by Rebecca Copeland | Aug 3, 2022 | Japanese Culture
I stood on the bridge feeling perplexed. Nothing was right. There should have been a small lane here next to a beauty salon. It was gone. Not just the beauty salon, but the lane, too. Perhaps I was on the wrong bridge. I looked up and down the river and saw bridges in... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Oct 21, 2020 | Japanese Culture
For part one of this story, see previous post, My first—and only—Omiai. And you thought omiai were just for fictional characters in Japanese novels! It was April 1977. I had a dance recital in the large auditorium of a fancy hotel across from Hakata Station. I had... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Oct 7, 2020 | Japanese Culture
In Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s novel, Sasameyuki (serialized 1943-1948; translated The Makioka Sisters by Edward Seidensticker, 1957), the action centers around finding the third sister a suitable marriage partner. Matchmakers busily scour the field in search of... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Sep 23, 2020 | Japanese Culture
Mother bought me a kimono of my own for my birthday. When she understood my love of Japanese dance and my deep and growing interest in Japanese culture, she wanted me to have a kimono. She had one. Or at least she had, had one. When she lived in Japan in the 1950s a... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Sep 9, 2020 | Japanese Culture
I learned three dances that year. I started with “Sakura” (Cherry blossom). Everyone starts with “Sakura.” Lydia was ahead of me in her lessons. So Ura Sensei taught her the more difficult “Kuroda bushi” or “Song of the Kuroda Samurai,” ostensibly a “drinking song”...
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