Monty Don Enough people mentioned them to me that I sat down and watched the two programmes on Japanese gardens by Monty Don. I try not the be the sort of scholar who sucks his teeth at all the inaccuracies and misrepresentations in popular media, so let’s just say that it was a mixed bag:ContinueContinue reading “Diary: March”
Tag Archives: Japan
The making of a bot
I made a twitter bot – an engine which tweets automatically generated lists, ideally in the style of the Makura no Soshi (the Pillow Book). https://twitter.com/ThePillowBot/status/1086262597576544257 I have a long informal history of programming, back to the days of BASIC, but I’ve not done any for probably a decade and much of the newer stylesContinueContinue reading “The making of a bot”
10 (more) books about Japan
I’m looking forward to reading Chris Harding’s new book on modern Japan, but in the meantime he’s been doing some promotion for it – including this piece in the Guardian on The Top 10 Books About Japan. I think I’d probably include maybe three of his list in my 10 favourites – I’m not sureContinueContinue reading “10 (more) books about Japan”
Threads
I went to the National Museum, Cardiff, a couple of weeks ago, to see their exhibition of Japanese design, Kizuna. There’s a lot of good stuff on display, but for me the highlight was this, a 12 panel screen that formed a map of Edo (Tokyo): It’s massive and yet full of detail, each placeContinueContinue reading “Threads”
Twin Cities
China Mieville is an interesting author – at times he infuriates me, but some of the ideas he has are really thought-provoking and he has a skill of exploring them through fiction in a compelling way. The City & The City is him playing with the genre of detective fiction, but the core idea isContinueContinue reading “Twin Cities”
Entangled history
There was a great example of entangled history on the latest episode of the History Of Japan podcast. It’s now well into its fifth hour on the Bakumatsu/Meiji Ishin, and things are beginning to hot up. According to the podcast, the end of the Civil War left the U.S. with a large amount of weaponry -ContinueContinue reading “Entangled history “
A Road Trip, of sorts
Donald Richie’s The Inland Sea is widely regarded as one of the classics of post-war writing on Japan. It’s the account of a trip Richie took, alone, across the various islands of the Seto Naikai, the inland sea of the title. It’s a bold book, idiosyncratic and opinionated (and unashamedly adult), unafraid to cast modern Japan andContinueContinue reading “A Road Trip, of sorts”
Did I mention the heat?
The Japanese summer is the sound of 1000 cicadas in unison, so loud it cannot possibly be just some insects; it’s vast numbers of dragon flies, sortying across the sky in twos and threes and fours. It’s the sweet, sick smell of the drains; it’s scurrying across from one patch of shade to another; theContinueContinue reading “Did I mention the heat?”
Kyoto
When John Lafarge visited Japan in 1886, he and Henry Adams didn’t make it to Kyoto until the end of their trip. In An Artist’s Letters From Japan, his account of the trip, Lafarge wrote that he and Henry Adams were now ‘mere sightseers’ – no longer studying and learning, just looking. I’m not sureContinueContinue reading “Kyoto”
On the road
In the last teaching weeks before Easter I revisited some travel books on post-war Japan – in particular Alan Booth’s Roads To Sata, Lost Japan by Alex Kerr, & The Inland Sea by Donald Richie. It was quite enjoyable to reread some of the books which I read before I got really stuck into Japan as anContinueContinue reading “On the road”
Fireflies 