Posts by johneinarsen
Tea Beyond Japan: Chanoyu in the Diaspora
I am not your typical or natural tea student: a left-handed, cross-country skiing, Jewish feminist. Studying chanoyu for the past 24 years has been both challenging and intriguing for all those reasons. I have been fortunate to find a great teacher who can teach me. I have been encouraged by her to make the practice my own within her very formal teaching.
Read MoreProfessor Sôl’s Theory
A man and a woman meet serendipitously at Panmunjôm, the site of the ongoing “Peace Talks” between the “two” Koreas since the “end” of the “conflict.” The man reflects: Two hundred years from now the term “Panmunjôm” will have become an archaism. An encyclopedia published then will contain the following entry:
Read MoreMuch Ado About Matcha: Appreciating the Taste of Powdered Green Tea
If you think that chanoyu, the Japanese tea ritual, is primarily about enjoying the flavor of matcha … I have a bridge to sell you! Let’s call it the ultimate Japanese “urban myth”. Making matcha – mixing of hot water and a tiny bit of carefully selected, hand-picked young green tea leaves in powdered form – is merely the premise for a refined social gathering.
Read MoreThe Korean Way of Tea
Korea has had a “Way” of tea but it hasn’t been widely seen, much less described or studied by foreigners. This new guidebook full of color illustrations, created by Brother Anthony and Hong Kyeong-Hee is a welcome edition to one’s tea or Korean culture library.
Read More“The Fortunate Earth is Happy”
As I sat down to read On Freedom: Spirit, Art, and State, one of the first thoughts I had was how difficult it is to peg a term as loaded as “Freedom.” At about the same moment as I had this thought, the chorus of the jaunty Calypso song on my stereo sang out, “Always remember somebody suffering more than you.
Read MoreIn Memorium: David Jenkins
David Jenkins, a longterm resident of Kyoto, translated medieval Japanese poetry (with his co-translator, Yasuhiko Moriguchi) — and made it timeless. He passed away on April 10th, 2000, surrounded by fully-blooming sakura; is still missed by friends and colleagues here at KJ.
Read MoreEmerging Futures from Tohoku
MIZUHO TOYOSHIMA AND LUCINDA COWING
An Interview with Bob Stilger
Bob Stilger has been actively involved in creating spaces for people in Tohoku to gather and formulate new futures following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that transformed their lives.
The Magic Mirror Maker
When light is directed onto the face of sacred magic mirror, or makkyo, and reflected to a flat surface, an image magically appears. Kyoto Journal sits down with the man rumored to be the last remaining makkyo maker in the world — Yamamoto Akihisa.
Read MoreThe Wisdom of Shōjin Cooking
Shōjin ryōri is rooted in the concept that the earth and body are inseparable. It is only through attaining a perfect symbiosis with the land that we can truly reap the benefits of the earth.
Read MoreNuclear Japan and the Four Noble Truths
Despite considerable inertia in a religion well known for its conservatism, the protagonists in this book are seizing this opportunity to apply Buddhist values in opposition to nuclear power, and also to respond to the crisis in ways that invest Buddhist values with new relevance to contemporary society.
Read MoreTone Poems: Joel Stewart’s Continuing Artistic Odyssey
The sheer variety of images ranges between the hyper-realistic and the abstract: a gleaming white-and-blue ceramic sake ewer that could almost be plucked from the panel, a quiver of glowing vertical lines reminiscent of Star Trek’s transporter in mid-operation.
Read MoreThe Art of Translation
A number of years ago several of our Japanese-related journals carried an ongoing debate on the art or techniques of translating the prose literature of Japan. Some of these manifestos and arguments often degenerated into a subtle, or not so subtle, academic name-calling. But two distinct groups did emerge…
Read MoreBeauty & Power
In front of us stood a statue of Buddha, about three meters high, surrounded by swirling painted blues and reds and browns — flanked by two smaller statues of guardians. The light from the open doorway fell on the Buddha and suffused throughout the space.
Read MoreEverything You Need to Know about Japanese Wood and Woodworking
While reading Wood and Traditional Woodworking in Japan my initial reaction was visceral and immediate: why wasn’t a book like this available much earlier?
Read MoreJapantown: Lancet’s First Novel
The novel, as the title indicates, is concerned with Japan, and this places it as one of those detective novels that aims to provide, in addition to the standard thrills and spills, an introduction to another country and culture…
Read MoreChasing Deer
I had just cycled over seven hours through Mie Prefecture and was now stuck on this deserted mountain road somewhere in the Kasagi Mountains, approximately 10 kilometers northeast of Nara city, searching for a campsite I had circled in my Kansai Mappuru guidebook when planning the trip from home weeks before. I thought of home now back in Kanagawa, and my wife Rui, who would be sitting at the table eating dinner at about this time. Make sure you take pictures of the deer in Nara, she would remind me every evening.
Read MoreEven in “Just Enough,” There is Abundance
For nearly 40 years Masanobu Fukuoka’s classic work, “The One-Straw Revolution” has lured people back to a traditional life of farming. Yoshikazu Kawaguchi, considered the leading proponent of Natural Farming in Japan, began his approach to farming by adapting Fukuoka’s method of forgoing plowing, fertilizers, weeding, and chemicals…
Read MoreWriters and the War Against Nature
Although human beings have interacted with nature – both cultivated and wild, for millennia, and sometimes destructively so, it was never quite like “war.” It has now become disconcertingly so…
Read MoreThe Poetry of the Gardens
Connecting gardens and poetry, author and garden designer Marc P. Keane illuminates something that is unique to Japanese landscape-art history.
Read MoreStep Inside the World of Noh: An interview with Diego Pellecchia
“I’m hoping to transmit the ethics of Noh. Respect for the space and discipline, work ethics, orderliness, cleanliness. “
Read MoreWomen In-Between: Asian Women Artists 1984-2012
What does it mean to connect the fifty women artists of sixteen different Asian countries and regions represented in this exhibition by calling them “Women In-Between”?
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