Last Squeeze of the Sudachi
I'll be leaving for the UK tomorrow, so here is the final instalment of my Japan blog for this time. There's a lot to pack in, though, so some may have to wait until I get back.
After Kanazawa, I spent some days working fairly uneventfully at the Prefectural Library. Perhaps my most interesting experience was cooking and eating sanma (the Pacific saury), a delicious fish that can't be bought in the UK and even in Japan is a strictly seasonal autumn treat, to the extent that its kanji - 秋刀魚 - mean "autumn blade fish". This one was gutted when I bought it, but when I went back for a second time I did the deed myself, using this gruesome but undeniably effective technique:
Anyway, last Friday I set off for the second time to Kyoto, where I met an old Cardiff PhD student (now a lecturer at one of the private universities there) for coffee, before walking to the Kyoto Railway Museum, by way of Umekoji park cafe, which sold a really tasty curry and rice for 1000 yen, should you ever be passing. This was all part of my Thomas the Tank Engine side project, and although all traces of the Thomas exhibition that had been held at the museum a few years ago were gone, they were still selling the Thomas Goes to Kyoto book that had been a spin-off:
Several scenes in the book take place in the Museum itself, so it was well worth the detour. In any case, though I can't pretend that I'm very interested in trains, the location of the museum at a kind of railway intersection, with commuter trains going in one direction, shinkansen in another, and tourist steam trains in a third, was undeniably cool.
I met my friend Mitsuko later, and she drove me to her home in the depths of the Hyogo countryside (by way of a rather nice tonkatsu place in Kameoka), where I spent the night. The next day Mitsuko had booked a washi-making session not far from her house, which I admit made me nervous, because when it comes to crafts I a) am hopeless and b) get frustrated with people's expectation that I not be hopeless. But actually this was not a very onerous task at all. One begins by repeatedly dipping a rectangular sieve in a bath that contains the not-quite-dissolved bark of a tree, until you have a layer of sludge that serves as the background to your creation - then add various colours, motifs, leaves and like, as you wish. After that, the sopping masterpiece is handed over and you go off for an hour while it is pressed and/or dried. Simples.
By my standards, this is an artistic triumph.
While we were waiting, we visited a nearby temple, and I caught my first sight of 紅葉 (kouyou), or the turning of the autumn leaves, which is as big a thing in Japan as in New England, but has been rather delayed this year. Between the leaves, the moss and the mist, Hyogo showed itself to advantage.
At the temple there was a place where those who had died infancy were commemorated by rows and rows of small baby statues, some with bibs reading (in English) "Pretty baby", and toys slowly fading and cracking in the mountain weather.
I didn't photograph it.
I met up with Yuka later that day in Osaka, then made my way home. Sunday saw me having lunch with Irina in Fuse, and on Monday, the destination was the National Ethnographic Museum in the north of the city, just next to the park where the 1970 Expo was held - presided over the the Tower of the Sun, which was apparently inspired by both Jomon and South American forms. I was lucky enough to meet it when the sun was casting a rainbow at its back:
I was there to see my friend Eriko, who now works at the Museum. What a wonderful place for an anthropologist to find herself! I met several of her colleagues, and they seem like a great bunch. The museum itself took a global perpsective, and was divided by continent. Here I am in the Japanese section, for example:
Those of you who have pored over British Children's Literature in Japanese Culture will no doubt remember the passage describing the anthropological exhibition known as the Human Pavilion, held at the Fifth National Industrial Exposition in Ōsaka in 1903, where Okinawans, Ainu, Koreans, Taiwanese and Chinese were to have been displayed. (The Chinese, slated to have been represented by a woman with bound feet and a man smoking opium, succeeded in removing themselves after an official protest.) Significantly, no
mainland Japanese or Western nations were considered for inclusion. The modern museum, though I'm sure the researchers working there spread their nets much more widely, partly reproduces this approach in its selection of exhibits. The Ainu and Okinawans still get disproportionate exposure, while the American section - heavy as it is on Latin American and Native American culture - is notable for the virtual absence of any hint that the United States exists, and may even have a culture of potential interest to anthropologists. It seems that, as far as museums are concerned, you are still more visible if you're poor rather than rich, brown rather than white, rural rather than urban, traditional rather than contemporary.
I put in a final day at the Prefectural Library on Tuesday to bid farewell to Yasuko and her colleagues, then had dinner in the Korean quarter of Tsuruhashi with Saeko, a friend of my old Japanese teacher, Yuko - and quite a feast it was.
Today I devoted to mooching around, buying souvenirs and packing. I'd thought of visiting Osaka Castle, having watched Shogun only a few months ago, but after I accidentally got out at the wrong stop I took it as a sign that this was not meant to be, and walked instead to Tennoji, with its pleasant park and zoo, and touristy Shinsekai (New World) quarter, dominated by the Hitachi Tower.
Altogether this has been a very enjoyable trip - I seem to have packed in far more than a month's worth! Tomorrow and the next day will be taken up by a rather arduous journey home with an eight-hour stopover in Shanghai, so wish me luck. I hope to see you safely back in Bristol!
After Kanazawa, I spent some days working fairly uneventfully at the Prefectural Library. Perhaps my most interesting experience was cooking and eating sanma (the Pacific saury), a delicious fish that can't be bought in the UK and even in Japan is a strictly seasonal autumn treat, to the extent that its kanji - 秋刀魚 - mean "autumn blade fish". This one was gutted when I bought it, but when I went back for a second time I did the deed myself, using this gruesome but undeniably effective technique:
Anyway, last Friday I set off for the second time to Kyoto, where I met an old Cardiff PhD student (now a lecturer at one of the private universities there) for coffee, before walking to the Kyoto Railway Museum, by way of Umekoji park cafe, which sold a really tasty curry and rice for 1000 yen, should you ever be passing. This was all part of my Thomas the Tank Engine side project, and although all traces of the Thomas exhibition that had been held at the museum a few years ago were gone, they were still selling the Thomas Goes to Kyoto book that had been a spin-off:
Several scenes in the book take place in the Museum itself, so it was well worth the detour. In any case, though I can't pretend that I'm very interested in trains, the location of the museum at a kind of railway intersection, with commuter trains going in one direction, shinkansen in another, and tourist steam trains in a third, was undeniably cool.
I met my friend Mitsuko later, and she drove me to her home in the depths of the Hyogo countryside (by way of a rather nice tonkatsu place in Kameoka), where I spent the night. The next day Mitsuko had booked a washi-making session not far from her house, which I admit made me nervous, because when it comes to crafts I a) am hopeless and b) get frustrated with people's expectation that I not be hopeless. But actually this was not a very onerous task at all. One begins by repeatedly dipping a rectangular sieve in a bath that contains the not-quite-dissolved bark of a tree, until you have a layer of sludge that serves as the background to your creation - then add various colours, motifs, leaves and like, as you wish. After that, the sopping masterpiece is handed over and you go off for an hour while it is pressed and/or dried. Simples.
By my standards, this is an artistic triumph.
While we were waiting, we visited a nearby temple, and I caught my first sight of 紅葉 (kouyou), or the turning of the autumn leaves, which is as big a thing in Japan as in New England, but has been rather delayed this year. Between the leaves, the moss and the mist, Hyogo showed itself to advantage.
At the temple there was a place where those who had died infancy were commemorated by rows and rows of small baby statues, some with bibs reading (in English) "Pretty baby", and toys slowly fading and cracking in the mountain weather.
I didn't photograph it.
I met up with Yuka later that day in Osaka, then made my way home. Sunday saw me having lunch with Irina in Fuse, and on Monday, the destination was the National Ethnographic Museum in the north of the city, just next to the park where the 1970 Expo was held - presided over the the Tower of the Sun, which was apparently inspired by both Jomon and South American forms. I was lucky enough to meet it when the sun was casting a rainbow at its back:
I was there to see my friend Eriko, who now works at the Museum. What a wonderful place for an anthropologist to find herself! I met several of her colleagues, and they seem like a great bunch. The museum itself took a global perpsective, and was divided by continent. Here I am in the Japanese section, for example:
Those of you who have pored over British Children's Literature in Japanese Culture will no doubt remember the passage describing the anthropological exhibition known as the Human Pavilion, held at the Fifth National Industrial Exposition in Ōsaka in 1903, where Okinawans, Ainu, Koreans, Taiwanese and Chinese were to have been displayed. (The Chinese, slated to have been represented by a woman with bound feet and a man smoking opium, succeeded in removing themselves after an official protest.) Significantly, no
mainland Japanese or Western nations were considered for inclusion. The modern museum, though I'm sure the researchers working there spread their nets much more widely, partly reproduces this approach in its selection of exhibits. The Ainu and Okinawans still get disproportionate exposure, while the American section - heavy as it is on Latin American and Native American culture - is notable for the virtual absence of any hint that the United States exists, and may even have a culture of potential interest to anthropologists. It seems that, as far as museums are concerned, you are still more visible if you're poor rather than rich, brown rather than white, rural rather than urban, traditional rather than contemporary.
I put in a final day at the Prefectural Library on Tuesday to bid farewell to Yasuko and her colleagues, then had dinner in the Korean quarter of Tsuruhashi with Saeko, a friend of my old Japanese teacher, Yuko - and quite a feast it was.
Today I devoted to mooching around, buying souvenirs and packing. I'd thought of visiting Osaka Castle, having watched Shogun only a few months ago, but after I accidentally got out at the wrong stop I took it as a sign that this was not meant to be, and walked instead to Tennoji, with its pleasant park and zoo, and touristy Shinsekai (New World) quarter, dominated by the Hitachi Tower.
Altogether this has been a very enjoyable trip - I seem to have packed in far more than a month's worth! Tomorrow and the next day will be taken up by a rather arduous journey home with an eight-hour stopover in Shanghai, so wish me luck. I hope to see you safely back in Bristol!