Hiroshige Plum Garden

In this day and age, people tend to avoid being different. Fitting in with the status quo when it comes to physical attractiveness is considered the proper thing to do, yet in The Samurai’s Garden, the characters show their beauty in a unique way. Due to their circumstances, Sachi, a once beautiful member of a leper colony, Stephen, a young Chinese student diagnosed with tuberculosis and Matsu, a quiet man who chooses to live in near seclusion, are all regarded as outcasts. However, these challenges give them a chance to grow and mature into truly beautiful people, especially on the inside. Through unveiling Matsu and Sachi’s distinct personalities, Stephen discovers another dimension to beauty; through this, Tsukiyama conveys that the most

Like walking through a barren street in a crumbling ghost town, isolation can feel melancholy and hopeless. Yet, all it takes is an ordinary flower bud amidst the desolation to show life really can exist anywhere. This is similar to Stephen’s journey in The Samurai’s Garden. This novel is about an ailing Chinese boy named Stephen who goes to a Japanese village during a time of war between Japan and China to recover from his disease. By forming bonds with several locals and listening to their stories, he quickly matures into a young adult. Throughout the novel, Gail Tsukiyama shows how disease forces Stephen into isolation; however, Matsu’s garden and Sachi lead him out of solitude.

The Samurai’s Garden, written by Gail Tsukiyama, incorporates the various aspect of myth throughout the plot, from how the Japanese worship to the rituals they perform. Stephan-san, a young Chinese man, when he first arrived in Tarumi Japan, discovered the Japanese ritual of being clean. The Japanese in this book had a strong desire to be sanitary in every aspect of their life both physically and morally. They used to be physically clean to visualize being spiritually clean. Another part of the mythology in this novel was the worshipping of the kami deities. These deities dwelled in the shrine near Tarumi and Stephan-san along with Matsu traveled to the shrine to worship and pray to the kami fox deity, the Inari. Two facets of The

A Chinese plum, Prunus mume, blossoms in the cold of late winter and early spring. It is a classic Asian aesthetic of five petals. “It manages in the

The gardens of both Matsu and Sachi symbolize them, and this gives the reader an insight on each of their respective personalities. Matsu’s garden turns more riveting and reveals more secrets as one goes deeper through it while Sachi’s garden illustrates that beauty can be in all forms. These descriptions of the garden mirror their owners and give more information about them. One example is that in the later portion of The Samurai Garden, it is revealed that Matsu was one of the primary founders of Yamaguchi. Like his garden, Matsu’s tale only becomes more

When Stephen visits Sachi’s garden for the first time, he finds that “There were no trees, flowers, or water, only a landscape made of sand, stones, rocks, and some pale green moss . . . Sachi had created mountains from arranged rocks, surrounded by gravel and elongated stones flowing down like a rocky stream leading to a lake or the sea” (40). Unlike Matsu’s very green and tree-filled garden, Sachi’s garden is very dry, and simplistic, yet has a peculiarly admirable feeling when one is able to see the subtle details. Although it is very different from a typical garden, its components harmonize to create a new and beautiful pattern. At first, Stephen is overwhelmed by the unfamiliar concept of a dry landscape, but after taking it in, he says it is beautiful. This garden is has a fresh taste to it, leaving Stephen to decide the effect it has on him, whether it be positive or negative. When creating the garden, Sachi insisted that it should not have flowers. However, eventually, “between two large rocks grew a neat cluster of blooming flowers, startlingly beautiful, a splash of blue-purple . . . thriving among the muted, gray stones.” The way that the bright colors contrast against the dull gray shows that something unfamiliar and novel can appear beautiful in its own way. Since Sachi’s garden is filled with pebbles and stones, the dainty flowers stand out comely, and to

Characters overcome what life brings them and finding meaning in the things that they have in The Samurai's Garden by Tsukiyama. Stephan who experiences this watches as Matsu and Sachi work in their gardens. The gardens represent their gardener’s soul because they nurture and dictate everything that happens within the gardens walls.

The word isolation is defined as meaning, “The state of being in a place or situation that is separate from others” (Merriam Webster 1). Isolation is very powerful in that it leads to many negative effects and causes people to feel left out, as well as, separated from the group. However, isolation can have differing effects on different people, while isolation can negatively affect some, it can also cause people to find themselves. Through the use of the characters Stephen, Sachi, and Okonkwo, the topic of what isolation really is will be assessed, and what exactly this very same isolation can cause will be found. In Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama, and in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Stephen, Sachi, Okonkwo and Nwoye, are all isolated, thus causing them to strive to regain identity in their new lives.

"The garden is a world filled with secrets. Slowly, I see more each day. The black pines twist and turn to form graceful shapes, while the moss is a carpet of green that invites you to sit by the pond. Even the stone lanterns, which dimly light the way at night, allow you to see only so much. Matsu 's garden whispers at you, never shouts; it leads you down a path hoping for more, as if everything is seen, yet hidden. There 's a quiet beauty here I only hope I can capture on canvas." - Stephen at the beach house planning to paint Matsu 's garden, page 31

Secrets fill the garden. In Gail Tsukiyama’s novel “The Samurai’s Garden”, she uses metaphors to show the audience the garden and its’ curator in a mysterious light. Tsukiyama’s character Stephen gazes upon Matsu’s garden with wonder and amazement. He compares it to another world, “The garden is a world filled with secrets… Matsu’s garden whispers at you, never shouts; it leads you down a path hoping for more, as if everything is seen, yet hidden” (Samurai 31). Tsukiyama creates another world within the fences of the garden. She integrates the secrets of its’ caretaker into the aura of the garden. The metaphor to another world impacts the reader by allowing the reader to see the mystery and beauty that shrouds it. The cloak of beauty shows

Space and colors dominates this piece of art. The artist used a three dimensional space where the road angle created a 3-D look. The road is going narrow as it goes towards the back part and the artist make it look like more realistic by making the trees smaller as well. White and blue color dominates the drawing. Blue symbolizes so many things

The role of gardens play a much more important role in Japan than here in the United States. This is due primarily to the fact the Japanese garden embodies native values, cultural beliefs and religious principles. Perhaps this is why there is no one prototype for the Japanese garden, just as there is no one native philosophy or aesthetic. In this way, similar to other forms of Japanese art, landscape design is constantly evolving due to exposure to outside influences, mainly Chinese, that effect not only changing aesthetic tastes but also the values of patrons. In observing a Japanese garden, it is important to remember that the line between the garden and the landscape that surrounds it is not separate. Instead,

As indicated by the shape in the foreground, the lines that signify the contour of the rocks and freestanding structure merge. The lines lead the eye vertically as it meets the center. When looking at the painting as a whole, the viewer can see how the artist uses straight

“Hibiscus Town” is a 1986 movie which depicts the constantly changing social structure of peasant life in the period leading up to and during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The film looks at peasant life in a small town in China, Hibiscus Town, which acts as a microcosm of China where we are able to observe how the momentum of the Cultural Revolution moved to redefine and transform class boundaries. “Hibiscus Town” concerns itself with the life of Hu Yuyin, the film's protagonist, and how her new label as a class enemy dramatically changes her circumstances.

Firstly, I drew the tree branches at the bottom of the page as a symbol of support. Before I drew this, I have this thought about the ancient world. How was the world being form and how we human came to live on the planet of earth’s? I want to create a visual that shows that however, I have no idea how to draw that so I decided