The sound of one hand waving

2012-02-10T22:43:00.000-08:00

An American visits Japan

11th February 2012

'Kyoto is like dreaming, watching Glee, eating a Krispy Kreme doughnut and being in “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” at the same time.'

More here.

If you're planning a visit, pay attention to the point about cash and ATMs.

2012-01-19T06:35:00.000-08:00

Winter lights

20th January 2012

Tuesday marked the 17th anniversary of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, better known outside Japan as the Kobe earthquake.

But there's a permanent memorial in a park in the Kobe city centre. The names of the quake victims have been inscribed on little black plaques in an underground chamber. When I was there last December, someone had left offerings of flowers and paper cranes.

I was in Kobe for the annual Luminarie, a light festival held to remind people of the quake that devastated the city. This was the first installation.

Above the rose window-like centre, a half moon.

Then onto and under the shining arches.

There were food and souvenir stalls along the way. This little boy had a bowl of soup gyoza but when he saw his father get some noodles, he wanted them too.

It's a wonder that the parents of young children get to eat at all but I have been told that you can do quite well hoovering up whatever the kid leaves behind.

The highlight of the event: an enclosure composed of giant light panels.

Photography frenzy. And if you wanted everyone in your party to be in the shot, a volunteer photographer was on hand to take the picture.

I found it hard to look away from the lights.

Designs by Italian studio Valerio Festi. The Luminarie is a European tradition dating back to the 16th century and is particularly associated with southern Italy.

More light architecture.

But this time, with a reflecting pool.

Nearby, the obligatory food stalls. This one sold crepes. You could order a crepe with a creme caramel pudding inside.

I'm not sure how I should respond to that.

Grilled tuna on a stick. I don't think you're allowed to order the head though.

Doner kebab world domination proceeding on schedule.

But the event is more than a festival of the flesh. This installation was titled Garden of the Spirits.

Reflection.

2012-01-05T06:11:00.000-08:00

Visiting relatives

6th January 2012

In winter, the monkeys of the Jigokudani Yaenkoen nature park get serious about bath time.

Images like this one from the park staff is what draws visitors from all over the world to this mountainous corner of Nagano prefecture.

But when I visited in May last year, there were some monkeys in the hot springs too. Just without the surrounding snow.

Japanese macaques are unusual because most primate species are found in the tropical or sub-tropical belts. For adapting to life so far north of the equator, the macaques have earned the nickname, snow monkeys.

But, as the park staff are keen to tell you, there's more to the macaques than their fondness for hot springs.

A monkey is groomed, whether it likes it or not.

A youngster playing on some ropes near the hot springs bath. I saw many people in the park with the same expression as the one that this visitor has.

There were so many monkeys wandering around that some were overlooked.

But how close really can you get to the macaques?

This close...

This close...

But not this close. The hand belongs to the chief of the park. Another official - I was there on a work trip - told me that the only human the monkeys will approach like this is the chief. 'It's like they know he's the boss,' he said. He sounded a bit envious.

And, unless you're another macaque in the herd, getting this close is probably a little out of line.

Still, the amount of access is remarkable. Especially since they seem happy to ignore you and get on with the business of grooming, bathing and foraging.

While the images of the macaques in the snow have made them famous, if you visit them in other seasons, you'll might see something like this.

Visitor Masako Ito took this shot of a baby monkey seeking shade under a bench.

I think my Kawaii-O-Meter just broke.

2011-12-10T09:26:00.001-08:00

Autum dark, autumn light

11th December 2011

When the crowds show up at Kodai-ji on autumn evenings, this is probably what they're hoping to see.

The queue can be long but there are things to see on the way to the temple's ticket office.

And the wait, I think, is worth it.

The water was so clear we got two autumn landscapes for the price of one.

Though this young gentleman was more interested in the lights than in what was being lit up.

I hope he saw the phoenix though.

And the gold on the hall where the temple's founder, Nene, is enshrined.

If you follow the arrows along the path, they will take you to a bamboo grove...

...then lead you back to the start for one last look.

2011-11-28T08:56:00.000-08:00

Tamasaburo V

29th November 2011

More womanly than women themselves - that's how the men who play female roles in kabuki theatre are sometimes described.

But the onnagata - literally, female form - will say that they do not try to be women or even imitate them. They aim to be onnagata.

In 1629, the shogunate banned women from performing in public - ostensibly because of the audience brawling over actresses - so the female roles went first to boys and then to men.

Over the 360-odd years of kabuki history, men came up with an artificial image of women. These stage women walked a certain way, spoke a certain way, danced a certain way. The point was not to be true to real life; the point was to be true to kabuki.

Probably the most famous onnagata alive is Bando Tamasaburo V, known not only for his career in kabuki but also for crossing genres in collaborations with people like Yo-Yo Ma.

Earlier this month, Tamasaburo V was presented with the Kyoto Prize, a 50 million yen award given out each year by the Inamori Foundation, set up by the founder of manufacturing company Kyocera.

As part of a series of events held in conjunction with the award ceremony, Tamasaburo and the other two laureates - both scientists - held lectures, workshops and forums.

Most of the events took at the Kyoto International Conference Centre, where there was also a Tamasaburo photo exhibition. I took a lot of photos of people taking photos of photos.

In 2008, Tamasaburo appeared with China's Suzhou Kunqu Opera Company, playing the female lead (in photo of photo above) in The Peony Pavilion: a role that he said he spent three years preparing for.

A 2009 photo by Takashi Okamoto of Tamasaburo in Sagi Musume (Heron Maiden). The dancer plays both a tortured heron spirit and a girl in love.

Another notable role: the courtesan Akoya in Dannoura Kabuto Gunki. Photo by Takashi Okamoto.

Make-up is an important part of role creation in kabuki, with actors adding their own individual twists to the "face" of a character.

A few days after the prize presentation was a student forum.

I still remember his hands. For a country where people prefer to use their hands to make things than to talk, Tamasaburo's hands carried on a dialogue all by themselves.

A lot of the photos looked like this: face clear and hands a blur because they wouldn't stop moving.

Here's one sequence:

Dancers are the people who move even when sitting still.

2011-11-16T10:31:00.001-08:00

Why staff in Japanese bookshops wear aprons

16th November 2011

Because if you're not careful, books will spill ink all over you.

2011-09-30T07:19:00.000-07:00

Pagong

1st October 2011

Change doesn't always happen quickly in Kyoto but an old kimono-dyeing company has reinvented itself as a producer of Japanese-inspired Western clothes.

The company, Kamedatomi, has also come up with its own clothing line and branched out into bags and other accessories.

The clothing line, Pagong, stands apart because its designs come from the patterns the company has collected over decades. Once meant for kimono, the patterns now adorn T-shirts, tank tops and, er, aloha shirts.

I managed to persuade one of the sales staff at the Pagong shop in Gion to model a T-shirt for me. I also managed to visit the company's dyeing factory in the west of Kyoto.

The floor where dye is painstakingly painted onto rolls of fabric. What looks like a Jackson Pollock carpet is actually a drop cloth spattered with stray dye.

An artisan brushing dye onto fabric with the help of a stencil. The strength applied has to be equal right to left and top to bottom or the colours won't look even.

Finished design samples waiting for a colour check on the dyeing floor.

A stairway mural. This is how factories should be decorated.

The CEO of the company, Mr Kazuaki Kameda, is also its creative engine. This is from his Rakugaki (Graffiti) series. First came the artwork then the bag.

I've never seen a bamboo forest in a storm but perhaps it's something like this.

2011-09-11T02:50:00.000-07:00

Summer in the garden with geisha

16th September 2011

Summer's not all about suffering in the heat, not when you have beer gardens sprouting up like first aid stations.

But the beer garden at Kamishichiken has something the others don't: geisha.

Umesaya the maiko at our table. She answered our questions about life as an apprentice geisha, posed for photos and turned a chopsticks wrapper into a little boat that worked as a chopsticks holder. When someone remarked on it, she held an impromptu origami class.

For 1,800 yen, you get a mug of beer, hiyayakko (cold tofu) and edamame. But you can add other things from the menu. We ordered tamago yaki (egg rolls), burdock fries and takoyaki (in photo).

The beer garden became a different place in the dark. The maiko and geisha looked even more glamorous, if that's possible.

Tables were set up not only in the garden but also along the corridor outside the hall where the geisha of Kamishichiken dance.

The white circles on the lanterns represent dango (rice dumplings): this is the crest of the Kamishichiken geisha district.

You could get lost among the lanterns. I really wouldn't mind.

2011-08-16T08:22:00.000-07:00

Seeing stars

16th August 2011

Kyoto city's celebrations for the star festival of Tanabata ended yesterday with the close of Kyo no Tanabata, a 10-day event staged at different spots.

I spent a few sweaty hours at the site beside Horikawa, a river in the west of the city. This is what it looked like before the crowds arrived.

Bamboo art installation. Those probably aren't mosquito nets though they would have been entirely appropriate given the number of times I was bitten.

Decorations made famous by the celebrations in Sendai, which holds one of the largest Tanabata festivals in Japan. Those decorations are huge - as if they'd been made by a race of giants keen on handicrafts and jellyfish.

In its non-festival hours, the Horikawa site is a park for residents.

Fire-fighting in Kyoto begins with a red bucket. The bucket is always filled - fire seems to be a bigger worry than mosquito-breeding.

Everything looked different once night fell and the spotlights came on in the bamboo grove. Strips of paper with wishes on them had been hung up among the leaves as well as decorations like this one.

The highlight of the celebrations at the Horikawa site: a tunnel evoking the Milky Way, which separates Orihime the weaver and Hikoboshi the cowherd for 364 days a year. The Sky Emperor allows them to meet on the seventh day of the seventh month but if the weather's bad, they won't.

In all the shots I took of the tunnel, this was the only one where the light at the end formed a perfect heart.

So maybe things worked out for Orihime and Hikoboshi this year.

In the river, fabric from one of the city's dyers was displayed: a nod to the past practice of washing excess dye out of kimono material in the river.

The changing lights constantly remade the same stretch of cloth.

A cry went up among the crowd when these blue LED balls came bobbing down the river.

Releasing the balls into the river. He had a walkie-talkie - wrapped in plastic - to communicate with those downstream and a stopwatch hanging from his neck. He would check it before dropping the balls into the water; he was probably on a schedule.

The first electric tram in Japan apparently crossed a bridge over the Horikawa. The tram is long gone but this remains.

The Sendai decorations at night.

Water wheels were set up near the streamers with messages to the March disaster victims fixed to the blades. This wheel said, "You're not alone".

2011-08-10T22:51:00.001-07:00

The loot!

11th August 2011

Or at least some of it from this year's Gojo pottery festival.

The pieces above all from Hagi potter Yamane Seigan. The people at the stall remembered me from previous years and were generous with discounts.

I'd been looking for big bowls, preferably the kind that wouldn't explode in the microwave. They are the one-dish-meal-eater's best friend.

A warm little rice bowl.

It took a while to get everyone washed, dried and photographed. But handling them's part of the fun.

2011-07-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

'Sooner or later, I will finish'

30th July 2011

There are many wonderful stories about Yamaoka Tesshu. Here are a few of them.

...

Japan began the year with civil war. It was January 1868: a few weeks before, the shogun had handed his powers back to the emperor but the transition soon unravelled into fighting.

The shogun retreated from Kyoto to his stronghold in Edo, the city that would become Tokyo. It did not take the imperial army long to follow.

While shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu did not seem keen to continue fighting, any emissary sent to negotiate a surrender was bound to be captured or killed before reaching the imperial command centre about 150km away.

It looked as if Edo – and its million or so inhabitants – would be plunged into war. And they might well have been if not for a 33-year-old samurai in the shogun’s personal guard.

Yamaoka Tesshu, who volunteered for the mission, was soon behind enemy lines. He found the streets lined with troops. Another man might have tried to travel covertly but Tesshu just walked down the middle of the road.

When he reached a place where he thought imperial commander Saigo Takamori might be staying, he announced himself by bellowing, ‘I have come from the house of Tokugawa Yoshinobu, enemy of the court!’

Tesshu later recounted that there were probably a hundred people in the house but they simply stared at him.

It turned out that Saigo was not there so Tesshu carried on walking. None of the sentries stopped him and he finally made his way to the command centre. Something about Tesshu made Saigo, himself a figure of considerable presence, listen.

After they worked out the preliminary terms of surrender, Saigo remarked: ‘I should have you thrown into prison for infiltrating the camp.’

‘Exactly what I would have wished for,’ said Tesshu. ‘Please do so.’

Saigo laughed. ‘Why don’t we have a drink?’

They had more than one. Saigo later said of the younger man: ‘He has no interest in reputation, nor in position or money. He has no need even of life itself. How is one to deal with a man like that?’

That baffling man, Yamaoka Tesshu, was born on July 23 in 1836. After being orphaned at the age of 17, he left his five younger brothers with his relatives, giving them almost all the money he had inherited to pay for his siblings’ care.

He rarely had much money because he was always donating it to charity. Rather than pursue wealth, he pursued his obsessions: swordsmanship, calligraphy and Zen. He found time for these even in his years of public office, when he served first in the new imperial government then as an aide to the emperor.

It was Saigo who recommended him for the post. Others protested – place a man who had once served the court’s enemy beside the head of that court? Was Saigo mad? But, believing that Tesshu would be a good influence on the young emperor, Saigo insisted.

Tesshu agreed to serve at court for 10 years. Once that time was up, he was free to devote all his time to his obsessions. His daily schedule: swordsmanship from 6am to 9am, calligraphy and painting from 10am to 4pm or 5pm, then Zen meditation or sutra-copying at night.

To Tesshu, these things were not separate; poor swordsmanship or calligraphy reflected a lack of spiritual growth.

Though he was reckoned a master swordsman by most, the memory of a bout he had lost when he was 28 haunted him. If the conversation lapsed, he would cross two pipes like swords, seeking the reason for his defeat. Answers sometimes suggested themselves to him at night. He would wake his wife up and get her to hold a wooden sword while he wielded another. (It has not been recorded whether his wife ever, at such moments, smacked him with the sword.)

He also tackled the problem through meditation. And it was during contemplation that the answer finally arrived when he was 45 years old. This is how he described the moment: ‘I reached the state of no-enemy… As I recalled my previous notions of skilfulness and ineptness, fighting and no fighting, I realised that those dichotomies have nothing to do with the opponent; all those things are creations of one’s mind. If there is self, there is an enemy; if there is no self, there is no enemy.’

In its original state, the mind is as clear as a still pond. If the moon hangs over the pond, the water simply reflects it back: an instant and appropriate reaction. But if the pond is stirred up and the water clouded, it cannot do this.

To dwell on an opponent’s supposed strength or weakness is to stir up the mind. If the mind thinks the opponent is stronger, it becomes afraid and the body, tense. Neither can respond properly. Caught by the image of the enemy it has created, the mind stops – and becomes stuck.

Galvanised by this realisation, Tesshu established his own school of swordsmanship. He called it Muto: No Sword. ‘ “No sword” means “no mind”; “no mind” means “the mind that abides nowhere”. If the mind stops, the opponent appears; if the mind remains fluid, no enemy exists,’ he wrote in an explanation of the school’s name.

The training at his school was, like his own, arduous. Beginners had to spend at least three years on only one move: raining blows down on the opponent’s head. This may be why there are only a handful of Muto swordsmen today. But Tesshu’s disciples and their students played a great role in the development of kendo, the modern form of Japanese swordsmanship.

Tesshu’s achievements in swordsmanship were immense. So were his achievements in calligraphy. On average, he brushed about 500 sheets a day though his record was 1,300 pieces.

In the final eight years of his life, he produced at least a million works, mainly to raise funds for charity.

A friend once commented on the volume of his output. ‘I’ve just begun,’ Tesshu replied. ‘It will take a long time to reach 35 million.’ The figure referred to the number of people in Japan at the time; his brush was a way of helping fellow travellers on the road.

The amount of time he spent on his three obsessions might seem self-indulgent. A prominent activist once asked him: ‘When you meditate, are you serving your lord? Are you serving the nation? The people?’

But Tesshu understood that to develop the self was to serve others and that true service could not be accomplished without devoting time to the self.

Two years before his death from stomach cancer, the 51-year-old Tesshu declared that he was going to copy out the whole Buddhist canon. A friend who heard this was astounded: ‘Even if you live to be a hundred, you couldn’t possibly copy more than half.’

Tesshu assured his friend that he was not mad. He’d soon be exchanging this body for another, he said. ‘Sooner or later, somewhere, someplace, I will finish.’

2011-06-14T07:44:00.000-07:00

Now that irises are in bloom

14th June 2011

The western pond of Heian Jingu. It's a Shinto shrine but gardening also seems to be its religion.

One kind of iris, three different looks.

It looks even better when there are other kinds of irises around.

At Heian Jingu, even if you go with something in mind, you always find something unexpected.

And refreshments. Mustn't forget those. On the menu: green tea roll cake with azuki beans and chestnuts with iced coffee or yuzu tea.

2011-06-09T07:03:00.000-07:00

Doing the Tateyama-Kurobe Alpine Route

9th June 2011

It's summer in Kyoto but in the high mountains of Toyama and Nagano, it still looks like winter.

The Tateyama-Kurobe Alpine Route, which straddles the prefectures of Toyama and Nagano in central Japan. Buses, cable cars and a ropeway get you from one end of the route to the other.

The Kurobe Dam, Japan's largest, is one of the highlights of the Nagano side of the route. A cruise ship takes visitors round Lake Kurobe, which is 1,448m above sea level. If you were a lake monster looking for high-rise accommodation, I'd recommend this spot.

Visitors travelling from the Toyama side would see the dam last. What they'd see first if they were there any time from April to June: a corridor carved through deep snow.

You can leave messages in the snow corridor. TK, said one of them, *hearts* AY.

At the end of the corridor, visitors double back, this time over the snow, which can reach 18m high. Informal winter sports are played along the way. This is the snow putt, where you heave a snowball as far as you can. Some people actually tried to do the snow putt uphill.

Snow floor routine. The final pose for the judges.

Lots of winter fun to be had along the route. And that includes lunch.

2011-05-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

A break from the usual

28th May 2011

I had the chance to travel to Toyama prefecture by the Sea of Japan earlier this month. They get lots of snow up there. And they grow tulips. In spring, they have a tulip festival.

I had my doubts but I was assured that this is a tulip.

The children I saw at the fair seemed to enjoy the tulips immensely. They're bright, after all, and bloom at child height. But this little boy seemed more interested in the gravel - a Zen garden type, perhaps.

2011-05-13T10:45:00.001-07:00

Last lot for the year

14th May 2011

I promised a friend that I'd post pictures of the sakura by the river once it bloomed. It's a little late but here they are.

There was a young man holding a guitar and a pencil. He seemed to be writing a song.

2011-04-16T23:37:00.000-07:00

Saturday at a shrine

17th April 2011

I've learned enough about Heian Jingu to expect crowds there in sakura season. The maiko performance in the shrine courtyard was a surprise though.

Another unexpected star.

The main attraction.

The wind steals from the trees...

...and leaves the loot in the ponds.

A shot I can never resist taking. This time though, there were bits of pink in the water's sky.

For this period, special sakura omikuji. The trees where people had tied their pink fortune slips looked like cherry blossom trees from a distance.

South of the shrine was a little park filled with kids running about, making mud balls and throwing stuff around. There was also this.

2011-04-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

Wheels are turning...

15th April 2011

...in this city of cyclists.

How to load an umbrella on a bike.

2011-04-11T07:01:00.001-07:00

Whatever you can find

11th April 2011

I knew the light wouldn't be good - it was too late and cloudy - but I went down to Kiyamachi-dori anyway.

When I got there, a man wearing a jacket with the word "impulse" cut in front of me.

A little canal called Takasegawa runs along Kiyamachi-dori. In the days before trains, goods would be ferried along the canal as far as Osaka.

With the sakura in bloom, interesting buildings turn glamorous.

Cherry blossoms and adult beverages: an ancient combination.

The light was a little better at the Kamogawa, which runs parallel to the Takasegawa.

Though it was a weekday, there were people having flower-viewing parties. (Shoes aren't usually left on the mat but it was a windy day.)

Flower-viewing party for one. Easier to organise.

Spot the sparrow!

Wild geese - the stone kind - flying over the river.

The light faded fast and when it was gone, I went to Nijo castle.

For the light-up.

2011-04-08T08:29:00.000-07:00

Whatever you do, don't cancel hanami

9th April 2011

Please support these people by drinking. Just don't drive afterwards.

2011-04-08T03:59:00.000-07:00

By the waters of Kamo we sat down and talked

8th April 2011

The early bloomers by the Kamo river.

Not many cherry blossoms out at Hirano shrine when we visited last Friday but the stalls were there.

What the crowds turn up for.

A little ragged but carrying on despite everything.

2011-03-29T06:24:00.000-07:00

Spring, a little late

30th March 2011

A friend from overseas is spending a week here.

Before leaving Hong Kong, she went through the media reports on Japan, sifted the facts out of the scare-mongering and decided that much of the reaction was over-reaction.

I think this is why we are friends.

So she is here now and we spent time yesterday with the people and trees of Kyoto at the imperial palace park.

Early sakura.

Early sakura mania.

Ready for the close-up.

Sakura mania en famille.

Ume. I think.

A pair of peach flowers.

Old life together.

New life together.

2011-03-21T07:27:00.000-07:00

A quick announcement

21st March 2011

Hello. Some of you may be wondering why there was no Letter from Kyoto on Saturday.

I wasn't able to file a column as I was travelling for most of last week but there'll be one in tomorrow's Straits Times.

Update:

Here's the piece.

2011-03-18T23:04:00.001-07:00

One week after

19th March 2011

2011-03-04T06:52:00.000-08:00

Mm-mochi

5th March 2011

Sugar, salt and plum blossoms. M marks the spot.

2011-02-17T08:41:00.001-08:00

Spitting image

17th February 2011

When I tell people here that I'm from Singapore, they sometimes make spouting gestures, as if something's coming out of their mouth.

This ad may have something to do with it.

2011-02-04T00:18:00.001-08:00

Marzipan days

4th February 2011

On a day of rare snow, a few people made the trip up north to Ohara and Sanzen-in, the mountain village's most famous temple.

The roof of the temple's Sanmon gate was covered with marzipan.

There's a nice garden under all this. You'll just have to take my word for it.

But the sun came out now and then. The veranda seemed to enjoy it when it did.

There's a pond under all this. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Visitors sometimes purify themselves by washing their hands at this stone basin. But on the day I went, I saw no one who did.

Everyone seemed to have reached the same conclusion that when icicles are hanging off the sink, a little taint is okay.

Snow means work for some.

But not for all.

It's off season so it's been a series of slow days for the owner of this souvenir shop in the village. With all the time he had, he made this.

Snow sculpture with interactive feature!

On my way back from the temple, I noticed that the shop owner had added horns to the snowman.

'Is that an oni?' I asked, quite proud of myself for having spotted the cultural reference.

'No,' he said. 'It's a cat - those are ears.'

I bought souvenirs to make both of us feel better.

'I wanted to make a rabbit,' he said. 'You know, because it's the Year of the Rabbit. But the ears were too hard.'

Maybe but it'll be even harder next year. I wonder if any amateur sculptor will attempt a dragon.

2011-02-03T06:42:00.000-08:00

兎ツ然、春

3rd February 2011

Winter flowers for the first day of the spring festival.

2011-01-19T22:37:00.001-08:00

White outside

21st January 2011

The last day of the year began with snow, more snow than I've ever seen in Kyoto.

The sakura trees of Gion Shirakawa were white not with flowers but with winter.

Caught off guard, many people didn't have umbrellas.

But not everybody needs them.

The snow made patterns never seen before.

And I made this.

It was my old year resolution.

2011-01-17T22:46:00.001-08:00

Follow the river...

18th January 2011

...and the link to a ryokan, fresh soba and a moon growing on the ground. For the rest of it, see today's Life! in The Straits Times.

2011-01-01T03:28:00.000-08:00

明けましておめでとうございます

1st January 2011

今年もよろしくお願いします。

Gion Shirakawa in the snow.

2010-12-28T07:27:00.001-08:00

Hark! The haiku angels sing

28th December 2010

Japanese pear for
the first day of Christmas – no
partridges in stock.

What are turtle doves?
On the second day, I give
two turtles diving.

On the third day, three
yakitori skewers. The
French hens have been grilled.

On the fourth day, four
calling birds – I hear the
gulls migrating through.

Five golden mikan!
For my own true love, I would
peel five oranges.

On the sixth day of
Christmas, six days to lie in –
who gets enough sleep?

On the seventh day,
nabe stew for the cold:
seven pots a-stewing.

Eight maids a-milking…
Shall we bring a cow to a
Tokyo maid café?

Nine taiko drummers
drum on the ninth day – will a
Kodo CD do?

The 10th day: 10 pies
are a-piping hot. Hurray
for mince pie imports.

Eleven ladies
dancing – the budget may stretch
as far as geisha.

Twelve hearts a-leaping
Six pairs of lovers and an
EKG machine.

On the twelfth day of
Christmas, this I’ll give to thee:
twelve hearts a-leaping

eleven geisha
dancing, 10 pies a-piping,
nine taiko drummers

eight meido milking
seven nabe stewing, six
days to lie in, five

gold mikan! Four gulls
migrating, three chicken skewers,
two turtles dive

and a pear in a
partridge-free tree. (Those mikan
are peeled, by the way.)

2010-12-06T08:12:00.000-08:00

Just the tip of the photo iceberg

7th December 2010

Eikando, a temple in the eastern hills of Kyoto. The sun was out, the sky was blue and the trees so bright they did not seem real.

A more unusual variety of the Japanese maple. At least, I think it's a Japanese maple.

The more usual kind of maple. The colouring, though, isn't.

Huge carp. (Please use leaves in pond as scale reference.)

Stopping for tea and dumplings. On the sign advertising the dumplings, the first character of dango is written with a circle rather than the usual rectangle.

The great gate of the Nanzen-ji temple complex. Another popular spot for viewing autumn leaves.

Jojakko-ji, a temple on the other side of the city. I got there a little past the peak so most of the leaves were on the ground. But that made it easier to see things like this pagoda...

...and these persimmons the size of grapes. Besides, fallen leaves make for a good picture too.

Though not perhaps for the person who has to sweep them up.

Outside Anraku-ji, a little temple in the Higashiyama area, not far from Nanzen-ji.

Red, orange, yellow and green - the better part of a rainbow - in the same tree.

As you wait for a shot of the main gate without people in it, you can feel yourself ageing. But it's nothing some cake won't cure.

2010-12-02T07:26:00.000-08:00

The wealth of toddlers

3rd December 2010

I met him two years ago but since we live in different countries, I see him only when I visit Singapore.

He is different each time. And now that he is two years old, young Jordy has more hair than he did when we first met.

He has two homes – Singapore and New Zealand, where his father was born. He went there for the first time when he was 15 months old; the holiday photos show him chasing lambs bigger than he was.

Though he’s only two, he meets the world at a run. He suffers his hand to be held only at road crossings: a compromise reached with his parents.

Though he’s only two, he has already met love. In his crib are Hob the Hedgehog, Humdy the Camel, Sheepie and Jolly Bob, a dreadlocked sheep named for Bob Marley. He says goodnight to them before he goes to bed. Sometimes, he kisses them. But he always goes to sleep hugging Sheepie, whose white hair has turned grey from a boy’s fierce love.

Though only two, he already knows loss. One afternoon, his mother took him to Keppel Marina, where she was meeting friends. They let their children play on the grass. As usual, Jordy was the one running furthest ahead.

He wasn’t alone; he had a favourite toy – a small purple ball – with him. But as he ran, the ball somehow slipped out of his hand. It rolled over the lawn, through the railings and into the sea.

His grief hit Shakespearean heights. ‘Purple ball…purple ball… Ocean! No more! Mummy, no more! Ocean! Purple baaaaall!’

Even now, he sometimes cries, ‘Purple ball!’, and wanders around, looking lost. He has eight other balls including three rugby ones – small, medium and large – but he cannot forget the purple.

He also has wheels, though he is only two. His fleet includes trains, planes, ambulances, tricycles, helicopters and many different cars of many different sizes. But he has just one motorcycle. His mother keeps it in reserve, giving it to him when she needs him to sit still for a while. For him, this means anything more than eight minutes. She calls the motorcycle – no longer than an adult’s finger – ‘the secret weapon’.

Though only two, he already has a library. Most of his favourite books have to do with vehicles. He can tell the difference between a backhoe loader, a wheel loader and a dump truck. And this he does though he’s only two.

Though only two, he already has a sense of humour. Sometimes, when his mother is dressing him, he will lift his hand to the sleeve opening, slip it in – and whip it away at the last minute, laughing.

Though only two, he already speaks more than one language. At a café, two waitresses from China were charmed into coming over to play with him. His mother tried to get him to say thank you. He looked up at one of them and said: ‘Da xiang.’

The waitress took it well but though he’s only two, he needs to learn that a guy who calls a girl an elephant should not expect to get away with it.

Though only two, he already knows the meaning of the word community. Not one for crowds, he has trouble being in a small space with strangers. He was in the lift with his mother one day when a neighbour entered. He arched back so violently he almost threw himself out of his mother’s arms.

Now, whenever they are in the lift and it is about to stop for more people, they will have a certain conversation.

‘What do we have to do?’ his mother will ask.

‘Share the lift.’

‘And why do we have to share the lift?’

If he does not respond, she will prompt him with, ‘Because we live in a – ?’

‘Community.’

His voice will be quavering but he has learned, though only two, that community means having to share.

Though only two, he is already preparing for bigger things. This is how he practises going to work: he takes a red bag from his bedroom – the bag holds a toy lizard – and leaves, saying, ‘Bye bye, see you later’. He stays outside the bedroom for five seconds, then pushes the door open, steps inside and beams.

Though only two, he appreciates the wider world. His parents took him to Bali a few months ago. He enjoyed the new people, the new food and the unfamiliar furniture. When he got into taxis, he would say, ‘Amazing Bali!’

Though only two, he already knows lyricism. His poetry is urgent, a hand open to the moment.

We were at the playground near his block of flats when a plane rumbled overhead. He checked to see if I was listening. ‘Aeroplane hiding in the clouds,’ he said. Then, ‘See purple flower’.

And if someone who’s only two has all this, can do all this, how much more you must have, how much more you must be able to do.

Exploring a Bali hotel room with a train.

2010-11-17T01:53:00.000-08:00

Twilight of the Bard

16th November 2010

It's not often you can read vampire novels and call it research.

...

Halloween may be over but the undead are alive and well in cinemas all over Japan.

Eclipse, the third in the Twilight vampire saga, opened here two Saturdays ago – good news for me because I’d caught the first two instalments on a recent flight from Singapore but only a fraction of the third. The plane had to land or something.

I was, like, I totally have to find out what happens next!

A recap for those unfamiliar with the Twilight world: On June 2, 2003, US housewife Stephenie Meyer had a dream of a vampire and a human in a meadow. The vampire, though drawn to the girl, was explaining how hard it was for him not to kill her.

The desire to learn if he would pushed Meyer to turn her dream into a book. The stakes are raised: Edward, a reluctant vampire, subsists on animal blood and to attack Bella would make him the monster he tries not to be. The venom of his bite will also turn her into a vampire – a damned creature unable to sleep, dream or change. To risk her soul just so he won’t lose her, he says, would be the most selfish thing he could ever do.

The romance – complicated with the introduction of werewolves – runs over four novels that have become a juggernaut capable of taking on the Harry Potter phenomenon.

But not everyone’s pleased; critics have accused the series of everything from bad writing to driving a stake through the heart of feminism. (Though presumably the latter criticism doesn’t cover the werewolves wandering around with their shirts off when in human form.)

Maybe a change of packaging will make the tale more palatable to its detractors. So here’s Twilight in the words – more or less – of another writer who also became rich and famous for stories about love and conflict.

(Prologue)

Chorus:
Two races, both alike in dignity,
In fair Washington, where we lay our scene;
From species grudge break to new mutiny,
Where human blood sets undead eyes a-gleam.
From the fangs and loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose meadow adventures and sunlight woes
Do with their love bury their species’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of the critics’ rage,
Which even shirtless werewolves couldn’t remove,
Is now the traffic of the franchise stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, the special edition DVD shall strive to mend.

(Bella realises Edward is a vampire. She wrestles with this.)

Bella:
O Edward, Edward! wherefore art thou Edward?
Deny thy blood thirst and refuse thy fangs;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a human.

(She doesn’t wrestle for long. Edward, on the other hand, does. Should he sink his teeth into her so she joins him in vampire eternity? Or should he keep her from becoming a monster? He himself joined the undead only because an older vampire, Carlisle, saw no other way to save the human Edward from an illness.)

Edward:
To bite, or not to bite: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous desire,
Or to open arms to a sea of longing,
And by surrendering, take life? To die: to sleep;
Then more; for by a sleep to say I end
The heart-beat and the thousand natural shifts
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be fear’d. To die, to sleep;
To wake: no more to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For after that sleep that no dreams will come
If I should tear off her mortal coil,
Must give me pause: there’s the reason
That makes a misery of immortal life;
For she would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppression of age, the small town’s boundaries,
The pangs of frustration, a balking lover’s delay,
If she but knew the barren quietus made
With venomous teeth. She would her burdens bear,
To groan and sweat under a weary life,
If dread of this world were set by rotted death,
The discovered country from whose bourn
I have returned. This stiffens my will
And makes me rather bear those ills I have
Than push her to others that she knows not of.
Thus conscience may make a Carlisle of me
After all; and thus inflamed temptation
May take on the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of rapacity and damnation
Could thus see their currents turn awry,
And regain the grace, nearly lost, of principle.

Which way will Edward decide? The answer’s in Breaking Dawn, the final novel in the series. It’s the one with the cover picture of a chessboard, a blood-red pawn and, in front of it, a pale queen.

...

(Originals here and here. I hope that sound isn't the sound of one corpse turning.)

2010-10-26T02:33:00.000-07:00

Ribbit roadworks

26th October 2010

How to make road barriers cute.

2010-09-30T23:52:00.000-07:00

Old fashion

1st October 2010

At the Nishijin Textile Center in Kyoto, kimono fashion shows are held a number of times a day, almost every day of the year. The photos below were taken at one show.

Worn traditionally, a kimono has no buttons, clasps, zips or velcro. Everything is held together by fabric or cords: the wide obi belt, the obijime cord over it, the obiage sash that rides at the top of the obi and holds it up, and the unseen koshihimo sashes under all of them. (A koshihimo is used to create the fold at the hips - a feature not seen when males wear kimono.)

The little flowers in the back - the only adornment on this kimono - play off the roses in the obi.

The furisode - which can be translated as swinging sleeves - has the longest sleeves of all the kinds of kimono. It is worn by girls and young single women on formal occasions such as Coming of Age Day and the first shrine visit of the year.

Another furisode, less formal-looking than the one above. Note how the model brings one foot in front of the other rather than walking with feet set in the usual hip width.

A sheer kimono for the warmer months. The obi has a design of Heian aristocrats. The slight bulge at the top of the obi is due to the obi makura - a little pillow slipped into the fold to support and give shape to the obi. The makura is tied on, just like everything else.

An obi can be luxurious...

...or subtle.

The otaiko musubi - drum knot - is probably the most common way to tie a woman's obi. Here are two variations:

The obi age - the sash above the obi - is yet another indicator of the wearer's marital status. In a young unmarried woman's ensemble, more of the obi age is allowed to show (see furisode pictures above). Below, the sash is tucked discreetly into the obi, revealing just enough to accent the green at the ends of the sleeves, in the obi and in the lining of the kimono.

The subtle circles in the kimono fabric below are a theme picked up and developed by the riceball design of the obi. A well-considered kimono ensemble offers a wealth of details to be decoded and enjoyed.

Flowers - organic handbags.

2010-09-26T09:16:00.001-07:00

Harvest moon haiku

26th September 2010

A little late but here's one for the Mid-Autumn Festival, or Jugoya - Fifteenth Night - as it's known in Japan.

Boy cradles a lantern
under a sky with no moon
he must have borrowed it.

2010-09-21T09:11:00.000-07:00

The unanswerables

22nd September 2010

On Monday, the BBC website carried a story about the top 10 hardest questions to answer, according to search engine Ask Jeeves.

Are they really that hard? Let's see:

1. What is the meaning of life?

A: 42.

2. Is there a God?

A: Is there a you?

3. Do blondes have more fun?

A: Define fun.

4. What is the best diet?

A: Define best.

5. Is there anybody out there?

A: Boo!

6. Who is the most famous person in the world?

A: Not me.

7. What is love?

A: Something better than the best diet in the world.

8. What is the secret to happiness?

A: A bad memory.

9. Did Tony Soprano die?

A: Well, go ask him.

10. How long will I live?

A: You know the answer to that better than I do.

There. Piece of mochi.

2010-09-17T06:04:00.000-07:00

Satoshi Kon says goodbye

18th September 2010

To call Satoshi Kon an anime director is like calling the Beatles a band: accurate but completely inadequate.

With animation for a sledgehammer, he has broken down the walls between worlds: fantasy has become real and reality, fantastic.

A truck pulls alongside a woman riding a scooter. The truck bears a painting of a girl on a plane. The woman is no longer on the scooter – she’s astride the plane, it flies off the side of the truck, over a night city. The plane is gone, the woman is gliding through a billboard, in a computer screen, out of the screen…only she’s not a woman but a character’s alter ego.

You can’t look away for a second if you’re to have any hope of keeping up.

But for all the wild invention of Kon’s visuals, his focus is squarely on humanity. Whether portraying the history of Japanese cinema, Tokyo homeless or technology that takes you into someone’s dreams, his works are stories about people, how they lose and find their way.

And his standing as one of the great storytellers of the modern age rests on just four films and one television series.

There is a fifth movie – Yume Miru Kikai (Dreaming Machine) – but he will never finish it because he died of pancreatic cancer last month. He was 46.

On Aug 25, a day after he died, a long blog post entitled ‘Sayonara’ appeared on his website. It’s a message from an award-winning artist who, at the height of his creative powers, is told that he has only months to live.

The pain, the prospect of leaving those he loves, the despair at a story unfinished: he never hides how hard any of it is. But he also tells us – repeatedly – that he is fortunate, blessed, grateful. Arigatou appears over and over again in the piece.

This is a translation:

May 18 this year – impossible to forget.

A doctor from Musashino Red Cross Hospital delivered this news: ‘Pancreatic cancer, an advanced stage. It’s spread all over to the bones. You have at most half a year left.’

My wife and I listened to this, unable to take in this twist of fate that seemed to make no sense at all.

I’ve always thought that I could drop dead at any moment and if I did, it couldn’t be helped. But this – it was just too sudden.

You could say the signs were there though. For the past two or three months, I’ve had intense pain in my back and the joints of my legs. My right leg grew weak and I had trouble walking. I started visiting an acupuncturist and chiropractor but it didn’t help. And after being examined with MRI, PET-CT and other high precision scanners, the unexpected announcement of the number of days I had left.

It was if death had suddenly appeared behind me – I could do nothing about it.

After the diagnosis, my wife and I looked for ways to extend my life. Desperately. We also gained the support of reliable friends and strong allies. I rejected medication for the cancer and tried to put my faith in a world view different from the norm. It seemed in keeping with someone who has always rejected what is common and normal. I’ve never felt like I had a place in the crowd. That might as well be the case with medical care too…

‘Why don’t I try living according to the beliefs I chose?’

But just as when you’re creating something, you can’t always make things go as you wish.

The illness progressed every day.

Having said all that, as a member of society, I do subscribe to at least half of what it decrees. For one thing, I pay my taxes. I’m hardly a fine, upstanding citizen but I am a full member of society. So apart from doing what I could to lengthen my life given my particular view of the world, I wanted to make the “proper preparations” for death. I couldn’t pull it off though.

Still, one of the things I did manage to do was to, with the help of two trustworthy friends, set up a company to manage the copyrights of my work, for whatever that’s worth.

Another thing was to make a will so that my assets – not that I had much – would pass to my wife without any trouble. Of course, I don’t think a fight will break out over my assets but I wanted to take at least one care away from the wife I’ll leave behind in this world. And it’d also make the one leaving for the other world feel better.

Neither my wife and I are much good at finding out what needs to be done in situations like this and or at paperwork. But wonderful friends got it done for us fast.

Later, when I contracted pneumonia and became critically ill, I signed the last signature on my will and thought, if I die now, well, that’s that.

‘Ah… At last I can die.’

After all, an ambulance had carted me off to Musashino Red Cross Hospital two days before and the day after, I had to be taken back to the same hospital. Naturally, I was thoroughly examined. The diagnosis: pneumonia and fluid accumulating around the lungs. When I asked the doctor point-blank about my prospects, he replied in a businesslike manner, which in a way I was grateful for.

‘Let’s see… One, two days… Even if you recover from this, you probably have until the end of the month at most.’

It’s like he’s telling me the weather forecast, I thought. But the end was pressing in.

That was July 7 – a rather grim Tanabata.

And so I reached this conclusion: I want to die at home.

Even though it might mean a lot of trouble for those around me, I asked them to help me escape so I could go home. And I did, thanks to my wife’s efforts, the hospital, which cooperated even though it acted as if it had given up on me, the great support of other medical facilities, and innumerable coincidences I can think of only as divine intervention. The way everything fell into place was unbelievable. It’s not even as if this was Tokyo Godfathers.

My wife ran around to get me out. For my part, I pleaded with the doctors – ‘Even if I’m at home for a day, no, half a day, I can get something done!’ – then waited alone in that dismal sickroom for death.

It may sound morbid but I thought, maybe it’s not such a bad thing to die.

I had no real reason to think this though perhaps I needed to. I felt so calm I surprised even myself.

But one thought wouldn’t stop bothering me: ‘I just don’t want to die here.’

As I thought this, something came out of the calendar on the wall and started to go round the room. ‘Jeez, a procession from a calendar? Now there’s an original vision.’

It made me smile – even in that situation I was still thinking like I was at work. But it was also then that I might have been closest to dying. Death felt so close by.

But thanks to many people – it was like a miracle – I escaped from the hospital and made it back home, swathed in death and bed sheets.

Dying sucks.

I’d like to point out that I have no criticism of, or ill feelings towards, Musashino Red Cross Hospital, so please don’t misunderstand me.

I just wanted to go home. Home to where I live.

One thing came as a bit of a surprise. It was like a bonus. As I was carried into my living room, I felt as though I was looking at my body from a high point – just like in near-death experiences. It was as if I were hovering a few metres up, right over the entire scene, looking through a wide angle lens. The square bed in the centre of the room seemed unusually large; the me that was wrapped in sheets was laid down in that square. It didn’t look too carefully done but I won’t complain.

So all that was left for me to do was to wait for death in my home.

However.

It appears that I somehow got past the pneumonia.

Wha -?

I sort of had this thought: ‘I forgot to die (laughter)!’

After that, as I kept thinking about death, I felt as though I had already died once. Vaguely, at the back of my mind, the word ‘reborn’ kept flickering.

Energy mysteriously returned to me after that. I really believe that it’s due to, first of all, my wife, those who visited me and shared their strength, the friends who supported me, and the doctors, nurses and care managers.

With the power to live back in me, I couldn’t just lie around. I had to make the most of the extra life granted to me. I decided to try to meet at least one of the responsibilities I was abandoning in this world.

To be honest, I’d told only a few people about the cancer. I didn’t even tell my parents. For reasons to do with work, I kept things quiet. I did want to make an announcement on the Internet about the cancer and keep people updated on my remaining days. But if it had become known that Satoshi Kon was about to die, there would have been repercussions, however small. So I kept those who had a right to know in the dark. I really am sorry for this.

There were so many people I’d have liked to see at least once before I died, even if it was just to greet them. Family, relatives, friends from elementary school and junior high, high school classmates, university buddies, the many people I met in the world of manga with whom I exchanged ideas, those in the world of anime whose desks marched beside mine – they were the people I drank with, competed against and went through thick times and thin with. The countless people I got to know because I became a director, those all around the world who call themselves my fans, friends I made over the Internet.

There were so many I wished I could see (well, there were also those I’d rather not) but I felt that if I did, I’d think, ‘I’ll never see this person again’, and I wouldn’t be able to face death with composure. And though I was better, I had little energy. It would take a great deal to meet people. The more I wanted to see someone, the harder it would be. Talk about irony.

Besides, my lower half was paralysed because the cancer had spread to the bones, which left me prone most of the time. I didn’t want people to see me so wasted away. I wanted most of those who knew me to remember the Satoshi Kon who was alive and well.

So I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise to my relatives, friends and all those who knew me. I hope you’ll understand that it was just Satoshi Kon being self-centred again. Because that’s the kind of guy he was, wasn’t he?

When I imagine your faces, smiles and good memories come to me. Thanks to all of you for the great memories. I love the world I lived in. Just being able to think this is a blessing.

The many people I met over the course of my life helped, for good or bad, to make me the person I was. I am thankful for all the encounters. Even though I’ll end up dying in my mid-40s, I’ve accepted it as my fate. In any case, I have so many good memories. To die now – well, all I can say is, there’s nothing that can be done about it. Really.

Though there are many responsibilities that I have no choice but to abandon, I keep thinking about my parents and Madhouse’s [studio co-founder] Maruyama-san: Satoshi Kon’s parents and the anime director’s parent. Though it was rather belated, I had to confess everything to them. I had to beg for their forgiveness.

Maruyama-san came to visit me. As soon as I saw his face, I could hold back neither my tears nor my sense of shame. ‘I’m sorry, ending up in such a state…’ Maruyama-san said nothing; he just shook his head, took my hands and held them.

Gratitude filled me. Like a wild wave, thankfulness – no, joy – that I’d been able to work with this person swept over me. I might have had no right to think so but I felt like I’d been forgiven.

My greatest regret is the film Yume Miru Kikai.

I’m also worried about its staff because the work we poured so much of ourselves into may never reach an audience. After all, Satoshi Kon carried the story, the script, characters, settings, storyboards, the kind of music – he was the one who envisioned it all.

Of course, I shared many things with the animation and art directors and the staff but the film’s basically something that can only be understood and made by Satoshi Kon. You could say that it’s my fault for having things turn out this way but I did try to explain and share my vision. Still, I feel that I’ve failed. To the entire staff, my heartfelt apologies for my irresponsibility.

I hope you’ll be able to understand. After all, Satoshi Kon was ‘that kind of guy’ and maybe that’s why he could come up with anime that was a bit different, a bit odd.

It may sound like an arrogant thing to say but I hope that you’ll put it down to the cancer and forgive me.

It’s not like I’ve just been lying around waiting to die. With whatever I have, I’ve been trying to figure out a way for the work to continue even after I’m gone. But it was no good.

When I told Maruyama-san about my fears for Yume Miru Kikai, he said: ‘It’s all right. We’ll do whatever it takes so don’t worry.’

I cried.

So hard.

In my previous films, I didn’t do everything I should have when it came to the budget and production matters but I always had Maruyama-san to come sort things out.

And it’s the same now. I haven’t grown at all.

I was able to talk to Maruyama-san at length. He made me feel – just a little – that Satoshi Kon’s talents and skills were of worth to his industry.

‘It’s a shame – if only you could leave us your talent.’

If Madhouse’s Maruyama-san says that, I can leave for the underworld with a bit of confidence. Of course, I know without being told that it’s a pity to lose an ability to produce strange ideas and detailed drawings but it really can’t be helped. This comes from my heart: I am grateful to Maruyama-san for enabling me to take these things into the wider world.

Thank you so much. Satoshi Kon the animation director was happy.

Telling my parents was – hard.

I’d wanted to visit them in Sapporo to tell them about the cancer while I still could but my illness progressed so frustratingly fast. I ended up having to break the news to them over the phone from a hospital room where I lay close to death.

‘I’m in the last stages of cancer and about to die. Dad, Mum, I was really fortunate to have been born to you. Thank you.’

It must have been a great shock to them but I really was convinced that I was going to die soon.

On the contrary, I went home and somehow overcame the pneumonia crisis.

It was then that I decided to see my parents. They wanted to see me too. Though it would be hard, though I didn’t have the strength, I wanted to see their faces. I wanted to thank them in person for bringing me into this world.

I’ve been blessed.

But I’ve lived a little faster than most people and for that I must apologise to my wife, my parents and those I love.

Indulging my selfishness, my parents left Sapporo the next day to see me. I’ll never forget what my mother said when she laid eyes on my bedridden self. ‘I’m so sorry for not having given you a stronger body!’

I was flabbergasted.

I could spend only a short time with my parents but it was enough. I had a feeling that if I could just see their faces, everything would be understood – and it really was so. Dad, Mum, thank you. It’s been my good fortune – above all else – to have received life as your child. My heart, so full of memories and gratitude. Happiness is important but for having taught me to appreciate happiness, I am more grateful to you than I can ever say.

Thank you so very much.

It’s the height of filial impiety to leave before one’s parents but in the past 10 years or so, I’ve been able to stretch myself as an animation director, accomplish my goals – and met a reception that wasn’t too bad. It’s a shame the films didn’t really make much money. Still, I think that what they received was fitting. I feel like I’ve lived more intensely than others – particularly in the last 10 years – but I think my parents understood what was in my heart.

It was a huge weight off my shoulders to be able to speak to my parents and Maruyama-san directly.

Lastly, a word to my wife, whom I’ve leaned on till the end. I worry about you the most.

Since we learned how much time I had left, we’ve wept together so often. We went through terrible days together, wrecked in body and spirit. I can barely describe it. But I somehow made it through those draining, despairing days because of what you said to me right after that pronouncement of death: ‘I’ll walk beside you to the end.’

You kept your word – you stepped over my fears, dealt with the demands that swept in like a whirlwind and learned to look after your husband so quickly. Your deftness touched me.

‘My wife is amazing.’

What am I going on about at this stage, you say? No. I’ve always thought this but now more so than ever before. I believe that after I die, you’ll do a great job of sending me off. Come to think of it, after we got married, it’s been ‘work, work’ every day and it’s only with the cancer that I’ve really been able to spend time at home. What a waste.

But you understood that I was someone who buried himself in work and that was where my talents lay. You stayed by my side anyway. I’ve been fortunate, truly I have. Whether it’s to do with living or dying, I can’t thank you enough. Thank you.

There are, of course, other matters – more than I can count – weighing on my mind but there needs to be an end to things.

Finally, to Dr H, who agreed to look after me at home until the end even though this isn’t done much these days, and to his wife, nurse K-san, I would like to convey my deepest gratitude. There are few things as inconvenient as giving medical care in the home but you tried all kinds of ways to take away the pain of cancer and make the journey towards death as comfortable as possible. How much you helped me. What’s more, though you had a troublesome and arrogant patient, you not only did far more than your jobs required but also treated me and my wife with such humanity. I can’t say how much you supported, saved us. It’s beyond comprehension. I am so, so grateful.

Lastly – and this really is the end – I have to mention two friends who, ever since that death pronouncement in mid-May, have been extraordinary in their mental support and help both in my personal and professional affairs. To T, member of the company KON’STONE and a friend since high school, and producer H, my heart-felt thanks. Thank you – I really mean it. My wife and I are so much in your debt that I can’t find the right words in my limited vocabulary to express my gratitude.

Without the two of you, we would have found it so much harder to face my death. I am indebted to you for everything. And I’m sorry to be making yet another request but could you help my wife see me off?

If you do, I’ll be able to board that flight with peace of mind.

From my heart, I ask this.

To those of you who’ve kept me company throughout this long piece, many thanks. With gratitude for all that is good in this world, I put down my pen.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be leaving first.

Satoshi Kon

The original blog post can be found here. Writer Makiko Itoh was probably the first to translate the whole piece into English and make it available online. Thanks to her efforts, those who can't read Japanese have had the chance to hear Satoshi Kon's last words.

2010-09-09T02:31:00.000-07:00

What's it like where you are?

9th September 2010

A charming haiku yesterday on the Mainichi Daily News website:

Today's weather report -
Sunny over the pool with gusts of
Small screaming children.

One from Singaporean Michelle Ang. We went to the same school but didn't meet until we moved to the same city.

2010-09-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

In Kyoto, there's history even on the hoardings

4th Sept 2010

Buildings for the future surrounded by figures from the past.

Two of Sakamoto Ryoma. His wife Oryo was there on the hoardings too.

As were other figures from the Bakumatsu period: Katsu Kaishu, Saigo Takamori and Yamaoka Tesshu (below).

This is based on the photo taken when he looked old, venerable and had cultivated a magnificent beard. But I sort of prefer the picture taken when he was young, square-jawed and looked sideways at the camera with a glint in his eye.

2010-08-09T05:41:00.000-07:00

I swear I was just going to look...

9th August 2010

...and maybe invest in a blue obi if the shop had a nice one. Unfortunately, it did.

And then...and then...there was this yukata that went so well with it.

And then...I remembered that I'd been needing zori that could go with a wider range of kimono...and there was this sale going on...

Summer zori - the rattan-like sole material is supposed to make everyone looking at it feel cooler. This could be tricky if your foot is in the way.

But the shop wrapped the zori so nicely. This is harder than it looks - as I discovered when I took the strap covers off then tried to put them back again.

So - yeah. All in all, a bit of a disaster.

P.S. Happy birthday, Singapore. I'll wear the red and white obi some other time.

2010-08-03T10:06:00.000-07:00

Groceries haiku

3rd August 2010

Supermarket male
inspects the offerings - and
calls home for orders.

2010-07-27T08:21:00.000-07:00

Football for albatrosses

28th July 2010

During the World Cup, I wanted to ask:

- Why do footballers spit? When you’re sweating, surely you’d want to keep water inside your body?

- Why are goalkeepers the only players with a water bottle within easy reach when they’re also the players who run around the least?

- Why do footballers hold hands with little children when entering the pitch? Should they be bringing minors to a battlefield?

- Has arguing with the referee ever worked?

- In women’s football, do players exchange their jerseys after a match?

- If both teams wore the same strip, would the players still be able to recognise their teammates? Or would they end up passing the ball to the other side?

- Could we organise a game with everyone in the same strip? In the spirit of scientific inquiry?

During the World Cup, I learned that:

- Footballers fall over a lot.

- Players from the other team help them fall.

- Footballers don’t actually need that much help to fall.

- One-touch play does not refer to a player keeling over from one tap by an opponent.

- A fallen footballer can recover surprisingly quickly if the referee’s call goes in his favour. Or if he doesn’t get any attention in the first place. This could have important implications for medical science.

- It’s hard being the goalie. If the ball spills out of your hands and into goal, you will be compared to the worst environmental disaster ever to befall the United States.

- Goalkeepers fall over a lot too.

- They have to fall over without any help.

- Footballers look very different from footballs. But not to members of the opposing team, who take every opportunity to kick both.

- Most handballs are armballs.

- A vuvuzela beside your ear is louder than thousands in the TV.

- Giving someone your sweat-soaked jersey after a match is a friendly gesture, not a request for laundry assistance. And you get a jersey soaked with someone else’s sweat in return. Everybody wins!

- Sometimes, a player wants a jersey so much he doesn’t wait for the match to end but starts pulling at it during play.

- Football enables a man to pat another man’s rear in public without anyone getting punched. Or arrested.

- There is more drama in a month-long tournament than there is in a year-long soap opera. Except that no one in the tournament seems to have shot J.R. Maybe next time.

- When the ball flies into goal, time slows down. This phenomenon can be observed more easily in video replays.

- If you score, your team-mates will jump on top of you. For this reason, it is advisable to remain standing or at least upright.

- That offside thing sort of makes sense now!

- ‘Rooney’ in the hands of a Japanese commentator sounds like ‘Looney’.

- ‘Penalty kick’ in Japanese is peekay.

- ‘Quarter-finals’ in Japanese is besuto eighto.

- Holding both hands up is universal language for ‘I didn’t do it, ref!’

- Once every four years, this planet splits into two universes – World Cup World and Non-World Cup World. In World Cup World, an octopus pronounces on the fate of nations and receives death threats when it has the temerity to be right. In Non-World Cup World, people do not threaten octopuses. They simply eat them.

- If I support a side, it will probably lose. I am as lucky an omen for a team as a dead albatross. Well, I knew this from previous World Cups but I thought that the jinx might have faded over time. It hasn’t. I backed a team in 11 of the 21 matches I watched this tournament. In one of those 11 instances, the, er, favoured side drew. In all the others, it lost.

So a few apologies are in order: Sorry, Spain. I really thought you’d be okay against Switzerland. Sorry, Brazil. I won’t do it again. Sorry, Argentina. If it makes you feel any better, I rooted for Germany in their next game. Sorry, Germany. I did try to make it up to you by not watching your match for third place. Even though I really wanted to. (Before you ask, I’m not responsible for what happened to France and Italy.)

- The tournament makes you wish it were safe to support a team without fear of bringing it down. It makes you wish that because of another thing I’ve learned from the World Cup.

- Football is fun. Even for albatrosses.

...

Postscript

After this piece was run in The Straits Times, reader Colin Lim sent this in:

In line with FIFA’s aim of promoting football in the world, allow me to answer your questions:

1) Footballers used to hold the hands of their WAGs (that’s wives and girlfriends to the uninitiated) when entering the pitch, amongst other body parts. That proved to be too much of a distraction, especially for the England team, so this practice was abandoned in favor of this more family-oriented option.

2) No, arguing with the ref has never ever worked. But footballers still do it. That’s why they are footballers.

3) In women’s football, players do change jerseys after a match. But only in the filthy minds of the fans. And it’s often in slow-mo with multiple replays.

4) If both teams wore the same strip, footballers would not be able to recognize their teammates. Same if they wore sunglasses or changed their hairstyles.

5) Yes, we can have a game with everyone in the same strip. Or in any matching attire for that matter. But Nike and Adidas will cry foul over the loss of business opportunities.

2010-07-05T05:37:00.000-07:00

So long, and arigatou for all the kicks

5th July 2010

We know now how the story ended.

But we didn’t know it on Tuesday, just as Yuichi Komano didn’t know he would enter Japanese football lore as The Man Who Missed.

It’s still Tuesday, Tuesday evening and a river of supporters in Japan’s blue uniform flows through central Kyoto.

I follow a few of them to a sports bar in Sanjo-Kiyamachi, a warren of narrow streets, neon signs, drinking places and other adult establishments. Over a hundred years ago, samurai plotted revolution here. But tonight, it is the Blue Samurai who will fight: They go to war on a battlefield with goalposts at both ends.

They face Paraguay; both sides are vying for their first-ever place in the World Cup quarter-finals.

Outside the bar, a long line of Japan supporters is already celebrating. Their national team has, against all expectations, fought its way out of the group stage, the first time it has done so overseas.

The fans wave flags, blow whistles, wear electric earrings that flash blue. And sing opera. The chorus of choice is from Verdi’s Aida – the bit where the Egyptian army returns in triumph after thrashing the Ethiopians 7-0.

I don’t know the words but that’s okay because no one seems to. ‘Oh, ohhhh, oh, oh, oh, OH, OH, OH, oh, oh, oh, ohhhhh, oh, oh, ohhh, oh, ohhh, oh, o-o-oh, ohhh,’ they bellow.

A few drops fall from the sky – we’re in the middle of Japan’s rainy season – but no one leaves the queue. For the chance to watch history made, what’s a little rain?

A lot of rain. It slashes down, silencing the singing. We are saved by a staff member who dashes out with umbrellas. He is dressed as Japan’s goalkeeper Eiji Kawashima, complete with the big gloves.

‘Kawashima, let me in!’ calls a girl.

I’m one of the last customers allowed inside. The bar’s sardine-full – blue uniforms, flags, flashing earrings and people screaming ‘Nippon!’

This is not a good place to be Paraguayan.

It’s 9.30pm – one and a half hours to go before the match starts. Time for more Verdi! ‘Oh, ohhh, oh, oh…’

The crowd works its way through the line-up, chanting the players’ names in turn. After a couple of false starts, I get the hang of it: Yell player’s name, clap three times, stretch arms out to TV.

‘Nakazawa!’ Clap, clap, clap, hands out, in supplication, in support.

Nakazawa, Nagatomo, Nakamura, Matsui, Kawashima, Honda –

The TV flashes a clip of coach Takeshi Okada crossing the pitch with a cup and his usual impassivity. He makes cliff faces look emotional.

‘Oka-chan!’ calls a fan, putting an affectionate spin on the name. The crowd picks it up. ‘Oka-chan!’ Clap, clap, clap, stick hands out. ‘Oka-chan!’

Derided for a string of losses in the build-up to the tournament, Okada has seen a whiplash reversal in his popularity. Fans once bayed for his blood or, at the very least, his resignation. But now, in Japan’s ancient capital, they chant his name like a god’s.

On hindsight, we should have called on other gods as well.

The two sides spend the entire 90 minutes locked in inconclusive struggle. The closest Japan gets to scoring is a shot in the 22nd minute that ricochets off the crossbar.

About 10 minutes later, another drive towards goal fizzles out. ‘No need to hold back!’ yells the man next to me.

The match will later be described as dull. But in that dark bar, with every near-miss greeted with groans, screams and stepped-up chanting, those 90 minutes are full of cardiac arrest potential.

The tension eases at one point, when the camera cuts to a shot of Okada’s stone-set face. The crowd has a suggestion for the coach: ‘Egao!’ Clap, clap, clap. ‘Egao!’

Smile, they roar.

There isn’t much to smile about. The game goes into extra time but the only thing it settles is that the match will have to be settled by penalty shootout.

Everyone in the team – players, substitutes, coaches – huddles, holding one another in a tight circle.

In the bar, there is no room to form a circle but strangers’ arms are draped over my shoulders and mine, over theirs.

Yasuhito Endo scores first for Japan, followed by captain Makoto Hasebe. Yuichi Komano leaves his team-mates, waiting in a line with their arms around one another.

He stands in front of the Paraguayan goalkeeper: just one man facing another with a ball and the hopes of two nations between them.

He moves, the ball flies – and hits the crossbar. Is that the sound a heart makes when it breaks? Whatever it is, he will hear it for the rest of his life.

Keisuke Honda scores but so do the Paraguayans and they finish it 5-3.

Yuichi Komano, The Man Who Missed, is in tears. There are other ways to blight a man’s life. But this – this has to be the cruellest.

The others are crying too. Okada, in the way of someone not used to offering comfort, gives Komano a quick hug.

Marcus Tulio Tanaka, stalwart in defence and one of the team giants at 1.85m, sits slumped in the dugout. His Japanese-Brazilian father is seriously ill; after the game, he will fly to Brazil to see him. But for now, he can only stare into space, a man with nothing more to pull out of himself.

Okada accepts full responsibility for the loss, indicating that this will be his last World Cup.

But when he and his men fly back to Japan, they do not return to reproach. About 4,200 supporters gather at Kansai International Airport on Thursday to welcome them home.

The players, led by their coach, appear. A forest of hands holding phones and cameras flies up; women scream. Which is probably as good a measure of sporting success as any.

Okada cracks at last – he smiles.

It was raining when we filed out of the bar after the match into the dark of Wednesday morning. But before we left, we did one last chant.

‘Arigatou.’ Clap, clap, clap. ‘Arigatou.’

2010-06-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

The last of the irises

24th June 2010

There wasn't time to go see this year's irises and the season is pretty much over.

But I caught a few stragglers. And at Heian Jingu, there's always something to enjoy no matter what time of the year.

But on to the irises.

And a confused orchid:

Branch tunnel.

Wild tissue paper.

Pond does Monet impression.

A bridge where you can...

...sit and feed the ducks. And koi longer than my arm.

Light bouncing off the water onto the roof of the bridge.

The other side of the bridge.

For those of you who like gilt with your stairs.

A basin in bloom.

2010-06-20T23:23:00.000-07:00

To err is human; to create, diverge

21st June 2010

For those of you who didn't catch it in The Straits Times.

...

It’s like my eyes and I don’t talk any more.

Headline from an article in The Straits Times: ‘More teacher assassins for classrooms’.

Assistants, not assassins. Assistants.

For more than two years, my eyes haven’t been reading the way they should. They swop letters, drop them and turn assistants into assassins.

Line from an ST article: ‘China hopes to hit its key targets of creating nine million turban jobs and…’

Urban, not turban. Urban. My eyes also add letters that have no business being there. And all this misreading doesn’t just happen with the papers.

Line from a writer’s blog: ‘on Saturday I did an enjoyable panel on graphic towels with Nicki Greenberg and Queenie Chan’.

Novels, not towels. Neil Gaiman is known for his graphic novels. For his towels, rather less so.

To be able to write, you have to be able to read. If I were a chef, I’d be losing my taste buds.

So – time for a brain scan?

And then I encounter lines like this one from a New York Times piece: ‘Two men are pursuing a lawsuit to stop scientists from using a giant panda accelerator, claiming it could create a black hole that may eat up the Earth.’

Particle, not panda. Particle. But just think – a panda accelerator!

So my eyes are on the blink and my brain may be packing up too. But when you’re shown visions of accelerating pandas, it’s hard to mind.

‘On a lush green hillside that dips into a river, dozens of labradors are busy building a dream getaway…’

Labourers, not labradors. But what if labradors really were building a dream getaway? What would it look like? And how would a labrador – perhaps with a graphic towel slung around its neck – operate a cement mixer?

Every mistake is an open door. Whether we go through depends on whether we avoid failure or explore it.

But even on the other side of the door, the roads we take will not be the same.

An article run last month in The New York Times examined different ways of thinking about creativity. One was put forward by scientist Rex Jung, a member of a team studying the neurology behind the creative process at the Mind Research Network in Albuquerque.

Their research suggests that creativity and intelligence don’t take the same route. When it comes to intelligence, the brain seems to be ‘an efficient superhighway that gets you from Point A to Point B,’ said Dr Jung. ‘But in the regions of the brain related to creativity, there appears to be lots of little side roads with interesting detours, and meandering little byways.’

It’s easy to tell which route you’ve taken: Just check what sort of questions you’re asking.

Let’s say that your eyes no longer do what they’re told and feed you headlines like ‘Banks adopt tougher sheep’ when it’s tougher steps that the banks have adopted.

Is there a physical problem with the eyes? Or the brain? Does the computer position need adjusting? How about taking more vision breaks?

These are the efficient questions, asked by the greyhound mind racing after a solution.

There’s another kind of question: What if banks really did adopt sheep? Why sheep? Why adopt? What’s wrong with just hiring them? And why do they have to be tougher? First line of defence against the accelerated pandas coming through the walls?

Psychologists call this divergent thinking. To measure creativity, they pose questions such as ‘What if clouds had strings?’ or ask test subjects to come up with as many uses as they can for, say, a rock.

The greyhound mind tends not to enjoy questions like these; it dismisses every route in which it cannot see a hare. Even an open field will look like a dead-end.

The creative mind is one that can give up its attachment to the hare. Freed from the imperative of the chase, it can ignore the routes others have taken, routes known to lead to hares, to come up with one of its own.

It may fail. In fact, it probably will, racking up a depressing number of errors along a path that may or may not lead to a hare.

But it’s worth remembering that the word ‘error’ comes from the Latin errare – to stray, to err, to wander. Every error is a step off the greyhound’s track; every error is an invitation.

One last headline: ‘Lawyers hit by falling trees’.

Fees, not trees. Fees.

But what if trees really were falling on lawyers? Did the trees fall or were they pushed? Can a tree be sued? Could the lawyers have avoided injury if they had adopted sheep? Or were their sheep simply not tough enough?

Think about it.

And err.

...

Afterword: The evening news recently had an item about US basketball. A player bounded across the screen, celebrating some triumph. The letters on the back of his shirt said, Briyani.

As I marvelled over a US basketball player having the same name as an Indian rice dish, the letters reorganised themselves in my brain.

Not Briyani, Bryant. Kobe Bryant. Well. Of course.

2010-06-20T23:17:00.000-07:00

How brain dead was I yesterday?

21st June 2010

So brain dead that when I went online to check the latest World Cup results, I typed in the search field, 'oo'.

2010-06-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

You know you've been in Japan for too long when...

15th June 2010

...on reaching the bottom of a right-hand page in an English book, you don't turn the page but start reading the words on the left instead.

2010-06-10T08:25:00.000-07:00

Because light that passes through paper is different

10th June 2010

Shop selling paper lamps at the junction of Shijo-dori and Kawabata-dori, near the Kamo river. Photo taken when the days were still cold and the nights, even colder.

2010-05-22T07:05:00.000-07:00

Smile of the day

22nd May 2010

Jizo statue at Seigan-ji, a temple in the Shinkyogoku shopping area in the centre of Kyoto.

2010-05-20T09:41:00.000-07:00

Owning up to your choices

20th May 2010

An afterword to the Bakumatsu arc. Not PG-rated at all but don't let that stop you from reading it.

...

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I’d been wanting to write about 1860s Japan for a while, in particular the last years of the Tokugawa shogunate – years of confusion, drawn swords and foreign devils that ended one of the stablest regimes the country had ever known.

But if you’re going to do one piece, said a voice in my head, why not do a bunch of them? If you start with 1853, when the Americans and their gunships arrived, and finish around 1900, when the new imperial government had more or less got the hang of things, that gives you, what, 50 years of history? Should be good for at least four columns. Which, in a fortnightly gig, means 10 weeks of not having to worry about what to write next.

Something whispered misgivings but it went unheard against the louder, much louder voice that boomed, ‘Eight Weeks Free Of Columnist’s Block!’

So I began the research last year for the series I thought of as my Bakumatsu arc, a nod to the Japanese name for the end (matsu) of the shogunate (bakufu).

Six months later, the loud, pompom-waving cheerleader that promised the reprieve from Columnist’s Block had slunk away. All that was left was the little warning voice.

And this is what it said at the beginning and throughout the months of research: it won’t work.

Surrounded by history books and notes punctuated with the occasional exclamation mark of despair, I was forced to admit what I had known from the start – that there was no way I could fit a period as complex as the Bakumatsu into a newspaper column, not even five of them.

I mean, just the number of the players alone! They made War And Peace look like a budget production. To make things fit, I had to leave out swathes of history and 98.7 per cent of the cast of thousands. Writing about the past? I was running through it, apologising to ghosts.

But there was a much bigger problem: sources.

The horror began on a sunny day last year. I’d just finished taking photos of an old bridge when I walked past a historical plaque.

I stopped to read it. I reread it. Not trusting my eyes or my Japanese, I read it again. No. No, no, no, no, no.

Even on the third reading, the words on the plaque didn’t change. They declared that Sakuma Shozan, a leading 19th century proponent of Western knowledge, had been assassinated in that spot. Trouble was, I’d just read in a book that he’d been killed in a temple on the other side of town. And I was relying on that book – written by a distinguished historian – for much of the planned columns.

This wasn’t an issue of interpretation, a matter of arguing why the shogunate collapsed or how important a particular pact was in bringing it down. It was a question of who had got their facts right.

The nightmare didn’t end there. In March 1866, pro-emperor activist Sakamoto Ryoma was about to go to sleep in a Kyoto inn when a maid came running to warn him of a shogunate raid. She had seen the police through a window while taking a bath and dashed out. Some sources say she was completely naked; another notes that she took the time to throw on a robe but did not belt it. Yet another version has Ryoma, not the maid, as the one in the bath and claims that he fled through a window in the buff.

Who to believe? I began checking sources against each other. If Historian A’s account of an event corresponded with the versions by Historians B and C, I thought, it was bound to be more accurate.

And in many instances, Historians B and Co. did agree with Historian A. But only because, as the source attributions revealed, they were quoting Historian A. In a system where experts constantly cite each other, a mistake can be perpetuated for years.

The despair that descended was now so familiar we were on first-name terms.

A huge question mark hung over the historians’ work. But what about the primary sources? Surely those who had lived through the Bakumatsu and survived to write memoirs or to be interviewed could be trusted?

Conflicting accounts proved otherwise. Two people remembering a battle 50 years later will not tell the same story. Apart from lapses in memory, there is also the inseparable tint – or taint – of character. Anyone speaking of the past is bound to colour it: He wants himself, his comrades and his enemies remembered a certain way.

Despair was back again, showing me pictures of its children, Suspicion and Tight Feeling In The Stomach.

With so much that could not be verified, my account of the Bakumatsu would only be as reliable as a retelling of a reworking of a record of a recollection. It seemed like the most scrupulous thing to do would be to abandon the project – even if it meant throwing away half a year’s work.

But Despair reminded me that the last time we met, it was to angst over the unreliability of information in general. Whether the matter was the state of an inn maid’s undress or the rate at which the Himalayan glaciers were melting, it might be impossible to be certain about anything.

Yet whether the issue is history or climate change, walking away does not seem to be the answer.

In the face of so much uncertainty, it is still possible to choose and – more important – to be honest about the limits of your choice. Acknowledging the shifting ground under your feet makes it easier to stand in it – and to take a different stance if something new is revealed when the winds change.

The past four pieces that appeared under this label were my Bakumatsu. They are not authoritative essays on the period but a trail of breadcrumb words leading to a time 150 years ago, when Japan was plunged into crisis and men and women at every level of society and all sides of the conflict responded with courage, fear, self-interest, self-sacrifice, irrationalism, imagination and every shade of complexity available to the human heart.

Breadcrumb trails don’t last but if this one took you far enough to start looking for your own Bakumatsu – or just elsewhere for a little while – it’ll have lasted long enough.

The Ninomaru palace in Kyoto's Nijo castle where, in November 1867, shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu summoned all the feudal lords present in the city and announced his decision to return his political powers to the throne. This marked the end of over two centuries of military rule by the Tokugawa house and paved the way for Japan to become a modern nation.

Before throwing away the epic notes, I thought that I'd take a few souvenir shots of some of them. Each sheet is A4.

2010-05-13T08:04:00.000-07:00

Last lot of sakura pictures this year, I swear

14th May 2010

Once a walled-off enclave for court nobles, the rectangular piece of land in the centre of Kyoto city is today a public park.

The palace where the emperor used to live before moving to Tokyo is still there though, on most days of the year, you need to apply for permission before you can enter the compound.

But the rest of the Kyoto Gyoen National Garden is open to all and it has become a popular spot with residents, who play sports, walk their dogs, bird-watch or take their children there.

And when the cherry trees bloom, it's full-on picnic season.

Yamazakura (山桜) in full bloom. Unlike the more common Somei Yoshino, the Yamazakura puts out leaves and flowers at the same time.

When it comes to dating, age is no barrier.

Neither is species.

This Kyoto resident has a gimpy back leg; he doesn't walk so much as limp and hop. But given how well the rest of him looks, I don't think it matters to the people he lives with.

Winner of the Most Troublesome-Looking Picnic Award. Admittedly no portable karaoke machine or barbecue grill but lots of points for bringing glasses, ceramic sake flasks, actual sake cups (!) and jubako (stack of lacquered boxes), which increases the likelihood that the food was prepared at home, rather than raided from the nearest convenience store.

Sakura in a high wind.

Not everyone's interested in flowers. Here, a boy demonstrates how to uncover the secrets of the universe with a stick.

Sumo-wrestling In The Park, With Dog

Sunday In The Park, With Sakura

2010-05-10T06:01:00.000-07:00

Building a vocabulary, one cut at a time

10th May 2010

And the word for today is 砥石 (pronounced toh-ee-shi*).

I decided to buy a whetstone while I still had fingers. You know what they say about blunt knives being more dangerous than sharp ones?

Absolutely true.

* If you can't pronounce the hyphens, don't worry about it.

2010-05-05T12:11:00.000-07:00

First time lucky

5th May 2010

The Mainichi Daily News website runs an online haiku competition throughout the year and it is absurdly easy to take part. Last month, I went out to buy some groceries, came back, and did.

2010-04-27T09:01:00.001-07:00

Rarer than a yeti sighting...

27th April 2010

...is a post in the other blog.

2010-04-25T09:38:00.001-07:00

Would you let this sleeping dog lie?

25th Sunday 2010

The days when Ayax the border collie accompanies his human to work (Mexican food van) are good days. If there is a limit to the amount of patting he will take from passing strangers, I have not discovered it yet.

2010-04-17T08:18:00.000-07:00

Plan A? What's that?

17th April 2010

Went for a walk by the Kamogawa to try to think my way through a knot. I didn't make any headway, mostly because I spent all my time taking photos.

Man's best furry.

Man's best feathery.

2010-04-09T11:58:00.000-07:00

Bakumatsu arc #4: Restaurants, red-light districts and revolution

10th April 2010

PG-rated because the other instalments were and I don't want this one to feel left out.

...

Taking part in politics in the last years of the Tokugawa shogunate was not conducive to reaching a ripe old age.

Intimidated by the American warships that steamed up to Japan in 1853, the military government caved in to trade demands from the West. This sparked off a wave of anger in the country that eventually brought down the shogunate and led to the establishment of an emperor-centric government in 1868.

But the years leading up to this were dangerous ones for both those who supported the shogunate and those who opposed it. Apart from the battlefield deaths, there were also numerous fatalities from assassinations and forced suicides.

Pro-emperor activist Nakaoka Shintaro had his way of fortifying himself for a dangerous mission: he would go to a brothel. And according to his diary, he would run into the other members there, which meant that the rest of the evening was divided between talking about politics and making use of the facilities.

Much of the revolution seems to have been planned in red-light districts and restaurants. The reason usually given is that, in those times, these were the only two places where men could gather without drawing too much attention from the authorities. There were other meeting places. But the men do not seem to have tried too hard to use them.

In a quiet neighbourhood in the south-west of Kyoto city, a restaurant that served the activists still stands. Sumiya’s rooms – decorated with cloisonné and mother-of-pearl – stun even now but none of this can be seen from the front of the building, a severe stretch of dark wooden lattices.

This discretion matched the clandestine nature of the rebels’ work. Among those who gathered at the Sumiya were Sakamoto Ryoma and Saigo Takamori – key players in the anti-shogunate movement. Revolution could be an expensive business and they invited wealthy merchants to the restaurant in a bid to get them to donate to their cause.

Adding to the intrigue of those days, the Sumiya entertained customers from both sides. Members of the Shinsengumi special police force, who would have promptly arrested Ryoma had they seen him there, also favoured the restaurant, which was about 20 minutes’ walk away from their headquarters.

Banquets and dinner parties would be thrown at the Sumiya and geisha would be summoned – the restaurant was located in the Shimabara pleasure quarters – to sing and dance for the customers.

A party held one rainy evening in September 1863 is still remembered. Not long after its founding, the Shinsengumi split into two factions. One was headed by corps commander Serizawa Kamo. Prone to violent outbursts, he became even more unstable after his right-hand man died. His subordinate had been cornered in a brothel by the other faction earlier that month. Accused of extortion and neglecting his duties, he was pressured into commiting suicide there and then. The alternative was beheading, considered a dishonourable death.

Yet when the leader of the rival faction, Kondo Isami, invited Serizawa to a party at the Sumiya a number of days later, the commander attended with two of his men. Perhaps Kondo knew that the hard-drinking Serizawa would not turn down a chance to carouse.

Kondo made sure that the sake flowed and that there were women on hand to keep his guests’ cups filled.

By the time Serizawa and his men left, he had drunk so much that a palanquin had to be called to take him back to his quarters. His mistress joined him in his room and along with his subordinates and two women from the pleasure quarters, the revelry continued. It was only when they were too drunk to sit up that they went to sleep.

Outside, the rain kept falling. Undeterred by the storm, Kondo’s men went through the garden and into the house: they had come for the last of the Serizawa faction.

Serizawa tried to run but it did not take the assassins long to finish him off. The women of the pleasure district and one of his supporters fled in the uproar. Less lucky were the other subordinate and his mistress; they lay dead in the room where they had slept, their heads cut off.

The samurai’s fondness for red-light areas and restaurants meant that the women who worked there, whether as courtesans or maids, were in constant danger of being caught up in the violence of raids and assassinations.

But there were those who risked themselves willingly, entertaining clients from the other side in order to spy on them. The women may have done this because they believed in the cause they were supporting or because, like Ikumatsu the geisha, they had more personal reasons.

Ikumatsu was a geisha of the Sanbongi pleasure quarter, located near the Kamogawa with a view of the eastern hills beyond the river. She was a skilled dancer and musician but these may not have been the qualities that drew the attention of activist Katsura Kogoro. The samurai from the pro-emperor fief of Choshu was used to the attention of women. The photos of him in his youth – and the glib tongue he was said to have – explain his popularity.

Still, something about Ikumatsu prompted him to put up the huge sum needed to pay off her debts to her okiya, or geisha house, and buy her out. As a rebel leader, Katsura was forced at times to lie low until the attention of the shogunate forces shifted elsewhere. When Ikumatsu visited him in his hiding place, she would cause a stir because of her eye-catching kimono. Reckless this might have been but this side of her apparently captivated Katsura.

Meanwhile, radicals in Choshu were agitating for action. The fief was out of favour with the imperial court and they were convinced that this was because rival domains had usurped its position. On August 20, 1864, the Choshu troops that had gathered outside Kyoto advanced on the palace to eject the ‘interlopers’.

Hours later, the radicals were forced into retreat and the fires that broke out in the conflict destroyed thousands of homes. The furious court instructed the shogunate to punish Choshu and Katsura once again came into its sights, even though he had opposed the coup and did not take part in the fighting.

He went into hiding under a bridge on the Kamogawa, spending five days among the crowds of homeless who lived on the riverbanks. The story goes that Ikumatsu went to take him food and even when interrogated by the authorities, did not give him away.

Katsura managed to escape from Kyoto and about one and a half years later, represented Choshu in negotiations with Satsuma fief for an alliance that sealed the fate of the shogunate. He went on to become a prominent figure in the new imperial government. With him was Ikumatsu, whom he married.

About 150 years after the two of them met, lovers still pass under the bridges of the Kamogawa. But they live in a different Japan and as they wander beside the river, they do not have to risk their lives – though the same cannot be said of their hearts.

(All pictures taken at the Sumiya.)

2010-04-08T10:14:00.000-07:00

The garden up north

8th April 2010

The lights come on in the Kyoto Botanical Garden after dark for about a week during sakura season.

Somei Yoshino, probably the most common kind of sakura in Japan.

Weather forecast was for cherry blossom skies.

Glow-in-the-dark, cone-shaped sakura. Very rare.

2010-04-03T08:59:00.000-07:00

White nights in spring

3rd April 2010

The annual light-up in Gion Shirakawa.

The entrance to a tiny shrine.

2010-03-20T08:09:00.000-07:00

Sakura may hog the press...

20th March 2010

...but it's worth remembering that plum and peach trees can look like this.

Winter and spring in the same frame.

2010-03-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

Let a hundred coaches zoom

19th March 2010

Sakura season has begun. Here's an earlyish one out of the gate at Kodaiji.

2010-02-24T08:38:00.000-08:00

Spring until further notice

24th February 2010

Today was Carry Your Coat Day.

I wasn't aware of it until I went outside and saw people with coats slung over their arms or dangling from their hands.

Some may think that this is what happens when you've dressed for winter and the weather suddenly decides to do spring.

Not true. Carry Your Coat Day actually has its roots in an old custom. In the past, to welcome the arrival of spring - warm weather as opposed to the spring solstice when it was probably still freezing - people would take off a layer of clothing. A sign of their desire to get closer to the new season, as it were.

But spring wouldn't realise what they'd done if they simply took off their coats, jackets, haori or michiyuki and left them at home. Hence the custom of walking around while carrying your outerwear.

If you find yourself in Japan on Carry Your Coat Day, why not engage in an ancient folkway? Take off your coat - only your coat, mind, let's not get law enforcement officers involved - and carry it.

With little effort, you too can be part of Japanese culture.

2010-02-14T06:03:00.000-08:00

My pleasure

14th February 2010

First of all, to my Chinese readers and any reader celebrating with the Chinese this new year, gong hei fatt choy, xin nian kuai le, huat ah!

I'm going to do something a little different today: I'm going to explain myself. It's not something I usually do but because this is the new year and I've eaten far more pineapple tarts than someone running a low-grade fever should, I will.

It's the pineapple tarts talking. I may take down this post once they stop.

But for now, this is what they're saying:

I've been writing about Japan for almost three years now and one comment I hear fairly often is that the pieces are...different. Or if the other person's being blunt, strange.

And I don't mind that at all. I would like to know why people feel that way though (if you have any ideas about this, the comment section's all yours).

More than one reader has said that the columns don't seem to fit into the Review section of The Straits Times, which is where they appear every fortnight. The Review pages are for commentaries, where writers put forward an argument - and argue it out.

I've gone over some of the columns I've written and the closest thing some of them have to an argument? "Buses are nice." Or "flowers are nice". Or if I'm on a roll, "Flowers are really nice".

Different and, to be blunt, strange.

So what am I doing?

I'm answering this now to try to make it clearer for myself and to make sure I don't lose my way in easy jokes and easier opinions.

At their best, these pieces do not offer points of view; they are points of view. They do not express argument; they embody it. In the bones of the best of them are ideas that I have jumped on, shaken, dug my nails into when life bit and I would not cry out. The ideas left are those that did not break. As long as they are lived rather than just believed, those pieces can be written.

I do not bring opinions to the table; I build rooms out of them. If you would know what they are, look under the wallpaper, in the wood grain of the table, in the air that stirs when you enter.

I do this not because I believe there's anything wrong with pieces that state and argue with nothing up the writer's sleeve - they're efficient ways of sharing ideas and, done well, offer much pleasure.

But statement and argument and information speak to the mind, to habits - some would say, prejudices - of thought.

And we are more than creatures of mind.

To the part of you not much used to being addressed, I will speak for as long as I can.

I do not seek to change your mind and I know I cannot change you. All I can do is create spaces where you can, if you choose, speak to the self you seldom see - or to the self you're hoping to see though you're a little hazy on what that self looks like.

Making spaces. Making space. That's all.

If you will allow me, let me do this for you.

2010-02-04T23:10:00.001-08:00

Toshiya (通し矢) at Sanjusangendo

5th February 2010

Every year in January, an unusual archery competition is held on the grounds of Sanjusangendo, a temple in the south of Kyoto.

The current form of the Toshiya contest is in its 60th year but it dates back to 1609, when archers competed at one end of the temple’s western veranda to send as many arrows as they could into the target 118m away. They shot for 24 hours from six o’clock in the evening, taking a quick break after every 500 arrows. The current record was set in 1686 by a man called Wasa Daihachiro. He fired 13,053 arrows of which 8,133 hit the target.

Today’s competition is held beside the famous veranda and the morning section is for archers who turned 20 in the past year and have achieved at least the level of shodan – the first rung of a 10-step ladder.

Putting on the shooting glove before the contest starts. The thumb is pressed lightly to the first two fingers while the strap is adjusted.

The average Japanese bow used today is 2.2m long. Without a wall or floor bracket, it takes two people to string it: one to hold the tip and the other to loop the string around the other end.

Two arrows are usually fired in one round for kyudo, or traditional Japanese archery.

Waiting to enter the shooting area. Ideally, the bow and arrows extend behind the archer at the same level - rather like unfurling wings.

The moment of full draw. In the background, the veranda where the original Toshiya competition took place.

While most of the male participants wear the practice gear of white gi and black hakama (wide, pleated trousers), some opt for kimono. Men shooting in kimono have to remove their left arm from the sleeve first. In winter, this is not fun.

The first arrow is shot while holding the second at a prescribed angle. It's harder than it looks.

The last of the male entrants with the first of the female competitors waiting behind.

Reason Why People Prefer To Photograph The Girls No.1

Reason Why People Prefer To Photograph The Girls No.2

In a break from the regular gi and hakama, young female participants wear furisode - colourful kimono with sleeves draping down to the feet. The sleeves have to be tied back with a strip of cloth - tasuki - before the archer can shoot.

And after it's all over...

2010-02-04T08:51:00.001-08:00

Herons for you, madam?

4th February 2010

If you have US$980 to spare, you may like to give these herons a good home.

2010-02-01T07:01:00.000-08:00

Let's settle this like men

1st February 2010

Another frozen day at the dojo: stiff shoulders, numb hands and breath puffing out white.

But around 7pm, two cheesecakes appeared. They were ceremoniously sliced and everyone was invited to help themselves.

There was a catch though: you couldn't just take a slice from one of the cakes; you had to eat both.

Two boys from the dojo had each baked a cake and after eating, you had to say which you thought was better.

This is the Way of the Warrior - sometimes, you face down your opponent with a sword. Sometimes, with a bow. And sometimes, with cream cheese, double cream, sugar, crushed biscuits and yoghurt.

Of course, some would say that the only opponent you face is yourself but the main thing is to keep the cake coming.

2010-01-24T21:43:00.000-08:00

How do you know?

25th January 2010

A friend is wondering if she should quit a steady job to do something different and a little crazy.

Someone who knows us both asked how I knew I was ready to leave when I did the same thing about three years ago.

But the thing is, you'll never be ready. If you're trying to tell stories, you'll end up breaking more things than you build because humanity is huge and anything you make to hold it will crack. Our hands never seem big enough or wise enough. And there never seems to be enough savings in the bank.

So it's not a question of readiness at all. It's a question of whether you want to.

Do you?

2010-01-16T04:11:00.000-08:00

Winter weather update

16th January 2010

Just how cold is it in Kyoto right now?

Well, the other night, I took my clothes off to have a shower. And started sneezing.

That cold.

2010-01-07T08:08:00.000-08:00

Hatsu haircut

4th January 2010

The first haircut of the year. The hairdresser wasn't young but seemed strangely nervous, dropping the comb twice. Each time, a burst of shaky patter after he picked it up.

When he switched on the razor, I stopped breathing.

But nothing except hair was cut off. So say hello to the new me.
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2009-12-31T09:24:00.000-08:00

Wishing you light in dark places

1st January 2010

明けましておめでとうございます。今年もよろしくお願いいたします。

Okera mairi at Yasaka Jinja, a popular shrine in Gion.

2009-12-25T10:11:00.000-08:00

Bakumatsu arc: Progress report

26th December, 2009

Finally finished a 4,000-word epic on Sakamoto Ryoma. I now have to cut it down to about 1,000 words so it'll fit in the papers. But not tonight. It's past 3am so I shall just file away the sea of notes, excavate my bed out from under the history books and then fall into it.

Good night.

2009-12-24T06:21:00.000-08:00

Falling with grace

Christmas Eve, 2009

I wasn't going to post this but since this is the season of giving, here's a piece about a gift. And one more mystifying than three wise men popping up in a maternity ward. (The companion post is below.)

...

Mukai Kyorai was a poet with a plan.

In the garden of his cottage on the outskirts of Kyoto city were 40 persimmon trees. Their branches were hung with fruit ripening orange but he couldn’t possibly eat it all. And since fruit preserves had not been discovered in 17th century Japan, he couldn’t make jam either.

So he promised to sell the persimmons to a merchant from the city, receiving payment in advance. But that night, a storm blew up and in the darkness of his cottage, Kyorai heard things smacking the roof and plopping to the ground.

The next day, when the merchant returned, Kyorai was forced to give him his money back because most of the persimmons had fallen in the storm.

Kyorai does not seem to have been upset. He got a poem out of the experience and, because the storm had stripped the tree branches bare, a clear view of a nearby mountain. Some say he even achieved enlightenment.

In any case, he renamed his cottage Rakushisha – House of Fallen Persimmons – and an 18th century reconstruction still stands in the Saga district of Kyoto today. Many of those who visit are drawn by the connection with haiku giant Matsuo Basho: Kyorai was one of his chief disciples and played host to his teacher there.

But the story behind the hut’s name also catches at the mind because it overturns our expectations of how things should play out. The prospect of profit, a sudden storm and a destroyed crop: it should all end badly.

Underlying these expectations is the belief that nothing good can come from a fall. This belief is hardwired in the words we speak: ‘a fallen woman’, ‘fall into enemy hands’, ‘fall in battle’, ‘drop in sales’, ‘plummeting rankings’. To fall is to succumb to temptation or attack, to lose status, popularity or money. To fall is to become less.

Many of these expressions are found in Japanese and English. And they share another one: in both languages, you encounter love by falling in it. You don’t dance, skip or jump into love – you fall. Even if you land safely, the choice of words still betrays dismay at the powerlessness felt.

Our evolution – both as individuals and a species – is geared towards walking upright. If all goes well, we graduate from toddling to walking to running and to riding a bike. Falling is what happens when we fail. If we fall hard enough and in the wrong place, it ends in mud and blood.

This may explain our prejudice against the act, a prejudice revealed in yet another expression: fall from grace – a loss of someone’s good opinion.

Yet there is a different kind of grace though it also involves a fall. This is favour we have not earned, a gift that comes not because of something we have done or are expected to do but entirely because of the nature of the giver.

Landing like a fist in the gut, it knocks us off our feet. We build relationships and societies on ideas of reciprocity and contract. But to grace, our considered balances and agreements, spoken and unspoken, are a house of cards. It smiles – and blows.

So mystifying is grace that it is usually left to the divine. In human hands, giving is something that must be justified. If a present appears at an occasion other than a birthday or holiday, so will these words: ‘What’s this for?’

In human hands, giving must be explained, even if it’s with something as simple as ‘I saw this and thought of you’.

Gifts for no apparent reason terrify: like shopping with a credit card for things without price tags – you can’t relax until you’ve seen the size of the bill.

Not even charity comes close to grace. When you donate money, you expect it to be spent in certain ways rather than on, say, lap dancers. But grace gives much and asks nothing, not even a thank you.

How then to respond? You can always say, no thanks, and walk away. You can take grace for granted, which is accepting with your eyes closed. Or you can keep your eyes open and with hands held steady, receive.

But the last option is also the hardest because it means being prepared to fall. Like a storm that brings down promised persimmons, grace upsets expectations. Will you, like Kyorai the poet, then be able to step off the path of logical action and accustomed thought? Without knowing what lies at the bottom – it could be a poem, a view of a mountain, enlightenment or none of them – could you dive into the dark?

If your foot goes to the edge of the path then hesitates, it may be too soon for that final plunge. Practise with a less demanding tumble, a kind of Grace Lite.

It’s something easily found in the natural world and there’s a particularly nice example in the mountains northwest of Kyoto city. The Iwato Ochiba shrine is tiny, like the remote community it serves, but soaring gingko trees tower over it and in late autumn, they shower the shrine with yellow, fan-shaped leaves.

The moss and flagstones disappear under the gilt and the little wooden stage in the centre of the shrine floats in a sea of yellow.

I try to leave a donation but the access to the main building is closed off and the shrine deserted. Asked for nothing, giving nothing, I still walk on gold.

The wind breathes out and more gold leaf drifts down. It’s a fall that comes from grace – a fall, if you like, from grace.

2009-12-17T08:39:00.000-08:00

極落、極落: House of fallen persimmons, shrine of fallen leaves

18th December 2009

Rakushisha (落柿舎) is one of those attractions where people hover at the threshold, wondering if the place will be worth the entrance fee.

This is what you can see of the hermitage from the outside in autumn: persimmon trees, maple leaves and a thatched roof.

Fans of Matsuo Basho don't hesitate. Even if the current Rakushisha is a reconstruction, the original was visited by the poet three times and that connection is enough for them.

You may not be able to read the poems on the wooden plaques hung in the garden or carved on the stones. But lines in wood need no translation.

And sunlight is a universal language.

If you feel like writing a haiku, there is paper for you.

The owner of Rakushisha, poet Mukai Kyorai, probably won't read it seeing as he died in 1704. But a raincoat and hat are hung from a wall to show that the owner is in.

So you never know.

On the other hand, there is no entrance fee for Iwato Ochiba Jinja　(岩戸落葉神社), a tiny mountain shrine northwest of Kyoto city. Some say that the shrine used to be called Ochikawa shrine but became known as Ochiba Jinja - the fallen leaves shrine.

In late autumn, the gingko trees soaring over the shrine shed gold leaf all over the grounds.

The leaves fill the stone basin where worshippers purify their hands and mouth.

And among the gingko, some maple too. Autumn in Kyoto wouldn't be the same without it.

2009-12-15T07:29:00.000-08:00

Photos for the Tooth Fairy crowd

15th December 2009

People may be coming to this site. I can't tell because the gnome whose job it is to track blog visitors has not showed up for work for a few days. I suspect that it's because I did Something Technological.

So the presence of site visitors has become hard to prove - rather like verifying the existence of the Tooth Fairy. But here are some photos for those who may or may not be here.

Before the Arashiyama Hanatouro light-up, I found a pyramid of turnip outside a pickle shop.

Then the lights came on in the bamboo forest.

It was cold enough to see my own breath, which meant that this hawker did a brisk trade in hot sweet potato snacks, mitarashi dango and other things on sticks. Cocoa, as the sign says, costs 200 yen a cup. There didn't seem to be any turnips on sticks though.

2009-12-06T19:54:00.000-08:00

Lights in the mountain, lights in the bamboo

7th December 2009

If you're in Kyoto this week or the next, don't miss the Arashiyama Hanatouro. The light-up in the west of the city covers about 5.2km of waterfront, bamboo forest and ikebana-lined trails.

The place will probably be heaving with people if you go on the weekends but at least the crowds will keep you warm.

2009-12-04T06:43:00.000-08:00

A word from the blogger

4th December 2009

I, er, appear to have done Something Technological. Er.

You may notice that the blog is looking a little different. Believe me, I'm surprised too and I was the one doing the clicking.

And if you like to click on buttons, there's a new one here for you. Look for the word 'Follow' at the top of the blog then finger + mouse.

Good things may happen. If nothing else, there's safety in numbers.

2009-12-03T05:17:00.000-08:00

A walk in the woods

3rd December 2009

The road in to Shimogamo Jinja runs through a forest. It runs long and straight: long enough so you do not approach lightly and straight enough for you to gather arrow intent as you move to the shrine.

Through the gateway after the place of purification.

And inside:

Autumn left in glorious tatters.

2009-11-25T08:22:00.000-08:00

Autumn leaves and not-urinals

28th November 2009

Kyoto's November is lovely but Kyoto has been around for centuries and news of that loveliness has got out.

Kyoto's November is crowds and coach buses.

Still, there are a few spots left where you can find autumn colours and take a picture of them without the population of Greater Tokyo - last seen in your sakura photos - appearing as well.

Seiryo-ji, better known as Saga Shakado, in the west of Kyoto is not on the list of famous momiji temples so it doesn't have the profusion of maples that, say, Tofukuji does.

But it has a great garden, intriguing angles and enough quiet for you to think (or not think, if you practise Zen) even in the height of the fall frenzy.

An Edo-period stone garden (karesansui). Not, as you may first think, a urinal that fell over.

But some of the best sights are not to be found at your destination but along the way. Like this gentleman looking out at the world from the walls of his garden.

And these friendly faces near an Arashiyama bus stop.

2009-11-19T07:07:00.000-08:00

Land of the small and cute

19th November 2009

As I left a mall today, a man was wheeling his bike out to the road. In the child seat was a little girl in pink.

Our eyes met. Large eyes, rosy cheeks, runny nose. I smiled. Most toddlers take a little time to consider you - animal, vegetable or mineral? - before deciding whether or not to smile back but this kid just grinned.

Her father wheeled her away. In the front basket was stuffed a new pillow wrapped in plastic. It was as big as she was.

My smile lasted all the way to the supermarket, where I had to put it away because if you smile for no apparent reason, people look at you funny.

Though I bet they wouldn't if I had rosy cheeks and a runny nose and was no bigger than a pillow.

2009-11-08T04:00:00.000-08:00

The Lazy Gaijin: Fairly Edible Meals Made With Ingredients From A Japanese Supermarket And A Minimum Of Fuss

Recipe No.1: Onion and sweet potato soup

8th November 2009

There are lots of things I'd like to do this lifetime. Some are one-off events, like seeing the Northern Lights, while others are more in the line of ongoing missions. This is one of the latter: making good soup without messing around with bones or resorting to stock cubes and powders.

I invented a fairly edible soup on Saturday which fulfils these two requirements. Here's the recipe. (The measurements will be approximate because life's an adventure and sometimes cooking is too.)

Makes 3 servings
Ingredients:

Water, 1 litre

Pasta water, around 250 cc (left over from cooking lunch. Probably doesn't make much difference if you leave it out)

Big onions, 3 (because they came in bags of 3)

Small Japanese sweet potatoes, 3 (ditto)

Konbu, 1 piece (Pronounced kombu but spelled konbu. I was aiming to use a 10 cm square piece but the one I pulled out of the bag was bigger and I couldn't be bothered to cut it so... I've been wondering why konbu is used so much in Japanese stocks. I believe it's added for umami. And perhaps for luck)

Tofu (however much you want to eat)

Chicken (As above. I got enough to cover my hand because a packet with that much was going for 30 per cent off at the supermarket)

Soya sauce or salt (I ended up using both)

Sake (Probably optional but I used it to marinade the chicken. You can also drink it if you get thirsty. No one will check if you're old enough to)

Here we go:

1. Wipe the konbu (pronounced kombu but spelled konbu) with a wet cloth. I'm not sure why this is necessary but Harumi Kurihara says to and I don't argue with her. At least, not very loudly).

2. Put the konbu in a pot with the water and pasta water that you may or may not be using. Leave for 10 minutes then light a fire under the lot. Harumi-sensei says to take the konbu out when the water becomes warm, whatever that means. I interpreted this to be that stage before serious bubbles appear in the water.

3. While the konbu was doing its 10 minutes in the pot, you should have cut the chicken up into pieces that will fit into your mouth and marinaded them with soya sauce and optional sake. I used however much came out when I poured in one circular motion over the bowl.

4. Cut up the onions. The smaller the pieces, the less boiling time but on the other hand, you'll suffer onion fumes for longer while dicing with death. If the water is boiling, dump in the onion as quickly as you can.

5. Cut up the sweet potatoes. Again, the smaller the better. And this time, there are no fumes, hurray!

6. Oh, and add the sweet potatoes to the pot.

7. Keep the boil going until the onions and sweet potatoes almost dissolve. If you've finished the washing-up and start to get bored, you can speed up the process by hitting them with a ladle or something.

8. When you add the chicken is up to you. I dumped it in when I couldn't stand the suspense any longer. And anyway, I wanted to wash the bowl it was in.

9. At some point, put in the tofu. You can dice it first or just toss it in and hit it with your ladle. Tofu rarely fights back.

10. The timing of the spinach addition - oh bugger, I forgot to put spinach in the ingredients list - is far more important. Spinach does not seem to be one of those things that take kindly to boiling so throw it in only when you're ready to serve.

11. When are you ready to serve? When the water level in the pot goes down, the onions and sweet potatoes have turned into a kind of sludge and your stomach starts to make socially unacceptable noises, it's time to add the spinach and wrap up this gig. First aid measures involving soya sauce or salt will probably be necessary. And a little prayer never hurts.

Verdict:

It doesn't taste half-bad. The yellowish-grey colour of the soup is regrettable but you can always close your eyes. It also explains why there are no photos in this post. The main thing is, the stuff is edible and the flavour didn't come from roasting bones or stuff that will make your hair fall out. This is an experiment I plan to repeat.

(I also posted this in the other blog but no one seems to go there. Which is fair enough, seeing as I hardly post in it.)

2009-10-29T19:06:00.001-07:00

What I did during my vacation

Eve of All Hallows, 2009

I queued. I didn’t really mean to. When I packed to leave Kyoto for Singapore, I didn’t plan to do much more than catch up with people and books I hadn’t seen in months.

But avoiding crowds was high on my list of things to do. So was staying out of any kind of queue because there are only so many people you can go on holiday with.

Then it was announced that Neil Gaiman would be appearing at the Singapore Writers Festival at the end of October.

Are introductions in order? Neil Gaiman: author of The Sandman, a fantasy series that has become so much of a hit that the comic books are now called graphic novels, and writer of short stories, novels, poems, film scripts and children’s books. Of these, The Graveyard Book has spent over a year on the children’s best-seller list of the New York Times though everyone I know who loves the work is old enough to drive.

It’s a reimagining of The Jungle Book; instead of a boy being brought up in a jungle by animals, he’s brought up in a cemetery by dead people. And a vampire.

The novel may well turn out to be one of those books you keep returning to and measuring yourself against, like standing beside a mark scratched on a wall to show how tall you were at nine because you want to see how much you’ve grown.

So great that the author would be coming to town, yes? There was only one snag: all the tickets for his three events were gone on the first day of distribution, even though it was announced only via Twitter.

To accommodate the demand from everyone not on the Twitter feed, the festival staff increased the venue capacity and announced that they would release a ‘VERY VERY LIMITED number of tickets’ on Sept 26.

When I read this on the festival website, I began to see visions of queues. There’s one thing I haven’t mentioned about Mr Gaiman. Yes, he’s versatile, yes, he’s prolific and yes, he wins all those awards but what he really is, is a queue-maker (like a rain dancer but more horizontal).

The mere hint of his presence is enough to draw previously unconnected people out of the great mass of humanity and assemble them into a line. This happens all over the world – at literary festivals, bookstores and conventions – and I knew it would happen on Sept 26 at The Arts House because of the promise of tickets to see He Who Brings Queues.

The question was, how early would I have to turn up before the distribution time of 11am if I wanted to be sure of a pair of those VERY VERY LIMITED tickets?

It didn’t help that I work late and go to bed even later. But after crashing out for five hours and hitting the alarm clock’s snooze button for half an hour more, I stumbled into the kitchen at 7.30am.

My mother was there. ‘You mean you haven’t gone to bed yet?’ she said.

Then again, she might not have been my mother. Since I’m technically not awake between the hours of 6am and 9am, anyone I see then must be a figment of my imagination.

The taxi-driver looked pretty real though. I asked him to take me to Parliament House – near The Arts House but not in the area closed off for the F1 races that weekend. He frowned. I held my breath: was he going to refuse to go anywhere near the barricades?

It turned out that he just didn’t know where Parliament was.

But between the both of us, we got there. It was almost 9.30am – one and a half hours before the box office’s opening time – when I made my way past the F1 barricades and security personnel to The Arts House.

Two girls in short shorts were approaching from the venue. ‘…queuing since 6.40!’ said one of them as she went past.

I stopped. What if the line had reached such epic proportions that those two had given up and were on their way home?

I kept on walking. Even if I didn’t get the tickets, there might be a story in it. To be a writer is to slink up to life with a scavenger’s optimism.

The queue began at the locked front door and snaked out of the portico. Since each person was eligible for two tickets, the line was actually twice as long as it appeared. Was I too late?

I left my bag at the end of the queue to stake a spot in that fine Singaporean tradition of chopeing and went to talk to the people up ahead. The first person in the line said she’d been there since 6.40am. She beamed at me, her smile and light green tudung unwilted despite the heat. No. 2 clocked in ‘just past 7’ and No.3 and No.4, at around 7.30am.

Humbled, I went back to do some proper queuing. I’d brought two books but a conversation was starting up in my neck of the queue, mainly about the tickets. One woman confessed that she was hoping that the F1 road closures would deter fans from coming. I had the same thought; devious minds think alike.

To pass the time, we reminisced about other occasions when Singaporeans had gotten into line and stayed there for hours. But the girl behind me was from the Philippines and knew nothing about the Great Hello Kitty Scuffles of 2000.

In the January of that year, McDonald’s launched a promotion offering customers Hello Kitty toys with each Extra Value Meal they bought. Lines sprang up, tempers grew short, fights broke out and people were arrested. At one outlet, a glass door broke against the press of the crowd, injuring seven.

You can think of a queue as a social microcosm. In one line, you’re told what a society values, how much it wants it, how much trust there is in the system to provide it and whether people will resist the urge to jump the queue.

Almost 10 years on from the Hello Kitty Scuffles, how was Singapore doing? The line outside The Arts House that Saturday morning presented the country as orderly and international.

But the nature of the queue might have had something to do with the fact that it was there for Neil Gaiman. For a start, more people were reading than fiddling with their phones.

Still, there was no guarantee of what would happen if there weren’t enough tickets to go round. Some of the books people were holding looked pretty heavy. If the situation turned Hello Kitty, things could get ugly.

For now though, everything was calm. A trio went past, wheeling a trolley of equipment – probably for an F1 event. They seemed surprised to see so many people sitting in a line on the ground and reading.

10.05am – an hour to go and the sun was weighing down. Anybody want to share life stories?

So I talked to the five people around me in the queue. There was Kim, a student from the Philippines, Xuemei, a civil servant, Eldred, who draws, Wanida, who works for Apple and had come with a laptop, and Pat, who handles administration at a polytechnic, has five children aged three to 14, takes all of them on holiday, teaches women to give birth and is on the fast track to a medal.

She said that if she got a pair of tickets, one would go to her 13-year-old son, also a fan.

‘And where is he?’ I asked.

‘At home,’ she said and laughed. ‘Sleeping.’

There was a collective intake of breath as we considered the likelihood of our mothers queuing up for Neil Gaiman tickets for us while we stayed in bed.

‘I don’t think my mother even knows who Neil Gaiman is,’ said one woman who will remain anonymous in case her parents read this.

On his blog, he describes himself as the ‘guy you’ve never heard of’ who ‘gets more people in his book-signing line than anyone else’. This line has been known to stretch to about 600 people.

Our queue was nothing along those lines but everyone in it was competing for a fixed number of tickets. The conversation flowed, snagging at times on the uneasiness underneath.

Two people ahead in the line stood up and shook out their groundsheet. ‘Do you think they’re giving up?’ someone asked hopefully.

‘They came with a mat – they’re not going to give up,’ someone else growled.

Sure enough, the two rearranged their sheet and sat down again.

I looked away to see an old man staring at us. A cap of flashing pink sequins on his head, he shuffled past, a smile crinkling his face. ‘Ni men hao!’ he bellowed. Hello to you too. Perhaps it takes a lunatic to acknowledge a whole line of them.

People were still arriving. They would do a double-take at the queue which now stretched along the front of the building and onto the grass at the other side. Then they would go to the end, their shoulders slumped.

11am – my queue buddies and I stood up. We paused only to get each other’s contact details then faced forward as if we could see through the bodies to the number of tickets left. Were people still talking? I don’t know; I couldn’t hear them any more.

And then I finally reached the table where the festival staff were handing out tickets from three dwindling stacks.

Maybe I was sunstroked out but I couldn’t quite believe it, not even when two tickets were in my (newly tanned) hand. The five who queued with me had their tickets too and all of us had picked the same event. ‘Let’s meet for lunch or something before that,’ said Kim.

Outside the portico, a burly, long-haired man in black was taking a photo of his tickets.

But not everyone was happy – about 20 people had to go away empty-handed. Amid the cries of disappointment, one young girl looked stricken. A few people exchanged words with the festival staff but as far as I could tell, they were polite. Perhaps we’d come out from under the shadow of Hello Kitty.

I couldn’t leave without seeing how it all ended because the conditions that give rise to a queue are also those that create a community: people with the same purpose come together, demanding attention through presence. But there is also envy of those ahead and a gnawing anxiety that you won’t get what they will. The factors are always the same yet the manner in which similar desires are balanced against competing interests is different each time.

So I stayed because I wanted to see what kind of queue, what kind of community we’d made. And when I left at last, I took more than tickets away with me.

When I got home, I headed straight for the shower, relieved that for this at least, I didn’t have to line up.

Because you know what I said about queues and community-building and all that stuff? When it comes to the bathroom, none of it applies.

2009-10-20T08:50:00.000-07:00

Egmont and the seventh

20th October 2009

A concert again after so long away and the NY Philharmonic after even longer. This time, Beethoven was the one singing in the dark.

The brass was a little...startling but the strings alone were worth the (nosebleed) price of admission.

I'd have heard more of them if the audience hadn't been so quick to clap. An orchestra doesn't stop playing even after the fingers lift away and the bow leaves the strings. When the sound is gone, sound remains - an echo encore drifting in a space where no wind blows.

But applause slaps the sound away.

Wait, won't you wait a little longer? Only the first of the snowflake sound has fallen on my tongue.

2009-10-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

Undead 101

13th October 2009

So I was working on a column today and for reasons I'll make up later, it suddenly veered off into the subject of zombie killing.

At which point I realised that I had no idea what to do if a zombie came through the door. I didn't think that the Internet, wide and Wikified as it is, would have any information on it either but I typed "zombie kill" into the Google search field anyway and hit enter.

Oh me of little faith.

Pages and pages of information. Whether the suggestions have been field-tested is another question but at least they're there - with brain diagrams and everything. There's even a game where you can kill zombie squirrels.

I wonder if virtual undead rodents come under the SPCA's purview.

2009-09-21T05:51:00.000-07:00

Paths we have not known

21st September 2009

Sometimes, it is the road more travelled that haunts us.

'Friends who seemed pretty much indistinguishable from you in your 20s make different choices about family or career, and after a decade or two these initial differences yield such radically divergent trajectories that when you get together again you can only regard each other’s lives with bemused incomprehension...

'Some of my married friends may envy my freedom in an abstract, daydreamy way, misremembering single life as some sort of pornographic smorgasbord, but I doubt many of them would actually choose to trade places with me. Although they may miss the thrill of sexual novelty, absolutely nobody misses dating...

'Quite a lot of what passes itself off as a dialogue about our society consists of people trying to justify their own choices as the only right or natural ones by denouncing others’ as selfish or pathological or wrong. So it’s easy to overlook that hidden beneath all this smug certainty is a poignant insecurity, and the naked 3 A.M. terror of regret.'

- Tim Kreider, The New York Times' Happy Days blog

Then there is novelist Guy Gavriel Kay, writing in Tigana: 'There are no wrong turnings. Only paths we had not known we were meant to walk.'

A comforting belief but one which - and I know this from long years of trying - takes work.

2009-09-04T07:11:00.000-07:00

For all you kids who want to be writers...

4th September 2009

...I should disclose the amount on my latest royalty cheque. After a year of sales, the figure came to a grand total of $3.95.

Well, that should give the taxman heart palpitations.

So...time for a commercial?

Time for a commercial.

"Singapore. Malaysia. Brunei. We share a region and now we share a book. Punched Lines: Sit-down Comedy From Southeast Asia - already at a bookshop near you!"*

I wrote this in 2001: "In a country with four major races, English has become the neutral linguistic ground and that neutrality has crystallised in the form of the acronym. Other countries use it too of course - for companies, transport systems, rebel groups - but Singapore is umbilically attached to it. Hospitals, schools, banks, expressways - we are born in collections of letters to travel on them, study in them and give them our money."

It's still true. And thanks to Punched Lines, I'll be giving my bank $3.95 this year.

Let's shoot for $4.95 in 2010!

*Assuming that you're near Select Books in Tanglin Shopping Centre.

2009-08-23T08:39:00.000-07:00

The universe next door

23rd August 2009

From Ingram my American neighbour, I learned that the bathroom really is a dangerous place.

In Kyoto to research the Japanese legal system, he once went to a public bath. He knew the ritual involved – shower before you get into the bath – but he wasn’t expecting what would happen with the two old men in it.

They’d never seen a naked Jew before and proceeded to ask very probing questions. At his most vulnerable and unable to speak much Japanese, he did his best to explain circumcision anyway. The old men were astonished and kept on asking questions. He soldiered on with the explanations and emerged from his bath with his composure a little dented but his sense of humour intact.

From Klaus my German neighbour, I learned how to open jars with stubborn caps. Slip the point of a knife into that thin space between the edge of the lid and the jar and lever up. Once you hear a pop, the lid will come off without a fuss.

Open a jar for someone and he’ll have an open jar. Teach him how to open it and he’ll be able to eat from jars for life.

The jar Klaus taught me to open was one of rotkohl, pickled red cabbage from Germany. He taught me that rotkohl is better hot than cold.

A retired maths teacher, he spends half the year in Japan with his Japanese wife and the other half in Hamburg. They met at an English school in South Africa.

But he also spent time studying the language in Malta – ‘it’s cheaper than in England’ – and on the Maltese island of Gozo, he met an old man with a thousand books.

When he was young, the man left for the United States to look for work. Once he found it, he crammed it into his life, working for as much as 20 hours a day. He had no time for the books he loved so he collected them, intending to read them when he retired.

In time he grew rich and when he retired, he had a printing company to pass on to his children. He moved back to Malta, built a splendid house and began to read.

All had gone according to plan except for one thing: he was losing his sight.

My neighbour spoke of him as an old man in a room full of books he would never be able to read. He told Klaus, don’t wait.

A year later, Klaus retired. He was 49. Since then, he’s spent his time travelling and learning languages: first English because he wanted to read more about politics and now, Japanese.

His wife Kimiko said he could spend as much as 10 hours a day studying. They don’t have much but, as Klaus said, 'we don’t need much'.

From Maripass, I learned that when a Mexican says a chilli pepper is harmless, to take her words with a sea of salt.

And if the same Mexican tells you a chilli is hot, there’s no need to check for yourself unless you’re interested in near-death experiences.

From Lars the guitar-strumming Swede and Peter the Norwegian, who cross-dressed as a fairy one Halloween, I learned that the image of Scandinavians as a sober, reserved folk does not give the entire picture.

From Kim the South Korean, I learned that you can play Celine Dion on a bamboo flute.

Whenever he started warming up, I would open my door to hear him better. After he was done with the traditional tunes, he would move on to the Titanic song.

He introduced himself as a businessman when we first met but after we got to know each other better, he told me that he was a political refugee.

His exact words: ‘I write on Internet, I hate (name of politician). And police catch me.’

My first thought: is this guy for real?

He spoke little English and less Japanese and I didn’t know Korean so conversations took time. But when he showed me pictures of his wife and children, the look on his face said enough.

After a few months in Japan, he told me that his legal adviser in Seoul had called to say that it was safe to return.

I still don’t know what to make of his political dissident story but I can believe in the shochu he shared, in his parting gifts of pine nuts and ginseng snacks, and in his music – even the Celine Dion.

From the family of northern Chinese whose names I never found out, I learned nothing but received handmade dumplings, so many I ran out of vinegar.

From the Australian who might have been called Becky, I learned that when the Internet disappeared, I should go into the mysterious room under the stairs, insinuate my hands into the nest of wires, pull out all the plugs I could find then put them back.

On occasions like this, residents, including those I’d never met, would pour out of their rooms saying, ‘Is it just my computer or…?’

Then as we stood around, waiting to be connected, that would be the time to start learning about the neighbours, and from them.

2009-08-18T02:24:00.000-07:00

Summer faces

18th August 2009

If you say hello, they'll say hello back. It's all rather friendly at the Kyoto Botanical Garden.

2009-08-13T10:49:00.000-07:00

Listening to a people hear

13th August 2009

This tells you a bit more about cicadas than the published version.

And for those interested in finding out more about Japanese onomatopoeia, here are the grammatical terms:

- 擬声語 giseigo or 擬音語 giongo (words that mimic sounds that actually exist in nature)

- 擬態語 gitaigo (mimetic words used to convey actions, non-auditory senses, bodily feelings or mental states. The last two are sometimes classified as 擬情語　gijougo).

...

If dogs go woof and pigs go oink, what do cicadas say?

Now that it’s summer, they sing through the long days and short nights but I still don’t have the exact word to pin down their chirring.

When muffled by a closed window, the sound falls on the ear like a maracas chorus but when heard under trees shrilling with cicadas, it bares jagged teeth. Listen long enough and it could saw your head in half.

If dogs in Japan go wan-wan and pigs go buu-buu, what do cicadas say?

It depends partly on the species. There’s jiii-jiii, miii-miii while another kind has been named tsuku tsuku boushi because that is, apparently, what part of its call sounds like.

Many races have listened to the world and tried to capture its sounds as exactly as possible. Wan-wan is not one of a kind when there’s woof woof, ouaf ouaf and arf arf.

But Japanese is particularly rich in soundtracks of things that have none – things such as sight, sensation and emotion. These ideas in sound cut across the usual categories so an omelette, a towel and a balloon can all be fuwa-fuwa if soft and light.

The lines between mental and physical states, between animate and inanimate, disappear. A messy room, like a cluttered mind, is gocha-gocha and the mysterious residue on the dining table that left your fingers sticky is as beta-beta as a couple plastered all over each other.

These words pitch a narrative out of a monotone. They are the words you reach for when telling a story, when you want people to know how ira-ira irritated you became when waiting for a friend for over an hour.

At first, you waited with nothing much on your mind, bon yari staring off into space. But then a quarter of an hour became half and half became a full hour. Then thunder began to goro-goro and the rain raged down zaa-zaa.

Splashing to the nearest bus-stop, you called your friend, only to learn that she was still at home. You snapped at her to stop guzu-guzu dawdling and sassa get there at once. But before she could, a car zoomed by, straight through a puddle, and left you bisshori drenched.

By the time your friend arrived, you were kan-kan furious.

Comics and novels make full use of this aural drama of clashing consonants and colluding vowels because they too are in the business of telling stories.

But as a situation becomes more formal, these words often end up being shoved behind curtains and into closets. Chances are, you won’t find them in a thesis because they smell too human and we like to pretend that academic papers are written, not by people, but by brains on legs.

To some ears, the repetition in words like jiro-jiro (to stare) and kira-kira (twinkle) sounds childish.

Childlike may be a better term. This is language wide-eyed and inventive, filling its tiny fists with clay. It clumps syllables together, moulding sound as it tries to show you that thing, you know, that thing that goes hurdurdurdur.

But clay hardens and the child’s world grows focused by growing narrower. The more choices he makes, the more he has to give up because to go through one door is to close five.

The world of Japanese idea sounds has matured beyond the days when it still sparkled pika-pika new. That there are dictionaries cataloguing these sounds suggests that they are no longer instinctive and obvious, even to native speakers.

For foreigners, they represent another set of lists to be remembered and puzzled over. It’s easy to see how thunder and heavy things rolling down would both go goro-goro but why would someone lazing at home be assigned the same sound?

And what’s the connection between leaves drifting hara-hara to the ground and someone being hara-hara nervous?

Yet in the process of linking experiences I share with sounds I don’t, memories are accreting, making the words easier to see and recall.

Waku-waku: a state of excitement or happy anticipation.

My waku-waku: an orchestra tuning up, setting off flares of sound in the dark of a concert hall.

Kichin-to: Neatly, precisely, properly.

My kichin-to: Approval when I see something done neatly, precisely and properly. Tinged with the laughing despair that comes from knowing my folds, whether in paper or cloth, will never be as crisp or aligned as the Japanese ideal and that my knots will always have the unsteadiness of the yoro-yoro drunkard.

These ideas in sound ask you to use your ears in a different way: not just listening to the thing described but also to how a people have decided to hear it and in going through the door they picked over others, find a world you might have missed on your own.

So though the cicadas outside my window seem to be saying schwiiiing, I shall try hearing as the Japanese hear and see if that takes me to the summers they’ve stored on the other side of the door that swings open on cicada trills: Miiiiin. Miiiiin. Miiiiin.

...

感謝コーナー：Many thanks to Chizu-san and Iuchi-kun for help with cicadas.

2009-08-06T07:29:00.000-07:00

Columns mean legwork

6th August 2009

Today was a big day for my legs. First, I visited a cemetery (up a hill!), then a museum (up a hill!) and a shrine (deep inside a forest!), where I watched a Shinto rite (standing for over an hour!).

I have to walk to the supermarket tomorrow. I hope nothing falls off on the way.

2009-08-05T01:49:00.000-07:00

If you don't recognise it, it's probably where you were born

5th August 2009

So you spend some time away from Singapore - about three months should do it - and when you return, a building you know will have vanished while another you don't will have appeared. Or a tunnel will gape where a library used to be.

On one occasion, I returned to find a water-slide amusement park had gone. I never visited Big Splash but as a child, I passed it on my way to school almost every day. So - Big Splash gone while down the road, a big wheel had popped up.

I've no complaints about the Singapore Flyer but I didn't pass it every weekday morning for years, wondering if I'd forgotten anything when I packed my schoolbag.

For a spot-on picture of this and what else it means to be Singaporean, take a look at Troy Chin's The Resident Tourist. Click before he moves, gets upgraded or turns into a shopping centre.

2009-06-18T08:59:00.000-07:00

You were saying?

18th June 2006

I told myself it was just cloth. I told myself they were just colours. I told myself it was crazy to spend so much on a scarf, however it had been dyed.

I may have told myself other things.

I'm not sure because by that time, I'd stopped listening.

If you're interested, they take commissions, I think.

2009-06-14T10:55:00.001-07:00

Bear with me

15th June 2009

More than two years after getting my present camera, I have finally worked out how to take black and white photos with it.

I'd forgotten the rainbow in those two colours. So I'm afraid there's going to be a deluge of black and white shots for the next little while. Bear with me.

These two are from Heian Jingu, a shrine usually associated with colour.

The bridge that ends the garden tour for most visitors.

Another bridge but, this time, a dragon.

2009-06-09T21:33:00.001-07:00

Chotto Edo made (Just stepping out to Edo)

10th June 2009

I went to Edo, or Tokyo as I must remember to call it, on business for a few days. I rode on a lot of trains.

Though perhaps not this one.

What did I see? People, lots of people, many of them in black suits.

Here is a picture of crowds at Shinbashi.

Here is a picture of crowds at Nihonbashi.

How does anyone find anyone else in this mess, I wondered. Perhaps it starts with a cup of coffee...

...then an outing to the theatre...

...and a spot of Edo-mae sushi after the show.

Then the next thing you know, there's another (maybe bigger) pair of footwear in your foyer...

...and your laundry load has increased exponentially.

It could happen. After all, anything can happen in a country where the prime minister is a mini star. And I know he is because the map outside the station closest to him told me so.

2009-06-05T07:50:00.000-07:00

A rainy day in Gion

5th June 2009

My umbrella has declared that the rainy season of tsuyu has reached Kyoto. It issued this statement after a wet day in Gion, where we inspected the rain-slick road.

Still, it wasn't as grey a day as my camera's black-and-white function would have you believe.

And there was colour at the cafe we went to check out.

There were other things inside. Like quality sugar sent out by the kitchen staff.

I didn't order this but I helped to finish it.

And a customer at the next table also brought quality sweet.

This is Akari-chan. When she wasn't in the sling, she sat in her mother's big black bag and threw things to the floor. Not in a tantrum but just because it was interesting to see other people scramble.

Perhaps this is why the sky lets rain fall.

2009-06-02T22:35:00.000-07:00

Reporting live from the Ark

3rd June 2009

However I look at it, it just doesn’t seem like a pyjama event, even if I wear the black and white ones.

One of the best things about a mostly cultural column is that it can be done in jeans and, if working from home, in pyjamas.

But there isn’t much call for pyjamas when I’m assigned to report on part of President S R Nathan’s visit to Japan earlier this month.

Still, some of the drill is the same. When covering a festival, you go well in advance if you want a good view. And it’s no different with a dignitary’s visit. It’s like hitting a succession of airport departure lounges in a day: rush and wait, rush and wait, rush and wait and wait.

Going early lets you scope out routes, check camera angles, interview staff for background information and, sometimes, do a spot of advertising.

While waiting for the Singapore delegation to arrive at the Cenotaph in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, a Japanese journalist beside me falls into conversation with visiting schoolchildren.

He tells them which newspaper he belongs to. ‘Do you kids subscribe?’

‘My family does,’ a little girl says.

‘Great – thanks for your patronage.’

After watching Mr Nathan lay a wreath at the Cenotaph, we dash off to take up our positions in the Peace Memorial Museum. But we can stay only long enough to see the delegation tour the first floor before we hurtle to the next stop, a room at the other end of the building.

We charge across an open expanse of concrete, startling the shoals of schoolchildren darting about.

An official sprinting ahead of the Singapore journalists reaches the other side first. He yanks open a door to reveal...a stairwell. Someone behind me groans. Then we are charging upstairs. But more slowly.

Ranks of Japanese media are already there and we squeeze in. About 20 people, all wearing black except for the occasional rebel in grey, cluster around the edge of the room. Hardly anyone talks; we wait in the silence of the suits.

Perhaps it’s because we’re indoors. No one seems to have any qualms about chatting when under an open sky.

Earlier at the Cenotaph, a Japanese reporter sidled up to ask the Singaporean journalists how the president’s last name should be pronounced. We told him.

His brow furrowed. Neither the ‘th’ nor ‘ern’ sound are found in Japanese and then there’s the question of whether to use a rising or falling tone. A debate broke out: NAA-zahn or Naa-ZAHN?

The journalist who asked was carrying a thick sheaf of material – event information, maps, the president’s bio data. Everywhere, the Japanese attention to detail.

Watching the hosts bustle about, one visiting Singaporean says: ‘Because it’s Japan, I can relax.’

Not that much relaxing seems to be going on, especially among the younger officials on both sides. Their faces generally appear in one of two settings: tired or tense. They look as if they have to load the animals of the earth onto Noah’s Ark but lightning is already flashing and the headcount is different every time and the lemurs keep escaping and…and…

The ones who manage to keep cracking jokes deserve a special award.

But by the last full day of the trip, the tension is ebbing away. Perhaps because the finish line is in sight or because we’ve arrived on the Hiroshima island of Miyajima and the sea air is working but we forget for a while that we’re in suits.

On our walk in from the harbour, we take photos of the scenery, each other, the deer wandering about.

One official moves as if mesmerised to a roadside stall. His gaze fixed on the oysters sizzling on a grill, he mutters something about not having had breakfast and digs out his wallet. Which is the signal for the others to stop and buy oysters on sticky rice.

‘Totally tourist mode,’ says another official.

Things are looking up on the Ark: the animals – the elephants, the giraffes and the spiny anteaters – are safely stowed in the overhead compartment or under the seat in front and if the lemurs haven’t made it back on time, well, that’s just too bad.

But when we reach the shrine the delegation is scheduled to visit, it’s back to business and a sober discussion about ramps.

The media area at the shrine is marked out with knee-high wooden barricades; every place has a different way of telling journalists where to stand.

At the Sento Gosho imperial gardens the day before, white raffia was pinned down on the gravel to form a discreet triangle. We stepped inside and waited.

After some time, an official told us to move closer to the entrance. Perhaps we made the scenery look untidy in our old spot. Whatever the reason, we got a new triangle at our feet.

When we arrived in the media van earlier, two men with wide bristly brooms were slowly sweeping the sea of gravel spilling across the entrance. We hopped out and crossed to the gardens on the other side.

An official came running up – could we please walk on the perimeter? Chastened, we moved to the side. Another man rushed out with a broom to restore the gravel we’d churned up.

Waiting in the barely visible triangle, I stared out over the composed grey plain. Would the visitors notice the work put in? Could they, given that the convoy vehicles would just plough straight into the gravel?

But this may be what it means to serve. Much has been said about service though most people seem to have a better idea of how they would like to be treated than of what they are prepared to do.

Perhaps real service is to know that what you do will remain invisible to most but to do it anyway as if it will be the first thing seen.

Remembering the men methodically soothing a gravel sea for a foreign Ark, I feel a sudden urge to seize a wide broom and find my own patch to smooth.

I wonder if I can do it in pyjamas.