Posted in Japan, movies, intercultural on Nov 11th, 2006 No Comments »
Japan is still suffering from the “yokai” monster boom that was caused by Miike Takashi’s enjoyable and totally extravagant The Great Yokai War (2005). These folktale goblins were first popularized by the 1966 humoristic manga Ge ge ge no Kitaro by Mizuki Shigeru (who rightly has a cameo in Miike’s film; on top of that, […]
Posted in Japan, books, travel and places on Nov 5th, 2006 No Comments »
Eric Talmadge is a Tokyo news editor for the Associated Press who has lived longer in Japan than in his native country. In Getting Wet, Adventures in the Japanese Bath (Kodansha International, 2006) Talmadge combines work and hobby by trying out the whole spectrum of Japanese bathing culture and serving that up in what can […]
Posted in Japan, life on Nov 5th, 2006 No Comments »
On November 3, Culture Day, the Order of Culture is awarded to five persons. One thing that always strikes me about the winners is their advanced age. The unfortunate ones who happen to die before they have passed eighty, will never get such a coveted prize. As reported by the Asahi Shimbun, this year’s winners […]
Posted in Japan, art and photography, religion and philosophy on Oct 26th, 2006 1 Comment »
Until December 3, the Tokyo National Museum is hosting an exhibition of Buddhist statues in the so-called ichiboku style under the title Shaping Faith. Sculptures in the ichiboku style have been carved from one piece of wood instead of being made by fitting a number of wooden blocks together (and pasting over the lines between […]
Posted in Japan, movies on Oct 25th, 2006 No Comments »
One of the first Japanese novels that I read in the original language (painstakingly slow!) was Zero no Shoten (Zero Focus) by popular mystery author Matsumoto Seicho - it is more than twenty years ago when I found a copy in a secondhand bookstore in Kyoto. I especially enjoyed the atmosphere of the […]
Posted in Japan, art and photography on Oct 21st, 2006 1 Comment »
The Autumn Exhibition of the Miho Museum features art critic and book binder Aoyama Jiro (1901-1979). Aoyama was born with a silver spoon and collected antiques from his early teens. But the man who was in the envious position that he never had to work had a sharp and critical eye and was generally praised […]
Posted in Japan, food, travel and places on Oct 20th, 2006 1 Comment »
Omotesando is the name of the tree-lined avenue leading up to the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. It is the most fashionable part of Tokyo and also features the highest number of shops by famous fashion designers; adjacent Harajuku is the fountain of youth culture. Omotesando is a place often crowded with photographers trying to capture […]
Posted in Japan, writing and poetry, museums, haiku on Sep 14th, 2006 No Comments »
The Basho Memorial Museum in Iga-Ueno was built in 1959 as a tribute to the haiku master by the town where he was born in 1644 and where he returned several times in later life, both for family visits and to have haikai sessions with local poets. For the haiku enthusiast, it is a small, […]
Posted in Japan, architecture, museums on Aug 13th, 2006 No Comments »
The Himeji Museum of Literature is a case of a Japanese museum where the building is much more impressive than what it contains. But as that building is one of the masterpieces of modern architect Ando Tadao, it certainly is worth a visit, if only for the architecture. There are many literature museums in Japan […]
Posted in Japan, crafts, museums, kyoto on Aug 6th, 2006 No Comments »
The Yasui Konpira Shrine stands in an area full of bars and love hotels just south of Gion. In Japan that is not an unlikely spot for a shrine or temple as the sacred and profane were always mixed and devout pilgrims would after saying their prayers spend the night in the nearby red light […]
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