Skip to content

About the project

Equal billing,
not a rivalry

The Eastern Canon gives the philosophies, strategies, and figures of East Asia and India the serious stage they are usually denied. The framing is invitational, never oppositional: the Western canon is rightly canonical; it is just not the whole canon.

The founders

Two people, one platform

The project runs as a partnership: one founder drives the ideas and the content, the other builds the platform and the AI that connects it.

Yujune Lee

Founder, host, and creative lead

Shaped by Korea, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and the United States, Yujune hosts the podcast and leads the creative work across all four pillars: the episodes, the reenactment scripts and storyboards, and the writing. The conviction behind the project is Yujune's: that the other half of the story deserves a serious stage.

Bason Park

Platform and AI, Turtle House

Bason builds the web platform and the AI layer: the knowledge engine, the philosopher personas, and the production tools that let one founder create at something close to studio quality.

How the AI works

Faithful, sourced, and responsible

When you ask a question, the engine first searches a curated corpus of passages from the canon, then asks Claude to answer using only what it found, citing each passage. The personas work the same way, each grounded in the texts its figure actually wrote or inspired.

Grounded

Answers are built from a curated corpus of passages, retrieved first and then cited, rather than from the model's memory alone.

Cited

Every claim that comes from a text points to its chapter and verse, and names whose translation it is.

Honest about translation

Public domain translations are quoted. Where only a modern copyrighted translation will do, the passage is marked as a paraphrase.

Reconstruction, not impersonation

The masters are clearly labeled educational reconstructions. They do not invent history or put new doctrines in old mouths.

Try it: Ask the canon or sit down with a master.

The roadmap

From concept to a living platform

A phased build, designed so the library compounds the longer it grows.

  1. Phase 1

    Foundation

    June

    • Lock the vision, branding, and the podcast's season arc
    • Scaffold the web platform
    • Record a pilot episode to establish voice and format

  2. Phase 2

    Production

    July

    • Publish the first batch of podcast episodes
    • Begin the reenactment pipeline with a flagship Three Kingdoms scene
    • First storyboard set and philosophy animations; platform v1 goes live

  3. Phase 3

    Amplification

    August

    • Launch outreach for the Scholar Series
    • Integrate Ask the Canon and the philosopher personas
    • Grow the writing and art collections

  4. Phase 4

    Consolidation

    Fall onward

    • Sustain a regular publishing cadence
    • Turn research into long-form essays and competition entries
    • Keep expanding the library across all four civilizations

Architecture

Ambitious but grounded

Frontend

  • Next.js 16
  • TypeScript
  • Tailwind CSS
  • Motion
  • WebGL glass

Content and media

  • Spotify podcast embeds
  • Public domain art
  • Storyboard panels

AI knowledge engine

  • Anthropic Claude
  • Retrieval over the corpus
  • Cited answers
  • Canon search

Philosopher personas

  • Persona voice tuning
  • Primary-text grounding
  • Source citations

Generative media

  • Google Veo and Genie-class video
  • AI-assisted storyboards

Hosting

  • Vercel
  • AI Gateway
  • GitHub

Image credits

The paintings in the glass

Every artwork on this site is in the public domain, reproduced via Wikimedia Commons. Attribution details follow the Commons records; where they are uncertain, we say so.

  • The Great Wave off Kanagawa

    Katsushika Hokusai, c. 1831

    Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji; woodblock print

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Fine Wind, Clear Morning (Red Fuji)

    Katsushika Hokusai, c. 1831

    Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji; woodblock print

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Kajikazawa in Kai Province

    Katsushika Hokusai, c. 1831

    Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji; woodblock print

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Dragon over Mount Fuji

    Katsushika Hokusai, c. 1849

    Hokusai Museum, Obuse (attributed)

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Travelers Among Mountains and Streams

    Fan Kuan, early 11th century

    National Palace Museum, Taipei

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Early Spring

    Guo Xi, 1072

    National Palace Museum, Taipei

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Along the River During the Qingming Festival (detail)

    Attributed to Zhang Zeduan, 12th century

    Palace Museum, Beijing

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Red Cliffs and Green Valleys

    Wang Meng, 14th century

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Bamboo after Wen Tong

    Ke Jiusi, 1343

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Ten Thousand Ripples on the Yangzi, from the Water Album

    Ma Yuan, c. 1222

    Palace Museum, Beijing

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • The Yellow River Breaches its Course, from the Water Album

    Ma Yuan, c. 1222

    Palace Museum, Beijing

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Clouds Rising from the Green Sea, from the Water Album

    Ma Yuan, c. 1222

    Palace Museum, Beijing

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Portrait of Confucius

    Unknown artist, c. 1770

    Source collection not recorded on Commons file

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Stone statue of Laozi, Mount Qingyuan

    Unknown sculptor, Song dynasty

    Quanzhou, Fujian; photograph

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Portrait of Zhuge Liang

    Unknown artist, Qing dynasty (likely)

    Woodblock portrait; details uncertain

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Standing Buddha, Gandhara

    Unknown sculptor, c. 1st–3rd century

    Tokyo National Museum; photograph

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Self-portrait of Miyamoto Musashi

    Miyamoto Musashi (attributed), c. 1640

    Shimada Museum of Art, Kumamoto

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Musashi fights Sasaki Kojiro at Ganryujima

    Ukiyo-e print, artist uncertain, 19th century

    Woodblock print

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Pine Trees (Shorin-zu byobu)

    Hasegawa Tohaku, c. 1595

    Tokyo National Museum

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Haboku Sansui (Splashed-ink Landscape)

    Sesshu Toyo, 1495

    Tokyo National Museum

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Clearing after Rain on Mount Inwang (Inwangjesaekdo)

    Jeong Seon, 1751

    Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Panoramic View of the Diamond Mountains (Geumgang jeondo)

    Jeong Seon, 1734

    Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Lotus and Dragonflies

    Kim Hong-do, 18th century

    Korean painting

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Portrait of Yi Sun-sin

    Unknown, Published 1929

    Chungminsa shrine, as reproduced in the Chosun Ilbo

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

  • Turtle ship (geobukseon)

    Photograph, Modern

    Photograph of a museum replica; not a historical vessel

    Public domain via Wikimedia Commons