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.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Summer faces
18th August 2009
If you say hello, they'll say hello back. It's all rather friendly at the Kyoto Botanical Garden.
18th August 2009
If you say hello, they'll say hello back. It's all rather friendly at the Kyoto Botanical Garden.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, June 05, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Saucer across the universe in style
9th April 2009
Item: Traditional Japanese flying saucer. Made almost entirely of paper, string and bamboo - organic, biodegradable materials that won't alarm natives on technologically backward planets. Track record in reaching warp speeds spotty but manufacturer claims it's about the journey, not how many light years you take to get there. Optional extras include karaoke-cum-tea-ceremony room and hot springs bath. See your dealer for details.
9th April 2009
Item: Traditional Japanese flying saucer. Made almost entirely of paper, string and bamboo - organic, biodegradable materials that won't alarm natives on technologically backward planets. Track record in reaching warp speeds spotty but manufacturer claims it's about the journey, not how many light years you take to get there. Optional extras include karaoke-cum-tea-ceremony room and hot springs bath. See your dealer for details.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
They're coming through the walls, they're coming through the walls...
1st April 2009
There's a Japanese saying that all men are wolves. I spotted one in Gion, the most well-known geisha area in Kyoto. I'm not sure this is what Neil Gaiman had in mind but it was a wolf in the wall.
1st April 2009
There's a Japanese saying that all men are wolves. I spotted one in Gion, the most well-known geisha area in Kyoto. I'm not sure this is what Neil Gaiman had in mind but it was a wolf in the wall.
Monday, March 23, 2009
From the bottom dark, resurrection
24th March 2009
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
It was 1985, the year when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan first met, the year when Nelson Mandela spurned a conditional offer of freedom from the South African government, the year when Microsoft released Windows 1.0.
It was also the year when it really meant something to be a fan of the Hanshin Tigers. For the first time in 21 years, the team emerged champions of the Central League, one of the two professional baseball leagues in Japan.
Celebrations reached a fever pitch in the western city of Osaka and what happened next has become legend in this baseball-mad country.
The story goes that ecstatic fans gathered at the Ebisu bridge in downtown Osaka and began chanting the names of the team members. With each name called out, a supporter who resembled the player jumped into the Dotonbori river beneath.
But the team’s star slugger, American Randy Bass, proved problematic. Then someone spied the Colonel Sanders statue outside a nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. The mascot was bearded and Western; so was Bass. Good enough. The statue was uprooted and thrown into the river.
As with many legends, variations have crept in over the years of retelling. Another version says that the crowd was only giving the statue a victory toss in the air. They tossed too enthusiastically and it flew into the river. However it happened, the Colonel plunged into the murky depths of the Dotonbori and stayed there.
The Hanshin Tigers went on that year to win the Japan Series, the height of professional baseball in the country.
But that glory has eluded the team ever since. And in the 24 years since the Colonel sunk to the riverbed, the Hanshin Tigers have plummeted to the bottom of their league 10 times.
Some people put this down to the “Curse of Colonel Sanders” and though attempts were made to recover the statue over the years, all failed.
Then the city of Osaka decided to improve the walkways beside the Dotonbori river, which meant sending divers to check for unexploded bombs from World War II.
They didn’t find any but did turn up a barrel-like object. Arrangements were made to remove it and on March 10, at about 4pm, a crane on a salvage barge lifted it clear of the waters.
‘It looks like a corpse,’ said watching construction workers but the foreman, a Hanshin Tigers fan, cried: ‘It’s the Colonel!’
Strictly speaking, it was only half of the Colonel: the top part of the 26kg plastic statue was found about 200m away from the site of the historic toss.
The next morning, the search resumed under the eyes of workers, residents and the media. About 10 minutes after the statue’s right hand was found, a voice exploded from a speaker on the barge: ‘It’s the lower body. There’s no mistake about it.’
The onlookers cheered.
The years – almost a quarter of a century – in the sludge of the Dotonbori had not been kind to the Colonel. Not only was it badly stained, it had been broken into bits. Even though the two halves of the statue have been rejoined, it is still missing its feet and left hand. And its iconic black-rim glasses are gone too.
Not that any of this matters to Hanshin Tigers fans, who hope that now that the figure has been recalled to life, the team’s fortunes will also be resurrected.
The team management seems to be thinking along the same lines. On the day that the bottom half of the Colonel was pulled out of the river, Hanshin Tigers president Nobuo Minami told the manager of Koshien Stadium – the team’s home base in neighbouring Hyogo Prefecture – to ask for the statue.
‘The Colonel Sanders figure is a piece of Tigers history,’ said Mr Minami, adding that he would like it displayed in the museum being added to the team’s stadium.
Kentucky Fried Chicken Japan, which had thought about moving the statue to its franchise in the stadium, responded positively. ‘It’s an undeserved honour,’ it said. ‘If the Tigers make a formal request, we will certainly consider it.’
Still, the real question to thousands of baseball fans is not the statue’s future but that of the Hanshin Tigers. The Colonel may have been rescued from its river prison but will the team be able to break out of its Bastille of failure?
Defeat constrains movement and with each loss, the muddled mind is forced into a smaller and smaller cell until walls are all it knows. Winning calls for breadth of vision, a view of the future so wide and vivid it becomes the present.
But that present may take time to come and when you’re pitched to the bottom, it may be hard to see past the dark. It’s even harder if, like the Colonel, you’ve lost your glasses.
Yet when the statue was pulled out of the mud, though its paintwork had disappeared into a mottled coat of grey, its smile had not dimmed. It wasn’t the face of someone who curses misfortune or those responsible for it. Whether or not the Hanshin Tigers retake the No.1 spot, we already have a winner.
...
(Go say hello to the Colonel.)
24th March 2009
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
It was 1985, the year when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan first met, the year when Nelson Mandela spurned a conditional offer of freedom from the South African government, the year when Microsoft released Windows 1.0.
It was also the year when it really meant something to be a fan of the Hanshin Tigers. For the first time in 21 years, the team emerged champions of the Central League, one of the two professional baseball leagues in Japan.
Celebrations reached a fever pitch in the western city of Osaka and what happened next has become legend in this baseball-mad country.
The story goes that ecstatic fans gathered at the Ebisu bridge in downtown Osaka and began chanting the names of the team members. With each name called out, a supporter who resembled the player jumped into the Dotonbori river beneath.
But the team’s star slugger, American Randy Bass, proved problematic. Then someone spied the Colonel Sanders statue outside a nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. The mascot was bearded and Western; so was Bass. Good enough. The statue was uprooted and thrown into the river.
As with many legends, variations have crept in over the years of retelling. Another version says that the crowd was only giving the statue a victory toss in the air. They tossed too enthusiastically and it flew into the river. However it happened, the Colonel plunged into the murky depths of the Dotonbori and stayed there.
The Hanshin Tigers went on that year to win the Japan Series, the height of professional baseball in the country.
But that glory has eluded the team ever since. And in the 24 years since the Colonel sunk to the riverbed, the Hanshin Tigers have plummeted to the bottom of their league 10 times.
Some people put this down to the “Curse of Colonel Sanders” and though attempts were made to recover the statue over the years, all failed.
Then the city of Osaka decided to improve the walkways beside the Dotonbori river, which meant sending divers to check for unexploded bombs from World War II.
They didn’t find any but did turn up a barrel-like object. Arrangements were made to remove it and on March 10, at about 4pm, a crane on a salvage barge lifted it clear of the waters.
‘It looks like a corpse,’ said watching construction workers but the foreman, a Hanshin Tigers fan, cried: ‘It’s the Colonel!’
Strictly speaking, it was only half of the Colonel: the top part of the 26kg plastic statue was found about 200m away from the site of the historic toss.
The next morning, the search resumed under the eyes of workers, residents and the media. About 10 minutes after the statue’s right hand was found, a voice exploded from a speaker on the barge: ‘It’s the lower body. There’s no mistake about it.’
The onlookers cheered.
The years – almost a quarter of a century – in the sludge of the Dotonbori had not been kind to the Colonel. Not only was it badly stained, it had been broken into bits. Even though the two halves of the statue have been rejoined, it is still missing its feet and left hand. And its iconic black-rim glasses are gone too.
Not that any of this matters to Hanshin Tigers fans, who hope that now that the figure has been recalled to life, the team’s fortunes will also be resurrected.
The team management seems to be thinking along the same lines. On the day that the bottom half of the Colonel was pulled out of the river, Hanshin Tigers president Nobuo Minami told the manager of Koshien Stadium – the team’s home base in neighbouring Hyogo Prefecture – to ask for the statue.
‘The Colonel Sanders figure is a piece of Tigers history,’ said Mr Minami, adding that he would like it displayed in the museum being added to the team’s stadium.
Kentucky Fried Chicken Japan, which had thought about moving the statue to its franchise in the stadium, responded positively. ‘It’s an undeserved honour,’ it said. ‘If the Tigers make a formal request, we will certainly consider it.’
Still, the real question to thousands of baseball fans is not the statue’s future but that of the Hanshin Tigers. The Colonel may have been rescued from its river prison but will the team be able to break out of its Bastille of failure?
Defeat constrains movement and with each loss, the muddled mind is forced into a smaller and smaller cell until walls are all it knows. Winning calls for breadth of vision, a view of the future so wide and vivid it becomes the present.
But that present may take time to come and when you’re pitched to the bottom, it may be hard to see past the dark. It’s even harder if, like the Colonel, you’ve lost your glasses.
Yet when the statue was pulled out of the mud, though its paintwork had disappeared into a mottled coat of grey, its smile had not dimmed. It wasn’t the face of someone who curses misfortune or those responsible for it. Whether or not the Hanshin Tigers retake the No.1 spot, we already have a winner.
...
(Go say hello to the Colonel.)
Saturday, March 21, 2009
The fox bride's wedding procession
21st March 2009
Today was the second-last day of the Hanatouro light-up in Higashiyama, the eastern hills, and as expected, it was packed.
But the event is one of my favourites in the Kyoto calendar so I went anyway. Exhibitions and performances are dotted along the 4.6km route and this year, I caught one of the stranger activities.
At 7pm and 8.15pm, a curious procession set out from the imposing gate of Chion-in temple. Preceded by attendants bearing lanterns, a woman wearing a fox mask and wedding clothes travelled slowly by rickshaw through the sea of visitors.
It was the wedding procession of a fox bride (kitsune no yome iri junkou; 狐の嫁入り巡行). If I understand the event pamphlet correctly, it's an old practice done for luck.
But kitsune no yome iri also refers to the drizzling rain that falls in bright sunshine - apparently so named because of a belief that a fox bride was going to meet her husband and showers were needed to shield her from human eyes.
The procession I saw today moved in complete silence except for an alternating accompaniment of a bell rung once, then wooden clappers cracking like a thunderbolt. Ring, crack, ring, crack - and a fox woman with wedding white over her head and around her passing through.
When I looked over the photos I'd taken, it seemed as if she was materialising out of thin air. The photos wouldn't have looked that way if I had a camera that could take moving objects at night.
But I prefer my flawed, eerie version.
21st March 2009
Today was the second-last day of the Hanatouro light-up in Higashiyama, the eastern hills, and as expected, it was packed.
But the event is one of my favourites in the Kyoto calendar so I went anyway. Exhibitions and performances are dotted along the 4.6km route and this year, I caught one of the stranger activities.
At 7pm and 8.15pm, a curious procession set out from the imposing gate of Chion-in temple. Preceded by attendants bearing lanterns, a woman wearing a fox mask and wedding clothes travelled slowly by rickshaw through the sea of visitors.
It was the wedding procession of a fox bride (kitsune no yome iri junkou; 狐の嫁入り巡行). If I understand the event pamphlet correctly, it's an old practice done for luck.
But kitsune no yome iri also refers to the drizzling rain that falls in bright sunshine - apparently so named because of a belief that a fox bride was going to meet her husband and showers were needed to shield her from human eyes.
The procession I saw today moved in complete silence except for an alternating accompaniment of a bell rung once, then wooden clappers cracking like a thunderbolt. Ring, crack, ring, crack - and a fox woman with wedding white over her head and around her passing through.
When I looked over the photos I'd taken, it seemed as if she was materialising out of thin air. The photos wouldn't have looked that way if I had a camera that could take moving objects at night.
But I prefer my flawed, eerie version.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Visit of the Lake People
5th March 2009
Recently, old friends whom I shall call the Lake People visited Kyoto. Since I don't have an account at a photo-sharing website, I'll park the photos here for a few days.
Kitano Tenmangu shrine, home to about 2,000 plum trees.
At Misoguigawa in Pontocho. Sitting down to dinner together for the first time in 10 years.
Heian Jingu, where the plum trees are also in bloom.
Demonstration of how to put on a juuni hitoe at Shimogamo Shrine.
Sanzen-in temple, just before closing time. Monks busy with rakes and vacuum cleaners.
Making traditional Japanese sweets (wagashi) at Kanshundo because partings should always be accompanied by cake.
5th March 2009
Recently, old friends whom I shall call the Lake People visited Kyoto. Since I don't have an account at a photo-sharing website, I'll park the photos here for a few days.
Kitano Tenmangu shrine, home to about 2,000 plum trees.
At Misoguigawa in Pontocho. Sitting down to dinner together for the first time in 10 years.
Heian Jingu, where the plum trees are also in bloom.
Demonstration of how to put on a juuni hitoe at Shimogamo Shrine.
Sanzen-in temple, just before closing time. Monks busy with rakes and vacuum cleaners.
Making traditional Japanese sweets (wagashi) at Kanshundo because partings should always be accompanied by cake.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
The two of us on your bike
28th February 2009
One of the brands of tea that I buy ran a haiku contest and includes the winning entries in each box.
So in a box of 20 teabags, 20 poems. This morning - afternoon, really - I tore open a foil packet, took out the teabag and read on the other side of the packet:
二人乗り
重いと言わない
君の汗
Freely translated:
The two of us on your bike
but of the weight behind
your sweat, you say
nothing.
A winner from a junior high school girl.
28th February 2009
One of the brands of tea that I buy ran a haiku contest and includes the winning entries in each box.
So in a box of 20 teabags, 20 poems. This morning - afternoon, really - I tore open a foil packet, took out the teabag and read on the other side of the packet:
二人乗り
重いと言わない
君の汗
Freely translated:
The two of us on your bike
but of the weight behind
your sweat, you say
nothing.
A winner from a junior high school girl.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
In the spirit of the day
14th February 2008
A diver does not abandon
a seaweed-filled bay...
Will you then turn away
from this floating, sea-foam body
that waits for your gathering hands?
- Ono no Komachi (834?-?)
From The Ink Dark Moon, translated by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani
14th February 2008
A diver does not abandon
a seaweed-filled bay...
Will you then turn away
from this floating, sea-foam body
that waits for your gathering hands?
- Ono no Komachi (834?-?)
From The Ink Dark Moon, translated by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani
Fura-fura
12th February 2008
I haven't been to the dojo for a month because I've been ill with one thing or another so I decided to make the effort to train today. I wasn't exactly feeling well this afternoon - feverish and a dodgy throat - but I was feeling better. And kyudo isn't exactly an aerobic martial art. Should be fine, I thought.
It turned out to be not such a great idea. Just firing two shots pushed the world into slow spin. Fura-fura, the Japanese call it - dizzywizzywhirlyswirly.
But it's Kawaguchi-sensei's birthday this Sunday and there was a presentation of a bouquet of flowers - all the students lined up in two rows, sitting with their feet under them in the formal seiza position - and a small party.
Various people contributed snacks and Murata-san bought a large box of doughnuts (he went round collecting 200 yen for them and the flowers; I hope he got all his money back).
Apparently, he ended up buying the doughnuts because he'd lost to Sakai-san in a match on Sunday. If she'd lost, she'd have been the one to make the trip to Mister Donut.
'I lost by one arrow,' said Murata-san. He drew himself up. 'But it's okay. I don't mind.'
It was a good idea to go to the dojo today, after all.
12th February 2008
I haven't been to the dojo for a month because I've been ill with one thing or another so I decided to make the effort to train today. I wasn't exactly feeling well this afternoon - feverish and a dodgy throat - but I was feeling better. And kyudo isn't exactly an aerobic martial art. Should be fine, I thought.
It turned out to be not such a great idea. Just firing two shots pushed the world into slow spin. Fura-fura, the Japanese call it - dizzywizzywhirlyswirly.
But it's Kawaguchi-sensei's birthday this Sunday and there was a presentation of a bouquet of flowers - all the students lined up in two rows, sitting with their feet under them in the formal seiza position - and a small party.
Various people contributed snacks and Murata-san bought a large box of doughnuts (he went round collecting 200 yen for them and the flowers; I hope he got all his money back).
Apparently, he ended up buying the doughnuts because he'd lost to Sakai-san in a match on Sunday. If she'd lost, she'd have been the one to make the trip to Mister Donut.
'I lost by one arrow,' said Murata-san. He drew himself up. 'But it's okay. I don't mind.'
It was a good idea to go to the dojo today, after all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
