Writers In Kyoto

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Writers in focus

Writers of Kyoto, Part 2: Yamamura Misa 山村美紗

By Sara Ackerman Aoyama / August 26, 2024

by Sara Ackerman Aoyama

Introduction

In this second entry in the series, I’m introducing a woman writer, Yamamura Misa. She is well known as a mystery writer and a very prolific one at that. Many of her books have been adapted for television mystery series and a few of them have also been made into video games. She has been translated into Chinese, Russian, French etc. but I was unable to find any of her books currently available in English. While many of her books are set in Kyoto, she has also set her mysteries in other parts of Japan, both near and far. Additionally, there are a few of her mysteries set overseas in such places as Paris and Guam.

Biography

Yamamura Misa (August 25, 1934 – September 5, 1996) was born in Kyoto City proper. During the war, her father served as a principal of a college in Korea, so she spent some time there as well. After graduating from college with a degree in Japanese Literature, she went on to become a junior high school teacher in
Fushimi. Upon marrying at the age of thirty, she retired from her teaching position. She took up writing a few years after that and quickly found success as both a novelist and a writer of screenplays and drama. But her mysteries were what she was most well known for and perhaps unique for the times, one of her favorite recurring characters was an American woman named Katherine who was the daughter of a fictional American vice president. The ‘Katherine’ novels were adapted for television quite frequently and the role has been played by both Japanese and Western actresses, the most recent being Charlotte Kate Fox, an American actress and singer from New Mexico, who also appeared in the NHK morning drama, Massan.

Yamamura was also well qualified in Japanese arts such as flower arranging, tea ceremony and traditional dance, and this enabled her to incorporate traditional arts into her Kyoto mysteries. She passed away of heart failure, leaving behind her daughter, Momiji, an actress. In her will she requested that Momiji be given a role in any future dramatizations of her work.

I was drawn to Yamamura Misa’s works purely for her Kyoto settings, but I wondered if I could really read a mystery in Japanese and be able to follow the plot lines and pick up on the clues. Yamamura is a clever writer and her success is due to her so-called tricks that she employs when she writes. But with an American character, I found it easy to relate to her adventures and though it may be impossible for a budding Japanese language student to pick up on every clue, they are quite readable; it should be quite easy to find a copy of many of her books in a used bookstore. Should you happen to catch an airing of one of her dramas or find one on the internet, that will aid you in understanding her storytelling style. And finally, a few of her works have also been published as manga.

It is very difficult to find photos of this author. And she seems to have been somewhat of a mystery herself. Despite being a very popular author of her time, there is little written about her and it seems that this is how she wanted it to be. Although the Wikipedia articles are written decisively, it is possible that even her real age at death is unknown. Seeking to remedy this, a more contemporary Kyoto author, Hanabusa Kannon published a book in 2020 entitled ‘The Famous Mystery Writer of Kyoto that Nobody Really Knew.’ At one time there was an official website for Yamamura Misa, but it has (mysteriously) disappeared.

Books set in Kyoto

The number of books set in Kyoto is so extensive that rather than list them here, I will list the Kyoto locations or events that are featured in a sampling of her Kyoto works. My suggestion is that you pick a locale that you are familiar with and dive in. There are also a number of works that at least partially take place in Kyoto but don’t refer to a location in the title. Examples would be Kyoto Gourmet Journey, Kyoto Engagement Journey, Kyoto Honeymoon Journey and Kyoto Divorce Journey etc.

Place
Title
Ohara京都大原殺人事件 (1984)
Sanjusangendo三十三間堂の矢殺人事件 (1984)
Sagano京都嵯峨野殺人事件 (1985)
Kurama京都鞍馬殺人事件 (1985)
Kitano京都化野殺人事件 (1986)
Aoi Festival京都葵祭殺人事件 (1986)
Kita Shirakawa京都北白川殺人事件 (1987)
Higashiyama京都東山殺人事件 (1987)
Nishijin京都西陣殺人事件 (1987)
Kōmyōji (Nagaoka)京都紅葉寺殺人事件 (1987)
Daimonji京都夏祭り殺人事件 (1987)
Maiko (Gion)京舞妓殺人事件 (1987)
Miyako Odori (Gion)都おどり殺人事件 (1988)
Murasakino京都紫野殺人事件 (1988)
Hanamikoji Street京都花見小路殺人事件 (1988)
Ninenzaka京都二年坂殺人事件 (1989)
Kibunegawa京都貴船川殺人事件 (1989)
Mifune Festival (Kurumazaki Shrine)京都三船祭り殺人事件 (1990)
Kiyomizu-zaka京都清水坂殺人事件 (1990)
Shisendō Temple京都詩仙堂殺人事件 (1991)
Nishioji Street京都西大路通り殺人事件 (1995)

The books that feature the fictional Katherine Turner may also be of interest as they reflect some of the gaijin experience in Kyoto. The Japanese wikipedia entry for Misa Yamamura has a list of the books in that series.

General Resources Consulted

USA Prize – John Savoie (Ninth Annual Kyoto Writing Competition)

By WiK / August 25, 2024

From the Judges:
“A series of seasonal haiku verses which conveys an entire narrative within its delicate descriptions and easily evokes images of Kyoto’s enveloping nature and pastimes while recalling the 17th century master of this poetic form.”

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Basho in Love

who could give a name
to cherry blossom color
or her sudden blush?

*

empty cup
and I’ve done nothing
but think of you

*

third date, fishing—
dragonflies coupling
on tip of the rod

*

the black spaces
between the stars
whisper your name

*

drift of wild cosmos
butterfly and honeybee
exchanging flowers           

Photo Credit: Karen Lee Tawarayama

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Back in the last millennium John Savoie first came to Japan as a Mombusho English Fellow and went on to teach another five years at Kyoai Gakuen in Maebashi, Gumma. He currently teaches great books, Homer to Basho, at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. His first poetry collection, Sehnsucht, has recently won the Prize Americana.

For the full list of this year’s competition winners, click here. For this year’s original competition notice (with prize details), click here.

Writers in focus

Writers of Kyoto, Part 1: Mizukami Tsutomu 水上勉

By Sara Ackerman Aoyama / August 25, 2024

by Sara Ackerman Aoyama

Introduction

Almost every member of WIK has written something about Kyoto and while there are many famous authors writing about Kyoto both in the distant past and the present, there are also many that remain unknown to us simply because they haven’t (yet) been translated into English. Like many other readers, I love to immerse myself in a book with a setting that is familiar. So when I was learning to read in Japanese, I would search for books set in Kyoto. My criteria was not necessarily great literature; for me, this was purely reading practice. Through trial and error, I found that a setting in Kyoto and/or a novel with ample dialog was my best bet. I did not try to understand every word or look up each unknown character. The only time I picked up my dictionary was when an unknown word or character made multiple appearances and I felt a compulsion to know the meaning or the reading.

In this short series, I want to introduce a few authors who used Kyoto as their setting for a number of their books. Once you understand an author’s style, it becomes easier and easier to read their books. My hope is that this will encourage intermediate and beyond Japanese language learners to try some of these books out. They are, for the most part, older books, so it should be easy to find copies in used bookstores. Most of all, I hope this encourages you to browse a few bookstores and find other wonderful authors that are still unknown to most English readers.

I begin with Mizukami Tsutomu. Or, Minakami Tsutomu. There seems to be little consensus on how to read his family name, or even his first name. I have heard Kai Fusayoshi refer to him as “Ben-chan” and I believe he was, at one time, a patron of Honyarado. He is certainly a prolific and colorful author. Surprisingly, I found his books on the contemporary geisha world and bar hostesses in downtown Kyoto fairly easy to read.

Biography

Mizukami Tsutomu

Mizukami Tsutomu (March 8, 1919 – September 8, 2004) was born in Fukui Prefecture in a small village. He was the second son of five siblings. At the age of nine, he was sent to live with a relative in Kyoto and to become an apprentice priest at a sub- temple of Shōkoku-ji called Zuishunin. However, the hard life of an apprentice priest didn’t suit him and he ran away at age thirteen.

He was brought back, this time to Tōji-in and the library he found there drew him into the world of literature. In 1937 he entered the Department of Literature at Ritsumeikan University. Having had tuberculosis, he was not assigned to active duty in the military during wartime, but instead was assigned to an army unit stationed in Fushimi.

After the war, he moved to Tokyo where his first book was published. He worked in many different fields (he claimed to have held 36 different jobs) to support his family. In 1959 his first mystery was published and sold quite well, establishing his name as a writer. From then on he was quite prolific and often wrote mysteries taking place in Hokuriku and Kyoto. He addressed a wide diversity of issues in his writing depending on where his interests took him. His family life was also quite colorful. His literary works won him a great number of awards and stretched into just about any genre you could imagine, including works for children. Though his works have been translated into both Russian and Chinese, he is oddly ignored by English language publishers. Only a few of his stories have been translated thus far.1 I note that there was also a translation published of a selection from his book called ‘Eating the Seasons’ in the Kyoto Journal Issue 83 on Food.

Mizukami’s works set in Kyoto are by no means considered to be his best books or the most representative, but I present them here because they are not terribly difficult for a student of the Japanese language to read. In fact, they provide an excellent introduction to the Kyoto dialect spoken in the geisha quarters and by some Kyotoites today. The story lines are quite simple and the settings provide a good introduction to different areas of Kyoto. Here are a few that I read many years ago when I was learning the Japanese language. It should be easy to find copies of them in used bookstores in Kyoto or elsewhere in Japan.

Books on Kyoto

五番町夕霧楼 [Gobanchō Yūgirirō] Published in 1962. Considered to be his representative work on Kyoto, it was written as a contrast to Mishima Yukio’s The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. A young girl from Tango is sold into servitude to the Gobanchō District in Nishijin. In fact, she is sold into prostitution. There are love triangles, suicides, and misbehaving priests, all culminating in a fire at Hōkakuji Temple. With all of these elements it is no surprise that it was made into two different TV dramas (1968 and 1974) and a Shochiku film in 1980.

沙羅の門 [Sara no Mon] “Sara’s Gate” Published in 1964. It’s a tearjerker of a story about an unwanted pregnancy of a woman lodging in a temple near Yasaka Shrine. There was also a film adaptation made the same year and directed by Seiji Hisamatsu.

京の川 [Miyako no Kawa] “Kyoto River” Published in 1965. The life and troubles of the geisha world in Kyoto. This was also serialized for the NHK Ginga Drama in 1969 with a total of 25 thirty-minute episodes.

女の森で [Onna no Mori de] “In the Forest of Women” Published in 1969. A two- volume work on the lives of the Gion geisha. This was serialized for the NHK Ginga Television Novels series in 1975 and has a total of 20 twenty-minute episodes. It’s an excellent book to immerse in.

波影・貴船川 [Namikawa Kibunegawa] Published in 1969. A collection of five short works. A good starting point as the works are shorter and you can pick and choose.

出町の柳 [Demachi no Yanagi] “The Willow of Demachi” Published in 1989 Another collection of five short works.

Also notable is 土を喰ふ日々, published in 1978 which was made into a film starring Sawada Kenji as recently as 2022 entitled The Zen Diary in English about a writer living in the mountains and what he cooks throughout the seasons. See the trailer.

General Resources Consulted

  1. The Temple of the Wild Geese and Bamboo Dolls of Echizen. Translated by Dennis C. Washburn in 2008. ↩︎

The Two Sues

By Rebecca Otowa / August 13, 2024

Talk with Susan Ito and Suzanne Kamata

Writers in Kyoto Event, July 27, 2024

This event, taking place in a blessedly cool classroom of Ryukoku University Omiya Campus, showcased Susan Ito, author of I Would Meet You Anywhere, a memoir of her youth as a bicultural Japanese-American who was adopted by Japanese-American parents and grew up in New Jersey. (See below for more information on the book, which recently was a finalist for the National Books Critics Circle Award.)

Susan Ito, a teacher of writing and now at Mills College/Northeastern University, this year taught a summer program (“Food in Japan”) through the university at various locations in Japan, including Tokyo, Fukui, and Kyoto. Her students (international) read from their writings completed during the course, many of which were restaurant reviews. Suzanne Kamata, a noted writer of fiction (her most recent published novel is Cinnamon Beach, soon to be reviewed by WiK) and other genres, and member of Writers in Kyoto, collaborated with her in the online journal Literary Mama, and after the student readings, they talked together about Susan Ito’s book and life. Susan also read some sections from her book. The event closed with a question-and-answer session.

Thanks are due to Paul Carty and Ryukoku University for making the venue available, and to all who attended from Ryukoku and from Writers in Kyoto.

I Would Meet You Anywhere by Susan Ito (Ohio State University Press, 2023)
Finalist for National Book Critic Circle Award

Susan described her book, which spans several decades and takes in the realities of adoption and the Japanese concentration camps in America during WWII, as “a search for truth.” It is reviewed by Suzanne Kamata in Goodreads in part as follows: “The memoir reads like the most gripping of novels, and would be of interest to anyone interested in adoption, motherhood, Japanese culture, and what it’s like to be biracial.” It’s definitely all of that, and also would appeal to “anyone who has felt rootless, questioned their place within their family, or longed for deeper self-understanding” (cover blurb by Nicole Chung).

That’s a pretty broad spectrum of appeal. It would certainly extend to those who have struggled to be part of a Japanese family by marriage, or to anyone who felt rootless when living long-term in another country, or to those who know who their parents were but don’t know anything about previous generations, for example never having met their grandparents on one side or the other. Everyone has experienced past loss, and everyone has holes in the fabric of their family, whether “actual”, adopted, or in-laws by marriage. Thus this book tells an extreme version of a story that many of us, especially in this time of the world, can relate to.

Susan’s story, one of being mixed race by birth (Japanese and American) and also adopted by parents who themselves had their own questions of identity (Japanese-Americans), is a heroic search for self, exhaustively researched and written over many years. Particularly referencing her search for, and finally meeting with, her birth mother, and also dealing with her complicated emotions surrounding her adoptive parents, and with Japanese culture that is both foreground and background, it is also a complex story, full of emotional twist and turns and many heartrending anecdotes.

In the preface to the book, she describes it as “a story which holds a secret at its core” and also says “The risk of telling the story comes at a great cost, but the cost of not telling it is equally painful.” She is also careful to point out that this is not an autobiography per se, but deals with only one facet of her many-faceted life.

Written by a person who has done a lot of work in order to come to grips with her own story, this book is an inspiration to everyone, but particularly (I would suggest) writers.

Illusory Dwellings: Aesthetic Meditations in Kyoto

August 4, 2024

by Allen S. Weiss. Stone Bridge Press, p179
Reviewed by Stephen Mansfield

Early in ‘Illusory Dwellings,’ Allen S. Weiss, writing of the journey and the environs it takes us to in the quest for identity, states, “We map a city according to our fantasies and desires, and in turn the city frames our lives and inflects our destinies.” This collusive process could as easily be applied to art and aesthetics, the author’s primary interests in this book. 

    Weiss’s work is difficult to categorize, but might be termed one of the higher forms of rumination on art and aesthetics, a practice restricted to a small group of writers, critics and polymaths, stretching from Walter Pater and John Ruskin to Alain de Botton. Geoff Dyer and Teju Cole come to mind for their considered meditations on states of being.

    The beauty of Weiss’s prose, which is evident throughout this book, is an enticement to proceed to his ideas, a process that is a form of ensnarement, forcing the serious reader to reexamine their muddled thinking. Whether he is pondering the transformative work of an ikebana master, an iconoclastic ceramicist, or John Cage’s abstract score for Ryoanji, a composition played in chance-determined sequences based on the perception of the garden and its fifteen stones as a pre-existing form of musical score, or commending the experience of restaurant interiors, tableware, calligraphic displays and flower arrangements, an entrée into the refinements of Japanese culture, he does so with an uncommon refinement. Here is a book that doesn’t present itself as a work of literary merit, but cannot fail in being one. Books like this are a supreme rarity.

   With deft hands, Weiss peels back the fine layering of opaque membrane that wraps the core of Japanese aesthetics, and takes us, in the case of the tea ceremony, into a “utopia with a single ritualistic purpose, a space that prepares one for enlightenment.” Eschewing the anointed look of the culturally mesmerized, and, thereby, compromised, Weiss writes of the practice, that the purity of its origins have been, “corrupted by the commodity aspect of tea utensils and the utilization of the private space of the tea room for political and financial intrigues.” The author understands the dilemma faced by the more aesthetically conscious tea masters, trapped between material forms, consumer valuations, and a striving for “pure connoisseurship, which can appear “mannerist, even decadent.” Does one adhere to a form of ritual so formally correct and minimalist it compromises the social leveling of the event, or stage a presentation so opulent, you end up with over-stewed leaves? 

    Could this very fastidiousness, the sedulousness of a practice that keeps the unschooled hordes from the door, amount to, not just an affectation, but an over-attention to perfection? This put me in mind of a tea ceremony I attended earlier this year, in which the master, an elderly woman, apologized profusely for the condition of the winter camellia chosen for the event, which had suddenly blossomed that morning into a showy, unintended efflorescence. She hoped that the raku ware tea bowl that was being passed around, with its more muted tones, would moderate the over-exuberance of the flowers.  

    Is the appreciation of such aesthetics in decline? Or, more to the point, how long has it been in decline? The appreciation of limited morsels of light in the Japanese home, for example, had already begun to lapse into a cult of quaintness by the time Junichiro Tanizaki published his long 1933 essay, ‘In Praise of Shadows’. Tanizaki, whom Weiss references, celebrates the merits of meager light and perishable, organic materials, noting in the case of the zashiki, the Japanese tatami room, that walls are deliberately made from soil and sand, in order to, “let the frail, melancholic, ephemeral light saturate the solemn composure of their earthy tones.” There is no question that, today, the appreciation of such refinements is confined to a very small number of Japanese. One would have to go to considerable lengths to experience the aesthetic sensations celebrated by Tanizaki, and now by Weiss.

    In an age in which the publishing industry, indiscriminate in its eagerness to bring out books on Japanese culture, to provide instant gratification, Weiss demands a great deal more from his readers. Spearheading a cerebral, unsparing school of intellectual inquiry, one you might term, “extreme erudition,” you’ll have to have your wits about you when encountering, for example, a sentence like, “If it is neither diegetic nor adiegetic, would it be paradiegetic?” which concerns the function of the frame in the visual arts.

    As someone who grew up in a house totally bereft of books, I have spent a lifetime filling empty rooms with the written word, with titles that turn barren emptiness into what Donald Richie termed “the nourishing void.” The aptly named ‘Illusory Dwellings,’ is a fine addition to this improvised library. 

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Writers in Kyoto were very fortunate to welcome Allen S. Weiss to speak on ‘Illusory Dwellings’ and a variety of other topics in May 2024. Reflections on the event can be found here. A listing of Allen’s books can be viewed on his Amazon author page here.

Photojournalist and author Stephen Mansfield’s work has appeared in over 70 publications worldwide, on subjects ranging from conflict in the Middle East to cultural analysis, interviews and book reviews. To read more from and about Stephen Mansfield on the Writers in Kyoto website, please refer to this link.

Writers in focus

Hearn on Heian Jingu

July 24, 2024

In Kokoro (Chapter 4 Section 6) Hearn writes of ‘Dai-Kioku-Den’, which is how Heian Jingu was known on its establishment in 1895. Hearn was in town for the celebrations to mark the grand opening of a monument to mark the restoration of imperial supremacy. (Shrine and temple  were used interchangeably in early Meiji, before the terms became standardised as shrine for Shinto and temple for  Buddhism.)

The normally reliable Hearn appears to have made a mistake about Emperor Kammu’s succession, since officially he was the 50th of the imperial line,  not  the 51st. He also writes of the ‘original scale’ of the palace, whereas Heian Shrine is slightly scaled down and modelled on 5/8ths of the Heian-era building. The description below not only shows Hearn’s remarkable gift for colourful description (‘architectural necromany’), but also his fascination with the part played by ‘ghosts’ (i.e. the dead) in Japan’s spiritual culture.

Kyoto, April 21. The noblest examples of religious architecture in the whole empire have just been completed; and the great City of Temples is now enriched by two constructions probably never surpassed in all the ten centuries of its existence. One is the gift of the Imperial Government; the other, the gift of the common people. The government’s gift is the Dai-Kioku-Den,- erected to commemorate the great festival of Kwammu Tenno, fifty-first emperor of Japan, and founder of the Sacred City. To the Spirit of this Emperor the Dai-Kioku-Den is dedicated: it is thus a Shinto temple, and the most superb of all Shinto temples. Nevertheless, it is not Shinto architecture, but a facsimile of the original palace of Kwammu Tenno upon the original scale.

The effect upon national sentiment of this magnificent deviation from conventional forms, and the profound poetry of the reverential feeling which suggested it, can be fully comprehended only by those who know that Japan is still practically ruled by the dead. Much more than beautiful are the edifices of the Dai-Kioku-Den. Even in this most archaic of Japan cities they startle; they tell to the sky in every tilted line of their horned roofs the tale of another and more fantastic age. The most eccentrically striking parts of the whole are the two-storied and five-towered gates, – veritable Chinese dreams, one would say. In color the construction is not less oddly attractive than in form,-and this especially because of the fine use made of antique green tiles in the polychromatic roofing. Surely the august Spirit of Kwammu Tenno might well rejoice in this charming evocation of the past by architectural necromancy!

Authors who belong to Writers in Kyoto

Can I Call You Daddy?

July 22, 2024

by Marianne Kimura

Looking lost, my husband wanders outside with a wet rag he’d just used to clean the bathroom sink.

I pop my head out of the window.

“Otoosan”, I say, “hang it over there near the washing machine, near the other rags. When there’s more, I’ll wash them all together”.

As I close the window, it occurs to me, not for the first time, how odd it still feels to keep calling my husband the Japanese equivalent of “Dad”. But I’ve been doing that ever since our first child was born around 26 years ago! I’ve gotten so used to it, yet also, it does still occur to me that it seems strange.

Of course, I know that it’s common for older couples with kids here in Japan to call each other “Otoosan” (Dad) and “Okaasan” (Mom) while younger couples with kids typically prefer the more modern “Papa” and “Mama”. When our daughter was born, we were living in the smallest prefectural capital in a rural and very traditional part of western Japan, Yamaguchi. I’d often hear women in my neighborhood sing out “Otoosan!” when they were calling their husbands. Or I would hear them in shops: “Otoosan, look at how cheap these apples are today!” At first it seemed awkward to me, but soon I got totally used to it. It’s true, though, that I didn’t hear the reverse as much, the men calling “Okaasan” to their wives. I put it down to men’s naturally being less talkative. And also, I’ve sometimes heard men here calling their wives by nicknames, such as “Mi-chan” for “Miwako”.

I remember learning that calling your spouse—or indeed anyone―by his or her first name is kind of bad luck here so obviously I didn’t want to call my husband by his first name, Takeshi. I noticed that his family members mostly called him “Take-chan”. For a few years, before our daughter was born, I tried that for a while too, (my husband seemed amused by this), but that seemed strange to me as well. We’d lived in Chicago for four years before we’d moved to Japan, so I was quite used to calling him “Takeshi”. But when we moved here and I heard that using first names with your spouse was perhaps bringing bad luck, calling him “Takeshi” suddenly seemed like not only a brazen flouting of cultural norms, but possibly an invitation to disaster.

So, when our daughter was born, it was a relief to turn to the safe term “Otoosan”, and later, when I heard younger couples using “Mama” and “Papa”, perhaps I felt outdated, but I didn’t mind.

Still, I can’t help but feel, as a foreigner, maybe a little self-conscious still, about calling my husband “Otoosan”, which after all means “Dad”.

So what does my husband call me? Usually it’s, yes, “Okaasan”. But occasionally he will use my name, Marianne. Perhaps he’s not as superstitious as me? Or perhaps, as I’m a foreigner, there’s not so much bad luck attached to my name?

Now that having kids has become rarer in Japan, I’m also curious about what younger married couples would call each other since they might not ever become “Mama” and “Papa”. I feel like the answer is nicknames.

I investigated the topic of “bad luck surrounding first names in Japan” by asking my husband. He said that traditionally when kids were young, it was considered bad luck to use their first names because they still belonged partly to the spirit world, and using their real names could function somehow to call them back there.

Still, I remember clearly reading (but I don’t remember where) that it is even bad luck for a wife to call her husband by his first name. But is this merely an “old wives’ tale?”

And now so much water has gone by under the bridge, as they say, that I can’t call him “Takeshi” naturally any longer!

Here is what I found on Quora about this topic. The answer is written by a Japanese man in his 50s:

My mother still refers to my father by our surname when she is talking to her friends or siblings.

Among ourselves, she calls him “Granddad” and me “Eldest Bro.” Within a family, we call each other by our roles from the viewpoint of the youngest member. When I was a kid, they would call each other “Dad” and “Mom” respectively, and now “Granddad” and “Grandma” from the viewpoint of my kids. I had two younger brothers so hence “Eldest Bro” even now.

So, in a nutshell, Japanese people avoid using their first names by any means. It’s almost like an obsession, on par with those wizards at Hogwarts against calling the noseless villain his name. My uneducated guess is that it has something to do with the culture’s strong propensity for high-context indirectness mixed with a sense of deity that we associate with people’s names.

The samurai class of old days had this unique tradition where they gave children “childhood names” that were exclusively used until they finished coming-of-age ceremony (genpuku) and were granted a real adulthood name. The childhood name was for protecting children from the evil, while the adulthood name was treated as a sort of taboo, and it was not supposed to be mentioned until after the person was deceased.

I believe there was a similar “taboo name” culture in China, too.[1]

[1] https://www.quora.com/Is-it-common-for-Japanese-girls-to-call-guys-by-their-first-name

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For other writings by Marianne Kimura on the Writers in Kyoto website, please see here. Marianne also has a sizable following on TikTok, describing herself as a Shakespeare performer and academic witch, and can be found under the name uguisu77.

Event Reminder: Authors Susan Ito and Suzanne Kamata in Conversation (July 27th)

July 15, 2024

Several years ago, Susan Ito and Writers in Kyoto member Suzanne Kamata were co-fiction editors of an online journal called literarymama.com. Now they meet again in Japan, where they will discuss Susan’s recently published memoir, I Would Meet You Anywhere, about being a biracial individual raised by adoptive Japanese American parents, and finding her Japanese birth mother and white birth father’s families. 

Susan will read a few brief excerpts. Both authors will also speak about writing in general, as well as Susan’s connection to Japan, and there will be plenty of time for questions. There will also be a reading by students accompanying Susan 30 minutes before the main talk begins.

Event Details:
■　Date and Time: July 27th (Saturday), 2:00pm~4:00pm
■　Venue: Ryukoku University Omiya Campus, East Building, Room #302
　　(Google Maps Link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/pJrXp4xcakTfcjnh7)
■　Participation Fee: Free

More details can be found in our original event posting here.

Japan Local Prize – Adam Clague (Ninth Annual Kyoto Writing Competition)

July 15, 2024

From the Judges:
“A discourse on the likely passing of a traditional art. So much of what makes Kyoto special is fading away, with every machiya demolished and every craftsman who retires without passing on his skills. This piece highlights that sad fact by describing the ubiquitous lacquerware for sale at the city’s flea markets, all of it genuine, because “Why replicate what they believe to be worthless?” Yet, these remnants continue to inspire deities and mortals alike.”

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While the Lacquer Dries

Autumn arrived a day before the city
As it tends to this side of the mountains
The Andon replaced the glow of the sunset
And so, banquet over,
Came the time to address the stack of used bowls.
He passed me a small bowl, frail and cracked
‘Be careful drying that, that’s Meiji lacquer’
So often did our conversations begin this way.

‘Can you still find lacquer like that?’
‘Truckloads, in those two big flea markets in the city’
He was, of course, referring to the vendors.
Those that picked gold stacked against the skeletons
Of shuttered houses up in the hills
With only the moonlight to turn a blind eye
Returning down unkept mountain roads buckling with loot
A disorganised underbelly of haggling and crumpled newspaper
Items exposed as if unsightly weeds
In the most sacred of grounds
As if the gods wouldn’t notice.
I knew them well.

And because I did, one final question:
‘How can I know when I am holding a counterfeit?’
His response disrupted the rhythm of my drying.
‘It’s all real. Why replicate what they believe to be worthless?’
Said not bitterly, but in disbelief.
And in sensing mine, he added,
With the sadness of a millennium,
‘You’re only witnessing the collapse of an entire art industry.’
Those final words now bled out,
We dried the last of the lacquer, to avoid it cracking further.
Sliding the front door behind him
To keep the chill and the truth out, or maybe in
He looked solemn as we bade farewell.
I passed underneath the light of the gate, alive with moths
The fields already crossed into red Spider Lillies
The wind pushing the silence around on the edge of the Kyoto night.

Image provided by Adam Clague

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Adam Clague was born and raised on the Isle of Man, moving to Japan at 18 to complete his bachelor’s degree in the School of Human Sciences at Osaka University. He was also a Nissan scholar in Japanese Studies at Oxford University. With a keen interest in Japanese craft revitalisation, his winning piece contains excerpts from a conversation with his long-time mentor, Alex Kerr, about the state of the lacquer industry in contemporary Japan.

For the full list of this year’s competition winners, click here. For this year’s original competition notice (with prize details), click here.

Writers in Kyoto Member Prize – Abigail Deveney (Ninth Annual Kyoto Writing Competition)

June 29, 2024

From the Judges:
“In these ruminations on scenes along the Kamo River, a skater flies with the wind, finding freedom along this picturesque artery flowing through the city. The river’s banks attract all sorts of people, and in this piece one with physical challenges wistfully envies the fluid motions of the other.  And yet, thoughts transcend envy and energy is absorbed. Age finds hopefulness in youth.”

＊　　＊　　＊

On Repeat

You carve a figure eight along the Kamo’s banks: careless; carefree.

From Shichijo bridge, my body braced against the railing, I envy your fluidity as you map infinity.

On short blades, you cast long shadows as you roller ski the river’s path. You are a silhouette, a solitude, a surprise.

I am solo, too, though far less lively, my crutch at rest as one knee wages war and my hand and shoulder beg surrender.

In a space beside some steps, you turn and loop, a twist tucked in the middle. You trace your tracks with speed, though don’t seem in a rush.

Teasing concrete walls, flirting with the stairs, you swirl and twirl. Flinging poles kiss solid ground as thick thighs form an askew V, pushing, pulsing, playful.

I share your reverie.

Walkers glance. Joggers scatter. Artists frown, while lovers laugh and stroll. The Kamo stays its course. It will not define you, nor can it confine you, as you challenge all convention in a state of grace.

Black leggings and a yellow helmet flash and slash while willows weep for want of green and ginkgo comfort, golden.

Stick in hand, I hurry on my way. Across a river that divides, along a bridge that connects, I struggle to advance as you chart destiny.

I don’t glance back; time presses on me now. I need to think that you’re still there, your patterns on repeat.

Crutched tree in Kyoto, still solid and lovely, provided by Abigail Deveney

Photo provided by Abigail Deveney

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Abigail Deveney, a journalist born in Canada, has lived and worked globally, including two stints in Tokyo. Abigail co-founded The Lupine Review literary magazine in Whistler, Canada, was shortlisted by Event magazine in her first competitive creative-writing foray and held a senior role at The Guardian newspaper for nearly a decade. Abigail lives in London, UK, and earned her MA Japanese Studies from SOAS.

Moments in time play on her mind: alpenglow on Whistler peaks; strawberries and wasps in English summer; the dance of shadow and light in Kyoto. Endlessly curious, Abigail won’t let bad knees hold her back.

For the full list of this year’s competition winners, click here. For this year’s original competition notice (with prize details), click 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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