Television Series – Review: NHK’s “At Home with Venetia in Kyoto”

Alan Suemori
Special to The Hawai‘i Herald

One of the singular delights of sheltering in place is the stumbling across hidden gardens on the internet that in the fast-paced rush of ordinary times would have remained unexplored. One such jewel is NHK’s long-running television journal, “At Home with Venetia in Kyöto.” Based on the daily meanderings of British expatriate Venetia Stanley-Smith, the series operates on a simple premise that human life is best lived at a slower pace in congruence with the natural world. In 1971, at the age of 19, Stanley-Smith fled her aristocratic roots in the U.K. to wander the earth searching for a more meaningful purpose in her life.