Bye Bye Tokyo for now .....
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Japanese summer must does - Hanabi 花火 (fireworks)
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
NIHON NO USO 日本の嘘 (Japan's lie) - released on ２０１２・０８・０４
In September 2011, six months after the nuclear accident started, Kikujiro Fukushima
would find himself frantically pressing the shutter of his camera in a
ghost town near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. On other days,
he was covering anti-nuclear rallies in Tokyo. Fukushima has witnessed
Japan’s path since the end of World War II and has begun speaking about
a “postwar Japan that was not captured in his photos.” This special feature
depicts the man’s life based on a documentary film, "JAPAN LIES --- The Photojournalism of Kikujiro Fukushima, Age 90 ---", which closely followed Fukushima for two years, describing his
own path from Hiroshima to Fukushima Prefecture.
Born in 1921 in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Kikujiro Fukushima came to Tokyo in 1960 and started his career as a professional photographer.
The key themes of his career include the nuclear bombings, social and political
affairs, military issues and environmental topics. He has published a number
of photo collections, including “Atomic Bomb: Record of an Atomic Bomb
Survivor,” as well as several essays and commentaries. He does not belong
to any political party nor has he any political affiliation. He currently
lives in Yanai, Yamaguchi Prefecture, with his dog
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Tanabata 七夕 ("evening of the seventh") - 07・07
Tanabata (七夕, meaning "Evening of the seventh") is a Japanese star festival, originating from the Chinese Qixi Festival. It celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi (represented by the stars Vega and Altair respectively). The date of Tanabata varies by region of the country, but the first festivities begin on July 7 of the Gregorian calendar.
The Tanabata festival (Tanabata matsuri) was imported to Japan by the Empress Kōken in 755. It originated from "The Festival to Plead for Skills" (乞巧奠 Kikkōden), an alternative name for Qixi,which was celebrated in China and also was adopted in the Kyoto Imperial Palace from the Heian period.
The festival gained widespread popularity amongst the general public by the early Edo period, when it became mixed with various Obon
or Bon traditions (because Bon was held on 15th of the seventh month
then), and developed into the modern Tanabata festival. Popular customs
relating to the festival varied by region of the country, but generally, girls wished for better sewing and craftsmanship, and
boys wished for better handwriting by writing wishes on strips of paper.
At this time, the custom was to use dew left on taro leaves to create the ink used to write wishes. Incidentally, Bon is now held on 15 August on the solar calendar, close to its original date on the lunar calendar, making Tanabata and Bon separate events.
The name Tanabata is remotely related to the Japanese reading of the
Chinese characters 七夕, which used to be read as "Shichiseki". It is
believed that a Shinto purification ceremony existed around the same time, in which a Shinto miko wove a special cloth on a loom called a Tanabata (棚機)
near waters and offered it to a god to pray for protection of rice
crops from rain or storm and for good harvest later in autumn. Gradually
this ceremony merged with Kikkōden to become Tanabata. The Chinese characters 七夕 and the Japanese reading Tanabata joined to mean the same festival, although originally they were two different things, an example of ateji.
Source : Wikipedia
The story of Tanabata
Orihime (織姫 : Weaving Princess), daughter of the Tentei (天帝 : Sky King, or the universe itself), wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the Amanogawa (天の川 : Milky Way, lit. "heavenly river"). Her father loved the cloth that she wove and so she worked very hard every day to weave it. However, Orihime was sad that because of her hard work she could never meet and fall in love with anyone. Concerned about his daughter, Tentei arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi (彦星 : Cow Herder Star) (also referred to as Kengyuu (牽牛) who lived and worked on the other side of the Amanogawa. When the two met, they fell instantly in love with each other and married shortly thereafter. However, once married, Orihime nolonger would weave cloth for Tentei and Hikoboshi allowed his cows to stray all over Heaven. In anger, Tentei separated the two lovers across the Amanogawa and forbade them to meet. Orihime became despondent at the loss of her husband and asked her father to let them meet again. Tentei was moved by his daughter's tears and allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month if she worked hard and finished her weaving. The first time they tried to meet, however, they found that they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. Orihime cried so much that a flock of magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross the river. It is said that if it rains on Tanabata, the magpies cannot come and the two lovers must wait until another year to meet.
In present-day Japan, people generally celebrate this day by writing wishes on tanzaku (短冊), small pieces of paper, and hanging them on a bamboo branch, sometimes with other decorations. The bamboo and decorations are often set afloat on a river or burned after the festival, around midnight or on the next day.
Tanabata Song
Sasa no ha sara-sara
Nokiba ni yureru
Ohoshi-sama kira-kira
Kingin sunago
Goshiki no tanzaku
watashi ga kaita
Ohoshi-sama kirakira
sora kara miteiru
Translation :
The bamboo leaves rustle,
shaking away in the eaves.
The stars twinkle
on the gold and silver grains of sand.
The five-colour paper strips
I have already written.
The stars twinkle,
They watch us from heaven.
Tokyo flee markets
There are numerous flee markets in Tokyo that range from your local "car boot sale" type to more sophisticated antique markets.
Here are a few links to follow if you enjoy wondering around open air markets on a sunny day ...
Ginza and Tokyo Station area : Oedo Antique Market
A list of pottery markets around Tokyo and its region : Antique Pottery Market - Kanto
Japan National Tourism Organisation list
Tokyo Yokohama Information
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Itsuki no komoriuta 五木の子守歌, a Japanese lullaby
The most common version :
おどま盆ぎり盆ぎり / Odoma bon giri bon giri
盆から先きゃおらんと / Bon kara sakya oran to
盆が早よくりゃ早よもどる / Bon ga hayoku rya hayo modoru
おどま勧進勧進 / Odoma kanjin kanjin
あん人たちゃよか衆 / An hito tachya yoka shû
よか衆ゃよか帯 よか着物 / Yoka shû yoka obi yoka kimono
to continue with the same tune ....
おどんがうっ死んだちゅうて
誰が泣てくりゅうか
うらの松山蝉が鳴く
おどんがうっ死んだら
道ばちゃいけろ
通る人ごち花あぎゅう
花はなんの花
つんつん椿
水は天からもらい水
The original version :
おどまいやいや
泣く子の守りにゃ
泣くといわれて憎まれる
泣くといわれて憎まれる
ねんねした子の
かわいさむぞさ
起きて泣く子の面憎さ
起きて泣く子の面憎さ
ねんねいっぺんゆうて
眠らぬ奴は
頭たたいて尻ねずむ
頭たたいて尻ねずむ
おどまお父つぁんな
あの山おらす
おらすともえば行こごたる
おらすともえば行こごたる
Keisuke Serizawa (芹沢 銈介) - Master of Japanese Folk Art and Crafts
He taught industrial design at the Shizuoka Technical Laboratory and Shizuoka Industrial High School. But two factors made him decide to become a dyeing artist. First, he discovered the existence of the craft in an essay by Yanagi Muneyoshi, the leader of the “Mingei Movement” and who later taught Serizawa throughout his life. The second factor was the chance to see the characteristic “Bingata” dyeing technique from the Okinawa District, Where he was deeply attracted by its beauty.
In 1929, he sent his first work “Shakushinamon Kabekake”(wall drape) to the Kokugakai Exhibition and won the Kokugakai Prize. He was also admitted as a member of this group for his remarkable creative activity. In 1934, he and his family moved to Kamata, Tokyo, at the suggestion of Yanagi and he began dyeing full-time.
He went several times to Okinawa after 1939 to study “Bingata.” He improved on Bingata and other dyeing techniques by using “Katagami (stencil paper).” His new technique was called “Kataezome.” He sent many his “Kataezome” works throughout the world.
Late in his life he won great popularity with the many personal exhibitions held in Japan and abroad. The 1976 exhibition “Serizawa” at the Grand Palais in Paris firmly established his fame above all.
Source : Shizuoka City Serizawa Keisuke Museum
Other links :
Tohoku Fukushi Daigaku
Mingei Kan (Japanese Folk Art and Crafts Museum)
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Dōjunkai apartments 同潤会アパート, Tokyo
Dōjunkai (shinjitai: 同潤会, kyūjitai: 同潤會) was a corporation set up a year after the 1923 Kantō earthquake to provide reinforced concrete (and thus earthquake- and fire-resistant) collective housing in the Tokyo area. Its formal name was Zaidan-hōjin Dōjunkai (財団法人同潤会), i.e. the Dōjunkai corporation. The suffix kai means organization, and dōjun was a term coined to suggest the spread of the nutritious benefit of the water of river and sea. It was overseen by the Home Ministry.
The corporation was in existence from 1924 through 1941; it was involved in construction between 1926 and 1934, primarily 1926–30, building 16 complexes. As of 2012, only one complex remains; it is mostly unoccupied, and expected to be demolished when the remaining residents accept buyouts from developers.
Read more ...
Source : Wikipedia
Resident of last Dōjunkai laments passing of '20s icons
By EDAN CORKILL
"One of the members of the residents association once told me that we
shouldn't talk to journalists, but I have nothing to lose now."
Helmut Rudolph was sitting on a low couch, surveying the interior of his
tiny, 20-sq.-meter apartment. It seemed as though the lanky
self-described German-New Zealander could reach out and touch the walls
on all sides.
Despite these modest circumstances — and that warning about members of
the fourth estate — Rudolph had invited The Japan Times to view his
abode because it is in the last remaining example of a series of
residential buildings that were once the pride of Japan's architectural
fraternity: the Dojunkai apartments.
...
Consequently, the Dojunkai apartments — named
after the public entity responsible for their construction — were made
to last. They tended to be no more than four or five stories high, and
comprised of "family-size" apartments like the one Rudolph rents — and,
astonishing by today's standards, even smaller single-person units on
the top floors.
The blocks were all of steel-and-concrete
construction, and were often designed as quadrangles around a central
courtyard or in U-shaped formations that gave them increased resistance
to lateral shaking from earthquakes.
Yet, although the 15 buildings survived
subsequent natural and man-made disasters (including the carpet- and
fire-bombing during World War II), they have over the last few decades
proved no match for a far more tenacious phenomenon: the economics of
property development.
The most famous Dojunkai building of them all was
located in Tokyo's swish central Shibuya Ward, where it once presented
its low-rise, ivy-covered facade to a long stretch of leafy Omotesando
boulevard. However, that iconic structure was demolished in 2003 to make
way for a mega-development in the shape of Mori Building's Omotesando
Hills.
By then, though, many of the other Dojunkai
apartments had already succumbed to wrecking balls and, come 2009, the
second-last of them — in the Nippori district of Tokyo's eastern Arakawa
Ward — was leveled to make way for a high-rise apartment block.
And then there was one.
Source : The Japan Times Online
Other source : Death of the Dojunkai apartments
Love Tsumori Chisato
Born in the city of Saitama, Japan, Tsumori Chisato studied fashion at the prestigious Bunka Fashion School in Tokyo. In 1977, she entered the Issey Miyake design company as the head designer for “Issey Sports”, later renamed “I.S. Chisato Tsumori Design”. With this solid apprenticeship under her belt and at the encouragement of Mr. Miyake himself, Tsumori Chisato started her own line in 1990, a collection that made its catwalk debut in Tokyo at the Japan Fashion Week that same year.
Tsumori Chisato’s signature style was soon celebrated with her innovative and luxurious textiles, intricate beading, embroidery, appliqués and prints of her own design. Graceful, elegant and fun at the same time, Tsumori Chisato’s work has been greatly appreciated over the years. The prestigious “Maïnichi Newspaper Award” is just one of numerous prizes she has received in recognition of her design achievements.
Having always been proudly international at heart, with a particular penchant for all things French, she chose Paris as the destination for her first free-standing shop outside Asia.
The Christian Biecher designed boutique opened on rue Barbette in 1999. Situated in the heart of the Marais neighbourhood, the boutique showcases Tsumori Chisato’s love for the arts through collaborations with photographers, visual artists and set designers exhibited in the storefront. Her artistic sensibility is also translated throught the brand’s inventive advertising campaigns.
In 2003, Tsumori Chisato launched her first menswear line and began showing her women’s collection during Paris Prêt-à-Porter Fashion Week.
This same year she also began international worldwide distribution. Today, Tsumori Chisato has over 40 sales points and numerous freestanding stores throughout Asia and the brand continues to expand steadily throughout the United States, Italy, Russia and Scandinavia.
Source : tsumorichisato.com
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Le monde de Kazumasa Nagai 永井一正 (1929〜)
Source : Japanese Design
Other sources :
Animalarium
The Powerhouse Museum
Rob Dunlavey
I desire vintage posters
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Japan approves 2 reactor restarts, more seen ahead
Japan on June 16 approved the resumption of nuclear power operations at two reactors despite mass public opposition, the first to come back on line after they were all shut down following the Fukushima crisis.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, his popularity ratings sagging, had backed the restarts for some time. He announced the government's decision at a meeting with key ministers, giving the go-ahead to two reactors operated by Kansai Electric Power Co. at Oi in western Japan.
The decision, despite public concerns over safety after the big earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima plant, could open the door to more restarts among Japan's 50 nuclear power reactors.
read more ...
Eki-bento (Japanese train station bentos)
From Tokyo to Kyoto with a "yasai tappuri bento" 野菜たっぷり弁当 ! Delicious.
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