"Asakusa Red Gang" - Asakusa Red Gang

Japanese: 《浅草紅団》 - あさくさくれないだん

…During the Great Kanto Earthquake, the eighth floor of the Ryounkaku collapsed, and while most of Asakusa burned down, the main hall of Sensoji Temple and other buildings survived. As a result, people who believed in its miraculous powers and those who flocked to the movie theater district in the sixth district made Asakusa a crowded place where people could not move during the early Showa period. The entertainment town of Asakusa at that time is well depicted in Yasunari Kawabata's "The Red Gang of Asakusa" (1930). [Ogi Shinzo]…

From [Disguise]

...The typical usage that became established afterwards has a strong nuance of referring to a convenient disguise for hiding one's identity, such as a detective's disguise or a policeman's disguise. However, originally, the range of meanings that can be expressed by the two kanji characters "hen" and "sou" is much broader and more diverse, and in fact, in some novels, the word is used in a more general sense (for example, in Yasunari Kawabata's "Kurenai Dan Asakusa" (1929-30), "...When you think about it, Ginza is full of makeup. It's not a town with so many shadows that it requires disguise..."

*Some of the terminology that refers to "Asakusa Red Gang" is listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

Japanese:

…関東大震災のとき，その凌雲閣は8階部分から折れ，浅草の大部分は焼失したにもかかわらず，浅草寺本堂以下の堂宇が焼け残ったことから，その霊験を信ずる人々と，六区の活動写真館街にくり出す人々で，昭和前期の浅草は身動きもできない雑踏の中にあった。このころの歓楽の町浅草の様子は川端康成の《浅草紅団（くれないだん）》(1930)によく描かれている。【小木新造】。…

【変装】より

…そして，その後に定着した典型的な用法としては，たとえば〈探偵の変装〉〈警官の変装〉といったように，正体を隠すための便宜的なそれを指すというニュアンスがかなり強い。しかし，元来，この〈変〉と〈装〉という二つの漢字によって表現しうる意味の射程はより広く多様なものであり，事実，いくつかの小説では，より一般的な意味でこの語が使われている(たとえば川端康成の《浅草紅団（くれないだん）》(1929‐30)では〈……考えてみると，銀座は化粧で沢山だ。変装を必要とするほど，陰の多い街ではない。…

※「《浅草紅団》」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典第２版について | 情報

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