More on the Koi

Season 2, Episode 5: Chaos

Koi are actual animals that you may have seen in decorative ponds in fancy places.  In the US and most of the world, "koi" is the term used for a specific species of Japanese carp, which are patterned or speckled and come in a variety of colors--mostly orange, white, and black.  Early koi in Japan were kept in muddy ponds, which were common near rice patties.  The fish were used as a food source in addition to rice and veggies.  But the koi soon started to show mutations of different colors and, instead of eating those, they were kept as collectors items.  Koi breeding really took off in the early 1900s, spreading to the rest of the world.

In fact, my favorite phone game, Zen Koi, is one where you breed koi until you collect them all, eventually ascending them to dragon-hood.  You may also be familiar with Magikarp, the carp-like Pokemon that's pretty much useless until it evolves into Gyrados, the huge water dragon.

Koi are associated with joy, luck, beauty, both friendly and romantic love, strength, and courage.  There's a lot to get into with them.

But the koi episode of the podcast is specifically in conversation with a legend from the late Han Dynasty.  In it, a school of golden koi were swimming upstream in the Yellow River, trying to leap the waterfall at the end to reach the Dragon's Gate.  Most of the koi were not brave or strong enough to make it up the waterfall, but it's said that after a hundred years of trying, one finally succeeded and was transformed into a dragon. Thus, koi are symbols of perseverance, determination, and destiny fulfilled.

These are, of course, virtues that people want and identify with, so koi images appear all over the place.  Koi tattoos are super popular.  Koinobori, windsocks that look like koi, are usually flown over houses in Japan in late April and early May in celebration of Children's Day on May 5th, which is part of Golden Week.  Putting up a koinobori is a way to wish for the koi-like virtues of perseverance and determination onto your children.

More on the Tanuki

Season 2, Episode 3: The Weird Raccoon


The tanuki is a creature from Japan.  Unlike most magical creatures, the tanuki actually exists.  It's also called a raccoon dog, and it's a member of the Canidae family, closely related to foxes and wolves  While the real life tanuki is a pretty basic animal, and does basic animal things like find food and hibernate, in folklore they're yokai (a kind of Japanese monster) called Bake-danuki (monster raccoon dog) and are attributed with magical powers.  They are tricksters and have the ability to shape change.  Long ago, the folklore around the tanuki was influenced by Chinese fox-lore, and the tanukis were evil creatures that should be feared.  However, over the years, the image of the tanuki became more playful and goofy.  Now, unlike so many yokai, the tanuki use their shape-shifting powers not to tempt people and then murder them, but to make them look stupid.  They also bring generosity, cheer, and prosperity.

Some examples of the kinds of hi-jinx they get up to:

There was a tanuki that hung out on a bridge, and whenever someone would cross the bridge, it would shave their hair.  There was a tanuki that disguised itself as a child and asked for piggy-back rides, because it loved piggy-back rides.  There was a tnuki who carried an umbrella and offered to share with people who didn't have their own umbrella, but once underneath, they'd be whisked away to another world.  There was a tanuki that disguised itself as a wine bottle, and when people tried to drink from it, it would roll around so they couldn't catch it.  There was a tanuki that disguised itself as a piece of cloth on the side of the road, and when people tried to pick it up, it'd fly out of reach.  Once, a tanuki changed into the shape of a monk and lived at the temple for years, until one day it fell asleep outside and accidentally revealed its true form. The other monks figured that he'd been a pretty good monk and didn't kick him out.

But tanuki are also symbols of prosperity.  Their big bellies are reminiscent of happy Buddhist monks (who used to be considered charlatans, who would deceive you, so the imagery works pretty well in bridging the more wily aspects of the tanuki with its cheerful side.)  Tanuki statues are set outside restaurants and bars, or in the windows.  These statues show the tanuki with a straw hat, a bottle of sake in one hand and a promissory note in the other. They're often depicted to have huge scrotums. Tanuki do have rather noticble testicles, but the exaggeration in some art borders on the absurd. This is because tanuki fur is so strong that gold workers used to wrap the gold in tanuki fur before hammering it down into gold leaf.  In Japanese, a small ball of gold is called a "kin no tama," and testicles are "kintama." Since the two phrases sound so similar, a tanuki's testicles are a symbol of good financial fortune and stretching your money.

There's a 1994 Studio Ghibli movie called Pom Poko, where a bunch of tanuki use their rascal-y trickster powers to stop deforestation.  In Mario games, Mario can put on the tanuki suit and then fly.  There's much debate over if Mario is turned into a tanuki, or if he's wearing a tanuki's skin, but I think the answer to that one is obvious.

For the podcast, I borrow mostly from folklore of the US and Europe.  This is because I try to not to let podcast episodes take too long to write, and I believe that the folklore of other cultures requires and deserves research.  What do their stories mean in the cultural context that produced them?  What did these stories mean when they first appeared--what were people afraid of?  How do people familiar with these creature relate to them: Do they think they're goofy, are they sacred, are they scary, are they obscure or part of daily life?  Failing to grasp the answers to these questions does a disservice to the monster, the folklore, and the people.  And as much as I wish I could be more diverse with the monsters, I'd prefer to have them absent than to do a poor job portraying them.  It's a trade off that I struggle with.

There are only a few instances of monsters outside Eurocentric traditions where I've felt I had a good enough grasp to write about them.  The tanuki is one.  (The koi is another.)  And I hope I did this goofy critter justice.