Kurosawa, a Perfectionist at Work - Review of "Waiting on the Weather" by Nogami Teruyo

Nogami Teruyo was the script supervisor and loyal assistant of Kurosawa Akira (1910-1998). This extraordinary women was at his side from the filming of Rashomon on to the very last. She wrote some of her personal memories down after Kurosawa's death for the Japanese magazine Cinema Club - she could not have done this while Kurosawa was still alive, as he would have told her, she says, "You've got it all wrong!"

That was in the mid-nineties, and the Japanese pieces were published in book form in 2000. Thanks to an initiative of Donald Richie (who also wrote an introduction) this English translation by Juliet Winters Carpenter was published two years ago by Stone Bridge Press. As is usual for Stone Bridge, it is a beautiful book, with illustrations by the author.

To be sure, this is not a biography or a full analysis of Kurosawa's films. It is an intimate human record in which we get glimpses of the genius director and the way he worked. After a first chapter on Itami Mansaku, a director Nogami Teruyo never met but corresponded with as a schoolgirl and who inspired love for film in her (later Ms Nogami would take care of one the son's, Itami Juzo, when he was a young boy) and a chapter on the Daiei Kyoto studios where she started working just after the war, the story about Kurosawa kicks in with Rashomon (1951).

We see the then 40-year old director energetically working with his team. At that time, he was already the perfectionist he would always be. The most interesting episode is how they used to carry around mirrors to reflect the sun while filming in the woods - indeed, the contrasts between black and white in Rashomon are perfect. Fascinating is also the episode about the fire in the Daiei where quick action miraculously saved the negatives of Rashomon.

What we get from this book is how different film making was before the invention of CGI. That was "waiting for the weather" - not only waiting hours and hours for sunshine, but also waiting for a particular cloud to move into just the right spot above the roof of a building. When filming the village in The Seven Samurai in the setting sun with the seven samurai in profile in the foreground, the cameraman waited just a few seconds too long, so they had to do it all over again the next day. The ants marching in formation over the ground in Rhapsody in August were real ants and a lot of "ant study" went into that scene. The same is true for the crows that fly up at the end of the Van Gogh episode in Dreams. The film team had to catch actual crows, put them in small cages and open the cages at just the right moment. No wonder Kurosawa took months, and even years, making his films, while Miike Takashi finishes off one flick a week...

Kurosawa ruled his team like an "emperor," and could have fits of terrible anger. He and the people around him had an especially hard time when filming Dersu Urzala under the most primitive circumstances in Siberia. In the course of the filming, Kurosawa went from one bottle of Vodka a day, to two bottles. Kurosawa worked well with people who had lesser egos, such as Mifune Toshiro, who despite his macho roles was a rather shy man - a pity Kurosawa dropped him after filming Red Beard, just because he had enough of his style of acting.

Katsu Shintaro originally was to be the lead actor in Kagemusha, but the swaggering, rough-and ready actor immediately clashed with the precise and perfectionist Kurosawa - their relation just lasted one day, the second morning Katsu left in a huff and was replaced with Nakadai Tatsuya. This episode reads like slapstick, but the quarrels with Takemitsu Toru were more serious. Takemitsu, who wrote the music for Ran, was Japan's most important composer of the twentieth century and of course had a great sense of artistic integrity. He did not allow Kurosawa (who, as "emperor" wanted to have his say in every small detail!) to meddle with the music he made. Takemitsu got his way but with much difficulty and never worked with Kurosawa again. On the contrary, he made a pointed remark about the group around Kurosawa who just acted as yes-men and never dared to differ in opinion (in this, he also included Nogami Teruyo): "It's all the fault of the people around Kurosawa!"

But Nogami certainly is no flatterer, she openly shows us the great director in his many moods, also the nasty ones. Her book is a treasure of stories and in the end we only would like to have had more.

Kurosawa left a great number of perfect fims behind. The result of reading this book is that I want to see those films again... perhaps I will start with Rashomon...

Death in the countryside - Review of "Kaleidoscope, selected tanka of Shuji Teruyama"

Terayama Shuji (1935-1983) was Japan's infant-terrible of the sixties of the last century. Genius, avant-gardist, iconoclast, photographer, director, playwright, novelist, filmmaker, cultural critic and poet. In his time, his work incited scandal and outrage. Today, he is a cult hero. In his all-too short life, he wrote 200 literary works and made 20 short and long experimental films (the most famous is Denen ni shinisu or "Pastoral: To die in the country"). Terayama was obsessed with the borders between fiction and reality.

Although best known as a playwright (see for some translations and an analysis Unspeakable Acts listed below), Terayama was also an excellent poet. He started writing tanka in his teens and even won an award for emerging tanka poets. His tanka are unique in that they are not based on his own experience, but should be seen as fiction, as scenes from a play or a film. He did have complex emotions, however, as he was an only child whose father had not returned from the war, and whose mother - he claimed - had abandoned him. He grew up with family in Aomori and as his uncle owned a movie theater, he saw countless films until he moved to Tokyo in 1954.

Terayama's first tanka collection was published in 1958, when he was 22. After his third collection, published in 1964, he switched definitively to the theater - in 1967 he set up his own experimental theater company. His films and theater productions went on to win several international prizes.

The Hokuseido Press has published a beautiful book with 201 translations of Terayama's tanka poems. They have been expertly translated by Kozue Uzawa and Amelia Fielden and both Japanese and English versions are included in the book. It is a lavishly illustrated publication. (The Hokuseido Press is a publisher of language text books. In the past, they have also published the haiku books by R.H. Blyth, a series I would like to see in print again!).

To give an impression of Terayama's haiku, here are a few characteristic ones from Kaleidoscope:

I come to believe after all
I look like
my dead father,
shaving my face
on the day swallows appear

[naki chichi ni | kakute nite-yuku | ware naran ka | tsubame kuru hi mo | hige sorinagara]

let's sever
my stinky blood relationship
the winter axe is placed
upside down
in a sunny spot

[namagusaki | ketsuen tatan | hiatari ni | sakasa ni tatete aru | fuyu no ono]

on my wall I stick
the corpse of a winter butterfly -
this should be
the family crest
of a deserted child

[waga hei ni | fuyu-choo no kabane wo | haritsukete | sutego-kakei no | mon to suru beshi]

Kaleidoscope was published to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Terayama's death. These forceful tanka are warmly recommended to all poetry lovers.

Kaleidoscope, Selected Tanka of Shuji Terayama, selected by Kozue Uzawa, translated by Kozue Uzawa and Amelia Fielden (The Hokuseido Press, 3-32-4 Honkomagome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 2008). Unfortunately, the book is not listed on Amazon, so I give full contact details for the publisher. I found  my copy in the foreign books section of Junkudo in Temmabashi, Osaka.

Unspeakable Acts: The Avant-garde Theatre of Terayama Shuji And Postwar Japan by Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei (Hawaii University Press, 2005)

There is a Shuji Terayama Museum in Misawa, Aomori.

The summer delight of cold noodles (reimen)

Reimen (“Cold Noodles”) is one of my favorite summer dishes – how hot it may be, or how low my appetite, this delicacy always works its wonder! It always helps to revive me thanks to the sourness of the vinegar in the sauce and the lightness of the thin noodles and the vegetables.



Reimen are boiled, cold noodles served in a sauce of soy sauce and vinegar, and lavishly topped with thinly sliced strips of omelet, ham, cucumber, tomatoes, ginger and sometimes also chicken and pork. The toppings are arranged in a colorful pattern on top of the noodles, the customer has to mix the dish, bringing it up to taste with some mustard - nowadays, sometimes even mayonnaise is added.

In fact, the name I use, Reimen, is typical for Western Japan (where I live) – in other parts of Japan this summer dish is called Hiyashi Chuka (“Cold Chinese”), and in Hokkaido the designation Hiyashi Ramen (“Cold Ramen”) is used. Note that this Japanese summer dish is different from the Korean Naengmyeon, which is also pronounced “reimen” in Japanese.

This cold summer dish of Chinese noodles did not come from China, but was invented by a Chinese restaurant in Japan. That was the Chinese restaurant Ryutei in Sendai, and the year was 1937. As other Chinese restaurants, Ryutei always saw its sales dip in the hot Japanese summer, when the Japanese prefer cooler dishes than piping hot ramen noodles. That was all the more regrettable as the annual Tanabata festival brought many tourists to Sendai. So taking a hint from the Ur-Japanese zarusoba dish (cold soba noodles with a soy sauce based dipping), the owner of Ryutei devised a new style of cold Chinese noodles. Interestingly, the cold sauce containing vinegar was not orthodox from a Chinese point of view, as in Chinese cuisine cold dishes with a sour taste are not popular. It was also new for Japan. But reimen soon conquered Japan!

The restaurant in Sendai used different vegetables from today, and therefore other restaurants also lay claim to the crown of being the first, such as Yoshikosaikan, a Chinese restaurant in Jinbocho, Tokyo, where just after the war the vegetables were heaped on the noodles in the form of a small Mt Fuji as still happens today, or Chuka no Sakai in Kyoto which started serving cold noodles with goma (sesame)-sauce in 1939.

Now reimen is so popular that it is served by all Chinese restaurants in Japan, from late spring to early autumn – they always announce the start of the reimen season with banners, flags and posters. Reimen also is a bestseller among supermarket lunches.

What about eating reimen today? Or do you have another favorite summer dish?

Incorporating information from the Hiyashi Chuka article in the Japanese Wikipedia.

From the Japanese web (August 2008)

Roger Pulvers in the Japan Times writes about the pitfalls of katakana. A must-read for everybody studying Japanese. Or did you already know that hippu is not your hip, but your waist, or that smaato does not mean "smart" but slim? And that the koppu you drink from is in fact, a glass?

Raju Thakrar, also in the Japan Times, has an article on the waste of waribashi, disposable chopsticks. I agree, but eating noodles is much easier with the square waribashi than with more pointed chopsticks... Happily, at home, you can wash and re-use waribashi after a noodle dinner. My suggestion for restaurants: start selling smart sets of "personal chopsticks" - if you have to go to a shop to buy them, many people will forget.

"What Japan Thinks" translates a survey indicating that the internet is considered as more useful than television. If that is true, why are Japanese hotels still so much behind the times? Please chuck the TVs out of all rooms and install computers!

Goten Hall of Kumamoto Castle

In April this year the Honmaru Goten or the palace of the daimyo was restored (read: completely rebuilt from scratch) and in half a year, it was already visited by one milion tourists. It was one of the projects in the framework of the celebration of the 400-year birthday of Kumamoto Castle in 2007. All castles in japan had of course such daimyo palaces, either inside the castle walls, or in front of them, but except the palace of Nijo Castle in Kyoto, all original ones have been destroyed (the Nijo halls survived thanks to being temporarily used as municipal offices). One of the most beautiful ones belonged to Nagoya Castle, but that too was destroyed, this time in WWII.  The priceless screens were saved and here, too, there seems to be a plan to rebuild the palace. Like Nijo, those palace halls were all made of wood en when newly rebuilt, smell very good! The palace of Kumamoto Castle has been decorated with wallpaintings of the story of Wang Shaojun,

Currently, a full-scale restoration work is underway for the purpose of returning

the castle to its original form. 2007 will mark the castle's 400th anniversary; the

city has raised funds nationwide to restore “the Honmaru Goten Guest Hall”, turrets,

gates, walls and other main buildings of the castle.

The restoration of the Honmaru Goten Guest Hall in particular tries to revive its

magnificence at the time of its construction, "the Shokun No Ma ", a gorgeous

distinguished guest room, the big hall“Sennjyou Jiki”, and so o

My personal canon of 108 best books (9) - "The Ape of Lust" by Feng Menglong

Via Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee I started reading the stories of Feng Menglong again. I guess few people will have heard of this author. Feng Menglong lived from 1574 to 1645, in what is now Wuxian (near Suzhou) in middle China. He was a writer who mainly edited and compiled histories, novels, story collections and even almanacs. As such he was an important popularizer, making classical stories available to a wider public. At that time there flourished already an urban culture in China and books were printed as a commercial venture (after all, China invented book printing long before Gutenberg). But Feng Menglong also added many stories of his own.

His most important works are the three story collections known as "The Three Words": Gujin Xiaoshuo ("Stories Old and New," later renamed "Illustrious Words to Instruct the World"), and its two sequels. These stories are, with a modern term, very "naturalistic," they show people blinded by lust or ignorance so that they commit enormous crimes. Retribution is always shift and merciless. The first collection of 40 stories was published in 1620. It has been called a pivotal work in the development of vernacular fiction in China.

What makes the stories so attractive is the detailed depiction of daily life. We not only meet emperors, magistrates and scholars, but also monks and nuns, courtesans, peddlers, craftsmen, shopkeepers, and ghosts. It is almost like the great Dutch paintings of the 17th century, which also show you daily life and ordinary people. The streets of Ming-China come miraculously alive in these tales (although most of the tales have been placed in the Song-Dynasty, in order to evade criticism by the authorities that might follow if Feng wrote about his own times).

I first read Feng Menglong in Dutch, in the translation of Wilt Idema, my Professor of Chinese Literature at Leiden University. His first volume of eight tales, called "The Ape of Lust" (De Aap van Begeerte) was published in 1973, the year I started studying Chinese. Later he translated another 5 tales in "The Three Words" (1976, De Drie Woorden). Unfortunately, these Dutch books have long since vanished from bookshops and are even difficult to find secondhand. That is a pity, as Idema's translations are racy and very vernacular, while remaining also true to the diction of the original Chinese text. (See below for an English translation of Feng Menglong).

Feng Menglong's stories are a long cry from Zen. His personages are chained to the Wheel of Samsara by lust, desire, hatred, anger, ambition, avarice, ignorance and what-have-you-not. People kill as easily as smashing an insect, sons even do their parents in. Their is no morality in these people, and the only meager solace we get is that a sort of combined Buddhist-Confucianist retribution follows, which restores order and sets the balance of Heaven right again. That, too, is only a naturalistic process. Feng Menglong demonstrates how, under the wrong circumstances, perfectly ordinary persons can sometimes become monsters.

Many of the stories are crime tales, although we do not meet Judge Dee (who belongs to the earlier Tang-Dynasty), but Judge Bao (Bao Zhen), who, in fact, in China was and is a much more famous figure than Judge Dee (undoubtedly also thanks to the stories by Feng Menglong!).

In Feng Menglong's stories, terrible crimes start from the most insignificant of causes, and when the chain of causality has been started, we see that humans are nothing but the powerless slave of their own "ape of lust." Feng tells his bizarre stories with detachment and even cynicism, at the same time mixing in humor by imitating the naive style of the vernacular story teller.

It is no use to list the out-of-print Dutch translations by Idema which hooked me on Feng Menglong. Instead, there is a good English translation of the first volume of 40 stories: Stories Old and New, A Ming Dynasty Collection, Compiled by Feng Menglong. Translated by Shuhui Yang and Yunqin Yang (Washington University Press, 2000).

CV Wilt Idema with list of publications

P.S. I wish that authors and translators who have books out of print with no chance at reprinting, would release them free on the internet. That would at least give their long labors a second lease on life and make them again of use to the world.

My personal canon of 108 best books (8) - "The Roof Tile of Tempyo" by Inoue Yasushi

When I studied at Nanjing University in 1979-80, at one time the university organized a trip to a nearby city, Yangzhou. I think it was in the early spring of 1980. Especially the Japanese students (three "Mitsubishi boys", young salarymen from the large trading company studying Chinese for a posting to China) were told to join as this was supposed to be a special China-Japan friendship event. Interested foreign students were herded into a white minibus and off we were, transported to Yangzhou over an only partially finished highway. We stopped at the Damingsi Temple and joined the huge crowd of Chinese streaming inside. Finally, we reached a Memorial Hall, and inside we found a small but very fine statue of a blind monk, Jianzhen... and then we were pushed outside again by the surging crowd. The statue was on loan from a  temple in Japan.

It was only a few years later, after coming to Japan and visiting Toshodaiji in Nara, the temple of the statue, that I realized the importance of this event. Jianzhen (688-763), called Ganjin in Japan, was a Chinese priest who after many hardships had managed to journey to Japan to establish an orthodox Buddhist lineage in that country and introduce the correct monastic rules. Toshodaiji was the temple the Japanese government built for him, and the statue I saw in China was a life-like image, made just after his death (in Toshodaiji, it is not normally on view). One can also visit Jianzhen's grave in Toshodaiji. Since then, I have repeatedly visited Toshodaiji, which is one of the most beautiful temples of Nara. The original 8th c. Golden Hall still exists, as does the wonderful set of wooden statues carved by the Chinese artisans who followed Ganjin to Japan.

It was again a year or five later that I first read The Roof Tile of Tempyo by Inoue Yasushi. This historical novel, written in 1958, is a faithful account of Ganjin's tribulations, based on the The Record of the Eastward Journey of the Great Monk of Tang by one of Ganjin's disciples. There is little plot and no drama in this understated novel, but it is imbued with a sense of Buddhist serenity and resignation. Although emotions are kept in check, there is a strong sense of determination in the hearts of the protagonists, both the young monks from Japan who come to China for study and the venerable master Ganjin, who does not give up his endeavor to reach Japan and spread orthodoxy.

The “Tempyo” in the title is the name for an era (729-749) when Japan was engaged in her first attempt to acquire the culture of a more advanced civilization, the Tang empire of China. The young monks who make the dangerous journey to China with one of the Japanese embassies sent in that period, experience this first hand. Some “go native,” others long so much for Japan that they are of no use anymore, but most of them, especially Fusho and Yoei, try to do something that will benefit their country – in this case, bringing back a Vinaya master like Ganjin. Another one, Gogyo, devotes his life to copying a whole library of books still unknown in Japan. The only pathos in the novel is that these scrolls are eventually lost at sea, showing the futility of individual human endeavors.

Why was it important to bring “Vinaya-master” Ganjin to Japan? Because the orthodox transmission of the Law in Buddhism is from master to disciple. That disciple, after passing his tests, is then officially ordinated on an ordination platform, where a certain number of officially ordinated elder priests (three masters and seven attestors) has to be present. By bringing Ganjin with a number of his already ordained followers to Japan, the “orthodox transmission” of Buddhism was finally established on Japanese soil.

The determination Ganjin shows is most impressive. In the eleven years from 743 to 754, Ganjin attempted some six times to travel to Japan. Five times, he is thwarted by unfavorable weather conditions and government intervention (the Chinese at first did not want this important monk to leave). In 748, during the fifth attempt, the ship is blown so far off course that Ganjin lands in Hainan. This journey alone, including the long trek back to Yangzhou, takes a full three years and costs Ganjin his eyesight due to an infection.

In 753 at long last an official Japanese embassy again visits China, and Ganjin now can travel with this group. They land in Kyushu and in 754 arrive in the Japanese capital of Nara, where they are welcomed by the Emperor. A large ordination platform is built at Todaiji and thus, finally, takes place the orthodox transmission of Buddhism to Japan.

Through skillful linking Inoue brings many of the renowned figures of the age on the stage. These are, for example, Abe no Nakamaro, the Japanese poet and scholar who lived most of his life at the court of the Chinese emperor, and Yang Guifei, the most celebrated beauty in Chinese history, who met a tragic fate.

By the way, the "roof tile" of the title is a shibi, an end tile in the form of a mythical sea monster. This tile is sent from China to Fusho after his return - he does not even know by whom. He has the tile installed on Toshodaiji and so it becomes a symbol of the spread of Buddhism from China to Japan.

Inoue Yasushi (1907-1991) was a prolific writer active in many genres: short stories, novels both modern and historical, essays, travel writing and poetry. He wrote more historical fiction about China, such as Confucius and Dunhuang. The Blue Wolf is about Kublai Khan. Fine are also short stories as Loulan. He started his career by winning the Akutagawa prize in 1950 with The Bull Fight.

I feel close to this story because I am interested in both China and Japan, so I like to see cultural bridges built as this novel by Inoue Yasushi has done. And I was once a student too in China, although only for one year and under very different circumstances, but it is easy for me to imagine the wonder with which Fusho and the other Japanese beheld this vast and wonderful country...


P.S. By the way, the first account by a Japanese about China was The Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law by Ennin, a Japanese priest from Enryakuji on Mt Hiei who traveled through China from 838 to 847. His travel diary has been translated by Edwin O. Reischauer under the title Ennin's Diary: The Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law (Ronald Press, New York: 1955). Ennin did not write about his personal impressions, but rather gives a factual account of religious matters and Chinese life under the later Tang Dynasty. His diary has been called a good source on the practice of popular Buddhism in China.

The Roof Tile of Tempyo by Yasushi Inoue, translated by James T. Araki (University of Tokyo Press, 1981)

My personal canon of 108 best books (7) - "The Empty Mirror" by Janwillem van de Wetering

This small memoir, that ends on a tone of disillusion, is one of the best accounts of a Westerner coming to terms with Zen and meditation. The Empty Mirror, Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery, written by the Dutch adventurer, businessman and author Janwillem van de Wetering, is not perfect (the end is a bit abrupt), but it is an honest and factual account, larded with interesting Zen stories, and on top of that, it is often humerous.

"The empty mirror," he said. "If you could really understand that, there would be nothing left here for you to look for." (The Empty Mirror, by Janwillem van de Wetering)

In the past, my own interest in Zen was one of the motivators to study Chinese and Japanese in Leiden (coupled with my fascination for the philosophical Daoists, Laozi and Zhuangzi). At that time I did not yet know Van de Wetering's book - although it had just been published -, but in retrospect, when I read it in the late '80s, I found some truths here I had also sensed myself.

In other words, I realized why, despite my interest in Zen, I have never seriously considered entering a Zen monastery. In the first place a spiritual reason. By nature I am an academic rather than a practitioner. I approach Zen on an intellectual, or philosophical level. This may be wrong, but it is the approach that fits my personality.

The second reason is physical: I was never able to sit in the lotus position, not even the half lotus. I am just too large and too stiff. Janwillem van de Wetering had the same problem, and I feel his pain when he writes about his attempts to fold his legs!

The third reason is that I am too individualistic (or perhaps egoistic?) to fit in the groupist and hierarchic society of a Zen monastery. Van de Wetering had the luck to get his own room - the normal monks all slept in the same big dormitory. I don't like to do things at fixed times when others do them. I don't like to lie in awe on the floor in front of a Master, but as an egalitarian Dutchman would rather openly and freely discuss things with him.

The fourth reason is that there is too much beauty (next to the obvious pain) in the ordinary world. I can very much understand Janwillem's escapades from his restricted temple life to have a delicious beer! In my view, it should be possible to find the truth without giving up beauty... I am sure the irreverent and iconoclastic Van de Wetering must in the end have felt the same.

"Try!" the head monk said, "what a word! You mustn't try, you must do it." (The Empty Mirror, by Janwillem van de Wetering)

But back to the book. In 1958, Janwillem van de Wetering (1931-2008), appeared at the gate of the Daitokuji Zen Temple in Kyoto, asking to be admitted as a novice monk. The young Dutchman, son of a merchant, had already led an adventurous life, as trader in Cape Town, as member of a motorcycle gang, and next as a student of philosophy in London. Although he was originally interested in existentialism, his professor there suggested that he consider Zen Buddhism. So Van de Wetering was off to Japan, a country of which he neither knew the language nor the culture, and where he had no contacts. He just vaguely knew he wanted to practise Zen. He was one of the first, many would follow...

"Nothing matters, nothing is important, but it does matter and it is important to do whatever you are doing as well as possible." (The Empty Mirror, by Janwillem van de Wetering)

After promising to stay for at least eight months, Janwillem van de Wetering was miraculously accepted in Daitokuji, where he received guidance from Peter, an American studying there already for a longer time, who was also fluent in Japanese. Van de Wetering would stay for almost two years, struggling to find the meaning of life via Zen, until his money ran out.

The book provides a basic introduction to Zen, often via interesting stories. But more than that, it shows us the daily routine in a Zen monastery, not only the peaceful meditation, but also the arguments, the jokes the monks make, the cigarettes they secretly smoke, and the Master who likes to watch baseball on TV. Human life, in fact, is the same on the inside of Daitokuji's walls, as on the outside. We also see Janwillem struggling with his physical inability to sit for a long time in the lotus position, and with Japanese - there are times, he completely misunderstands the Master when Peter is not present to interpret.

Van de Wetering now and then escapes to Kobe to stay with the rich Dutch businessman Leo, where he can drink beer and smoke cigars. Here he also reads his first Judge Dee novels by Van Gulik - much later, in the '80s, Van de Wetering would be active in promoting a rediscovery of these novels in The Netherlands; he also would write a biography about Van Gulik.

When it all ends, Janwillen van de Wetering has not found any big truths. But he has learned the notion of Zen-like acceptance, and how to be detached, even when striving hard. Perhaps that small bit of insight is more important than any broad and sweeping conclusion.

"By leaving here nothing is broken. Your training continues. The world is a school where the sleeping are woken up. You are now a little awake, so awake that you can never fall asleep again." (The Empty Mirror, by Janwillem van de Wetering)

After moving away from Japan, Van de Wetering worked in Columbia, Peru and Australia. In Bogota he also married. From 1966 to 1975 Van de Wetering would be active in the textile business in Amsterdam. At the same time he served as a reserve police officer, an experience that gave him the materials for his most famous novels, the fifteen volume crime series about police officers Grijpstra and De Gier. De Gier is modeled on the author and is interested in Zen and jazz. These were the times that hippie culture reigned in Amsterdam, even among the police force - a very different situation from today's more grim climate.

One of the novels, The Japanese Corpse, is situated in Japan. Van de Wetering also wrote a novel about a Japanese detective, Inspector Saito, but this book was less succesful. The early "Grijsptra and De Gier" novels convince because of their authentic atmosphere of the Amsterdam of the non-conformist sixties.

In 1971 Van de Wetering published The Empty Mirror as his first book (in Dutch, the English version followed two years later). In 1975, he wrote a sort of sequel, A Glimpse of Nothingness, about his sojourn at the Moon Springs Hermitage in Maine. Although he left the Hermitage after four years, he stayed on in Maine - the part of the world where he finally found his home. He also died there - just last month, when I had started reading The Empty Mirror for a second time.

The Empty Mirror, Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery, by Janwillem van de Wetering (St. Martin's Griffin, reprint 1999)

Other recommended Zen books by the same author: A Glimpse of Nothingness, AfterZen. Published by St. Martin's Griffin. I you want to try his crime novels, have a look at Hard Rain, The Blond Baboon, The Corpse on the Dike, or The Japanese Corpse.

Janwillem van de Wetering, mystery writer (website with biography and photos)

To Infinity and Beyond - portrait of Janwillem van de Wetering by the Buddhist Broadcasting Foundation (2004, in Dutch)

How to have a nice holiday free from these 10 worries

Are you worried about fatty foods? Are you worried about the carbon footprint of foods brought from afar? Do you fear toxic plastic bottles? The melting of the ice-caps? That your cellphone may be causing brain cancer? Or that you may plunge into a wormhole transporting you to another universe?

No need to worry, says the article 10 Things to Scratch From Your Worry List in the Science section of the NYTimes. Have a nice Obon holiday free from at least these ten worries!