Writers In Kyoto

Page 8 of 65

Authors who belong to Writers in Kyoto

Crossing the Path of Bonsai

September 4, 2023

by Robert Weis

Photos by Robert Weis

The following text is an excerpt from the self-published volume A tiny nature – recollections of poems and trees (August 2023), available exclusively from Amazon. It features a collection of poems, short prose texts and photographs of bonsai trees from Japan and Europe.

********************
I was gazing at the landscape from behind the window of the local train running from Takamatsu to Kinashi and I was thinking about to what extent the nature of this country, Japan, was different from the nature I was familiar with back in Europe. Japan is a land of mountains, accounting for 63 per cent of its surface area: these mountains paraded before my eyes, shrouded in that quintessentially Japanese moisture that brought out the nuances of color in a soft, subdued light, just like in some photographs from the 1970s in my parents’ house. Nostalgia for an unknown life was one of the reasons that made me return to a country so far away and yet so familiar.

Another reason that brought me on this short trip to the island of Shikoku was my attraction to bonsai trees, the small potted plants that materialize a connection with nature which I had felt since childhood. My interest in growing these miniature trees was indeed sparked by a book on bonsai found in my father’s library.

My father had acquired this book in the 1970s, although he never put into practice the cultivation advice it contained. And yet he had planted the seed in his son’s mind: what a marvel it was to look at these images of potted plants that were like the great, venerable trees that grow freely in open spaces. This ‘larger than life’ aspect was deliberately emphasized by the art and expertise of the bonsai Master. Like contemplating a work of art, this feeling of naturalness touched me intuitively at the very core of my being. As I stared at the photos of these trees, I felt myself shrinking in my dreams, until I was able to sit under the knotty, tangled branches.

It was a sensation similar to the one I experienced many years later when I visited Kyoto and the famous Zen garden Ryoan-ji, created in 1473 under the influence of Zen Buddhism; a simple square courtyard, covered in gravel, with a few rocks in the middle. The gravel is raked into regular grooves that surround the rocks like the waves of a sea. Looking at the view, one realizes that it is a representation of a sea, with bizarre rocky islands battered by the waves. And it makes you feel as if you were free as a bird flying over the vast ocean.

The town of Takamatsu, whose name translates literally as “the high pines”, and its surrounding area are famous for growing goyomatsu (white pine) and kuromatsu (black pine) bonsai. The village of Kinashi is home to the greatest number of pine nurseries, about a hundred of them, which have been in business since the Edo period 250 years ago – and now account for 80% of Japan’s pine bonsai production. Pine is a particularly popular tree in Japan, and not only for bonsai cultivation. With an appearance that does not change with the seasons and its resistance to the ravages of the passing years, the Japanese pine is synonymous with virtue and longevity. Traditionally, like all conifers, it has a masculine connotation, as opposed to deciduous trees, which are associated with femininity. The pine is also associated with the Japanese New Year celebration, as a symbol of renewal. It is therefore no coincidence that the Japanese pine is often found in bonsai and in all traditional Japanese gardens.

Takamatsu is home to one of Japan’s most important gardens, the Ritsurinkoen. Here you can admire over 1,400 Japanese pines, some over three hundred years old, trimmed according to very precise rules. These pines have been shaped by gardeners to create evocative forms, such as the famous pine that reminds us of a crane about to fly away on the back of a tortoise. The shape resembles large bonsais, but they are trees planted in the ground, and the aim in this horticultural discipline called niwaki is not to reduce them to a size that can be associated with a pot. As indicated by the name bon for pot and saï for cultivation, a true bonsai is thus by definition a plant cultivated in a pot, whatever its dimensions.

You could say that a bonsai is a nomad tree, not tied to a particular place for its survival. It is perhaps for this reason that bonsai is now enjoying a worldwide popularity that outstrips the waning interest in its country of origin. In any case, the travelling nature of bonsai is a blessing for people like myself who change homes frequently.

But the reason I’ve come to the Ritsurin garden today is to be inspired by these deep-rooted pines, shaped by wind, sun, rain and generations of gardeners who have all contributed to this diversity of forms: sloping trunks, double, triple or even multiple trunks, cascading or semi-cascading trees, wind-beaten branches, trees with exposed roots. The Japanese poet Matsuo Basho said that to learn more about the nature of pine trees, you must go and have a look at pine trees.

The art of bonsai is fundamentally a journey back to the roots, a process that owes much to the observation of nature, whether in the wild or shaped by the hand of man. A Japanese garden is the ideal place for this: a synthesis of nature revisited by gardeners who are artists, craftsmen and spiritual masters all at once.

In the words of Nobel prize-winner Yasunari Kawabata, a great bonsai enthusiast himself, the Japanese garden is a representation of nature, and bonsai is its most accomplished expression. In bonsai, we find the epitome of a Japanese sensibility that brings together aesthetics and spirituality, the outside and the inside world, in a journey that lasts lifelong: this is the essence of the way of bonsai.

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

About the author:
Robert Weis works as a natural scientist, and nature is also at the core of his non-fiction and poetry writing. In 2022 he published, together with Davide S. Sapienza, the travelogue Rocklines — a Geopoetic Journey Across Minett Unesco Biosphere (Editions Phi, Luxembourg). He is a contributor to Luxembourgish travel magazine Diariesof, the French Japanophile magazine Ryoko and Japan-based Kyoto Journal as well as Writers in Kyoto anthologies. His first poetry volume, Rêves d’un mangeur de kakis (Michikusa Publishing) came out in January 2023. In summer 2023, the travel narrative Retour à Kyoto (Editions Transboréal) was released. Visit him at www.theroutetokyoto.com.

Mike Freiling on AI

August 23, 2023

Zoom talk, August 20, 2023, reported by Kirsty Kawano

Writers in Kyoto member and AI professional Mike Freiling shared his knowledge of ChatGPT in a Zoom presentation on August 20, 2023. The sheer speed at which ChatGPT’s capabilities are evolving is a concern for writers, and even people involved in the development of AI are asking for regulations to direct the technology’s extreme pace of advancement into unchartered waters. The implications of ChatGPT are something we all need to think about, says Mike; “It will affect everyone on the planet sooner or later.”

Mike gave an overview of how ChatGPT has been developed and the parameters that can be used when operating it. The program has been trained on up to 300 billion words. In addition to the data we know about (books, websites, etc.) its training set also includes some data “specifically engineered by human trainers.” What this last category is has not been revealed and it raises questions about the altruism of the tool. It has already been used to create fake financial and legal documents.

With an estimated $100 million already spent on its development, this technology is here to stay. This is why Mike encourages us to try ChatGPT now. Currently, the system is available free because its widespread use is helping it acquire “naturalness.” Yes, by using it you are helping to refine its functions. How valuable is that contribution? Mike says it costs the company responsible for ChatGPT, OpenAI, $700,000 a day to make it publicly available. So, explore what it can do, now. When the “honeymoon period” is over, you may find yourself having to pay for the same level of access.

What can we do with ChatGPT?
Mike suggests that the most effective uses of ChatGPT are as a research tool and an idea generator. He has experimented with a wide variety of prompts, from “How is equity risk premium calculated?” to “Where are the best places in Kyoto to meet ghosts,” and finds it much quicker and to the point than a Google search. If you’re writing a murder mystery, you can use ChatGPT to capture the steps that a skilled detective might take, for instance, to spot the symptoms of a rare poison, or determine the geographical location of a soil sample.

It can also help in coming up with the twists and turns that add interest and texture to a plot line. Chasing a suspect across Kyoto, for instance, might be interrupted by a flash flood on the Kamo River, or a traffic accident that blocks the Sanjo Bridge.

Another creative application would be to explore connections between two words, “cat + Kyoto,” for example. (I’ve been told that Shinichi Hoshi’s process for writing his short science fiction works was to pick three words or so out of a hat, so there is precedence for this approach.)

Hints for using ChatGPT
As it is not good at aggregate functions, avoid asking about the “earliest,” or “latest” of something
Ask for an analysis of two sides of an issue, as in “the pros and cons” or “lover vs fighter”.
Seek objective, or measurable, evaluation, so “most popular” rather than “best”
To deviate from the more common answers, or shift further “out of the box,” adjust the temperature parameter higher. Do this by including in your prompt, “temperature = 10,” for example

The future with ChatGPT
As many observers have pointed out, this technology is already proving advantageous in many fields, and Mike mentioned its beneficial use in personal counseling. For writing, he proposed instituting a content rating, where GPT=20% would indicate that 20% of a particular book or other text is AI derived. He also anticipated that we may see exams at university, for example, shift from written format to oral, in order to make sure that the students are able to take ownership and explain their ideas, rather than use ChatGPT as a shortcut.

In the field of translation, the Zoom discussion seemed to agree that while technical translation may fall prey to the power of AI, literary translation, where nuance is vital, is likely to remain in the domain of humans.

The topic of AI eventually leads to the questioning of what it is that makes us human, Mike said; “We will all be asking ourselves that question, either explicitly or inexplicitly.”

Mike is keen to conduct regular discussions about ChatGPT and invites others who are interested to join him on the Facebook group, “Fun with ChatGPT: A forum for people to share oddities they discover when using ChatGPT.”

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

About Mike Freiling:

Mike earned his PhD in 1977 from the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, one of the earliest degrees granted in the field of AI. After spending the next year as a Luce Scholar at Kyoto University, Mike returned to the US, working in a variety of roles related to AI and knowledge-based products, from Assistant Professor to Principal Scientist to Director of Product Marketing. Most recently, he has been developing models for detecting fraud in the areas of payment processing and capital market manipulation.

Mike has been a member of Writers in Kyoto since 2019. His poems and translations appear in the WiK anthologies #3 and #4, and he recently co-authored They Never Asked, a translation of Japanese senryu written by Japanese-Americans incarcerated during World War II, which is available here:
https://www.amazon.com/They-Never-Asked-Portland-Assembly/dp/0870712357

For Mike’s self-introduction to Wik, see here.

Writings about Kyoto, whether by Japanese or foreign observers

Kyoto Visual Stories

August 10, 2023

By Edward Levinson

During the 1990’s when I visited Kyoto on photo trips, I often stayed with an American friend who lived just across the street from Shisendō, the famous poets’ retreat temple on the north side of Kyoto. As a photographer and poet, I have always seen Shisendō as a favorite place to visit in Kyoto. The small hermitage established in 1641 is situated on a hill, the building and garden meticulously maintained.

The privately owned primitive rental bungalows across the street, with their thin clapboard wood siding and close-to-the-elements airy environment, somehow seemed just as close to the hermit poets’ hillside experience, especially the humble poorer ones that we often hear and read about. Rattling windows and doors, outside air streaming in, and of course mildewy with mosquitoes in the rainy season and summer – all may inspire poetry if you are lucky.

Worshiper Greeting the Spirits at Tanukidani Fudō-in, lens photograph

One fall morning while staying there in 1993, I ventured further up the road into the mountains past Shisendō. Near the top is Tanukidani Fudō-in Temple and along the way there, passing through Tanukidanijizoson, some graveyards, tanuki (racoon-like) figures and Buddha statues. I had just recently begun using my wooden box pinhole camera and found many images that I would later call and include in my series “Sacred Japan – Myth or Reality”. As many who live in or study Japan know, there are often paradoxes and ironies that don’t always mesh with the traditional sense of sacred places. Too much new concrete, various flags cluttering the way, loudspeakers asking you to be quiet and other such things. It is often a dilemma for photographers and writers.

On this particular morning walking up, I came across an interesting statue that seemed to have a story to tell. It was cloudy and dark in the woods, making for a difficult long exposure using a tripod. The plus side for these long exposures is that I get to commune with the subject while the shutter is open capturing the image on film. Its a bit of bonus meditation time. Later at home, when I developed the film and made some prints, here was this imposing figure who I named Forest Sage.

Forest Sage, pinhole photograph

By 1997, I eventually I had enough images in this series to hold their debut exhibition in Kyoto. We used this image on the invitation DM postcard. In town for hanging the exhibition and the opening, lodging again at the Shisendō bungalow, I ventured up the road to pay my respects, say thanks to “sensei” and to say a prayer that the show would be successful. I hadn’t visited him since I took the photo in 1993. To my great surprise it was a very small statue, not life size as I remembered it, but something like a big doll. Most people would likely walk past him and not really notice. But for me he was and still is a big influence.

As of early spring 2017, “my” bungalow was still there, though my friend had moved on, someone was still renting the place. It was nice to see that not everything had changed. And of course, Shisendo which I visited on that trip when making my pinhole film about Kyoto, was still looking and feeling peaceful in the afternoon light.

In Shisendo’s Garden, pinhole photograph

Now on most of photo/filming to trips to Kyoto I stay at economy business hotels for a neutral home base, the small rooms, sometimes in a quiet place, sometimes in the thick of things along the Takasegawa canal, offer a different kind of retreat from my everyday country life in the “other Kamogawa” on Chiba’s Boso Peninsula. At night I lay on the hotel bed, stare at my wide-open paper map of Kyoto with my red-circled areas and wait for an inspiration on where to go the next day. I generally pick just one area to concentrate on as my visual creative methods are slow moving. I can easily spend two hours at one temple or shrine or beside one of the rivers or streams, before I move on to the next place. And importantly, I tend to visit the same places over and over again, then find pleasure discovering some hidden corner I have never been before.

Temple Doors, Otagi Nenbutsu-ji Temple in Arashiyama, pinhole photograph

A few years after meeting up with Forest Sage, I again found myself up the mountain in the woods somewhere behind Tanukidani Fudō-in Temple. I came across a simple wooden shrine. Not so inspired to make an image, I went further into the woods behind the shrine to find some nature energy as I often do. It was late morning and I had been on the road for a few days. I laid down on the ground in the sun to rest and just enjoy the place without the camera or pen and paper. Nearly 20 years later in the woods behind my own house I occasionally repeat this retreat practice, which finally inspired a poem. It has nothing per se to do with Kyoto, but it easily fits with the Shinto or Zen spirit of “Sacred Japan”. It is certainly no accident that this series and theme started in Kyoto. I continue to search for both the myth and the reality.

On the Ground

A snake on the ground
tree roots curling
up and down
a log on the forest floor
prostrating to the universe
connecting
as birds twittering here and there
pay me no mind
could care less if
I am here or not
if I rot or not into the Earth
and feed these trees
adding to this bed of leaves
upon which I lay my bare head
with humble desire and honor
to touch Oneness.

============================

References:
“Sacred Japan” Gallery

Edward’s photo website

Edward’s Essay/Memoir book website

More writings by Edward on Pinhole Photography

Poetry that is about the ancient capital or was set in Kyoto

Five Cooling Tanka

July 30, 2023

by Lea Millay

Lea writes: ‘I offer a few winter tanka inspired by my time in Kyoto last December. May they give a brief respite from the summer heat.’

climbing the steep hill
a pillow of stone offers
deep and dreamless sleep
as wind rustles winter pines 
a clear moon graces the sky

When I was walking alone on Shirakawa near Gion Shinbashi—

clear cold winter’s morn
heron in the quiet stream
longing to return
up into the icy air
wings against the silver moon

Stopping at Seishin-in off Shinkyōgoku-dori—

each time I return
to feel the pulse of ages
beat beneath the new
lone monk chanting the sutras
shadows on a mossy stone

Returning to Daishū-in after many years—

there across the lake
a verandah smooth and still
early morning light
I can’t recall his face now
only the sound of light snow

small glimmer of hope
woven into the fabric
the pattern will show
moonlight in the sky above
stardust in the lake below

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

Lea writes, ‘In my early twenties I journeyed to Kyoto to teach English at Heian Jogakuin. I lived near Kinkaku-ji and it was during this time that I started Zen meditation at Daishu-in, a sub-temple of Ryōan-ji. Eventually I was able to meet and study with Morinaga Sōkō, the abbot of Daishu-in, and although I was his least promising student, the spirit of his teaching is with me still.

After returning to Seattle, I completed an MA and a PhD in Comparative Literature (Japanese and French) and in the intervening years taught Japanese Literature and Culture at the University level, retiring in the spring of 2022. I live now in Portland, Oregon and thrive with hiking, gardening, practicing taiji, traveling, and writing poetry.’

Alert readers may have noticed that Lea follows the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable pattern that characterises Japanese poems. Here are her thoughts on writing tanka in English:

‘For me writing tanka in English using the 5/7/5/7/7 syllable pattern evolved out of many years of translating Heian-period waka, particularly the poems of Izumi Shikibu. It certainly was not natural at first, but is becoming part of my practice more and more. The biggest obstacle is the kakekotoba (a poetic code word based on homonymy that contains two different meanings, each intended to function as a part of the poem’s imagery and content, which does not exist in English). I have to let this go. Still, I hope there is a resonance for those who have a spiritual connection with Kyoto—present and past.’

Writers in focus

STRAIGHT IN THE EYE

July 27, 2023

by Amanda Huggins

Beth and James arrived in the Japanese Alps after yet another petty argument. It had started before they left Tokyo and then worsened when they reached Shinshimashima train station and were unable to agree on their onward bus route. When they finally found the right bus for Kamikochi, a previous disagreement resurfaced regarding their accommodation. Beth had wanted to book a hotel; James had insisted on the log cabins at the edge of the campsite. He’d won in the end, but when she was tired and hungry she started grizzling about his choice again.

Beth read in their guide book that there was a healthy population of bears in Kamikochi, but no one they spoke to at the campsite had seen one. That evening, they sat outside in the half-light of dusk and listened to the macaques chattering in the trees. Beth couldn’t settle, sure there were bears all around them, convinced they would come down to the cabins in search of food in the night, that they would rummage through the remains of barbecues and tear the lids off bins. When they went to bed, their hair scented with woodsmoke from the camp fire, she lay awake until the early hours, listening out for the slightest noise, watching the moon through the skylight.

She thought about getting up, considered taking James’s mobile from the shelf at the side of his futon so she could check his messages and calls. But Beth knew she had to start trusting him again, that she couldn’t spend her whole life suspecting him, searching his pockets, monitoring his phone, inventing scenarios in her head. He told her he had ended things with Tanya, that he wanted them to try again, that now it was up to her. So, she had several choices. She could believe him, or make plans to leave him, or spend every waking hour worrying about where he was and what he was doing. Or she could do all of those things in turn, as she had been doing for the past two months. It was easy for James to say that it was “up to her”. It was and it wasn’t. Her heart was broken, but she still loved him. He seemed to think she could click her fingers and forgive and forget, that they could move on and not look back. Beth knew it was too soon to forgive him, yet for the next three weeks she was determined to try to forget. She didn’t want to spoil the trip they’d been planning for over two years.

When they walked across to the café for breakfast, they noticed signs at the visitor centre which chalked up details of recent bear sightings – none – and offered safety advice: Please walk with the bell for giving bear notice!

The campsite shop was filled with a plethora of jangling kumayoke suzu and Beth insisted they bought a shiny red bell. However, they still set off unarmed, James having decided that the constant clanking would disturb the birds they hoped to see, and scare off the elusive kamoshika mountain goats. He wrapped the bell in a bandana to silence it, then tucked it in the side pocket of his rucksack. Beth was still unsure, but somehow everything seemed safer when the sun was shining and crowds of Japanese tourists were strolling back and forth along the paths.

Their day’s climb started at Taisho Pond, a place Beth found strangely haunting. Blackened, withered trees reached up out of the clear water, a reminder that the lake was formed by the last eruption of a nearby active volcano. James had picked up a map of the different walking trails in the visitor centre, and Beth followed him up the lower slopes through the trees, jumping at the snap of a twig or the whir of a bird’s wings. James climbed fast, striding ahead, and as the canopy became denser and the forest darkened, Beth became more nervous. She wanted to turn back, even though she knew she was being foolish, and she found herself constantly looking over her shoulder, then up towards where the tree line ended, convinced she could see shapes moving in the gloom.

After two hours of climbing they emerged from the forest, and Beth stopped for a few moments in the sudden warmth, catching her breath before the final ascent, any fear of bears dissipated by the sunshine. James carried on, scrambling up the scree towards the higher path. He turned and shouted to her as he reached the top of the ridge.

‘The first of the mountain huts is up here, Beth, exactly where I thought!’ He pointed with his walking pole. ‘I’ll see you there.’

She followed him up the slopes, stopping occasionally to admire alpine flowers, turning to take in the view as she put some distance between herself and the tree line. She found the marked path which led to the hut and followed the route James had just taken. As she climbed the last fifty metres she was sure she heard the brief high-pitched beep of a text notification, and the sound filled her with dread and suspicion. When she reached the plateau of flat-topped stones, she caught James slipping his phone back into his pocket. He walked towards her, his face flushed with guilt and embarrassment, and she felt her stomach twist.

‘Let’s have our rice snacks and water,’ he said quickly. ‘There’s a great place to sit in front of the hut – fabulous views.’

She followed him and sat down on the flat rocks, her heart still racing, her ribcage aching with the familiar foreboding. Still high above them were the snow-capped peaks of Hotaka, and below them the river flowed like mercury through the valley. In the distance, barely perceptible wisps of white smoke hung in the still air above the sleeping fire dragon of Yakedake volcano, and Beth found herself shivering despite the warm autumn sunshine.

‘Was that your phone I heard?’ she asked.
‘Phone? Do you really think there’d be a signal up here? You’re becoming paranoid, Beth. Don’t spoil the day.’
‘Me? Me spoil the day? It’s you who’s made me paranoid. I’m on edge all the time, wondering about every text and every call, about where you are when you’re late home from work. If you’ve nothing to hide, then look me straight in the eye and tell me she hasn’t contacted you. Better still, let me see your phone messages.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Beth.’ He laughed, but he didn’t make eye contact with her, he looked up at the mountains instead.
She held out her hand. ‘Go on, give the phone to me. Show me you’re innocent.’
‘You’re being . . .’ He suddenly faltered, lifting his hand in greeting to someone on the slope above – a man in a red jacket waving a silver walking pole.
James stood up. ‘Quit it now, Beth; this guy is heading over here.’
‘I know it’s still going on, James, I absolutely know,’ she hissed.

As she finished speaking, the climber arrived at the hut, announcing his presence with the clanking of a large bear bell. Beth managed to feign a smile as he introduced himself to them, but she left most of the talking to James. Motoki spoke little English, and when he ran out of vocabulary the three of them communicated with exaggerated gestures. They laughed too loudly and nodded too wildly, and when Beth did join in the conversation there was a brittle brightness to her words.

They offered their new acquaintance chocolate, and he offered a flask of green tea in return. Beth and James didn’t exchange a word between them as they packed away the remains of their food, and when they set off, they began their slow descent close on Motoki’s heels. As they walked in silence, Beth completely forgot about the possibility of bears, her mind still whirring, wondering if James was telling the truth and if she was simply being paranoid. After all, was it likely there was a phone signal on the top of a mountain?

Deep in thought, she was caught off guard when Motoki’s outstretched arm brought them to an abrupt standstill. They froze mid-step as though competing in a game of musical statues. When she looked up, her eye was caught by a dense black rock just above the tree line. It stood out against the pale scree, and when she refocused, the boulder became bear. She could make out the tilt and sway of his salt and pepper muzzle as he tried to catch their scent, and the glint of eyes like polished coals. When they stumbled to a halt there was a mesmeric moment as he continued to walk towards them. As he reared up onto his hind legs, Beth swore he looked her straight in the eye, poised and sure, calmly weighing up his options. Not afraid to let her see what he was thinking, quite prepared to show his cards, to be clear about his intentions.

Then Motoki jangled the bell on his rucksack, and just as swiftly as he’d turned towards them, the bear dropped to the ground and loped away without looking back.

Dizzy with adrenaline, they remained motionless, stiff as statues, until Motoki gestured down the mountainside with sweeping arm movements to indicate that they should keep moving. Beth scrambled after him, pleased to have company and not to be alone with James, happy with their enforced silence, relieved to listen to nothing more than the clamorous clanking of the bear bell until they reached the campsite.

James dropped a short way behind them to take some final photographs of the views across the mountains in the afternoon light. It was the last chance to see Yakedake before they were plunged deep into the forest again. Beth turned back at one point, reluctant to lose sight of him despite her current anger. James waved her on, told her he’d catch up with them, shaking his belt to show her he’d clipped on the bear bell they’d bought that morning.

At the edge of the trees, Beth stopped for a moment again, sure she had heard something behind her: rocks tumbling; scree scattering; a muffled cry, eerily human; a soft growl. The sounds echoed across the mountain in the stillness, and her heart raced. She tried to call out, but the words stuck in her throat, and when she listened again all she could hear was the fading tinkle of a bell.

***********************
The story first appeared in the collection An Unfamiliar Landscape (Valley Press 2022), which is available from Amazon, Waterstones online etc, or via the Valley Press online shop: https://www.valleypressuk.com/shop/p/unfamiliar-landscape

Amanda Huggins is the author of the award-winning novellas All Our Squandered Beauty and Crossing the Lines and seven collections of short stories and poetry. She has won numerous prizes for her work, including the Colm Tóibín Short Story Award, the H. E. Bates Short Story Prize and the BGTW New Travel Writer of the Year. Her fiction has been broadcast several times on BBC Radio. To see her award-winning entry in the WiK Competition, please look here.

Writings about Kyoto, whether by Japanese or foreign observers

The Day I Met the Photographer

July 23, 2023

By Sara Ackerman Aoyama

[The author was a member of the 1976 Associated Kyoto Program and this was her first, but certainly not her last, visit to Kyoto. This is an excerpt from her memoir in progress on learning to read with the counterculture in Kyoto.]

Photo by Kai Fusayoshi of Sara as a student in the 1970s

The three of us Midwesterners had become close friends quickly. We’d experienced the group orientation of our program together and privately figured we were one step ahead of the others in navigating Kyoto. We were finding our “places” for quick meals and just hanging out after or between classes. And we thought we fit in just fine at Honyarado. It was just down the street from Doshisha University where our program was located. We liked the music. We could count on hearing Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead there. And we’d climbed the creaky staircase to the right of the wooden front door and discovered the second floor which held a big table and walls of bookshelves.

Of course, with just a year or two of the Japanese language under our belts, we couldn’t read any of the books so we ignored them and instead spread out our own textbooks to study. I loved being surrounded by books and my eyes often wandered over to the shelves. I wished that I could magically wake up with the ability to read in Japanese. But, it would take years before that happened.

One day there was a cute older guy upstairs with us sitting in the corner immersed in a book, his long legs propped up on a folding chair. He ignored us and we ignored him. We’d gotten used to talking about any old thing at all rather blithely in front of Japanese people. The chances that they’d understand our rapid-fire English were close to zero. So, yes, we discussed him. In fact we dissected him to pieces. One of my friends was really interested in him. He yawned unknowingly.

As the days got shorter I became more adventurous about going out on my own. I’d been in Kyoto just a few short months. I knew what bus to take downtown and it was fun to explore. I’d discovered that everything was open on Sundays, a day we had off from school. One Sunday I was walking down Shjodōri and I saw an antique shop. It was a little daunting to go in, but when I did I saw something that was new to me. I’d been missing music in my life and this was a little koto. Later I found out that it was called a taishōgoto. I rashly made a purchase. I was excited and feeling confident.

When I walked out of the store and went back to the Shijo Kawaramachi intersection, I saw someone who looked familiar. At first, I couldn’t quite place him, but he smiled at me and then it clicked. He worked at Honyarado. The guy who took all the photos. Out of context, it had been hard to recognize him. But he recognized me easily. He came up to me and we started talking. Or rather we attempted talking. Between my limited Japanese and his limited English conversation was almost impossible. He invited me to walk back to Honyarado with him. Or more likely he indicated the direction he was heading which was the same direction as I needed to go since my homestay family lived just a few blocks from Honyarado. Since it was a Sunday evening I didn’t need to be home for dinner that night. So we walked and I watched him as he snapped photo after photo.

When we got to Honyarado, it was almost empty. The photographer quickly went behind the counter and got me a cup of coffee. I was confused. I hadn’t ordered it. Was this hospitality or business for him? He got himself a cup of coffee as well and called upstairs to someone to come down. It was the cute guy that my friend was crushed out on. Cute Guy swung his legs over the bench on the other side of the table and sat down next to the photographer. He introduced himself in almost flawless English. Oops. Wait until I tell the others, I immediately thought. He had probably understood every word we’d said about him. This was going to be embarrassing. He was a professor at Seika University (then Seika Junior College). In fact, years later he’d become the president of the university.

The photographer had thoughtfully (and necessarily) called him over to interpret. WIth the professor in the middle, we could communicate easily and the photographer had a lot of questions. Being there in the evening when it was mostly staff milling about was exciting. I was the only foreigner in the room and I felt like I’d made an entry to a whole other world. Probably I had, but I didn’t really know the full impact of this until much later. After awkwardly trying to pay for the coffee and having my money rejected, I went home feeling excited. I’d promised to meet the photographer again at 10 AM by the river the next day. After all, why not?

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

Learn more about Sara’s life in Japan here. Visit her book review site here.

A selection of Honyarado books

Writers in focus

Ken Rodgers Reads at WiK Words & Music Event

July 23, 2023

July 16, 2023 | Irish Pub Gnome, Kyoto

I’ve been thinking about tonight’s theme: Words and Music.

Seems to me we are here basically to listen—and to be gently surprised by what we hear.

Mostly we think of things we do as actions, but even taking a walk may be not so much about a transitive physical activity, but more about simply creating an opportunity to look and listen.

Anyone who noticed my ‘Local News’ piece in the recent WiK nature anthology might know that I am particularly into listening. In this spirit, here’s a short follow-up to ‘Local News,’ from a little collection I put together recently with the non-boundary-pushing title of Reflections.

Please don’t think that I imagine this to be a poem. It’s more like an amateur footnote to the Theory of Relativity, as it applies where I most enjoy spending my time:

Moments at Sakahara

Low hills shield Sakahara from the constant hum of Kyoto city. From the fields that we farm, I hear only the sounds emanating within the valley. Close by, water burbling, crickets trilling; over in the forest, birds calling.

Compared to light, sound travels slowly. A thunderclap lags behind the lightning flash; when a jet plane passes far overhead its sound is heard from empty sky somewhere behind it.

A bird call reverberates from the far end of the valley. In those few milliseconds of aural transit, that small flitting bird may have already left the branch it was perched on when it gave voice to the sound that I perceive.

In April, Yuri and I were fortunate to be able to spend some time visiting temples on the Shikoku 88 circuit. Driving, not tramping the hard roads. Part of visiting each temple (we made it as far #36, in Kochi) is chanting the Heart Sutra.

This is a rather wonderful image from the eaves of Anraku-ji, #6. You may be familiar with the famous fundamentalist monkeys seen at Ieyasu’s garish shrine in Nikko. Here is strong evidence of more enlightened monkeys, deep in Japanese monkey counterculture.

Anraku-ji and monkey mind

Anraku–ji (安楽寺, the “Temple of Peaceful Relief”), is notable for, among many sculptural features, a long frieze wood-carving of detailed scenes from the life of Kūkai  (Kobo Daish)i, including this incidental re-envisioning of the traditional image of three wise monkeys, Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru.

The Heart Sutra says:

Mu gen ni bi zesshin i mu shiki sho ko mi soku ho

—No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body or mind; no form, sound, smell, taste, touch, or mind object.

But what do monkeys know?

Seeking wisdom in the celestial persimmon orchard, these three aging monkeys have found a book, perhaps an exposition of the Dharma. Can they read it?

Who knows?

In some way they have awakened. Eager now to hear more, see more, and to debate more on the nature of wisdom, will they attain full enlightenment?

All things are possible.

The Heart Sutra also says:

Mu chi yaku mu toku i mu sho toku ko

—There is no wisdom, nor is there attainment, for there is nothing to be attained.

Monkey minds (like mine) love enigmatic wordplay.

Maybe the Heart Sutra was written (and translated) by monkeys?

Who knows?

Finally, a further reflection on openness, receptiveness:

I’ve had this wonderful anthology of Japanese poetry, From the Country of Eight Islands, ever since a blockbuster ‘going out of business’ sale at Friends World College. Somehow, I only recently noticed that it was originally donated to FWC by a Kyoto nature poet, the one-and-only Edith Shiffert, who resided here for over 50 years, from 1963 until her death in 2017, at the age of 101. We recently included several of her poems in the Flora & Kyoto issue of Kyoto Journal, including this opening quote, from The Forest Within the Gate, Heian-kyo Media/White Pine Press, 2014:

With the entire earth
drenched in flowers and fragrance
why not peace and joy?

The book contains a typed postcard dated May 27, 1981, from Burton Watson, one of the translators, and had been sent out as a complimentary copy, in respect. I’ve heard the other translator, Hiroaki Sato, was a former student of Edith’s. I assume Edith had donated this volume when she was forced to dispose of possessions when moving with her elderly husband, Minoru, to a care home.

What makes this collection of translations most deeply meaningful to me, is finding Edith’s annotations, and especially the insertion of a simple bookmark in Thomas Rimer’s introduction. This means we can virtually read over Edith’s shoulder, notably where Rimer discusses the aesthetic of Yūgen, in which “a poem was intended to remain grounded in one level on a directly felt observation of nature, behind or beyond which some intimation of the existence of a different or higher reality was suggested.”

Rimer reminds us that this essential aesthetic embedding of nature in Japanese poetry (and vice versa) has in fact been transmitted through literary history to the present. It is easy to imagine Edith finding particular resonance in discussion of the place of nature in transcendent poetry. Writing was indeed her Buddhist practice. This meditative, essentially timeless and intensely personal embeddedness was evident in most of her work, including this poem, also republished in Flora & Kyoto, originally from her book In the Ninth Decade, White Pine Press, 2005:

Shinnyodo, Yoshidayama, Graveyards

This stone Buddha too
is circled with cherry blossoms.
The sky looks empty.

Red camellias and cherry petals have fallen
over all the ground
and on the stone Buddhas.
Petals on my shoulders too.

Temple roofs too high
for drifting cherry petals,
clear sky above them.

In this vast graveyard
names meaningless, individuals nothing,
all their spent energies gone,
just ashes, of thousands from a thousand years,
quieted under the vast ephemeral space of sky
now knowing that much we fret about
is absolutely inconsequential.
Existence and beloved places, all vanishing.

Grace, grace, afloat on that only
we are blown about gently
like these dispersed and vanishing
flower fragments.

Thank you for listening…

Ken Rodgers has been managing editor of Kyoto Journal since 1993, and a member of WiK since it originated in 2013.

Words & Music, July 2023

July 18, 2023

Writers in Kyoto held its Words & Music open-mic style event on July 16, 2023, in a return to an in-person format. The date was, of course, yoi-yama, the eve of the Gion Festival’s first procession, and we enjoyed that atmosphere at the event venue, the Gnome Irish pub. A number of participants came dressed in yukata.

Above: photos from WiK’s Words & Music open-mic event at the Gnome Irish pub on July 16.
(Click images for larger views.)

The show consisted of 11 acts by 14 performers. It was a characteristically diverse field of poetry, music, short stories, song, talk and a Buddhist chant.

A few of the performances were videotaped and they are planned to be released on the members’ Facebook page. Members who were unable to attend this round of Words & Music are encouraged to prepare a presentation of their own that can be shared on Facebook in the same spirit. Work doesn’t have to be original; cited writings that will be of interest to members — and perhaps tickle their creativity — are also welcome.

Thank you to performers and attendees for bringing this event into being.

Karen Hill Anton’s Moving Portrait of Love and Loss in 1970s Japan

July 10, 2023

Book Review by Rebecca Copeland
June 25, 2023

There were exactly eleven houses on this road that had no name. Everyone called it Uchida Road because most of the people who lived there bore the name Uchida. There was a connection, an invisible chain that linked the houses because they were shinseki, relatives. The link began long ago and was forever complicated by marriage, birth, and death, and in one case, adoption. Now, in 1969, it had all become vague, but still there was connection.

So begins Karen Hill Anton’s elegantly subdued debut novel, A Thousand Graces, a story that charts the lives of a diverse cast of characters held in place by expectations and rules that are so commonplace they have no name. On the brink of immense social change in 1970s Japan, this is a story of entanglement, of the invisible bonds tying the characters inextricably to the past, to family, to class division and gender disparity, to unspoken dreams and thwarted desires. Although set in a fictional tea-producing enclave somewhere on the island of Honshu, the story is one that strikes a universal chord. It will resonate with any group of people facing a sea change in social order who remain unaware of what awaits. They only sense the presence of something more, something beyond their ken.

Chie, whose name means “a thousand graces,” is at the heart of this novel. Mrs. Uchida, Chie’s mother, had wanted to name her daughter Yuri, or Lily, after her favorite flower. But Chie’s grandfather asserted his privilege to bestow her name, and “a thousand graces” she became. This slight anecdote, presented early in the novel, encapsulates so much of the tension that the story navigates: the rights of the patriarch, the importance of legacy, the grip of tradition, the usurpation of the female voice, and the bitter irony that a girl whose name suggests limitless blessings encounters nothing but limits.

In her late teens when the novel starts, we follow Chie as she leaves her close-knit farming community to attend a junior college in the fictional town of Takaizu, itself hardly a bustling metropolis. Strikingly beautiful, yet unassuming and quiet, Chie is a young woman with places to go. Her mother has encouraged Chie’s studies, refusing to allow her to work in the family tea fields, determined that with her two-year degree and fair skin, Chie will be able to marry above her class. Chie is a fierce reader and eager to learn but momentarily disconcerted when she meets her new college professor, the charismatic and darkly handsome New Yorker Carl Rosen. Eager to escape the emptiness of a broken marriage and start anew, Carl has relocated to this small city on the edge of the tea fields. Here he teaches courses devoted to women writers like Eudora Welty, Toni Morrison, and Doris Lessing and expects his students to write papers in English about their feelings and articulate their opinions, a task Chie struggles to meet. Resolved to broaden the horizons of his female students, Carl wants the sheltered women in his classes to aspire to something more than marriage. And, Chie does.

Carl is sponsored at the college by Toshinaga Sakai, professor of Japanese literature and program director. Toshi, as Carl calls his friend, has lived in the United States and prides himself on being open-minded and far more of a supportive family man than his own father had ever been. For example, he indulges his wife, Yoshiko, in her interests, encouraging her to pursue tastes as varied as cha-no-yu and jazz, the latter indulgence she enjoys with Carl.

Here we have the essential cast of characters, four intelligent individuals, thoughtful and sensitive, but frequently painfully blind to the larger implications of their actions. It is these implications, then, that form the forward momentum of the novel. In ways unbeknownst to them, their lives become intimately, and in some cases, tragically entwined. Although as readers we are able to anticipate the direction of the narrative, Anton is such a skilled storyteller, that our anticipation never gets in the way. In other words, we know what will happen because it has to. But we want to read how it will happen for the sheer delight of savoring Anton’s luminously poetic prose.

A Thousand Graces is set during the early half of the decade of the 1970s, a tumultuous time the world over but particularly in Japan. The 1970s saw dramatic economic growth in Japan alongside staggering oil shocks, political scandals, deadly protests, terrorist plots, a literary suicide, and the “return” of Okinawa, but of all of these, the event with the most lasting repercussions—and certainly most significance to this story—is the women’s movement. Nurtured on postwar political gains (such as the right to vote), greater access to higher education, and the proliferation of time-saving household appliances (the “three sacred treasures” of a washing machine, refrigerator, and television), women began to aspire to life trajectories that exceeded the role of housewife. Second-wave feminism emerged in Japan in the 1960s and was fully entrenched by the 1970s with magazine debates on female sexuality, lectures on equality in the labor force, and the rise of vocal women writers.

At least academically speaking.

It would take more time for these attitudes to filter into the everyday lives of ordinary people, people like Chie and Yoshiko and the men who encircle them. Both of these female characters are deeply unhappy within the limited frames of their lives. They want more but either they do not know what they want and how to get it, or they are too afraid of the explosive reactions should they act on their desires. Fundamentally, neither Chie nor Yoshiko have role models other than their own mothers or the chimeras they find in films, books, and music. They do not know how to want what they want.

The tragedy at the heart of A Thousand Graces is that the men who love these women, who feel responsible for them, and who believe they are protecting them, are the ones who ruin whatever chance at happiness the women (and even they themselves) may have had. The men, for all their ostensible sensitivities, are too devoted to their own happiness, their own reputations to recognize the damage they have wrought, particularly so for Chie. A truly gifted young woman, she nevertheless lacks the experience or the vocabulary (in either Japanese or English) to advocate on her own behalf. The men positioned as her guardians and mentors—her father, her teacher, her advisor—fail her at every turn. Likewise, the women in her life remand her to the path of the past.

A Thousand Graces is a tragic story but the heartbreak is mitigated by the sheer beauty of Karen Hill Anton’s prose. Hers is not a showy style over encumbered by long expositions on “Japanese traditions” and such. Rather with a light and shimmering touch, she paints a compelling portrait of life in 1970s Japan, of the countryside, the family gatherings, the twin longings for past and future, and the seasonal beauty of the moment. Hers is a magical world of a distant time in an imagined place that will linger with the reader long after the last page.

Writers in focus

Debt Crisis in Peach

July 9, 2023

by Marianne Kimura

“Omigod!”, I exclaimed in a slightly theatrical, artificially loud voice to my husband Satoshi and shoved my phone in his face just as he was about to bite into a shrimp-flavored rice cracker.
“Wha..?” he mumbled idly.
“Japan’s debt is like 220% of its GDP! It’s the worst one in the world!”
Without answering, he tossed his rice cracker into his mouth and washed it down with green tea while judging me with dismay, as though I had just ventured to do an impromptu performance as a manzai comedian that could have been a lot funnier.
Across the subdued peach-colored living room, my father-in-law raised his head from the game of shogi he was playing with my teenage son, and peered narrowly at me.
I should tell you that my father-in-law is an economics professor at a large and famous national university, so I was secretly delighted that he had decided to rise to my challenge.
My point in bringing up the issue wasn’t because I actually gave a damn about the national debt crisis but because I always thought that Japanese families, when they gathered together, tried overly hard to avoid fractious debates on current events.
I wanted to remedy that.
I wanted things to be like back in the States in my own family, where we screamed and yelled a bit more about politics, where things got a little hysterical, and frankly more than a little annoying. For some reason, I missed the needling, the noise, the dramatic tears, the baiting and the passive-aggression. I know that sounds crazy, but the drama and the boisterous, generation-gap-fueled excitement of ridiculous political debates en famille, though much derided in the western press around the time of American Thanksgiving, was starting to seem to me, thanks to living so long in Japan, like a sport I’d not appreciated enough in my youth.
“I’m sure you know”, said my father-in-law, calmly leaning back in his comfortable beige armchair, “what a koma, a spinning top, is.”
I nodded, and he continued.
“A spinning top doesn’t suddenly explode or burst into flames as it comes to a stop, does it? No, of course not. It spins more and more slowly. It winds down. To do that, it needs some space to spin. That’s just natural.”
I couldn’t very well disagree with him about things like this, which were just basic physics. So I just sat there silently.
“The Japanese government is just giving it the space it needs. Of course, to you that maybe looks like some odd and treacherous game. Some trickery. But the actual opponent is our planet, also a spinning top of a kind, not any human entity. We, here in Japan, play out the game in our own way. We don’t care about following stupid human rules. This game is not a matter of human things only. Or rather, we can say that we humans are not just human.”
With that cryptic comment, which seemed to gently amuse him as a private joke, he gave me a brief and encouraging conspiratorial smile, as though surely I had grasped his elusive metaphor. Then he turned and resumed the game of shogi.
With an undisguised look of concern on her face, my mother-in-law quickly filled up my cup with freshly brewed green tea. I thanked her with a mild, mechanical nod, and with that, the calm and quietly harmonious atmosphere of the cool and collected peach-colored living room returned.
In a last-ditch effort to avoid defeat, and also because my mother-in-law had gone back to the kitchen so she couldn’t watch me like a hawk, I hissed at my husband, “But surely, he doesn’t publish stuff like that in scholarly journals, does he?”
Satoshi only shot me a brief, pained look and I gave up, concealing my humiliation by leafing through a tabloid magazine to which my mother-in-law subscribed.
The well-known periodical was filled with reports of every sort of political scandal, both domestic (the deputy culture minister had purchased 20 cases of fine amontillado sherry with public funds) and foreign (Trump was in there), and a lot of sensational gossip related to the dalliance between a female Korean pop singer and the handsome, but married CEO of a major Japanese tech company (they had been seen together at a moon-viewing party). Even the graphics were loud and splashy. Clearly, though my in-laws had a very peaceful living room, they didn’t mind these graphics and dramatic stories.
I sensed a deep disconnect, some disruption, an awkwardness, or even an impropriety under the decorous surface, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was only a magazine, after all.
Picking my way through the thicket of kanji, understanding some but not all, I began to feel sleepy and nodded off on the peach-colored sofa until Satoshi gently shook my shoulder and said “it’s getting dark, let’s go home.”
The magazine had slid off my lap and was open on the floor, exposing the midriff of an elegant fashion model dressed in a sequined bra, fur boots and a leather mini-skirt, a few downy swan feathers stuck gracefully (but how on earth?) in her long tresses of hair.
For some reason, seeing her, the phrase my father-in-law had tossed off, ‘That’s just natural’, popped into my brain. But how ridiculous! I swatted away the offensive idea. The model was just all artifice, make-up, hair-dye, photos retouched to a fare-thee-well.
Nevertheless, the same phrase taunted me that night after we’d returned to our apartment a long train ride away across the city. Looking out through our bedroom window at the midnight sky, where hardly any stars were visible due to all the lights, I heard it again.

« Older posts Newer posts »

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

Recent Comments

    Questions, Feedback?

    Contact us

    WiK on Facebook


    © 2024 Writers In Kyoto

    Based on a theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑