Lifestyle

Quiet green lanes, low-rise wooden houses, generations-old tofu stores, atmospheric temples, cycling grannies, small creative ateliers — and cats. Lots of cats. Yanaka, an east Tokyo neighborhood hugging the fringes of the JR Yamanote circle, is something of an urban time capsule, with its growing ...

More than a century ago, the skills of paper stencil textile-dyeing artisans made it possible to mass-produce kimono with vivid and intricate designs that previously could only be achieved by hand painting. Today, with fewer people wearing kimono on a daily basis, it has become ...

The Sogetsu school of ikebana encourages a more liberated approach to the Japanese art of flower arranging. Akane Teshigahara, the fourth head of the school, matches selected items from the Spogetsu Collection with arrangements celebrating spring.

While Lake Biwa played a key role in the establishment of a domestic freshwater pearl industry, farmers are now facing a bleak future.

Japan's abundant forests meant all kinds of wooden toys were made. Some of them, like kokeshi dolls, have come back into vogue, and there are now multiple museums and shops where it's possible to view and engage with these charming toys.

Reverence for the soil that nourishes life has always been deeply rooted in Japan, where agriculture was central to daily life, and many folk toys and bells were made of clay.

Jin Shirai has mastered each of the traditionally separate roles of Japan's handicraft textile industry — from growing cotton, spinning it and dyeing the yarn, to weaving and designing fabrics.

Japanese folk toys popular from the Edo Period through the Meiji Era (1603-1912) are meticulously crafted and imbued with meaning.

As Japan's ama (female divers) numbers dwindle, younger divers strive to find ways to pass down the culture.

What is so special about mingei (folk crafts)? For Muneyoshi Yanagi it was significant that ordinary, unknown and largely uneducated craftsmen used natural materials to make objects that were sublimely beautiful.

No ordinary pastor, Kazuhiro Sekino wields a bass guitar like a rock star to bring his congregation together.