#japan

Lady #1, Maki, had never once given any thought to what was really right for her in her life, simply believing that if she surrounded herself with super-exclusive things, she'd become a super-exclusive person. ↗

— Ryū Murakami

#japanese #japanese-literature #life

When someone who's starved of love is shown something that looks like sincere affection, is it any wonder that she jumps at it and clings to it? ↗

— Sayo Masuda

#geisha #heart-broken #japan #love #masuda

No, I don't want your money. The world moves less by money than by what you owe people and what they owe you. I don't like to owe anybody anything, so I keep to myself as much on the lending side as I can. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#money #murakami #owe #money

If you don't have a whole lot of unsatisfied people, the economy stops dead, doesn't it? ↗

— Andy Couturier

#economy #japan #money #society #money

They needed a reason why a little kid would commit murder, someone or something to point the finger at, and I think they were relieved when they hit upon horror movies as the culprit. But there's no reason a child commits murder, just as there's no reason a child gets lost. What would it be - because his parents weren't watching him? That's not a reason, it's just a step in the process. ↗

— Ryū Murakami

#japan #japanese #japanese-literature #murder #movies

For the casual viewer, Kurosawa’s films can be an exercise in endurance. ↗

— Jerry White

#film #japan #movies #movies

Listening to the music while stretching her body close to its limit, she was able to attain a mysterious calm. She was simultaneously the torturer and the tortured, the forcer and the forced. This sense of inner-directed self-sufficiency was what she wanted most of all. It gave her deep solace. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#japanese #murakami #stretching #music

The physical impact of taiko music, along with the sheer visual poetry of a choreographed ensemble presenting its music in perfect synchrony, is so powerful and inviting that taiko is beginning to catch on as Japan's most influential and lasting gift to world music. ↗

— Gil Asakawa

#japan #music #music

I was on one of my world 'walkabouts.' It had taken me once more through Hong Kong, to Japan, Australia, and then Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific [one of the places I grew up]. There I found the picture of 'the Father.' It was a real, gigantic Saltwater Crocodile (whose picture is now featured on page 1 of TEETH). From that moment, 'the Father' began to swim through the murky recesses of my mind. Imagine! I thought, men confronting the world’s largest reptile on its own turf! And what if they were stripped of their firearms, so they must face this force of nature with nothing but hand weapons and wits? We know that neither whales nor sharks hunt individual humans for weeks on end. But, Dear Reader, crocodiles do! They are intelligent predators that choose their victims and plot their attacks. So, lost on its river, how would our heroes escape a great hunter of the Father’s magnitude? And what if these modern men must also confront the headhunters and cannibals who truly roam New Guinea? What of tribal wars, the coming of Christianity and materialism (the phenomenon known as the 'Cargo Cult'), and the people’s introduction to 'civilization' in the form of world war? What of first contact between pristine tribal culture and the outside world? What about tribal clashes on a global scale—the hatred and enmity between America and Japan, from Pearl Harbor, to the only use in history of atomic weapons? And if the world could find peace at last, how about Johnny and Katsu? ↗

— Timothy James Dean

#adventure #american-history #australia #biggest-crocodile #cannibal

Many Buddhist temple priests regard their parishioners as possessions and fear their departure as a diminishing of assets. ↗

— Kentetsu Takamori

#japan #religion #temples #religion