Newsletter Volume 13

Ms. Kitta first showed her own calligraphy and described the tools she uses to create her art. She also explained the different styles of writing characters, Reisho (clerical script), Kaisho (square style), Gyosho (semicursive style), and Sosho (fully cursive style). For instance, a character written in the boxy, square-style Kaisho, to the untrained eye, doesn't resemble its more fluid and cursive-like so-sho counterpart.

This is the year of the Ox in the zodiac calendar. Do you know there is one common thing between Austinites and the Japanese? They both appreciate the bull or cow. At UT we have Bevo, the longhorn mascot. In Japan, there was a special relationship between humans and cows, as I now explain.

In the olden days, Japanese mainly used cows and not horses, for transportation. The famous example is "Gissha"(牛車) that is a wagon pulled by a bull in the "Heian"(平安) period in the 10th century. This was used as the usual commute by aristocrats.  Another example is much more modern. Until the 19th century, cows carried salt in Japan.  But why use a cow and not a horse?  Horses are clearly more powerful than cows.  However, a cow has an advantage over a horse in one thing. As you know, a cow has four stomachs. As a result you do not need to feed him. Cows are to some extent corresponding to a modern hybrid car that has extra stomachs called batteries.

Any life, including humans, needｓ salt. I think everybody in Austin knows about the Salt Lick, a famous BBQ restaurant that is located in southwest Austin. This restaurant has a branch at the Austin-Bergstrom Airport. The wife of the founder of this restaurant is a Japanese woman who came from Hawaii. I heard that the name Salt Lick comes from the fact that there was rock salt around that place. A hunter found this place, because many deer came together to lick salt. It is the same for humans. No matter how deep in the mountains you live in Japan, you need salt. Hence, some one has to bring it. You do not need to make a broad path for cows; moreover it is economical, as you need not feed them as mentioned above. As a result, there were many roads of salt, just like a spider's web all over the deeper mountains in Japan.

However, there is a danger to use cows to carry salt in these roads in the mountains. When the caravan sleeps at night, wolves attack them, not for meat, but for salt. You could avoid its happening by building a camp fire when you sleep. If the fire stops, wolves attack the salt, and occasionally they attack you and the cows, too.

In the olden days, Japan was a feudal country and there were many local lords. "Onmitsu" (隠密), the spies of the central government, and outlaws could travel all over Japan using the web of roads for cows without being noticed by local governments. Indeed, there were 276 local lords in the Edo period (17th to 19th century), and there were checkpoints on each main street on the border of their territory. All Japanese had learned at school that each government was quite sensitive to someone breaking through a barrier. However, the web of roads for cows was in practice a big loophole, and many people could sneak past the barrier through the web.

Cows look dull and do not have as elegant bodies as horses do, just as dull as a Toyota Prius. However, Japanese made the Prius, and everybody now likes it. I think the idea of the economic hybrid car was known in Japan through cows long before the car was invented.