Ayaka Mori– Author –

You’ve probably seen the pictures, even if you don’t know the name. A giant, yellow pumpkin covered in black polka dots, sitting alone at the end of a pier, the calm sea stretching out behind it. That pumpkin, a creation by Yayoi Kusama,...

You feel it before you see it. First, it’s the sound—a low, rhythmic chanting that seems to vibrate up from the ancient stone path itself. Then comes the smell: the sharp, clean scent of cedar and cypress from the surrounding forest, gra...

Step into any Japanese home, and the first thing you’ll notice isn’t the furniture or the art on the walls. It’s the floor. Or rather, the sudden lack of it. Before you is a small, lowered area of stone or tile, and beyond it, a single, ...

Every country has a sound that signals the start of the day. It might be the clang of a streetcar, the call to prayer, or the sizzle of breakfast in a pan. In Japan, for nearly a century, it has been the sound of a simple, unadorned pian...