A tip of the hat.

Well it has been a while between posts, and for want of a better excuse let me just offer this one: err...hibernation? To be fair I have had a busy time of late what with a baby, a trip home, a wedding and a couple of new jobs occupying a lot of my time. But I have recently received some impetus to start blogging again with the chance to write voluntarily for a local travel guide coming my way. In some ways it was the nudge I needed to dust off my writing hat and get to tappin' again.

Speaking of wearing hats, the hats I wear seem to be more varied these days. While I do mean this in a metaphorical sense, I overheard someone at the pub comment once that a hat is something that should be acquired, rather than only worn. A hat, they opined, was an extension of your persona and that not just any hat could be perched on your melon. I tended to agree with that, as new hats are not always easy to wear. They take some time to start to feel acquired. However, the older your hat becomes, the more faded its edges, the softer the fabric and the more it begins to smell like your shampoo (or lack of), the more comfortable it seems to sit on your noddle. I remember hats from my childhood with great fondness - mostly baseball caps that would be shaped and smoothed over years until the colours faded and the plastic would shear through the material, exposing the mold underneath. (Yes mold without the 'u', I never kept my caps THAT long!).



But back to the original comment;I have been wearing some different hats recently, and slowly but surely acquiring them to the point where I feel they sit comfortably on my head. My new 'father' hat is a goody. I found it snug a lot quicker than I imagined I would.

A family of hat wearers. Taken last June.

My `teacher` hat feels like a hat I have inherited somewhat with most of my Dad's family being teachers at some stage in their lives. I wear it with pride. My `foreigner in Japan` hat is easily recognised for what it is. I have recently been trying on my `cook` hat more and more, and have found it a hat I would like to wear more often. (As an aside, the book I am reading now is London by Edward Rutherford - an historical novel which follows numerous families' lineages through London's entire history. Fascinating to see the origins of interesting surnames such as Silversleeves and Bull as well as simpler ones such as Carpenter or Burgess. Being able to see how genealogy effects people's lives and traits more than we realise. Another reason my 'cook' hat is starting to feel 'acquired' methinks.) As I mentioned, my writing hat has been dusted off and it still fits! Finally, my 'husband' hat, which was given to me by a truly remarkable and wonderful woman. Needless to say, I love all of my hats, indeed that is why they are mine!

So I will be donning my writing hat a bit more regularly I hope. A tip of the hat to Chikako and the team at Journal Kyoto too. Thanks!

Pledging Fledglings Flying Fletchings

(Photo by ericity)

Today is Seijin-no-hi, or Coming of Age day in Japan. The dullness of winter is temporarily interrupted by a sudden rush of colour as youngsters who have turned 20 in the past year dress up and gather with their friends to celebrate their transition to the adult realm. The girls wear their best and seemingly brightest kimono, with the splashes of pinks and reds inescapable as you walk down the street. The boys on the other hand usually don a smart suit - perhaps foreshadowing the attire many of them will spend most of their adult lives wearing anyway! Needless to say, the kimono-clad beauties strike a much more festive chord, as they add a little bit of music to the dreary winter streets of Kyoto.
20 is the all encompassing age for most adult activities in Japan, the main exception being marriage, with the legal age for this being 18 for boys and - get this - 16 for girls! Turning 20 however is the major milestone for young people here, as they can now drink, smoke, vote and drive to their hearts content, although advisably not all at once, nor in that particular order.
This set of responsibilities is often given in exchange for a pledge made by the youngsters at ceremonies organised by local governments, in which they promise to be respectable members of society. Then, with pledges made and responsibility garnered, they head out into the cold winter`s night with their duty-bound companions to drink smoke and vote - as is their social obligation.

We went to see a particular Seijin-no-hi event yesterday at one of my favourite temples in Kyoto; Sanjusangendo. Every year a Kyudo (Japanese archery) competition is held here, following a long (long) tradition of the art at this temple. Kyudo is the oldest of all Japanese traditional Martial Arts, and has strong religious connections with Seijin-no-hi. Of course I was unaware of all this until yesterday, but such is the beauty of living in a city like Kyoto!

; The Way of the Bow http://www.shindokan.dk/offentlig/artikler_andres/zen_og_kunsten.php

Admission to the temple was free, a rarity in itself, and as we joined the throngs of people pouring into the grounds to catch a glimpse of the performance of this art by sensei and seito, I was struck by the colour and beauty of literally hundreds of kimono-clad twenty year old girls lining up for their turn to fire an arrow at the target. What a sight! The sensei(s) had gone first I suspect, followed by the boys, and we had arrived in time to see my fiance's cousin take her shot along with some 2000 others. There was something at once addling and enchanting about the sight of all these sweet, innocent looking doll-like Japanese girls, with elegant hair and make-up so delicately applied all armed with 6 foot bows and arrows at the ready. Each a picture of purity, but also lethality - to a maiden.

We watched as the colourful archers took aim and let fly with varying degrees of accuracy. To advance the students had to to hit an 80 cm target that stood some 60m away twice with their only two arrows, while under the persistent and expecting gaze of countless spectators, not to mention the constant flashing of the spectators own weapon of choice. It was an unenviable position to be in I must admit. This pressurised situation must have really called upon the Zen fundamentals of the art, to be able to block out all the distractions of the day and focus solely on hitting that circular target with your arrows.

At the end of the day though, this was not a battle, and the target was not going to shoot back. This was an exercise in discipline and concentration. These young adults were lining up to ritually enter the adult world by focusing on a task and giving it their best shot. The majority of the arrows missed their targets, but I don't think was so important. I think the fact that these young people had the spirit to stand there in front of a thousand people and focus on nothing but their goal resonates a lot more with becoming an adult than being able to hit the target 100 times out 100, or being able to buy a packet of cigarettes.

Meaning well

Most languages borrow words from other languages, right?

As new things are discovered, new ideas are introduced or new concepts adopted, the first task is inevitably deciding what handle should be applied to this new whatchamacallit. Often the easiest way to do this is to simply steal the word from whatever culture it comes from. Hence in English we call a canoe a canoe, a banana a banana, a tattoo a tattoo, and a clock a clock etc etc. Kind of like inter-linguistic file sharing! One of my favourites is the old `legend` of the Europeans asking the Aboriginals of Australia what the hell that strange hopping creature was they kept seeing everywhere, to which the aboriginals replied `I don`t know` which in their language is pronounced `Kan Ga Roo`. Highly unlikely, but a good yarn anyway.

Since living in Japan It has dawned on me how many Japanese words we actually use in day to day English, and it is more than you might think! Think about it and you`ll probably conjure up a dozen or so Japanese words that exist in your vernacular, (car makers and electrical appliance companies aside!).

But of course English isn`t the only poacher and pilferer of words. Japanese owes its origins to Chinese, and a lot of their words stem from that language. Japanese is a prolific `borrower` of words from other languages too, in fact they invented `KATAKANA`, another entire alphabet system solely for foreign words! (Or so they say, I`m sure they did it just to confuse foreigners even more! And really, whats another 60 characters when you have over 10,000 in your language anyway, right?) This alphabet was first needed when Japan opened its gates to foreign trade and other influences during the early part of the Heian Period (794 - 1195). Since then KATAKANA has been used to transform countless words from their mundane existence as an English word into something zanily Japanese! Take these examples and see if you can work out their English originals:
IN-TA-NE-TTO
AI-SU-KU-RII-MU
HO-WA-I-TO
Got `em?
I have stood in front of signs and read menus, staring long and hard, sounding out each syllable slowly, gradually gathering speed until suddenly, seemingly from nowhere a familiar word has jumped out at me.
Its like those magic eye puzzles, if you stare at them long enough you`ll eventually see something, (either that or give up, exclaim `KANGAROO!`and ask for the English menu.)

Kermit and Sleeping Beauty on the train...

Looking at rural Japan from a train window yesterday it reminded me of Kermit the Frog, (without the ping pong ball eyes and banjo) . The rice fields were literally bursting with bright green grains that are about to be harvested, looking like a giant green patchwork quilt had been spread over the country side. A Kermit quilt.
As the train clicked on to the next station, and the next and the next, and the next and the next, we cut a path through the quilt on our way back to Kyoto, via Himeji, and smoke plumes from the burn offs rose from Kermit`s hide here and there.

It was a beautiful late summer evening, the train was full of people, and as we were too slow (or was it that we didn`t care as much?) we had to stand - wide legs and bendy knees , while people in seats slept or read or joined the staring out the window at the growing shadows on the mountains. There always seems to be a lot of time to look out of a train window, perhaps because it travels straight for so long, and has that rhythmic 4/4 beat to keep you ensconced. Then, as the beat starts to slow, and the nasally voice informs people of the train`s next station, you snap back into the fact that you`re actually in a tin can with any number of other people, all lost in thought like you, all with a different story.

It was a long trip from Okayama to Himeji on the local train, but we passed the time with word games (can you think of a Simpsons character for every letter of the alphabet?), and by watching various entertaining scenarios unfolding in the seats in front of us, as so often happens in this crazy country.

One example of a common train occurrence is people trying not to fall asleep on strange shoulders, and there was one particular episode of this ongoing drama that kept us amused for a good portion of our journey. A woman with a thousand yard stare had taken a seat next to a young guy with an i-pod and promptly fallen asleep. She then began to slowly but surely drop onto this poor guy`s shoulder, who admirably did his best to avoid her affections by leaning forward in his seat. Bad move. Her sleepy head failed to stop as there was no longer a shoulder for it to land on, and much to i-pod`s controlled disbelief she gradually disappeared behind his back! He then coughed and rustled a plastic bag in an attempt to rouse her, which it did. For approximately 10 seconds, after which she began her decline again, her head again disappearing behind i-pod`s back almost like it was a second hand on a clock counting down from 10 -9-8-7-6... Watching this was at once the most painful and amusing part of our train ride, as this guy was obviously too nice, too polite to do anything about it.

However after about twenty minutes (yes twenty minutes!!) he had finally had enough, and made a move to sit back in his seat, and started to read his book, with his elbows stuck out in a posture that looked like someone had paused him while he was doing the chicken dance. Luckily for i-pod, she seemed to get the message after this, and then lo and behold we`d arrived in Himeji. Funny the things that pass our time.

Old temples and a new tire.

(A temple bell... with car)

I recently had to take to walking to work because the rear tire on my bicycle was worn down to the thread, and I had an attack of the `can`t be bothered`s` when it came to replacing it. Walking was a nice change of pace though, and Kyoto is a city that you really should walk around anyway. I enjoyed zig zagging my way through the gridded narrow streets and noticing for the first time beautiful ornate temples that, tucked away in little pockets, have stood their ground as the surrounding buildings and houses succumb to the need for newer and nicer.

They stand gracefully as reminders of this ancient city`s past, in defiance of modernity and providing a treat for the visitors who wander off the tourist trails and encounter them. That is a great thing about Kyoto, the seemingly endless maze of twists and turns will inevitably lead you to a gem, and give you a nice feeling of discovering a piece of history. Considering that Kyoto has over 1500 temples and shrines to stumble across, people often run the risk of being `all templed out` after a day or two. I would suggest however, that if you replace the Lonely Planet with a street map and a sandwich you`ll be content to wander around the streets for a lot longer, as the surprises await you around every corner, literally.

(Temple. rebuilt in 1512 after being destroyed by fire, now surrounded by apartment blocks.)

I enjoyed walking, for a while at least, but soon began to miss my bike. I`ve always had a bike, and Japan is the land of bicycles, so eventually my `can`t be bothered`s` gave way to `gotta do it`s`, and I hunted down a new tire and set about mounting it. As I was mucking around out the front of my place, a couple of friendly neighbourhood Yakuza wandered over to investigate what the hell I was doing.

For a start I understood only a little of what they were saying so I began (as I often do) to translate their conversation in my head with my own dialogue as I busied myself with the tire...
Fancy not buying a new bike, and just replacing a tire.... damn frugal foreigners.
Yeah tell me about it. You want a new bike? We can get you a new bike. You don`t wanna know what we can get you .
But as I listened I began to hear a few murmurings of surprise and grunts of approval! Hold on, they were genuinely impressed that I was replacing a tire, rather than the whole bike, which is what the senior one of the two proclaimed most Japanese would do. It was definitely complimentary! This was amazing - a compliment from a gangster, what the hell? I thought these guys were meant to be right wing foreigner hating Japanese nationalists who would look upon my bike maintenance as a slight on the Japanese economy. But no! These two were pretty impressed that I would... let alone could do such a thing. I on the other hand was pretty bemused as to why they had nothing better to do than watch me change my tire, but wasn`t about to point that out to them. In any case, I thought, perhaps they are as fascinated by me fixing a tire as I am by what is probably just some generic neighbourhood temple in their eyes. Funny what an insight into a different culture can do, how what can appear mundane and monotonous to some can be so alluring to others.

Apparently though the allure of tire fixing quickly faded, and they`d soon had their fill of amusement from the foreign bike fixer. So, they wandered back to their gangster day, and I pumped up my tire and rolled off into the hot Kyoto sun, a little slower than before though, so as not to miss anything.

Fans of Festivals

The arrival of summer in Japan is heralded by a flurry of fireworks, festivals and fancy dress. The flavour of the festivals depends on where you are, but the fundamentals are always the same.

Summer festivals in Japan involve a lot of people, and it seems the more humid the
weather, the more people there are. Cramming in like salmon in a sushi roll, people jostle for position to get a good view of the passing floats and performers, all the while frantically fanning themselves, with the plastic fans that are dished out by the hundred. These fans (which unashamedly advertise everything from beer to movies) are vital to maintaining a cool body temperature whilst rubbing sweaty shoulders with the locals. They are flapped up and down vigorously, yet with a concerted economy of movement,so as not to whack the person standing alongside. I believe that elbows in and quick wrist snaps is the key, but I`m more prone to whack people than most, and so I tend to try and bludge a breeze from one of the more vigorous fanners; terrible.

Meanwhile,the crowd rolls around , heads bobbing up and down like buoys on a rolling tide, as they try to peer over the inevitably two or three inch taller person in front of them to get a good look at the passing performers. All this, remember while trying not to whack someone with their fan, or be whacked by someone elses fan, or even worse, unintentionally fan some cheeky foreigner who is free loading from your fan. Quite a work out really, especially in stifling humidity, so thank God for the yatai!

Yatai are food and beer stalls, and a staple of any self respecting summer festival. They offer the standard festival fare: Candy floss is a favourite, as are toffee apples and fried chicken. But a festival wouldn`t be a festival without okonomiyaki ( a kind of pork and cabbage pancake) or takoyaki (octopus dumplings) now would it!?


Nothing like cooling off with a beer or three, and maybe some squid on a stick, after scrummaging with sweaty Japanese in their Yukata.

(Yukata is a kind of kimono, worn by men women and children during the summer months. As you`d imagine they`re very cool, although I still haven`t worked out how to sit down in one without clearing the room. Very tricky garments are the yukata, but I can`t help feeling a little like a `bushi` whenever I`m decked out in one).



The main event at most summer festivals though is the fireworks. Literally millions of yen worth of fireworks are sent fizzing into the night sky, with stunning results that last for up to an hour. I visited the Toyama festival last week, and ended up standing basically underneath these massive pyrotechnic showers. No matter how many fireworks I see, they still keep me entranced, and I`m unable to turn away as one after another spray spectacularly into the night sky. The noise is enough to be heard from kilometers away, and the darkness is again and again ripped apart by huge flashes of green and yellow.
I don`t know if the irony of commerating the day that Toyama was destroyed by bombs during the Second World War (August 1st) with a huge fireworks display every year is lost on the residents or not. I think it might be their way of confronting the horrors of the past by replacing such a horrible image with one of celebration and enjoyment. I watched an elderly grandfather, who was easily old enough to have seen those horrible times first hand clutch his granddaughter`s shoulders as they both watched the sky transfixed; the young girl blissfully unaware of the significance of the day in the city`s past.

The fireworks will continue whistling and fizzing throughout the summer, and the humidity won`t relent for a while yet. But at least we`ll have the beers stalls and plastic fans to see us through, and what would summer in Japan be without those!?

A grey matter of honesty.

I teach ESL in Japan. It`s something that I started as a means to support my O.E, but have grown to really enjoy, and after three years of teaching may even consider it as a viable (gulp) career option. I teach English to everyone from 6 year old kids to unemployed folk taking a course through the employment agency. `Sreepy` teens and college students are also in the mix, as well as adult students who study English to prepare for overseas travel, or for a hobby or, as one of my more elderly students put it: "I study English to stop my mind from going to senile". Whatever the reason, and they`re varied, some classes are good, some bad.

Some of the adult classes involve stimulating and thoroughly interesting discussions on a variety of topics, and others are simply glorified teeth pulling sessions. A typical transcript from the latter might run as follows:

ME: "Hi J. How are you?"
STUDENT: "Mmm. Yes. How are you."
ME: "No, How ARE you??"
STUDENT: " Mmmmm. Yes. How ARE you??"
ME: "Well, I`m pretty good thanks J, thanks for asking. But how are YOU?"
STUDENT: "Oh, oh. Ahhh... Ahhhh.. I`m fine thank you. And you?"



This is kind of like verbal table tennis played with a beach ball, and there are some students who will never graduate to a ping pong ball. But that`s OK too. They are there for social reasons, maybe they have a friend who studies with them, or maybe there wife just kicks them out of the house for a couple of hours a week. (Japan has the highest divorce rate of over 60 year olds in the world - think about it and you can probably work out why). In any case, I find that the level of English of these students doesn`t necessarily reflect their ability to have a conversation. Plenty of my students don`t have perfect English but can still get their point across, but there are others who get completely stuck on the whole "How are you?" problem, or simply don`t want to speak freely for fear of making a mistake with their grammar. I have come to think that actually speaking freely, albeit clumsily, is just as important, if not more important than, speaking with perfect grammar. ( I would be interested in what any other ESL teachers, or any of you for that matter, think about this).

I had a class today that was one of the better ones, in the sense that the students ( whose level of English is really high) both learned something new and useful and so did I. (Although what I learned was more sociological than linguistic!) The topic was honesty, and whether or not there is a `scale of dishonesty` as the text book put it. They had a list of examples that included:
Cheating on your tax return, shoplifting, travelling on the train without a ticket, taking stationery from the office, cheating at cards, and reading other people`s letters.
Do these acts all have the same level of dishonesty? Obviously not, but the grey area was definitely broader or narrower depending on the student.

One of the interesting responses was from one student who said they were surprised to find their child has been writing a blog about their life in another city. The student somehow had come across this without being told by their child, and had secretly been reading it without telling them. My student was shocked because the kid had been `embelleshing` on a few stories. However, they weren`t going to let on that they were even reading the blog. Is this dishonest? The class was divided. Everyone agreed that reading someone`s diary without their knowledge is undeniably and completely dishonest.　But as for a blog, some thought it was fair game, and others failed to see the difference between it and a diary. A blog is in a public domain and so any real attempt at keeping it private is obviously frought with difficulty, but one thing we can`t do is know everyone who reads it. Would you want to?

This is what I`m putting to you. Do you have the right to know if someone is reading your blog, or is it not up to you? I`m kinda new to this blog thing, and not even sure if it`s for me, but that story kind of got me thinking. On the one hand anyone who blurts out to all and sundry their personal and private matters can`t complain too much if somebody comes across them on the www. But, is secretly reading a close family members memoirs kosher? Hmmm. Also, I have taken pains to make this as anonymous as possible, but as I write it I`m getting a feeling that I am myself going behind my student`s back, (whom I like very much). I think I`ll post this anyway, but whaddya reckon? I guess I`m just opening up the same discussion we had in class to you - and hell no one reads this anyway right?!

( I should add that I have no qualms about people reading my blog. I`m happy for anyone to read, comment or ignore as per their preference. I`m aware that I`m in the `blogsphere`, I just wonder if every blogger does?? Like I said this is new to me.)