INSIGHTS FROM ASIA

Kyoto Journal is an award-winning,
quarterly magazine founded in Kyoto, Japan,
presenting cultural and historical insights from
all of Asia since 1987.

Newsletter signup
ALL
  • ALL
  • FICTION, POETRY & REVIEWS
  • HIDDEN JAPAN
  • IN TRANSLATION
  • INSIGHTS FROM ASIA
  • OUR KYOTO
  • TOKONOMA
hannarifeature

Geisha Tradition

Hannari — Geisha Modern is a documentary film about the lives and arts of geisha in contemporary Kyoto filmed from the perspective of a Japanese woman.

*Postbubblefeature

Metabolic Syndrome

These lucid essays discuss Japanese architecture in the aftermath of the Bubble.

soundsilencefeature

The SoundSilence of Water

The tea-masters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, mostly lay adepts of Zen, were the ultimate artists in the use of water for its sound, form and haptic effects.

Kyotorainfeature2

Kyoto Rain

Kyoto belongs to the rain. Not a place of brilliant sunlight, it is often sadly gray — an older woman who causes one to remark how beautiful she must once have been.

smiling noguchi

A Touch of Amusement

I had never seen a funnier waiting room in my life…

*languagegoes.feature

Language goes Two Ways

Language goes two ways: it enables us to have a small window onto an independently existing world, but it also shapes — via its very structures and vocabularies — how we see that world.

roy

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?

cid1

On Cid Corman

“(Art) confronts the livingdying going on. . . from within and letting the cry most compassionately come forth and move out – in all direction – wherever the human touches.”

lasofsmokers copy

The Last of the Smokers

Sitting on the roof the National Diet Building, under attack by tear-gas fired from the Defence Force helicopters circling above, I am smoking my last cigarettes.

*Murakamifeature

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…

*100yearsfeature

100 Years of Japanese Cinema

As Donald Richie tells us, at the end of the nineteenth century, a cameraman from the Tokyo Mitsukoshi Department Store shot some of the first film footage in Japan, and thirty-odd years later, Japan was the world’s largest film producer…

*reggefeature

Reel Life and Real Life: The Joys and Trials of Being Intercultural

REGGE LIFE’s moving documentaries, broadcast nationally in both countries, introduce us to scores of reflective people who in turn invite us to take a closer look at ourselves…

on the blog

Bringing the delights of hojicha tea to the West

Torontoites and hojicha lovers Danielle Geva and Francois Mathieu wanted to make freshest, most authentic roasted Japanese green tea available outside Japan.

Take a Gourmet Journey through Japan with Kokoro Care Packages

We filmed our unboxing of the monthly themed box of quality Japanese ingredients and treats from Kokoro Care Packages. Find out more and subscribe to receive next month's package straight from Japan!