#kaimami

There’s a Japanese word, kaima-mi (垣間見), which describes looking through bushes to watch the object of your affection.

During the Heian era kaima-mi was a popular trope, in which a suitor snuck a first peek at his beloved through the hedge. Since noblewomen usually were living secluded from everyone else, this was the only way of catching a glimpse of them.

Fun fact: because sisters were often raised apart from brothers once they were a bit older, it was not unusual for two siblings to not know each other at all and to have grown up without any contact. This occasionally led to a brother seeing his grown-up sister for the first time via kaima-mi and falling in love with her.

Tale of Genji stories in one post - see full gallery on Instagram.

1) (2nd photo) Nonomiya Jinja is a Shinto shrine located inside the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, a pit stop for Imperial princesses on their way to serve as priestess of the Ise Grand Shrine/Jingu - like Akikonomu in the Tale of Genji. They had an informal quiz which @atorier translated for me. I failed 0 for 5. 2 questions were about character ages at various points of the story (I was within 5-8 years!!). 2 I misunderstood to be about Murasaki the character when they were actually about Murasaki Shikibu and was thoroughly confused at when these things were indicated in the story lmao. The last asked who was the model for Hikaru Genji. Scholars disagree on this and I’m personally in the court of Genji not being based on one particular figure, but I gamely answered Ariwara no Narihira. They used Minamoto no Toru. So much for my street cred.

2) At the Tale of Genji Museum in Uji I was excited to play the Genjiko incense guessing game! Basically it involves smelling a sequence of 5 incenses, identifying which are identical, and marking your guess with the matching Genjiko mon/seal. I thought their setup with stamps for each mon was very well-done. I got it right and the staff gave me a sticker that says I did it!!! I think they purposefully made it easy with really obviously different scents though…

3) Fukuju Saryo cafe (mentioned in my previous Uji post) had a pair of drinks based on the two main rivals of the Uji Chapters!! At first I was like “why is Niou matcha latte and Kaoru houjicha latte 🤨” then “oh houjicha is mild and matcha is bitter, okay I accept that.” @atorier was like “so judgey 🙄” I’m just excited I got to say “Kaorunokimi kudasai” which made the waitress chuckle 😂😂😂 and that I got to go to the closest thing to a Tale of Genji character cafe.

4) The museum had a lot of mannequins recreating the kaimami (peeping through screens and fences) scenes, and a section where you could see what it looks like to peek through Heian blinds, so I made a photo comic. Thanks Zanazac for modelling a sexy Heian lady.