kottke.org posts about Japan
Hey folks. I’m very excited to be heading to Japan for the first time next month. I’ll be there from mid-October for 3-4 weeks. The current plan is Tokyo, Kamakura, Kanazawa, Kyoto, Osaka, Koyasan, and perhaps Hiroshima — change my mind? If you’ve been there, please leave your recs in the comments below or drop me an email. If you live there or will be visiting at the same time, let’s meet up!
The photograph above is from Koya Bound by Craig Mod & Dan Rubin. The companion website to the book is great.
For years now, photographer Fujio Kito has been documenting cement playground equipment in Japan, often capturing them at night, lit up in captivating ways.
(via laura olin and present & correct)
I love this gorgeous woodblock print from Hasui Kawase, View of Azalea Garden from Mt. Fuji. Hasui was a significant influence on Studio Ghibli & Hayao Miyazaki.
After all, the influence of Kawase on Ghibli, Miyazaki and his team of genius illustrators and animators is plain to see, and Miyazaki himself has previously stated his deep admiration for the legendary painter. The ability of Kawase to capture natural beauty alongside the human experience plays a significant part in Miyazaki’s love for Kawase, and it finds its way into several of the best Studio Ghibli films.
The likes of My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke all feature landscapes that are highly reminiscent of Kawase’s woodblock print style. Whether in the lush forests or beautiful countryside settings, it’s clear that Miyazaki was always keen on paying his respects to one of his favourite artists.
Here are a few more of Hasui’s hundreds of works:
You can find a large catalog of Hasui’s work here, at Wikimedia Commons, and at Flickr.
I finished the last half of Shōgun, James Clavell’s 1200-page 1975 historical novel, on my recent vacation, riveted the entire time. I loved reading it and possibly enjoyed it more than Hulu’s TV series (which is saying something). The TV version hews pretty closely to the text but the major difference is in the amount of detail and explanation available to the book’s readers. There’s just so much more intrigue & plotting in the book and the reader is much more aware of what’s going on than in the show (the reader has access to the inner dialogue of multiple characters), but without sacrificing any of the suspense or drama. And the end of the book is devastating — I was completely gutted by it.
Anyway, I’ve been poking around to see what else I can read/watch/listen to about Shōgun and the historical period in which it’s set. Here’s what I’ve found so far:
- Of course, there’s the original TV adaptation of Shōgun from 1980, which I was surprised to find that you can stream on Amazon. Richard Chamberlain stars as Blackthorne and the legendary Toshiro Mifune as Toranaga.
- Just before the 1980 miniseries was broadcast, a group of scholars published a book called Learning from Shōgun: Japanese History and Western Fantasy. “This book is intended for those who have read James Clavell’s Shōgun and who are curious about its educational significance as ‘A Novel of Japan.’” The book is out of print but I found this PDF copy on Columbia’s website and have been reading it with interest. I wonder though how contemporary scholars would react to Shōgun.
- FX Networks’ viewers guide for the 2024 miniseries has a bunch of resources on the history behind the events in the book & show, including this 6-minute video on The World of Shōgun: History & Backstory.
- Naturally, there are podcasts. The Hulu series has an official podcast (also available on YouTube). The Prestige TV Podcast did 60-minute+ recaps on all the episodes (first episode on Apple & Spotify). A Short History of Japan podcast runs 35 episodes…it looks like the last few cover the period in question. (I haven’t listened to any of these yet, so ymmv.)
- There are also many books about the late Sengoku & early Edo periods of Japan, but it’s hard to pick out which ones are actually good. I poked around on various lists and found Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan, The Battle of Sekigahara: The Greatest, Bloodiest, Most Decisive Samurai Battle Ever, and The Company and the Shogun: The Dutch Encounter with Tokugawa Japan.
If anyone has any advice on what to watch/read/listen to about this period of Japanese history, please share it in the comments. The resources I found are mostly Western, so I’d be especially interested in English translations of Japanese resources.
Lawson’s, a convenience store in Japan, has begun selling Nomu mayo, a drinkable mayonnaise forgetting the important adage: all mayo is drinkable if you believe in yourself.
The only catch for pedantic mayonnaise lovers is that the label clarifies that Nomu mayo is a “mayonnaise-style drink” and “not mayonnaise”. Currently in a “test sale period”, it still remains to be seen if Nomu mayo actually appeals to Japanese customers, who are used to the thicker and richer taste of Japanese mayo, as opposed to more Western varieties.
Unrelated, the best idea I ever had for a reality television program was “Uh Oh, It’s Mayo!” The premise being kind of like Cake or Not Cake (though this idea is from 2008) where the host goes around offering people the opportunity to taste different food products with some of them being 100% mayonnaise. It even had a theme song, the tune of which you’ll have to imagine unless you want to text me so I can send you a voice memo of it, but the lyrics are, “What’s in the pie, I don’t know. Uh oh it’s mayo!” Call me, Bravo.
Halloween is not really my thing, but I always like looking through some of the best mundane costumes from Japan via Spoon & Tamago and Nick Kapur. A few of my favorites:
“Man who keeps getting mistaken for a store employee”
“Students who went to the cafe to study but ended up spending the whole time reading manga and looking at their phones”
“Person who was stingy and only paid for the smallest plastic bag”
“That one coworker who kindly fills the office humidifier with water every morning”
“Referee at a tug-of-war competition”
I love these isometric cutaway drawings by Japanese illustrator & architect Enya Honami. From Spoon & Tamago:
Honami is a skilled draughtswoman by trade, having obtained an MFA in architecture and working at a well-known Japanese architecture firm. But the grueling hours and workload eventually weighed on her physical and mental state and she fell ill, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Enya’s doctor advised her to take some time off, and find a place where she can relax and warm her body. That’s how she discovered Kosugiyu, her local sento in Koenji. She quickly fell in love with her local hotbath and not only started working there but also began employing her architectural rendering skills to create illustrations of the space. Soon, others began asking her to draw their hotbaths as well and her clientele expanded from sento and even spread to kissaten.
Kintsugi is the Japanese practice of mending broken pottery repair with visible “scars”. A creative agency working for Oreos came up with the clever idea of selling tubes of Oreo frosting so that people could repair their broken Oreos in the same way.
Oreo’s ‘Kintsugi’ marketing campaign addresses the common issue of broken cookies by drawing inspiration from the ancient Japanese art. Kintsugi, which means “golden joinery,” is the practice of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. This technique not only restores the item but also adds beauty and value to the breakage.
Consumers often find broken Oreo cookies to be a disappointment, viewing them as imperfect and less enjoyable. However, the philosophy of Kintsugi teaches that there is beauty in imperfections and that items can become more valuable when repaired thoughtfully.
Oh, these old Japanese train tickets, sourced from this collector, are wonderful. So much design inspiration. You can find more at Present and Correct.
See also Vintage Weekly Bus Passes.
The small town of Konagai in Nagasaki Prefecture has a number of whimsical bus stops shaped like fruits.
Today, there are 5 kinds of fruit-shaped bus stops; strawberry, watermelon, cantaloupe, orange and tomato. The area of the highway is now referred to as “Tokimeki Fruits Basutei Dori”, or “Tokimeki Fruit-shaped Bus Stop Avenue”.
(thx, caroline)
There are only a couple of things I like about Halloween: 1. Heidi Klum’s costumes (last year she dressed up as a worm), and 2. the relatively recent Japanese tradition of mundane Halloween costumes. From Spoon & Tamago and Nick Kapur (here too), here are a few of my favorite mundane costumes:
“Factory worker who wore a helmet all day”
“Person who was about to be late for work, but then their train got delayed and now they are taking their time since they got a proof-of-delay ticket from the station”
“Person taking a hearing test at the doctor’s office”
See also 2021’s best costumes, including “guy who leans in as his Mario Kart character turns a curve”.
This is great and I loved it to bits: a 15-minute video from the Life Where I’m From YouTube channel about a tiny izakaya (13 seats!) in Tokyo owned and operated by a woman called “Mama” by her regulars.
When Mama is busy, regulars at this izakaya will serve themselves, get their own beers, get their “bottle-keep” and make their own drinks. They’ll also help out Mama-san by serving other customers as well. […] Bottle keep is when a customer buys a bottle and the shop holds on to it for them. Then the next time they visit they can drink from that bottle again.
I’ve got lots of thoughts about this and connections to make! The izakaya’s casual help-yourself atmosphere reminded me of a post I made here more than 20 years ago called Business Lessons From the Donut and Coffee Guy.
“Next!” said the coffee & donut man (who I’ll refer to as “Ralph”) from his tiny silver shop-on-wheels, one of many that dot Manhattan on weekday mornings. I stepped up to the window, ordered a glazed donut (75 cents), and when he handed it to me, I handed a dollar bill back through the window. Ralph motioned to the pile of change scattered on the counter and hurried on to the next customer, yelling “Next!” over my shoulder. I put the bill down and grabbed a quarter from the pile.
I followed that up with another post a few years later:
I get my occasional donut in another part of town now, but I noticed something similar with my new guy. Last Friday, the woman in front of me didn’t order anything but threw down a $20, received a coffee with two sugars a moment after she’d stepped to the window, and no change. As they chatted, I learned that the woman pays for her coffee in advance. The coffee guy asked her if she was sure she owed today. “Yep,” she replied, “It’s payday today; I get paid, you get paid.” Handy little arrangement.
Get to know your customers and trust them — it’s a simple thing that even some small businesses never master.
If this place was on my commute home, I would definitely be a regular — it seems more like someone’s living room than a bar. But there are definitely spots with similar vibes in all sorts of places in the world. Last year, I went to a restaurant in Philadelphia called Her Place that also felt like this. From my sabbatical media diet:
A unique dining experience that’s not unlike going over to someone’s house for a dinner party. There are two seatings a night, at 6:00 and 8:30; all parties are seated at the same time. It’s a set menu with no substitutions and everyone in the restaurant is served at the same time. Every course or two, the chef quiets the diners to explain what’s coming up, who cooked it, where the ingredients are from, and anything else she thinks is relevant. It’s operationally smart and creates a great dining environment. Esquire just named it one of the best new restaurants in America.
Great meal and experience. I felt like a regular even though I’d never been there before. Speaking of, I wrote about being a regular back in 2013:
This is a totally minor thing but I love it: more than once, I’ve come in early in the evening, had a drink, left without paying to go run an errand or meet someone somewhere else, and then come back later for another drink or dinner and then settle my bill. It’s like having a house account without the house account.
I really miss that place — I moved away several years ago now but went back to visit as often as I could. But Covid (and an asshole landlord) killed it.
One last thing Mama’s izakaya reminded me of is when I visited a restaurant in Istanbul called Meşhur Filibe Köftecisi.
While I waited for my food, I noticed an order of köfte going out of the kitchen…to a diner at the restaurant across the street. When he was finished, the staff at that place bussed the dishes back across the way. Meanwhile, my meal arrived and the köfte were flavorful and tender and juicy, exactly what I wanted…no wonder the place across the street had outsourced their meatballs to this place. I’d noticed the owner, the waiter, and the cook drinking tea, so after I finished, I asked if I could get a tea. The owner nodded and started yelling to a guy at the tea place two doors down. A few minutes later, a man bearing a tray with four glasses of tea arrived, dropping one at my table and the other three for the staff. Just then, a server from the place across the street came over to break a 100 lira bill. Me being a big nerd, this all reminds me of Unix and the internet, all of these small pieces loosely joined together to create a well-functioning and joyous experience. There’s only one thing on the menu at Meşhur Filibe Köftecisi, but you can get anything else within yelling distance. I declined dessert…who knows where that would have come from.
(via andy, who correctly guessed this was up my alley)
Craig Mod recently finished a 16-day tour of jazz kissas in northern Japan. Jazz kissas are bar/cafes where one goes to listen to jazz, mostly on records and not live. Mod loosely defies them thusly:
Mostly defined as: Mid-20th century “listening cafes” for jazz music. But there is a lot of variance in this definition. Lots are coffee-focused cafes, fitting into the broader “kissaten” universe. But some are more bar-like, and some even jazz clubs (but for the most part, live music is rare). You can tie yourself in knots splitting hairs over this stuff. Though they’re traditionally known as “jazz kissa” — the shortened version of “kissaten” (fear not: even if you call them “jazz kissaten” you won’t suddenly turn into a pillar of salt). Some are seventy years old. Some forty. Some are five years old. The important defining element is simply: A presiding and effusive ever-abiding love for jazz, jazz, and more jazz.
At each stop, he recorded the ambient sounds of each kissa so that you can experience a little bit of the atmosphere at these places — here’s the full playlist. The recordings were done with a pair of microphones so that the audio is in stereo. This sounds great with a good pair of headphones!
Noh is a classical Japanese art of dramatic dance that’s been performed since the 14th century. The masks worn by characters are an art form in themselves, and in this video, an expert craftsperson carves a noh mask out of a single block of Japanese cypress and then paints it with pigments made from crushed seashells.
I love the look of the rough texture of the mask when she’s about halfway through, before she smoothes it out with the paint — it’s like IRL low-poly. But the detail of the finished product is incredible.
See also How to Carve Marble Like Italian Master Donatello. (via open culture)
In Japan, people who disappear from their lives are called “evaporated people”. People choose to drop out of their lives for different reasons, ranging from debt or abuse to mental health struggles or a lack of second chances in Japanese society. Some Japanese who want to go into hiding or relocate from domestic abuse or stalkers hire “night movers” to help them disappear.
For more info, here’s a long piece from Time magazine from 2017.
Sometimes a whole team works on a client’s disappearance, swiftly sweeping through an apartment in the dead of night. At TS, it costs between ¥50,000 ($450) and ¥300,000 ($2,600) depending on the amount of possessions somebody wants to flee with, how far they’re going, and whether the move needs to happen under the cover of darkness. Taking along children, or evading debt collectors, can push prices higher. Every day, TS receives between five and 10 inquiries like the one Saita described. Most people simply require counseling or legal advice but the company claims to help between 100 and 150 people to vanish annually.
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