Kanako Yamamoto: "Thinking Thoroughly About Japan from China"

Even though politics and art are separate, and the state and the individual are also separate, they still actively seek to invite art from a country that has acted in such an inconsistent manner. How, exactly, am I to take this?
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If, as I believe, Chinese is a language of dialogue, then I must experience spoken drama. Language and dialogue can be called the very philosophy of a country, and if so, watching a spoken drama should be a direct encounter with Chinese philosophy. (From the text)

As the first installment in the "Offshore Small Books" series, we are publishing Kanako Yamamoto’s chronicle of her experiences at a theater festival in Foshan, Guangdong Province, China. She writes freely and extensively about what she saw and heard during her four days in China, and the thoughts that were sparked by those experiences.

What was I doing, participating in an up-and-coming theater festival in China? In the end, I think it was "thinking thoroughly about Japan."

Spring 2026, when Japan-China relations had turned icy—a travel essay written over the course of about a month, with an eye on international news. (From the publisher's website)