Series: Post Cards from Japan by Helene Knott

Inspired by the prints of Japanese artist – Ando Hiroshige – these designs were released as patterns by Story Quilts

Nikko

Fuwa Bansaku from  One Hundred Ghost Tales from China and Japan, by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, 1865

https://cutt.ly/pZr57Ps

Yoshihara Sachiko, tr. Kenneth Rexroth & Ikuko Atsumi, Women Poets of Japan; “Blasphemy”

[Text ID: when the world meaninglessly flowed from the wound / i in the middle of trembling]

20221127 Outaki ravine 4 by Bong Grit 山門の内側から。 @Myoshoji temple, Toyota city, Aichi pref. （愛知県豊田市 王滝渓谷） https://flic.kr/p/2o87MhH

Heechul on Japanese fan meeting

Pastel Goth Victim T Shirt

https://homeboy.storenvy.com/products/35809891-pastel-goth-victim-t-shirt

Fruit-Shaped Bus Stops (1990) Location: Nagasaki, Japan

Mozu: 名古屋展 (2021)

Japan Court Rules Trans Man Can Change Gender Marker Without Surgery

Them reports:

A Japanese court this week approved a transgender man’s legal gender change without first requiring sterilization, marking a major step forward for trans rights in the country. Takakito Usui, 50, won recognition of his gender before the Okayama Family Court’s Tsuyama branch on Wednesday. “I want to thank my family. I feel a new life is beginning,” Usui, a farmer living in the rural Yamagata Prefecture, said at a press conference on Wednesday following the ruling. Usui previously petitioned to change his legal gender in 2016, the paper noted, but was rejected because he had not been medically sterilized, as was then required under Japanese law. In October, Japan’s Supreme Court struck down the 2003 statute requiring trans people to be sterilized before obtaining legal recognition.

More here!

As a young boy in school, Masaki Sashima would be dragged out of his classroom and beaten by his fellow students.

Masaki, now 72, was different to the other kids. 

He was Ainu, an Indigenous people from the country's northern regions, most notably the large island of Hokkaido.

"During recess, the hallway door would open, and several guys would yell at me to come out," he said.

"I clung to my desk in the classroom and kept quiet.

"Everyone would surround me and beat me."

Japan has long portrayed itself as culturally and ethnically homogenous, something that some have even argued is a key to its success as a nation.

More than 98 per cent of Japanese people are descendants of the Yamato people. 

But the Ainu are distinct, with their own history, languages, and culture.

But, as the victims of colonialism, assimilation, and discrimination, much of that identity has been lost. 

Fukuroi, the tea store, by Utagawa Hiroshige, 1833-1834

All printings of Fifty-three Stages of Tokaido

Baffled.

20221127 Outaki ravine 3 by Bong Grit ウエットな風景は普段は撮らないので自分の中では新鮮。 @Myoshoji temple, Toyota city, Aichi pref. （愛知県豊田市 王滝渓谷） https://flic.kr/p/2o7VJTB