Basic map

Japan

I've always been fascinated by Japan, and still am. Here are brief mentions of a few areas of particular interest …

Atarashiki-mura

An artistic, anarchic, agricultural community in Saitama.

Baku Genjin Mura

In the middle of the Fukushima mountains is a tiny settlement, without a phone (without any electricity -- despite, or maybe because of the nuclear power station a few miles away), growing organic vegetables and running courses on Tai Chi, ecology and the like. It has been there for 20 years now, and is the scene for a popular festival (Mangetsu-matsuri) every full moon. It's a marvellous place and if I had time, I would like to describe it in more detail; but for the time being, here's a Japanese language link.

Hiroshima

Visiting Hiroshima for the first time in 1986 shocked me, and this shock merely increased each time I returned and got to know more people from the city (many of whom had been affected by the A-bomb in various ways). For those who can't travel there (at present), I would highly recommend looking at the Hiroshima home page and following up the links there.
Until I get some time to write about it, and maybe even include the text of the play Himawari by Murai Shimako which I translated some years ago, I suggest the Barefoot Gen series of books as a very moving yet easy to read (comic-book style) account of what happened. If you can read Japanese, the following books by Murai Shimako are available from Amazon: Genbaku Dome - Jan Letzel, Woman of Hiroshima - August 6 and White Series.

San'ya

A visit to San'ya might shock most visitors to Japan even more than Hiroshima -- it's an area of Tokyo where labourers sleep on the streets, surviving (unless they die of the cold) by day-to-day construction work organized by the Yakuza (gangsters). Not many foreigners have been there, or even heard of it; actually, many Japanese do not know of it either; but there are similar areas in most major cities in Japan (e.g. Kamagasaki in Osaka, Sasashima in Nagoya, Kotobuki-cho in Yokohama, etc.). Not surprisingly, there are various problems with the Japanese government's attitude, illustrated quite well on an NGO website.
Although I would sometime like to expand on the description above, here in the meantime is some info on a friend's book about San'ya which should give you a better "feel" for the place than anything I could write. Highly recommended! Also, if you ever get a change to see the film "Yama: Attack to Attack" (Yararetara Yarikaese), take it. The first director was killed by Yakuza (his death is on the film), and after a friend completed the film he too was killed. Unfortunately, it is an independent film and is not shown very often (mainly at private gatherings in Tokyo), but it is very watchable and a version exists with English subtitles.

Igo

"Igo" or "Go" is a Japanese game of strategy, of which it has been said (in Trevanian's excellent novel 'Shibumi'): "Go is to philosophers as Chess is to merchants". I'm a total amateur, but I find it fascinating and would love to find more people to play against locally. If you're interested in learning more about it, try following this link.
This page produced by Ben Jones. For more information …
Home page (https://ozaru.net)
Martial arts page . Contact me