Tokyo Station Gallery is showing Eyes on Tohoku 1930-1945, an exhibition of folk crafts and art affiliated with northeastern Japan during the prewar and World War II years. This was a period when, as the curators note, the country was at a crossroads, straddling divides of tradition and modernity and rural and urban life. Tohoku (Aomori, Akita, Iwate, Miyagi, Yamagata, and Fukushima Prefectures) accounts for 30 percent of the land on Japan's largest island. For millennia it has sustained the rest of the nation as a vital source of food, transportation, military power, and energy. more...

In the Japanese tea ceremony, the aesthetic aspects of the tea's preparation and presentation, and the design details of the tea room, are as important as the taste of the tea itself. For those unfamiliar with the etiquette, it can be difficult to know what to focus the eye on. Tea Ceramics -- Appreciating Scenic Kiln Effects, the current exhibition at the Mitsui Memorial Museum in Tokyo, is a good place to start for those wishing to hone their understanding of the visual side of tea culture. Since the Edo period (1603-1867) the Mitsui family has amassed a collection of over 4,000 items, many of them connected to the tea ceremony. more...