The Trunk Jotter

25th Aug 2023

Like many American boys who grew up in the 1980s, I loved The Karate Kid. For months when I was five years old, I demanded that my family call me “Daniel-san” instead of Brett.

Besides instilling in me a desire to crane-kick everyone, The Karate Kid also implanted a nascent interest in Japanese culture. When I was five, I remember cobbling together a small Shinto shrine out of construction paper, popsicle sticks, and Elmer’s glue so I could have a setup similar to Mr. Miyagi’s dojo in my bedroom. It’s funny to think about a five-year-old church-going kid living in the middle of Oklahoma creating a Shinto shrine for himself.

My appreciation for Japanese culture has deepened since then and continues today. One of the things I love about the Japanese is that, like the ancient Greeks, they can take complex ideas or concepts and sum them up in a single word or phrase. These phrases can serve as reminders of how to live a flourishing life. I’ve filed away some of these Japanese concepts over the years and incorporated them into my life… The Art of Manliness 

Biryani is one of the most amazing royal delicacies introduced to Indians by the Persians. Since then it has been much popular and is considered to be a luxurious treat to enjoy on special occasions. Making a chicken biryani in authentic dum style does take some time and needs a little expertise… Swasthi’s Recipes

Neither gratitude nor appreciation has anything to do with rejecting what is wrong, censoring what is bad, exposing the ills that afflict society in order to remedy them. When our parents are wrong, we say they are wrong; when past generations committed mistakes, we say they had made mistakes. For saying this, neither are we ungrateful to them nor disrespectful to their memory.

Graciano Lopez Jaena

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