Jonathan, You write so beautifully. In this instance, you remind me of how negotiations from an American company I worked for with a Japanese company many long years ago uncovered exactly what you describe and more. When we returned home, we thought we had connected and were off and running to a wonderful future. But we didn't understand the culture. All we had was a few smiles and greetings. No deal was even close. I don't think we have learned much since that time until today. You are a faithful witness. Thank you.
I feel your pain, Pete. I actually had a very similar experience working on a licensing deal for a company I owned many years ago with a Japanese counterpart. Thought it was a done deal, all parties flew to LA, ostensibly to sign the docs...never happened. Big lesson learned. It's so interesting how different we can be culturally.
Sweet, Jonathan. Travel while you can, I tell everyone. Especially the friends past 50. One day one of you may be moving the other everywhere in a wheelchair and that's the end of traveling with your spouse or life partner. The experience, culture, history, people, conversations, and photography--indeed. Take lots of pictures. You'll want to relive the adventure when you can no longer go there.
Beautiful reflection. Brings me back to the bewilderment, wonder, and confusion in my first month of living in Taiwan. This reflection had me thinking of Pico Iyer's writing and also Craig Mod's recent book Things Become Other Things too about his time in Japan. Craig's book was such a delightful read. You might enjoy it!
Thanks, Paul. Bewilderment is such a great word for much of it. Funny, I was actually going to reach out to Pico, but didn't have time. But, I was able to spend some time with Craig in Tokyo, so that was wonderful.
Wonderful writing. I’ve had similar thoughts during musical performances when the jazz takes your soul and no one else seems to care. You captured it perfectly.
Thanks, David. I get the impulse to study and appreciate music, it's just always been about something more for me. It's about how it affects me, like any great art, beyond what's appreciable or studyable.
Beautifully put, as always. Very relatable to me, again. I would be just as baffled as you, I couldn't sit motionless either... And I would surely also ask why and how they do. it.
The jump to your own life basement brings tears to my eyes as it forces me to ask the same questions of myself, and it's the third piece today doing it. I guess I must listen and reflect.
Thank you once more for opening up and sharing so much in such a delicate and warm way.
stunning. so many favorite shots, Tokyo, Nara, temples I've visited... the magic and devastation, the sacred and the profane, the simple, deep beauty of Japan... sigh...
this stands out for me personally today.
"How often have I created the space to surrender to the vibe, losing time and finding life? How often have I allowed myself the freedom to be affected, moved, changed, by what’s unfolding in the room, knowing my own sublimation isn’t just paying homage, but helping to co-create that glorious state of collective effervescence? How often have I held back, out of a fabricated sense of self-consciousness and mandated propriety. Unwittingly annihilating the possibility of genuine elevation and connection."
Japan really is such a different world, so eye-opening. So many beautiful contradictions seeming to co-exist. And, Tōdai-ji temple in Nara absolutely melted my mind. The scale was like nothing I've experienced.
I absolutely loved this piece, Jonathan. Your description of the city, the basement jazz club and the experience it stirred in you is so vivid - I can almost feel the music and see the contradiction in the rooms' energy. The way you wove in the metaphor of the “basement club” of your own life was both powerful and relatable.
Most of all, I appreciate how open and exploratory your reflection is — it invited me to pause and consider the parallels in my own life. Thank you for sharing not just the experience, but the questions it stirred in you. It’s a gift to read something that lingers long after the last sentence.
Jonathan, your words & photographs carry that rare ability to hold both the seen & the felt — the moment itself, & the mirror it offers back.
I’m not travelling overseas, but lately it feels as if I am — moving between two worlds that share a border but not a reality. In the city, the days are blue & ENDLESS, as if someone has placed a dome of glass over the skyline. People bask in the winter sunshine, grumbling about the usual gripes of the privileged in my area — high prices for everything — while still watering gardens & lingering over coffee & long brunches outdoors.
Beyond that dome, in the country, there is drought. Not the kind politely debated in parliament, but the kind that leaves the earth brittle & animals without feed. I’ve been filming in this region for several months now, & at times I’ve held farmers in my arms — big, weathered men — as they wept for their herds, their fields, their futures. Out there, the air is thinner with worry, the silence broken only by the wind over dry grass.
Perhaps this, too, is travel — crossing into another existence without a passport. The local radio reminds us daily how dire it is, but here in the city, the distance feels like an ocean. And I can’t help but think, as you do, about what these mirrors are showing us, & whether we’re willing to see.
So poignant, Kim. Agreed. Often the travel we need, and sometimes the travel that's most accessible to us, happens when we just start opening our eyes more fully to what's always been there.
Jonathan, You write so beautifully. In this instance, you remind me of how negotiations from an American company I worked for with a Japanese company many long years ago uncovered exactly what you describe and more. When we returned home, we thought we had connected and were off and running to a wonderful future. But we didn't understand the culture. All we had was a few smiles and greetings. No deal was even close. I don't think we have learned much since that time until today. You are a faithful witness. Thank you.
I feel your pain, Pete. I actually had a very similar experience working on a licensing deal for a company I owned many years ago with a Japanese counterpart. Thought it was a done deal, all parties flew to LA, ostensibly to sign the docs...never happened. Big lesson learned. It's so interesting how different we can be culturally.
Sweet, Jonathan. Travel while you can, I tell everyone. Especially the friends past 50. One day one of you may be moving the other everywhere in a wheelchair and that's the end of traveling with your spouse or life partner. The experience, culture, history, people, conversations, and photography--indeed. Take lots of pictures. You'll want to relive the adventure when you can no longer go there.
Appreciate those wise words, Georgia. And, yes, lots of pics, too!
So....so....SO! Good....
Thanks, Diana! So glad you enjoyed.
Beautiful reflection. Brings me back to the bewilderment, wonder, and confusion in my first month of living in Taiwan. This reflection had me thinking of Pico Iyer's writing and also Craig Mod's recent book Things Become Other Things too about his time in Japan. Craig's book was such a delightful read. You might enjoy it!
Thanks, Paul. Bewilderment is such a great word for much of it. Funny, I was actually going to reach out to Pico, but didn't have time. But, I was able to spend some time with Craig in Tokyo, so that was wonderful.
Amazing. Picos field guide to Japan was a perfect companion on my first trip there.
Wonderful writing. I’ve had similar thoughts during musical performances when the jazz takes your soul and no one else seems to care. You captured it perfectly.
Thanks, David. I get the impulse to study and appreciate music, it's just always been about something more for me. It's about how it affects me, like any great art, beyond what's appreciable or studyable.
I understand. I was a music major in college. Watch the musicians. They sure don’t sit quietly. When it touches your soul ya gotta move.
Beautifully put, as always. Very relatable to me, again. I would be just as baffled as you, I couldn't sit motionless either... And I would surely also ask why and how they do. it.
The jump to your own life basement brings tears to my eyes as it forces me to ask the same questions of myself, and it's the third piece today doing it. I guess I must listen and reflect.
Thank you once more for opening up and sharing so much in such a delicate and warm way.
Thanks, Marta. Music has always done this to me, it's an embodied experience, sometimes rising to the level of transcendence.
stunning. so many favorite shots, Tokyo, Nara, temples I've visited... the magic and devastation, the sacred and the profane, the simple, deep beauty of Japan... sigh...
this stands out for me personally today.
"How often have I created the space to surrender to the vibe, losing time and finding life? How often have I allowed myself the freedom to be affected, moved, changed, by what’s unfolding in the room, knowing my own sublimation isn’t just paying homage, but helping to co-create that glorious state of collective effervescence? How often have I held back, out of a fabricated sense of self-consciousness and mandated propriety. Unwittingly annihilating the possibility of genuine elevation and connection."
...taking this all the way home.
Japan really is such a different world, so eye-opening. So many beautiful contradictions seeming to co-exist. And, Tōdai-ji temple in Nara absolutely melted my mind. The scale was like nothing I've experienced.
I absolutely loved this piece, Jonathan. Your description of the city, the basement jazz club and the experience it stirred in you is so vivid - I can almost feel the music and see the contradiction in the rooms' energy. The way you wove in the metaphor of the “basement club” of your own life was both powerful and relatable.
Most of all, I appreciate how open and exploratory your reflection is — it invited me to pause and consider the parallels in my own life. Thank you for sharing not just the experience, but the questions it stirred in you. It’s a gift to read something that lingers long after the last sentence.
So glad you enjoyed it, Namrata. It's funny how sometimes everyday experiences like this evoke the bigger questions.
Jonathan, your words & photographs carry that rare ability to hold both the seen & the felt — the moment itself, & the mirror it offers back.
I’m not travelling overseas, but lately it feels as if I am — moving between two worlds that share a border but not a reality. In the city, the days are blue & ENDLESS, as if someone has placed a dome of glass over the skyline. People bask in the winter sunshine, grumbling about the usual gripes of the privileged in my area — high prices for everything — while still watering gardens & lingering over coffee & long brunches outdoors.
Beyond that dome, in the country, there is drought. Not the kind politely debated in parliament, but the kind that leaves the earth brittle & animals without feed. I’ve been filming in this region for several months now, & at times I’ve held farmers in my arms — big, weathered men — as they wept for their herds, their fields, their futures. Out there, the air is thinner with worry, the silence broken only by the wind over dry grass.
Perhaps this, too, is travel — crossing into another existence without a passport. The local radio reminds us daily how dire it is, but here in the city, the distance feels like an ocean. And I can’t help but think, as you do, about what these mirrors are showing us, & whether we’re willing to see.
So poignant, Kim. Agreed. Often the travel we need, and sometimes the travel that's most accessible to us, happens when we just start opening our eyes more fully to what's always been there.