Stories

Telling a story, you'd think, is about the facts. But so often a story is more about the person who is telling it. Visitors to the lotus pond that inspired the dreamlike visions in Claude Monet's paintings are disappointed to find an undistinguished, rather shabby garden in real life. They discover the magic was in the artist's mind, heart and eyes, even as he was going blind. The story behind the story may be just as valid as the story itself. As the storytellers in Ryunosuke Akutagawa's story remind us, perhaps there are as many stories as there are people who're trying to tell it. I cover the news in Tokyo, a vibrant city undergoing constant change, and I write many stories. But there are so many more stories to tell.