Cheerful Music and Mindful Landscape
If you are in Kyoto in early July, you hear some lively music every evening at different parts of the town. Neighborhood musicians are practicing traditional instrumental music, Ohayashi, to be ready for their performance on the top of parading floats (Yamaboko) . I was there ten years ago strolling and listening to the tunes, feeling comfortable and calm. […]
Longing for the Coming of Spring
What tells you the coming of spring? It really depends on person. I happened to see a robin near my house the other day. It definitely was a sign of spring coming. One of my favorites when I think of spring is Japanese apricot or Ume in Japanese (Prunus mume). Its flowers open up in […]
Cat’s Eye View of Japanese Architecture vol.3
If you want to find cats in Japan, you would have the best luck by going to shrines and temples. Why? There are two reasons: One is that the shrine and temple grounds are “public” places where nobody stops you to come in, even if you are a cat. In fact, they used to be the only public […]
Mystery in Japanese gardens
We had a chance to visit the Japanese garden at Pocantico Hills in Tarrytown, New York. The garden was originally designed by two Japanese, Mr. Ueda and Mr. Takahashi, in the property of John D. Rockefeller. In the 1960’s David Engel redesigned the garden when the garden was relocated. Mystery is an important keyword when designers […]
Sansui- Mountains and Water in Japanese Gardens
At our talk in April in New York, among a variety of questions we were happy to receive, there was an interesting one that could be called a linguestic question: “What does sansui (山水) mean? Does it mean nature or a garden?” In Japanese, san (山) means a mountain and sui (水) means water. Combined, […]
