On a recent visit to Fushimi Inari, I noticed a large display by the central gate advertising an anime called Inari, Kon Kon, Koi Iroha. I hadn’t heard of it, but it seems to have made a splash amongst the … Read the rest
Category: Japanese culture (Page 14 of 19)
Recently I had occasion to re-read David Morley’s Pictures from the Water Trade (1985), one of many books to describe a foreigner’s coming to terms with living in Japan. It won praise at the time of its publication, and even … Read the rest
Fue and Shinto by Graham Ranft
In this current digital/digitised age I wonder if the appeal of Shinto for Westerners is about a more natural spirituality and also as a way of reconnecting with that world we lose as we … Read the rest
In Brazil, I once talked to the elderly priest at the Brasil Daijingu, named Tamotsu Sato. He’d gone to Brazil on May 22, 1934, and only been back briefly to Japan after the war to get his license to … Read the rest
The Japan Times carries an article today about the wave of cherry blossom sweeping the nation…
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2014/04/06/language/the-sakura-front-sweeps-across-japan/#.U0Mls47R5-8
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It is widely believed that the custom of viewing sakura began in the Imperial Court in Kyoto early in the Heian … Read the rest
“Why should the trees be so lovely in Japan? With us, a plum or cherry tree in flower is not an astonishing sight; but here it is a miracle of beauty so bewildering that, however much you may have … Read the rest
Noh plays often draw on Shinto themes for their content, and they invariably portray ancestral and ‘hungry spirits’. At the back of the stage is always a picture of a pine tree, the model for which is said to … Read the rest