Changing Impressions of Japan

When I was 13 or 14, my mother went through one of those artsy-fartsy fads where people try to get into scrapbooking while their kids are too young or illustration while their kids are too old. My Mom took a wrong turn and ended up in ukiyo-e. One day, she showed me a low-res color Xerox of a woodblock print she'd found on the Internet. It was a night scene of what must have been Old Edo; an empty street, multicolored paper windows lit softly from the inside, old wood-framed buildings advertising warmth enough for you to imagine, but not enough to welcome you in. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Laundry accumulated, my folks split, and Mom's masterpieces via Hewlett-Packard were buried under time and lost, but I never forgot that painting. Gundam, ninja warfare, and Kurosawa held my interest long enough to get me through high school and into the East Asian Department at UAlbany, but I never fell out of love with ukiyo-e and that lonely beauty.

Though I'd like to say that I came to Japan with my head straight, ready to buckle down and send my Nihongo abilities through the roof, the truth is that I wanted to find that aesthetic somewhere and get lost in it. I wanted to walk down that empty street and shiver as I watched the colored lights glow through the walls.

Since coming to Japan, I have caught glimpses of the "floating world" as Hiroshige and his fellows saw it.


Full moon and paper lantern, Daikakuji, Kyoto.

But only glimpses. Mirages, really.


Near the south gate of Kansai Gaidai.

Though the floating world was paved over and modernized long before I was born, I cannot help hoping that I have not felt the last of that same stillness.
That solitude of mind among multitudes.
That nostalgia for that which still is.

I hope yet to see that soft glow behind paper. . .

Arts and Entertainment in Japan

Gundam Generation(s)
This is what the shelves of Japanese hobby shops in the 1980s looked like:

(image is recent, products are vintage. taken from here.)

In 2008, this is part of Big Plant 5's model kit section:

Bandai has been producing plastic model kits for the Gundam franchise since 1980. As manufacturing technology improved, the company was able to make kits easier and easier to assemble. The varieties that have been released for the past decade or so don't require any glue at all - the parts are snapped off a frame and into each other. Most are multicolored, requiring no paint to look like their counterparts in Gundam anime and manga.
One of the things I like about the ganpura series (aside from it being Gundam and therefore awesome) is that since it's been around for nearly 30 years, its appeal spans two or three generations of Gundam fans - little Kenji can sit at the kitchen table and snap together his 1/144 scale "Exia" (from the most recent series, Gundam 00) while otoo-san sticks decals on his 1/100 scale RX-78 (the 1979 original) and looks on proudly.

Buy, Use, Dispose

Given the content, it's possible this manga is by the side of the road because someone didn't want their girlfriend finding it in their car, but a more likely scenario is that its previous owner simply finished it and threw it away.
Popular weekly manga publications such as Shonen Jump and Hyper Corocoro print millions of issues per week and sell them for 230 to 250 yen apiece each Monday. Seeing as the volumes are pretty thick for a weekly, attempting to hoard more than a few months' worth of issues would probably take up a lot of precious space in the average Japanese household; on Monday evenings and Tuesday mornings, you can find trash bins (and sometimes train cars) stuffed with issues. You'd think it would be good news for the avid reader who doesn't want to pay for it, but I have yet to see someone pull a used copy out of the can.
Or off the side of the road.
Blech!

Politics in Japan

"Keeping our lifestyle - Komeito"
Ever wondered what it would be like if the Church of Scientology controlled the third-largest political party in the British Parliament?

In its modern form, Soka Gakkai is (cough) an apolitical, (wheeze) peace-loving religious organization that most definitely has not bought its way into the heart of the occasional media outlet.*
Unofficially, its members are expected to make "donations," "special donations," and "helpful financial support" to the Komeito Party, to put up posters of Komeito politicians outside their homes and businesses, and to vote for said politicians in any election that comes up.
Unofficially, it preaches a message to its followers that includes heartwarming nuggets of spirituality such as:
- Taking over Japan and founding a Soka Republic
- Anti-Nichiren sentiments (another sect of Buddhism, which SG claims/claimed to be an offshoot of)
- Support for a fully-armed and militarily-active nation
Unofficially, Soka Gakkai bullies its critics into leaving them alone, or worse.
Given the significant influence the organization has in both politics and Japanese society as a whole, Komeito and Soka Gakkai likely aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
*That journalist, not necessarily that publication.

Neutrality, Humanity
Some friends and I went to Hiroshima a few weekends ago, taking special care to visit the Genbaku (A-Bomb) Dome, Peace Park, and A-Bomb Museum.
As we entered the museum, I half-expected either a guilt trip or a cold, academic experience, but instead was surprised to find that whoever wrote the placards, captions, and displays had instead made it a point to give voice to all viewpoints on the war, as well as the events leading up to and following the detonation of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima.
As the museum tells the story: Japan waged a brutal war of aggression on the rest of Asia, essentially mortgaging its people's future in the process. The United States targeted a major population center, taking a keen interest in its aftereffects and potential for further use. The Enola Gay dropped the bomb, and all the world became a much worse place for it.

Grief neither speaks a language nor hangs a flag.

Gender in Japan

Would they look cute in BDUs and flak jackets?

Despite modern Japan's pacifistic stance on world conflicts (barring recent Komeito-type rumblings), students in middle and high school have been wearing Prussian and British military uniforms since the early part of the 20th century.
I visited a middle school's music festival in a town near Gifu a few weekends ago. Before coming to Japan, I'd thought the uniforms looked pretty cool. What guy wouldn't want to look bad in black? And of course, the sailor seifuku is really cute. But since coming here and witnessing girls and boys teetering on the edge of adolescence, gaining their first real awareness of the way the world works, I can't help but wonder what kind of effect this is having on their psyche.
As a kid, I went to Catholic schools that had uniforms, so I know what the pro-uniform attitude is based on: removing dress as a means of expressed social status and distraction from education. However, the use of militaristic designs leads me to believe that the education system is steering the students towards a homogenous view of Japanese society.
I will ask some Japanese students, as well as my friend in Gifu who studies the Japanese school system, and likely add to this post at a later time. (By "later" I mean "some time after grades close.")

Throw Me A Ball? Throw Me A Bone!

If someone were to ask you about your high school's baseball or football team, who would you think of first? The coaches? The players?
An integral part of Japanese sports teams (at least at the high school and college level) are the female members who support the players from the sidelines and supply sheds. The "manejaa" (manager) take care of chores and sort of act as team-specific cheerleaders.
Manejaa join teams for various reasons; some are acting on their school spirit, some are genuinely interested in sports team management, and some just want to watch the hunky guys do their thing on the field. (And maybe ask them out.)
I can't help but imagine that having girls around drives the players to work harder, too - who wouldn't want to impress the cutie in the tracksuit tossing your practice pitches?
Further reading: http://www.okayama-u.ac.jp/user/flec/english/neil/pubshtmlfiles/neilpubjalt06.htm
(scroll down about halfway and start reading just before the italicized paragraph.)

Religion in Japan

A Closet Full of Beliefs, But Not A Stitch To Wear
There seem to be two sentiments here regarding religion: it's either so far ingrained into the Japanese lifestyle that they themselves don't distinguish between the two (i.e. Shinto and, to an extent, Buddhism), or that it is treated as a sort of household appliance that you keep in a cupboard until you feel like you need to use it (i.e. Christianity or otherwise.)

The second floor of this building is some kind of Christian reading room. Given its size, I doubt it is an actual church. (Then again, Makino Sake Dojo didn't look like a good place to eat...) Regardless of its specific function, its purpose is to lead people to discover a higher purpose and achieve spiritual enlightenment, right? So perhaps you'd expect the general vicinity to have an uplifting feel to it, or to have at least some kind of spiritual effect, whether it reminds you of the Judeo-Christian God or of your own personal set of beliefs. (My theory is that this is what many Japanese are going after when they decorate with Western religious paraphernalia.)
So what's going on downstairs?
The greater goal of the establishment directly under it is to rent you a DVD illustrating the results of a meeting between 2 secretaries and a tentacle monster.
What does Western religion mean to the Japanese? Given its relatively recent arrival in Japan (4oo years plus change for Catholicism vs. B.C. Shinto), can it be taken as seriously? I see ads on trains for generic-looking wedding chapels and think not.

It's Just Not Done.
On the other hand, Japan still takes some tenets of its native religion pretty seriously. At Itsukushima-ji, a world-famous Shinto shrine, three rules set down in ancient times are still obeyed to the word:
1) No agriculture of any kind
2) No births
3) No deaths
However, the old rules preventing women, seniors, and commoners from setting foot on the island's soil appear to have been repealed, as the site is now one of the most popular tourist spots in this part of Japan. Back in the mukashi mukashi, the main shrine was built on stilts over the water so that worshippers could pay homage to the gods without being "on" the island.

At high tide, the water reaches the shrine, and the structure appears to be floating. See those three stone lanterns past the great red torii? The unclean masses used to row through the giant gate and park their boats right up against the shrine. The gods chuckle over our silly technicalities. さすが人間。
Make no mistake! Those other three rules are still in effect. We didn't see any cemetaries near the shrines or rice paddies between the buildings - sights I'd begun to take for granted in this country. I'm not so sure about rule #2, though. I assume the welcome staff at the ferry terminal are keeping an eye out and turning away any women in their third trimester.

Sports in Japan

Japan's baseball season lasts from April to October. So why, in the dead of November, is the Kansai Gaidai team still swinging away? Devotion, my friends, devotion.

I had a conversation with a team member standing by the sideline. (Not the one in the picture.) The actual dialogue makes for an awful read, as it took several tries to get our ideas across the language barrier, but here is as accurate a paraphrase of the conversation as I can manage:

It's almost December. Baseball is a spring and summer sport, right?
Usually American teams will practice only during the regular season, right? So it's not so serious. We are a club, too, so we are more serious about it. Does your college's baseball team practice in the fall?
I don't know. In America, a team is just a team. Team mates aren't necessarily friends. It seems like lots of people want to do it as their job.
In Japan, a sports team is not just a team. We are all friends, too, so we go out and eat or drink together. Even if there isn't a practice, we will probably meet other members of the team. That's why we call it a club.
So it doesn't feel like a job?
We do our best at baseball, like a job, and it is difficult like a job, but everyone loves baseball and has a good time practicing and playing. So even when it's cold like this, we're happy to be here.

Many thanks to this gentleman (whose name I unfortunately forgot) for accomodating me and my shoddy third-language interview skills.


Nobody is warming the bench tonight. Devotion!

Globalization in Japan

Graffiti --> Rakkugaki
Graffiti has been around since as long as humans have had something to stain their walls with. However, Japan wasn't brought into the worldwide community of self-expressive vandal art until the late 80s to early 90s, according to this interview with Kubota Kenji, curator of an art museum that held a city-wide graffiti exhibition in Mito in 2005. He says that graffiti came about 10 years after the initial import of hip-hop culture from America. Since then, it has shown up in every major city, with many local artists establishing names (pen names? can names?) for themselves.
About a year ago plus change, I bought a book about the Japanese graffiti scene from Kinokuniya in Seattle. It had a strong focus on local Tokyo artists and a ton and a half of photos. It was love at first sight! Eventually, I made it to Tokyo, and ran into some of the same tags. Ahh, finally seeing KRESS's glorious name, splashed across the wall in Shibuya...
Anyway, the Japanese graffiti scene has a special affinity for goofy, cartoony designs incorporating original characters and vibrant colors. Here's one on a storefront in Yonago (Tottori-ken) that makes an alien abduction look like a fun way to spend the evening.

Note the block letters spelling WAGAMAMA WORLD. Aside from it being a strange name, this style would have been completely at home in Washington, D.C. in the early-mid 1990s. Not so much the cancerous jellybeans and enthusiastic spoon demon.

DOOK DOOK DOOK TSSSS
At Osaka Castle, you can satisfy your appetite for feudal Japanese history, architecture, landscaping...

...and Coke. The samurai were not so lucky as us that they could have popped open a can and taken a load off on the bench here in one of the outer courtyards. kitss-KLAC! You can't escape from the Coca-Cola Beverage Company.

Traditional Japan

What year is it?

So we're putting on the matsuri (festival) last week, right? Yeah, me and my fellow townspeople were parading the local god around on the mikoshi (portable shrine), when my buddy Goemon says, "Hey, guys, what're all these loud boxy things that keep almost hitting us? And what the heck are we walking on, anyway? This isn't dirt." But Boss Kenichi, smooth operator as usual, just tells him not to worry about it and sends two guys to the front to keep the road clear.

The Japanese have been holding these (usually) small-scale local events for ages and ages. In fact, I couldn't even find an internet source that made a guess at how long they've been going on.

This particular one was being held in Hirakata. I haven't been able to find out about the history of this particular festival, but it didn't look like there was any particular theme, anyway, except maybe Everyone Wear White Shorts Kudasai.

So You Want To Kill Yourself

Looking for a way to inflict as much physical pain on yourself as possible, while being able to pass it off as an educational experience? You should try harvesting rice on a hot October afternoon, as I did last weekend outside of Nagoya.

My friend Yuka, who arranged for me to participate in the inekari, suggested that we would spend the day hacking at handfuls of rice stalks and bundling them into piles, much as rice farmers have been doing since the early days of agriculture. However, this turned out to be only a small part of the process. Most of the work was done by a boxy vehicle on tank treads with what looked like half of a cow catcher on the front. The vehicle couldn't get the corners of the field though, so for a short time, we were doing it old school, bent backs and all. Feeding the hand-cut stalks into the machine an armload at a time was probably scarier than anything our collective forefathers had done, though.

Also, regardless of what modern tools one takes with them to the field, the rice itself probably hasn't changed much over the years. Neither have the bugs or the sunburn, for that matter. Koume (rice on the stalk) puts out a LOT of dust. Its gets on your skin and itches. It gets in your lungs and burns. The sun puts out a LOT of radiation, too, apparently. And the bugs are hungry as ever. These things have been plaguing Taro the Farmer forever, and this past weekend was no exception.

The Japanese seem to keep the tradition alive in other ways, too - a significant number of Yuka's relatives came to the house, if not to work in the field, then to help obaa-chan in the garden or to make an enormous lunch for everyone. When Yuka's grandfather, uncle and I came in all covered in itchy dust and sweat, there were the aunts and cousins putting shrimp and veggies on top of heaping rice piles. (I hope this isn't coming across as MAN BASH FOOD, WOMAN COOK FOOD or anything.)

So while the experience as a whole was not the "ditch your tie and live off the land" experience I was hoping for, it wasn't a total bust. What I didn't learn about traditional methods of farming was more than compensated for by a chance to see the Japanese family dynamic at work.

Here's the angry tyrannosaurus of a machine, carving a path of destruction through the field.

When working around heavy machinery with sharp parts, as we were doing, it's generally not a good idea to worry about things that aren't vital to the survival of your extremities. So unfortunately, I wasn't able to get more than a couple photos of the process.

Traditional Japan Preview

This is a placeholder for the Traditional Japan entry. I am not posting a legit blog entry for this topic yet, as I am heading out to the Nagoya area this weekend to harvest rice, and I think that'd be a fantastic experience to write about for this entry. In the meantime, I guess I can write about how I ended up with this opportunity.

At my home university, UAlbany, I became friends with a Japanese foreign exchange student named Yuka. At some point, she mentioned that her grandparents ran a farm outside of Nagoya, and that if I ever needed a job, I could probably go work for them. Pondering the possibility of working on a farm in Japan led me to decide that I'd like to make a career out of it.
Before coming to Kansai Gaidai, I visited Yuka at her home in Nagoya. I jokingly brought up the possibility of taking over her grandparents' farm when they retired, to which she replied, "well, the rice harvest is in mid-October. You should come out and help us, and see if you like it."
So, this weekend, I'm bussing out to Nagoya, from which Yuka and I will make the trek out to... Actually, I have no idea where we're going.

Yuka says that her grandparents have someone harvest the field with a large piece of machinery (I assume it will be something along the lines of a combine) that misses certain spots whenever it turns around to do another row. Someone has to get those spots by hand and sickle, and probably bundle them up, as well. It'll take at least all weekend, but I'm only going to be at the farm on the 19th. (Bussing back to Kyoto Station the morning of the 20th. Hopefully I'll be back in time for class, Professor!)

There have been some interesting reactions from the Japanese people I've told about this impending adventure. My Spoken Japanese sensei says that more and more young people are considering becoming farmers because working at a desk, wearing a tie, and kissing up to someone twice as old as them is becoming a less attractive choice for an increasingly independent generation. On the other hand, most of the people in my age bracket say that agriculture is the last thing on their list of potential careers. Yuka said that she feels bad about the decline of the small-scale farming industry here, but that Japanese society's measure of success holds it in fairly low regard, and that she doesn't think she'll end up any more involved with her grandparents' business than she is now.

In any case, this will hopefully give me a taste of the nouka (farmer) lifestyle. Maybe I'll fall in love with it, maybe I'll decide it's not for me. Either way, it'll be good exercise and a good time.

Japanese Pop Culture

QR Codes

Image borrowed from http://www.kilian-nakamura.com/

Have you seen these little black and white patchwork squares? They store text and other data as a matrix! I try to remember to scan these every time I see them, and have found everything from coupons to ads to website links. If you can write it, you can make a QR code out of it. I bought a carton of apple tea from the campus kombin a few days ago, and on the side was one of these. I scanned the code and received a URL leading to the company's "Halloween Campaign" website. Last weekend, in Kyoto, I scanned one on a train and got 4 lines of indecipherable Japanese text with an extra helping of 15+ stroke kanji. After some perusing of my keitai's seemingly infinite features, I discovered that you can generate your own from both English and Japanese text, as well as with your contact information. Imagine printing 100 of these as stickers and putting them all over your hometown. The calls would just roll in! (Until the sanitation department tracks you down and makes you remove them.)

According to the website of the company that invented them, these have been around since 1994, but since QR decoding functions started appearing on keitai, their popularity has extended beyond the industrial uses for which they were intended.

Hemp, Hemp, Everywhere, But Not a Gram to Smoke?

If you've spent any time at all in the presence of 16 - 26 year old Japanese people, you've most likely encountered at least one clothing or accessory design incorporating the infamous pot leaf. In Western countries, not only is it instantly recognizable as marijuana, but we tend to immediately characterize the person displaying it as a marijuana user. It's not a terribly irrational conclusion to come to... In the West. Here in Japan, where being caught with possession of marijuana carries much higher consequences than in North America, people seem to have no qualms about sporting track jackets and rearview mirror ornaments emblazoned with the design.
However, as with all things, one must consider the issue from the Japanese side. According to my former sempai in Gifu Prefecture, the Japanese do not draw a connection between the image of the leaf and the illegal drug at all. "It's just a leaf, right? The stuff we would get arrested for comes in little green nuggets. It's not the same thing, is it?" In this country, the leaf is a symbol of stereotypical laid-back Jamaican attitudes... and apparently world peace, as well. But to us gaijin, this will continue to be a source of confusion as we try to reconcile the image of an otherwise tidy, professional college students with shirts screaming things like "420 SPECIAL GANJA PEACE."

People

One of the aspects of anthropology (sociology?) that I find most interesting is discovering the ways in which a mass of people attempting to accomplish the same goal will organize themselves, especially when it is done with no prior planning. I haven't seen much in the way of the spontaneous organization yet, but all around us there are signs of the Japanese's own special brand of unspoken rules and other means of making society run smoothly.



I'll give you one guess as to where these people on the ski lift are going....
Believe it or not, they're headed for the largest sand dunes in Japan. As you can see, the lift goes over the road, carrying the little obaa-chans and ojii-sans safely across while allowing the cars to continue down the hill at breakneck speeds. (God Bless the Inaka.) While this doesn't really fit into the "spontaneous organization" idea, I though it was a fantastic example of the degree to which the Japanese try to make big institutions such as major tourist attractions run like a well-oiled machine.
On a semi-related note, the terminus of this lift ended at the top of a large sandy bowl... Which the previously-mentioned senior citizens traversed with apparent ease.



This, on the other hand, is an example of the impromptu self-organization. On one of the raniest days we've had since the Japanese students started classes, the line at the closest bus stop went around the corner, down the street and around the next corner. Rather than trudge down the street for 10 or 15 minutes, these folks preferred to wait longer and take the drier route. Who started this line? Who decided it would go down this street, as opposed to down the sidewalk to the right? Who was the first to say, "Now the line will turn around this corner, instead of continuing down the street"? Whatever the means and motive, here are over 100 people waiting patiently for the bus to Hirakata Station.

Neighborhood Katahoko

Well, the camera cable has finally arrived in the mail, so moving photos from my camera to any KG comp is now possible. I apologize for the lateness of this entry, and accept any/all penalties.

The main Kansai Gaidai campus is in Nakamiya, a neighborhood northeast of central Hirakata. Northeast of that is Katahoko, home to the international student housing and a number of small shops, several of which seem to cater to the ryuugakusei (foreign exchange student) population. On the other hand, we were told that the school gets, on average, two complaints per week about how obnoxious and loud we are. So we're a mixed blessing for the residents, I guess.
On to the photos!

WE WANT YOUR BUSINESS

Here's an example of the gaijin-catering. A man named Hiroshi runs a barber shop right up the street. In the window, he's put up a sign that attempts to rein in a few passersby.

I wonder if it's caused the intended effect. Well, it worked on me! For 2300Y, Hiroshi shampooed me up twice, spent half an hour sculpting my hair into a magical work of art, and finished it off by rattling my teeth loose with a combination jackhammer-back massager. For the price, it's worth it. I won't need another haircut until my 28th birthday.
Hiroshi's English-speaking skills are next to nonexistent, but he said he was looking forward to business picking up once "the exchange students' 'travel haircuts' have become long."

A FLORALIZED ECONOMY

One feature you can't ignore in Katahoko is the sheer number of potted plants people have put in front of their houses. If there's half a foot of space between the wall and the street, there's room for another plant! Or, if there isn't enough space, PUT SOME BLOCKS DOWN! Ran out of ground? Put them on top of the wall. The only rule in this neighborhood is that you can never have too many plants. As long as you're only obstructing traffic by a little bit, it's okay.

This house has found that happy medium between sheer volume of flowers and inconvenience to the neighbors. Oh, the joys of living on a corner lot!

First Impressions of Japan

Since I was eleven years old, I've been collecting a veritable encyclopedia of information about Japan. A large part of this was comprised of other peoples' travelogues and anecdotes. A fairly significant portion of this accumulated secondhand knowledge was thrown out the window upon landing at Narita on August 25th. The world as seen in a static photograph or a half-imagined essay is nothing like the experience of being bombarded with sights and sounds and smells that you couldn't escape from if you tried.
Two of the most famous elements of Japanese culture that have hopped the oceans and made it into the west are aesthetic/design and Engrish. Here's a photo of each!

AKIHABARA ELECTRICAL TOWN

My friend Kensuke guided me around Tokyo for the first 5 days I was in Japan. In Akihabara, we happened upon a pedestrian avenue lined with... American restaurants?! Foreign economic influence notwithstanding, the area was splashed with neon light in a way only the Japanese can pull off. Not only were there tubes and spotlights, but rows of lanterns hanging overhead. In Akihabara, the outdoor illumination of ages long past meets the bustle of one of the largest technology centers in the world. Japanese aesthetic and design guides visitors' way into Western-style places of business.
Note: This is not shooped. I lengthened the exposure time.

WHAT YOU SAYING?

It seems that the 2 largest cities in Japan, Tokyo and Osaka, are pretty good about keeping the Engrish on ads and signs to a minimum. However, once you're off the beaten path, it's anyone's game. Unfortunately, the beaten path does not run through Japan's third largest city. A vending machine at the Nagoya Higashiyama Zoo attempts to brag that the coffee contained therein is likely the most caffiene-packed brew on the planet. Rest assured, you will make it through the rest of your trip through the zoo if you overlook the shoddy grammar and "reach out for a cup!"
Some brave manufacturer is exacting revenge on behalf of Webster and Random House.

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