Book - Under the Cherry Blossom Tree - Original Japanese?

[celticflower]

Hello

I just bought a book called Under the Cherry Blossom Tree [or Once under the cherry blossom tree], it's an old Japanese tale retold by Allen Say and I bought it because I really liked the illustrations and sound of the story even though it's classed as a children's book, [I wish they'd done a bilingual version!].

I'd like to see it in Japanese even though I won't be able to read it!

I know that sounds ridiculous

Does anyone know the story's Japanese name? Is it available online?

I've tried Google [and a quick forum search], but have only come up with the book I bought and a dodgy looking film that's apparently a Japanese ghost story

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=87Vm ... &q&f=false


The books says it's a folktale, and inside it says:

In joke houses (yose) throughout Japan, countless generations of audiences have been entertained by joke tales called rakugo, which means dropped words or punch line. A performer, whose success is largely determined by his individual style of telling, always begins with a short tale - called a pillow (makura) - intended to set the mood for the longer stories to follow. Under the Cherry Blossom Tree, one of the most popular and ancient makura, is a classic example of this distinctive tradition of humor.

Thanks

[ピーター]

　Now, I'm no expert, so take everything I say with a pinch of salｔ.

Directly translated, the book's title comes out to Sakura no Ki no Shita (de), or 桜の木の下(で), and indeed there seem to be several books of that name. (I included the de in brackets because I'm not sure whether it would necessarily have to be included.)

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E6%A1%9C%E3%81%AE%E6%9C%A8%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%8B%E3%81%A7-%E5%A5%A5%E7%94%B0-%E6%B4%8B%E5%AD%90/dp/4835569040/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273521994&sr=1-6 <- This looks promising, but I've no idea if that's the same book you have. Does it have the Japanese author's name in the book you have?

[celticflower]

Hello,

You had the same idea as me, I've tried some searches with variations of the following (even though I have no idea what I'm doing )

桜の木の下
桜の下　(I think this may be correct as I found a nice picture using it as a title )
物語 (tale, story, legend)
本 (book)

And had no luck. I wasn't sure if 木 (tree?) was needed either as 桜 comes up as cherry tree as well as cherry blossom in my the dictionary of my JWPce software.

EDIT: I'm an idiot, you're going to need tree in as well, as it's Cherry Blossom and Tree in the title and you'd need to show the difference, context and all that. Still no luck though!

No, no sign of the author or the orginal work is in the book I have. It was published by http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com There's no extra info there either. I supose I could ask, but it's not really worth bothering them about. I'm just interested.

I don't think the book you linked too is the one, I used altavista translate to look at the page and it says non-fiction as one of the categories.

But thank you for trying

[Harisenbon]

I tried to look for まかしばんし（昔話) that used さくらのき, but there were so many results, that I couldn't find one.

There are many folktales throughout the various regions of Japan, and it is not guaranteed that the folktale in that book is a common one, or is even known outside of a small area.

If you do end up finding it, please tell me though, I would be interested in reading it as well.

[becki_kanou]

Did some quick googling and I think the story you want is called 頭山 or Head Mountain. It's the story of an old man who has a cherry tree growing from his head, correct?

I found a DVD available from Amazon.jp but it's rather pricey, about $75 (USD)

[celticflower]

-Harisenbon, thanks for trying


-becki_kanou, yes it is about an old man who has a cherry tree growing out of his head, I should have told people what it was about, sorry. I'm a bit paranoid about putting my foot in it with spoilers, but I if I want help you'd need them!

DVD is far too expensive, I've just used up the last of my Christmas money at YesAsia.com buying some music dvds and cds so no more treats for me for a while!

And yes, the dvd you found does seem to be an updated anime version of the tale from 2002: http://nishikataeiga.blogspot.com/2006/ ... -2002.html

Thanks for looking


I guess I'll leave the search for now and try again sometime in the future as you never know when something will turn up!

-Love both your icons by the way!


-And completely off topic. ピー ター I’m jealous, do a search for this text on Google [I was curious about it meant ] and your name comes up, well I’m assuming it’s your name. I do a search using what’s supposed to be my name, クレア and I get a magazine and a research site of some sort, typical!

Thanks again everyone.

EDIT: I stumbled across this nice little Japanese site that has lots of stories/folktales on, but not the one we were looking for. Still you might be interested:
http://www.fujipan.co.jp/hagukumu/minwa ... n/tottori/