Kyoto Journal Issue 44

Whereas once the pilgrim’s progress may have been a time-consuming and slightly dangerous enterprise, it is now an easy journey along hyper-accelerated roads which now entirely encircle and bisect Shikoku’s sacred mountains. Just as the wandering Shikoku pilgrim seeks to close the loop, so too do local construction crews lining every road upon the small island. The business plan for Shikoku’s construction industry is contained in the guiding precepts of a thousand-year-old ritual. – Sean O’Toole, The Archaeology of Rural Japan: Touring Shikoku’s modern ruins 

One of the most lamentable things about the way the Chinese Communist revolution ended is that it messed up China’s sense of history so grievously that people can’t even allow themselves to think about it because they have no way to make sense of it historically in an intelligent manner. The only antidote to that feeling of history having been poisoned is amnesia. Since it can’t be set straight, or sometimes even discussed, it’s better not to think about it. And this is very strange for a society that had for centuries so esteemed history as the great tutor. – Robert W. Snyder, Reading Between the Lies: Orville Schell on China 

And now a sound was growing. Jostled, hands before me, palms out, fearing collision, fearing falling, I heard it as a growling coming nearer as we raced along. But I was wrong — it was the festival chant, heard when pulling the great wheeled float or shouldering the omikoshi, but now — no longer redolent of effort — it was pure sound, like surf, like wind in the pines. Yu-sha, yu-sha, yu-sha — repeated endlessly, a chain of sound on which we moved, our steps running to its beat. – Donald Richie, Tadashi Nakajima: Encountering the god of darkness 

Contents:

Cover Image by Tamotsu Yato
106pp
published July 1, 2000

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