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So begins Tanizaki¡¯s ¡°Hanshin Observations¡± (1925), the first of three essays previously unpublished in English and now included in a new edition of his internationally recognized masterpiece essay on Japanese aesthetics, ¡°In Praise of Shadows.¡±?
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