-Kyoto was the one-time capital of Japan and the city itself dates back to the 6th century, and before.

If you're Japanese and want to take a walk back through history, this city will be at the top of your list.

Kyoto is such a symbol of historic Japan that Japanese tourists will often rent kimonos to walk around town in during their stay here, to help them really get into the vibe of this ancient city.

If you're a foreign tourist, Kyoto is most likely your second stop, after Tokyo, on your tour of Japan, because of its well-preserved buildings, temples; and old-school charm.

For us, this is the place to meet artists who have centuries' worth of tradition running through their veins, with equal measures of modernism, creating something new, while staying rooted in those ancient techniques.

[ Upbeat hip hop plays ] Kyoto -- the place where ancient and modern come together to form something greater than the sum of their parts.

I'm Ian Grant and I've spent the last three decades using my background in history and art history exploring cultures all around the world.

♪♪ In this series, I'll take you to places I've never been to before... ♪♪ ...experiencing local life through the lens of the world's artists, artisans, and keepers of culture.

This is "Culture Quest."

♪♪ ♪♪ -Gustavus Adolphus College equips students to lead purposeful lives and act on the great challenges of our time.

Gustavus.

Make your life count.

-Over a billion people live with preventable blindness.

See International partners with volunteer doctors to provide sight-restoring surgeries in underserved communities around the world.

-This organization is united in one mission -- to restore sight to the blind.

-They purify the air I breathe and the water I drink, keep me and the planet cool, and give me a career I love.

Trees.

When we take care of them, they take care of us.

-We all see different in our own ways because different reflects who you are, who you want to be.

The Northern Territory.

Different in every sense.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -The guy I'm with is Mack Paige and he's an old family friend from back home in Minneapolis.

He's lived in Japan, now, for over a decade and has a degree in Japanese linguistics.

He's also a professor in Fukuoka, so he'll be acting as an occasional translator in this episode.

[ Laughs ] -Oh, hey!

-Yes!

Alright!

Oh, after all -- This is back.

Yeah, I love it.

-Welcome, welcome.

-This is Daijiro Hama and he is a rising star here in Kyoto.

His work is typically in monochrome, painting abstract figures with a strong use of negative space, letting the emptiness and subtle tones have as much importance as the bolder strokes.

And he has lived the quintessential starving artist's life.

Ironically, his career started in Canada, when he moved there to make a change in his life.

And where were you in Canada?

-Uh, Toronto.

Yeah, it's like I had a lot of experience and it's like I got some like homeless experience like because it completely just [bleep] up, you know?

So, it's like -- Yeah, but this is also learn that, you know, this can be happen in your life, you know?

I think that was the first time it kind of opens my mind to something.

I didn't know anything about art before.

I just liked drawing a lot.

-Oh, my God, yeah.

So this is all the -- -So it's like -- Yeah, it's everything.

This is like I always carried every day in my bag.

I really focusing like some idea from just every day.

-Yeah.

-Like just something small.

And then I feel like okay, I want to make as in a painting.

-Yeah.

So was it -- was it in Toronto that you really started to produce?

-I was in an artist's collective.

And then someone just like, I think, started to talk about me and it's like just, "Can you come to my studio?"

And I started to go all the time, just hang out, look at it, and then, they started to ask me to work together, do something.

Then, I just like more liked it, you know.

When I come back to Japan, then I start to decide, "Okay, I'm going to do like paint, you know.

I want to live as an artist."

-Back in Kyoto, an older artist named Reiko Yoshida took him under her wing and taught him about traditional Japanese art.

In particular, she got him interested in sumi ink.

-Do you know sumi ink?

It's like a traditional Japanese medium.

After it dried, it became a completely different vision.

-Right.

-It's more depth.

-An ink made primarily from soot and, stylistically, it relies on negative space and bold strokes in painting and calligraphy.

So, for the next number of years, all he did was hustle.

-Yeah, just like keep doing an exhibition and then showing a piece and then have feedback from people.

And then what I want to do next and then, just keep doing it, doing it, yeah.

-Doing performance pieces, collaborating with other artists, getting installations in a dentist's office, in a friend's guesthouse.

This one is another collaboration, right?

-Yeah.

He made -- just made mandala and then, I basically made all the space.

People usually don't see it, but when you -- when they're kind of chill or relaxed, then start to see something in the image, which is they can -- that's their creation, right?

-As an artist in Kyoto, is it a big community?

Do people kind of work together?

-Yeah, it's like really old-school like idea of the traditional Japanese mind.

It's like about maybe community and then how you connect to the people and then how you, for example, how the art is developed here, you know.

It's like really classic.

That's what I liked about it.

-Not long after filming this episode, Daijiro moved to Europe and took his art to the international stage.

And, as he says, he brought his Japanese sensibilities with him.

He now has shows in Paris, Amsterdam, Tokyo.

He sometimes even sells out his pieces before they're hung on the gallery wall.

For an artist going from homeless in Canada to selling out his shows is a pretty impressive story arc.

This is Naoyuki Ogino and he has been a professional photographer for more than 20 years and has worked in places like Mexico, Uzbekistan, China, Myanmar, and has won awards in several countries.

He does large-scale installations, all the way down to the smallest of impressions.

He specializes in salt printing, a technique that dates back to the early 1800s.

It's a process that, by its very nature, evokes bygone eras.

Perfect for Nao's subject matter and his drive to capture mystical places and disappearing worlds.

But he's probably best known for a project he's been working on for the past 20 years -- photographing the lives, the tradition, the culture of geisha, from young apprentices all the way up to full geisha.

The first ten years of his project was spent photographing one woman -- Komomo -- from her early apprenticeship as a 15-year-old all the way up to her becoming a full-fledged geisha.

He won international recognition for the series, in publications all around the world, as well as publishing a book called "A Geisha's Journey" in 2008.

Getting a behind-the-scenes look at a geisha house is a rare thing.

So, when Nao got permission from the woman who's the head and guardian of the geisha house for us to talk to an apprentice named Koaki-san, we jumped at the opportunity and dove right into one of the most recognizable elements of Japanese culture, yet one shrouded in mystery, especially in the West.

In Japan, there is no question as to the critical role geisha play as keepers of Japanese culture.

But, in the West, their role gets... a little foggier, in part because of the way they're portrayed in Western pop culture, as well as just straightforward cultural confusion.

-There's kind of a misunderstanding who do the art like a geiko, and the prostitute because, before, they were in the same area.

-O...kay.

-So each house was kind of next to each other sometimes and the foreigners, they didn't know which one and which.

-They couldn't differentiate between the -- okay.

-And maybe they were in a kimono, and so they thought, "Oh, same."

-All the same.

And, while there are, of course, cases of geisha involved in prostitution throughout history, it was rare and not at all part of a geisha's traditional role.

In modern times, it simply doesn't exist.

The geisha tradition dates back to the 1600s, when men were actually geisha, eventually turning completely over to women in the 1700s.

Back in the day, you were either born into or sold into this life.

In this day and age, it's the apprentice's choice, whether or not to join or whether or not to quit.

It's not an easy path, especially compared to all the other options out there for a teenager in modern-day Japan.

As a result, the number of geisha has significantly declined over the last number of decades.

Kyoto, and, specifically, the Gion district, where we are, is the top place to study to become a geisha.

And the most difficult.

[ Playing tranquil tune ] This is Koaki-san and she was kind enough to talk to us about what it's like to be an apprentice geisha in modern-day Japan.

And, for clarity's sake, in Kyoto, an apprentice is called a maiko and a geisha is called a geiko.

What made you decide to enter this life?

-[ Speaking Japanese ] -So, you leave home.

You live here.

You go to school here.

All these -- all these things.

And do you have friends that are here as well?

There are special schools that the geisha houses send their maiko to, with an emphasis on culture, music, performance, and language.

It takes five years of intensive study and, when they're not in school, they're pretty much training all the time back at the house.

-[ Speaking Japanese ] I asked her how many of them who started maiko become a full-fledged geiko.

-Yeah.

-Then she said that maybe it's half become a full-fledged geiko.

-And everything changes, if she makes it all the way to full geisha.

Apprentices are taken care of by the house they live in, but when they make full geisha, the responsibilities of making a living fall squarely on their shoulders.

And it's a career that could last into their 30s or early 40s.

But this lifestyle also comes with its social challenges.

-Oh.

...well, all the maiko, they have that hairstyle.

They will keep this hairstyle for like five days or one week.

-Oh!

So many tourists come to Kyoto with the hopes of seeing a geisha walking in the streets of Gion, and sometimes that attention is just a bit too much.

Being followed in the streets, tourists sometimes being too aggressive, trying to get that perfect vacation photo.

This is what Koaki-san is referring to.

-We say the maiko is a kind of a moving museum.

-The maiko wear more decorative pieces than the geiko do, which is why Nao is referring specifically to the maiko as moving museums.

-Everything is a kind of a piece of the art, everything sometimes very expensive, and, every time, it has meanings.

By the season, it change.

-This is a maiko-style kimono.

-Oh!

-When they become a full-fledged geiko, there will be a shorter one.

So, when you become a geiko, you have a more short one.

-It's a smaller one.

Okay.

-[ Speaking Japanese ] -Yeah.

-Like every year, somebody quit because they are old, so then, every time, they will struggle, how, from the next year, they will get that thing or that part of the -- -Yeah.

What's your favorite thing about it, about this life?

-[ Speaking Japanese ] [ Continues speaking Japanese ] -Geisha are a living part of the elemental identity of Japan and, while there are still women, like Koaki-san, who are willing to take on this lifestyle, it's hard to tell what the future holds for this tradition.

Thankfully, in modern-day Japan, that decision, of whether or not to embark on this epic journey, is, ultimately, up to the women, like Koaki-san, who will decide for themselves.

We're now off to meet with a top tattoo artist, who's trying to change cultural perceptions surrounding his profession here in Japan.

Look at this beautifully lit place.

-[ Conversing in Japanese ] -This is really nice.

This studio is not at all what I expected in a tattoo parlor.

-It's really beautiful.

-It's beautiful.

It's well lit.

Looks like he's almost in a dentist's office.

-[ Speaking Japanese ] -Yeah.

-So, he said that he's the one that designed everything in here.

Obviously, all the logos, all the art -- all that from his own mind.

-You've been doing this for...?

-[ Speaking Japanese ] -About 15 years, 15 years, yeah.

-So, wow, oh, wow.

You started young.

Sixteen?

-Yeah.

-That's young.

-That's pretty young, man.

-That's young.

-That's pretty young.

-That's very young.

-Part of the tattoo world involves the infamous, you know, full-body tattoos of the yakuza and taboos, and things like that.

Is there still a lot of taboo around tattoos in Japan?

-Yeah, of course.

-Yeah.

-The yakuza are similar to what the Mafia are in the United States and they've been around for the last 400 years.

They are known around the world for their full-body tattoos and those tattoos hold very specific meanings in yakuza society.

They are often quite stunning works of art and are also a big part of why there are such taboos surrounding tattoos in Japan.

-[ Conversing in Japanese ] -So, so he saying, yes, basically, it is changing, so it's not strange for younger people or the average person just to get a tattoo, however, things in the overall culture, the big picture, are slowly changing.

So if you want to go to a hot spring or you want to go to a pool, if you have a tattoo, you still can't go in.

-Really?

Wow.

-That's still stuck in the past.

He's opening up a tattoo school as well.

First, Kyoto, and then, next one is Tokyo, yeah.

-But the more like you have these schools, or one school and about to have another one, and the more you're, you know, bringing young tattoo artists up, it becomes less a taboo and more of an art form that people will hopefully, find interesting and accept as time goes on.

Does he have any idea what success/fail rate is for a tattoo artist?

-[ Conversing in Japanese ] -For students that come to his school?

-Yeah.

-He said the success rate... -I already like the answer to this.

-...85%.

-Yes!

Alright.

-85%.

-I like that confidence, yeah.

...finding out the person's character, their mannerisms, or how they interact with people, how they deal with people, that's a really, really important thing.

He said, even if you don't have artistic style to begin with, that's okay.

We can teach you and we can go along.

But what you can't change is the person's character.

-Do you know it when you see it?

When you're finished, I mean, do you know [ Snaps fingers ] like, "Oh, man, that thing..."?

-He said yes, he does.

He knows it.

When he gets that, that's just the best feeling in the world.

He feels on top of the world when he gets that, yeah.

-It looks like you must have that feeling often, man, because you're doing some great stuff, yeah.

-[ Speaking Japanese ] [ Laughter ] Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

This is Kyoko Ibe.

She started showing in art galleries in the early 1970s and her résumé since then is beyond impressive -- solo exhibitions in over 20 countries workshops, pieces in major museums around the world, public art commissions, stage art.

And, most recently, she received the Kyoto Cultural Merit Laureate.

Her art revolves around traditional Japanese paper making, taking these ancient traditions and transforming them into something completely new.

Today her focus is on one particular kind of paper -- gampi paper.

And gampi is...?

This made hundred years old.

Think about.

Handmade.

-So, you're saying this actual piece is 100 years old?

-Yes!

-Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That is.

-You can't tear.

-It's super strong.

Chinese paper, Indian paper, Western paper, vellum.

All these, he experimented and he really loved this -It was always this.

-because of the surface.

-Well, and he loved all those super dark, you know, hidden kind of corners in his work.

Yeah, so he'd want something that held it really well.

So, this is the whole recycling process?

-Yeah.

Yeah.

-Yeah.

-She takes old gampi paper and...

They then put the gampi into this beater for a while, so it can break down.

-And comes like this.

-In a kind of a gelatinous paste.

-And then color.

You can mix all these powders, minerals, directly to the fiber and get the color.

This is a kind of a mineral or the lapis lazuli.

Very expensive.

-Lapis lazuli, yeah.

-He's filtered out the stuff -- ah, right here, so underneath here, glue.

-Glue.

-Oh, there's the paper.

-Yeah.

-How long will it take that to dry, to turn into paper?

-Oh, about 10 minutes.

-Oh, really?

Oh.

We just went from putting dye into recycled gampi and then put the glue from the roots into that, poured it into the form, put it out here, and, not even five minutes later, there's a piece of paper.

It just came from this -- I mean from that little blob of gampi, yeah.

Now, we take everything we just learned about making gampi paper and really scale it up.

Each of these compartments is filled with a sort of liquid gampi and, below the trough is a giant fabric screen that the water will filter through, leaving the dyed gampi sitting on top.

So, they've got two clamps.

-Okay, go.

-They pulled it.

You see all the really subtle color differences in what Kyoko has put in there.

Are you kind of making it up as you go along, or did you come into this with an idea?

Oh.

All this is going right through the screen, so the colors that you're seeing go in here trap into the screen and create the print.

It's this really saturated moment in time where all this creation happens and there's no going back, so, she's got like five minutes to do this and, once it's done, it's done.

-And this is the most beautiful moment I know.

-You can start to see it appearing, right?

-Yeah.

Yeah.

♪♪ ♪♪ So, right where she is, there are little slots cut into the table and there's a wet vac underneath and they just bring it along and it sucks out all the water.

The next really important moment is removing the gampi paper from the fabric screen that the water poured through, revealing the piece of art.

Hah!

Wow!

-Yeah.

-This is so cool.

I absolutely love this, yeah.

-Thank you.

Hundred [indistinct] gampi.

-It's this magic paper.

It's this magic fiber.

And, next, she brought us into her home studio.

Yeah.

She has a lifetime's worth of creating in this place and every room we step into seems like entering a different era of her work and it all traces back to the art of paper making.

You're taking these old techniques, ancient techniques... -Yes, yes.

-...but you're modernizing them.

So, to me, you're acknowledging tradition and moving it into a new era.

[ Chuckle ] This is such a great -- So this is spectacular!

So, this is another -- What do you call this series with the arch?

-Horizon.

Horizon.

-Horizon.

So, like the technique that we saw out there, it's kind of that same technique, except, on top of that, you have this kind of long screen of bamboo that you've already shaped like that.

You roll it out while it's still wet.

It kind of sticks in.

You flip it over.

You let it dry that way.

[ Bright hip hop plays ] Kyoto is a place where the ancient and the modern happily coexist.

Instead of one era overshadowing the other, the artists here seem to build them up together, taking techniques from centuries past and putting a modern twist on them -- changing the way traditions are perceived in modern culture, bringing forbidden art out of the shadows, and creating something completely new out of century-old recycled paper.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Gustavus Adolphus College equips students to lead purposeful lives and act on the great challenges of our time.

Gustavus.

Make your life count.

-Over a billion people live with preventable blindness.

See International partners with volunteer doctors to provide sight-restoring surgeries in underserved communities around the world.

-This organization is united in one mission -- to restore sight to the blind.

-They purify the air I breathe and the water I drink, keep me and the planet cool, and give me a career I love.

Trees.

When we take care of them, they take care of us.

-We all see different in our own ways because different reflects who you are, who you want to be.

The Northern Territory.

Different in every sense.

♪♪