Writers In Kyoto

Page 5 of 64

Authors who belong to Writers in Kyoto

Muroto, High and Low (Edward J. Taylor)

March 5, 2024

The island of Shikoku’s principle attraction is of course its pilgrimage.  While the 88 temples that serve as waypoints are of varying grandeur and importance, Cape Muroto’s Mikuriyajin Cave must certainly be considered of primary significance, for if Kukai had not had his spiritual epiphanies here, it is doubtful that the pilgrimage would exist at all.  Legend has it that the holy man, then known as Mao, lived and trained in the cave during the early 9th century.  During meditations, his gaze would have been limited by the narrow rock mouth to the separation of sky and sea beyond (from which he took his name, “Ku,” sky and “Kai, “sea), a separation that would have been completely erased in times of the cape’s foul weather.  

Cape Muroto is infamous for being a typhoon magnet of sorts, including the 1934 storm that was considered at the time the strongest ever.  Yet the violent intensity of the accompanying wind and wave have bestowed a bounty of sorts, in the stunning rock formations they have carved along the shoreline.  Forces below have provided the foundation, in this seismically active region ever sculpting and expanding.  The area’s unique beauty was the centerpiece of the founding of the Muroto-Anan Kaigan Quasi-National Park in 1964.  The Cape itself was listed as a Place of Scenic Beauty in 1928, with the local vegetation receiving its own recognition as a Natural Monument the same year.  The waves here have even been selected by the Ministry of the Environment as one of the 100 Soundscapes of Japan.     

But it is Cape’s 2011 designation as the Muroto UNESCO Global Geopark that drew me here today, as I find this special landscape to be indelibly connected to Kukai, and the three pilgrimage temples found nearby.  I leave the bus at Taishizo-mae, just in front of the towering statue of Kukai, a clean white figure that pops out against the green of low scrub trees behind.   The Mikuriyajin Cave is just a few minutes walk away.  The cave had been closed for a number of years due to rock fall, but chain link fencing now help protect visitors from gravity-enhanced enlightenment.    

A low candle-lit altar is now set against the back of the cave, marking where young Mao had presumably sat, he too becoming part of the geology.  He vowed to chant the Kokuzo buddhist mantra one million times, which surely would have resonated powerfully off the narrow walls of the cave.  One morning while going through these aesthetic practices, the Morning Star, Venus, rose from the sea and into the sky, before entering the young monk’s mouth.  Thus Kukai, and Shingon, were born.  It is as easy to see how the sight of Venus, cutting through this cold damp darkness, could jar one into Enlightenment. 



I backtrack a short ways to enter the narrow trail that runs for two kilometers, through the heart of the Geopark.  Bisago-iwa towers above me, its name (like many of the rock formations here) having religious connotations, in this case, Vaisravana, the guardian god of Buddhism.  But this 14 million year-old piece of magma jutting horizontally into the sky predates all religions.  As if in contrast, Eboshi-iwa, mimics the shape of the headwear of a Shinto priest.  I move past the Gyosui-no-Ike pond for bathing, and the Me-washi-no-Ike pond for washing eyes, which is said to cure eye disease. There are also a good number of uplifted marine terraces, the land here having risen 1.2 to 1.6 meters every thousand years.  The walker can also spy the fossils of tube worm colonies that bring intricate rope-like patterns to the towering rocks.

I follow the trail down toward the cape.  The sky is a brilliant blue, the aki biyori of a perfect autumn day.  The path climbs and falls over the lessor rock formations, then on through the cavernous covers of low scrub and tree.  At times I feel that I am in a dense, prehistoric forest.  Emerging out the other side, all is spiny yucca-like plants, driftwood, low brush.  The hillside above is what in another continent would be called parasol pines.  Probably most noticeable is the wealth of birdlife, far more than I usually see in the hills and forests of Japan.   

Around the cape’s sharp tip and the ubiquitous Meoto-iwa pair of wedded rocks, conjoined by a rope.  Muroto is unique in that from here one can see both sunrise and sunset, and legend dictates that if one views the sunrise between the rocks on any day between the autumnal and vernal equinoxes, he or she will be blessed with a good marriage.  Another trail extends away from the road, this one wild and overgrown, forcing the walker to scramble over the rocks in a number of places . It leads to a small cove of remarkably clear water, well over a meter deep, and if the day were five degrees warmer, I’d have a dip.  Stone steps cut into the rock face away from the direction of waves, a hint that this would be where fishermen of old had moored their boats.  Amazingly enough, the rocks on this side are smoother and less dramatic than their counterparts around to the east.  The cape creates an obvious break water, which is no doubt a clue as to why the town of Muroto stands where it does.          

I return to the cape’s east side, and find the trail that climbs steeply up a rock staircase to Hotsumisaki-ji, the 24th temple of the Shikoku Pilgrimage.  Though this picturesque temple has a 1000 year history, the current buildings are just over a century old, rebuilt after a fire.  A horseshoe of low buildings make up the grounds, anchored by a low pagoda in one corner.  As it has one of the few remaining shukubō (pilgrim accommodations) on the entire circuit, walking pilgrims would find that it makes for a good place to stay after the long arduous approach down to the cape. 

Temple 25, Shinshō-ji, is six kilometers away, in the center of Muroto town.  After a pleasant descent through the forest, I traverse a long narrow village that parallels the shore.  At its center stands a beautiful house surrounded by stone walls, more reminiscent of those seen on the outer islands of the Ryukyu chain far to the south.  Muroto’s port dates to the feudal Edo period, and ships used to wait here for favorable winds before carrying on to Osaka and the Kansai.  Today, motorized ships can go out in most weather, in search of the tuna that enliven the meals of the many restaurants standing just above this deep harbor.  The seawall that surrounds it is an impressive piece of work, built like a labyrinth in order to protect the boats and the town from the typhoons that are regular guests. 

Shinshō-ji has pride of place, at the top of a long flight of stairs that extends away from the harbor’s edge.  The arched gate near the top is almost Chinese in style, and turning around, I am rewarded by marvelous views out to the Pacific and up the coast to the north.  Though of an older history, the current structures date only to 1881, on grounds far more modest than they’d been in the past.  

It is about an hour’s walk to Temple 26, Kongōchō-ji, through an older section of town, which empties eventually into quiet countryside.   This temple too requires a steep climb, though I am again rewarded by the fine views, and a pleasant atmosphere of weathered halls pleasantly nestled into old growth forest. It is obvious why this place was chosen as a location for ascetic practices, seemingly far off from the complications of the modern world.  Apparently it was here that Kukai had engaged a tengu goblin in debate, who, if I understand correctly the explanation overheard from a nearby guide, might actually have been a foreigner.  My own pet theory is that the tengu was probably a tree, as the forest here is filled with twisted and fantastic shapes.  Ironically, on the way down the mountain, my pack catches a tree limb, which breaks away from the trunk to come crashing down a few inches to my right.  Most of the wood is rotten (and currently sprinkled across my clothes and pack), but the center of the limb is solid enough to have broken a bone or shatter my skull.  It’s a close shave, but somehow I survive the tengu’s revenge. 

I could take a bus to Kiragawa, but the day is warm and pleasant and the path pointing downward.  I take a a late lunch at Sadamaru Burger, rewarding myself for the 18 kilometers I’ve walked through the morning.  The simple interior charms with its laid back beach town vibe, but I sit on one of the benches out front, admiring a pair of Harley Davidsons that pull in, the sun shining off their chrome. 

My digs for the night are a very short walk away in Kiragawa, a once-prosperous charcoal-making town.  The narrow lane that runs through the center is framed by houses and shops of an older vintage, and even the newer buildings have the almost English look of the late Meiji period.  To walk up the main street, the pilgrim wishes the entire Shikoku circuit were like this, which is one of the finest parts of the Kochi section.  I spy the familiar kura storehouse whose upper layers look like a wedding cake.  I often stopped here for coffee during those times when I guided the pilgrimage, allowing my guests to marvel at the guitars and the records and the sci-fi hi-fi, while I caught up with the friendly man running the place.  Today, his wife tells me that he has passed on, the cafe now opened sporadically.  She leads me through an attractive open garden courtyard of rock and green, all ringed with rooms facing in.  I’m given what I assume is the best, a large tatami room complete with sofa, and a pair of beds hidden away in a smaller room off to one side.  The sliding doors in front make it simultaneously private and pubic, and to open them invites conversation from the rooms adjacent.  

Meals are not included at Kura Kukan Kurashuku, so  I make my way up to Home Bakery for tomorrow’s breakfast, before backtracking to an old renovated house that is now Gen~kuro, a small izakaya with a growing reputation. As it is early, the owner is free to sit awhile and chat.  Besides serving as chef, he further specializes in charcoal making, which forms the base of his food prep.  I try a number of his grilled vegetables and fish, (including the region’s famous katsuo tataki), and even my beer gets a dose of charcoal.   

Well satiated, I cross the now quiet Highway 55 and descend to the cobblestone beach.  Today in its full glory, the moon extends a long length of silver tinsel across the water toward my feet.  The waves are soft, the wind light, but I’ve seen what they can do when provoked, shaping and reshaping this entire shoreline.  The practice of the Buddhist monks in the hills above is grounded in the concept of impermanence, to which the geology of the Muroto peninsula would certainly concur. 

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Based in Kyoto, Edward J. Taylor’s creative writing has appeared in a variety of print and online publications, and he was Co-editor of the Deep Kyoto Walks anthology. A list of his writing on the WiK website can be found here. For his blog, Notes from the Nog, click here.

Writers in focus

The Name of the Willow

February 27, 2024

Marc Keane is well-known to readers for his remarkable books on Japanese Gardens, and during his lunchtime talk for WiK last autumn he revealed that he was working on three new writing projects. One of them has now come to fruition, The Name of the Willow. Like Rebecca Otowa, whose artistic talents were evident in her self-published 100 Items in my Japanese Home, Marc has chosen to showcase his work in a personally designed publication, done with meticulous attention to the materials used (see below). The result of the labour of love is a work of art beyond the restrictions traditional publishers.

Marc writes: “I am very pleased to announce the publication of a new, illustrated book called The Name of the Willow, a philosophical folk tale which suggests that by changing the way we name things, we can change the way we see the world.  

Starting with a single willow tree growing on a riverbank, we come to discover all the things that shape the tree into what it actually is and, in doing so, we find that the willow is not a single, separate thing, but a confluence of streams, an aggregate of interactions. And, its true name includes all of the many things that make it what it is.

The journey to make this book has been a year-and-a-half long project working through all the illustrations as well as writing and laying out the book. It was printed in Kyoto and hand-bound by Kyoto artisans with a sewn spine in the traditional watoji method. The paper used in the book, Panshion 303 by Molza, is a special blend developed for contemporary printing presses that was created to evoke the soft, fibrous quality of Japanese mitsumata paper. The printing was done on Fujifilm’s high-end digital Jet Press 750s, using their proprietary Vividia water-based pigment inks.

The original illustrations were done on Kōchi mashi, Japanese linen paper, using pastels, inks, and graphite powder. Each sheet was first dyed with various inks before the drawing was started. The deep black was made using a custom-ground graphite powder. The distinctive green mimics the color used in Japanese nihonga paintings known as “ryoku shō“, which is made from finely-ground malachite.

Separate English and Japanese editions of the book are being sold directly from my studio.

“The Name of the Willow” (English edition)  —  PURCHASE HERE

“Yanagi no Na” (Japanese edition)  —  PURCHASE HERE

The story is based on an essay of the same name that appeared in my recent collection, Of Arcs and Circles, published by Stone Bridge Press.

Talk with Everett Kennedy Brown (February 18th, 2024)

February 21, 2024

By Rebecca Otowa

Nine people gathered at Writers in Kyoto member David Duff’s house/library (quite impressive!) in Shimogamo to listen to a talk by the noted photographer Everett Kennedy Brown. Aside from his unusual and beautiful collodion wet-plate photography, a technique from the 19th century, he has written several books in Japanese including “Archaic Future” (ひとつながりの記憶), a collection of images from the Izumo region which began as a tribute to Lafcadio Hearn, and 京都派の遺伝子, a look at the arts of Kyoto through images and talks with eminent Kyoto artists and thinkers. He is presently working on a book in English, Kyoto Dreamtime.

Everett’s talk ranged widely from childhood experiences related to Japan (his father told him stories about bicycling around Japan as a member of the Occupation Forces after World war II) to his immersion in Shugendo training methods, including standing under waterfalls, sometimes at night, when he had spiritual experiences which allowed him to intuit energies from past ages in Japan, to his writing, including why he writes in Japanese and how this “opens the intuitive areas of the brain” (from his website). His talk concluded with a flourish on the shofar, an instrument made from an animal horn sacred to the Jewish people, which for me was connected with his experiences blowing the conch shell which is inseparable from the image of the yamabushi (mountain priest).

His talk hinted at various other interests, including organic farming, echolocation (the way human beings may locate themselves in their environment by sound), new ideas in neuroscience, and time travel. Any of these could be a talk on its own.

Everett’s website includes images of his monochromatic photographs, which are remarkable for their attention to depth of field and evocative quality of bringing to a dark, brooding life the soul of Japan as he sees it.

The gathering extended past the planned time of two hours, with John Dougill presiding and asking Everett some questions about his work, and plenty of time for participants to ask questions both formally as part of the talk, and afterwards informally.

Thanks very much to Everett Kennedy Brown for speaking on so many interesting topics, to David Duff for opening his home to us, and to Karen Lee Tawarayama for organizing.

John Dougill had prepared many questions for Everett

Everett prepares to play the shofar

For details about Everett’s photojournalism, artwork and writings, see his website here.

For his Ted Talk on landscape and memory, see here.

The Voices in Rocks, the first chapter of Everett’s novel Kyoto Dreamtime, can be read at this link of the Writers in Kyoto website.

Authors who belong to Writers in Kyoto

Monks on My Mind

February 20, 2024

by Cody Poulton

On New Year’s Day in Kyoto my wife and I visited a friend in Fushimi. He is an architect and amateur soccer player who also happens also to be a Pure Land Buddhist priest. I discussed my interest in finding some old house in town to fix up and make liveable. But, of course, the costs involved in all that might be prohibitive. Takeda made me a proposal. If I were retiring and looking for a place to live, I could do worse than becoming a Pure Land priest: free temple, tax free living, funerals as fringe benefits. He gave me a little Pure Land breviary to get the hang of things. Back in Canada I told the story to a couple over dinner. “I always wanted to fuck a priest,” said my friend, before she was ushered swiftly out the door by her husband.
  
Heading north on Gokōmachi toward Marutamachi one night after dinner, my friend Mr. T and I discovered the “Terra Bar,” tucked into an old storehouse on the grounds of a temple. A warm and cosy refuge from the rain. The bartender was the priest, which was Pure Land sect. Enterprising fellows, these Pure Land bonzes! One of the customers sitting next to me told me she’d done a working holiday in Vancouver when she was younger. She was the priest’s wife. Things were fine until the priest did what priests do, and that was give a sermon. This one was on the rather macabre topic of how to dispose of human bodies in space. The priest is a member of a study circle called the “research group on cosmic ethics,” which consists of fifteen students and sixteen teachers. What if you die in space? You can’t get cremated, nor can they bury you. Eject you from your spaceship and your corpses will follow your vessel in orbit, like a loyal dog. Imagine looking out the porthole and seeing Bob out there, tagging along. Since resources are precious, would your body be transformed into food or fuel? How would people feel about that? I watched T grow more depressed as he drank his Corona. We got the hell out of Terra Bar as fast as we could.

Monks on my mind … Downstairs from where I live, there is an izakaya run by a cool and witty couple who serve food that has put them on the Michelin Guide. The okamisan seats me next to a burly guy with a buzzcut who, in short order, tells me he has in-laws coming from Israel, Holland, and Colombia for the holidays. He has three daughters and they married men from three different countries and settled there. He asks me the usual questions. How long have I been in Japan? How old am I? What I do for a living? etc. I reciprocate. It turns out he’s chief priest of Myōkenji, one of the neighbourhood temples. He told me his dream of setting up a piano in the hondō for people to play.
“You know how they put pianos at stations for anyone to come play? ‘Eki-piano,’ they call it. I want to make a ‘tera piano.’”
“Rhymes with therapy,” I said. “Go for it!”

A little later, a bald-pated younger man enters and sits down beside him. He’s the priest of Myōkakuji, just up the road from Urasenke country. Both are Nichiren temples, and the priest of Myōkenji introduced the priest of Myōkakuji as his “disciple” (deshi). Both temples have deep ties to Ogata Kōrin and the Rinpa artists, as well as to the Senke Tea schools, both Ura and Omote. Oda Nobunaga used Myōkakuji as a hotel whenever he was in Kyoto. (That is until Honnōji—bad move, Nobunaga!) The disciple said he knew his master had come to Wasabi because his bicycle was parked outside. He makes regular rounds (manben naku!) of all the local pubs. I am constantly running into him in one watering hole or another.
Master Oikawa (Oi-chan for short), the priest of Myōkenji, is 78 and looks like a sumo wrestler. He said he is often mistaken for a Mongolian. The disciple said approvingly that Oikawa was fit and sturdy from a life on the mats doing judō. That’s why he was still riding a bike at his age.

Oi-chan took off, leaving the disciple with me. By this point, I’m ready to head home too, so I ask for the bill. “You don’t happen to know a pastor, do you?” asks the okamisan. “I run a bridal business on the side and we’re short of them.” I tell her I just happen to know one, an Anglican, in Ashiya. He and I were high school classmates and we both ended up in Japan. “Here’s my card. Give me a wankiri (a ring and hang up ),” she said, in order to register my private phone number. “I do weddings at the railway museum, the aquarium, and the Franco-Japanese Cultural Centre,” she said. “But we’re short of priests. I don’t suppose he’s Protestant, is he?” she asked. I assured her he was.

In a bonze-ridden town, pastors are in short supply.

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

For more of Cody’s work in English, see his Palm-of-the-Hand Story, or his account of being In Transit between Canada and Kyoto, or a description by Rebecca Otowa of his lunchtime talk about Japanese theatre.

Here follows a Japanese translation of Monks on My Mind.

「気になる坊主ども」

Cody Poulton

Part I.

こんな夢を見た。
人の集まりに行ったら、誰も赤の他人だった。飼っているペットも初対面。誰かの子猫に噛まれた。次は違う人の犬に噛まれた。最後に誰かの山羊はしっかりと僕の手を噛み突いてなかなか離さなかった途端、覚めた。すぐ妻にその夢を語ると、彼女は「私や！その山羊」、と。

元旦に伏見へ友達のお宅を訪れた。友達は建設の設計士の傍らに、浄土真宗のお寺の住職を務めている。趣味はサッカー。僕は町屋をリフォームして京都に楽隠居しようかという話をした。ただ、セカンドハウスを買う余裕がないのかと悩むと、彼は「こうしたら、お金がかからないよ。坊主になったら、まずお寺をもらう。税金も掛からへん。おまけにお葬式でお小遣いが貯まる。」坊主になるための宿題として『浄土宗日常勤業式』という経本をくれた。
　　帰国したらある晩友達にその話をした。彼らが帰る時に、「神父でもいい、坊主でもいいーずっと前からああいう方を抱きたかったの！」と彼女が言い出したら、旦那に玄関からさっさと連れられて去ってしまった。

ある夜食後に友達との帰りに御幸町を丸太町へ向かうと、お寺の玄関に蔵があった。その中に賑やかな飲み屋の気配がした。バーテンはその寺の住職。ようやるな、浄土真宗の坊ん（ぼん）さん！と思った。入ってみたらこじんまりな、明るい風景。お客さんは五、六人かな。みなさんはウエルコム。一人の女の人は若い頃バンクーバーでワーホリをやった。彼女はその坊主の妻。面白い団欒だと思ったら、坊主は坊主で、いよいよお説教が始まった。最近この坊さんは「宇宙倫理学研究会」の会員になった。その中に学生は１５人で先生はなんと１６人。変な研究会。この間こういう話があった。
宇宙飛行士は宇宙で死んだらその遺体の後始末をどうする、という問題。埋葬はもちろん、火葬も無理。宇宙船から放り出すと、そのまま宇宙船を愛犬のように着いていく。窓から「太郎がそこに」といつも思い出させてくれる。宇宙に材料はとても貴重だ。それなら、その屍を燃料で燃やすか、それとも食べるのか、という討論。
　　これを聞いたら、我が友はますます鬱になることに気がついた。僕は「行こうよ」と言い、二人でそのまま「お寺バー」を逃げた。

気になる坊主ども。僕の住んでいるマンションのすぐ下に居酒屋がある。大将と女将さんはとっても気さくなペアーでおばんざいが美味しい。ある晩女将さんは頭が丸坊主で体が頑丈なおじさんの隣に僕を座らせた。その男は年末にイスラエルからとオランダから、そしてコロンビアからの子供たちと孫たちを迎えると僕に述べた。大変です！みんなそれぞれ言葉が違う。彼の子供は７人の中に娘３人は外国の人と嫁いだのだ。彼の名前は及川さんー愛称は「おいちゃん」。
　　おいちゃんは近所の妙顕寺の住職。これからお寺でやってみたいのは本堂にピアノを置くこと。「駅ピアノって聞いたことがあるやろ？俺は「寺ピアノ」を提供したいのです。近所の人がいつでも自由に弾けるように」と言った。
　　「寺ピアノ？テラピーにかけて聞こえがいいね。是非やるべき！」
　　その後、もう一人の坊主が店に入って隣に座った。彼は近くの妙覚寺の住職でおいちゃんの弟子。妙顕寺と妙覚寺はご存知かも知れないが、日蓮宗のお寺なのだ。どっちも表千家、裏千家の今日庵付近でお茶と深い縁がある。戦国時代に織田信長は妙覚寺をホテルのように使った。妙覚寺の住職の林さんはおいちゃんの自転車が店の前で置いたのを見て先生が入っていることが分かった。おいちゃんは毎晩のように満遍なく近所の飲み屋巡りをしているのだ。がっしりした体型のおいちゃんは昔から柔道をやっているので、７８歳の割に元気なお爺さんだ。
　　おいちゃんがそろそろ飲み終わって帰ろうとすると、僕も会計を頼んだ。「コーディさんは牧師を知らない？」と女将さんに聞かれた。僕はたまたま高校時代の同級生が芦屋で日本聖公会の牧師をやっているから紹介します、と彼女に答えた。彼女は自分の名詞を差し上げて、「この電話番号です。ワン切りして交換しよう。」と言った。彼女は昼の間京都の水族館や鉄道博物館や日仏文化会館などで結婚式や披露宴を企画しているが、この坊主まみれの町に牧師は珍しい。

Authors who belong to Writers in Kyoto

A Discussion with Rebecca Otowa: Artist, Writer, Musician (by Karen Lee Tawarayama)

January 30, 2024

Papa Jon’s Café Rokkaku, January 13th, 2024

Writers In Kyoto aims not only to bring together members of the local literary community to focus on writing, but also to support each other’s activities. WiK member Rebecca Otowa exhibited her watercolor paintings between January 10th and 15th at Papa Jon’s Café Rokkaku in downtown Kyoto, a venue well-known for providing exhibition space for local artists, as well as a place for Writers in Kyoto (WiK) meetings. On January 13th, Rebecca was present to welcome visitors and answer questions, and some WiK members came in to enjoy her company and a slice of the café’s delicious cheesecake. Rebecca spoke with me about her paintings and creative process, and some of her direct answers are shared below.

Rebecca is known not only for her literary works but also her mesmerizing images, created mainly with Holbein watercolors (directly from the tube) and aquarelle pencils. From 2011 to the present, she has been particularly productive, having created and preserved approximately fifty pictures. This exhibition at Papa Jon’s is Rebecca’s third, with two others having taken place in and around her town in eastern Shiga Prefecture.

Myxomycetes (Watercolor, 2020), one painting which was on display, is an abstract and colored version of tiny fungi (also called “slime mold”), which live in forest networks. Rebecca became fascinated by their existence when visiting the Wakayama Prefecture-based museum of renowned Japanese naturalist Kumagusu Minakata. This painting, as well as another titled Fun with Kanji II Enjoyment (Watercolor, 2012), have various colorful patterns within outlined shapes, a technique Rebecca often uses. As the creative process unfolds, Rebecca largely allows the image itself to guide her, instead of leading with preconceived ideas.

Myxomycetes (2020)

Café Scene and Fun with Kanji II Enjoyment (2012)

Another strong focus of Rebecca’s work is the four elements of Western philosophy: fire, earth, water and air.

“I’ve made a lot of mandala, all based on four elements. Because there are four elements and four seasons, this lends itself very well to square paper because you have a shape which you can divide into four. One of the first pictures I made was a mandala of four elements based on Mexican art. That was an inspiration I got from a Kyoto Journal exhibition of yarn art by the Huichol Indians of Mexico, but I used paint instead of yarn, with the same visual elements. I also love geometry. Anything that has something to do with geometry is something that I like to play around with. For me, geometry comes from the natural world. You look at plants – you look at the way that stems go, or the way the flowers are set up. All of it is geometrical. It’s very interesting to discover that, and to bring it into your life, as just a fun thing to think about. Also geometric progressions – how a circle becomes a triangle, and how a triangle becomes a pentagram. These things were figured out by the early Greek mathematicians Pythagoras and Euclid. They set up the rules for how you can get from one shape to another. With colors too – I like to notice the difference between very small gradations of color. When I’m painting, I think, a little bit bluer, a little bit redder, or a little bit yellower. Sometimes I mix them, sometimes I use them straight. I have a feeling it has something to do with some sort of mathematics, but it’s just really fun to watch that process.”

Rebecca explained how another painting, “Down the Rabbit Hole” (Watercolor, 2015), demonstrates spiritual themes through a process of unfolding. Merging colors form different levels of being, with the center being the lowest and densest of all, the material world in which we live. Rebecca demonstrates this through the symbolic use of color gradations.

“Some of the things grow out of ideas or some of the things I learned. For example, with color there are the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, and before that is black and white. In a certain thought system those combinations of colors gradually represent different worlds. Black, grey, and white represent the top and the primary colors represent primary energies. They mix together to form the secondary colors, which mix again to form the tertiary colors, which is where we are, at the bottom. “Down the Rabbit Hole” starts with black, grey, and white around the outside and sort of edges in towards the material world. I was taught that this material world of ours is the densest and lowest of all the worlds, where we’re always interacting with material things. For example, these days I’m always dropping things on the floor. I think, ‘Oh, there goes that pencil again.’ That’s gravity. That’s a material thing that we have to figure out how to handle in our lives. It’s all part of the material world where we live. This material world is very rigid and seems inflexible. Take stones on a wall, for example. Physicists tell us that within the stones there is lots of space between the atoms, but the reality is that if I bump into that wall, I’m going to hurt myself. Human beings are always encountering this material stuff. Now I have to take my coat off, now I have to put my gloves on, now I have to take my shoes off, now I have to do this or that. I think it’s a tremendous lesson for us to deal with this particular kind of world.”

Rebecca with Down the Rabbit Hole (2015)

The themes in Rebecca’s boldly colored work are often drawn from dreams, visions, and her past studies in spirituality and the occult. The Pilgrim (Watercolor, 2013) was inspired by the Omi Shonin (traveling merchants) of the Edo Period. At the upper left is a Middle Eastern hamsa (protective charm), and at the bottom right corner is a Man in the Maze motif from the indigenous culture of the southwestern United States. Another framed work, Corn Maiden (Watercolor, 2014), has a painted image of three Hopi kachina dolls: sun mask (left), rain dance Longhair (right) and Corn Maiden (center). In the center of the Corn Maiden’s robe is a Glass Gems corn cob, which Rebecca grew in her own garden and patiently took time to paint kernel by kernel, so accurately portrayed that it gives the impression of a photograph. The painting’s concept is that of a ritual drum with decorations of feathers and motifs. “In the cultures of the Southwest US,” Rebecca writes, “corn is sacred and corn flour is said to have been used to fashion the first human beings.”

The Pilgrim (2013)

Corn Maiden (2014)

During our discussion, I became curious to know if, as a successful writer, Rebecca applies the concept of “unfolding” to her own storytelling, in explaining her characters’ thought processes and feelings. Also, does she feel that creating art, whether through writing, painting, or her long-time experience of playing musical instruments help Rebecca transcend the seemingly rigid world to a higher awareness or consciousness? After all, we need to make use of the physical world – our bodies, our hands, our brains – to create art.

“It’s similar. It’s a kind of building. The things that I paint are, quite often, things that make me think of something besides what’s in the material world, and some of them are delving deeper into the material world. You’d go deeper and you can find places in there that are not so rigid, not so complicated. There’s a simplicity underneath all of this stuff. you have to use a material thing to get something that’s not material. When a musician is a very good musician, or an artist, or a writer is very good, the art seems to lift itself up from the material equipment that one needs, like a musical instrument or notes on a page, and it goes higher. It goes somewhere else. And that’s a really amazing experience. Maybe you feel like you want to draw something more complicated, But you are not in control. I think that control is actually irrelevant. It’s a power. It’s channeling. You have to use your hands and your eyes. You have to use various physical things in order to get there. That’s the reality. That’s the place where you go in… and then you go up.”

My personal favorite amongst the paintings which were displayed is The Transformer (Watercolor, 2016). As described by Rebecca, this picture “shows how the sun takes the strong energy of the Universe and transforms it into a form that can be used by living things on Earth. It is based on the Kabbalah Tree of Life.”

The Transformer (Watercolor, 2016)

Thanks to Rebecca for sharing her insights and her paintings. We look forward to more of her artistic expressions, in a variety of mediums, in the future.

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Rebecca Otowa is the author of The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper, At Home in Japan, My Awesome Japan Adventure, and the creator of 100 Objects in My Japanese House. Her many contributions to the Writers in Kyoto website can be read at this link.

Karen Lee Tawarayama can also be found here and there on the WiK website.

Papa Jon’s Café Rokkaku: 115 Horinouecho, Nakagyo Ward, Kyoto 604-8117

Writers in focus

Garrison Island (by Stephen Mansfield)

January 28, 2024

Monochrome images capture the stark realities of Okinawa’s vassal status.

Stephen Mansfield is a Japan-based writer and photographer, one of the leading contributors about contemporary Japan, and a reviewer for The Japan Times. He is the author of 20 books, and his work has appeared in more than 60 magazines, newspapers and journals worldwide.  This photo essay appears in the January 2024 edition of the Number 1 Shimbun (the online monthly magazine of FCCJ, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan).

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Guesthouse owner, Masashi Miyagi. Kunigami. © Stephen Mansfield

Visiting Okinawa, a garrison island and holiday destination, can seem like being teleported back to Japan’s agitprop heyday of the late 1960s. Located on the outer periphery of the archipelago, it is part of the modern state but, due to its complicated history, occupies an ambiguous place in the country’s psyche.

The late Masahide Ota, a former governor of Okinawa, insisted that its history was “essentially that of a poor ethnic group at the southernmost tip of the Japanese archipelago, expendable whenever national powers felt it necessary for their larger purposes”. A resurgent pride in island identity, reinforced by challenges to Japanese historical narrative, conflicts with a continued and burdensome U.S. military presence.

The unflappable conviction expressed by young U.S. recruits in their mission, yoked to a strong sense of entitlement, is a reminder that indoctrination is not confined to the training camps of the Peshawar Valley, the terror cells of Mogadishu, or the classrooms of North Korea.

Okinawan photographer and activist, Mao Ishikawa, who is drawn to persistent themes of identity and occupation, believes that historical relations between Okinawans and the Japanese are similar to those between black and white people. On the subject of her own ethnicity, Ishikawa affirms that she is, “not Japanese but an Okinawan”. It is from this firm cultural grounding that her photography draws its strength and inspiration.

My own trips to the islands over the years have provided me with the opportunity to return to an early interest in black-and-white photography.

Okinawa represents – more than any other region of Japan – stark social, political and visual dualities that lend themselves to this more somber, monochromatic depiction. 

Statue of Liberty at the American Village in Chatan. © Stephen Mansfield

Crafting a shisa, or Okinawan guardian lion dog. © Stephen Mansfield

Derelict U.S. fighter plane. Motobu peninsula. © Stephen Mansfield

The late Misako Oshiro, one of Okinawa’s greatest singers. © Stephen Mansfield

Recycle shop storage cage along Route 58. © Stephen Mansfield

Members of a protest movement in Henoko. © Stephen Mansfield

Roadside store advertising. © Stephen Mansfield

To read more from and about Stephen Mansfield on the Writers in Kyoto website, please refer to a list of former posts at this link.

Writings about Kyoto, whether by Japanese or foreign observers

Bin Ueda, Professor and Translator

January 19, 2024

by Yuki Yamauchi

When Lafcadio Hearn taught English literature at Tokyo Imperial University (the current University of Tokyo), he praised a certain undergraduate as “the only one that can express himself in English among 10,000 Japanese students.”

The prodigy worth such high praise was Bin Ueda. Born in 1874 at Tsukiji, Tokyo, he enriched his knowledge at Tokyo Eigo Gakko (Tokyo English School) and the First Higher School (precursor of University of Tokyo and Chiba University), before entering the top university in Japan.

Remarkably Ueda had a good command of French, German and Spanish as well as English, and he began to rise to fame after graduation. He came out with Kaicho-on (The Sound of the Sea Tide), a collection of translations of works by French poet Paul Verlaine, German poet Carl Busse and English writers such as William Shakespeare and Robert Browning.

In 1908, he was appointed to be a professor at Kyoto Imperial University, the current Kyoto University. Initially, he stayed at Shigaraki, a ryokan that stood near the Sanshi Suimeisho arbor in Kamigyo-ku, and afterward settled in the northern vicinity of Heian Jingu.

Ueda was one of the earliest readers of Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, and invited the novelist in 1912 when he was on a business trip to Kyoto. The professor was recollected by the literary giant about two decades later:

Judging from the erudition shown in my favorite books of his, such as Shisei Dante [Ueda’s translations of the poetry of Dante], I imagined that he must look like a very aged and fashionable Western professor. Apart from his dark moustache, however, [Bin Ueda] Sensei looked like neither a typical scholar nor a typical man of letters. Rather, he appeared to be either the owner of a large store in shitamachi (old downtown area) or a proper gentleman like a merchant.
― Extract from Seishun Monogatari (My Adolescent Days) by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki

Tanizaki in 1913

Meanwhile, Ueda was such a strong magnet for bibliophiles that some students enrolled in Kyoto Imperial University just to listen to his lectures. Among the listeners was Yoshio Yamanouchi, who, in later years, formed a friendship with French diplomat Paul Claudel as well as translating André Gide’s Strait is the Gate (La Porte Étroite) into Japanese.

Another remarkable student of Ueda was Kan Kikuchi, who later founded the publishing company Bungei Shunju. The professor greatly supported Kikuchi with his research on Irish playwright John Millington Synge.

The distinguished scholar must have been expected to assist up-and-coming students for more years to come. However, illness dashed his hopes; he had a fit during the end-stage of renal disease in July, 1916, which claimed his life. He was only 41 years old.

Ueda’s passing was mourned by his academic colleagues and former students. For example, one of his juniors sorrowfully conveyed the distressing news as follows:

[Bin Ueda] Sensei was practically the most precious figure amongst present-day Japanese. The loss of Sensei is the loss of a greater part of Kyoto Imperial University’s raison d’etre.
― Extract from ‘Ueda Bin Sensei no Koto’ (Regarding Professor Bin Ueda) by Kan Kikuchi (1916)

Indeed Ueda’s sudden death caused an enormous shock, but Kyoto Imperial University successfully handed on its academic torch by inviting professors such as Tatsuo Kuriyagawa and Edward Bramwell Clarke.

Ueda rests in Yanaka Cemetery in Tokyo. Like the capital, Kyoto has lost many of the places associated with the professor. That said, if you visit the vicinity of Keage Incline, you can find a good reminder: Hyotei is a 400-year-old restaurant, where the professor went with Tanizaki and his friend Mikihiko Nagata, lyricist of the song ‘Gion Kouta’. The elegant dining establishment is for sure the place to go if you hope to enjoy the way Ueda spent time with his friends.

Links to the photos:
Photo of Bin Ueda
Photo of Jun’ichiro Tanizaki in 1913

A Bowl of Tea in Kyoto

January 11, 2024

WiK Members Enjoyed a New Year’s Bowl of Tea – Jan. 7, 2024
Written by Rebecca Otowa
Photos by Karen Lee Tawarayama and Kirsty Kawano

Four guests from WiK were guided by fellow member Bruce Hamana (Hamana Sosei sensei), a tea master born in Hawaii, and teacher of the Urasenke tea school, to a New Year’s celebratory tea gathering at Tenki, a large and sumptuous tempura restaurant near Senbon Imadegawa, Kyoto, which has a garden and tea house complex. Bruce had been supervising and making tea all day there with his students, one of whom, Minami Okawa, joined us in the tea room as Bruce’s assistant.

            Bruce has worked at Urasenke in various capacities for years, and has served as an ambassador around the world, demonstrating and explaining tea. He now has various groups of students and also “teaches the teachers” how to explain about tea in English. He is the author of 100 Beautiful Words in the Way of Tea (Tankosha 2020), an English guide to poetic seasonal names and expressions used in the tearoom, with plenty of information about them. He is presently working on a book about the 72 Japanese micro-seasons.

We were led through the garden, replete with winter beauty, briefly into another room, to view a traditional New Year decoration which replaced the more usual kagami-mochi with large pieces of charcoal, and had many other symbolic features including the daidai citrus fruit, whose name can also mean “from generation to generation” and signifies the continuation of life and tradition, bridging the New Year period to the next year. A preliminary treat was the serving of hanabira-mochi, a special New Year sweet made with burdock root and miso, many tastes at once, which is particular to Urasenke.  

Purifying ourselves at the tsukubai, a small stone basin, in the garden, we entered the tearoom in the traditional manner through the nijiriguchi, a small square door which must be crawled through, meaning that social differences drop away, and inside the tea room everyone is equal. Bruce had thoughtfully provided small stools for us to sit on, so we did not have to endure the discomfort of the more traditional floor posture known as seiza. This was very considerate, but gave me a stab of regret that due to uncooperative knees, I was no longer able to participate in a tea gathering in the usual way, including receiving the bowl of tea and viewing the utensils afterward, which were difficult from stool level. Bruce and his students were very friendly and caring, allowing us, even though we were not sitting on the floor as is customary, to participate with a few little changes and enjoy ourselves to the full.

The room was small and intimate, and very dim, which made a pleasant change from the brightly-lit environments of everyday. Bruce made the tea with very little fuss, speaking about various things, including instructing us on what to do, not so much the order of the ceremony, which was obviously for him secondary to putting the guests at ease and answering questions. It was a treat for me to watch such an unobtrusive tea ceremony without the usual “Sensei, what do I do now?” which is prevalent in tea classes. Bruce’s mastery allowed us to feel peaceful, and chased away any feeling of being nervous because of unfamiliarity with the procedure. He led us with a gentle and sure hand through the intricacies of being guests at a tea gathering.

The tokonoma was decorated with a camellia bud and shuttlecock-shaped plant in a Chinese formal metal vase, and sweeping branches of willow, one of which was tied in a loose knot. The scroll had the four characters of wakei seijaku (harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility) – characteristics not only of tea, but of traditional Japanese culture as a whole.  The tea was made in front of a formal old-style cabinet, which had a decoration of writing materials on top. We guests were charmed with the serving of dry sweets in small folded boxes, celebratory red and gold in color, and with the variety of interesting bowls in which we received the tea, a few mouthfuls of hot, bubbly moss-green matcha.

After drinking the tea (with some second serves!), the conversation turned to Bunraku, the puppet theatre, where Minami-san works, and she told us of a possible tour of the backstage which may be offered to WiK members later in the year. Watch this space!

Special thanks to Hamana sensei for allowing us to share in this special day, and also to Kirsty Kawano, who helped organize WiK’s participation. It was a telling reminder that there are many ways to experience Kyoto’s beauty, and that Writers in Kyoto is home to many talented people who, not only by writing but in other ways, widen the horizons of all who seek to share this beauty.

Writers in focus

Alan Watts (part five)

January 5, 2024

One of the foremost Western celebrities with a particular connection to Kyoto was British philosopher and entertainer, Alan Watts. He has appeared previously on this blog in a 4-part series extracted from his autobiography, but a 2012 biography sheds a different light on the man and adds some further insight into his attachment to Kyoto. In Zen Effects: The Life of Alan Watts (p.172-3), Monica Furlong writes…

During the years 1960-1965 Alan Watts visited Japan two or three times a year, escorting tourists to Kyoto. He was helped in the practical chores of tour guiding by Gary Snyder, who had extensive knowledge of the country; installed in his monastery, he sorted out accommodation and currency problems for Watts and gave him a welcome bolt-hole from the responsibility of looking after his charges. Snyder was by this time advanced enough in Zen studies to be able to discuss some of the things Watts was curious about, such as what went on in the silence of a Zen monastery, for example, and how the system was structured. Snyder introduced Watts to his roshi and to some of the head priests, and arranged for him to attend lectures at the monastery, as well as some of the ceremonies, which Watts enjoyed tremendously.

Snyder was not his only contact in the city, for Watts also knew Ruth Fuller Sasaki to whose daughter he had been married. She had taken over an unused subtemple in Daitoku-ji and was well established (see here). During the 1960s Watts gradually loosened up from the British reserve with which he had arrived in California. He took LSD with Timothy Leary and was influenced by the hippie movement. ‘I got to like him more and more, even though I realized he was getting naughtier and naughtier.’ says Snyder. Along with his womanising went an increasing use of alcohol, to the extent that he became an alcoholic.

Watts spoke only a little Japanese, enough to order taxis and order food, but he felt at home in Kyoto. He was fascinated by the tea ceremony and liked to browse shops for materials for ‘ink and brush meditation’. His favourite place was Teramachi with its array of small shops selling antiques, tea items, Buddhist goods and calligraphy accessories. On one of his visits, he came with his newly-wed third wife, Jane, and together they meditated on the forested slope behind Nanzen-ji. On another occasion they took LSD together, serving each other in sake cups in the manner of a sacrament.

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To read more about other celebrities connected with Kyoto, please see the following:

David Bowie

Edward Bramwell Clarke (pioneer of rugby)

Lafcadio Hearn (six stories)

Isabella Bird

Gary Snyder

Nanao Sasaki

Daniel Ellsberg

Nicolas Bouvier

(Charlie Chaplin’s visit to Kyoto is covered in Donald Richie’s The Honorable Visitors, p.105. David Kidd, William Gilbey and Harold Stewart are covered by Alex Kerr in a piece for Echoes, the WiK Anthology no. 2, page 55-62, published in 2017.)

To learn about the love of Steve Jobs for Kyoto, see here. For his love of woodblock prints, see here. For his love of Japanese ceramics, see here.

To read how Henry Stimson saved Kyoto from atomic destruction, see this BBC piece.

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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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