Writers In Kyoto

Page 44 of 65

Featured writing

Another Plane (Ken Rodgers)

December 9, 2018

ANOTHER PLANE
by Ken Rodgers

 

     One day, when he [Chan master Zhaozhao] was about to leave for the Five-Peak Mountain, a monk spoke this verse:

     What mountain anywhere is not sacred?

     Why go to the Five-Peaked Mountain with a walking stick?

     Even if a lion with the golden mane manifests in the clouds.

     It is nothing special if seen with pure eye.

When Chan Master asked what ‘pure eye’ meant, the monk remained silent. After that, Chan Master took his luggage and left.

—from Rölpé Dorjé’s gazeteer, Guide to the Clear and Cool Mountains, (1831 edition)

Trans. Weng-Shing Chou, from Mount Wutai: Visions of a Sacred Buddhist Mountain

 

In my garden, beside the road, kiku-imo artichokes reach for the sky.

Yuri waves me off at Nagatani-wakare bus stop. Subway, train, airport; an ascent to the overview. Suspended in the void, face to face with as much of the cloud-ocean planet as I will ever see or comprehend. Halfway to China, already I scan the horizon for dragons.

In reverently exhibited scrolls I’ve seen them encountered by Heian pilgrim-priests on storm-buffeted snail-pace voyages. Some clearly malevolent, others benign. One ebullient as a mega-puppy, guiding an all-but-lost ship safely to port.

Ocean-crossing was only the beginning for those priestly pilgrims: rivers, canals, dusty roads and narrow tracks on inland, climbing rain-drenched craggy trails to far mountains inhabited by more dragons.

Below me now the continent unfolds; crisscrossed by infrastructured networks of accelerating modernity. In just one minute four tiny business jets streak by, flying low. Then another, skimming past cloudheads reflected in ancestral ricefields.

Descent to a cheap hotel pick-up, a high-speed train, a meandering bus. At 6th century Shuanglin Temple, Pingyao,warrior guardian gods welcome me; arhats, Buddha’s disciples, pause their long conversations as I pass.

A courtyard guesthouse, a night train; two days with Datong’s huge cave-dwelling Buddhas and Bodhisattvas—besieged by theme-park crowds with cellphone cameras. New and old technicolor statues at Huayan, inside a newly-walled city, abandoned traditional houses to one side, newly-constructed ‘old town’ on the other, awaiting business tenants.

Train and bus to the Yingxian Muta, China’s oldest and tallest (9-story) wooden pagoda, built 1056; upper floors closed, admission offered for 60 yuan down the street on 3D VR.

Red taxi, speeding van, roadside wait, green buses. Over the northern pass to Taihuai, central to Wutai, Five-Peaked Mountain; 160 temples and a cornucopia of carved and painted dragons signifying imperial favor. Home of Manjushri and his roaring lion, long-time magnet to pilgrims from Inner Asia—Mongolia and Tibet. Prostrations ascending steep steps, prayer wheels, incense offered in every direction. Temple interiors like grottoes, 500 arhats and more. Behind glass, life-sized multi-colored/multi-headed/multi-limbed Tibetan Kalachakra deities and their consorts in ecstatic union, discreetly sarong-wrapped to prevent inflammation of more earthly passions among lay adherents, novices and nuns.

From the central peak, 500 more stone arhats wordlessly contemplate their overview of a distant cloudscape (on a lower plane), awaiting completion of a stone terrace; the gateless gate standing on the road below resembles a comicbook UFO in silhouette.

I slip into Puhua temple’s compound on the birthday of an earlier Buddha; 2,000 monks in red, yellow, blue-gray robes are receiving alms from munificent lay-supporters. I’m the only foreigner—hesitant to take photos until a little priest with an official armband pulls out his smartphone, asks if his friend can take a shot of us together.

Guanyin cave, rumored hide-out of the playboy poet 6th Dalai Lama after supposedly faking his death on route to Beijing, was in fact where the 13th Dalai Lama took refuge in 1908.

Instead of sky, Rölpé Dorjé’s temple courtyard is filled with hanging vermillion ribbons inscribed with the names of visitors’ deceased relatives.

Ennin from Kyoto’s Enryakuji, visiting in 840, recorded in his journal that “500 poisonous dragons hide themselves in the mountains and spew forth wind and clouds.” They kept him awake, fighting all night. I hear them too, in close-up thunder resounding and rebounding off the surrounding peaks.

Five days in Taihuai, all too brief. Finally by taxi to the second (or third)-oldest wooden building in China, the Eastern Hall of Foguang temple, still standing, since 857 (late T’ang), 1,161 years ago. The continuity of such ancient buildings’ existence is hard to wrap the mind around. Those who built them long gone, yet what they left embodies the precision of already long-developed and sophisticated architectural and carpentry skills, inherited even now in present-day timber construction—a language still spoken.

Sacred space—whether within a temple, or a landscape overseen by surrounding peaks (or a garden, I suppose)—consists of aspirations given shape, reflected on, redefining.

From a description of a stele for Master Hong Jiao, at Nanshan temple: “… written by Fa Hong and inscribed by Fa Xian. The stone monument was carved on a good day in 1339, and established by Zhi An, the abbot of Dawou Sheng Yoqguo Temple.”

Returning from Taiyuan, on a good day in 2018, my plane’s long delayed; the next connecting flight the airline can manage from Wuhan is four days later. I buy a new ticket on another plane via Shanghai, arrive back in Iwakura one day late.

At home, beside the road, my kiku-imo, four meters tall, survivors of a major typhoon, lift new tiny yellow flowers toward the clouds.

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

Ken Rodgers is one of the founders of Kyoto Journal and has been managing editor since 1993. He has visited major Buddhist sites in India, Nepal, China, Myanmar, and Thailand.

For more on Wutai, see ‘On Wutai-shan, 1936,’ excerpts from My Journey in Mystic China, by John Blofeld, (trans from Chinese by Daniel Reid) in KJ 93 (Devotion), and Ken Rodgers’ review of Weng-Shing Chou’s Mount Wutai: Visions of a Sacred Buddhist Mountain, here: https://kyotojournal.org/reviews/the-manchurian-bodhisattva/

And photos here: https://kyotojournal.org/blog-highlights/glimpses-of-wutai-shan/

Selected photos by Ken Rodgers of Shanxi:

and a photo from Iwakura, Kyoto:

Dinner with Vauhini Vara and Andrew Altschul

December 2, 2018

Middle of the table on the left, Vahina Vara, and opposite her, Andrew Foster Altschul. WiK members left to right, Ian Richards, (Yuki from Japan Times), Jann Williams, Josh Yates, Gordon Maclaren, Eric Johnston, Juliet Carpenter and Gary Tegler. (photo John D.)

 

December 2 at Kushikura near Oike Takakura, eight WiK members had an enjoyable dinner evening with Vauhini Vara, journalist, fiction writer and winner of the O. Henry Prize, together with her husband novelist Andrew Foster Altschul, author of Deus Ex Machina and a former fellow at the Breadloaf and Sewanee Writers conferences. Between them the couple have a glittering array of achievements and were visiting Kyoto for five days while working on Semester at Sea, a study-abroad programme that takes place on a ship. Thanks to Eric Johnston for organising the event.

From Wikipedia…

Vauhini Vara is a journalist, fiction writer, and the former business editor of newyorker.com. She lives in Colorado and is a contributing writer for the New Yorker’s website. Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, she was raised in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan (Canada) and in Oklahoma City and Seattle in the United States.

Guest Vauhini Vara in red, middle right (photo Josh Yates)

She was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal for almost ten years, where she covered Silicon Valley and California politics. In 2013, she left the Wall Street Journal to launch Currency, the business section of newyorker.com. She has written for Harper’s Magazine, Fast Company, The Atlantic and Businessweek and WIRED. In 2017 she worked as a staff writer for California Sunday, covering politics in the western United States

Vara is a recipient of the O. Henry Award for her fiction writing, and has published stories in Tin House, ZYZZYVA, among other publications. She studied writing at Stanford University and the Iowa Writers Workshop.

 

Andrew Foster Altschul is an American fiction writer. He is the author of the novels Deus Ex Machina, which Michael Schaub, in his NPR review, called “brilliant… one of the best novels about American culture in years,”[1] and Lady Lazarus, and his short fiction and essays have been published in Esquire, McSweeney’s, Ploughshares, Fence, and One Story. His short story “Embarazada” was selected for Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014 and his short story “A New Kind of Gravity” was anthologized in both Best New American Voices 2006 and the O.Henry Prize Stories 2007.

Guest Andrew Altschul middle left (photo Josh Yates)

In 2016, with Mark Slouka, he co-authored Writers On Trump, an open letter opposing the candidacy of Donald Trump for President that was signed by nearly 500 writers, including ten winners of the Pulitzer Prize. He has written for political venues including The Huffington Post and Truthdig, was a contributing author of Where to Invade Next (McSweeney’s, 2008), and was the co-organizer of the Progressive Reading Series, a series of literary readings in San Francisco that raised money for progressive political candidates from 2004-2008. From 2008-2011 he was the founding books editor of The Rumpus, an online magazine started by Stephen Elliott in late 2008. He remains a contributing editor to The Rumpus, as well as to the literary journal Zyzzyva.

He currently teaches at Colorado State University. He is married to The New Yorker journalist and fiction writer Vauhini Vara.

 

(photo Josh Yates)

 

(photo Kushikura staff)

 

 

Writers in focus

Yumiko Sato music therapist

November 24, 2018

Yumiko Sato at the Mughal Indian restaurant, where she talked about cultural differences between the US and Japan in terms of hospice care and attitudes to dying

Yumiko Sato lunchtime talk on Nov 24, 2018

Born and raised in Japan, educated at university in America, Yumiko has experience of working with dementia patients and the dying in both the US and Japan. Her speciality is music therapy, and as well as the guitar she plays harp. ukelele and Native American flute. Her experiences on both sides of the Atlantic have led to her writing two books in Japanese about her experiences. She currently lives with her husband in Washington DC, and is over here for a short lecture tour in Japan. WiK was delighted she could find time to stop off at Kyoto on her way from Kobe to Tokyo.

So what are the main differences in terms of treatment of the dying between the US and Japan? Yumiko suggested it had to do with the treatment of the individual needs of the patient in the US compared with a focus on doctors and medical procedure in Japan. For instance, patients are much more likely to be kept artificially alive in Japan, whereas a patient’s wish to be taken off machine dependency would be respected in the US. Death with dignity is gaining currency in the West but not in Japan, where euthanasia was once carried out on the mentally ill and is now considered taboo. According to the internet, ‘As of April 5, 2018, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington have death with dignity statutes; the Hawaii statute, approved in 2018, goes into effect on January 1, 2019. In Montana, physician-assisted dying has been legal by State Supreme Court ruling since 2009.’

As might be expected, individual rights are much more recognised in the US than Japan. Living wills for instance have legality in America, but not in Japan where the doctor can overrule them  ‘Doctors are God,’ is a Japanese saying. Moreover, practices such as tying patients’ hands to the side of the bed are common in Japan (to prevent tubes being taken out), but are considered unethical in the USA. Morphine use is much less common in Japan than the US, where pain has been eliminated for the dying. In Japan painful death is still common, even in cases where patients ask to be put out of their misery. This may be due to stigma, Yumiko felt, with doctors wishing to guard their reputation. (It’s also said to be part of ‘gaman culture’.)

Finally, Yumi considered attitudes to dying, and here she didn’t find there was much of a cultural difference. Patients everywhere had different levels of contentment with their lives and it depended on the individual. One interesting point was that though religion was supposed to be a great consolation and there were those who felt assured of going to heaven, there were also those convinced they were going to hell.

Music had helped her soothe and comfort patients, evoke warm memories in those with dementia, and above all build relationships with patients who were then able to open up about their feelings. There were many individual anecdotes, but one in particular lingered in the memory. A particularly wealthy man who had seen success in the material things with which he surrounded himself had realised in the face of death that it all counted for very little. “We don’t take what we’ve gained, we only leave what we’ve given,’ is how he put it.

Our many thanks to Yumi. ‘Can music save your mortal soul?’ asked Don McLean. After listening to her talk, we can definitely say yes!

 

Writers in focus

Self-introduction (Iris Reinbacher)

November 9, 2018

My Journey to Kyoto
(by Iris Reinbacher)

I left Austria in 2002. I had just finished my masters in mathematics, but wasn’t ready to join the workforce, so I accepted a PhD position in the computer science department at Utrecht University. Four years later, and now “officially smart”, settling down was still the last thing on my mind. At that time, I gave myself a time horizon of some five years “to have adventures abroad” before returning to Europe and leading the serious life of an adult.

For me, the most adventurous place to go was Asia, and I was invited to a PostDoc position in HongKong. It was summer 2007 when I first set foot onto Japan, and into Kyodai for a conference. And I visited again, for another conference, later in December. To be honest, Japan was not one of these crazy “love at first sight” things for me. I liked it here, the people, the atmosphere, but there was no Big Bang. However, in the next five years I visited Japan a total of 14 times, partly for business, partly for pleasure. I travelled between Otaru and Fukuoka, between Kamakura and Niigata, and in 2012, I spent all my holidays in Japan. By that time, I had long dreamed of living in Japan one day, and when I made the big decision later that year to leave academia for good, I thought that I could just as well reinvent myself in the place I wanted to be – in Japan. In Kyoto, to be precise, because it is the most Japanese of all cities.

Beyond that, there was no big plan regarding housing, job, or anything else. I lived in a gaijin house near Kyodai, and spent my first year in Kyoto doing all the cheesy touristy things with a big smile on my face – after all, I made it to Japan! Still, I had to get serious eventually, and finding a job in my field proved surprisingly difficult. By now I know that smaller companies are more open to hire people with only basic Japanese, but the lack of employment made me set up my own company, and a bit later the What’s up in Kyoto event calendar was born.

It happened simply out of my own needs, since I got frustrated by being surrounded by so lovely a city, where so many interesting things are happening all the time – and only finding out about them when it was too late. The idea is to make this site an event hub for things that go beyond the traditional matsuri and big ticket events. So far, finding these events and entering them is quite time consuming, but I hope, that once the service becomes known, more people will enter their own events. At the moment, I am also working on expanding the scope of the web site. A page on vegan/vegetarian restaurants is almost done, and I am looking into “Things to do in Kyoto” as well.

At this point, this is almost the only writing that I do. I also post three times a week on my blog Going Gaijin. There I write mostly about my personal experiences in Japan, and most of my readers are probably people who know me personally. On Sundays, however, I write about topics that I consider of wider interest, like Japanese culture, events, food, books… I enjoy writing these articles, finding things out and sharing them, I guess I am a researcher at heart after all.

In my old life, I wrote a number of scientific articles, and I consider my PhD thesis my greatest achievement. Compared to that, my personal writing was always much more limited. As an introvert I did write when I needed a way to express deep emotions, like the one time when somebody jumped in front of my train… Only two handwritten pages, but they took three months to write. My records of teenage angst in the form of sporadically kept diaries have since been destroyed. My earliest writings, however, were little poems written when I was about 10 years old. My grandmother even got them published in a small local paper. I have moved on from poetry, but I still treasure those pages.

Find the event calendar here: https://whatsupinkyoto.com
and Iris’ personal blog here: https://goinggaijin.com

Writers in focus

Rebecca Otowa Self-Introduction

November 6, 2018

Rebecca Otowa

Self-Introduction for Writers in Kyoto

Rebecca in her writing office, complete with typewriter (all photos courtesy the author)

I was born in 1950s America, grew up in 1970s Australia, and came of age in 1980s Japan. My Kyoto years (when I lived there as a student and then as a young wife and mother) are 1978-1984. I now live in Shiga, the next-door prefecture, so I can make regular trips to my favorite city.

I came to Japan on a Monbusho scholarship. I had been studying Japanese in high school and university in Australia, and came here to further my study of Buddhism. It was only as I approached my MA graduation at Otani University that I realized Buddhism can’t be learned from books, no matter how dusty and august they may be. My MA, however, has proved invaluable in obtaining work. I also studied tea in the foreigners’ class at Urasenke. Those were busy years.

I married in 1981 into an old farming family whose land is tucked up against the Suzuka mountain range that divides Shiga from Mie. My husband is the 19th generation of his family. The house has been continuously occupied for 350+ years, so it’s a hodgepodge of periods, requiring a lot of maintenance; but the first time I saw it I felt that I was home. I shared it with my mother-in-law for 12 years, until she passed in 1999; endured my husband’s fierce daily commute to the Osaka area; and brought up two sons, now married and gone (though my elder son will move back home with his family next year to become the 20th generation of caretakers). During this time I have been doing all the veggie patch, neighborhood and temple things, while pursuing my work (part-time University English teacher) and a (sort of) writing career, and also going back to my childhood love of painting and drawing.

On the writing side, I have continuously written for the closed-audience Journal of the Association of Foreign Wives of Japanese, also writing for Eigo Kyoiku, Sunday Mainichi, and more recently, Kyoto Journal, and doing translation work for various publications including the sadly now-defunct Eastern Buddhist and Chanoyu Quarterly. My first book, At Home in Japan, published by Tuttle in 2010, is a collection of essays on various Japan-and-me-related topics. It is lavishly illustrated by me, and because of that, Tuttle asked me to write a full-color illustrated children’s book, My Awesome Japan Adventure, published in 2013. This was an answer to other children’s books on Japan, most of which are centered in Tokyo — it’s a story about an American boy who has a homestay in the Kansai countryside. I am now under contract to submit a third book, this time a short story collection about various Japanese and foreign characters. Yes, my interests are eclectic and my writing genres are too.

My other interests include working with my hands (sewing, knitting, beadwork, stained glass), reading voraciously and multiple times (hard copy only), searching for DVDs worth watching, cooking, and spirituality of all types, especially the Western magical tradition. (My days of being a Buddhist are over, though I still feel connected to it when visiting temples and enjoying Eastern art.)

I look forward to being a member of Writers in Kyoto and contributing as best I can to this valuable organization.

The 350 year old house in Shiga where Rebecca lives with the 19th generation of a farming family

One of Rebecca’s paintings, entitled Mandala of Four Elements / Japan’ (2013)

Featured writing

Song Lyrics (Eric Bray)

November 1, 2018
Lyrics – Some Blues Some Happies a Bachata

Some Blues Some Happies a Bachata

Unlike the CD these songs are arranged more or less in chronological order, with “This Day” and “Another Day” coming first, and “Cada Flor” coming last, as I wrote this song 30 years ago after coming to Japan from Mexico (hence the Spanish). I don’t know how well the songs will hold up without the music, but maybe reading the lyrics will inspire those who have not heard the songs to give them a listen. Or listen while you read. The CD was produced by TJ Eckleberg who added bass, drums, guitar etc. plus there are guest appearances by Akira Kondo, Mark Willis and Dale Ward. The songs can be downloaded or streamed at:
Download
Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H3H3XZ3
Amazon.co.jp – http://www.amazon.co.jp/Some-Blues-Happies-Bac…/…/B07H3M743Y
Bandcamp – (free download) http://ericbray.bandcamp.com/releases
iTunes/ – just type in my name and CD title
Streaming
Spotify – http://open.spotify.com/album/5uJOFx6BknYn4UCk06VYQp
Soundcloud – (free) http://soundcloud.com/eric-bray-4/tracks

—————————————————-

This Day

Do we dance Do we play
Do we kiss away the day
Do we sing Do we say
There will never be another day
Like this one This one
Another day like this one

Do we laugh Do we laze
Do we dream away the day
Do we sing Do we say
There could never be another day
Like this one This one
Another day like this one

Do we swing Do we sway
Do we cast our cares away
Do we sing Do we say
No need for another day
Unless it’s this one This one
Unless it’s this one
No need for another day
Unless it’s this one

—————————————————-

Another Day


Akira, TJ and Eric

Got a feeling I ain’t seeing
things like they really are
Gotta wonder if it matters,
Somehow I made it this far
So far so good, somehow someway
Just one burning question
Can I have another day?

Got a feeling I might be seeing
things like I want them to be
Gotta wonder if that’s a problem
As long as we both agree
So far so good, somehow someway
OK, if you insist,
Sure, I’ll take another day.

Gotta feeling we’re just makebelieving
Everything’s OK
Gotta wonder if there’s any better
Way to make it through these days.
So far so good, somehow some way
I hope you don’t mind
if I help myself to another day

—————————————————-

Take the Memories and Run

You say she treated you cruel, she treated you mean
Didn’t call you back for more than a week
To say its over, we’re through
You asked her why, she couldn’t clearly explain
Said she woke up one morning with a smile on her face
Just thinking, of a life without you
Somewhere… a line got crossed
Somehow …her little i found its dot
Somewhy…its still not clear
Didn’t you have your fun, just take the memories and run

You say she treated you wrong, she played with your mind
Ignored your texts for days at a time
And then said its over, we’re through.
You asked her why, she couldn’t clearly explain
Said she woke up one morning with a smile on her face
Just thinking, of a life without you
Somewhere… the rhyme got lost
Somehow …your little X found its cross
Somewhy…may never be clear
Didn’t you have your fun, just take the memories and run

Now it’s the hope that hurts
Now it’s just the hope that hurts
What part of this message, brother, isn’t clear?
Didn’t you have your fun, just take the memories and run
Don’t forget you had your fun
Just take the memories and run

—————————————————-

Still Dancing

Mark,Akira&Eric
Akira, Eric & Mark

How can I let go,
when it feels this good to hold on tight
How can you just go,
with all that yearning in your eyes
How can we ignore
the fire that’s burning between us tonight
Let’s fan the embers aglow,
invite the ancients to witness our rites
I close my eyes
and were still dancing in that winter morning’s light
The sun’s gentle rays falling all around us
Moving in time

How can we not soar
with the wind all around us tempting us to fly
Breath in and let go
invite the angels to join our flight.
I close my eyes
and were still dancing in that winter morning’s light
The sun’s gentle rays falling all around us
Moving in time

Gone on the morning’s breeze
you left the door wide open
Now there’s nothing to do
but step on through to see
what the world may hold
for a heart renewed.
I close my eyes
and we’re still dancing
we’re still dancing

—————————————————-

I Got a Weakness (for being adored)

Go ahead talk with those fellas

Smiling so sweet
Go ahead hang out with your girlfriends
Drinking that Gran Cuvee
But remember when this party’s over
You’re going home with me.

Go ahead have another
Have another two or three
Go ahead do that little dance you do
When you’re feeling so free
But remember that when we get home
There’s going to be something I need
Cuz I got a weakness – can’t be ignored
I got a weakness – don’t it show
I got a weakness – for being adored

Go ahead work that cell phone
From A to Z
Go ahead sit there all day
in front of that EmptyV
But remember when I get home
There’s gonna be something I need
I need my loving, kissing hugging
and cuddling too
In the morning, evening, midnight
And the afternoon
Just one important detail
Its all gotta come from you.
Cuz I got a weakness – can’t be ignored
I got a weakness – don’t it show
I got a weakness – for being adored
by you by you adored by you

—————————————————-

Ofuro (Bathtub) Happies

Akira, Dale and Eric
Akira, Dale and Eric

I’m sitting in the tub getting nice and warm
Before I go out into the cold cold morn
I should be getting out anytime now
But it’s just so hard to resist
sitting here singing silly songs like this.
I’m sitting in the tub listening to the birds
Now they’re getting on with their busy busy days
I should be out there too. Got so many things to do
I just wouldn’t want to miss
sitting here wasting way the day like this

So, first I heat it up
and then it cools down
so I heat it up again
and the damn whole thing goes round and round and
round and round and round and round and round
I should be getting out soon
But I’ve been captured by this tune
And I’ve found no better way
To pass the time away
Than sitting in the tub.

I’m sitting in the tub the sun is going down
Crickets’r starting in on their crazy crazy songs
I should be getting out any day now
But its just too hard to resist when I know
it just don’t get any better than this

So, first I heat it up
then it cools down
so I heat it up again
and the damn whole thing goes round and round and
round and round and round and round and round
I should be getting out soon
But I’ve been captured by this tune
And its just so hard to resist
when I know it just don’t get better than
sitting here singing silly songs like this
in the tub

—————————————————-

Since you Been Gone

Since you’ve been gone I went back to my evil ways
Since you’ve been gone I went back to my evil ways
Drinking milk straight out of the carton
Not doing the dishes for two or three days
I said I was sorry I said it would never happen again
I said I was sorry promised it would never happen again
But that girl was so so lovely
Honey please try and understand

Since you’ve been gone I’m thinking about you all the time
Since you been gone I’m sad and blue every night
I wander from room to empty room
Stumbling over dirty clothes and empty bottles of wine
Baby please come back home.
Baby Baby please come back home
Baby baby please please please
won’t you come back home

—————————————————-

Such Loveliness

Akira and Eric
Akira and Eric

Such Loveliness Such Loveliness
Such Loveliness I’ve never seen
When I first met you I knew
You were unlike any other
That smile that sweet sweet smile
Set my heart all aflutter
Twas then and there I knew
We’d soon be lovers
But what I didn’t know
Was that Such Loveliness
Such Loveliness
Didn’t know that Such Loveliness
Could bring such misery

Now we’re married, but not to each other
and I spend the whole damn day by the phone
Waiting for it to ring blink or shutter
My friends all laugh and say
He should know better
But how was I to know
That such loveliness Such Loveliness
How was I to know that such Loveliness
Could bring this delightful misery

—————————————————-

Bad Girl

You were a bad bad bad girl to put my schoolboy heart to this test
a bad bad girl tossing turning I can’t take my rest
You were a bad bad girl with my friend the other night
Such a bad bad girl to look at me and say that’s nothing to hide
But I want to thank you thank you very much
I want to thank thank thank you and spank you very much
Cuz a heart that can’t be broken that heart can’t be touched

You were a bad bad girl now you say you need some time to decide
Like a bad bad girl whether its going to be him me or some other guy
A bad bad girl isn’t it time you realized
that such a bad bad girl
would be better off telling more sweet sweet lies
But I want to thank you thank you very much
I want to thank thank thank you and spank you very much
Cuz a heart that can’t be broken that heart can’t be touched.

—————————————————-

Cada Flor

Tu cariño no apreciaba lo suficiente
No imaginaba que te extrañaría tan fuerte
Tu belleza todavía me cautiva
Nunca pensé que hasta esto llegaría
Allí deje la buena vida
Allí deje a la que me quería
Para venir a esta tierra fría
Y vivir solo y triste

Tu recuerdo me persigue en mis sueños
No imaginaba que la llevaría tan lejos
Yo sé que aun me estas esperando
Pero aquí, aquí, aquí seguiré
No me pidas que regrese
Toda cambia con el tiempo
Cada flor tiene su día
y se marchita después

Pues sí, todavía te extraño
Por inquietud me fui de tu lado
Pensando en “los cientos volando”
Quizás algún día yo cambiare
Allí deje la buena vida
Allí deje a la que me quería
Para venir a esta tierra fría
Y vivir solo y triste
No me pidas que regrese
Toda cambia con el tiempo
Cada flor tiene su día
y se marchita después

—————————————————-

Every Flower (Cada Flor translation)

I didn’t appreciate your love enough
I never imagined I would miss you this much
Your beauty still captivates me
I never thought it would come to this
It was there I left the “good life”
It was there I left the woman who loved me
To come to this cold land
and live sad and alone

Your memory follows me into my dreams
I never thought I would think about you for so long
I know you are still waiting for me
But it is here I will stay
Don’t ask me to return
Everything changes with time
Every flower has its day
and then it fades away

So, yes. I still miss you
Because I’m restless I left you
Imagining the many other women out there
Maybe one day I’ll change
It was there I left the “good life”
It was there I left the woman who loved me
To come to this cold land
and live sad and alone
Don’t ask me to return
Everything changes with time
Every flower has its day
and then it fades away

Featured writing

Ryoma! Review (Josh Yates)

October 30, 2018

Ryoma! The Life of Sakamoto Ryoma: Japanese Swordsman And Visionary

By Shiba Ryotaro

Translated By Paul McCarthy And Juliet Winters Carpenter. (526 pages)

Reviewed by Ian (Josh) Yates

For the first time the bestselling historian Shiba Ryotaro’s most epic tale will be translated for an English readership. Shiba spent many years, eight volumes and thousands of pages to examine in tremendous depth the story of Japan’s swordsman hero, and now the first two volumes are available for readers in a Kindle version (print version coming 2020).

If anyone is unfamiliar with Ryoma, he is the forever youthful and ambitious face of the struggle to overthrow the dominant and often unabashedly treacherous Tokugawa shogunate. In many ways he is viewed even in modern Japan as a perfect hero; strong, committed and willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good.

Here he is often portrayed as a vacillating figure, sometimes silly boy constantly being called, or calling himself a fool, but at other times hinting towards the hero he will become, such as when he announces:

My desire to be of some use to our country in its hour of need. And if I’m to create within myself the kind of man who can stand in the world, I can’t continue to be a human jellyfish.

This first volume, which composes the first two of Shiba’s original books, examines a surprisingly large part of Ryoma’s life. The story begins with his youth in Kochi, on through his sword and kendo training in Edo and goes all the way up to his criminal escape from Shikoku to travel without the permission of authorities in 1863.

Both McCarthy in the first part, and Carpenter taking over in the second, do a rather masterful job of translating an enormous amount of factual information that could have at times come across as just an overload, but instead continually feels like our grand teacher Shiba’s kind voice as he tells us, his students, all the various tales of this grand figure of Sakamoto Ryoma. The book in many ways feels like it owes much to an oral type of storytelling, where the speaker bounces around a bit, reminded of a different story in the midst of the main one, while all the time keeping the goal of entertaining the listener or reader well in mind, as shown in the quote below, where Shiba interrupts the progress of his own story to throw in additional information, as if it had suddenly struck him:

 When one considers how these two domains of Aizu and Satsuma were on  opposite sides at the time of the Meiji Restoration, with Aizu supporting the  shogunate and Satsuma the imperial court, and how they fought against each  other in the last major battle of the civil war, one realizes that history is    sometimes far more dramatic than any novel. (I trust the reader will excuse this long aside.)

Even those readers who haven’t or are unable to read the original Japanese can very quickly tell what type of writer Shiba was. That being one who was expertly researched and informed, but not overly serious about the whole thing. Again, thanks to our translators here, Shiba’s voice becomes quickly recognizable.

Many readers may even be surprised at the many jokes and humorous tales contained within this history. At times Ryoma is certainly a superhero of sorts, (even Christlike possibly) and much like Spiderman attempts to find his place in a world of good and evil, and sometimes wanting to just ignore the whole thing as being all too difficult. However, at other times Ryoma is a farcical character, like a young man from a slightly bawdy teen sex romp, where he stutters and fumbles his way through encounters with at least four different women with whom he immediately falls in love, then doesn’t know what to do with. Maybe a good comparison, though older than Ryoma, would be the classic Japanese film character of Tora-san. Many of Ryoma’s meetings with women have the same hopeless, helpless, comical feel of the nearly 50 Tora-san movies released in the second half of last century (though, spoiler alert, Ryoma is at least some of the time more successful in his attempts at love).

For anyone off put by the size of this book, or the idea of starting something that will, when finished, easily take up 2000 pages; this first volume is a great starting point. Not only does it end with a marvelous cliffhanger, but it feels complete in and of itself in many ways. While most readers will likely be waiting to hear word of the next volume’s release date, the book stands alone teaching an enormous amount about the man and the history of that incredibly important turning point in Japanese history. Maybe just this one volume will be enough, though more likely, like your humble reviewer, you’ll want to read all of the future volumes.

So, to finish off, this work is highly recommended for anyone with even a casual interest in Japanese history. When in print, this will undoubtably be the type of work that will be needed to fill out any library, public or private, of those of us in love with stories of the modernization of the land of the rising sun, or those who love a story of a single man armed with only his own hands and a sword, who knows that it is up to him to change the world.

 

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

Photos by John D of Ryoma’s grave at Ryozen Gokoku Jinja on the Eastern Hills, up past Kodai-ji.

There’s a steady stream of people who come to pray at Ryoma’s grave

 

The cemetery has a statue of Sakamoto Ryoma and his associate Nakaoka Shintaro who was assassinated with him in Kyoto’s Kawaramachi.

 

The ema (wooden prayer plaque) for Ryoma bears the Chinese character for ‘yume‘ (dream), and there are many inscriptions pledging to follow in Ryoma’s footsteps. This one says, ‘I’ll become a modern-day Sakamoto Ryoma!’

 

View over Kyoto from the Gokoku Jinja hill site. What would Ryoma have thought?

Elemental Japan (Jann Williams)

October 28, 2018

The lunch discussion group on Oct 28, with presenter Jann Williams third on the left

For the past few years Australian Jann Williams has been a valued supporter of Writers in Kyoto, while researching her magnum opus on the effect on Japan of the elements, whether physical or in the form of the Chinese and Buddhist five elements theories. At a lunch discussion on Oct 28 with a group of seven other WiK members she talked of her work so far and sought input on how best to proceed, particularly in organisational terms since she has amassed so much material.

As an environmental scientist, Jann is interested in patterns that form in the landscape. For her PhD, she focused on the transformative effects of fire and the ability of the earth to recover. She’s been involved too in conservation and eco-system services, such as putting value on nature so as to encourage its preservation. She sees the elements as another way of connecting to nature, particularly in the universality of fire and water. That was the inspiration for the name of her first blog ‘Fire Up Water Down’.

Jann Williams in elemental mode

The reason Jann chose to focus on Japan was largely to do with Shinto being the sole example of an animist religion still guiding the thinking of an industrialised country. She was also inclined to admiration of the aesthetics and values of Japanese culture, a feeling intensified with her experience of an Oomoto course she took. In many ways Japan is an obvious country in which to explore the elements because of its position on the ring of fire, meaning volcanoes, hot springs and earthquakes are common, as well as being in the typhoon belt with the consequences that brings.

When it came to the contents of her research, it seemed there was nothing in Japanese culture that was not included! From esoteric Buddhism to the tea ceremony, from Shugendo to food, there was little that had escaped Jann’s attention. She held up a map of Japan and talked too of her journeys from Hokkaido to Yakushima in quest of elemental extremes. Some of the stories associated with these travels can be found in her second blog ‘Elemental Japan’.

In the discussion that followed there was an interesting and valuable exchange of ideas and some good suggestions made as to what form the organisation of the material might take. A journey into each of the elements. The ‘gorinto’ (cemetery stupa) as vector into the elements. A book of photos, with captions and explanations of their significance. The general consensus was that there was enough material for five or six books.

Whichever way Jann inclines in her approach, we wish her well. WiK has had some successes in making connections and helping promote members’ work. But Jann’s work is the closest to our hearts because of her association with the group from the very gestation of her all-encompassing vision. She reckons on three more years work to complete her project. Reader, please watch this space.

Karen Lee Tawarayama, Sho, Ken Rodgers and Jann

 

New members Michael Freiling and Milena Guziak

Ted Taylor takes the limelight, with Rebecca Otowa behind him, followed by John D, Karen, Sho, Ken, Jann, Milena and Michael

Featured writing

Poems (James Woodham)

October 25, 2018

red-breasted,
wings dull
blue

picking
the way
before me

bird
I cannot
name





 


grey clouds, grey water

egret spreads grey wings to fly

the evening settles


 




 


calligraphic sky –

soft pinks, grey pastel smudges

the lake reflecting


 




 




 


smell of fresh cut grass –

the crushed stems sweet as summer

clouds piled white on white


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


Minamihama August 29


from across the lake

crows call as waves wash the shore –

afternoon drifting


look at me, smashing

the waves on the lake, on the lake

jet ski whining


nothing to write with –

scatter the words on the wind

to fall wherever


 




 




 


silvering the lake

last cries of the bell cricket

late October moon


 




 


**********


For other selections of James’s poems and photos, see here and for a Lake Biwa theme see here.

							
	

				
	



	


        
        
            

            Featured writing            


                
		
					
				

											Zen poem (Houser)
									


							
			

			
							
				October 19, 2018
									
								
														
			


					
	

																					
	

	
		
“Recalling a Light Moment”


Amongst zen masters

the moon

mutant metaphor


reflected in water

a teaching apart

from origin


we world-wide witnesses

myriad waves

possessed of lunar largesse


but obviously no moon

seen in sea or tear

to grasp


nor mineral moon above

only sunlight

permits perception


the reflected moon merely

many waves like words

I neglected to mention


—Preston Keido Houser

Oct. 2018


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


For improv poetry by Preston, see here. 


For a selection of four of his poems, click here.


 

							
	

				
	


		

		
				
			

						
				« Older posts							
				Newer posts »								
			

		
					
	

		
	
	
	
	


	              	        
	

		
		

		
						
				

				
					

			
						
About Writers in Kyoto
			
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

		
											
					

					
				

				
			
				
						
				

				
					

			
						
Recent Comments
    Questions, Feedback?
    			
    Contact us
    
		
    											
					
    
					
				
    
				
			
								
						
				
    
			
					
    
			
						
    WiK on Facebook
    			

    

    

    
		
    											
					
    
					
				
    
				
			
					
		
    
	
	
    
	
	
    
	
		
    
	
			
    
				© 2024 Writers In Kyoto
			
    
			
			
    
				Based on a theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑