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

Soroban

Today was my fourth soroban class. “What ” I hear you ask, “shouldn’t you study Japanese instead of something random?” Well soroban is indeed Japanese, it is the Japanese type of abacus. The history of the soroban (lit. counting tray) goes back around 400 years, when the Chinese version of it, the suanpan (which itself is about 1800 years old) was introduced to Japan. Japanese merchants were the early adopters and had been using it since then, but it took until the 17th century for it to become popularly known, and Japanese mathematicians started to study it in depth and improve its workings. Only in the early Meiji period, i.e., at the end of the 19th century, did the soroban take its modern shape and has been unchanged ever since. Even today how to use the soroban is taught in primary schools, and you even need to pass a soroban exam to qualify for work in public corporations.

Each soroban has a number of vertical rods or columns, each representing one digit, with five beads each. The beads are separated by a single horizontal reckoning bar into one go-dama (5-bead) on top and four ichi-dama (1-beads) at the bottom. Clearly, the more rods, the more powerful the computations that can be performed. Soroban always have an odd number of rods, the standard size has 13, in class we use soroban with 21, and my teacher gave me a small one with 11 rods to practice at home.

The basic operations of course are the same, regardless of size. The centre rod represents the one digit, the first rod to the left the 10 digit, the rod yet one further to the left the 100 digit, and so forth. To the right of the centre are the 1/10th, 1/100th, 1/1000th… rods. The four ichi-dama beads at the bottom each count as one, the go-dama bead on top counts as five, but only when they touch the reckoning bar. So, to practice a little, can you read the number below?

The beads are operated, i.e., flipped up and down, with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand. The go-dama on top is both added (moved downwards) and subtracted (moved upwards) with the forefinger, whereas the ichi-dama at the bottom are added (moved upwards) with the thumb and subtracted (moved downwards) with the forefinger. Not only this, but also the order of the movements is strictly prescribed, the reason for this is simply to increase the speed of the calculation.

There are several ways of adding and subtracting numbers, depending on how many beads are used already on the rod. Here, the concept of complements plays a very important role for computations on a soroban. For example, adding 7 can be done by

adding 7 to a single rod (by pinching the go-dama and two ichi-dama together simultaneously), or
adding 2, subtracting 5, and adding 10, or
subtracting 3 and adding 10.

So far, addition and subtraction are all I can do. The concepts are easy, but it takes a while to do the finger work correctly (and fast), and sometimes, when I am all stuck in thinking about complements, I completely forget about the easy way of addition or subtraction – by simply sliding the right number of beads up or down…

Repairs

Yesterday the builder came to fix the hole in my wall that has been there since I moved in here. As this is a traditional Japanese house, the walls are essentially made of mud on a wooden frame, held together by wood on the outside and some sort of plaster on the inside. The problem with my wall was that the plaster on the inside came loose at some point, and sometimes pieces of mud would fall out into my room, usually small grains and dust, but once a piece the size of a bottle cap fell out.

Anyway, so the builder finally came yesterday. Finally, because after several appointments three weeks ago which he mostly did not keep, he came here to fix some other things around the house and on the roof to disappear again when the rains started, he needed an extra appointment on Tuesday to look at my wall again as a reminder what to do. So, all in all it took him three weeks to fix everything around the house – I guess the whole work could have been finished in a day, two at the max, but he chose not to do anything in the afternoon. Apparently this is standard in Japan, not kept appointments included. This astonishes me as the country is known for its polite people and strong work ethic…

When he finally arrived yesterday at 9 am I was looking forward to it. My landlady had described in detail what was going to happen: “He’ll take off the plaster, fix the whole with some mud and then you’ll get new plaster on top of that.” The idea was that he would redo the whole panel and not just the damaged corner, which would probably take a while, so after having removed my futon and other assorted stuff littering my floor, I sat in the corner with my computer table and patiently waited – camera ready – for the things that were supposed to happen.

Well, it started off alright. After covering the tatami neatly with large pieces or sturdy cardboard and preparing his tools, he stepped on the small ladder and started to tear off the plaster. (I keep on saying plaster, but you have to imagine it more like a very heavy type of wallpaper, about 3-5 mm thick.) He didn’t do very much though, only the part that would come off easily. He took some measurements and disappeared for a short while, reappearing with – a piece of something resembling mdf the size of the panel he was supposed to fix. My surprise turned into outright shock when he used double sided tape to glue the mdf to the wall… At least he secured it with thin slats that he affixed to the wood already in place with small nails. He then “repaired” the panel next to it in the same fashion, took his things out, and, after vacuuming my room very thoroughly (another surprise), he left. The whole repair operation took only one hour.

I think the outcome is ugly, and I don’t even mean the color that doesn’t fit to the other walls. Yes, it’s doing the trick insofar as there will not be any more dust raining down on my bed, but the room has lost a lot of its charm. I would call the work shoddy – double sided tape of all things! – and when you knock on the new panel it sounds hollow, and it feels like plastic. I am certainly not happy about this, but … it’s not my house and I think I have to be grateful to still have a cheap roof over my head.

Anime

Last weekend, a friend and I stumbled upon a manga-anime fair. According to this article, it was the annual manga-anime fair that took place in various places in Kyoto, and its main purpose was to recruit new animators. I guess however, that most visitors there were simply fans.

It was an interesting but at the same time somewhat weird experience. The booths were covered in large pictures of anime characters, from cute girls to manly warriors and space captains to scary robots. There were also many flat screens showing the latest episodes of their anime. Some booths had merchandise for sale, others sported several attendants, mostly young, female and dressed accordingly, that is to say, rather scantily. But also the visitors were interesting to watch – a number of them wore the attire of their favourite manga character, regardless of gender: I have seen one guy dressed up as a female anime, short skirt, stockings, and a pink wig included. The booth I found most interesting though, was one where two women were painting a scene; one in the traditional way with watercolors, the other one on a large tablet.

Anime and manga are an enormous business in Japan. Large sections of bookstores are devoted to all sorts of manga, ranging from well known characters for children like Doraemon, to stories of all sorts for teenagers and adults (there are manga and anime about martial arts, history, cooking!…) to the sexually explicit hentai for the … um … connaisseur (to be perused at leisure in buses and trains). Many people even use manga to study Japanese. The industry’s internet advertising revenue is more than 180 billion yen, and 70% of all DVD’s sold in Japan are anime.

Personally however, I have to admit that I don’t quite get it, certainly because I did not grow up in this culture. I mean, I do fondly remember the series Heidi, Perrine, or Captain Future of my childhood (yes, all of them were produced in Japan, Biene Maja also), but at some point, well … I grew up. Whether that was a good thing or not I am not entirely sure 😉

Karasu Sumo

Today was the ninth day of the ninth month, an auspicious day in Shinto religion (the last uneven month of the year – only single digits count I guess?) and once again, this called for a purification rite. Today, at Kamigamo shrine there was first a ceremonial offering of flowers – chrysanthemums – and, following that, entertainment for the gods: sumo wrestling.

The ceremony started at 10 am with the wrestlers – 18 boys – purifying themselves in one of the rivers of Kamigamo shrine. They all wore the traditional fundoshi loincloth and only a thin jacket, I’m sure they must have been cold even though the weather was nice. Then some more purification rites took place, with elaborate bowing to the river and waving of the white paper; but one of them involved a number of small arrows of maybe 30 cm length – that was certainly a new one for me. The offering of the chrysanthemums took place at the main hall of the shrine, but I did not dare to give up my front row spot for the sumo, so I cannot report any details on that.

Anyway, at some point the party returned and joined the spectators. A woman and two children, dressed in Heian style kimono (12 layers, remember) and some shinto priests seated themselves inside a wooden hall. Before it, a sumo ring had been installed, and the boys, divided into two groups, were seated to the left and right of it, or as it’s called in Japan to the East and West. Then the ring itself was purified by shinto priests, one from each side. Both drew a figure eight into the ring and walked along it. I am very curious what the reason for this is, but I could not find out. Then, after some offerings for the gods and each group stepping into the ring, bowing to the main guests in the hall and performing more rituals, the sumo bouts started.There were four rounds of bouts. The first one the boys from the East and West competed against each other according to their rank, from the lowest rank to the highest. The other three rounds were different, here the winner of the bout could stay in the ring to meet his next opponent. It was very exciting to watch, I did not expect that. The boys were so serious about winning, and still they had so much obvious fun, it was exhilarating. It was almost like watching adult sumo, albeit with slight modifications and minor lapses of protocol, but the bouts themselves were just as exciting as with the big boys. Some of the bouts were over pretty quickly, while others, especially with the boys of higher rank, took some time and you could see some quite nice techniques at work.

After the sumo wrestling was over, a small cup of chrysanthemum sake was offered to all spectators. It was considered to be free of charge, but most people made a small donation anyway. I did not notice anything particularly flowery about the sake, but I am not an expert.And then, everything was over. I always find it interesting how quickly even the biggest crowds disperse in Japan. It seems that hanging around and staying for an extra chat is not something the Japanese are used to – well, not if even a restaurant visit is politely finished after two hours… This time it addionally surprised me that after the whole ceremonial beginnings and purifications and everything the whole thing ended rather unspectacularly – with a simple group photo…

Typhoon

The weather has improved, the temperatures are back in the low thirties which I find more acceptable at this time of the year compared to the low to mid twenties it had at the beginning of the week.

The reason for the very heavy rain that lasted several days almost without breaks was Doraji, the 17th typhoon of this season in SE Asia. It travelled quite some distance, was supposed to hit Korea, but decided instead to go to Japan and make landfall at the southern tip of Shikoku early on Wednesday. Doraji pushed the heavy rain in front of it. When I went out on Wednesday, within five minutes my jeans were soaked up to the knees, not to speak of my sneakers…

With the rain came a severe drop in temperature of about 10 degrees. During the day it was okay, at least the humidity wasn’t too annoying. But it became really cold in the night. I have what is called a “hot carpet” in my room, that is a carpet with some electrical wiring inside that can be heated so you can sit on something warm. It lies underneath my futon, and I was very happy to use it in the night from Wednesday to Thursday. Another housemate of mine who is staying downstairs where it is usually cooler than in my room used her heavy sleeping bag, even during the evening. I am glad it’s over, but I have to say I do not look forward to winter time here – there’s no central heating in the house…

Buildings

Take a look at the picture to the left.

What’s wrong with this building?

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it as such, it’s a perfectly fine building.

In fact, this is a hotel near Teramachi street in Kyoto.

Anyway, there is something about this building you’ll only find in Japan.

Take another, closer look.

And?

Found anything?

Do you notice the red triangles on some of the windows? Those stickers can be found on many windows of government or other public buildings, but also large apartment blocks or high buildings like this hotel sport these red triangles. They mark those windows that are emergency entrances. I am not sure if all of them have the same design, but the one I have checked (from the inside) opened in a special manner: by turning around a vertical axis in the centre of the window. Why this is superior to a normal sliding window or one that turns around hinges at the sides, I cannot fathom but I trust the Japanese expertise on this one. I suspect those special windows are meant for firefighters or other rescue workers to enter a building at the right floor in case of fire, maybe even after an earthquake.

I said above emergency entrance and no, this is no mistake. How do I know this? Because, firstly, it says so on the other side of the sticker (I took a picture of this too, but can’t find it at the moment – will upload as soon as I do) but also, secondly, I have seen those triangles on doors in the middle of smooth facades, where a safe exit is not possible, not if you forgot to bring your superman suit, that is.

Experiment

I already mentioned my addiction to chocolate at least twice, and I have – with a certain amount of shock – realized that at the moment I am eating a whole bar of chocolate (the size of a small “Milka”, that is about 100 g) per day. Not good. I mean it surely makes me feel good, especially as the weather forecast predicts “rain that periodically stops” for the whole next week, but I have the feeling that it may be a bit too much. I can almost see the weight I have lost with so much difficulty slowly creeping upwards on my thighs and hips again…

Hence, I’ll try a little experiment:
No chocolate throughout September.

Ouch, that sounds really terrible

I will allow myself – occasionally – things like hot chocolate, mostly because I don’t make it at home and there’s no decent cafe nearby so I’ll have to go downtown for this. I finished my whole not-so-secret stash of chocolate yesterday, with the exception of a “chocolate twist”, a sweet bun with maybe 2% of chocolate filling. I decided that’s allowed also as the amount of chocolate is so tiny, it’s probably less than a teaspoon full overall.

To battle the craving I have bought fruit instead. Unfortunately the Japanese view on fruit is one that demands absolute perfection, so it is really expensive. Most of it is even important, which inflates the prices even more. I may have to go to a real market instead of buying it in the supermarket if I want to have cheap fruit. However, my supermarket has a small shelf where fruit and vegetables that don’t look that perfect anymore are put and sold at a cheaper price. The choice is smaller of course, but there’s nothing wrong with slightly spotty bananas; in fact I think they taste better anyway. I’ll have to check out that shelf more often.

So far I did well. All day only a small craving during the study session (I had a kiwi and two bananas) and that was around lunch time too, so it’s okay. Right now however … I want my good night chocolate … so … badly …

Onigiri

Time to write about food again! One of the things I love about Japan is the great variety of cheap takeout. Many small restaurants provide takeout dishes if you don’t want to eat there, there are a number of sushi places that mostly cater to the takeout crowd – one in my neighbourhood has only a single table with two chairs so you can wait if you want anything extraordinary – and, of course, all the convenience stores have takeout dishes and a microwave for free use if you are extremely hurried.

My personal favourite takeout meal from the convenience store around the corner consists of various types of onigiri. They are nothing special, just rice balls with or without stuffing, about the size of a fist, mostly in triangular or oval shape, and often covered in seaweed. They are available in many flavours. The plain ones without stuffing can be only salted, or they are cooked with some red beans or other flavour and sprinkled with seaweed crumbs or black or white sesame. Sometimes they have a piece of fish on top, then they resemble an oversized piece of sushi (which is called nigiri sushi, by the way). Alternatively, onigiri can be stuffed with all sorts of things, from fish with or without mayonnaise, cooked beef or chicken, vegetables or different types of seaweed, to salty, pickled ume plums. The last type of filling is very interesting, for me it falls under “acquired taste”.

It is very easy to make onigiri at home, as they are only rice cooked with seasoning (different kinds are readily available) which is shaped and then cooled. Some people like to carefully fry the finished onigiri in oil, this is often done after a day or two when the rice has dried out too much to be tasty.

The convenience store bought onigiri are mostly triangular and wrapped in nori seaweed. They have a very ingenious packaging, because if the nori is in contact with the rice for too long, it becomes soggy and unpleasant to eat. So, the packaging consists of two layers of plastic, one on the outside and one that lies between the rice and the nori, separating the two until the onigiri is eaten, so that the nori always tastes fresh and crispy. Unfortunately this does not show in the picture above. There is of course a special way of unwrapping those onigiri: First you tear the package from the top corner, all the way from front to back, and then you gently pull on the left and right corner of the package to remove it from the outside and underneath the nori. How to do this is conveniently described on the package with 1 – 2 – 3 steps, I find this quite funny.

Hospital

I am taking palliative medicine.

Now that I have your attention, let me assure you: I have no plans of dying soon, despite my disease being incurable; I will die with it but not from it, as long as I take that one pill every morning before breakfast (which is what palliative medicine is, strictly speaking: relieving symptoms without curing the cause. Think of diabetes and insulin, for example.)

Unfortunately I was running out of my pills and hence, I had to see a doctor to get a new prescription. I decided to go to the Kyoto University Hospital, partly because at least the doctors there (should) speak English, and partly because it is just a stone’s throw away from Ebisu’s. The hospital accepts outpatients from 8:30 to 11:00, so I went there as early as possible.

I arrived at the responsible ward at 8:30 but was slightly surprised that it was empty of both patients and personnel. Somebody told me however, that as a first timer in the hospital, I had to register first on ground floor, counter #2. The hospital appears to be very prepared for the foreigner who does not speak Japanese: The form was in English and the staff has their usual explanations translated and compiled into a long list, so they only need to point at the right sentence in English. My old Austrian drivers licence caused some hilarity (they need a copy of an ID and I don’t carry my passport), but besides that everything went smoothly. I was issued a Hospital Card immediately and, armed with instructions and something that looked like a mobile phone I was sent back up to the responsible ward.

There, I first was handed another form to fill in (medical history), and was then instructed to have my measurements taken. I stepped on a small platform and a machine automatically took my height (less than expected) and my weight (still too much), and then I sat at another one that took my blood pressure (all ok). Then, I had to wait.

Finally, at about 11:20, the phone rang. Well, it’s not really a phone, but some kind of oversized beeper with a large display. When it rings, a message is displayed telling you what to do next. In this case it said “come to examination room 207”, and I dutifully obeyed. The doctor, a nice middle-aged man who spoke excellent English and even some German, was already waiting with my file ready. After discussing the medication and its dosage he asked me to have a blood test done and whether I’d want to wait for the results. I agreed to that, and off I went, first to have my blood taken (everything done and over with in less than 5 minutes), then to have lunch in a coffee shop.

At about a quarter to one the phone rang and I saw the doctor again. We agreed on a slightly lower dosage than what I have been taking until now, he gave me a prescription and a new appointment in 3 months’ time.

Barely out of his examination room, my phone rang again and I was instructed – provided I was finished now – to take all my stuff to ground floor, counter #5, in order to finalise everything and to pay. The paperwork was taken by some clerk, and I was asked to wait in front of several machines where I could pay my bill. “But, how much is it?” I asked, just to get the answer: “You’ll get a message on the phone…” And so I did after maybe another 10 minutes. I put the phone into an extra slot into the machine so the amount was transferred and I could pay by inserting cash or using a card. Once the receipts were printed – very nicely on A4 paper – the phone disappeared automatically and I could leave the hospital.

I then walked across the street, picked one of the pharmacies at random, and while they were filling the prescription, I had to fill in yet another form about my medical history… It seems that Japanese love forms of every provenance.

The whole adventure including the trip to the pharmacy took about five and a half hours, but mostly that was because I had (or chose) to wait. As I have a fixed appointment for next time, it should go much faster then.

Things that surprised me:

They needed my mother’s name on the application form. Why?
Everything appears to be highly efficient. You know who’s an office clerk, a doctor, a nurse, they all wear appropriate uniforms. Everything is organised, you know exactly what to do, where to go and when. All forms are in English (even the one in the pharmacy) and the lists with the English sentences are a great help. If you are still unsure, all staff are very friendly and helpful.
The beeper/mobile phone. You can walk around the whole hospital or have a coffee while you are waiting. There is no need to stay put in your ward and stare at the wall. A brilliant system – and: I got the messages in English! I have heard that those beepers also work across the road in the many little restaurants – buy maybe the beepers for the doctors on call have a larger range?
My next appointment is in exactly three months, and I received medication to cover exactly those days – and not a single more. Instead of a full package of pills as normal in Europe, the pharmacy handed me a bunch of those blister packages tied with a rubber band in a plastic bag together with a single piece of paper stating how often I need to take them. No package insert listing all hazards when taking this medication – but it may have been different had I said that I could read Japanese.

So yes, despite the endless wait it was a rather pleasant experience, and I’m looking forward to the next appointment.

Whack!

Monday night, at around 3:45, I woke up. It felt as if something had kicked my bed (remember that I sleep on the floor) and I thought I had heard a noise as well. Nothing else happened, so I only took a look at my alarm clock and went to sleep again.

Tuesday morning however, I thought, well … actually … it could have been … So I checked the web page of the Japan Meteorological Agency, and indeed – the night before I had experienced my first earthquake during this stay in Japan! The details are as follows and can be found on this page: It was a small earthquake, of magnitude only 2.5 at its epicentre, which was around 10 km underground and about 22 km southwest of Ebisus’s.

Only one of my housemates felt it also. He said it was very subtle, and he heard the noise as well. He even said he expected something to happen because all the crickets suddenly went quiet…

It was a very interesting experience as it was so different from the other earthquakes I have witnessed. The bump and the noise were all – not even the lamp was shaking, but admittedly it was hard to see anything in the darkness. It was very short and only a singular occurrence, and as I said I went back to sleep immediately.

I am seriously considering to keep tally how many earthquakes I am experiencing – the ones I can feel at least. This one would be # 3 in total.