The National Music Of The World

Photographers and moviemakers in Japan must carefully calculate how to frame each shot to preserve the illusion of natural beauty. The Japanese are surrounded by books and posters that feature precisely trimmed shots of nature – mostly close-ups of such details as the walkway into an old temple grounds or a leaf swirling in a mountain pool – with accompanying slogans praising the Japanese love of nature, the seasons, and so forth. Often the very agencies whose work is to resculpt the landscape have produced and paid for such advertisements. Well-selected words and photos remind the Japanese daily that they live in a beautiful country. They also impress upon foreigners who buy books on gardens, flowers, architecture, and Kyoto that Japan is blessed above all nations in the world with its exquisite «love of the four seasons.» No country in the world has so rich a heritage of symbols and literature extolling nature. Signs for restaurants and bars read «Maple Leaf,» «Firefly,» «Autumn Grasses»; a major bank, formerly Kobe Taiyo Mitsui Ginko (Kobe Sun Mitsui Bank), even changed its name to Sakura Ginko (Cherry Blossom Bank) ...»