The Philosopher’s Walk: Nishida Kitaro’s Contemplative Route
Taking a daily walk helped him to switch his mood. He therefore began a daily routine, walking not only to the Silver Pavilion (Ginkakuji) but to the Honen’in and Nanzenji area, where the scenery is exquisite.
Read MoreMore than a Rock: Photographing Kyoto’s Gardens
Love of rocks and gardens is what lured me to Japan. During an extended visit I photographed gardens in Kyoto every day for a year…
Read MoreSpace Tunnels: Rites of Passage to Places of Stillness
The original site of Shisen-do isn’t physically expansive, however the experience of its entrance passageway creates an impression of deep space. One third of the site appears unused or “wasted” just on the approach.
Read MoreThe Crisis of Japanese Democracy
The basic and ongoing challenge to any democracy is that its citizens need to have free and open access to unbiased information. They must further be presented with alternative domestic viewpoints and varying historical narratives as well as being engaged in critical dialogue with the larger world beyond.
Read MoreNishio Haruo: Thatcher
North of Kyoto city lie the satellite communities that make up the country town or cho known as Miyama — famed for its thatched houses, and home to thatcher Nishio Haruo…
Read MoreThe Art of Setting Stones
In Japan, garden materials—plants, stones, lanterns, and the like—make rounds through gardens like bees at flowers, and though their journey is less fleet, like them they occupy any one spot only temporarily. Those that remain in place for centuries are rare; most are destined by the vagaries of history to a more transient life.
Read MoreKyoto’s Photo Family
With some 140 published books over four decades, Mizuno Katsuhiko has been influential in defining Kyoto’s natural beauty and stimulating Kyoto people’s pride in their city. As a child, Mizuno’s daughter Kayu accompanied him on many of his photo outings…
Read MorePartitioned Views
Kyoto, described by photographer Ben Simmons in Kyoto Gardens as, “a unique treasure of concentrated beauty and spirit found nowhere else,” is a good place to start an exploration of the Japanese garden.
Read MoreTibetan Butter Tea and Pink Gin: Life in Old Darjeeling
My grandmother compiled a cookbook, written out in a foolscap quarto notebook in her small, neat hand. It had recipes for everything from aloo dhum potato curry to hot ale punch to American fudge, and included meal plans and guest lists…
Read MoreBe a Fool! Fukushima-Roshi on Zen in America and Japan
“…understanding Zen through the intellect is a mistake. That is why in the first three years of my own training, Shibayama-roshi kept on telling me for a whole year, “Be an idiot! Be a fool!”
Read MoreThe Lists of a Lady-in-Waiting
A thousand years ago a lady-in-waiting in the imperial court at Heian Kyo (modern-day Kyoto) dipped her brush into the well of her inkstone and watched the bristles swell with ink. She lowered the brush onto the paper spread in front of her and moved her hand rapidly…
Read MoreA Small Restaurant on the Edge of Life
Dread clouded the joy that surged in Tomé’s heart when she heard the voice call out “Obachan, I’m back.” In May, 1945, the only pilots who came to Chiran were volunteers for the Special Attack Corps, boys who rammed their fighters into the American ships off Okinawa.
Read MoreMy Part in the Downfall of Ferdinand Marcos
Tabasco sauce? Great topping for ice cream. Jalapeños? Mild, mouth-refreshing chewing gum… I’d graduated, man. Nothing could touch me now…
Read MoreJapanese Tattoo
I had become entranced with irezumi, more elegantly known as hori-mono, the Japanese tattoo. Yet I had known, from its first vague awakening, that my interest somehow lay deeper than my skin…
Read MoreReal Geisha Real Women
“Real Geisha Real Women,” is a remarkable documentary that opens the shojifor us all, if only for 52-minutes. It allows us a peek into the private lives of 10 active and retired Kyoto geisha…
Read MoreVietnam War Poetry
Teresa Mei Chuc reads her poetry from Remembering Viet Nam.
Read MoreKyoto Excellence: Kyotographie International Photography Festival, 3rd Edition
APRIL 18-MAY10: Fourteen exhibitions on the theme of “TRIBE,” spread across Kyoto in brilliantly-coordinated venues ranging from a sub-temple of the city’s first Zen monastery to traditional inner-city machiya to a temporary Shigeru Ban cardboard-columned pavilion in front of City Hall to “anti-fashionista” Rei Kawakubo’s local Comme Des Garcons concept store.
Read MoreOff the Wall: Yuzen and Katazome Dyeing Take Flight
“Usually my pieces grow from a bird or an idea, sometimes an endangered species that has some story around it, like fragmentation of habitat….”
Read MoreThe Optimistic Vision of Kitagawa Fram and the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale
The Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale in the mountainous Niigata region of Japan has become a model, yet an underappreciated one, for expansive social art practices.
Read MoreMeeting With Sanshin: An Interview with Hiah Park, Lover of the Mountain God
Manshin is a title of respect identifying a mudang, a female Korean shaman. For centuries manshin had been openly persecuted, their practices disrupted and shrines destroyed, their artistry desecrated to entertainment…
Read MoreKim Keumhwa’s Everyday Shamanism
Kim Keumhwa, Korea’s renowned charismatic naramansin, “national” shaman, is already awake…preparing to greet the spirits lodged in her small sindang (spirits’ shrine room) next to her bedroom.
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