Mono no Aware: The Japanese Word for Being Moved by Things That Pass
Why do maples spend energy turning red just before their leaves fall? Mono no aware, the Japanese word for being moved by…
Category
Inspiration & Stories
Seen From Below: Mt Fuji’s First Snow and the People Who Watched for It
Mt Fuji has its first snow of the season. To celebrate, a story of the people who watched for it: a couple…
The Night We Met: Tim Curry, Rocky Horror and a Halloween Without Him
Tracey and Dee met when one of them directed a university production of The Rocky Horror Show and the other rang to…
Shinrin-yoku: The Japanese Word for Bathing in a Forest
Shinrin-yoku, Japan's forest bathing, started life as a forestry campaign in 1982. The science came later, smaller and stranger than the slogans,…
The Moon Is Beautiful, Isn’t It? The Japanese “I Love You” Sōseki Never Said
Natsume Sōseki never told a student to translate I love you as the moon is beautiful. The story stuck anyway, because it…
Where Everyone Sat: Memory and Place, From Simonides to the Wedding Table
The memory palace began with a collapsed roof and a poet who remembered where every guest had been sitting. Two and a…
Ma: The Japanese Word for the Space Between Things
The Japanese character for ma is a gate with the sun inside it. What the space between things means in Japan, from…
A Boy in Lane Four
Four golds, one family, forty-four years. From a Brisbane footpath in 1982 to a Glasgow grandstand in 2026, this is what it's…
She Was Already in the Room | International Women’s Day
The women behind a Destination Wedding in Japan. Her flight landed eleven hours ago. She has not slept. She is standing in…
Komorebi: What It Means That Japan Has a Word for This
Japan has a word for sunlight filtering through leaves. Komorebi. English does not. A language that names this is a language that…
She Was Buried by an Avalanche and Kept Climbing
Junko Tabei was four feet nine. She was told to stay home and raise children. She founded Japan’s first women’s climbing club,…