Saturday In The Park... and Monday By The River

On the weekend I went for my first sakura (cherry blossom )hanami (flower viewing) session. A few friends and I decided to venture down to Nagoya, which, being slightly further south, is a little further along in the sakura blossom stakes. I was assured of that last week when I checked out somewhat bizarre, yet strangely touching 'cherry blossom front report' at the Japan Meterological Agency's website: http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/News/sakura3.html

Before arriving at the park, I envisioned a huge expanse of green lawn dotted with cherry trees and groups of people sitting under them. Reality was a little different. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but the 'lawn lounging' I was anticipating turned out to be more like a 'crouching-in-the-garden-beds' scenario.





This wasn't simply due to lack of space, but because Japanese public parks always seem to incorporate more concrete walkways than grass. Nevertheless, there were plenty of cherry trees and you can never fault sakura for their beauty.

Now that I've had a bit of time to think about it, what really strikes me about hanami is what it reveals about the Japanese culture and mindset. Plenty has been written about Japan's reverence for the natural world and how this is reflected in Japanese art, fashion, music, ceremonies, religious beliefs, and numerous other cultural practices. But this awe of nature was so much more apparent on a personal level on Saturday. People of all ages and all societal demographics were there; young families with chidren, wannabe yakuza, older couples, suited-up salarymen and office ladies attending the company hanami party; even a few men who might have been homeless. All there to absorb the spring atmosphere and appreciate one of nature's most beautiful displays. And the expressions on some of the people as they walked down paths under a canopy of petals were like something out of a Disney movie- there is no other word to describe it but awe; faces upturned, mouths half-open, eyes lit up.


And like I say, these were people of all ages - not just children. You have to admire a society that encourages that kind of unselfconscious appreciation of nature.

I think it also comes out in the Japanese fixation with kawaii (cute). Although this is mainly the domain of high school girls, the appreciation for cuteness apparently knows no boundaries in Japan: I remember seeing a construction worker with a tough-guy expression using a mobile phone with a teddy-bear keyring dangling off it. Almost every company here has at least one cartoon-character mascot that features in its advertising, logos and signs. For example, my bank's corporate image is based on Tom and Jerry. They're on the cover of my bankbook. The epitome of cuteness here in Japan is little furry animals, and it's not uncommon to see a full grown man taking a small toy-poodle-type dog (dressed in a skirt, t-shirt and 'hair'/fur clips) for a walk.

But I digress. Today I took in some more hanami- in my own town. The sakura here are possibly Gifu's best-kept cherry-blossom secret. The Sakae river, which runs through this town, is lined with cherry trees. When the trees are blooming, they create a canopy over the river. When you walk down the path next to the river, it really is - to quote my colleague - "like another world"...

Fugu Survivor

Last night I had another quintessential Japanese experience. Mari-sensei invited me and Khaleelah to her house for a fugu dinner. She's retiring this year, so it was partly a farewell dinner and partly 'just because'. I really feel she did too much for us and feel so indebted now; I think K and I should pitch in and get her and her husband something nice. This was the family that took us to eat ayu back in September. It seems they have taken it upon themselves to give us a well-rounded Japanese marine cuisine education!


Fugu (河豚, ふぐ) is pufferfish. It is fatally poisonous if not prepared properly, and so is notorious as one of the more interesting dishes in Japanese cuisine (it was featured in 'The Simpsons', so it has official popular culture status now!). It is also extremely expensive, and somewhat rare, especially outside Japan. A full course of fugu can cost hundreds of dollars, and so, without this opportunity, I doubt I ever would have been able to try it. Fugu contains lethal amounts of tetrodotoxin, and if you ingest enough of it, you will be paralyzed while remaining fully conscious, until you asphyxiate. People die every year from eating improperly prepared fugu... and that's why chefs must pass a special licencing test in order to serve fugu at their restaurants. In the US, there are less than 20 restaurants with this licence (according to wikipedia). The best chefs leave a small amount of poison in the flesh, which is harmless, but leaves a tingling sensation on the tongue. In the Kansai region, fugu is called teppo, which means rifle or gun. Nice advertisement. And in Yamaguchi Prefecture, fuku is used, because fugu sounds like a word meaning 'disabled'.


Hiroshige painting: Fugu is the smaller fish at the bottom.

Before last night, all I knew about fugu was that it was poisonous if not prepared properly and that it was expensive. In hindsight, I'm glad I wasn't aware of the details of the poison's mechanism of action, or the meanings of its various names across Japan. I wasn't even particularly anxious about the experience. But I felt a slight twinge of nervousness when I found out that Mari-sensei's husband prepared the meal himself. His sister owns a fish market somewhere in Gifu, and she gives him fugu a couple of times a year. Despite my slight reluctance, I knew that this was a wonderful and very rare experience and took comfort in the assumption that he has years of experience when it comes to preparing fugu.

We were served the 'fuuru coosu' (full course):
-thinly sliced fugu sashimi (raw), transparent and beautifully arranged on a plate, which we dipped in a carrot/green onions/paprika/mirin/soy sauce... to slice this by hand is no mean feat!
-fugu nabe (hot pot), containing pieces of fugu, bones and skin, along with shitake and enoki mushrooms, cabbage and chrysanthemum leaves
-rice cooked in the nabe broth, served with tsukemono (after-dinner pickles)
-and memorably, sake in which the fins of fugu had been soaked.

So how did it taste? Well, pretty good. I always like sashimi and nabe. But, I am not the first to say that it wasn't as good as the hype leads you to believe. Fugu is commonly described (especially by foreigners) as somewhat bland. Honestly, if it wasn't for the threat of paralysis (!), fugu probably wouldn't even exist as a dish. I'm incredibly greatful to Mari-sensei and her husband for giving me the chance to enjoy fugu, but if I had forked over 200 bucks for it I would have been disappointed. I didn't notice any tingling sensations, although if I did, I probably would have put it down to the effects of the sake!

After the fugu feast, Mari-sensei and her husband showed us their very Japanese home, complete with Japanese garden, tatami-mat room containing a shrine for the ancestors, full set of Meiji period armour (!), hand-painted sliding doors and special paper screens for full-moon-viewing, and a 1961 Japanese car in the process of restoration. This is on top of the things we witnessed last time- the 2 meter by 1.5 meter television screen and karaoke room. Amazing house, by any standard.

A night to remember, for so many reasons!

Horumon and Karaoke - just another day at work

I’ve got quite a bit of catching up to do, blog-wise, and what better time to do it than the month of March, officially the most unproductive month in the school calendar. The Japanese school year finishes in late February and doesn’t start again until April 1. (Which, by the way, is completely inflexible- school starts on April 1st, regardless of what day of the week it is, even if it’s a Sunday!) Yay! Holidays, right? Well, no. This is Japan, so we must always be at work, even if that means not having a damn thing to do. I have spent the last few weeks at work sitting at my desk, busying myself with various tasks I can barely remember doing (sounds like a typical office job back home, doesn’t it?). For example, reading, studying Japanese, writing blog entries (not enough, obviously), cleaning out my desk, observing and evesdropping, chatting with K, Wikipedia-ing, checking emails and doing web searches on everything from earthquakes to how to prevent greasy hair, and planning my next trip outta here! Unlike back home, it is completely acceptable to be at work and not actually do any work, or even attempt to appear so, just BE there. Presence is the key. So it’s not like I need to make a show of looking busy, although years of conditioning in that vein have meant I haven’t gone as far as watching a DVD on my computer (although apparently my predecessor used to).

Anyway, onto the real subject of this blog entry: the first-year class’ teacher’s party, which I attended the weekend before last. At the last minute, I considered backing out, mainly because I discovered that the main dish served would be horumon (放る物). Originally I guessed it meant ‘hormones’, as in parts of the body that produce hormones. Because that’s kind of what horumon is- bits of animals that are not usually eaten. But no, it literally means ‘discarded things’, because these parts would normally be thrown away. A much more inviting name, right? Well, I went to the party anyway, to face my fear and in the spirit of experiencing all Japan has to offer.

The first dish was tongue. All I could think about was the revolting irony of eating something that itself had been used to eat stuff. It was pretty awful too- very tough and not particularly tasty as far as beef goes. Next, we fried up some slivers of meat that I assumed were normal pieces of beef- but who’s to know? Finally, we were presented with the real thing- and the teachers started to get excited. There were various strange-looking pieces of flesh on the hot-plate. I tried two and left it at that. The first was, I think, a piece of intestine. Again, very tough and a little bitter. My final venture was probably some kind of organ; maybe the pancreas or thyroid…? (haha, a guess based on my anatomy classes but very likely not correct!) I told my colleages that I preferred not to be told what each item was. But in hindsight I think I should have asked, if only to be able to confidently boast about my accomplishments later.

The worst thing about all this was that this meal was not cheap at all- about 50 dollars for a not-particularly filling or tasty meal. Maybe it’s true that if you stick a high price on something, people will be drawn to it because it then seems exotic and special. (Ironically, horumon cuisine originated among Korean immigrants in Osaka who were too poor to afford anything besides animal viscera.) The other interesting thing about horumon is that the Japanese consider it ‘stamina food’, whatever that is. I asked my colleagues about this and they couldn’t explain it, but said that horumon is good for women and children. Maybe because it’s all protein.

After an eventful meal which took a lot of guts to eat (haha), we went to a karaoke bar. This was a little different to my previous karaoke experiences, where you pay for a private room for just you and your friends. At the karaoke bar, you share your singing experience with other patrons and the barmen/maids- who in our case happened to be two aging hostess types with cleavage- something I hadn’t seen in Japan until now! My colleagues were a few middle-aged male teachers, two younger soccer coaches, and only two other women- my supervisor and the school nurse. Of course I was coerced into singing something- solo- and unfortunately the song they chose for me was ‘2 Become 1’. I felt a little uncomfortable to say the least, singing such an explicit song in front of 6 Japanese male colleagues alone. So, I only sang the non-explicit lines, which happen to be all of two lines in the chorus. I’m sure they thought I was against the idea of singing, but that wasn’t it at all - I made up for it by doing a duet of ‘Yesterday’.

The rest of the night, I was treated to some very stirring performances of Japanese enka music, and another suggestive song, ‘Cherry’, sung by the 21-year-old school nurse, which, as you might guess, is about the same kind of thing you would expect an English song with that title to be about. Enka music is (to paraphrase Wikipedia) traditional popular Japanese songs from the Showa period (1926-1989). It has been compared to Western country music in that the themes are love and loss, loneliness, ongoing hardships, even suicide and death. The sound is very distinctive and a little strange to Western ears, because it mixes “the Japanese pentatonic scale with Western harmonies”.

(As a side-note, recently an African-American guy (Jero) has become a popular enka singer in Japan. His grandmother is Japanese, so as weird as it sounds for a black person to be singing traditional Japanese songs, that fact probably lends him some validity in the eyes of Japanese people.)

The evening was a success overall, mainly because I got to speak to some fellow teachers who are usually so taciturn at work. Enkais (office parties) (http://everything2.com/title/enkai) in Japan are really an essential part of the job. It’s where people gossip, bond and show their ‘true selves’. It helps that enkais usually involve nomihoudai (all-you-can-drink). Some pretty wild behavior can result, even beyond what you would expect at the office party in a Western country, where people still have to worry about how they might be thought of the next day at work. For example, at my school’s Bounenkai (end-of-year-party) last year, one teacher came prepared with a mask and wig, which he forced other teachers to wear. Paradoxically, in companies, many important business decisions are made not in the boardroom, but at bars, during drinking sessions. People feel comfortable enough in this context to speak their mind and give their opinions, and it is generally understood that what is said will not be referred to later back in the office. So it was not really surprising when I became privy to several juicy tidbits, including who thinks who is a bad teacher and who thinks who has a bad ‘vibe’. There’s a lot to be gained from going to your office enkai, way more than can be gained from the average piss up in Australia… gastronomically and socially.

Last Night's Rumblings

Today I’ve been scaring myself. Well, not too badly, but I’ve been looking up earthquakes on the internet. Last night I experienced my first (well, biggest) earthquake. That’s not saying much, since Melbourne is not particularly seismically active, but nevertheless it was kind of a turning point for me, if I think about it.

It happened in the middle of the night and only woke me up for about 2 seconds or so. During that time I was half asleep and while my first thought was ‘earthquake’, I also convinced myself it was probably the guy upstairs jumping. I completely forgot about it until about an hour ago when a teacher sitting nearby asked me if I felt the earthquake last night. According to her, the epicenter was in Aichi, southwest of here, and it only registered 2 on the Richter scale here in Kakamigahara. (2.0-2.9 = minor; generally not felt, but recorded; there are about 1000 every day around the world).

So all that happened was I felt it- nothing fell, nothing broke. But it’s made it real for me now. Not that I’ve been complacent about earthquakes- I actually have an emergency kit in my closet (water, snacks, reflective blanket, face masks, rope, flashlight etc), which is a hell of a lot more than what most Japanese people have. According to a ‘Japan Times’ poll, only 14 percent have a survival kit and know where their local evacuation area is. This is despite the very real - in fact likely - possibility that a big earthquake will hit Japan in the near future. According to the government, there is a 30 percent chance of a 6.7-7.2 magnitude earthquake hitting the southern Kanto region ( Tokyo and surrounds) in the next decade, and a 70 percent chance in the next 30 years. My prefecture, Gifu , also has a strong possibility of a major earthquake in the near future. So, as they say, it’s not a question of if, but when.

Anyway, I’ve just spouted a lot of facts and statistics, but I feel like it’s the least I can do to be aware of them, seeing that I will be living here for the next year or so. Australia ’s spiders, snakes and sharks might strike fear into the hearts of non-Australians everywhere, but I’ll take them any day over a major earthquake!

Spring Has Sprung

Spring has come to southern Gifu, and the signs are everywhere.

1. It's warmer- finally! No more huddling in front of the heater, no more wearing my ski jacket on the way to school, no more frozen puddles to slip on when making my way into the school building. It's amazing how the body adapts to temperature though- I feel positively warm now that it's just above 15 degrees outside. When that hit me back in October, I was shivering my ass off!

2. Flower blossoms are out.
Last Sunday I went to a plum（ume, うめ、梅）blossom festival in Gifu city (at Baiorin Koen, or ‘Violin Park’, no less). It was just a small park but filled with lots and lots of plum trees. Apparently plum flowers are the first to bloom of all the fruit trees here in Japan, and while they are not quite as delicately beautiful as cherry blossoms (sakura, さくら, 桜 － the blossoms most favored by the Japanese, which won’t emerge until the end of March), they are still a very nice treat for the senses after winter. The park smelled like spring and there were plenty of Japanese families out enjoying their first ‘official’ taste of spring for the year.

Seasons here are generally welcomed in very prescribed ways- through festivals focusing on something representing the natural beauty of that season. And I have to say that of all the seasons, spring is the one I’ve been looking forward to most.

I think I was premature in my last post in saying that I will never again be surprised by anything in Japan . At the plum festival, we witnessed for the first time a very Japanese custom. The seasonal photo model. A Japanese ‘maiden’ (actually she was probably in her thirties) wearing a ‘Spring’ outfit was posing for photographers amongst the plum trees. And when I say posing, I mean it. The expressions on their faces were the fixed, vacant, spacey smile of housewives in 1950s magazine ads. There was a crowd of male photographers gathered in front of her taking pictures.

We found the whole situation hilarious and kind of bizarre. So we decided to copy her, in an ironic way, of course. Julie was braver than me, and it wasn’t long before a couple of the photographers had made their way over to where we were to take photos of this ‘gaijin sakura girl’! (Not that this was anything new to us; every time we go to a festival, someone will inevitably take a photo or three of us, without our permission and with no attempt to be discreet.)

3. Following on from the blossom theme, shops and department stores have brought out their spring merchandise. That is, you can now purchase an array of very realistic plastic sprigs of cherry and plum blossoms, beautiful sakura writing paper, postcards featuring cute furry animals frolicking among flowers, and blossom-covered dishware. And if you stop by a combini (convenience store), you can literally taste spring- in the form of a sakura-flavored Kit Kat!

4. Starting this week, at 5pm every day, my neighbourhood is treated to the sweet notes of ‘Sakura’, possibly Japan ’s most famous traditional Japanese folk song. You’d probably recognize it if you heard it.

http://classic-midi.com/midi_player/uta/uta_sakura.htm

Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms/Blanketing the countryside/As far as you can see./Is it a mist, or clouds?/Fragrant in the morning sun./Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms/Flowers in full bloom./Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms/Across the Spring sky/As far as you can see./Is it a mist, or clouds?/Fragrant in the air./Come now, come/Let’s look, at last!

I knew about this tradition of playing a special song – either the official town song, or a seasonal tune - over the loudspeakers in towns all over Japan , but until now, I hadn’t heard it in Kakamigahara. As corny as it sounds, it does stir the heartstrings- I look forward to hearing it again this afternoon! Am I turning Japanese?!

5. It’s ‘dust storm’ season in East Asia .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7274718.stm

From late February to April, huge dust clouds from the Gobi Desert in China blow over to the east and collect pollution as they go, carrying it to Korea and Japan . When I first heard about this, I thought it was just another example of Japanese xenophobia (Chinese dust causes illness in Japanese!), but maybe I need to be less cynical because apparently it’s a real phenomenon. Gifu isn’t spared- over the past week I’ve noticed thick haze in the air and last night riding home I could feel and smell that the air wasn’t clear. All of this has meant an increase in the proportion of people wearing white surgical masks as they go about their business here in Japan . (In case you didn’t know, it is a Japanese custom to wear white masks covering their mouth and nose - like the ones surgeons or very very sick people wear – when they have a cold or allergies. Sometimes it makes you feel like bird flu has actually broken out here.)

While I can’t deny that Melbourne’s mild climate is nice (well, except for the drought!), I can’t help but feel that we are missing out on something by not having four distinct seasons. By Australian standards, Melbourne is ‘European’, so they say, but being so mild, we don’t get to experience the burst of spring after the relative hibernation of winter. So it’s a novelty to be here in Gifu and to experience my first full northern hemisphere calendar year and all the seasonal changes that come with it.

Token 'deep' post

It has hit me recently that I really need to be aware of not falling into a kind of ‘rut’ here in Japan . I'm only here for a short time- initially I thought one year, but now that has been lengthened to two, because the more I see the more I feel the need to see. By ‘rut’ I mean taking things for granted, and feeling like you’re going through the same routine week after week. It might seem like it would be hard to fall into a monotonous routine being on the JET Programme, being challenged every day in a foreign culture, traveling all over the country on weekends… and yes, it is an exciting life in many respects. In fact, up until now (and certainly before I arrived in Japan ) I myself thought that my life for the next year would be a whirlwind of anxiety, excitement and exhilaration. But even traveling can get to be a bit of ‘same old, same old’. I guess it’s human nature. We adapt to anything. The alien becomes foreign, the foreign becomes normal, and eventually, some of the normal becomes boring. The thing is, as much as I enjoy my weekend trips to places like Nara , Tokyo , Kyoto , Hida, Hiroshima etc., and as much as I look forward to the next Japanese seasonal matsuri (festival), since the beginning of this year, I’ve become aware that some of the ‘spark’ has gone from these otherwise strong feelings of enjoyment.

I know it’s a result of just getting used to how things are here- even, or especially, the little details. Now each experience here is tinged with a little bit of sadness/regret that nothing will ever be completely novel or surprising to me here from now on, at least not in the way that it was a few months ago. I guess it can be compared to growing up, becoming an ‘adult’ and losing that childhood innocence people are always talking about. I don’t think I can ever look upon anything in Japan- from the temples to the landscapes, to the people, to the kids, to the food, to the crazy fashions - again the same way I did when I first arrived here.
Ah, that’s life, and I think the Japanese have it right with their concept of wabi-sabi.

Then again, maybe instead of looking at all this like I’ve reached the end of some kind of journey of discovery, I should realize that I’m moving into a different phase of appreciating Japan… maybe less focused on the superficial.

Ah, I see...?

I'm reading a book called "Chrysanthemums and Thorns" at the moment, by Edwin M. Reingold, a former Time editor who did a lot of reporting about Japan. It is really really insightful as far as Japan goes, because he writes so objectively and is not afraid to expose some of the darker aspects of Japanese society/culture/politics/business. He writes about stuff that most people never write about for fear of seeming offensive or too critical, breaking taboos, or exposing some great secret of Japanese society. For example, he analyzes things like the Japanese Emperor renouncing his status as a 'god', Japan's perception of foreigners, the role of women, the yakuza, and political corruption... I guess many Japanese would be mortified to read this book and even more mortified that foreigners were reading it. But I like it because it does expose the 'real Japan', as it claims to do. That's something that many people agree is hard to get at- so much of life and culture here is based on the superficial- at least it appears that way to an outsider.

The more time I spend here, the more it becomes apparent that the Western stereotype of Japan, like all stereotypes, is just a surface representation. It is practically useless for preparing someone for living in Japan. Even some of the 'advice' we JETs were given before arrival, bestowed on us by the knowledgeable people at the Japanese consulate, seems misguided in hindsight. Just basic things like, 'if you are an average-sized woman or bigger at home, you will have a hard time finding clothes in Japan' (I have no problem; the clothes may even fit me better than at home!), or 'don't say sayoonara at the end of a work day because it's too final' (plenty of my colleagues have said it to ME!), or 'work-wear in Japan is more formal than in Western countries' (lots of teachers wear tracksuits to work!), or 'Japanese people don't wear/like perfumes and scents' (I think there are more perfume and aromatherapy products here than anywhere). These points are not exactly profound things that have a huge influence on daily life, but they just go to show that nothing can prepare you for living (or attempting to understand) a culture like actually living there.

Anyway, back to the book. Not to sound like a book report, but I like how it talks about a lot of things I had noticed living here in Japan, and helps explain why they are the way they are. It also emphazises the danger of judging another culture by our own standards (something that was drummed into me in Anthropology time and time again at uni, but which is difficult to avoid doing in daily life). For example, in the West, we all assume that Japanese women hold a more weak, submissive role in Japanese society than women in Western countries. But, according to this book, what we don't recognize is the power they hold in the household- eg. the wives control the family finances, doling out an allowance to their husbands. And the role of 'housewive' is more respected here in Japan. In fact, just about every role is more respected in Japan- I don't think they have the concept of 'shitkicker' like we do! Tasks that we consider menial and beneath us, in the West, the Japanese tend to take a lot of pride in. So really, you can't make judgements about any aspect of another society without understanding how that part fits into the whole. (Man, I'm really sounding like an anthropology student here.) ...Which I don't claim to understand, and almost certainly never will, but at least I realize that!

What really prompted this long-winded post was what the book says about the Japanese learning style. Reading it helped me feel better about the way my classes go when I'm teaching. Remember how I commented on the catatonic-like behavior of the students? And their apparent lack of creativity and imagination? Well, it all makes sense in light of this:"The entire Japanese educational system is geared towards passive learning. Western teachers in Japan are often dismayed by the lack of challenge and questioning from students. It is often attributed to language difficulty, or to a natural diffidence or reticence. But the Japanese student is accustomed to absorbing information from his teacher. Today, more and more criticism is being lodged against the system that puts discipline and group effort before creativity and individual expression."

Also, "the original form of the Japanese verb 'to learn', manabu, came from the word maneru, which means 'to imitate'"... and I've noticed myself that they use the verb 'to memorize' or 'to remember', oboeru, a LOT when talking about study or learning or understanding.

Having said all that, there have been a few instances when I was able to coax out some creativity from my students- for example when I had them design an imaginary robot. Against what you might expect, the girls tend to be better at this than the boys. Although the class clowns are almost always boys. So who knows- this place, like anywhere, is complicated, and I will never work it out. But I sure am having fun (is that the right word?) trying!