Geek in Japan: Discovering the Land of Manga, Anime, Zen, and the Tea Ceremony (Geek In...guides)

You shower sitting down and finish off by pouring very cold water over you with the bucket just before you get into the ofuro. It’s time to take your relaxing bath. You ease in little by little, because the water is extremely hot, normally at around 115ºF (45ºC), and you let water cover you up to your neck.

One of the most accepted interpretations is that the main point when designing a dry garden is not the stones but the space between the stone. Zen emphasizes void, nothingness. “What makes dry gardens so special? The space between the rocks.” —Alan Booth

Other bushido values are sincerity, compassion, courtesy, and honesty.

THE TORA-SAN PHENOMENON The seventies marked the beginning of a series of films called Otoko wa tsurai yo (“It’s tough being a man”), which holds the Guinness record for the longest film series in history, with 48 feature films. The first episode in the series was released in 1969 and the last one in 1995. The hero in all of them is Torasan, a busi

Confucianism too came from China, in the twelfth century. According to Confucianism, relationships between human beings are the basis of society: we must respect our ancestors, our relatives, and our superiors. The values of loyalty, justice, and honor are also central. Today, the Japanese still bear Confucianism in their minds, for they highly res

These trees start generating pollen when they are 30 or 40 years old.

Nowadays, you hardly ever see monks practicing takuhatsu. In Kyoto, they are found on the bridges; in Tokyo, they are usually in Ueno and in some more traditional neighborhoods; and in Nara, you can see them near the temples, but not inside.

Kyoto is the quintessential traditional Japanese city, where many festivals and customs survive after having disappeared from the rest of Japan with the passage of time. In the Gion district, there are still nine working okiya, where maiko and geisha live. In the afternoon, they leave the okiya to work in a ryotei— luxury restaurant—or an ochaya, s

The thief doesn’t care about his society’s reputation; what matters to him is getting a bit of money for his own benefit.