goinggaijin.com – Page 126 – A European's move towards Japan

Abacus and Sword

The Inoyama are samurai who for generations have been in the service of the Kaga clan. Their weapon of choice, however, is not the sword but the soroban – they are expert accountants. The current head of the Inoyama family at the beginning of the Meiji restoration is Naoyuki who is called, both derogatorily and admiringly, “Mad Abacus”, for his extraordinary gift with numbers, cultivated since childhood. His pedantic nature allows him to uncover a conspiracy over disappearing rice, but, as is the fate of so many whistle blowers, he falls from grace…

From then on, the Inoyama family learns what it means to be poor, and as Naoyuki refuses to borrow money, their descent into rags is inevitable. Their struggle is not without funny moments, and in the background there is always the clicking sound of the soroban.

Abacus and Sword (Bushi no kakeibo), 2010,129 min.
Director: Morita Yoshimitsu
Cast: Sakai Masato, Nakama Yukie, Matsuzaka Keiko

This movie ties in perfectly with last Saturday’s post. 😉 Also, how Naoyuki and his family make ends meet is timeless and some of their methods to save money, although very harsh, seem applicable even today. It’s not all about economizing though. The Inoyama never lose their humour to make the best out of everything, and not for a single moment do they betray their heritage as samurai. The film is based on the book by Isoda Michifumi.

Unfortunately I could only find Japanese versions of both the book and the movie – they are available from amazon, if anyone is interested.

Yugoya

Yesterday was full moon, and this particular one on August 15th in the lunar calendar, the harvest full moon, is said to be the brightest and most beautiful of them all, and this fact drives many Japanese out to moon viewing parties. There were numerous yugoya events throughout Kyoto last night, some of them with green tea being offered, koto-recitals, or similar. However, we chose to go to Daikakuji and its pond as it is considered the best spot for yugoya. The area around the temple is still rather rural – I walked through rice fields on my way there – and the city forbids development, so the nights are dark and quiet, just perfect for moon viewing.

Daikakuji is one of the big Buddhist temples in Arashiyama, the westernmost part of Kyoto. It was built as detached palace for emperor Saga, and in 876 he designated it to be converted into a Shingon Buddhist temple. The origin as palace is still palpable throughout the compound: beautiful gardens lie between spacious buildings which are lavishly decorated and have amazing paintings on their sliding doors. A large part of the buildings can be visited, and yesterday at dusk, especially the old gardens made a deep impression on me. Then there is Osawa, a large lotus pond, next to the temple, which was specially laid out to resemble lake Tungting in China.

And this pond is what draws people to Daikakuji for the yugoya: Large boats cruise the pond, quietly pushed with bamboo poles, and a ride on one of those, away from the noisy people on shore, with lots of time to contemplate the moon, must indeed be quite an experience. Unfortunately, an experience we were not able to make, because by the time we arrived at the temple, all boats were sold out already.

Anyway, we took our time to see the palace/temple and at 6:30 a ceremony started with a long procession of priests taking their place on a platform prepared in the lake, the altar in the direction of the full moon, which had already risen by that time, and did look very beautiful indeed on the cloudless sky. It was an interesting mix of Shinto and Buddhist rites, with shrine maidens and Buddhist priests, something I have never encountered before. There were drums and cymbals, and the ceremony ended with a reading (or rather: chanting) from one of the Buddhist main texts.

Afterwards, we turned our attention to the food stalls on the shore: Takoyaki, udon and soba, traditional Kyoto style mochi called yatsuhashi and slightly modernized ones with strawberry filling, beer, soft drinks and shaved ice… But of course, special days call for special treats. For example, there are round white mochi with a strip of anko – red bean paste – across them, meant to resemble the moon behind a cloud. More appealing to me, however – remember that I don’t really like anko – were the little sweets in shape of white rabbits. Rabbits? Well, according to Asian tradition, there is a rabbit living in the moon…

Preparations

Lately, I have been busy preparing all sorts of stuff. For example, I went to the immigration office in Kyoto to get my visa extended. One hour later and 4000 yen poorer, I had an extra stamp in my passport, allowing me to stay yet another 90 days. The stamp, however, bears the extra note “Final Extension”, so I have marked that date on my calender so as not to forget it. Overstaying a visa is not a light issue, I have read that if the authorities have to force you out, you are not allowed to land in Japan for the following 5 years, and if you go on your own, it’s still one year. Not that I’m having plans like this, of course…

Having extended my visa means that I have some more time to find a job. I have taken one step in the right direction and registered for the next JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test – the same test that I failed last time 😉 ) which will take place in December. If you want to take the test in Japan, you can register online and pay per creditcard, all very straightforward. I just hope they didn’t expect my address to be written in Kanji…

Anyway, this means I’ll have a lot to do – studying of course, mainly Kanji and vocabulary. Grammar is limited and I’m quite confident I will manage this, but I always found learning words so incredibly boring…

Weather Warning

It’s typhoon season and we’re having bad weather again. It seems that the first 17 typhoons in South-East Asia have left us unscathed, but now that number 18 – Man-yi – has arrived, things are turning worse.

I woke up some time before six in the morning, when the rain was pattering heavily on the roofs and there was a strong wind howling, coming in through the little cracks in the window frame and rattling the doors. When I finally got to my computer about two hours later, there was a message from my landlady (sent at 6:15) asking if everything was alright. She said an extreme weather warning – something that happens only every five years or so – was issued around 5 in the morning, and some parts throughout Kyoto prefecture had even been evacuated. Neither Shinkansen nor Hankyu trains were running, and the rivers were swollen up to the bridges in some parts of the city. She said we should listen for city trucks that may come by and announce evacuations, and suggested to “follow the neighbour’s lead”. To give you an idea, here is a picture of Kyoto’s famous temple Kinkakuji (which stands in a pond) from their web cam today at 7 am:

It’s now 10 in the morning and things have calmed down. There is only a bit of drizzle, but there are strong gales here and there. The house and its inhabitants are unharmed. The forecast for tomorrow says it will be sunny and up to 29 degrees. Until the next typhoon…

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.