experiences – Page 53 – goinggaijin.com

6th Kyu!

I’ve passed my first soroban exam!

I am from now on the proud bearer (owner?) of a 6th student’s (or 6th kyu) degree of soroban. I received my results yesterday, I scored multiplication/division/addition 130/140/150 points from a maximally possible 150 points each, and I needed 100 points per section to pass the exam. Together with the results I also received a little orange sticker bearing the 6th kyu, which many kids put on the side of their soroban.

And now? Well, more of the same. I already bought a book with exercises for the 5th kyu level (the student or kyu levels are counted down, the highest one is thus 1st kyu; the next higher level would be first dan. Yes, it’s the same grading system as in many martial arts). The only difference now is the size of the numbers: Up to 4 digits for addition/subtraction and multiplication, up to 5 for division. According to my sensei, the 5th kyu level addition and subtraction is the one where the kids have most problems with – the allowed time stays the same, but if they calculate too fast, they make too many mistakes, and if they slow down, they do not make the cutoff of 10 correct answers… We will see how I will do. I think my sensei will only allow me to take the test if he’s sure I will pass it.

I know this may sound strange to people less nerdy than I am, but I really enjoy doing this!

Weekend!

The last three days were very busy, I was on my feet – literally – for more than eight hours each day… When I came home last night I was so tired, I went to bed at around ten, hence the delay in my report, but here it is, finally:

Wednesday night was the last evening of the yoiyama for the Saki matsuri parade. Just like last year, from 6 pm the streets of the inner city where the floats had been built were closed for traffic, and were turned into a huge pedestrian area. It was very crowded; when I looked from Yasaka shrine over Shijo street, it was filled with people, the heads of the Japanese turning the space into a black mass. It had been a very hot day and it was a lovely night, but because it was so crowded, the feeling was more hectic and much less relaxed than last year.

I had fun though, trying out new street food: pancakes made from takoyaki batter, rolled up and then topped with all sorts of condiments. I had one with mayo, parsley, dried fish flakes, and ketchup, thus each bite tasted differently. Altogether, there were at least four different types. For safety reasons I did not try the one with the fried egg on top: although seemingly delicious, the yolk still looked rather runny… Also, I have to admit that I succumbed to shopping and bought a tengui, a traditional, thin Japanese towel, that was sold at the stand of the boat-float, which always comes last in the parade. I bought this one because I really liked the phoenix on it, what do you think:

The biggest novelty – and one that my inner treehugger is especially happy about – were the ECO-stations placed at exits and large crossings of the pedestrian area. When I bought the pancake, I received it in a little dish made from very sturdy plastic and I already thought it was a shame to throw it away after single use. Only then did I discover the ECO-stations, where one could return these dishes to have them washed and reused directly. What a wonderful idea! I hope they’ll keep it up and they can be seen at many matsuri to come!

Thursday started very early and ended very late… A friend of mine came up from Kobe and because we wanted a decent spot on a corner to watch the parade, we met at 8 am – and were still about 30 minutes late for the perfect spot, which was reached by the parade only at 9:30… My friend was amazed by the big fuss that was made to turn the naginata hoko around the corner. However, she was not quite as patient as I had been the year before, and so we gave up our front row spot after about an hour of watching, and we walked along Shijo dori towards the other floats of the parade. I showed her my favourite one (topped with the praying mantis), and she was especially excited about the boat-shaped Ofune hoko, traditionally ending the parade, because it looks so different from all the others.

We then had sushi for lunch, and when we left the restaurant at 12:30, we could still see the last floats leaving Kawaramachi street. We then went through Gion to my favourite temple where we relaxed a little before she went to the station where she had booked a tea-ceremony, and I headed back home.

After a nap that felt hardly longer than 10 minutes, I was up and about again to go to my soroban class – it was the big exam day, remember! We conducted it almost like we do a normal class; first a short mental calculation warmup, then the test. It went well, no big surprises, although I was a bit nervous. I could leave right after the test was over as I was so tired, it must have shown. I think at that time my sensei already knew whether I had passed or not, but he said I would get the result only next Tuesday. You are thus still allowed to keep your fingers crossed!

Yesterday, on Friday, I went to a friend’s place at 10:30. She had an invitation for the opening of the summer exhibition at MIHO Museum and had invited me to come along. Miho museum is about a 90 minutes drive from Kyoto, situated in the middle of mountains. it is a privately owned museum, founded by and named after what was at that time the richest woman of Japan. The special exhibition centres around two large tapestries (probably two metres by one), depicting a Kwannon – the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy – and a sitting, pensive Buddha. The tapestries were hand-woven for the museum after two old images, and you can see the original paintings as well as statues and other related objects of art.

The permanent exhibition is exquisite, albeit small. They have a beautiful little statue of Horus, made from silver, gold, and lapis lazuli, that apparently was once the main deity of an Egyptian temple. There was also a standing Buddha statue, some 2.5 metres high I guess, upper body leaning forward just a little bit. It gave me the impression of a father stooping down a little to his children. I really enjoyed the trip although it took much longer than I had expected. The museum is certainly worth a visit, even though it is a bit far from Kyoto.

Now, those were my last three days. Today I had planned a rest day; from Monday on there will be the second yoiyama before the Ato matsuri parade. It should be much more quiet though, but I hope the friend with whom I will watch it will like it too.

Matsuri!

I have just returned from the last evening of yoiyama where I – and approximately 10.000 other people – went to the city to have a look at all the floats that will be presented in the big Saki matsuri parade tomorrow. I went around through the city for about 6 hours and I am very tired right now…

Tomorrow, I will meet a friend to go and see the parade, and I’ll have to get up quite early for this one, hence, I will not write much more tonight.

You will get a big summary of this year’s Saki matsuri and preceding yoiyama on Friday. Good night!

Typhoon?

I have seen that in several European media there has been coverage about the typhoon that was passing over Japan during the last few days. There were indeed serious disasters along the path of the typhoon, especially in the south-eastern parts of Japan, in Okinawa and in Kyushu, with even seven victims.

However, it seems that Kyoto lies in a favoured part of the country; at least this time we could not feel any effects of the typhoon at all. The storm – or rather, its offshoots – was supposed to hit Kyoto yesterday, today at the latest, but – nothing. Not even rain, just a bit more wind than usual at this time of the year. The only thing noticeable – and I’m not even sure it was related to the typhoon at all – was a clearing of the clouds from Tuesday on, and this brought sunshine and increased humidity. A friend told me that yesterday evening – at a time when I was busy with my soroban class, so I missed it – there was an evening sky so blue it was almost unreal.

By now, however, we are back to grey skies… So, don’t worry about me, everything is back to normal, actually, it has hardly deviated from normal at all.

Writing

I am very busy these days with lots of writing assignments, some of them self-imposed, some of them from the outside…

For one, I have to write a journal detailing my soroban classes. While not every class needs a long writeup, I like to write at least a short summary quicly, so I can later point to it and say: Well, that’s what I’ve done!

Second, I have been busy for a couple of months now working on a larger translation project, self-imposed, sure, but I don’t want to take forever with it. Also, I have now found some people to help me with corrections, and I cannot keep them waiting forever. I will write a more detailed post about this when the work is further along.

Third, a friend of mine urged me to do some creative writing of my own, saying that it may be a good thing for me to do right now and that there may never be a better time to do that. Hence, I took her advice and try to get some things off my chest, and I am considering to write an alphabiography for that purpose.

Finally, I am still committed to this blog, although as you see, by the end of the day I am rather tired of writing, and, as I am not getting out much, there are not that many news to report at the moment. Please bear with me for a while.

However, maybe it won’t take that long, as next week will be the main parade of Gion matsuri, and also yoiyama the night before, and in the evening of the day of the parade I will have my soroban test and the day after I will go with a friend to the opening of a new exhibition at Miho museum…

It really seems being busy comes in waves, and I’m surfing up one right now…

Steam

I had a great day last Saturday. Friends of mine from Kobe came over and together we went to the Umekoji Steam Locomotive Museum close to Kyoto station.

It’s absolutely brilliant – I love steam locomotives! The museum was opened in 1972 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the opening of Japanese railways – the first railway connection ran between Tokyo and Yokohama in 1872. It consists of the old Nijo station building, a beautiful wooden construction that has been moved to this place from its original spot, a fan-shaped locomotive house with a turntable at the centre point that houses almost all of the engines, and a large outdoor space containing a few more exhibits and a short rail track. The museum houses about 20 old steam locomotives, and about half of them are still operational. One of those is used to pull a small train along the one kilometre long rail track mentioned above three times a day, probably one of the major attractions of the museum.

The non-working locomotives can be entered, they are in a rather good shape, and I took many pictures of their in- and outside. I grew up in a town with a large railway station, my grandfather worked in the shunting area there, and although I am too young to have lived in the steam age, my grandfather took me on railtrips all through Austria, and I always loved – and probably always will love – trains. Often, we like to think our own era as the pinnacle of technology, but I am always amazed at the sheer ingenuity that went into machines such a long time ago already. The engines are huge, and there are some spare parts that can be viewed – a single piston is as large as a leg of mine…

Of course, there is always something I take out of a museum. In this case it is the following: Operating a steam engine for a single kilometre requires 100 litres of water and 40 kilograms of coal, copious reserves of both of which are stored in the tender behind the locomotive. Older models get the coal into the furnace by an auger, a spiral conveyor (this is still used in larger ovens for wood chips), but in the early years, this had to be done by hand. This shoveling is obviously a very precise operation – there were specific shovel training devices for goal training… A pity we could not try that one out…

Anyway, we all had a great day in the museum which we concluded with Korean food before my friends went back to Kobe. I also received two large stacks of books as present – and reading them has essentially been everything that I did for the rest of the weekend…

Differences

This is only my second July in Kyoto – and already lots of things have changed since my first time…

The weather is not so nice as last year. It is less sunny, so far we had overcast weather practically daily for a couple of weeks already, and it does also rain much more than last year at this time, although still not enough to call it a proper rainy season. I think the relative lack of rain is the reason why I am not yet seriously depressed right now, I really don’t like it that grey day in day out… At least the temperatures are up where they should be, in their low thirties during the day and in their twenties during the night – which means you can still sleep. That’s certainly a bonus; also it does not feel quite as humid this year. I hope the weather will stay like this – if only with respect to the humidity…

The other big change since last year is regarding to Gion Matsuri. I have written extensively about it last year, it is probably the largest and certainly the most famous of the festivals in Japan. This year the proceedings have been renewed, or rather, re-traditionalised, as now there will be two parades of floats instead of only a single one. From this year on, we will have the so-called Saki Matsuri with the first and bigger (23 floats) Yama Hoko Grand Parade on July 17th, and the preceding yoi-yama party evening on the 16th. And then, there will be the Ato Matsuri with the second and smaller (10 floats) Yama Hoko Grand Parade on July 24th, combined with the Hanagasa Flower Hat Procession (which also took place last year on the same day). The other events surrounding the two parades will take place as the year before.

Apparently, this way of having two parades – one before (saki) and one after (ato) the Gion shrine deities have been moved to their temporary resting place in the Otabisho – was the original form of Gion Matsuri that has been practised until 1965, when it was abandoned because of increased road traffic and the disturbances it would cause to have two parades that effectively close off the inner city. Obviously, it is unlikely that car traffic has severely decreased in the last 48 years, but these days, there are other priorities, and this one is called: tourism. People who made the decision to return to the traditional two-parade Gion matsuri are hoping that there will be more people coming, or that at least they will be a bit more spread out this time.

Personally, I don’t mind either way, and I will probably go and see both parades anyway. I just hope that the yoi-yama evening on July 16th, when the inner city is closed and turned into a pedestrian zone, will have an atmosphere just as festive and relaxed as last year. Let’s hope it will not rain!

Literary

One of the main reasons for applying for a library card was that I wanted to read Japanese books. I am a very visual person, my preferred approach to learning is by making lists, writing down all the grammar points from the books again, and reading – lots of reading. For me, this is also a way to make learning vocabulary more fun; although I have to admit that by now I don’t look up every single word I come across – as long as I get the gist of the text, and the unknown word does not keep reappearing (in which case I assume that it is important and I look it up after all).

So, I went to the library and borrowed a children’s book in Japanese. The pros are obvious: Easy language and words comprising short sentences, all written in hiragana – and even with spaces between the words! And there are often many cute illustrations to help understanding. If you go that way though, the cons are obvious too: Children’s stories are not meant to teach vocabulary – the kids know what the words mean; so the beginning student of Japanese may find herself with a huge list of vocabulary that may not be immediately useful beyond the book – vocabulary for animals or household things,… For example, how often do you use the word “vase” in your daily life? Hence, a lot of the reading consists of looking up words, which can prove rather tedious. Also, the hiragana sometimes causes more problems than it should. When looking up words, it can happen that you get a very long list of possible translations – and not all can be dismissed immediately. Sometimes it would be much easier just to have the kanji there, to make it easier to find the right meaning – and, of course, to study them as well while reading.

Oh well, I remember I started reading English just like this, albeit with the benefit of a shared alphabet. I hope I will graduate to books for older children soon – which should have some kanji with furigana. And probably more interesting stories too…

Women Power

When I went downstairs about two hours ago, I met on the bottom of the stairs one of our charming house pets – a large spider – obviously on the way upstairs… After a disgusted and somewhat panicked shriek of mine, it changed direction and tried to hide, but I did not move until my housemate (the one who actually likes spiders) came down the stairs behind me and asked what was going on. While I explained, another housemate (who does not like spiders that much) came along too and the three of us, with the guys in front of course, chased the spider into a corner in the corridor leading to the back of the house. We then discussed the further plan of action and we were divided between leaving it be, killing it, and putting it outside (that was my suggestion, actually). Finally, the last two people in the house appeared also, probably alerted by all the noise I was making, the walls here are indeed very thin.

After some more words, all three men disappeared on oh so urgent business; and it was me and our latest arrival, a British woman, who were left in charge. I was stunned when she simply said Let’s just put it outside, went to the kitchen to get a Tupperware box, caught the spider (about half the size of the one pictured) and released it at the bottom of the steps outside the house – all within five minutes. To my question whether she was not afraid, she simply answered I grew up in the Caribbean, we have tarantulas there…

So, once again, it was shown that if you want something done, ask a woman (if you can find one that does not have arachnophobia, that is). The big spider pictured above still lives in the house by the way, but it has been smart enough not to show itself recently. If it ever does so again, I’ll know whom to scream for…

Libraries

About two weeks ago, I decided to get a library card for Kyoto city library. There are many branches around town, and I thought it would be a good idea to be able to lend books, as I love to read, and buying them can get very expensive soon (given the amount of books I tend to read…) So far, I was thinking of English books, of course, and maybe something easy in Japanese for children, with many pictures; but eventually I thought, I would graduate to novels for teens and adults. The Japanese love to read, there are bookstores all over the place, and even in trains there are equally many people staring into a book as staring onto a smartphone…

I have been to Japanese libraries before, in Nagoya and Hiroshima, so my expectations were quite high. Well, it turns out that the quality of Kyoto libraries is rather…underwhelming. It seems – I have seen four so far, so I may be wrong – that not a single one of the libraries has their own building, they are all stashed somewhere in some remote floor of a place that is mainly used for something else. The first library I went to was on top of a daycare facility, so they had mostly children’s (picture) books, which is okay, as I cannot read much more just yet. Another one was similar, and when I asked for English books in a third library, they showed me a tiny shelf with maybe 50 books in English, and barely a third was for adults.

They did send me to the “Chuo Daigo Library”, and told me it was the biggest one in Kyoto, and had the largest selection of English books, so I spent the afternoon there. Daigo is a part of town that I have never been to before, it did not make a very good impression on me to be honest, it looks like all the other busy Japanese towns; there are apartment buildings and a noisy, busy main road. The library is situated on the fourth floor of Daigo subway station, and indeed, it was the largest one I have been to so far. Their English section – still tiny – comprises two large shelves, bottom to top, and they have many English translations of Japanese authors – something I have hoped for. Unfortunately, they have a borrowing period of only two weeks (renewal is possible, but they ask for a single one only), so I only took a single book with me. I did make a list of a number of other books I’d like to read, and it should be possible to lend them at a branch that is closer to my place than Daigo – it took me about an hour to get there by subway.

All in all, I am not happy with Kyoto libraries as they are now. My soroban teacher confirmed that Kyoto’s libraries were not very good, compared to other libraries in Japan, even those in smaller towns around Kyoto. He says it may have to do with the fact that there are so many universities in Kyoto that have their own libraries, which are open to the public (although you cannot borrow books from them unless you are a student or working at that university). I hope that, once I figured out the lending system, I can lend books from libraries outside of Kyoto. It must be possible to get my fix here without spending tons of money, right?