A Song of Travel - Musings on the arts of Japan and beyond
A little while ago I enjoyed an opportunity to watch a streamed recording of the play “Paper,” written and directed by Singaporean playwright Tze Chien Chong; it debuted with a chiefly (or all-?) Japanese cast in Kôchi (Shikoku) and Yokohama in 2024, after a number of years of delay due to the Covid pandemic. The [ ]
I would like to start this third post in the series by jumping back in time to the 13th century, and Emperor Go-Uda (#91, r. 1274-1281), whose mausoleum was easily one of my top favorite visits. I woke up on Feb 24 this year (fortunately, a National Holiday, and a day off from work) to [ ]
As it happens, I visited the tomb of Emperor Jimmu, the legendary first emperor of Japan, since writing the last post, so I guess we ll start there. Here it is. One thing I guess I was surprised by is that from what I can tell, the area identified as Unebi goryô, that is, the mausoleum [ ]
Since moving to Kyoto two years ago, I almost couldn t help it but to come across, from time to time, the sites officially designated/recognized by the Imperial Household Agency (Kunaichō) as the mausolea of past emperors of Japan. Between my summer in Kyoto in 2010, during which I spent so many days bicycling around the [ ]
Reading about the Ryukyuan royal treasures that went missing in 1945 most of them presumed stolen, rather than destroyed; and a few of them recently rediscovered and returned I happened for the first time upon *images* of them displayed in a pre-war, 1926, exhibition at the Tokyo Prefectural Art Museum (東京府美術館, today the [ ]
Finally went and saw the Murakami Mononoke Kyoto show that s been up for half a year or so. I generally tend to think of Murakami as over-hyped, if that s the right word not that his work isn t fun, creative, interesting, smart, but just that surely there are so many other artists out there who [ ]
Gradually moving through my old drafts. This one is from just about a year ago, August 2023. Arriving on Taketomi Island and seeing how many people were also getting on or off boats, and how much infrastructure was there guiding people to resorts, buses, tours, I just immediately got this feeling of sadness, and [ ]
Reading an autobiographical piece by Okinawan artist / playwright / novelist / cultural writer / cultural official Yamazato Eikichi, and it s kind of amazing how many big name, famous, notable, figures keep coming into the story. Seems like he knew everyone who was anyone in Okinawan culture at the time or, they knew one [ ]
(Continuing on from my previous post about this museum at the University of Tel Aviv) Following the section on famous individuals throughout Jewish history, where I left off in the last post, the museum then takes us through the histories of the Jewish people. Not just the most detailed, but also easily the most vivid, [ ]
The Kyoto Museum for World Peace, Ritsumeikan University, recently hosted an exhibition on Gaza. Sadly, ironically for a Peace Museum, I think the exhibit did little to counteract the antisemitic narratives that inform and underly the conflict, and that have fueled so much division, harassment, and violence around the world since Oct 7, and also [ ]