Latkes At Last!

So, it is officially Hanukkah here in Japan for me, for I have finally accomplished the LATKE (fried potato pancakes typical to the Jewish festival of Hanukkah) in Japan. It wasn't easy, but I managed to find a slicer and then cut the paper thin slices to make up for not being able to find a freakin' grater in the kitchen. -_-;;

So, with one day to spare (tomorrow is the last day), I have accomplished Hanukkah. And I managed to share the joy with nearby people (for feeding people is almost as fun as cooking for people!)!

Happy Hanukkah to all and to all a good night~!

Now I'm off to start my SUPAH SEKRET CRAFTY PROJECT, which will hopefully be done in a couple of weeks, and it will be posted on the blog with pictures!!

My Christmas in Japan

...just watch it, please!

So yes, I did go to a delicious Chinese restaurant with my dear friend Machi. We had a blast eating the cuisine and talking about various children's books from our childhoods. Then we stopped on the way back to pick up some potatoes and onions for the latkes I will be eventually making sometime this week.

It was a good day. :)

Dorming Yet Again

Today I made my way from Okaasan's to the dorms of Seminar House Two. Surprisingly, despite shipping a fair amount of stuff back home, I still came out with more luggage than I started with. -_-;; Ugh. I wish I didn't collect stuff like a snowball, but I love what I have!

Surprisingly, Okaasan sent me off with a big bang--she packed me lunch and dinner along with a whole box of edible goodies!

All of this is edible and to be used in a kitchen--I'm practically set for a week!

Here's dinner--yakisoba and delicious!

And that's not including the haori and scarf (pictures finally taken!) that she got for me!

Details of the shibori

I'm all settled in now and I'm glad after the hecticness of the day. :)

O.O

Last night I received a surprise—Okaasan had a gift for me! And that is how I learned the payoffs of being a historical culture nerd. 

What did I get?

Okaasan bought me a NEW HAORI and SCARF in a shibori pattern (shibori is also known as “tie-dye”  in the West, but Japan’s style is so unique and quintessential “Japan” that they seem like different ways of cloth dying, in my mind). I was blown away. She told me I was the first student she had done this for because I had shown an interest in the culture.

This is the shibori dying pattern, not from my haori or scarf, unfortunately... Each of these little circles is created by tying a tiny rope around the fabric before dying...pretty intricate, ne?

I was blown away. The scarf is a gorgeous mix of pink, red, and orange, while the haori is a light red. I couldn’t stop smiling. I am bouncing off the walls. It is so pretty and I am so happy; I am basically incoherent with descriptive words to describe how I feel right now. Awestruck, bashful, cheery, delighted, elated…I could go on for the entire alphabet!

I don't have any pictures yet, but I will!

I spent most of today figuring how to pack all of my stuff (plus the stuff my family sent for winter) into two little suitcases....I think I accumulate waaaaay too much stuff way to quickly. -_-

Toji yet again

So, I'm not afraid to admit it--I really enjoy flea  markets, especially Toji, because I know where all my favorite shops are now. :D

Especially Toji

This trip was especially special because I went with my friends Kolbrún, Machi, and Alexa. Alexa was leaving later today, so we all went extra super early!

Alexa, Machi, and Kolbrún

The highlight of our trip, I have to say, was the konpeito stall. Konpeito, if you didn't know, is small sugar rock candy crystals that look (in my opinion) like confetti. And they were gorgeous! Choosing from the various colors, we were allowed to assemble a small bag that we then paid for. The colors were vivid and it was really fun deciding which colors and flavors I wanted!

The leaves there were pretty too!

After Toji, we hopped the train back to Hirakata Station, bid our teary farewells, and then saw Alexa off.


Bon Voyage, Alexa (and also belated wishes to Erin, Marian, Caroline, and Margaret as well as they venture home!)!!

I REFUSE to Believe Winter is Upon Us

It is really hard to believe, despite the lowering temperatures, that's it's really actually winter and not a late October. Of course, this has to do with the mural of red, orange, and gold leaves that decorate the street ways and the fact that there are still trees with green leaves.

 

Look at those gorgeous colors. Can you believe it's winter?

Finals

So, I'm done with my schooling for this semester. The grades are mostly in, though I'm still waiting to hear about Speaking Japanese and Sumi-e (though I'm sure I did fine...)

I passed both my anthropology class and Reading/Writing Japanese class with flying colors, I'm proud to say. Of course, I had my doubts about my anthro class due my lack of interest in the class that slowly started after the drop point passed, but oh well. I guess that looking for academics in a college basically designed for sightseeing is setting the bar a little high, but hey, whatever. It's all over now.

Soon I'll be posting about sumi-e and some of my better looking pictures (the first couple of weeks made it look like a raccoon had made off with an ink brush!) along with an explanation of the processes used. I'm really looking forward to it.

I move into the dorms for winter vacation this Saturday, and I'm really excited! Despite having a small case of the sniffles, I'm doing fine and packing piece by piece into my large (but apparently not large enough >.< oh no!) suitcases and I'm planning my vacation. A trip to Tokyo with friends is a must!!

Kabuki~!

So I went to my very first kabuki show today and it was the epitome of validating why I study Japan.

Yes, it was that epic.

The kabuki I went to was a very special show—one shown only in December. It’s called the Kichirei Kaomise Kogyo (Annual custom, all-star cast face showing) and it’s called “face showing” because it’s snippets of scenes in plays and not the whole plays in their entirety as well as starring only the best and brightest of the kabuki troupe. Despite this, we started at 4:30pm and got out around 10pm. It was very long, but very worth it.

Kabuki is the traditional art of Japanese theater that involves dancing, elaborate make up and costumes, and cross-dressing. Yes, just like Shakespearian theater, all the actors are men—even the women. What makes it worse is that the onnagata (the men who play female roles) are usually more feminine than most women…or at least me. 

Yes, this is a man.

Machi, Me, and Alexa in our traditional finery after the show!

I went with a couple of my friends—pictured are Machi and Alexa (with Heather taking the picture!), but it all started with something better suited for a farce.

Running late, Machi and I strove to quickly get Alexa into her kimono; we had five or so minutes to do a process that usually takes over half an hour. We managed to get a good portion of it done, but decided to forgo the obi (the sash) with a complicated bow and use substitutions instead, and then ran like headless chickens for the bus that if we missed, we would be late beyond all politeness.

While we were running to catch the bus (and me in three inch heels!), I managed to braid Alexa’s hair into less of a tangled bird’s nest and into something presentable (though I know you’re supposed to do the hair before the kimono!). Yes, I managed to braid her hair while running. I feel as if I deserve some sort of semi-mom award for “helping get presentable under pressure” or something like that! :D

We made the bus.

Taking a train, we managed to arrive at the kabuki theater just as it was opening. There was such a swarm of people! It was kinda claustrophobic… But eventually we managed to get in and find our seats…which were at the very back (and top!) of the theater.

Pretty steep, huh?

Walking into the theater room itself gave me a very different sense from American theaters. For one, I felt like I was scaling a rock cliff, the stairs were so steep. One of my friends actually had to leave for a while because she got vertigo. But the colors on the stage were fantastic and every so often you could see someone running behind the curtain to move stuff. And then the show started and I got my first real difference between Japanese and American theater.

In Japan, they don’t turn the lights completely off during the performance. There was plenty of light for me to read and write notes in the margins of the copies of the script the teacher had given us (I was joining a fieldtrip for a class I was not a participant in). There was enough light to navigate the treacherous stairs (though I did not attempt to do so), and even enough light that I could admire the gorgeous haori I was wearing (though I didn’t, instead deciding to focus on the very fascinating scenes shown in front of me).

In between all of the plays (there were five), there is a fifteen to thirty minute intermission, where you can stretch your legs, go to the bathroom, buy food, or eat dinner. Yes, you can drink beer in the theater while watching. It’s practically encouraged.

So, the first “scene” cemented my love for kabuki. It was not the plot (kinda trite in my opinion, though if I did enough research, I’m sure it would make more sense for me), or the interesting use of stage effects—it was the scenery that did it for me.

DISCLAIMER: This is a very scarce and brief description of the play in order to highlight the scenery, costumes, and acting, not the story.

It started with a man on a balcony admiring the tops of some blooming cherry trees. There was talking and reminiscing and the man finding out that he was adopted. Then—suddenly!—his arch rival appears underneath his balcony.

To show this, the trees start running away (quite literally, as there are people behind them) and then the balcony the man is sitting on starts rising up into the air, until a whole new level is shown and the arch rival appears.

My eyes nearly dropped out of their sockets. Everything was done so cleverly and it looked so real! I think I may have let out a dreamy sigh. I think the old man sitting kitty-corner to me gave me a look. But it was so well executed!

The second act I enjoyed for the last scene and the character contained within—the kabuki horse. It is one of the most comical things I have seen in a long, long time. Imagine a horse, but instead of horse legs, it has human legs (with shoes!) that march in unison—very much not like how a horse works. Despite the somber mood of the actors before it (it was a pretty sad story), I nearly burst into guffaws. Luckily, I managed to keep it silent, though I was shaking from the effort.

The third act was actually pretty boring because we didn’t have a copy of the script on hand, and most of the characters were sitting down and speaking. In formal, archaic Japanese. Despite being able to understand about a third of what comes out of my Okaasan’s mouth, I was so utterly lost. It went on for ages with no one moving—just one man talking, and then another talking. I was surprised when I didn’t fall asleep and despite not having a script or even understanding any of what they were saying allowed me to focus on the details in the costuming and the set. The tiniest of details, like a papered over crack in the wall or a bloody bandage around a man’s head were given the greatest care.  The most impressive thing was the speedy scenery changes. Going from the luxurious inner room of a rich man to the desolate, snowy winterland of the outdoors in under two minutes? Let me tell you non-drama people, doing something like that is an amazing feat!

The fourth act, however, was the deal breaker for me. I don’t know how else to describe it, but the dance was exactly like an ukiyo-e (which makes sense because ukiyo-e were originally designed to highlight kabuki actors). With the traditional songs and music, it was what one would call “traditional Japan.” The colors put into Okaji’s (the woman) clothes and the way she moved were so graceful, sometimes I forgot that she was a man! I could see tropes of a “traditional woman” in her dance and through her actions. It was a wonderful moment for me because I understood what was happening, even without looking at the script and I had never taken a kabuki class before this! All of my studying paid off for this single moment of enlightenment!  This was my favorite piece, actor-wise.

Also, how do the singing men hit pitches higher than sopranos without vibratos?!

To see a parody dance of this in a smaller environment, click here.

Despite not having a script (only a summary) for the fifth, and final, act, I have to say that it was the one that was my favorite acting-wise. It was, what I've been told, a Japanese version of the Weekend at Benny's? Anyways, there was a corpse and in order to make money for the funeral, his friends made the corpse dance in people's houses to gather money. The acting was exquisite--you couldn't even tell that the corpse was actually a person if you didn't look hard enough. And the other actors' reactions were priceless!

One of the scenes where the corpse "grabs" the rich man's wife. One of my favorite scenes! :)

The highlight of the whole event, though, was surprisingly during an intermission. I was in the line for the bathroom and two old Japanese obaa-sans stopped me and told me in very simple Japanese that my haori (Japanese coat) looked lovely. I blushed so hard…. It’s one thing to feel like you’re just a pig in sheep’s clothing when you’re wearing traditional Japanese clothes and are painfully not Japanese, but it’s quite another thing to have two old ladies in exquisite kimono tell you you’re doing something right. I practically floated for the rest of the night!

Me in my haori

The Definition of Family

(Can you tell I really don't want to start studying for exams yet? >.^ )

A while ago, an acquaintance and I were talking about our homestay life experiences and I mentioned that Okaasan was still feeding me meals that were disproportionate to what I had expected them to be. “Freakin’ huge,” I believe was the term I used. Anyways, that made her start laughing so hard.

“You’re still in the guest zone,” she told me. “You’re not considered family yet.”

Hearing that bothered me because I feel that the repertoire between Okaasan and I is going pretty well. When we skyped my parents, afterword, both parents commented on how well we seemed to get along together. Okaasan does feel a little bit like my family.

So I was thinking; mulling this over. Does Okaasan feel the same way? And you know what? I think she does, despite what that acquaintance did say. Most nights, I eat dinner alone, with Okaasan perusing the mail and or newspaper in front of me because she’s had a late lunch. Every day, Okaasan packs me an obento (adorable lunch box) to take to school. She’s told me that she does this so I can save money to go to the places I want to go, instead of having to worry about fees for school and other things (let me say this: everything I do inside Japan is mostly funded by me with all of my life savings. I am very, very thankful to my family for helping me with college tuition and plane tickets, so what I do in Japan, what I buy in Japan—this is all done under the assumption that I am drawing from my own bank account. Thus, I hope to learn how to budget in the best way possible—though experience!).

And then there’s the fact that in this house, there’s only Okaasan and I. I feel that that does change the “family” dynamics quite a bit, though I have no “family” experience to rely back on. But, at least in America, there’s the whole concept of not letting someone eat alone—especially if they’re a guest. Sometimes, Okaasan won’t even sit at the table with me when I eat as she tidies up the kitchen. I don’t feel that that is proper guest etiquette even in Japan. So I’m pretty certain I’m family. It’s just so hard to gage when I’m the only other person living in the house…

An Exploration of American Culture Through the Preparation of Japanese Food: My Observations

So, a while ago my dad asked me if I had gained any cultural insights onto my own culture after living in a totally different one or if I was still obsessing over the fact that the Japanese have no ovens.

(On the contrary, I have a right to be obsessed. Since my forte is baking, the lack of ovens shows that I cannot win over more followers and friends through baked goods. This makes it harder for me to gather souls, but I digress.)

I’m still fascinated by the fact that you can’t really bake big (read: Sarah-sized) batches of cookies in Japan. This probably shows the difference between consumerism in Japan (you can’t expect a whole Japanese family to devour 38 or so cookies in one night when they’re still fresh [though in my family, they’re gone like a snap. I now wonder whether I’m just that good or if we are being influenced by the American consumerism culture….] or even in a week or so.) The portions are extremely small here along with the fact that fresh food is bought every day for the daily meals instead of hoarding food to feed you for weeks like in American culture (and just to put this out there—I’m not really sure if this buy everything at once to feed you and your family for two or three weeks occurs elsewhere, so I’m generalizing.)

But back to the main subject!

I’m learning more about my culture through admonitions that Okaasan gives me when we’re cooking, than I have ever experienced in my twenty-so years of existence. And it’s kinda baffling to realize. Every single time I chop or cut something, I always hear the same thing: 「ちょっとうす、ちょっとうす」, which means “a little thinner, a little thinner.” I also hear a lot of what translates to “you’re cutting too much, just stop now and mince it.” While stirring, I am constantly being told to just do slow, little strokes so that the food doesn’t jump out of the pan (and to be fair, my dad tells me to do that as well…).

Let me tell you now: this advice goes against just about everything I’ve been taught and use for cooking.

The above statement also lets you know how many mistakes I have made so far (about once every six seconds or so).

And then today as I was mincing carrots, it hit me.  The Japanese care so much about presentation, that they even do it while preparing their meals. And let me tell you, this revelation shocked me.

I am one of the many followers of Julia Child and, like her, was raised to believe that while the final presentation of the food matters, if you make a mistake in the kitchen, no one will know (Note: I am also a learned follower of my father’s school of art of show cooking, which allows for your guests to be amazed by your cooking prowess in the kitchen [also getting them to help you with the dishes after the meal *wink*] but I realize now that the kitchen still gets pretty messy but you focus your guests’ attention on what you are cooking at the current moment). 

 

(You don't have to watch it all, just the first twenty-five seconds or so, to see what I'm talking about...)

The Japanese don’t do this. Ever. Every single aspect of the cooking process has to be neat and tidy. This revelation came around when Okaasan explained to me why I should cut less and immediately put it into the preferred holding bowl to make the cutting board “look pretty.”

I would like to state here that while I am a Japanese Language and Culture major, I’m sure that there are libraries filled with information that I do not know and that could totally take these theories and smash them into little bits. If you have a hold of any of these, please send them my way because I would really like to become enlightened. This is just from the knowledge I have now and what I have observed. I could be totally wrong on all parts and I am not an expert. Just putting this out there.

My hypothesis goes something like this: The American culture just doesn’t care how something is made, just as long as it looks pretty and benefits them somehow in the end (this explains many things from fast food to Julia Child to Walmart). The Japanese actually care about how it looks while it is being made. That is why there are so many food shops with glass windows so you can see your stuff being made and why the Japanese take such precision to everything. Because it matters to them that there was a sense of perfection in every aspect of a piece.

My secondary hypothesis is that this (my first hypothesis) is all (or at least a major part) because of space. Japan is an itty-bitty, cramped island where you all need to get along. Arguing with each other and maybe even starting a civil war is bound to end in bloodshed, death, and not enough people to continue on. There are not enough resources for all the people, which is why presentation and minimalism is very important. Prices are expensive because just about all the resources are imported into Japan (and even more so with the Fukushima crisis). But in America, we have so much land we’re putting good farmland under concrete. We destroy forests to put in shopping malls because we want to shop for things that make our life more comfortable (though I’m not saying that we alone do this—most every country that has enough time in their daily lives for free time and pleasure does this) and if we don’t get along with people? We can always move a town, county, or state away. The fact is, America is so large, we don’t need to all get along and focus on minimalism like the Japanese because we have all the space we could possibly want.

My sub-hypothesis is that this is also a factor to why Japan is so nationalistic—there’s not enough room for more people to move in, and not enough resources to share among the people already here—that’s why Japan is so inclusive and such (at least I feel this was the case in the beginning of Japanese history. I don’t feel up on politics and current history to speculate if that is still true today).

So yes, this is what the secrets of cooking have revealed to me so far. And I still can’t manage to get the hang instantly of using a Japanese knife (which is different at cutting than the ones I use in America).

‘Till the next time! Finals are coming up, but that means that break is as well!