Cats are very popular in Japan. Every February 22nd is the Japanese Cat Festival. The cat is the biggest that day, because the pronunciation of 222 in Japanese is like the cat’s meow. On this day, people will dress up as cute or sexy cat girls to celebrate, and they will also make various cat-shaped foods, such as cats, donuts, and cat rice balls to express their love for cats. Thank you for being with the cats. Happy life. Today we will talk about the happy life of Japanese cats!
The Japanese cat that first appeared in front of the people has a prominent position, which is very different from the Chinese cat when it was first defined as a mouse or domestic animal. In ancient times, Japanese cats were treasures that only the relatives of the imperial family could enjoy. They were recorded in the annals of Japanese history, beginning in the Heian period. In the literature at that time, cats were called Tang cats. At the same time, China was in the Tang Dynasty, and Japan would send Tang envoys to study in China. At that time, in order to introduce Buddhist scriptures, but I was afraid that the scriptures would be bitten by mice, so I simply brought in the cats.
In the beginning, you can only see someone raising a cat in the Japanese court. Emperor Udo of the Tang Dynasty Cat era, known as the Emperor Maozhi Emperor, quoted scriptures and literary talents in the Kanping Imperial Records and praised his own black cat to the sky. All other coat colors are light black, but this cat is as black as ink; walking silently is like a black dragon on a cloud; the ferocity of catching mice at night is better than other cats! This transcript is the earliest surviving cat diary in Japan. If Emperor Uta is a cat idiot, then the emperor is even more exaggerated.
After the birth of his female cat, the emperor not only called on the minister's wife and concubines to celebrate the cat’s birthday, but also invited a nursing mother to the female cat who had just given birth. An emperor called this female cat Madam Meifu. This was the first cat in Japanese history to have her own name. The status of the maiden in the palace is from five or more. You can understand it as a noble woman. In the Kamakura period, Japanese nobles began to popularize bobtail cats. why?
is said to have been influenced by various cat fairy tales in China, and there are also some legends among Japanese folks. For example, a cat that has been raised in a noble family for many years has turned into a fine, and the tail is divided into two. They can speak human words and walk like human beings. What's more terrifying is that this kind of cat can make people have nightmares and make the dead dance, which sounds weird. After racking their brains, the Japanese nobles began to pet the short-tailed cats with genetic mutations. After all, the tail is so short, how could it be split into two strands? Isn’t that scary, right?
Today, the Japanese bobtail is still a unique breed of Japan, and the well-known lucky cat is a Japanese bobtail. If you are interested, you can take a look at my previous article about Lucky Cat. In the Edo period, Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered cats not to be kept in captivity due to a serious rodent infestation, and since then cats have been stocked. The rat infestation was well managed, and from here onwards, cats entered the homes of ordinary people. The realization of the top-down popularization from the emperor to the common people, aristocratization to civilianization, may also be precisely because of this aristocratic atmosphere that makes Japanese people love cats even more!
Japan is a country with heavy fisheries, and it cherishes rice. Cats can catch rats and protect food, which is indeed very important to the Japanese. It is said that more than 90% of the pets kept by the Edo people were cats. There are many stories about cats in Japanese classical literature, such as "I Am a Cat" by famous writer Natsume Soseki such as Genji Tale. It personifies the cat. Use the cat’s mouth to vent the irony and dissatisfaction with the darkness of society. The famous ukiyo-e painter Utagawa Kuniyoshi in the Edo period is also a typical cat slave. I like to draw cats. For example, the three joint paintings of "The Cat Feeds Fifty-Three Horses" are combined into one, and there are exactly 53 cats. Amazing!
The cat is still a spiritual animal in the eyes of the Japanese. There are various legends and stories in Japan. The Japanese believe that a person who has perfected spiritual practice will first become attached to the cat after he passes away. Take a look at home, and then to Paradise. There is a saying in Japanese, God and Buddha each serve. What does this sentence mean? It is said that the sacred and the temples each worship their own gods, but the cats are in different sacreds and temples.With worship, it can be seen that the cat has an extraordinary position among the gods.
It is unprecedented to have a cat as the railway station master. Haven't heard of it before! Kodama, the cat station chief of Kishi Station in Wakayama, Japan, is world-famous. Xiaoyu not only has a majestic stationmaster hat, stationmaster tag, and an exclusive office. Cat webmasters are so charming that they attracted more than 2.2 million tourists from home and abroad in 2010 alone. But on June 22, 2015, Xiaoyu left because of heart failure. In addition to the net red cats in real life, there are also many classic cat images in Japanese anime. Cat culture is quite popular in Japan!
