Woooah! I’m finally here! I was totally lost in time and space because of studies and extreme weather for the past couple of months so let me apologise for disappearing first. After three abnormally hot and humid weeks and hundreds of heatstrokes recorded only in Tokyo, the Jongdari typhoon brought an end to this madness last Saturday, also stopping a couple of train lines and allowing me to put everything on pause (since there was no other choice) and stay at home to finish this huge post that I started writing god knows how long ago. To make up for my absence I’ll list some of the most memorable things I’ve done so far which are not mentioned in the actual post:
— Became a specialist in traditional Japanese Noh opera and Kabuki to be in charge of designing a tour stage for a real client
— Understood why asians carry umbrellas in summer at all times and started to do so myself
— Fell ill and had lots of fun explaining myself in Japanese while having a fever at my local hospital
— Had dozens of small epiphanies concerning genealogy of Japanese architecture
— Watched my old Japanese friend (whom I met in Italy five years ago!) sing the main role in an experimental German-language opera on a secret dress rehearsal
— Played electric guitar on a random late night jam session with a finance broker in Akasaka business district
— Visited offices of SANAA and Kengo Kuma and numerous massive construction sites
— Had a serious mental heat breakdown and booked plane tickets to Hokkaido with no particular plan in mind
— Realised why Haruki Murakami called his book 1Q84: English adaptation says “Q” is for “question” but actually number 9 in Japanese is pronounced as [kyu]!!! It was totally worth going to Japan just to get to know this!

http://telegra.ph/Everything-is-Intertwined-07-28

Attention: the post is reaaally long so make sure you have nothing better to do and got plenty of time for it. But I promise there are some insider things about Japan you’ll hardly find anywhere else with real life examples and background reasons so it should be worth the effort. If you happen to notice a typo/mistake - send me a message!

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Some of you wrote me about my last post being impossible to finish in one go and proposed to fraction it a little bit. I was too naive to think that it would be easier to digest as an entire piece, really. So I followed this wise advice, slightly revised the text and made it into three parts which I'll publish with some time gaps and additional bonus photos for you to enjoy as a regular quick read during your coffee breaks or daily subway rides.
Here's the first part if you haven't even started last time.
http://telegra.ph/Everything-is-Intertwined-Pt1-08-01

Sorry, didn't notice that I made the poll public, no wonder got so few responses! Let's do it again anonymously: how much did you manage to read of this last long chapter?
anonymous poll

read about half of it but lost concentration and couldn't continue – 4
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍 31%

made it till the very end and it was worth it – 4
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍 31%

made it till the very end but please next time definitely make it shorter – 2
👍👍👍👍 15%

haven't started reading yet – 2
👍👍👍👍 15%

dropped it early in the beginning when realized how freaking long it was – 1
👍👍 8%

👥 13 people voted so far. Poll closed.

Hello again! Thanks for answering the poll, now it's especially clear that my future texts need to be shortened a bit but I'm so glad there still are some enthusiasts who finished that monstrous post! Here's another part of it for those who prefer quicker reads — you'll find a story of my lost wallet and the unexpected origins of Japanese obsession with cleanliness:
http://telegra.ph/Everything-is-Intertwined-Pt2-08-01

Bonus teaser: my spontaneous solo trip to Hokkaido turned out to be a completely surreal experience so brace yourself — some very intense chapters are definitely coming up soon!

Finally it’s Obon vacation in Japan, Ferragosto week in Italy and quite an ordinary Friday in Russia and Switzerland, but in any case I hope you guys will have a great weekend and find a spare minute to read the final part of my latest story! It’s already intense and cathartic enough by itself but I decided to pair it with a self-made piece of music inspired by my daily life in Japan and Yasujiro Ozu’s film “Tokyo Story” from 1953: the track contains a dialogue taken from there, some asian instruments and lots of cicada, water and train sounds. It’s silly but just one night spent without Internet access pushed me to produce my first exclusively digital track out of nowhere so it’s full of anxiety, frustration and incompetence and therefore suits today’s text perfectly. http://telegra.ph/Everything-is-Intertwined-Pt3-08-10-2

Loyal to my anti-laconic personality, I made the original 8 minutes long but life taught me a lesson and I cut out half of it with two more dialogues. Guess I’ll just save those for later!

卄乇ㄚ ㄒ卄乇尺乇 ! (okay, just kidding)

◔ I know I’ve disappeared for quite some time! Sorry about that. I came back to Japan a bit more than a month ago but it took me a while to adjust to Tokyo’s fast-paced lifestyle again: had to find some new part-time jobs, take new classes and continue dealing with all this mess of Italian/Japanese bureaucracy in the meantime. But worry not, my first s͎t͎o͎r͎y͎ ͎a͎b͎o͎u͎t͎ ͎H͎o͎k͎k͎a͎i͎d͎o͎ ͎t͎r͎i͎p͎ ͎i͎s͎ ͎a͎l͎m͎o͎s͎t͎ ͎d͎o͎n͎e͎ and I got some new ideas for the future posts already!
★ Most importantly, I would like to thank all those who came to “15 Weird Habits from Tokyo” presentation I held in September in Moscow. I wasn’t expecting 35 people to come so there were not enough chairs! Two hours of my speech must have been quite tough to sit through but gladly nobody left and I was asked a bunch of questions after. Really, thank you guys! ♡ Some suggested that I make a new presentation in February… Well, let’s come up with a topic later together! ✷

Helloo dear people! New stuff coming up! Why so long? Because I was being ultra perfectionist and spent months on making my website look decent enough. First of all, check out the blog section on www.kunokumo.com There you'll find all previous posts in one place and two new posts in progress - gonna continue them after the event in Moscow. What event, you ask? I'm giving a public lecture on Japanese architecture on Thursday, yey! Here's the link, https://tatiana-knoroz.timepad.ru/event/909639/ so sign up please!

Greetings from Tokyo! Here’s some nice Kengo Kuma’s shop interior for ya! Thanks to everyone who came to my lecture in Moscow, it was a great success to have so many people. The video is almost ready, I’m now thinking of how to cut it a bit and translate in English later. Also, most of you might’ve seen it on facebook already but right after the lecture I was contacted by a writer from a certain Russian architecture magazine and now you can check out my interview, which surprisingly came out to be the most effiecient summary of my year in Japan. Aaaand, I agreed to write short materials on Japanese arch for these guys twice or thrice a month, so chances are you will be getting those in English verson here, too! http://www.berlogos.ru/interview/tatyana-knoroz-my-stroim-doma-chtoby-zhit-zimoj-yaponcy-chtoby-zhit-letom/

News for my Russian comrades! The video from the lecture was finally uploaded on youtube, check it out! Tbh I realised that I need to work on my native language presentation skills: 6 years away from home had quite an effect. Nonetheless, the narrative is reportedly well-structured and there might be some great stuff to learn so please bear with my shortcomings for now. Gonna practice extra hard for my next lectures in September, I promise! And I’m seriously thinking about making some videos about my thesis fieldwork next month and just Japan in general later on. So if you’re interested — subscribe, likes, all that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z0m7eGKL8s

23 days into my life in Kyoto and I can already assure you it’s a huge upgrade from a year of loneliness in Tokyo. Not only Kyoto University has the best academic and social environment I’ve ever seen anywhere in Tokyo or Europe, but actually the vibe of the city itself makes your every day enjoyable. People here are willingly approaching you in public places to talk, try to help you in every possible way even if you don’t ask for it and generally behave in a much more humane manner compared to Tokyoites, who tend to avoid eye contact with anything unplanned or unexpected. And oh boy, you don’t need to spend hours in transport to get somewhere you need to go, or at least not everyday. Life in Tokyo seems like a bad dream now, all I remember about it is me dozing off in crowded trains on my way to meaningless tasks and engaging in meaningless friendly/networking relationships that didn’t really get me anywhere for an entire year. Remember I wrote that time passes too fast in Japan? My mistake, it’s not Japan, it’s just Tokyo and its impossible city structure and its overworked inhabitants lacking attachment to any physical reality. The urban composition of Kyoto makes it already cozy and friendly to start with: surrounded by gentle mountains from three sides providing a natural visual reference at all times, local neighbourhoods never surpass a comfortable human scale, even if following a strict NS grid all the time. A slow-paced river Kamo with pleasant wide banks, resembling Florence a bit by dimensions and relationship with the buildings, penetrates the city from north to south and serves as an attraction axis for social activities. You’re never mentally lost or exhausted just from being out on the streets, at least not like you can get in Tokyo. There are only 1.475 million people living in Kyoto (slightly more than in Milan) but you always feel like the world around you is full of opportunities to encounter a new friend, a new nice spot or an interesting event. It’s hard to keep up studying and working hard in this environment though, I’m struggling to stay productive...

What I did in the past month:

— cleared up my stereotypes about Japan and classified half of them as only applicable to Tokyo
— filmed several interviews with young architects in Tokyo to include in my thesis film
— went to Ibaraki and filmed people living in local social housing, now got 1,5TB of great material but it’ll take time to process
— met my research supervisor (he’s an amazing architect/professor from New Zealand, check out his books on amazon https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Daniell/e/B001JRXEJ2/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1), resumed work on my thesis project
— became an unspoken leader of social life in an international dormitory I live in, organised several awesome parties and built many great relationships. who would’ve thought I can be that friendly, seems like a year in Tokyo completely deformed my character
— wrote two articles in Russian, coming soon

Late announcement for Russian readers! Presentation in Moscow today

Сегодня я буду рассказывать о своих японских похождениях на конференции “Архитектор Будущего” на летней сцене Стрелки примерно в 18:20 (будет насыщенная презентация на 15 минут). Ссылка на регистрацию вот http://strelka.com/ru/events/event/2019/09/10/future-architects-day-2.

And a bit later I will write about my last four months in Kyoto, I got a long story to tell! Cheers ~