The following is taken from ‘Donald Keene: The American Who Became Japanese’ by Oliver Jia. (Click here to see original.)

After the American occupation of Japan ended in 1952, restrictions on outsiders entering the country finally eased. Acquiring funding to study in Japan proved to be difficult for Keene because the committees looked for applicants who specialized in practical subjects such as economics or business. Since his field was literature, he stressed that he would study modernJapanese writing, as opposed to classical works, in order to have a realistic chance of being accepted. In actuality, Keene secretly wished to study “the life and poetry of [Matsuo] Bashō” but was “willing to compromise in order to go to Japan” (Chronicles of My Life, p. 75). Keene had to make this sacrifice, but doing so allowed him to receive a fellowship that he would use to study in Kyoto.

Keene perfected his Japanese each day and absorbed as much of the culture as he could in Japan’s traditional capital. Looking back on his experience, Keene considered himself to be incredibly grateful to have visited Kyoto before its industrialization:

I think of myself as being extremely lucky to have seen Kyoto when I did. Probably students from abroad who live in Kyoto today, not missing the beauty I remember, feel equally lucky to see the city. But one can anticipate only further damage, more wooden buildings replaced by concrete structures, more quiet bookstores turned into display cases for garish best sellers, but the hills and rivers will remain. (Chronicles of My Life, p.83)

An additional offer from Columbia allowed Keene to extend his stay another year. This meant that he would have to resign from Cambridge to accept but being in Japan was more important to Keene. As part of the fellowship, he was required to enroll in an educational institution and chose Kyoto University. Regular class schedules, however, were minimal and professors rarely even attended lectures due to the low pay. This worked out in the end though, because it meant that Keene was free to explore Kyoto at his leisure and not have to worry about attendance.

As one of the few foreigners living in Kyoto, Keene wrote articles in English and Japanese for various publications, served as a translator/interpreter, and continued to study works of Japanese literature. In 1955, Keene wrote Anthology of Japanese Literature, a two-volume compilation that was praised for being the most comprehensive and detailed work on the subject that academia had seen in decades. Despite having been written over 60 years ago, Anthologyis still used today in universities across the world. Keene’s numerous writings led to appearances in radio, newspapers, and magazines throughout Kyoto and it was here that his fame started to grow.

Keene was reluctant to leave Japan and feared that he would be unable to return due to the cost. In actuality, he ended up coming back to Japan every year for months at a time due to grants related to his field of study and increasing levels of recognition. He befriended many famous Japanese authors and became involved in their social circles. 

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The following is taken from the Asahi Shimbun, March 16, 2019, by Jiro Omura

Donald Keene’s Kyoto hermitage was no home for a hermit

KYOTO–Donald Keene spent his final days in Tokyo, but in his early 30s, the “Muhinjuan” hermitage here was home sweet home for the renowned scholar of Japanese literature.

“I thought the house and its environment were the best in the world as there was a green valley deeply spreading and the murmur of a brook,” Keene said.

He was smitten on sight with the old wooden-beamed dwelling thought to have been built over 700 years ago, after close friend Otis Cary (1921-2006), a professor at Doshisha University and a researcher of Japanese culture, showed it to him. Keene lived there for about two years after enrolling in Kyoto University in 1953.

It proved to be a productive period for Keene, who died at age 96 on Feb. 24, revered by the country he adopted, and around the world, as the individual primarily responsible for spreading the wonders of Japanese literature abroad.

Kyoto was Keene’s first love, although he went back and forth between his home country, the United States, and Japan after returning to New York in 1955.

His bond with Japan was so intense that following the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, he returned to Japan after taking Japanese citizenship at age 89.

The name of the house aptly fits Keene’s relationship with it: Muhinjuan means “house without any separation between its owner and a guest.”

True to its name, moving into Muhinjuan seemed to quickly open up new and vital social doors for the blossoming Japanologist, key contacts that would last a lifetime and cement his love of Japan’s history and culture.

While there, Keene met Michio Nagai (1923-2000), an assistant professor of educational sociology at Kyoto Uiversity, who later served as education minister. He brought Keene together with Hoji Shimanaka (1923-1997), president of the publishing firm Chuokoron-sha.

Keene’s encounters with them prompted him to deepen his friendship with other Japanese authors and delve further into researching Japanese literature.

The lover of Japanese letters would learn “kyogen,” a traditional form of comedic theater, from Shigeyama Sennojo (1923-2010), a performer of the art who belonged to the Okura school, and practice it at Muhinjuan.

The hermitage that Keene so adored is believed to have been built by surviving warriors of the defeated Taira clan in a mountainous area of the Hida district in today’s Gifu Prefecture, before being relocated to Kyoto’s Higashiyama Ward.

In 1979, it was again moved to the Imadegawa Campus of Doshisha University in the city’s Kamigyo Ward.

When the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, a body that tries to assess the impact of Japanese culture from an international perspective, was founded in the city’s Nishikyo Ward in 1987, Keene took up a professorship there.

“Keene created an atmosphere at the center where scholars with star quality gathered for research,” said Susumu Nakanishi, 89, a Japanese literature scholar who worked with Keene and lives in the ward.

“Keene was so popular that he would always draw a crowd during a party. He played a key role to spread Japanese culture to the rest of the world,” Nakanishi added.

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The following is excerpted from the tribute to Donald Keene by Kita City (here)

Ta r ō k a j a
In 1953, shortly after Donald Keene came to Kyoto to study in Japan, he started taking lessons in kyōgen in the belief that the study of a traditional art would further his understanding of Japanese culture. ough deeply impressed by Noh, he was attracted to the language of kyōgen and began studying with Shigeyama Sennojō of the Ōkura School. As he focused on mimicking his teacher’s voice and gestures, Keene had a feeling of being just the latest in a long line of students extending back through kyōgen’s long history, and he enjoyed his lessons tremendously. In 1956 he performed the role of Tarōkaja in the kyōgen play Chidori at the Kita Noh eater. Among the members of the audience were eminent writers including Tanizaki Junichirō, Kawabata Yasunari and Mishima Yukio.

Ginkaku-ji Temple, Kyoto
In 2001 Donald Keene wrote the critical biography Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912. In 2003, following the death of his friend Shimanaka Hōji, Hōji’s wife, who had become president of Chūōkōronsha, urged Keene to write about Nihon no kokoro (the soul of Japan). The result was Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion: The Creation of the Soul of Japan.

“He was a failure as a shogun. His married life with Hino Tomiko was unhappy, and his relations with his son, Yoshihisa, were marred by hostility. But in the last decade of his life, he was the guiding spirit of the Higashiyama era, and the cultural legacy to the Japanese people of that time proved immense. Possibly no man in the history of Japan had a greater inuence on the formation of Nihon no kokoro.” (Excerpted from Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan)

In the summer of 1953, Donald Keene arrived in Kyoto to study in Japan. He boarded at Muhinjuan, the guest house on the property of the Okumura residence in Imakumano. He endeavored to learn about Japanese culture and studied calligraphy at Chisaku-in Temple near his lodgings. Captivated by the splendid performances of the kyōgen actors he saw at a Noh theater, he studied kyōgen with Shigeyama Sennojō, head of the Ōkura School. Three years later, on September 13, 1956, he performed the role of Tarōkaja in the kyōgen play Chidori at the Kita Noh Theater in Shinagawa.