goinggaijin.com – Page 121 – A European's move towards Japan

Construction

Walking through Kyoto these days I noticed that right now seems to be the season for road repairs. Lots of roads are being repaired or at least have their road markings repainted, and many more are already finished and present themselves with a brand new, shiny black asphalt covering.

While my European self finds it a bit odd to have this kind of work done in the middle of winter, it actually makes perfect sense: The temperature is just right considering that you are working with hot asphalt, it’s not freezing so there is no snow and in general it is comparatively dry, and, most importantly, the influx of tourists and their cars and buses – Kyoto is famous for both hanami cherry blossoms and koyo autumn colors and seems not to rest in between – has dimished to a mere trickle.

The whole work appears to be extremely organised. Only comparatively small portions of a road are blocked at any one time, but the result still looks seamless when it is completed after a week or two. What is interesting to see is that there is always at least one person on each end of the road block with reflecting sticks regulating the traffic, whether this is actually necessary or not, for example, even if there are additional traffic lights. The Japanese take to full employment?

In any case, I guess construction work is one way of making the city “clean” for the next year. And there is a lot of that going on right now! Wandering around the streets I have seen people cleaning the pavement before their houses, or their cars. I have seen one woman cleaning the floor of her little bar with what looked like a very small brush. One man was busy replanting his bonsai trees… Looking around my room I guess it would benefit from some old year cleaning as well to start fresh and clean into the new one… I better get started!

Kinkaku-ji

The Golden Pavillion Temple Kinkaku-ji is the most striking of all the famous sights in Kyoto and should be on the very top of your must-see list when coming here. The Golden Pavillion is the main building of a zen temple – officially known as Rokuon-ji, Deer Garden temple – in Northern Kyoto and it is golden indeed: The two top floors of the three story building which stands in a large lake with several islands are covered in gold leaf on laquer and a golden phoenix crowns the centre of the roof. If you look closely you may notice that each floor is representative of a different architectural style: The ground floor is typical of the Heian period style palace buildings called shinden, the first floor is a guilded version of the bukke style of samurai residences, and the top floor – covered in gold leaf in- and outside – is built in the style of a Chinese zen hall. The pavillion houses Buddha statues and similar relics, but it is not open to the public.

The pavillion and the garden date back to the late 14th century, when the third shogun of the Muramachi period, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, bought the property from another statesman and built his own villa there. After his death, according to his wishes, the whole estate was turned into a Buddhist temple. The golden pavillion is the only “original” structure left from that period; I use the quotes because the building has burnt down and been restored several times in its history, the last time it was destroyed by arson in 1950 and rebuilt five years later. Below are the old abbot’s quarters, with beautiful screen paintings – but it’s not open to the public either.

The large garden surrounding Kinkaku-ji is truly original though, and considered an especially fine example of garden design from the Muromachi period. The garden was meant to represent the pure land of Buddha in this world. The pavillion lies in a pond with ten small islands, and on a clear day the impression of the golden building is heightened by its reflection in the water.

The one-way path leads you along the pond to the back of the pavillion and from there into the garden, where a number of little springs can be seen and several places where people throw coins for luck. The second floor of the garden on top of the hill contains another little pond called Anmintaku that allegedly never dries up, and the Sekkatei, an Edo-period tea house that has been specifically built to enjoy the view on Kinkaku-ji during the afternoon – the best hours to view it.

Dinner

My housemate invited me to (a slightly belated) Christmas dinner tonight. Because she’s French – and obviously missing French food – we went to a tiny creperie near Teramachi – only 6 seats.

The owner, chef, and only employee is a young Japanese man with an interesting story: When he was a child he knew that one day he would have his own business, his own shop. However, as adult he worked as flight attendant for airlines in Europe. He spent seven years in Great Britain (and speaks great English). Despite his job he still liked travelling and on one of his trips to Britanny he came across French crepes – and there it struck him: This is what I want to do! He spent several more vacations in Britanny to learn how to make (sweet) crepes and (hearty) galettes, gave up his job at the airline, and now owns this very little restaurant in Kyoto…

True story, true outcome – he seems to be very happy with what he’s doing, just like all the people who follow their dreams… Very inspiring!

Merry Christmas!

Tenno Tanjobi

Today was a national holiday in Japan – the emperor’s 80th birthday. His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Akihito was born on December 23rd, 1933 in Tokyo as the fifth child but first son of emperor Showa (Hirohito). He ascended to the throne on January 7th, 1989, with the official enthronement taking place on November 12, 1990 after 22 months of preparations. His era bears the name Heisei.

I have not noticed anything big going on in Kyoto (I didn’t go downtown though), but tenno tanjobi is one of only two days (the other one is January 2nd) when the general public is allowed to enter the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. You may then even write a greeting to the emperor and as this page states “The Greeting Book will be duly forwarded to its highest destination as the expression of your warm congratulations” there could even be a chance of him reading it! This year, there were three appearances of the emperor and his immediate family planned on a balcony of one of the palace buildings and people go there and wave little Japanese flags to greet the emperor. This year, there were about 24.000 visitors, and as the entrance gates close after only two hours, you can imagine how terribly crowded the plaza must have been on which the people waited for the emperor…

Happy Birthday, Your Majesty!

Postcards

Today, I wrote a few nengajo – New Year’s postcards – to Japanese friends. Nengajo are rather unspectacular postcards, and just like Christmas cards in the West, there are thousands of variations, from the ones with Disney motives and other cartoons, to nengajo with elaborate calligraphy and paintings of the year’s animal from the Chinese zodiac (2014 is the Year of the Horse, by the way).

I went to the Loft a few days ago to buy my cards; it seems that there are literally thousands of them sold every day, as the procedure was a bit … unusual. First of all, the real cards are not on display, meaning you can’t just take them. What you get is a large display wall showing the different designs, each one wrapped in a heavy plastic envelope. When you have made your choice(s), you pick up one of those envelopes and go to the cashier, where you are asked how many you want. In the case of the Loft, you can’t buy a single card – you buy them per package, each containing four cards.

I paid 540 yen for them and was rather happy with it, after all this is Japan, and prices are steep. The nice cashier explained that because it says “New Year’s Card” on the back, the post office will deliver them on January 1st automatically, and I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to explain this at the post office… This is one of the nice things about those New Year’s cards, if you mail them between December 15th and New Year’s, the post office will deliver them on the right day – in Japan, of course, it won’t work abroad unfortunately. It must be an extremely busy time, I have heard that students and other part time workers are hired just to get all the mail out on January 1st.

You are supposed to send out New Year’s cards to essentially everybody: family, colleagues, teachers of any kind, people you did business with in the last year,… The only people you are not allowed to send a New Year’s card to is those who had a death in the family – the idea is “how can they have a Happy New Year if there is somebody missing?” and it would be rude to wish them one. How do you know that? Well, the bereaved are supposed to send out cards – well before the deadline of course – apologizing that they won’t send any New Year’s cards because of a recent death in the family… Japanese etiquette – truly a minefield…

Anyway, I wrote my cards today and I hope people won’t be offended by the fact that my handwriting in Japanese resembles that of a 5 year old – another one of those etiquette things – nengajo are at least addressed in handwriting to show off your skills in calligraphy – and posted them immediately. The big surprise came at the post office: Apparently the price of the stamp was included in the price of the cards! That means I only had to pay the extra 20 yen for the cards going abroad – what a pleasant surprise!

Sizes

My Jeans are falling apart. I know that holes in jeans are not necessarily a sign that you should toss them – at least at some point when I was younger it wasn’t – but this hole is at a rather indecent spot for a grown-up woman… Besides it’s winter and it’s cold and the last thing I need right now is extra cooling.

Hence, off to town I went, shopping for new jeans. I chose Uniqlo, first because I like their stuff in general, second because they have clothing in great colors, and third because they are an international company (though based in Japan) and know about international sizing. Size is a problem for me when it comes to clothes shopping in Asia. In Europe, I can be considered of normal size, possibly a bit of the short persuasion, but in Asia, quite simply put, I am fat. Not American style grossly overweight, but still fat enough. The other problem is shape. Even when losing another 10 kilos, I would still have (excuse my French) tits and and an ass, which is something the usual Asian – especially the Japanese women – don’t seem to have. They all look like straight ionic columns, while I am distinctly an hourglass, which is quite a problem when shopping because all clothing, even if the size is right, fits above my breasts and below my hips, but not in between. And as I don’t cherish to look eternally pregnant… (okay, I am vain, so? A woman’s prerogative.)

Anyway, I went to Uniqlo because I am so happy with the last sweater I bought there which not only fits perfectly, but is only a size L and not the multiXL I expected. I went to the women’s department and took a look at their jeans – a whole wall full of jeans in various styles and sizes. And again, that’s where the problem started: styles. The vast majority of Japanese girls and women are blessed with something I have not: beautiful legs, long and skinny. And they all know that and enjoy showing them off. Usually that means wearing miniskirts and tights, but every now and then they wear trousers as well – which then fall into the categories “slim, tight, stretch, skinny…”. This doesn’t look good on my at all (vanity again) and besides, I’m not even sure my foot would fit through the opening at the bottom…

Well, this is something I could get over with by the simple observation that I’m buying jeans that I will wear only when running around with my camera and potentially getting dirty. But then I looked at the sizes, conveniently displayed on signs: 21 – 28 inches. That means 53.34 – 71.12 cm of waistline is all that Uniqlo allows a woman to have – in Japan at least – if she wants to wear their jeans. Okay. I have lost a tremendous amount of weight and several sizes when I was in Germany, but 71 cm of waist is something I had when I was a teenager, and the chances of my body reverting to that stage are slim, forgive the pun. I do realize that Uniqlo is geared towards a younger audience, and I do realize as well that I can’t expect them to carry American sizes in the middle of Japan, but I have to say I felt somewhat discouraged. And then I thought, oh what the duck, I’m a gaijin, and went upstairs where there were stacks and stacks of Uniqlo jeans with a great cut in my size. The difference? Men’s department…

Ring

Towards the end of the year, people all over the world like to reminiscence about the year that has passed. Of the Year is an important phrase in this time, and it is added to words like employee, woman, man, person, word, book, movie,… So, let me, without any further ado, present to you the Kanji of the Year 2013:

It means ring or wheel and is pronounced as rin or wa, depending on the context. The main reason this character was chosen was that this year, Tokyo has won the bid for the Summer Olympic Games in 2020, something the Japanese are extremely proud of.

Interestingly, choosing a Kanji of the Year is not something invented 1000 years ago! The first such event dates back only to 1995, yes, that’s not even 20 years; this ceremony must feel like the baby amongst all the others celebrated in Japan… 😉 However, it is a very nice ceremony sponsored and organised by the Japanese Kanji Proficiency Society, a private organisation that encourages the use and knowledge of Kanji. People are invited to send in their choice for the Kanji of the Year, and the one with the most votes (this year 9,518 out of 170,290 votes) is then announced, that is, written on a large white board, by the head priest of Kiyomizu temple in Kyoto each year on Kanji Day, December 12. I went there with a friend to see the ceremony, and it was virtually impossible. At 11:30, the best spots were already taken by journalists, and the not so good spots were guarded by a private security company that told people to move on… We finally secured a place on a viewing platform a little further away and waited in the cold until the ceremony began at 2 pm. Once again, everything was over very quickly. The head priest came, and quickly wrote down the kanji with a brush as thick as my arm (see the first photo above). After a short wait so all journalists could take their pictures, the board was brought into the temple where a small ceremony was conducted. Afterwards, the board was taken out again to take more pictures with the head priest and other celebrities (this was the time for me to sneak up and take my close ups) and then, after maybe half an hour, even before all the journalists had left, everything was taken away and cleaned up again. The whole event was broadcast live on TV; there were even two TVs set up at the temple so people could watch the ceremony at least second hand, and my friend, a distinguished but not unapproachable looking foreigner, was interviewed twice and asked for his opinion on the choice.

I enjoyed being there, despite the long wait and my frozen toes afterwards. I’m not sure if I’d want to come again next year as I hate being cold, but having my own photos of the event is certainly a nice thing.

A Geisha’s Journey

A Geisha’s Journey: My Life as a Kyoto Apprentice
Komomo and Naoyuki Ogino

A Japanese teenager living abroad suddenly misses her heritage and identity: What does it mean to be Japanese? On her quest for an answer she discovers the hanamachi, the geisha districts. Enthralled by this fantasy world of beautiful kimono wearing women and ancient customs, she decides to become the most Japanese woman of them all – and enters the hanamachi in Kyoto at age 15 to become a geisha. Given the name Komomo as an apprentice maiko, she starts a demanding training lasting five years to fulfill her dream.

This book tells about those years and gives a glimpse into the intimate details of the hanamachi of Kyoto. Always at Komomo’s side is Naoyuki Ogino, a photographer who is equally fascinated by the flower world and whose striking images of Komomo’s life add an almost magical touch to her story.

Komomo’s story is fascinating, and her change from an insecure teenager to an accomplished Kyoto geiko is obvious in Ogino’s photos. I especially enjoyed learning the little secrets of a geisha’s life. You could probably have guessed that a maiko cannot dress herself alone – but did you know that it takes a man (called the otokoshi) to tie her obi?

Check the book out on amazon.

Numerology

It’s Friday 13th – need I say more?

In Japan, the number 13 is not considered particularly unlucky – that’s a superstition imported from the West. It’s not as if the Japanese are completely free of odd beliefs when it comes to numbers though. The numbers 4 and 9 are considered unlucky. 4 because its Chinese reading is “shi”, and the word for death is also pronounced “shi”. 9 is unlucky because its pronunciation as “ku” sounds like “suffering”. Like in the West, where the number 13 is often avoided in hotels (from floor 12 you go straight to 14) or airlines (no rows 13), the same holds in Japan for the numbers 4 and 9, although it seems to be more common not to have a 4th floor than not to have a 9th. Apparently, planes of All Nippon Airways have no seats with numbers 4 or 9, and many hospitals do not have rooms with these numbers. These beliefs spill over to other areas as well. For example, when giving gifts, you should always take care to give odd numbers – 3 or 5 plates for instance, not 4. For occasions where money is considered appropriate, like weddings, an odd amount (other than 9000) is better than an even one. The best would be a gift of size or amount including 8 though, as 8 is considered a lucky number. The kanji for 8 consists of two strokes that are farther apart on the bottom than on the top, which signifies that a better future lies ahead.

What I find very interesting is that there are lots of odd numbers in many normal packages: Meiji chocolate has 15 little pieces, there are 11 chocolate covered cookies and 5 chocolate buns per pack, and my favourite sweets – chocolate covered macadamia nuts – come in packages of 9 (the suffering is probably in the weight gain). And the last time we opened two 98g packs of chocolate covered almonds – one of them contained 23, and the other one 25.

Coincidence? I’m not sure. But I might be eating too much chocolate…