Always Honeymoon ([info]alwayshoneymoon) wrote,
@ 2004-01-24 16:42:00
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Cats of Nara
No, really. The next place we went was Nara, an ancient city that predates Kyoto, etc. Naturally, it has lots of temples, Buddhist art, and so on. So before I load up all that, I'm giving you and me a break by featuring some of the rather well-fed street cats of Nara. (I'm guessing that unlike in Nepal, the temples take care of the cats.)



I first spotted the cats near one of the major temple/historical complexes.




This looks like an old, old kitty.



Mistress of all she surveys.



Taking a bath in the winter afternoon sun.



Approaching quasi-wild kitties for photography is not that easy. The first cat in the photo was also being targeted by a guy with a telephoto lens and professional camera.



All I know about the history of cats in Japan is that Kij Johnson says, in her novel Fudoki, they were imported, relatively late (compared to Nara) from Korea. Cats who are colored red, black, and white (i.e., calico) are considered the most lucky.

Speaking of cats, we went into a pet-themed store in Tokyo. It appeared to have a side wing where, for 600 yen, you could play with kitties for an hour. Aw.

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[info]camicizam
2004-01-24 06:49 pm UTC (link)
It's funny how it was different in Nepal. Wonder why that is? Is it a different ideology? I remember a monk stopping me from stepping on a mouse in a dark room of one of the monastaries we were at, yet dogs and cats were skinny and starving in the streets. How does the animal hierachy work?

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[info]catamorphism
2004-01-24 07:31 pm UTC (link)
Parts of Spain and Portugal seemed to have a lot of street kitties too, more than I'd seen anywhere in the US. Then again, maybe it's just a matter of urbanized/suburbanized places versus not-so-urban places.

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[info]camicizam
2004-01-24 10:26 pm UTC (link)
My cat [info]princelulu was a stray from Spain. Humongous plane ride to get him over here. I think he thinks he's an exchange student of some sort.

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[info]kijjohnson
2004-02-08 01:39 pm UTC (link)
Legend has it that they were brought in by Emperor Ichijo, which would date it to 1000ad or whatever -- right about when Sei Shonagon and Murasaki Shikibu were writing. Hoever, Sei Shonagon writes an ancedote about a cat at court, and she doesn't indicate that cats are a great novelty, only that this one in particular is special. This makes me think that cats came in earlier, either with a Korean embassy or with the monks who occasionaly went to and from the mainland, and that their territory had been expanding slowly across the main island.

Still, I like the idea that the first cat was a gift to the emperor, and that every Japanese cat is his, her, or its descendant.

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[info]alwayshoneymoon
2004-02-08 01:43 pm UTC (link)
My guidebook mentions a pet cemetery in Tokyo that's mostly occupited by lots of live stray-but-cared-for cats. I kind of wanted to go there.

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