Alex Kerr > Quotes

“Why has pachinko swept Japan? It can hardly be the excitement of gambling, since the risks and rewards are so small. During the hours spent in front of a pachinko machine, there is an almost total lack of stimulation other than the occasional rush of ball bearings. There is no thought, no movement; you have no control over the flow of balls, apart from holding a little lever which shoots them up to the top of the machine; you sit there enveloped in a cloud of heavy cigarette smoke, semi-dazed by the racket of millions of ball bearings falling through machines around you. Pachinko verges on sensory deprivation. It is the ultimate mental numbing, the final victory of the educational system." - Lost Japan, Eng. vers., 1996”
― Alex Kerr

“. . . Japan has a fundamental problem with information itself: it’s often lacking, and when it does exist, is fuzzy at its best, bogus at its worst. In this respect, Japan’s traditional culture stands squarely at odds with modernity—and the problem will persist. The issue of hidden or falsified information strikes at such deeply rooted social attitudes that the nation may never entirely come to grips with it. Because of this, one may confidently predict that in the coming decades Japan will continue to have trouble digesting new ideas from abroad—and will find it more and more difficult to manage its own increasingly baroque and byzantine internal systems.”
― Alex Kerr, Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan

“It is not, of course, only the Japanese who find flat sterile surfaces attractive and kirei. Foreign observers, too, are seduced by the crisp borders, sharp corners, neat railings, and machine-polished textures that define the new Japanese landscape, because, consciously or unconsciously, most of us see such things as embodying the very essence of modernism. In short, foreigners very often fall in love with kirei even more than the Japanese do; for one thing, they can have no idea of the mysterious beauty of the old jungle, rice paddies, wood, and stone that was paved over. Smooth industrial finish everywhere, with detailed attention to each cement block and metal joint: it looks ‘modern’; ergo, Japan is supremely modern.”
― Alex Kerr, Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan

“Creo que lo único que quieres hacer cuando realmente has amado algo es transmitir su recuerdo a otros.”
― Alex Kerr, Lost Japan

“Tatemae is a charming attitude when it means that everyone should look at the other way at a guest’s faux pas in the tearoom; it has dangerous and unpredictable results when applied to corporate balance sheets, drug testing, and nuclear-power safety reports.”
― Alex Kerr, Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan

“Japón es como una ostra. A una ostra no le gustan los objetos que vienen de fuera: hasta cuando el grano más fino de arena o de una concha rota logra entrar, la otra considera esa invasión intolerable, así que secreta una capa y otra de nácar sobre la superficie de la partícula infractora hasta que, llegado el momento, se crea una hermosa perla. Tras el proceso de recubrir la partícula externa, no queda ni una sola huella de su forma o color original. De manera similar, Japón reviste la cultura extranjera que le llega y la transforma en una perla de estilo japonés. El resultado final es enormemente bello (a menudo, como en el caso de la ceremonia del té, más refinado que el original), pero la naturaleza esencial del original se pierde.”
― Alex Kerr, Lost Japan

“It has often been pointed out that the Japanese educational system aims to produce a high average level of achievement for all, rather than excellence for a few. Students in school are not encouraged to stand out or ask questions, with the result that the Japanese become conditioned to a life of the average. Being average and boring here is the very essence of society, the factor which keeps the wheels of all those social systems turning so smoothly. It need hardly be said that this is one of the major drawbacks of Japanese life. However, in watching the pottery class at Oomoto, the weak points of the American educational system became evident as well. Americans are taught from childhood to show creativity. If you do not ‘become a unique person’, then you are led to believe you have something wrong with you. Such thinking becomes a stumbling block: for people brought up in that atmosphere, creating a simple tea bowl is a great hardship. This is the ‘poison’ to which David was referring. I sometimes think that the requirement to ‘be interesting’ inculcated by American education might be a very cruel thing. Since most of us lead commonplace lives, it is a foregone conclusion that we will be disappointed. But in Japan, people are conditioned to be satisfied with the average, so they can’t fail but be happy with their lots. If”
― Alex Kerr, Lost Japan: Last Glimpse of Beautiful Japan

“Gyo 行 ('practice' and also 'to practice') is what monks undergo in their training inside the temple; it's an ordeal, a trial to be mastered. And it never ends. You practice; you reach a new level; and then you practice again.”
― Alex Kerr, Finding the Heart Sutra: Guided by a Magician, an Art Collector and Buddhist Sages from Tibet to Japan

“The emperor of China asked his court painter, «What's easy to paint and what's hard to paint?» and the answer was «Dogs are difficult, demons are easy.»”
― Alex Kerr, Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan

“No foreign architect of stature, such as I. M. Pei, resides in Japan. Foreign architects come to Japan on short-term contracts, erect a skyscraper or a museum, and then leave. But subtle and sophisticated approaches to services and design—the core elements of modern building technology—cannot be transmitted in this way. Japan is left with the empty shells of architectural ideas, the hardware without the software.”
― Alex Kerr, Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan

“Gyo（行）
You practice; you reach a new level; and then you practice again.”
― Alex Kerr, Finding the Heart Sutra: Guided by a Magician, an Art Collector and Buddhist Sages from Tibet to Japan

“Since the 1970s, Japanese quality has become a byword, and many a book and article has been penned on the subject of Kaizen, ‘improvement,’ a form of corporate culture in which employers encourage their workers to submit ideas that will polish and improve efficiency. The writers on Kaizen, however, overlooked one weakness in this approach, which seemed minor at the time but has seriously impacted Japan’s technology. Kaizen’s emphasis is entirely on positive recommendations; there is no mechanism to deal with negative criticism, no way to disclose faults or mistakes—and this leads to a fundamental problem of information. People keep silent about embarrassing errors, with the result that problems are never solved.”
― Alex Kerr, Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan

“Dogs and horses are difficult; demons and fascinating things are easy". The idea is that painting dogs and horses is difficult because they are so ordinary; demons and grotesque objects, on the other hand, are quite easily depicted.”
― Alex Kerr, Lost Japan

“As a matter of historical fact, Japan has suffered far less from wars, famines, and floods than China, for example, where these disasters have resulted in the loss of millions of lives and the destruction of much of China’s perishable physical heritage… Italy, likewise, has endured volcanoes and earthquakes far more severe than Japan has ever experienced, yet ‘impermanence’ is not the abiding theme of Italian or Chinese literature. That it so dominates Japanese thought may have something to do with the ancient desire for Wa, ‘peace’ or ‘stasis.’ Any sudden change, whether in politics or the weather, is an insult to Wa. Hence the fear of and fascination with ‘impermanence.”
― Alex Kerr, Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan

“But Fushimi-inari is not one site to be viewed from one angle; it is an experience that you must pass through, like dreaming. At the entrance is an enormous cinnabar-red torii gate, and beyond that, an outdoor stage and main hall. Before the main hall are two large fox statues: one with its mouth open, the other holding a key in its teeth. (Foxes are considered to be magical creatures, with the ability to bewitch human beings.) Above the entrance is a banner with another symbol of Inari, a flaming jewel, which also represents occult power. Behind the main hall is a procession of several hundred red torii, lined up so close together that they make a tunnel. Most visitors walk through this row of gates, then return home feeling a little disappointed. But they have turned back at the entrance to the dreamworld.”
― Alex Kerr, Lost Japan: Last Glimpse of Beautiful Japan

“Nunca corras directo al centro. La manera adecuada de contemplar un mandalas es, en primer lugar, entrenando tus pensamientos sobre los budas que custodian las puertas de su periferia. Una vez franqueado ese umbral, poco a poco te adentra en el interior, dando vueltas y vueltas en círculos cada vez más estrechos hasta que llegas al centro.”
― Alex Kerr, Lost Japan

“Sunyata, in contrast to rupa, is the realm of pure spirituality, hovering beyond everything material. It's quiet, pure, empty. It's the nothingness that seems to be at the core of subatomic particles; it's the big blank that's left at the moment of death.”
― Alex Kerr, Finding the Heart Sutra: Guided by a Magician, an Art Collector and Buddhist Sages from Tibet to Japan