Once upon a time, mice became too many on this small Japanese island, so the people decided to get some cats. Mice are gone now and cats have become more than people, but are very well cared for.

Text is in German but it is self-explanatory ...


http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/katze ... 39-19.html

Hope you enjoy,

Birgit

Your next travel destination, Birgit?
That is a pretty awesome place..I love the fourth picture..almost looks like
something you would see printed on fabric.

Joan,

that is my favourite as well, the perfect mixture of colors and all ears in one direction as if they where all listening to some instructions! I have downloaded it and will use it as my screensaver

Japan is definately on my list but maybe next year. This year its China, I want to see the great wall And Ian I and I will explore Wales together, and the Isle of Man.

How are you holding up in Florida?

Greetings,

Birgit

This looks like the video that goes with these pics:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/weird-news/ ... nd-n316331

Kind of reminds me of life at the cat ranch

Joe,

that is the place And believe it or not, I thought of you..... way to go! But first you need you own island

Birgit

Lots of Orange Men there by the look of it.

wow, and it is so good to see even though the mice are gone, they still take care of all the cats.. I love the really dark tabby with like a lighter brown on a long bib.. thanks
Birget

From what I have read and experienced of the Japanese culture, loyalty is a profoundly held value. Japan is not rich in natural resources, so life had been hard there, very hard. They depended on one another for survival. They also don't seem to make those rigid lines of demarcation between human and animal that we in the Judeo-Christian West make.

And it is true that cats in Japan tend to have stumpier tails -- not Manx-like, but shorter than we are familiar with.

There is a famous trilogy in Japanese literature, I Am A Cat (I, II and III) by Soseki. It is heavy in Meiji-era middle class Japanese culture. The narrator, a nameless cat, comments with curiosity and disdain on the humans around him. He lives with a male university professor. This is the blurb from a New Yorker review on the back cover of the Tuttle edition:
A nonchalant string of anecdotes and wisecracks, told by a fellow who doesn't have a name, and has never caught a mouse, and isn't much good for anything except watching human beings in action ... Parts of this book have a discordant, exotic humor. The cat is insufferable, actually.

Barbara,

you must be right about the different view in the Japanese culture between mankind and animals. Just think of those people who live or go regularey to the area of *, extremely contaminated with nuclear fall out after the desaster, only to feed the animals who had to be left behind by their owners.
These people expose themselves to the radiation, just to asure the animals don't starve.

They have my utmost respect.

Birgit

Birgit,

When I was teaching at a girls' college in Japan, a large and scary looking bug flew in the window. The girls started shrieking as girls do. I decided to calm things down by killing the bug. The girls were horrified and I was embarrassed. I crossed a line. They would have rather escorted the bug back out the window.