#13/120 - The fragment of time in Japan 2025 summer
In this article, I will share my experiences and thinkings in the 2025 Expo and Setouchi Triennale.
Hi, I am summerbud.
We all need some sort of buffer to rethink what we have already experienced. I think this month is just like that. I spent nearly a month in the Kansai area of Japan, and with my new job onboarded, the schedule is so tight that I barely have time to write.
So this newsletter will not be like the ones I had before, target-oriented, centralized on a single topic, and expanding my thoughts around it. I would like to get back to where I started, using the technique I used often several years ago, "Thinking in writing", to write this small essay, sharing the thoughts I have on this journey.
Expo 25
This is my first time participating in an expo. This year, it’s held in Osaka, Japan, a city that once hosted one of the biggest expos in 19701. They have a long history and memory around the Expo, and this time, they are giving a different answer to the same question: “What would it look like if we put all the countries of Earth in one place? What topics would they discuss together?”2
The day we first visited the expo was hot, and the sun was burning our skin. We had to wait in a 45-minute line at the east entry for the security check. It was not a good experience, everyone was close together, you could smell others’ body odor, and umbrellas poked you from time to time. The staff did the check very carefully and attentively; almost every bag was opened, water or drinks were scanned, and glass bottles were not allowed. At the same time, the entry played a soft, crystal-like, synthetic sound. Under such uncomfortable weather, that sound had a calming effect. People were generally patient, there were no arguments or complaints, just a gentle line flowing into the gate.
After entering, some people went directly into the official shop, some ran toward the pavilions they wanted to see, and most walked at ease, looking for shelter from the burning sun. The first thing many sought was the biggest wooden structure, “The Grand Ring.” It’s hard to describe the surprise of seeing this building for the first time. When you step under it and look around, the synthetic sound feels much closer, and you can touch the wood. It’s like walking in a young forest. Trees are growing, with various sounds, birds bouncing around branches, and wings brushing through leaves.
I spent more time under the Grand Ring than in all the pavilions combined. Walking, thinking, writing, even sleeping, it became my home at the expo. And not only below; people can also walk on top of it. I think that is the beauty of the Grand Ring: walking. Without quick transportation, you need to constantly move by foot. Some may dislike that, but personally, it is the most pleasurable aspect for me. By walking, by observing the people and structures around me, I had long, concentrated moments of thought.
About the pavilions, I won’t describe them one by one, but during the visit3, there was one central theme I kept looking for: the “Symbol.” I didn’t recognize it at first. I stumbled upon it at the Baltics Pavilion, where they used “Grass” as their symbol, putting hundreds of grass specimens on the wall. They used this symbol to connect back to the ancient wisdom of medicine, to the strength and vitality of grasses, and to share modern technology derived from studying them.
Although the Baltics Pavilion is small, you can finish in about half an hour, I could feel the power of their “Symbol.” It was so unique and focused that it became like a rhyme, repeating in your mind. This experience taught me a lot. Instead of focusing on what they display, I began to ask, “Why are they displaying it?” when visiting each pavilion.
For me, one of the greatest showcases of using symbols and metaphors to connect back to the core was the Japan Pavilion.
It was layered with metaphors: time with the hourglass, cycles with algae, and the rebirth of waste. In the pavilion, they recycle all the food waste from the Expo, using algae to digest it and transform it into water, energy, and useful minerals. They then use these materials to farm more algae, and finally use the algae themselves to produce 3D-printed chairs. These chairs are everywhere in the pavilion, and they feel cozy and comfortable to sit on.
Echoing the main theme, the whole structure is a circle with a water pond at the center. It connects back to why Japan wants to present its country this way. It comes from Japan’s ancient craftsmanship, where they value building things to be repaired, reused, and recycled. They don’t aim to create things that stand for thousands of years; instead, they build things that can be renewed. For example, the じんぐうしきねんせんぐう, one of the most famous temples in Japan, is rebuilt every 20 years to make it new again while passing down the techniques of construction.
The Japan Pavilion alone gave me much inspiration about my aesthetics and thinking. It also linked to a debate I had with my partner during the visit: “What is the purpose of the Expo in the digital era?” It’s a hard question, since people have so many other stimuli nowadays, and fewer things can only be seen at the Expo. Every country is thinking about this in its own way, but I think the Japan Pavilion gives a good answer, blending art, technology, and the hope that the future will be better. These wishes are composed elegantly here, and only by standing inside the Expo can you truly understand what they are saying, and most importantly, why they are saying it.
On the last day of visiting the Expo, when I was about to leave through the east gate, I felt a bit of loneliness. This place will be torn down after the Expo ends, and there is a high chance it will become, like the 1970 site, a giant park lacking maintenance and functionality. Even so, I value this experience deeply, so much that I needed time to say goodbye. So I sat outside a café in the Expo, with a cup of ice cream, watching people move around for a long while.
So long, and farewell.
Setouchi Triennale 2025
This is my first time visiting an art festival. It was scheduled in the middle of my travel. I first went to the Expo for several days, then traveled to Takamatsu and stayed there for a couple of days.
Takamatsu is an interesting place. It has a giant tower, a business complex in front of the train station, and several long shopping streets scattered across the city. But outside these areas are small buildings and houses. It feels like my hometown without the tall business buildings. Quiet at night, you can clearly hear crows chirping, and outside the shopping streets, where people actually live, you can almost call it silence, dark, with only the glimmer of streetlights.
This environment was like a breeze flowing through my crowded heart, bombarded by the people in Osaka and the Expo 25. Everything seemed multiple magnitudes slower, how people walk, how they talk to each other, how they react to unkindness, all softened, in a gentle way. Unconsciously, the undeniable rush in my heart faded. I remember one night in the hotel lobby: I was writing code, while my cousin and her husband were peeling peaches and melons. We didn’t talk much, just casually eating sweet fruits and sharing random thoughts, with the sound of my typing. It felt like we all fell asleep at the same time.
In the Setouchi Triennale, there are two experiences I would like to share with you. One is in the Chichu Art Museum on Naoshima, and the other is in the Teshima Art Museum.
Chichu Art Museum on Naoshima
In the Chichu Art Museum, there is a space designed to display the art of Claude Monet, one of my favorite artists. The entrance is quite narrow, only one person can pass through at a time, and you can almost feel the wall brushing your shoulder. Then it opens into a triangular room with a long rock bench for resting. Beyond a wide rectangular opening without a door lies the main room for Monet’s works.
Unlike most of Ando’s architecture, which usually has sharp and direct angles, this room for Monet was deliberately made with rounded corners. Everything is rounded, the walls, the small square-paved floor, even the light itself. Inside, everything is adjusted to fit with Monet’s art. My understanding and feeling toward his paintings deepened by multiple layers. I saw colors I had never seen before. Standing in front of these five paintings, it felt like a chronicle of something profound, something you cannot experience anywhere else, only here, with your bare eyes.
I cried.
It was a calm but fruitful emotion, touched by the purity of Monet’s art and the resonance of the architecture. This place transforms every visitor. “So, this is the feeling when art and space coexist perfectly.” Powerful, yet silent.
Almost no one spoke in the room. Everyone viewed the art from different angles and distances, moving like dots on a canvas, guided by Monet’s hand, he knew where and how his art should be seen. Everyone seemed deeply touched, with tears in their eyes.
I stayed in that room for a long time, not only viewing the art but also listening: to the sound of others’ breathing, some heavier, some lighter; to couples whispering; to the metal clink of a backpack; to slippers sliding across the smoothed floor; even to the tiny hum of the air conditioning system.
This moment alone reshaped my understanding of art and architecture, in a profound and meaningful way.
Teshima Art Museum
We visited Teshima two days after Naoshima, on a hot, sunny day. We entered the art museum around noon. From the outside, it looked quite small. First, you walk along the north side near the coastline, where you can hear waves through the gaps in the trees. Then you enter a wide, white structure with no pillars or supports inside, 40 by 60 meters and 4 meters tall.
It looks like an egg stretched vertically without cracking, thinner, with holes at the north and south poles. One-third of it rises above the ground, while the rest is buried, filled with concrete up to the surface.
Inside, the openness is breathtaking. You need to watch your step, tiny holes on the floor release pure water, slowly flowing downward and merging into streams. I found a spot near the big opening and lay down, hands behind my head, backpack as a pillow. Looking up, I saw the sky with tree leaves at the edge, cicadas chirping loudly, and the wind gently blowing through the holes. Compared to the scorching sun outside, it was incredibly cozy.
I drifted into sleep, but with awareness, consciously observing my surroundings. There was nearly no human sound, only the wind, cicadas, waves, birds, and grass outside. I sank into a deeper place, even deeper than my regular sleep.
I had only once experienced this kind of feeling. Back in college, when my father sent me to a teacher specializing in a Tibetan form of meditation. One night, after our regular practice, the teacher told us to lie down and imagine a small white ball floating on our chest. Guided by his voice, the ball moved up to the head, down to the groin and toes, right to the fingers, and left as well. After several rounds, I fell into a bright sleep. I could sense my surroundings, knowing I was asleep, but with no thoughts in my mind, just pure observation, of both myself and the environment, without fear.
In the ten years since, I had never felt it again, until the Teshima Art Museum. This time, not by meditation, but by the structure and the guidance of nature, I returned to that state. Similar, yet different.
It felt familiar, but I also knew in my heart that these two experiences were independent. They weren’t derived from each other, but they shared the same fundamental structure: you temporarily step outside your mind, with no thoughts, just a soft brightness, filled with the sounds of nature. You are not interrupted, but gently invited, and eventually, sent back, when the time comes.
I suddenly recalled a podcast by Steven Bartlett and Alok Kanojia (known as Dr. K). Dr. K spoke of spiritual experience. At one moment, Steven asked him to share more details, but Dr. K refused, saying: “If I told you what it feels like, you would misunderstand the one that truly belongs to you. When it comes, you will miss it. So I would rather not talk.”
That is what I experienced at Teshima. It gave me a strong hint of how I might go further from my previous experience. They are totally different, each in its own shape, not defined by me.
Embrace it, freely and wholly.
That is the single lesson I learned from the Teshima Art Museum, but it changed my understanding of the spiritual world profoundly. There was no art displayed, no sculptures numbered, yet it transformed me.
Closing
I feel grateful that the universe allowed me this journey. It shaped and deepened many of my thoughts in a unique way. Only in the Kansai area, only in Expo 2025 and the Setouchi Triennale, only in Teshima and Naoshima.
A new page unfolds.
Thank you, as always, for reading. I will soon put together a series of my travel thoughts in Chinese. I look forward to translating them into English one day. If you are interested, please send me an email. I will invite you to be my draft reader.
It's judged by the visitor counts, later which exceeded by the 2010 Expo in China.
Before entering the Expo, beside reading some text tutorial about how to submit reservation and the expo map, I didn't read or watch anything else including others opinion, thought and recording. The reason is that I want to experience it like I am a white paper (So if you want to do the same and plan to visit expo 2025, I recommend you skipping this section and return to it when you finish your visit)
I spent 6 days in the expo.