The Ladies’ Temple in Saga By Jeff Robbins (Thanks to Sydney Solis for providing feedback on this.) In October, just before I left my home in Fukuoka to go to Kyoto, I discovered a Basho renku about the Nonomiya Shrine in Saga, west of Kyoto, and made time in my schedule to explore the verse …Read More
Author: John Dougill (Page 30 of 45)
Our man in Himeji, WiK member Simon Rowe, reports on one of those startling phenomena in Japan – the constantly growing townscape. (For a previous Hyogo vignette, see here.) Notes from Himeji: A Fistful of Rice Crackers A lot can change in the space of a few weeks. One day you live in a …Read More
1. Not far from the American Embassy in Havana, mere steps from the body of water that proves narrower than ideology, stands a monument to the USS Maine, which exploded under mysterious circumstances in the city harbor over 100 years ago. Upon the monument an American eagle once perched, until on a January day in …Read More
Book Launch Nov 18, 2017 Report by Andrew Sokulski Zozaya, WiK intern Saturday night a splendid celebration was held in high spirits for the book launch of John Dougill and John Einarsen’s Zen Gardens and Temples of Kyoto. There were writers, artists, scholars, priests, tour guides and Kyoto Journal interns in the audience. A wonderful musical performance was held, …Read More
The remarkable Isabella Bird came to Kyoto nearly 140 years ago… Her impressions are all the more noteworthy given how few foreigners had ever visited the city. According to research by Eric Johnston in his article for the WiK Anthology 2017, up until 1872 only about a dozen foreigners had ever set foot in …Read More
Notes from Himeji, Hyogo: I am a Passenger by Simon Rowe What do commuters think about on their long rides to and from the mills each day? I bet they don’t think about how lucky they are that the wheel was invented. I was a commuter once—a nameless man in a salt-stained suit and headphones. …Read More
Marianne Kimura is a Shakespearean scholar teaching at a university in Kyoto, and her papers on Shakespeare have proved popular on the website academic.com. She also writes imaginative fiction based on Shakespearean themes, integrating ghostly or SF elements as can be seen in the excerpt below from her second novel, The Hamlet Paradigm, published under the pseudonym of …Read More
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF CHINE Selection, Translations and Commentary by Jeff Robbins Assisted by Sakata Shoko Words of Basho, Kyorai, and Chine in bold to stand out In this article we meet Kyorai, the second son of a doctor of Chinese medicine in Kyoto, born in 1651, and his fascinating yet retiring nine-year …Read More
“Teddy and Daruma” by Allen S. Weiss Like the shaman from his cave, Teddy (yes, Teddy, my teddy bear!) finally emerged, resurrected after a hibernation of forty years, with what particular wisdom I cannot say. I have no idea if Teddy is an adept of Zen, but I am sure that the roly-poly Daruma who …Read More
Karen Lee Tawaryama has been interviewing Kyoto people on her blog, Kyoto Faces. In her latest piece she writes of the non-verbal long-running performance called GEAR, which in 2015 was voted on TripAdvisor one of the city’s best attractions! In the interview below, she questions Yoppy, one of the dance performers about the show and …Read More
Kyoto Writing Competition
WiK Anthologies
The Nature of Kyoto (2023)
Eds. Lisa Twaronite Sone & Robert Weis
Foreword by Pico Iyer
Structures of Kyoto (2021)
Eds: Rebecca Otowa & Karen Lee Tawarayama
Foreword by Judith Clancy
Encounters with Kyoto (2019)
Eds: Jann Williams & Ian Josh Yates
Foreword by Juliet Winters Carpenter
Echoes (2017)
Eds: John Dougill, Amy Chavez, & Mark Richardson
Preface by Alex Kerr
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