Why Japan has left-hand traffic
This question is, of course, burning. It becomes especially relevant when, after a short stay in Japan, you suddenly find yourself thinking that you can’t part with the Japanese in…

Continue reading →

ABOUT THE CINEMA SERIES "A MAN IS DIFFICULT"
In 1996, the movie series Y. Yamada "It's hard for a man" ("Otoko wa tsuray yo") got into the Guinness Book of Records as the longest series of films with…

Continue reading →

Cultural leisure and the rules of its passage
In light clothing, with a backpack on my shoulder in the early morning of the summer month of August, I walked unhurriedly out of the anthracite building of the Kyoto…

Continue reading →

country greets

JAPAN’S POSTAL MARKS

Her Majesty Postage Stamp! It is a unique invention in itself. And she appeared at the behest of the time. Rather – at the behest of economic progress.

The vigorously developing capitalism of the mid-19th century, industry, trade, transport, or, as they say now, “business”, needed a connection. Moreover, the communication is well-established, reliable, and, most importantly, publicly available, convenient and cheap. And this, I think, predetermined the fact that for the first time a postage stamp appeared in Great Britain, which had become by that time a powerful colonial power, a “workshop of the world”, a “world cab driver”, and a “world banker.” And the communication system that existed in the country at that time was cumbersome, expensive and required streamlining.

In 1837, a member of the House of Commons of the British Parliament, inventor and educator, Sir Rowland Hill published his project “Post Office Reform, its Importance and Feasibility”. In his work, he proposed to unify the postage Continue reading

MIN TANAKA: DANCE OF THE WORLD

The building of the Theater School of Dramatic Art Theater on Sretenka is not just a wall. This is a huge bright space, getting into which, a person immediately becomes an object of art. Architecture (one of the authors of the project is the Artistic Director of the Theater Anatoly Vasiliev) is designed so that anyone who appears there feels as if in the arena, on the podium, and it is not by chance that the white walls do not imply approaching them, it is no coincidence that there are no chairs along walls. You must perforce move, climb and descend through the numerous ladders, getting onto balconies and platforms, every second building your relationship with space, with an echo from your voice and steps. The theater has already begun. Continue reading

HIROKAZU KORE-EDA: UNSUMPENT MEMORIES

Whatever skeptics say, we cherish our memories. But do we ourselves know about this? Acquired life experience is nothing more than a collection of memories. Both the good ones, pushing for activity in the same direction in which we liked to go once, and the bad ones, taking a step on a curved path.

But is it possible to choose one, only one memory, with which you would stay forever, and lose everything, forget, erase everything else?

Employees of one celestial office help to answer this question to just dead people, giving them only three days to choose, in the film by Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda / After Life / After life /, which premiered on our television not so long ago. After all, it is this very unique memory that will determine the new karma of rebirth … Continue reading

Japanese Restaurant Menu
The theater, as you know, begins with a hanger, and restaurants in Japan with osinagaki, the menu. Externally, menus often resemble, without exaggeration, works of art. There are oshinagaki, which…

...

THEORIES OF "NIHONDZINRON" IN JAPANESE BILLS
In the near future, the Japanese government plans to put into circulation new-type banknotes with new "faces." Gradually, such money will supersede the existing banknotes of the 1984 model. An…

...

did not leave Russia without an emperor
Satsumi rebellion shocked Japan. For almost 8 months of 1877, an untitled aristocracy led by the samurai Saigo Takamori occupied part of Kyushu Island. Anti-government sentiments were unusually strong in…

...