Humorous excerpt

"In the 1770s Edo culture developed a select circle of writers who produced a playful and satirical gensaku genre that encoded some of the changing styles and values of their day... The pen names these samurai writers used were often full of self-mockery that revealed their frustrations; "Troubles with curfew," "Drunken indiscretion," and for one daimyo son, "Monkey with rusty bottom."

That is from Marius B. Jansen's, "The Making of Modern Japan" (2000), p. 229. I'm enjoying this book, and will probably have more to say about it later.

Happy Saturday :)