Isn't telling about something--using words, English or Japanese--already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention? The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in under...
Maitake mushrooms are known in Japan as 'the dancing mushroom.' According to a Japanese legend, a group of Buddhist nuns and woodcutters met on a mountain trail, where they discovered a fruiting of maitake mushrooms emerging from the forest floor. Re...
The great Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa said that to be an artist means never to avert your eyes. And that's the hardest thing, because we want to flinch. The artist must go into the white hot center of himself, and our impulse when we get th...
As the lower parts of the Japanese houses and shops are open both before and behind, I had peeps of these pretty little gardens as I passed along the streets; and wherever I observed one better than the rest I did not fail to pay it a visit.
I was reading, absorbed in an assault on K2 by a team of Japanese mountaineers, my lungs constricting in the thin burning air, the deadly sting of wind-lashed ice in my face, when the record -- Le Sacre du Printemps -- caught in the groove with a gna...
I write entirely in English; Tagalog chauvinists chide me for this. I feel no guilt in doing so. But I am sad that I cannot write in my native Ilokano. History demanded this; if it isn't English I am using now, I would most probably be writing in Spa...
In a way, 'Sin City's designed to be paced somewhere between an American comic book and Japanese manga. Working in black and white, I realized that the eye is less patient, and you have to make your point, and sometimes repeat it. Slowing things down...
Japanese players do not like being thrown into an arena in which they are given very little instruction. You can head in any direction, 360 degrees. They say, 'What am I supposed to do? Give me hints. Provide me service instead of just throwing me in...
At the time I was writing 'Weedflower,' my friend Naomi Hirahara was writing a book about Japanese-American flower farmers. She knew quite a few elderly farmers and put me in touch with four or five of them who had been in camps during WWII. Some, li...
[after Basie's friend killed Jim's Japanese friend] Jim: Bastard! He gave me a mango! Basie: I'll give you a whole goddamn fruit salad. There are Frigidaires falling from the sky. It's kingdom come! Jim: He was my friend! Basie: He was a Jap! Jim: Th...
Frank: [Frank and Basie see Japanese men dancing in the house] Damn it Basie, they're Japs Basie: I can see that Frank, back out of here. Frank: I can't back out, there's no reverse Basie: Just go foward Frank: Come on.
The Bride: [in Japanese] Those of you lucky enough to have your lives, take them with you. However, leave the limbs you've lost. They belong to me now. [in English] The Bride: Except you, Sofie! You stay right where you are!
Sol Robeson: The Ancient Japanese considered the Go board to be a microcosm of the universe. Although when it is empty it appears to be simple and ordered, in fact, the possibilities of gameplay are endless. They say that no two Go games have ever be...
General Jack D. Ripper: Were you ever a prisoner of war? Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Well... yes I was, matter of fact, Jack. I was. General Jack D. Ripper: Did they torture you? Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh, yes they did. I was tortured by the J...
I have a strange illusion quite often. I think I've become deaf. I have to make a little noise to prove I'm not. I clear my throat to show myself that everything is normal. It's like the little Japanese girl they found in the ruins of Hiroshima. Ever...
Even if there are no new Mighty Atom manga or films created, the Mighty Atom character has become a permanent fixture of both Japanese and global pop culture.
A strong life force can be seen in physical vitality, courage, competent judgment, self-mastery, sexual vigor, and the realization of each person’s unique talents and purpose in life. To maintain a powerful life force, forget yourself, forget about...
While we can learn or study techniques for almost anything we might want to accomplish, real understanding is not the mere accumulation of knowledge. Understanding cannot be realized by listening or reading about the realization of others. It must be...
When I was a young guy, when I first started with G.E., Jack Welch sent us all to Japan because in those days Japan was gonna crush us. And we learned a lot about Japan when we were there. But over the subsequent 30 years, the Japanese companies all ...
Charlie Bucket: Hey Grandpa, what was that we just went through? Willy Wonka: Hsaw Aknow. Mrs. Teevee: Is that Japanese? Willy Wonka: No, that's Wonka wash, spelled backwards. That's it, ladies and gentlemen, the journey's over! Grandpa Joe: Finest b...
Gardeners may create order briefly out of chaos, but nature always gets the last word, and what it says is usually untidy by human standards. But I find all states of nature beautiful, and because I want to delight in my garden, not rule it, I just a...
