Mermaid Meat: The Secret to Immortality (Book and CD)
Mermaid Meat: the Secret to Immortality and other Japanese Ghost Stories by Brenda Wong Aoki
About this gift-book: 6 1/2” x 6 1/2” 77 pages plus CD recording with music by Mark Izu
Mermaid Meat: the Secret to Immortality features a purple embossed silk cover surrounding an inlay of an exquisite woodblock print of a geisha. Inside, the thick crème paper and vintage fonts were inspired by the storybooks of old published around the turn of the last century in the Japonais style celebrating the exotic East. The book features traditional Japanese ghost stories illustrated with full color plates by Yoshitoshi, a woodblock artist famous for his portraits of women and ghosts. San Francisco writer/recording artist Brenda Wong Aoki is acclaimed as one of the foremost storytellers in the country. These stories have been test-marketed internationally and consistently remain her audience’s favorites. The market for this book includes: women, folklorists, people interested in Japanese culture, people learning English and storytelling aficionados and theater artists.
About the writing and recording:
“The haunting eloquence of master storyteller Brenda Wong Aoki woven with the music of Asian Jazz pioneer Mark Izu.”
Obsessive greed, crimes of passion, abuse of power; today’s headlines are the stuff of ghost stories. Mermaid Meat: the Secret to Immortality and other Japanese Ghost Stories features four powerful tales that explore the dilemmas of life that people around the world have grappled with since the beginning of time.
Mermaid Meat
The horrific tale of a girl who eats the flesh of a mermaid and lives forever.
Mermaids connect us to the ocean, the womb of creation, the source of life. They link us to the regenerative powers of the subconscious. Since the Babylonians first mentioned mermaids around 5,000 B.C., every maritime culture has devloped a legend about water goddesses. Mermaids reflect the last vestiges of goddess and matriarchal religious practices: they live independently from men, they are self-sufficient and they are fiercely strong. They are usually simultaneously cherished and feared: they are attractive and terrifying.
The Bell of Dojoji
A Kabuki story of a simple maiden transformed by her ungovernable lust for a pious monk.
Dojoji is an old story, still occurring today. Both the Noh and the Kabuki plays are told from the perspective of a monk who is nobly trying to keep himself from being defiled by a woman. I wrote this story from the woman’s point of view.
Dancing in California
The last dance of a ballerina inside a World War II American Japanese prison camp.
This story was inspired by the Legend of Miss Sasagawara, in the book Seventeen Syllables, by one of the first Japanese American women writers, brilliant Nisei pioneer, Hisaye Yamamoto. I wanted to tell a story about the Internment that few would tell.
Black Hair
A dead wife’s incorporeal revenge.
This story was inspired by Lafcadio Hearn’s classic Japanese ghost story made familiar in the West by Kobayashi’s 1964 classic film, Kwaidan, in which a submissive’s wife’s abuse by her swaggering samurai husband leads to its fatal conclusion.
“Brenda Wong Aoki, the foremost narrative voice working in America today.” - Robert Shay, CEO New Line Cinema
“… stories, ancient and new… dominated by women battling the odds with a strength bordering on obsession.” - The Washington Post
