Today we feature a guest post by my friend Emilia Blaser, a collector of kimono. Because there’s a lot of misinformation and false assumptions regarding kimono, Emilia is graciously allowing me to repost her convenient guide to kimono for beginners.
Today we’re going to have a meal with the oyakata-sama and okugata-sama, the lord and lady of the household. Have you been practicing with your chopsticks? I hope you’re hungry!
Today we will learn an important aspect of polite society — chopsticks! Or, as they are known in Japanese, hashi.
My non-fiction project on training is coming out! And here’s the cover, in full, glorious color:
I don’t usually do a Wordless Wednesday post — for one thing, I’m pretty bad at “wordless” — but here are some fantastic pictures I collected for research and inspiration while working on Kitsune-Tsuki and Kitsune-Mochi.
Click through to see so many pretty pictures.
Kitsune are clever shapeshifters who can appear as a human. Today, we’re going to change our own appearances toward a kitsune costume.
For the First Day of Kitsune, I’d like to share one of the oldest and most common folk stories about a kitsune. It’s a tale of a fox wife, similar to Western stories of fairy brides, and it features many of the key points in the kitsune legend.
It’s also a story the village girl Murame hears in Kitsune-Mochi, which prompts her to do some deep thinking….
Warning! Here there be spoilers, in great measure. Also, plot dissection and narrative breakdown.
Christmas is one of my favorite holidays — but it wasn’t exactly popular during Heian and Kamakura eras in Japan, for obvious reasons. So here on the blog we’re going to celebrate Twelve Days of Kitsune, and each post we’ll discover a new folk tale, period foods, or…
At one point in Shard & Shield, a character is waiting for his treason to be discovered. He knows it is only a matter of time before he is identified, seized, tortured, and executed, but in the meantime he must go about his daily business as if nothing is wrong, as if he fears nothing, as if his entire world does not hang by a Damoclean thread.
I might have researched and prepared for writing such a state by sending off a manuscript for consideration.
