As the hostess of this month’s Matsuri, I posed the question: What has Japan taught you about yourself or your home country? A few brave souls took on the challenge, dug deep and provided us with the posts outlined below. If you submitted your post via the blog widget and did not also put a link on my original matsuri post on this blog my apologies but it will have been lost in a system I seem unable to navigate ( I received no email and cannot find any listing anywhere) so please do email me or add your link in a comment on the original posting and I will gladly update this post to include it
Liv who eats her pigeons gave us a wonderful interpretation of the culture shock process as growing up all over again
Over at The Soul of Japan, Tony warns us never to take anything for granted in Japan but reminds us that this also includes the good things - take time to stop and smell the onsen salts!
Nick’s entry at The Long Countdown had him looking back at England (at risking his mother’s wrath!)
Shane at The Nihon Sun has found that she has learned to live a more simple and less frantic life with an increased awareness of everyday beauty - something we could all learn to do.
Sheena at Girlish/Sheena in Japan shares what she learned about being American in the wake of Obama’s election and the reactions of some the Japanese around her.
My apologies for the tardiness of this post, I’ve been unavoidably off the grid for the last week or so and will probably continue to be so for a little while after this post is up.
While we were in Tokyo trying to ignore being ill and enjoy our anniversary (post to come at some point I promise), Nick over at Long Countdown tagged me for my first meme post! As the format was already determined and it doesn’t require my flu-addled brain to think too hard, I thought I’d use it to ease back into blogging after my travel-induced break.
5 Things I Was Doing 10 Years Ago:
Living with Superman in Melbourne, Australia (3 yrs till he’d make me an honest woman lol)
Producing/directing audio books
Almost to the day, actually, I was madly writing and faxing one pagers for a TV pilot I’d written, to European hotels as a producer followed up interest in it from the Cannes TV Market (we got sooo close, too :( )
Applying for post-grad screenwriting course at RMIT
Hmm 1998… oh! Having a close call with the Andrew Cohen meditation/pseudo-eastern-philosophy cult!
5 Things on My To-Do List Today:
Working towards 50k words for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)
Catching up some blog posts/uploading photos from Takayama and Tokyo trips in the last two weeks.
More knitting of Superman’s sweater (seventh anniversary is wool so I bought him the wool (slash lamb’s wool, slash cashmere thank you very much) in Tokyo and now I’m knitting it)
Put the furniture back that we moved to give access to the workmen to fix the plumbing while we were in Tokyo
Rest up till my fever and bubbling, hacking cough (which gets worse when I lie down, urgh) have gone… I sense a clash btn item 5 and items 1-4
5 Snacks I Like
Chocolate Ice (seriously THE best chocolate experience, in any form, I’ve ever had)
Smoked Oysters on water crackers (def a comfort snack of mine - goodness knows why)
Yumi’s Smoked Trout Mousse - amazing mousse from Ripponlea in Melbourne, esp good on boiled bagels from the deli we used to live near in Nth Caulfield in Melbourne - incredible chopped liver and Israeli Eggplant dip, too (great, I hadn’t thought of these for ages and now I’m craving them - thanks Nick! )
5 Things I Would Do if I Were a Millionaire Okay - I’m assuming this doesn’t limit us to 1 mil here lol
Invest in the theatre production of my adaptation of The Shadowkeeper which I am aiming to put on before I leave Nagoya (there’s a juicy one, hadn’t announced that yet!)
Bring my Aunt over for a pampered trip around Japan
Travel Europe for a few months (getting there via the Siberian Railway)
Pick somewhere to buy a home (possibly in the States now Obama’s been elected) and buy the home of course
Invest so that Superman and I can live joyful, satisfying lives whatever form that may take
5 Places I’ve Lived (for various lengths of time)
Willow Water Farm, West Chester County, PA
Capetown, Sth Africa
All over Melbourne, Australia
The Shire, Sydney Australia (WARNING, NEVER, EVER, LIVE THERE!)
Nagoya, Aichi, Japan
5 Jobs I Have Had
Part-time nanny (got me through Uni)
Ghost writer (memoirs of a very odd woman, for “private publication”…)
Audiobook producer/director
Executive producer, audio publishing house (bye bye actual production, hello management politics )
As some of you will already know, November’s Japan Blog Matsuri will be hosted here at Narrative Disorder. Chris did a wonderful job stepping in at the last minute for October as you can see here and I look forward to finding out just how big a job it was!
The most public part of the job of host is, of course, to set the topic. I’ve racked my brain trying to think up a fantastic theme which would inspire a bevy of posts full of keen observations and ever-so-clever witticisms which would teach us all something new and wonderful about Japan and which, and this is key, hasn’t been done before… In the end, my brain and I have decided that turn about is fair play:
This month, I’d like to hear about what Japan has taught you about yourself.
Funny or serious, good or bad, whether you are an expat already living here or just loving Japan from afar - what have you learned about yourself in your interactions with Japan and/or it’s culture and what was it that gave you that insight (that’s the essential Japan bit for the Japan Blog Matsuri )?
For example, I have discovered that I’m okay with bowing to people as an equal and even as an inferior to my husband’s superiors at his work but when the teenage porter at a hotel bows low as I enter a lift and stays bent right over looking at his shoes for the full hour and half it takes for the lift doors to close I get increheheheedibly uncomfortable.
If you are reticent, or it’s just not your blog’s style, to write about such personal insights then a post on what Japan has taught you about your home country (and how it has taught you that of course) would also be fine
** Edit: The blog carnaval site is back up and running so in the sidebar you will find the widget to make submission easy (though emailing me the link or putting the link in the comments to this post is also okay) Last moment for submission is 21:59 on November 20th!
So fire away! And if you find yourself procrastinating on it (as I have done the last two months that I have been aware of this Matsuri ) think about me and my fellow NaNoWriMo-ers who have committed ourselves to writing a 50,000 word novel, from scratch, in November and send some good vibes our way before getting back to it!
A quick post with some quick notes for friends of the blog and blogger
For NZ. K., in case she has any time at all in her busy busy schedule on her trip home, thinking of you and letting you know we won the quiz last night! Yay!
For readers waiting for the next instalment in my Moving to Japan Tips series - it will be coming next week, it’s on language and I’m taking a bit of time to find some good links for you to help you get a handle on the minimum you really, practically need to live here for the finite period of time that most expat families do. Don’t fret if the language scares you - it’s not as much as you’d think
We’re off driving to Takayama early tomorrow morning with A & R where we hope to see lots of original antique buildings much, much older than at Meiji Mura. Crossing fingers that the rain will hold off enough for us to get some lovely photos (not that rain doesn’t add it’s own beauty if you can keep your camera safe!)
Last but by no means least, Thursday’s Daily Show was sheer genius - you know when you laugh so hard your stomach is sore and your lungs feel like they’ve been vigorously scrubbed from the inside? It was THAT funny. You’ll never be able to listen to John Kerry with a straight face again!!! Enjoy!
…okay, obviously the entire world thinks it’s as funny as we did and the embed is getting a little overloaded so just in case here’s the link to follow
After the flurry of posts the week before last, I spent last week in a similar flurry of busyness which kept me from blogging - every bit of it utterly enjoyable!
Highlights were:
A birthday/bon voyage night at Red Rock for my friend NZ. K who is going home for a few weeks for the first time in quite a while. Good luck, K, sending good thoughts for a smooth trip and looking forward to coffee for debrief when you get back!
Going shopping for our costumes for an upcoming Halloween party (which was enough fun in itself) and finding actual autumn decorations - just like for Christmas but for autumn celebrations! Autumn is a really tough one to decorate my festival tree for in Australia, the main celebration going on is Easter so there are flowers and eggs and bunnies and baby chicks galore but of course that’s all Spring stuff so inappropriate. My origami skills, which I used one Summer to fold 250 butterflies to flutter around my tree, are not quite up to autumn leaves (something I must fix while I’m here!) and pumpkins are plentiful and appropriate to Harvest but have commercial Halloween references and you can’t do the same thing every year. Finding the beautiful, can’t-believe-they’re-plastic Japanese maple and Cherry tree autumn leaves was wonderful!
But the biggest highlight came the Sunday before all that and was having four friends over to fill the house with chatter and laughter and use all six dining chairs! I had finally got round to getting a bamix-like appliance (nothing beats the real thing but of course my 14yr old workhorse is Australian power) and so I invited everyone over for no reason other than to celebrate opening my precious jar of tahini which I had brought from Australia. (My friend, UK A., tells me that you can get tahini here but it’s just called sesame (goma) paste instead but I didn’t know that so it was worth celebrating lol!) I started by getting the meat marinating at around 10:30 am and spent the whole day blissfully pottering around the kitchen making everything from scratch.
The bread was the most fun of the day - obviously with the hommus and babaganoush and Lebanese grilled chicken and lamb we had to have flatbread but I have yet to find such bread here. Our supermarket sells something that is called “pita” but they are big soft, rather delicious but highly leavened bread rolls. Making things more difficult is the oven situation - ovens are not usual in Japan and all I have is a tiny convection microwave which, if I were more of a baker, I probably could have used but didn’t feel confident to do so. I was sure that I had once had dips in a Greek restaurant in Melbourne with some wonderful bread which, upon bringing our second helping, the waiter had said they cooked fresh on the grill. An hour or so of hunting for the right key phrases and I finally found a recipe here for Lahuhua, a flatbread from Yemen which is made from a batter much like pancakes (the thick kind) but using yeast and water instead of eggs and milk. It was a strange experience for me - I recognized what was going on as I started combining the same ingredients one would combine for bread but the amount of water seemed like way too much! Usually I don’t follow recipes, I just use them as a muse to get an idea of techniques or flavour combinations and then do my thing but I was all at sea with this one. I trusted the recipe and poured in the water and watched it turn into what looked like a very thin, bread-coloured milkshake - certain I’d be sending Superman up the street for bread later. Sure enough, though, after the first “rising” the milky liquid had become more of a batter and after the second it was perfect! One hint, if you leave the bread in a stack for a while before serving, the cooked side of the pancake will soften and then it is the most delicious, soft bread you will ever have tried! I highly recommend it!
Dessert worked out really well, too and I have had requests for the recipe so I will put it below (since I made it up when I couldn’t find any turkish delight so I guess I have copyright lol.)
Sorry I have no pics of the food, I was having too good a time! This is what it looked like when everyone was gone, though! Thanks again for coming US A. & R. and it was lovely to catch up with you, UK A. and to meet the lovely French Canadian I. I had SUCH a ball and invitations will be out to you all again soon!
Honeyed Figs with Rosewater Yoghurt
Ingredients:
The Figs:
Figs - 2 medium sized per person (however many you would like!) quartered
Caster sugar - enough to lightly sprinkle over figs (about a tblspn and a half for 12)
Ground Cinnamon - enough to sprinkle a little heavy-handedly over all your figs (say, a third of a tspn per quarter fig)
Honey - enough to drizzle generously over the figs (probably three quarters of a cup for the twelve figs) - Note: this is sooo much easier if you drizzle it straight from a squeezy bottle but do try to get a nice honey to do it if you can. In Japan honey is a bit “beggars can’t be choosers” but avoid anything which would be overpowering like a Blue Gum honey - the key to this dessert is the delicate flavours.
The Yoghurt:
Natural, Set Yoghurt - 1 1/2 cups (none of that sweet, runny, custard stuff - REAL yoghurt lol!)
Caster sugar - 1/2 cup
Rosewater - around a teaspoon or to taste depending on the one you have. Obviously best quality you can find/afford but be a little careful as too much can be overpowering and with some rosewaters your yoghurt will smell like your grandmother’s soap! If you are unsure about using it, buy it in plenty of time and make yourself hot milk with sugar and a drop or two of rosewater before you go to bed at night for a few nights - it’s incredibly soothing and a good way to get used to how much, or rather how little, you need!
Method:
The Figs:
Start your oven heating to a low heat - about 150 Celsius - either before you start preparing the figs or five minutes before you are going to put them in the oven. You don’t want it to be pre-heated as such, just not cold when you put the figs in.
Loosely line and ovenproof dish with baking paper so that the juices don’t bake into it and they are easy to get out to pour over the figs when serving.
Quarter your figs and lay them out in a single layer over your dish.
Sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar and drizzle the honey over them.
You can leave these aside ready for the oven till 40 minutes before you need them.
Place in the warming oven for 40mins. The figs are ready when you have beautiful juices running round the bottom of your dish and the figs are soft but still holding their shape.
The Yoghurt:
This should be done at least half an hour beforehand and can be done up to a day before hand but the yoghurt might lose it’s texture if done too early.
Mix all ingredients.
Place in fridge to keep it chilled but also to allow the moisture of the yoghurt to melt the sugar crystals through it (this is why you need at least 30mins)
Serve the figs and the yoghurt, not forgetting to drizzle some of the pan juices over the yoghurt - you won’t BELIEVE the colour!
One of the things I am really enjoying about living in Japan is re-discovering my love of and respect for the seasons, which had faltered somewhat due to various stressors and, frankly, living in Sydney which doesn’t really have them. The seasons are celebrated here with gusto! Throughout the year there are various religious festivals (matsuris) both national and local, usually based at a particular shrine or temple where the Kami in question is reverenced. Seasonal festivals, like Natsu (Summer) Matsuri which we celebrated in Gifu, are some of the biggest.
The map featured, from Japan Guide.com, forecasts the turning of the leaves all over Japan and are available at websites for the Japanese not just for western tourists looking for views. People will plan holidays or onsen weekends around soaking in the beauty of the turning of the leaves or man’s attempts at controlling the snow and communities around the country will celebrate their local (usually rice) harvest. Similar maps are available in Spring for the Hanami or cherry blossom viewing which is a HUGE celebration.
Melbourne, where I grew up, has its seasons but they are pretty much ignored beyond whether to bring a brolly or a coat (and boy do we know how to read a forecast). The joke, of course, is four seasons in one day but it’s really only true if you consider that getting a little cool and a little rain on a Summer day constitutes winter-like. As I understand it, the local indigenous population consider that Melbourne has six seasons and I can kind of see that (and wish I could find out more but it’s really, really hard.) The only hint of seasonal celebrations that come to the general awareness of the Australian populous are Easter and Yule though, of course, in their Christian form and they are actually at the time of Harvest and mid-Summer in the Sthn Hemisphere anyway. (Yes, I know that the non-Christian elements are still hugely strong within those festivals but that doesn’t mean those of us who are Caucasian and not “of the book” can celebrate openly - calling it Yule, for example, is only acceptable if it’s assumed I’m using the German term lol.)
The cynical (or those offended by the fact that I’ve just revealed I don’t hold Judeo-Christian views ) will remind me how commercial the festivals seem - Hanami particularly with companies competing for the best spots and it being very much “the thing” to do rather than being focused on which Kami is being celebrated. They will point out that the change of the seasons for most people just means new flavours of drinks and snacks in the konbini or changing wardrobes. Well to that I say: Shenanigans!
First of all, if they know that Summer is being celebrated then they know which Kami is being celebrated and frankly it’s kinda hard to miss. Secondly, those new flavours are seasonal flavours (watermelon kitkat in Summer and apple breath mints in Autumn, how much more harvesty can you get than apples!) being aware of the earth in your every day life is an acknowledgement of the Kami (however you want to define them, I find the similarities to Platonic Forms extraordinary) that effect it. Changing your clothes to warmer ones because its cold is a reverence to the seasons at the most basic level and possibly more so when there’s little need to change clothes beyond your coat with heating available indoors. But that’s me getting all kitchen-witchy on you so from a more traditionally western “religious” oogity-boogity framework I say: look at the excitement on the faces of the people in their Yukatas on the way to the fireworks. Listen to the laughter and awed “Sugoi!” at the art form that is man’s attempt at mastery over fire. The smile elicited by the sheer beauty of a cherry blossom or the colour of a leaf. That is real emotion, whatever the affectations of the day to please your boss or your boyfriend, and that is the essence of all this - opening yourself to the rhythms of the earth. Even if they only do it once a season, they come together and allow themselves to be effected by the extraordinary beauty and power of this planet which, no matter how much we learn, can still shake us off its back with a good earthquake.
Whether the Japanese population flocking (and boy do they flock) to the many matsuris and enjoying the food and carnival atmosphere are intellectually cognizant of exactly what is being celebrated doesn’t really matter to me (though frankly I think most of them are). It does a heathen girl good to be able to look ahead to at least a whole year in which she can celebrate by simply joining in with an entire nation!
When in discussion about US politics lately, I have often found the situation deserved a reference to a magnificent English TV show called “Yes, Minister” (and later “Yes, Prime Minister”) and I’ve found that many of my American friends have not heard of this wonderful sitcom! I understand why it didn’t make it to the States - it’s about the inner workings of the British political system which is quite different to the US system. Over the last few years, however, with the “close ties” the current administration has developed with the various Departments and the changes in the way US politicians handle the media this election, I think you guys might just enjoy it.
I’m not claiming the US government has started to work exactly like 1980’s Britain, I’ve simply noticed that the US media, including the Daily Show pundits, have found themselves aghast at behaviour that Messrs. Appleby and Hacker would have performed in their sleep! Sir Humphrey would have acclaimed Gonzalez’s performances under questioning as high art. So, for the next month, I will be putting a “Yes, Minister” (or Prime) clip in my sidebar video widget for your enjoyment.
The accuracy of the series’ observations prompted many politicians to be unabashed fans - no matter how it portrayed their own positions! To the left is a picture of keen fan Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher meeting with Nigel Hawthorne (Sir Humphrey Appleby) and Paul Eddington (Hon. Jim Hacker MP/PM) She does look like she’s giving them a bit of a dressing down!
Dennis at Dead Things on Sticks (one of my favourite working-writer blogs which often crosses into politics) calls our attention to this wonderful monologue from Craig Ferguson . This blog doesn’t often get political but this is really about media and politics … give it a click - important points made expertly.
Afterwards, head over to read Dennis’ post and watch the other just as serious but less funny video he has embedded… it’s getting ridiculous over there.
For months before coming to Japan I read blogs of ex-pats living here to give me some insight into what the experience might be like. Since arriving, I have become involved in a small online community of ex-pat bloggers. I have now ‘met’ and communicated with many of those bloggers I used to read and it’s been both fun and a great support. One of those bloggers is Shane (of the blogs The Tokyo Traveller and A typical life) who, like me, is not an English teacher or married to a Japanese citizen (mind you she is female so that one is less likely anyway teehee) but the wife of a man who is working here. Shane recently saw a comment I had made on Twitter and shared an old blog post with me on being an ex-pat wife and the assumptions many people make about we strangely old fashioned creatures. I related to it immediately and was quite touched by it and so I thought I’d link it here.
Shane has had the gig longer than I and has obviously got her act together while I am still finding my way/identity here. I don’t have the multiple international households to run and don’t have enough visitors to be run off my feet like Shane has been the last couple of months (hope you’re enjoying the rest now, Shane ^_^) However, moving to Japan doesn’t mean that I’ve suddenly started to see “shopping” as an activity in itself nor do I desperately need to know where the closest “international” food store is so that I can find “real” food, the Japanese supermarket does me fine. Nor do I want to spend my social life with other ex-pats simply because they are not Japanese, occasionally taking a class in some “quaint little Japanese traditional craft” as one’s tightly controlled ‘cultural experience’ once a month (with said ex-pat acquaintances, preferably in the safety of the home of one of us, of course).
Certainly, there are many ex-pat wives who live their lives in essentially this way (especially in Tokyo) and I imagine falling into this life is a great way of insulating yourself from the stress of changing cultures constantly. If one develops a life wherein you arrive in a country and become part of ‘the foreign wives club’ which is amazingly similar to the club anywhere else then I’m sure it’s a wonderful support for many but it is just not my scene. Maybe one day it will be but, for the moment at least, I am not trying to emulate my life in my home country and so need to buffer myself against everything I therefore feel I am lacking. That does not mean I’m trying to be pseudo-Japanese, either - as the wonderful people who gave us our inter-cultural training before we left said “You want to be a first class Australian not a second-class Japanese.”
All that being said, due to language and not working, I don’t have that much opportunity to meet Japanese people and the friends I have made so far are ex-pats (some are ex-pat wives) but they are people with whom I share interests and with whom I can have a good conversation and a good laugh because we have things in common other than that we are strangers here. To quote another of my online community in his comments on Shane’s post: “…my foreign friends here in Japan are cool people who would be my friends back home, too.” Obviously being a foreigner and new to Japan is a great ice-breaker and it does make it easier to find new friends than it is being at home, but it can’t be the only thing you have to talk about - for my money anyway.
We were caught right in the middle of the recent Nagoya storms and it was quite an adventure! We were at Red Rock which is an “Aussie bar and Grill” in Sakae (which is no longer owned by an Aussie but by a lovely American who is a lecturer at the Universities here and a member of the writers group which I will join and post on when it resumes after August hols.) We were there for the Thursday night quiz, which I highly recommend along with the steak, and we could see that it was pouring down but since the bar is on the first floor we didn’t quite get the extent of it till we left - the streets were streaming!
The water was lapping right over our shoes anyway but the speed with which it was running meant it easily drenched your trousers up to the knee - this was fine, though, as it completed the outfit because the rest of you was drenched anyway - umbrellas did very little but protect your face a bit. Gutters and any depressions in the pavement were fast moving lakes and the thunder and lightning really made you wish your umbrella wasn’t made of metal!
We tried getting a taxi but they either didn’t see us (totally possible) or didn’t want the wet people in their pristine cabs (also totally possible) so we headed for the subway. Except for the people, the subway was blissfully dry and once again I marvelled at the utility of these subways with their exit tentacles reaching out under the city. If it had been before 11:30pm when the outer exits are closed we may have barely been wet at all getting to the train! Unbeknown to us, some of the outer lines were already closed and Anonymous Car Concern put a bunch of Superman’s colleagues up in hotels overnight because they were on the closed line which I thought was interesting, I’m not sure who would pay for that in Australia. Luckily, the line was fine to Kakuozan.
What was really lovely, though, was the reaction of the everyone. The streets, even at that time of night, are usually so quiet in Nagoya, even the groups of drunken salarymen lower their voices when they pass another group, but everyone was giggling and panting and some even shrieking with laughter as they dashed for cover or shared their useless umbrellas. Down in the subway people were actually smiling and sharing a giggle with strangers instead of just avoiding each other’s gaze - even with we gaijin!! Maybe it sounds as though we had all gone mad but there really was something just so funny about being that wet and I’m sure I’m not getting it across properly. On the way from the station I stopped at the convenience store for milk and such and the bag was half full of water by the time I reached the apartment! I spent the next couple of days carefully drying out my wallet, PDA and mobile phone which were snugly in their pockets in my bag… we’re talking WET here, people!
But the adventure did not stop when we got to the apartment block. The noise of the rain nearly drowned it out but the fire alarm in the apartments was wailing and the fire brigade was there! No spectacular truck though - they arrived in the rain on push-bikes!! No one else in the block had their lights on or came out to investigate so the poor guys were left with the non-Japanese speaking gaijin to help them get into the building (kind of odd to me that they had no way to get in, I mean they are the fire department!!) Once in the property they found that one of the sprinklers was dripping and had a short which was causing the alarm but they couldn’t get into the cabinet to turn off the damned alarm!
I ran inside to find the folder with our emergency numbers in it and I was too wet to run through the house without drenching the floorboards so I just stripped off my jeans in the entrance, ran through half naked, found the folder with the numbers and pulled on some dry trousers to go back out. At this stage I didn’t even bother with the umbrella - there was just no point! At last they made the call and the fireman used the dictionary on his phone to find the phrase “entrust to us” and said thank you very much and finally, at 3 am, we managed to get inside and have a shower and dry off. It took another hour before the security team arrived to turn off the fire alarm but that was fine because it took as long to wind down.
So there you go, even a storm is a happy adventure for us here - though several people did die, including a fireman washed down the river not just people doing silly things, and some of the outer train lines were still closed the next morning so it wasn’t all fun and games.
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