Writers In Kyoto

Page 19 of 64

Writings about Kyoto, whether by Japanese or foreign observers

Electronic musician Hajime Fukuma

January 15, 2022


An appreciation by Yuki Yamauchi

‘Live in Heaven’

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 this year.

Born in 1970, the Osaka Prefecture native started his music career in the mid-1980s. He won wider fame in 1994, when he joined P-Model, a legendary techno-pop band in which he played the synthesizer until they broke up six years later. He went on to participate in Yapoos (2000-2005), a band led by avant-pop singer Jun Togawa, and he organised his own unit, soyuz project.

In 2015, Fukuma followed a hunch and moved to Kyoto. He released two solo albums, “Flowers” in the same year and “this is our music” in 2020. For the latter album, the musician carried out a field recording at a hospital in the Nishijin area of Kyoto.

After the relocation, his first live show in Kyoto took place at the Garden of Fine Arts in April, 2016. At that time, he performed in front of an audience with the museum’s ceramic reproduction of “The Last Judgment” by Michelangelo in the background.

Fukuma continued to display his prowess at music venues such as Modern Times in the Kiyamachi area in November, 2016, and green & garden, close to Kyoto Sanjo Shopping Street in August, 2017. The following October he chose the main hall of Ryugan-ji, a Buddhist temple near Kyoto Station, as a concert venue and turned the place into a space filled with futuristic electronic sounds.

Last year, as revealed in the announcement of his passing, he devoted himself to taking care of his health so as to resume his creative activity over the coming year. That said, the synthesizer expert took part in an improvised session at Live Spot Rag, a music cafe in the Kiyamachi area. Unfortunately, the impromptu piece, titled “Red LaBre Code,” ended up becoming Fukuma’s swan song, who parted from the body that had suffered for seven years from the aneurysm.

Many Twitter users in Japan, including those who had worked with him, reacted with sorrow to his sudden parting. Ryugan-ji was no exception, posting a tweet together with a photograph of the late virtuoso in rehearsal. It reads:

Thank you, Fukuma-san. Our temple has a history of over 400 years, and it may have been during your live performance that the main hall became the most similar to the Pure Land.

Kyoto is attractive not only thanks to its traditional aspects, but because of its willingness to accept innovative things, as shown by the presence of contemporary art museums and the longevity of Kyoto Experiment (an annual festival featuring contemporary performing arts). The death of Fukuma, who helped Kyoto’s non-traditional side thrive, has become a loss for the city’s ability to draw a wide variety of visitors. I would like this article to be a reminder of the unorthodox musician and also a support for the power of Kyoto’s unconventional culture.


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References:
(link to the Gigazine article about the passing of Hajime Fukuma)
(link to the Oricon News article about the passing of Hajime Fukuma)
( why he moved to Kyoto)
(about where he lived, the city of Kyoto)
(about the field recording in Kyoto)
(about his live performance at Garden of Fine Arts Kyoto)

Structures of Kyoto (WiK Anthology 4) Review by Irish Author Jean Pasley

January 5, 2022

Writers in Kyoto would like to extend heartfelt thanks to our friends at the Ireland Japan Association (IJS) for their assistance in promoting our fourth anthology, Structures of Kyoto, across the Emerald Isle. Structures of Kyoto is now housed in the library of the Visitors’ Centre at the Lafacadio Hearn Japanese Gardens in County Waterford. IJS also very kindly provided an introduction to Jean Pasley, award-winning writer/director and author of Black Dragonfly (2021), and we are so grateful that she has written the following about our publication.

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My first thought on reading Structures of Kyoto (Writers in Kyoto Anthology 4) was that I must go back to Kyoto. I have visited the city many times, lived there for months on end, and this book reminded me of what a special place it is and how much I miss it. It also alerted me to how much I missed while I was there. In this anthology, writers share their insights, knowledge and experiences of life in Kyoto, from the sublime tea ceremony to the other extreme: a school trophy made out of a rubber duck taped to a plastic plinth. There is something here for everyone.

The wonderful title of Mark Hovane’s essay, Rocks, Gravel and a bit of Moss, gives a sense of playfulness that belies the erudite content of this excellent essay and indeed of the entire anthology. Did you know that Ryoanji is the second most photographed garden in the world? No? Neither did I. I expect there is much I don’t know about Zen gardens. Hovane writes, “Knowing historically that these spaces are, on one level, 3D representations of 2D Chinese ink paintings is a good place to start” your study of these enigmatic spaces.

Reggie Pawle recalls a monk telling him that “Zen practice is like tying yourself up with a rope and then, in that condition, finding your freedom.” It seems that the harder you try to understand Zen the more elusive it becomes. Pawle says you learn “by doing rather than by analytically figuring things out.” His essay offers an amusing glimpse into the bewildering concept of Zen.

It is interesting how you can live somewhere and remain oblivious to the significance of what you are seeing all around you. How many times have I walked past five-tiered tower-like structureswithout realising the profound importance of them? These are gorinto and they are “primarily associated with memorialising the dead.” In Jann Williams’ intriguing and informative essay, Beyond Zen – Kyoto’s Gorinto Connections, I learned that the five geometric shapes stacked on top of one another that form the structure of gorinto are the cube, sphere, triangle, semi-circle and jewel. The five shapes represent the elements of the universe: earth, water, fire, wind and space and they embody the interconnectedness of all creation. The next time I see gorinto, I will pay more attention.

Catherine Pawasarat writes about how she spent untold hours at the annual Gion Festival before she started delving into the understated rituals taking place. She asks the question: “How can we humans long so deeply for significance in our lives and be blind to it at the same time?” Pawasarat explains the gruesome origins of this spectacular thousand-year-old festival during which the main deities, the god of storms and the goddess of rice, are welcomed every year to purify the city and its inhabitants.

This book contains many little gems and nuggets of wisdom. Did you know that monks used to use green tea to help them stay awake during long periods of meditation, or that the sound of an iron kettle boiling on the charcoal brazier in the teahouse creates a whispering sound known as matsukaze, wind in the pines? Apparently, “a ladleful of cold water poured into the kettle causes this sound to cease and creates a moment of utter silence and peace.” This, Rebecca Otowa tells us in Structures of Tea, is “one of the many wordless moments in tea ceremony that have the power to lift one out of ordinary sensation.”

There is another side to life in Kyoto. In Ina Sanjana’s heartfelt piece, Sunrise over the Kamogawa, we feel the loneliness of a homeless man, who “would like to hear someone say his name. Even in contempt.” And in Karen Lee Tawarayama’s science fiction set in 2050, The Life Dispensary, the summer heat has become unbearable not just for humans but for other bewildered creatures who are forced to take refuge in ponds, springs and rivers. This sad story highlights the climate crisis and a possible future intensifying of the sweltering heat that Kyoto already suffers during the summer months.

The unique landscape in and around Kyoto is depicted beautifully. Travel with Edward J. Taylor on a winter’s day to the village of Ohara where he hopes to walk “through fields of snow, the white purifying valley, called the Pure Land.” Stay with him through an area of “small forest between two massive beds of moss from which small jizo statues sprout like mushrooms.” Or enjoy John Einarsen’s elegant piece about the Dragon Gate of the World. “It stands alone atop wide stone steps, its three doorways always open to a forest, and beyond, mountains, keeping nothing in nor anything out.” The forest is “wild and free and vast beyond imagining.”

Vast beyond imagining, as is Kyoto, a city where the secular world and the spiritual world stand side by side. During Obon, the annual Festival of the Dead, the souls of the ancestors return to visit their families. At the end of the three-day festival huge bonfires are lit on the surrounding mountains to guide the spirits back to the heavens. The fires can be seen all over the city.  In Lisa Wilcut’s beautiful poem, Okuribi, two recently bereaved people stand on their hotel roof and toast a departing spirit while gazing at the fires burning in the distance; “the spirits almost palpable in the haze that hovers over the city.”

Structures of Kyoto Anthology 4 is an eclectic mix of things personal, poetic, aesthetic, magical, modern and ancient, gathered together in an informative, thought-provoking collection. Enhanced with photographs and illustrations, this is a delightful book to dip in and out of. It will amuse, inform and move you, whether you live in Kyoto, are simply passing through, or are dreaming about this ancient city from the other side of the world.

Award-winning writer/director Jean Pasley lived in Japan for many years. Her debut novel Black Dragonfly was published in 2021.  Set in late nineteenth century Japan, it is a historical novel based on the remarkable experiences of the Irish writer, Lafcadio Hearn.

The original post on the Ireland Japan Association website can be found here. A review of Pasley’s novel Black Dragonfly by WiK member Jann Williams can be found here. For more information about Structures of Kyoto, please see this link.

Books set in Kyoto

Serendipity and ‘A Kyoto Romance’

January 4, 2022

By Liane Grunberg Wakabayashi

Paintings by Teruhide Kato, photos by Liiane 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. Nihonga, which are classical Japanese paintings created with a lush palette and nature-inspired motifs, depict temples, sprawling castles, tea houses, and just the right proportion of matsu pine trees or kimono-clad beauties to hold a scene together. 

My friendship with artist Teruhide Kato began in a corner of a pin-hole lit art gallery in Wako department store in Tokyo, where the artist was determined to redefine traditional Nihonga with a fresh contemporary look. Not a single pine tree could be found in his paintings. He went for microscopically thin lines worked with ultra-fine brushes. His striking paintings in black and white could easily be mistaken for woodblock prints. 

A Wako department store curator stepped out from a discretely placed door in the gallery wall. He ushered me into a small reception room, where Teruhide Kato sat facing me in a double-breasted dark blazer and gray pants. As we got to know each other over rounds of green tea, Kato Sensei moved me with his readiness to speak from his heart about the soul connection he felt with Kyoto, even though his family members were considered relative newcomers who traced back their Kyoto history “only” five generations. 

Kato Sensei had become famous for his hand-painted kimono, worn by elite Gion district maiko-san. An enka singer sent Kato Sensei into early retirement when she sang her heart out in a kimono confection on NHK’s New Year’s Eve program, Kohaku Utagasen. At the age of 52, with a deluge of requests for replicas of that kimono, Kato Sensei fulfilled the orders. Then he retired to devote himself to painting.  This was a dream that he had kept alive since entering Kyoto College of Art decades earlier. 

I mailed Kato Sensei a copy of The Japan Times Weekly article.  With the interview published, I thought I was ready to move on in my search for the next rising star in the contemporary Japanese art world. But Heaven Above had other plans. In April, a few months after the interview, my mother had flown from New York to visit me. We traveled to Kyoto, aiming our cameras at the pink blossoms saturating the skies over the temples. We followed the tourist route to the Kyoto Handicraft Center so my mother could pick up a few souvenirs. Standing by the door was the director of the Handicraft Center, and it was none other than Teruhide Kato. How extraordinary to have run into him. He asked me to wait, returning moments later with a letter of invitation he had received from the San Jose Museum of Art in Palo Alto. The letter was an offer to hold an exhibition there. 

A lightbulb went on in my head. It sounds cartoony to say this, but at that moment, Kato Sensei’s dream of exhibiting in the United States and my eagerness to introduce him to a sliver of the New York art world merged, overriding the fact that I had never actually organized an art exhibition anywhere before. Over the next few weeks, I let passion rule over doubts, got in touch with my alma mater, Columbia University, and somehow arranged for Kato Sensei to exhibit his paintings in the East Asian Institute’s faculty lounge, where the academic giants of Japanese literature and culture sat to drink their green tea—including the esteemed literary translator Donald Keene. 

In preparation for this exhibition, and another one downtown at the Cast Iron Gallery in Soho, Kato Sensei and I would collaborate. Over the next two years, we worked on producing a book to introduce the four seasons of Kyoto through his paintings. Kato Sensei loaned me those very same paintings that had hung in Wako department store just months earlier. It was a remarkable show of trust on his side. This is how Teruhide Kato’s vision of Kyoto came to decorate the earthy stucco walls and tokonoma of my Taisho-era bungalow in Tokyo, and how I ate, drank, and breathed in Kato’s paintings while nature filtered in through the sliding glass doors that ran the full length of the bungalow. 

We had hoped to have the book ready for the New York exhibitions. But when the time came in 1992, luckily we didn’t. Donald Keene’s office was down the hall from Kato’s exhibition at Columbia’s East Asian Institute, making it virtually impossible for the revered professor not to see the exhibition. Kato Sensei struck up a conversation with Donald Keene that led to a most unexpected turn of events. Professor Keene generously offered to write the Forward to Kyoto Romance. 

After we visited New York together to hold these two exhibitions, Kato Sensei and I parted on separate flights to resume our very different lives, his in Kyoto and mine in Tokyo. It seemed that our destiny was to exhibit together and we had fulfilled our mission. 

But I suppose intuition knew something else was in store for us. Literally, in a store. About a year later, a Fernand Leger exhibition was being held in Tokyo and I was curious to see what the great French modern painter’s art would look like on the top floor of Mitsukoshi department store. I assumed that an artist of Leger’s stature would be shown in the flagship Nihonbashi branch of Mitsukoshi. But I was mistaken. Leger was being exhibited at the much blander Shinjuku branch of Mitsukoshi. When the Nihonbashi store elevator doors opened, my mouth dropped open. I had stumbled upon an opening night party for an exhibition of Teruhide Kato’s paintings from Kyoto Romance. The publisher and Kato Sensei had created a Japanese version of Kyoto Romance without telling me. The artist offered a sheepish look to his uninvited guest and his co-author. The publisher’s smile was—how shall I put it—reptilian. 

I’m not sure why art galleries became the stage where Kato Sensei acted out our gallery karma: a chance interview in a Ginza gallery, authoring a book together, traveling to Kyoto for another serendipitous gallery meeting. After an adventure in New York, Mitsukoshi department store set the stage for a pivotal life lesson in trust, betrayal, and the long road to forgiveness.

The years rolled by and I got busy having children and raising them. I lost touch with Kato Sensei and his underhanded publisher. I unwittingly become a painter myself, took what I’d learned about organizing Kato Sensei’s exhibitions, and applied it to organizing my own. Eventually, I published a deck of cards called The Genesis Way and developed an intuitive system of drawing and painting known as Genesis Art. It was time to mend fences. I worked up the courage to call Kato Sensei and arrange to take the shinkansen down to Kyoto to show him my art. 

It was as if the past was so far behind us that what remained were only the good and sweet memories of our collaboration. He expressed it. I felt it too. Kato Sensei paid me a compliment that I return to my students every chance that I get—that the mark of a true artist is to reach a place of comfort in expressing how you see the world in your own way. Kato Sensei told me that I had, but in Kyoto language, a far more elegant equivalent of “you nailed it.” Something to do with fuzei—catching the atmosphere of a place and a situation.  

That day trip to Kyoto in 2015 would be the last I saw of Kato Sensei. He died from cancer not long after. The paintings from Kyoto Romance continue to be sold in Kyoto galleries and high-end gift shops as limited prints.  That’s good, but it’s not enough. I have a nagging feeling that there is still much more to do to make sure that Kato Sensei’s work is not forgotten. His wife, Keiko, holds in her possession both the original artwork and the copyright to release his paintings. Kyoto Romance remains out of print, unavailable on Amazon except on rare occasions when it’s offered at exorbitant prices as a collectible. It’s my deepest wish that a publisher with integrity will be found to bring Teruhide Kato back out of obscurity so that he can be loved and enjoyed by generations to come.

This is the first snowfall of the year. One wonders
what she is buying at the shop on Sannenzaka,
the slope to Kiyomizu Tenple

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Liane Grunberg Wakabayashi is a journalist and artist based in Jerusalem. In 2021 she published a memoir, The Wagamama Bride: A Jewish Family Made in Japan, in which she describes how she stumbled upon her intuitive approach to drawing and painting. For more information: see http:www.goshenbooks.com and http://www.genesiscards.com.

Of Arcs and Circles

December 30, 2021

Book Review by Rebecca Otowa

OF ARCS AND CIRCLES: insights from Japan on gardens, nature, and art
by Marc Peter Keane (Stone Bridge Press, 2019)

The first thing I noticed about this book is that it is made up of essays, similar to Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard, which I loved back in the 70s. The voice reminded me of Annie’s, and the way each essay talked about things I had never noticed before was also reminiscent of these earlier books. So I was personally disposed toward Of Arcs and Circles immediately.

My experience of reading it was that this isn’t a book to be devoured as one does a bag of potato chips. Each essay requires time and peace, and rereading, to connect with its essential views, which may hide lessons of a very surprising sort. In this, as well, it was a lot like Annie Dillard’s work for me.

An American landscape architect who lived and worked in Kyoto for many years, Marc Peter Keane has designed gardens of various kinds, written several books about Japanese gardens including Japanese Garden Notes and The Art of Setting Stones, has produced works of art, and has been also involved in preserving traditional environments and cultural heritage. He has made gardens which are also installation art in New York and elsewhere, and is working on a garden in a prestigious hotel in Kyoto. (To see pictures, check out his website at www.mpkeane.com) Because of his work in stone, wood, ceramics, and plants, he is uniquely suited to writing a book about nature and the benefits of noticing the small details of his environment.

His book has several themes, some of which I will endeavor to enumerate here as I experienced them. One is juxtaposition. The decaying farm equipment and the encircling vines. The discarded can and its inhabitant, a small lake fish (both described in “Solace for the Tumbling Mind”). The present view of the old house being demolished and Keane’s personal memory of the flower-arrangement teacher, a friend and mentor, who lived there (in the title essay, “Of Arcs and Circles”). The anemometer and how it stacks up against the movement of trees as an accurate predictor of weather (in “Wind in the Trees”).

Other themes cover the importance of grounding oneself in the physical world, the senses we are given, dancing the intricate dance of being alive within the place we find ourselves. The exquisite detail, down to bark and annular rings, of a piece of sumi charcoal which both is, and is not, the parent tree (“Wind in the Trees”); the intricacy of a reflection seen for an instant in a shop window (“Little Secrets Everywhere”); or the psychological effect on long-ago people, when colors were not a common experience, of bright cinnabar vermilion painted on a shrine gate among all that brown and green (“On Torii Gates”). His eye lights upon the beauty of tiny movements and forms and he spins them out into mental configurations, like a group of wasps making a paper nest. Tiny movements, tiny details, tiny forms. The descriptions of the natural forms, and the mental configurations that these evoke, are themselves fleeting and ephemeral, not weighed down with judgment or gravitas.

Of course, there are moments of elucidation arising from Keane’s extensive knowledge of Japan. This would have to be mentioned as another theme in the book. As examples, I will mention the comparison of the meanings of the words “garden” (in English) and “tei-en” (in Japanese) which serve to illuminate the contrasting views of this space (“A Garden by Any Other Name”); the small details of customs and human interaction, such as the way to show respect at a rural shrine (“Solace for the Tumbling Mind”); the form and meaning, in effect, the history, of a torii gate which leads into the sacred space we call a shrine (“On Torii Gates”).

Occasionally Keane’s writing broadens out into moments of enlightenment which link the natural world, with all its details, to spiritual universes of meaning, though these are never forced or didactic. I especially enjoyed the essay entitled “There is No Such Thing as Art”, as it so precisely put into words my own feeling, which is that art is a process rather than an object to be bought and owned, a process of losing oneself in the act of creation, a moment of oneness between the creator and his medium, which becomes the whole world. This is amply borne out in the penultimate essay, “Wheels Turning”, in which he becomes the creator who is enjoying, playfully and yet philosophically, the process of creation at the potter’s wheel of his wife.

There are pithy little epigrams and pages of what could be called stream-of-consciousness writing. There are trees, insects, and snakes. There is wind and there is water. There are rustic farmers and sophisticated tea masters, a small boy with a dragonfly resting on his upturned finger and a temple cat that prompts a train of thought about where cat food comes from.

In the end, I think Keane would agree that his book might just as well be written in the swirls of earth or the movement of leaves as in the words he chose. Writing, for him, I sense, is a creative process in which he effortlessly weaves words and essays from his experiences with eyes, hands, and the natural world; and yet the making of the book itself is secondary to those experiences. It’s a joy to follow these experiences along with the author. And this reader is looking forward to reading this book again, slowly and peacefully, and to translating his words and ideas into my own in my corner of the material world.

God is in the Details III: Heavenly Bamboo (around 2015) watercolor by Rebecca Otowa

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For Marc Peter Keane’s homepage with a list of publications, click here. For his Wikipedia page, see here.

Zoom bonenkai 2021

December 25, 2021

On Sunday Dec 22 twenty two members tuned in for WiK’s first ever Zoom social event. The bonenkai 2021 saw out in style what has been a difficult year in many ways. 

Our annual bonenkai bash is not only a way of dispelling the demons of midwinter but of showcasing WiK’s multifarious talents. This year there was a difference in that we were celebrating at home in front of a screen. Of course we missed the human interaction, but it enabled us to bring our farflung membership together for a gathering without the danger or difficulty of having to travel home afterwards. It was great to have so many share in the spirit of solstice celebration by making merry with fellow Kyocentrics around the world.

Performances were up to five mins in length and featured the following talents…

Mark Richardson read a poem by Thomas Hardy plus one of his own (a fable)
Jann Williams is a David Bowie fan who danced, appropriately, to Let”s Dance
Ed Levinson read his own uplifting haiku and short poems, inspired by nature
Eric Bray danced with a female partner to his own musical composition
Video by Rebecca Otowa and Karen Lee Tawarayama singing in perfect harmony
James Woodham read his own poetry inspired by life near Lake Biwa
Video by Robert Yellin in a powerful one-take reading with Bizen pot appreciation
Lisa Wilcut read a charming conversation she wrote from the viewpoint of a child
Lianne Wakabayashi talked of her relationship with Kyoto artist, Teruhide Kato
Jorrell Watkins read his own poetry in a fast paced verbal feast
Mayumi Kawaharada read her haiku, as performed recently with a jazz group
Ted Taylor read out his limericks, including a special one for WiK (see below)
Ken Rodgers read a selection of his recent poetry (see here for the contents)
Mark Hovane spoke of the poet Ryokan and of Kyoto’s last changing maple leaf

Ken Rodgers, whose Grace Notes poems were one of the highlights of bonenkai 2021

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Limerick for WiK – a limerwik by Ted Taylor

Some Writers in Kyoto there were
And others a fair bit further.
At their desks hours spent
Yet can’t cover the rent
But at least we have these events.

Ken Rodgers poems

December 20, 2021
Ken presenting at the WiK bonenkai, 2021

GRACE NOTES
A 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 the WIK bonenkai, Dec. 19th.

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WILLOW TWIG

In my early teen years, for no special reason,
I stuck a willow twig in damp ground.

Many decades later, my sister sends
a photo. A spreading tree
shades the entire back lawn.

I look around my Japanese house.
Every piece of wood I see here
—tokonoma pillar, shoji door frames,
unpainted stair risers, desk, kitchen table, chair-legs
—could all suddenly sprout leaves
and put down roots.

Like I did
here in Kyoto.

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GENERATIONS

Sakahara:
a long valley with no houses;
ancient fields

Scattering barley grains
into shallow furrows
I sense spirit presences;
look up, look around.
No one’s there

Only myself — just one
of a crowd of generations
bending their backs to cultivate
this same soil, with seeds saved
from last year’s harvest

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OHARA

Autumnal forest ridgelines illuminated 
by sunshafts through form-shifting clouds,
etherial golden glow,
flanked by deep shadow

Blue smoke rising from fields below
our soy-field browning, beans secretly yellowing

I flip open my little camera-case, 
take photo after photo

But why this ceaseless urge
to record pure transience?
To frame selected fast-vanishing views
of this vast continuum? To write images
into memory?

One lifetime, a blink of the eye.
Ichi-go, ichi-e.

Late into November
crickets silent now
butterflies still zig-zagging
— at home everywhere

Late into November
crickets silent now
butterflies still zig-zagging
— transients pursuing transience
just like me

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AT HOKOJI
Hokoji temple in Kyoto was the site of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s Great Buddha (the Daibutsu), a seated statue and building larger than Nara’s. It was completed in 1612, then was destroyed and rebuilt multiple times, until its final version (a crudely-carved yet immense head) burned in 1973. [Also mentioned in my essay, ‘Sanjusangendo, Revisited,’ in Structures in Kyoto, WiK Anthology 4.)

A signboard floorplan shows
the location of the lotus-throne,
now an unkempt grassy mound crested
by the sawn stump of a massive tree

Bush clover attracts tiny butterflies;
a purposeful helicopter passes overhead
and is gone

Slow drumbeats, then a chanting voice
from neighboring Toyokuni shrine.
Birdsong too;
traffic from Higashioji barely audible.
A tiny breeze clatters leaves.

In the absence of the Daibutsu,
in the midst of the city; such stillness.

Form is emptiness; emptiness is form.
Absence, presence; presence, absence.

The Buddha wasn’t ever here;
and was never not here.

After nearly 40 years in Kyoto
I’m finally beginning to get the message.

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For other pieces by Ken, see this travel article, or this D-Day memoir, or this celebration of Kyoto Journal’s 30th anniversary and its 100th issue, these Open Mike pieces and his latest work here.

Photos below of the 1973 Big Buddha fire sourced from a Kyoto city site, which carries more information in Japanese.

Authors who belong to Writers in Kyoto

Shinrin-yoku in Squirrel’s Forest

December 12, 2021

by Robert Weis

The most pleasant surprise when I moved to the city from the countryside was to discover that, just five minutes’ walk from my home, there is a wood, hidden and nestled in a small stream valley, miraculously escaped from the frenetic urbanisation that is rampant in these parts. I had often wondered whether it was the right decision to move from the countryside with its majestic forests of Luxembourg’s Little Switzerland to the city, despite the convenience of being so close to my workplace. I was afraid that I would miss the silent strolls after work, where I would refocus on the world, the analogous and primitive one, and not the virtual or sophisticated one in which I moved during most of my day as a good productive Citizen. That day, therefore, when I went under the thick canopy of beech leaves, which were beginning to change colour despite the mildness of this early autumn, I felt reassured: I had found a ‘world that looked like the world’, the one I had left behind for an unknown future. The familiar presence of the beech trees, the constant flow of water and the moss-covered sandstone rocks that emerged here and there made me feel good and showed me that the path I had taken was the right one. The immersion into the natural surroundings reminded me of lessons learnt in Japan, where Shinrin-yoku, or Forest Bathing is an officially recognized therapeutic practice since decades. In the following months the grove became my refuge when I needed to clear my head, to breathe fresh air, to tread on organic soil, to observe the changing seasons: the necessary desolation of the winter grey, the bright fresh green of the first leaves in April, the coolness of the shade and water on sultry summer days, the mushrooms and the colours of the leaves in autumn. The thing that struck me most, however, was to discover that the forest was also the refuge of several squirrels, who often came to the gardens of the houses, where perhaps walnut trees grew. But they would always come back here to the wood, just as me, and I would stop and watch their joyful presence, the rustling in the leaves, a quick movement, a lively look. And it gradually became a ritual, going to the squirrel forest, and I realised that I needed this simplicity of being in the world and breathing and watching my local kami, the spirits of the forests, and nothing else. And the atmosphere of the forest became a metaphor for a space of inner peace, and I began to eventually imagine it in stressful moments even when I couldn’t physically be there. I closed my eyes and it was all there, the colour of the leaves, the movements of the squirrels, the almost imperceptible sound of the water running over the stones. And every time I felt at home, and nothing made me regret the past. So time went by and today it’s been five years that I live near the forest and that the forest lives inside me. And nothing has changed, and nothing will change my world, until the squirrels stop hiding their nuts for the winter, until the nettles stop coming out in March after a long break to end up right in my soup, until the water flows, always unchanged, but never the same.

As long as this world exists, all we need is a squirrel forest for our senses and mind to bathe in.

Writers in Kyoto Members Discuss with Tokyo Poetry Journal Co-Founders and Editors (November 28th, 2021)

December 11, 2021

While accessible in only a couple of hours, the wide metropolis of Tokyo sometimes feels a bit conceptually distant from quieter, more conservative Kyoto. Both cultural hubs of Japan, however, have vibrant literary communities which are of great benefit to each other by way of networking and knowledge sharing. Writers in Kyoto was delighted to have the opportunity to host a relaxed and friendly Zoom session at the end of last month with Tokyo Poetry Journal (ToPoJo) co-founders and editors Taylor Mignon and Jeffrey Johnson to gain insight and inspiration from their experiences. This Zoom session was moderated by Lisa Wilcut (winner of First Prize in the 2019 WiK Kyoto Writing Competition for her poem Okuribi) and was also attended by nine other WiK members, many of whom also compose poetry. This was another example of how Zoom has enhanced our reach in the pandemic age, enabling us to connect with valued speakers in various regions.

ToPoJo is a biannual publication of poetry, art, reviews, and criticism founded in 2015. Their activities also include live readings incorporating the spoken word of the poets with live musical, improvised accompaniment. Over the years ToPoJo has been covered by the Japan Times, Tokyo Weekender, Wall Street International, Writers in Kyoto, and others, and as a team they have published eleven journals to date on an eclectic range of topics including Music and Poetry, poetry of the Heisei Generation, Japan and the Beats, and Poetry and Butoh. Volume 11, centered on submitted poetry, is scheduled to appear soon. Jordan A.Y. Smith will serve as Editor-in-Chief for Volume 12 (Translated Poetry).

The session began with two short video clips of Taylor’s and Jeffrey’s poems, each set to musical accompaniment. The video of Taylor’s “Buttered Young, Battered Jung” was written in collaboration with Todd Silverstein and has an added soundscape by David Severn. Saxophonist Bob Sliwa provides a background to Jeffrey’s poems, one containing a line translated by Nobel Prize-winning Mexican poet Octavio Paz.

Discussion flowed around many topics including poetry as an art form, the journal’s concept and style, the literary community formed through ToPoJo, the mechanics of running the journal, how submissions are handled, how the editors balance their professional lives and their poetry, and about the ToPoJo live events which have gained such a positive reputation over time.

On discussing the aims of the journal, Taylor explained that while he respects haiku, it is his wish to break the stereotype that this is all Japan has to offer. He deeply appreciates, for example, the cutting-edge material developed in the process of the country’s industrialization, preceding the surrealist movement. Bareku (“breaking propriety verse” of the 1700s), he says, gives a glimpse into the true nature of the Japanese. Having studied under Cid Corman, Taylor became intrigued by syllabic meter experimentation and the lack of adjective usage. He’s also fascinated by the work of the Han Geijutsu group, the Fluxus movement, avant-garde poetry, art, film, Japanese works in the Taisho Period, and the Beats. As there are still so many areas that have not been examined, Taylor hopes to bring many underexposed works to light instead of continuing to reinforce the same stereotypes.

All ToPoJo team members work as volunteers and duties are shared, with the editing of volumes taking place on a revolving basis. Each editor chooses the theme of their volume and proceeds in accordance with their own style. The chosen theme provides the overall flavor as the volume takes form, but the content may vary. When asked about how they balance their poetic activities with their academic work, Jeffrey interestingly stated that the analytical functions he uses as an academic are “turned off” in his mind when he’s creating poetry. Taylor, while working at a university, views himself as more of an outsider and as part of the counterculture of music and art, having an interest in teaching creative writing and composing his own. He also sees possible future growth in Modernist Japanese art education.

The costs of printing and distributing ToPoJo are covered mainly through the research funds allotted to many of the team (in their university academic posts) and online events (most of which are new volume launch parties). As much as possible, the journal contributors read their pieces, at which time some of them have their first chance to perform with musical improvisation. At several launches ToPoJo has welcomed Sam Bennett (a local percussionist), Morgan Fisher (keyboardist), and Masahiko Shimaji (bass player). Other venues for performances have been the open mic events “Drunk Poets See God” at Bar Gari Gari (Setagaya) and at an English pub What the Dickens (Ebisu). It is through such spoken word events that Jeffrey and Taylor believe a strong community has formed around poetry in Tokyo.

Overall, covering the costs is challenging. Unfortunately, major bookstores in Japan will not distribute journals. Therefore, it’s quite difficult to find outlets willing to carry the journal, and finances take a hit when copies are sent overseas due to additional shipping. While Volume 10 is being offered digitally, the rest remain on paper (despite the high printing costs) because the ToPoJo team considers it to have been the best option so far. There have been innovative steps along the way, however, to align print copies with the virtual age. Volume 3 (Poetry and Music) has QR codes on the pages which allow the reader to access the audio version of the poems, with musical accompaniment, as they read along.

For those interested in submitting their work to the journal for consideration, a list of guidelines can be found on the journal’s website. Taylor and Jeffrey said that prospective contributors should be sure to submit through the proper route (email) and are advised to submit between three to five works at a time, so the selection committee is able to gain a broad picture of the individual’s poetic ability. Submitting more than one piece will increase one’s chances of acceptance for publication. Another important tip is that all works published by ToPoJo have some connection with Japan. Although the content itself doesn’t always have to speak specifically of the country, there should be a connection to Japan in the author’s bio.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the session was when we touched on the idea of possible ways that poets of Writers in Kyoto can contribute to ToPoJo in the future. Taylor said that while the journal began in Tokyo, he has an interest in the poetic traditions and social history of Japan at large. Might there be a role for a Kyoto Editor? Jeffrey also suggested the idea of a ToPoJo Kyoto Edition for his next stint as Editor-in-Chief. There are many nuggets of wisdom to be shared between the members of ToPoJo and Writers in Kyoto, so we hope that this session served as a doorway to possible areas of literary collaboration in the future. Perhaps a fabulous launch party in downtown Kyoto?

Thank you, Taylor and Jeffrey, for a richly informative and inspiring discussion!

The full video of the November 28th Zoom session is below. To access a full list of ToPoJo volumes, click here. To view different online order options, click here.

Writings about Kyoto, whether by Japanese or foreign observers

Lover of rugby and of learning

Edward Bramwell Clarke in Kyoto

December 9, 2021

By Yuki Yamauchi

Rugby in Japan, courtesy Wikicommons

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 returned to Japan, he started his teaching career at Keio Gijuku University in 1899. He also taught at several schools including the First Higher School of Tokyo, where novelist Soseki Natsume was among his colleagues.

However, it was not until 1913 that the Tokyo-based educator got a foothold in Kyoto. His teaching career in the city started at the Third Higher School. In 1916, he was appointed, alongside Tatsuo Kuriyagawa as successor to Bin Ueda, who had taught English literature at Kyoto Imperial University (now Kyoto University).

Clarke dedicated himself to teaching students about English literature and its history. As recalled by his students, the Briton called himself a Victorian, liked to take a close look at books by Alfred Tennyson, George Meredith, Robert Browning and Rudyard Kipling, and esteemed Lafcadio Hearn, who had corrected Clarke’s compositions briefly in 1890 when the boy went to Victoria Public School in Yokohama.

A student of his recollects what the British professor was like at Kyoto Imperial University around 1919:

Unable to walk well, Prof. Clarke always went to school by rickshaw. Even during each ride, he could not stop reading. I never saw him there without dozens of books on the vehicle. The driver often yawned in the school yard while waiting for the return of his client. According to the rickshaw man, Prof. Clarke’s only hobby was to go just once every two weeks to his favourite barbershop on the premises of Kyoto Station in those days, and then dine at a restaurant on the second floor before going back home.
(Extract from an essay by Shuji Yamamoto in Kyoto Daigaku Bungakubu Gojunenshi (Fifty Years of the Faculty of Letters, Kyoto University) (1956)

Rugby was of much significance to Clarke until 1907, when he was forced to have his right leg amputated due to severe rheumatism. Thereafter his athletic vigour turned into energy to study English literature.

Meanwhile, a Japanese who studied under Clarke for 22 years wrote his recollection of the British educator:

I am sure that no one is as willing to practice self-sacrifice as Prof. Clarke, in order that everyone can know the enjoyment of learning and the pleasure of knowledge. However busy he was or whenever he was sick in bed, he took the trouble to welcome any student for as long as he could and talk and listen to his guest. Without getting bored in the least, he answered any questions however trivial or troublesome. He had only this one hobby. Probably because of this, he was always kind enough to lend anyone, if they hoped to read, various rare books he had collected with considerable passion.
(Extracted from an essay dated April 29, 1934, by Hojin Yano in Shikyucho: Zuihitsushu (1948))

In Kobe Shimbun (May 17, 2016), there is a further clue to the character of Clarke. According to an article, he made meticulous and detailed corrections to any English writing by his students, no matter how bad it was. In addition, the rugby-loving professor was extremely strict with students who cheated with their thesis; just as the sport fostered his sense of fair play, he could not tolerate any wrongdoing in the playing field or dissertations.

On April 26, 1934, Clarke suffered a brain haemorrhage and passed away two days later. It was just days before his move to Kobe – his daughter and her children lived in the city and Arima, one of Japan’s renowned hot spring resort areas, was his favourite summer retreat. His funeral ceremony was held at St. Mary’s Church, Kyoto, near Heian Jingu shrine, as reported on the front page of Kyoto Imperial University Newspaper (May 5, 1934). He is buried in the Kobe Municipal Foreign Cemetery, and his gravestone bears the following epitaph:

Life’s race well run
Life’s work well done
Life’s victory won
Then cometh rest

Though he sleeps in Kobe, Kyoto is still connected to the professor through the Clarke Collection – more than 5,000 books on English literature in the Library of Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University. There is also a bust, completed in 1935, of a man of such extraordinary knowledge that his friends nicknamed him ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica Clarke’ after the EBC initials of his name.

Edward Clarke, courtesy Wikicommons, a lover of rugby and of learning

*********************

For an introduction to Yuki Yamauchi, please click here. For his piece on Portraits of Uji, click here. For his portrait of prewar academic critic, Tatsuo Kuriyagawa, click here. And for his piece on theatre and film director, Akira Nobuchi, click here. He has also written on the history of Gion Higashi.

Authors who belong to Writers in Kyoto

IN THE POOL

December 8, 2021

By Lisa Twaronite Sone

I had expected her.

I knew exactly who she was, when she came wandering into the old school one day.

She saw my janitor’s uniform and realized I belonged there, but she wasn’t quite sure what to say to me. They never are.

“Can I help you?” I asked as kindly as possible, putting down my mop.

“I…I work in the office tower next door,” she said haltingly, but of course I already knew that.

I had seen the young woman with the long hair standing next to the window, every day around lunch time, eating her apple and enjoying the view from the 20th floor. She was always looking at the mountains in the distance, with a little smile on her lips.

But then one sunny day, she looked down, and noticed them — the children, in the abandoned swimming pool on the roof.

After that, I saw her watching them, unable to believe her eyes. She didn’t tell anyone else what she saw, of course. They never do.

“This building…” she was asking me now, her voice slightly trembling. “When did they stop using it as a school?”

“More than 30 years ago,” I said. “There weren’t enough kids anymore, in this part of the city. So now it’s used for city offices, and storage.”

“There’s an old pool on the roof…” she started to say, but she didn’t know how to put into words what she wanted to say next.

So I helped her out.

“You see the children.”

“YES!” she said, in a loud exclamation of relief that surprised both of us.

“Most people can’t see them,” I said, “but you’re not the first. And probably not the last. You thought maybe it was just the way the sunlight was hitting the water, right?”

She nodded.

“But then you saw their faces. There weren’t any kids standing around the pool, and yet in the water, you could clearly see their reflections? Nine of them, and then ten, right?”

“I counted twelve,” she said. “Who are they? Are they ghosts? Did they drown in the pool?”

“No one ever drowned in this building’s pool,” I said. “I asked the people in charge about that. I don’t think those kids are alive anymore, but they all died somewhere else, not in the pool.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Look, all I know is that no one died in the pool. And in the 18 years I’ve been working here, you’re the ninth person who came to ask about kids in the water who aren’t really there. I can see them sometimes, too, and you know what I think?”

She didn’t encourage me to continue, but I did, anyway.

“I think that when people die, their strongest memories live on. When these people died, some of their happy childhood memories remained here. And that’s what we see now, in the water. These memories.”

This seemed to satisfy her. She nodded slowly, thanked me, and walked away.

I didn’t tell her everything. I never do. I didn’t want to upset her by telling her that usually, the only people who can see the children are those about to join them.

In fact, the only exception to this so far is me — I’m still here, and I don’t know why. The other eight people, though….they all passed on, within a few weeks of talking to me.

And I can still see all eight of them, too. Well, it’s nine now.

On bright sunny days, I can go up to the roof, and there’s the line of kids reflected in the murky green rainwater, in their old-fashioned swimsuits and bathing caps.

There’s 15 of them now. Their faces are laughing, and they’re eager to jump in — who wouldn’t be, on a bright, sunny day? It’s definitely a happy childhood memory they would keep for the rest of their lives, strong enough to linger on after them.

Then I look up at the office towers, and I can see all of the faces reflected in the windows. There’s that nice old man who was hit by a car, and there’s that chubby, middle-aged mother who dropped dead of a heart attack.

The weekend after she came to the school, the woman with the long hair was lost at sea, in a boating accident. I saw her picture on the news.

Now whenever the sun is shining, I see her there at her window on the 20th floor, eating her apple. She’s always looking at the mountains in the distance, with a little smile on her lips.

*********************

For an interview with Lisa about her writing with Reuters, see here.

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Writers in Kyoto is a group of published and self-published English-language authors working or living in the city. It is run on a membership basis and its purpose is for writers to help each other by creating opportunities for promotion, book launches, readings, the exchange of information, and social events. Read more

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