Disaster Information
Disaster Information in Multiple Languages To those who are suffering from the disaster that hit and has still been hitting Tohoku and Kanto area: our thoughts and prayers are with you and all those affected by... more
The Otokichi Saga - A Postscript
The previous two issues of Avenues presented a two-part article on the life of Otokichi Yamamoto, an Edo-period mariner (b.1817) from Onoura, in Mihama-cho on the Chita Peninsula south of Nagoya. Miraculously surviving a coastal... more
Rokkaen: an architectural oddity
Fifteen miles southwest of Nagoya, in Kuwana, Mie Prefecture, is a beautiful but strange building called the Rokkaen. Built in 1913 for what was Japan’s largest landowner, it is designated an Important Cultural Property of... more
Onogi Temple Tour
Awaken your imagination and ignite your sense of history. Take a self-guided walking (or pedaling) tour through Nishi Ward, north of Nagoya center. Explore a richly woven tapestry of historic and spiritual threads hiding beyond... more
Woodblock prints: Mie
In previous editions I covered my woodblock art in connection with Gifu Prefecture, and we now move to another neighbor of Aichi, the probably lesser-known Mie. The architecture and the region itself are, in many... more
Losing Kei and other books
Originally from a small American town on Lake Michigan, Suzanne Kamata now resides in Tokushima prefecture and in January had her first fiction novel published. Losing Kel (Leapfrog Press, paperback, 196 pages, $14.95) was originally... more
The Japanese gate
A gate has inherent meaning; keep out, keep in. Here in Japan even the most modest of houses bear gates. They range from elaborate to austere, but to my eye most have been wrought formidably.... more
Otokichii - Part 2
Part one of this remarkable tale (Autumn ‘07) ended with the 14 year-old Otokichi (Yamamoto), his elder brother and thirteen other crew members aboard the coastal trading vessel Hojunmaru, rudderless, without mast or sail, and... more
Table for Two: Feeding the world
It is not often that one hears of a Japanese initiative with the potential to have vast global effect; however, the recently born Table For Two Project promises to do just that. Originating from a... more
Woodblock printing: Shirakawa
It took years to create the fourth print for the Shirakawa set. Not because it was complex work but because I couldn’t make a winter sketching trip; there’s no railway station and it was once... more
