Posts by johneinarsen
Knowing Nature
A rambling conversation between two of America’s most original poets –– clear-eyed, unsentimental outsiders, both outdoorsmen who have spent their life probing the nature of nature.
Read MoreKJ76
digital ¥1200 SAMPLER Kyoto Journal 76 THE BRIDE OF BONEYARD KITARO – as told by David Greer Nunoe didn’t understand why Shigeru drew what he did, but he put his soul in his drawings, and admiration blossomed in her heart. When deadlines loomed, she helped him — inked backgrounds, stippled patterns,…
Read MoreLok Say: Hong Kong Remembers Tiananmen
…They had asked the university council to place the Goddess of Democracy — a twenty-foot statue commemorating the sacrifice of the Tiananmen students — on campus following tonight’s vigil….
Read MorePhotography, Community, Space: Kyotographie’s Lucille Reyboz and Yusuke Nakanishi
Our theme will be “Tribe,” but not in an ethnic sense—it’s more in the sense of a community that shares the same sense of values.
Read MoreYumi Lee
Through my study of this Korean-Japanese issue I have realized that four major factors prevent solutions: the first is Japanese education…
Read MoreRoger Pulvers
When I arrived in Tokyo in 1967 after studying in Poland, I had only $300 left…I came down to Kyoto on the train, rented a little house by Midoro-ga-ike, and started writing short stories….
Read MoreAn Interview with Arai Manta
Born and raised in Tokyo, Arai Manta has spent the last nine years tending bar at Club, a relaxed drinking spot that plays African music, jazz and off-the-wall Japanese pop….
Read MoreListening to Vegetables: The Art of Tanahashi Toshio
The pleasure of shojin is to find freedom within limitation of using only vegetables.
Read MoreFumio’s World
Japanese animator and illustrator Fumio Obata’s take on life abroad
Read MoreJiseung: A Journey into the Korean Art of Weaving Paper
For months, I was at a loss about how to weave so tightly. Then, one day he pressed my thumb down with such force, I felt like a door had smashed it. Only then did I grasp his secret…
Read MoreNagane Aki: Keeper of Tradition
A slim lady wearing oak-coloured clothes draws a tiny bamboo instrument to her mouth, holding it with one hand and gently vibrating it with the other. Haunting sounds fill the air like spirits drawn by the wind. Then, out of a sudden silence, the story begins.
Read MoreThe Hojoki : Witness in a Torn World
The times are calamitous, and it is scarcely less frightening to look back than forward. A horrific earthquake turns the world upside-down.
Read MoreBoys to Men
J-Boys follows 9-year-old Kazuo and his younger brother Yasuo around Tokyo’s Shinagawa Ward from October 1965 to April 1966.
Read MoreIn the Jade Garden
Japanese garden authority Marc P. Keane writes, “To walk the length of a roji (tea garden) is the spiritual complement of a journey from town to the deep recesses of a mountain where stands a hermit’s hut.”
Read MoreAn Aesthetic for Toys
If you visit Japan, you are likely to get the feeling the country is obsessed with characters and toys: children and adults play video games on trains, there seems to be a character mascot for every single product, and a Murakami Takashi toy/sculpture may be exhibiting at the local museum. Toys are everywhere.
Read MoreResponding to Hiroshima
God’s Tears: Reflections on the Atomic Bombs Dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
REVIEW by George Jisho Robertson
The bare fact is that the national governments of the countries of many of the readers of David Krieger’s book still hold nuclear weapons, something that only makes sense if they are willing to use them.
Read MoreMayumi Oda on Energy of Change, Feminization and New Birth of Japan
Mayumi Oda has devoted more than fifty years of her life to her art…her deeply feminist viewpoint also drives her ongoing efforts to promote world peace and eliminate nuclear weapons and other nuclear threats.
Read MoreGrow Your Own Energy
In Japan the concept is often called “enerugi no chisan-chisho,” a phrase adopted from the local food movement. It directly translates… loosely as “grow your own energy.”
Read MoreIn Praise of Clay: Robert Yellin muses on the ties that bind art, life and environment
Kyoto ceramic connoisseur Robert Yellin muses on the ties that bind art, life and environment
Read MoreThe Epic of Tea: Tea Ceremony as the Mythological Journey of the Hero
TEA
BY DANIEL R. KANE
“Why do you study Tea?” The usual answers perhaps are enough: “It is an aesthetic exercise; a Zen discipline; a unique means of social interaction.” Yet, I have wondered if there might be some other attraction to Tea; something not so apparent…
Read MoreSatish Kumar on Deep Ecology
Sometimes I came across a tree which seemed like a Buddha or a Jesus: loving, compassionate, still, unambitious, enlightened, in eternal meditation, giving pleasure to a pilgrim…
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