I was thinking of decorating my room with an eastern accent. What sort of things would you recommend? Kanji posters? Bansai trees? Katanas?

Brian, 'eastern' is so wide. Your list appears to confine itself to 'japanese' however.

How about Goju ryu's founder? better than Bruce's testosterone poster; on second thoughts it may be right up your alley

Bonsais are hell to maintain, because they are all wannabe trees, and watering has to be just right; drowning is the number one cause of bonsai deaths.

You have to be careful with the katana. If you do anything 'eastern', you have to believe in 'Feng Shui' -- the art of correct arrangement / placement of artifacts with directional imperatives to achieve a harmonious flow and interaction of chi between the human inhabitants and the artifacts.

A katana has "sah chi" -- killing chi, because, unlike a kitchen knife, it has the primary objective of killing another human being. The point is where do you 'point' the sword and where in the room is the sharp / business 'cutting?' If all this is nonsense to you, then it doesn't matter.

I don't want to do too much here; give others, especially Ed who has an eastern wife.

Yes, I suppose I'm leaning more toward japanese/okinawan type stuff. BTW,no offense,but all that stuff is nonsenes to me. A poster of Myagi sounds nice though. I jsut don't want someone to come in and freak out thinking I'm trying to be a wannabe or think I'm ethnically/culturally confused.

Just for the record, my ex-wife is Japanese... I'm living with the kids in the US now and their mom is in Japan and has re-married.

my only tip is not to try to make a room look 'Asian' or it will end up looking like a cheap Chinese food restaurant.

look at some simple room designs and get ideas. I'll provide links to the thread later...

Thanks Ed, that's what I want to try to avoid. I want it to have taste,not look like crap.

I'll just throw ideas out based on random searching...Ed's martha stewart impression (not):

I've always like ikebana - it seems simple and tasteful. bamboo is a good image (and easy to care for, just stick it in water lol)

this gives an overall asian kindof look and feel without being tacklessly obvious about it (although the chairs don't look too comfy):
http://images.scrippsweb.com/HGTV/2004/12/30/leavy_AsianLivingRoom_e.jpg
http://images.forbes.com/images/2004/11/10/suite5_420x306.jpg

sometimes you can find interesting looking stuff...I like natural looking materials (plus they are easier to match to one other) this place looks pretty cool, expensive as hell but just for ideas:
http://www.tokaimall2.com/shop/style/interior/asian/index.html
check these out:
http://www.sumipower.com/interior/shop/lamp/
http://www.sumipower.com/cargo/in-asiancafe-e.htm
looks cool, and it's basically just a lamp inside a waste paper basket. lol

posters/paintings:
again, simple and not touristy with colorful dragons and block kanji characters is better to avoid.
I'm biased to Japanese Art, but thats only from lack of exposure to other Asian cultures.
http://www.asianart.com/phpforum/pictures/8252_Kano_painting_thumbnail.jpg
http://www.bu.edu/bridge/archive/2004/01-23/photos/10.jpg
http://darticus.net/clients/Tom%20Lambert/scrolls/vase/flowers2.jpg
although, as I look...this Chinese one catches the eye: http://www.ejfrankel.com/graphic/fs/rsga_14_painting.jpg
strangly enough, when I looked for an example of a tacky painting, I found 'Eds Chinese painting' lol
http://www.academyoffineartists.ca/Images/Ed's-Chinese-Painting.gif
also, I think you have to be real careful when putting up something with a dragon.

random ideas...have fun.

Cool! That gives me lots of ideas! I think I'll avoid any dragons altogether.
What do you think about the tsuba prints? I like the samurai armor picture. I saw some bamboo stuff here at a place in town too.
Do you think two katana on the fireplace mantle is a bad idea? Anyone?

I thinking hanging swords is a terrible idea unless you are going make darn sure they can't come off the wall.