Cultural Concepts

The actor enters the stage. His face is painted white, with bold red lines radiating from his eyes and curving down his cheeks. The audience, watching from the dim auditorium, immediately knows several things about the…

It’s late December in a small Japanese town. In the courtyard of a community center, a wooden mortar — about the size of a cement-mixer — sits in the open air. A pile of steamed glutinous…

A Japanese woman in a department store buys a gift box. At the counter, the clerk asks if she would like it wrapped in paper. She declines, takes the box, and steps aside to a small…

You walk into a Japanese friend’s small apartment in the morning. The room you slept in last night looks completely different from the room you saw before bed. Last night, there was a mattress on the…

A Japanese woman in her seventies has been suffering increasing back pain for months, but she hasn’t told her family. She doesn’t want to worry them; the pain is bearable; complaining seems pointless. When her daughter…

A Japanese mother and her young son are on a crowded train. The boy starts to cry. Within seconds, the mother is bent over him, speaking softly, attempting to calm him, looking around at nearby passengers…

A Japanese colleague mentions, at lunch, that the new project plan looks great. Her face is composed, her words are clearly approving, the team is documented as in agreement. Three days later, in a private one-on-one…

You walk into the apartment of a Japanese friend who reads a lot. Beside the bed, a stack of books — twelve of them, leaning slightly. On the desk, another stack — fifteen, with bookmarks in…

Cherry blossoms in early April. The trees are at peak bloom for perhaps three days, maybe five if the weather cooperates. By the second week of April, most of the flowers have already fallen. Walking through…

A small wooden tea house in a Kyoto temple garden. Four guests have entered through a deliberately low doorway — too low to walk through upright; you have to stoop and crawl in, regardless of your…