By Amy Chavez So many books are published each year about someone’s year abroad in Japan that it has fostered its own genre called the “My Year in Japan” novel. Basically, a Westerner spends a year here (Japan), returns to their home country, and writes a book about this “weird country” that proceeds to get More…
Category: Blog
Sean Michael Wilson on Comics & Graphic Novels
The History of Comics and the Graphic Novel What are comic books (manga) and graphic novels? They are the combination of images and text. Essentially that’s it. What, on theoretical grounds, would place an age or sophistication limit on something that combines image and text? Are, for example, road signs – which are normally a More…
Seeking Judith Pascoe
Emily Bronte’s only novel “Wuthering Heights,” set in the moors of northern England in the late 18th century, has long been staple reading in Japan. The story of Catherine Earnshaw and her adopted brother Heathcliff, has spawned over 20 Japanese interpretations since the novel was first translated into Japanese by Yasuo Yamamoto in 1932. Japanese More…
Interview with Alex Kerr: The Importance of Mentors
Known to most as the author of Lost Japan, Dogs and Demons and, more recently, Another Kyoto, Alex Kerr came of age in 1970s Japan, a golden era when he hung around with other notable foreign residents such as antique dealer David Kidd, curator Alexandra Munroe and Zen abbot John Toler. Alex took time More…
Zen or Shinto? John Dougill takes on D.T. Suzuki
By John Dougill Sincerity, loyalty, self-sacrifice. Zen or Shinto values? Mindfulness is a key concept in both Zen and Shinto. Purification and egolessness too. Harae (purification) and kegare (impurity) in Shinto resemble Delusion and Attachment in Buddhism. The goal in both religions is similar, though the means are different. In Shinto people look to restore More…
The Long Read — Eric Johnston on why the world still needs full-time foreign correspondents
By Eric Johnston Along with polar bears and black rhinos, the plight of the full-time foreign news correspondent is a subject of growing concern among arm-chair zoologists who fear the magnificent beast, which once roamed the world at will and congregated at exotic watering holes, is now on the verge of extinction. As the years More…