Trini in Tokyo

It’s a Heat Wave

Sade — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:16:44 +0000

The Japan Times has already spoken about The art of sweating in Japan, but I thought there might be a bit more to say.

So, for those of you who are lucky enough not to be this side of the Pacific, Japan is in the grips of a heat-wave. The rainy season (tsuyu) ended suddenly this year and the sun came out to play. While I was getting tired of wearing boots everyday, I think a little bit of rain is preferable by far to constant beaming sunshine. Every day it has been over 95 degrees Fahrenheit , and I’m sure it felt more like 105 with the heat radiating from the concrete.

Tokyo is an urban heat island , so that makes the temperatures here even worse than in the surrounding areas. Just yesterday, 15 people died of heat exhaustion.
Everyone in the city has their fans and terry cloths ready to cool themselves off and wipe away dripping sweat.

I’m tempted just to stay inside until fall.

For those of us who need a little extra help in the heat:

In the summer time our genitals become itchy (itchy)

When they become itchy, use Delicare M’s

[humming humming] it works!

don’t scratch them, use Delicare M’s

translation by Spoon & Tamago

いわて牛 Iwate Beef- “Meat Icecream”

Minorities in Japan: Burakumin

Sade — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 09:42:13 +0000

Who are the Burakumin?

The burakumin (部落民 “hamlet people”) are a Japanese minority group. While they are (unlike Zainichi and Ainu) also Wajin, the burakumin have been discriminated against because of their history of a low caste group.

During the Tokugawa period there was a four rung caste system that consisted of

The Shogun
Daimyo
Samurai
Farmers

Not even at the bottom, outside of those castes, were the Burakumin and the hinin (非人 “non-people”). The position of the burakumin was something like the Dalit, or untouchables in South Asia, who were ostracized from society from performing the necessary but dirty jobs that involved cleaning filth and dealing with dead animals.

The neighborhoods where burakumin lived were referred to as eta (穢多 “filthy mass”). Shinto belief equated cleanliness with goodness and impurity with evil, and so people who constantly did “dirty” things like killing animals or dealing with filth were also tainted and evil.

During the Edo period (16th-18th century) the caste system was formalized. Burakumin were segregated from the rest of society, discriminated against, and denied the right to posses rice fields. While most Buddhist Japanese were (and still are) given kaimyo or post-humous religious names, Japanese of burakumin origins were often given discriminatory names containing kanji for beast, ignoble, or servant¹ .

While officially the caste system was outlawed in the Meiji era, discrimination outlived legal practice, aided by the kokuseki system’s record of all the burakumin settlements.

Current Issues

One of the most widely publicized issue of burakumin discrimination recently has been the fiasco where Google released an overlay of parts of Japan marked as eta. While it may seem that releasing old maps are harmless, this is dangerous because there is already an industry surrounding finding out whose ancestors were burakumin based on names and hometowns. If Google had not taken down the map, such discrimination would be as easy as click away.

http://blhrri.org/blhrri_e/blhrri/Q&A.htm↩

#502: Rainbow (Insect Craft)

Sade — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:09:49 +0000

So, I’ve actually kept up with my schedule!

I am at #502 of Heisig’s Remember the Kanji after studying everyday with ankimobile on the way to school.

I’m recognizing a lot more kanji, although much of this part is just review for me. The number of cards I have to do is getting larger, I’m kind of nervous about the avalance of cards that I can see coming one I’ve gotten past #1000.

Actually pride has been a motivator for me for a while. When I was in elementary school my family moved from Miami to Pembroke Pines, and I moved from a private to a public school. I thought the public school was boring and the work was too easy so I simply didn’t do it.

Then the teacher called my parents.

She called my parents, told them I wasn’t doing my homework, and made them sign off on my homework book every day.

I was so enraged about that I made straight A’s in the class ever since.

So, here’s to a damaged pride!

Minorities in Japan: Ainu

Sade — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 17:06:14 +0000

Who are the Ainu?¹

The word Ainu means “human” in the Ainu language. The Ainu are an indigenous group in Japan ² that lived in Hokkaido. The Ainu are racially distinct from the Japanese and have their own language, religion, and culture. They could be visually described as fair skinned and hairy.

What is their Religion?

The traditional Ainu religion is animist, believing all natural things have spirits. They believe spirits are immortal, and that good people can go to kamui mosir (the Land of the Gods). Because the Ainu are hairy, some creation myths say that their first ancestor was a bear, making it a very important animal.

This is the myth of the Trout:

“Before God made the world, there was nothing but swamp to be seen, in which, however, there dwelt a very large trout. This trout was indeed a mighty fish, for his body reached from one end of the swamp to the other. Now, when the Creator produced the Earth, He made this creature to become its foundation. There lies the living trout beneath the world, taking in and sending out the waters of the sea through his mouth. When he sucks the water in, the ebb of the tide takes place, but when he sends it out the tide flows”….³

How did they come into contact with the Japanese?

While the Ainu in Hokkaido and Japanese (Wajin) began contact in the 13th century, the two groups intensified relations in the Tokugawa period (17th-19th cen.) because of trade in the region.

Assimilation and Discrimination

During the Meiji Restoration Hokkaido was annexed by Japan to protect itself from Russia and gain more natural resources. In the process, the Ainu officially became “Japanese” and were expected to give up their identity as an indigenous group and assimilate into Japanese society. The Family Registry Law of 1871 prohibited Ainu from wearing traditional clothing, speaking Ainu, and other traditional practices. The Ainu were also required to take Japanese names.

Since then the Ainu have been increasingly marginalized, to the point where now Hokkaido is now mostly populated by non-Ainu Japanese who moved there initially to take advantage of the natural resources of the island. Also, probably as a result of government prohibitions, there are only around 100 people alive today who can actually speak Ainu, although some young people today are showing an interest in relearning their culture.

There is still an educational and economic gap between Ainu and Wajin, and Ainu often face discrimination in finding jobs and marriage partners⁴ .

It would be difficult to tell most Ainu from Wajin nowadays because of the rate of intermarriage, but there are still a few full-blooded Ainu living in Hokkaido and other areas of Japan today.

Official Recognition

The Ainu were finally officially recognized as a distinct indigenous group in 2008⁵ . While the declaration does not recognize the hardship that many Ainu were put through, it is a beginning.

This post will probably undergo periodic changes.↩
and some parts of Russia↩
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/hokkaido/legtro.html↩
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7437244.stm↩
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080607a1.html↩

Easter in Chiba

Sade — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 05:54:18 +0000

I spent my first Easter weekend in Japan with my host family in Mobara, Chiba. Probably few people living in Tokyo have ever been to Chiba, as Chiba itself is a two hour train rude and then the ride to Mobara station is another two hours away, but I consider it my second home since I did a home-stay there three years ago. So Easter is right in the middle of sakura season and we got to do a lot if hanami while we were there.

The highlight of the trip, though, was stumbling across a temple in the process of being constructed after Easter Sunday service. It was beautiful. We were just taking a walk and decided to go strolling through the temple grounds and a graveyard ( yes I realize that sounds strange but Japanese graveyards are somehow less creepy since people actually care for them) and one of the men building the temple basically dragged us in to show us his handiwork.

The temple was being worked on by a pair of Japanese men, and they had built the whole thing just the two of them for about three years. When we got there they said it would be done in the summer, by August.

They showed us how the temple is built without glue, and that everything must fit precisely together. They showed us how to interlock two pieces of wood so that it is almost impossible to take them apart again. They drew the eaves in the temple at full scale, freehand, taking weeks just to get the proper balance and flow of the curves. Here and there the temple was dotted with hand made medallions of pure gold that cost about 20,000 yen each.
The younger craftsman was working on a connection between the older temple and the newer one, but he had no blueprint for it and so he was just working from imagination. These guys are really perfectionists. He showed us where he made a mistake, placing a joint a centimeter off or so, and he was so upset about it that he slapped it!

I was really glad at this moment that my japanese had improved a lot since I first got here, or the experience might not gave been as amazing as it was. Just how do you become a temple builder? The younger craftsman shared with us that initially he just wandered around the world, going to Australia, the us, and Latin America until he decided on working in japan where he could at least be in the same country as his family. They gave us thinly shaved pieces of the cedar they were using as souvenirs, and let us put it out as they planed the wood.

A funny thing was, since it was Easter Sunday we had gotten some Easter eggs at church and decided to give the carpenters these as thanks. But when we gave it to them they asked, ” why are you giving me an egg?” ” isn’t that unhealthy fir an old gut like me?”. We said it was fir Easter, a Christian holiday, and they asked “so what does Jesus have to do with eating eggs?”

What indeed.

Japanese Learning

Sade — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 04:55:33 +0000

So, recently I decided that embarrassment is the best motivator for me to learn Japanese. I thought, how can I graduate from one of the top schools in the nation, after spending two years living here, and not know the language? That’s pretty embarrassing, right?

In that spirit, I’ve dusted off my Anki decks, shelled out the cash for the Ankimobile iPhone app, and I’m back on the wagon.

Here are my decks:

Heisig’s Remember the Kanji
Smart.fm’s Core 2000, and eventually 6000
AJATT’s My First Sentence Pack

Plus

random sentences, phrases, and kanji mined through living here.

I am restarting from the beginning, so the first couple of weeks should be smooth sailing. I’m just worried about some months out when I’ll have 800 reviews due and a thesis on my back.

Oh well.

Let the game begin (again)!

Whiteboard poetry Sunday

Sade — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:36:49 +0000

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

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Pretzels!

Sade — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:18:40 +0000

I have a feeling that this blog will turn into the-adventures-of-cooking-in-a-meagerly-stocked-apartment-on-a-student-budget-with-no-oven.

It is not a secret that I love food. When I was asked what I wanted to do for my 23rd birthday this year I could not think of anything better than eating very many kinds of stinky cheeses, but I imagined no one else wanted to do that with me, so we went to karaoke. So aren’t I lucky that I get to live in Tokyo, where there are more five star restaurants than Paris?

Kind of.

The thing is, I’m on a student budget. The second thing is I don’t have an oven. This wouldn’t be a problem if most grocery stores in Japan sold something resembling normal bread. They do not. My local supa sells 6 slices of large square shaped dry cake they call bread for 500 yen. This is not a good value.

So I have been longing to make my own bread. Then it hit me! Pretzels are just bread that gets half of the cooking done by boiling them! Tah da, I have bread.

Delicious delicious salty bread.

I followed this recipe from Dinner with Julie.

Pretzel Rolls

2 tsp. active dry yeast
3/4 cup lukewarm water
3/4 cup lukewarm milk
2 Tbsp. olive oil
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
plus extra salt for the top

Boiling solution:
2 L water
1 Tbsp. salt
4 Tbsp. baking soda ( added a lot more than this because I wasn’t sure it was enough)

Stir the yeast into the water in a large bowl until frothy. Stir in the milk and oil , and then 2 cups of flour and salt. Mix, slowly adding in more flour until you cannot mix anymore.

Kneading time! Knead, adding the excess flour, until it is smooth. Cover in a greased bowl and let rise for an hour.

Cut the dough into 10 pieces and either roll or make little pretzels. Let rest 15 minutes while you turn on your toaster oven to preheat it and bring the water, baking soda, and salt to a boil.

Once boiling, turn down the temperature of the water. Boil 3 pieces or so at a time, about a minute for each side. When done, place on a plate, dust with salt, and put into your toaster oven for about 15 minutes.

Bake for 20 minutes, until golden. Makes 10 pretzels or pretzel buns.

Enjoy!

Pretty easy, and it makes enough bread for me for a week. Success!

I

Sade — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 10:57:55 +0000

When I was little I hated yogurt. Now, what I mean is that I hated those little Dannon things with the fruit on the bottom that they used to give kinds for lunch. Even then I had a distaste for things that did not taste like they should, like “all natural fruit flavours” and yogurt should not resemble jello should it?

I remember the first moment I stopped hating yogurt. It was when I was eating dinner with my French host family for the first time and they had plain yogurt with sugar on top for dessert. I remembered the Dannon cups and might have even wrinkled my nose, but I was determined to take advantage of local food customs (which on one occasion caused me severe stomach pains from a semi-cooked egg) and I ate it.

It was tart! Not jiggly! Creamy!

Since then I’ve eaten yogurt nearly every day if I could get my hands on the good kind, but now I can make my own!

For Christmas I got a yogurt maker from Williams and Sonoma and I finally got to eat some of the yogurt I made. There are only two ingredients, milk and yogurt starter, and it is delicious, thick, and tangy! Plus way cheaper (at the cost of a bottle of milk) than fancy Whole Foods yogurt.

Another win for the student budget!

Pizza!

Sade — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 03:28:19 +0000

So, after getting back to Tokyo after a great return home I found myself in a cold apartment with no food and no intention of going outside to procure any. This, of course, meant pizza!
The only only experience I had with Japanese pizza delivery was through Pizza Hut, which unlike the American version did not seem to do horrible things to my insides. Plus, online orders come with two bottles of oolong tea, who doesn’t like that?
Yet somehow yesterday the Pizza Hut website refused to load and instead I turned to Dominoes. Sure, their dessert selection is not as great and it’s pizza offering not so “unique,” but they give online orders 5% off. The pizza was good, a margarita, not too oily.
The best part, however, was the wonderful video that they developed to keep you entertained for the 30 or so minutes it will take your pizza to get from their store to your door. Below is the ending of the video, but unfortunately I missed the portion where a Dominoes worker fusses over the toppings on my pizza in a parody of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
Maybe next time.