All Things Japanese – Page 32

Kibune

Last Thursday I went to Kibune with friends of mine. Kibune is a tiny little village situated in the mountains north of Kyoto. Okay, it’s not really a village – there is not space enough for that. Essentially there is a mountain, then a river, a road, and another mountain. Along a rather short part of the river/road, maybe 4 kilometres, houses were built wherever they could fit – and there is not much space left for this.

The fact that there is not much space has led to the biggest attraction of Kibune: its kawadoko dining. From June to September, platforms are built over the river where people can sit and have lunch or dinner – always enjoying the natural air-conditioning of the cool water flowing right underneath their seats. Kibune can be as much as 5 degrees cooler than Kyoto, which makes it a welcome retreat for people plagued by the unbearable August heat. Riverside restaurants are expensive since most of them serve kaiseki – Japanese Haute Cuisine – but there are also a few on the other side of the road. There are also a couple of ryokan for people to stay overnight, but since the valley is not very wide, the river is very noisy in parts, and I wonder if you actually can get some rest there.

The other great attraction of the village is Kifune Shrine (yes, with an F for some reason). According to myth, it was founded in the early 5th century by the mother of the legendary first emperor Jinmu. She took a yellow boat (Ki-fune) up the river from Osaka, and where she landed, she founded a shrine. It is dedicated to the deity of water and rain, and since the 9th century, people have been worshipping Takaokami-no-kami exclusively as the god who could send rain or withhold it. To appeal to the deity, horses were offered to the shrine, black ones to make it rain, and white ones to stop it.

Another, more grisly ritual connected with Kifune shrine is the legendary Ushi-no-toki-mairi. It started out as innocent worship at the shrine in the hour of the ox (between 1 and 3 am), but it changed into a practice to lay a curse on a person. Still done at the same hour, people were supposed to wear headgear with candles and drive nails into a nearby tree – preferably through a straw effigy of the person to be cursed. There are a number of legends dating back to the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and there is even a Noh-play dramatising the story of a scorned woman who, after heeding the advice received at Kifune shrine, turned into a demon to take revenge.

Even if you don’t seek revenge on anyone, Kibune is worth a visit. The mountains are covered in cedars and cryptomerias, and they are so enormous, that there are places where they reach across both river and road to form a roof of leaves. At this time, the greens are lush and beautiful, but there are also maple trees, which must be a wonderful sight during koyo. It is a bit tough to get there though without a car. The Eizan railway has a stop at Kibune-guchi, and from there it is maybe a 30 minute walk uphill to the shrine. It is worth it though I think, especially in the off hours when there are not many people, the whole setting is very quiet and energising.

Old Houses

Last weekend, I indulged myself – once again… There was an open house near Kyoto University, and since the house was a semi-traditional Japanese one built some 80 years ago, I just had to see it.

In fact, it was not just one house, but three buildings on the same plot of land. There was one very large main house with 10 rather large rooms on two floors. Then there was a much smaller house with three rooms in total, and some sort of shed in the back of the garden. Here are some pictures from the agent’s leaflet:

It turned out the house was built for a professor of Kyoto University by a quite famous architect of that time, Koji Fujii. Fujii was one of the pioneers of ecological building in Japan, and he certainly had a keen eye for details. The ceilings are restrained but beautifully decorated with differently colored wood; There are tiny windows at the right spots, and there is even a reading room/office with built-in desks right at the windows, still original.

It is not a truly traditional Japanese house, but it is not one of the westernised homes with European exterior that were so popular in the Taisho era and among the university professors either. It is a very well designed Japanese house with modern influences, and this fusion is so well done you don’t even notice them. For example, on the ground floor are rooms with normal wooden floors as well as rooms with tatami. The latter are raised significantly higher as usual than the former, so that if you are sitting in seiza on the floor, you are at eye level with somebody sitting on a chair outside.

The state of the house is not good, unfortunately, but not quite as bad as the last one I visited. On the other hand, since it is more traditional, the interior is rather dark with the small windows and the paper covered shoji, and the wood which is mostly painted dark does not help much to be honest.

Still, I hope there is somebody who buys the house and renovates it properly instead of simply tearing it down and building another bloody mansion on top… I wish I could save this house from certain destruction, but I don’t quite have the money for it. Anybody who has a spare million Euros for me?

Wealth

It is universally known that rice is very important in Japan and all over Asia, and 87% of the world’s total rice production is harvested in Asia. Rice was first domesticated in China around 10.000 years ago but has since become the staple food for millions of people.

In old Japan, farmers were considered so important that in the hierarchical feudal class system of the Edo period, peasants held the second rank – right below the samurai, but above the third rank artisans and the merchants, who made up the fourth and lowest rank. And during that time, rice was used as a measure of somebody’s wealth.

For example, the income of the daimyo – feudal lords – and samurai was counted in koku – bales of rice. Originally, one koku was about 150 kg, and the idea behind it is that one bowl of rice holds 150 grams of rice, and that 1 koku – which would be 1000 bowls of rice – would be needed to feed a single person for one whole year.

If you do the math, this makes about 2.7 bowls of rice that a person could eat per day, which is only okay if you are on a severe diet; but of course, rice was not the only thing people were eating. In fact, there is a story that Ieyasu – the first Shogun of the Edo period – preferred to eat other grains because they were cheaper…

Back to wealth: In the Edo period, each feudal domain was assessed by their potential rice income, called kokudaka. This was done by bestowing fiefs that had been won in the war on allies or loyal retainers. Later, the kokudaka also determined the order of precedence at the court of the Shogun.

Only if a fief had an income of at least 10.000 koku, its fief-holder could be called a daimyo. The largest income of any daimyo was the Kaga or Kanazawa domain in Honshu, with 1.025.000 koku per year. This was the only fief with more than one million koku, and to this day, there is a million-koku festival in Kanazawa town to celebrate the return of their lord as a millionaire. Only 20 daimyo had a kokudaka of more than 200.000 koku, including the Shogun, whose income was some 4 million koku per year. To put this in perspective: altogether, Japan produced some 30 million koku annually.

After the Meiji restoration, in 1891, the koku was redefined to be 180 litres of rice, but soon enough, income was measured in money rather than in rice. Today, koku are still in use in the lumber industry as a cubic measure, but beyond that, they have been relegated to old stories and museums.

The Waiting Years

The Waiting Years
Fumiko Enchi

Tomo is the wife of Yukitomo Shirakawa, a public servant in Fukushima, who is rapidly climbing the political ladder. Their two children do not keep Yukitomo from being a womanizer, and at some point he even orders his wife to find him a suitable mistress. Unwilling, but unable to stand her ground against her despotic husband, Tomo goes to Tokyo and after painful deliberations decides on Suga.
With the young girl’s arrival Yukitomo adds a new luxurious wing to the house and Tomo more and more finds herself in the role of household accountant. Both women soon arrange themselves with the new conditions forced upon them, but they change again when Yumi takes up service in their house and Yukitomo cannot keep his hands off her.

This is a very quiet novel, focusing on the women of the household. Though there are no open power struggles between them, and Tomo retains her elevated status of “wife” at all times, the common suffering of the women under Yukitomo’s reign is ever present. I enjoyed reading it, as it gives an almost psychological diagnosis of all persons involved, but if you are looking for action, this novel is not for you.

Fumiko Enchi (1905 – 1986) was born in Tokyo. Since she was a sickly child, she was home-schooled and was taught English, French, and Chinese literature; through her grandmother she got to know the classics of Japanese literature. With 21, her first play was published, and from 1930, she began to write fiction, to not much acclaim. After a hiatus in and after WWII, she started to write again in the early 1950s, and finally received recognition as one of the most prominent Japanese writers of the Showa period.

The book is available on amazon – enjoy!

Handling

I recently bought another futon in a shop nearby. Futons are not really heavy, but quite bulky, even though they are usually transported folded into thirds. For some reason, the package did not have a handle, which makes carrying a futon, even over a short distance, a bit cumbersome.

However, the Japanese have a solution for this: plastic strap-on handles (for want of a better word). Essentially you wrap some string around your package and then hook in the handles. It’s harder to describe than it actually is, just have a look at the picture.

This makes carrying a large bundle like my futon comparatively easy. I have also seen those handles used with normal cartons, as long as they are not too heavy. Isn’t this a very neat, simple and practical solution – quite Japanese in fact!

Tansu

Traditionally, Japanese interior uses very little furniture. On bare tatami floors, low tables and cushions are placed during the day which are replaced in the evening by futons. Most possessions are stored away behind fusuma sliding doors in large oshi-ire wall closets, or in special fireproof storage buildings called kura.

Of the few pieces of specialised storage furniture that Japanese people possessed, Tansu are probably the most beautiful ones: Large dressers made of various kinds of wood with different lacquer finish and decorated metalwork at the locks and handles of the drawers. Some old style Tansu have handles on their sides as well, so they can be easily transported by two people – either by carrying it in the usual fashion or by putting a wooden bar through the top handles which can be flipped upwards.

Tansu first came up in the 17th century as a means to store kimono. Until then, Japanese people had stored their clothing in baskets or wheeled trunks, if they were able to buy more than one kimono at all. Around that time however, for several reasons, general wealth increased and when people could afford to buy more clothing, baskets and trunks became too cumbersome to use. Osaka clothes merchants first started to use Tansu in their shops since they made retrieving their goods much more easy. And when – after a devastating fire in Edo (now Tokyo) – wheeled trunks were outlawed, Tansu quickly filled the void.

The first centre of Tansu production was Osaka, and the finished furniture was transported by ship mainly to Edo and Kyoto. By the beginning of the 18th century, demand in Edo had risen drastically, and Tansu were being manufactured there as well as in other larger cities like Kyoto or Nagoya for example. By the mid 19th century, Tansu were produced in many of the smaller castle towns to be sold locally, which eventually gave rise to many local styles and specialised types of Tansu.

Like so many other Japanese arts and crafts, Tansu arrived from China. At first, they were just small boxes used for tea ceremony, the original Kanji meaning “something that is carried”. So-called funa dansu used by sailors as well as kakesuzuri for the use of merchants with space for writing implements, soroban and sometimes even a lamp, were still relatively small and could be carried easily.

Of significantly larger size are isho dansu with several drawers to hold clothing, and they quickly became a standard part of a woman’s dowry. It was usual for a woman to bring two isho-dansu to her husband’s home; if she had more, it meant that she owned more kimono – a sign of wealth. Heya dansu were 180 cm wide and thus filled the entire space between two pillars of a Japanese room. They were as high as the sliding doors and thus covered a whole wall of a room. Other special types of Tansu are kusuri dansu, medicine chests with lots of tiny little drawers for different herbs, and kaidan dansu, which were used as staircases, always carefully hidden behind fusuma doors.

Tansu could be very elaborately made, depending on the intended owner. From the relatively simple drawer type of the middle class samurai, where the wood was polished and covered with clear lacquer, to the elaborately black lacquered double-door type showing golden crests which were used for important government documents, Tansu became a status symbol in the larger cities.

A distinctive feature of Tansu are the metal fittings on the locks and at the handles. They could be simply an indicator of the manufacturing site or individually designed for the customer with flowers, animals, or even family crests. The wood used was mostly Zelkova or Paulownia, and Tansu were made in a special way without nails that allowed the wood to expand and shrink according to the humidity of the summer or the dryness of the Japanese winter, something Western furniture is less able to do.

As mentioned above, Tansu development reached its peak in the Meiji era when regional characteristics appeared around 1880 and lasted for some 40 years. Interestingly, the death-blow of the Tansu was the increased demand from Tokyo after the devastating 1923 Kanto earthquake. By this time, there was a distinct Tokyo Tansu, and since the city’s factories were destroyed, smaller ones from all over Japan stepped in to fill the gap – and discarded their local style for the more sombre, Western-influenced style of Tokyo. In fact, if you are buying a modern Tansu today, this style – with unlacquered, almost white wood and small black metal fittings – remains the prevalent one.

Even though Western wardrobes and dressers have all but replaced the traditional Tansu, there are some producers who still make them according to the old methods. They are absolutely stunning – and very expensive! It remains to be seen whether a revival is indeed taking place, or whether Tansu stay something for the connoisseur…

Avocado Donburi

It is slowly getting warmer here, and although the weather is still very pleasant, it will not take long until the humidity increases to the summer level of “hardly bearable”. At this time, the less you do to provoke your body to sweat, the better. And the less time you spend in the hot kitchen, the better.

On these days, if I choose to eat anything solid at all, I like to keep my cooking short and sweet. I love avocados, and most of the time I simply spoon them out of their peel and eat them with soy sauce. However, sometimes I want to indulge a bit more, and then I make avocado donburi, which is essentially avocado on top of a bowl of rice with a bit of seasoning. Once the rice is cooked, it is very quick lunch or dinner (or, with half an avocado, a starter), which makes it perfect for this time of the year.

Recipe for Avocado Donburi à la Junko san
(for 2 people)

– 2 bowls of boiled rice, preferrably white

– 2 teaspoons of chirimen sanshou (tiny broiled sardines mixed with Japanese pepper)
– 3 Perilla leaves, cut into thin stripes
Distribute evenly over the two bowls.

– 1 ripe avocado
Cut into 1.5 cm cubes and put 1/2 of the cubes into each rice bowl.

– 6 surimi sticks
Gently tear them apart with your fingers and add on top of the avocado cubes.

Mix some soy sauce with wasabi, and pour it over the avocado just before eating.

Kyoto State Guest House

Entertaining guests – especially if one is determined to do it well – is not an easy thing to do. Raise it to the level of state guests, and walking the delicate line between entertainment and representation almost becomes an art. Heads of state and other dignitaries are treated to intimate views of national landmarks, personal meetings with local celebrities, and a walk past a military guard; all of these usually accompanied by numerous cameras. But once they are turned off, the guests are briskly whisked away – but where to?

In Japan, one of the places such illustrious guests are taken to is the Kyoto State Guest House. Situated in the park of the Imperial palace, the house – or rather, the complex consisting of several buildings on two floors – consists of some 8.000 square metres of floor space on each level, located in a separate, walled-in park of more than 20.000 square metres. Usually, the guest house is off-limits to the public, but a few times a year, special openings are held where the official part of the building can be admired.

Having passed through the main entrance and the Juraku-no-ma lobby, one enters the conference room called Yubae-no-ma. The room itself is in a rather sober Western style, but each of its short sides is decorated with a tapestry 2.3 x 8.6 metres high, depicting the moon over Mount Hiei on the east wall, and the sunset behind Mount Atago on the west wall, mirroring Kyoto’s true layout.

Beyond this is the Fuji-no-ma Banquet Hall, the largest room in the guest house, which can seat up to 120 guests. Again, a huge tapestry of 3.1 x 16.6 metres adorns the main wall and behind a number of sliding doors hides a stage, where music or dances are performed as dinner entertainment. A table setting like the one above is used at such dinners, coordinated to the latest detail. The embroidery on the napkin shows the Japanese state seal by the way, a stylised image of a Paulownia, going back to at least the 17th century.

From here a dark and comparatively narrow hallway reminiscent of old Gion leads to the Kiri-no-ma, a small, almost intimate Banquet room in Japanese style. This room with its tatami and low chairs seats only 24 people, but it does so extremely stylishly on a 12 metre long, black-lacquered table made from a single piece of wood. The low chairs again bear the Paulownia seal on their backs.

The rooms beyond that – in particular the private guest rooms – remain closed, so from this final room that is open to the public, visitors are led back to the entrance. On this last path one has the opportunity to admire the large garden with the obligatory pond that lies at the centre of the whole complex. The design concept behind it is complete harmonisation of the garden and house, and it has been accomplished very well indeed.

Interestingly, the house, built only in 2005, is made of reinforced concrete, but the traditional Japanese interior design with its paper sliding doors, wood panels and floor lamps easily conceals this. Still, when you think of it, this is nothing more than a hotel, so the feeling conveyed is cool understatement, and the furniture and other decor are functional and sparse. At the same time, the devil expecting to impress hides in the details, only for the initiated to find and appreciate: The furniture is handmade using traditional craftsmanship, the decorations on sliding doors and furniture are pure gold, the strategically placed artwork only comes from the most renowned Japanese artists, and the lacquered table you see in the picture above must have taken years to make and is doubtlessly worth a fortune.

I have only posted very few pictures of my own this time, but in fact, you can take a video tour of Kyoto State Guest House yourself; it even includes one additional room we were not allowed in. Have a look here – enjoy!

Sugar

Most people who get to know me find out pretty quickly that I am very fond of sweets. (And many people who don’t know me deduce that from my weight…) And I find it an extremely nice move when people give me sweets as presents, first because I like to try out new ones, and second because they won’t clutter up my home (for long).

Today I received this little gift from one of my English students. These are nothing but normal lumps of sugar, with a little handmade sugar flower on top. All the flowers are different, and the really cute thing about them is that when you put them into your tea, the sugar cube dissolves more quickly than the flower, which will then rise to the surface and swim on the tea for a while. It almost gives the impression of a lonely lotus on a lake…

I have seen this type of food art before but only as something to be done for tea ceremonies. In general, the Japanese are quite obsessed with food and will often go through great lengths to prepare it; sometimes so much so that you’d really rather not eat the final result. This must be the reason why so many Japanese first take a snapshot of their food before delving into it.

The Woodsman and the Rain

Kishi Katsuhiko is a 60 year old woodcutter in a quiet rural village. One day his work is interrupted by a member of a filmcrew, asking him to be quiet while they are shooting. Some days later they meet again, and Kishi helps them find a suitable location for the next scene, in which he ends up playing a minor role. Koichi Tanabe, the insecure young man Kishi finds so annoying at first, turns out to be the director, and slowly a friendship between the two starts, beneficial for the both of them – and the movie. With Kishi’s knowledge of the best places for shooting and his connections to the other villagers, Koichi’s first movie becomes successful beyond his wildest dreams. In the end, Koichi has become more secure in his demands as a director, and Kishi has more respect for the plights of his own son.

The Woodsman and the Rain (Kitsutsuki to Ame), 2011, 129 minutes
Director: Shuichi Okita
Cast: Koji Yakusho (Kishi Katsuhiko), Shun Ogura (Koichi Tanabe)
Winner of the 2011 Tokyo International Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize

I went to see the film with very little expectations, but I ended up greatly enjoying it. I think it depicts the dynamics of a friendship between old and young quite well, and how important outside input can be when it comes to our own family relationships. But this is not a big drama – some of the scenes are outright funny, and the awkward and shy Koichi and the down to earth Katsuhiko who acts like a supportive father figure make a good team. It’s not high art – especially given that the movie in the movie is about zombies – but nevertheless time pleasantly spent.

There is an English version of this film available at amazon.