Journal

What Is Nishikigoi? The Origin Story of Japan's Snow-Country Koi
What Is Nishikigoi? The Origin Story of Japan's Snow-Country Koi
Nishikigoi originated in early-19th-century Ojiya and Yamakoshi, Niigata — bred by snowbound rice farmers who turned a rare color mutation in food carp into what's now Japan's most recognized ornamental... Read more...
What Is Mingei? The Idea That Beauty Belongs in Everyday Use
What Is Mingei? The Idea That Beauty Belongs in Everyday Use
A hundred years ago, a Japanese movement argued that real beauty lives in ordinary, handmade objects — not in things set aside for display. Here's the story behind mingei, and... Read more...
The True Origin of the Aloha Shirt: How Japanese Kimono Silk Crossed the Pacific
The True Origin of the Aloha Shirt: How Japanese Kimono Silk Crossed the Pacific
The Aloha shirt is not American. Not really. Its true origin lies in the hands of Japanese immigrants who, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, crossed the Pacific... Read more...