Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, by Lafcadio Hearn, features several Japanese ghost stories and a brief study on insects. Hearn declares in his introduction, that most of these stories were translated from old Japanese texts (probably with the help of his wife, Setsu Koizumi). He also states that one of the stories - Yuki-onna - was told to him by a farmer in Musashi Province, and this was, to the best of his knowledge, the first record of it.
In 1853 a flotilla of U.S. Navy warships led by Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrived in Japan. A scant fourteen years later the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate, which had lasted two and a half centuries, was at an end. What lay behind the sudden collapse of samurai rule? Watanabe Hiroshi traces the quiet changes in political thought that culminated in the dramatic events of the Meiji Revolution in 1868. Confucian ideals such as a universal Way and benevolent government under a virtuous ruler possessing the mandate of heaven were taught by successive Japanese Confucians and came to permeate the country, posing an implicit threat to military rule. Over time the development of a national consciousness, the rising prestige of the imperial court in Kyoto, and increased knowledge of the Western world created the conditions for a national debate over opening up to the West and for radical political change.
This is the first guide to introduce nearly 500 buildings of this region.
Watanabes work is like a contemplative behavior that focuses on the breath so that the moment is fully free to emerge. So that the instant is lived as completely as it can be, Watanabe stays open for all the elements of discovery... the dried leaves in the foreground before the names of the dead. These are the illuminations of his pictures. Anthony Bannon, Director, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY