Impression: sunrise

To wrap up my changing feelings about Japan I will go back where I started. In the language of food I moved from the sushi and mayonnaise to more advanced appreciation of Japan – the natto. From nice and yummy at the first taste but getting a little old after a while – to something that you maybe don’t know what to think about in the initial contact with strange, complex flavor not easy to describe, but exciting and getting better and better with every go to the state of liking. 

Yes I really do like natto – the definition of disgust for an average foreigner! I know the texture is something between melted cheese and mucus but I can’t help it and I eat it more often than sushi. Other highly developed tastes of Japan I love are the umeboshi fermented plums - sour, salty and sweet at the same time, and the unique flavored tsukemono pickles. I’m also learning the art of obento - boxed lunch with tiny portions of different tastes organized in a nice way, the compact cuteness. I think I’m getting there because Japanese keep on assuming that my non-existant host mother made it for me. Sometimes I got the feeling that my interest in Japanese arts, religion and food is making me more Japanese then Japanese and therefore kind of not Japanese at all. I also think I’m getting better in “reading air” (kuuki yomenai=literally can’t read the air, don’t understand social atmosphere) and in trying to look people in the eyes to see answers in them the Japanese way. This class taught me that writing can be fun, encouraged me to express myself in a different way and inspired me that I can try to do anything- even make a short film!

Overall I experienced most of what I was seeking for and I hope I will deepen my understanding of the Japanese culture in the next semester. Japan really is Eva no ukiyo for me (=Eva's transient or floating world). The word ukiyo in Buddhism meant the impermanence of human’s world with all things being illusory and ephemeral. In the floating world of Edo period it involved savoring sensual pleasures exciting for their changing nature. Practically it contains perfect combination of my spiritual experiences at Koyasan (monastic center of Shingon Buddhism) and the eyes-opening class of Mind in yoga, Buddhism, and Daoism at KGU on one side. And the fleeting world of sake, karaoke, live houses and the food, the FOOD on the other. Like everything floating and changing- I realize the time will pass and I will have to let go of Japan one day…

natto

my bento box with portable chopsticks and box for rice onigiri on the side

left - sweet potatoes on a shiso leaf, right -  koya dofu, shitake mushroom, carrot, lotus and pickles, upwards - yaki udon with kimuchi 

wraped bento furoshiki style

downwards - chestnuts, wasabi shitake, pickles and radish, right - marinated tofu and carrots, left - fried fish, octopus and pumpkin tempura

Tattoo is...

Tattoo is a work of art and the body is the canvas. Tattoo is something special you never want to forget. Tattoo is expressing your believe in picture form that will last as long as you do. Tattoo is deeper than the skin. Tattoo is something personal that should not be used to label, define or discriminate any more than hair color or gender... These were some of the responses from the KGU (international and Japanese) students I received in questionnaires following the projection of my short film “Tattoo is…” – project for the Visual Anthropology of Japan class. And I think they contain a most of the important ideas regarding tattooing. 

This film project started with my visit to the King of Tattoo 2011 tattoo convention in Tokyo in October. It was a dream-come-true experience for me. Finally I got to see the people I know from books and even the living legend – Horiyoshi III in action! He was tattooing his own son Souryou on stage by both hand-tebori style and a machine. He was sitting in a lotus position on a tatami concentrated so deeply that he looked like in a state of meditation. But there was not just the traditional Japanese tattooing that is notoriously and stereotypically connected with the yakuza. There were also a lot of nice examples of modern Japanese tattoos that were more or less a fusion of traditional Japanese and western one-point tattoos like amazing self-taught Shige and modern tattoo shops like Catclaw in Kyoto and Three Tides Tattoo in Osaka. The celebration of Japanese tattooing peak with guys in traditional all-body tattoos making rice mochi and performing ritual group sake drinking. It was not a typical formal Japanese celebration at all though. You can find shots from the event in the “Tattoo is…” film below or on this link in better resolution.

Japanese tattoo has such a big name in tattoo community in the West and even outside of this subculture (check out Horiyoshi III clothing line in fashion magazines and on Hollywood celebrities here). However tattoos still remain kind of a stigma in Japanese society even among the average young. On the other hand it is sad for me that even here in Japan there is a growing number of people not concerned or interested in the meaning of their tattoos and have them more like permanent fashion accessories. Maybe it is because majority of young Japanese are not interested in their religion and some don't even see the difference between Shinto and Buddhist shrines. Therefore some people choose Kannon riding a dragon because it looks cool not for the fact that she is the Goddes of Mercy. However I hope that even in this quickened life there will always be some people willing to stop and think or maybe better- not think at all... More zen less yen! 

For higher resolution video click here!

Maneki Neko - the Lucky Cat

Horiyoshi III tattooing his son

Shige (at the bottom on the right) and his customers

Shige's Fudo Myo-o

Shige's Eleven Headed Kannon

traditional Japanese tattoos displayed the traditional way

modern Japanese tattoo strongly influenced by the west and mixed with one-point western tattoos

I couldn't resist the fun sake ritual

Further reading:

Irezumi: the pattern of dermatography in Japan – history of Japanese tattoo in great detail

Japanese Tattoo classic by Ian Buruma

The books of Horiyoshi III – highly artistic books in every aspect but really expensive, check out the publishers blog.

Tattoos of the Floating World: Ukiyo-E Motifs in Japanese Tattoo – excellent book that explains the connection between Japanese tattooing and woodblock prints.

Japanese Buddhism x Horiyoshi III – religious aspects of Japanese tattooing with very nice pictures.

Bushido: Legacies of the Japanese Tattoo - The Samurai spirit of Japanese tattooing (nice and cheap)

Tattoo in Japan – Traditional and modern tattoos in amazing and fun pictures!

1000 Tattoos by Taschen – cheap and fun book with really cool vintage tattoos (the Japanese tattoo part is not the best though)

Tattoo Burst Magazine – the most respected magazine about tattooing in Japan

Interview with Horiyoshi III in japantimes.co.jp

Tattoo Artist Magazine blog

Tattoo Museum in Yokohama – probably the messiest museum ever with incredible mixture of stuff with/about tattoos. 

Digging under ground

I had been looking for a place with a good live underground music in Osaka since I arrived to Japan. The main advantage and disadvantage of the underground music is that it is hard to find if you don’t know where to look. It is the music that is not played by mainstream radios or TV, It is not advertised much and their concerts are usually hidden away in small basement venues. So it’s pretty much literally UNDER GROUND.

The day I got a map from a tattoo artist with directions to Hokage live house in Osaka I was so stoked that I had to go there right away. It was Monday but I was feeling lucky. Once I got there I knew immediately that this was the place I was looking for the whole time. Hokage venue had two basement floors – the concert “hall” that was more like a small concert room and a bar. It was messy and not fancy at all, just a place to enjoy music. Me and my friend (also a music enthusiast) were welcomed in Hokage in such a warm and heartful way that it blew our minds. It was obvious that just by the act of finding the place we were accepted by the small community straight away. There were just about 10 to 15 people and half of them were the guys from bands playing that night. The bands were very different from each other. It was a perfect mix of psychedelic played on metal trash, alternative rock from Singapore, metal by Cyberne and amazing Knellt balancing metal with alternative rock.

As I understood from numerous chats with band members and the manager of Hokage, the underground scene in Osaka is a lot different than the independent scene in Tokyo. There are a lot more foreigners in Tokyo and a lot more people in general who support the scene there. The community in Osaka is much much smaller with just about 10-15 small clubs just 3 of them are really good (and Hokage is probably the best one). During the weekdays there are usually just about 10-15 people in the audience and during weekends there are sometimes up to 50. The alternative music that is not a marketing product with the “right looks”, is often too loud and not easy to understand for average Japanese people. The songs are sometimes even 10 minutes long with not a single word sang, on the other hand there can be a lot of screaming, weird sounds or bizarre shows involved too.

I was in Hokage about 5 times already and every time I was amazed by the true friendliness expressed towards me and my friend. I experienced many different bands, many outstanding, unusual (a band consisted of just two drummers) or even bizzare performances like a band with an extravagant lead singer wearing a see-through woman's panties covering just a part of his "instrument". All the people in the audience (majority of them men) came there simply because they love the music and you could see that in their expressions. No one came just to stand at the bar or to show off their way over-done hair and extreme fashion. Sano-san (the manager of Hokage and member of few bands) told me that to him music is the only thing that matters. He is choosing the bands just by the energy he feels from their music. It is not cheap to go to there (1500-2500yen including 1 drink) but it is worth every yen for me. One of the reasons is that you support the bands directly- if there is not enough people buying the tickets for a particular band, the band has to pay the difference of the minimum income for the club agreed. And that happens a lot of times here.

Check out this link for a documentary about Japanese live houses awarded Japan Foundation Grant.

Sano-san

WARNING!!! The video below contains graphic details of the extravagant singer wearing panties.

DO NOT PLAY IT if you don't have a weird sense for humor and/or bizarre shows!!!  

Fishing for fish

What is the first thing you would do after getting off a night bus in Tokyo? Shower? Sleep? Coffee? Well, I felt like a raw fish for an early breakfast! And the famous Tsukiji market was the place to go…

I had been to quite few crazy Asian markets while traveling but Tsukiji located in the central Tokyo really took my breath away. It is composed of the inner market (wholesale market with auctions) and outer market (wholesale and retail market with restaurants). This bustling market intoxicated all five senses and the visual especially. It was a rambling mosaic consisted of fish, seafood, seaweed, vegetables, fruits, flowers, ice, plastic bags, boxes, kitchenware and other stuff. I say: the more mess the more fun! The way how where the fish presented and even the ice cut was a form of art by itself. Maybe a bit too graphic sometimes but that was an unseparible part of it. Lively soul of the market was guaranteed by laid-back intermediate wholesellers and shippers driving dollys and hurrying in the markets’ tiny corridors back and forth. Just watching the wholesellers casually drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes while preparing fish and trying to chat with them, was a lot of fun. And the tuna craze! It seemed to me that the tuna at Tsukiji was some kind of “sacred sacrifice and delicious spirit” that took various forms. As well as it was the superstar of the famous morning tuna auctions, sold for incredible amounts of money and treated with respect to its excellent meat. In fact Japanese people like tuna so much that they are getting close to eat it all away… 
There was also a Shinto shrine with stone monuments near the marketplace. I found out later that the Namikayoke Shrine is memorializing the fish, which backed up my observation about the respect of Japanese people towards fish. According to anthropologist- Bestor, who wrote a 400pages study(!) of Tsukiji itself: “the monuments honor three broad species of seafood by name-shrimp, clams, and monkfish- and two general culinary categories (sushi toppings and fish that arrive alive and are then killed here)…honoring the memory of fish that had given their lives for sushi.” I don’t think this is good enough for hardcore vegetarians though. For more information and fun about Tsukiji check out the documentary Fish is our life.

Although Tsukiji was well known by tourists I haven’t seen too many of them during my visit. They were mostly hanging out at the sushi restaurants waiting in lines for some so-fresh-that-still-almost-moving sushi and sashimi or some other ultimate culinary delights… Oh yeah…my belly can’t wait to be back there!

Demachiyanagi - last station of Keihan line

My first contact with this station was on my way to the Megetsu festival at the Shimogamo Shrine in September. It was just about two weeks after I arrived in Japan and I was still pretty confused with everything. I remember just the simple task of buying a ticket and getting on a train was quite an adventure in itself and involved a lot of “Kore wa doko desuka?”(=where is this?) on the way. A useful fact that I hadn’t known at the time was that unlike the other lines, the Keihan railway lets you use the limited express train for no additional cost. So silly me took the Sub-express train which was not very “express” at all. It stopped at every station and of course it took me forever to get there. But this time I knew better!

Demachiyanagi station is the last station of the Keihan line and also the first of the Eizan line (which goes north to Kurama station at the foot of Mt. Kurama and Yase-Hieizan-guchi station near Mt. Hiei). It is located in a part of Kyoto called Sakyo. You can also take a bus or a taxi across the street from the main entrance of the Demachiyanagi station. The name of the station consists of 2 words: Demachi, the west side of Kamo river and Yanagi, the east side of the river and immediate neighborhood of the station. There were very convenient signs in the station with directions on them and even picture maps of the station and its surroundings. It all was very foreigner-friendly, I have to say, probably because of the huge amount of sightseeing you can do around and the universities that were nearby. The closest sights were the Kyoto Imperial Palace, the Shimogamo Shrine, the Yoshida Shrine and the Chion-ji temple (where I’ll be heading back to soon for the annual autumn used books fair). But there will be so much more, especially when the leaves will have changed color and when the sakuras are blooming! Right at the main gates you can rent a bicycle for just 500円/day. The staff spoke a little English and provided me with maps for sightseeing. They even had a walking map of Sakyo with recommendations from foreign students! Doshisha University and Kyoto University were just a short walk from the station and had a large influence on the surrounding area. There were a lot of cafes, bars and restaurants that were cheap and cozy and that had international menus and music. As far as drink go, I highly recommend chillin’ at the blues bar Ball and Chain with a cup of sake. They often play old VCR tapes of blues videos.

There are lots of fun things you can do around Demachiyanagi!

one of the main gates of Demachiyanagi station which take you underground to Keihan line (for Eizan line stay on the ground level and just turn left)

from here turn left for taking the bus or crossing the bridge to Demachi or right for cafés and restaurants...

Shohei: Or There and back again

Meeting Shohei during my Tokyo adventure was a nice example of Japanese helpfulness. Apparently, if you stare at a map in the Tokyo subway long enough it is highly likely that someone will show up making sure you find your way. So I was not surprised when Shohei asked me if I needed help while I was sitting on a train holding a travel guide with a death grip and a confused look in my eyes. Shohei assured me I was going the right way (what a relief). So I was finally able to relax and chat with him. He appreciated my attempt to use very broken Japanese but we switched to English quickly— as it turned out he had just moved from New York back to Tokyo about 2 months ago. He works as a freelance photographer and mostly shoots musicians, fashion and landscapes. As modest and humble as he was, he didn’t mention that he took pictures of big names in the music industry such as Jay-Z, M.I.A., Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, Justin Timberlake, 50 Cent, Sean Lennon and much more! 

As a Japanese person who had lived 10 years abroad, Shohei’s personality shows a very interesting mixture of both Japanese and “western-ness”. He feels very Japanese, but at the same time, he realizes that he does not appear that way to Japanese people. He is very outspoken, open-minded and spontaneous. He didn’t hesitate to show me around once we got off the train and invited me to a party, where he had been heading with his friends. Shohei tries to be happy all the time and when he’s down, meeting people, eating good food and reading books are his remedies. His positive attitude and humor are truly contagious.

The Japanese side of Shohei emphasizes the simplicity of life. Even his clothing style matches his character: plain colors, simple cut, not complicated.  Tokyo also drew that side of him back to Japan even though he really liked New York-- plus he missed his family. 
Shohei told me that to him, the most important thing in every aspect of life was love. “But I know it sounds cheesy” he added right after. He told me he liked to dream and the minimalist landscapes in his work prove it well, I think. He always tries to look on the bright side and find something more. To me this is what makes his landscapes special. He doesn’t like to take grandeur photographs of traditionally beautiful landscapes because “anyone can take a beautiful picture”. He prefers instead to shoot misty landscapes for instance.

I was very lucky Shohei had given me quite a bit of insight into Japanese culture from his perspective… Sometimes a meeting with a random stranger can lead to a great friendship, so be prepared. You never know who you'll meet in a train!


This is how I remember Shohei:

always laughing

foodie...

7 gods in Hirakata

As I was wandering and exploring the narrow streets around my “dorm sweet dorm“ for the first time, I stumbled upon a Japanese bar (izakaya) called 7 Gods. I was intrigued by cute “Engrish” on the back of the building that said: “Welcome to Japan! Pleased to meet you and we want to associate with you. So get your drink on!!” Another sign informed of the opening hours and when they have a “holyday”. (The term "Engrish" references Japanese signs that have incorrect or funny English. Click here for further information). But there was more - crocodiles and an orchid were offering themselves for money and on the front side of the building (facing the east gate of KGU) were even funnier pictures of the 7 lucky gods as a comic. It all made me  fascinated and felt welcome in my neighborhood. 
This affect was exactly what the owner of 7 Gods - Jin was hoping for. Jin chose this spot for his izakaya 14 years ago mainly because of his curiosity to interact with "gaijin" (literally "outside person"). He decided to name the place after the Japanese 7 lucky gods who are believed to bring good luck and fortune (for more about them click here) and decorated it himself! The animals on the back were glued up later after he started to serve imported Australian meat thanks to a former KGU student. The inside is a Japanese “shoes-less” interior with small tables and cushions to sit on the floor. World maps asking “Where are you from?” are add to the foreigner-friendly feeling without being touristy. You can chat with Jin who is an embodiment of the Japanese word “genki” (energetic) and has learned to be quite fluent in English. For even more Japanese fun take your drinks upstairs and torture your vocal chords with karaoke… 
I felt that 7 Gods‘ decorations and atmosphere in general is an example of how the whole neighborhood shows hospitality and eagerness towards meeting international students. It is a fun place to hang out with local people, feel at home and enjoy an amusing menu where there is tasty homemade Japanese food and exotic meat side-by-side. I don’t think I’m really up for crocodile yet...

Do you want crocodile, ostrich or kangaroo for dinner?

holy-day?

"This is Seminar House 5." "Hey, let's stop here for a drink!" "I wonder if they accept treasures." It's cheap there anyway.

7 lucky gods themself

Jin

fish glow in the dark thanks to black light lamp

Youtube video of 7 Gods from a former KGU student: