LETTER
FROM JAPAN
As the Japan Times reported recently, the practice has caught
on. “An increasing number of jobseeking students get into a state of
depression and commit suicide, so I
thought something must be done,”
said Shudo Abe, one of a group of
Zen priests from the Soto sect who
have been organizing similar sessions. According to the National
Police Agency, in 2011, 150 people
under 30 committed suicide for
reasons specifically related to job
rejections, which is over two times
the number from 2007.
Then there’s the Japanese
tea ceremony, the heavily-choreographed, nearly 1,000-yearold ritual: “Preparing tea in this
ceremony means pouring all one’s
attention into the predefined movements. The whole process is not
about drinking tea, but is about
aesthetics, preparing a bowl of tea
from one’s heart.”
The essence of the Japanese aesthetic is Ma — space, the pure and
essential void between “things,”
the emptiness full of possibilities,
promise waiting to be fulfilled.
And then, of course, there’s
haiku: “The water is deep / In the
ocean; Drought in the land.”
No wonder the Japanese have
taken to Twitter much more than
HUFFINGTON
05.12.13
they have taken to other social
media platforms like Facebook.
They are already used to conveying complexity and nuance in a
few words. “In finding fulfillment
in expressing what’s on your mind
for the moment, Twitter is like
haiku,” says Rocky Eda of Digital
Garage, which works with Twitter
There’s a widespread
sense that Japan’s idea
of itself as a country
on the cutting edge of
technology is slowly
becoming outdated.
in Japan. “It is so Japanese.”
Like the U.S., Japan is facing
huge challenges. But by taking old
traditions and adapting them to
solve new problems, and taking
new innovations and applying a
uniquely Japanese twist to them, by
going both forward and backward,
both outward and inward — juxtapositions that in Japan don’t have
to be contradictions — the people
of Japan are poised find a new and
vibrant balance for the 21st century. Or, as Takahama Kyoshi wrote:
“A paulownia leaf /
Is falling down with
Sunshine on it.”