Strange World of Tokyo Akihabara

The World of Akihabara: Strange Akiba, Electronic Town, at JR Akihabara Station in Tokyo. A space for computer nerds, comic freaks, toy collectors, and all those other other ‘otaku' -geeks | via Tumblr

Fruit Aesthetics: Cherries for $6 a piece!

HOLY COW! Just a reminder that Tokyo ain't cheap! This unobtrusive box (l.) with exactly 48 cherries sells for ¥31,500 ($308) at your local metro station. And, yes, they have yourbargain box (r.) with 54 cherries for just ¥18,900 ($194)! [Last year we bought honeydew -at 8,000 Yen ($78) a piece- as gift for a Buddhist temple]. In case you wonder: It’s about season, location, brand; but more so about the fruits’ colors and shapes. Call it FRUIT AESTHETICS.

Michael Witzel with Thorsten Pattberg, Tokyo 2013

Professor Michael Witzel invited me to Harvard University back in 2010 so that I could use collections and library resources of the earliest European missionaries in China dating back to 1649. Although there was little funding for such an original project, it nevertheless proved to be very successful, cumulating into my works on translation history and, ultimately, the re-emergence of the shengren. See China Daily, Japan Times. The list goes on. [photo: Tokyo, May 24, 2013].

Nights In Osaka

TOKYO - The German East Asiatic Society (OAG) in Tokyo, of which I was a board member once, featured this exhibition by artist and visionary Joe Brockerhoff. [Check out his gallery].

The large backdrop in the above photo is entitled 'Nights in Osaka' during Japan's boom years in the 70' and 80.' Osaka has been for centuries the center for merchants and entertainment. There are elements of gamble, pomp, excess, yakuza, great wealth, but also exploitation, mixed with surreal architectures, transports, and bizarre city dwellers. Joe Brockerhoff's other paintings showed Japanese kami and oni (ghosts and demons), shogun and samurai spirits occupying a futuristic metropolis (Tokyo?). [Check out Joe's website here]. The Japanese boom years bear similarities, I think, to rapidly mechanizing Chinese megacities today. Good luck, Joe! [BACK TO MAIN]

The German East Asiatic Society (OAG) with seat in Minato-ku, Tokyo, is the oldest German society in East-Asia, dating back to 1873 and the German Empire. [About the OAG].