Hidemi Woods's Blog, page 5
July 3, 2025
catch a fly in the air with chopsticks
To keep being a dreamer living in Japan is as hard as to catch a fly in the air with chopsticks, and yet it’s not all impossible. The chain of events that you have never experienced in your life changes your routine days into chaos. While you can’t quite grasp the sudden change of circumstances, it throws you into confusion in which you continually need to make decisions and actions. You are sucked by mighty force against your will and can’t get out. It inevitably changes some point of your life, your way of life, and your inner self also. As a result, you become another person who is not the one you used to be. That is exactly what happened to me from the fall of 2009 to the fall of 2011. At that time, I was too deep in a whirl to understand what was happening and why it was happening. But in hindsight, it was supposed to happen and someone or something pushed my back, yanked my arm, and rushed me who was reluctant into the new place.
For me being a singer-songwriter from Kyoto in Japan, the change coincided with the time when I gave up chasing fame and fortune that I had been craving fervently enough to leave my family and its long good lineage. I ignored the commercial-based timetable for the first time and took time as long as I was satisfied to complete a song for which I composed, wrote English words, arranged, and recorded all instruments and vocals by myself. When the song’s completion was on the horizon, what would change everything began to happen. Embarrassment and conflict in my odd daily life, the massive earthquake and the following nuclear meltdown that unexpectedly knocked the bottom out of such daily life, surprises and transitions in the new place, and my new self. If you find my awkward, tottering adventure funny, it’d be worth taking on and I’d be more than happy.
Surviving in Japan: Awkward days with shakes, escape and AwakeningClick to Buy at Amazon.comSurviving in Japan: Awkward days with shakes, escape and Awakening Kindle and Audiobook available at Amazon.com
July 1, 2025
Another Sunrise by Hidemi Woods Premium T-Shirt
Another Sunrise by Hidemi Woods Premium T-ShirtClick to Buy at Amazon.com
Another Sunrise by Hidemi Woods T-Shirt
From song words “Sunrise” by Hidemi Woods.
On Sale at Amazon
June 28, 2025
1000-year-long family in Kyoto
Memoirs and essays of a girl who was born as the 63rd successor of a landlord’s 1000-year-long family in Kyoto that was the most traditional and formal city in Japan. How her family and people in her community strived through conflict between Japanese old ways of life according to ancient customs and waves of a new era is depicted with full of humor and pathos along with the girl’s feelings into coming of age. Japanese original seasonal events and what and why Japanese people think in particular ways are also explained in the course. In the end, what her family had really inherited and preserved generation after generation is unveiled, and finally there comes the end of the family that brought over 1000 years of prosperity to naught.
Click to Buy at Amazon.comThe Girl in Kyoto: Bittersweet Memories of One Traditional Family in JapanJune 26, 2025
what I want to do for my life
My parents live in my hometown, Kyoto, which is located in the western part of Japan. A long time ago, when Japan had the feudal system, my family was a landlord of the area. It has come to a complete downfall over the years, but my family still clings to its past glory. For them, to succeed the family is critical. I’m firstborn and have no brother which meant that I was a successor and destined to spend the whole life in my hometown. But music changed everything. To pursue a career in music, my hometown was too rural and I had to move out. Back then I was a college student and moving to a city meant dropping out of school. My parents fiercely opposed but as usual, they left the matter to my grandfather who controlled the family. Considering his way to keep a tight rein, everybody including myself thought he might kill me. I could have run away, but I wanted to tell him for once what I want to do for my life.
Click to Buy at Amazon.comAn Old Tree in Kyoto: How a Japanese girl got freedomJune 24, 2025
June 21, 2025
Audiobooks and ebooks by Hidemi Woods
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[Apple Books], [Audiobooks.com], [Google Play], [Kobo Walmart], [Scribd], [estories], [Libro.FM], [nook audiobooks]
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Kindle and Audible -Audiobook by virtual voice narration
Kyoto
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A Japanese Girl in The Catholic School of Kyoto,
Diary of The Snowy Country in Japan,
The Japanese Family Goes to Europe,
Country Living in Mountain of Japan,
June 19, 2025
A Ribbon with A Bell
One day in my childhood, a family of stray cats appeared in the front yard of our house in Kyoto, Japan where I was born and grew up.
I was raised by my grandparents and my grandfather had cherished several hundreds of chrysanthemum pots in the yard in those days. The yard was practically a sea of chrysanthemums. For that reason, the apparent house rule existed, which was not to keep a dog. I had never had a pet.
The cats family stood in the middle of the ragged path between the front door and the gate. There were four cats, one was big and others were very small kittens. I was about six years old and standing probably ten feet away from them when I found them that day. While I had constantly talked with my staffed animals, I was quite foreign to live animals. I walked toward them slowly and carefully with full of curiosity and a twinkle in my eye. As I got closer, a mother cat and two kittens quickly ran away. But one kitten didn’t move. He stayed where he was and just stared at me. I reached right in front of him and crouched before him. He was a tortoiseshell cat with gray and brown marks on his fur. He fixed his gaze upon me and never left. We looked into each others eyes for a while. I tentatively stretched my arm and touched him. He didn’t so much as flinch and kept looking at my eyes. I sensed that I was chosen as a friend by this kitten since I had no human friends back then. I held him with my both hands and felt surprising warmth of his body. I brought him inside the house.
I showed him to my grandmother and she promptly prepared a small dish of dried bonito. As I saw him nibbling it, I asked my grandmother if I could keep him with absolute certainty of no. Her unexpected reply was, “As long as it’s not a dog, your grandfather will allow if it’s kept inside.”
I got my first pet. I named him ‘Joe’ because he looked nothing else but ‘Joe’. I asked my grandmother for something like a collar now that he’s my pet. She scrambled and got me a bell and a red ribbon. I put them together and proudly presented to Joe’s neck. His quarters were decided at the entrance of the house, right behind the front door. I gave him some milk in the evening that day and talked to him into the night although I had been sometimes regarded as mute by others to whom I rarely spoke.
I thought Joe was as happy as I was. But after I went to bed, he began to cry. He didn’t call me though because he cried toward outside. Soon, I heard a cat meow outside too. It seemed his mother came to him. They meowed to each other with the front door between them. His fragile meows to the door continued till late at night. My grandmother suggested that I should release him because she couldn’t bear to see him miss his mother so much. I agreed that it was cruel to separate them. He wanted to be outside with his mother. I opened the front door and took him out. He swiftly scurried away. The time I had a pet lasted for less than 12 hours. The time I thought was liked by someone was laughably short.
A few days later, I felt I heard a bell ring. I went outside hurriedly and saw the yard. It was Joe. He huddled together with his family in the middle of the path, at the same spot where we first met. I called out, “Joe!” His mother and siblings ran away on my call, but Joe responded and turned to me. I was amazed that he had learned his name was Joe although our time together was so short. He remained there alone and gazed at me. This time, it looked to me as if he was smiling. At that moment I understood. He came back to see me. I felt an undoubtedly sure connection between us. I walked to him and held him in my arms. I took him into the house and told my grandmother that Joe came back. As she fixed a dish of dried bonito again, she told me not to repeat what we had done to him previously. While I was so happy to be reunited with him, I also knew I shouldn’t keep him. My happiness wasn’t the same as his. After I watched him eating…
Episode from
Cats, Dogs and Kyoto, Japan by Hidemi Woods Kindle and Audiobook available at Amazon.comJune 17, 2025
June 14, 2025
The Doorplate: Talking and Reading from Japan by Hidemi Woods
This podcast is narration works of short stories from the books Hidemi Woods wrote. And her talking about them.
Hidemi Woods was born and raised in Kyoto, Japan. A singer-songwriter and an author.
Her stories and talking are about life in Japan, music, family, childhood, and embarrassing everyday-experiences.
Episode from
An Old Tree in Kyoto: How a Japanese girl got freedom
Audiobook: The Family in Kyoto: One Japanese Girl Got Freedom by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps.
Apple Books, Google Play, Audible 43 available distributors in total.
Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps.
Apple Books, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks, 43 available distributors in total.
