Writers In Kyoto

Page 3 of 65

Illusory Dwellings: Aesthetic Meditations in Kyoto

August 4, 2024

by Allen S. Weiss. Stone Bridge Press, p179
Reviewed by Stephen Mansfield

Early in ‘Illusory Dwellings,’ Allen S. Weiss, writing of the journey and the environs it takes us to in the quest for identity, states, “We map a city according to our fantasies and desires, and in turn the city frames our lives and inflects our destinies.” This collusive process could as easily be applied to art and aesthetics, the author’s primary interests in this book. 

    Weiss’s work is difficult to categorize, but might be termed one of the higher forms of rumination on art and aesthetics, a practice restricted to a small group of writers, critics and polymaths, stretching from Walter Pater and John Ruskin to Alain de Botton. Geoff Dyer and Teju Cole come to mind for their considered meditations on states of being.

    The beauty of Weiss’s prose, which is evident throughout this book, is an enticement to proceed to his ideas, a process that is a form of ensnarement, forcing the serious reader to reexamine their muddled thinking. Whether he is pondering the transformative work of an ikebana master, an iconoclastic ceramicist, or John Cage’s abstract score for Ryoanji, a composition played in chance-determined sequences based on the perception of the garden and its fifteen stones as a pre-existing form of musical score, or commending the experience of restaurant interiors, tableware, calligraphic displays and flower arrangements, an entrée into the refinements of Japanese culture, he does so with an uncommon refinement. Here is a book that doesn’t present itself as a work of literary merit, but cannot fail in being one. Books like this are a supreme rarity.

   With deft hands, Weiss peels back the fine layering of opaque membrane that wraps the core of Japanese aesthetics, and takes us, in the case of the tea ceremony, into a “utopia with a single ritualistic purpose, a space that prepares one for enlightenment.” Eschewing the anointed look of the culturally mesmerized, and, thereby, compromised, Weiss writes of the practice, that the purity of its origins have been, “corrupted by the commodity aspect of tea utensils and the utilization of the private space of the tea room for political and financial intrigues.” The author understands the dilemma faced by the more aesthetically conscious tea masters, trapped between material forms, consumer valuations, and a striving for “pure connoisseurship, which can appear “mannerist, even decadent.” Does one adhere to a form of ritual so formally correct and minimalist it compromises the social leveling of the event, or stage a presentation so opulent, you end up with over-stewed leaves? 

    Could this very fastidiousness, the sedulousness of a practice that keeps the unschooled hordes from the door, amount to, not just an affectation, but an over-attention to perfection? This put me in mind of a tea ceremony I attended earlier this year, in which the master, an elderly woman, apologized profusely for the condition of the winter camellia chosen for the event, which had suddenly blossomed that morning into a showy, unintended efflorescence. She hoped that the raku ware tea bowl that was being passed around, with its more muted tones, would moderate the over-exuberance of the flowers.  

    Is the appreciation of such aesthetics in decline? Or, more to the point, how long has it been in decline? The appreciation of limited morsels of light in the Japanese home, for example, had already begun to lapse into a cult of quaintness by the time Junichiro Tanizaki published his long 1933 essay, ‘In Praise of Shadows’. Tanizaki, whom Weiss references, celebrates the merits of meager light and perishable, organic materials, noting in the case of the zashiki, the Japanese tatami room, that walls are deliberately made from soil and sand, in order to, “let the frail, melancholic, ephemeral light saturate the solemn composure of their earthy tones.” There is no question that, today, the appreciation of such refinements is confined to a very small number of Japanese. One would have to go to considerable lengths to experience the aesthetic sensations celebrated by Tanizaki, and now by Weiss.

    In an age in which the publishing industry, indiscriminate in its eagerness to bring out books on Japanese culture, to provide instant gratification, Weiss demands a great deal more from his readers. Spearheading a cerebral, unsparing school of intellectual inquiry, one you might term, “extreme erudition,” you’ll have to have your wits about you when encountering, for example, a sentence like, “If it is neither diegetic nor adiegetic, would it be paradiegetic?” which concerns the function of the frame in the visual arts.

    As someone who grew up in a house totally bereft of books, I have spent a lifetime filling empty rooms with the written word, with titles that turn barren emptiness into what Donald Richie termed “the nourishing void.” The aptly named ‘Illusory Dwellings,’ is a fine addition to this improvised library. 

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Writers in Kyoto were very fortunate to welcome Allen S. Weiss to speak on ‘Illusory Dwellings’ and a variety of other topics in May 2024. Reflections on the event can be found here. A listing of Allen’s books can be viewed on his Amazon author page here.

Photojournalist and author Stephen Mansfield’s work has appeared in over 70 publications worldwide, on subjects ranging from conflict in the Middle East to cultural analysis, interviews and book reviews. To read more from and about Stephen Mansfield on the Writers in Kyoto website, please refer to this link.

Writers in focus

Hearn on Heian Jingu

July 24, 2024

In Kokoro (Chapter 4 Section 6) Hearn writes of ‘Dai-Kioku-Den’, which is how Heian Jingu was known on its establishment in 1895. Hearn was in town for the celebrations to mark the grand opening of a monument to mark the restoration of imperial supremacy. (Shrine and temple  were used interchangeably in early Meiji, before the terms became standardised as shrine for Shinto and temple for  Buddhism.)

The normally reliable Hearn appears to have made a mistake about Emperor Kammu’s succession, since officially he was the 50th of the imperial line,  not  the 51st. He also writes of the ‘original scale’ of the palace, whereas Heian Shrine is slightly scaled down and modelled on 5/8ths of the Heian-era building. The description below not only shows Hearn’s remarkable gift for colourful description (‘architectural necromany’), but also his fascination with the part played by ‘ghosts’ (i.e. the dead) in Japan’s spiritual culture.

Kyoto, April 21. The noblest examples of religious architecture in the whole empire have just been completed; and the great City of Temples is now enriched by two constructions probably never surpassed in all the ten centuries of its existence. One is the gift of the Imperial Government; the other, the gift of the common people. The government’s gift is the Dai-Kioku-Den,- erected to commemorate the great festival of Kwammu Tenno, fifty-first emperor of Japan, and founder of the Sacred City. To the Spirit of this Emperor the Dai-Kioku-Den is dedicated: it is thus a Shinto temple, and the most superb of all Shinto temples. Nevertheless, it is not Shinto architecture, but a facsimile of the original palace of Kwammu Tenno upon the original scale.

The effect upon national sentiment of this magnificent deviation from conventional forms, and the profound poetry of the reverential feeling which suggested it, can be fully comprehended only by those who know that Japan is still practically ruled by the dead. Much more than beautiful are the edifices of the Dai-Kioku-Den. Even in this most archaic of Japan cities they startle; they tell to the sky in every tilted line of their horned roofs the tale of another and more fantastic age. The most eccentrically striking parts of the whole are the two-storied and five-towered gates, – veritable Chinese dreams, one would say. In color the construction is not less oddly attractive than in form,-and this especially because of the fine use made of antique green tiles in the polychromatic roofing. Surely the august Spirit of Kwammu Tenno might well rejoice in this charming evocation of the past by architectural necromancy!

Authors who belong to Writers in Kyoto

Can I Call You Daddy?

July 22, 2024

by Marianne Kimura

Looking lost, my husband wanders outside with a wet rag he’d just used to clean the bathroom sink.

I pop my head out of the window.

“Otoosan”, I say, “hang it over there near the washing machine, near the other rags. When there’s more, I’ll wash them all together”.

As I close the window, it occurs to me, not for the first time, how odd it still feels to keep calling my husband the Japanese equivalent of “Dad”. But I’ve been doing that ever since our first child was born around 26 years ago! I’ve gotten so used to it, yet also, it does still occur to me that it seems strange.

Of course, I know that it’s common for older couples with kids here in Japan to call each other “Otoosan” (Dad) and “Okaasan” (Mom) while younger couples with kids typically prefer the more modern “Papa” and “Mama”. When our daughter was born, we were living in the smallest prefectural capital in a rural and very traditional part of western Japan, Yamaguchi. I’d often hear women in my neighborhood sing out “Otoosan!” when they were calling their husbands. Or I would hear them in shops: “Otoosan, look at how cheap these apples are today!” At first it seemed awkward to me, but soon I got totally used to it. It’s true, though, that I didn’t hear the reverse as much, the men calling “Okaasan” to their wives. I put it down to men’s naturally being less talkative. And also, I’ve sometimes heard men here calling their wives by nicknames, such as “Mi-chan” for “Miwako”.

I remember learning that calling your spouse—or indeed anyone―by his or her first name is kind of bad luck here so obviously I didn’t want to call my husband by his first name, Takeshi. I noticed that his family members mostly called him “Take-chan”. For a few years, before our daughter was born, I tried that for a while too, (my husband seemed amused by this), but that seemed strange to me as well. We’d lived in Chicago for four years before we’d moved to Japan, so I was quite used to calling him “Takeshi”. But when we moved here and I heard that using first names with your spouse was perhaps bringing bad luck, calling him “Takeshi” suddenly seemed like not only a brazen flouting of cultural norms, but possibly an invitation to disaster.

So, when our daughter was born, it was a relief to turn to the safe term “Otoosan”, and later, when I heard younger couples using “Mama” and “Papa”, perhaps I felt outdated, but I didn’t mind.

Still, I can’t help but feel, as a foreigner, maybe a little self-conscious still, about calling my husband “Otoosan”, which after all means “Dad”.

So what does my husband call me? Usually it’s, yes, “Okaasan”. But occasionally he will use my name, Marianne. Perhaps he’s not as superstitious as me? Or perhaps, as I’m a foreigner, there’s not so much bad luck attached to my name?

Now that having kids has become rarer in Japan, I’m also curious about what younger married couples would call each other since they might not ever become “Mama” and “Papa”. I feel like the answer is nicknames.

I investigated the topic of “bad luck surrounding first names in Japan” by asking my husband. He said that traditionally when kids were young, it was considered bad luck to use their first names because they still belonged partly to the spirit world, and using their real names could function somehow to call them back there.

Still, I remember clearly reading (but I don’t remember where) that it is even bad luck for a wife to call her husband by his first name. But is this merely an “old wives’ tale?”

And now so much water has gone by under the bridge, as they say, that I can’t call him “Takeshi” naturally any longer!

Here is what I found on Quora about this topic. The answer is written by a Japanese man in his 50s:

My mother still refers to my father by our surname when she is talking to her friends or siblings.

Among ourselves, she calls him “Granddad” and me “Eldest Bro.” Within a family, we call each other by our roles from the viewpoint of the youngest member. When I was a kid, they would call each other “Dad” and “Mom” respectively, and now “Granddad” and “Grandma” from the viewpoint of my kids. I had two younger brothers so hence “Eldest Bro” even now.

So, in a nutshell, Japanese people avoid using their first names by any means. It’s almost like an obsession, on par with those wizards at Hogwarts against calling the noseless villain his name. My uneducated guess is that it has something to do with the culture’s strong propensity for high-context indirectness mixed with a sense of deity that we associate with people’s names.

The samurai class of old days had this unique tradition where they gave children “childhood names” that were exclusively used until they finished coming-of-age ceremony (genpuku) and were granted a real adulthood name. The childhood name was for protecting children from the evil, while the adulthood name was treated as a sort of taboo, and it was not supposed to be mentioned until after the person was deceased.

I believe there was a similar “taboo name” culture in China, too.[1]

[1] https://www.quora.com/Is-it-common-for-Japanese-girls-to-call-guys-by-their-first-name

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For other writings by Marianne Kimura on the Writers in Kyoto website, please see here. Marianne also has a sizable following on TikTok, describing herself as a Shakespeare performer and academic witch, and can be found under the name uguisu77.

Event Reminder: Authors Susan Ito and Suzanne Kamata in Conversation (July 27th)

July 15, 2024

Several years ago, Susan Ito and Writers in Kyoto member Suzanne Kamata were co-fiction editors of an online journal called literarymama.com. Now they meet again in Japan, where they will discuss Susan’s recently published memoir, I Would Meet You Anywhere, about being a biracial individual raised by adoptive Japanese American parents, and finding her Japanese birth mother and white birth father’s families. 

Susan will read a few brief excerpts. Both authors will also speak about writing in general, as well as Susan’s connection to Japan, and there will be plenty of time for questions. There will also be a reading by students accompanying Susan 30 minutes before the main talk begins.

Event Details:
■　Date and Time: July 27th (Saturday), 2:00pm~4:00pm
■　Venue: Ryukoku University Omiya Campus, East Building, Room #302
　　(Google Maps Link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/pJrXp4xcakTfcjnh7)
■　Participation Fee: Free

More details can be found in our original event posting here.

Japan Local Prize – Adam Clague (Ninth Annual Kyoto Writing Competition)

July 15, 2024

From the Judges:
“A discourse on the likely passing of a traditional art. So much of what makes Kyoto special is fading away, with every machiya demolished and every craftsman who retires without passing on his skills. This piece highlights that sad fact by describing the ubiquitous lacquerware for sale at the city’s flea markets, all of it genuine, because “Why replicate what they believe to be worthless?” Yet, these remnants continue to inspire deities and mortals alike.”

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While the Lacquer Dries

Autumn arrived a day before the city
As it tends to this side of the mountains
The Andon replaced the glow of the sunset
And so, banquet over,
Came the time to address the stack of used bowls.
He passed me a small bowl, frail and cracked
‘Be careful drying that, that’s Meiji lacquer’
So often did our conversations begin this way.

‘Can you still find lacquer like that?’
‘Truckloads, in those two big flea markets in the city’
He was, of course, referring to the vendors.
Those that picked gold stacked against the skeletons
Of shuttered houses up in the hills
With only the moonlight to turn a blind eye
Returning down unkept mountain roads buckling with loot
A disorganised underbelly of haggling and crumpled newspaper
Items exposed as if unsightly weeds
In the most sacred of grounds
As if the gods wouldn’t notice.
I knew them well.

And because I did, one final question:
‘How can I know when I am holding a counterfeit?’
His response disrupted the rhythm of my drying.
‘It’s all real. Why replicate what they believe to be worthless?’
Said not bitterly, but in disbelief.
And in sensing mine, he added,
With the sadness of a millennium,
‘You’re only witnessing the collapse of an entire art industry.’
Those final words now bled out,
We dried the last of the lacquer, to avoid it cracking further.
Sliding the front door behind him
To keep the chill and the truth out, or maybe in
He looked solemn as we bade farewell.
I passed underneath the light of the gate, alive with moths
The fields already crossed into red Spider Lillies
The wind pushing the silence around on the edge of the Kyoto night.

Image provided by Adam Clague

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Adam Clague was born and raised on the Isle of Man, moving to Japan at 18 to complete his bachelor’s degree in the School of Human Sciences at Osaka University. He was also a Nissan scholar in Japanese Studies at Oxford University. With a keen interest in Japanese craft revitalisation, his winning piece contains excerpts from a conversation with his long-time mentor, Alex Kerr, about the state of the lacquer industry in contemporary Japan.

For the full list of this year’s competition winners, click here. For this year’s original competition notice (with prize details), click here.

Writers in Kyoto Member Prize – Abigail Deveney (Ninth Annual Kyoto Writing Competition)

June 29, 2024

From the Judges:
“In these ruminations on scenes along the Kamo River, a skater flies with the wind, finding freedom along this picturesque artery flowing through the city. The river’s banks attract all sorts of people, and in this piece one with physical challenges wistfully envies the fluid motions of the other.  And yet, thoughts transcend envy and energy is absorbed. Age finds hopefulness in youth.”

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On Repeat

You carve a figure eight along the Kamo’s banks: careless; carefree.

From Shichijo bridge, my body braced against the railing, I envy your fluidity as you map infinity.

On short blades, you cast long shadows as you roller ski the river’s path. You are a silhouette, a solitude, a surprise.

I am solo, too, though far less lively, my crutch at rest as one knee wages war and my hand and shoulder beg surrender.

In a space beside some steps, you turn and loop, a twist tucked in the middle. You trace your tracks with speed, though don’t seem in a rush.

Teasing concrete walls, flirting with the stairs, you swirl and twirl. Flinging poles kiss solid ground as thick thighs form an askew V, pushing, pulsing, playful.

I share your reverie.

Walkers glance. Joggers scatter. Artists frown, while lovers laugh and stroll. The Kamo stays its course. It will not define you, nor can it confine you, as you challenge all convention in a state of grace.

Black leggings and a yellow helmet flash and slash while willows weep for want of green and ginkgo comfort, golden.

Stick in hand, I hurry on my way. Across a river that divides, along a bridge that connects, I struggle to advance as you chart destiny.

I don’t glance back; time presses on me now. I need to think that you’re still there, your patterns on repeat.

Crutched tree in Kyoto, still solid and lovely, provided by Abigail Deveney

Photo provided by Abigail Deveney

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Abigail Deveney, a journalist born in Canada, has lived and worked globally, including two stints in Tokyo. Abigail co-founded The Lupine Review literary magazine in Whistler, Canada, was shortlisted by Event magazine in her first competitive creative-writing foray and held a senior role at The Guardian newspaper for nearly a decade. Abigail lives in London, UK, and earned her MA Japanese Studies from SOAS.

Moments in time play on her mind: alpenglow on Whistler peaks; strawberries and wasps in English summer; the dance of shadow and light in Kyoto. Endlessly curious, Abigail won’t let bad knees hold her back.

For the full list of this year’s competition winners, click here. For this year’s original competition notice (with prize details), click here.

Words and Music, June 2024

June 17, 2024

Writers in Kyoto held its summer Words and Music open-mic style event on the warm rainy evening of June 16th at Irish Pub Gnome in downtown Kyoto. The venue was filled to capacity as ten WiK members, introduced by organizer and MC, Rebecca Otowa, presented poetry, writing and music to an audience of fellow members, spouses and friends. See videos of the performances below.

1) Yasuo Nagai

Yasuo Nagai sings an original song, “Higashiyama Sanjūroppō.”

2) Eleanor Yamaguchi

Eleanor Yamaguchi reads poetry written by her mother in the 80’s.

3) John Dougill

John Dougill reads poetry he wrote while traveling the world in the 1975.

4) James Woodham

James Woodham reads his poetry about Lake Biwa and Kyoto.

5) Jann Williams

Jann Williams chants the Fudo Myō mantra.

6) Rebecca Otowa

Rebecca Otowa reads poems she wrote while living in Japan in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

7) Mayumi Kawaharada

Mayumi Kawaharada reads work she published in seashores, an international haiku journal.

8) Mary Louise Nakata

Mary Louise Nakata plays Irish tunes on her viola.

9) Ken Rodgers

Ken Rodgers reads writings inspired by his visits to the circuit of 88 temples in Shikoku.

10) Kirsty Kawano

Kirsty Kawano reads two of her poems, “Eat My Words,” and “Too Close to See.”

Videos by Rick Elizaga.

Writers in focus

A Man Caught by History

June 16, 2024

A Short Story by Rebecca Otowa

Introduction

We don’t know very much about the 12 Apostles of Jesus, his constant companions during the latter part of his life, except that Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, and another pair of siblings, James and John, were fishermen; and the writer of one of the Gospels, St. John the Divine, was the longest lived and became a hermit on the island of Patmos in Greece; two others, Matthew and Mark, were also writers of Gospels. Another Apostle, Judas Iscariot, is probably one of the most famous people in history for whom the conflict between his original morality and the opportunity to be another person entirely tore him apart. He was the Apostle who is said to have betrayed Jesus “for thirty pieces of silver”. This is always said contemptuously, as though the amount should be enough to make us hate him. How betrayed? He gave information about Jesus’ whereabouts, and this led to Jesus’ being arrested by a “great multitude” of “priests and the elders of the people” in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the evening before his death; Judas kissed Jesus to indicate to the people that he was the one they sought. Judas subsequently felt tremendously guilty (we assume) about his role in Jesus’ arrest and subsequent execution, and he is recorded as having committed suicide shortly afterwards. We don’t know whether these stories recount factual events or whether they are meant to be symbolic of greater truths; there are several versions, which correlate among themselves, in the Gospels, though the writers did know each other, and it is possible that they collaborated or discussed these events, which they supposedly witnessed at first hand, before writing.

The great drama of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion was put in train by the actions of
Judas, making him indispensable to the story. In some versions, Jesus knew that Judas was slated to become his betrayer, in fact knew the whole scenario beforehand, in which case Judas the human being was simply playing a role that was appointed and necessary. This short story is based on my imagination of Judas’ home life and his feelings about the events he was caught up in. It doesn’t tell the whole story, but attempts to give his actions some motive, which is absent (for whatever reason) in the original tale. He is universally despised for taking the bribe and giving the information – but which of us can say they would never do the same? Those were parlous times, and I expect Judas was not a stupid man. He probably guessed that whichever he did, he would be hated, vilified, and doomed by one sector or another of the community. Was he helpless? Was he simply a puppet of events, why did he do what he did? Is he meant to represent all people who are sitting on the fence of history?

In the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, which retells these events from a slightly more modern perspective, Judas is the Apostle who recognizes that the whole system of Jesus’ teachings is losing momentum and going “sour”, and decides to betray Jesus, and thus end the situation, as a solution to the problem. He is racked by guilt when he sees Jesus dying on the cross, and with his final breath before he commits suicide, accuses Jesus of “murdering” him.

We don’t know whether the Apostles were married, but in that time and place, many of them would have to have been. The idea that Judas was married is not based on anything but my own imagination. He was in all probability a householder with a family and a place in the community, and all the obligations and complex feelings that go with that. At least, that is what my imagination tells me.

Based on the King James version of the Bible and the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, this story is not connected to the atrocities now being perpetrated in the Middle East in any way. It is just something that occurred to me.

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The sun was low in the sky, and it was still hot, when Judas came home, tired and dusty, from another day of trekking the countryside in the wake of Jesus and the group that always surrounded him. He entered his house, lifting the latch of the stout wooden door, and was met by his wife, who proffered a ceramic bowl of water for him to wash his face, hands, and feet. As he bent to the water, his children flocked around him, chattering busily, and he greeted them before grabbing the cloth his wife had left, wiping the parts he had rinsed off, and tossing the bowlful of dusty water out the door with a swing of his arms. The water landed with a smack in the midst of the small fenced kitchen garden in front of the house. He went in to supper with his family.

When the evening rituals were over, and the children had been herded off to bed, Judas sat enjoying the cool of the evening on a bench outside the front door. After a while, his wife came out, dipped a ladle into the water jar just outside the door, and took a drink before sitting down next to her husband. They sat together savoring the cool breeze for a moment, and then she spoke.

“The vegetables will grow nicely this year, everybody says,” she said as she looked at the small shoots growing in the kitchen garden. Then, looking sidelong at him, “We will need every scrap of food if you persist in this path you have chosen.”

They both remembered the recent twists and turns of their shared life – his meeting with Jesus of Nazareth and how he became a full-time follower, abandoning his work with his father-in-law in order to do so, and that meant that even with her parents helping them in various ways, there was no money coming in. Times were hard with the high taxes levied by the Romans, and there were many expenses. Judas was worried, and his wife more so. She continued,

“We need money. You are a family man, but you are not supporting us. I’m ashamed in front of my family and friends. Pretty soon the shame will turn to penury. Thank goodness my father owns this house, so we will not be turned out to become indigent beggars, like so many others, but still. What are you going to do? We can’t go on like this. You have to decide!” She got up restlessly and entered the garden, inspecting the young plants that grew there.

Judas stared out, past the garden to the houses opposite theirs in the village. He knew that he wasn’t pulling his weight as a citizen these days, and he also knew that many of his fellow villagers thought he was mentally defective, abandoning his regular life in order to throw in his lot with that hothead. The dream that Jesus had offered, of direct communication with the Father God, circumventing the priests of the temple, had been so alluring. But was it practical? The priests had everything sewn up in the lives of the villagers. The necessary rituals of life were their province, and theirs alone; and had to be paid for by “donations” which felt like just another form of taxation. Everyone knew that there was venality among the priests, some of whom allowed moneylenders and other scum to ply their trades in the temple precincts in order to line their own pockets; but religion was the lifeblood of the people, and whatever the priests said, the villagers had to do, in order to stay within the fold of ordinary folk, where it was safe, if expensive.

Judas knew that Jesus found it disgusting that the priests of the temple were more interested in money than in the spiritual health of the community – in fact, most of them seemed to be of the opinion that money – riches – were the spiritual health of the community, or at least one of its most obvious indicators. Jesus had led a raid on the temple recently, in which he laid about him with scourges, toppling the stands of the money changers and places where sacrificial animals could be bought, and said “Make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.” The priests were angered, a lot of the temple’s income being derived from these stands, and Judas knew it was only a matter of time before they would seek restitution for this outrage. It was not enough that Jesus, and increasingly his followers, were rabble-rousers; there was also ample evidence that Jesus claimed that he was a child of the Father God, and that anyone could say the same thing. This was not acceptable to the priests, whose livelihood and very existence were endangered by this idea; in fact it was blasphemy, and illegal according to their system. Those priests were going to make sure that Jesus and his followers would be put down. Their ideas and actions were getting too dangerous. Life was already quite precarious with stress between the inhabitants and the government of Pilate, the governor of Judea under Emperor Tiberius of Rome; various insurrections had kept the well-armed Roman soldiers on every corner busy for months. The Romans held the locals in contempt, not least because of their belief in one God, which the Romans found ridiculous in the light of their own polytheocratic society. The whole thing was a powder-keg. And was Judas to go up with everything else when it blew? What of his family and village? Did he have the courage to stand up for the ideas Jesus taught and that he, as a follower, had helped to promulgate? And what good would it do for him to stand up for them?

Judas knew all this; his own family were suffering because of the situation, and he had exacerbated it by throwing in his lot with a known troublemaker. What should he do? Gradually an idea came to him: it was repellent, but it would quiet things down for the moment. And if he played his cards right, he would get some ready cash, which would mollify his wife and her family, as well as pacifying the priests and going a long way toward making village life, perhaps even national life, palatable again. He got up from the bench, resolved to meet with the priests in the morning. Calling a good night to his wife, he entered the house and went to bed.

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The next morning the villagers were out and about early, preparing for the Feast of Passover which was to be held later that week. Judas slipped out his door and joined the foot-traffic. He was due to meet Jesus and his followers soon in the center of town; but first he needed to talk to someone in authority, and institute his plan. After a sleepless night, he had awakened determined.

He walked to the temple gate and went inside, to the large and spacious area within. The stands of the money changers and other little shops were back in place all around the perimeter; it would take more than one enraged man with a whip, even one with many followers, to roust them out permanently. Judas skirted them and came to the colonnaded walkway where, he knew, some of the priests would be congregated, enjoying some discussion of the Holy Books after breakfast. There they were.

“What do you want?” One of a small group of priests addressed him as he approached.

“I have come about the blasphemer Jesus of Nazareth. I wish to talk to someone in authority.”

“You are Judas Iscariot, are you not?” As a householder, Judas was known to the temple – or at least his family was.

“Yes.”

“Follow me.” The priest who had addressed him excused himself from the group, scholars who spent their days, when not engaged in ritual, arguing over fine points of religious law. Judas and the priest walked into a doorway and up some stairs. He was ushered into a well-appointed room. In a very short while, three high-level priests, recognizable by their robes, came in. They sat down on marble benches nearby. Judas, not invited to sit, remained standing.

“Now what is this all about?” said one.

“I understand that Jesus of Nazareth has caused you some trouble.”

“That’s putting it mildly. We are at our wits’ end. This lunatic and his followers have broken several of our laws. There have been many outrages, including the recent one where this man incited a riot right in the temple grounds. The Roman government wants us to do something about it.” The three priests nodded to each other.

Judas swallowed. “Well, I have been in that group of followers recently, and I have become alarmed at the turn things have taken. Therefore I have come to you, to do what I can to help you to restore the status quo.”

“What can you do? Oh, if you have been a follower, you can lead us to him so we can arrest him. Would you be willing to do that?”

Judas hesitated. He was now afraid of his own decision, but he had already identified himself as one of Jesus’ followers. If he didn’t do what they wanted, they might come after him. Then what would happen to this family? He had to decide now which side he should be on. Finally he took the plunge.

“I can see no alternative. At the upcoming Passover feast, Jesus and his main followers will be at a certain place I know, and afterwards, in the evening, according to his custom, Jesus will be in a secluded garden, communing, as he says, with his Father God.”

The priests harrumphed and their eyes flashed. “Which garden?”

“The Garden of Gethsemane. That is his favorite, because it is so isolated.”

“Good. Of course we will pay you for this information.” The priests conferred in whispers. “How does thirty pieces of silver sound?”

Judas was flabbergasted at the size of the sum. That would go a long way toward getting his family out of the financial hole they were in. But at what cost! He had been living cheek by jowl with Jesus and the other main followers for weeks. He knew Jesus intimately and would have called him a friend. How could he do this? But his misgivings about the methods of the followers, and his money worries, were too strong. He spread his hands deprecatingly. “Well, I don’t want to take blood money …but I see no alternative. Since I have been a follower of this Jesus, my own income has dwindled and my wife and family are in danger of penury.”

“It’s settled then.” The priest laboriously stood up and exited the room, soon returning with a cloth bag that seemed very heavy. “Here you are.”

“All right, you and soldiers come to the garden after dinner on Passover, and I will point him out to you by kissing him on the cheek.”

“That is good. You have done the right thing, for your family and for your community. Now don’t forget your promise. We know who you are, and if it doesn’t go well, we will know where to look for you. We will arrange for soldiers to come with us.” The three priests filed out, and Judas was left alone.

The enormity of his action weighed on Judas even more heavily than the cloth bag, which he stowed away in his clothing before turning and making his way out. He was not to know that that bag of money – the thirty pieces of silver – would be coupled with his name and his deed, and define him, down through the ages. He knew only that he had made a hard decision, and had decided on the side of his family and community. He could have done nothing else. And yet…

＊　＊　＊

Rebecca Otowa is a long-time member of Writers in Kyoto and serves on the WiK Committee as Reviews Supervisor. She is the author of Tuttle publications At Home in Japan, My Awesome Japan Adventure, and The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper, as well as her self-published book of illustrations, 100 Objects in My Japanese House.

Unohana Prize – Licia Braga (Ninth Annual Kyoto Writing Competition)

June 16, 2024

From the Judges:
“The vivid and beautiful imagery of this piece was striking, and its ambiguity left the judges wondering from the beginning whether the elderly woman described was actually Kyoto personified in its feminine aspects.”

＊　　＊　　＊

Limbo

She wakes up in the morning amongst mountains dotted with clouds and dozes off on the train amongst words she doesn’t know.

She runs in her heels and stops for a prayer; in her office attire, she doesn’t mind lingering on the bridge.

Her old back relentlessly bent on the veggies, the radio plays songs of her youth. Behind dusty packs of cigarettes and dirty glasses, she stares at the traffic of the evening.

She hangs out with friends and robot-dogs at the temple garden, but at dusk you might see her walking down the street with a rabbit on her shoulder.

In the evening, she puts on her makeup of signs and lanterns, her whites and reds so much more alive in the rain.

She lives in silent houses and plays music by the river.

She dines on art, sitting amongst bicycles and motorbikes.

She enjoys elegant cafes, but tired bakeries, like wrinkles, can tell all of her struggles.

She boasts about flowers, colours and dances, but keeps behind the mushikomado* the ancient rituals that spell her name. Shadows shelter their private routines.

You’d say one could see right through her, across her straight alleys from mountain to mountain, and yet she plays hide and seek, opening the doors of her houses and concealing herself in their twilight.

She smiles, inviting me in. Somehow, she leaves me lurking at her gardens beyond a noren*, slightly moved aside by the breeze.

Kyoto embraces me and has me at her threshold, staring and wondering. And it is not so bad, after all, raving in this limbo, red torii in my eyes and a sakuramochi* in my hand.

Photograph by Licia Braga

＊　　＊　　＊
Licia Braga is an Italian who studied Japanese language and culture in Venice. After much traveling and living abroad (and ending up forgetting much of what she learnt of her Japanese language studies), she finally managed to move to Japan last year, straight to the core of its fascinating ancient capital. She loves reading, painting, dancing and hiking, and she has just recently started trying her hand at writing to give shape to the colors and impressions gathered from her new daily life, which she enjoys very much.

*Japanese terms:

mushikomado: a unique window style found in Japanese townhouses. These windows have a fine lattice like an insect cage, and are believed to have gained popularity during the Edo period

noren: traditional cloth partitions hung in the doorways of businesses or as general interior decorations, with one or more vertical cuts from the bottom to facilitate passage.

sakuramochi: a traditional Japanese sweet enjoyed during the spring season, consisting of a sweet, pink rice cake filled with red bean paste which is wrapped in a pickled cherry leaf.

PETALS OF HUMANITY

June 4, 2024


Each of Us a Petal (Victorina Press, 2024) by Amanda Huggins
Review by Rebecca Otowa

A member of Writers in Kyoto, the author has won prizes and honorable mentions in the WiK Writing Competition, and her work has been included in WiK anthologies. (A short bio follows the review.)

The present book is a collection of 19 short stories, romantic, spiritual and full of small details of life in Japan. There is a foreword, “Touching Japan”, in which the author tells a little about her connection with Japan and also says by way of introduction to the stories, “lonely characters are estranged from their usual lives, navigating the unfamiliar while trying to make sense of the human condition of their landscapes.” As a person who has written a short story collection myself, I know that a theme does emerge for the entire collection, whether deliberately chosen at the beginning, or organically when the collection is complete. There is also a glossary of Japanese words at the end, and evocative photos of scenes in Japan are included throughout.

Many of the stories are of love – with spirits, with people lost to death or by cruel separations, or simply by walking away. Some of the love is what we might call illicit, but it is always about human beings coming together, driven by their needs and individual agendas.

Most of the stories are set in urban Japan, though some are from other, far-flung places like Berlin, a small town in a stormy Northern UK coastal region, or small villages in Japan like Onokatsu in Shikoku.

It seems to be a device used often by the author, that many stories have endings which require effort or filling in by the reader – in fact, some of them seem unfinished. The subtle way in which she involves the reader is interesting and pulls you along in the book, wondering how the next story will end.

There are surprising images. One I particularly noticed was in the story of a wife and husband who had lost their baby. “At random moments [grief] would rear up unexpectedly with a clatter of hooves. When it did, it was deafening.” This story, “An Unfamiliar Landscape”, is based on noise – the noises inside the head of the narrator and the clamor of urban life in Tokyo, where she and her husband have ended up after a job transfer, and where she searches for silence in various places. It is interesting how an author can choose a sense that pervades a story, other than the sense of sight, which takes precedence in many stories one reads.

Some of the stories have an intimate connection to WiK. “Sparrow Footprints” was written especially for the annual Writers in Kyoto writing competition (2020), where it won second prize and was included in the 5th Anthology. “The Knife Salesman from Kochi” appeared in a shortened form (flash fiction) for the WiK writing competition (2023), and won the Mayoral Prize in that competition. It will appear in the next WiK anthology.

The stories are all rich in detail and move backward and forward in time, following the memories of the narrators. It is possible to follow the lives of many human beings – foreign and Japanese, traditional inn employees and modern single mothers, salarymen in the bath and a drunken woman in a restaurant.

I could not end this review better than with the author’s own words in the final paragraph of the Foreword, “… it is the people, landscape, and culture of Japan which continue to influence and inspire the aesthetic and sensibility of my writing… That said, I claim to understand nothing more than what it feels like to be human, whoever and wherever we are, and I hope that you will forgive me for sometimes writing about a Japan which exists only in my imagination.”

*********************

Following is a short bio of the author.
Amanda Huggins is the author of the novellas All Our Squandered Beauty and Crossing the Lines as well as six collections of short stories and poetry. Her work has been published by Harper’s Bazaar, Mslexia, Popshot, Tokyo Weekender, The Telegraph, Traveller, Wanderlust, the Guardian and many others. Three of her flash fiction stories have also been broadcast on BBC radio.
She has won numerous awards, including three Saboteur Awards for fiction and poetry, the Kyoto City Mayoral Prize, the Colm Toibin International Short Story Award, the H E Bates Short Story Prize and the BGTW New Travel Writer of the Year. She has placed in the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Competition, the Costa Short Story Award, the Fish Short Story Prize and the Bath Flash Fiction Award, and been shortlisted for the Bridport Flash Prize and many others. Amanda lives in Yorkshire, England and works as a freelance editor.

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About Writers in Kyoto

Writers in Kyoto (WiK) is a group of English-language authors working or living in the city, or admiring it from afar. It is run on a membership basis and its purpose is for writers to help each other by creating opportunities for promotion, book launches, readings, the exchange of information, and social events. Read more

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