Orgy of Tolerance

(c)Frederik Heyman

In the 20th century, logic came to power.  That which was unnecessary was eliminated in Bauhaus, communist propaganda, American manufacturing, engineering, war, design. . .  Life was simplified to a minimum that could be logically understood.  Everything else was eliminated.  That is the world we still live in today.  Our scientific understanding abstracts from all emotion.  Subjectivity is set aside in search of a greater truth, but what is good for research is not necessarily good for life in general.  We lost our ability to understand ourselves.  We do not know how to deal with our desires except to satisfy them or to cry out in want and pain.  We abstract our emotions when sympathy is called for.  We are emotionally dead to violence when it is performed in the name of our own protection.  We are slaves to fear when violence draws near.  Hoping to escape from or at least deaden our fear and desires, we overcompensate with consumption.

My Corner of the Ethnosphere

Wade Davis from the National Geographic is an inspiration.  He says that humanity’s greatest legacy is the “ethnosphere,” the cultural counterpart to the biosphere and “the sum total of all thoughts, dreams, myths, ideas, inspiration, intuitions brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness.” An indicator that this richness of culture is dying out is the demise of languages, for “every language is an old-growth of the mind.” (see TED profile) This is very similar to what Goethe said about languages, “If you know one, you know none,” which can be applied as readily to culture.  However, Goethe’s quote also encourages the individual to explore a world that will challenge his or her unquestioned beliefs.

Die Udaka-kai Europa Tournee: Dresden & Berlin

Im Schauspielhaus Dresden beim Vorlesen der Botschaften der Bürgermeister von Hiroshima und Nagasaki

Nach den im Vergleich gemütlichen Tagen in Paris, sind wir über Frankfurt nach Dresden geflogen für einen langen Abend mit Aufführungen von Han-Nô (nur der zweiten Akt) „Funabenkei“ und „Inori (Gebet)“ ein originelles Stück geschrieben von Meister UDAKA Michishige. Am nächsten Tag ging es am Morgen nach Berlin für Aufführungen von „Aoi-no-Ue“ am gleichen Abend und von „Inori“ am Abend darauf. Die Reaktion im deutschen Publikum war wie erwartet anders als die in Paris, aber was ich nicht gewusst und nicht erwartet habe war daß sogar innerhalb Deutschland die Reaktionen in Dresden und Berlin ganz unterschiedlich waren.

Hatsugama

My performance of “Yuki” as the host of the thin tea ceremony (usuchaseki)

I’m a little behind in my posting. On January 14, 2007, I had my first major performance as host in a tea ceremony for hatsugama. Hatsugama is the first tea ceremony of the year, with much pomp and circumstance, at least with my teacher, Matsumoto Soei. To effectively pomp myself up for the performance, much effort went into my outrageous hair and trailing sleeve “furisode” kimono.

Usually, hatsugama tea ceremonies take place at a teacher’s home or in a traditional Japanese setting. However, my teacher and her older sister have continued a tradition established by their mother by holding their hatsugama at hotels in a effort to adjust to the times and to accommodate the many students and their guests efficiently. In this version, guests usually sit at tables and the host will perform on a small stage. Afterwards, a full course meal of French cuisine is served and the students do skits, perform a sort of talent show, and have party games in a banquet hall to top off the occasion.

Tracing Mori Ogai in Leipzig

Liebigstraße is the street on which the Leipzig University Hospital, where Mori Ogai studied medical hygiene, is located and on which a pension he went for meals used to be located.

Over Christmas, I had the opportunity to go to Germany for two weeks to spend the holiday with my family. Over the trip, I kept a copy of Japan’s first great modern author Mori Ogai’s Deutschlandtagebuch 1884 – 1888 (Doitsunikki, Germany Diary)[1] as travel literature, and went to Leipzig on December 20th to see what I could trace of him there. Leipzig was the first city Mori lived and went to university in after coming to Germany as a military doctor to study hygiene. After returning to Japan, for a Japanese language school application I wrote the following paper about Mori Ogai, which I’ve edited to post here. I’ve included pictures of some of the places I found that were mentioned in his diary.

Kyoto’s Homeless

Oike Street – the area we patrolled

There are about 300 homeless people in Kyoto, although in nearby Osaka they number in the thousands. So said Fabio, my new Italian-German friend, who currently studies Noh theatre at Osaka University. I had met him for coffee yesterday evening, when he said he had to leave by 9:30 to go volunteer for a homeless patrol. Curious, I went with him.