All Things Japanese – Page 33

Appearances

Check this out: Do you know what that is?

No, I am not trying to bring nature into my apartment by covering its beautiful tatami with stones. And I’m not into stone appreciation either…

This is in fact stone chocolate from a nearby shop. I found its appearance so interesting that I just had to try it… The mouth feel is somewhat rough indeed, but once you get through the sugar coating on the outside, the chocolate is rather nice. The stones taste like m&m’s, but they are a bit harder to bite, probably because of the irregular shape. I’ll see if that store has this type of chocolate more often, I think it makes an interesting gift…

Fushimi Inari Taisha

Fushimi Inari Taisha is the largest shinto shrine in Japan dedicated to Inari Okami, one of the principal kami or gods of Shinto. Inari is the Japanese god of rice and agriculture as well as industry, and people visit one of the countless Inari shrines to pray for general prosperity and success in business. This is the reason why Inari is vastly popular all over Japan, there are said to be more than 30.000 Inari shrines, that’s more than 1/3 of all the shrines of Japan. The main shrine at Kyoto attracts some 3 million visitors – during the three days of New Year only!Fushimi Inari Taisha, situated in the south of Kyoto city is the oldest of all Inari shrines. It was allegedly founded in the 8th century – some 100 years before Kyoto became the capital of Japan – by a local family named Hata. Worship of Inari, a local god of agriculture going back to the 5th century, spread quickly however, and around 950 this shrine was chosen to be one of only 22 to receive imperial patronage. In the 15th century, during the Onin wars, the entire shrine complex burnt down, and it took 30 years to rebuild it.

Today, Fushimi Inari Taisha’s main complex is at the foot of Inari hill. There is a beautiful two storey entrance gate, donated to the shrine by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1589. Behind it there is the main hall of the shrine, where five different kami – different representations of Inari – are enshrined and can be worshipped.

The most interesting and probably best known part of the shrine however, is the hill behind the main structures. Several paths lead up the hill to three more, somewhat smaller shrines where people can worship. The most important one is of course the one on the very top, but the 2 hour hike up there can be strenuous in hot weather, and not all of the worshippers make it, even though there are small restaurants on the way. Additionally, on the higher parts of the hill there are graveyards, which is interesting insofar as Shinto does not usually deal with death – this is the realm of the Buddhists. In olden times however, the distinction between Shinto and Buddhism was blurry, and this is just one of many occasions where it can still be seen today.

As mentioned above, Inari shrines can be found everywhere and their distinctive feature are their vermillion torii. Whereas other shrines may have only a few, Inari shrines have numerous torii that are often placed behind each other to form a dense archway on the road to the main place of worship. Most of these torii have been presented to the shrine as gift, and at their back, the name of the sponsor (either a personal name or a company) as well as the date of the donation is inscribed in black, which gives a striking image when returning from prayer. Fushimi Inari Taisha, as the main shrine, has some 5000 torii that line the paths up the mountain, all donated by various businesses from all over Japan. Depending on the level on which they are placed and on their size, a torii can be bought for as little as 100.000 YEN, and go up to 4 million YEN or more. Another characteristic that is unique to Inari shrines is the fox. Lots of statues of foxes can be found there, in various sizes and finish, from tiny ceramic foxes to huge stone ones. They can also be bought as lucky charms. The image below shows a fox statue with a key in its mouth – the key is supposed to be one to a granary. Although in ancient Japan foxes did the job of hunting mice – hence the granary reference – they still have a somewhat ambiguous image. Since they can transform into a human being, foxes are seen as mischievous and sometimes dangerous. They are also believed to be Inari’s messenger, and if you treat a fox well, you will be rewarded by the god. But beware if you are cruel to a fox, punishment will be swift!

Hina Matsuri

March 3rd marks the day of hina matsuri, the doll festival. Since this time is more or less the beginning of spring, it is also called momo-no-sekku or peach festival, or, since this day is meant to celebrate the girls of a family, it is simply called girl’s day or festival. In the weeks leading up to March 3rd, elaborate displays of dolls are prepared, but since many families have inherited those dolls, the girls are not meant to play with them anymore.

The above is a typical traditional hinadan with five layers containing dolls and other accessories. They are made to resemble court nobles and retainers of the Heian era, when Kyoto first became the capital of Japan, some 1000 years ago. On top you see the two main dolls, the dairi-bina. One step below there are three ladies in waiting, usually holding cups and accessories for drinking sake. The center of the display above shows five court musicians with drums and flutes. Below them are the minister of the left – the one with the beard, since this is the higher rank and thus the person must be older – and the minister of the right. (Here, those dolls should be switched since the “left” refers to the viewpoint of the dairi-bina). Finally, at the lowest layer, there are three footmen or samurai, the lowest retainers of the court, and these are called the whiny, the angry and the merry drinker, interestingly.

Between the ladies in waiting, you can see two plates with colorful cakes; these are mochi and meant as an offering to the gods. Of course, the hina matsuri has its roots in religion, in this case in the ancient belief that the illnesses, bad luck, and general impurities of their owners would be transferred to the dolls when touching them. Very simple dolls made from straw were displayed throughout the year on the household altar in the kitchen, and on March 3rd, they would be thrown into a river or directly into the ocean in order to take away all the negativity of the past year. This practice still survives in the rituals of some shrines, where you write your wishes on a piece of paper shaped like a doll, and then throw it into the shrine’s stream.

Nowadays, the dolls are not thrown away any longer but carefully packed away during the year, a bit like Western Christmas decorations. This practice goes back to the first shoguns of the Edo period, when the dolls were given as presents to daughters of the nobility. Once the merchant class became rich as well in the late Edo period and Meiji era, the dolls became more and more elaborate and expensive and hina matsuri spread throughout Japan. Today, new sets of dolls in traditional styles can be very expensive, I have seen some dairi-bina costing a million yen and more.

The reason for this is that all dolls are very elaborately dressed in fine silk garments, but the biggest amount of work goes into the dairi-bina. They are the centre piece of the display and the most important, or in some cases, the only part. On the right side sits the male obina, and on the left side there is the female mebina. They are dressed in Heian-style clothes, which means that the mebina wears a junihitoe, twelve layers of kimono, an elaborate Chinese crown, and a tiny folding fan, whereas the obina wears a traditional headdress, a sceptre, and a large ceremonial sword. The couple above sits in front of a screen made with real gold leaf, just like the emperor and empress would, but the Japanese usually do not refer to the dairi-bina as such. They prefer calling them taishi-sama – imperial prince – and hime-sama – lady; when you remember that the emperor was a god until the last century it should be clear why.

The dolls are accompanied with all sorts of accessories in miniature. While the dolls are usually bought together in a set, or at least per layer, the other accessories can be bought at any time. This explains the difference in size that is often seen in the diplays. The above picture shows parts of a girl’s dowry: A mirror stand, a cabinet with utensils for tea ceremony, a sewing box, and a tansu – a chest of drawers for kimono – at the back. These are the standard items a girl would get from her parents upon her wedding, and with these things she would enter the house of her husband. Below you can see some more household necessities: a palanquin and an oxcart, but especially the latter was for the use of nobility only.

Also other practical things can be included in the display, for example lots of dishes, trays, sets of bowls etc. You can see the go-boards above, and below is a tiny hibachi, an oldfashioned heater where charcoal would be burned, not more than 5 cm in diameter. What is interesting about these items is that for the most expensive displays they were made from the same materials and were just as meticulously produced and as elaborately decorated as the real sized originals.

All in all the displays are beautiful, and even as an adult I need quite some time to take it all in. I can only imagine what a small girl would have to say to these dolls. Well, as I said, probably the same as one of our girls in front of a Christmas tree…

Tunafish

In general, I don’t like going out in the weekends, even though here in Japan most shops, museums, and cafes are open. There are simply too many people around for my taste, and even those places that seem totally off the beaten tracks and are quiet during the week are crowded. Well, if you have ever been to an average Japanese home, you can imagine why people are fleeing them…

Anyway, I ran out of food on Sunday and decided to go shopping to the nearby supermarket. I happened to pass by the fish counter, and there was a tunafish on display, a whole Bluefin Tuna from an aquaculture, about 1 m long and weighing some 50 kg. And when I was told that they would start cutting it up and selling it in just a few minutes, I knew I had to stay and watch this.

At 11 am sharp the whole thing started; the fish was brought back behind the counter, and a young girl who seemed to weigh not much more than the fish started carving it up, under the noisy encouragements of her colleagues. First the head was removed, and then two relatively thin slices right behind the head were cut off the fish. A friend of mine called these parts kama, kind of the shoulders of the fish, and she said that these were the best parts of the animal, even though there is not much meat to them. It seemed to me that those three parts were sold whole and on the spot, but I am not sure.

Afterwards, a deep cut was made along the spine of the fish, and the skin was removed from the back in large stripes. The belly was removed next. It yields the fatty parts of chutoro and otoro, the latter being the most oily part of the fish from right under the skin and light pink in appearance. The last part to be cut from the fish was its back, called akami, there the meat is dark red and relatively dry; it is usually sold as maguro.

Both back and belly were further cut down by an assistant and then those pieces were packaged and offered to the onlookers. I bought a small piece of very expensive otoro. This little piece of 77 grams cost me almost 1000 YEN. I ate it as sashimi and yes, it was absolutely worth it!

It surprised me how much time it took to cut up the whole fish – about 45 minutes in total. The girl obviously did not do this the first time, and the knives were obviously big and sharp – and still you could see how hard she was working throughout. Every time she had finished cutting off one piece, she held it over her head like a trophy and thus presented it to the audience, and we were all clapping and cheering, which I found funny somehow. Altogether this was an interesting experience, and I wonder how this would be in the large fish market in Tokyo, at 4 am in the morning…

Never Let Me Go

Never Let me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro

Kathy is 31 years old, and for the third time her life is about to change drastically: By the end of the year she will not be a carer anymore. So, this is the perfect time to revisit and reminiscence on her life.
The first part of it she spent in the English country side, in the boarding school Hailsham, where she lived from her earliest childhood. There she is one corner of a triangle of friendship comprising also Ruth and Tommy. While Kathy is the most reserved one, Ruth is outspoken and bold and Tommy struggles violently with his lack of creativity.
When school ends the three of them are sent to the “cottages”, an old farm a group of former students from different schools have to maintain. It is kind of intermediate station on the way to adulthood, which Kathy must leave first, leaving Ruth and Tommy, now a couple, behind.
Only years later, when Tommy and Ruth have both become donors, the three see each other again and together they try to at least delay the inevitable…

I struggled whether I should post this book as Japanese literature, since Kazuo Ishiguro, although born in Nagasaki in 1958, moved to England when he was five and is now a British citizen. Also, the book itself does not have anything to do with Japan: It is set in the English country side, and we follow typical British kids coming of age in a Western world.

And still, in the way many things about this dystopian world are always present but hardly mentioned, the writing is highly influenced by Japanese culture, where everybody is supposed to know things that remain ever unspoken. At the denouement in the end, when everything falls into place and yet no real explanation is given, you feel like a part of Ishiguro’s world. And even a Japanese friend of mine says that of the modern writers, his style is probably the most Japanese of all of them.

So, judge for yourself and check this book out on amazon

Cat Cafe

I am sure you have heard about the Japanese speciality of cat cafes. They are normal cafes housing a number of cats that are allowed to roam freely and interact with the guests. The idea is to provide people who are not allowed to keep pets, with some sort of outlet and the possibility to feel like a cat owner for a short time.

Well, since I am a wannabe cat owner, and since I am not allowed to keep a cat in this apartment, and since I am thus feeling rather cat deprived, I went to one of Kyoto’s cat cafes this afternoon.

The first thing I noticed when I entered was the warmth – this must have been the most overheated place in Japan – and the rather distinctive smell of kitty litter. There was an extra door at the entrance to prevent the cats escaping through the main entrance. I had to take off my shoes, wash my hands, and indicate how long I was planning to stay before I could get further inside. When seated, I was shown a “how to behave” list: No flash photography allowed, no harassing of the cats (or other guests), and a warning that the cats may scratch and that there may be cat hair in my tea. And then, finally, I was left to roam around freely and to interact with the cats. The place was well adapted to the cats’ needs: fluffy cushions and blankets, boxes of all sizes, high shelves to hide upon, plenty of cat toys, and sufficient litter boxes. The only weird thing was the aquarium with the single goldfish inside. Cat TV, I presume?

The cats were gorgeous. There were three young kittens in a little extra stall with extra charge and 15 adult cats in the main part of the cafe. The animals were of all colours and races – Russian Blue, Scottish Fold, Persian, and an amazing Norwegian Forest cat, among others. Unfortunately, I arrived at nap time, and all the cats were asleep. They were friendly and could be petted still, but I prefered to let them rest. Only when my hour was over, did they come to life again – and I felt a bit cheated, to be honest.

It seemed that the cats were well taken care of. Their coats were shiny and well-groomed in case of the long-haired cats, and although one was allowed to feed them, this was only possible with the food provided by the shop, a wise decision. Behind the counter there were some crates into which the cats would be placed at times to avoid overstimulation by the patrons. As for those, I expected the guests to be a bunch of elderly cat ladies like myself, but there were mostly young couples, which surprised me.

I spent a pleasant hour there, but next time I will go a bit later, after nap time. It is rather expensive – 1 hour there costs 1500 YEN, including one set of drinks and sweets – but if you’re really into cats, this is the place to go:
http://animalcafes.com/v/25475.html

Kenkoku Kinen No Hi

Today is a national holiday, the National Foundation Day. I have written about this last year, so instead of repeating the details, I give you a beautiful image instead, made by Eitaku Kobayashi (1843 – 1890). It shows how the gods Izanami and Izanagi churn the waters of the ocean with a spear to make the very first island of Japan. Those two are among Japanese earliest deities, and their union eventually produced the whole Japanese archipelago as well as most of the other Japanese gods.

Nioi Bukuro

I recently received a Japanese nioi bukuro scent bag as a gift. The name, literally “bag of odors”, says it all: it’s a little bag made from cloth containing a variety of herbs.

Nioi bukuro were introduced to Japan – like so many other things – by Buddhist priests some time in the 8th century. At this time, Buddhist rituals began to spread, and the use of incense and other fragrances became popular in the nobility. Soon enough, cloth bags were filled with mixtures of incense and herbs that would emit a pleasant fragrance even at room temperature.

Depending on the herbal mixture, the nioi bukuro were used for different purposes: Small ones were worn around the neck or tucked into a kimono sleeve as sort of personal perfume. Larger ones containing sandalwood and cloves were put into clothing storage to scent the clothing and repel insects. Yet others, called kakeko (literally “hanging aroma”) were hung on walls in rooms, also with the intention of eliminating mosquitos and, according to an old belief, to protect that room from ill fortune.

Nioi bukuro are very easy to make. All you need is a small bag, preferably of silk, and the right number and type of herbs. A typical mix is the following:

sandalwood (3-4 tablespoons)
cloves (1 tablespoon)
star anise (1 tablespoon)
cinnamon (1 tablespoon)
camphor (1/2 – 1 tablespoon)
spikenard (a type of valerian from the Himalayas, 1/3 tablespoon)
galangal (a ginger-like plant, 1/3 tablespoon)
mint (Japanese perilla, 1/3 tablespoon)

Mix the herbs together and fill the bag with the mixture. Tie the bag with a string, and your nioi bukuro is ready for use. The smell will last for about a year.

Most nioi bukuro are simple bags, but they also come shaped like little kimono. To the right is the one I got as a present. It is special, since it consists of cloth-covered sea shells, with the bag of incense inside.

Interestingly, nioi bukuro are still popular today. For example, kabuki actors are wearing the little bags in their kimono, but in a more modern twist, school girls like to put them in their gym bags.

Genji Monogatari

The Tale of Genji
Murasaki Shikibu

He is the son of the emperor’s favourite concubine. As such, he is too far down in the line of succession to every ascend to the throne, so his father removes him completely by making him a commoner and bestowing the name “Genji” onto him. Genji is nevertheless raised in the palace and is almost unanimously loved at court. Growing up, he shows many talents in writing poetry, calligraphy, music, and in charming women of all ranks. His numerous conquests get him banned from court twice. Twice does he have to settle in a remote area, twice even there women fall for his charms, and twice is he reinstated at court after a while. Genji is a lovable character, and although a womanizer, he always takes care of his lovers in one way or the other, even after the end of their relationship. Only the lady Murasaki (meaning purple) can capture his affections throughout her life, and Genji is heartbroken at her death and dies soon afterwards.

Genji Monogatari can be called a biography of a Japanese courtier of the 10th century. Although fictional, it depicts court life in great detail: its intricate politeness (never use personal names), its unbelievable etiquette (unrelated men and women are always separated by screens), and its numerous festivals and ceremonies. The Tale of Genji is considered the earliest and finest example of Japanese literature.

The book was written by a lady-in-waiting of the Heian court in Kyoto. Not much is certain about her, not even her real name, so she is named after the main female character in the book, Murasaki Shikibu.

I found Genji Monogatari a worthwhile book, but rather difficult to read, it took me about three months. There is not much going on, it is a biography after all, but the immense number of characters, most of which are never referred to by name, but rather by their ever changing ranks at court, makes the story difficult to follow at times. I have read the unabridged translation by Royall Tyler from 2001 containing lots of footnotes that help understanding the implicit intricacies of the time, but sometimes you still have to remind yourself that the conversation recorded could not have taken place like this, but was conducted either in written letters or with servants as go-betweens.

Check this book out on amazon.

Nabe

On Christmas Day, which I spent in Nagoya, my friend’s mother prepared nabe, a typical Japanese winter dish. It is a hot pot, where you start out with water and kelp or maybe a thin soup, boil it on the table and add various other ingredients. Similar to cheese fondue, the finished meal is eaten directly from the pot.

Obviously, there are many different types of nabe, but I have chosen a fish-vegetable nabe that I prepared with another friend a while ago for you to try out.

Recipe for Nabe à la Junko san
(for 2 people)

– 750 ml water – 1 piece of kelp
Put the water into the pot, add the kelp and start heating the water.

– 1/2 Chinese cabbage
– 2 spring onions
– 1 carrot
– 1 medium-sized Japanese white radish
Cut the above in small pieces and add to the pot. Let them boil slowly – at about 160 degrees – for a while.

– 1 pack of konyaku noodles
Add to the pot when the vegetables are about half done.

– 2 medium-sized pieces of codfish (any white fish is good, since it has no strong taste and does not smell)
– 4 large shrimp
– 1 pack of tofu
Cut the fish and tofu in smaller pieces, add to the pot when the vegetables are almost done.

When the shrimp have turned red and the fish is cooked, you can start eating. Nabe is usually served with rice, and the vegetables and fish are dipped in ponzu (soy sauce mixed with vinegar or lemon juice) before eating, partly as seasoning and partly to cool them off. The noodles are eaten last, together with the soup resulting from the cooking.