The Hyogo Business and Cultural Center cordially invite you to an evening lecture and discussion on Japanese culture. Wine and light refreshments will be served as we spend time looking at a facet of sumo and Japanese culture seldom presented in our area.
Location: The Hyogo Gallery (1st floor of Building 2 of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington)
Event Schedule:
- 6:30-6:40: Welcome and Refreshements
- 6:40-7:30: Presentation: The Art of the Belly
- 7:30-7:45: Break
- 7:45-8:30: Discussion
About the Event: Inherent in travel is the need to trust intuition and gut instincts. No matter how many guide books you read, classes you attend, or experts you hear, you ultimately still encounter situations for which you have no intellectual clues to follow. The Art of the Belly uses the ancient sport of sumo to navigate Japanese culture at this gut level. It is a journey of insight and misstep, of cultural awareness through immersion in a very foreign sport, and ultimately of metaphor as we focus on Japan through the lens of sumo.
When Steven first lived in this oft-baffling culture, he learned to follow my instincts and, in these moments of ambiguity, discovered something new about himself and his adopted home. This process of discovering Japan, of practicing “the art of the belly,” coincided for him with discovering sumo, Buddhism, and Shintoism. The more he learned about Japan, the more he learned about sumo; the more he understood sumo, the better he understood Japan.
