Rariko Nasu is a geisha. The 23-year-old can only afford to wash her hair once a week. She also has to wear the heavy kimono even in the blistering heat of summer. In the geisha house where she works, she is called Komomo.

"No one wears a kimono in their everyday life in Japan now. Rariko became interested in it because that's what she identified with in Japanese culture after her return from Mexico at the age of 2," says Naoyuki Ogino, a Japanese photographer who has followed Rariko for nearly seven years on a photography project.

"She feels at peace with the culture she belongs to," Naoyuki says. "Pictures of a geisha can help people know the real Japan and its culture."

Naoyuki is one of 20 Japanese and 20 Chinese photographers participating in the Japan in My Eyes photography exhibition that opened in Beijing on June 28.

The exhibition has been put together by Hisashi Mochizuki, chairman of the Japan-China Association of Photo Culture Exchange.

Veteran photographer Hisashi first came to China in 1985. "Dramatic changes have taken place in the past 20 years in China," he says, noting the skyscrapers around Dongsi of Beijing, which once had many hutong alleys.

He has been invited by the Beijing municipal government as one of 10 world-class photographers to the Olympic Games.

Hisashi presented photographs of autumn and winter in Appi plateau in his home county Iwate. "We (Japan and China) are pretty close (geographically), but we know each other only through TV news and tourism exchanges. This is not enough for us to understand and appreciate each other's culture."

Hisashi says photographers capture reality and record the deeper changes within. Besides Hisashi's landscape photos, the exhibition has photographs of Japanese cuisine, architecture and flowers.

Mariko Tagashira, 21, the show's youngest photographer, records people on the streets with her mobile phone, which is a new trend among professional photographers in Japan.

The focus of the oldest, Shinohara Hiroaki, 80, is orchids in Japan.

The exhibition's next stop after Beijing is Shanghai, Qingdao, Pingyao and Dalian.

During the Beijing show, Hisashi also launched Beautiful China, 2008.

"I would like to show Japanese people, especially teenagers, China's spectacular landscape," he says.

More than 70 photos on show in Japan in My Eyes are from Chinese photographers.

Wang Wenlan, Na Risong and Suo Yalun, famous Chinese photographers, participated in Hisashi's photo culture exchange programs as early as 2004, visiting Japan to take pictures.

"We have established very good relations with Japanese photographers," says Suo Yalun from the China Photographers' Association.

(China Daily July 12, 2007)