Category Archives: Japan

Cape Ashizuri, 1993

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Wiki’s helpful when it comes to putting Shikoku in a little geographic context. Hope it’s accurate: “The 50th largest island by area in the world, Shikoku is smaller than Sardinia and Bananal (a river island in the Araguaia River in Brazil), but larger than Halmahera (near New Guinea) and Seram (likewise). By population, it ranks 23rd, having fewer inhabitants than Sicily or Singapore, but more than Puerto Rico or Negros.”

July 2, 1993

Yuriko and I took a train south from Kochi to Nakamura, and then a bus to Cape Ashizuri, the extreme southern tip of Shikoku. The coast reminded me of the coast of Washington state near Kolaloch: rough, rocky, rainy.

Ashizuri1993-1Despite intermittent rain, we took a walk on a path hugging the shore. It was a concrete path, which often evolved into staircases. We went down to the rocky beach and looked at the larger rock formations under gray skies and wind and some rain.

Ashizuri1993-2

Back up the hill, we visited one of Kōbō Daishi’s 88 pilgrimage temples, number 39 I think [sic. It’s 38, which is Kongōfukuji (a little more about it here)].

The proprietor of our minshuku came in his minibus and took us up, up, up a high hill, where the establishment is perched. The minshuku is our accommodation for the night, and completely fogged in. The evening meal made up for it by being excellent, especially the bonito sashimi, which I’m told is a specialty of the region.

July 3

Clear morning. Up early and took a walk. The minshuku’s got a fine vista of the sea. Too bad the stars were hiding last night – that would have been an unusually clear place in Japan for looking at stars. But the ocean view’s worth the trouble of getting up the hill.

Bear With Me

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“What kind of vegetarian are you, Eyebeam?”

 “I do my best to steer clear of bear meat.”

 Jan. 12, 1994

Today I sat down for a dinner of bear chili. This was my idea. I made it this morning, went off to teach in the afternoon, and came home to it a little while ago. Yuriko’s not home yet, since this is her night class night. The bear meat came in a can – no, came from a bear – anyway, the meat has lately been in a can, sitting on our kitchen shelf since I bought it at Chitose Airport in Hokkaido in October.

Am I contributing to the demise of Hokkaido bears? I don’t know. I do know that there are enough of them to frighten hikers in Hokkaido’s national parks.

2014 Postscript: This article, for one, talks of a lower population of Hokkaido bears because of “hunting and loss of habitat.” I faintly remember the bear meat chili being like chili with beef, only a little greasier.

Maneki Neko

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Japan2013-14 019One more image taken in Japan recently by either Yuriko or Ann: some maneki neko at a gift shop not far from the base of Mt. Fuji. They’re the good luck cats that are nearly ubiquitous in Japanese retail establishments and are found in a lot of other places as well. We have one in our house on the same shelf as a few iterations of Spongebob, a pair of salt ‘n’ pepper penguins, a few painted eggshells, and the Ilanaaq figure I got in Canada, among other figurines.

The origins of maneki neko are obscure. As this article by California antique dealer Alan Pate puts it, “Considering how accepted the cat has become, and how dear the image is to the Japanese, few people seem to know much about it. How has a seated cat become a symbol of good fortune and prosperity? What are its roots? Why do some have the left paw raised and others the right? Why are some white, some black, gold, or even red?

“Given the nature of folk traditions, evolving over time, absorbing elements of local beliefs and customs, we may never know the exact evolution of the maneki neko… A casual survey of antique dealers in Tokyo and Kyoto reveals many curious interpretations and theories: They originated in Osaka. No, they originated in Edo (old Tokyo). They originated in the 17th century. No, they most definitely originated in the early 16th century. The left paw is for wealth and the right for luck. No, the left is for a drinking establishment and the right for merchants. No, the left is for business and the right for home…”

I can’t shed any light on the subject. I just know I saw them a lot in Japan, and I asked some Japanese about it, and the best answer I got was that the cat grabs good luck for you and brings it in, as it might a fish or a bird.

That Old Shitamachi Spirit

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When I hear of something like the Tokyo Skytree, I react with a completely irrational thought: how could they wait to build it until it’s inconvenient for me to see it?

Tokyo Skytree Dec 2013During Yuriko and Ann’s recent trip to Japan, they visited the Skytree, which is now the tallest structure in Japan, and the tallest TV/radio tower on Earth, completed only in 2012 and coming in at more than 2,000 feet. The Skytree itself is a broadcast tower and tourist attraction, but it’s also part of a mixed-use development that includes office space, convention and meeting facilities, a theater, parking garages and more. The Tobu Railroad and a consortium of broadcasters developed it.

The tower also gives Japanese web site designers a chance to describe the place in English: “The ‘town with a tower’ promises a lifestyle that is not uniform. The facilities are developed with the aim of producing a community brand transmitting new local values to the world by generously introducing facilities and functions that will manifest the charm of the shitamachi spirit and produce a synergy effect.

“Note: Shitamachi means traditional old town area with Edo atmosphere.”

The observation deck’s got quite a view, my wife and daughter tell me. And what do you see?

Tokyo, Dec 2013A slice of the vastness of greater Tokyo.

The Kii Peninsula, 1992

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In late October 1992, my friend Rich came to visit me in Japan, and one of the places we went was down to the southern shores of the Kii Peninsula, more-or-less south of Osaka, where we visited the cliffs of Osenkorogashi and Nachi falls. Unusually for Japan, the cliff was simply a cliff – no observation deck, no rail, just a drop off with a sign posted nearby. I could read, in red, the large hiragana for “DANGER” (ABUNAI) on the sign. The falls, on the other hand, were visible from a platform not far away. Impressive at 436 feet, and near an interesting Buddhist temple, Seiganto-ji.

I was looking all that up and got a lesson in how the Internet enables wandering minds like my own. How tall, I wondered, is that fall compared to some others I’ve seen? Though broad and impressive, Niagara Falls is only 167 feet high. Not sure anymore which of the Hawaiian falls I saw, and while all of them were very pretty, none seemed that high. The falls on the Athabasca River in Canada were powerful, but also not that high. What about Fall Creek Falls?

Fall Creek Falls is part of a Tennessee state park of the same name I visited about 30 years ago. It was a gorgeous place, with a picturesque fall – and at 256 feet, supposedly the highest “free-fall waterfall east of the Mississippi,” for what that’s worth. While reading the Wiki article, I noticed that part of Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam (1986) was filmed at that park, while the rest was done in Nashville. If that movie doesn’t ring any bells, you’re having a normal reaction. It’s an early Jim Varney movie, and I must be one of the few people who paid money to see it. I went because the brother of an old friend of mine was a cameraman on the movie.

So I looked my friend’s brother up on the imdb. I knew he went to California in late ’80s to ply his trade, and sure enough he’s done a lot since then, including as an electrician and best boy on various movies and TV shows, few I’d ever heard of except The King of Queens. Glad to know that he’s been able to make a living at it.

Back to Japan. I don’t remember the name of this place, but it was a rocky shore on the Kii Peninsula, somewhere near those other sights. Flat slabs of rock jutted out into the Pacific, which crashed noisily against the rocks.

It was clear and warmer than it should have been for October. The wind was strong. Rich and I decided that all of the four elements were in play: Earth in the form of the rock, Water in the form of the ocean, Air in the form of the quick wind, and Fire in the form of the warm sunshine.

The Samurai Collection

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The Ann & Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Museum: The Samurai Collection takes up the second floor of the St. Ann Building in Dallas’ Uptown district, which is a walkable distance from downtown, even in the late-summer heat. The museum is another new attraction for the city, open only since March.

To reach it, you enter a first-floor restaurant, pass its reception desk, and then go up some stairs. It’s a small museum with a single focus: samurai armor, weapons, masks, and related items. The museum asserts that its “collection of samurai objects is one of the largest of its type in the world and is displayed in the only museum outside Japan whose focus is samurai armor.”

Go up to the cool, quiet reaches of the museum, and pretty soon you’re face-to-face with the likes of him:

It’s a somen (full-face mask), made of iron, leather, horsehair, lacquer and silk lacing, dating from mid-Edo – the 18th century. During earlier periods, when a samurai might actually have to do battle, somen weren’t that popular, since a mask like that can obscure your vision. In the more peaceful Edo era, that wasn’t such a concern, and the masks had a revival among samurai (at least those who could afford them).

Another cool item at the Samurai Collection is this helmet.

It’s an akodanari kabuto, a melon-shaped helmet of iron and lacquer and dating from the Muromachi period, or the late 15th to early 16th centuries, when it was entirely likely that a samurai would be fighting someone. The museum says that “the construction of this kabuto, with twelve plates covered in protruding rivet comprising the helmet bowl, is unique. There is no other known example.”

These are fine artifacts, but they aren’t as grand as some full armor that the Barbier-Mueller has. In this case, one for a man, another for a boy.

The larger suit, the museum notes, “was assembled during the Edo period and incorporates several older components. The helmet displays stylized horns known as kuwagata and a frontal ornament in the shape of a paulownia leaf, the crest of several important families…” As for the smaller suit, it’s late Edo. “Boys of samurai class families began training to become warriors at a very young age… at around age 12, samurai boys participated in a ceremony known as genpuku, wherein they received their first armor and sword.”

All in all, a high-quality collection, and not such a large display that you can’t leisurely take in most of it in one visit. It’s as if a single room of some vast, first-water museum – the British Museum, the Met, the Art Institute – had detached itself and landed in Dallas. So why Dallas? The museum’s name says it all: Dallas real estate mogul Gabriel Barbier-Mueller and his wife Ann, long-time collectors of this kind of art and artifact, wanted it to be there.

Here’s a 2006 D article about Barbier-Mueller, scion of the Swiss family of that name who decided to live in Dallas, in as much as anyone with four houses lives in a particular place. It begins with the amusing line: “Gabriel Barbier-Mueller owns a lot of stuff.” Well, so do I. It’s just that a lot of his stuff is more expensive.

Kinokawa, 1991

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August 18, 1991

Osaka radio, Bonchi Rice Snack, high winds pouring through my window; such is the stuff of today, the last day of O-bon. The highlight of the week was an excursion to Kinokawa, a river about an hour south by train, and then more time by car.

Last Saturday, one of my students, Aiko, spontaneously invited me to go after I ran into her at Keyston, where my friend Don and another guy were playing a gig. Aiko had been in turn invited by her friend Kumiko who – together with her sister and brother-in-law – rented a two-room “cabin” overlooking the Kinokawa. Kumiko is having an affair with Don at the moment. So I was expecting him to come along. Wrong again. Instead, Kumiko invited my friend Bill, who’s attracted to Kumiko in spite of the fact, or maybe because of the fact, that he married another woman earlier in the summer. Why? I don’t know. Maybe Kumiko just likes fanning Bill’s ardor.

[Unsurprisingly, Bill’s marriage – to a Japanese woman – didn’t last very long, and after their divorce, rumor was she dimed on him to immigration, to make sure he’d leave the country. I went to his “deportation party” just before he left, though strictly speaking, I think he left ahead legal action.]

None of those interpersonal complications really concerned me. I just enjoyed a fine two days out of town. The river wasn’t much more than a large creek. The territory, hilly and lush, reminded me of southern Idaho, minus the tall pines. The slopes down to the river were steep, meaning a climb up from the road to the cabin, and another one down to the riverbed, which was shallow, pebbly, and remarkably clean for a Japanese river.

Larger rocks lay here and there in the riverbed. For dinner the first day, we set up a grill on the riverbank and put a watermelon afloat in the cool water, tethered to one of the rocks. That detail sticks in my mind. Almost every cluster of people I saw along the river – and there were many groups – had a melon bobbing nearby.

Most of the people visiting the river had either pitched tents, or were sleeping in their cars, as we discovered when we went to a nearby bridge to shoot off fireworks at 2 a.m. (I can’t remember whose bright idea that was.) One guy emerged from his car and yelled at us a Japanese equivalent of “Shut the f— up!”, which we deserved. I was impressed at the terrific fireworks you can buy at convenience stores in Japan. Big gaudy tubes that spit sparks and fireballs and whiz and pop.

Thursday night we drove in three cars to the Hashimoto matsuri (festival). Getting there only proved that there’s no road in Japan too small for a traffic jam. At one point all four occupants of the car I was in fell asleep while waiting for the cars ahead to move. Good thing the driver had put it in Park. I woke first and noticed that cars behind us were going around us. Odd, because I think that in most places, we’d have gotten honked at.

The festival itself was a mass of people. The centerpiece of the festivities was a big dance circling a band who played continuously. The music wasn’t exactly rock, though there were elements of it, especially the drums. Yet it was bar after bar after bar of the same thing, and forming a circle around the band were the dancers, making steps and hand motions with their fans in a pattern I couldn’t quite follow. It was mesmerizing in a way that a light show is sometimes.

Hinamatsui 2004

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Sequester Day came and went on Friday without much fuss here in the heart of North America, though we may come to rue it eventually. Texas Independence Day was Saturday (177 years now). According to our school calendar, March 2 is also Read Across America Day. Someone might have noted that day at our township library, but I didn’t go there this weekend, and every day can be that as far as I’m concerned.

All the while, about a foot of snow covered the ground. It hasn’t been warm enough to melt most of it. That’s a little unusual for early March, which typically sees the beginning of mud season.

Today is Hinamatsui, or Girls’ Day. We’ve been hit-or-miss over the years in marking the day, which is a Japanese festival, more about which here. This year, Yuriko brought out those few dolls we have appropriate to the day. Back in 2004, we went to some kind of event for the occasion. I don’t remember what we did, exactly, or where it was, but I did take a picture. It isn’t that great as a picture, but I like the subject matter.