Iris – Page 96 – goinggaijin.com

2nd kyu!

Last Saturday was my latest soroban exam – and I passed it!

I am now a sorobanista of 2nd kyu rank, and, according to my friend, this is not very common anymore. In the old days, if you wanted to have certain positions, especially in the government, you needed a 3rd kyu soroban grade, but obviously not many people went beyond that.

Although I made lots of mistakes in the trial tests I took just before the exam, I did quite well during the exam itself. I think there may be even room for further improvement, which in this case simply means a further speed-up. Hence, I am considering taking the exam for first kyu at the next possible date, which is in two months. It is unlikely that I will pass then, but as the next level exam will not be at my school anymore but at some outside venue, I better check out the new setting before attempting the next level in earnest.

Asadora

Today was the start of the 93rd NHK asadora. An asadora is a quite unique Japanese form of TV drama series; its name derives from asa – morning – and dora – short for dorama, the Japanese spelling of drama. Those asadora air daily except Sunday, and they are very short – only 15 minutes for each episode. Even if you miss one of them, there is always a rerun on the same day at noon, and if you miss that one too, there is usually lots of repetition included in each episode so that you can catch up easily. Altogether, the whole series takes six months, so there are two asodora each year.

Since the beginnings of the asodora in 1961, the plot almost always follows the same stereotype: It centres on a young female heroine who is going through great lengths and possible hardships in order to chase her big dream. In the end, she will fulfill all her desires, of course. Some of the stories are even based on real life events.

The nice thing about an asodora is that the heroine is usualy played by a young and hitherto unknown actess. I have heard that there are even public auditions, drawing thousands of young girls, something like “Japan’s next asodora girl” or so, and that this one single role can considerably boost a career.

Now you are probably wondering why I am telling you all this and how come I even know about such thing – after all, I don’t even have a TV. Well, the current asadora edition, called “Asa ga kita” (meaning either: “Morning has come” or “Asa has come”, Asa being the name of the main character), revolves around a young woman from Osaka who becomes well known because of her incredible skills with a soroban. And as young actresses don’t have to know anything about soroban these days, they need teachers. And it so happens that said teacher is the one I have been taking lessons from for the last two years. Yes, I do feel quite proud!

Thus, I know even more background: The shooting takes place in Osaka, and Sensei has been teaching there since June or even May. He says that the whole production is very flexible and that, if the viewers don’t like the direction it is taking, things may still be changed and redone. In the worst case this will mean that he will have to teach until the very end of the airing in March.

Although it must be very tiring for him, he is also very enthousiastic, and he has received permission to make some sort of fanpage for Asa ga kita, where he talks about soroban, of course. This webpage, by the way, is the reason for our last two soroban-related excursions. Most of it is in Japanese of course, but there are also little tweets and stories in other languages and lots of interesting, soroban related photos. There are also a few English pages, but I know that there are more to come – after all, the person responsible for those is yours truly… 😉

Circus

This silver week, I felt the urge to indulge my inner child and I promptly went to the circus! Together with my soroban classmates I went to the early afternoon performance of Kinoshita Circus on Monday, and because of the holiday, we got probably the last seats at the front side of the arena. Kinoshita Circus has been around for 113 years now, and I have read that it is one of the world’s three largest circuses.

I really enjoyed the experience, there were lots and lots of acts, mostly acrobats of one sort or the other, and the pace, especially in the first hour, was very fast, with subsequent acts almost blending into one another. There were acrobats balancing on a bamboo pole or a tower made with chairs; trapeze artists and performers hanging from the ceiling on long strips of cloth; jugglers and dainty ballerinas, magicians, and a troupe of motorcyclists driving circles in a not overly large metal globe. Almost all of the artists working above the arena were secured with ropes – and the trapeze troupe used the traditional net – except for the two guys on the wheel of death, which had me gasping for air several times. Check out the images at the circus’ homepage to get an idea – I did not bring my camera, but it was not allowed to take pictures anyway.

Of course, there were acts involving animals, and I am always quite ambivalent about them. On the one hand, I enjoy seeing the animals, but on the other hand, it is obviously impossible to provide them with the environment they require while they are on tour. I was glad that three of the four acts were very short, probably less than five minutes each. The poor elephant had to do a handstand and carry his trainers on his back, but the zebras and the giraffe – which was fed with bananas by selected audience members – were only circling the arena twice before they could leave again.

The second hour of the show started with the main act: Eight white lions, two of them male. I love cats, especially the big ones, but as I said, I also feel sad for them. The act was nothing special, and to me it would not have made a difference at all if they had not shown any animals at all. However, a large part of the audience were small children (I think we were the only group of adults-only there) and it may have a different impact on them.

We did not rush out immediately after the show with the rest of the audience, and we thus had the opportunity to talk to the clowns. What I had already noticed with quite some surprise during the show, they now confirmed: There were lots of foreign artists, they themselves were Americans, but all of the Asians were Japanese. I guess that the ratio was maybe half-half, and I thought that this sounds like a very cool idea to get a working visa for Japan. I wonder – if my company idea does not really work out – whether I can still take up juggling or so? On second thought, nah, I’d probably make a better clown…

Equinox

Today is the last holiday of this year’s Silver Week, the autumnal equinox, which is called in Japanese Shubun-no-hi. Three days before and after the equinox is the time the Japanese call higan, which can be translated as “the other side of the river of death”. At this time, people pray for the repose of their dead ancestors and make visits to the family grave where they place small offerings. A popular offering is a rice dumpling covered in red bean paste (of course), called ohagi. Also around this time, when autumn begins, red amaryllis begin to bloom, and the Japanese call them higanbana – equinox flower.

Silver Week

It’s national holiday in Japan! Actually, there are three national holidays in a row this week, which means the Japanese call this the Silver Week in imitation of the Golden Week, a string of three national holidays in early May.

This Silver Week starts today with Keiro-no-hi, the Respect for the Aged Day, and there is Shubun-no-hi to celebrate the autumn equinox on Wednesday. Apparently the Japanese government is trying to get their citizens to like them better, so they inserted another national holiday without great name in between, tomorrow.

I have written about Keiro-no-hi extensively last year, so I will not repeat myself, but rather present more Japanese art! This time, it’s two masks used in the Noh theatre, now in the possession of the Museum Rietberg in Zürich. The old woman on the left dates back to the 18th/19th century, and the old man on the right even to the 16th/17th century. Both photos are courtesy of Andreas Praefcke, taken from wikimedia commons.

Security

The Japanese government is about to pass a new security bill which will allow the Japanese military to actively fight in other countries, outside of the UN peace keeping missions they could already take part in.

Effectively, this means a renunciation of the Japanese constitution, in particular article 9 where it says that “...the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a mean of settling international disputes.” With the increase of military spending in recent years, this article has already been seriously weakened, but the new laws would completely put it to rest.

Obviously this is causing a great stir in the National Diet, where a former Supreme Court justice asked all members of the house regardless of party affiliation to “…respect intelligence, decorum and reason, or at least pretend“; and a young student of one of the many parties of the opposition called for the politicians to act as an individuals and “…please be your own person.” Yesterday it went so far that people started an actual fight, and today there was a motion of no-confidence against Shinzo Abe, the current prime minister.

And even the otherwise rather placid Japanese people have been in uproar. As a vast majority of them are against the new legislation, there have been numerous demonstrations all over Japan and around the National Diet itself. There was even a demonstration in Kyoto, and a friend of mine, who only went to the speeches in the beginning, said she was surprised at the length of the subsequent march through town.

I guess that the bill will pass after all, regardless of all the voices of reason from in- and outside the Diet. Already eager business men are rubbing their hands in anticipation of great weapons exports from Japan. It seems today everything is for sale, if just the price is right…

Oh, if you are interested in the exact words of the Japanese Constitution as it was written in 1946, you can download it for free from project Gutenberg!

Soroban Town

As promised on Monday, here is my report about the soroban class’s trip to Ono. Ono is a small town near Kobe which calls itself the Town of Soroban. Indeed, we have visited one soroban museum, two soroban factories and one master who makes handmade soroban, there is a soroban shrine and a bridge with soroban theme, and you can buy soroban senbei… But, let’s start at the beginning.

When we arrived in Ono after a two hours drive from Kyoto, we first went to the soroban museum. There is a huge soroban showing the current year on their parking lot outside, so it is hard to miss. Their general displays were nice, but once you have seen Ogaki-san’s soroban collection, there is not much left to surprise you. I did like the display of the various roots of the soroban, from Egypt, the Middle East, and China though.

Also, somebody obviously had too much time on his hands in which he built a small model of Himeji castle out of thousands of soroban beads. One room of the museum was dedicated to the process of soroban making, which until today is still largely manual work. There were machines on display, and photos of workers, the numerous parts of a soroban and the materials they are made of, i.e., different types of wood and bamboo. I knew that soroban beads are made from wood and are cut out of thin wooden disks, but I did not know that at that point already they would be provided with their holes… Afterwards, we went to see an acquaintance of sensei’s, who owns a soroban factory, and there we could see some of the machines in action. Unfortunately, this particular factory does not make the beads, but even so, there are lots of soroban in different states of completion lying around everywhere. Although the factory is quite small – there are less than 10 employees only – they produce 18.000 soroban each year – and a variety of different wood toys on top of that.

In this factory, you even have the possibility of making your own soroban. As this activity is geared towards kids, there are numerous colorful choices for both the frame and the beads. We were invited to make our own soroban; sensei made a red one with white beads, I made a green one with all beads in all colours of the rainbow, and here is my friend working on his yellow soroban. We visited another soroban factory as well, where we learned that soroban making – as probably most of the crafts in Japan – has carried division of labour almost to the extreme: For a really good soroban there is one master who makes the beads, another one who produces the rods, and a third one who makes the frame. Interestingly, although they are so thin, the bamboo rods have a lighter inside and a darker outside, and it is very important that the outside of the rods (which once pointed to the outside of the bamboo plant) is installed towards the top of the soroban, as it is obviously harder than the inside…

Both factories naturally also had a display of soroban, from the very old to the brand new ones. My favourite was the sample that was made to showcase all the different colours of the wood – the wood here is not painted – but in the olden days, the white beads would have been made from bones or shells.

After a short stop at a soroban master who works in his garage, we went to visit the other sights of the city: From a small bakery we bought senbei with soroban motif burned onto the top, and we took pictures of bridgeheads showing soroban, of course. Finally, inside an obviously both expensive and popular onsen, there was a soroban shrine; an unofficial one, unfortunately, so prayers won’t really help, although there is indeed a god of soroban – but he resides only in China. Although the day was very tiring, it was great fun too. Before we went home, we enjoyed another speciality of Ono’s: For dinner, we had special fried noodles called hormon yaki soba. But that is a tale for another day…

Daytrip

I have just returned from a daytrip to Ono machi, a small town near Kobe that boasts to be the Soroban town of Japan…

Right now, I am too tired to post any details, and I will need time to go through my photos too, but you may expect a full report on Wednesday!

Census

Living in Japan is hard work! No, I’m not referring to the fact that all that Japanese people do is working, because mostly it’s not true, at least not in Kyoto. I mean that being simply a resident in Japan is hard work already. Only yesterday, I have received mail from those two:

May I introduce you to Sensasu-kun (Censusboy) on the left and Mirai-chan (Futuregirl) on the right, who are the mascots for this year’s census in Japan. Before you ask, no, you cannot do anything in Japan without mascots, not even – or rather: especially not – if you are the government.

Apparently, every five years, every resident in Japan, whether foreign or native, is asked to take part in the census. At first I was a bit worried, but everything could be done online and in English, there were lots of explanations in case anything could possibly be unclear, and the whole thing indeed only took the ten minutes they promised at the front page.

The questionnaire surprised me on various levels. First of all, it was extremely short. There were only 14 questions in total, and only one of them had a subcategory if you answered the first part in a specific way. I dimly remember a census I had to fill out in Austria 20 years ago or so, and that was a lengthy list of questions covering several pages.

For the one I filled in today, at first you had to answer questions about all the persons living in your household: Name, birth year, nationality, marital status, etc. It was interesting that the questionnaire was not anonymised in any way, but then again, if everybody must participate, there’s probably not much point in it. Also, there were no questions that could in any way be construed as private: No questions about religion, preferred mode of transport, which party you’d lean towards, how often you’d go to museums, theatres, sports events, not even the exact birthdate or birthplace were required.

With the typical Japanese sense of priority, the main part of the questionnaire, 7 or 8 questions, was about work: Which work do you do, where do you work, what is the name of your workplace, what kind of business is that, and what exact position do you have there, etc. The interesting part was about my type of work: As the owner/director of my own company, according to this census, I am neither employed nor self-employed. In between those two categories there was an extra one “Board member of a company etc.” The non-working housewife-student-and-pensioners category was at the very right, by the way (so as not to be confusing for me either, I guess).

The last two questions asked about the type of house I was living in – and there was the one and only subcategory, wanting to know on which floor my apartment was. That was it, the whole thing. It seems to me that all the information is already available though, and I cannot help wondering whether it would not be easier to check the existing databases rather than create a new one. On the other hand, it’s probably good to every now and then weed out all those zombie records…

Matching

For three weeks now, it has been raining on and off: Each and every day it rains a little, it stops a little, it starts again… It drives me nuts. Not that I have anything against rain. As long as I don’t have to go out then, that is. But now, no matter when and where I am going, it starts raining just when I leave my home. And even if it’s not raining very hard and there is little wind, I am soaking wet within five minutes anyway.

As it is still relatively warm, the Japanese solution to the problem is to either wear flipflops or crocs. As I shall only be seen in those after suffering a severe brain injury, I was looking for other options when yet again I had wet socks within only 10 minutes of jumping around to avoid the deepest puddles. And I found said option in rather nice rainboots. Essentially there are two types: the practical, knee-high ones in black and the barely ankle-grazing ones in pink Hello Kitty design. Luckily I found something with a slight Scottish feel in blue and green and about calf length. I must have done something right, because I have already received the most coveted of all Japanese compliments: Kawaiiii!!! (which means cute).

Unfortunately I totally failed the test for becoming an honorary Japanese when I bought a new umbrella after the old one did not survive the last typhoon. The reason is that I went shopping like a normal Western person: I wanted an umbrella small enough to fit in my handbag in case the rain is just a threat and remains one. During a break in the rain, I went to my nearest shopping centre and found a tiny umbrella, weighing less than 100 grams. I asked the shop assistant if we could open it to check the size (for emergencies it will do just fine) and then I watched her folding it again (there’s a trick to it, but she assured me that it was standard Japanese) and then I simply bought one in the brightest yellow they had. For recognition value, obviously. Perfect! I was out maybe 15 minutes altogether.

Now, a decent Japanese woman would have gone to a decent umbrella shop and spent at least 30 minutes there. The standard umbrella buying procedure for a Japanese, or generally Asian, woman is as follows: Go to the shop and peruse all the umbrellas on display. Scrutinise their outside (the part that’s on top), if necessary, open the umbrella to get a better idea. If you find one deemed suitable, definitely open the umbrella to check its inside (that part that usually does not get wet). Many umbrellas for sale here have a pattern on the inside as well, especially if it is only a parasol that many women of all ages are using in summer.

Once an umbrella is found with suitable colour and pattern both in- and outside, look for a mirror. Place yourself in front of it, the open umbrella over your shoulder and make absolutely sure that the pattern, the colour and the distance between the stretchers goes well with your hair and favourite makeup. Repeat until you are entirely satisfied.

I know how this must sound, but I am serious, I have watched several Japanese women going through the whole procedure… It seems that people here have scores of umbrellas. There is a family in my house who stores their collection outside – all eight of them for two adults and a toddler. To be fair, it’s not just women trying to go for the cute look. My neighbor has a serious looking dark green one – with an inside showing a bright blue sky with fluffy white clouds. Wishful thinking, obviously.