Outen no Mon - Vol. 4 Ch. 17 - Ariwara no Narihira hosts a salt-grilling banquet

[MangaDex]

 

[Area__]

Musings of the day: Michizane is the fakest idgafer. For as much as he claims that he doesn't care about what happens to him, 5 minutes without Haseo and he starts missing him like a mf (can't really blame him).

Ok, ngl probably my least favorite chapter so far simply because I had to do way too much investigation for just a single manga chapter. And yup, lots of politics this time. But somehow I managed to put all of that in just two translation notes pages.

Also, I love the contrast of Michizane drooling while sleeping in the cover and then him denouncing the injusticies in his society in the actual chapter.

Anyway, see you guys next week!

 

[coyote_vdb]

Thanks for the translation and for the interesting notes at the end.

 

[Cal]

I could be wrong, but I suspect that the "salt grilling" here could even include a form of salt making. Many poems from the Heian period mention the making of salt on the shore. It is usually a part of poems describing sadness, isolation, restlessness. The actual act was probably not elegant, but they made it so with artistic license. Bringing such a scene to the capital would have been quite a novelty.

Not a great source, but a quick search brought up this interesting page:
https://kyotohotelsearch.com/blog/2011/12/26/shioyaki/

 

[Area__]

I could be wrong, but I suspect that the "salt grilling" here could even include a form of salt making. Many poems from the Heian period mention the making of salt on the shore. It is usually a part of poems describing sadness, isolation, restlessness. The actual act was probably not elegant, but they made it so with artistic license. Bringing such a scene to the capital would have been quite a novelty.

Not a great source, but a quick search brought up this interesting page:
https://kyotohotelsearch.com/blog/2011/12/26/shioyaki/

Ooooh, so that's it... I based my whole translation on the supposition that they were grilling seaweed to it. It looks like they were extracting salt from it instead. Man, I feel so stupid now. I swear this chapter will be the end of me...

Thank you so much! You have been immensely helpful! I didn't know real life Narihira did something like this. Well, you learn something new everyday!

I'll read it over again and upload a fixed version either later today or tomorrow (probably tomorrow because I'm a little busy).

 

[private_sub]

isn't it dangerous for him denouncing a bunch of nobles?

 

[sssr]

Ooooh, so that's it... I based my whole translation on the supposition that they were grilling seaweed to it. It looks like they were extracting salt from it instead. Man, I feel so stupid now. I swear this chapter will be the end of me...

Thank you so much! You have been immensely helpful! I didn't know real life Narihira did something like this. Well, you learn something new everyday!

I'll read it over again and upload a fixed version either later today or tomorrow (probably tomorrow because I'm a little busy).

They don't extract salt from it. The seaweed is served together with the grilled fish. It needs to be carried in saltwater to preserve it (seaweed will rot if exposed directly to air). As weird as it sounds, since the salted fish is too salty, you're supposed to wash off the salt with brine, which is the other use for the saltwater they brought. Apparently washing salted fish with freshwater damages the skin.

The actual subversive message of shioyaki has to do with the way the salt trade was governed in Heian Japan. In the Heian era, one of the innovations adopted from China was the creation of salt commissioners, whose job was to control the production of salt and monopolize the trade, thereby controlling the price of salt and giving the central government a steady income. Well, unlike China Japan is an island country, and just about every seaside community produced their own salt, so the salt commissioners had a really rough time doing their job. In fact, a 2015 assessment of the economy of Japan during the Edo period concluded that salt formed a massive chunk of the unrecorded economic activity of Japan and that salt smuggling into China was one of the most important trading relationships of the era. Presumably, the situation in the Heian era was wilder, since Tokugawa control of Japan was far more robust than that of the Heian court.

Basically, a Heian noble inviting peasants to grill food with their own salt was publicly flaunting his political immunity, since he's inviting people who are clearly breaking the law to make the delicacy he's eating.

isn't it dangerous for him denouncing a bunch of nobles?

A bunch of OUT OF POWER nobles, so no. In fact, at this time Sugawara no Koreyoshi was higher-ranked than any of them, both in office and noble rank. The "wara" families were all the same rank and Koreyoshi was head of the Sugawara. The historical Koreyoshi was actually far more powerful than depicted in this manga, as his power was only surpassed by the Fujiwara.

 

[BalrogDeMorgoth]

Thanks for the chapter

 

[Cal]

Ooooh, so that's it... I based my whole translation on the supposition that they were grilling seaweed to it. It looks like they were extracting salt from it instead. Man, I feel so stupid now. I swear this chapter will be the end of me...

Thank you so much! You have been immensely helpful! I didn't know real life Narihira did something like this. Well, you learn something new everyday!

I'll read it over again and upload a fixed version either later today or tomorrow (probably tomorrow because I'm a little busy).

I hope you haven't changed it as I might be wrong, and someone may have just proved it. I just thought the salt grilling looked really interesting and that there was even more to it than even the mangaka stated. There was undoubtedly some flaunting going on as the next person stated, but I considered a potential poetic context as that's more my area.

 

[Area__]

isn't it dangerous for him denouncing a bunch of nobles?

Even if they could do something about, to them Michizane probably looks like a kid throwing a tantrum, so they wouldn't even bother.

A bunch of OUT OF POWER nobles, so no. In fact, at this time Sugawara no Koreyoshi was higher-ranked than any of them, both in office and noble rank. The "wara" families were all the same rank and Koreyoshi was head of the Sugawara. The historical Koreyoshi was actually far more powerful than depicted in this manga, as his power was only surpassed by the Fujiwara.

Also, I love the concept of Koreyoshi being an easy-going old man, but also a political powerhouse.

 

[Area__]

Basically, a Heian noble inviting peasants to grill food with their own salt was publicly flaunting his political immunity, since he's inviting people who are clearly breaking the law to make the delicacy he's eating.

Narihira breaking the law and inviting a bunch of people to see him doing certainly wasn't in my bingo for this chapter. Thank you so much for your input. I learned a lot.

 

[Area__]

I hope you haven't changed it as I might be wrong, and someone may have just proved it. I just thought the salt grilling looked really interesting and that there was even more to it than even the mangaka stated. There was undoubtedly some flaunting going on as the next person stated, but I considered a potential poetic context as that's more my area.

Sorry for taking so long to answer. I ended up deciding not to change anything in the chapter itself lest I messed it up somehow. I only added a couple of paragraphs in the translation (I made it 3 pages long, sorry!)

This topic turned out to be way more exciting, but also more complicated that what I thought initially. Thank you again.