There once was a beautiful geiko Famous from Kyoto to Edo But if clients tried holding hands She would whack them with her fan Because that was the way she said “No No”
There once was this cheeky young geisha So cheeky she’d even surprise ya She would look here and there When she was pouring your beer And “accidentally” spill it all over ya
There once was a geiko so old 100 years old, I was told But when she arrived The parties came alive So, the customers thought she was gold
There once was a geiko from Hokkaido There wasn’t anyone she didn’t know You could be poor or be rich She was never a bitch And would always wave and say hello
There once was geiko thought to be crazy But writing her off would be lazy Because when she drank with the men Being drunk, she would pretend Good enough to be hired by Scorsese
There once was a geiko, so pretty Not just good looks but also quite witty She told lots of great jokes Much funnier than the blokes So, they voted her mayor of the city
There once was a geiko so tall When she walked, we were all scared she’d fall One night after beers She fell down the stairs And of her dancing career, that was all.
There once was a maiko so shy When she saw men, she would cry The house mother got madder And she got even sadder So, she left without saying goodbye
There once was a geiko who smoked She smoked so much she would choke When others told her to quit She’d have quite a fit And one day, she suddenly croaked
The once was a geisha not so pretty Her face was tad bit zitty And without her white face She’d scare the whole place So, she moved to a faraway city
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Geisha expert Peter MacIntosh runs tours and organises special occasions. See his website Kyoto Sights and Nights and Facebook page. To watch his documentary Real Geisha Real Women, click here. For a short story see here, and for a short short see here. His PR page can be accessed here.
Below is an excerpt from Chapter Two of The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn, a modern Gothic retelling of The Secret Garden. Here is a synopsis:
Still grieving her mother’s death, American photographer Mari Lennox is sent to document Yanagi Inn, an old, dilapidated ryokan outside Kyoto. By day, Mari explores the inn and its grounds, taking striking photographs and uncovering layers of mystery shrouding the old resort—including an overgrown, secret garden on a forbidden island. At night, eerie weeping (which no one else seems to hear) keeps her awake.
Despite the warnings of the staff, Mari searches for the source of the ghostly sound—and discovers a devastating secret tying her family’s history to the inn, and its mysterious, forlorn garden.
(Photos courtesy Amber Logan)
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The dimmed cabin lights brightened to a rosy glow, mimicking a sunrise though it was late evening in Kyoto. I wiped the drool off my lip with the back of my hand, glanced at the passengers on either side of me. The elderly woman to my right was awake, watching Roman Holiday on her seatback screen—Mom’s favorite movie, one I’d watched with her three times in the hospital alone.
The smartly dressed blond woman on my left had her laptop out on her tray table. Her stockinged feet rested on carry-on luggage with the same floral print as the weekender bag Mom had picked up in England years ago.
An optimistically small bag for her hospital stay.
The woman was probably working. Her nails on the keys tick-tick-ticked away, knocking on the door to my brain, reminding me I should check my work email. I reached for the bag between my feet. And Risa would need to be reminded of where I’d left Ginkgo’s pills. She needed to know he wouldn’t take them without sticking the pills inside butter. She needed to know—
STOP IT, Mari. I pictured my little sister smirking at me, arms crossed, standing next to my white puffball of a dog. Relax—I’ve got this.
I leaned back in my seat, rhythmically twisting the too-loose ring on my middle finger.
The flight attendant pushed a drink cart down the aisle. She wore a fitted top and pencil skirt, a jaunty kerchief with the Japan Airlines red crane logo tied around her neck. “Green tea, coffee?” Her voice was quiet, soothing.
I raised my hand. “Coffee would be amazing, thank you.”
She smiled a practiced smile, set a small cup on her metal tray, and poured the coffee from a carafe. The two women on either side of me asked for green tea.
Even over the aroma of my coffee, I could smell their tea. I’d missed it, the slightly bitter scent, the warmth of it. A scent from my childhood.
Japan. I’m really going back. This is real. This is NOW.
I took a sip of the coffee, hissing as it stung my tongue. A sharp, cheap flavor like the instant crap Thad used to buy when he’d finished off my good stuff.
I should’ve asked for tea.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing at Kansai International Airport in approximately half an hour. We anticipate a slightly early arrival. Local time is 7:14 p.m.”
My cardigan was damp with sleep sweat. I’d take it off, but I was afraid of elbowing the ladies next to me, so I made do with pulling my hair back into a ponytail and hitting the button for my personal fan. It whirred to life, but the clicking annoyed me, and I turned it back off. In the row behind me, someone sneezed.
What the hell was I doing running away like this—abandoning my sister, my now ex-boyfriend, maybe even my job? Tears welled in my eyes and I fought them back, staring at the screen in front of me, at the image of the tiny airplane and the dashed-line trek it’d made across the Pacific Ocean. Even if Risa had made all the arrangements and basically shoved me out the door, it felt wrong to just leave.
Even if it was for only four weeks.
Deep breaths, Mari, deep breaths.
At first the timing of the grant had seemed fortuitous, if a bit rushed. But the closer I got to Japan, the more reality set in and the vague details of the NASJ grant paperwork felt more and more inadequate. Photograph an old isolated Japanese inn “for posterity’s sake”? It wasn’t much to go on.
Had I brought the right camera lenses? Would four weeks be enough time? It seemed an eternity to me right now, but I’d never been asked to document an entire estate, never even received a grant before. I was an artist, not a documentarian.
At least, I used to be an artist.
Maybe I should’ve splurged for the upgraded camera bag with better padding. I pictured the Roman Holiday woman next to me opening the overhead compartment and my camera bag tumbling out onto the floor. Contents may have shifted during flight.
Could she even reach the overhead compartment?
She was a tiny Japanese woman—probably in her seventies. I snuck a glance at her.
But Mom was sitting next to me.
I froze, my entire body turning numb.
Mom, leaning back in her seat, was watching the movie with a slight smile on her lips. Her platinum blond hair was tied back in a loose ponytail, but tufts had fallen out and were dusting her shoulders, her blouse, like dead leaves. She sipped her green tea.
I struggled for air. The sweat dotting my skin turned cold, clammy.
No, no, no. I’m just tired, didn’t get enough sleep. I closed my eyes, inhaled deep, gasping breaths. Mandarins, I smelled freshly peeled mandarins.
“Are you all right, honey?”
My eyes flew open. CEO woman on my left, with her slim laptop and flowered bag, stared at me. Her eyes were wide with concern.
I shot a glance to my right. The little grandmother had returned and was happily watching her movie, oblivious to my distress.
Am I all right? The dreaded question.
Did she mean “do I need medical attention?” Or was it more of the existential “all right” we all seem to strive for but never quite manage?
I smiled at the woman, responded with the only reasonable lie one can give to that question: “I’m fine.”
Deep breaths, Mari. Deep breaths.
The flight attendant in her perfect pillbox hat and red bandana came by again, this time with white gloves and a plastic trash bag. I handed her my half-empty cup of coffee with an apologetic smile.
I should’ve asked for tea.
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Amber is an author, freelance editor, and university instructor. To learn more about her, please click here.
Amber’s family pose in front of a Japanese garden bridge
spider walks the air unspooling from his being lifelines of silver
where the wind takes it how light a life that’s floating shadow on the sand
Santoka* walking – nothing between him and death haiku and sake
gift of his whole life Santoka into the wind ragged spirit free
reeds flailed by the wind cry of the crow through torn cloud sun smashed on the waves
crows hang the branches with cacophony of sound raggedly flapping
now and then a bird sends out its notes across the sky carol to no one
bird song floats into the mists of meditation perches in the mind
blessing of the lake – ducks given all this mirror to float nothing on
ripples at the shore pebbles underwater clarity surreal
autumn still as glass all the silence of the sky all the lakelong blue
it’s all so clear now! dust of a thousand days wiped from the I-phone
lake instrumental – sun sparkles random notes jazzing the surface
yellow butterfly leaves off writing its sky dance to settle, a leaf
trail of ivy leaves scarlet in the autumn sun necklace for the rocks
the wind passing through nowhere no one no body only where it goes
the cat stops mid-scratch leg still raised eyes caught by the air’s movement
the cat unmoving eyes slowly closing feeling all that there is there
at the end of day slowly flapping from the reeds herohero** heron
hardly a ripple the lake gunmetal grey duck glides the silence
rain gentles the mind giving it a space of grey letting the thoughts drop
the rain relentless a liquid blind of sound drowning vision
wings soaked in sunlight dragonflies under silver cloud zipping the day up
the waves loquacious liquid song unending search for melody
Notes
*Santoka Taneda (1882 -1940). Free-form haiku poet, inveterate drinker, and lover of the open road, he walked the length and breadth of Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku, an estimated distance of about 45,000 kilometres.
For previous contributions by James Woodham, please see the striking poems and stunning photography here. Or here. Or here. Or here. For his most recent postings, see A Single Thread here, or The Wind’s Word here, and for Vagabond Song click here.
The City Fathers call Omoide Yokocho by its official name—Memory Lane. Locals prefer ‘Piss Alley’. For me it’s a little of both: a place to sip cheap beer on a hot evening, to reminisce of my wayward youth, and maybe shoot the breeze with another seasoned drinker. Because that’s all you’ll meet down this crooked alley crammed full of bars and izakaya which have survived the fire bombings of World War II, the wrecking balls, and the foolish whims of our city planners.
Make no mistake, an Omoide Yokocho drinkerie is little more than a two-storied wooden box with a ground-floor bar and a faded noren curtain to hide the afternoon barflies. Knots of cables and disused telephone lines hang crazily overhead. At night, sodium lamps push back the shadows just enough to offer safe passage between the red lanterns.
What’s not to like? On warm evenings, when the braziers fill the lane with their greasy smoke, you’ll know the soul of this city by its laughter and shouts, and calls for more chicken wings, hearts, and liver, and through this symphony of the working class, you might even hear the wail of some sodden soul singing enka—the Piss Alley blues.
Yarikuri has always been my haunt (the bar’s name means ‘to make ends meet’), but on account of losing my job, and my bill being unpaid since April, I’ve given it a wide berth. Still, I can’t keep away from Omoide Yokocho. It’s the drinkers and their stories that draw me back every time.
Take last night, for instance: I stepped into Yamamoto Sake-ten, a liquor store standing bar at the end of the alley. No sooner had I taken my place at the counter than the man beside me declared, ‘This summer heat is cooking my eggs.’
I threw him a sideways glance. He was somewhere north of seventy and wore a yellow-green Hawaiian shirt covered in red ukuleles. There was a straw Trilby perched on his head, and beneath it, eyebrows which bristled like the antennae on a night moth.
‘Pardon me?’ I replied. ‘I said, it’s hot!’
I nodded, and to the elderly woman behind the counter, said, ‘Mama, biru chodai.’ A frosted bottle and glass soon stood before me, and as I drank, the man lifted his own glass and swallowed in rapid gulps, like a mudskipper at low tide.
‘Who can stand such heat?’ he said, turning to me. ‘I’ll tell you who. See that guy in the corner? That’s Aoki-san. He was a UN peacekeeper in Africa, drove an armoured car all over the Namib desert chasing rebels. Forty degrees was a warm day! Then he came home and drove a bullet-proof limousine all over Tokyo for hotshots and VIPs. You know Whitney Houston?
I nodded. ‘Well, he even drove her.’
I drained my glass and poured it full.
‘And you think that’s something? His eyes widened. ‘Well, let me tell you that man beside the door drinking red wine, see? That’s Bono-sensei, a retired doctor. He delivered a baby on the Yamanote line once.’
I said, ‘Mama, mo ippon chodai.’ When my second bottle arrived, he leaned in closer and whispered, ‘But not everyone’s that clever, you know. See that guy in the blue linen jacket behind me? That’s Tanaka-san. He owned the Maharaja Disco in Kabukicho in the Bubble era, but couldn’t pay his gambling debts so the yakuza bought him out for a pittance. Now it’s a UNIQLO megastore!’
I took a dish of chilled tofu and shallots from the small refrigerator beside the counter.
‘Nakano-san,’ he murmured, watching me drizzle the tofu with soy sauce. ‘Sorry?’ I said. ‘Nakano-san loves tofu. He’s not here tonight, mind you. He used to captain a skipjack boat in the Indian Ocean. Out for months at a time. He’d sell his catch at Tsukiji and drink his profits here. He loved cold tofu. Shipwrecked twice he was—once in the Maldives, another time, the Andamans.’ He turned to me. ‘What do you do?’ ‘I’m between jobs.’
He drained his glass and slapped the counter. ‘Mama, okanjo kudasai!’ The elderly woman flicked her abacus beads, then scribbled something on a scrap of paper. He paid, said something to her I couldn’t catch, and with the tip of his Trilby, disappeared into the heat of the alley.
The old woman cleared away his bottles and said, ‘I’m sorry. He does that sometimes.’ ‘Does what?’ ‘Introduces customers to his friends.’
I glanced around at the empty shop.
‘He’s the last of the old timers.’ She wiped off the counter and rearranged the soy sauce bottles.
I drained my bottle, thought about a third, but asked for the bill instead.
‘It’s been paid,’ she said without looking up.
Bar bill from the very first standing bar that Simon visited in Himeji
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‘Otomodachi’ (Honorable friend) was a finalist in the Globe Soup 2021 Travel Writing Competition.
Simon Rowe is an Australian writer based in Himeji, Japan and is a 2021 International Rubery Book Award nominee, winner of the 2021 Best Indie Book Award and the 2013 Asian Short Screenplay Contest. His nonfiction has appeared in The Paris Review, the New York Times, TIME (Asia), the South China Morning Post, and The Australian. Website: https://www.mightytales.net/
For his previous contributions to WiK, see here, or here, or here, or here, or here.
Calling all Writers! This is a reminder of the March 31st deadline to submit your “short shorts” to our panel of judges for consideration. The Annual Kyoto Writing Competition is one of WiK’s biggest events and attracts a large global readership. An array of exciting prizes (including the prestigious Kyoto City Mayoral Prize) is waiting for successful participants. We accept English-language submissions in any genre from across the world. You do not need to be located in Kyoto to participate, but we do look for submissions which show a connection with Kyoto. Think you have what it takes to impress? Please refer to this link for detailed information about submission guidelines, prizes, and winning submissions from previous years. We encourage all of our readers to participate and to share this information with your social networks, and we look forward to hearing from you very soon!
You wouldn’t know it from the body of photography books out there, but snow is fairly uncommon in Kyoto. I suppose it’s the infrequency of it that brings out the cameramen in droves when it does finally fall. I had rather naively expected this idealized version of winter in Kyoto to be fairly common, but was a little disappointed on living here to count the odd gentle dusting here or there, perhaps no more than once in a given year, if at all. I promised myself I’d try to make the most of those rare days.
The trouble was, ever the servile salaryman, with such light blizzards being at the year’s coldest, in February, I would usually have already splurged, or, more likely, failed to use and therefore forfeited, my limited annual leave days just a few months prior at the end of the previous calendar year. This meant that snow days to me were simply a wonderful barrier in catching my morning commuter train into the city centre, through the ensuing chaos and delays.
That said, one particularly chilly winter, a promised snowstorm had come a couple of days later than forecasted, giving me enough of a window to pack an umbrella and a pocket camera, just in case. I thought special moments tend to happen when it snows in Kyoto.
In my mind, I had just finished watching Kore-eda’s nostalgic adaptation of The Makanai, a story about the cook at a geisha boarding house and a great initiation into this secretive world. The only real issue I took with the story, as authentic as it sets out to be, was how it may yet give more stock to another romanticized version of Kyoto where geisha can appear beside you on a footpath at any moment. The reality, as many visitors often find, is that spotting a geisha, even in Gion to the east of the city, can be as rare as the flurry into which I was about to set out.
The advance weather warning had given me the foresight to prepare a 45-minute head start on my normal commute. Sadly, those 45 minutes were given to a rather soggy wait on the train platform, and after overcoming the snow-train chaos, I arrived into the city late for work. However, instead of rushing to the office, something itself best avoided on the slippery narrow streets of the day, I decided to reclaim some of my forfeited 45 minutes back, and squeeze in a bit of a cheeky detour through the teahouses and backstreets of Gion, having correctly assumed that the Higashiyama district where Gion was situated would be rather pleasant in a white dressing, particularly with fewer cars or people.
I was about to take one of my regular shortcuts through Ebisu Shrine, which backs out on to Miyagawa-cho, a popular Hanamachi ‘flower town’, a geisha district close to the Kamogawa river, when I got my moment. Two in fact. I saw an older gentleman at the shrine give the most animated bow, only to turn a little too quickly and slip over into the snow. Sadly I missed the window to take a snap of this rather entertaining scene, but instead caught sight of why the man had given such an effusive gesture; two young maiko were giving formal greetings to the people here.
While neither in full make-up nor wearing the elaborate kimono I had grown accustomed to seeing, the elegant way in which the two women sauntered past me and greeted the priest here felt unmistakably like the Ochaya Mawari, the neighbourly greeting custom of the story I had recently enjoyed, and I knew immediately that this was that rarest of glimpses into the daily life of a training geisha.
Unlike the Ochaya Mawari in the story however, this was still morning time, so I guessed too early for their daily rounds. What were the maiko doing then? Well, like me, they’d come out to enjoy the snow of course. As they danced around catching snowflakes, I took a couple of respectfully discreet photos, and basked in the charming serendipity of it all.
Stephen Mansfield is one of the leading writers about contemporary Japan and a reviewer for The Japan Times. This modern garden profile will be included in a book he is currently writing and photographing about Japanese Gardens since 1900, due in July 2024 from British publisher Thames & Hudson.
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Teshima, a tiny island in the Seto Inland Sea, would seem an improbable setting for a collaboration between international artist Yokoo Tadanori and architect Yuko Nagayama.
Active since the 1960s, Tadanori, a prolific graphic designer, printmaker, illustrator, stage set designer and figurative artist, has appropriated ideas from the expressionist, abstract and surrealist movements, forging a style that mixes pastiche and sixties psychedelia. An engagement in science fiction, spiritualism, comic art, woodblock printing, and Japanese aesthetics surface in his creations, many of which seek, through dark, satirical humor and allegory, to usurp nostalgia.
The renovated and repurposed Yokoo Tadanori House Garden opened in 2013. First reactions are predictably mixed. Some visitors will be spellbound, others repelled at its sullying of tradition. The occasional visitor will burst into hysterical laughter. No one will be indifferent, or without an opinion. This is, no doubt, a calculated effect on behalf of Tadanori, known for blurring the line in his role as artist provocateur, between innovation and hoax.
Tadanori’s ersatz version of the Japanese garden in all its lurid splendor
An exercise in counter-intuitive aesthetics, a number of ornamental objects, a plastic crane and turtle, and blue and yellow mosaic tiles among them, items easily picked up in the discount corners of home centers, add to the curiosity, or effrontery felt by the viewer. In creating this disturbing, but iridescent work, Tadanori has deconstructed the Japanese garden and reassembled it in his own iconoclastic, color-saturated private vision of landscape art.
Tadanori’s early pop art style follows, as writer Donald Richie put it, “a hard-edged cartoon line in bright kindergarten colors.” It is, indeed, almost as if a class of toddlers have been let loose with brushes and pots of lurid, primary paints. In this landscape Tadanori’s retro pop vocabulary, however, extends beyond paint to the materials and composition itself. Look closely at the rock dispositions, alignments and spacing, and we see that Tadanori has a surprisingly sophisticated grasp of Japanese garden design.
In common with contemporary art in general, the work poses more questions than answers. A rare instance of high kitsch in this genre, is he ridiculing the Japanese garden, as he did in canvasses depicting icons like Mount Fuji, the Rising Sun flag and kamikaze pilots, or is he revering it? Are we gazing at a toxic interpretation of the Japanese garden, or an anarchic masterpiece?
If the purpose of the garden is to unsettle us, to up-end and trick-wire expectations and assumptions, it succeeds brilliantly.
Tadanori’s plastic landscape clashes with traditional materials like clay, wood and tile.Tadanori upends good taste with colored tile, painted rocks, and a cartoonish tortoise.A winding stream flows beneath the floor of the main gallery.
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Stephen Mansfield wrote the Foreword for Donald Richie’s Travels in the East, and prominent amongst his publications are books on Japanese gardens and Tokyo history. In addition to his authored books (Amazon page), over 2,000 of his articles have appeared in publications such as The Geographical, The Middle East, South China Morning Post, CNN Travel, Japan International Journal, Japan Quarterly, The East, The Japan Journal, Japan Inc, Qantas, Wingspan, Critical Asian Studies, The Japan Times, Ikebana International.
Further Reading on the WiK Website:
In After Act, Stephen considers virus related literature in a pandemic world.
In Metropolis Stephen writes about Japanese cities.
For a review of his life in writing, given as a lunchtime talk for WiK, see here.
For a review by WiK Founder John Dougill of his book, Stone Gardens, click here.
For a short treatise on light and dark in Japanese culture, see here.
For a review by Josh Yates of Stephen’s book on Tokyo: A Biography, see here.
For Stephen Mansfield’s review of the WiK Anthology 3, Encounters with Kyoto, please click here.
by Rebecca Otowa Jan. 21, 2023 at Ryukoku University Omiya Campus
On January 21, nine people gathered to hear Timon Screech’s talk, which was abundantly illustrated with interesting photographs. This talk was organized by WiK with the locale assistance of Paul Carty.
Timon Screech has about 20 books to his credit, including Tokyo before Tokyo and The Shogun’s Silver Telescope. His speaking style reflects his enthusiasm, especially for interesting sidelights on history which illuminate international trade, diplomatic connections, and political machinations. This talk was a good example of this.
It had been a while since I thought about Japanese history, and it is heartening to realize that people like Timon Screech make it their life’s work, as it is so fascinating in so many ways. The title made me wonder what, in this context, is meant by “avatar”, which is defined as an embodiment or symbol, in human form, of a concept, philosophy, or deity. It had not occurred to me to think of Tokugawa Ieyasu in this context, so it filled in some blanks for me with regard to one of the most important characters in Japanese history.
It seems impossible to talk about Ieyasu, the Great Unifier of Japan, without talking about his predecessor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The beautiful and ornate mausoleum of Ieyasu in Nikko, in the north of the Kanto Plain, echoes that of Hideyoshi at Amidagamine in the foothills of Kyoto.
Many historical figures sought “deification” as avatars of Shinto kami 神, or Buddhist figures. They also sought connection with the Imperial Family in order to confer legitimacy on their government, especially those in the new “eastern” capital, Edo, home of the shogunate, which was considered barbaric compared to the “western” court of Kyoto, where the Emperor resided. Both Hideyoshi and Ieyasu desired this kind of connection.
It is important to remember that at this period of history, Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines were not differentiated as they were later. For example, personalities like Sugawara no Michizane became the avatar of Monju Bosatsu (a Buddhist saint and patron of education) and was also, as a kami, associated with Kitano Tenmangu Shrine in Kyoto.
In any case, the warriors who began the shogunate knew that they were looked down on by the Kyoto court, and by associating themselves with dieties and other important figures sought to give an air of legitimacy to their Eastern area. Thus, Ieyasu was made a daimyojin, the highest level of kami, and also became an avatar of the Buddhist deity Yakushi Nyorai; the person engineering this was a Tendai (Mt. Hiei in Kyoto) monk called Tenkai, who was charged with rehabilitating the ancient historical site of Nikko. In the process he started the cult of Ieyasu at that place. This mausoleum is referred to as Toshogu, “the shrine of Tosho”. Tosho was the posthumous name given to Ieyasu, and gu is an Imperial shrine. Nikko means “light of the sun”, (a word describing the Emperor), and the fact that this site was in the East, which is associated with the sun, bound these close together. Specifically, Tokugawa Ieyasu was seen as a light (lantern) which assisted the sun of the Emperor, and the lantern became a symbol of this; many different and interesting lanterns are scattered around the Nikko mausoleum. Lanterns are also used in the worship of Yakushi Nyorai.
For example, a metal lantern, which is a copy of the one at Daitokuji in Nara was donated by Ieyasu’s granddaughter, Masako, who was married to Cloistered Emperor Go-Mizuno-O. Others included two metal lanterns donated by Date Masamune, a famous general of both Hideyoshi and Ieyasu, and three of Dutch manufacture, which were purported to be gifts from Holland, Okinawa and Korea through various political and diplomatic machinations.
There is a very complex hierarchy of lanterns, both those who donated them and those before whom they were burned. The material of metal was the highest level of this hierarchy.
Timon Screech said he is presently working on a book on the topic of this talk. We await the appearance of this book, which will certainly shed light for readers of English on this interesting and important part of Japanese history. Our thanks to him for speaking to us.
＊ ＊ ＊ Information about Timon’s academic background can be found within the original event listing at this link.
Speaker Timon Screech (3rd from R) with WiK Members in Attendance: Mayumi Kawaharada, Rebecca Otowa, Paul Carty, Jann Williams, Cody Poulton, and Fernando Torres. Not pictured: Malcolm Ledger, Karen Lee Tawarayama (Photographer)
In the foothills of Mt. Hiei, in north-east Kyoto, is a Japanese cultural centre dedicated to the dance. Designed by the same architect who planned the State Guest House, it is a sprawling complex of rooms, magnificent gardens, stages, and halls. When money is little object, this is the result.
The first room into which I was shown was a large reception room with Regency-style sofas and chairs. The window, which stretched completely along one wall, looked out onto a raised garden of pink azaleas, into which large rocks had been set, with small paths leading up behind them. It was rather like looking into a silent aquarium.
Another long wall was made completely of black lacquer, with intricate and wonderfully conceived mother-of-pearl inlay. Though considerably simpler, the conception reminded me of the Amber Room in the Catherine Palace near St. Petersburg. A large sea-shell on a small table nearby bore similar patterns on the inside.
On the second floor was a large hall with a stage and all the accompanying paraphernalia of lights and curtains. There was a large pine tree painted on the back board for the Noh theatre. Gods are said to descend into the human world from it.
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