Sunshine Through the Rain

I watched the clip of "Sunshine Through the Rain".  In this clip the little boy disobeyed his mother by going somewhere he should not have.  He was told not to go see these people in the woods because they would get mad.  Well he went there anyway and they saw him, basically he got caught.  When he returned home his mother would not let him in the house and gave him an object.  The people in the woods had came to her and said they saw the little boy and that he must kill himself for the honor of the family.  The mom will not even let him go inside, but she told him that he had to kill himself or go find the people and apologize.  So, the boy sets off to find the people under the rainbow. 


Now I believe this relates to Shinto because of the honor that the mother has.  If there is a dishonor the person is expected to commit a ritual suicide.  This ritual suicide is to save the family from being dishonored.  They think that dishonor is worse than death.  This religion also stresses courage.  I think that it takes great courage for the mother to be able to tell her own son that he needs to kill himself or find the men and apologize.  I am not saying that I agree with it at all, but am trying to put it in the perspective of a Shinto person. 

The Tao of Pooh

I really enjoyed reading the Tao of Pooh.  I think that this book is a book of analogies, using Winnie the Pooh.  I happen to really like Winnie the Pooh, in fact it was my favorite thing as a young child.  So, this book was very easy for me to understand.  Putting Taoist perspectives into a children’s book makes it very easy for outsiders to understand (outsiders meaning people outside of the religion).  The thing I liked most was that the author used dialogue between the characters to illustrate a Taoist teaching. 

                The author also describes that Americans are a bunch of busy backsons.  Now this means that we are always so busy all the time.  We never just sit and rest even when we have free time we always feel the need to do something.  Now, I do agree with this, but I disagree that it is a bad thing.  Yes we may be busy all of the time, but our generation has been taught to be this way.  I know that my parents are constantly running around because they want me and my sisters to do the things that they never could.  I have played softball since I was five and they enjoy watching the games.  In our culture we are taught to stay busy to stay out of trouble. 

                I do not really agree that Taoism is the solution to the American problem.  I think that we were given free will so that we could do the things that we want to do.  The thought that Americans do everything wrong is really quite annoying because if we have done so many wrong things why are we still here? There are plenty of people who take things too far, but the majority of people do not.  Yes we could all be more carefree and simple like Pooh, but if everyone was an uncarved block I am not sure how this world would function.