Conversations
A Familiar Environment | Translator Ginny Tapley Takemori
Murata Sayaka’s short novel, Convenience Store Woman, a thematically-propelled distillation of the author’s experience working in konbini, has achieved extraordinary success in English. Kyoto Journal speaks with the novel’s Ibaraki-based translator, Ginny Tapley Takemori.
Read MoreFour Decades of Anti-nuclear Activism
Part 2 of an Extended version of our Interview with Kyoto Activist Aileen Mioko Smith published in KJ 99, Dec. 2020.
Read MoreDocumenting Minamata with W. Eugene Smith
AN INTERVIEW WITH KYOTO ACTIVIST AILEEN MIOKO SMITH
Read MoreSeeking Ma
“There is something magical about a torii gate floating in the middle of a lake or shoreline. Once I got more immersed in the study of Japanese culture and religions I developed a parallel appreciation and respect for the symbolism and cultural importance they have to the Japanese people.”
Read MoreAshwini Bhat: The #claynomad at home
From India, Australia, Japan, to the United States, and elsewhere she pursued variety and experience, which for a time was recorded on her social media under the hashtag #claynomad.
Read MoreA Critical Moment for Japanese Art Curation
Morse warned that in 2020, over 75% of specialists in Japanese art would be at retirement age. She called on the museum community to focus on developing a new generation of curators in response to the impending exodus of experts from the field.
Read MoreJapan’s Peacemaker: Shidehara Kijuro and the Origins of Article 9
In his book “Japan In The World: Shidehara Kijûrô: Pacifism and the Abolition of War,” peace historian Klaus Schlichtmann illuminates the true story behind Article 9, spotlighting the decisive role played by Shidehara Kijuro, Japan’s pacifist foreign minister.
Read MoreThe view to Mt. Sumeru: Donald Richie on D.T. Suzuki
‘I think that Dr. Suzuki is for Zen what St. Paul is for Christianity. He was “a publicist.”’
Read MoreMeeting the Emperor Meiji
I wasn’t totally sure I understood. It seemed like a strange thing to say — “Do you want to meet the Emperor Meiji?” I did know the Emperor had been dead since 1912…But this was Japan, where things are not always clear…
Read MoreOyako: An Interview with Bruce Osborn
Bruce Osborn’s Oyako (parent and child) series of portraits led to the establishment of an annual ‘Oyako Day’ (Oyako-no-hi), celebrated on the fourth Sunday of July in Japan.
Read MoreMaking a Life—Not Merely a Living
“I think all mature people know they have to live with some level of contradiction, especially in our current society. The question is: how do you use your own creativity and resourcefulness to provide for your needs without relying entirely on the cash economy?”
Read More“We all have a brush”
“In Aikidō, the other guy may be big and strong, and you may be thrown down. But you have a chance to throw down the opponent, too. We had the nuclear arms race, that was probably the worst scenario of global collective suicide that we had faced as humanity, and we reversed it.”
Read MoreRe-opening Our Eyes
Naoyuki Ogino describes his work as “…documentary in the broadest sense. I am trying to omit fiction as much as I can in order to capture the very moment of non-fiction. I want to document …people, within their histories, societies, cultures, neighborhoods, atmospheres, environments or weather.”
Read MoreKazuo Ishiguro on Asian-British Writers
“Apart from a transient business community, there’s nothing in England that could be called a Japanese society. In addition, when I arrived in 1960, there were very few Japanese in England at all. Therefore, as I grew up, the problem of which society I belonged to never arose. I now accept the fact that I am a mixture, a cultural compound.”
Read MoreDiscover KJ: Join us for a Talk and Q&A May 24!
<Japanese below> What’s the story behind Kyoto Journal? What topics does it cover? And how is it possible for a magazine to be run entirely by volunteers? We’re excited to hold an event that will speak to all of these questions and more about the longest-running independent English-language publication in Japan! Join us on…
Read MoreMizuki Shigeru: Giving form to kehai
“A ghost doesn’t just all of a sudden appear out of nowhere; they are of necessity, always announced prior to their actual appearance by a sensation of kehai or something eerie. In other words, without the feeling of fear no ghost will make its presence known.”
Read MoreThe Chaebol: Geoffrey Cain on corporate governance and politics in South Korea
“If you look at the history of Korea, and even its current events the entire Korean peninsula has a kind-of dark story behind it. I think that Koreans have been disappointed by their leaders a lot and they have been disappointed by their businesses too. But the culture there is that you have to tolerate things in the national interest…”
Read MoreOne-Straw Messenger: Larry Korn, author and natural farming advocate
Larry Korn was a 26-year-old farmhand from the United States living and working at a communal farm in rural Kyoto in 1974 when he decided to go and see for himself an enigmatic farmer-philosopher he had been hearing about through the grapevine in Japan: Masanobu Fukuoka.
Read MoreThe Garden View
“My idea was to create photographs that explore this undefined border between private and public space by photographing the garden from deep inside the temple, balancing the areas of the tatami/ meditation space and the garden space equally in the image.”
Read MoreHolding the Ashen Bark: Voices from Hiroshima on the Historic Visit by President Obama
“Why do we come to this place, to Hiroshima?” President Obama asked himself and the world in his historic speech on May 27th, 2016. I too, ask myself why I’ve been to Hiroshima over and over, and why I took the chance to witness this historic visit by the then-sitting US president.
Read MoreWe All Have Our Own Truths: An Interview with Gwendolyn Hoeffel
“As the years passed, I was very aware of Japan becoming more prosperous, more accepting of Western values and customs, which has been detrimental in certain ways. Obviously we have to move on, and the traditional, gracious way of living that I experienced in 1964 is going to move on.”
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