茶道 Tea Ceremony

When speaking of Japanese culture, one of the things that should never be missing is 茶道 Sadou the Japanese Tea Ceremony (literally the way of the tea).

This Saturday me and Hung Lun were lucky to be invited at the house of the parents of Satomi-san, one of our coworkers. Her mother happens to be a 茶道先生 a tea ceremony sensei. The plan was first to go to an official 茶会 Chakai a meeting for receiving tea in a tea ceremony and later that day, we would go to her house and she would prepare tea for us herself, showing us how it is done.

茶会 Chakai

So we first met with Satomi-san, her mother and two friends of her and together we went to the place the 茶会 would be held. We entered the buildings, took of our shoes and waited in a room for the preparations to be over.
Then we were kindly asked to enter. We entered the room, and Satomi-san's mother explained us that it is custom to look at the interior decoration of the room. Usually for 茶道 Sadou, but also for a normal invitation, the host would prepare a room and choose a certain type of flower and wall scroll according to the visit, season or recent events.
After that we sat down and our guide started to work on the tea ceremony utensils. While the tea was being prepared, we were served お菓子 Okashi, sweets. It is common to server some sweets along with the green tea.
After that everyone in our group was served one bowl of green tea. The color is really thickish green, since the tea is served very concentrated. We took the bowl in our hands and turned it three times, before we started to sip.
Afterwards Satomi-san's mother told us, that now we should also look at the design of the bowls, which were also chosen according to our visit. Therefore each would pass her or his bowl on to the next participant and everyone had a look. One bowl showed the exact same flowers that were standing in the back of the room.
Finally also the other utensils were passed around. The vessel for the green tea showed the two Japanese 神 Kami (Gods) 風神 Fuujinn (god of wind) and 雷神 Raijin (god of thunder). Our guide explained that this vessel was chosen because the current season is struck with many 台風 taifun and thunderstorms.
Then we bowed to the guide and were supposed to stand up and leave to room. However since we were sitting kneeling for almost half an hour, the feeling in my feet ceased and when I tried to stand up, my feet did not carry me and I fell down... 恥ずかしい Hazukashii (= how embarrassing)

wall scroll and flower



okashi



preparing the tea

御茶 Green Tea

Like many things green tea reached Japan from China in the 15th century. At this time however tea was no drink, but was used as medicine. Therefore along with the tea itself arrived the instructions for the doctors how to prepare and serve it to the patients. And again our of this tradition later the tea ceremony was born.
Even today green tea is renown in the whole world for its healing powers. But even if you are not sick, drinking green tea will help you to keep your health and be revitalizing for your body.

訪問 Visiting A Japanese Family

So later we were invited in Satomi-san's parents house. And just like at the Chakai, they made huge efforts for our coming. Both wore their traditional 着物 kimono and, prepared the 和室 Washitsu (traditional Japanese room with Tatami mats) with a wall scroll and flowers fit for our coming. The wall scroll would talk about the 茶道 Sadou itself, since this was what we came here today to explore.
But the usual preparations for a visit go farther than that. Apart for the decoration, they prepared a feat worth of kings with ingredients from all over Japan. They asked friends and relatives all over the island for special ingredients and other things hard to get in super markets. They made a special effort for me to get special versions of certain meals without meat or fish, which really touched my heart.
Apart from decoration and food, it is also custom to choose and prepare interesting topics to talk about with your visitors. So Satomi-san's father for example prepared an atlas and let us point out where we were born, living and studying. He then would narrate his own stories along with the places we'd point to. Of course many other interesting topics came up on the way.
What we didn't know, is that Satomi-san's father is also a sensei in a different traditional Japanese art, 書道 Calligraphy. Now we recognized that he made the wall scroll himself and also various other of his works around the house. He is quite skilled and later even handed us one of his books as a present. It happened to be a calligraphized version of the 般若心経 Hannyashingyou, the heart sutra, which Hung Lun and me recited on our pilgrimage through Shikoku.

Otou-san (father) with the atlas



aperitif

Finally after the feast Satomi-san's mother went through the trouble and prepared green tea for us in the way of 茶道 Sadou. Now we could get a closer look in what actions she would take and ask her for the significance of actions of tools. Again we were served sweets, really wonderfully decorated ones and then everyone got two bowls of green tea.

wall scroll and flower, otou-san made the scroll himself



okaa-san (mother) prepared the tea



and served us wonderful okashi

So it was a day filled with tradition and interesting stories from times long passed as well as modern times. We were hosted like kings and treated as friends. We will ever be grateful to Satomi-san and her parents for this wonderful day!

mika

東京時間凍結再興 Resurrection Tokyo Time Freeze

時間凍結 Time Freeze

Many of you will surely have seen the video of the Time Freeze in New York Grand Central Station, but if not have a look right here:

Frozen Grand Central

Looks preety awesome doesn't it? I found this video created a world wide movement to perform similar random meetings and after a while I was able to find one in Tokyo too.

東京時間凍結再興 Resurrection Tokyo Time Freeze

So there were some girls and guys in the internet planning a time freeze event for Tokyo and I was eager to join in. But the more the merrier, so I advertised for the event at work and was able to convince most of the other interns in joining either as actor or as photographer.

We met in Yoyogi Park near Harajuku and got briefed by the organizers. we would make two Time Freezes, one in 竹下通 Takeshitadoori in Harajuku, and another one in 八子 Hachiko in Shibuya 2 hours later. There was still 1 hour to the first one, and we watched some of the strange creatures living in Yoyogi Park, like Elvis Presley performers, a Kendo group and a Japanese / Scottish back piper.

from left to right: mark, mika, alex



mission briefing

Kendo



and a back piper

原宿凍結 Harajuku Freeze

The location was badly selected. While being the most popular spot in Harajuku, 竹下通 Takeshitadoori is crowded like hell, especially on weekends. So even though we froze neatly in time, the frozen people were only a tiny fraction of the ever on moving crowd, and therefore hardly noticeable. Anyway some curious people stopped and wondered, why there is a couple of people frozen in time.

too many people to ...



notice two guys with a map

video 01

I performed together with Mark holding a map from Atsugi and a Compass wondering where we were. Some crossing people uttered a surprised "Atsugi?!", when they saw us and our map. But when they saw that we didn't move and were frozen, they didn't bother offering us some help. Some other people posed for a picture, and just when the photographer pressed the button, all of them froze in time. Brian froze reading a book, Marko and Satsuki walking holding hands, Ningning taking a picture and Pedro walking with some friend.

note the sign in the upper left corner

video 02

渋谷凍結 Shibuya Freeze

Two hours later we found each other again in Shibuya, where the next freeze was going to happen. We gathered in front of the station in 八子 Hachiko right in front of the 交番 police box, daring as we were. When the signal came again everybody froze into time. This time with less people around, we could draw much more attention and a lot of people took pictures of us and asked us what we are doing. Of course they didn't get an answer, since we were frozen in time.

This time me and Mark borrowed Alex Frisbee, Alex was taking pictures, and we started throwing the Frisbee to each other. When the signal came we froze with Mark just in the moment of throwing the Frisbee to me and me ready to catch. When we unfroze Mark actually was able to throw the Frisbee from his pose and me luckily able to catch it. What a show! Brian this time lost some money and started to pick it up, when he froze in time. Marko and Satsuki were again performing together and Pedro was playing Rock Paper Scissors (Jankenpo) with some guy.

ningning wondered what was going on, when she froze



brian was picking up some money, when he froze



Pedro lost when the time froze



marko said, someone looked in his bag, while they were frozen

mark threw the Firsbee when we unfroze

---

It was a lot of fun and a great day. My thanks to the great organizers, who made this possible. One single remark of criticism is, that because we were somewhat between 200 and 400 people, the organizers decided to split us into three groups. I think this decisions was bad, because all acting together would have given a much more incredible picture of so many people freezing together at the same time.

pictures from the second Harajuku Freeze group

Anyway it was really great, and I am also grateful for the video and the sideshow, the organizers put together:

Slide Show

Video

レビュー: NHKにようこそ Review: Welcome To NHK

NHKようこそ Welcome To The NHK

image from Wikipedia

I decided to start a new category and review some interesting media coming from Japan. I will start with a novel that has been adapted to an Anime series. It's name is NHKにようこそ Welcome To NHK.

Now NHK is Japan's public broadcasting company 日本放送協会 Nippon Housou Kyoukai, but in the series the main character believes it to be a conspiracy resolving the name to 日本引き篭り協会 Nihon Hikikomori Kyoukai, already alluding that the NHK as representative for media is to blame for phenomena like Hikikomori (I will explain what a Hikikomori is shortly).

Plot

The plot is quite simple, the main character finishes school still living in a small apartment payed by his parents, still receiving a small amount of allowance from them to live. Having finished school he is confronted with a world he was not prepared for and finds himself helpless and not knowing what to do with his life. So he simply stays at home.

His solitude is broken, when he finds his neighbor to be a friend from school and when a strange girl starts coming to him, telling him she has a project to help Hikikomori to reenter society.

Alone or together he thus enters a world of modern Japanese subcultures. Apart from the fact that the series and plot is entertaining in itself, this is the most interesting part about it. Episode by episode the series will explore issues of the modern Japanese society and the phenomena that come along with it.

Modern Society Issues (Japan)

引き篭り Hikikomori

The series starts with introducing the main character Sato to be a Hikikomori himself. Hikikomori are people who missed the transition from school to work and stay at their parents (or sometimes in an apartment payed by them) and start secluding themselves from the world. They are often not capable of human interaction and will almost never leave their homes. Even the parents will have a hard time talking to them and frequently only provide food and often even start to fear their own children.

お宅 Otaku

The series continues with introducing the Sato's neighbor Yamazaki as Otaku. This term refers to people with extensive hobbies. An Otaku usually has one or a few areas she/he lives for. At the beginning many Otaku were obsessed with trains and started gathering every information, picture and merchandising about them and often sneaked into stations to look and touch them.
Nowadays most Otaku focus on Manga, Anime, Games or Idols and all the merchandising that comes with them. They will know everything about them, which you can learn. Their rooms will be plastered with merchandising, Manga, Anime DVD and so on.
Because of their obsession they also become real experts on the matter they are obsessed with and often attain quite powerful research skills. Also not rarely they will start a forum about their obsession or even start creating things about them. Therefore they often acquire quite powerful skills they can/could use to make a living, when they choose to.

ニート Neet

Apart from being a Hikikomori, Sato also refers to himself as Neet. Neet stands for "Not currently engaged in Emplyment, Education or Training". While introduced in the U.K. the term is now far spread used in Japan and South Korea, where the number of Neets increases every year.

ロリコン Lolicon


image from Wikipedia

Lolicon describes obsessive with young girls, from "Lolita Complex". Japan might be the number one country with people under this complex. Japan was earlier renown for its legal child pornography industry, which was only made illegal because of international pressure, not because of internal moral qualms. Also with almost half of Anime and Manga being centered in the Hentai area (Porn) and almost all Anime and Manga featuring at least some sexual content, it is not surprisingly for many people to get attracted to younger people as featured in this media.
In the series Sato after receiving Yamazaki's porn collection starts becoming obsessed with young girls and starts following school grils, taking pictures of them. Eventually he manages to overcome the Lolita Complex thanks to Yamazaki and the girl Misaki, who tries to help Sato overcoming his Hikikomori-ness.
This reminded me of my own experiences at the Tokyo Game Show, in Akihabra and the Tokyo Anime Fair, in all of these locations I saw many many older men quite apparently "suffering" under Lolicon. Yes I am talking about the men in brown and grey suits with big flashy cameras making the girls do sexual poses and taking an enormous amount of pictures from them, having no interest in the convention itself whatsoever.

自殺系サイと Internet Suicide

In a later episode Sato meets his high school senpai Hitomi, who has made a lot of bad experiences in life. After learning about Sato's bad situation, she decides to take him along with a romantic suicide meeting organized over an internet forum. Sato misses the point and is happy to go with his senpai to a romantic island. On the island the people spend one last day together and then decide to jump from the cliffs all at once.
Sato eventually realizes what is happening and barely succeeds in convincing the other people to give life another chance.
Internet suicides are also not uncommon in other parts of the world, but in Japan they are especially popular, being a romantic social alternative to the standard jump in front of a driving train.

無限連鎖講 Pyramid Scheme


image from Wikipedia

Later he meets another person from his high school, who suffers to make enough money for her and her brother (they parents died in an accident). Because of that she was talked into a Pyramid Scheme selling company and also talks Sato into entering it. He has a lot of trouble getting out again and shows on the way, why Pyramid Schemes are so successful in Japan.
In Japan you cannot say "no" directly, so it is very hard to refuse the offer of someone coming with this scheme. In addition, while it is legally possible to get out of it, you have to file in a complaint, which is also rare in Japan. Finally when you want to get out, someone for the company will talk to you and try once more to keep you, again using mean tricks exploiting the Japanese rules of social interaction.

MMORPG Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game


image from Wikipedia

Like in most high economy countries MMORPGs are getting really popular in Japan. And like in any other country they produce a lot of people never leaving their home, forgetting to sleep or eat, only playing the game 24h a day.
Same happens to Sato, when he is introduced to his first MMORPG and he has a really tough time getting out of it again.
My own brother was also addicted to MMORPG for one year, in which he didn't do much else. As fascinating and wonderful those games are (because of social interaction, you play with other humans over the internet), they are really addicting and easily take your whole time/life away.

Synopsis

While the show is highly enjoyable in itself, as you can see, you can learn an awful lot about the issues of modern day Japan. Thus I recommend it not only to people, who can enjoy Anime or reading a novel, but also to people interested in modern Japan or the issues of modern societies.

mika

１２月 12 Months

The ones reading this Blog, who are learning Japanese, surely know the 12 months in Japanese by now. They are very simple, since you just combine the numbers of 1 to 12 with month: １月２月...１２月.

Sure, but did you know the month have real names too? They are not used so much anymore, but it is interesting to know about them? Why? Because they tell you a lot about the culture. Take English or German months for example. Have you ever thought where they came from? No?

January: Janus, god of the doorway (Roman mythology)
February: februum, lat. purification (during Roman times, there was a purification ritual held on February 15th)
March: Martius was the first month of the year in Roman times, it was named after the god of war Mars
April: Aprilis was the second month of the year in Roman times. The etymology is uncertain, but maybe derived from lat. aperire = to open up (like the flowers in April)
May: also uncertain but probably based on the Greek fertility goddess Maia (lat. Bona Dea)
June: Juno, the wife of Jupiter head of the Roman pantheon
July: named after Julius Caesar (earlier name was Quintilis, the fifth month of the Roman calender)
August: named after Caesars successor Augustus (earlier name was Sextilis, sixth month of the Roman calender)
September: from lat. septimus = seven (seventh month in the Roman calender)
October: from lat. octo = eight (eighth month in the Roman calender)
November: from lat. novem = nine (ninth month in the Roman calender)
December: frpm lat. decem = ten (tenth month in the Roman calender)

Well now you know. Interesting isn't it, although it sure gets boring after Augustus. Still interesting to see that also the Romans partly used an easy intuitive number system for the month, same as Japanese today. But let's now have a look at the Japanese names, shall we?

1月　睦月　mutsuki　affection month
2月　如月　kisaragi　changing clothes
3月　弥生　yayoi　new life; the beginning of spring
4月　卯月　udsuki　a type of flower blooming in April
5月　皐月　satsuki　a type of flower blooming in May (alpine rose)
6月　水無月　kinatsuki　month of water (無 is inserted for the な na particle of adjectives, so it does not mean month without water, but watery month)
7月　葉月　hadsuki　book month
8月　文月　fudsuki　leaf month
9月　長月　nagatsuki　long month
10月　神無月　kannadsuki　month of gods (無 has the same function as in 6月)
11月　霜月　shimotsuki　frost month
12月　師走　shiwasu　priests run (because they are very busy with all the year-end festivals)

I like how some of the names are both funny and practical. In February you change from winter clothes to spring clothes, so let's call the month: "changing clothes". Or even better December is "priests run", because everyday you can see them run around and make preparations for the year-end festivals.

So why in the world did I stumble across this, you may ask. The reason weighs only a couple of pounds and is very cute. My language exchange partner Nakamura-san became father a couple of weeks ago and he and his wife gave the little baby the name 皐月 Satsuki. Having a curious nature, I asked him what the name means and where it comes from. Well and this started us marveling about English, German (German months have the same origins) and Japanese months.

From the 12 traditional names for month, apparently both 皐月 Satsuki and 弥生 Yayoi are still used for girl names in Japan.

soon Satsuki-chan will be able to leave the hospital, and I am invited to see her :D
mika

The Mines Of Moria (The G-Cans Project)

The Mines Of Moria (The G-Cans Project)

The Japanese dug too long and too deep!
Unthinkable horrors have been awaken, the voices of the deep echo screams of suffering.
The folk fled the area in terror. On its way they met six persons going into the opposite direction, the direction of the mines...

the underground city is below

the entrance to the underground city

where are these orcs hiding?!

The real horror for the area around the prefectures 埼玉県 (Saitama) and 茨城県 (Ibaraki) are not ancient monsters, but rather gigantic water levels. There is a huge area, which happens to be barely above sea level, and to make it worse, is surrounded by mountains and therefore looks like a bowl from bird's view. And what happens to a bowl if it rains (heavily) it is filled with water. So this area had to struggle with high water for years and years until 6 years ago.

So what happened? How can man compete against tons over tons of water? Not even superman could have lifted so many tons of water and put them back somewhere else. Well Superman was American, but we are here in Japan and the Japanese can do it!

So what did they do? They started digging. They dug a whole underground city and fixed with countless gigantic concrete pillars. Yes the dug the Mines Of Moria. They connected this hall with five key points of dangerous rivers, known to cause floods in this area. At the key points they erected gigantic silo like holes, which they can open to literally drain the rivers affected by high water.

a model of three of the five "silos" and the underground city, they were so big, that a space shuttle could start from them

So what will they do with all the water underground? They erected one gigantic pump driven by a Jumbo Jet engine which rotates a gigantic screw which is able to pump out, and I shit you not, 200 tons of water per second.

So where do they pump the water to? They pump the water into yet another river, the 江戸川 Edo River. This river is one of the longest in Japan, and therefore quite hard to raise in its water level. Next to that, there are no settlements directly next to the river, because it is lying in a quite a deep valley. So the river is perfectly suited to be filled with all the exert water, without causing havoc itself.

the control room

So what did this monstrosity cost? 1400億円 which translates to almost 1 billion Euro or almost 1.5 billion US Dollars.

it looks so much like a video game setting

So who paid for that? While the flood always cause a huge havoc, the affected area hosts almost no major cities, but only small towns and villages. So who could pay for a monster project like this. Well you know how much money was spent for the recent China Earthquakes. After the last big flood in this area it was similar, the whole of Japan spent a lot of money to realize this project, and the rest was paid by the government itself.

it was raining that day, which is why there was actually a bit of water

So does it work? Yes, although it was only completed last year, it is already used for 6 years. The number of times the underground city was flooded saving the people on ground level is 41 times.

you can see how far the water got by the color of the pillar

every time after they flood the area, they let a cleaning wagon down the whole on the ceiling, to remove all the mud and other stuff from the river

So you can simply go down there and marvel at human kinds insanity? Yes, but you need to follow a guided tour, which you have to apply for one month in advance. Also you or one of your friends must be able to speak Japanese. The tour itself is free :)

the made scenes for a couple of movies down there, the last one was Ultraman, and the producers left the operators a lot of toys, autographs and gadgets

The homepage of the project, where you can also apply for the tour is here: http://www.ktr.mlit.go.jp/edogawa/works/saigai/sonae/gaikaku/frame_index.html
You can also find a bit of English information about the project on Wikipedia.

A really incredible experience and my horizon of what human kind is capable of doing has again been widened.

厚木見物第五: 郵便局 Atsugi City Tour Part 5: Post Office

郵便局 Post Office

Welcome to more useful information about the town Atsugi in the Kanagawa prefecture.
Since I presume many people, who will read this Blog are foreigners staying in Atsugi, they might sooner or later want to send some packages overseas to their home or family. So I'd like to give you some information about post offices in Atsugi.

There are enough post offices, that you doesn't make sense telling you the location of all of the offices. There should be one near you, just ask someone living in your area for the next post office:

次の郵便局はどこですか。
tsugi no yuubinkyoku ha doko desu ka?
Where is the next post office?

What you can do at any of those post offices:
- withdraw money from oversea accounts (usually not possible in banks)
- transfer money to oversea accounts (also usually only possible here)
- get stamps
- send letters, post cards
- send air mail and SAL packages

Useful enough. But there is one thing you might sooner or later want to do: Sea Mail.
Now I went to several post offices only to be sent away with: "We're sorry, but we don't do Sea Mail". So I did a little research and found there is only one single post office in Atusgi accepting sea mail packages: the main store (郵便局本局 Yuubinkyoku Honkyoku)

Now sea mail might be really slow and take between 2-3 months to arrive, but it is significantly cheaper and you will have some things to send home that are not urgent. SAL and air mail can cost up to four times the price of sea mail.

Long story short, here's a Google Map, where I pinpointed the post office main store:
郵便局本局 Post Office Main Store

Last but not least, some vocabulary, you might need:

Air Mail 航空便 koukuubin
Sea Mail 船便 funabin
Stamps for overseas 外国のため切手 gaikoku no tame kitte
post card 葉書 hagaki
letter 手紙 tegami
destination address 届け先 todoke saki
sender 差出人 sashidashinin
how long does it take to arrive いつぐらい着きますか。 itsu gurai tsukimasuka?
　
Good Luck and tell me when you need help

mika