By Kirsty Kawano (written for Zenbird in August 2021) For more than one thousand years, Kyoto has held Japan’s biggest festival, the Gion Festival. In a regular year, throughout the month of July, more than one million people crowd into downtown Kyoto City to experience the street stalls, the towering wooden floats adorned with gorgeous …Read More
Tag: Gion
A Glimpse into the History of Gion Higashiby Yuki Yamauchi The flamboyance of Kyoto has long been enhanced by the culture of five kagai (geisha quarters). Since my heart was touched by the performances of geiko and maiko in the Gion Odori of 2016, the focus of my interest has been in particular on Gion …Read More
Ichi-go Ichi-e – A Serendipitous Encounter I read the bestselling novel Memoirs of a Geisha many years ago. The book was so popular it even made it onto Carmela’s bedside table in an episode of The Sopranos. The story describes the struggles of a poor young girl in the early 1900’s, sold into a life …Read More
WiK Writing Competition
WiK Anthologies
The Nature of Kyoto (2023)
Eds. Lisa Twaronite Sone & Robert Weis
Foreword by Pico Iyer
Structures of Kyoto (2021)
Eds: Rebecca Otowa & Karen Lee Tawarayama
Foreword by Judith Clancy
Encounters with Kyoto (2019)
Eds: Jann Williams & Ian Josh Yates
Foreword by Juliet Winters Carpenter
Echoes (2017)
Eds: John Dougill, Amy Chavez, & Mark Richardson
Preface by Alex Kerr
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