Tag Archives: japan

Bokuseki ~ Ink traces

Posted on by
Bokuseki ~ Ink traces
Hi there Readers! :hoshi:
How’s life treating you? Mine has started to become quite steady (as you can tell from the more or less regular entries I’ve never had.. :youreweird: ) but yesterday was a special day nevertheless because I got to see and hear master calligraher Suishū Tomoko Klopfenstein-Arii.

円相 – the circle represents emptiness and completion, it is often used as a visual symbol for Zen

Her and Yamakawa Sōgen Rōshi’s Bokuseki 墨跡 (ink traces) are currently being exhibited at the ethnological museum in Zurich. I haven’t been to the exhibition yet but yesterday she held a lecture about Bokuseki and Chinese and Japanese calligraphy in general which was so interesting! I had never heard of Bokuseki and all but her speech with the following demostration totally drew my attention. Bokuseki is a form of Japanese calligraphy (Shodō) that was introduced with the Zen-Buddhism in Japan during the 13th century by Chinese Chinese Zen monks. The traditional and the Chinese calligraphy then started to strongly influence one an other.

“Silently spread black strokes on white surface“ Suishū K.-A.

“It’s finished when the white spaces start breathing“ Suishū K.-A.

Bokuseki doesn’t only show the form and meaning of a character but reflects an intensively experienced moment. That’s why some of the more modern Bokuseki have characters that are almost illegible. As soon as I arrived at home I felt the urge to draw myself and started practicing Katakana with ink and brush like crazy! I had bought a cheap set in Japan but had never opened it… well I guess I will use it a lot from now on because I really want to get better at calligraphy.

To see a few more pics, read on~
read more →

Okinawa vol.1

Posted on by
Okinawa vol.1
Hello Beauties & Cuties :on:
I made it through my first week of university which was chaotic but fun. As I wrote in my previous entry today I would like to show you some photos I took over three years ago when I was in Japan. The photos a have slightly sad background story which I will tell you later on but I hope the quality is ok nevertheless.


When I think about Japan, the first thing I remember and miss are the people and nature. I’m not sure if I ever wrote about my stay in Japan but here we go~ let’s start with why I chose Japan…


I decided to go to Japan shortly before my final exams over three years ago. The reason was simple: I was cutting almost all the lessons and wasn’t well prepared enough to take my exams! The only way for me to escape the pressure and guilty conscience was to travel somewhere copletely new. I hadn‘t read a Manga nor wasn‘t I really allowed to watch Anime as a kid because my mother thought they were horrible and I had never eaten Sushi so I had all the reasons to visit this completely new country. Since I knew that I had to stay away for at least one year to really get to know a country and different lifestyle I didn‘t want to renounce security and a certain amount of infrastructure. So I could also have chosen Singapur, Taiwan or South Korea but Silvankun had just started with Japanology so that’s why on the 27th of August 2008 we left for Japan.


To see more pictures of Okinawa, read on~
read more →

Tanabata Matsuri

Posted on by
Tanabata Matsuri
Hello fellow Bloggers & Readers :flyusagi:
Today I would like to share the pictures I took at the Tanabata star festival on Saturday. When we arrived around 1pm there were plenty of people and everywhere families, couples and friends were having picnic. The atmosphere was just lovely and I enjoyed it so much! There were many activities such as making your own Taketombo (bamboo-copters), play Mizufuusen, a game where you have to fish for water balloons with a string made of paper.. and many more.


It was amazing how many people were actually wearing a Kimono or Yukata but the cutest were definitely the children! After our picnic we wanted to take a look at the exposition which was stunning but since there were so many people we didn’t take as much time to look at the prints as we would have liked to.. anyway, I’ll probably visit it an other time because it’s a magnificent collection!

She has such a cute style don’t you think?! love the shirt she’s wearing :on:


I don’t know why the pics turned out so gloomy… :crying: my Nikonchan is about to die. As I wrote in my previous post, the park of the Rietberg museum is huge. There were beautiful trees and flowers everywhere and even a small Bonsai collection and a little zen garden. I’ve been there when I was a child with my parents but I totally forgot about this place! I still can’t believe that this is the place where I’m going to study starting from September! :jupp:


To look at more pics, read on~
read more →