Kurashi - News From Japan

An Anagama is a wood fire kiln used in traditional Japanese pottery where the gas and ash act as a natural glazing agent for ceramics. This short documentary features Clayton Amemiya, a Hawaii-born artist who was originally taught in Okinawa by sensei Seisho Kuniyoshi. Clayton has been perfecting his Anagama technique for 40 years and become a master craftsman of this Japanese art form.

I get my clay from Shiga Prefecture and this article explains the unique features concerning the water in Harie, near Lake Biwa. Mainichi: Shiga: Land of Water The Harie district in Takashima, Shiga Prefecture, reminds one of good old Japan, with traditional tiled-roof houses lining the streets. Located roughly 1.5 kilometers from Lake Biwa in the northwest part of the prefecture, it is a place full of natural beauty, with fish swimming in numerous canals and streams that transect the district. For some 300 years, residents have fostered a unique water culture that centers around "kabata" -- a water supply system that utilizes the region's abundant underground water. The water originates in the Hira Mountains in western Shiga Prefecture. At each household in Harie, pipes are sunk about 10 to 20 meters into the ground to obtain the underground water. This spring water -- which the people of Harie refer to as "shozu," or living water --...

Have you heard of the plastic garbage in the oceans? Well, 20 year old Boyan Slat is trying to do something about it, and he is getting support to do it in Japan. May 20, 2015 he and his crew started a project near Tsushima Island, to try to capture some of the crap left by humans in our seas. If this works out, the plan is to scale it up. The ocean currents, passing the island towards the deposits around 30,000 m 3 of trash onto its shores every year. Currently, this garbage is manually collected, costing about US$5 million each year. The coastal pilot will be catching trash before it reaches the shoreline, potentially saving cost. This, combined with the suitable wave/current conditions and the local hospitality, makes Tsushima the perfect testing location. This will get interesting. Tsushima is part of Nagasaki, Kyushu and a major tourist destination. Go out on the beaches and you can't avoid seeing the plastic crap washed ashore. Very embarrassing then, if tha...

Time sure flies! I already have spuds in the soil (danchaku variety) and some peas in the greenhouse. Harvesting purple cabbage and lettuce, and spinach - need to protect them from birds, clever creatures they are. Next weekend is the big Japan Organic Agriculture Association (JOAA) assembly in Tokyo , a great opportunity to talk to experts in the field here. I'll be participating in the workshop about teikei (CSA) and show a few photos from my humble garten. Big reason I got so hot under my collar about growing my own vegetables was - visiting and learning from JOAA farmers. Food safety, anyone? Good to know we are not exposed to anything harmful, unless you eat a lot of wild boar meat. Strontium 90 may be a concern, however. Water also safe. Analysis of Japanese Radionuclide Monitoring Data of Food Before and After the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Stefan Merz † , Katsumi Shozugawa * ‡ , and Georg Steinhauser * § ⊥ † Atominstitut, Vienna University of Technology , S...

I could probably do better, but here are a few links that caught my eye recently. Mother Jones writer Tom Philpott provides a lot of convincing arguments and links that These Ubiquitous Chemicals May Be Making Us Stupid Kids exposed to the highest levels of two common phthalates in the womb had an IQ score, on average, more than six points lower than children exposed at the lowest levels. Do avoid. But do read. The Asahi gives us a hint that should be made more generally available; clearly, this is not advice "to Japanese men" but to all of us. Is this really the level to what newspaper editing has been reduced to? Anyway, important study. Scientists to Japanese men: Eat your veggies, reduce stomach cancer risk January 05, 2015 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN Japanese men can reduce their risk of developing lower stomach cancer simply by eating a lot of vegetables, researchers at the National Cancer Center and other institutions found. ...

Inspired by this and more , tongue firmly in cheek... Tokyo, Japan -- Power was restored in most of Japan on Sunday, a day after the impoverished, energy-starved nation was plunged into a nationwide blackout when a transmission line from well, nowhere, failed, officials said. The blackout was the country's worst since a 2007 cyclone knocked out the national grid for several hours, and again exposed inefficient and dated infrastructure that has held back development in the North East Asian nation. Electricity was cut across Japan at around noon Saturday after the transmission line experienced a "technical glitch" that led to a cascade of failures throughout the national power grid, with power plants and substations shutting down. After an evening spent in the dark, most of the residents of Tokyo, the capital of more than 10 million people, got electricity back on by 1 a.m. Sunda...

Exciting things happening over at UNU here in Japan. Established in 1973, this is the academic and research arm of the United Nations. Great place for your higher education, I'm told. UNU upcoming events here . More about Applications for their 2014 Fellowships here . The UNU Institute of Advanced Studies also has an archive of research papers here . And if you care about sustainable development, and have ideas from behind the camera, here is your chance. If you are in Japan and East Asia and everywhere else, do contribute. Let's do it in a different way. Mainstream media just wants war and conflict. We can do better. Water and energy? Good article here about a guy in LA who is trying to do something about the lack of water in that huge city and the rest of California. http://www.transitionnetwork.org/blogs/rob-hopkins/2014-01/andy-lipkis-man-taking-la-s-water-system Andy recently convened a meeting of experts and government officials from Austra...

Finally we have a solid translation of the classic story, The Crab Cannery Ship, by Kobayashi Takiji (1903-1933) translated by Zeljko Cipris, with an introduction by Komori Yoichi, published by the University of Hawai'i Press. Do find it in your local bookshop or on the Internet. Plus two additional short stories published in English for the first time, Yasuko and Life of a Party Member. Look Inside (Amazon) Mark Schilling explains : Why does a novel about exploited workers on a crab cannery boat, published 80 years ago by a young communist writer, later tortured to death by the police, become a hot movie property now? The program for “Kani Kosen” (“The Crab Cannery Boat”) explains that a store poster, inspired by Takiji Kobayashi’s eponymous novel, became a media sensation last year and, before you could say “bubble,” indie veteran Sabu scripted and directed a film. “Kani Kosen,” however, is not another pop culture throwaway, made to capitalize on a fad. It is also n...

We know precious little about how our ancestors travelled. We do know that the Vikings used some kind of "Sunstone" to sail, and recent discoveries seem to confirm that they may have used a kind of crystal found in Iceland and other places in Scandinavia, called spar or Iceland spar or silfurberg . Fältspar is a common Swedish word, so this is not an unusual stone, and not a precious stone as such, but they simply may give a hint at where the sun may be on a cloudy day through polarization. We know of course that vikings like Leif Eriksson settled on the eastern coast of North America (called Vinland by the Scandinavians) long before that upstart Columbus reached what we now call the "American" continent, but it hasn't been clear how the vikings navigated, except for the few lines in ancient Nordic texts . Viking legends, including an Icelandic saga ‘Rauðúlfs þáttr’ with  the hero Sigurður , hint that these sailors had another navigational aid at th...

16 amazing photos of flooding around Wakayama City after the recent downpour, from the Mainichi .

Here is to hoping that Greece will get through its current financial problems. We all deserve better. OK, it may require some downsizing and a lot less consumption, and no certain outcomes. We have all lived at levels way above what this planet can sustain, especially in the so-called developed world. Turns out, we need to develop other skills, such as humility, compassion, love. Image from The Telegraph , of an ad placed in The Wall Street Journal, by a consortium of leading Greek business people who have launched an advertising campaign titled Give Greece a Chance. Note: this could happen to any country. It could happen to you. It could happen to Japan. The advert reads: Greece has committed to the toughest austerity program in modern history. Hefty tax hikes, pension and wage cuts have reduced the primary budget deficit from €24.7 billion to €5.2 billion in just two years... but with a dramatic impact on the life of every Greek. A new set of measures was recently...

Time - we have no concept of it. Eggs, about a week. Milk and cream, we can get in about three months if we have a couple of cows, and if we know how to deal with them (including the bull). Wheat and rice, about six or seven months, but a lot more if we consider all the history from back way before. Other veggies, well, it depends on where you get your seeds from. Most seed sold in small bags are imported. We talk about farming, but if we don't acknowledge that there are people out there, who know how to work the soil, and who understand the concept of time, then how are we going to feed ourselves? I really liked this article in The Guardian about Irene, a 1907 sail ship that will be chartered to ship food slowly... Organic beer from the UK, olive oil from Spain, and then cocoa, coffee - and rum - back from South America. The whole point is to "blaze a trail for wind-powered cargo ships." For Pike, this trip, which begins on Valentine's Day, is about romance but also ...

I learned of GIFT just the other day when I listened to an interview on BBC - Peter Day's World of Business . The guest was Chandran Nair, former environmental consultant and Founder and CEO of GIFT - the Global Institute for Tomorrow, based in Hong Kong. GIFT looks at the problems of economic growth, pollution, climate change, food, and so on, with a focus on that part of the world which will drive these issues in the 21st century: Asia. GIFT is not just another think tank, but an organization with an active outreach that helps people directly in the Asia region and educates students through their "Young Leaders Programme". From their website - Global Institute for Tomorrow - "The YLP is a unique executive learning programme aimed at developing leadership and business skills by applying these in an experiential context to design commercially viable solutions for socially responsible projects in Asia." GIFT also provides advisory services and offers ideas thro...

Uemura Kana got a huge hit this year with her 10 minute long ballad called Toilet God. A sweet story of her memories of growing up with her obaasan, who taught her how to be a beautiful woman. This is for all of us who had the privilege to spend a lot of time with our grandparents when we were young. Enjoy. Yes, in Japan there are all kinds of gods for all kinds of occasions and situations, even today. Is it shinto? You decide. Even Mure Dickie at the Financial Times thinks this is a tune worth linking too ;) “Japanese like simple and compact designs, but Chinese consumers tend to prefer a bit more form and decoration,” says Junko Kawaide, Inax’s Expo manager. Such concern for Chinese tastes is a relatively recent phenomenon for many Japanese companies. Inax, for example, has been manufacturing bathroom fittings , tiles and toilets in China for years, but has only recently seen the country as a serious market for its high-technology toilets with their automated seats, massaging shower...

The first petition is online here , it is easy to sign and just takes a minute. Do take a look! Save the Dugong Campaign Center notes: Japan will host and the Japanese government will chair the 10th meeting of the conference of the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP 10) in 2010. We believe the Japanese government has the responsibilities to lead the international conservation efforts. We thus request the Japanese government: 1. To implement the IUCN Resolution (Res. 4.022). 2. To designate immediately the Okinawa Dugong as a National Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. The International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a Swiss-based international environmental protection NGO declared 2010 as the "International Year of the Dugong" in its support to protect the dugong during the 2010 UN Year of Biodiversity. IUCN rates the Dugong as Vulnerable on its Red List , which is a better status than Endangered but worse than Near Threatened. They ...

This is a great scene from Ingmar Bergman's 1982 film Fanny And Alexander, set in Uppsala around 1907. A lot has happened since then, or, as they say here in Japan, warm water under a red bridge. My memories of Jul (Yule, Christmas, クリスマス) hardly even touch on a tangent on some of the scenes that Bergman explore here. He was indeed born in a different era, in a different state of mind, that some would call "upper class" whatever that may mean. His anger and angst, to use the German word, also may not be so well understood. Bergman is very popular in Japan - and even in America, this film got 4 Oscars. Well done. Do rent the full version, do enjoy it in its entire fullness, all of Bergman's greatness, with moments of brilliance and truth, like this scene when Isak tells the children an ancient story, of how a young man sets out on a journey. But why? He has also forgotten his homeland, and the final goal, Suddenly one evening he is standing in a forest All is quiet; p...