Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

There is a really interesting and entertaining reallity TV show on MTV, that Kelly Osborne (Ozzy's daughter) is doing now called "Turning Japanese" where she is spending an extended time in Japan trying to understand the culture and traditions. She's doing everything from learning iaido, sado, geiko to teaching ESL, to working in at a love hotel. It's really funny! But there was one episode where she was learning the arts of the geisha, and on her last day, after her training period was done she had to entertain a group of customers.  So in a scene where she was dressed as a full maiko (geisha in training) and she was serving a group of distinguished customers, I was surprised to see that one of the gentlemen sitting around the table was shakuhachi master, Miyoshi Genzan! For those how don't know him, he was John Kaizan Neptune's teacher of Tozan-ryu while he was living in Kyoto, and a great player. He performed at the New York Shakuhachi Festival in 2004. Anyway, it was really nice to see him on MTV. After Kelly did some performance, Genzan said, "Very good!" and Kelly said, "No, very bad!". I was hoping he would play shakuhachi, but they didn't show that.

This show is very educational for those interested in visiting Japan for the first time and the culture shock that one may experience.

-Alcvin
www.bamboo-in.com