All Things Japanese – Page 2

The Thief

Fuminori Nakamura

The Thief is an experienced pickpocket with hunting grounds all over Tokyo. He has honed his craft since childhood and over the years has even developed his own professional ethics: Target only wealthy people, only take the cash (and the occasional watch), drop the wallet into a mailbox after the deed.

His easy-going life is interrupted when his first partner in crime offers him a job: Simply tie up an old man and empty his safe. The Thief reluctantly agrees, and his instincts prove correct when he learns that after he had left the house, the man – a prominent politician – was brutally murdered. Now, the Thief is forced to leave Tokyo, but the person behind the murder may not be shaken off that easily.

This was an enjoyable, fast-paced read, and the unnamed Thief was easy to root for, thanks to his self-imposed moral code and his attempt to keep a poor boy from the neighborhood from following in his footsteps. As an interesting aside, the author poses the question of fate, essentially: “is our fate controlled by something outside of us, or is it our fate to be thus controlled?” While the story itself is quite straightforward, these are the questions that will keep you thinking for a while.

Fuminori Nakamura (a pseudonym) was born in 1977 in Aichi Prefecture and graduated from Fukushima University (Applied Sociology) in 2000. In 2002, his first novel won the Noma Literary Newcomer Award. Since then, he has won numerous prestigious awards for his writing – The Thief earned him the Oe Prize for example – and a number of his books were translated into other languages. Nakamura now lives in Tokyo.

The Thief was his first novel to be translated into English. However, its fairly straightforward style makes the original popular among Japanese students. Whatever language you prefer, the book is available on amazon.

Autumn Ikebana

On Friday, I went to this year’s Autumn Tanabata Exhibition of the Ikenobo school for ikebana flower arranging. This is the oldest annual exhibition of ikebana; it dates back to the Edo period and has been ongoing ever since. I have written about the history of ikebana and the Ikenobo school when I went to the spring exhibition in 2022, so I will not go into details again here.

This year, I had as a guide a friend of mine who works at the Ikenobo to show me through the exhibition and explain more of the art behind ikebana and what to look for in an arrangement. Here are a few details of what she told me.

Rikka is the oldest, most traditional style of flower arrangement and the most heavily formalized. It originated in the Muromachi era and was meant for large-scale arrangements in temples and the homes of nobles and samurai – essentially to show off their wealth and influence.

In Rikka, the goal is to create a whole landscape with a wide variety of plants; the back and top of the arrangement signifies the landscape far off, the closer and lower parts the nature nearby. Rikka is easily recognized by the round bundle the stems of the plants form in the container.

Shoka was developed in the Edo period. These arrangements are often much smaller, since they were meant for the tokonoma in the rooms of the lower class people (albeit rich ones, think merchants etc.)

A Shoka arrangement uses at most three different types of plants, they form a single line segment in the container and are best viewed from the front of the row rather than the side. Shoka is considered the most dignified style, and ideally, the flowers used encompass the past, present, and future of the seasons.

Then there is Free Style, where essentially “anything goes”. These arrangements come in all sizes and often include non-natural materials as well. Looking through the photos I took, I find myself mostly drawn to these pieces, they are very individual and often outright whimsical. Yet, the flowers should still form the focal point of the arrangement.

The goal of any arrangement in any style is that it looks as natural as possible, even if artificial means are used. We’re talking about using wires to bend stiff materials, or hand creme to prevent the tips of leaves from drying out too quickly. Some arrangements are even planned out in advance, and tree branches are cut and put together to create specific angles to fit the design. All of this is fine – as long as the end result still looks natural.

When learning ikebana in the Ikenobo school, students start out with the Free Style before moving on to Shoka and finally, Rikka. My friend explained that soft materials are easiest to use, while a Rikka arrangement that only consists of pine branches, for example, marks the height of a student’s accomplishment.

With all this information, the exhibition was much more enjoyable than the previous time. I feel I know some details to look for, even though I cannot judge the actual artistic merit of an arrangement. So far, I’ve always thought that ikebana had very strict rules to create a piece, but when starting out in Free Style, this is not necessarily true. I’m thinking it might be nice to try ikebana, but it is a very expensive hobby indeed.

Hanten

This is a hanten, a traditional Japanese jacket that originated among the common people in the 18th century. Since it is meant for winter, it is stuffed with wadded cotton for insulation. There is no difference in hanten worn by men and women, and traditionally, they may show family crests or other decorations.

I got my hanten from a friend late last winter, so it only has the tiniest of sleeves. I’ve been wearing it for a couple of weeks now and it is surprisingly warm, even though I am not heating my house yet. I doubt that this particular hanten will work throughout the entire winter though, for that it would need to fully close in front. Also, the neck area is quite unprotected; for now I’m wearing turtleneck sweaters underneath, but experience shows that I’ll need more than that when winter hits for real.

The company producing this item was founded in 1913 in Fukuoka prefecture and the whole production – from design to weaving to sewing – is done in-house. They have many versions of hanten and other traditional Japanese clothes like samue, haori or jinbei for summer, but they also produce more modern clothing. From what I can gather, they do not ship abroad (the website is Japanese only) but just window shopping for their colorful clothes is quite satisfying.

Check them out here: https://shop.miyata-orimono.co.jp/

The Name of the Game is A Kidnapping

Keigo Higashino

PR genius Sakuma is miffed when his latest idea is rejected out of hand by Nissei Auto, a major car manufacturer. After a drinking spree, he goes to Nissei CEO Katsuragi’s home, where he watches a girl climbing down the wall outside. It is Juri Katsuragi, trying to escape her abusive family.

Sakuma, thirsting for revenge, and Juri, who needs money, team up and fake Juri’s kidnapping. But Katsuragi is no fool, and when the two believe to have reached their goals, Katsuragi proves to be a master of the end game after all.

This was a fun, fast-paced thriller, and other than Higashino’s usual books, there is no police involved. The plot revolves around the three characters, with Sakuma and Katsuragi playing a wonderful game of mental chess. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Higashino novel without a twist at the end, and once again, it was a total surprise to me. I did feel that there was something wrong about Juri’s story, but what had really happened before she escaped the family villa, I couldn’t guess.

Another excellent and twisty book by Higashino, and of course available on amazon.

so-on-g

On my quest to follow BATI-HOLIC to all of their concerts (in Kyoto), I am exposed to a lot of other bands, both local and foreign. There are all sorts of music styles, all stages of proficiency, and different levels of “I like it”.

One of my recent discoveries is so-on-g (騒音寺). The kanji mean “Noise Temple”, but even though they could be considered as rock band, their music is very melodic and easy to dance along. And sing along, if you know the texts, of course. Here’s one of their music videos:

so-on-g “Long Line” music video

so-on-g are a band from Kyoto and they’ve been around for 30 years. They have plenty of fans, which makes their shows fun to watch. It was even more fun to watch BATI-HOLIC leader Nakajima move into the first row at their latest show and completely switch to fanboy mode. Musicians just love music – just like writers just love books…

Matcha Samurai

I found a new youtube channel and it’s hilarious. Matcha Samurai seems to have lived in England for a long time but is now back in Japan and comments on the culture from an insider point of view. He does have a few longer videos, but his shorts are much more fun. Enjoy those two about dating culture in Japan:

Underground

Haruki Murakami

In the early morning of May 20, 1995, members of Aum Shinrikyo, a now-forbidden religious cult, released sarin gas on three Tokyo subway trains. However, the deadly nerve gas, conceived in Nazi laboratories in the 1930s, failed to cause the destruction the perpetrators had intended. Yet, the families of the 12 people who died and the thousands of injured – a good part of whom had to deal with varying long-term aftereffects – would disagree with this assessment.

In the course of 1996 when the worse shock over the attack had passed, but memories were still fairly fresh, Haruki Murakami interviewed 62 survivors. Of these testimonies, 34 are contained in “Underground”, a shocking account of how a normal Monday commute turned into a nightmare for many, touching on emotions that were still raw a year or more after the attack.

This edition of “Underground” also contains a part 2, titled “The Place that was Promised”, a collection of 8 interviews with (former) members of Aum Shinrikyo. While most of the victims expressed a hatred toward Aum, these interviewees were torn in their views. Most of them initially joined the group because they felt alienated by the world around them or tried to fill a (spiritual) void in their lives.

Even though they had a spiritual home in and were completely devoted to Aum, they declared that had they been asked to carry out the attack, they would have declined. Only one said that he would have gone through with it “if I had been asked by the right person.”

This raises the question – and Murakami addresses it in his own reflections on the topic – how far each of us would be willing to go for “the right person” or “the right cause”. On average, as history shows: all the way down to the inner circles of hell.

Haruki Murakami (born in Kyoto, 1949) is a Japanese author. He is most famous for his novels, which have been translated into dozens of languages and received numerous (international) prizes. He also writes essays and non fiction like this book.

For a first-hand account into one of Japan’s deadliest terrorist attacks in peace time. I recommend this particular edition for a view of both sides; they are equally chilling but for different reasons. It’s available on amazon.

Moon Viewing 2024

Even though full moon is today – and it’s even a supermoon, extra close to the Earth – Japan’s traditional moon viewing ceremonies were held yesterday. And once again, I went all the way over to Matsunoo Taisha for it.

Not much has changed compared to last year, the performers were largely the same. However, I thought that the selection of shakuhachi songs was more lively this year. And the koto-shinobue duo afterward performed a great version of Amazing Grace. Pity this was in Japan, I’m pretty sure that in America, people would’ve known the lyrics and would’ve sung along.

The taiko were great and uplifting as always, but I now find that something has to be added. It’s hard to explain, but I’ll try: taiko drums are essentially just rhythm, and while you do get excited, the adrenaline doesn’t last forever. With a melody overlaid, no matter how simple, the interest can be kept up throughout the piece. This time again, the second piece was the best, it added flutes and cymbals to the drums.

This time I went alone, but I was having a nice chat with the person in the seat next to me. He didn’t drink sake or cared for the sweets that were offered, so he gave me his ticket for a second helping to both. It was very good sake; after all, Matsunoo Taisha enshrines the god of all things alcohol. Another addition this year were the food stalls outside the shrine, but even though they had some karaage (fried chicken) left when the ceremony was over, I resisted the temptation. Maybe next year.

New Money

Already back in the beginning of July, the Japanese government has begun to issue new banknotes, the first one to feature English in their design (Bank of Japan). They took a while to trickle down to Kyoto, and even longer to make it into my own wallet, but here they are, courtesy of National Printing Bureau, Independent Administrative Institution (独立行政法人　国立印刷局):

The new 1000 yen bill features Kitasato Shibasaburo (1853 – 1931), a Japanese bacteriologist. While he was sent to Hong Kong during an outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1894, he isolated the bacterium that caused the plague, just days ahead of Alexandre Yersin who is generally (the only one) credited with the discovery.

He was also nominated for the very first Nobel Prize in Medicine, for the work he and Emil von Behring did on the diphtheria antitoxin serum. However, only von Behring received the Nobel Prize for this discovery, probably because Kitasato was only a student at the time.

He kept working on infectious diseases for his entire life, and founded the Kitasato Institute, now a private university for medicine, in Tokyo.

Like the last 5000 yen bill, this one also features a woman: Tsuda Umeko (1864 – 1929), who was educated in the US as a child and later even went to college there. Upon her return to Japan, she became an educator and founded Tsuda Women’s University in Tokyo.

Throughout her life, she was a strong advocator for women’s education and social reform. Interestingly, she was not an advocate of women’s suffrage or even a feminist movement.

Finally, the 10000 yen note shows, quite fittingly, Eiji Shibusawa (1840 – 1931), an industrialist of the Meiji period who introduced capitalism to the country and founded the first modern bank of Japan, which was even allowed to print its own banknotes.

Born into a farmer’s family, his aptitude for finances landed him in the household of the (future) shogun and, after the Meiji Restoration, in the new Ministry of Finance. He resigned in 1873 and, besides the First National Bank, founded more than 500 other corporations, among them the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Tokyo Gas, and the Imperial Hotel Tokyo, all without holding a controlling stake in them.

Furthermore, he was also involved in projects related to social welfare and education, like the Japan Red Cross, which he founded as well. He was granted the title of viscount and in 1929 was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Today, he often features in Japanese manga and fiction.

Interesting people! Let’s hope many of them make it into my wallet in the future!

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Haruki Murakami

This book delivers exactly what its author says in the foreword: “This is a book in which I have gathered my thoughts about what running has meant to me as a person.”

It was written between summer 2005 and autumn 2006 and comprises nine essays, written in different places and about different races – marathons and triathlons – and the training that went into them. Yet, the essays are not just about running, but are also a memoir about writing and how Murakami became a writer in the first place. His early life as the owner of a music bar was especially interesting; his love for music is undiminished as can be seen in his novels that all seem to have at least one character obsessed with music.

Overall, I’m not sure what to think of this book. I am not a runner and not much of a writer myself, which probably explains a certain detached interest. Murakami is also not very good when writing about himself. He seems to be more at ease in the role of a (self-) chronicler, preferring to keep his deeper thoughts to himself.

Certainly, the subject matter of long-distance running doesn’t lend itself easily to deep philosophical insights, but I also think that the vertical pronoun throws Murakami’s prose off somehow. At least all the “in my opinion’s” that were so obnoxious in his book on writing are less numerous here, which makes him sound much less pompous and more human.

I don’t regret having read this book, but had I not done so, I wouldn’t have missed much either. Try it out for yourself on amazon.