Socialist Glory (2): Color

Every time I get a new pile of stamps, my daughter goes through them and gets first pick. I get the leftovers.

How does she choose? Bright colors are good, and things from nature: flowers, animals, more flowers. Anime characters. Maybe another flower (Japan issues so many flower stamps….) She grabs every stamp she likes and has built quite a backlog of unsorted stamps. The work of sorting them and putting them into albums is not as exciting as grabbing the stamps that grab her.

Recently I started trading with someone in the US and got a very nice batch of oldies, some 120+ years old. All old stamps, none colorful, none of interest to my daughter. My friend in Sweden just sent an assortment of recent Swedish stamps – all colorful, all nature-related. I am debating whether or not to show them to my daughter…

The stamp above is full of color. Not so interesting, really – oh boy, tractors in the fields! Workers unite! Yar! But it was issued in 1975 – China was still in the throes of the Cultural Revolution. It was not a colorful time in China – everyone wore drab Mao suits in subdued blues and greys.

And here is a stamp positively brimming over with vivid colors. I would like to know more about how such a colorful stamp was issued at that time in Chinese history.

日本語 hints:
- get first pick = to have the first choice, the initial selection
- leftovers = 残り物 – usually used for food (i.e. curry rice tonight, curry rice tomorrow morning, curry rice again the next night…)
- anime = anime. Like sushi and manga, this word is now used globally as part of English
- backlog = 未処理分, unfinished work, things left over to do
- something grabs me = it gets my attention (this stamp grabbed me); つかむ
- batch = a group, an assortment
- Cultural Revolution = 文化大革命
- drab = colorless, unexciting
- Mao suit = 人民服上下 (Mao = 毛沢東)
- subdued = 色等が和らげられた、地味な
- brimming over with xxx = completely full of; あふれている
- vivid = bright and splendid; 色があざやかな

二宮尊徳

I was walking around Tokyo after an all-day tai ji quan (太極拳) seminar and in the best of moods. I stumbled across a pair of statues, as seen in these pictures. So very different, this pair of famous figures from Japanese history.

西郷隆盛 Saigo Takamori, sometimes referred to as the “last true samurai”. He has had a sudden surge in popularity due to an NHK drama. I recently found a flyer for a mysteriously Saigo Takamori-themed shop in my mailbox.

Recently, I use him and 虻 chan in juxtaposition when teaching about non-verbal communication. His famous statue in Ueno Park never moves, has no facial expression, no hand gestures, etc. (= common communication style among my first-time students). Then there is Abu-Chan, one half of the xxx duo. She is a model of ample use of facial expression, hand gestures, and so on. So I use those two as opposite ends of a continuum.

二宮尊徳 Ninomiya Sontoku – his statues are often found in front of Japanese elementary schools – always reading a book while walking with a load of wood. = hard worker and earnest student. I read once that, while in abject poverty, he collected the grains of rice forgotten or discarded by others, and planted them on tiny plots of abandoned land. From those humble beginnings he rose to become a much admired and respected agricultural leader.

What does all this have to do with stamps? I was thinking about my current approach to collecting. I am gathering the discarded leftovers of others. I thrill to find a marked-down album with a few spare pages that a stamp dealer no longer needs. I thrill even more when walking home after purchasing a box with thousands of stamps from around the world for a very low price.

For the dealers, these are just unneeded duplicates with little or no value. But to me, they are the beginning of a new collection of stamps and have great satisfaction and value.

I wouldn’t begin to compare myself to Ninomiya Sontoku and his accomplishments, but the minor parallel - collecting the unwanted leftovers from someone else and creating something with them – struck me.

日本語 hints
stumble across = find unexpectedly
a surge in popularity = suddenly becoming much more popular
flyer = ちらし
juxtaposition = putting two opposites together, 並列
facial expression = 表情
continuum = spectrum, range, or 連続体 (but this is for math…)
statue = 象、彫像, etc.
poverty = having no money, 貧乏、貧困 (abject = extreme)
leftover = 残り物
purchase = buy
discarded = thrown away, not needed
duplicate = extra (unwanted) copy of something (this is adjective or 形容詞. This word can also be a verb with the same spelling but different pronunciation.