Separately Ever After

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid cover book review

Throughout the novel, the writer introduces us to people from all corners of the world, who have walked through similar magical doors that lead them to other parts of the world. Although some of these people are peripheral to the plot, they throw light on the phenomenon of migration, helping us see how migration changes countries, cities, towns, neighbourhoods and people.

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Last Light

In the late afternoon, while magic-hour light poured through the bay window opposite his desk, I watched the greatest translator of Japanese literature at work translating its most important modern novel, heretofore undiscovered by readers of English…

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Persimmons

Split: a star-like reflection.
Flesh like the fire-belly of a newt,
only since coming each autumn
have I taken to swallow firm
fresh mouthfuls,
the jam-insides
of others sun-dried.

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Tomorrowland

I have suffered all my life from what one might call nostalgia for the future. In 2011, two years before my first cancer diagnosis, my husband and I spent the summer in Japan. I thought that if the future were to be found anywhere, it would be there, in bubble-fueled, Midas-fingered Tokyo…

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KYOTO EXPERIMENT: In Conversation with Yusuke Hashimoto

“Before, the younger artists based here in the Kansai region who wanted to grow internationally had to always to go Tokyo in the beginning to be acquainted with the right critics or journalists living there who could help launch their careers. But I wanted to create an international platform so that these artists could easily make the connections here”

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Miksang Contemplative Photography Workshop in Kyoto

Making Contact: Relaxing This, Discovering THAT Learn to fully engage your eye, mind and heart in the present moment, see the world as it manifests, and express what you see with your camera. There is no better place to do so than in Kyoto: the city of Zen and ancient capital of Japan. Dates: May 8th-12th,…

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Soaring over Sorachi

As one of the few places like it in all of Japan, Sky Park draws visitors from around the world to glide. Cities like Takikawa have shrunk since the coalmines closed in the seventies and eighties…But the thousand tourists who visit Takikawa annually to ride in a glider provide a good boost to the city.

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Small Buildings of Kyoto is back!

We’re happy to announce that we have decided to publish a second book of John’s photographs in time for the holiday season! You can find more information and preorder your copy here. The photos have been making the rounds on social media, and thanks to you, they been picked up by Bored Panda for a second…

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Julie Gramlich: Researching female entrepreneurship in Japan

Julie Gramlich worked for a female founder in the Silicon Valley before receiving the Japanese Education Ministry’s MEXT scholarship to study the entrepreneurial environment for women in Japan. As part of this research, Julie has interviewed over 20 Japanese women in a range of fields.

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Thirty-Six Times

It is the mountain’s presence that most inspires when viewing Hokusai’s thirty-six prints. Rain or shine, snow or wind, clear skies – seen from village, sea, or city – the mountain is a timeline against which all of life is measured.

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Autumn exhibition of chashaku (tea scoops) at the Miho Museum

KJ’s volunteer translator Hiroko Kawano went along to the MIHO MUSEUM press event for their new exhibition: 100 Modern Tea Scoops: Connoisseurship and Society, now on until 02 December. The chashaku(茶杓) is a small utensil, typically made of bamboo, used in Cha-no-yu tea ceremony to scoop powdered green tea (matcha) into tea bowls ready to whisk…

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Glimpses of Wutai–shan

In August 2018, KJ managing editor Ken Rodgers visited Shanxi Province, particularly Datong and Wutai-shan, motivated by having read the 9th century Japanese monk Ennin’s travel journals (Ennin’s Diary: The Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law, Edwin O. Reischauer translation) and John Blofeld’s account of his time there in the…

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The Manchurian Bodhisattva

In 772 the Tang dynasty emperor Daizong decreed that, for the welfare of the empire, Manjusri should be worshipped in every Buddhist monastery in China. Each of the five peaks (or ‘terraces’) of Wutaishan became associated with a different manifestation of Manjusri; accounts of visionary encounters and apparitions abound.

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Setsubun Girl

An oni with a magical hammer comes to tempt her, dressed as a mortal man. He strikes his hammer once, and magnificent kimono appear from thin air, which she accepts with protest and delight.

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Upholding Lightness

Italian and Singaporean design duo Francesca Lanzavecchia and Hunn Wai on their latest collaboration, the challenges in taking advantage of new technologies, and the tools the next generation of designers need to navigate their ever-changing field.

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Kyoto Journal in Magazine B

Kyoto Journal’s John Einarsen and Ken Rodgers were interviewed at Social Kitchen for the Kyoto issue of Brand Documentary Magazine (or “Magazine B”), the publication from South Korea.

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