Isabelle Craig meets Japan enthusiasts Richard Collasse, author of Japanese love dictionary, Valérie Harvey, author and sociologist, and Jean Dorion, former delegate general of Québec in Tokyo. “It’s a country that is both tender and wild. You have great poetry and great brutality,” describes Richard Collasse.
The author wanted to write a useful and entertaining guide to the daily life of this country and to more complex subjects, such as Shintoism. Above all, he points out the great paradoxes that reign there, “a great rigidity with, on the contrary, an incredible capacity to forgive different movements”. For Valérie Harvey, this paradox is one of the strengths of Japan, the country where there is a modern glass skyscraper next to a wooden temple.
What intrigued Jean Dorion the most during his stay in Japan from 1994 to 2000 was the existence of two religions, Shintoism and Buddhism. Richard Collasse explains how this cohabitation defines the lifestyle of the Japanese people, and also why the Japanese invite people, even their friends, to restaurants rather than to their own homes. “When you come across Japan, you settle there,” says the author, who has lived in Japan for almost 50 years.
Source: Radio-Canada
