Warning: Contains explicit language. Join influential playwright Philip Kan Gotanda to get the inside scoop on the ideas and inspirations behind his groundbreaking body of work, including his play, After the War Blues.

This lecture series, organized by the Society for Asian Art, explores narrative using Asian art—how myths, legends, histories and moral precepts have been transmitted through visual means. Topics range from sculptural reliefs and murals used to educate pilgrims at famous religious sites to works created primarily for entertainment. Contemporary storytelling is also addressed via lectures on Bollywood and manga produced by San Francisco's Henry Yoshitaka Kiama.

In all lacquer objects, regardless of when they were produced, a resinous sap coating preserves the core material and allows for decoration. The material for lacquering is extracted from lacquer trees (Toxicodendron vernicifluum; formerly Rhus verniciflua), which is the same genus as poison oak. Learn more in this award winning documentary on Japanese lacquer.

Thanks to the Society for Asian Art's renowned Arts of Asia lecture series, speakers from the Bay Area and across the country will transport you across Asia by land and by sea.

Scholars Melinda Takeuchi and Timon Screech discuss a woodblock print of courtesans in an unlicensed pleasure quarter during the Edo period (1615–1868) in Japan.

Renowned scholars discuss the impact of personalities and patronage on the arts of Asia.

Fudo Myoo (the Immovable One) is one of the powerful deities known as the Five Bright Kings in Japanese Buddhism and folk religion. As a manifestation of the central cosmic Buddha Mahavairochana (Japanese: Dainichi), Fudo is believed to protect Buddhism and its true adherents. Like all Bright Kings, Fudo assumes a frightening form, with a sword in his right hand and a rope in his left. He sits in front of a swiring flame of fire, with which he purifies evil. 

In Noh theatre (classical Japanese music drama), Japanese ghosts are usually upset females. Portrayed without feet because they have lost their connection to the earth, they are so filled with love, jealousy or rage that they won't go peacefully into the night. Japanese believe ghosts are people who have died with an unpaid on — “debt” or “obligation.” If not repaid, the debt is passed down for generations, growing with each one like a snowball into an avalanche. 

Watch Shiho Sasaki, Paintings Conservator at the Asian Art Museum, handle a Japanese hanging scroll for display and storage.

Overview of the Hokusai and Hiroshige: Great Japanese Prints from the James A. Michener Collection, Honolulu Academy of Arts exhibition that took place at the Asian Art Museum from September 26–December 6, 1998 (filmed at former museum location in Golden Gate Park).

Artist Hiroshi Sugimoto recently expanded his work to include traditional Japanese performing arts such as bunraku, or puppet theater, through film. Most recently, Sugimoto lent his vision to the arrangement, direction, and stage design of an adaptation of famed bunraku play The Love Suicide at Sonezaki (Sonezaki Shinju), a 1703 work by Chikamatsu Monzaemon. The program begins with a screening of this monumental project, followed by a conversation between the artist and Phantoms of Asia (on view at the Asian Art Museum from May 18–September 2, 2012) guest curator Mami Kataoka. 

Watch the installation of two monumental Japanese bronze lion sculptures on granite plinths outside the museum's front entrance on Larkin Street. 

Watch a series of talks by scholars and model lessons by classroom teachers on Japanese history at the Japan Teacher Institute at the Asian Art Museum (2012,2013, and 2017) in partnership with The University of California at Berkeley History-Social Science Project.

Lewis Lancaster of UC Berkeley gives an overview of Japanese Buddhism.

The interdisciplinary performance features artists Tatsu Aoki, Kioko Aoki, Francis Wong, Megan Lee, Wesley Hitomo Yee and Melody Takata, as well as master artists Chizuru Kineya and Michikaoru Hanayagi. 

Nobu Kurashige, Head Professor and Managing Director, Ikenobo Ikebana Society of America, and Shiho Sasaki, Paintings Conservator at the Asian art Museum, create an art display in a tokonoma (display alcove) for Early Spring and Late Summer/Early Autumn.

The annual Bell-Ringing Ceremony follows the Japanese custom in which the end-of-the-year bell (joya no kane) is struck 108 times before midnight on New Year's Eve, symbolically welcoming the New Year and curbing the 108 mortal desires (bonno), which according to Buddhist belief torment humankind. 

Hear Asian Art Museum Art Speak interns discuss the Japanese teahouse at the museum.

Sip, learn, and chat with Miwa Wang, sake sommelier and manager of True Sake, about the nuanced tastes and bouquets of sake. Stroll the galleries, see Lords of the Samurai, discover a Japanese tea ceremony showcasing matcha, a powdered green tea and namesake of our program. Observe its meticulous preparation and whisk your own. Dip into a talk on tea ceremony and warrior culture, join a docent conversation, or relax with a sake-tini, friends, and DJ-spun music.

Artist Koki Tanaka discusses his works.

Yo Azama, 2012 National Language Teacher of the Year (Japanese Education) discusses language and learning during his keynote address at the Japanese Language Symposium held on February 18, 2012 at the Asian Art Museum. Presented by the Japan Society of Northern California, co-hosted by the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco, the San Francisco Unified School District and the Asian Art Museum.

A collaboration between calligrapher Kazuaki Tanahashi and musician Aenea Keyes. Part of the AsiaAlive: Writing as Art Series at the Asian Art Museum (December 14-16, 2012).