Category: Arts & Culture

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In the late afternoon, sunlight passes through a paper screen in a Japanese room and falls across the floor in

Picture a street in Edo-period Japan. A figure walks slowly toward you, his entire head hidden inside a deep basket

Two buildings in Japan tell you almost everything about how its architecture thinks. The first is Hōryū-ji, a Buddhist temple

The Art of Almost Nothing The noh stage is nearly empty. There is no set, no scenery, no lighting change.

The Smallest Room in Literature There are poems that fill pages. Poems that build arguments across dozens of stanzas, that

Ninety Seconds of Silence It takes approximately ninety seconds to make a bowl of matcha. Boil water. Sift powder. Pour.

Raku pottery (楽焼, raku-yaki) is a Japanese ceramic tradition created in the 16th century specifically for the Zen tea ceremony.

Japanese woodworking (木造, mokuzo) is a building and craft tradition spanning over 1,300 years that achieves structural integrity through interlocking

Kōdō (香道, “the way of incense”) is one of Japan’s three classical arts of refinement, alongside chadō (tea ceremony) and

Furoshiki (風呂敷) is the traditional Japanese art of wrapping objects in square cloth, used for centuries to carry, protect, and