“It is prohibited to conduct any group demonstration, to carry flags, placards or wear group participation arm bands. It is also prohibited to assemble, hold group meetings, sitdowns, force interview, or use violence on visitors. In addition, the authorization of the management is necessary for the distribution of leaflets or notes, indoor and outdoor photography, peddling, street and stall vending, and all public activities.
Shin-Marunouchi Bldg”
Presumably, shopping is allowed.
A longtime Japundit reader alerted me to an important beauty treatment now available at New York’s Shizuka salon, a place I went to once in search of a Japanese-style manicure.
a high-end Japanese spa in midtown, has just introduced a new “Geisha Facial,” which promises to cleanse, brighten, and exfoliate a patron’s face—thanks to a secret ingredient: bird poop. For centuries in Japan, both Kabuki actors and geishas used uguisu no fun, or nightingale droppings, to clean off their thick white makeup and soothe their faces; apparently, guanine, found in the droppings, helped their complexions.
Hopefully the bird droppings are not collected from the upper reaches of Hokkaido.
Vanity, after all, can make you sick.
Spam emailers have discovered that eating seaweed can miraculously rid women between the ages of 25 and 54 of the roll of fat around their middlesection.
Just take a couple of sea-weed tablets every day, and perhaps you too will see your weight plummet, so you too can join the ranks of women who enjoy the lowest rate of obesity in the world!
Personally, I’ll stick to weekly misoshiru and some nice sunomono with wakame.
Uguisu photo via.
Japundit noted that the number of dogs in Japan now exceeds the number of children under 10. During my last visit to Japan, I really noticed how many fewer children are out and about; they aren’t there like they used to be. At the same time, during Golden Weekend, I kept seeing dogs shepherded through the train stations in little doggie perambulators like the one above.
One writer for the Japan Times even went so far as to say:
The tininess and cuteness of the dogs, the care lavished on them, and the correspondence of their numerical growth with the decline in the number of babies suggest a kind of substitution at work. Are little dogs the babies of the 21st century?
At the same time that the birth rate in Japan is decreasing, and the number of pets are increasing, news reports cite the eerie trend that child abuse is rising. (Ditto for the US, some say). Let me be clear that I am not suggesting a causal relationship—at most, there would be a correlation. And obviously, one always wonders with these things if child abuse and other crimes are being reported differently than in the past, or if there is a true, statistically proven rise. Most people I spoke to in Japan this time felt strongly that the news really had become “worse” and more “bad things” were happening, but, as we’ve all noted, anecdotal evidence doesn’t rule the day.
I’m not the only one to note the strange synchronicity of Ed’s post on recent Japanese earthquakes, and the very large tremor which rocked China this week. It feels a bit strange to blog about a part of Asia, and to not, at the very least, acknowledge the human tragedy, particularly since China has made the unusual gesture of asking other nations for help.
NPR has a rather harrowing, but gripping account of a family’s search for their two year old son. I can’t seem to embed the player, but you can hop over to the site, and click the “Listen Now” button to hear the narration, which will surely put a human face on this sprawling wreck of a story.
On Monday, Fu Guanyu dropped off her young son, Wang Zhilu, at his grandparents’ house so she could go to work. Minutes later, the earthquake hit.
She rushed back home and saw their apartment building in ruins. She says soldiers came right away to help, but they had no equipment.
I found these signs, all over the Ginza subway line in Tokyo, to be interesting in light of earlier and somewhat debated post on Japundit.
Yes, that really is a photo of the Obama Fishing Port Entrance.
Okay. I get the Jero thing.
He’s of mixed race, from the States, with a Japanese grandmother to whom he promised he would one day be an enka star. And now he is. Hip hop costume and all.
Not many people sing enka these days. Hitomi Shimatani, a fading pop-star, originally debuted as an enka singer, before moving on to do, well, pop. So, I think it’s incredibly cool that Jero has carved out a place for himself. Plus he sounds lovely.
You don’t necessarily need to understand Japanese to get the start of this video, which displays photos of Jero as a youngster, and shows him winning a “Japanese gong show” type program on NHK. Later, he’s challenged to see how many Enka songs he actually knows out of over 100. He wins every challenge. If you stick out to the end of the video, you’ll see him bust out a few dance moves.
I came home with the Jero single. I would never do the same for that other contrastingly talentless import. Now I am playing the sad, sad Umiyuki song over and over.
Three days into a trip in Japan and my mother and I were sitting in a coffee shop in Kyoto. In came a foreigner (meaning, a white woman) with two kids. I knew they were trouble, the sort of children to whom everything–including bad behavior–is “explained,” which seems to be a trend in child-rearing these days. The younger child, a girl, had a tendency to scream, to which her mother said, “Now, do you think this is a place where it is okay to scream? If you scream, you will have to play outside.”
The girl kept screaming.
After the third screaming, my mother, ever the ferocious enforcer when she wants to be, turned around and said quite sharply (and in English) “Hey! Stop it! This is Japan. You do not scream in Japan. That is not acceptable.”
Everyone–including me–was stunned. The girl was stunned. Her older brother, her tormenter who had been the cause of the screaming, was stunned. He even tried to defend his sister, but my mother turned her steely eyes on him and said, “No. You do not scream here. That does not work. End of story.” And, really, even though Japan has seriously changes since the Showa era and I don’t get the dog-and-MILF-thing, at least the kids don’t scream.
I felt sorry for the foreign mother. She looked harried, like she was just looking for some place to rest for, oh, fifteen minutes so she could caffeine it up a bit. I thought that her kids looked mixed–like me–but that she was divorced or separated. She did not seem married. Her daughter looked wild. None of them apologized. They just ate as quickly as possible and departed. The Japanese in the coffee shop pretended to ignore the whole thing. I was embarrassed. I hate being the center of attention. I like observing. But . . . I was secretly and enormously proud of my mother. Very proud of her to try to battle social ills and try to set them straight. I love that about her.
At the same time, it can be so unsettling to see your own children publicly scolded like that by a stranger. There have been times in Japan when I’ve had the impulse to stop someone from doing something embarrassing. What are your experiences? What do you think?
After my natto-bagel post, I’m sure that some of you expats were wondering just where you could get your sticky fingers on some real natto, without having to travel all the way to Ibaraki-ken. Well, guess what? You can get it in Tokyo! Across the street from Tokyo station, in the Shin-Marunouchi building, in the basement, is a natural food store. And there you will find, nestled in a nice cooling bin, real natto.
Don’t thank me all at once.
I’m of the opinion that there is good Engrish in the world. Sometimes, Japanese-style reconfigured English finds nuances in language and word play, and expresses an emotion or observation so much better than a irony-saturated native speaker could possibly do.
This mail box, which I photographed in Kyoto, was an example of wonderful Engrish (at least to me).
And this sign . . . not so good. I’m pretty sure that the “automatically full” references a toilet bowl with automated flushing capacity. Certainly this sign is at least bathroom related. Anyway, I pushed the button.
May Day in Kyoto not only involves a parade honoring International Worker’s Day, but also marks the opening of verandas in restaurants in Pontocho along the Kamogawa River.
A pair of maiko (apprentice geisha) shoes at the entrance of a Pontocho restaurant.
The restaurant where I ate had a little screen separating our area from the veranda next door. When I looked over, I spotted a camera crew setting up equipment. A little later, it became clear why the cameras were there.
A little breeze hit the screen, and in the opening, I could see a smiling maiko.
I’m pretty sure this was some kind of news crew documenting the start of the May and the opening of the verandas, which will be accessible till September 30th.
May is also the start of the Pontocho geiko dances at the Kaburencho.
Someone managed to catch a snippet of the dances last year, and upload it onto Youtube.
We also enjoyed some tea, made by a maiko.
I recently attended Sakagura’s annual Hanami Sake Tasting. Sakagura is a (perhaps the) sake bar in New York, located in the basement of a building on the East Side in a neighborhood populated with small, authentic Japanese eateries.
I liked the sugidama hanging in the entry, all green, signaling fresh sakes!
Inspired by the comments on Japundit regarding my “real natto” post, I decided this morning to try out a natto bagel.
I have to admit, it was really, really good. And really filling.
I expect one of you cafes in Tokyo to start putting this on your menu for “morning set.”
I’m currently in love with this watch by LA based designer Tokidoki. The designer, Simone Legno, is actually from Italy, but with a keen eye, and a sense of humor (not to mention a Japanese girlfriend), he’s created a world of charming characters that remind one of the playful sensibility pervading the world of anime. No wonder he has a devoted cult following.
This summer is supposed to see the launch of several new Tokidoki products, including a special bag for Sportsac and a collaboration with Onitsuka Tiger. I’m really curious to see what the items will look like!
As you might have noticed, I spend a lot of time thinking and photographing what I eat in Japan. This is because food is very good in Japan; Japan is truly one of the great food cultures of the world. Even a Japanese person who has been in the US for twenty years and can’t imagine going back to the homeland for fear of engaging in unwelcome social norms and pressures will wax nostalgically about the food. The only other thing such a person will might as much are onsen (hot spring baths). But that’s another subject.
One of the first things I spotted in Japan was this poster of a “Gourmet Fest(ival)” for wild vegetables. See? The seasonality of food is so important there is a fest(ival)! I wrote last year of the experience of picking fuki no to and later tsukushi. If you find yourself lucky enough to be in the mountains during the spring, then you don’t need a fest(ival), but can pick your own vegetables.
I was intrigued by the little stopper that comes with Starbucks drinks in Japan. It’s basically a little stirrer, with a wide area on top that fits the sipping hole, like a second lid. This is very practical. It means that no hot liquid will jump out of your cup and scald your legs or hand. Can’t we get some of these little things in the US?
I’m pretty sure TPTB meant “No graffiti.” But the most appropriate English phrase in Japan is often rewritten to become what a Japanese person feels would be the correct expression, if only English were spoken as it is supposed to be. Or so a certain translator tells me.
(Photo taken at Himeji.)
Knowing how I love natto, friends arranged for me to eat the real thing.
It comes wrapped in straw, like this. Open up the straw bundle (which is held together by a piece of string I didn’t photograph, so intent was I on unpuzzling the package) and out pops a dollop of natto.
It was really, really good and lacked the smell that some find so offensive from packaged natto.
Once upon a time, train stations in Japan clicked and clattered. It was common to give your ticket to a ticket man who clipped a hole in your paper ticket. While waiting for the next passenger, the ticket man rattled his hole puncher rhythmically. Icoca, Suica, Pasmo and other automated systems have mostly rendered the ticket man obsolete.
But one meticulous person took some of those spent tickets and put together a mosaic. I think I saw these creations somewhere in Osaka–I just can’t remember if it was at Kix, or some other station (I was jet-lagged). A rather creative use of old tickets, I think.
