{"quotes":[{"text":"But do you imagine there’s a certain type of person in the world who conforms to the idea of a ‘bad person'? You’ll never find someone who fits that mold neatly, you know. On the whole, all people are good, or at least they’re normal. The frightening thing is that they can suddenly turn bad when it comes to the crunch. That’s why you have to be careful.","author":"Sōseki Natsume","tags":["antebellum","contingency","ethics","evil","fin-de-siecle","freedom","individual","japan","meiji","modernism","self","the-crunch"],"id":3561,"author_id":"S%C5%8Dseki+Natsume"},{"text":"Immobilized in marriage, since long ago, she was taken as rightful property under wedlock. As a side note, I am urged to comment, the curious nature of these terms property and wed-lock; as if doomed to be firmly kept under latch and key, a padlocked yard? Pastures lain fallow occasionally?","author":"Lotte Roy","tags":["japan","romance-scams","women"],"id":8270,"author_id":"Lotte+Roy"},{"text":"The entire area - some 300 square kilometers - is sacred. There are shrines and temples dotted about the slopes, but they merely confirm the sanctity of the land. It is not in the shrines and temples that the gods live, but in the mountains themselves. [about the Three Holy Mountains of Dewa - Haguro, Gassam, and Yodono].","author":"Alan Booth","tags":["japan","nature","sacred"],"id":10455,"author_id":"Alan+Booth"},{"text":"There are so many other fun ways to dishonor the family name that buying girls’ underwear shouldn’t be one of them.","author":"Rin Chupeco","tags":["funny","honor","japan","shame","tark-halloway"],"id":11001,"author_id":"Rin+Chupeco"},{"text":"Minding his own business had been his motto living in a strange foreign country with a world-recognized social issue of failing morals.","author":"Vann Chow","tags":["asia","crime","criminal-city","dangerous-city","dangerous-place","expat","expat","experience","failing-moral","gangs","gangster","japan","japanese-gang","life-advice","living-alone","living-in-foreign-country","maffia","minding-own-business","moral","traveler","war-zone","white-man-and-the-pachinko-girl","world-traveler"],"id":15567,"author_id":"Vann+Chow"},{"text":"Integrating the beauty of seasonal change into the residence was a concept that remains true even today even in the more cramped, inner city machiya.","author":"Judith Clancy","tags":["architecture","food","history","japan","kyoto","machiya","restaurants","wwii"],"id":16172,"author_id":"Judith+Clancy"},{"text":"Oh I'm sure you're right,' Auntie said. 'Probably she's just as you say. But she looks to me like a very clever girl, and adaptable; you can see that from the shape of her ears.","author":"Arthur Golden","tags":["culture","fiction","geisha","japan","memoirs"],"id":16909,"author_id":"Arthur+Golden"},{"text":"Offerings gleam beneath consecrated trees,boulders, and caves where Kami nature spiritsminister to congregations of saki cans, lotus root, and the glow of tangerines; still-lives silent as prayer.","author":"Jalina Mhyana","tags":["farmers","gods","japan","nature","offerings","poetry","shintoism","spirits","still-lifes"],"id":18102,"author_id":"Jalina+Mhyana"},{"text":"Constant love despite almost impossible anti-clamix towards this place of the rising sun...","author":"Alexander Zalan","tags":["aspiration","desire","japan","volition"],"id":19188,"author_id":"Alexander+Zalan"},{"text":"The better you were able to imagine what you wanted to imagine, the farther you could flee from reality.","author":"Haruki Murakami","tags":["escape","flee","flight","haruki-murakami","imagination","imagine","japan","japanese","murakami","reality","the-wind-up-bird-chronicle"],"id":26495,"author_id":"Haruki+Murakami"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":195,"pages":20,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}