'Golden Week' looms ...

'Golden Week' is the period in Japan covering four public holidays. Today - 29 April - is the old Emperor's birthday and is now known as 'Showa Day' in his memory. Then looming next week are 'Constitution Memorial Day' on the 3rd, 'Green Day' on the 4th and finally 'Children's Day' on the 5th.

Three days off in a row! In Japan it is an eternity, whoever heard of such amazing luxury in the old days? And sometimes - like this year - the dates are linked to a weekend giving an unimaginable five days away from work. A few might even be lucky and be granted a couple of days extra paid leave and get and entire week off to make that 'Round the World' trip of a lifetime. But only a few.

So this is a good time to avoid the airport and the shinkansen and even Motosuka Beach if it isn't raining. As the archives are closed I'll be using the days to try and clear some of the unbelievable mess piled deep here in my study. I've been working so hard at my studies and the piles of open books and statistics have grown so deep on the tables, chairs and floor that even the cats give the place a miss now.

Interesting how different the Japanese and British 'angles' are when it comes to holiday seasons. In England we'd soon crank this up into at least a fortnight off work eh? I mean, once you have three days it's hardly worth coming into work Monday and Friday, and then why bother the previous week - only four days so let's made a good job of it and close down for half the month. That's how Christmas and New Year has gone over the years, when I was a child New Year wasn't a public holiday and I don't think Boxing Day was either.

In Japan on the other hand every eagle-eyed boss will be watching for the moral corruption of such creeping idleness. Where else would people possibly want to be except in work? Too much 'hima' (leisure) - the Devil makes work for idle hands...

Sunlize, Sunset

Another dansei korasu - 'male choir' rehearsal last night - that makes two this week. Our debut at the local choir festival looms and we are still in need of practice it seems. We are going to sing three items - 'Dona Dona', a Japanese song called 'Wakamonotachi' and 'Sunrise, Sunset' from 'Fiddler on the Roof'.

All good items for male voices, don't you think? Well, outside Japan 'Wakamonotachi' is probably not well known but you'll have guessed that it is one of those "walk along the road of life together" songs that everyone seems to like here. I don't know who chose the items but they all have that distinctive feel of seriously sentimental music, strong and easily appreciated, like the lavender perfume that I once bought my mother from Woolworths for her birthday.

I'm not sure about the 'Fiddler on the Roof' song though. I expect you love it but there's something in me that rails against Yiddish myths courtesy of the Broadway stage, I don't know why.

However this sense of unease is leavened by the fact that our conductor insists on calling it "Sun-lize, Sunset". Not only insists on it but, being big on 'interpretation', he says to everyone "No, no! Like this! sun-LIZE, sunSET!" And eveyone dutifully sings "Sunlize, Sunset". It's that age old General Erection joke yet one more time I know but he's even got me singing that now ...

Takenoko

One of the nice things about teaching in Japan and especially in the countryside is that you often receive small gifts from parents and students. At this time of the year in late April in leafy Chiba-ken this often means 'takenoko' - fresh bamboo shoots.

Believe me, if you have never had fresh bamboo shoots they are even worth making a special trip to Japan at this time of year just for the experience. The 'real thing' is absolutely nothing like the awful dried or tinned stuff that is served up in Chinese restaurants in Britain. Absolutely delicious, maybe the most tasty of vegetables.

We had a 'shoot' given to us earlier this week and currently making our way through a pan full of gently braised takenoko. Sorry -meant to take a photograph so that you could see what a fresh shoot from the forest looks like but it was in the pot before I got my camera out.

I've grown very fond of bamboo since I started living in Japan, it is one of the most strikingly beautiful sights of the East Asian countryside and there are hundreds of different species around. In leafy Chiba-ken it grows in dense thickets occupying the same kind of ecological niche that willow and hazel do in Europe, and the trunks of a mature 'stand' can grow 20-30 centimetres thick. If you are a gardener don't plant any near your house though, it's very invasive once it gets established.

Male Voices

Extra men's choir practice last night, we needed it. We have a local choir 'get-together' here in May and the men will be singing three pieces at the event.

This is the first male voice choir I've sung in and it's interesting. Our conductor - 'Tokyo Tenor' to you and me - was someone that I didn't like much when I first met him but I've rather warmed to him over the months. He has an uphill task with us for sure, there are a couple of voices around in the ranks that remind me of the expression 'train wreck' when it comes to singing in tune. And they don't sing sotto voce either.

But mainly we are just a socially dysfunctional male group. What is it about men eh? We are solitary creatures, we don't bond easily, all in our own little worlds. Sometimes I feel like I'm invisble there. We need one of those management 'awaydays' where we all stick yellow notelets on the wall and do clever things with planks and oil drums. Women are sociable beings and harmonise well but men basically don't like each other so much.

Also recently I've begun to pick up on the politics of the whole scene. The nine surviving singers - was sixteen just before Christmas when the meeting fee went up to 3000 yen, (yes, thats £15, $30...) - come from three separate local choirs all with long and torrid histories of rivalry. Why the heck should we like each other eh?

And yet it is fun somehow, actually a bit of an achievement. Male voice choirs are rare anywhere, just to get three parts going and sounding OK-ish is no mean feat. So for now I'll keep shelling out my money and ignoring the rest of them and enjoy the singing and let's see where it all ends up.

Itsukushima Shrine

When I was down in Hiroshima last week we took a trip over to Itsukushima Shrine. It is about a thirty minute trip on the kakuekiteisha 'all stations' train from Hiroshima Station and then a ten minute crossing on the ferry to Itsukushima Island - usually referred to in English guidebooks as Miyajima ('shrine island')

The shrine is a UNESCO 'World Heritage' site which is usually the final 'kiss of death' for any place so unfortunate as to be so designated. But Itsukushima seems cope OK, maybe because there is lots of space for people to mill around on the island and partly because you still have to make a bit of an effort to get there. The first time I made the trip - in 1997 - I sweated off a few kilos staying in a petty darn hot and humid 'youth hostel' on the main road where you catch the ferry. I laugh to think that I felt I'd really made it somewhere off the beaten track. Now when I take a good look at the place with older eyes I see that every other visitor is a big-boned Aussie ("trip of a lifetime - we've worked hard all our lives ...!") or a pair of Swedish girls who should be applying stronger suntan lotion.

Itsukushima is an ancient site but of course it's all got repaired and rebuit loads of times. The design of the torii arch dates from the eighth century but actually most of the current structure dates from the 1875 reconstruction. But don't let that worry you - how old is 'timeless'? I ask myself. Authenticity isn't measured in terms of calendars. Sun, sea, sand, figures, shadows, shapes. A warm afternoon and the scent of the blossoms and the salt. Shores are always margins to explore.

Diet Time

It will come as a suprise to all my friends I know but I decided it was time to go on a diet this week. Of course I'm not exactly overweight but I decided that at 87 kilos (190 lbs, 13st 8lb) there might be some small scope to loose a centimetre here and there and still keep that chunky,manly profile I'm renowned for. Anyway, we also have a concert in May and I can't afford another pair of black trousers. Oh! And there is also my looming monthly blood sugar test - again.

My problem is that I'm an inveterate 'snacker'. 'Snack' in English is a nice word, kind of cuddly and cute like a bunny rabbit. But in Japanese it doesn't have the same profile at all, snacking is bad, bad, with all the connotations of 'couch potato'.

So this last couple of days I've been able to watch my body reactions to this determined change of regime. Three good meals a day, with the emphasis on protien prescribed by my doctor, Suzuki-sensei. But nothing else, that is the main thing.

It is going OK. Interestingly I see that my instinct and urge for snacking is at its strongest just around twenty minutes after I last ate, and especially after breakfast. And it is strong. I must be trying to keep that blood sugar 'high' up in the air, once it has come down a bit I don't feel so much temptation. And in the evenings I don't feel hungry at all. Watch this space.

Boys with Blue Pencils

Yesterday I had an e-mail from an operation called 'Japan Today' and following the link I found an English language 'newspaper-style' site with Japanese news stories. It was a bit of a find for me as I can't afford a subscription to the English edition of 'Daily Yomiuri' and when I do get around to watching NHK news I miss about 90% of the content. In fact by the look and feel of it I thought that it must be owned by some professional newspaper organisation and I spent a happy ten minutes reading news.

One item was about a case of rape in Saitama-ken. Under the headline "Young Women are Lax on Secuity at Home" the author reported that a girl been attacked in her home after going to bed without locking the door. He bemoaned the fact that many young Japanese don't look after themselves and their security properly, having been too dependent on their parents. He added that the latest annual figures showed a total of 255,000 burglaries in Japan.

Like most other internet news sites reader comments are allowed on 'Japan Today'. One reader had already commented that "This shows how dangerous Japan is becoming. Those days of leaving doors open, etc. etc., are long gone."

Well, you can't expect a social statistician like me to let that one go. The press here, like most places, have a terrible habit of stirring up hysteria (and increasingly in Japan about 'foreigners') when it comes to reporting crime. I added a comment of my own. "Actually that's not true. There are nearly fifty million households in Japan so the chances of being burgled here in any one year are under half of one percent. The chances of being burgled in the USA would be nearly ten times greater, and even Scandinavian countries have a higher rate of break-ins than Japan. Still, always better to lock the door when you go to bed at nights."

Innocent enough? Well, I thought so too. But when I checked back an hour later to follow any discussion the sentence "The chances of being burgled in the USA would be nearly ten times greater, and even Scandinavian countries have a higher rate of break-ins than Japan" had been censored - struck out by a so-called 'moderator'. Why was that? Who knows but checking out 'Japan Today' I see that it is owned by GPlusMedia and that advertising revenue for part of this site comes from the American Chamber of Commerce.

No big deal, this sort of nonsense goes on everywhere every day. But an example if one was needed of just how pervasive censorship of all kinds has become recently.

Todaiji

Over to Narita this morning to drop Patrick off for his flight back to England. As usually happens after a couple of damp days the weather was beautiful, but after a busy two weeks I've resisted the temptation to rush around this afternoon. I've spent some time filing photos, catching up with mail and putting away stuff that has been lurking in bags and rucksacks for days.

Looking through pictures of our trip down to West Japan - Kansai - I've been especially struck by the pictures I took at Todaiji. I've been to Nara four or five times now on various excursions but the Todaiji - literally the "Great Eastern Temple" - is one of those places that I could return to a thousand times and still be moved by it. It is said to be still the largest wooden building in the world although it is only around a third of its original size. There has been a temple on the site since the eighth century and it now serves as the headquarters of the Buddhist 'Kegon' school.

Todaiji feels to me a bit like a transplant to Japan from Song China - the scale and design of the buildings remind me of Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou. There is something wonderful about the way in which the temple is so awesome and incomparably vast compared with the people who throng through the doors and yet is at the same time so warm and intimate. In fact friendly. I love to be a part of the happy crowd of people who have travelled far to arrive at some place like this.

Busy Week

I've been missing here for a while making various trips around Japan with Patrick but now I'm back in a rather rainy Chiba-ken. In fact looking out of the window this morning it could easily be Lancashire in March or October - well, apart from those croaking frogs I guess.

Part of our trip took in Kyoto and Nara, and even in April in the company of about a million others it seems. Is there ever a time of year when Kyoto is quiet? No. Even when I took in a conference there in early December two years ago I couldn't locate a reasonably priced hotel room in town on the Saturday night a month beforehand and ended up catching a train thirty five miles across to Osaka to sleep. When I get on the crowded city buses I can't help but notice that some 'locals' look irritated at the torrent of foreigners and Japanese 'provincials' breathing their oxygen and who can blame them? If Iived in Kyoto I'd get pretty pokey myself.

Take a look at these two photographs of Ryoanji Temple that I took last week for example. Above - the 'ideal' scene! One of the most famous of all the classic Zen rock gardens seen at one of the prettiest times of year. Turn your camera around and - below - the 'actual' scene! Maybe five hundred visitors crowded onto the narrow balcony taking pictures of the garden. And this is a quiet time of year eh? "With the ideal comes the actual - like a box all with its lid ..."

But don't let it put you off. The situation depends on what you bring to it yourself. Look at it through the other end of the telescope - so many people interested in experiencing the place, a veritable army of 'pilgrims' whether they know it themselves or not. Even back in old Japan people loved to travel and 'rubberneck' and locals loved to grumble so really this is all a venerable tradition in itself.

More on this tomorrow!

Off to Omiya

I've been missing here the last few days not because of my usual lame excuse - too busy with studies - but because my son Patrick is over here from England for a couple of weeks. It has been a busy time so far and to be honest we took it easy today because we were both tired from so much travelling. Moving around in Japan sometimes isn't easy but it is hard to put your finger on just why it can be so exhausting. The trains are so efficient, people take 'service' seriously in shops and restaurants. Perhaps for me it is something to do with having to be so organised myself. You just can't take a chance on it, you have to check things out, be specific places at specific times.

Yesterday we took a trip up to Omiya to see the new National Railway Museum. Two of our students wanted to go with us and it was the last day they could manage before starting university. It is a five hour round trip with five changes of train so at any time it is quite a gruelling excursion.

However we'd forgotten that yesterday wasn't "anytime" but in fact the last day of the school holidays and we soon realised that we had turned up at the same time as around ten thousand other visitors all determined to make the most of their last day of freedom. The place was 'knee-deep' in elementary school kids and harrassed parents and that was before we got through the door! Any idea of getting lunch there was just a dream and the queues for some 'hands-on' exhibits were longer than Tokyo Disneyland.

Anyway - there you go! If you are interested in Japanese trains Omiya is the place for you. If not, or if you only like kids baked in pies, then maybe not the place for you.