goinggaijin.com – Page 122 – A European's move towards Japan

Nijo Castle

One of my favourite places in Kyoto is Nijo-jo, the state residence of the Tokugawa shoguns of the Edo period. It is situated pretty much in the centre of Kyoto, southeast of the emperor’s palace, on Nijo-oji dori. It has been started on orders of the first shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, in 1601, but was completed only in 1626, under Ieyasu’s grandson, the third shogun.

The whole complex of Nijo-jo comprises 275.000 square metres inside a wide moat, but only 8000 square metres are built upon. There are actually two castles on the ground, the inner citadel called Honmaru is surrounded by a moat, and on the grounds outside of it, in the eastern gardens lies the actual residence of the shogun, Ninomaru, the second citadel. The Tokugawa shoguns actually resided in Edo, today’s Tokyo (hence the name Edo-period), but still they needed to show their wealth and influence in Kyoto where the emperor resided as well, lest the people would forget who’s actually ruling the country. All of Nijo castle is built from wood, and despite it having burnt down and been rebuilt just to be damaged by typhoons, it is still a highly impressive site.

When the first moat is crossed, you enter Ninomaru palace through the Kara-mon gate. Ninomaru was designated as the residence of the shoguns (should they ever want to stay in Kyoto) and it is comprised of five buildings, all connected with corridors. As a visitor to the shogun, your entrance would be closely watched, and how far you would get inside the buildings would be determined by your rank – in Japan even then hierarchy was everything. You would start out by entering the retainer’s waiting rooms tozamurai-no-ma, go further to the formal reception room shikidai-no-ma and from there move on to the grand rooms ohiro-ma. Only very important people, for example messengers from the emperor would be allowed further into the inner audience chambers kuro-shoin.The total floor space of Ninomaru palace measures 3300 square metres, divided into corridors and 33 rooms covered by more than 800 tatami mats. Each of the large rooms are divided into smaller rooms by sliding doors, and the rooms are named after the paintings on those doors. All of them are lavishly decorated with gold and exquisite paintings of plants, trees, or animals, and on top of the doors there are intricate wood carvings, often looking different depending from which side of the doors you look at them. At the end of all the long corridors there are the shogun’s living quarters, the shiro-shoin. They are relatively modest in size, compared to the rest of the palace, and only female servants were allowed to enter there, obviously for safety reasons.

Many more measures were taken to ensure the safety of Japan’s ruler. For example, in some of the rooms where the shogun would be present himself, there are doors behind which armed men would wait for the faintest sign of distress to enter and protect their master. Many castles have these, and the doors are usually well disguised. Not so in Ninomaru though – the shogun did obviously not buy into the idea of discreet hinting – here those doors are well visible, and even decorated with big red tassels. The most interesting protective features of Ninomaru palace however, are its corridors. They are made of plain wood, but the boards are placed on nails in a special way such that each person walking on them causes the construction to chirp like birds – hence the name uguisubari – nightingale floors. Walking on them is quite some fun, not only for school kids, and the idea was to prevent intruders from sneaking up the corridors and launching a surprise attack.Crossing the second moat leads you to Honmaru palace. This part of Nijo castle measures 16800 square metres, and it was once the home of a palace similar to Ninomaru and also sported a large five-story castle. However, both buildings were destroyed by fire in the 18th century already, and there has been no attempt to rebuild them. The present Honmaru building once stood on the grounds of the imperial gardens and was moved here at the end of the 19th century. It is not generally accessible, so I cannot say anything about its interior.

The buildings are surrounded by beautiful Japanese gardens, three different ones stemming from three different periods: Ninomaru garden is the oldest, as it was constructed during the Edo period. Honmaru garden is the middle one, built in the Meiji period at the end of the 19th century, and the so called Seiryu-en garden is the youngest, having been constructed only in 1965.

As I said, Nijo castle is beautiful, if you come to Kyoto, it is one of the places you must not miss! Nijo-jo is now a property of Kyoto city and has been open to the public since 1940; in 1994 it has been designated by the UNESCO as World Heritage Site. Unfortunately, because the paintings in Ninomaru are 400 years old, it is not allowed to take any pictures there. A few photos can be found on the official Kyoto city website for Nijo castle though.

Sleep

I was not feeling too well today, I hope I’m not heading for a cold… I’m glad I was prepared for that – with plenty of aspirin and a package of pre-made miso soup. I had even bought udon for a full meal, so I hope this will do to keep me healthy for a bit longer.

There seems to have been some kind of event in or near university – it just stopped. There was some music, it started out with something that sounded like traditional drums or so, and at the end it was modern pop music. To me, the latter sounded more like screaming than singing, but hey, what do I know about the youth of today? 😉 Anyway, I’m glad it’s over and quiet again and I can go to bed now.

Blues

I think I can finally declare summer as over. Autumn has arrived and the days are becoming cooler and shorter – sunset is already as early as 17:20 at the moment.

Yesterday was another typhoon-induced rainy day, and although the typhoon has already passed and it doesn’t rain any longer, it is still rather windy. This morning however, to cheer everybody up a little, Kyoto was graced with a wonderful rainbow…

I myself don’t go out that often at the moment, but instead I busy myself with studying Japanese, as there are only seven more weeks until the big test. There are still a few fun things to do in October though, and I’m planning to take a break from my grammar and vocabulary lists in the weekend…

Classes

I had a rather busy weekend. On Saturday there was my soroban class (I learned division), and on Sunday I took my first Japanese cooking lesson.

We were about 25 people, both Japanese and foreigners, and we made a variety of Japanese dishes: Chestnut rice, clear soup with mushrooms and tofu, grated radish with cucumber and chrysanthemums, a stir fry with Okinawan bitter gourd and bean curd, yakitori – skewered chicken – as main dish, and the almost obligatory anko rice balls as dessert.

The class lasted three hours and started off with a short introduction by the teacher, an old lady who had lived in many places in Japan, including Okinawa. In the quickest Japanese I have ever heard, she explained how each dish was to be made, and then we were sent off to three tables and were left on our own. English recipes had been provided though, and the groups were mixed so there were always Japanese people to help.

I chose to prepare the dish from Okinawa (I had eaten it in a restaurant a long time ago) which consisted only of bitter gourd goya, pre-fried tofu, miso paste and sugar, fried in a pan. I was in the team with a Japanese man and as we both did not seem to be the chatty type – although he was very friendly – our dish was the first one ready. I then had time to help with other dishes, clean a little, and take photos.

When everything was ready, we set the table for everyone – in a cleary prescribed way of course: rice and soup at the bottom, just above the chopsticks, the meat in the centre, the two side dishes to the top left and right of the meat, and the dessert yet a bit further on top. With an additional cup of green tea we were ready to eat – and it was delicious! (Note: In the photo above, there is no desert because we only prepared eight, but the teacher was invited to our table… as I’m not a fan of anko, I gave my desert to her – and was rewarded with my own green tea pudding a bit later on ;-))

I greatly enjoyed the class, I am planning to go there again. Almost everybody spoke both English and Japanese, and the atmosphere was nice and relaxed. The only thing that is not optimal is the limited space for cooking, and that it is difficult to keep dishes that are finished warm until it is time to eat. But then again, my own dish was supposed to be eaten cold anyway, who’d have thought…

Shiroi Koibito

Last week, a friend of mine from Hokkaido (that’s the northernmost of the four main islands of Japan) sent me a little present. It is quite common in Japan to give consumable presents of sake, green tea, even fruit; and when people go on vacation or business trips they often return with local specialities as omiyage – souvenirs. Hence, I received what is considered as the classic present from Hokkaido – a large box of Shiroi Koibito.

Those are very thin cookies – cat tongues the French call them I believe – with a layer of white chocolate in between. The name translates as White Lover and the cookies are delicious!

Interestingly, except for the name which is written in Kanji, all other text on the box is in French – not that I speak that language any better than Japanese. Only when you open the box, does the writing indicate the provenance of the gift… I’m so glad my chocolate-free month is over 😉

Relief

I went out for lunch the other day to a little snack bar and well, the way things happen, I needed to go to the toilet. And there I was faced – for the first time during my current stay in Japan – with a modernized, because ceramified, version of the ancient hole-in-the-ground.

This sight usually elicits a well trained string of responses on my part:

1. Assess urgency with which relief is needed.
2. Seek other, throne-style options.

3. If the answers to the above are NOW!! and None, then:

a. Curse evolution for relative intricacy of female plumbing as opposed to male one.
b. Curse father for not being able/willing to provide a y-chromosome.
c. Curse modern dress style involving pants and knickers.
d. Assemble aforementioned garments out of the way, face the hood and get down to business.
e. Hope to not lose balance during action.

So far my greatest relief has always occured when I could leave the cubicle again, unscathed, but I realize it is simply a question of getting used to it…

Compliments

Japanese food is great – and I try to sample as many different types as possible, with a certain preference for sweet stuff of course. A good way to try various cheap types of food is at a matsuri or other gathering where street vendors sell their wares. There is a particular type of sweets that is essentially walnut sized pieces of pancake batter (which allegedly contains just a little bit of soysauce) fried in a mold and preferrably eaten as hot as possible (they become tough rather quickly).

When I first noticed them I was intrigued and decided to try them. The first question was easy: “Amai desuka? – This is sweet?” – “Hai, sou desu – Yes, it is.” Good, the sweeter the better, but my objection to anything containing anko led to the second question: “Okunai wa anko desuka? – Is there anko inside?” – “Iie, anko naindesu – No, no anko.” Sufficiently satisfied I bought a small bag for 300 YEN and found the taste very nice indeed, very simple, straightforward and not too sugary – almost instant happiness. I was even more happy when the vendor complimented me on speaking Japanese so well, a compliment I modestly refused with the expected standard answer any Japanese would give in such a situation: “Iie, benkyoshite imasu – Oh no, I’m just studying…”

Anyway, a few days later when I went over my vocabulary list again my happiness was greatly diminished. I found out that “okunai” does not really mean “inside” in the way I used it, but rather “indoors”. The meaning I had intended called for the word “naka” instead… Somehow the vendor’s compliment didn’t feel that great any longer.

White Night

Kyoto has 10 sister cities, and one of them is Paris. The idea behind sister cities is to foster cultural exchange, so, last Saturday there was La Nuit Blanche, the white night in Kyoto. For the third year already, there were exhibitions, performances and meetings of French and Japanese artists throughout the city of Kyoto – and Paris as well. The opening ceremony, starting at 7 pm. with the French minister of culture, took place at the Kyoto Manga Museum (of all places), then there was a projection of art onto Kyoto City Hall, and then there were many small events in art galleries and other places around the city.

I have to admit that I’m not very big on modern or performing arts – although I like photography and sculpture and make the occasional trip to see opera. Anyway, I decided to check out the white night regardless, and there happened to be an interesting performance in a house near Ebisu’s.

I arrived at the house – old Japanese style with a beautiful garden – shortly before one show, and as we were led through the house in a roundabout way to the stage, we had to pass through white woollen threads hanging from the ceiling or having been woven into something resembling spider’s webs. We took seats at the edge of a darkened room furnished only with tatami; there were more threads hanging from the ceiling, and in the middle of the room something lay, covered with a black cloth.

All of a sudden, music started, spotlights came on, and the “thing” began to move. There turned out to be a woman underneath the black sheet, dressed in white, with straight black hair and white makeup (like the one geisha wear) on face and arms, who was “chained” to the ceiling with the wool. She began to move more vigorously, finally broke her chains and disappeared though a side door. The whole performance took less than 10 minutes. As I said I am not very big on modern art, and this one made me shiver… All the time I had the feeling the creature was evil and rightfully in chains, and when she had escaped, that something very dangerous was now at large.

My housemate later explained that this was a special type of Japanese performing art, that it originated some time after the war and that it is centred on depicting primeval forces and on evoking feelings of fear in the spectators. It certainly did that for me, and probably for the Japanese spectators as well, as they were leaving very quietly, nobody clapped or gave any sign of appreciation of the actress. It was interesting, but more interesting it would be to find out why the Japanese are all so fond of ghost stories…

Onsen

Japan lies on the border of the Asian and the Philippine plate in the South and the Pacific Plate in the North. In fact, Japan’s East coast almost coincides with these borders. Obvious proofs of this are the constant little earthquakes (most of them below the perception threshold though), the many volcanoes (Mount Fuji being the largest), and the countless onsen, hot springs, dotting the landscape, which are probably the most pleasant of all evidence. Many of those hot springs are not simply hot water, but the water often has minerals dissolved in it. For example, I have visited an onsen near Nikko with sulphuric water. It had a distinctive yellow colour, and the whole onsen town smelled rather hellishly – as did I for the rest of that afternoon…

Going to an onsen can be considered a national pastime of the Japanese, and there is something for any taste and in any price class. The vast majority of the hot springs can only be accessed through a hotel – may it be a tiny local ryokan or a huge hotel resort with 500 rooms. You need not stay there to enjoy the bath though: Outside guests are always welcome, if only for a small fee, which may or may not include the rent for a towel, which is often tiny and meant only to cover certain body parts when walking between the bathtubs.

From there it is straightforward: First leave your shoes behind at the entrance, then your clothing and other stuff in the changing room – most often in a basket or on a simple shelf, but coin lockers may be available too. And then, off into the bathroom – and the first stop here are the showers. Japanese style of course, which means there is a small stool on which you have to sit and clean yourself. Usually there is some body wash and shampoo available, but many people bring their own anyway. Japanese women especially seem to take a visit to an onsen as a way to really pamper themselves – the amount of little tubes and ointments and other beauty equipment they bring, often in a special plastic basket, is unbelievable, and applying them all before and after the bath can take considerable time! When you feel clean enough, rinse the spot you’ve occupied and then off to the tubs it goes!

The water in the tubs is usually not more than knee-deep, so jumping in (head first) is not a good idea. There can be as little as a single tub inside (and sometimes outside), but I have also been to an onsen with 8 bathtubs in total, including two Jacuzzis, two large tubs outside, and one with cold water for after the sauna. When there are more tubs the water often has different temperatures, from the barely lukewarm (or even ice cold if there is a sauna available) to scalding hot for the hardcore onsenista. Take your time and enjoy the hot water as long as you like – or you can stand it!

Once you’re done soaking, you can take another quick shower and get dressed again. The dressing rooms, especially in the high-end onsen, are equipped with hairdryers and seats in front of mirrors; tissues, cotton buds, combs… The only thing that is not provided (and I keep forgetting to bring myself) is body lotion.

To wrap up an onsen evening in true Japanese fashion, there’s only one thing left to do: Have a glass of milk directly afterwards. The Japanese claim that milk drunk after the onsen tastes differently, and many onsen even have vending machines selling milk, but I cannot confirm that. Maybe it’s worth another try?

In general, I find going to an onsen just as pleasant as the Japanese, and it’s possible to do it year-round. Although it sounds counter intuitive, even in the summer going to an onsen is a very refreshing experience. Of course, it is much more pleasant to do it during winter time, when you can slip outside in the snow, freezing with only your towel, and then enjoy the falling snow from inside the hot tub…

Precautions

Slowly but surely it is getting cooler in Kyoto. We still have daily highs in the mid-twenty degrees, and I have seen that our lowest night temperatures are still higher than the day’s highs in Austria. Still, this will not last for much longer, and I am sure I have mentioned before that this very beautiful and old Japanese house does not have central heating…

Unfortunately, in complete ignorance of Japanese hiring procedures I have not brought anything warm to wear. I had expected to have received both a job and my belongings by now – including lots of money and all my winter sweaters. Neither has materialized yet, so I need to change my plans, at least regarding warm clothes; hence: I went shopping today.

The object of today’s desire after a rather cool morning: socks. Preferably long and thick and warm. I found a lovely little shop on Teramachi selling underwear and socks, and behold the result of my shopping spree: three pairs of wonderful socks in various lengths and materials.

The shop had plenty of socks, not only is it the time for it, but Asians are generally fond of nice footwear, mainly because you have to take off your shoes in so many places, private and public, and it’s always a good idea to show decent socks. I had the choice between socks with faces of cats and anime characters, socks with frilly lace and made of fleece, normal socks, toe socks, short and long…

However, what I found so very interesting about them all was… the frilly ones with the cat faces and sewn-on ears, the toe socks with each toe differently coloured, the ones barely grazing the ankle – those were all Made in Japan. The other, more boringly patterned, but obviously much warmer socks reaching to a decent height and made from wool and even cashmere were Made in China.

Conclusion: Japan stands for cute design, China for getting things done.