BD. Edmund Blunden

131. ‘Japan’s Cultural Traditions’. Geographical Magazine 31 (October 1958): 277-89.

An illustrated overview of Japan’s cultural traditions, according to an editorial note intended to provide ‘a background for understanding Japan today’. Includes notes about bugaku (classical dance dating to the Nara period, 712-793) bunraku, bushido, chadô (the ‘way of tea’), the Gion and Hina festivals, Japanese food, kabuki, the tale of the Forty-Seven Ronin (the Chûshingura, Ap), the nô, Shintô, sumie, and sumo. In his reference to the ‘greatest Japanese philologist’ who is also a calligrapher, Blunden would have had in mind Ichikawa Sanki (Ap).