Reflections on the Psyche of Asia, Viewed 528 Times!
Written: Sep 20 '00 (Updated Mar 29 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Stellar Writing
Cons: Website Usually More Inaccessible Than Accessible
The Bottom Line: A must have for those interested in exploring other cultures
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| sfarmer76's Full Review: Kyoto Journal Magazine |
Kyoto Journal demands to be read. It regularly features the premier authors of our time -- writing through the dual lenses of infatuation and alienation -- about issues of importance to the Asian continent. It is not uncommon to find strong news articles about India, Malaysia, Mongolia, Okinawa, Russia, Siberia, Thailand, or Vietnam among the pages of Kyoto Journal too.
This duality of spirit is further better-served by the fact that the magazine is not strictly non-fiction either. I have read some astounding storytelling in this publication, simply superior poetry that I would never have read otherwise, found interesting opinions by new voices, and have been informed by reviews that have lead me to interesting books to read -- all through the benevolent assistance of Kyoto Journal. Some of the highlights of issue No. 43 are:
Security Check: In the City of the Future by Pico Iyer
Reverential Ecology by Satish Kumar
Walking the World Umesao Tadao
Gandhi's Legacy Five Views
The Goddess Within by Oda Mayumi
Each of the five feature articles in KJ are very different from each other, and go into great depth. This is a thinking persons magazine. If you are looking for a light and easy read, this is not an easy bunch of pages to digest. Almost every single article presented in Kyoto Journal is cereberal, intellectual, methodical, potent.
Pico Iyer's Security Check: In the City of the Future is an excerpt from his book, The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home. The excerpt is a meditation on airports: Los Angeles International Airport, Kennedy Airport, JFK, Tom Bradley International Terminal, Kansai International Airport. Iyer waxes fondly about all the time he's spent in airports, starting in childhood and continuing to the present day. By the time he is finished, and the dizzyness wears off, it's pretty clear -- the city of the future is an air terminal.
Reverential Ecology is a profile/interview of Satish Kumar, the son of Rajastani peasant farmers, a former wandering Jain monk, land reformer, auto-biographist, college co-founder, and Editor of Resurgence magazine. Kumar is a forward-thinker of the first class. Please, do read this interview, it is full of thoughts that tumble like stones down a hill.
Walking the World is a profile/interview of Umesao Tadao, a giant of Japanese anthropology and founder of the Japanese National Museum of Ethnology. During WWII he traveled China extensively and studied the nomads of Mongolia. At 80, he is now blind, and has a heightened sense of other things, including what it means to be Japanese and to be a writer. Read this for what he has to say about China and piracy of intellectual property, and you may full-well understand the implications of what the Internet truly means to the world.
Kyoto Journal also has great information about literature and art of the East, and Issue 43 boasts a fine profile of Oshima Hiko, a 21 year old Japanese artist from Shiga, Japan. Malena Watrous, in Alice in Shikaland, writes of the Japanese and their peculiar relationship with nuclear power. Also of note is a fine article On Tour(ism) in Thailand by Terry Caesar about what it is to be a tourist: how tourists represent the society they come from, and how all tourists are looking for a cultural alternative. If you travel a lot, read this and recognize yourself. Good discussions on religion and aspects of spirituality are also often highlighted.
In closing, I just want to say that I read Kyoto Journal for pleasure, and to check my perspective against outside views. I often read magazines outside my areas of expertise, and sometimes even outside my interests, just to stay informed about WHAT gets published. I find this to be a useful writing aide -- and since many of the topics in the mag are not covered in most of the mainstream U.S. press -- the same topics, styles, and techniques of writing about Eastern themes and personalities might be successfully applied to literature and reportage in the West. Kyoto Journal is an esthetically pleasing and well-designed fine arts magazine. If you are ever feeling down, you can always find inspiration of some form or another in Kyoto Journal. This is a 100% guaranteed great read. (104/528)
Kyoto Journal on the WWW
http://www.kampo.co.jp/kyoto-journal
I found this RealAudio slide presentation on the web
http://ramhurl.real.com/smildemohurl.ram?file=marketing/tools/slideplus/kyoto/kyoto1.smi
Recommended:
Yes
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sfarmer76
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