The memory of ease

15th October 2006

Are religion and commerce natural bedfellows?

How you answer will depend on your level of cynicism but in at least one instance in Kyoto, the two rub together happily, naturally - and with a generous helping of pickles.

The monthly market at Chion-ji is one of the fairs held regularly on temple grounds in the city; Chion-ji's falls on the 15th of every month and specialises in handmade goods. The 15th of October happened to be a Sunday so when the day of the fair came, so did lots of people.

As I stood at the main entrance of the temple, I watched visitor after visitor climb up the steps, mutter 'sugoi na'* if male or 'sugoi ne' if female and inch into the throng. I was waiting for K.**, a kindly Taiwanese classmate whose interest in food, kimono and other old things made her a natural partner for Kyoto adventuring. She bobbed into view, jumping above the sea of heads so I could see her. She did the mandatory double-take at the size of the crowd and then we squeezed in.

It was impossible to wander freely from stall to stall; all we could do was shuffle. But though it was a claustrophobe's nightmare, I didn't see anyone losing his temper. People just organised themselves into long lines and shuffled stoically.

But having to creep past stalls meant that you looked that much more closely at what was there. The words 'handmade goods fair' somehow conjure up the image of things hammered together on weekends in someone's garage and though there was some of that at the market, this is, after all, a city of craftsmen and even the amateurs - some of the stall-holders looked like students - know their way around paint, cloth, wood and clay.

The goods encapsulated the Japanese fondness for cute things (sake cups with a tiny pig peering out***), their sensitivity to the seasons (autumn motifs everywhere) and their love of cute things sensitive to the season (postcards with a squirrel clutching a red leaf in one paw and an acorn in another).

And at Chion-ji, 'handmade goods' also cover vegetables. There were vegetables bigger than my head, vegetables smaller than my head and vegetables pickled in more ways than could fit in my head.

The lines of stoic shufflers may lead you to think that the fair was a sober, orderly affair. But while there didn't appear to be any bartering, there was bantering. Though, for some reason, this seemed to happen mostly with the vegetable sellers. Perhaps handling giant pumpkins and Unidentified Phallic Objects of the vegetable kind puts people in a jocular frame of mind.

So - what did I buy? Beautiful things, of course. But among the items that made me the happiest was a box of warabi mochi. If Turkish delight had found its way to Japan years ago and been recreated with bracken starch and dusted with kinako powder, you'd get something like warabi mochi. It's a gentle sweet, nothing like desserts that come dripping with promises of death by chocolate.

But for warabi mochi, I stood in a long line under a strong sun because the flavours you remember are not just those that burst through in a blaze of fireworks but also those which slip in to sit beside you and, in their speaking silence, comfort. They'll leave soon enough - as flavours tend to do - but when they are gone, the memory of ease remains.


. . . . .

* Meaning 'great', 'terrible' or 'Woah! Lots of (optional insertion of noun here)!' As with many Japanese words and phrases, the meaning depends on the context.

** Names in this blog have been changed to protect the guilty i.e. me.

*** See http://www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~seizo/

Reeling with shock


4th October 2006


Picked up a copy of Kansai Scene, an events listings magazine, and made a mental note to get next month's issue too.

But as I flipped through, a box headlined, `Celtic Festival in Kyoto', made me choke on my dinner. It said: `The aim of this event is to celebrate the Celt world of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland and introduce it to a Japanese audience. There will be music, dance, a parade led by bagpipes and more. Also, there will be a Noh workshop put on by actors experienced in the form.'

Remind me again - who's introducing what to whom?

To market, to market, to be a fat pig...


3rd October 2006


Only thing is, it'll take four weeks for my alien registration to be processed and until I get the card, all significant transactions are impossible. Can't buy a mobile phone, can't open an account at Citibank even though I already have two at the bank's Singapore arm.

But I can, at least, go to the market. Not any market either; Lonely Planet calls Nishiki `Kyoto's best full-time market'. Once there, let your eyes be a second mouth and feast on food pulled out of the earth, from plants, from the water, from the depths of the Japanese culinary imagination. Like the soyabean doughnuts. These were chopped up for passers-by and looked like nothing so much as pieces of yew char kway (fried dough sticks to people unfamiliar with Singapore grease sources).

What can I say? That first you notice the crunch, then the sweetness and then the burst of oil? That the way all these wait patiently for each other to shine makes you think, probably inappropriately, of the Japanese ideal of harmony?

All I know is that if I'd been given beancurd in that form as a child, I'd have been a lot more enthusiastic about eating it.

The market is a freeloader's dream, with samples every few steps. Admittedly, a lot of what is on offer looks like pickled vegetables. Not being of the pickle persuasion, I kept an eye out for shops selling wagashi, or traditional Japanese sweets.

Dango (glutinous rice balls, often stuck in threes on a stick) occupies the place in Japan filled by chocolate in other countries. Also not being a fan of food that needs more than the usual amount of chewing, I bought just one stick of kinako (soyabean powder; tastes a bit like peanut) dango.

I pulled one ball off the stick. I chewed. I swallowed. I went back to the shop to buy two more sticks and other things in the display case.

This was what I had come to Kyoto to find: food that makes you think, `Bloody hell, what did I just put in my mouth?' Usually, that thought is followed by, `Will anyone notice if I spit it out?' In Japan, however, that second thought is more likely to be, `!!! How can I lay in a lifetime's supply of this stuff?'

It had become one of my minor ambitions to eat my way across Kyoto - not something I tell serious people asking me serious questions about my reasons for moving to Japan, if only because it makes me sound like a termite.

Greetings, Earthlings

2/10/06


There is a piece of paper given out by immigration officials in Japan. It begins with this salutation, `To Alien Entering Japan', and issues this directive: `You must, within 90 days of your entry into Japan, appear in person at the office of the city, ward, town or village where you reside, and apply for alien registration, submitting your passport and 2 copies of your photograph'.

And so, I have registered as an alien. (Incidentally, 'Venus' in Japanese is 'Biinasu'.)

That piece of paper goes on to say, `In case you leave Japan within 90 days of your entry into Japan, you are not required to apply for alien registration'.

All you non-Earthlings making a pit-stop in Japan on your way to Alpha Centauri, please take note.

Are we there yet?

28-29th September 2006


...and Kyoto.

Not a long journey at all - about seven hours by plane then two by car - but it feels like it began years before. Still, the people who handle things like visas are not particularly interested in the length of the road behind you, only in what is prompting you to take the next step.

To them I say that I wish to go to Japan to study the language. This happens to be true. There are other reasons too, of course, but that's another post and will be posted another time.

However, a journey of a thousand miles sometimes begins with a single misstep. Mine came at the immigration counters of Singapore's Changi airport. At the entrance of the land into which those without boarding passes may not go, an officer looked at my passport.

Oh, new one. Why don't you try the machine? he said.

He guided me to a fare-gate-like contraption and laid a page of my new passport on it. The first set of gates opened. I went through and a message flashed on a screen telling me to put my thumb on it to open the next lot of gates. I did.

Press harder, said the machine.

I pressed harder.

Press higher, said the machine.

I pressed higher.

This isn't working, said the machine. Go find the human on duty.

Another officer climbed down from his post and let me out of the contraption, criticising my thumb-pressing technique all the while (`Don't press like that - you press like that, how to work?').

The first officer laid my passport on the reader again. I stepped through and presented my thumb. The second officer monitored my progress. Or rather, lack of. `You press so high for what?' he asked.

Because the machine told me to. Being Singaporean, I do not question orders, especially those issued by non-humans.

As I stood there trapped, he stared at the image of my thumbprint on a screen. `Why your thumb got so many cracks?'

I don't know; it came that way.

The machine remained unmoved.

`Cannot, cannot. See, your thumb got so many cracks.'

A charm offensive had been pushed through Singapore's service staff and officialdom for the recent IMF and World Bank meetings but this man had clearly emerged unscathed.

`You know what, I think I'm going to do this the old way,' I said. I took my passport back from the first officer. `I've got the wrong sort of thumb,' I told him. He looked blank.

I handed my passport over to a woman at a counter. In less than a minute, she handed it back to me. And with a smile.

In the walk to my departure gate, I wondered why the sheep-pen machines had been introduced. So that by enabling people to check themselves out of the country, less money and manpower would be needed?

But let's see. With the new method, one man had to guide me to the machine, another had to tell me my thumb was defective - and I still couldn't be read by the machine. Whereas the old way took just one human and less than one minute.

But what would I know? My thumb's all cracked up so who can say what state my mind is in?

New things do help sometimes but there are also times when the old ways are better. And now, I have come to a city full of them.

And a dormitory full of them. Is there really no way I can get an Internet connection in my room? Really, really?

But for now, let's leave Internet withdrawal symptoms aside because, for now, There has become Here and I am in Kyoto.

...tsuita.