Etnolog w jubileuszowej podróży 9: Kontekstowa etnologia – wiedza radosna. Smaki czytania, przyjemności pisania, radości odkrywania
”Konteksty” Ethnology – Joyful Wisdom. Flavours of Reading, Pleasures of Writing, Joys of Discovering

Summary/Abstract: The titular “joyful wisdom” refers to an accidental discovery, a lucky chance, and serendipity sometimes experienced by an ethnographer engaged in field work. The author presented three small albeit exciting findings from research conducted in Asia, material testimony of the outright extraordinary connections between Europe and distant Asia. The first is a Russian medal awarded for stifling the Polish uprising of 1863, discovered at a bazaar in Mongolia. The second is a Chinese coin, from whose Mongol (Buriat) name: zos originates – via Russian – the Polish name of a game known as zośka (shuttlecock). The third is a collection of metal circlets excavated in a shaman burial site in Siberian Yakutia, which turned out to be… metal tokens used in card games played in Versailles at the time of Louis XIV. Against this background the author presented the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo as an institution which, when first encountered by an ethnographer, appears to be ostensibly local and specifically Japanese, but after a more profound examination proves to be global, in the manner of the eye of a needle through which the process of globalisation threads its way.

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