japan
i’ve never felt so at home in another country as I did in Japan.
ever since seeing the film ‘single fin: yellow’ as a teenager, I’ve wanted to visit the pacific island. getting a glimpse into David Kinoshita’s daily routine – making coffee, driving to surf, tiptoe-ing his way across soft lines and carving politely through the crowds of Shonan – entranced me.
now, having gotten a glimpse myself, I can say that the same feeling of peace and humility I sensed through a screen so many years ago hangs in the air throughout this East Asian country. rituals of tradition and respect are evidenced everywhere – a woman sitting quietly in a temple yard; clothes shifting in the breeze, hung atop a tenement balcony; someone bowing deeply to a friend as they part at a crosswalk corner. it is such small pieces of perceived cultural beauty that stay with me long after I leave, and those of Japan feel as profound and unique as the thousands of years that have formed them.