Conversations
Freedom Within Bounds: A Conversation with Donald Richie
Unlike many writers on Japan, Donald Richie advances no social theories. By portraying Japanese as individuals, and by doing so with insight and often with sympathy, Richie gives the lie to conventional notions of uniformity.
Read MoreNakagawa Shuji: Oke Maker
When Nakagawa Shuji’s grandfather, Kameiichi, turned ten years old, he went to work at Tarugen. This famed maker of oke (wooden pails or buckets) and barrels, had been established in Kyoto during the waning years of the Edo period (1603-1868), and was to become Kameiichi’s workplace for the next 40 years. In the process, Kameiichi…
Read MoreEmerging Futures from Tohoku
MIZUHO TOYOSHIMA AND LUCINDA COWING
An Interview with Bob Stilger
Bob Stilger has been actively involved in creating spaces for people in Tohoku to gather and formulate new futures following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that transformed their lives.
Mapping Kyoto: An Affair of the Heart
Judith Clancy is the author of three books about Kyoto, Exploring Kyoto, Kyoto Machiya Restaurant Guide and Kyoto City of Zen. She has mapped Kyoto in words and images, enabling countless people, residents and visitors alike, to explore the exceptional cultural, historical, religious and gastronomic heritage of this city.
Read MoreRoger Pulvers
When I arrived in Tokyo in 1967 after studying in Poland, I had only $300 left…I came down to Kyoto on the train, rented a little house by Midoro-ga-ike, and started writing short stories….
Read MoreSatish Kumar on Deep Ecology
Sometimes I came across a tree which seemed like a Buddha or a Jesus: loving, compassionate, still, unambitious, enlightened, in eternal meditation, giving pleasure to a pilgrim…
Read MoreLike Sculpting Smoke: Arundhati Roy on Fame, Writing and India
INTERVIEW BY KATHY ARLYN SOKOL
Arundhati Roy — brilliant, beautiful and rich. The brilliance and the beauty came early, the riches are of more recent vintage and allow her a new life as a self-proclaimed “cultural terrorist” who can fund her own “kiss-backs” (instants of righteous revenge). Against?
Read MoreRyu and Me
Being a man with a tremendous appetite for life, Murakami Ryu began living large, traveling the planet and savoring its various pleasures. But he also began one of the most prolific and multi-faceted careers in literary history…
Read MoreReel Life and Real Life: The Joys and Trials of Being Intercultural
REGGE LIFE’s moving documentaries, broadcast nationally in both countries, introduce us to scores of reflective people who in turn invite us to take a closer look at ourselves…
Read MoreThe Future of Korea: An Interview with Political Scientist Lee Jae Bong
Political Scientist LEE JAE BONG explains, “ A unification policy has two conditions: First, is it really desirable? And second, is it really achievable?… “
Read MoreMedia Critic: Asano Kenichi
Former Kyodo News Service correspondent Asano Kenichi was expelled from Indonesia in 1992 for his investigative reports on shady deals between Jakarta businessmen and Japanese politicians.
Read MoreAwakening the Goddess Within: An Interview with Mayumi Oda
Graphic artist Mayumi Oda’s cultural, spiritual, and artistic odyssey has taken her through many lives, eras, countries, and incarnations…
Read MoreAlone With Your Self: The Hermit Experience
Edward A. Burger found his teacher, Master Guangkuan, in the Zhongnan Mountains in the winter of 1999. He completed his first documentary, Amongst White Clouds, about Zhongnan Mountain hermits in 2005…
Read MoreIndia’s Bandit Queen: An Interview with Phoolan Devi
Astonishing viewers at the Cannes Film Festival, the 1994 film “Bandit Queen” thrust PHOOLAN DEVI into the international limelight. But Devi criticized the film for being overly graphic and for leaving out major events…
Read MoreBig Fish Eat Little Fish
After World War II, philosopher and critic Tsurumi Shunshuke started the highly-respected magazine Shiso no Kagaku (Science of Thought), serving for half a century as its editor and publisher. From the 1950s to the 1970s, he was an outspoken anti-war activist…
Read More
