Nakagawa Shuji: Oke Maker

When Nakagawa Shuji’s grandfather, Kameiichi, turned ten years old, he went to work at Tarugen. This famed maker of oke (wooden pails or buckets) and barrels, had been established in Kyoto during the waning years of the Edo period (1603-1868), and was to become Kameiichi’s workplace for the next 40 years. In the process, Kameiichi…

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Emerging Futures from Tohoku

Bob Stilger interview Kyoto Journal Tohoku workshop

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.

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Mapping Kyoto: An Affair of the Heart

Judith Clancy is the author of three books about Kyoto, Exploring Kyoto, Kyoto Machiya Restaurant Guide and Kyoto City of Zen. She has mapped Kyoto in words and images, enabling countless people, residents and visitors alike, to explore the exceptional cultural, historical, religious and gastronomic heritage of this city.

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Roger 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….

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Like Sculpting Smoke: Arundhati Roy on Fame, Writing and India

INTERVIEW BY KATHY ARLYN SOKOL

Arundhati Roy — brilliant, beautiful and rich. The brilliance and the beauty came early, the riches are of more recent vintage and allow her a new life as a self-proclaimed “cultural terrorist” who can fund her own “kiss-backs” (instants of righteous revenge). Against?

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Ryu and Me

Being a man with a tremendous appetite for life, Murakami Ryu began living large, traveling the planet and savoring its various pleasures. But he also began one of the most prolific and multi-faceted careers in literary history…

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Media Critic: Asano Kenichi

Former Kyodo News Service correspondent Asano Kenichi was expelled from Indonesia in 1992 for his investigative reports on shady deals between Jakarta businessmen and Japanese politicians.

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Big Fish Eat Little Fish

After World War II, philosopher and critic Tsurumi Shunshuke started the highly-respected magazine Shiso no Kagaku (Science of Thought), serving for half a century as its editor and publisher. From the 1950s to the 1970s, he was an outspoken anti-war activist…

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