Umemura Mariko is the daughter of old friends in Kyoto, who used to run a sweet restaurant in my old neighborhood there. (The fried oysters were awesome.) Mariko was born shortly after I moved into the neighborhood. As a child, she was always drawing, often in the (to me lamentable) manga vein that is so popular, but she always showed real streaks of imagination. She is now a painter. This enchanting fan, which arrived in yesterday's mail, is printed with two of her paintings. Mariko has, by the bye, already won one of Japan's more prestigious art awards.
