メリークリスマス! (Merry Christmas)

Yes, Virginia, there is Christmas in Japan, but, no, Virginia, don't expect it to be anything like life back in Kansas.

The Japanese have come to adopt many features of Western society and adapt them to their own tastes. Included among those adoptions are Christmas, Valentines Day, fast food, pop/rock music and parents threatening to sue a school for scolding a misbehaving child (as has happened to a fellow JET's school).

Christmas is a relatively recent addition to Japanese pop-culture and, although decorations and Christmas music abound throughout the country in December, it is primarily a holiday for young couples and families with young children. Many children do believe in Santa, and gift exchange is generally limited to those who believe in Santa or have a 20 something year old girlfriend or boyfriend.

As for Christmas dinner, look no further than "Kentucky". Everybody who wants a traditional Christmas dinner in Japan makes a visit to "Kentucky" - "Kentucky" being what most people in this country call KFC. Somewhere in the translation of "Jingle Bells Batman Smells" Robin laid an egg - a big greasy, extra crispy egg, at that. People seem to think that chicken is the traditional American Christmas dinner, so those who wish to celebrate the season go out for chicken by the bucket full.

New Years is the big holiday here, and, unlike China, Japan has transitioned from the lunar calendar, so their New Year always falls on the same day. Next year will be the year of the rat on the Chinese zodiac (also the Japanese), so be kind to your rodents, amigos.


As for me, I'm going to be travelling in Osaka, Thailand, Cambodia and Nagoya, so I won't be writing much for a couple weeks. I will leave you with some seasonal felicitations from a weekend English seminar I helped run last week. High school students had to group together and develop small dramas based on the theme of Santa's reindeer being too sick to fly on Christmas Eve. Using the props provided, one young man developed a brilliant Christmas exultation:
"I'm black spiderman. I hate global warming!"

Merry Christmas, mina-san (everybody).
Happy New Year 良いお年を！

Afternoon Tea

Japan is not known for invention so much as it is known for innovation. Ramen comes from China, but cup ramen comes from Japan. Robotics developed in western science before Japan was a major contributor to the global economy, but today the country has more robots per capita than any other nation in the world. Tea Ceremony, Calligraphy, Martial Arts, Video Games, etc. The list could go on indefinitely it seems.

One of my biggest surprises in discovering Japanese innovations is the Japanese take on baked goods. The word for "bread" in Japanese is non-native ("pan"). It comes from Portuguese as Portugal was the first sustained European contact with the isolated island nation. This country has almost always had a rice-based agricultural system, so it would not seem likely that bakeries would be all too common here. Yet, they are.

Every day on my commute through the Fukui train station I pass Vie de France, a Japanese bakery wherein I frequently stopped for afternoon tea until I finally purchased a kettle for my own home tea-making purposes. When I was studying in Nagoya, I also frequently stopped by a train station bakery on my way home from school. What draws me to Japanese baking is, as already mentioned, innovation. Japanese bakers have taken the proud, long history of European bread making and, in a short period of time, adapted it to create own tradition. Green tea, poppy seed, pumpkin, sweet beans, black sesame and many other flavorings contribute to a style and taste that is uniquely Japanese.

They also produce many items on a seasonal basis. Pumpkin, for example, is very common in the autumn. At the moment they are featuring many sweet baked goods for Christmas (even though less than %1 of the population is Christian people still love to celebrate any holiday that includes cakes and presents).

some Christmas tree cakes at Vie de France

結構ヨカタ: just right, man, just right

So, I was in class giving some reading tests, when the bell rang for class to end and I turned and noticed something on the blackboard: Me! I added the peace sign, myself, but the rest is all student work. The Japanese says, "just right".
I think I look more personable in inverse colors, don't you?

金沢: Kanazawa

Just a brief jaunt north of Fukui is a city nicknamed, "Little Kyoto". Kanazawa features some nice temples, some of the most beautiful gardens in Japan and a fairly decent Mexican restaurant.
Don't think I ever saw a Halloween decoration that grand in the States.
Anyway, a few weeks ago, a few friends and I made the brief train ride up for some sightseeing and shopping. The weather wasn't kind enough to allow us a nice view of the gardens, so we stayed indoors for the most part.
Kanazawa has some very scenic side streets. This particular non-descript alley leads into the secretive temple that has come to be nicknamed, "The Ninja Temple". It has no connection to Ninjutsu, the secret art of the ninja (or so they say), but it is an amazing piece of architectural trickery.

This isn't a very good photograph, but it does allow you to see how simple the building appears from the outside. Simple 2-3 story temple, right? Wrong! Inside it is has nearly 30 stairwells twisting and turning about a multi-layered den of traps and pitfalls constructed to befuddle government spies. Imagine a 6 or 7 story building trapped inside a 3 story building's body. Every turn, every door leading into a trap or some guard just waiting to spear, slice or stab unsuspecting trespassers.
And it also served as a religious center for the local nobility.

Thursdays with 芭蕉: Haiku Round 2

On Thursdays now I venture a 1 hour bus ride to the coast to visit a junior high school with less than 40 total students. Classes are small, awake and interesting. I think I'm really going to like it there. The bus ride is scenic with forests and tunnels and fields and mountains. Also, another JET who has become rather popular with ladies because of his perfect teeth and black belt in tae-kwon-do rides the same bus to a school not far from mine. He's an outgoing sort unless if his energy is drained. Either high or low - never in between.

As for me, I'm pretty much always on the quiet side of life. I brought along the book that I purchased in 京都(Kyoto) written by 芭蕉(Basho), a poet who wandered about Japan and let the scenery inspire his work. As it turns out, students in the school are about to read some excerpts from the same book (おくのほそ道：The Narrow Road to Oku). The literature teacher, noticing the book on my desk, asked to me read some excerpts in English to her class. I was struck by a few lines in the opening paragraphs,

"I seemed to be possessed by the spirits of wanderlust, and they all but deprived me of my senses. The guardian spirits of the road beckoned, and I could not settle down to work."

Basho traveled, journaled and wrote Haiku whenever scenery or events inspired him. Reading his works and gazing out into a morning rainstorm on the Autumn mountain forests, I couldn't help but try my hand at Haiku again.

The wind cries against
Teardrop reddened mountain leaves
Shelter is the storm

That's not the only haiku I wrote yesterday. Inspired by the fact that my only pet peeve is culturally acceptable in Japan (slurping), I vented some frustration. I simply cannot tolerate noises during a meal, but in Japan slurping noodles is very polite while silence could be considered rude. This is supposed only to be the case with noodles, but Japanese men tend to make noise eating anything and everything.

One cup of coffee
One hundred desperate slurps
God, please strike me deaf!

京都：Kyoto

All right, I understand this is late, but, anyway, I have a few pictures from my trip to Kyoto a few weeks ago to share.
Kyoto was Japan's capital for about a thousand years until the 17'th century when the Shogun Tokugawa moved the military government to Edo (modern day Tokyo). The Imperial family remained in Kyoto during this period but moved to Tokyo in the mid-19'th century as the country began reforming and opening to international influences. Because of its historical importance and many cultural heritage sites it was spared from the US bombardments during WWII that destroyed many other cities. Unfortunately, in an effort to be more "modern" like the Western nations that won the war, the Japanese went on to destroy much of the traditional architecture in the city on their own. What was once one of the most beautiful, skylines in the country is now a mesh of ugly buildings that resemble nothing Western or Japanese. Still, a few decent spots remain.

清水寺：Kiyomizudera. More than a thousand years ago a priest heard a prophecy telling him to build a temple near a stream of pure water. Pilgrims can come and drink this water even today.
清水寺： Cultural heritage sites like Kiyomizudera are some of the last places in Japan to find thatch roofed buildings like this one. As you can see in the picture, this temple is rather crowded. Basically every important spot in Kyoto is overcrowded. Even to the Japanese this feels like one of the last places to see old Japan.
In a small Shrine next to Kiyomizudera you can find the "love rock". Anyone who can walk blindly along a short path to this rock and find the rock is promised swift good luck in romance. Anyone who tries and fails, however, is promised a lot of painful waiting.
The highlight of the weekend for me was this forest path. I wandered away from Kiyomizudera and the love rock shrine into some lovely scenery that was surprisingly completely vacant. The rustle and obnoxious chattering of the crowds faded and I could hear someone playing traditional Japanese flute in the distance. After a few minutes, however, someone from the group called me to see where I'd gone.
蓮華王院（三十三間堂）：　This temple's official name is Rengeoin, but it is more commonly known as Sanjusangendo (Hall with 33 spaces between the columns) The main hall is Japan's longest wooden structure and is home to a thousand life-sized statues of Kannon, the thousand-armed deity of compassion. It has also statues of nearly 30 other deities such as the gods of wind and thunder. The statues inside are all around 7-8 hundred years old. The influence of Hinduism comes across very clearly in the naming of the deities and the forms they take. Although Japan certainly gave its own twist to Indian-born Buddhism, of all the deities represented in this temple only the god of wind appeared to be originally Japanese. They don't allow photography inside, so, I took a picture of a couple girls from the group staring at their guidebooks instead.


I show all these photographs of temples, but the true story of Kyoto lies in the Philosopher's Path entry that I wrote shortly after the trip. Basically, I spent a weekend getting lost. Be it the 1 hour hunt for an Irish pub for fish and chips that should've taken only 15 minutes (only to arrive and find that England was playing in the rugby world cup that evening leaving no room for dining), or the elusive Philosopher's Path, we spent a lot of time just wandering aimlessly. The worst came after fish and chips. The Artist (he is an actual artist) pictured above, his wife and I, sad to be unable to eat fish and chips (after an hour of hunting one does tend to develop a craving) were lucky enough to happen upon a cafe near the pub that served fish and chips. We enjoyed our dinner, and then the two other girls with us came all the way across town to join us for the evening. Unfortunately, the evening was already getting late, and, apparently, all public transportation shuts down by midnight. This is something we discovered the hard way. As the girl nicknamed Mana quipped, "Kyoto is a city that never sleeps because everyone misses the train". Thus, we ventured 2 hours on foot to return to our hostel stopping by conbinis (convenience stores) along the way for fuel.

Some people go pub crawling. In Kyoto, we went conbini crawling.

京都： entertaining eccentricities

I've noticed lately how this blog has been in need of some of the finer silliness Japan has to offer. Here are a few examples from the Kyoto trip.
Unfortunately, the White Lover was not in need of any ethnically authentic help when we passed it.
So, we had to console ourselves with a rousing game of darts in another cafe.
The train station is a very modern complex with shops, restaurants, a stage for performance and space-age children at every entrance to greet travelers.
Colonel Sanders not only developed a world famous recipe for crispy chicken, he also was a grandmaster swordsman.

The Philosopher's Path: Haiku Round 1

I went to Kyoto (京都) over the weekend. It's only 1.5 hours by express train from Fukui city. Actually, though, I'm not going to write too much about Kyoto in this entry. This is more about something I discovered while wandering in between temples and shrines with friends from Fukui.

In between two temples in Kyoto there lies a scenic walkway known as the Philosopher's Path (哲学の道). I say this only because the maps and guidebooks mention it - not because I actually walked it. Yea though a friend and I spent an entire afternoon searching for the Philosopher's Path, we ne'er did find it. Corner after corner of turns and dead ends and false leads, but no scenic trail.

I mention the Philosopher's Path because the friend who led me into the meandering nonsense also led me into an awakening of what really has drawn me back to Japan:

The Broads!

Ahem, hello, Grandma. Yes, I came back to Japan to reunite with my Japanese supermodel girlfriend. She loves ice cream, robots and grandiose Hindi song and dance routines as much as I do. We plan to have 3 children and name them all after you.


Ha, actually, the awakening came through a book my Philosopher's Path Finding Partner pointed out to me in the English section of a bookstore in the downtown shopping area. The name of the book is おくのほそ道 (The Narrow Road to Oku) by 松尾芭蕉(Matsuo Basho). It's the account of 17'th century poet Basho on his long journey from his home to a place called Oku. Basho is most famous for his Haiku. Haiku are very simple 17 syllable poems that often evoke images of nature to create emotion. When I was first trying to teach myself bits of Japanese in high school, I used to trade Haiku back and forth with a friend whenever we were bored in class. I continued the haiku into university years, but, for some reason my subconscious has probably purposefully removed from my memory, I stopped.

The beauty in Haiku is simplicity. The poet has only 3 lines and 17 syllables to convey his message. This simplicity permeates many facets of Japanese culture and history. The Shinto faith, native to Japan, never developed scripture or even rules. Its practitioners have the fire and gold of autumn leaves and the blossoming cherry trees in spring to inspire them. Japanese cuisine has often avoided heavy seasoning and even cooking in order to preserve the natural flavor of food. What is perhaps the most famous poem in Japanese history is one of Basho's haiku: a simple ode to the sound of a frog jumping in water.

In rediscovering Haiku, I came to know some of my own motivation. It's been there for a long while, for certain, I just hadn't acknowledged it. What a joy it would be if we could toss aside ornamentation and small talk and simply allow the natural state of things to reveal itself!

Anyway, here's my attempt at rediscovering Haiku. This photograph is from 銀閣寺 (The Silver Pavilion) in Kyoto. The Philosopher's Path is allegedly near here.

Raked sands and dead ends
Form the philosopher's path
But wiser men nap


And another about my frustration at slamming into a wall of hikers nearing the peak of Fuji in August:

Queuing for sunrise
Nothing moves, so I pray that
Lava melts tourists

文化祭：Culture Festival

Culture Festival: Two days of performances, displays, food and games. I helped judge a Karaoke contest on the first day and a cross-dressing competition on the second day. Cross-dressing seems to be a staple of culture festivals in high schools and universities in Japan. The boys really get into it, and, sadly, some of them are pretty darn good at being cute. A female teacher judging the competition commented after one pretty young lad's display that she liked his outfit because the boy looked like her.
The students at my school were grouped into four teams. Each team had to make a small mascot, a large mascot, a mural and a small vehicle. Yoshi is the green team's small mascot. The mural is Kachapin, a popular character in children's programming.
The yellow team did Spongebob.
The red team was Elmo.
The blue team actually went with a Halloween theme for their small mascot and painting. Their big mascot is Stitch, from the Lilo and Stitch film.

Yoshi Complete!

It's been several full days of work, but my students have finished their bamboo papier maché Yoshi just in time for the culture festival tomorrow. Tomorrow and Wednesday is the Culture Festival and Thursday is the sports festival. Students will be presenting cheers, crafts and machines and competing in various athletic activities. Once I've taken a few pictures, I'll be sure to post more.

永平寺二回目：Eiheiji the second time around

Eiheiji is one of the largest Buddhist temples in all of Japan with a history spanning nearly 800 years. It's also less than one hour from Fukui city by car. Last week, a few other JETs and I took advantage of a Monday holiday to venture out to the temple grounds. This was actually my second trip since a couple years ago my host family took me on a road trip to Fukui. I have a few photographs from that trip on my old Japan blog. A bit of a warning: my explanations on the old blog may have some errors in them as I was often unaware of my surroundings. For example, last time I didn't even know the name of the temple until I started posting pictures online and asked my host parents where we had been.
2 years doesn't sound like much time, but a lot has happened since my last trip to the temple. My overseas study director in France used to say that in one term of study in another country a person matures 2 years faster than if he had remained in his home university. If that be the case, then my last trip to Eiheiji actually took place 6 years ago. I certainly feel much older than I did back then. Walking about the gravestones and trees, I didn't mind moving at a slower pace than before. Even the rainfall really was no nuisance.
Having always been too shy to indulge myself in over-zealous peppy song and dance rituals that people in my Evangelical background always told me was necessary to appease the Creator, I find myself most spiritual in the splendor of natural scenery or the silence of a cemetery. This is something I did not understand very well two years ago. By the time I reached the vacant main room in one section of the temple I sensed something inside me urging me to put away the camera and just rest my knees on the tatami mats for a while. I'm no priest or monk nor will I ever write inspirational guides to religious pilgrims, but I just can't escape the feeling that sometimes I really do belong on my knees.
Next to the temple is a hill that visitors can climb to get a view of the grounds. The pathway winds upward with several statues at intervals along the way. This little guy was tucked away in some bushes and we almost didn't notice him. Even Buddhas need a little siesta from time to time, it seems.
The view from above. Rain began falling on our descent just as we neared the bottom.
Fuji Climbing Partner and another friend who enjoys Karaoke a bit too much approach the door to the Buddha hall. The shrine inside honors the three Buddhas of past, present and future. A tablet above the shrine also serves as a reminder of the Buddhist calling to dedicate oneself to all sentient beings.

Duct Tape Forever

Before leaving for Japan, mother purchased me a backpack in the US equivalent of a recycle shop known as Goodwill for roughly $3 (347円, £1.50, R21.57). It's a nice enough bag and suits me fine except for the US Army logo emblazoned on the front of it. It's not that I don't respect the military. It's just that, well, quite frankly, I don't want to anger people before even having the chance to say "hello". Mother did her best to black out the logo before I left, but it was still visible to anyone who looked closely. Needless to say, I was eager to cover it up with something more.

Upon arriving at my desk in my school I dug around and examined the worksheets and paraphernalia left behind by previous instructors. My predecessor left behind a nice map of the UK and one of his predecessors left behind packs of Canadian flag stickers - a few of which happened to be large enough to cover the US Army logo on my bag. Without stopping to consider the consequences of my actions I swiftly pressed one of the stickers onto my bag. This seemed harmless enough. After all, Canada is a country with no natural predators.

Well, this afternoon I discovered what happens when people mistake you for someone from a friendly part of the world. They expect you to be friendly! While waiting for the train back to Fukui city from my school an elder Japanese woman noticed the sticker and shot off in what may be the fastest Japanese I've heard yet about what a wonderful and friendly place Canada is and how her daughter who is now 48 years old spent a semester there studying English long ago and how big the country is but oh it's such a beautiful country and it's so nice and friendly and you seem to understand Japanese so well but maybe there are many things you don't understand yet and my it must be nice to be from such a nice place as Canada I don't think it's as hot there as here but it's so nice......

And after all this incomprehensible one-sided conversation she gave me some candy.
Hooray for Canada!

Hooray for Public Education!

A bit about Education. Teachers in Japan do not have their own room. The rooms are divided according to how the students are divided (1st year computer information, 2nd year mechanics, etc), and the teachers have a shared office. Teachers generally have 3 classes per day and use the rest of their time for preparing lessons, managing club activities and generally keeping far too busy.

In the fall, schools all across Japan have festivals that feature student performance in sport, music, dance or whatever else interests the students. The students in my school are currently preparing for their festival in the beginning of October. Part of the activity includes composing cheers and constructing mascots to encourage classmates. This afternoon, after classes had finished, the gym teacher rushed into the teacher's office saying, "I need to get on the internet! What is this thing called Spongebob?" Apparently, some of the students began planning to build a Spongebob costume, but most of the teachers had no idea what Spongebob was. Thus, the teacher's room has been abuzz all afternoon with the printing of cartoons and explanations of why a Sponge with opposable thumbs would want to wear a tie.

On the Road to Fuji

I packed my backpack the night before and rushed to the station to make sure to catch the bus on time. I was eager to climb and ready to rush up Mt Fuji before I even stepped on the bus. The bus, however, took 8 hours to reach the mountain. It was an O.K. bus though.
This is a scenery pic from one of our rest stops on the way to the mountain.
This is a scenery pic from inside the bus which I'm posting mostly for the purpose of embarrassing those who were able to fall asleep on the ride over (I was not among them, unfortunately).
I actually took this picture on the way to Fukui from the Tokyo orientation a few weeks ago. That is Mt Fuji in the background.

Most people seem to say the same thing after climbing Fuji, "That was a beautiful, but I'm never going to do it again." You see, as popular as it is with tourists, Fuji is a surprisingly arduous climb. Never mind the packs of battle-hardened elderly women who climb it, for young and old alike it is a mighty difficult task. Many in our group said that this trip left them more exhausted than anything else they've experienced.

The inevitable question after reaching the peak in a state of near physical collapse is, "was it worth it all?" I imagine it must be a bit like childbirth. Extreme exhaustion and pain followed by one of life's most beautiful moments. Is it worth it?
Probably not, but people keep doing it anyway.

Mountain Vending

The climb up Mt Fuji includes 9 steps before reaching the peak. At each step is a station with food and drink for sale. There's also a hotel and a first aid center at one step. Most people begin at the Fifth Station since that's where the bus parking is located. From step 5 it can take anywhere from 5-8 hours on average to reach the peak depending on your pace and congestion near the top.
Here's an example of a typical station menu in English. Prices are probably more than double what is typical because it's no easy task to bring these items up the mountain. Yes, that last item is oxygen. Cans of oxygen are available to help tourists deal with the thinning atmosphere.
This vending machine is more than 3,700 meters (12,140 ft) above sea level. Those are clouds in the background.

Fuji Sunrise

Most people climb Fuji at night in hopes of viewing the sunrise from the peak. The crowd is so large, however, that many people who would have otherwise reached the peak by sunrise are backed up somewhere between the last station and their goal when the sun comes out.
All of these photographs were taken in between the last station and the peak.
The group broke up into pairs, trios and small packs of climbing partners before we began the trail. Many people, however, reached the top with someone other than their original climbing partner. I started out with two climbing partners and ended up spending most of the trail with someone else whom I bumped into along the way as my pace veered from the others.
Shortly after my new climbing partner and I began hiking together we decided to pass the time playing a game. Since the game was the road trip classic "let's see who can keep silent the longest" most of my hike was really quiet. It started as a simple children's game, but the competitive drive soon overtook us and other hikers from the group began to wonder if we were out on some Fuji religious experience that demanded a vow of silence.
Actually, though, having once spent a week on a silent religious retreat, I can vouch for the worthiness of silence, especially when in awe of nature. It's also fun to see what gestures people come up with for such things as, "so, am I really stuck with you for the rest of this hike?", "how far to the peak?" and "I think I'd like to buy a hiking stick at the next station."

While resting at one station I overhead another pair of hikers from our group admiring the constellations. One of them really knew what he was talking about and began pointing out various groupings of stars and their modern day use in company logos and designs throughout East Asia. Then, my climbing partner took a notepad out of her bag and wrote down what would be our first completely understood sentence since the beginning of the silence,

"I have gas from the french fries"

富士山

This is the entrance to the Shinto shrine atop Mt Fuji. The path between the last station and the shrine is packed worse than the lineup of 14 year old girls outside of an N'Sync concert. By the way, Amber, Lance Bass is still gay.
This stone marks the name of the shrine. Really the only characters I recognized were 富士山 (Mt Fuji)
As I climbed up the mountain gradually losing any shred of energy, I just kept telling myself, "I've been higher than this before - much higher! This should not be such a rough climb." But, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself of how easy Fuji should be, it just kept getting harder and harder to press upward. By the time I reached the peak it had been nearly 24 hours since I had last slept and I had been ready to pass out in exhaustion several hours before that. Yet, somehow, breaking off the trail and taking a look back over the clouds rejuvinated me. I felt as if a cool breeze had granted me new lungs. This would all fall apart on the descent, of course, but for a brief moment the spirit of the same mountain that killed my physical resolve restored my life.
Another surprise to tear apart the "I've been higher" mantra was the fact that I had never seen a view like this before. On the Peru blog I have pictures of mountain scenery far beyond this altitude yet nothing of this magnitude. The Andes moutain pictures are mountains surrounded by other mountains, but Fuji is an island in the clouds. You beat your body for 6 hours to reach a peak surround by hundreds of other climbers only to look out at the expanse of the sunrise and realize suddenly that the whole climb has been between the mountain and you alone.

When You Come Back Down

Those who make it to the top of Fuji take a different route down. Although faster than the climb, it is more difficult due to stress on the knees and the gravel and dust. By the time we reached our bus at station 5 our faces were so dirty some of us were somewhat hard to recognize.

By the way, in case if you were wondering, this is what the inside of a cloud looks like.