goinggaijin.com – Page 120 – A European's move towards Japan

Routine

I have been here now for almost two months. I have made new friends and had new experiences, and I still love the country and the people. I guess I’m really here to stay.

By now, however, my feeling of endless holidays has subsided a little, and I believe I need to get moving and start getting serious about this. First of all: I need new routines, which means I need to work on my Japanese. Seriously. Already last month I started to study Kanji every day, and I so far I am satisfied with the results. However, I’ll need to do more than to start reading, so my plan for now is to study new things (Kanji and grammar) in the morning and do revisions in the evenings, both for at least one hour, more is even better. I still want to go out and explore the city – especially as this month is the famous Gion matsuri (you’ll hear about that one, promised) – but I’m planning to do that in the afternoon if possible. This is a good time to go out, because if the weather is nice, my room is too hot to do anything in there, even sleeping. So, this seems like a good plan.

Also, I’ll need to start looking for a job more seriously. The first question that poses itself however, is: Which type of job? Something full-time, related to what I’ve been doing so far or teaching English? There are pro’s and con’s to both. A “normal” job in a company, possibly a Japanese one, is probably hard to find because it may require more knowledge of Japanese than I have at the moment. Also, many jobs in my field are located in Tokyo, and I’d rather not go there, the city is crazy. No matter where, it will be difficult or even impossible get a part time job, and a full time job here means full time and then some, so I am a bit worried that I may not have the time or energy to keep up studying the language properly. Of course, living and working in a Japanese environment should quickly increase at least my listening comprehension, and it’s also interesting to get some hands-on experience of Japanese work life.
Teaching English is the easy option in the sense that such a job may be comparatively easy to find, also in Kyoto. Depending on the school – remember that I consider only adult education – I may be able to only work as many hours as I need to get by, so I can have another part-time job studying Japanese so to speak, in order to find a more decent job later on. The big con is that I will mostly speak English during work and will be associating with other foreigners who may only be here for a limited amount of time. That’s not really a good way to build a network in a new country, I think.

So, yes, with respect to work I have not yet decided, although I tend towards a “decent” job right now, mostly because I’m not really a patient teacher, as my old students will testify. Anyway, time to get moving in some direction. It’s always possible to change course later.

Summer Purification

Yesterday was June 30th – the last day of the first half of the year. In Japan, this is the day of Nagoshi no Harae – an ancient Shinto purification rite. At the shrines where this ritual is performed, a very large wreath made of miscanthus reed and paper strips is set up at a gate or torii. The idea is that people walk through it and thus purify themselves of the sins of the first half year. Additionally, small paper dolls can be handed out, something is written on them (not sure what, either the name of the person or the defilement they want to get rid of) and then they are thrown into a pond or a river to wash away and with it the sins of the person. Some people pick out strands of the reed from the large wreath, make a smaller one from it and hang it over their entrance door in order to protect the house from misfortune.

Well, nothing better than to have a fresh start every now and then I thought and made my way to Heian shrine where the ceremony started at 4 pm. The wreath was set up at the entrance, and there were many people walking through it, essentially in an “eight” shaped pattern. It’s a pity I couldn’t read the instructions next to the wreath, so only when it was too late I found out I did only half of the pattern. If that took care of half of my sins only, it’s a start 😉

Anyway, there was a spot set apart with curtains for people to take part in the larger ceremony. They were given some small paper dolls to write upon and handed them back to the shrine maidens, together with an envelope containing money. Then they could enter the enclosure and waited patiently. At 4 pm sharp, a group of Shinto priests started from one of the buildings, left the shrine through a side exit and entered it again through the wreath. When they arrived at the fenced off area, the ceremony began with individual bowing – strictly by order of rank, of course – to a small altar, then the main priest began chanting. The other participants were invited to step forward to the altar, and they seemed to be throwing small pieces of paper over their shoulders (or possibly at the altar, I was too far away to know for sure). When all the participants were finished, the chanting stopped. The main priest stepped forward, also threw some paper over his shoulder, then tore up several large, long pieces of white paper in swift movements. After that, he swung a branch with green leaves over his head once for each cardinal direction. And that was the main public ceremony. After that, all the priests went to the main shrine building, followed by the other paying participants. I did not want to follow, so I cannot say what they did there, but it seemed that the further ceremony was private anyway. I do know however, that behind the main shrine building there is a garden with a large pond, so maybe the paper dolls were drowned there?

Once again, I found it an interesting experience, but unfortunately I could not understand exactly what was going on. It would be interesting to participate in such a ceremony, but I will have to wait for my Japanese to drastically improve, because I wouldn’t want to make a fool of myself. I don’t think being a foreigner would be much of an issue in that case, as I mentioned before the Japanese are quite inclusive when it comes to religion. Maybe in a few years…

Noh

As promised last Wednesday, I went to a Noh performance yesterday. It was a special performance by students of the International Noh Institute in Kyoto, and there were many international performers (including women) which makes this a special event indeed, as most Noh actors you see here are Japanese. This has to do with the fact that Noh schools (like many other traditional arts) have been run by the same family for centuries and the children are groomed from a very young age to take over the school.

a traditional noh stage — traditional Noh stage

Anyway, there were a large number of different plays, three full Noh plays, and several smaller excerpts, scheduled from 11 – 17 o’clock. I already knew there was no way I could stay even remotely focused for all of six hours, so I decided beforehand to only go to the first two, the first one with a variety of dances and songs from different plays, the second one the full play Kiyotsune.

Of course, before going I did some research and read about Noh. I know now that the art originated in the 14th century, and that it remains essentially unchanged until today. I found out that any professional actor starts training as a child and must know all the parts – from chorus to lead actor – and must be able to sing them. And that the ensemble for a particular play will only rehearse together a single time before the performance. So, I went there with certain expectations. Not that I could tell you exactly what they were of course, but I certainly did not expect what I got to see. Okay, where do I start?

There were several groups of people on stage: the musicians (up to three different drums and a flute), the singers of the chorus and the actors. The musicians play the music, but not all the time, and sometimes during playing they shout as well, which I found distracting, because the were even louder than the actors at times. The chorus more or less explains the background and tells the story itself, and its members probably have the largest part to memorize. Both groups are dressed in standard, dark Japanese attire.

The actors themselves – most elaborately dressed with bright costumes and, in case of the main actors, wearing masks and wigs – engage in dialogue with each other and dance as required. They may also act out certain parts of the story, fighting for example. And this acting struck me as most peculiar. I expected it to be very formalised and stylised to begin with, but in fact, over long stretches of the play there was hardly any movement. Restrained would be a good word here, even sparse. For example, the wife of the dead warrior was supposed to cry over the death message; this was only indicated by her raising her hand towards her masked face.

It was interesting that actors who did not appear in a certain scene did not leave the stage. Instead, they took a sitting position somewhere (doubtlessly precisely indicated by tradition) and faded into the background, motionless. Otherwise, props that were not needed anymore were immediately removed by a stagehand and put outside. This means that in the end, when everybody has left, the stage is completely clear again. Also, the musicians and the chorus barely moved, except for the taking up and putting down of their instruments and fans, respectively. And all through the performance, the chorus had to kneel on the hard wooden floor – quite a feat in itself, I know how much that can hurt!

Altogether I found it a very interesting experience. I was glad for the summary of scenes and explanations I picked up before the play, as there is no way of understanding it – old Japanese, remember – and the tiny clues indicating feelings or movements otherwise. For the next time I’ll have to do even more research. I don’t think this is an experience I need to repeat anytime soon, but the next time somebody suggests going, I’ll surely say yes!

Finally, to give you an idea of what I’ve been talking about, here is a very brief summary of the play Kiyotsune together with some pictures:

Taira no Kiyotsune is dead. He drowned himself at the imminent destruction of his clan. His retainer, Awazu no Saburo, travels to the capital to inform Kiyotsune’s wife of his death

He hands her a keepsake of her late husband, a lock of his hair.

After he has done so, Kiyotsune’s ghost appears.

His wife is happy to see him, but soon laments his death, and the fact that she is now left alone. They begin to argue.

Kiyotsune recalls the last days of his life and explains why he had to kill himself. Kiyotsune battles again in the afterlife before he can finally enter paradise.

Greenery

It was a very strange day today. The weather was okay, overcast throughout the day but clear, neither wind nor rain. But, in the early afternoon, there were a few times when the town was completely still. I could hear no wind in the trees, no birds or other animals, no human voices. Neither did I hear any cars, even the ambulances that usually come and go to the hospital nearby with their noisy sirens seemed to have taken a break. Later on I realized that there was no sound coming from the sports fields of the schools or the university either. It was an eerie feeling, the proverbial calm before the storm.

Nothing happened so far, and I’m still wondering what could have caused that stillness around. It was no Japanese holiday or end-of-school day or so, and I am not aware of any commemoration to take place today with a certain time of silence (and that wouldn’t happen more than once during the afternoon anyway). The only logical conclusion is that the wind was coming down from the mountain behind the house and countered the noise that is usually coming up the hill. But then again, I didn’t hear any wind either.

Anyway, I wanted to write about the obvious love of the Japanese for greenery. I’m not talking about those beautifully arranged Japanese gardens that look so deceivingly natural without really being it, not this time. I’m talking about those tiny little spots of greenery in front of practically all the houses in my neighborhood, and in fact, throughout Kyoto. Of course, not every place can have a lovely garden like Ebisu’s:

But nevertheless, it seems that no entrance is to small or too cramped with other stuff not to warrant a little bit of green somewhere. The smallest I have seen are a couple of flower pots, sometimes hung up at the wall next to the door.

I haven’t seen any bonsai trees displayed like that though, but I now understand why you would want to have one. They are readily available at markets now, and even quite affordable. Unfortunately I have grey thumbs rather than green ones, so I’d probably kill them off inadvertently sooner or later. Better not to get one, but they are so lovely.

I like the feeling those plants convey. It’s very friendly and homely and not as sterile as some parts of European cities can be sometimes.

Lazy

Today it was raining most of the day, it seems that the rainy season has finally arrived. It came a bit later than usual, so far it has been fairly dry. Let’s hope it’s not getting too wet – I don’t enjoy going out when it rains…

Hence, I spent a very nice and very lazy day at home today. I revised my Japanese grammar and practiced Kanji. In between I was treated to the vocal exercises of the latest addition to the guest house: A young German who is practicing for his Noh-Dance performance the coming weekend. Noh is a traditional, highly stylised Japanese art form which developed in the 14th century and is still practised almost unchanged today. This includes the performances being done in Old Japanese, which many modern Japanese cannot speak anymore, so apparently many of the audience read along with the libretto – without actually looking at the stage. I will go and see some of the performances this weekend – it seems like something one has to do at least once. I shall report after the fact.

Oh, in a short pause of the downpour, I did go out for my groceries. And, this time I was able to locate unsalted butter in my local supermarket – and some (almost French) baguette too! So, to sweeten the terrible weather, I finally ate (too much) of my Nutella on an authentically tasting baguette with unsalted butter – the perfect treat for a lazy day!

Ambiguity

The other day I was chatting with a friend in the Kyoto International Community House, when its manager came by and joined us. My friend is a Muslim, and the manager is interested in Arab culture, so they can always find a topic to talk about. At some point, the conversation shifted to religious differences and the Yugoslavian war, and all of a sudden the manager asked: “Why is there so much division because of something so simple as religion?”

We looked at him, he was completely serious. Don’t get me wrong, this man is very intelligent and highly educated, speaks several languages and likes to travel abroad. He was indeed serious when he said “I don’t understand.” In fact, he asked a truly Japanese question.

In Japan, religion is a non-topic. There is no state religion and people enjoy complete religious freedom, up to the point where not even the state asks anybody what religion they follow. The traditional religion is Shintoism with lots of local deities and tiny shrines. The main goddess is Amaterasu, the sun goddess who is still worshipped in Ise shrine to this day, and the emperor has been considered a god himself until the Americans took this status away with the new constitution after WW II. In the Heian period, after 800 CE, Buddhism was at its height. It was first introduced from China to the imperial court, and while the emperor was considered a Shinto deity, it was not seen as a problem for him or his court to practise Buddhism as well. Today, Christian traditions and festivals become more and more popular, for example celebrating Christmas, despite only about 1% of the Japanese considering themselves Christian. In the life of an average Japanese, a newborn baby is presented to the local Shinto shrine (and later on at several other occasions), a wedding is often conducted using Christian rites (although not always overseen by a real priest) and the vast majority of funerals are Buddhist. New Year’s is celebrated by visiting the local Shinto shrine and the second largest holiday in the country, the festival for the dead, O-bon, is celebrated with Buddhist rites. In short, you can be everything and do everything at the same time, and that although about 50% of Japanese say they are not religious, and only about 25% declare themselves Buddhist. Hence, a certain religious ambiguity is introduced, and the Western idea that we must choose sides and strictly obey the division, sounds strange to Japanese.

This sort of ambiguity is also present in the language. Most of the time, a subject is not used, for example “Eki ni ikkimas – Station to go” is a perfectly correct sentence in Japanese, although it does not mention who is going. From this simple sentence, we cannot even find out if the speaker talks about himself, somebody else, or even a whole group of people. This we can only find out from the rest of the story. Of course, there are also Western languages where a subject is not needed, Spanish for example. But in “Es Austriaca – is Austrian” the verb gives away that we are talking about a single third person and the noun ending -a tells us immediately that a woman is meant, so there is much less left for guessing.

Another form of language ambiguity is that Japanese don’t like to say an open “No, I will not.” Instead, you hear “It’s too difficult, not possible…” which will provoke the Westerner to look for a solution rather than to politely bow out of the situation, and hence, this will considerably prolong negotiations. However, I’m getting sidetracked.

Of course, Japanese people, stuck inside their culture, do not understand when they are called ambivalent by Western people stuck in their ways. I don’t think many of them even understand what we mean by that. I don’t think the manager was very pleased with our ultimate answer that we must choose sides, must make decisions, and can’t be sitting on the fence forever. A typical cultural misunderstanding, partly lost in translation …

Devotion of Suspect X

The Devotion of Suspect X
Keigo Higashino

Ishigami lives next door of Yasuko, with whom he is secretly in love – not that she will ever find that out, of course. However, when Yasuko’s abusive ex-husband Togashi shows up at her apartment and in an unexpected outburst of violence is killed by her, Ishigami senses his chance and offers his help.

A body found at the old Edogawa river is quickly identified as Shinji Togashi. Naturally, his ex-wife is questioned, but her alibi is sound. Somehow, detective Kusanagi of Tokyo Police is not satisfied, however, and he turns – yet again – to his friend Prof. Yukawa for assistance.

In a strange coincidence, it turns out that Yukawa and Ishigami were classmates at University; the former a gifted experimental physicist, the latter a genius mathematician. Soon, solving the murder case changes into a battle of minds and wits, and there can only be one to answer the question: “Which is harder: devising an unsolvable problem, or solving that problem?”

This is perfect light reading for summer time. While Yasuko has commited murder, it was done in self defence, and one cannot help pitying her throughout, especially when Ishigami starts weaving his web. Ishigami, the shrewd teacher of mathematics, is in fact the main and most interesting character, who devises a cunning plan to help Yasuko and from then on pulls the strings from the back. I could not even guess at the solution of the mystery, and when it comes on the last few pages it arrives as a shocking surprise.

Check the book out on amazon – have fun!

Antique Fair

I spent all afternoon at Kyoto Antique Fair and I still have the feeling I didn’t see it all. There are about 350 antique dealers trying to sell literally millions of items in three days before they move on to the next venue. This fair is travelling through all of Japan and stops over in Kyoto a few times a year. The sheer amount of items for sale is overwhelming, and if you just go there to browse, without something specific in mind, it is possible to spend all three days there just looking at stuff. Most of the things on offer are at least vintage, if not truly antique.

There were thousands of pieces of jewelry, probably mostly costume pieces although I cannot ascertain that. One person sold real jewels, cut already, but without mounting, and although he offered me a “good price” for one of the jewels I coveted (a large, beautiful tourmaline, changing its colour from green to red), it was still beyond my financial capabilities.

Another favourite of mine are old chests and cabinets, especially those that were once used for medicine and have lots of little drawers. There were so many of them, some of them in mint condition – and unaffordable, of course. A very small one, with four drawers in A4 size cost less than EUR 20 but I decided not to get it because I don’t want to clutter up my room at Ebisu’s with more things than necessary. There will be other such pieces, I am sure. In a similar vein, I have seen lots of little sewing chests and one stunning writing desk which was even more expensive than the jewel I talked about above…

Much cheaper were the kimonos and obi, some of them used, some of them brand new. In fact, there were quite a number of dealers who sold brand new wares as well, especially clothing, ceramics, and Buddhist prayer beads. Other cheaper items included equipment for calligraphy, hanging scrolls, and sake cups. Of the latter there must be millions of different designs and shapes and sizes. It’s probably very dangerous to start collecting those – you are never finished. Ever.

Last but not least, there were plenty of swords (both katana and wakizashi) in all price ranges, together with accessories (tsuba for example) and a handful of complete samurai armour. Unfortunately I cannot assess the value of such items, so I would probably fall prey to a smart salesman who could tell me anything about the thing in the full knowledge that I would not be able to prove him wrong. Besides, a sword would not really help me fighting the cockroaches in our kitchen 😉 I do confess that I fell head over heels for one particular little weapon I found by chance… and I still love it so much that I am tempted to go back and buy it after all… The problem is: I’m not good at haggling, and so far my online attempts to assess its value have been fruitless.

Temptation… it’s always out there, it’s just a question of how to deal with it…

Day’s End

Did you ever have one of those days that already start terribly and the best, no probably the only, way to prevent complete and utter disaster is to turn around and go back to bed?

In fact, it already started last evening when I went to the community house to see a friend – who wasn’t there. I thought we had wanted to go out for dinner, but I may have mixed up the dates, so I had another one of my takeout sushi meals.

A Man presses a "reject" buttion — courtesy of PinkBlue @ freedigitalphotos.net

When I read my emails later in the evening, there was a reply from a potential employer, an international company in Tokyo – cancelling the skype interview that was set for Thursday afternoon. I had made the mistake of asking for an interview in English, not being confident to do it in Japanese, and was informed that Japanese fluency on native level was essential for the job and hence, no interview needed. Mind you that the advertisement only mentioned “Japanese communication ability” and not how much of it, and that the job description talked about travelling and doing business with foreign people in English, not Japanese. The email was brief, but it said that they were “impressed with [my] background and experience” (but just not enough to conduct an interview and find out how bad my Japanese really is) and that they wished me “success with [my] delightful career and future”. That’s what you get for talking only to some snotty boy from human resources, and I bet “English native level” was not one of his job requirements… Anyway, at least we didn’t waste each other’s time, but I am indeed a bit floored by this, as I am sure that that desk in that company had been custom made for me already…

Today around noon it started to rain heavily, with lots of wind that pushed the water against my main window. I had not closed it as it was so hot the last few days, and my blanket which I put up to air out got all soaked by the time I was back to close the window. As the humidity goes up quite a bit when it rains, and it also cooled down a few degrees, my blanket couldn’t dry properly and is still damp now.

In the afternoon I got an email from my real estate agent essentially telling me that I’ll have to reduce my price for the house considerably in order to be able to sell it. Once I will have paid all sorts of fees and taxes, the remainder will only buy me a one room apartment in Japan. I have not yet decided what to do, if and by how much to reduce the price. That will require more thinking.

Finally I just went down to refill my water bottle and I had to face two cockroaches in the kitchen. Only one of them was polite enough to wait for the washing-up-liquid treatment, the other one disappeared. I hope one of my housemates will come across that one – I did kill the bigger one after all.

Those were my last 24 hours (and a bit) and I’m glad they are over – it can’t get worse, can it? To alleviate the pain I spent the day surfing the internet, playing lots of stupid games, and reducing my stash of chocolate to zero.

Dang it, now I’ll have to go out tomorrow in the rain to buy new sweeties…

Dinner

I have told you about unwelcome house guests in my post of last Friday. Today’s post is of a similar vein, but this time the guests are much more tolerable, no, even cute.

Last night, when we were sitting and chatting with the window open, we suddenly noticed something moving across the screen. It turned out to be a small gecko, maybe 7 centimeters long. It was running up and down the screen hunting its dinner – probably all the mosquitoes that were attracted by the light in the room. It seemed very busy, so I hope it could diminish the local bug population considerably.

It was fascinating to watch; and I have to confess that I posess a soft spot in my heart for those little creatures. The type that lives here has a yellow, sand coloured body, a triangular head and a very intelligent look in its eyes. A few years ago a gecko got trapped in a kitchen cabinet of mine, and I had to catch it so I could put it outside again. I knew that they can run on vertical window panes, but only when I tried to pick this one up did I realize how much they actually stick to the surface – any surface that is. It took me a while of gentle pulling until I could finally lift it up, and with both an apology for the rough treatment and a “please don’t call again” I set it free again on my balcony.

I hope the little one who visited us yesterday will stick around for a while – and that he’ll get big and fat on all the mosquitoes he eats… I don’t really count on him to diminish the cockroach population, but maybe the lizards that live on the stairs outside of Ebisu’s can help with that?