1) Like the Jesus Prayer in the Christian Orthodox tradition, Pure Land Buddhists believe that through the repeated chanting of the nembutsu, one can achieve salvation.
++Interesting and moving documentary film about the Jesus prayer++
3) DT Suzuki in his book, Buddha of Infinite Light, has an excellent explanation of jiriki (自力, one's own strength) versus tariki (他力 meaning "other power", "outside help") are two terms in Japanese Buddhist schools that classify how one becomes spiritually enlightened. Jiriki is commonly practiced in Zen Buddhism. In Pure Land Buddhism, tariki often refers to the power of Amitābha Buddha.
It's easy to send thoughts and prayers and move on if you're not among those whose lives were altered by the storms. But natural disasters continue to destroy lives long after the damage is done. In his new book Ghosts of the Tsunami, author Richard Lloyd Parry considers the aftermath of the 2011 Japanese tsunami, which took thousands of lives, and which haunts its survivors to this day. It's a wrenching chronicle of a disaster that, six years later, still seems incomprehensible.
He takes his readers deep into Tohoku, "a remote, marginal, faintly melancholy place, the symbol of a rural tradition that, for city dwellers, is no more than a folk memory." Many in the region practice ancestor worship, treating the dead and the objects that represent them with veneration; the tsunami destroyed their altars and photographs, leaving families spiritually battered and doing "appalling violence to the religion of ancestors,"
Parry writes."A tsunami does to human connectedness the same thing that it does to roads, bridges, and homes," he writes. "And in Okawa, and everywhere in the tsunami zone, people fell to quarreling and reproaches, and felt the bitterness of injustice and envy and fell out of love."
Although the Japanese word for the tea ceremony, chanoyu, literally means “hot water for tea,” the practice involves much more than its name implies. Chanoyu is a ritualized, secular practice in which tea is consumed in a specialized space with codified procedures. The act of preparing and drinking matcha, the powdered green tea used in the ceremony, is a choreographed art requiring many years of study to master. The intimate setting of the tea room, which is usually only large enough to accommodate four or five people, is modeled on a hermit’s hut. In this space, often surrounded by a garden, the participants temporarily withdraw from the mundane world.
In the tea room, the emphasis is on the interaction between the host, guests, and tea utensils. The host will choose an assemblage of objects specific to that gathering and use those utensils to perform the tea preparations in front of the guests. Each tea gathering is a unique experience, so a particular assemblage of objects and people is never repeated. The guests are expected to abide by tea room etiquette with regard to the gestures used to drink the tea and the appreciation of the utensils. When presented with a bowl of tea, a guest will notice and reflect upon the warmth of the bowl and the color of the bright green matcha against the clay before he begins to drink. The ceramics used in this context—tea bowls, water jars, flower vases, tea caddies, and so forth—are functional tools valued for their practicality as well as artworks admired for their aesthetic qualities. A key element in this practice is the host’s connoisseurship skills; the host acquires a collection of objects that conform to a shared aesthetic standard and selects which objects to use in a particular gathering.
The tea ceremony as it is known today emerged in the sixteenth century. It was an elite artistic pursuit that provided a forum for the rulers of Japan, the warrior elite, and wealthy merchants to forge and reinforce social ties. The first ceramic utensils appreciated in this context were ancient ceramics from China that had been handed down in Japan for generations (91.1.226). Imbued with the potency of age and the glamour of ancient Chinese civilization, which the Japanese had long revered as a source of culture, these objects were treasured in Japan. A shift occurred in the mid-sixteenth century, pioneered by influential tea masters such as Sen no Rikyū (1522–1591). These tea masters began to incorporate rustic ceramic vessels from Korea and Japan, and found beauty in unrefined, natural, or imperfect forms. By the authority of their recognized connoisseurial abilities, the leading tea men of the time elevated these objects to the same level as the ancient Chinese treasures. This aesthetic, which celebrates austerity, spontaneity, and apparent artlessness, is known as wabi.
Many of the Japanese-made ceramics used in this ceremony are unglazed stonewares first intended as utilitarian vessels for farmers. Such wares were made at a variety of kilns, including Shigaraki and Bizen ). These sites produced vessels as early as the Heian period, long before the development of the tea ceremony or the wabi aesthetic. The different clay in each location resulted in specific colors and textures when the piece was fired. Shigaraki ware, for example, is characterized by a fiery orange color and a speckled, bumpy surface caused by the feldspar in the clay. Bizen ware, on the other hand, is known for its deep reddish to blackish brown color.
Since their purpose was not decorative, these vessels were not necessarily made with aesthetic considerations in mind. Large jars would usually be shaped using a method of coiling bands of clay, instead of the more precise potter’s wheel, often resulting in asymmetrical vessels. When fired in the kiln, ash would settle on the shoulders of jars, melt, and drip down the sides, resulting in natural ash glazes. Therefore, the ultimate appearance of these rustic pieces was unpredictable, shaped more by the forces of fire and the natural characteristics of the clay than by a careful hand. With these ceramics we can especially notice the role of tea practitioners in assigning value. Not every agricultural storage jar in Japan was deemed a work of art when the wabi aesthetic arrived. Rather, tea practitioners discovered certain objects and recognized specific qualities in the glaze, shape, and texture that they considered worthy of artistic merit. Each instance in which these “found objects” passed from one famous tea master to another contributed to their pedigree, further increasing their value.
Although the notion of wabi is useful in helping us to understand the high value placed on certain wares that may have gone unnoticed in other contexts, ceramics used in the tea ceremony came in a variety of styles. From sleek, dark Chinese tea bowls, to rough, unglazed Shigaraki jars, to the brilliantly enameled incense containers of Ninsei, a spirit of eclecticism can be found in the tea room. In fact, the contrast between these ceramics serves to highlight the unique beauty of each.
To read: Guth, Christine M. E. Art, Tea, and Industry: Masuda Takashi and the Mitsui Circle. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Ohki, Sadako. Tea Culture of Japan. New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 2009.
Pitelka, Morgan, ed. Japanese Tea Culture: Art, History, and Practice. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
Varley, H. Paul, and Kumakura Isao, eds. Tea in Japan: Essays on the History of Chanoyu. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1989.
Every Day a Good Day: Fifteen lessons I learned about happiness from Japanese tea culture by Noriko Morishita
In early 1990, the vast majority of Kashmiri Hindus fled the valley in a mass-migration. According to several scholars, approximately 100,000 of an estimated Kashmiri Pandit population of 140,000 left in the span of a few weeks in February–March 1990.
I wanted to study Aikido. But he said, I was already dangerous enough. "And, anyway, you know what Confucius said: the pen is mightier than the sword."
“Confucius definitely did not say that.” I rolled my eyes.
The idea, however, grew on me. So, a few weeks later, the two of us found ourselves standing in front of a tidy, two-story home in suburban Hachioji. Located at the end of the Keio line, Hachioji is as far west as you can travel without arriving in Kanagawa Prefecture.
A few days before our first class, Tetsuya had a long consultation by phone with the teacher, Yufu-sensei, and it had been decided that I should be placed in the class with grammar school students, since at that point I only knew the kanji through 5th grade. When I tried to resist being in a class of kids, Tetsuya told me to get rid of my pride immediately or this won’t end well for you.
And anyway, he said, he would sit in the class with me.
The lessons were held on the second floor of the teacher's home. A hush fell over the room as we entered. Not only were adults joining the kids’ class but one of the adults was not Japanese. Definitely not Japanese.
The children just stared in disbelief.
In addition to being highly tactile, writing with sumi ink activates one’s sense of smell. Maybe because our sense of smell is connected to memory, even now I can vividly recall my first brushstrokes. While the rest has mainly faded, those first characters remain shimmering in my mind.
Except that Yufu-sensei would not permit me to write Chinese characters at first. He had me starting with hiragana, the phonetic system that functions like an alphabet. This delighted the children since they had all fully mastered hiragana by first grade.
“Ganbatte-ne!” (Do your best!) The children shouted encouragement as I walked back to my place and sank into my chair.
2.
“Cities are smells,” said the poet Mahmoud Darwish. “Acre is the smell of iodine and spices. Haifa is the smell of pine and wrinkled sheets. Moscow is the smell of vodka on ice. Cairo is the smell of mango and ginger.”
I think it's true that cities are smells and for me, Tokyo was the smell of sushi vinegar and tatami mats. But mostly it was the smell of ink. A little like moth balls and a little like patchouli, it has a very distinctive smell-- and like the characters themselves, sumi came to Japan by way of China, where it has been made for over 2,000 years with animal glue and pine soot. And with incense used to cut the smell.
For my early lessons, I used ready-made ink from a bottle. Yufu-sensei would pour a small dollop into the hallow part of my student inkstone. The plain dark inkstone was part of my student starter set, which was a far cry from the exquisitely carved, luminous purple-red duan inkstones I had drooled over in Hong Kong. In addition, the set also included two brushes, a paperweight, a felt writing surface, a water dropper, and calligraphy paper –about three-hundred sheets.
And so, in the beginning, I would not grind my own ink, by rubbing an inkstick into water droplets in the inkstone. Sensei did not want to overwhelm me, and suggested I continue with the ready-made ink, though he did tell me that the preparation of the ink is perhaps the best part of the practice since it calms the mind and stills the heart. 3.
As I dipped my brush in the inkwell for the very first time, Tetsuya whispered for me to be careful.
Calligraphy is a performance art: the moment the ink touches the highly-absorbent rice paper, there is no going back. That paper is the most unforgiving surface and calligraphy does not allow for re-writes or revisions.
That is why it is seen as an expression of a person's vital energy, "ki" or "chi".
Looking over at Tetsuya frowning, I realized every eye in the room was on my brush—even sensei’s!
And so I wrote the first hiragana character: あ
“A”
Even now, it's my favorite hiragana character.
Sensei had written the three hiragana making the word a-ra-re on a separate piece of paper. This model example is known as “o-te-hon.” お手本
Nowadays, people are quick to disparage the focus on rote memorization that one finds in East Asian education systems, but I think it helps to keep in mind, that the memorization of facts is always only the first stage.
Many never make it past this stage, of course. But, the internalization of models and memorized knowledge ideally leads to imaginative and creative conclusions. So that, for example, even today in Japan, the rules and conventions of writing calligraphy are rigorously taught in school. If a character is not written according to the rules, it is marked "wrong." This rule is upheld much further than elementary school.
The same can be said of other traditional subjects, from the "kata" in martial arts to recitation of poetry, vast amounts of knowledge are bodily memorized, learnt by heart, taking years. This, however, was never the final goal. My calligraphy teacher used to tell us that the breaking of calligraphic rules are only beautiful or interesting in those people who have mastered the rules. Never the other way around.
Like Picasso would not have been interesting if he hadn’t first took the Academy by storm. This was something my tea ceremony teacher would say again and again when I complained about the endless things I was being made to memorize.
This stress on internalization of exemplary models has a fundamentally different approach than modern methods of learning, where knowledge is imparted more systematically. In later years I worked translating for a Japanese philosopher, whose own work was concerned with traditional styles of learning in East Asia. He thought that Western model of systematized knowledge was based on Cartesian mind-body dualism. According to him, in the pre-modern Japanese world, there was no division between mind and body in the Japanese language as words for body like "mi" 身 and "karada" 身体 encompassed both mind and body. For that reason, he explained, traditional Japanese arts, like dancing and music, were taught by emulation. There was no breaking down of the whole into parts, not real systematization, but rather the pupil just copied over and over again the teachers example.
This was true of calligraphy and tea in Japan—but it was also true of my dance lessons in Indonesia. The teacher stood in front of us—no mirrors—and showed us what a movement was supposed to look like. We were to keep our eyes on her --there were no mirrors-- so our eyes would imbibe the correct manner of moving as we tried to emulate her.
4.
Arare.
I am guessing my calligraphy lessons first began in early winter since “arare” --which means hail-- is a winter term in poetry.
時々に霰となつて風強し ―正岡子規
Now and again The wind so strong Turns to hail --Masaoka Shiki
The kanji hail 霰 is written phonetically in hiragana as あられ.
5.
Every year, our calligraphy teacher would organize a pilgrimage to the Palace Museum in Taipei so his top students (not me) could stand in front of the greatest works of Chinese calligraphy.
Those trained in the art of writing in brush and ink are not only able to admire the work for its formal aesthetic qualities but are also able to feel what it felt like to create it.
Because people learn to strictly follow stroke order (except for artistic geniuses and other creatives), when you look at a work of calligraphy, you can physically experience the speed and pressure of the brush, take pleasure in the flourishes and full stops. You breathe along, as if you were writing it yourself. It is like watching a routine in ballet that you yourself know how to dance.
I take in a deep breath, noticing the air fill my belly. This place in the lower abdomen, called tanden, is believed to be the seat of a person's vital forces. If a person's mental preparation is good, this vital force or energy (called ki 氣) can be discerned in the finished calligraphy. Called bokki-- the kanji BOKU (墨 ink) and KI (氣 energy)-- it is the manifestation of a person's "ki-ai" (気合). That is, your spirit in the ink.
The eight types of brushstrokes are used when writing the character "eternal" (see left). Unfortunately, I was starting with hiragana not kanji. But most students begin writing "eternal."
I write the first horizontal stroke. From left to write, I end the horizontal stroke with a conscious down-pressing of the brush. This is all in the wrist. The written effect reminds me of the knob-like end of a human bone.
The vertical is just straight down, top to bottom, nothing fancy.
Then comes the fun part, the loop. Starting at the top, close to the horizontal line, I carry the brush in a loop ending below the bottom of the vertical. It is not a dot ending like in the vertical and horizontal but pressure is decreased on the brush so the ink fades into white.
I breath. Looking around the room, everyone looks relieved.
6.
French historian Jacques Gernet, in his History of Chinese Civilization, characterized China as a “wise man”--in contrast to “holy man”—culture, such as those found in India or the Holy Land. While this characteristic can be traced all the way to ancient Zhou Dynasty times, with Confucius, the significant role given to self-cultivated wisdom came to take center stage.
Because the enlightened kings of antiquity were not just kings but were revered as “sage-kings,” emperors also came to find it in their political interests to cultivate themselves, in part through the patronage of the arts and knowledge of the classics, in order to demonstrate their wisdom, in accordance with the “Way of the Ancient Kings.” Not only the collecting, but the practice of art also became one of the essential moral pursuits of a gentleman-- whether he be a king or scholar.
In Jing Tsu’s tour de force new book, Kingdom of Characters, the Language Revolution that Made China Modern, she begins her prologue suggesting that in no other country would heads of states kick off official ceremonies with displays of cultural prowess. She was referring to modern leaders of China from Mao to Hu Jintao’s public displays of expert penmanship.
Even now, Mao’s calligraphy adorns the masthead of the People’s Daily. In Richard Curt Kraus' fantastic book, Brushes with Power: Modern Politics and the Chinese Art of Calligraphy, he explores how calligraphy stands as a metaphor for the elite culture of imperial China and this grandiose legacy that Chinese in the late 20th century have received with ambivalence. He begins his book, also with Mao's calligraphy, which he finds on a pair of nail clippers. "Serve the People" it says, in Mao's easily recognizable handwriting.
I agree with Jing Tsu, that it is hard to imagine a modern American or European president displaying their own cultural know-how on a state visit or official ceremony, like in China. But, I would argue it is quite common to see in Japan, where expert displays of calligraphy, art connoisseurship, the martial arts and tea are prized. East Asia has not embraced the anti-intellectualism found at home in the U.S., where most politicians would prefer to keep their literati side on the down low. If they have one, that is. Obama has been unique to be so vocal about his rich and wide-ranging reading habits.
7.
I kept at my lessons for years, until we moved north of Tokyo, to Tochigi. As I wrote in my November post, When I was hired to work at Hitachi, my boss told me later, they committed to hiring me the moment they saw my Japanese handwriting. “We knew you would be hardworking.” It is true, I worked hard and loved it.
But even after moving to Tochigi, Yufu-sensei, who was so kind to me, would send my lessons by post. Opening the A4 size envelopes, the fragrance of sumi ink was overpowering. Sometimes, the envelopes would contain the model calligraphy for the week, in his gorgeous graceful writing. Sometimes it would be my own writing returned with his red writing overlaying mine, to show how it could be more beautiful, more correct, more perfect.
Presenting Oranges section (center left) of Three Passages: Ping-an, He-ru, and Feng-ju (平安何如三帖), Wang Xizhi (王羲之, ca. 303-361), Jin Dynasty (265-420), Album leaf, ink on paper, 24.7 x 46.8 cm, National Palace Museum, Taipei.
One of the most treasured works of art held in the National Palace Museum in Taipei is a short three-line piece of calligraphy called Presenting Oranges. The original—now lost—was written in the fourth century by Wang Xizhi. As the greatest Chinese calligrapher of all time, anything in Wang Xizhi’s hand was priceless even during his lifetime. For over a thousand years, students of calligraphy have looked to Wang as a model. But none of his original works have survived. Instead, we have only post-seventh-century copies.
Every year, my calligraphy teacher in Tokyo would organize a pilgrimage to the Palace Museum in Taipei so his top students could stand in front of Presenting Oranges. Those trained in the art of writing in brush and ink are not only able to admire the work for its formal aesthetic qualities but are able to feel what it felt like to create it.
And so, by following the correct stroke order in your mind, you can physically experience the speed and pressure of the brush, take pleasure in the flourishes and full stops. You breathe along, as if you were writing it yourself.
Calligraphy is a performance art: the moment the ink touches the highly-absorbent rice paper, there is no going back. No retouching. No rethinking. And so, the calligraphy—dashed off in semi-cursive script—conflates time and space to capture one precise motion through that spacetime. It reads: I present three hundred oranges. Frost has not yet fallen. I cannot get more.
Over the months, as I wandered in the Chinese garden, I longed to see the originals works of calligraphy in ink on paper. So, when the Words in the Garden exhibition was announced, I was thrilled; for not only would I be able to see the original works of calligraphy used to create the inscriptions found in the garden, but there would also be opportunities for watching the artists at work—both in video and right there out in the garden or in the Flowery Brush Library, located next to the new Studio for Lodging the Mind.
Favorite Books:
Embodied Image by Robert E. Harrist Jr
Kraus’ Brushes with Power Modern Politics and the Chinese Art of Calligraphy
Sturman’s Mi Fu: Style and the Art of Calligraphy in Northern Song China Style and the Art of Calligraphy in Northern Song China
Kazuaki Tanahashi ‘s Delight in One Thousand Characters: The Classic Manual of East Asian Calligraphy
Shakyo Practice book and A Kanji Stroke Order Manual for Heart Sutra Copying
Taction: The Drama of the Stylus in Oriental Calligraphy 石川九楊著『書-筆蝕の宇 Ishikawa, Kyuyoh; Miller, Waku
Sakura 桜: cherry blossoms Sakura-fubuki 桜吹雪: “cherry blossom snowstorm” Hana-no-ami 花の雨: “flower rain.” Sakura-mochi 桜餅: pink-colored rice cakes with bean paste in the middle wrapped in a pickled cherry blossom leaf Ocha お茶: Green tea Ume 梅 plum Kaeru no uta カエルの歌、カエルの合唱
Wa 和 Mono-no-Aware 者の哀れ Yamato 倭: Old name for Japan Wa 和—also pronounced as Yamato-- meaning peace and harmony.
Aimai na Nihongo 曖昧な日本語 vague Japanese
Greetings 挨拶 Aisatsu Sumimasen:すみません: excuse me, thank you, pardon me Yoroshiku onegaishimasu:よろしくお願いします: please look upon me favorably Otagai sama: お互い様: We are in this together; thanks is mutual
Mono-no-Aware 者の哀れ Kuuki wo yomu, or 'reading the air' Izakaya 居酒屋: Japanese pub Highball ハイボール whisky highball De-to: デートGo on a date
Kanji 漢字 Hiragana ひらがな Katakana カタカタ
Kanji renshu-cho 漢字練習帳
Hon: 本 Book Ki: 木 Tree Hayashi 林 Woods Mori 森 Forest
Japanese is composed of three forms of writing. So, in addition to kanji, you need to master the two syllabaries, hiragana and katakana.
Just do what all Japanese school children do. Start with hiragana. There are 46 letters (they are not actually letters). 40 consonant-vowel combinations, 5 vowels and 1 singular consonant (N). This is not as bad as it sounds. But you should be prepared to memorize them in the correct order --or forever after be unable to use a dictionary.
I bet you didn’t consider how one uses a dictionary with Chinese characters, right?
Needless to say, you should have already started memorizing kanji. This will require you write them over and over again in a practice book. Writing comes first! But you will also want to make flash cards of the kanji you are learning. You must quiz yourself repeatedly. And by repeatedly, I mean dozens of times every single day. Also, this should go without saying, but pay careful attention to the stroke order when learning the kanji. There is a proper order for writing each character. Do not under any circumstances get creative. Or the whole house of cards will come crashing down on your head later.
I would highly encourage you to study traditional calligraphy as soon as you have a basic mastery of the writing system. You know how in America doctors are famous for their lousy handwriting? Well, in Japan, educated people are expected to write well. Since you’ve come this far, you may as well dive in with brush and ink.
Textbooks:
Nihongo-no Kiso
Japanese for Busy people
Linguistics
Japanese: A Linguistic Introduction Hasegawa, Yoko
Japanese Language: Learn the Fascinating History and Evolution of the Language Along With Many Useful Japanese Grammar Points Kindaichi,Haruhiko, Nakayama, Mineharu, Hirano, Umeyo
You might have noticed that I didn’t mention the other syllabary. It is called katakana. You need to memorize that too. Don’t wait too long to start either.
You might think katakana isn’t as important as hiragana. But you would be wrong. Katakana is used for all foreign words—like your name. Like your country. It’s also used for grammatical inflections, scientific words, for onomatopoeia, etc.
Also, as a side note, sometimes Americans learning Japanese bristle at all the loanwords from English, called gairaigo. They feel deeply uncomfortable saying things like mai bu-mu (my boom), mai pe-su (my pace) or mai baggu (my bag). And how about: tsuna- sando (tuna sandwich) and pasonkon (personal computer)?
There are endless varieties --and I say embrace them all!
It should go without saying that you will need to study grammar and conversation. This should happen in a classroom setting if possible. This is how you will learn the particles. You know wa and ga? If you don’t know what this means by now, you should choose another language.
Put it this way: if you can survive without learning Japanese, you should do that. There is a reason why Japanese is considered the most difficult language for English-speakers to learn, according to the Foreign Service Institute.
While everything I said above is completely non-negotiable, these beginning steps are –in truth-- relatively easy.
It is what comes next that is what makes learning Japanese a challenge.
It’s not a bad idea to get a girlfriend or boyfriend about now. But if you do, be very careful about not speaking in the same way as your partner. Women and men speak differently. You can push back against this if you want—as long as you are aware of what you are doing. Men and women use different pronouns, often use very different vocabulary and even verb endings. Speaking of pronouns, this would be a good time to suggest you never use pronouns unless forced.
Did you hear that?
No Pronouns!
Try to learn the way Japanese works around this. Of course, this will demand you learn to use the passive construction and the polite language.
And here we arrive at the crux of all the difficulties. Japanese has the polite form, the honorific form, and the humble form—all this being different from what you are probably hearing from your boyfriend or girlfriend. The only way to master this is to join a group, like tea ceremony or ikebana or work in a Japanese company—so you will have a chance to learn how these forms are actually used in daily life.
For example, instead of saying “your mother” or “my mother,” in Japanese –remember no pronouns? You say “okaasan” (your honorable mother) or “okaasama” (your very honorable mother)… but your own mom is simply “haha.”
No, I am not making this up.
You don’t need pronouns since “my” is understood by your use of the humble form.
Or as the great translator Jay Rubin has explained, when Japanese people say,
Osumasete-itadakimasu (I am humbly receiving the taking of a day off), the best translation for that is: Gone Fishin’
Sound like the twilight zone?
When in doubt add the honorific “O” or “Go” to most nouns if you are speaking to a superior –and, I should inform you that as a foreign student of the language, most people you speak to will be your superiors.
By this time, you will be bowing to people in the street and referring to the green light in the traffic signal as blue. You will cook pasta with chopsticks and will never make the mistake of not removing your toilet slippers before coming back into the room again. However, by the time you reach this level, you might not recognize yourself anymore—because by now you will have become Japanese.
Popham P. (1985). Tokyo: the city at the end of the world. Kodansha International. Reid, T.R. (1999). Confucius lives next door: What living in the East teaches us about living in the West. Random House Seidensticker E. (1983). Low city, high city: Tokyo from Edo to the earthquake. Knopf.
Watching the opening of the Netflix show Midnight Diner, I felt my heart breaking. In a taxi driving under the Omekaido Overbridge in Shinjuku, it was a drive I've taken a hundred times. Especially in the first decade, when I lived in Tokyo. It was the easiest way to arrive in Tokyo from the airport since it involved no complicated train changes. And since I was based in West Tokyo, it was very convenient.
Narita Airport is hours outside the city, tacking on several extra hours to a long overseas journey. Maybe because this was my first sight of Tokyo at night. Tokyo in the rain at night, it feels especially poignant.
Trying to re-read some of the books I read when I first moved to Japan --Our writing must emerge out of our reading, as my favorite teacher of fiction repeats.
The Japanese Language by Haruhiko Kindaichi tops my favorite Japanese language books list.
Other old favorites I am re-reading:
Popham P. (1985). Tokyo: the city at the end of the world. Kodansha International. Reid, T.R. (1999). Confucius lives next door: What living in the East teaches us about living in the West. Random House Seidensticker E. (1983). Low city, high city: Tokyo from Edo to the earthquake. Knopf.
A rare photo of him not smiling--but there still is a slight smile.
My student wanted to give me one of her beloved Grandmother's kimono. I displayed it in the tokonoma in my apartment, which tetsuya found to be strange and NG. I am wearing it as a halloween costume at the english school which also did not really translate!