Boom Town Nogata

Before I tell my story, let me explain a little about my hometown, Nogata City. It is located in Fukuoka Prefecture which is itself on the island of Kyushu in the southwest of Japan. The city has a peculiar history, which is unique in Japan. Thanks to the coalmining business, it enjoyed prosperity for a time when coal was king, and then when the mines closed, the boom was suddenly over. One moment the city was full of life; the next, it was quiet, much like the fireworks in the night of a mid-summer festival.

Despite its small size, the area is geographically diverse. There is Mt. Fukuchi, which is about 3000-feet high, and the Onga, a major river in Japan, which calmly winds its way through the valley and empties into the Sea of Hibiki. The climate is influenced by the basin geography, so it is muggy in summer and bitterly cold in winter.

The size of town is 8,105 acres and the population was about 56,000 in 2020, having peaked in 1985 and steadily declined thereafter. The main industries were small retail and manufacturing subcontracted from the big industrial complexes in Kitakyushu which lies just north of Nogata. With the closing of the mines in the ‘60s and ‘70s due to cheaper imported coal, the local economy suffered and many businesses struggled to stay afloat.

The heyday of Nogata began with the inauguration of the policy “Rich Country, Strong Army” by the government after the Meiji Restoration. The local coal mining business was suddenly in the spotlight and the city became the hub for the transportation of coal out of the region. Boats on the Onga River and trains on the Chikuho Main Railroad played an active part in carrying coal to the Yahata Iron-Works in Kitakyushu. The most prosperous period in Nogata was during the Russo-Japanese and Sino-Japanese Wars in the late 1800s and first half of the 1900s. People came and went, including miners, ferrymen, geisha—who were a highly trained entertainers and prostitutes—yakuza gangsters, and others who hoped to profit from the boom in business. Thanks to unique characters like them, the town’s freewheeling culture took root. There was an atmosphere of sexual freedom and openness that one didn’t find in more respectable places.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the topic of unlicensed prostitutes. The town, which was infested with hooligans and other young troublemakers, reflected the town’s way of life. It is said that there weren’t any bills smaller than the 5-yen note in Nogata at that time, meaning that people didn’t care about small amounts of money and were rather spendthrift. Miners blew all their money in a single night on gambling and women. They made a fortune in the dark mines and had money to burn. This led to liberal attitudes towards sex. Many women who had been sold by their parents in order to help their families make ends meet, were sent to the town to work. Men, who could not contemplate their futures when they risked life and limb every day in the mines came to Nogata to spend their money on pleasure.

In the years just after WWII, Japan was still in chaos, both socially and economically. Steam locomotives still came and went and Nogata was terribly sooty, with the smell of the coal-burning trains hanging heavily all over town. There was a yawning gap between the rich and poor and the sense of right and wrong had been corrupted. Only money prevailed. Those who didn’t have it would do anything to get it; and those who had would do whatever it took to keep it. It was truly a dog-eat-dog world. And it was in this world that I was born in 1948 and where I spent my childhood.

Mail Order Mysteries

This is a man after my own heart. I will have to buy his book and satisfy my curiosity.

Up the Effin' Wall

If I read another sentence using the word "crafted” to describe cupcakes or careers or wedding vows or anything that is not made by the skilled hands of a craftsman, I swear I am going to "craft" an "artisan" club and brain the writer. And, yes, it "actually" will be “literally” "stunning" and "awesome", and the hack will be “epically owned”, and everybody will "be like", “Dude, he 'nailed it'!"

People, English is a beautiful language with one of the world's largest vocabularies—over 250,000 distinct words by some estimates—and yet many writers and speakers of the language today have an atrocious habit of describing the world around them with the most trite, banal, and clichéd words and phrases. 

Stop it. Please.

The Good Levite

Got a call from a credit card company, saying that my credit card has been found.

“My card? What card?”

“Your Walmart card.”

Walmart? Do I even have a Walmart card? I rifle through my box of neglected mail and bills and other crap and find an envelope from the credit card company. The card is there in the envelope it came in. But wait! Why do I have two, no, make that three, including a highway ETC card? When did I get that? Why, I don’t even drive. And one of them is only used for processing my rent payment (a Japanese thing).

“And how could I lose the card if I never carry it?” I ask absent-mindedly.

“It was found at the XYZ hotel in Okinawa.”

“Oh . . . And?”

“They turned it over to the police, so if you want it back you have to contact them . . .”

“Okay . . .”

I still can't figure out how on earth I could have lost a card I still have, but . . . Hmm.

After hanging up, I check the number I was given to see if it was legit. Yep, it's the Ishikawa Police Department in the town where our hotel is located.

I think about this for a while and go through my bank books to see if I've been billed for something I didn't buy and . . . Nope. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Then it dawns on me that I may have taken an old wallet—which I'm apt to do—that has only a few necessary items in it, such as my gaijin card, insurance card, a cash card, credit card, and so on. The old credit card must have been tucked inside the wallet and fallen out in the safety deposit box or something.

So odd. It just doesn’t add up. A Walmart card?

At first I thought I was being phished, but the woman from the credit card company didn't ask me for any personal information or credit card details. She wouldn't even give me details about the nature of the card (expiration date, etc.) that had been found.

So, I decide to call the cops in Ishikawa on Tuesday to see if my hunch was right.

Several hours later my wife returns home. I tell her about the call.

“Ah! I was wondering what happened to that card!”

I bang my head against the table. Now I understand. She had the credit card made to get points at the local supermarket, which is a subsidiary of Walmart, and used my name but never told me about. (That qualifies as fraud, doesn’t it? Good thing I love her.)

Later, I went online to double check whether the card had been used, but fortunately it hadn’t. Just to be on the safe side, I had the card replaced.

When we called the Ishikawa Police Department on Tuesday, we learned that my wife had lost some 10 cards in total. Most were point cards for supermarkets and so on.

I said to my wife: “You know, if it had been me who lost all those cards and didn’t realize it for three whole months, you would never let me hear the end of it.”

She apologized sheepishly and I let it slide, as I always do.

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And speaking of lost and found . . .

During my walk this morning, I found a briefcase behind the hedge of one of my favorite restaurants.

"Someone has lost their bag," I said to my wife who was a few paces ahead of me. Looking inside, I could see that it was full of documents. There was a wallet, too, chockablock with credit cards and other cards. "The wallet's inside, too."

But, so was a belt. Odd, I thought.

"Maybe we should take it to the police box . . .," I suggested.

Then I noticed a pack of cigarettes a yard a way . . . and a necktie . . . clearly it all belonged to a salaryman who must have been blind drunk last night. He'd be up a creek when he woke and discovered that it was missing, I thought. I know how I'd feel . . . And there in the corner, next to the hedge was a huge, wet turd.

"Ah, Christ! The guy took a dump in the corner!"

My wife let out a little yelp. "Gross! Just leave where it is!"

“I’m not touching the poop!”

“Not the poop. The bag! Leave the bag!”

I couldn't help but agree, the Good Samaritan in me shoved away by the Levite.

I put the bag down and started to walk away. On second thought, I went back and wiped down the places I had touched, such that my prints wouldn't be left. Better safe than sorry, right?

So, if you know anyone who is missing his briefcase and is probably hungover. Tell him I know where he can find it and his "noguso".

How do you like your mochi?

How the shape and preparation of o-mochi varies from region to region in Japan. In the East, it is rectangular and usually grilled. In the West it tends to be round. Half of Kyushu grills their round mochi, while those in Kansai and Chugoku boil theirs.

My wife's family from Kagoshima grills their rectangular mochi in a toaster.

Coming of Age

For someone like me who is fascinated by Japanese traditions and culture, Seijin-no-hi, or Coming-of-Age Day, held on the second Monday of January, is one of the many days to look forward to in Japan. For on that day, you can find many young women, dressed in elaborate kimono, their hair coiffed, make-up and nails perfect—a stunning display of beauty like exotic monocarpic flowers, blooming once after 20 years of growth. Although men, too, occasionally dress in flashy kimono their hair done up in wild pompadours, most of them wear conservative suits more befitting of the occasion. But let’s be honest, I’m much more interested in the women.

The modern version of Seijin-shiki began in Warabi City, Saitama on 22 November 1946. The Pacific War had ended half a year earlier and much of Japan lay in ruins. The ceremony, called Seinensai (青年祭, lit. “Youth Festival”) was held to encourage the young people of that broken country to rise up and dispel the dark mood of the times. Two years later, the ceremony was established as a national holiday originally held on the fifteenth of January. The original date is significant in that before the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar, the full moon fell on the fifteen of every month in Japan, and the fifteenth day of the firstmonth of the year was known as Ko-shōgatsu (小正月, lit. “little New Year”), the day that New Year’s had been traditionally celebrated until the Edo Period. Thanks to the “happy Monday system”, however, the date of Seijin-shiki has been held on the second Monday of January since the year 2000.

While today’s Seijin-shiki has its roots in the immediate post-war years, the rite of passage can actually be traced back to the Nara Period (710-794). In those days, genpuku (元服)—a coming-of-age ceremony modeled, like so many things in that era, after the customs of the Tang Dynasty of China (618~907)—was held for boys between the ages of 10 and 20 (some sources say between 12 and 16). In the genpuku ceremony, which literally means “head” (元) wearing” (服), a boy’s hair was fashioned in the manner of an adult’s, and he no longer wore the clothing of a child (see below). Moreover, his birth name was exchanged for an adult one, or eboshi-na (烏帽子名), and he was given a brimless ceremonial court cap, or kanmuri (冠). The adoption of the new hairstyle and clothing signified the assumption of adult responsibilities. 

Women, on the other hand, would receive a long pleated skirt called a mogi (裳着), to replace the wide-sleeved, unisex hakama-githey wore as children. The timing of a woman’s coming-of-age came typically after menarche, or in her early to late teens, and indicated that she was of marriageable age. While that may seem scandalously young to us in 2021, during the Nara Period, the life expectancy was between 28 and 33, and would get progressively shorter over time rather than longer. In the Muromachi Period (1336~1573), the average life expectancy was a mere blip of 15 years. Imagine that.

In the past, coming-of-age ceremonies were for the most part limited to those in the higher echelons of Japanese society which included the nobility and kugé aristocratic class, and from the Kamakura Period (1185~1333) on, the samurai warrior class, as well.

Children of the court prepared for roles they would assume later on from as young as three or four years of age, studying court ceremonies, Buddhist doctrine, and ethics. Later, they moved on to mastering the skills of calligraphy, which in classical times was indispensable for a courtier. 

In the age of the samurai, from the Kamakura to the Edo Periods (1185~1868), the genpuku ceremony featured the placing of a samurai helmet, rather than a court cap, on the head of the new adult male. During periods of unrest such as the Sengoku Jidai, or Warring States Period, (1467~1615), genpuku was often delayed until a son was full-grown in order to spare the inexperienced warrior the duty to fight, and most likely die, in battle. As peace reigned, however, the age considered appropriate for coming-of-age was lowered in response to pressures to marry and produce heirs, which could not happen until after the ceremony had been performed. In the sixteenth century, the average coming-of-age ceremony for samurai was 15 to 17, and by the 1800s it had dropped to 13 to 15.

Today, both men and women, who will reach the age of adulthood, i.e. twenty, by April 1, take part in the modern-version of Seijin Shiki. The ceremony is held at a venue in the city or town where the new adult resides. There, government officials make speeches and hand out presents. For many of the participants, the day is considered a class reunion of sorts because after the ceremony, they often meet friends from their junior high school at a formal party organized by their former classmates.

Why do women today wear the long-sleeved furisode kimono? 

If my reading of the Japanese is correct, and do correct me if it isn’t, but in the past the furisode that young unmarried women of means wore had much shorter sleeves. Youths, both male and female who were not yet old enough, wore what is known as fudangi, or everyday kimono. As Japan entered the Edo Period, though, the design of furisode gradually came to resemble that of today’s furisode. The longer and more exaggerated the sleeves became, the more impractical they were for everyday use, and eventually came to be reserved as formal attire for unmarried women. By the Shōwa Period, furisode had become established as a costume worn only on special occasions, such as Coming-of-Age Day and weddings. The swinging of the long sleeves of the kimono themselves is said to act as a kind of talisman against evils (魔除け) or drive out evil spirits (厄払い).

This year with the coronavirus pandemic still raging we could use some good luck charms. Unfortunately for those Japanese who have been anticipating the day, many local governments have either cancelled or postponed their planned Coming-of-Age Day ceremonies. As far as I know, Fukuoka City is still going ahead with its event, which will be held at Marine Messe. The ceremony will be shortened and split into two groups in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The event will also be live-streamed so that others can attend virtually.

In 2021, there will be 1,240,000 “new adults” or shinseijin (新成人), an increase of 200,000 over last year. For the past 11 years running, the percent of population represented by these new adults has been less than 1%.

The dark navy line indicates the percentage of “new adults” relative the general population. Red is the total number of females—blue, males—who are recognized as adults on the second Monday of January.

Note that in 1987, the number of new adults dropped dramatically. The 20-year-olds were born in 1966, or the Year of the Fire Horse (丙午, Hinoe Uma). Due to the belief that people born on this year have a very strong personality, birthrates in Japan tend to see a sharp decline.

This is the same graph as the one above, only focused on the past 20 years.

You might be curious to know how much the whole Seijin Shiki kit and caboodle costs. As a parent, I certainly am. In 2020, just under half of the women attending the ceremony rented their furisode kimono; whereas the other half either borrowed one from their mother, elder sister, or other relative, or bought it outright. The percent of those who bought theirs last year was up over 5% over the previous year. 

Rental (orange) 48%, down from 53%; borrowed from “Mama” (gray) 25%, up from 20%; bought (dark blue) 19%, up from 13%; borrowed from a sister or relative (yellow), 6%, down from 7%.

As you can see, the percent who rent their kimono (orange) has increased over the years. Those who bought theirs (gray) ticked up last year.

So, how much will renting a furisode kimono set you back? That depends, of course, on the shops, the services they provide, and the kimono itself. The cheapest rental furisode, made, I believe, cardboard origami and duct tape, go for about ¥40,000, but the going rate is closer to ¥250,000. Yes, you read that correctly. New furisode can cost over ¥300,000 to rent, not buy. The more expensive the rental, the more services will be included—kitsuke (helping the woman get dressed), hair setting, make-up, nails, and all that. Some rental salons will also take your photos which is usually done several months before Coming-of-Age. Over half of women report preparing for the day in the first six to eight months of the year prior to the ceremony.

As we have seen above, buying the furisode kimono is the option 20% of the women choose. But how much does a new kimono for a new-adult cost? Once again, prices vary. A single kimono can run ¥150,000 ~ ¥600,000, depending on the material it’s made from and the tailoring. While much more expensive than renting, the kimono can be used again at the graduation ceremony or at weddings and handed down to younger sisters or even one’s own children in the future, saving you money in the long run. If on the other hand you cannot envision ever wearing the furisode again in the future, then you are better off renting. At any rate, if you have a daughter or two, start saving your “yennies”.

In recent years, elementary schools have been holdingni-bun-no-ichi seijin-shiki (二分の一成人式) or “Half Coming-of-Age Day Ceremonies” for fourth graders who have become ten years old. Parents are invited to school where their children read letters of thanks to them. This year, like so many events will probably be cancelled or conducted without parents.

How to Get into a Japanese University

This time last year I asked some students what the route to enter university was like. Interestingly enough, the first step for those not entering through the suisen, or recommendation system, was to buy a face mask in order to prevent getting sick before the all-too-important entrance exam, which is often make or break.

Mind you, this was pre-COVID.

Ebisu Booty

Ask your Japanese friends to try reading 一斗二升五合 and most of them will probably be stumped. It is a riddle of sorts employing 斗, 升, 合, all of which are traditional Japanese measures of volume.

一斗 (itto, about 18 liters) is equal to ten 升 (shô, about 1.8 liters). 一斗, then, can be said to equal 五升の倍 (go shô no bai), which means “five shô doubled”. 五升の倍 (go shô no bai) is synonymous with 御商売 (go shôbai) which means “one’s business or trade”.

Still with me?

二升 (nishô). 升 can also be read masu. 二升 here can be read “masu masu” which sounds like 益々 (masu masu), meaning “more and more”, “steadily”, and son on.

五合 (go gô, 5 x 0.18 liters, or 0.9 liters) is one half of a shô or 半升 (hanjô) and sounds the same as 繁盛 (hanjô, prosperity).

So, putting it all together 一斗二升五合 can be read “Go-shôbai masu masu hanjô!” (御商売益々繁盛), meaning something to the effect that your business or trade will enjoy increasing prosperity.

Ebisu Giveth, Ebisu Taketh

On Saturday I took my brood to the Tōka Ebisu Festival to pray to Ebisu, the god of wealth, fishermen, fortune, and merchants. (And if that isn't already large enough portfolio for one god, Ebisu is also said to be the guardian of the health of small children.)

As I have written before, one of the highlights of the four-day-long festival is a lucky drawing (福引, fukubiki) for Ebisu goods—calendars, large paper fans, daruma dolls, lucky mallets, giant paper-maché fish, and so on. In past years, I've "won" all sorts of prizes, big and small, but last year my elder son and I arrived too late and missed the drawing altogether. Not wanting to make the same mistake twice, I made sure we left home nice and early Saturday morning, the last day of the festival.

My son wanders off alone in search of a Kyōryūja mask. (I'll have to write about that one of these days.)

And finds a lucky drawing stand, instead. There are all kinds of pellet guns on display.

"Lucky drawing! Everyone's a winner. Lucky drawing!"

"I want this one," he says to me.

"This isn't a shop. You don't buy these. You have to buy a raffle ticket."

"I want this one," he says again.

My son has become rather persistent when he wants something. Usually it's junk, overpriced junk, but he wants it all the same, and wants it NOW.

A few weeks back, the two of us popped into a convenience store. As I was withdrawing some money from the ATM, my son wandered about the aisles looking for candy and toys and found an Anpan Man Camera.

“I want this,” he said, placing the toy on the check-out counter.

"What is it?"

"Anpan Man Camera."

"I don't have any money," I said.

"You have money."

"Yes, but not for this," I said, picking the camera up. "How much is it, anyways? A thousand yen! No way!"

"I want it . . ."

With a tantrum threatening to erupt, I scooped the boy up into my arms and headed straight for the door. We were going a German restaurant that was about a twenty-minutes' walk away and I'll be damned if my son did not keep saying, "I want Anpan Man Camera! I want Anpan Man Camera!" the entire distance.

"You have a camera. I nice digital camera."

"It's broken!" 

"It's not broken," I replied. "I fixed it the other day."

The battery had died, but I had since recharged it and emptied the storage. It was working nicely again.

"I don't want Daddy to fix it! I want Anpan Man camera." 

He finally calmed down by the time we reached the German restaurant, but having carried the 20kg kicking and crying boy the entire distance, I was thoroughly exhausted.

Back at the festival, I tell my son, "You don't understand. You have to buy one of these tickets first. If and ONLY if you're lucky will you win the gun." 

The old woman running the stand says, "Everyone's a winner."

"Yeah, right," I shoot back.

"I want this one!"

I ask the woman how much one of the raffle tickets cost.

"Five hundred yen."

"Five hundred yen! Auntie, I think the biggest winner at this stand is you!"

"Yep," she says with toothless grin.

Just then a middle-aged retarded (sorry, Sarah Palin) man walks up to the booth and says he wants a gun, too. His minder tries to hold him back, but the man tries to take one of the guns, saying in Japanese, "I want this one. I want this one." His minder relents and gives the retarded man a five-hundred-yen coin.

I tell my son: "You watch! You'll see, he won't win anything."

Well, as luck would have it, the retarded man ends up winning the very gun my son wants. A second man in his thirties with severe Down's syndrome comes up next and also wins a gun. 

"I want one, too!" my son says.

Now I have no choice but to also give my son a five-hundred-yen coin and let him have a go at the game.

Maybe it is because it's the last day of the festival and the woman has nothing to gain by cheating us, or maybe it is simply because she doesn't want to make a little boy cry, either way, my son "wins" the gun he wanted.

"What do you say?"

My boy looks up to the woman and very bashfully says, "Thank you."

I tell her thank you, too. "That was awfully decent of you. You didn’t have to do that."

"Lucky drawing! Everyone's a winner! Lucky drawing!"

By the way, the gun didn't look anything like the photo on the box AND, worse, it broke on our way home on the train. Oh, well.

As Warm as San Diego

Before I moved to Japan, I looked at a map of the world and saw that Fukuoka had the same latitude as San Diego, CA and thought: I guess I won’t be needing any sweaters or my heavy coat.

I was soooo wrong.

Within 2.54cm of My Life

Several years ago, the White House issued a response to a petition on its “We the People” site which had called for the adoption of the metric system. The petition had garnered almost fifty thousand "signatures". Although many proponents of the meters and liters were disappointed with the response, I found it to be rather convincing.

Patrick D. Gallagher, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and Director at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, wrote:

“Right after the Civil War, President Andrew Johnson signed legislation that made it ‘lawful throughout the United States of America to employ the weights and measures of the metric system in all contracts, dealings or court proceedings.’ In 1875, the United States was one of the original 17 nations to sign the Treaty of the Metre. Since the 1890s, U.S. customary units (the mile, pound, teaspoon, etc.) have all been defined in terms of their metric equivalents.

“So contrary to what many people may think, the U.S. uses the metric system now to define all basic units used in commerce and trade. At the same time, if the metric system and U.S. customary system are languages of measurement, then the United States is truly a bilingual nation.

“We measure distance in miles, but fiber optic cable diameter in millimeters. We weigh deli products in pounds, but medicine in milligrams. We buy gasoline by the gallon, but soda comes in liter-size bottles. We parcel property in acres, but remote sensing satellites map the Earth in square meters.”

The “bilingual” nature of the way we Americans measure things around ourselves hadn’t really dawned on me until I read this.

A bio/chem major in college, I have long known that the metric system with its ease of convertibility is a superior way to measure the world’s phenomena. A Calorie (1C) for instance is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. One kilogram of water is equivalent to the mass of one liter of water, which is also equal to the volume of a cube with sides ten centimeters in length. Try to make these calculations in the U.S. customary system and you’re bound to come up with the wrong answer.

Gallagher concluded, “In our voluntary system, it is the consumers who have the power to make this choice. So if you like, “speak” metric at home by setting your digital scales to kilograms and your thermometers to Celsius. Cook in metric with liters and grams and set your GPS to kilometers.

“We were thrilled to see this petition from ‘We the People’ succeed. Feedback like this from consumers shows everyone from policymakers to businesses how important having this choice is to Americans.

“So choose to live your life in metric if you want, and thank you for signing on.”

After reading this, I realized that while I had been living the metric system for over two decades, I wasn’t completely committed to it. My speech was still being corrupted by pounds and inches and gallons. 

So, from today on I will “speak” pure metric. On a clear day, I will I exclaim “You can see for multiples of 1.609 kilometers!” When a colleague puts in extra effort, I will thank him for “going the extra 1,609 meters.” I may even buy him 0.57 liters of beer to show my appreciation.

When I’m under intense pressure to perform, I may perspire what feels like increments of 3.785 liters and may still end up missing a target by 1.6 kilometers. Shylock will now demand 0.453 kilograms of Antonio’s flesh in Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice”. And, when adamant, I shall not budge, not even 2.54 centimeters. And when I die, they may lay me 1.829 meters under.

Torikai Hachimangu

Japan, The Beautiful and Concrete

Reading Henry Scott Stokes's The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima I came upon the following passage:

“As we left Odawara and reached the coastal expressway beyond, the car passed the first of the succession of big industrial plants which we would see on our return to the capital, still an hour away at least. There was no beach below us, only a dreary series of massive reinforced-concrete tetrapods, intended to break the force of the sea as it hit the mighty wall below us. ‘I believe in culture as form and not as spirit,’ said Mishima, referring to the leprous Khmer monarch Jayavarman III and his building of one of the temples of Angkor Wat, Bayon. He seemed very tired as he talked. ‘I want to keep the Japanese spirit alive,’ he added, as if unaware that he was contradicting himself . . . A few minutes later, he cradled his head in his left arm, leaning back in his seat, and fell fast asleep. The car sped swiftly on toward Tokyo, which we would reach in another half hour . . . From time to time I caught the sight of buildings, new factories, other expressways. As we passed Chigasaki, there was an occasional pine tree to be seen by the road, still standing on what had once been the historic Old Tōkaidō Road to Osaka, three hundred miles to the west. That was all that was left of old Japan, perhaps—a few pine trees.” [1]

It occurred to me that if in the late 60s Japan’s landscape had already become a scorched earth of industry and “modernism”, then it was stupidly naïve of me to embrace the romantic image I’d had of Japan before I actually came almost a quarter of a century ago—the sensitivity devoted to the most mundane of daily items, the beauty of manicured gardens changing with the seasons, quaint Japanese houses with tiled roofs and a zen-like simplicity inside, young pearl drivers lowering their lithe bodies deep into the pristine sea, a respect for nature that exceeded worship . . .

Thirty years after Stokes biography was written, humorist David Sedaris had this to say about Japan:

“Riding the high-speed train—the Shin-kansen—to Hiroshima, I supposed that to the untrained eye, all French cities might look alike, as might all German and American ones. To a Japanese person, Kobe and Osaka might be as different as Santa Fe and Chicago, but I sure don’t see it. To me it’s just concrete, some gray and some bleached a headachy white. Occasionally you’ll pass a tree, but rarely a crowd of them. The Shin-kansen moves so fast you can’t really concentrate on much. It’s all a whoosh, and before you know it one city is behind you and another is coming up.” [2]

Out of fairness to my adopted country, I should note that Japan is seventeenth among nations in the world (and the third industrialized nation, after Finland, 72.9%, and Sweden, 69.2%) for forested area. 68.6% of the land in Japan is covered by forests. It is also one of the few countries in the world where the percentage of forested land is increasing.

The title of this post might not ring any bells for most readers, but this was a play on the title of Yasunari Kawabata's acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature: "Japan, the Beautiful, and Myself. Kawabata won the prize in 1968, and, four years later, killed himself.

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 [1] Stokes, Henry Scott, The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima, New York: Cooper Square Press, 1974, pp.234-35. 

[2] Sedaris, David, When you are Engulphed in Flames, London: Little, Brown, 2008, p.295

Japanese is Difikaruto

One thing that comes up time and time again when people who are unfamiliar with Japan read my writing is the issue of why the Japanese language uses "Chinese characters".  "What?" they invariably comment. "I thought this was supposed to be Japanese . . . Is this Japanese or is this Chinese? I don't get it." Don't worry. I asked the same question almost thirty years ago. (For more on the Japanese writing system, scroll down to the bottom.)

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Every day I hear Japanese complain, “Eigo-wa muzukashii.” (English is difficult.)

I suppose for non-native speakers of the language, English can be hard to master. This blessed tongue of mine is a hodgepodge of languages—Germanic, Romance, Celtic, etc.—making the spelling and grammar a confused mess that is not only cumbersome for learners but for native speakers alike.

BUT! The Japanese language is so much more muzukashii. Our list of irregular verbs and odd spelling rules cannot even begin to burden a student the way the Japanese writing system hinders foreigners who try to master it.

Of the more than five thousand different languages out there in the world, the most difficult one to read has got to be Japanese.

It’s not unusual to find a single sentence chockablock with Hiragana (ひらがな), Katakana (カタカナ), Kanji (漢字), Rōmaji (also known as the alphabet), and even Arabic numerals. While hiragana, katana, and rōmaji are straight-forward enough and can be mastered in less than a week, what really makes Japanese so hellish for learners (especially non-East Asian ones) is the fact that unlike the pictograms in Chinese, known as hànzi (漢字), where most characters have one basic reading, almost all Japanese kanji have several possible, often unrelated readings.

Take the kanji for “I”. In Chinese 我 is pronounced wǒ. In Japanese, however, it can be pronounced: a, aré, ga,wa, waré, and waro. The character for “food/eat” 食 is read shí in Chinese, but can be read: uka, uke, ke, shi,jiki, shoku, ku, kui, su, ta, ha and so on, depending on context. And while the kanji for “go”, 行 can be read in a number of similar ways in Chinese—xíng, háng, hang, héng—in Japanese it can be read in the following ways: kô, gyô, okona, yu, yuki, yuku, i, an, and, who knows, possibly more. 

Kids in Japan must master 1,006 of the 2,136 different characters, the so-called jôyô kanji,[1] by the end of elementary school and the remainder in junior high school.

Think about that.

It can take up to nine years of education for a Japanese child to become literate in his own language, far longer than it takes an American to learn how to read English. By comparison, hangul (한글) the Korean writing system can be mastered for the most part in a single day. If you’re determined enough, that is. I taught myself how to read (though not quite understand) hangul during a trip I took in the mid 90s. Riding on the high-speed train connecting Busan in the south of the country to Seoul in the north, I compared the Romanization of the station names and the Chinese characters with the hangul. By the time I reached Seoul a few hours later, I could read the Korean script. Piece of cake!

No other language offers as overwhelming a barrier to entry as Japanese does when it comes to its writing system. As a result, students of the language are often forced to focus on speaking alone. They cannot reinforce what they learn by, say, reading books or magazine and newspaper articles the way you can with other languages.

If they ever try to do so, however, as I did, they’ll find that written Japanese is a very different animal from the spoken language.

Open up any book, even a collection of casual, humorous essays by Murakami Haruki for example, and you’ll immediately bump up against “ーde-aru” (ーである). I hadn’t heard of this copula[2] until I started trying to read things other than textbooks and manga.

De-aru, which is just another way of say desu (ーです) but in a more formal and rigid way that is suitable for reports or making conclusions, is only the beginning. While I can generally catch almost everything that is being said to me or what is said on TV even when I’m not really paying attention,[3] written Japanese takes concentrated effort to comprehend and sometimes up to three perusals[4] to get a firm grasp on what the writer is trying to convey.

Even if you’re not interested in learning how to read Japanese, just trying to master the spoken language can provide you with years of headaches.

Thinking I could master the language in my first three months or so in Japan—Hah!—I dove headfirst into my studies almost as soon as I arrived, taking sometimes two to three private lessons a week.

At the time, the selection of textbooks for learners of Japanese was extremely limited. While I had a good set of dictionaries called the Takahashi Romanized “Pocket” Dictionary—the only kind of pockets they would conceivably fit in were the pockets you might find on the baggy pants of a circus clown—the textbook I had to work with couldn’t have been more irrelevant.

Written for engineers from developing countries invited by the government to study and train in Japan, it contained such everyday vocabulary as “welding flux”, “hydraulic jack” and “water-pressure gauge”. The phrases taught in the textbook were equally “helpful”:

Q: ラオさんは何を持っていますか。

Rao-san-wa nani-o motteimasuka

What is Rao-san holding.

A: ラオさんはスパナを持っています。

Rao-san-wa supana-o motteimasu

Rao-san is holding a spanner.

In all of my twenty years in Japan, I have never once used this phrase. I haven’t used a spanner or a wrench for that matter, either. Nor have I met anyone named Rao-san.[5]

But, the biggest shortcoming of the textbook was its desire to have learners of Japanese speak the language politely.

And so, the less casual -masu (−ます) and -desu (—です) form of verbs triumphed. If you wanted to ask someone what he was doing, the textbook taught you to say:

あなたは、なにをしていますか？

(Anata-wa, nani-o shiteimasuka?)

I practiced this phrase over and over: Anata-wa, nani-o shiteimasuka? Anata-wa, nani-o shiteimasuka? Anata-wa, nani-o shiteimasuka? Anata-wa, nani-o shiteimasuka? Anata-wa, nani-o shiteimasuka?

Armed with this new phrase, I went up to a group of children in a playground and asked, “Anata-wa, nani-o shiteimasuka?”

Crickets.

A few months later I was diligently studying Japanese in that most effective of classrooms—a girlfriend’s bed—when I learned that people didn’t really say Anata-wa, nani-o shiteimasuka, especially to children much younger than themselves. No, they said, “Nani, shiteru no?” or something like that, instead.

After about a year of studying the language, I could manage. I certainly wasn’t what I would call fluent, but I was no longer threatened by death or starvation. When I moved to Fukuoka, however, I bumped up against a new and very unexpected wall: hôgen. The local patois, known as Hakata-ben, is one of the more well-known of Japan’s many bens, or dialects.

When the people of Fukuoka wanted to know what you were doing, they didn’t say anata-wa, nani-o shiteimasuka or even nani, shiteru no. They said, “Nan shiyô to?” (なんしようと) or “Nan shon?” (なんしょん).

Let me tell you, it took quite a few years to graduate from saying “Anata-wa, nani-o shiteimasuka?” to “Nan shiyô to?” And that, of course, was only the beginning. It took me nearly a decade to figure out what 〜んめえ (~nmê) and ばってん (batten) meant.

Example:

 博多弁: 雨なら、行かんめーと思うとるっちゃばってん、こん様子なら降らんめーや。

Hakata-ben: Ame-nara, ikanmê to omôtoruccha batten, kon yôsu nara, furanmê ya.

標準語: 雨なら行くまいと思ってるのだが、この様子だと雨は降らないだろう。

Standard: Ame nara, ikumai to omotteru-no daga, kono yôsu dato, ame wa furanai darô.

English: I was thinking of not going if it rained[6], but it doesn’t look like it’s going to rain (after all).

My Japanese grandmother would say something like, “Anta, ikanmê” (you aren’t going, are you) to which I’d grunt, “Un” (that’s right), when in fact I had every intention of going. The poor woman and I had conversations like that all the time.[7] When I finally figured that one out it was as if the scales had fallen from my eyes. Day-to-day life here has contained fewer misunderstandings ever since. ばってん (batten), by the way, means “but”.

My experience with Hakata-ben has spawned a masochistic interest in Japanese dialects in general and I have been maintaining a blog on the topic for the past few years. Have a look-see!

Anyways, the long and short of it is that while English is no cakewalk, it’s still much easier to learn than many other languages, such as Japanese. So, the next time you hear your students grumbling about how difficult English is, just tell them, “Oh, shuddup” or in Hakata-ben: “Shekarashika-ken, damarī”.

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So, why "Chinese characters"?

Mr. Wiki says: "The Japanese language had no written form at the time Chinese characters were introduced, and texts were written and read only in Chinese. Later, during the Heian period however, a system known as kanbun emerged, which involved using Chinese text with diacritical marks to allow Japanese speakers to restructure and read Chinese sentences, by changing word order and adding particles and verb endings, in accordance with the rules of Japanese grammar."

[1] 常用漢字, jōyō kanji, are the Chinese characters designated by the Ministry of Education for use in everyday life.

[2] A copula is a word used to link a subject and predicate, as in “John is a teacher”, where “John” is the subject, “a teacher” (actually a predicative nominal), the predicate and “is”, the copula. (Don’t worry; before I started studying Japanese, I thought copula was a film director.)

[3] Unless it’s a period piece and the actors are using Edo Period Japanese.

[4] I use the word “perusal” to imply thoroughness and care in reading. So many Americans today mistakenly assume the word means “to skim”. It does not, it does not, it does not. So, for the love of God, stop it! Same goes for the word “nonplussed”. If you’re not a hundred percent certain of the meaning—and even if you are (over confidence is America’s Achilles heel)—don’t use it. Chances are you’re probably mistaken.

[5] I eagerly await his arrival, though. For when I find him, I will surely ask, “ラオさん、何を持っていますか？”

[6] I have intentionally translated this in the manner that Japanese speak—namely “I was thinking about not doing” rather than the more natural “I wasn’t thinking about doing”—to make the original sentences easier to understand.

[7] Incidentally, while in Tōkyō I chatted up a girl from Gifu who told me that they also used the same ~nmē verb ending. Her friend from Hokkaidô had never heard it before.

Ringing In The New Year

I used to get so depressed after Christmas when I was young. In America, there really wasn’t much to look forward to once King of All Holidays had passed. We had Easter, of course, but you had to first eke your way through six weeks of Lent, which was no easy task in my devoutly Roman Catholic family.

After coming to Japan, though, I haven’t had that problem. Here, there is always something in the offing to look forward to: Ōmisoka, or New Year’s Eve; Gantan or New Year’s Day itself; the first seven or fifteen days of the New Year called Matsunouchi; the Tōka Ebisu Festival held around the 10th of January; Dondoyaki on the 15th; Setsubun at the beginning of February, and so on.

And so, to keep those Christmas Blues in check, we have made it a habit to decorate our home if not as lavishly, then just as festively for the New Year. That involves a trip to one of my favorite florists, Unpas. Every year they make the most wonderful shimenawa and mini kadomatsu.

This year, in keeping up with the muted mood of the times, we opted for a simple design.

We may add something to this pine branch to make it a bit more colorful.

A few days later, we went to the Yanagibashi Shōtengai market, which is always hopping with at the end of the year, picking up New Year’s decorations and ingredients to make traditional New Year’s dishes.

I think this may be the first time we have ever bought a real kagami-mochi. I think we may have started a new tradition.

What is a kagami mochi you want to know?

Let’s ask Mr. Wiki:

Kagami Mochi (鏡餅, "mirror rice cake"), is a traditional Japanese New Year decoration. It usually consists of two round mochi (rice cakes), the smaller placed atop the larger, and a daidai (a bitter orange) with an attached leaf on top. In addition, it may have a sheet of kombu and a skewer of dried persimmons under the mochi. It sits on a stand called a sanpō (三宝) over a sheet called a shihōbeni (四方紅), which is supposed to ward off fires from the house for the following years.  Sheets of paper called gohei (御幣) folded into lightning shapes similarto those seen on sumo wrestler's belts are also attached.

The kagami mochi first appeared in the Muromachi Period (14th–16th century). The name kagami ("mirror") is said to have originated from its resemblance to an old-fashioned kind of round coppermirror, which also had a religious significance. The reason for it is not clear. Explanations include mochi being a food for special days, the spirit of the rice plant being found in the mochi, and the mochi being a food which gives strength.

The two mochi discs are variously said to symbolize the going and coming years, the human heart, "yin" and "yang", or the moon and the sun. The "daidai", whose name means "generations", is said to symbolize the continuation of a family from generation to generation.

So, you're thinking of opening up your own restaurant.

How much profit does the typical restaurant earning ¥5 million in revenue make? Crispy Chicken 'N' Tomato, a franchise business, claims it's only 5%. Some say it's closer to 7%, but depends on the type of restaurant, with ramen shops being the most profitable at 20%.

My Car, My Gawd!

I don’t even have a driver’s license so this is all academic for me, but even if I did have one, I probably still wouldn’t own a car.

For starters, I really like to drink. The real reason, though, is that I live right smack in the heart of the city and most of the places I want to go to—department stores, restaurants, bars, boutiques, parks—are within walking distance. When I do want to go someplace further, I use public transportation which is often much faster and less nerve-wracking than driving. And, several times a month, for convenience sake I hail a cab.

When people hear about this, they often say something to the effect of, “A taxi? Wow! You must be rolling in the dough!” Mind you, these are often people who own cars.

What I tell them, time and time again, is that for someone like me who lives in the city and works six days a week, taking a taxi every now and then is small change compared to the high cost of buying and maintaining a car. I never had proof to support this assertion until I read an article in Nikkan Gendai which claims that owning a car is “the ultimate waste of money”.

The article says that while having a car enables the owners to go wherever and whenever they like, in reality most “salarymen” are only weekend drivers.

When you think about it, nothing eats through money quite like an automobile. In spite of their claims that cars give them freedom and convenience, most drivers do little more with their cars than go shopping at big box retailers on the weekends. A few may take day trips, but for the most part, their cars just sit in the garage, guzzling resources.

For someone living in the suburbs of Tōkyō, the cost of maintaining a car comes to about ¥30,160 ($295) a month, or ¥380,000 ($3,712) a year. Keep in mind that this does not include the price of the car itself.

Parking: ¥15,000/month (in my neighborhood, parking is about ¥30,000/month)

Gasoline: ¥5,0000/month

Insurance: ¥50,000/year

Car Tax: about ¥40,000/year

Vehicle Inspection: about ¥100,000 every two years

If the owner of a car were to only drive five times a month, he would be spending the equivalent of ¥6,000 per use. Keiichi Kaya, author of the “The Rich Man’s Textbook” blog, writes, “Owners of cars shouldn’t expect to become even moderately wealthy.” The article goes on to say that even if a person were to use taxis and rental cars frequently, it would still be much cheaper than owning a car.

I agree.

Still, I wouldn’t mind owning a Mini.

Note: For my friends who are car crazy, the costs involved in maintaining a car are well worth it.

Gokusho Machi

Fukuoka is a great place to live. That said, like any town, it does have some drawbacks. For me as a foreign resident of the city, it is the scarcity of traditional Japanese architecture. The only area in Fukuoka that still has a handful of fairly-well maintained machiya-style townhouses and temples and shrines all within a short walking distance of each other is Gokusho Machi (御供所町). Located less than ten-minutes’ walk from Hakata Station, you’ll find Japan’s oldest Zen Buddhist temple, Shofuku-ji (聖福寺) pictured here as well as Jōten-ji (承天寺), which claims to be the place where udon, soba, manjū, and, I believe, uiro were first introduced to Japan.

The best time to visit the area is in autumn when the maples of the temples are ablaze in color. Even then, it tends to be very quiet.

These photos were taken several years ago. For some reason, this year’s momiji were not as beautiful as in year’s past.

The name Gokusho (御供所) is a reference to the function the area used to have as a place (所) to purchase offerings (御供えもの, o-sonae-mono) to be made at Hakozaki-gū Shrine (箱崎宮) located just beyond from the Mikasa River.

From Wiki: 日本においては、神々に感謝・祈願し霊を鎮めるため神社などに供物を捧げる習慣が、古来から神道儀礼として定着しており、とりわけ稲作中心の農耕文化であったため、気象条件により年によっては凶作となった。そこで、新米など新しい五穀を供えてその年の収穫に感謝し、豊作を祈願する稲作儀礼がさかんに行なわれ、農耕に限らず、神社信仰においては、大漁、安産、地鎮祭、七五三詣などはもとより私的な細事に至るまで、日頃から供物を捧げて祈願する。神社などの儀礼施設に限らず、個人の居宅にも神棚を設けて、榊や灯明とともに神饌と呼ばれる供物を捧げることにより家内安全や招福を祈願し、今日でもその伝統は残されている。その一端として皇室で行なわれる新嘗祭や大嘗祭にもその儀礼が伝わっている。

If I have the chance, I will translate the Wiki page later.

In additional to the area’s autumn foliage, another highlight of the Gokusho are a number of light-up events held during the season. This is from Fukuoka City's website, something I translated years ago:

“Matsushita hails from a family of carpenters who specialized in building shrines and temples. The opportunity to start a career as a lighting designer also came about through working with sacred buildings. 'The way shrines and temples take in light is very good,' says Matsushita. 'It's difficult for a woman to get involved in shrine and temple carpentry, but then it dawned on me that even a woman like me could work with light.’

“Matsushita is the general producer of the Gokusho Light Up Walk, an event held every autumn in which the historical temples in Gokusho are beautifully illuminated. Areas, which are normally off limits, are opened to the public and bathed in dreamy light. It has become a popular event at which visitors can experience Fukuoka's eternal history. 'The Gokusho area is an area no one normally ventures into at night,' says the lighting designer. ‘Jōten-ji, however, is where Hakata ori (textiles), udon and soba originated. Tōchō-ji was founded by Kōbō-Daishi (also known as Kūkai), who was a Buddhist monk, scholar, poet, and artist. And, Myōraku-ji has a long connection to the merchants of Hakata. There are so many marvelous treasures sleeping there. I wish more people could realize how beautiful it is.’ Matsushita hopes the festival will continue for a hundred years, growing ever livelier at the hands of ordinary people.”

No-Show-Gatsu

In recent years, I have been doing the following activity on the first class after the winter break.

I split the class up into teams and, while listening to traditional Japanese music featuring the koto or shamisen, I have the students write on the blackboard as many words as they can in rōmaji related to the Japanese New Year. 

In addition to being kind of fun—not barrels of fun, mind you, but fun enough—this activity can be rather instructive.

For starters, you'll find that many Japanese students, not being proficient in the Hepburn romanization, will write things such as fukubukuro with an "h" rather than an "f" (hukubukuro) or nengajō with a "y" (nengajyo). The reason for this is that many Japanese learn simpler forms of romanization known as kunrei-shiki or Nihon-shiki. For more on this, go here. This is a good chance to briefly re-introduce the students to the Hepburn romanization and encourage them to use it in the future.

A few years back, my second-year English Communication majors came up with the following words:

One of the interesting things about this is that while many Japanese students will offer up words like hagoita, a decorative paddle used when playing a game resembling badminton called hanetsuki or even tako-agé (kite-flying), you shouldn't expect to see any of your neighbors playing hanetsuki or flying kites on New Year's Day. (In all my years in Japan, I have never once seen young women in kimono playing this game live as I have in television dramas.)

I then tell the students to ask one another if they had done any of the things on the board.

"Did you eat o-sechi or nana-kusa gayu?"

"Did you decorate your homes with shimenawa and kadomatsu?"

"Did you send any nengajō?"

Of the 23 students who attended that day, twenty had eaten o-sechi, four had a shimenawa at the entrance of their homes, six had gone to the hatsu-uri New Year's sales, eleven had drunk o-toso, and so on. 

Erasing those items which few or none of the students had partaken of, we came up with the following significantly pared down list:

Where New Year's in Japan was once a very colorful, tradition-laden event, all that remains of it today, or so it seems, is the food, the shopping, and banal TV programs. Less than half of the students visited one Shintō shrine (hatsumōde), let alone three, during the holiday. It's kind of sad when you think about it. 

Now, I'm not suggesting that we need to put the Shintō back in the Shinnen (New Year), like some good Christians back home demand Christ be kept in that pagan celebration of the winter solstice also known as Christmas. But, I find it odd that the Japanese are so lackadaisical when it comes to their own heritage and culture.

P. K.

I asked a group of young women if they could throw some common—and not so common—Japanese abbreviations at me.

Old standards, of course, are OL (Office Lady), OB (Old Boy, as in an alumni network), and TPO (Time Place Occasion).† Ones I hear rather frequently now include CA (Cabinet Attendant, i.e. stewardess, who for the longest time were called “sutchi”) and KY (Kuki-o Yomenai, which refers to someone who can't read the mood of a situation; i.e. someone who just doesn't get it.)

Newer abbreviations, though, can be rather funny.

“PK,” one of the girls in the back of the classroom called out to peals of laughter.

"PK?" I asked. "PK, as in penalty kick?"

The girl giggled and said, "Yes, sensei, penalty kick."

I could tell that she wasn't telling me the truth. "C'mon, what does it really mean?"

"It's embarrassing."

"Yes, but, you brought it up."

"パンツ食い込み (pantsu kuikomi)."

"Aa-ah," I said, as the image hit me. (Don't recommend googling that when you're at work, by the way.)

And then the girls rolled about in the aisles between their desks, as they do.

PK is no laughing matter. According to a highly scientific study conducted by Wacoal, a manufacturer of lingerie, some 80 percent of Japanese junior and senior high school girls, namely JC and JK, are troubled by PK. Fortunately, the good people at Wacoal have come to the aid of these fair damsels in distress with a new line of inexpensive skivvies called NPK, or “Non-P. K.” that retail for ¥1,100. SM no more! Shimpai muyō (心配無用).

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More abbreviations include:

HK 話、変わるけど（Hanasi Kawarukedo）

HM 話し戻る けど（Hanasi Modorukedo）」

MK5 マジ（Maji））で切れる（Kireru）5秒前

WK しらける from 白＋蹴る＝White＋Kick

AY 頭（Atama）」+「弱い（Yowai）

AKY あえて空気読まない which is further abbreviated to KY

MMK モテて、モテて、困る (異性から人気があり過ぎたり、多数の異性から言い寄られて困るという場合に使用する)

For more of these abbreviations, go here.

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Most Japanese believe that TPO is English, but it was actually thought up by Ishizu Kensuke (石津 謙介), the founder of Van Jacket, an apparel maker popular between the 60s and 80s.