Posted in Book, China, Writing on Jul 21st, 2008 No Comments »
Some of the earliest translators of Chinese and Japanese poetry into a Western language were made by poets who could not read the original sources. They knew no Chinese, no Japanese. The resulting poems have not surprisingly little to do with the originals.
Strangely enough, this is a discussion that even now sometimes flares up: should […]
Posted in Book, Philosophy, Writing on Jun 1st, 2008 No Comments »
The Chinese Tang-poet Bai Juyi wrote the following tongue-in-cheek poem about the Daodejing, the Daoist wisdom book that claims that “those who know, don’t speak”:
Reading Laozi
Those who speak do not know, those who know are silent,
I heard this saying from the old gentleman.
If the old gentleman was one who knew the way,
Why did he feel […]
Posted in Book, China, Philosophy, Writing on Jun 1st, 2008 No Comments »
My ideas about what my personal canon should be have been evolving since I started to read for it. It is a personal canon, so different from a list of great world literature. I will only include books that mean a lot to me. Because of my focus on Japan and China, that will mainly […]
Posted in Book, China, Japan, Writing on May 27th, 2008 No Comments »
Whether I will make it to 1001 108 books, or get bored along the way, I do not know, but I have started reading in order to build my own “canon of great books.”
(After just two days I have lowered my target from 1,001 to 108 - 108 is a Buddhist number and a safer […]
Posted in Book, Japan, Writing on May 22nd, 2008 No Comments »
Japanese popular culture is “cool” and for the first time in history, mass fiction is riding along on the high wave of manga popularity.
Although Nobel Prize winner Oe Kenzaburo is sadly lingering in the shadows, with too many important novels still going untranslated, today more popular fiction is being translated than ever before. Long established […]
Posted in Book, Food, Japan, Manga, Osaka, Tokyo on Apr 22nd, 2008 No Comments »
Food manga are not always about gourmet food, even when they are called The Solitary Gourmand (Kodoku no Gurume). For there is not a shred of fancy food in all these stories. Instead, they introduce us to the daily dishes and common eateries of the ordinary Japanese, and that is all the more interesting.
The setting […]
Posted in Animation, Book, Food, Japan, Manga, Nature, Web on Mar 22nd, 2008 No Comments »
As the International Herald tribune reports, foreign minister Komura Masahiko has appointed Doraemon as Japan’s first cartoon ambassador. The robot cat, who is especially popular in Asia, promised:
Through my cartoons, I hope to convey to people abroad what ordinary Japanese people think, our lifestyles and what kind of future we want to build.
Perhaps the […]
Posted in Book, Film, Japan, Review on Mar 14th, 2008 Comments Off
Why do I watch horror films? I do not even believe in the supernatural, let alone ghosts. Probably some childhood fear of darkness stays lodged in our minds, providing even those who consider themselves enlighted with a bridge to horror. And the atmosphere of horror films grabs you: the slow threat, the sure sense that […]
Posted in Book, Film, Japan, Society, Travel, Web on Mar 10th, 2008 No Comments »
Janne in Osaka shines light on a matter to my heart: how to shelve your books…
Japan Probe has a round-up of videos that recently appeared on the web about the town of Obama (also see my post about this town chock-full with ancient temples and Buddhist statues - a great destination for a weekend trip).
Japan […]
Posted in Book, Gardens, Nature, Review, Tokyo on Mar 5th, 2008 No Comments »
Tokyo and flowers - that may not be the first association springing up in your mind when thinking about the Japanese metropolis. The metropolitan government seems to be in the race to cover every square inch of the city with concrete before, say, the year 2010. In some places, the houses and flats have been […]
Posted in Book, Review, Sake on Feb 23rd, 2008 No Comments »
One of the best books on sake in English I know is Philip Harper’s The Book of Sake: A Connoisseurs Guide. Beautifully edited by Kodansha, with lavish illustrations, this book contains all you have to know about sake and is a pleasure to read, also thanks to Harper’s lively style. And that all in less […]
Posted in Book, Film, Review on Aug 21st, 2007 No Comments »
In a former post, I have reviewed Stray Dogs and Lone Wolves, Patrick Galloway’s riveting take on the samurai film. Now we have his Asia Shock, Horror and Dark Cinema from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand. Just like the earlier volume, this is both a book that is very well researched and at the […]
Posted in Book, Film, Review on Nov 11th, 2006 3 Comments »
The first Japanese film I ever saw was Rashomon and since that momentous evening I have been hooked on samurai films (and Japanese film in general). This was about 20 years ago, at a time when it was still difficult to find Japanese films. The situation improved after I moved again to Japan in the […]
Posted in Book, Film, History, Review on Oct 12th, 2006 No Comments »
Why is swordsman Miyamoto Musashi so popular? We know almost nothing about him and what we know with any certainty is not very spectacular. Is it because he is the author of The Book of Five Rings? Or is it thanks to the novel by Yoshikawa Eiji and the films by Inagaki and other directors? […]
