Before talking more about Mino and the Mino book, I would like to tell you a bit about me and my growing-up.
This is me at age 2.
This is me a little later, when I lived in Germany
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In Germany, Switzerland and Austria, but also in Japan, I achieved some level of literary fame. |
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Within five years or so I had absorbed enough German to start my own column in Germany’s leading weekly Die Zeit. They were Vignettes describing the people I was seeing around me. I made fun of German habits, mannerisms and their feeling of self-importance. For good balance, I gave the Japanese the same ironic treatment. The Japanese ambassador got so upset that he threatened to take my Japanese nationality away.
…but the public cheered me on all across Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
My weekly columns turned into a book
The book became a sensation
It started my literary career. More than twenty books followed, written in German and Japanese, not all as light-hearted or ironic as the first, more serious – novels, historical essays, and creative non-fiction.
… this is me now in my office
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I am from Kyoto, the ancient Imperial City of Japan.
In middle of the city there is a densely wooded hill, twenty acres in size.
…closer up
On top of this hill sits the Kenkun Jinja, an old Shinto Shrine, where I grew up. Near here, over a thousand years ago, Murasaki Shikibu wrote her famous “Tale of Prince Genji”.
These long stairs I ran up and down so many times
I still vividly remember the sweeping view over the city from our house, with the lights sparkling at night and the silhouette of Mount Hiei dominating the skyline.
My father was a Shinto Priest, the Highest Priest of the Kenkun Shrine. To everybody he was a renowned scholar of old East-Asian philosophy but to me he was a wonderful father full of attention mischief and joy. When I was still little, he took me to burlesque theaters downtown and to all kinds of country fairs.
My father introduced me to the wisdom of common folklore and the beauty of mythology. Steeped in the knowledge of the Far East and fluent in the Chinese classics he did something unusual for someone of his stature and his position: he encouraged me to also learn everything I could learn about the Western world.
This determined the path of my life…
I attended a Christian high school in Kyoto, where I went through an intense program in European culture and history from the Greek to modern times – music, art, literature and theater. I loved the theater part. At the same time, every morning six days a week, I had to attend church services, and had to read the Bible three times over.
Four years later, after obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities at ICU in Tokyo, I crossed the Pacific on a ten thousand ton freighter, plowing the waves for two weeks from Yokohama to San Francisco.
On a bright August morning the ship was gliding below the Golden Gate Bridge toward the white city of San Francisco
Entry to the Schwab Auditorium -
Mino´s Ink drawing
I took the train across the continent to Penn State, renowned today for its prowess in football. But Penn State also has a vibrant Theater Department. What an intense time.
The Schwab Auditorium, nine hundred seats, was our playground. Most of my Penn State classmates went on to Broadway or to Hollywood hoping to make it as actors, stage crafts, playwrights, or directors.
Some did, big time.
I taught a course in the History of Japanese Theater and performed Japanese classical dance.
After two years I graduated with a Master’s degree in Theater Arts.
After two years I graduated with a Master’s degree in Theater Arts.
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Just at that time I met a scientist from Germany, and we fell in love. We married – actually twice, first back in Kyoto with my father presiding over the ceremony in his Shinto Shrine and second in the Penn State Chapel.
A year later our son Mino was born, and my life took a new turn.
A year later our son Mino was born, and my life took a new turn.
