by Stephen Benfey —A rock has a hundred faces, the Japanese gardener said. I thought of asking why not two-hundred, but this was one of Sawamura’s greatest hits, up there with Nature is always right, the latter spoken in his Kyoto-accented English. —Sensei, I said, —all this nice weather and no jobs. What’s up?” —Keeping …Read More
Category: On Kyoto (Page 3 of 11)
Writings about Kyoto, whether by Japanese or foreign observers
by Jann Williams (January 26, 2022) Identifying the oldest yin-yang symbol in Japan has been an ongoing passion of mine. The philosophy of yin-yang (J. in-yo) was formally introduced into Japan in the 6th century AD and still permeates contemporary culture. One might imagine that the two-tone interlocking representation of yin-yang, created in the late …Read More
By Edward Levinson (aka Edo 恵道) hot water bottlememories of motherwarm me 湯たんぽや母の思い出暖めるyutanpo ya, haha no omoide, atatameru My earliest months living in Japan were in Kyoto. It was late fall and getting colder every day. Slowly I got used to the chilly (soon to be frigid) old wooden Japanese houses. One winter morning I …Read More
An appreciation by Yuki Yamauchi On the afternoon of January 7th, many news outlets such as Gigazine and Oricon News reported the death of Hajime Fukuma, a 51-year-old electronic musician and composer. This followed the official announcement on his website that he had died, aged 51, of an aortic aneurysm on the first day of …Read More
By Liane Grunberg Wakabayashi From New York City, the ink barely dry on a master’s degree in arts administration, I’d come to Tokyo to try my luck as an arts writer. My self-assigned beat became the top floor art galleries of Tokyo department stores, purveyors of some of the finest nihonga paintings in the nation. …Read More
GRACE NOTESA few weeks ago a title for a collection of short writings unexpectedly suggested itself: “Grace Notes.” Then I realized that what it implied didn’t quite fit anything I actually had on hand, so I’ve been scribbling in a notebook, exploring where this might lead. Here are some examples, as shared via Zoom for …Read More
Edward Bramwell Clarke in Kyoto
By Yuki Yamauchi Edward Bramwell Clarke (1874-1934), a Briton born in Yokohama, is remembered as one of the people who introduced rugby to Japan, and his name was often seen in news articles related to the 2019 Rugby World Cup. A graduate of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, Clarke was also an intellectual giant. Having …Read More
Isobar Press is not only a specilist publisher of poetry, but of poetry with a Japanese connection in particular. According to its website, it “publishes poetry in English by Japanese and non-Japanese authors who live (or have lived) in Japan, or who write on Japan-related themes.” One of their recent publications is by former resident …Read More
by Stephen Benfey “Last night,” he said, “was fun.” “It was spooky,” she said. “How do you know such spooky places?” “Serendipity. Just walking around and there it was.” “What does ‘serendipity’ mean?” He cocked his head. “Like how we met. Serendipity is when something good happens by chance.” She frowned. “We call that en.” …Read More
by Nicholas Teele The last two or three years, I’ve been experiencing what I call visual flashes. They come on without warning, first with an intensity that nearly blocks everything else out, then stay a few minutes, or a day, or a week, but eventually fade away. These are not hallucinations in the sense that …Read More
WiK Writing Competition
WiK Anthologies
The Nature of Kyoto (2023)
Eds. Lisa Twaronite Sone & Robert Weis
Foreword by Pico Iyer
Structures of Kyoto (2021)
Eds: Rebecca Otowa & Karen Lee Tawarayama
Foreword by Judith Clancy
Encounters with Kyoto (2019)
Eds: Jann Williams & Ian Josh Yates
Foreword by Juliet Winters Carpenter
Echoes (2017)
Eds: John Dougill, Amy Chavez, & Mark Richardson
Preface by Alex Kerr
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