Ujitada Didnft example essay topic

The Tale of Matsura is based in Medieval Japan. The main character in the story is Ujitada the son of Tachibana no Fuyuaki and Princess Au ska. His is from Fujiwara the old capital of Japan. Since Ujitada was young, he was good at playing many different instruments and soon his skills surpassed his teachers.

He was also ale to compose Chinese poems at seven. At twelve years old he had his ceremony to become an adult. After his ceremony, the king gave Ujitada rank and office in his court. At 16 he became junior fifth tank upper grade and was appointed to sever as a junior assistant Minster of ceremonial, lesser controller of the right and lesser captain of the Imperial Soon the emperor said that Ujitada was going to send him on a envoy to China. Ujitada became very depress because he didnft want to leave his patents and his homeland. While in China, Ujitada became very good at the things he did and impressed the Emperor Wen of China and who soon surpassed the emperor court officials.

He became the emperor favorites and was always by his side and his trusted advisor. The other courtiers and court officials were jealous of Ujitada. One night Ujitada rode in the forest with his horse and one guard. He reached a clearing and saw a house.

From the house he could hear music playing. He went inside the house and saw an old man playing a zither. Ujitada asked the old man could he teach him to play. The old man said he couldnft because he wasnft an expert and that he should go to Mt. Shang at midnight on a full moon and a princess would be there playing a zither.

He told Ujitada that she should nft be controlled by worldly feelings for hew when looked at her. Ujitada did what the old man said and saw the princess. The princess name was Hua-yang and she was the sister of the emperor. Princess Hua-yang taught Ujitada to play the zither and he soon feel in loved with her. At the their last meeting she told him that she loved him and gave him a jewel and told to always remember her. And that when he go back home to Japan he should go to a temple say some prayers and that she would meet him again.

That night she committed suicide. After her death Princes Hua-yang, the emperor became ill. The emperor told Ujitada to protect the crown prince before he died. Once the emperor was dead, the king of yen rose an army and forced the empress Wu and her son, the loyalist and the Japanese courtier to flee the capital. The were in the forest and knew that the great general Yu-Wen Hui was coming after them with his army to kill them.

Empress Wu created a plan to defeat Yu Wen Hui army, She wanted them to hide in the forest on both sides and attack them from behind. The other men didnft like the idea but she got Ujitada to back her plan so they followed it. They surprised Yu-We nfs army. When Yu-Wen saw Ujitada, he started charging at him but then eight identical warriors appeared and killed Yu-Wen and his men and then disappeared. No one else saw the identical warriors and thought Ujitada did it by himself. Before the loyalist army went to the capital they camp to get some rest.

Ujitada had a dream that a god gave him a horse and battle armor. when he woke up the horse and armor was there. When they got to the capital barbarians that the king of yen was there trying to block their way. Then the eight identical warriors appeared again and killed the barbarians and then disappeared. The King of Yen tried to escape but was killed.

Empress Wu son was announced emperor of China but since was so young empress ruled for him in place. Empress Wu gave Ujitada a lot of power and land but he was depressed and wanted to back home. She told him that he could he leave in the summer. When the ocean was calmer. One day he and one of his guard went wandering in the forest with particular place in mid when he heard music from a house. Ujitada went inside the house and smelled plum blossom perfume and a saw a young woman.

He spent the night with the woman. Another woman woke them up and told him that the girl had to leave. Ujitada told his guard to stay there and report if anyone came in and out the house. His guard told him that no one came in and out the house and that when he went inside the house an old lady was in a back room. The old woman told the guard that sometimes travelers spent the night in her house and that she didnft bother them. The lady appeared to Ujitada again and when he asked her who she was and where she came from she told him that she was daughter of a poor fisherman and that she came from the mountains, but she didnft ell him which mountains.

Every time she would come he would smell here perfume. When she stopped coming Ujitada faked being sick so he couldnft go to the meetings at the palace and wait for the lady. The next when she didnft come did he didnft feel good so he didnft go to the meeting. The empress sent people to make sure he was doing well. He began to think that the mystery woman was a demon spirit. When Ujitada went to the meetings the next day, the empress perfume reminded him of the mystery woman and that she also looked like the mystery woman.

He thought was that the mystery woman was a spirit who took the form of the empress. A few weeks before he was to leave, the empress sent her lady-in-waiting to Ujitada apartment to give him a note. In the note she wanted to see him. At the meeting place the empress told Ujitada that she was the woman who had been coming to him at night. She also told him that she wasnft a normal person. In a former life she use to live in second heave and the god Sakara sent her down to earth to be reborn to protect the Emperor Wen because an evil spirit was born in earth as Yu Wen Hui to bring China to ruin.

Sakara choose Ujitada and the him reborn in Japan to hide him and put the god Sui yoshi in charged of him. She also to him that they were both lovers in the second heaven. She told him that she would die when she was forty years old. The day before he left, the empress threw a party for him.

Before the boat left the empress told Ujitada that she died a mirror in his things and that when he looked in to he could see the her. When he got back to Japan, the emperor of Japan promoted Ujitada. Ujitada went to a temple and did what Princess Hua-yang told him do before she died and se was brought back to life in Japan. Ujitada and the princess lived together and the princess became pregnant.

Ujitada forgot bout the empress until one day he found the mirror. He looked in the mirror and saw the empress sitting at a pound. He began to feel guilty for about loving the princess, He wonder if princess was really the empress. He asked her about it and the princess cried and that how the book ended. Personally, I liked the Tale of Matsura it was good at telling the lives of the royalty and the elite class. The story was easy to follow and things that were obscure there a lot of footnotes in the story to explain.

For example it explained why the story gave two different ages for the old man. Before the story begin its a lot of information that explains every aspect of the story. What I like about the story is that sometimes Ujitada and the other people sometimes had conversations in poems. They had the poem in romanize Japanese and the English translation next to it. I liked that because I was able to practice some of my Japanese skill by reading the poem in Japanese and correct myself by reading the translation. The story does nft have much of a plot to it because Ujitada didnft have a goal to accomplish when he went to China.

The story just follow series of events that happen to him. The story didnft grab my attention and so I thought it was boring at some times. It also didnft give much detail on how on the characters looked like. They just describe someone saying she was beautiful and that was it.

It didnft really build up to some of the events in the story. Some parts of the story was quite predictable like the mystery woman being the empress but I didnft expect the circumstance of their love. I got lost in the story because twice in the book it says the pages were lost and they went to another part of the story. Like many of the Japanese written in the medieval times and until 1860's that I read it didnft have a good ending. The ending wasnft happy or sad. I didnft really care the ending because it was to abrupt and didnft come to a conclusion.

I was left guessing what happen to Ujitada. When I read the story I could tell obvious Buddhist influence in the story because a lot of the characters kept talking about former and future lives. I also learned how much the Japanese looked up to China and tried to imitate them. And that China really looked down on the Japanese because they were just copying them. The author of The Tale of Matsura was written by Fujiwara Teika. He was born from 1162 to 1241.

He was a poet and literary theorist of the early medieval period. He was the son of the poet Shunzei. He is considered one of great writers of Japan. Teika continued to perfect his art, producing poetry and poetic treatises, as well as compiling anthologies, such as the highly regarded Shinkokinwakashu, an imperially commissioned poetry anthology, and the Hyakunin Is shu. His style changed throughout his career, he is best known for verse of haunting beauty and rich symbolism. All in all, Tale of Matsura is a good book for those who want to learn more about Japan during the medieval age.

It gives detail about their belief and how important Buddhism was important to some of the people at the time and how China was a big influence to Japan..