Japan

The great American-born woodworker George Nakashima has built his work around the principle that each piece of wood has a perfect use, and it is up to the woodworker to find that use and to allow the tree to live on through his craft. His work revolves around the natural beauty of the wood, and working it in such a way as to give full play to the

There are very few peoples in the world who like fluffy, sticky rice. Just the Japanese, Yunnanese, and Nepalese. Also only a few like nattō, or sticky, fermented soybeans. The people who lived here before there was a Japan or a Japanese people were part of that cultural sphere in ancient times.

No matter how many facts I may try to accumulate about him, they’re not going to have any effect on my personality. Knowledge just gets piled up as knowledge, until sooner or later it’s discarded. PHILOSOPHER: Then let me ask you this. Why do you think you want to be like Y? I guess you just want to be a different person, whether it’s Y or someone

This haiku is a deep reflection on the truth of reality, which is by nature transient and fleeting. When we are unable to accept this truth we become distressed. However, recognition of this truth could at least bring a sense of poignancy to all of us human beings, who inevitably experience and witness it. There is even an aesthetic of this

Akihabara (秋葉原) ** Known by otaku (diehard fans) throughout the world, Akihabara is the anime, videogame and cosplay capital of Japan.

Little has been done in Europe with ash glazes, but in Japan the ash glaze has been a predominant feature of pottery since its use was first discovered in the Nara period. The desire for a nonuniform surface that can catch, in the glaze of each pot, the irregularities of nature hails back to the Japanese love of things that are imperfect and