Samuel Pepys and Bunzaemon Asahi
Around the time of the “Genroku” era (around 1700s in Japan), here and there on earth, there were two people who looked exactly alike. One was Bunzaemon Asahi (1674 – 1718), a magistrate at Nagoya Castle, and the other was Samuel Pepys (1633 – 1703), a London naval bureaucrat. The two men are too similar to be entirely coincidental. Samuel Pepys played the lute, recorder, and other instruments well, and in his diary we find about it. Asahi Bunzaemon also enjoyed playing the gekkin and sangen (three-stringed instrument). A love of the theater is also shared by both of them. There are other similarities as well, so I will list them below.
(1) He kept a diary.
(2) He likes to drink.
(3) Loves the theater
(4) Likes gossip
(5) Likes bribes
(6) A fearful husband
(7) excels in both the literary and military arts
(8) Plays a musical instrument
Et cetera…
And the final thing is “bullshit words”. Whenever there is a “inconvenient” part in his diary that he does not want his wife to read, for example, Samuel Pepys makes up some incomprehensible words in a mixture of English and Latin. Bunzaemon, on the other hand, would make up incomprehensible Chinese sentences. I read the diaries of these two men decades ago, Pepys’ in Iwanami Shinsho and Asahi Bunzaemon’s in Chuko Bunko (now a new book). They are very interesting, so if you have a chance, please read them and compare them. #diary #pepys #片山俊幸
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/
