### 5. Culture which reflects Natural Background

Lastly we will consider Japan’s indigenous culture that reflects natural background.

Our cultural activities reflect our lifestyle and the environment in which we live. We exchange the wisdom and techniques through communication with people from other cultural backgrounds. Cultural activities are also a means of expression of life satisfaction, passion and happiness of being alive. The nature that surrounds our everyday life has a significant influence on our culture.

In recent years, some natural objects seem to disappear from us, though these are used to be close to us. The Japan Meteorological Agency, which conducts phenological observation, has decided not to observe black-spotted pond frogs and fireflies, which has become difficult to continue to observe in cities, since 2011.

It has also become difficult to watch the stars in the night sky, although in the past millions stars could be seen. In Collection of the Ten Thousand Leaves (edited around $ 7^{th} $ to $ 8^{th} $ century. Japanese name of “the Man-Yoshu”), which is an important classic and oldest collection of poetry in Japan, poets and common people of the time wrote about a wide variety of subjects in nature. Here is the brilliant poem “High above the Sky, which is the Sea, the Wave of Clouds Rise and I Can See the Moon Ship is Rowed into the Forests of Stars,” written by Hitomaro no Kakimoto. This poem supposes that the sky is the sea, clouds are a wave, and the moon is a ship, and he created the poem with a unique and elegant emotion in which that “moon ship” disappears into the “forests of stars.”

However, in modern Japan’s night sky it has become difficult to feel a situation of such limitless stars as “forests of stars.” Ministry of the Environment defines monitoring points of a nationwide starry sky. The ratio of points where Cygnus including Deneb could be seen was approximately 50% of the 318 monitoring points without clouds and other obstacles in August 2009. Cygnus could be seen at over 80% of places in forests and mountain areas, which are thought to have few street lamps, while it could be seen only at approximately 10% of commercial areas (Figure 2-1-10). The scenery of a night sky with many visible stars is one of beautiful sceneries that people who live in city have lost.

Natural objects and natural sceneries around us are continuing to be lost in recent years. How does it affect on the culture in the future? Here we will take a look at examples of animals and plants mentioned in the poems gathered in Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves.

In the “Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves” including approximately 4,500 poems, it is possible to identify approximately 50 species of wild animals and approximately 140 species of wild plants. As wild mammals, deer, wild boar and whales are included. In the poems, these species give expression of not only poetic feelings but also awareness of wildlife as food resources.

Wild birds appear as symbols of seasons, such as cuckoos and bush warblers for spring symbols. There were also birds as game species such as pheasants and ducks. In addition, in Hinkyu-mondo-ka (meaning of Accusation against Poverty), which was written by Yamanoue Okura, who is known as a social poet of that time, White's Thrush appears as a symbol of loneliness, whose night song inspires loneliness because of its far-carrying voice and high notes.

In modern Japanese poems, the expression of wildlife has changed considerably. For example, in “Modern Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves in Heisei period” (edited by The Yomiuri Shinbun, 2009), which selected modern poems from a general call for submission. In 1,000 poems of this modern “Collection”, there are approximately 30 for identified plant species, which was about 30% of the original “Collection”. There are trends of an increase in the ratio of pets and garden species in

Figure 2-1-10 Ratios of Times Cygnus Could be Seen (By Place of Observation)

Source: Nationwide starry sky continuous observation study by the Ministry of the Environment

Table 2-1-3 Species of Wildlife and Main Species of Animals That Appear in “Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves”

Number of species of wildlife (*1)	Main wild animals that appear (number of poems in which they appear (*3))
Wild animals	Wild plants
Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves	Approx. 50 species	Approx. 140 species	Deer (approx. 60 poems), whale (12 poems), cuckoo (approx. 150 poems), goose (approx. 100 poems), quail (8 poems), White's Thrush (5 poems), sweetfish (15 poems), others
Heisei Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves (*2)	Approx. 20 species	Approx. 30 species	Duck (4 poems), goose (3 poems), bush warbler (2 poems), deer (1 poem), others

Souece: Created by the Ministry of the Environment, using information from Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves, Heisei Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves, Classical Dictionary of Plants (Shu Matsuda, Kodansha Ltd.), etc.

$ ^{*} $ 1: Except when referring to general names of living organismssuch as bird, turtle, etc. in general the species given allow identification up to the scientific family name.

$ ^{*} $ 2: Heisei Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves refers to the poetry compilation of the same name that was publicized by the Yomiuri Shimbun in 2009.

$ ^{*} $ 3: The number of poems appearing in Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves was tallied based on the Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves Text by Makoto Komura of the Education Department of Yamaguchi University. Except for names that appear as personal nouns, such as place names, the ones that appeared as set epithets were included. There are several different theories about interpretation of the names of animal and plant species that appear in Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves, and the numbers of species and numbers of poems appeared in are reference numbers.