka-ku, Okayama and appears occasionally on Tama’s Twitter account.
Every time I see this post there’s new info and it gets better
You are only allowed to scroll pass this after you pay tribute to the great Tama Station masters.
The shrine of Tama Daimyōjin (Great gracious deity Tama), next to the Kishi station where she worked.
Nitama presenting her yearly offerings to Tama
Daimyōjin on the anniversary of Tama’s Death, June 23 (The offerings are presented by the company president, as Nitama is a cat and thus can’t hold the offerings herself) (Not pictured, but also present, Yontama)
you cannot pass without reblogging guys. i’m sorry, i don’t make the rules.
You can’t not reblog a goddess. It’s just what’s so. :)
So, fun fact- the manga Noragami has an arc where the main character, Yato (a minor kami/God that is down on his luck but trying to make it big time) goes to a council/conference for all the Gods in Japan.
And they are announcing the winner of the “up and coming god” award, and of course, Yato thinks it’s him.
Pictures making me realize that before the culture totally digested how to stand before an arcade console, probably one of the closest precedents around was urinal stalls
When did Japan start doing sit-down arcade consoles? Or was it always and the big wood boxes were an us thing?
