Encounters
Calligraphy and Stamps from the Shikoku 88-Temple Pilgrimage
Pilgrims who follow in the footsteps of Kobo Daishi around Shikoku record their journey by collecting these goshuin, single sheets of paper, or in book form (nokyocho), from each of the temples along the way.
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 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 MoreAshes to Ashes
I met my in-laws for the first time on New Year’s Day 1966, shortly before my wedding…
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 MoreInto Dasht-e Kavir: Notes From the Great Salt Desert
I stare at the barren oatmeal, forbidding life, eroded by the elements, its own self-loathing nature…
Read MoreTea & Qi: An afternoon with Beijing artist Siao Weijia
Talking to Weijia, who also goes by the name Viktor, I was struck by how his bicultural experience was at once almost painfully unique and at the same time so familiar and universal.
Read MoreMusic vs Militarism
The pottery grounds, Chibana tells me, were formerly a bomb disposal yard. At once, my body tenses. I begin to step gingerly, looking at where I place my feet. The floor is simply earth though — dusty red clay. The potters are young, bandanas on their heads; their bare feet are clay red too…
Read MoreHow to Move a Tree
Early one morning in a park in Taiwan I came across a man who had stopped off on his way home from the market to harness himself to a tree…
Read MoreForgetting, Remembering
JAPAN-BRAZIL
BY TERRY CAESAR
Few countries appear to have less in common with each other than Japan and Brazil. Consider only the woman in which each country is personified…
Along the Silk Road Today
We sat in the little space, ringed by snowcaps, under a pulsing moon, 10,000 feet above the sea, and many hours from what the Eagles might consider civilization, and we tried to jolly into being all their songs of hard women in Los Angeles, the dangers of cocaine.
Read MoreA Minute and 100 Metres
I arrived via train, 40 hours and just under 4000km in a hard-seat, from Beijing, where rumours were circulating about the extent of the military presence, needle attacks, Uighur and Han street gangs…
Read MorePico Iyer is Lost
Pico Iyer is lost. It’s a condition he uses to great effect in his increasingly internalised travel books as we find him on the road to somewhere he’s not sure of.
Read MoreGay Jakarta: Defining the Emerging Community
Watch any television channel in Indonesia for more than half an hour and it’s obvious that waria (male-to-female transvestites) are tolerated throughout the country…
Read MoreDogs Barking at the Full Moon
Comrade John is a mild-mannered person. I didn’t feel threatened or scared at all. In fact, I welcomed this encounter. It had been over a decade since I last spoke to them…
Read MoreThe Barber
My goatee and shaved head perplex many Vietnamese because in their country beards are for venerable old men like Uncle Ho and bald heads for monks, and I am neither.
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