Russet waves spread autumn across Japan, lapping just outside my window. Framed there are black-barked persimmon branches hung heavy with luminescent orange fruit. If you are gaming for a new taste, try a persimmon, but be forewarned; they are tricky things. There are sweet ones whose mellow richness will make you coo, but there are bitter ones too, the astringent taste of which parches the tongue and shrivels the face. What's more, the sweet and bitter fruit can look remarkably alike, making vividly clear the maxim that it's what's inside that counts (content above form) and even as we watch what we eat so there is merit to understanding the content, and not just the outer form, of other things borrowed from a foreign culture.

If you visit Kitano Shrine in the north of Kyoto on the 25th of any month, you will have to share the experience with a small army of bargain hunters stalking the stalls of the monthly flea market. On an inner lane of packed earth are several stalls that sell old clothes; a favorite hunting ground for foreign shoppers seeking kimono with painted inner linings. These garments developed in the middle of the Edo period (1600-1868) among the merchant class. Suppressed to the lowest rank of a four-tiered class system, the merchants wore clothes that reflected their controlled lives. Since ornate display was officially prohibited to them, they turned a somber face outward toward society wearing black or dark-brown kimono. The inner linings of the clothes, however, were not restrained in the least but, quite the contrary, were lavishly decorated with landscapes, portraits, and blossoming trees. Foreigners now snatch these up, carry them home and, without fail, turn them inside out and hang them on the wall as decorations, never to see the darker side again. The inherent duality of the kimono, and its quality as a concealed expression of taste (not to mention its use as a garment), has been utterly lost in its rebirth as a component of Western interior design.

The parables of the persimmon and kimono bring to light some hard lessons about transplanting foreign cultures. The fruit shows us the danger of taking a bite out of something without understanding what's inside; of choosing form over content. The kimono illuminates the widespread predilection for misinterpreting other cultures, for perceiving them through lenses ground for viewing one's own world. As in the case of the kimono this is not necessarily bad. Granted, the most fundamental qualities of the thing (its history and cultural background) have been completely passed over but that's all right. What once clothed the body now drapes a room, what was hidden in the wings now takes center stage, and through this act of seeing anew, the kimono is reincarnated and assumes a new meaning for a new place and era. There is nothing wrong with this but what must not be forgotten is that the room in question is not representative of Japanese architecture, Japanese interior design or Japanese aesthetics in any way. If this is understood from the outset, then the more the merrier. Experimentation like this might lead to new and here-to-fore unknown perceptions. But if the kimono is hung with the conviction that its presence alone will make for a Japanese room, then the hanger has revealed nothing but the shallowness of their understanding.

Let's turn now to the garden. Even as kimono are casually tacked to the wall, so do gardeners pepper their yards with lanterns and curved red bridges in order to conjure up a "Japanese look" the result of which is often, sadly, bitter fruit. White sand, rocks, a twisted pine or two; none of these elements can be expected to issue the essence of a Japanese garden any more than hanging a kimono makes for a Japanese room. The question to ask is what is being sought? If, as with the prize kimono, the intent is to reinvent the medium, then by all means use the elements of the Japanese garden but in that case use them boldly. Juggle them, invert them, play the alchemist and temper them with fire. In doing so, it may be possible to produce a new form of garden, one which is neither Japanese nor local, but draws through its complex roots nurturing from many lands. If, on the other hand, the intent is to recreate the rhythms and balance, the texture and timbre of the Japanese garden in order to engender its sense of harmony and quietude, then the ingredients alone will simply not suffice, something which can be seen most clearly through the example of cuisine.

Imagine, if you will, a good meat and potatoes meal (American, German, English, it matters not) robust, hearty, and filling. Heaped with warm, mouth-watering food, the plate steams away while a stein of cold frothy beer waits nearby to quench the thirst. Now change things a bit; place just a pinch of the potato in a red-lacquer bowl painted with diaphanous gold cherry blossoms, a few transparent slices of the meat go onto an rectangular earthenware plate, each of the cooked vegetables gets its own small decorated dish, and a thimble-full of the beer is poured gently into a delicate porcelain cup. All the same ingredients and yet, is this still a Western meal? Now throw the dream in reverse. Take sushi and salt pickles, brown rice and sweet egg omelette, steamed black sea-weed and tofu, pile them all together on one large round plate and brace it with a massive jug of green tea. The pieces are all there but is this Japanese sensibility? While it is all too obvious that I am generalizing the cuisines, I think my point is clear. Capturing the essence of a culture has less to do with importing individual ingredients and more with an understanding of, and sensitivity to, cultural context.

In the series that follows, we will explore the gardens of Japan at three levels that afford different insights into their cultural context, beginning with an overview of some of the more fascinating reasons why they have been built; reasons which impart new perceptions of what a garden is. This will be followed by a tasting of some of the fundamental design techniques that make Japanese gardens look and feel the way they do and finally a review of a few of the classic materials used in Japanese gardens and the stories behind them. In short the series will explore the basic questions of "why are the gardens built?", "how are they designed?", and "what are they made of?" in an attempt to cull the bitter from the sweet.