The year 2025 is the Year of the Snake, one of the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac. The Snake is the sixth animal in the zodiac cycle, and beyond simply representing a specific year, it carries deep meanings and traditions rooted in ancient beliefs.
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The Life and Work of Takuichi Fujii
In a new blog series, Corinne Kennedy writes about three Japanese artists who lived and worked in early 20th-century Seattle. By the 1930s, their paintings were winning recognition and awards. However, World War II upended their lives, and until recently their work was largely erased from local art history. Part Two of the series features artist Takuichi Fujii.
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On August 10, during our next Family Saturday event, the Seattle Japanese Garden will participate in a North American Japanese Garden Association’s Gardens for Peace community project. Garden visitors will be able to draw a peace pattern—designed by Hiroshima-based artist Toshiko Tanaka—on special calligraphy scrolls in remembrance of those who died in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. The Gardens for Peace project symbolizes our commitment to avoiding past mistakes and maintaining world peace, now and in the future.
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On April 6, we opened the Shoseian Tea House at the Garden for our first Japanese Tea Ceremony Demonstration of the 2024 season. A week prior to opening, the tea house underwent its annual spring cleaning. (Two major cleanings take place at the tea house each year: one in spring, just before the tea demonstration season starts, and the other in fall, just after the season ends.) Read more…
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In this blog post, you will find out a brief history of the instrument—including its debut on the Western symphony stage—and spotlight Kaoru Kakizakai, a master shakuhachi player from Japan. Kaoru will perform in the Garden on Friday, March 29, 2024, and we hope to inspire you to come and enjoy the music.
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Did you know that Japanese people tend to value south-facing rooms more than north-facing ones? Find out why on our blog, and read about how the new Japanese Garden pavilion is being designed to provide a south-facing overlook of the pond. Read More...
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On November 16, the Arboretum Foundation and Seattle Parks and Recreation co-hosted a public meeting at the Graham Visitors Center focused on the Japanese Garden North Wall and Pavilion Project. Representatives from Berger Partnership and Hoshide Wanzer Architects presented designs plans for this Master Plan project, which reconstructs the crumbling stone wall at the north end of the pond, modifies the pathways in this area to improve accessibility, and adds a new pavilion-like structure that was originally envisioned by the Garden’s designer, Juki Iida, back in 1959, but never realized. The designers answered questions from the meeting attendees and gathered feedback on the potential uses of the structure.
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Called 読書の秋 (dokusho no aki) in Japanese, the colder days and longer nights of fall beckon us to read. Blog contributor Corinne Kennedy has compiled an eclectic list of thirteen titles, including eleven books for children and younger teens.
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