rockm

Attila,

You skated over the most pertinent part of the revered Japanese heritage of bonsai--THEY STOLE THE IDEA, ADAPTED IT to their culture. They kept what they liked. Threw away what they didn't . We're doing the same. We are an extension of that tradition to some extent. We keep what we like and ignore what we don't. I like the term bonsai. I will continue call my plants that. I dislike the more detailed terminology to name parts of the tree, with the exception of nebari, because there is no English equivalent. I reject Sashe eda and other obtuse terms. They're superfluous. This approach worked for the Japanese. By the way, they didn't change the Chinese name much either--You say Bonsai, I say pentsai or puntsai...Penjing is NOT bonsai or pentsai.

The idea that straightjacketing an idea simply because someone feels some disonnected, illogical (possibly snobbish) loyalty to a completely alien culture isn't a healthy one. I saw that in the letter that person wrote to Bonsai Today. It gave me a chuckle.

By the way, I absolutely hated the use of most of those figures in the Bonsai Today article, with the exception of the moose in the forest. The rest reminded me of bad museum dioramas with ill-painted cutesy animals in precious poses. That's just me, though. I prefer bonsai with nothing in the pot but the tree, as that's where I project myself to be when viewing them. I don't want to share it with a plastic panda. All new ideas don't have to be good...