EXPLORE THE KYOTO JOURNAL

Discover quality writing from Asia in our award-winning magazine. Stimulating interviews and profiles; excerpts of works translated from Asian languages; fiction, poetry and book reviews, as well as a fresh look at the city KJ calls home.

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Roger Pulvers

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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An 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….

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Listening to Vegetables: The Art of Tanahashi Toshio

The pleasure of shojin is to find freedom within limitation of using only vegetables.

Fumio's World

Fumio’s World

Japanese animator and illustrator Fumio Obata’s take on life abroad

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Jiseung: 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…

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Nagane 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.

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The 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.

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Boys 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.

Tea Gardens

In the Jade Garden

Japanese garden authority Marc P. Keane writes, β€œTo 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.”

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An 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.

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Emperor Meiji’s Clock Poem

When Emperor Meiji, 122nd Emperor of Japan, reigned from 1868 to 1912, Japan was beginning its modern explosion towards the modern world.

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Mayumi 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.

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Into 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…

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Grow Your Own Energy

In Japan the concept is often called β€œenerugi no chisan-chisho,” a phrase adopted from the local food movement. It directly translates… loosely as β€œgrow your own energy.”

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In Praise of Clay: Robert Yellin muses on the ties that bind art, life and environment Β  Β 

Kyoto ceramic connoisseur Robert Yellin muses on the ties that bind art, life and environment

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Zen & the Art of Rejuvenation

Taizo-in launched its groundbreaking β€˜Fusuma-e Project’ in the spring of 2011. The Zen temple is commissioning a young, unknown Kyoto-based artist to compose large sumi-e ink paintings on 64 new sliding doors, or fusuma…

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The Epic of Tea: Tea Ceremony as the Mythological Journey of the Hero

TEA
BY DANIEL R. KANE

β€œWhy do you study Tea?” The usual answers perhaps are enough: β€œIt 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…

Erika, 17, Koriyama: Fukushima Daiichi and abandoned beach

Fukushima’s Children

My collaborative artwork with children is based on the principle that they are strongest and most resilient when they are listened to, respected, and encouraged to think creatively. Children often need permission and safety to develop their own ideas about their situation, to make sense of their emotions and express their thoughts…