Table of Content
She imagines the colorful floral array of spring while planting the tulip bulbs. She was surprised last year by the deliciousness of some ginger sweets a local farmer gave her, and grew her own ginger this year. She asks the local farmer around to teach her how to preserve ginger in sugar and is highly satisfied with the taste.
An admirer of Japanese traditional chests of drawers, or tansu, she takes a trip to Iwate Prefecture and visits a tansu workshop. The elaborate craftsmanship dating from the Edo era impresses her. In Tono City, she visits a couple living like she does and tries cooking a local delicacy, hittsumi with them.
COMMUNITY FOCUS
One of the singular delights of sheltering in place is the stumbling across hidden gardens on the internet that in the fast-paced rush of ordinary times would have remained unexplored. In 1971, at the age of 19, Stanley-Smith fled her aristocratic roots in the U.K. To wander the earth searching for a more meaningful purpose in her life. Her travels led her to India and then to Japan where she started an English-language school and fell in love with a country that would become her home for the next forty years. Venetia is a real herbologist with more than 150 useful herbs in her Ohara, Kyoto garden. She gives a public reading in English about the wisdom and efficacy of herbs.
Hara, Stanley-Smith showcases the seasonal bounty of her adopted home, educating her audience on the richness of the broader community that surrounds her. Structured like an inimitable personal diary, “Venetia” is imbued with an intimacy, warmth and transparency impossible to resist. Hara, an ancient village on the outskirts of Kyöto, each episode is a meditative philosopher’s walk through Japan’s fleeting past and disappearing cultural memory. With each glimpse into this enchanting realm the show reveals Japan — long stereotyped as a nation of robotic office workers devoid of creativity and individuality — as deeply human and grounded in the timelessness of its historical past.
21 Pastime in the Rainy Season
They look for wild herbs together in the garden and cook pizza flavored with them. A friend here has worked long and hard to prepare the soil to plant herbs, and Venetia visits the herb garden where the sage is in full bloom. She also meets a potter, Yoshitaka Hasu, for the first time in 30 years.
If there is someone out there who too loved this show and has seen more or all of it ... Maybe you want to start or reply to this page with a summary storyline to the show? PBS HAWAIʻI PRESENTS harnesses our Islands’ storytelling traditions with multimedia platforms for independent filmmakers, offering thoughtful, fair and diverse perspectives reflecting the history and cultures of the region. Hara where her closer proximity to nature would begin to heal her life.
04 The Warmth of Wood - Akita Prefecture -
She heads to Nara City, where she sees an old friend. She walks through Kasuga Shrine's sacred forest along a mountain trail that was once a busy trading route. The hiking course leads to a view of Nara Basin from the top of Mt. Wakakusa. She goes to the studio of a young sculptor who uses his skills honed from carving Buddhist works to create his own art pieces. It was an enjoyable show and it's sad that it has been canceled due to her declining health. I just saw the other day a show with her and her sister, where they reminisced about their childhood and their mother, who was a pub owner.
When she comes home, her husband is working on rose fences. Preparation for spring during the severe cold of winter is part of gardening. Driven by her recent interest in singing, she visits an 89-year-old musician, who plays various instruments like piano, cembalo, pipe organ, and zither. Seeing her still actively performing and trying new things, Venetia is invigorated. British-born Venetia lives a handcrafted life in Ohara, Kyoto Prefecture. She appreciates fall blossoms in her garden and makes apple compote with her daughter.
Worried about her failing eyesight, her half-sister Lulu comes to Japan for the first time. Venetia left the UK feeling ill at ease in aristocratic society. They reminisce about their mother over bread & butter pudding, their childhood favorite. At Venetia's friends' herb garden, Lulu shows interest in how herbs are grown in an herb-unfriendly humid climate just like Ireland's. Venetia enjoys a handcrafted life in Ohara, Kyoto Prefecture. On one mild day, she takes some long-unused items to an antique shop.
She gathers twigs for her wood-burning stove and makes 3 kinds of herbal tea with olive, lemon myrtle and marjoram to overcome the cold. In her garden, she plants winter-hardy Christmas Roses. Curious about the demon tile in her garden, she visits a Kyoto tile maker who carefully polishes the tile with a metal scraper to create the style's unique glossy finish. She also sees the production of the shoki ornaments that decorate rooftops in Kyoto. Share Venetia Stanley-Smith’s seasonal living in rural Kyoto, as she introduces us to local people, produce, cooking and crafts. During her summer trip to Okinawa Prefecture, Venetia visits a coffee farm in the mountains, with increasingly more farmers growing coffee in this area.
Tono, where horses are integral to local life, reminds her of her horse-riding days back home. There, a couple about her age show her clothes made with a local technique and baskets made with tree barks, reaffirming the value of handcrafted life. She tries cooking a local delicacy hittsumi with hand-picked mushrooms and enjoys dinner with them.
The taste of pure muscovado, made only from sugarcane juice, impresses her. Autumn is taking hold in the Ohara district of Kyoto. Venetia's gardening now consists of preparations for the coming spring.
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