滅びの風　~life in Japan, annotated~

signs next to my (under construction) door

Sat, 07 May 2005 14:59:23 GMT

I know I haven't posted here in a while ^^;; *bad*
Those of you already on my regular LJ's flist already got this but... XD

Yodobashi Camera ヨドバシカメラ, wi ゐ and we ゑ

Sun, 13 Feb 2005 01:54:39 GMT

'tis a lovely Tokyo day, though I'm sure the weather will turn cloudy this afternoon, like it did yesterday. I spent the day down in Shinjuku yesterday at Yodobashi Camera ヨドバシカメラ. One of the things to learn about Japan is that electronic stores all have "Camera" in their name, even though cameras are one of the many things they sell. The main Yodobashi store in Shinjuku is about 8 stories and sells everything from software to ipods. I was actually looking for a jogging strap for my ipod, and found one there (they even had different colors!)

I believe that there's a Yodobashi branch in Akihabara too, but really, why go to Akihabara when you have such a huge store in Shinjuku? XD I also hear there is a big Apple store in Roppongi, but I have yet to find it. Has anyone been there?

For the interested, a Wikipedia article on the usage of "old kana," including the outdated forms wi ゐ and we ゑ. Pretty interesting stuff. Those who want to know more can also follow the link in that article to the article on Hentaigana 変体仮名 (no, this is NOT an article about hentai XD).

日本の料理 Japanese food

Sun, 06 Feb 2005 03:44:55 GMT

Well, Tata Young sold out, as I had half-thought it would anyway. I guess I will stalk Yahoo Japan auctions and think about if I really want to spend 10,000 yen on a ticket...

*ponders*

In the meantime, I finally got off my lazy butt and went to the grocery store today. I took some pictures of some of the food I got, for kicks, and posted them to my LJ galleries. Click on the link below to view some tasty treats!

日本の料理を紹介しますよ！

Tokyo By Air

Fri, 04 Feb 2005 13:15:41 GMT

Last month I had the real pleasure of being able to get a ride on a US Army Blackhawk helicopter. There were a bunch of us from my flight that went, and we all brought cameras along to take pictures of the Tokyo scenery. The ride was a lot of fun, though I did get kind of queasy halfway through (definitely not near to throwing up though!) We went by Mt. Fuji, then through Kamakura and Enoshima, back to Yokohama, and then through downtown Tokyo.

Below are some of the pictures I took. The helicopter was going pretty fast, and we were high up and I wasn't sitting next to the window, so I didn't get the greatest shots, but I think most of these are all right. The smog picture (#8) is worth looking at, especially. >.>;; The pictures are hosted on my LJ pictures site, so just click on the thumbnail to see the big one. ^_^

Japanese Special Olympics - bummer

Thu, 03 Feb 2005 09:08:42 GMT

Well, a really cool short-notice tasker came down today for personnel to go to Nagano to help with the Japanese Special Olympics. They were looking for English/Japanese translators, and I thought that sounded really cool so I volunteered. I did this before asking my commander, because I figured I'd get my name in the pool early. I told my commander afterwards and he asked me to forward the email with the dates on it and stuff to him so he could look at it.

The original email which was sent out didn't have the dates, and when I requested them, the guy sent me back a really detailed email, which, among other things, said I would have to take leave to go. This isn't something that the original mail said, and I have absolutely no leave right now.

So I had to email him back and say sorry, take my name off cause I can't take leave. T_T I was really looking forward to going too. I think it would have been fun.

Oh well.

In other news, I'm going to try to get tickets to the Tata Young live at Zepp Tokyo in April. They go on sale 2/6 (this Sunday) and I'm HOPING that they won't sell out too quickly, since Tata's not that insanely popular here yet. Wish me luck XD

Missing in Japan!

Wed, 02 Feb 2005 13:35:54 GMT

Very tongue-in-cheek, yet oh-so-true article someone posted on the japanese community: Missing Technologies in Japan.

If you've ever lived in Japan for any length of time, or even visited for more than a few days, you'll sympathize with some or all of these. OVENS is the particular one of my pet peeves. I am lucky to have an oven here in my apt on base, but I do plan on moving back here sometime, and even though I don't bake much (just chicken and fish and stuff like that), the little fish-fryer that most older Japanese ovens have just doesn't really cut it.

A lot of this also depends on where you live, though, and what kind of house you have. My uncle and aunt's new Western-style house has pretty much all the household items mentioned in this article (sadly, 24-hr ATMs aren't included).

Book Review: Mishima Yukio, Runaway Horses 三島由紀夫の『奔馬』

Sat, 22 Jan 2005 11:54:35 GMT

My first foray into Japanese fiction consisted of half-hearted searches in Barnes & Noble and other similar bookstores before I moved to Japan. I didn't really have any idea what I was looking for, and thus for the most part ended up empty-handed. I've never been someone who's liked "mainstream classics," so a lot of the books that were hailed as Japanese literature I simply thought were boring.

This all changed when I read Mishima Yukio's "Runaway Horses."

"Honba" 奔馬 is the second book in Mishima's landmark "The Sea of Fertility" 饒の海 tetrology, an "account of the Japanese experience of the 20th century." I've never read the other three books, and partway through "Honba" I realized I should have probably started with book 1, but it was partly through my own ignorance that I had never even heard of the other three books before. "Honba" is most definitely the most famous book out of the 4, and two pages in, I was already beginning to see why.

"Honba" is about the life of a Japanese nationalist living on the eve of the second world war. Iinuma Isao, the protagonist and for the most part narrator of the story, is a young patriot-fanatic raised by his parents to hate the Western "corruption" of Japanese society. Driven by the story of "The League of the Divine Wind," a (fictional) league of Japanese nationalist who attempted a government coup wielding nothing but swords against modern gunpowder and then committed seppuku after their coup failed, Isao strives to form his own "League," to uphold the core pillars of Japanese society as he sees it in his idealistic mind.

What I found so fascinating about this story wasn't really the politics and twists and turns of the nationalist rhetoric that Mishima spouts (Mishima himself attempted to form this sort of "league" during his own life, then committed seppuku.) Instead, I was simply floored by Mishima's narrative and the simple, but powerful language he used. There is almost no complexity to Mishima's tale, and that's what makes it so brutaliy powerful. The straightforward way that it's written portrays Isao and his friends and allies and even enemies in strong, vivid, simple pictures. I didn't identify with Isao or any of the other characters at all, really, and usually that's the point where I put the book down and move on. But you don't need to identify with Isao in order to become emotionally involved with this book.

Ultimately, I think this is one of the saddest books I've ever read. It's not sad in the way of a tearjerker or angst-filled novel. But it's sad in the grand tradition of all the old Japanese tales. If you've ever watched anime or seen a Japanese movie or even listened to a Japanese song, you'll understand what I mean. The main point of the "Sea of Fertility" is reincarnation, but yet I felt that the more Mishima emphasized that point, the more I felt that everything in his novel was leading up to some terribly sad, final ending. (of course, I was right, but you could have guessed that.)

Here's a more in depth review of "Honba." The rest of the books in the tetrology are "Spring Snow" (春の雪), "Decay of the Angel" (天人五衰), and "The Temple of Dawn" (暁の寺).

Hamamatsu Air Base 浜松基地

Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:31:53 GMT

Late posting again x_x Hope everyone had a GREAT New Year! I had the luck to be able to take a trip to a Japanese air base last month. A couple officers from Yokota and I went down to Hamamatsu Air Base 浜松基地 in Shizuoka Prefecture to spend the day with the Japanese Air Self Defense Force. It was a real blast. Hamamatsu is a maintenance officer/pilot training base, so we got to see their T-4 trainers and sit in some of the simulators, as well as tour their maintenance facilities and see how they do business.

If you're interested, you can see pictures here:
http://pics.livejournal.com/darcenciel/gallery/00006qht

I got some shots of Mt. Fuji as we passed. Hamamatsu is located in the southern corner of Shizuoka, and Fuji is in the center. Unfortunately, at the speeds our van was traveling, most of my Fuji shots came out blurry. T_T

Fall in Tokyo

Sun, 28 Nov 2004 10:57:00 GMT

It's finally getting chilly here. The weather didn't want to make up its mind for a while and it kept alternating between REALLY COLD and REALLY WARM. Which resulted in the base turning off the air conditioning but not turning on the heat and then resulted in us alternately freezing and burning for about three weeks.

Joy.

Christmas shopping in Japan, if you haven't experienced it, is something everyone should do at least once in a lifetime. They weren't kidding when they say Japan is the land of cute and gadgets, and no time is this made more clear than the holiday season. There is just so much crap out there to buy, most of it either cute, cuddly, expensive, or all three.

But heck, expensive never stopped anyone. XD

I go back to Hong Kong in three weeks, so I'm trying to mail everyone's presents before I go. I don't know if it's going to happen. Holiday mail here on base is, to say the least, fickle. Anything that I really want to get there on time (like presents for parents and NM) is going with me on the plane.

I took more pictures.

There was a random festival outside the train station today. It seemed to be just a chance for the stores along the shopping arcade road to set up tents and sell stuff.

Shibuya (Yoyogi Stadium, Harajuku) by night.

The Big Top in Harajuku next to Yoyogi is currently showing Alegria. I would love to go. If only tickets weren't so expensive. Darn.

I bought green tea ice cream today.

Ikebukuro's Sunshine City is all Pingu-d out for the holidays.

Sunshine update!

Thu, 07 Oct 2004 14:13:00 GMT

I've finally updated SUNSHINE with new pictures of my trips to Kyushu and Kansai. There are photos up of Asakusa, Beppu, Fukuoka, Hakone, Osaka, Tokyo, and random ones of the area in and around base that I found on my hard drive.

I went through and converted the table in the image menu to CSS, so if it looks funny, please let me know (and take a screenshot if possible). Except Laurel. I am 99.9% sure your computer won't be able to see it, so don't bother. XD

Shouga Matsuri しょうが祭り 1 September 2004

Wed, 06 Oct 2004 14:50:42 GMT

The annual Ginger Festival was on the first of September this year. I attended with a friend in the neighboring town of Akiruno あきる野市 and we had a great time, despite the fact that it started drizzling in the last 15 minutes or so we were there, as we tried to eat our yakitori.

The Ginger Festival is pretty self-explanatory - obviously, it's a festival about ginger. There were a lot of booths set up selling actual ginger plants. Not just the root, like you usually see in the store, but actual big ginger plants. I would have bought one if I was a family, but I don't think I could eat a whole plant by myself. I can barely finish a small root in a month. But the plants were cool to look at.

Besides, that, there were the regular yakisoba/takoyaki/chocolate banana/okonomiyaki/cotton candy/game and prize booths. The festival was held at the local shrine, which could only be accessed from a set of narrow stone steps, one on each side of the hill on which the shrine was built. Because the steps were quite high and narrow and obviously not meant to accomodate huge festival crowds, it took quite a bit of time to get up to the top, squirming by kids clutching chocolate bananas and parents trying to keep them from spilling their drinks. As it turned out, we BARELY missed the actual festival parade (the shrine carriers were just disbanding when we reached the top) but were in time to see one of the plays that was put on. I couldn't understand most of what the actors were chanting, so we stayed for a bit and left.

I must say, though, even though they had only one yakitori stand, it was some of the best yakitori I've ever had. Yum.

...and there was just an earthquake o.o *peers at swaying table uncertainly*

東京の多摩川

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 09:25:08 GMT

The harvest moon a pale globe,
The distant bridge a dim mirage.
The night a sigh, the world a dome,
The wind as waves, the stars as snow.

[Tama River, Tokyo, Japan]

Me, my parents, and the Japanese guard

Wed, 11 Aug 2004 15:42:28 GMT

Tonight, I received what is probably the best compliment I've had since I got here, or maybe even my whole life. =P

My parents are staying on base, and you have to sign visitors into the base every 24 hours. Our gates are manned by Japanese police on contract with the American forces here. So every night I've had to take my parents into the guard house and sign them in (you have to show your passport and get a paper pass). The guards all receive English language training, so they're pretty much fluent, or at least can get by.

Tonight I did what I do every night and take them in. I usually am speaking Chinese to them as we walk in the door so the guard will know that I'm not Japanese and won't get confused. Tonight though, I guess the guard didn't hear us, and started talking to us in Japanese. So I was like ok, what the heck, and talked back to him in Japanese.

It was about a minute later when he suddenly looked up and said, in Japanese, "what language are you speaking?"

I did a double take, because not only was this guard speaking Japanese to me, but he was actually trying to make conversation. I've experienced in my short time in Japan that even if you speak Japanese to a Japanese person, if they think that you're not fluent or even if they know you speak English, they'll automatically switch to English, which is really frustrating when I want to practice my Japanese. So not to waste this opportunity, I seized it and spoke back to him in Japanese.

To make a long story short, I told him I was speaking Cantonese, and then he was like "so you speak English, Chinese and Japanese?" And when I said yes his eyes went all big and he was like SUGEE!!! and then proceeded to quiz me on Chinese dialects. I've grown used to this from other Japanese people I know, so I was more amused than anything. All this time we were filling out passes for my parents, and at the end he looked up at me and basically said that he thought I was Japanese till I started speaking Chinese, and how it was so awesome that I could speak 3 (4) languages.

I guess it doesn't seem like much, but just being able to carry on a conversation with the Japanese guard and understanding 100% of what he said and having him think I was some bizarre hybrid of Japanese and Chinese...for some reason it was a real confidence booster. I think I impressed my parents too, because after we left, my mom was wondering if I'd understood everything the guard said, because she said he was speaking really quickly. And really, it didn't seem to me that he was speaking that quickly at all, which means I've become used to the natural speed of Japanese, which makes me really excited.

I really should go to bed now. =P I just wanted to share.

Asakusa 浅草

Wed, 11 Aug 2004 15:14:53 GMT

I have been spending the last five days dragging my parents and brother around Tokyo. They got here last Thursday and will be here till next Tuesday. Tomorrow we're going to Kyoto, but today my father wanted us to go to Asakusa. I'd never been there before, but he was insistent on going because apparently Kaminarimon Gate 雷門 is world famous (which I didn't know).

Asakusa is famous for the Sensoji Temple 浅草寺, which Kaminarimon is the entrance to. It's the big gate with the red lantern-like thing hanging down from it, with kanji painted on it in big white and black letters. Apparently, it's not even the real gate because the original was destroyed in the war, so this is a reconstruction. The gods of wind and thunder 風神(Fuujin) and 雷神(Raijin) flank the door on either side (Final Fantasy 8, anyone?)

Inside the gate is the outdoor shopping arcade of Nakamise 仲見世, which is basically a bunch of market-place style shops selling Tokyo souvenirs. Reminds me kind of like the Ladies' Market in Hong Kong, except everything is more expensive. Not horribly so - we got some nice souvenirs for my parents' friends at pretty reasonable prices (as souvenirs go). I bought a keychain or two while I was at it.

The temple and shrine are really nice (it's a Buddhist temple), but as far as shrines go, it's still rather standard, I think. More ornate, maybe, and a little on the grander scale than, say, Meiji Jingu (of course Meiji Jingu is a Shinto shrine so that may be the difference there). Apparently, Asakusa used to be the red-light district back in the day when Tokyo was Edo. Now, it's just touristy. I think half the people in Asakusa today were Chinese.

I have been wanting to write about Tanabata all week, but I'm always too tired when I get home...and it's been over and it's already Bon Matsuri now. Maybe when I get back from Kyoto I can just write one long festival post....

If you want to know more about Asakusa and Sensoji, visit this page.

Bai bai.

Japanese Prefectures - Names and Meanings

Sat, 24 Jul 2004 12:01:15 GMT

There are 47 Japanese prefectures, yet most people only hear about 4 or 5 of them (mainly, Tokyo, Hokkaido, Osaka, Kyoto, and Okinawa). What are the other 42? What are their names? What do they mean?

I went through and annotated the meaning of all the prefectures' names in kanji in the following list. As with most things Japanese, prefecture names are quite poetic. =P Take a look:

愛知県
Aichi = Love of Wisdom

秋田県
Akita = Fall Field

青森県
Aomori = Green Forest

千葉県
Chiba = A Thousand Leaves

愛媛県
Ehime = Love's Princess

福井県
Fukui = Lucky Well

福岡県
Fukuoka = Lucky Heights

福島県
Fukushima = Lucky Island

岐阜県
Gifu = Hill at the Road Fork

群馬県
Gunma = Herd of Horses

広島県
Hiroshima = Spacious Island

北海道
Hokkaido = North Seaway

兵庫県
Hyogo = Military Storehouse

茨城県
Ibaraki = Thorn Castle

石川県
Ishikawa = Stone River

岩手県
Iwate = Rock Hand

香川県
Kagawa = Fragrant River

鹿児島県
Kagoshima = Fawn (young deer) Island

神奈川県
Kanagawa = God's River

高知県
Kochi = High Wisdom

熊本県
Kumamoto = Place of Bears

京都府
Kyoto = Capital City (yeah, very creative there)

三重県
Mie = Three Principles

宮城県
Miyagi = Castle of the Imperial Court

宮崎県
Miyazaki = Imperial Court Peninsula

長野県
Nagano = Long Field

長崎県
Nagasaki = Long Peninsula

奈良県
Nara = Good Place (sorry doesn't really translate)

新潟県
Niigata = New Lagoon

大分県
Oita = Large Share

岡山県
Okayama = Hill and Mountain

沖縄県
Okinawa = Sea Rope

大阪府
Osaka = Large Slope

佐賀県
Saga = Aid to Joy

埼玉県
Saitama = Spherical Peninsula

滋賀県
Shiga = Nourishment of Joy

島根県
Shimane = Island's Origin

静岡県
Shizuoka = Quiet Hill

栃木県
Tochigi = Horse Chesnut

徳島県
Tokushima = Virtuous Island

東京都
Tokyo = Eastern Capital (as opposed to Beijing, which is the Northern Capital)

鳥取県
Tottori = Full of Birds (not a literal trans...the best I could come up with)

富山県
Toyama = Fortune Mountain

和歌山県
Wakayama = Mountain of Japanese Song

山形県
Yamagata = Shape of a Mountain

山口県
Yamaguchi = Mountain Entrance

山梨県
Yamanashi = Pear Tree Mountain

There is really horrible enka-type music going on outside. I suppose it will be there tomorrow night too, since it's the Summer Festival this weekend. >.>@it

JR Suica Cards

Sat, 24 Jul 2004 08:23:02 GMT

So I haven't updated this in a while.

I got a Suica Card today!

Riding the JR around and buying tickets for every stop you're going to isn't as bad as it might sound, but it does get a little monotonous and annoying after a while if you're going to use the train a lot. I usually only ride the train once or twice a week, since everywhere that's fun to go to is too far to go on a weekday from where I live. But parents are coming in a week and I figure I might as well splurge for the Suica Card. Suica (means "watermelon") is a prepaid card that lets you ride the train anywhere you want without buying a ticket. It doesn't give you any discounts, but instead of having to stand in line and buy the ticket and put it through the machine, you just scan your card through the ticket reader and you're on your merry way. Basically, it's the Japanese version of the Hong Kong "Octopus" card (and symbolized by a penguin XD)

Now, even though I've lived here for almost a year, I still hate buying things in Japan and I still hate ordering food. I can do it, but it's not my favorite thing. It's quite ironic that buying things and ordering food, the thing that you will interact with Japanese people most for, is the hardest for people to master (and I hear it's the same with any culture). I think it's because there are a lot of set phrases that the retail and food industry uses, phrases that you just have to get used to. I know it took me years to get confident enough to order food in America!

Anyway, so I was a little hesitant to go get a card since I didnt want to stand there while the guy blabbed at me without me knowing a word he was saying. But today I was like...well, now or never. So I went into the ticket office and stood in line and then went up to the counter and asked if this was where I could buy a Suica Card. And to my amazement, I understood everything the guy said back to me. Either my Japanese is getting better, or he was dumbing it down for me XD

The Suica costs 2000 yen to get, 500 of which is actually used to pay for the card and 1500 for a deposit of sorts. Then you have to go to one of the regular ticket machines outside in the station and insert some more yen to "charge" the card. I put 5000 yen in mine and will probably put some more in next week so I won't have to charge it again till the family leaves.

Suica!
The Suica Penguin in action!

九州の思い出を

Sat, 19 Jun 2004 08:19:43 GMT

the clouds over Oita at dusk
are like smoke coming down from the mountains.

Oita 大分, Beppu 別府, and Gackt live in Fukuoka 福岡

Tue, 15 Jun 2004 11:57:13 GMT

I have been realizing how amazingly different Tokyo is from the rest of Japan. We visited the town of Beppu 別府 today in Oita Prefecture and I almost felt like I was back in Cheung Chau. Very hilly, very country-like. I'll post pictures later when I get home.

Tokyo people are a little spoiled, I think.

I have been in Kyushu for about 5 days now and I will be here till Saturday. The pace of life here is definitely slower here, and it's the biggest difference from Tokyo, I think. Even in a suburbian town like Fussa, everyone is always in a hurry to get somewhere. Oita and Beppu are more relaxed, though of course downtown, people are always trying to be like Tokyo people as much as possible.

There's a nice river (the Oita River 大分川) that's about 2 blocks away that has a wonderful running path along its banks. In the evening you can see the mountains very clearly against the sunset. We have the Tama River back home, but it's always so busy around there and no parking, so I have never gone there to run. It makes me think that maybe I should find a way...maybe even take the train or something. It might be worth it.

The highlight of my trip, of course, was seeing Gackt in Fukuoka last Saturday XD I've always said that Gackt was not one of my MUST SEE LIVE artists, but I would definitely go again. It was a stunning show. I have maintained that the reason I like Gackt is not only because he's very talented musically, but because he really believes in what he sings, and you could definitely feel that at the live. He kept the crowd small, too. No screens, half the seats in the stadium blocked off so that everyone could be as near the stage as possible.

He didn't play Dears, but I don't think he needed to. The tone of his voice when he thanked us for being there was enough.

Sendai 仙台

Mon, 31 May 2004 09:51:22 GMT

I just returned from Sendai. It was a pretty relaxing weekend overall, one which I spent mostly moseying around the house and playing with the two terrors aka my cousins, ages 7 and 5 and who are just as incorrigeable as they were when they were 5 and 3 (the last time I spent some time at their house).

They moved since I came to Sendai last, and now they live in a really new community in a very American-style house situated along a very American-style cul-de-sac. I took some pictures with my digital camera, and if I didn't know better, and if you were just looking at the picture with no frame of reference, it would appear to be just a sleepy afternoon shot of a typical American neighborhood in suburbia. I am not kidding. The inside of the house is what surprised me. I thought that just the outside would be American, but no, the inside is JUST like any regular American middle-class home, down to the doors and the kitchen and everything. The floors are even CARPETED. x_x The only thing that's different is the ofuro room, of course, and the fact that there is no central heating or cooling system.

My aunt didn't believe me, though, when I told her that the house was very American. She kept saying o.O HONTOU? USO! I don't think she's ever been to America though...my parents keep offering, but the kids are too small, I think, for that kind of long plane ride. Though when I was 4 or 5 I was making flights to Hong Kong, so...>.>

Both my cousins are enrolled in an international school in Sendai cause my aunt and uncle want them to grow up speaking English as well as Japanese. Mie's (the oldest) English is already really good. She spoke some when I went to Hong Kong for Christmas and saw her, but it's gotten better with a rapidity that surprised me. Shunei (the younger boy) is learning English earlier than his sister did, so I think it will stick with him better. He has less of an accent when he speaks it, though he's extremely shy about speaking it around me (we were trying to do his English homework and he kept covering his book and going HAZUKASHII and saying he wouldn't read it when I was in the room. Finally I left and he did his homework)

I think I did corrupt my aunt. We had a conversation this morning (all in Japanese, which kind of boggles my mind even now) after the kids were dropped off at school, about them learning languages. My aunt only knows Japanese, so she's an advocate of them learning as many languages as they can while they're still young so it'll stick,. I was talking about how it would be great if they spoke Cantonese too, and we then tossed around the fact that since my uncle works all the time (he's a doctor) they don't have a chance to learn at home. And then while talking about schools in Hong Kong, we somehow hit upon the idea that Mie and Shunei could spend a summer in Hong Kong or Cheung Chau and pick up some Cantonese that way. My aunt REALLY liked that idea and she got so excited that she started bouncing (seriously).

Now, I really don't think it's going to happen. I don't think my (somewhat kooky) relatives in Hong Kong would mind, but my uncle, I think, would be very opposed. First of all, he's quite protective of his kids and the family in general. Second, I think he would dismiss it as "frivolous" (it is very expensive). And third, I'm not sure how he feels about his kids speaking Chinese. It sounds weird to say, but I sometimes get the impression that he isn't too excited about the fact that his kids are half Chinese, even though that's his own fault.

My aunt says that the kids don't realize that yet; that they're too young to know that China and Japan are different countries. I think she's right. Mie keeps saying things like "I do this because I'm Japanese, and other kids at school aren't." I wonder what'll happen as she grows up and realizes what all those trips to Hong Kong at Christmas mean (they go every year, almost). I do think, though, that my aunt is rather jealous of me growing up speaking two languages and going all over the world. I think she wants Mie and/or Shunei to be like that too. As I said, my aunt is monolingual Japanese only, so I guess that kind of fuels her feelings toward it. It's probably a "my kids will have what I never had" kind of thing.

In the course of all this, I realized the important fact that my aunt talks a lot ^^;; I never realized this before since she's so quiet when the kids and my uncle around. But wow, she doesn't shut up. I think she must be lonely all by herself, without very many friends and two kids to run after all the time. She's made some friends with the moms of the kids at the international school, though, which I think is great. Japan's quite closed-minded, so I suspect she might have been a bit ostracized because she was married to a Chinese man. But since the international school has all kinds of people in it, with a lot of kids from mixed couples (mostly Japanese/Asian mothers and foreign fathers), she finally has something in common with a lot of the moms. Which is nice.

Anyway. End of family babble. To close, I just have to talk a bit about this really great TV show called "Quintet", which is coupled with a show "Nihongo de Asobo" (Let's Play with Japanese). It's a kid's show that helps teach Japanese (obviously) and it comes on NHK around 6 PM or so, right after "Eigo de Asobo" (Let's Play with English). The Nihongo show isn't just your average Sesame Street show; they take phrases from famous authors and old poems and teach it to Japanese kids. It's way above my level, but I still enjoy watching it. The sumo wrestler Konishiki is on the show too. He wears this terrible orange costume with yellow cones stuck all over it. >.> But yes. Very entertaining if you are a rabid Japanese grammar and literature consumer.

http://www.nhk.or.jp/kids/nihongo/

And Quintet is just fun. All the characters, who are members of a string quintet, are puppets. The puppets teach kids various lessons about life and everyday activities (today's was about going hiking and ironing your clothes) and at the end, they always give a concert, showcasing various classical music pieces. Today they played a medly from "Carmen." As you know, I am a great advocate of classical music. I think every kid should grow up learning about classical music and learning to appreciate it. Nothing wrong with rock and popular music, of course (come on, this is me the jrock addict you're talking about) but a foundation in classical music is, I think, good for everyone.

Anyway. Watch Quintet.

http://www.nhk.or.jp/kids/quintetto/

MUSASHI 武蔵 [adventures in Shinjuku and the novel]

Sun, 23 May 2004 13:40:59 GMT

I went to Shinjuku today to browse Kinokuniya's English books section. I don't mind not having an English bookstore near me since I read a lot of Japanese books anyway. True, my selection method consists of going into the store, picking the first book off the shelf of which I can recognize all the kanji in the title, and paying for it (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't). My other Japanese book fix comes from the Shibuya Tower Records, where the jpop/rock artist books section on the 2nd floor is extremely happy to see me every weekend.

Anyway, back to my story. As I said, I don't mind not having any English bookstores around, but I've been trying to get into Japanese history lately and so I went to Kinokuniya to browse their English Japanese history books section. I think my Japanese is pretty good, but "pretty good" means I'm up to popular novel reading level and definitely nowhere near history book reading level. Besides, history books of any genre tend to bore me and put me to sleep if they're not written in a semi-narrative style. For these reasons, I didn't want to just randomly order stuff off the internet if I could go somewhere nearby and browse an English selection in a relatively sane manner.

Fortunately, I live in Tokyo, so it was just a matter of hopping on the train to Shinjuku and heading up to the 6th floor of the Kinokuniya bookstore next to Takashimaya outside the train station (box step! *grin*). They have a huge Japanese books section. I suppose that's to be expected, being in Japan and all, but I'm so used to the "Japanese history" section in bookstores being limited to maybe one whole shelf of books in America. I could have spent all day there...

...if I had the money. As it was, I only brought along 5000 yen, so I had to choose wisely. This being Japan and Tokyo at that, you have to plan for everything to be at least twice the price of what you'd buy it for elsewhere. I wanted to get the most bang for my buck (or my yen, in this case). I was actually looking for a book on the Tokugawa era, particularly Ieyasu, but the only things I found from that time period was "Political Writings from the Tokugawa Era," which sounds like it could put me to sleep just from staring at the title. There was also a book entitled "The Last Shogun," about the last Tokugawa shogun, translated from Japanese to English, but it was hardcover and around 4000 yen. No thanks, said I.

I finally found what I was looking for in the literature section. Musashi, by Yoshikawa Eiji, a novel about the life and times of Miyamoto Musashi 宮本武蔵, Japan's most famous hero. I've seen parts of the Musashi dramas on TV, and I know that half the cities in Japan are named after him, but I never really knew anything about this guy. This 1000~ page novel, which played a huge part in cementing the Musashi legend among the Japanese people, seemed the perfect place to start.

I've read about 33 pages so far. You'd expect a historical book that is 1000 or so pages and written in 1935 to be a bit dry and dull, but so far it's anything but that (it appeared in serial form starting in 1935, so I'd actually compare it more to The Three Musketeers or others among that genre).

Anyhow, be sure to watch this space for more info on Mr. Musashi-san when I discover more about him. Otanoshimi ni~!

Date Masamune 伊達政宗 (1566-1636)

Sat, 22 May 2004 13:37:00 GMT

I'm going to Sendai to see my aunt and uncle and cousins next week, so I figure I'd share a little tidbit of Sendai history with you guys.

Sendai 仙台, capital of Miyagi Prefecture 宮城県, was founded by Date Masamune 伊達政宗 around the year 1600. Now you might be saying to yourself, who the heck is this Masamune guy?(besides the hacker guy, for those of you who read SnK) Mr. Date was a daimyou 大名, which basically means he was a feudal lord in charge of a bunch of land and a lot of samurai 侍. The daimyou clans ruled Japan from the 12th to the 19th centuries. Masamune was nicknamed the "One-Eyed Dragon," more for the fact that he only had one eye than for anything else (he had an infection and decided one day it wasn't worth it, so he poked his own eye out. Ow.)

Masamune's father Teramune was a pretty powerful lord, but after he was kidnapped and killed by one of his rivals, the Hatakeyama clan, Masamune got mad. Actually in those days, it was a pretty horrendous thing to do, even for a feudal lord, since daimyous didn't just randomly kidnap a lord and have him slaughtered in front of his kid. I suppose they were supposed to be above this sort of thing (yes, they did it in feudal Europe, but this was Japan). I suppose Masamune found some truth to the saying "don't get mad, get even," because that's what he did. The Date clan only had about 7,000 soldiers and allies, while the Hatakeyama had upwards around 30,000, so Masamune tried a defensive strategy. That didn't work too well, and it looked like the Date were going to lose. After the Hatakeyama took most of his key strongholds, the Date withdrew inside their fortress, Motomiya-jo 本宮町 for a Brave Last Stand™.

Then Masamune looked out the window the next morning.
Masamune: They left! o.o;;
Date soldiers: ^o^ Yay!

Apparently some of the allies had gotten word of rebellion in their own lands, so they decided to withdraw. Then the rest of the Hatakeyama decided that they didn't have enough people to storm the castle, so they left too. From that battle, Masamune garnered quite a reputation as a general.

His friendship with the good old Tokugawa Ieyasu (THE shogun, most powerful man in Japan-type) saved him more than once in the end, since Masamune was, even into his old age, a rebellious and impulsive sort of fellow. None of his fellow daimyous even got along with him much and actually most of them, even Ieyasu, saw him as a little "weird" and a lot dangerous. His most important contribution, of course, came in October 1600, when the Date forces served under Tokugawa in the Korean invasion and Masamune distinguished himself in several battles. After a victory at Fukushima castle, Ieyasu gave Masamune a bunch of land to build himself a castle on. So he did.

And that is the story of Sendai.

At any rate, I think Date Masamune was probably one of the most interesting old fogies in Japanese history, though I'm not sure I would like to meet him. He seems a little too odd for my taste. XD

The end.

山手線第一話 Yamanote stop 1: Shibuya, Yoyogi, Harajuku

Wed, 19 May 2004 12:35:05 GMT

There is a train line that runs in a circle around the heart of Tokyo and the best known of its 23 wards. This line is known as the Yamanote 山手線, the green train with the most up-to-date technology, including tv screens on the sides of the train that do the announcing in both English and Japanese, saving the train conductor some breath as frantic passengers scramble on and off. You know the images of the Tokyo trains you've seen on TV programs or videos in Japanese class, where people have to pushed into the train by the station attendents? That's the Yamanote.

この電車は、山手線内回り。次は原宿、原宿です。お出口は左側です。
This is the inner-loop Yamanote line. The next stop is Harajuku, Harajuku. The doors on the left side will open.

Perhaps the best known Tokyo ward among internet fans of Japanese is Shibuya 渋谷区 and its neighboring towns Harajuku 原宿 and Yoyogi 代々木. Known worldwide as a bastion for Japan's youth and pop culture, the Shibuya, Harajuku, and Yoyogi vicinity really isn't as big as people might like to think. A half-hour walk will cover you from one end of Harajuku all the way to Shibuya station, and there are only about 6 or 7 streets that are the "big" shopping streets. It's nice because coming from the Chuo line, I can pay 620 yen to get to Harajuku as opposed to 690 yen to go to Shibuya and still visit both places in one fell swoop.

Nevertheless, the atmosphere is what makes this area so fascinating to me. This is what people think of when they think of Tokyo - the bustling crowds, the trains packed full like sardines, the plasma screens on every street corner, the huge department stores, the neon lights, the vendors hawking their wares on ladders in the middle of the street with loudspeakers. What especially stands out are the teenage girls that throng on the street corners wearing the latest (often ridiculous by any standard) fashions of the day. Right now, for spring/early summer, it's frilly, loose fitting, thin, light clothing that is made to be layered three or four shirts deep, along with baggy pants and the everpresent clicking stiletto heels.

I'll try to take you on a virtual tour of the area. Let's begin at Harajuku station 原宿駅, a tiny station compared to others along the Yamanote line. First of all, you want to get off at Harajuku and not the station before it, Yoyogi 代々木駅. A lot of people think that because the station's name is Yoyogi, they can get off there and find themselves at the park. Not so. The famous Yoyogi Park 代々木公園 is just outside the Harajuku train station. But we'll get to that in a minute.

HARAJUKU [原宿]
Across from the station is one of those big plasma screens, and if you like Snoopy, there's a Snoopy store. Not a big fan of Snoopy, so I usually skip that. Once you cross the street you want to turn left and head down a slope. There will be some semi-interesting clothing, etc stores on your right, but keep going until you hit the huge milling crowd of fangirls at the bottom of the hill, and turn right.

The Omotesando 表参道 is probably the most famous shopping street for fans of Japanese pop culture. If you're a jrock fan, you'll especially find the pickings good there. Not only are there gothic lolita stores up the wazoo, but there's a really nice Closet Child (used jrock CDs, videos, fan goods, books, clothing, etc). Around this area are also the famous shops Moi Meme Moitie, Mana's (Malice Mizer) shop (wow that was a lot of M's x_x) and A Little Village, apparently Gackt's favorite store. As I'm not a huge clothing fan, I've never been to either, but I hear they're a fangirl paradise. There is also a 100 yen store and several stores that sell "American" merchandise (mostly from the 80s...they have Care Bears, Coca Cola, Smurfs, Star Wars collectibles, etc).

Leaving Omotesando is the part of Harajuku that is most interesting to me. Once you get to the end of the street (and navigate through the crowds of fangirls in 3" high heels and miniskirts and high-pitched shrieking laughter), turn right. If you turn left, you're leaving the main Harajuku shopping district and heading towards some boring housing. You will then be heading down another street of shops, but you'll notice the shops get larger and larger. Along this street are a New Balance store (my favorite running shoe), a really awesome crepe stand that I have yet to try, though every time I walk past there I start drooling but the line is so long that I give up, another new shoe store that just opened that ALSO sells New Balance shoes (for cheaper!), several department stores, an HMV, and Book Off.

If you have not experienced the joys of Book Off, you have to check out the one in Harajuku before you do anything else. Book Off is THE place in Japan to get used CDs, manga, video games, DVDs, photobooks, and anything else you can think of multimedia wise for about half the price that it's normally sold new. That's right, folks. Say you have a B'z CD that usually goes for 3000 yen. Chances are it's going for about 1500 yen at Book Off. And don't be fooled by the label "used." All of the CDs I've bought at Book Off are in completely mint condition, complete with all of the original merchandise that came with it, and (usually) even the original paper obi on the side. For jrock stuff, you can usually get CDs cheaper at places like Closet Child, but the CDs sold at CC usually have a lot more wear and tear on the booklets and scratches on the CD itself. I do believe the Book Off in Harajuku is the largest Book Off in Tokyo, or at least something close to that.

When you get to the end of the street, there's a Gap and some restaurants (I think there's a Jonathon's across the street...food isn't bad, and they serve coffee). Time to turn to the right again; really, you've just made a big square and now you're heading up the 4th side back up to the train station.

YOYOGI [代々木]
You can get to Yoyogi park from where we're coming from by either walking back to the Snoopy store and crossing the street and heading to your left, or you can use the nifty footbridge across the station road. Yoyogi Park will be right in front of you when you get off the last step on the other side...but you can't get in there.

The park area really begins when you hit a stone walkway/bridge that covers much of the expanse of land next to the station. This is where all the jrock and gothic lolita cosplayers hang out. On any given day, rain or shine, you'll see them congregated in groups next to the station, lounging and smoking and talking. There seem to be an equal number of males and females. Some of them are dancer wannabes and bring their boomboxes there to practice their moves.

You can go one of two ways here. To your right is the Meiji Shrine 明治神宮, one of the most famous (and one of the only?) shrines in Tokyo. A lot of people come here during the New Year, I am told. It's a beautiful shrine - very big, lots of trees, shady pathways...but it does kind of ruin the atmosphere when you are walking across a stone bridge and admiring the architecture...and then you hear the electronic Harajuku station music in the background.

To your left, if you elect to go that way, you will go straight for a while and then turn a corner and find yourself at one of the entrances to Yoyogi Park. This is a HUGE park. You'll find a lot of people doing various activities here: jogging, walking the dog, playing with the kids, picnicing, playing hacky sack, jumping rope, biking, playing guitar, taking a stroll...name it and you'll probably see it here (I expect there's sex going on somewhere around in the bushes). Around the park entrances are a cluster of takoyaki and yakisoba stands that aren't bad. The park itself seems to be based around water; there is a large lake with fountains in the center of the park, and then a system of fountains leading up to the stone stairs and footbridge exiting the park and taking you to Yoyogi Stadium across the street.

There are a lot of musicians here at the park. Most of that seems to be not only because it's a huge park, but because Yoyogi National Stadium 国立代々木競技場体育館 is so near. If you haven't seen this building before - it is a work of art. It's actually a series of gymnasiums and a natatorium, but what it's most famous for is a venue for tour finals of popular Japanese musicians. B'z, Hamasaki Ayumi, Gackt, L'Arc~en~Ciel...they've all performed there.

Coming from the park, you'll have to cross the street to get to the stadium. Turn right after you've crossed and head down past the stadium gate a little ways till you reach an open area that's stone-paved. This is where all the indie musicians hang out and play their lives. Sometimes a nosy policeman will come over and tell them that they're playing too loud, and actually there are signs posted all over "NO MUSIC ALLOWED HERE." But of course, that's all ignored. Besides musicians, I've seen dancers, a juggler, a balancing act, a mime, and actually, most of them are pretty good. Definitely worth the 100 yen or so you throw into the hat.

To your right is the huge NHK broadcasting center, and then there are some more takoyaki and whatnot stands. There are trees lining both sides that create a nice shelter along the walkway. Sometimes there are festivals here; a few weeks ago they had a Thai food festival, and about 2 months ago there was a Japanese food festival. If you keep walking, however, you will pass another building with "Mina san no Hiroba" 皆さんの広場 painted on the side on your right, and the rest of Yoyogi stadium on your left. You'll come to a busy intersection. If you turn left here without crossing, you'll eventually end up at Shibuya AX, but that's not where we want to go today. When the pedestrian light turns green, cross the street. You are now in Shibuya.

SHIBUYA [渋谷]
One of my favorites. Shibuya is an upscale version of Harajuku, with a much more "sophisticated" feel to it. Nestled between the sleek chain department stores like Parco and OIOI ("Marui") are coffee shops and little boutiques that are much more expensive than they should be. But nevertheless, I find myself coming back to this town again and again just to walk the streets and suck in the atmosphere.

Perhaps the most famous structure in Shibuya is the Shibuya 109, THE one-stop shopping mall for girls from ages 9-25. Stocking the latest fashions of the day, the 109 is a circular, tower-like structure located in the center of Shibuya and really can't be missed, not with the red neon "109" sign lighting up the night sky. If you like funky Japanese clothes that are way too pricey, visit. If rabid clothing obsessed, keitai-wielding Japanese girls frighten you, you might want to stay away from here.

The Shibuya Tower Records is my favorite store. Though there are other, cheaper CD shops around (RecoFan is a nice one if you are looking for something more mainstream and don't want to spend the money at Tower. They give 10-20% discounts on all merchandise), Tower Records is to the j-music fan as the 109 is to Japanese teenage girls. The Shibuya Tower has 7 floors and is jam packed with more Japanese and World music than you can probably stomach. I visit almost every weekend. My favorite part about the Tower is that not only do they stock the most obscure CDs, but they also have a lot of artist books. That's where I bought Jihaku, my Moon Child novel, Tetsugaku, and others (X no Sei to Shi I found at Closet Child).

There's also the Disney Store, also way too expensive, but cute. It's got two floors and has the latest Disney merchandise, including stuffed toys to hang from your keitai. Even the boys have them, so I guess they must be really cool. One of my favorites is a store called "Three Minutes Happiness," located just above the Parcos. It basically sells houseware and kitchen items, like dishes, trays, mops, curtains, rugs, and anything else you can think of to enhance your home. The motto of the store is that it's the little things in life that make you happy, and in three minutes in their store, you'll find something to make you happy too. Though I'm not quite sure I agree with that, I do like browsing around in there.

Once you get tired of the Shibuya atmosphere, head back down to the 109, and just across the 5...6...7...whatever way intersection, you will see the enormous Shibuya Station 渋谷駅. From there, it's easy. Just buy a ticket and hop back on the Yamanote for a ride home.

Shibuya/Harajuku/Yoyogi was the first area that I became familiar with in Tokyo, so that's why I have a special fondness for it. If you are not interested in shopping or Japanese pop culture, you'll really find this area quite boring. I recommend visiting at least once, though, because Shibuya IS Tokyo, as far as the world is concerned. Once you set foot here, you will really understand what it is about Tokyo and Japan in general that dazzles, confuses, and awes the rest of the world.

Next time: Ikebukuro.

Prefectures and Tokyo intro

Tue, 18 May 2004 10:47:16 GMT

I guess we'll start off with Tokyo, since I live here.

Tokyo's too broad of a subject to do just one post about, so today I'll post about the organization of the city. Brief history lesson: the city was built in 1457, when it was called Edo 江戸, and became the official government seat for the Tokugawa Shogunate 徳川幕府 (yes THAT Tokugawa, of the Ieyasu kind). The Meiji renamed it 東京 "Eastern capital" to distinguish it from Kyoto　京都. We are located in the Kanto 関東 (Eastern) region of the largest of Japan's islands, Honshu 本州.

The prefectures of Japan were organized in the Edo 江戸 era according to divisions set down by the bakufu 幕府 (shogunate). Nine of these, around the nine largest cities of the time, were magistrate-ruled 奉行支配地 (bugyou shihaichi). The rest were townships 郡代支配地 (gundai shihaichi). During the Meiji 明治 era the magistrate zones became 府 (fu) and the townships became 県 (ken). After World War II, the government changed them all to ken except for two: Osaka and Kyoto resulting in the 47 prefectures, 43 of which are ken　県, 2 fu 府, one do 道 (Hokkaido), and one to 都 (Tokyo)

Tokyo was originally a fu, but when the prefecture was merged with the city in 1947, it was given a special status of to 都. There are 23 special wards 特別区 (tokubetsuku) administered by the Tokyo government along with the former other cities of the prefecture. Shibuya 渋谷 and Shinjuku 新宿 are probably the most famous of the 23 wards. Regular cities of the former prefecture, before it was all merged into the huge blob that is now Tokyo, would be cities like Tachikawa 立川, which is close to where I live. Tokyo is also known as niijuusanku 二十三区 ("Twenty-three wards"). Since 2000, the government has given the wards special status as "local public entities" 地方公共団体 (chihou koukyou dantai), which just basically means they are regarded as cities rather than wards.

Technically, Tokyo is not a prefecture, but a "metropolis." I really don't see how it matters either way, though. Because Tokyo is so huge and bloated, the "Greater Tokyo Area" really is comprised of the entire Tokyo Metropolis as well as parts of Saitama Prefecture 埼玉県, Yokohama 横浜 in Kanagawa Prefecture 神奈川県 and Chiba Prefecture 千葉県.　Narita Airport 成田空港, Tokyo's international airport, is located in Chiba. It's about a 3 and a half hour bus ride, or a two hour ride on the Narita Express train, to get from the outskirts of Western Tokyo, where I live, to the airport, so catching a 4 PM flight from Narita really becomes an all-day affair. It gives you an appreciation for how big Tokyo really is, though most of that is due to the fact that traffic, for the most part, is really really backed up most of the time.

It's kind of amazing to me that Tokyo has lasted this long without exploding. This really is a huge city, and at first glance, it gives the appearance of being a haphazard, scattered collection of gray and drab buildings. I've heard Tokyo called an "ugly city." I guess you could say it is that, but it really breaks my heart when people talk about it in that way.

Tokyo is not the most beautiful city in the world (though there are places, like Odaiba). Most people who know anything about Japan don't even consider Tokyo "real Japan" - it's too commercialized and has too many foreign influences. My friends who live here and are Caucasian-American also say that Tokyo people are very cold to foreigners. Being Asian-American, I really can't say one way or the other for that having never experienced it myself (if you look Asian and you speak Japanese, people treat you as Japanese), though I do know from experience that everyone here considers themselves somewhat superior, city folk as opposed to people from the country 田舎 (inaka). Though if you want to get technically, only the 23 wards are really part of the "city" and even places like Mizuho and Tachikawa here on the outskirts are really "inaka."

But besides all its bad points, there's a certain Japanese-ness about Tokyo that still pervades the city and makes it, in my point of view, a beautiful place. Then again, I think that every place on this earth is a beautiful place. It's how you look at things that counts. Whatever the case, Tokyo really IS the center of Japan, and as far as Tokyo-ites are concerned, we are the center of the world, pretty much. There's a reason that everyone who wants to make it big has to move to Tokyo.

More on the actual wards of inner Tokyo and my experiences there and which ones I like the best, in the next entry. ^_^

Hajimemashite...

Tue, 18 May 2004 10:07:45 GMT

Living in Japan, I've discovered that just learning to speak the language isn't quite enough to really understand the culture. Just like American culture, there are a lot of levels of historical and other references that make Japan what it is today. After all, ask most any American about the crossing of the Potomac during the Revolution and you'll get an automatic "Oh yeah, George Washington, right?"

There are tons of websites out there that explain different facets of Japanese society, but I'm more of a hands-on learner; if I write it down, I remember it better. So this LJ is my attempt to chronicle various trivia items of Japanese history, society, and culture. I'll try to do one a day, though with my notorious posting habits, it might start degenerating. I also want this to be kind of a "my experiences in Japan" journal. I know everyone has one and it might bore the rest of the world to death, but if you're friends or family, it might be interesting to you *shrug*

Names and places will be in both romaji and Japanese kana, so you'll need Japanese text support on your browser to view.

滅びの風 ~life in Japan, annotated~