In the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, novelist Junichiro Tanizaki had to abandon his beloved Tokyo, relocate to Kansai and deal with culture shock in his own country.?
“Osakans are the kind of people who, as a matter of course, allow their children to urinate on the floor while riding the train.”?
So begins Tanizaki’s “Hanshin Observations” (1925), the first of three essays previously unpublished in English and now included in a new edition of his internationally recognized masterpiece essay on Japanese aesthetics, “In Praise of Shadows.”?
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