"Every
issue of the Kyoto Journal is like a beautiful paperbound book,
ninety-six pages of the most beautifully and straightforwardly designed
magazine around. It is the unofficial English language rag of expatriate
foreigners in Japan, though it tends to cover the whole of Asian culture
from nation to nation. It has been around for about two decades, and no
writers or artists are ever paid for their contributions, making it one
of the most consistently high-quality "open source" publications
anywhere..."
– David Rothenberg
Parabola,
May 2009
"I don't know of any magazine where the design and content so seamlessly
blend as Kyoto Journal. The English-language quarterly's circumspect
cultural critique is never compromised but is in fact strengthened by
the graphic design. The peaceful, stylish design is just as original and
scintillating as the magazine's approach to the ideas, interviews, poems
and discussions it contains... Kyoto Journal is forever looking
for original ways of depicting people and life... We recommend it highly."
– Marco Visscher
Ode, Jan/Feb 2005
In October 2007, KJ was short-listed for the 11th consecutive
year, in the
Utne
Independent Press Awards, for General
Excellence.
In 2004 KJ was nominated for General Excellence,
Design, and Cultural/Social Coverage.
Previous nominations include Art & Design
Excellence (award winner, 1998), Local/ Regional
Coverage, Writing Excellence, Design,
General Excellence,
and Best Essays.
Many thanks (again!) to all our volunteer staff and contributors!
BLOGS
BY KJ ASSOCIATES & CONTRIBUTORS
Bob Brady
Pure Land Mountain
Ted Taylor
Notes from the
Nog
Sushma Joshi
The Global & the
Local
Mark Mordue
The Basement Tapes
Leanne Ogasawara
Tang Dynasty Times
David Cozy (&
friends)
Only a Blockhead
Eric Gower
The Breakaway Cook
Philip Cunningham
Tiananmen Moon
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Thought-provoking
perspectives from Asia...
A
non-profit volunteer-based quarterly magazine established in 1986,
Kyoto Journal offers interviews, essays, translations, humor,
fiction, poetry and reviews, accompanied by memorable photo-essays,
original illustrations and award-winning design. No hype, minimal
advertising, maximum reading value.
|
KJ#72:
The
Power of an Ideal:
Japan’s Article 9 and the Imagination
In
two short paragraphs, Article 9 of the post-WWII Japanese Constitution
articulates the highest ideal in support of world peace — by actually
outlawing war.
“Aspiring
sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the
Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation
and the threat or use of force as means of settling international
disputes.
In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea,
and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.
The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”
Widely believed to have been imposed unilaterally on Japan by MacArthur’s
occupying Allied GHQ, Article 9 was in fact drafted and proposed
by Japanese lawmakers, representing a country that understood all
too well the folly of aggressive empire-building and the bitter
futility and tragedy of war.
Since 1947, and in sharp contrast to its past as a fascist Axis
empire-builder, Japan has not committed a single atrocity against
the people of another nation, has not re-militarized, has not produced
nuclear weapons, nor entered the lucrative arms industry. In part
because of Article 9, Japan was able to transform itself into the
second largest economy in the world. Moreover, its subsequent ODA
expenditures, amounting to 10 to 15 billion dollars (U.S.) each
year over the past 18 years — along with the growth of several
hundred NGOs active in development, the environment, human rights,
and peace — would never have been possible if Japan had remained
a militarized nation.
Imagine then the worldwide benefits of taking Article 9 to the global
level. The immense financial and human resources unleashed by disarmament
could be immediately applied to developing practical solutions to
the world’s most pressing problems, focusing on green technologies
and green energy, education, solving poverty and health issues,
implementing strategies against global warming and desertification,
cleaning up toxic waste, converting weapons factories, and the disposal
of nuclear weapons.
The seeds for this special issue were planted by the Global Article
Nine Conference for Abolishing War, which was held for three days
in Chiba in spring 2008, drawing an unprecedented 30,000 participants,
including many from overseas. Widely diverse groups recognized common
ground, and the positive repercussions that a Global Article 9 would
have on their concerns, including nonproliferation and disarmament,
expanding nuclear free zones, joint Asian security, reducing poverty,
regional conflict resolution, gender equality, peace education,
peace-building, human rights and environmental protection.
“And
So Make Peace...”
Maxine Hong Kingston talks story
Interview by Trevor Carolan
 Long
a committed anti-war activist, since the early 1990s Maxine Hong Kingston
has led writing-and-meditation workshops for veterans of America’s
wars and their families. Her new anthology Veterans of War, Veterans
of Peace (Koa Books), harvests their work in presenting a broad
view of the power of story to help redeem and heal the wounds of unspeakable
history.
Maxine,
how did you get involved with veterans and the veterans' writing workshop?
The start of it was Thich Nhat Hanh. I had gone to a couple of retreats
that he had led and there came a time when he said he wanted to hold
a retreat for veterans of the Vietnam war. He called for veterans of
the war to meet Vietnamese people, and also other Americans. So he had
a ceremony with all these old soldiers and himself as a veteran of that
war, and they had all kinds of ceremonies including hugging meditation.
There’s Vietnamese and Americans together, and Thich Nhat Hanh
said when you hug one Vietnamese you hug them all. These soldiers who
had been in the war were now embracing another person in their arms,
and that leads to reconciliation. I was observing all of this and I
thought, “They need one more thing; these veterans need to have
artistic expression — like, ah, a spiritual life is not enough!”
They needed an artistic life. I continued to participate in these retreats,
and I brought a writing workshop. Actually, the writing workshop became
the centre of what veterans do in these retreats. Thich Nhat Hanh called
it a retreat within the retreat. We did our own rituals and our own
ceremonies, and the main practice was writing, to get their stories
down. Once in a while we would break out into a larger group and listen
to a dharma talk and we’d meditate with a larger group. But on
the whole we would have our own room, our own separate table. Thich
Nhat Hanh only came to America every other year, and Therese Fitzgerald,
Arnie Kotler and I were thinking this isn’t enough; so we held
these retreats on our own, always emphasizing the writing, some artistic
expression.
Somewhere in this I got a Lila Wallace Award that said that I should
use part of the money to do some community social work. I used it to
carry on these writing workshops for veterans and their families. We
met once a month for three years.
"What’s amazing to me is that after a war
— with Japan, in Korea, Vietnam — we get all kinds of
loving things: we have 'war brides,' we have families adopting Chinese
and Vietnamese orphan girls, we have new family situations. First
there’s exotic countries, and then we have the war, then we
have marriages…I wonder, 'Can’t we just skip the middle
part, the war, and get on with the loving family and wonderful new
foods and restaurants part?'”
—Maxine
Hong Kingston (interview, KJ #72)
My
Grandson The Marine:
A Homecoming
by Connie Vigil Platt
I was a typical grandmother, but I became a mother for the second
time at age fifty after my grandsons were left without a mother. My
son’s wife passed away and left him with two boys to raise.
This might not be a unique circumstance but it was certainly life-changing
for all of us.
When the youngest grandson decided he wanted to join the Marines,
I got a lump in my throat I couldn’t swallow...
...continued
Featured here
at ImaginePeace
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FULL CONTENTS PAGE
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