Ten Thousand Things

"Ten Thousand Things" is a Buddhist expression representing the dynamic interconnection and simultaneous unity and diversity of everything in the universe.

Sunshowers: Multicultural Atmospheric Sign for Animal Weddings and Heinz Insu Fenkl on Asian Fox Brides

Posted March 27, 2006 by Jean Miyake Downey

At Language Hat, there's also a terrific discussion on kitsune no yomiire or 'fox's wedding':

"The kitsune no yomiire or 'fox's wedding' usually refers to a particular pattern of light. This usually occurs late afternoon when the sun is low (but not always), and there is fairly heavy cloud cover in most of the sky but particularly in the east. The illuminating effect of the light on west facing surfaces is in strong contrast to nearby dark surfaces. In this part of the world (England), there are frequent sunshowers, but only a few of them would be described as a 'fox's wedding'. (Dave Cragg)"

Reading this inspired a journey to discover more about this phrase because I loved the fox wedding during a sunshower scene in Kurosawa's "Dreams."

Apparently, cultures all over the world have responded to rains during sunlight, creating folktales about fox wedding, as well as other animal weddings, associated with this phenomenon, according to a Wikipedia article:

In South African English, it is referred to as a "monkey’s wedding," a loan translation of the Zulu umshado wezinkawu, a wedding for monkeys. In Afrikaans, it is referred to as jakkalstrou, jackals wedding, or also as jakkals trou met wolf se vrou, meaning "when the jackal marries the Wolf's wife."

In Arabic, it seems the term is “the rats are getting married”, while Bulgarians prefer to speak of bears doing so. In Hindi, it becomes “the jackal’s wedding.” One animal, the fox, crops up all over the world, from Japan to Armenia; there’s even an English dialect term, “the foxes’ wedding,” known from the south west of England. In Calabria, it is said that “when it rains with sun, the foxes are getting married.” Other betrothed parties include tigers (Korea), witches (Spain), the poor (Greece), and leopards (various African languages). In Polish, the saying is that “when the sun is shining and the rain is raining, the witch is making butter.”

This essay, "Fox Brides and Other Dangerous Women," by Korean-American writer, Heinz Insu Fenkl, author of a lyrical autobiographical novel about growing up in Korea, Memories of My Ghost Brother, fascinated me as much as the rest of his work. I also loved the mixed-media of "Kitsune" by his wife, Anne B. Dalton (© 1999, at right).

Of course, foxes in Korean folk tales are not always female, but they are predominantly so, and almost always evil. They are generally seductive creatures that entice unwary scholars and travelers with the lure of their sexuality and the illusion of their beauty and riches. They drain the men of their yang – their masculine force – and leave them dissipated or dead (much in the same way La Belle Dame Sans Merci in Keats's poem leaves her parade of hapless male victims). In Korean the term for fox, "yowu," also refers to a conniving and cunning woman, quite similar to the term "vixen" in English, which is not quite as pejorative. Although Americans will use the modifier "foxy" to describe an attractive woman, Koreans would only use that term for its negative connotations.

Korean fox lore, which comes from China (from sources probably originating in India and overlapping with Sumerian lamia lore) is actually quite simple compared to the complex body of fox culture that evolved in Japan. The Japanese fox, or kitsune, probably due to its resonance with the indigenous Shinto religion, is remarkably sophisticated. Whereas the arcane aspects of fox lore are only known to specialists in other East Asian countries, the Japanese kitsune lore is more commonly accessible. Tabloid media in Tokyo recently identified the negative influence of kitsune possession among members of the Aum Shinrikyo (the cult responsible for the sarin attacks in the Tokyo subway). Popular media often report stories of young women possessed by demonic kitsune, and once in a while, in the more rural areas, one will run across positive reports of the kitsune associated with the rice god, Inari.

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