(I hope I worked on this assignment right, and I'm sorry for the long entry, I had a lot to say, it was interesting. While reading A Personal View of Japanese Culture, it was interesting to read how Ango found beauty and interest in places like the Arashiyama Theater or factories, and didn't find other famous places moving. When I looked into the Ise Jingu website, and read a little about the Shikinen Sengu ritual, I immediately thought of the comments Ango made about sacred buildings being pointless, even though one of the rituals involves building a new sacred building, keeping remade sacred items safe in it, and keeping the older buildings intact for use. I found it interesting because Ango is right, these buildings could be remade if it were to fall apart or burn down and nothing would seem to change as long as dedicated people continue their ideals. On the other hand, storing/preserving these buildings for its importance and use is a great deal too. I found myself having mixed feelings about Angos perspective, it was a good read and I hope I understood the reading.)

Quotation: "Recorded on the finest paper by the finest hands of the day and then stored in elegant boxes of the same sort used to store Buddhist sutras, these collections came to symbolize the heritage of court society." Traditional Japanese Poetry, p. 74

I thought this quote from the reading was interesting in relation to this source as, in the introduction, the author mentions the ways these poems were created, handled, viewed, and used among Japanese society. Reading the poems from the PDF version and then seeing an example of these poems in its proper form, how poems were stored, and being able to see its described high quality material is incredible. These Japanese poem collections have been around for a long time, being able to notice some of the materials mentioned is astonishing, and the fact that these poem collections continue to survive to this day and beyond shows the importance of them, and how good others in the past have stored the poems. This source has collected/preserved the poem collections in remembrance, and share knowledge of the distant past. These poems were created from poets all over Japan, from the middle class, to officials releasing their creative sides to embrace tradition, or in hopes of having their work memorialized in some manner. It's interesting to learn how these poem collections were passed around from one family to another, it's one way that shows the importance of these poems.