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Featured writing

2016 Competition Winner

March 3, 2019

As the deadline nears for the 2019 Writers in Kyoto Competition (March 31), we turn back the clock to look again at some of the winning entries from years past to see if there is anything that might serve as inspiration for those thinking of entering. (Full details of how to enter can be found by clicking on the link to the right.)

The following piece was submitted by Peter Mallet. The judges felt this got under the surface of life in Kyoto by revealing something of the feelings that lie beneath those elegant kimono. Moreover, it seemed an opportune and appropriate subject matter, given the importance of Nishijin weaving and the prevalence of kimono-wearing females in recent times on the streets of the city.

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Kimono Memories

Mothballs. The odour of naphthalene hit her nose as she opened the chest. She unwrapped and took out the carefully folded kimono – the formal black one, the one she would need. Beneath it, the autumn kimono with its pattern of maple leaves she’d worn for her daughter’s shichi-go-san ceremony at the Kitano Temmangu Shrine, in the Nishijin district where the silk for the garment had been woven.

Layers of a life: her history entwined with the fabric.

At the bottom of the pile lay the exquisite furisode kimono she’d worn for her engagement ceremony. She stroked the soft silk lovingly, admiring once again the shibori embroidery. Such fine work: it had cost her parents dearly. A necessary expense, however, to ensure a good marriage into a suitable Kyoto family.

An expense for an item she never, of course, wore again once the marriage negotiations were settled. She’d hoped her daughter might wear the long-sleeved kimono when she became of age but patterns and colours had changed and Megumi refused to contemplate a 25-year-old hand-me-down.

Had it been a ‘good’ marriage? Hiroshi had certainly been eligible – a doctor with his own clinic in downtown Kyoto. She’d enjoyed the privilege of his status, the material rewards of high salary. He’d denied her nothing. Nothing but the one thing she’d wanted.

As her mother-in-law demanded, she pretended to be ignorant of the betrayals, his string of infidelities. The traditions of this city had bound her as tightly as the obi she’d tie around her waist for the ceremony tomorrow.

The black kimono would still smell of mothballs in the morning. How could she have prepared it for her husband’s funeral? Who could have expected him to die of a heart attack, aged only 56, in such a compromising situation?

Writers in focus

Award-winning novelist (Wataya)

February 27, 2019

Risa Wataya

From Wikipedia

Risa Wataya (綿矢りさ), born February 1, 1984, is a Japanese novelist from Kyoto. Her short novel Keritai senaka won the Akutagawa Prize and has sold more than a million copies. Her work has been translated into German, Italian, French, Thai, Korean, and English.

Biography

Wataya was born in Kyoto, Japan. Her mother was a university English teacher, and her father worked for a clothing company. At age 17, she told her parents that she was working on her university entrance exams, but she was actually writing her first novella, titled Insutōru (Install). Insutōruwon the 38th Bungei Prize in 2001. It was later adapted into a 2004 film of the same name, starring Aya Ueto.

After graduating from Murasakino High School in Kyoto, Wataya attended Waseda University, where her thesis focused on the structure of Osamu Dazai’s Hashire merosu (走れ、メロス Run, Melos!). In 2004, while a second-year student at Waseda, Wataya received the Akutagawa Prize for her short novel Keritai senaka (“The Back You Want to Kick”). Wataya shared the prize with Hitomi Kanehara, another young, female author. At the age of 19, Wataya became the youngest author and only the third student ever to win the Akutagawa Prize.^[6]An English version of Keritai senakawas published 12 years later under the title I Want to Kick You in the Back.

Wataya did not immediately write more novels after winning the Akutagawa Prize, but rather worked several jobs in Kyoto, including selling clothes in a department store and serving as a hotel waitress.^[8]She returned to writing with her 2007 book Yume wo ataeru (Give Me a Dream), and in 2010 her novel Katte ni furuetero (Tremble All You Want) became a best-seller in Japan. In 2017 a film adaptation of Katte ni furuetero, directed by Akiko Ooku, premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival and won the festival’s Audience Award.

Wataya moved back to Kyoto in 2011. In 2012 her novel Kawaisou da ne?(“Isn’t it a pity?”) won the Kenzaburo Oe Prize. Wataya announced her marriage in 2014. Her first child, a son, was born in late 2015.

Writing style

Wataya’s early work focused on strong female protagonists in high school settings.^[13]While her writing addresses gender and youth sexuality, media coverage of Wataya’s first two books tended to portray Wataya as more conservative than Hitomi Kanehara, her contemporary and co-winner of the 130th Akutagawa Prize.

She has said that Junot Díaz, Osamu Dazai, and Haruki Murakamiare some of her favorite authors.

Film

2004 Insutōru (Install)
2017 Katte ni furuetero (Tremble All You Want)

Books in Japanese

インストール (Install). Kawade Shobo Shinsha Publishing Co., 2001.
蹴りたい背中 (Keritai senaka, The Back I Want to Kick). Kawade Shobo Shinsha Publishing Co., 2003.
夢を与える (Yume wo ataeru, To Give a Dream). Kawade Shobo Shinsha Publishing Co., 2007.
勝手にふるえてろ (Katte ni furuetero, Tremble All You Want). Bungeishunju Ltd.,2010.
かわいそうだね？ (Kawaisou da ne?, Isn’t It a Pity?) Bungeishunju Ltd.,2010.

Selected works in English

“from Install“, trans. Katherine Lundy, Words without Borders, 2012
I Want to Kick You in the Back, trans. Julianne Neville, One Peace Books, 2015

Kamishibai (Sydney Solis)

February 20, 2019

Sydney and husband at a WiK workshop

WiK member Sydney Solis has a longstanding interest in kamishibai, the Japanese art of picture story telling. She has created and published six titles of her own which can be found here. One of them was based n a Japanese folktale about the Grateful Crane.

Last year, following her move to Japan, she did a performance of her own creation, Storytime Yoga, at an English language cafe in Osaka. It was through her interest in the art form that she came to make contact with the International Kamishibai Association of Japan and participate in the event described below, courtesy of NHK….

(To learn more of Sydney’s personal story, and her interest in myth and yoga, please take a look at this page.)

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“Kamishibai” Picture Theater Promotes Peace Message

NHK link: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/audio/plugin-20190131-1/

January 31, 2019

Two women have begun to use “Kamishibai” picture theater to depict the tragedy of the atomic bombings and spread the message of peace. One of them is an American whose grandfather was a prisoner of war of Japan during World War ll. The other is a Japanese woman whose grandfather was also incarcerated because he sounded a warning that his country would be defeated.

The Japanese woman, Eiko Matsui, produced “Never Again,” Kamishibai on the importance of peace.

Eiko Matsui (left) instructs Sydney Solis (right) how to perform Kamishibai.

Sydney performs the English version of “Never Again” in front of a Japanese audience.

1950s Kyoto (Hans Brinckmann)

February 4, 2019

Guest speaker, Hans Brinckmann

What was it like in Kyoto in the 1950s? You hardly ever saw foreigners, for one thing. If you did, you stopped to say hello. That was the Kyoto a banker from Holland called Hans Brinckmann got to know and love. Though he lived in Kobe, he visited whenver he could at weekends. As he got to know the town, he fell in love with it.

Hans Brinckmann arrived in Japan in 1950 to work in a bank in Kobe. He started learning Japanese despite the warnings of his sub manager that it would damage his mind. In 1954 he was transferred to Tokyo, where he missed his outings to Kyoto, so he was glad to get back to a post in Osaka. His favourite places included the bamboo grove in Imagumano Shrine; Tofukuji where he made friends with a monk who complained of ills from the rigorous regime of the Zen monastery; and a ryokan called Takeya, which he got to like despite the austerity of conditions there and the perishing cold.

Like others before him, he went though cultural conundrums about how to reconcile East and West, coming out on the Japanese side of things. The world was not simple black and white, right or wrong, as the Western ego insisted, but a more modest grey made up of maybe, sighs and silences.

One key event was attending an exhibition by Paul Reps of Zen Flesh, Zen Bones fame. He had done wonderful freehand calligraphy of whimsical words on Japanese ‘washi’ paper. “Drinking a cup of tea, I stop the war,’ was one of the verses. Later Hans got to know him in his Ohara home. (Reps is now considered one of America’s first haiku poets.)

A more important friendship was with the poet Shimaoka Kenseki, who introduced him to all manner of artists, potters and monks. One of the most colourful was a poet and personality called Ichida Yae san, an heiress who wore her kimono in defiant mock Heian style and was known as the second Ono no Komachi for her beauty. She is said to have been the model for one of Tanizaki’s heroines.

Hans was closely involved in setting up Kyoto’s first Dutch restaurant, though alas it went out of business after two years. He also took part in the English edition of a Japanese poetry publication called New Japan Pebbles, but it too only survived six editions. All the while he enjoyed networking with Shimaoka, who was not only a poet, but a teacher and columnist with a wide range of friends – a gynecologist, an obi maker, a building contractor. One person Hans befriended was the potter, Katoh Sho, who dealt in tea ware.

A rapt audience hanging on to the well-crafted words of Hans Brinckmann’s memoirs. (Photo Ken Rodgers)

But the most significant of the encounters in Kyoto came through an unexpected and unrequested omiai he had, with just two hours’ notice. It turned out the couple shared the same literary and pottery tastes, and when she happened to brush his arm he ‘flexed his banker’s biceps in acknowledgement’. The pair married and spent a happy life together until her death in 2007.

Hans has published many articles and books, covering poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Asked about his writing process, he said it was different for each genre. Fiction he could see unfurling in his imagination, non-fiction required constant fact checking. He confessed to being a slow writer, though the volume of publication would suggest he’s a hard worker.

And what does the great lover of Kyoto think of the city now? You hear more Chinese than Japanese in the streets, he says. It’s difficult to even recognise some of the areas. But notwithstanding he remains a strong admirer of the city and its people because of their modest dignity and pride in upholding tradition. For personal reasons Hans now lives in Fukuoka, but he still makes an effort to revisit the city he fell in love with all those years ago.

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For a listing of Hans Brinckmann’s work, both in English and Japanese, take a look at this amazon page. Of particular note here is the collection of short stories, The Tomb in the Kyoto Hills.. For the website blog of Hans, with videos and his writings, see here.

Hans Brinckmann in white shirt and his translator, Hiromi Mizoguchi, left in white shirt

Books by Hans Brinckmann (with thanks to Deep Kyoto)

The Magatama Doodle
Part personal memoir, part professional flashback, part socio-cultural commentary, this title chronicles the author’s experiences during his twenty-four years (1950-74) of living in Japan as a reluctant banker. It also touches on some of the significant changes that have taken place in Japanese society since the mid-Seventies.

Noon Elusive
An American architect in Paris, a Balkan parachutist, a Dutch diplomat in Japan, a New York heart surgeon, an English undertaker-the characters are as colourful as they are diverse. What they have in common is that they are all in the throes of personal crisis, mild and manageable, or severe and harrowing. Consciously or not, they are all in search of the high noon of life.

Showa Japan
Japan’s Showa era began in 1926 when Emperor Hirohito took the throne and ended on his death in 1989. The formative age of modern Japan, it was undoubtedly the most momentous, calamitous, successful and glamorous period in Japan’s recent history. Today, Showa is a beacon for nostalgia that is memorialized yearly in a national holiday. An era of growth and prosperity, it saw Japan go from an isolated, embattled nation to a peaceful country holding the exalted position of the world’s second largest economy.

The Undying Day
A widowed water bird in an Amsterdam canal… abandoned villages ‘flitting fitfully by’ as he rides the Eurostar to Paris… the sun, ‘averse to setting, extending the you-filled day’… such are the diverse sources of inspiration for Brinckmann’s poetry.
Unconstrained by locale or subject matter, his lines celebrate the marvel of love and ponder life’s irretrievable losses. He is no stranger to whimsy either, nor to the search for life’s ultimate meaning.

The Tomb in the Kyoto Hills
A striking and highly engaging collection of stories. The offerings include A Leap into the Light, the compelling tale of a Dutch businessman’s secretive life with the young daughter of his late Japanese mistress; Kyoto Bus Stop, about the chance encounter between a visitor from Europe and a mysterious young French woman in Kyoto; Pets in Marriage, which chronicles a Japanese married couple and their respective preference for cats and dogs, which comes to a head at the foot of Mt. Fuji; Twice upon a Plum Tree, an exploration of a Dutch diplomat’s ambivalence about a Japanese woman he once loved; and the title story, The Tomb in the Kyoto Hills, about a Chicago-based lawyer who moves his family to Japan to find the truth of his origins once and for all.

In the Eyes of the Sun
Peter van Doorn, dreams of life with a camera. His leftwing father, Eduard – a journalist and former WWII photographer – at first supports his son’s ambition and even gives him his wartime Leica. But when Peter tries to save someone from a fatal accident instead of “capturing the moment of violent death,” Eduard decides that his son lacks the guts for “real” photography, the kind he practiced during the war, the only kind of photography “worthy of a man,” even in peacetime. He forces Peter into overseas banking instead. Starting in 1953, Peter’s exotic career takes him from his native Holland to Singapore and on to Chicago where he marries a socialite. But his dream never dies, and at last, in 1978, he sacrifices his stable career and family to embark on the life of a freelance photographer – in New York.

Featured writing

Travelling North (Rowe)

January 26, 2019

Travelling North

by Simon Rowe

Uramoto was short, in his thirties, with a buzz cut and a smile that practically broke his face in half. At eight p.m. he fired up his Fuso and told me to jump in. We would be carrying a consignment of senbei to Kōfu city in Yamanashi prefecture, he said. As we pulled out of Himeji under stormy skies, I imagined the accident scene—the cops, ambulance crew, everyone standing around munching on prawn crackers while the victims bled to death.

The night was a dirty one; rain hammered down all through Kakogawa, Akashi, Kobe, and even beneath Osaka’s neon glow, the heavens did not close for the night. My thoughts turned to other travellers also heading for Tokyo. How many of them were hitchhiking? How many of them were hitchhiking in a truck? How many of them were hitchhiking in a truck filled with prawn rice crackers? The thought made me peckish.

We fell in with a convoy of other long-haul drivers, and soon the night was filled with a constellation of heavy vehicle lights, swarming and swirling like fireflies about us. Uramoto worked his gear stick like a one-armed bandit, barrelling us in and out of tunnels, pinballing us over flyways, slowing only at toll gates to toss in some coin and sniff the air. Day belonged to the commuter; night belonged to Uramoto and his rig of rice crackers.

I caught glimpses of other truckies—the most unlikely faces you’ve ever seen: young men who looked barely old enough to drive, women with makeup and trinkets in their hair, others resembling moonlighting rocket scientists, all Coke-bottle glasses and lantern jaws, lit by the eerie glow of dashboard lights.

Uramoto was single. He had a girl somewhere down south, near Fukuoka. On this subject he laughed nervously and lit one cigarette with another. Then our conversation dried up and I went to sleep. Rain beat down on the Fuso’s cab and Ladysmith Black Mambazo sang ‘Homeless’ on the radio.

A little after midnight we pulled into a roadhouse. The rain had subsided leaving the night mist heavy, the mountain air chilled and calm. Dozens and dozens of trucks lined up in the parking bay, all of them idling, their drivers dozing, exhausts bubbling oily fumes in the cold night. I went in search of a snack.

Uramoto had kept his pedal to the metal; we were in Yamanashi and closer to Kōfu than I had thought. Somewhere in the Kōfu Basin we pulled in at another roadhouse. This time we drank some beer, and in weary silence, reclined our captain’s chairs and fell asleep to the caress of the Fuso’s faux-lace curtains.

At six a.m., I awoke to Billie Holiday’s ‘Stormy Weather’ and we cruised into Kōfu with its wide, mist-filled streets, deserted save for the old-timers pacing the sidewalks in their Uniqlo sweats.

High over the city, the mountains of the Kōfu Basin loomed large wrapped in their blankets of mist. I said farewell to Uramoto—thanking him for the ride, bidding him safe travels. He slipped me some rice crackers for my onward journey. Then I bought a one-way ticket to Shinjuku and jumped aboard the next local train.

Icy mountain streams gushed from valley sides each side of the rail line. Traditional wooden houses perched impossibly above them. On the balcony of one, I glimpsed a housewife in the midst of hanging out her laundry. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in a thousand years. She had fallen asleep in the morning sunlight, peg and clothes still in hand.

Then I too was asleep, rocking and rolling with the motion of the train, following a river to a great city, with a rice cracker in hand.

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For a previous short story by Simon, see https://writersinkyoto.com/2018/03/sword-dancer-rowe/

For Simon’s account of marketing his self-published collection of short stories, see here

Writers in focus

Words and Photos (John Einarsen)

January 12, 2019

Some Words and Photographs

By John Einarsen

The words attached to a photograph can radically alter how we “read” or understand it. Words give context, intended or unintended. One’s experience of an image often depends on the words that caption it.

My approach to photography is perceptual, which means that my focus is on the direct experience of “seeing.” Therefore, my images never require titles; I want the viewer to experience the image as I experienced it. I don’t want to add a filter (words, in this case) to create some impression, fact or concept. That said, on some occasions I might list the location of where the image was taken, since the one question people inevitably ask about a photograph is: “Where was it taken?” But this is more out of convenience. I make images that are meant to be experienced without words.

That said, an image can also be an inspiration for words. On June 9th of last year, Rebecca Otowa kindly invited me to show some of my Miksang photographs in a SWET-sponsored workshop on Flash Fiction. I made several small prints, and the seven participants chose ones that intrigued them and then inspired to write something. Here are a few:

The Easel

Nearly an hour had passed, and she lay on her back on the kitchen floor unable to get up. It had struck as she’d begun to chop leeks for the lunch they always shared around noon. Gazing upward now at the clock, she realized she could no longer read it. Were those numerals? They must be.

How much longer would it take him, engrossed in the painting upon his easel… how much hunger to realize that she hadn’t called him? To walk the few steps from his adjoining studio. To find her supine on the checkered linoleum, angrily bleeding inside of her skull?

—Stewart Wachs

Haiku

Once I had a form.
The world was too much with me.
I’ll melt away now.
—Rebecca Otowa

To be honest, I find the visual world to be much more vivid than language, which exists for the most part inside our heads. That is why I am a photographer and not a writer. Belonging to a writer’s group is a bit ironic.

Last spring, I held an exhibition of photographs entitled “The Universe at My Feet” in the KG+ section of the Kyotographie International Photography Festival. None of the photographs were titled, but a text provided vital information about my approach and how the images came about. It was important and I include it here:

The Universe at My Feet

Last summer I found myself following a gutter for several blocks in a residential neighborhood in a small town in Colorado. It was a pleasure to discover what the last rain had left. As small children we exist close to the ground. It is our world, a realm full of wondrous things. Smooth pebbles, mysterious weeds, puddles, mud, asphalt. This is where we learn to navigate reality.

As a child, I loved the gutter on the street in front of our house; in winter, it was here that I collected thin, delicate crystals of ice, placing them carefully in a cigar box that I brought to my mother to keep in the icebox freezer, which existed in another realm far above my head. Those small slivers of ice were treasures, beautiful transformations that I wanted to preserve. As we grow older and enter adulthood, the ground from which we discovered so much slowly recedes from our awareness and memory.

Yet it is always at our feet, an ever-changing universe rich in form, space, texture and delicate formations. Evocative symbols materialize and fade; puddles appear like portals to parallel worlds before evaporating; and then there are scattered leaves. My teacher, Julie Dubose, writes about why they resonate so deeply with us:

“… there is no more pervasive and accessible metaphor for the delicacy and tenderness of our lives and all things in our world that are born, that live and grow old, and then die. Leaves are blown about by the wind, flung far from the tree of their origin, to land helplessly wherever their fate determines…”

At our feet we are able to encounter the continuous undirected activity of our universe and deeply experience the fleeting nature of existence.

—John Einarsen

I have taken more photographs since that exhibition and include a selection of recent work along the same theme. Please enjoy.

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John Einarsen recently published Small Buildings of Kyoto Volume II. Proceeds from sales support the printing of Kyoto Journal. (https://kyotojournal.org/blog-highlights/small-buildings-of-kyoto-is-back/)

Together with Mitsue Nagase, John will hold a Miksang Contemplative Photography Workshop from May 8th to May 12th in Kyoto. (https://kyotojournal.org/blog-highlights/miksang-contemplative-photography-workshop-in-kyoto/)

Writers in focus

Self-Introduction: Rick Mitcham

January 5, 2019

Self-Introduction: Rick Mitcham

My full name is Roderick Ellis Mitcham, but please call me Rick. At the start of the various English-language courses I teach here in Kyoto, I use my name to introduce myself. I tell my students that Mitcham is my surname; Ellis, my middle name, is my mother’s maiden name; and Roderick, derived from Old Norse (a language brought to the UK from the Vikings between the ninth and eleventh centuries), means ‘great ruler’. When I was a school child I hated it, cringing every time my teacher called the register. I did however grow to like it since it served as a vivid reminder of Britain’s long ethnically-diverse history.

As the above suggests, I hark from the UK. Spending the first 27 years of my life in country, I grew up in Horsham, West Sussex. Through my childhood, I enjoyed drawing, model making, designing, swimming, camping, canoeing, rock climbing and hiking. I also dabbled in a bit of fell running, orienteering and backwoodsmanship. Most of the outdoorsy of these pursuits I did as a scout and then as a venture scout. I was also a mad collector of stuff – my collections included annotated designs of time machines, postage stamps, postcards, key rings, swimming certificates, scout badges (to which the photograph of me in my scout’s uniform attests), music and, latterly, books. At the age of 18, I went up to university. Still searching for my raison d’etre, I elected to read geography. Taking such a wide-ranging subject meant I could keep my options open as to my ‘final’ decision regarding what I wanted to do with myself in the future.

I found my calling in the second year of my first degree. Geography as a school subject and geography as an academic discipline bore very little in common especially in the sub-disciplines of human geography. This was no more apparent in what would become one of my key interests: historical geography. Inspired by a course in the Historical Geography of Nineteenth Century Britain, I decided to write my final-year dissertation on one aspect of it – the Poor Laws. Undertaking archival research at The National Archives, the University of London’s Senate House Library and the old British Library – the one in Bloomsbury not St Pancreas – I explored a long-forgotten government scheme in the early 1830s involving the removal of labourers from the rural south of England to the industrial ‘manufactories’ of the North. Buoyed by my tutor’s enthusiastic description of my dissertation as ‘the whole being greater than the sum of its parts’, I decided, in that moment, that was this is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. To that end, I went on to complete a Research Master’s degree in Cultural Geography and then a PhD.

While my PhD passed viva with minor corrections, I found the writing side of it hard going confiding in a friend that the experience was similar to ‘wading through concrete’. Looking back on it now, I realise that the difficulty resulted from my seeing writing as a mindless, menial task involving the formation and then fixing of ideas to paper and/or to a computer screen. This was not writing and I certainly not a writer. In my article ‘At the Time of Writing: The Three Tenets of a Good Theory of Writing’ (Mitcham 2019), I explain that I was burdened by what Eric Hayot (2014) refers to as a ‘bad theory of writing’ (1). But, thanks to Hayot’s (2014) brilliant book The Elements of Academic Style, I discovered to my relief that I could write but, even then, I was highly ambivalent about self-identifying as a writer. That was, I should say, until a member of Writers in Kyoto suggested I join the group. Now, as a member of WiK, I shall leave it to members to decide whether that is, in fact, the case.

References
Hayot E 2014 The Elements of Academic Style: Writing for the Humanities Columbia University Press, New York
Mitcham R 2019 ’At the Time of Writing: The Three Tenets of a Good Theory of Writing’ Academe 2, 27-43 (forthcoming)

Writers in focus

A Kyoto New Year

December 27, 2018

“””””””””””””””””””””””

A KYOTO NEW YEAR

The true soul of Japan is neither Shinto nor Buddhist. It’s Shinto-Buddhist. Until the artificial split of early Meiji times, the country had more than 1000 years of happy syncretism. Born Shinto, die Buddhist is the Japanese way.

Shinto is this-worldly, concerned with rites of passage and social well-being. Buddhism is other-worldly, concerned with individual salvation. At New Year the two religions come together like yin and yang, either side of midnight. Buddhism sees out the death of the old; Shinto celebrates the birth of the new. Joya-no-kane (tolling of the bell) gives way to Hatsumode (first visit of the year).

To get the full feel of a Kyoto New Year, you need to be syncretic too. In the dying minutes of the year, go hear the bell at a Buddhist temple. By tradition it is rung 108 times once for every attachment that plagues the human condition. Then head for a shrine to pick up arrow and amulets for protection through the coming year.

With over 3000 temples and shrines in Kyoto, you’re spoilt for choice. A popular but crowded combination is Chion-in and Yasaka Jinja. File up the hill to watch the young priests at the temple acrobatically swing on ropes to ring the bell. Then head down to the shrine to get twisted bamboo lit with the sacred Okera fire. It will purify your home.

Personally I prefer the open space of Kurodani, where the bell booms soulfully over the nearby hillside. Open fires give off a warm glow, which you can add to with heated sake before lining up to ring the bell. Afterwards a twenty-minute walk leads through dark and dozing streets to the wooded surrounds of Shimogamo Jinja.

Suddenly there are laughing voices, bright kimono, and gaudy lights. Aspiring yakuza sell candy floss and goldfish. Here all is jollity and smiles. ‘Akemashite gozaimasu’ rings out on every side. At the Haiden people toss coins over the heads of those in front into the offertory boxes. With the blessing of the kami, this too will be a happy New Year. A happy Kyoto New Year!

“””””””””””””””

This piece by John Dougill was first featured on the Deep Kyoto blog in 2010.

Writers in focus

Reggie Pawle introduction

December 14, 2018

Leading Zen study group in Bangkok

Reggie Pawle writes…

I have gone on a meandering path in life from where I grew up, which was in the rural state of Maine in the U.S.A. I was brought up to follow in my family tradition (seven generations before mine) of being a Protestant Christian minister, I was a religion major in university, but I took a turn of some kind during a LSD trip in 1970. Since that turn I have studied, lived, and worked where my interests have led me. At that time I was inspired by Ramdass, an American who practiced yoga in India, so in 1972 I went to India and Nepal to study yoga. In addition to having various yoga experiences, I also had many cultural experiences and got hooked on the combination of adventure, new cultures to understand, and spiritual seeking. In 1974, when I was having problems with yoga, Ramdass told me that my heart was ok, but my mind was a mess, and he recommended some good old Japanese discipline, so he introduced me to a Japanese Zen monk (Joshu Sasaki) from Myoshinji Temple in Kyoto. This began my connection to Kyoto and Japan. In 1987 I was refused a visa to India, which led me to travel in other countries in Asia, which I loved, and because I had run into a road block in my Zen practice, in 1989 I came to study Zen in Japan for the first time. I met my teacher, Sekkei Harada, in 1990, at Hosshinji Temple in Obama-shi, Fukui-ken, and after that I visited Japan annually to practice Zen with Harada Roshi until I moved to Kyoto to live in 1999. My practical reason for this move was that I was working on my dissertation, which was interviewing six Japanese Zen monks about Zen and psychology. I found a home in Kyoto. Along with being able to deepen my Zen practice, my time spent at the monastery opened many doors for me and gave me a huge access to the tradition of Zen. Thanks to my monastery “credentials,” despite my mediocre Japanese, I have always had access in Japan to my study and professional interests. I also in Kyoto had an endless variety of cultural experiences, met my Japanese wife (I got married for the first time at age 58), and received work in my field – both psychotherapy in private practice and teaching cross-cultural psychology at Kansai Gaidai University in Hirakata. Being in Japan also increased my access to other parts of Asia, which allowed me to develop a natural affinity that I felt between my Zen practice and Ramana Maharshi’s (Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, India) practice of “Who am I?”, study Daoism and Tai Chi in China, and enjoy travel in Southeast Asia. In 2015 due to mandatory age 65 retirement I lost my job at Kansai Gaidai, which resulted in getting a new job at Assumption University in Bangkok, Thailand, teaching counseling psychology to graduate students. I have returned to Kyoto after three years of my eyes being opened to a new culture, now half-retired, and very happy to be back in our wonderful Japanese-style house and Kyoto life. I am still working as a psychotherapist in private practice and as a student counselor at Kansai Gaidai, but no more teaching, only occasional seminars and lectures.

With-Zen-ancestors-Bodhidharma-statue-Dogen-hanging-writing-in-kanji

Since arriving in Japan I have written on a variety of subjects, mostly connected to cultural issues and to the integration of Western psychology with the Asian traditions, focusing on Zen, Japanese culture, and Daoism. Some of my articles have appeared in local publications such as Japanese Religions, Kyoto Journal, and Kansai Time Out. I have had a couple of book chapters, one on Zen and psychology and the second on Daoism and psychology, and some journal articles (see my blog for details). Now that I have more time, one of my main goals is to write. I have three projects that I am currently working on. One is a study of Japanese and Western marriages, one is the use of Daoist ideas and principles for conflict resolution, and the third is writing short articles for my blog on cultural and Buddhist psychology. I am hoping that Writers in Kyoto will serve as an inspiration and support for me to complete these and more writing projects. Writing a book seems like an ephemeral dream right now, but maybe some day…

***********

For more about Reggie Pawle and his psychotherapy work, see www.reggiepawle.net

Farewell party with counseling students (from 6 countries) in Bangkok

WiK bonenkai 2018

December 10, 2018

Presenters at the WiK Bonenkai: Jann Williams, Gary Tegler, Judith Wnters Carpenter, Milena Guziak, Rebecca Otowa, Eric Bray, Mark Hovane, Joe Cronin, Robert Yellin, Mark Richardson, Ted Taylor, and Ken Rodgers (collation by Karen Lee Tawarayama)

The WiK bonenkai, held in the cosy surrounds of Philippe’s bar off Kiyamachi, proved a lively and heartwarming evening as bonhomie was interspersed with the showcasing of the remarkable talents of the foreign community in Kyoto. At times this was reminiscent of the old Kyoto Connection days, and it was good to see the organiser of that event, Ken Rodgers, in attendance here and revealing some of his Buddha nature.

Thanks to convener Milena Guziak, the event was nicely structured with two sessions of performances, with each presenter limited to four minutes. The format worked well and everyone managed to pack their material comfortably within that limitation. Jann Williams kicked us off with some thoughts about her longterm project on the elements and Japan, Gary Tegler delivered some wonderful Robert Brady pieces in those sonorous tones of his, and this was appreciated by the group to the extent that it won first prize for best performance. Gary was followed by Judith Winters Carpenter who recited a piece from her recent translation about Sakamoto Ryoma and his first kiss. It was with a woman from Nagasaki and involved some amusing linguistic and cultural differences. A well selected passage and a wonderful bit of translated prose from Shiba Ryotaro’s novel that won my own personal vote for first prize.

Event organiser Milena read out a deeply personal piece, given sympathetic urging by the audience as she successfully managed to overcome her nerves. Rebecca Otowa, a relative newcomer to the group, has already shown how much she has to contribute to WiK despite living a considerable distance away in the countryside. Her piece concerned the merits and demerits of living on in Japan, with the former given affirmation for the way Japan helps shape our perceptions and better appreciate the world around us. The first set was rounded off with Eric Bray playing a couple of the songs from his recently released CD. Mark Richardson took the drums, Mark Willis backing up on mandolin and Gary Tegler joined in with improvised sax solo. The strong blues element got the small venue in the groove as words turned into music. (Lyrics of Eric’s CD can be seen here.)

The second session kicked off with Mark Hovane talking of his appreciation of the Japanese love of seasonality before giving the best performance of a single haiku that I myself have ever heard. It was by Basho. Judging the audience’s mood correctly, he took a long pause while holding up a suitably shaped stone backed by seasonal greenery: winter winds blow / the rocks sharpened / among the cedars. Following this Joe Cronin spoke of Isabella Bird and her translator companion, the much younger Ito, about whom he has been doing some research. Dealing with such a redoubtable woman, a pioneer of the most intrepid kind, cannot have been easy linguistically or temperamentally for the 20 year old. Next Robert Yellin gave us a bit of the Beats, starting with Gary Snyder, adding one of his own and then finishing with the inimitable Nanao Sakaki (See Japan and the Beats.) Talking of inimitable, Mark Richardson is a poet with a unique and distinctive voice whose contemporary verse incorporates humour, politics, cultural digs and a touch of anarchy. He treated us to a great example, a form of creative expression that must act as a great release from his scholarly work on Robert Frost. (For Five Poems by Mark, click here.) Next up was Ted Taylor, reading a piece he’d written for an anthology about an overheard conversation which produced ripples of laughter around the room. The final session of the night was by Ken Rodgers talking of buddha nature and what it meant to him. (You can see a whole posting on that subject by him together with some stunning photos by clicking here.)

An excellent evening, I think everyone agreed, and a format we may try again for our summer session in June or July. Thanks to all who came and helped make a warm event amidst the early winter cold. Thanks above all to Milena who put together the whole event.

John Dougill, WiK coordinator

Rebecca Otowa in full flow

Poet Mark Richardson takes to the drums for a set with Eric Bray

Eric Bray and band

Mayumi Kawarahada, our Japanese liaison officer

Organiser Milena with the open mic

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