As our final post in the series of Honorable Mentions from this year’s Kyoto Writing Competition, the judges present kintsugi, a poem by writer and artist Annette* Akkerman of Maarssen, Netherlands. A chemist by education, Annette* works in the coffee and tea industry. She likes travelling, hiking, spending time in nature, and painting, and has won prizes for her short stories, poetry, and haiku (many of which were written while strolling through her beloved Kyoto). Japan remains one of her top world destinations. Her website (in Dutch) includes a list of publications her work has appeared in, as well as a list of awards she has received and a gallery of her paintings.
A complete list of results for the Seventh Annual Kyoto Writing Competition can be found here.
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kintsugi
while we slept we ran into cracks our white bodies dressed alone in down hair and clean bed sheets
white paint was peeling off the wall above our bed my skin wrinkled
your fingers followed the grooves they tried to grope for what there was still alive
in Kyoto someone taught me how to seal cracks paste shards with gold never invisible rather flashy so that the fractions can be counted
and we learn to appreciate that our defencelessness makes us fragile
A new publication features WiK members, Rebecca Otowa and Ted Taylor….
Blurb – A Passion for Japan brings together the stories of thirty long-term residents of Japan who have, among other things, gained behind-the-scenes access to one of Japan’s most famous festivals; worked as an interpreter and commentator in professional and amateur sumo; been ordained as a female Buddhist priest at a 440-year-old temple in the mountains of Kyushu;become a Master in one of Japan’s oldest schools of tea ceremony; climbed the Nihon Hyakumeizan (“Japan’s top 100 mountains”); represented Japan in the world chess championships; and translated Japanese novels, short stories, film and TV subtitles, manga, and video games.”
A PASSION FOR JAPAN: A COLLECTION OF PERSONAL NARRATIVES
TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments INTRODUCTION John Rucynski 1 SHODO: FINDING MY WAY IN THE WAY OF WRITING Karen Hill Anton
ONE YEAR WITH THE GUARDIANS OF THE PHOENIX Carmen Sapunaru Tamas
MATSURI MADNESS David M. Weber
WADAIKO: DRUMMING TO OUR OWN BEAT Daniel Lilley
FOLLOW THE SOUND OF THE DRUMS; MY PASSION FOR EISA Judy Kambara
A LOVE OF INDIE MUSIC AND A SEAT BEHIND THE GOAL Adrianne Verla Uchida
SUMO AND ME Tim Craig
A PUSHOVER FOR SUMO Katrina Watts
BASEBALL, BLOGGING, AND BELONGING Trevor Richura
COMING HOME; THE SEARCH FOR BELONGING IN RURAL JAPAN Victoria Yoshimura
LOOKING FOR THE GOOD LIFE: LIVING AS A LOCAL IN A ZERO WASTE VILLAGE Linda Mengxi Ding
GAIJIN IN THE GARDEN: WHERE GANBARU IS GOLDEN Robert McLaughlin
FROM BRUCE LEE TO THE WAY OF TEA Randy Channell Soei
FROM THE LAND OF THE INDOMITABLE LIONS TO THE LAND OF THE BLUE SAMURAI: A PERSONAL STORY Samuel Nfor
THE LONG ROAD FROM CLAY TO POT, AND WHAT I LEARNED ALONG THE WAY Irina Holca
THE MAN WHO STEPPED INTO YESTERDAY Edward J. Taylor
KUMANO LEAP – LOCAL HERITAGE ADOPTS A WANDERING SOUL: Q&A WITH MIKE RHODES Mike Rhodes
LIFE LESSONS LEARNED IN JAPAN’S MOUNTAINS Wes Lang
“BANZAI!” ON A SPANISH ISLAND: PLAYING CHESS IN JAPAN’S COLORS Simon Bibby
WHO, ME? VOLLEYBALL REFEREEING IN JAPAN Greg Rouault
PASSION IN A COMMUNITY: FINDING MY JAPAN THROUGH JALT Wayne Malcolm
COME SAIL AWAY: FINDING MY PASSION ON THE SHIP FOR WORLD YOUTH John Rucynski
THE INNER GAME OF THE JAPANESE: GOING BACK HOME WITH TENNIS Haru Yamada
WHO AM I? IN SEARCH OF MY IDENTITY Margaret C. Kim
MY LOVE FOR TRADITIONAL RULES AND CUSTOMS OF JAPAN Hiya Mukherjee
DISCOVERING JAPANESE FUSION OF RELIGIONS ON THE PILGRIMAGE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU Steve McCarty
FEELING AT HOME WITH THE GREAT LITERARY MASTERS Vicky Ann Richings
TOO MANY NOVELS I WANT TO TRANSLATE: Q&A WITH EMILY BALISTRIERI Emily Balistrieri
LITERATURE AND LEGACY: STORIES OF HANSEN’S DISEASE IN JAPAN Kathryn M. Tanaka
ROOF SPOTTING IN JAPAN Wendy Bigler
A PASSION FOR THE PLACE: SWEPT OFF MY FEET BY A JAPANESE FARMHOUSE Rebecca Otowa
Moving on with our series of honorable mentions in this year’s Kyoto Writing Competition, the judges were intrigued by Jeremiah Dutch’s piece, “Zen Failure in Kyoto” — excerpted and adapted from his novel-in-progress, Gaijin House.
Jeremiah is a New England native raising two daughters with his wife in Yokohama. Having lived in Japan since 1998, he does most of his writing on the train while commuting to his teaching job at Reitaku University in Chiba. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of New Hampshire and master’s degree in education from Temple University Japan.
A complete list of results for the Seventh Annual Kyoto Writing Competition can be found here.
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Zen Failure in Kyoto
Something snapped. You thought after all the lousy and meaningless part-time and summer jobs you had escaped from back in the States, the bit of manual labor that you were expected to do in the Kyoto monastery would be nothing.
You were wrong.
You weren’t enlightened. Or existing on a higher plane. Or one with the universe. You were one with the rake, dreading being an extension of a garden tool. You should’ve been focusing on breathing, being in the moment of morning meditation before chores.
And just being.
Period.
So, when that monk gave you a good whack with his stick to wake you from restlessness, capriciousness, and distraction – “the monkey mind,” you lost it, like a damned western barbarian.
In one swift, backhanded, move you yanked the stick from the monk’s hand and rose from your attempt at the lotus position to your feet. You towered over the holy man, but he showed no fear, even as you lifted the stick over your head. Instead of striking, you snapped it over your knee, like kindling wood. Then, catching the utter calmness in his eyes, shame hit hard. You adjusted your glasses, which had gone askew, and then apologized before gathering your belongings and leaving without another word, like a coward.
Stomping around the neighborhood of small homes and apartments you finally came to a tiny park. Exhausted, and angry, you sat down for a long time and watched the neighborhood wake up. Office workers left for their jobs, kids left for school, housewives hung futons on the railings of their decks and beat them, trash collectors picked up the garbage. The world was going by.
In September 1995, I traveled to India to commence my sophomore year in an alternative Quaker program with eight international centers and experiential learning at its core. After two months of Area Studies at our center in the southern technological hub of Bangalore*, I headed for Kathmandu to participate in a 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat at the foothills of the Himalayas, and then flew back to India with a desire to assist Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity in serving the “poorest of the poor”. My time in Calcutta* would be one of my strongest initial connections to Japan, although there had been subtle callings throughout my life – the embroidered figure of a geisha designed by my grandmother and framed on her wall, the silent discovery of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes at my elementary school library at the age of eight, and an encounter with a Japanese high school student through my mother’s work with a locally-based international exchange organization.
A sari-clad sister at the Mother House helped me to choose Nirmal Hriday (“Home of the Pure Heart”, formerly “Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying Destitutes”) as my main work site, and registered me into the system with a small, manual typewriter. Nicknamed by the volunteers for its location, “Kalighat” was minutes on foot from the Calcutta Metro. One of the first volunteers I encountered was Joji, a man from Hokkaido (Japan’s northernmost island), who had a wide smile and reassuring, warm energy. The language barrier between us was largely insurmountable, but he soon introduced me to his girlfriend Naomi from Fukuoka Prefecture in the south, my future husband Toshi from Kanagawa Prefecture in the east, and several other Japanese volunteers who were close-knit, but accepted me into their circle immediately.
Calcutta Friends: Joji (grey shawl), Naomi (sari and pink blouse), and Toshi (white shirt, left)
While working we were all intensely focused; there was always something to be done, and time was fluid. In accordance with our gender, we moved freely through the men’s and women’s sections to hold hands, massage limbs, bring food and tin tumblers of water to open mouths, and I’m not sure if others did this, but I often liked to sing songs to those I was sitting with. Residents were brought to the back of each room to receive a shower, and the dishes and laundry were washed in an adjacent room. Inevitably, we also tended to those on the verge of death (who were moved to a designated line of beds at the front), as well as those who had just passed. Toshi was viewed by the sisters and Indian volunteers as a dedicated worker who would happily take on any task, and therefore was called on two or three times daily to lift the deceased onto stretchers and carry them several minutes through the busy streets, to be cremated at the ghats on the bank of a waterway which flows to the Hooghly River. During midday breaks, the volunteers of many nationalities and faiths gathered on the spacious roof terrace to enjoy a treat of large, cakey German biscuits with strawberry jam. We then slipped into our checked work aprons once again.
Calcutta has been called the City of Joy, and perhaps so because of the strong spirit of its people. The volunteers, similarly, moved through their days with an inner rhythm and resilience. Kalighat’s residents always seemed happy to see us upon our arrival in the morning, and those whose illnesses were not severe would often raise their arms and call us over to their beds. I did not have a working knowledge of Bengali but came to understand some essential terms (food (khaabaar), water (jol), etc.), and the sisters would often act as interpreters if they were standing nearby. When there were no words, tenderness was a smile and service in action – doing, as Mother Teresa said, the things that no one else has time for. Observing my Japanese friends who had arrived in Calcutta before me, I developed a growing understanding of the Japanese national character. They not only remained in high spirits, but were kind, caring, sharing, excellent listeners, and the best friends I could have had while carrying out such emotionally challenging work.
At Kalighat
We spent our leisure time gathering in hotel rooms not much larger than a single bed, chatting over Tibetan momo, puffed puri and disposable earthen cups of ultra-sweet chai at street stalls, sticky sweet gulab jamun and jalebi, and a mango, sweet or salted lassi at the Blue Sky Café, a backpacker favorite which is still in business on Sudder Street. One day Joji, Naomi, Toshi and I sat side by side in the back seats of a large arena, taking turns dipping into various colorful bags of Indian snacks we had brought to share. We simply desired ample space and mild air conditioning – a relief from the glaring sun and bustling pavement. We paid little attention to the circus on stage until the wild cats’ tricks were suddenly interrupted by a gushing shot of tiger urine through the bars and into the audience. Those in the front row shrieked but were prepared; they quickly covered themselves with a large plastic tarp.
Perhaps I became too daring with the food I put into my belly. The longer we spent in the city, the more willing all of us were to eat as the locals do – forgetting to ask for “no ice” in our drink glasses and unable to resist the pull of the deliciously-smelling cuisine of the street vendors. My hotel window, overlooking Kyd Street, had one large wooden shutter plank which opened outward, letting into the room what I considered a euphony of sounds, enveloping me in my chosen home away from home – pedestrians’ chatter and the singsong of vendors’ cries, autorickshaw motors and bulbous rubber horns, the rhythmic clip of a manual rickshaw puller accompanied by the sound of large, wobbly wooden wheels and a tin bell carried in hand by a short, thick rope, and the squawking of large birds, some of which would perch on my windowsill. I could no longer keep food down in my final Calcutta days, and from this large window I could see Toshi at the manual water pump on the street, rinsing buckets before climbing two flights of winding stairs back to my room.
When the day arrived to return to my school in the south, Toshi hopped onto the train and traveled three days, ticketless, to assure my safety. He hadn’t had any time to alert his friends that he was leaving Calcutta, but Joji and Naomi had dutifully packed all his belongings neatly into a suitcase and brought it into their already cramped room, ready for him if he returned (which, of course, he did).
Just days prior to arriving in Calcutta, the instructors of my Vipassana meditation retreat in Kathmandu had provided guidance on how to transform our bodies into vessels of loving kindness, boldly radiating streams of positive energy throughout the darkened hall and the city, across Nepal and the entirety of Asia, and finally across the world. The sisters and the volunteers I met in Calcutta provided a model of loving kindness through direct action. And the work ethic and goodness of my Japanese friends convinced me that I had to venture to their country eventually, to live amongst such people and to analyze what made them tick. It was what I had been searching for all along.
Toshi’s face was one of the first I encountered on my very first night in Japan, in July 1999. Instead of sharing an Indian meal with our right hands, we meandered down Tokyo’s brightly lit back alleys and, as I messily slurped my first bowl of ramen, we reminisced about the challenging, yet rewarding days which served as an initial bridge between our cultures. Seven years later, Joji and Naomi would travel from Sapporo to Yokohama to be present as special guests at our wedding reception, at which my new father-in-law offered special words of gratitude to Mother Teresa and the city of Calcutta. Indeed, reverberations continue. It is perhaps because I still share life with one of my fellow “co-workers” that I still reflect on that short and profound period of time in my late teenage years, and consider one of Mother Teresa’s quotes, Do small things with great love, to be an enduring life motto.
Signed Letter from Mother Teresa
*The names Bangalore and Calcutta were changed, respectively, to Bengaluru (in 2014) and Kolkata (in 2001), but in this essay I have kept the names as they were when I resided there.
More photographs of Nirmal Hriday can be found here.
The universal love-poem
has no words
By the window
a deep and full cup drinks:
technicolor red and yellow tulip
turning to the light
Living clay
on the sun's wheel
SHAKKEI, AT ENTSU-JI
The garden is empty; an airy room without walls.
The view across the valley to Hiei-zan is invited in
like a friend, to share a deep bowl of green tea—
this leisurely moss ocean lapping the cliff-stones
and azalea-islands,
cupped by a clipped camellia hedge
and breeze-stirred maples.
Viewed from Entsu-ji’s fresh tatami
veranda posts match spaced cryptomerias
dividing the garden vista like a folding screen.
A living painting of Nirvana, or Amitabha’s Pure Land?
No. Simply the natural world, experienced as shakkei—
borrowed landscape.
Borrowed mountain slopes traversed by borrowed light
and shadow; borrowed clouds traversing borrowed sky.
Birds traverse the view, lending their voices; a crow
echoes the staccato beat of a carpenter’s hammer.
Each present moment is loaned, just for the time being.
We borrow time like air, like sun, like water;
and everything is revealed as changing—refreshed,
regenerated, millisecond by millisecond.
The Buddha’s world of constant transience.
Worth framing. Priceless.
PRUNING A PINE TREE
My fine sophistry linking gardening and editing, particularly the metaphor of pruning, does not persuade the pine tree by our front door, overlooking the rice field. It submits—with clear reservations—to stripping out the clustered dry needles that thicket its upper reaches, but draws the line at arbitrary deletions. Right—who am I to unilaterally decide the shape of a mature pine?
Yuri meanwhile insists on closely trimming my straggly graying mustache and beard.
Being Japanese, she’s embarrassed that I look like I don’t care how others see me.
Being Australian, of course, I’m embarrassed to look like I care at all about my appearance.
My dapperly refined new look, as I ascend the ladder and haul myself into its topmost branches, certainly doesn’t impress the pine, which makes no secret of aspiring to absolute dragonhood.
SPRING 2011, ARASHIYAMA
Capture this
—self-regenerating brocade
Nihonga-delicate fresh bud, leaf, petal,
cascading over Mt Ogura's shoulder
perfuming farmer Zen's breeze…
—in a single haiku?
No way.
Cue the uguisu.
“Hō-hoke-kyo”
OK, got it.
Just one line
and the silence, before and after.
[Uguisu: bush warbler, “spring-announcing bird” or “sutra-reading bird”—said to quote the Lotus Sutra,saying“Hō-hoke-kyo”;Zen,a farmer-poet friend of haikuist Stephen Gill, is or was caretaker of the big field next to Rakushisha, the hut of fallen persimmons, Bashō’s temporary abode]
MAPLE-VIEWING AT KOETSUJI, NOV. 2021
If I were a poet, perhaps
I’d be a cosmologist of the heart;
maker of maps mountain-silhouetted
along all four sides, a conjurer of odes
imbued with autumn’s breathlessness,
the small-talk of endless streams,
birdcalls embroidered into maple brocade.
But what can I say? Each new day
is a different season.
Beyond this sudden blood-red overkill
of dazzling impermanence
cool afternoon sky
whispers one word:
infinity.
Writers in Kyoto Member Stephen Benfey is a fiction writer, copywriter, and father. He lived in Kyoto during the 1970s, attending college, working for a Japanese gardener, producing videos, and listening to Osaka blues bands. There, he met his future wife and began writing. After raising children in Tokyo, the couple moved to a tiny fishing village on the Boso peninsula. This year, he received honorable mentions from the competition judges for his cleverly conceived piece, “Emperor Uda’s Love of a Cat”.
Stephen writes: “I’ve taken considerable poetic license in rendering a diary entry written in Chinese by Emperor Uda who reigned 887-897 CE. My rendition suggests that the cat becomes a silent counselor to Uda who was thrust upon the Chrysanthemum Throne at age 20. Though the diary itself has been lost, remnants were compiled in the Edo period. Translations into Japanese and English vary in descriptive details.”
More information on the original diary entry can be found at this link. (Japanese only)
A complete list of results for the Seventh Annual Kyoto Writing Competition can be found here.
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Emperor Uda’s Love of a Cat
“Prince Uda, my cat is now yours,” the Emperor said. “But father, why?” I asked. “Such a beautiful creature, black as ink!” “You will know, soon enough,” he said. I had no desire to rule over anybody. I had trained to be a monk, serene, silent, like a cat. When I saw my father depart in the Phoenix Carriage, I understood his words, for without my cat I would have come unstuck. My cat’s eyes are like sparkling needles. When he crouches he is like a dark jewel. When he curls up he is tiny as an ear of black millet. His ears point sharply to the heavens. His height triples arching like a bow. In motion he is soundless like a black dragon dancing above the clouds. He knows yin and yang. By following The Tao he keeps his coat satiny. That he is black as night is his advantage. That he is a mouser peerless in Miyako is not surprising. I give him milk porridge every breakfast like the Buddha ate after fasting. I ask him questions and he answers honestly, wisely, carefully, silently. I said to him, “You can see through me. I have no secrets from you. You know me better than I know myself.” The black cat raised his head from his paws and stared at me, eyes piercing. Then he sighed as if moved by my confession. As though words were not enough to express his heart’s emotion. His reply was more than eloquent.
This, I write in my diary in the first year of Kampyo (889), Heian-kyō.
The Rinpa (or Rimpa) school of Japanese painting was created in Kyoto at the beginning of the Edo period. Its patrons were old aristocratic families as well as wealthy merchants who commissioned large-scale works on fusuma folding doors or byobu folding screens for their homes. Rinpa’s numerous artists gave us masterpieces such as the Wind and Thunder Gods, Matsushima, or Red and White Plum Blossoms.
Red and White Plum Blossoms by Ogata Korin, MOA Museum of Art, Atami, Shizuoka
However, when Japan opened to Western influences, the public as well artists themselves lost interest in traditional Japanese arts and instead tried to soak up as much of the hitherto unknown modern world as possible.
The government tried to slow, if not reverse, the decline of Japan’s unique artistic style that had been developed over hundreds of years of isolation. Policies were created to upgrade the status (and thus, the appeal) of artists who infused their work with the newly discovered modernism. The government also sent established (but young) artists overseas to experience and learn new methods and styles first hand. One of them was Kamisaka Sekka.
Kamisaka Sekka, “June Hydrangea” from Flowers and Grasses of the Twelve Months,” end of the Taisho Era to beginning of the Showa Era, Hosomi Museum collection.
Kamisaka Sekka was born in 1866, just before the Meiji Restoration, into a Kyoto samurai family. His talent for art was recognized early, and at age 16, he started his studies under Zuigen Sunki of the Shiga school. Sekka’s acquaintance, the diplomat Shinagawa Yajiro, introduced him to European art and urged him to turn towards design. So, in 1888, he became a student of Kokei Kishi, an Imperial Household artist and designer. Through these different influences, he developed his own style and in 1895, he was awarded second prize for a design on an incense container.
Kamisaka Sekka, Box with Design of Spring Flowers, private collection
In 1901, Sekka was finally able to do his hands-on research on European art, when the government sent him to the Glasgow International Exhibition. There, he was introduced to the Art Nouveau movement, which would heavily influence his later works. He was equally fascinated by the Japonism that had captivated the West and sought to understand which facets of Japanese art were most attractive to a Western audience.
Upon his return to Japan, Sekka was determined to merge his new insights with his old teachings. He came to realize, however, that Japan already had an established decorative art —Rinpa. So, he took this as foundation for his experiments with Western methods and tastes, while the subject matter of many of his works remained rooted in Japanese tradition. Over time, he updated his style and became known for images that are reminiscent of rough designs rather than detailed paintings. They are often dominated by large areas of bright colors and show a unique sense of composition. Others described his style as “the return of Korin” (one of the Rinpa masters of the Edo period).
Kamisaka Sekka, “Yatsuhashi” from “Momoyogusa”, around 1909, Unsōdō Collection
Like many artists in the Rinpa tradition, Sekka did not confine himself to large-scale paintings, even though he believed that painting skills should be the foundation of every designer. His designs can be found on tea bowls, fans, textiles, wrapping or writing paper, and pieces of lacquerware. Especially notable is his Momoyogusa (A World of Things), a set of 60 woodblock prints depicting landscapes, animals, flowers and both classical and modern themes, published 1909/1910.
Kamisaka Sekka, “Puppies” from “Momoyogusa”, published by Meiji 42-43 (1909-10), Hosomi Museum Collection
Sekka’s influence reached beyond his designs and paintings, which he continued to exhibit regularly. He played a leading role in the Kyoto craft scene and from 1905, he taught at the Kyoto City School of Arts and Crafts. He also set up two of the forerunners of what would later become the Kyoto Arts and Crafts Institute. Sekka edited art magazines from the Meiji to the early Showa period, and in 1936 became a counselor at the Kyoto Museum (now called the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art). In 1913, he was heavily involved in the Koetsu-kai, a tea ceremony created in honor of Hon’ami Koetsu, who is considered the founder of the Rinpa school of painting. Kamisaka Sekka died in 1942, aged 77.
Many of his paintings and other artworks have survived to this day. Kyoto’s Hosomi Museum has a large collection of his works, and currently, they are holding an exhibition focused on them. You can see “Kamisaka Sekka – Inheriting the Timeless Rimpa Spirit”at the Hosomi Museum until June 19, 2022.
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All images (except the first: wikimedia commons) courtesy of the Hosomi Museum, Kyoto.
Over the coming weeks, submissions from the recent Writers in Kyoto Seventh Annual Writing Competition will be shared here on the website. We hope that our readers will also enjoy and be as moved by the content as the judges were in the very challenging process of selecting the winners.
While there were a limited number of top prizes, Honorable Mentions were given to four individuals, one of whom is Ed Shorer. Ed is a retired middle school teacher, residing in Los Angeles, who lived in Kyoto from the late 1970s to mid-1980s. During that time he apprenticed as a tofu maker and taught English at Kyoto Seika University. An early contributor to Kyoto Journal, he provided an essay about Kyoto’s Music Coffeehouses for Issue #2. He has degrees in Japanese and English Intercultural Studies and Popular Culture Studies, and spends much of his time in competitive slot car racing. Thank you for joining the competition, Ed, and sharing with us a memorable slice of Kyoto’s history.
(A complete list of results for the Seventh Annual Kyoto Writing Competition can be found here.)
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Remembering Kyoto’s Music Coffeehouses
Kyoto Music Kissaten were my home away from home when I lived in Kyoto in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Honyarado for its beat poet spirit, and Shige-san’s brown bread. Zaco for the best blues. Ringo for Beatles albums I never knew existed. The Drug Store with its wall-to-wall-to-ceiling purple shag carpet, and nude poetry readings. Yamatoya with an exquisite sound system and jazz as smooth as the mizuwari that came out at night. Hitsujigoya, where the owner and I connected over our love of coffee, travel, and tofu: Hitsujigoya was formerly his father’s tofu shop, and I was a tofu-maker’s apprentice at the time.
These were not temples or gardens in the traditional sense, yet patrons attended regularly and with similar reverence.
When I last visited Kyoto in 2018, most of them were gone. Honyarado had burnt down. Mickey House and Zaco, shuttered. Still, I searched for that kissaten spirit that spoke to my soul so many years before: Masters who put their all into their passions. I could still read enough Japanese in an entertainment guide to figure out there was a jazz kissaten near Nijo Castle, and made my way there. Nijo Koya was tucked away down a tiny street, and my heart smiled when I found it. Entering I found the thirty-something owner in the middle of making a cup of coffee with as much attention as the finest tea ceremony practitioner. With Sarah Vaughn and Her Trio softly playing in the background I thought I had entered a time machine.
“Your shop reminds me so much of one I used to go to, Hitsujigoya,” I said in Japanese. “Hehhh… that shop’s owner, Fukuoka-san, is one of my regular customers!”
“Lemon” (Remon) is a short story by Motojirō Kajii. written in 1924.
Plot (The following is taken from Wikipedia. To see the full entry, click here.)
The protagonist, who has diseased lungs, is tormented by strange anxiety all the time. He lost his interest in the stationery store Maruzen, music, and poetry that he had been interested in before. He only continues walking around aimlessly in Kyoto.
In one such incident, he visits a fruit shop he likes on a regular basis through Teramachi (Kyoto Miyako Naka-ku “八百卯; Eight Hundred Rabbit”, closed January 25, 2009). There were rare lemons placed side by side. He bought one lemon that he was interested in; the coldness of the fruit in his hand was just right. After that, he felt uncomfortable, even though he stopped by his favorite shop, Maruzen, he began feeling uneasy.
He felt an unchanged feeling of dissatisfaction. Even though he looked at the usual picture albums that he used to like, he put the lemon as a time bomb on the pile of illustrations. Then he imagines the works of fine art flying out of the Maruzen shop, the excitement of blasting a lemon as a time bomb.
He was satisfied with what he had done at the end.
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Note: Maruzen was still near Sanjodori, Huyachotori in Kyoto at the time. After Lemon was published, it is said there was no end to people who continued leaving a lemon at the Kyoto Maruzen store (closed in October 2005. Now reopened in the Bal Building on Kawaramachi.).
The full story can be read in translation in its entirety by clicking on the bottom link of the Wikipedia page.
Writers in Kyoto offer their heartfelt thanks to all who submitted their short shorts to the competition this year. Entries were received from a highly creative group comprised of twenty-five nationalities, based both in Japan and across the globe. A milestone has been reached with this year’s introduction of the Kyoto City Mayoral Prize (supported by the Kyoto City Cultural Office), the Unohana prize for a non-native English speaker, and the Australia Prize (with thanks to the Australia-Japan Society of Victoria). Our contest announcement and prize details can be found at this link.
(In addition to the awards originally listed, we are also very grateful to Beth Kempton (Writers in Kyoto Member and Author of books including Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life) for offering a complimentary space in her Book Proposal Masterclass, beginning on May 16th, to the recipient of our Kyoto City Mayoral Prize. Thank you, Beth!)
The judges of the Seventh Annual Kyoto Writing Competition are very pleased to announce this year’s winners, as follows:
KYOTO CITY MAYORAL PRIZE
“The Watcher” by Maria Danuco (Australia, based in Japan)
All submissions listed above will be published on the Writers in Kyoto website in the coming days, with judges’ comments. We will also share the following submissions, which received special recognition from the judges:
SOLIDARITY PRIZE
“Blooming Ukrainian Freedom” by Vladyslava Konotopets (Ukraine) In addition to our listed awards, the judges have decided to offer this special prize to a former international student in Kyoto who is now residing in Kyiv. Writers in Kyoto, based in Kyiv’s Sister City, wish to express our protest of Russia’s relentless and aggressive acts of war, our support for those who currently find their lives upended, and our admiration for the heroic spirit of the Ukrainian people. In due course, her submission and some of her further thoughts on the current state of affairs will be shared on this website. Ms. Konotopets will also receive a set of WiK anthologies and a complimentary one-year WiK membership (April 2022-March 2023).
As Competition Organizer, I would also like to express my gratitude to this year’s judges for their time, insights, and cooperation in the process of selecting the winning entries — a very difficult task, considering the excellent quality of the submissions received.
For the official announcement and submission details of our next Kyoto Writing Competition (#8), please be sure to check our website in the middle of November 2022. If you have not yet shared your work with us, we warmly welcome you to do so in the future.
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