Towada Winter Story

While Sapporo’s Yuki Matsuri is unarguably this country’s premier winter festival, many other cities throughout Japan hold similar festivals on a smaller scale, exhibiting local faire and celebrating the bounty of snow. One such festival is the Lake Towada Winter Story Festival (Towadako Fuyu Monogatari), now in its 70th year, which takes place in Towadako National Park, just outside of the city of Towada. While it’s a fairly small festival, it really has a good selection of attractions for its size.
When you first enter the festival grounds, you're greeted by walls of snow that have cavities carved out in them that house electric light bulbs.
The main stage for the festival housed two large snow sculptures of floats from the Nebuta Festival.
Much like in Sapporo, Towada's Festival featured a number of igloos. Although these igloos were somewhat ugly on the outside, their interiors were far nicer.

Matt even attempted to use his new sorcerer's beard and a collection of candles to cast a summoning spell inside of one of the igloos. He was largely unsuccessful.
There was also a fairly large slide for kids to sled down. I didn't bring my own sled as many of the children had done and didn't really feel like sliding down the slope using the shopping bags that were provided.
One of the cooler things that they had on hand was the "Snow Cat," basically a huge tank that you could go for a ride in for ¥500. While the ride only lasted a few minutes, it was something like a snow roller coaster, which is to say, pretty fucking cool. You could also rent snowmobiles for riding on the same track but we all found the high prices a bit prohibitive.
Tucked away in a corner of the festival was the onsen (hot spring bath) area, that featured an indoor onsen as well as what appeared to be a few smaller baths for outdoor public bathing. While I was told that I should try to convince Ryan to strip down and bathe publicly, he didn't get nearly drunk enough for me to talk him into it.
One department in which Towada could never hope to compete with Sapporo was that of snow sculpture. Notice that I am trying my hardest to display some enthusiasm for the festival despite the crappiness of the barely recognizable Totoro next to which I stand (as a point of comparison, here’s Sapporo’s version of the venerable forest cat).
As can be expected of a Japanese festival, there was a veritable cornucopia of delicious foods to be consumed. One of the more popular areas was a building where you could purchase any number of uncooked foods for grilling on a table-top grill yakiniku style.
There was also a second indoor eating area for the cheaper among us that housed stalls selling mainly traditional Japanese festival foods. Ryan was clearly not entertained.
There's nothing quite like the friendly neighborhood sausage lollypop man! I guess someone in Japan must've taken that conversation in There's Something About Mary about meats on a stick as a call to arms because there's certainly no dearth of them here.
As night fell, the festival’s main stage came alive with a number of performances ranging from shamisen players to reenactments of the Nebuta Festival. Here we see some demons doing what they do best: playing the shit out of some taiko drums.
The night came to an end with the main event: a fireworks show. Although I'm generally pretty bored by such things (thanks to Chicago's summer fireworks shows that illuminate downtown twice a week) this show was unique in that, in the absence of strict safety guidelines such as those in America, the fireworks were allowed to go off directly above our heads. It was actually a really good show for a place the size of Towada.
We finished up the night by heading back into Towada and hitting up a number of the city's finer establishments. Here we see Pilsen, probably one of the best bars I've been to in Aomori in terms of price, atmosphere and the quality of beer. Ryan, however, was still not entertained.

Hey, Hey, We're The Monkeys

I have to admit, when at the height of boredom in the office, my mind sometimes has a tendency to wander. Sure, oftentimes I’m thinking about things that have some bearing on my life; what to eat for lunch, how to find a job when I get back to America, what to blog about next. Occasionally though, I’ll drift off into the realm of complete fantasy, imagining, for example, what it might be like to be a rock star in Japan. While there may not seem to be a clear path from Momoishi ALT to rock god, this fantasy is really not as unlikely of a scenario as you might think.

For a while now I’ve been hearing that my predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor (or something like that-much like when using the term “grand” to trace an ancient relative on a family tree, once you’ve passed about the second level of removal from yourself, you enter a realm of abstraction where any number of additional “predecessor’s” won’t make the person seem any more or less remote, so it’s really pretty irrelevant), Maynard, is the lead vocalist and guitarist of a band called Monkey Majik. He apparently moved to Sendai after finishing his contract here in Momoishi, in order to start up a band. Well, that’s pretty cool I guess but a lot of people play in bands with awful names, so I was never quite as impressed by this information as my co-workers seemed to be.

Well, maybe that was just because I didn’t know how close they were to hitting the big time. They’ve apparently hit the shit out of it now, signing a contract with Avex, one of Japan’s largest major labels, on which they’ve got a new single out called “Fly”. One of their songs has even become the theme song for a popular television show, practically guaranteeing them a huge boost in popularity.

As I was on my way out of Tower Records today, I couldn’t help but notice a large display in the front of the store, pushing copies of Monkey Majik’s new single. There was also a video screen simultaneously displaying their music video. Well, of course I stopped at the listening station out of curiosity and gave “Fly” a spin. And how was it? Well, let’s be clear on this: I really wanted to like it and I really wanted to bask in the band’s reflected glory. But the fact of the matter is that the song is absolutely terrible; a completely bland, flaccid, cookie-cutter pop tune that trades off choruses written in juvenile English for verses written in equally juvenile Japanese. Think I'm just being acerbic? Well, let’s take a look at the song’s chorus, shall we?

Cause I wanna fly
Fly me up so high
Take me to the skies
I won’t get by

If there’s anything more shameful than ripping off Sugar Ray, it’s got to be ripping off Sugar Ray and then somehow defying the laws of science by actually writing lyrics that are significantly worse than Sugar Ray’s lyrics. I mean seriously, just about the only situation in which that chorus would be passable is if the person who wrote it was about seven years old. But hey, you don’t have to take my word for it; feel free to sample the tune for yourself. Meanwhile I’ll be over here, fantasizing about what to eat for lunch or something.

(Not So) Silent Alarm

One day, about a week after I had returned from my post-Christmas vacation, a large box was delivered to our office. Everyone in the board of education crowded around as the superintendent opened the box, pulling out what looked like a small, mechanical egg inside of a plastic blister pack. Each person in the office then inspected the device carefully, nodded or grunted in approval and then passed it on to the next person. Much like the crocodile awaits his prey, I decided to allow this mystery to unravel itself to me gradually, as such mysteries are wont to do.

Fast-forward a week or two and I’m sitting at my desk in Momoishi Elementary School, reading a book. Suddenly, I hear a high pitched, loud and really annoying alarm going off somewhere outside the teacher’s office. The noise slowly makes its way down the hall and towards the office until it becomes clear that it’s coming from one of the teachers. She then walks into the office and sets down a screeching egg in front of the principle. “It’s stuck-we can’t turn it off,” she explains. After a very painful minute, the principle’s fiddling around pays off and the alarm is subdued. This type of episode has since become a weekly occurrence.

Well, it was around this time that I figured out two things. First, the plastic eggs were clearly some sort of personal security alarm. Second, every single child in the school district, from 1st grade up through 9th grade had been outfitted with one. It was also around this time that I noticed a certain poster being displayed in every one of the classrooms that I visit. The poster displays the front of a sushiya and uses the letters on the sign to spell out phrases like “Don’t get in a stranger’s car!” and “If a stranger tells you to go with them, scream!”

So what was I to make of all this? All signs seemed to suggest that Momoishi’s youngest denizens were in some sort of imminent danger but who or what was posing the threat? I decided to take up the issue with an expert on such matters, Okubo-San, our office lady and mother of two young children. I brought up the matter during a car ride to one of my schools and what follows is a rough translation of the conversation that ensued:

Me: “Okubo-San, what are those small, white things that the children carry around?”
Okubo-San: “Oh, those alarms you mean?”
M: “Yes. Do all of the children carry one?”
O: “Yes, all of the elementary and middle school children have them.”
M: “Why?”
O: “Well, there are many dangerous people around these days.”
M: “Even in Momoishi? Really?”
O: “Yes. Momoishi, Misawa, Towada, there are dangerous people everywhere nowadays.”
M: “Oh, I see.”
O: “Mehan-San, do you want an alarm for yourself?”

Since I don’t have access to any crime statistics for Momoishi, I can’t necessarily discount Okubo-San’s claims. In fact, a search for kidnapping statistics for Japan as a whole yielded no results (although this may have something to do with how the crime is classified in the Japanese legal system). However, if we look at the breakdown of crimes reported in each prefecture between 1985 and 2003 (page 2 of this document published by the Japanese National Police Agency), it becomes clear that Aomori prefecture-which displays one of the lowest incidences of crime in a nation that is already known as one of the safest in the developed world-is probably not a hotbed of kidnapping activity.

So who’s to blame for Okubo-San’s paranoia concern? Crazy liberals such as myself will be quick to invoke the “culture of fear” theory popularized by the likes of linguist Noam Chomsky and filmmaker Michael Moore; a sociological thesis that asserts that fear and paranoia are manufactured and purposefully cultivated by the mass media in order to achieve specific political aims. A variety of scholars and dissidents have directly linked this culture of fear to everything from gun violence to so-called “nature-deficit disorder” (NPR interview). While these sorts of theories have historically been directed at the American media, I certainly wouldn’t be the first to suggest that the same may be true in Japan.

Consider this: last November and December, there were three high-profile cases in the Japanese media involving the murder of elementary school students, all of them girls. While the proximity of these events alone was highly unusual and shocking, one case in particular seems to have captured the media’s interest. That was the killing of a 7-year-old girl in Hiroshima, who was abducted on her way home from school. Media coverage of the case literally exploded the day that the suspect was arrested; a 30-year-old Peruvian citizen. Anyone who was living in Japan at the time can tell you that coverage of the crime was literally inescapable for weeks, creating a claustrophobic media space similar to that seen during similar high-profile cases in the US (JonBenet Ramsey anyone?). If media coverage of child killers is everywhere, it seems to follow that the killers themselves might also be everywhere.

Additionally, as the Guardian reports, the Japanese media was quick to spin the incident into a “foreign crime wave,” simultaneously affirming the “otherness” of the criminal (despite the fact that he was actually of Japanese decent) and inciting a xenophobic panic. While you may not be inclined to believe that this type of coverage is necessarily tied to specific political aims, it seems hard to deny that such coverage is, at the very least, sensationalist. What’s more dangerous is that it allows the nation to wash its hands of any sense of responsibility, leaving important questions like “what might motivate someone to kill a 7-year old girl in Japan?” unanswered.

Well, it’s about time we got back to Momoishi, isn’t it? Now I’m not saying that the use of these alarms is necessarily a bad thing; with the exception of annoying a certain assistant language teacher they seem to be doing little harm. However, I do find it curious that they appeared less than a month after the extensive media coverage described above. It’s really anyone’s guess as to how effective such an alarm would be, in the event that it was actually needed, so I took it upon myself to do a little research. Upon stopping a number of children walking home from Momoishi Elementary School a few weeks ago, I discovered that relatively few were actually carrying the alarms with them (below we see one of these few who had decorated his with Pokemon stickers and who even offered to turn on the alarm to show me-I hastily declined). So perhaps the true purpose of the alarms is not to keep the children safe but rather, to assuage concerned parents like Okubo-San? I guess that as long as the alarms make the parents feel safer, they’re serving some sort of purpose, questionable though it may be.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish sealing off my windows with duct tape in order to protect myself from the terrorists.

Farewell Momoishi, We Hardly Knew Ye

Last week, my office held an enkai to bid farewell to our old friend Momoishi Town and to welcome the new kid on the block, Oirase Town. From what I have noticed, there are generally two types of enkai. The first entails a small party where the five of us who work in the Momoishi board of education gather at the confusingly named “Drive-In” Chinese restaurant and observe my supervisor getting really drunk and telling dirty jokes. The second kind is a much larger affair, involving everyone from the local bureaucracy and generally features a more elaborate meal. Also, my supervisor gets really drunk and tells dirty jokes.

Since I missed the end of the year enkai, this past week’s soirée was only my second experience with a full-scale office party. As you can see below, the meal served was quite elaborate, to say the least.
Things that I could actually identify were the sashimi in the upper right corner and the half lobster in the upper left corner. Things I could not identify were the shelled creature next to the sashimi and the mysterious seafood substance under the plastic wrap (which was cooked using the contraption that it sits on top of). As if this wasn’t enough, we were also brought additional, freshly prepared foods throughout the evening, including soba noodles and seafood tempura. By the end of the party, I felt as if I had eaten the entire cast of Finding Nemo twice.

Unlike at the other enkai I had been to thus far, everyone in attendance was required to make a speech. I eventually found myself standing at the front of the room, nervously shifting my weight and trying to determine what I could possibly hope to convey using my limited command of the Japanese language. I think I ended up saying something along the lines of “We are all sad because Momoishi is a good town. But Oirase will be an even better town!” Judging from the drunken cheers that followed I would say that most in attendance were satisfied with this rousing “speech”.
After the speeches had all been made, it was time for the sake tasting contest. Three unmarked cups of sake were set out and the contestant had to sample all three in order to find a specific brand. Above we see my supervisor, well on his way to discussing gentlemanly pursuits, gesticulating wildly (possibly in order to somehow assist his sense of taste). They called me up there as well but since I obviously know nothing about sake, I was charged with picking Sapporo out of a line up that also included Kirin and Asahi. Guess what? They all tasted exactly the same. I still won a handsome consolation prize of a ruled notebook though.
One of the things I really enjoy about the big enkais is that it affords me one of my few opportunities to speak with Japanese people close to my age. The two straight-up gangstas pictured above are both delivery boys for the Momoishi town office. Although I usually see them passing through our office a few times a week, they have never worked up the courage to so much as make eye contact with me. However, if you get a few beers in them and force them to sit next to me, they’ll eventually start daring each other to try to strike up a conversation with me. Then, after chugging a few more beers, one of them actually will. From the two brief conversations I’ve had with the pair, I have determined that their primary interests are NBA basketball and American hip-hop. It so turns out that the guy on the left only listens to West coast hip-hop while the guy on the right exclusively partakes of the East coast variant. While most Americans would probably agree that this distinction no longer carries much relevance, these two guys took the coastal rivalry very seriously.
The guy on the other side of me taught me that this is the correct manner in which to represent the continent of Africa with one’s hand. I did not know that. Afterwards, he proceeded to get really wasted and decided to repeatedly rub his face against a box of cake.
Towards the end of the night, some guy (who I always assumed was the mayor but apparently is not) invited me over the drink with him. “Do you know the mayor?” he asked me. I replied that I did and then inquired as to whether he was going to remain mayor following the advent of Oirase Town. “Now, there is a challenge,” he said, before producing two election advertisement cards from his coat pocket. I personally prefer the second one that finds the mayor pumping his fist in front of a Dragonball-esque backdrop of action lines. It seems to ask the viewer, “Who are you going to depend on to defend Oirase Town in the event that a group of bumbling aliens arrives and attempts to bore us to death with episode after episode of boring dialogue?”

Sapporo Epilogue

I was going through my photos from Sapporo, just to make sure that I had covered everything and I discovered one poor photo, languishing in solitude. See, the problem with this photo is that it wouldn't fit into any of the entries that I posted previously but I very well couldn't not post it. So here you go, please enjoy Leo demonstrating the latest in underwear technology: the perfect gift for the man who has everything and who also wishes his member could instead take the form of Elvis' nose or an elephant's trunk.

Let's Regain Disputed Territories!

As I was walking around the Sapporo Snow Festival two weekends ago, I couldn’t help but notice a few curious signs that were posted around the park, attempting to blend into the rich landscape of advertisements. Unlike the surrounding ads, these signs weren’t trying to sell a product but rather, a viewpoint in one of Japan’s longest-running territorial disputes-and one that smacked of nationalism, at that.
Just outside of the souvenir and restaurant area was another curious landmark, a “Signature Campaign Corner for a Petition Demanding the return of the Northern Territories”. Um, is this where I can buy snow cones?

Finally, when I saw Jarhead at the Shimoda Jusco on Friday, there was another brief reminder about the “Northern Territories” nestled in between previews for Hollywood blockbusters and actresses crying skulls. What’s going on here?
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, all of these advertisements relate to what is known as the Kuril Islands Dispute, a tiff with Russia over four islands that lie just north of Hokkaido. The dispute stems from Russia’s occupation of the islands immediately following the end of the war but can be traced as far back as the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1905 (interestingly enough, some of the negotiations were held in Momoishi’s sister city, Kittery, Maine), which ended Japan’s debutante ball, a.k.a. the Russo-Japanese War. While Japan has a long tradition of territorial disputes with its neighbors (and I use the term “disputes” here somewhat lightly), the duration of this particular conflict makes it something of a historical curiosity.

Naturally, you must be wondering why on earth such a seemingly insignificant issue remains yet to be solved. If you believe the Japanese national government’s official party line, it’s simply because the Russians wrongfully occupied the four islands and refuse to relinquish them to this day. The truth of the matter, however, is probably somewhat more complicated. A little research reveals the fat fingers of none other than the US of A in the international pie yet again and seems to suggest that the Kuril Islands might truly be the last frontier of the Cold War. Of course, as was the case with Okinawa, the indigenous inhabitants of the islands, the Ainu, have been relegated to the sidelines while the claim to their homes lies in the balance of an international game of tug-of-war.

So what now? Well, the sudden ubiquity of this new ad campaign would seem to suggest that the Japanese national government is attempting to stir up enough nationalism to apply adequate pressure to the Russians. With this year marking the 60th anniversary of the Soviet occupation of the islands, it seems likely that the national government decided it was finally time to settle the score. However, with both Moscow and Tokyo maintaining the same hard line on the issue that they’ve been pursuing for the last half-century, a resolution doesn’t exactly seem imminent.

So here’s my suggestion: an equal number of Russian and Japanese diplomats should be sent to the disputed islands for an international edition of “Survivor”. Between those voted off of the islands and those killed off by the harsh winter, there should be little trouble in whittling down the numbers at which point, the last man standing would win. Someone would gain control of the disputed islands and we’d all get a deliciously Darwinian season of quality programming. Everyone wins, no?

The Dog Days of Winter

I know that the natto thing has been done to death in the Aomori blogsphere but I had a bit of an olfactory revelation yesterday that I couldn’t resist sharing with all of you. For those who don’t already know, natto is fermented soybeans; a sticky, smelly, slimy dish that is allegedly one of the healthiest foods you can eat (and perhaps one reason why Japan has such an amazingly long-lived population). Mere months ago, I laughed at everyone’s tales of natto woe, as my school district was merciful enough to exclude it from the menu. Well, the karma police must not have a sense of humor since natto is now making weekly appearances on our menu, much to my chagrin.

The first time I was served natto as a part of kyushoku, I was firm in my resolve to eat it. Every one of the other teachers was eating it, why shouldn’t I be able to also? Well, I opened up the sealed styrofoam pack (similar to the one seen above) and started mixing in the honey-like sauce. Then I began to stir the natto in large, circular arcs, like the others were doing (this prevents the “strings” from getting all over the place). Finally, I brought it up to my mouth to eat it. While I succeeded at getting a small quantity of the stuff into my mouth, I had also allowed the smell of the natto to enter my nostrils. From there, it crept down my nasal passage and into the back of my throat where it started pummeling my gag reflex. While I was able to swallow that one mouthful, the ammonia-like smell was far too overpowering for me to dare take another bite. The natto was trying it’s best to tell my body that it was not a substance suitable for ingestion.

When a styrofoam box of natto appeared on my tray at Momoishi Middle School yesterday, I knew better than to open Pandora’s box. Trying my best to ward off the smell that surrounded me, I finished the rest of my lunch while leaving the natto untouched. And that’s when it hit me. I used to have a pair of so-called “aquasocks” as a child, does anyone remember those? They were basically nylon and rubber shoes with holes in them for water to drain out and could allegedly be worn in water and on dry land. I remember taking them for a few strolls in and along Lake Michigan but I never thought to rinse them out with clean water afterwards. Well, after a few weeks of sitting around in the garage, they started to emit a sharp, pungent odor and had to be disposed of. In all honesty, I probably would have forgotten all about those aquasocks if I hadn’t been revisited by the same smell yesterday; as you can guess, it was the natto.

“Don’t like natto, huh?” a younger teacher in a suit asked when he noticed I hadn’t eaten it. “No, I’m sorry, I can’t eat it,” I replied. He laughed. “How about sashimi? Sushi?” “Yes, I like sushi and sashimi very much,” I told him. “How about dog?” he inquired. “Well, I haven’t eaten that yet!” I exclaimed and let out a hearty laugh. When I looked up to meet his gaze, he was staring back at me with a look of complete seriousness. “Well, if you ever want to try it,” he said, “there’s a good place on the other side of town”.

The Legend of Sapporo Ramen

Chicago has hot dogs. New York has pizza. Philly has the cheesesteak. And Sapporo has ramen. Well, maybe that’s not a perfect analogy; Sapporo is only one of numerous locales in Japan famous for region-specific ramen. However, as anyone who’s munched on a Chicago-style deep-dish pie will surely tell you, all pizzas are not created equal.

I’m going to go ahead and assume that anyone reading this blog is already familiar with the concept of ramen but if you think I’m talking about those instant noodles you lived off of in college, do us all a favor and educate yourself (actually, Juzo Itami’s Tampopo would be a much more fun introduction but it’s sadly out of print-Netflix it if you can). Anyhow, Sapporo is famous for a few varieties of ramen but the most well known is probably their take on miso ramen; armed with an extra spicy, oily broth, it’s just about the only thing that can combat the harsh Hokkaido winter.

My first encounter with Sapporo-style miso ramen was at a joint in Misawa near Ryan’s house and ever since then, I had been longing to try the real deal. So it should come as no surprise that we hit up a number of joints over the course of our three days in Sapporo.

Here we see the first bowl of Sapporo miso ramen that I partook in, from a small ramenya (ramen shop) next to the Hundred Beer Bar. While it was surely a good bowl and a little spicier than the Sapporo-style ramen I had in Misawa, it wasn’t really the life-changing experience I had been anticipating. Next!
While exploring the Esta building next to Sapporo station, Greg somehow convinced Leo and myself to join him for a bowl at their 10th floor ramen complex. While it featured eight separate ramenya set in a fake promenade, the place seemed a little too tacky to actually be any good. Oh, how wrong I was. The bowl of miso ramen you see above was, without hyperbole, the best bowl of ramen I have ever had. It was also the only genuinely spicy food I have had thus far in Japan. The minute it was set in front of me, I foolishly downed a spoonful only to be propelled into a fit of coughing. At times I almost felt like I was struggling with the broth but I’ll be damned if I didn’t enjoy every minute of it.
Of course, no discussion of Sapporo ramen could be complete without mention of ramen alley (ramen yokocho). Since the 1970s, this narrow alleyway crammed to the gills with ramenya has served as the central locus of Sapporo ramen culture.
Here’s the joint Leo and I chose-the interior is pretty typical of a ramenya, in case you’ve never been. Customers sit at stools in front of the counter space that forms a perimeter around the preparation area. As ramen is fast food, this arrangement is designed to maximize both space and efficiency.
We were told to try the seafood ramen and that’s what we did. I have to say though, despite all the hype, ramen alley didn’t really live up to its reputation in my opinion. Sure, this bowl of ramen cost the equivalent of $15 USD (about double the normal price) and was topped with a virtual coral reef’s worth of seafood but the key element-the broth-was somewhat bland and left a lot to be desired. Just goes to show that you don’t always get what you pay for.

The Sapporo Beer Museum und Garten

Something that I really regretted missing out on during my last visit to Sapporo was the Sapporo Beer Museum. When we returned for the Snow Festival this month, I was determined to right this wrong. I was also determined to drink hell of delicious Sapporo Black straight off of the tap. Our course of action was clear.
The Beer Museum (the only one of its kind in Japan) is housed in what was once the factory of the Sapporo Sugar Company. Dating back to 1890, the building has now been designated a “Hokkaido Heritage” site.
These barrels displayed outside are replicas of the kegs that sat outside of the Sapporo brewery on its opening day, September 23, 1876. The text on the barrels reads “Barley and hops are fermented into so-called biru”.
Sections of the beer museum have a delightfully whimsical Disney-like ambience; really not at all unlike the fictional “Duff Gardens”. Here we see a number of little people illustrating the magic of beer brewing and consumption.

They also had a lot of old advertisements, cans and bottles on display, some dating as far back as the 19th century. Remember kids: drinking is cool and all but what’s even cooler is drinking and smoking.
In the hopes that Sapporo might be attempting to court the alternative-lifestyle market, Ryan decided to pitch a new can design with his smiling mug on it to the company. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem too interested.
You know, at the time, it seemed like a really good idea for Greg to pose with this $900 stein. No, wait. That was never a good idea.

Hey, do you want to play a game? Okay, here goes: below this text are two photographs. Can you guess which one is a photo of Sapporo’s first Chief Project Manager, Hisanari Murahashi, inspecting hops and which is a photo of an impostor?

Please email me if you would like to know the correct answer.
What better way to cap-off your trip to the beer museum than with a visit to the “Star Hall” tasting bar? Here you can sample many varieties of Sapporo, including Sapporo Classic, which is only available in Hokkaido. I'll have one of those giant beers please!
Sapporo Classic: good enough to make your hair stand on end? To tell you the truth, I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between the classic and the regular brew.
Next stop: the infamous Bier Garten, for all-you-can-eat “Genghis-Khan style” barbecued lamb and all you can drink Sapporo.
With the obligatory group kanpai photo out of the way, we were ready to consume enough food and drink to feed a small country.
You know, I was a little surprised, but the abundance of raw meat seemed to have awoken the inner Wisconsinite that had been lying dormant inside of Leo for so long. “GIT-R-DONE!”
With a few beers in our bellies and a few feet of snow on the ground, there was really no other way to end the evening than with a massive snowball battle through the streets of Sapporo.
Another locale worthy of mention is the Hundred Beer Bar. We had been hearing from a few people that there was a bar in Sapporo that served over a hundred beers so we saw it as our duty to check it out. Well, the bar, which is run by a fellow American ex-pat, makes good on it’s name with over a hundred imported beers from around the world. It also makes good on being in Japan by charging about $10 USD each for them. As much as I missed drinking good beer, I really couldn’t justify having more than a few brews here.
Seriously though, you wouldn’t believe some of the stuff this place had. For example, the Anchor Steam Christmas Ale…from 1998. How was it, you ask? About the same as the 1997 (which they also had).
So, in conclusion: is Sapporo truly an exception to the rule that in Japan, a good beer is hard to find? Absolutely.

The Susukino Ice Festival

Although generally better known for its bars and houses of ill repute, Susukino, Sapporo’s bustling nightlife district, also plays host to the yearly Susukino Ice Festival. Although it’s really just an extension of the larger snow festival, the Ice Festival is not without its own unique charm.
During the days leading up to the opening of the festival, sculptors work to create a series of elaborate carvings in the middle of one of Susukino’s busiest roads. I’ve been told that most of the sculptors generally work in hotels and restaurants during the year and can only be seen publicly doing their thing during the Ice Festival.
Here we see an ice kirin commemorating the beer that bears its name.
Some of the sculptures even have fish and other aquatic life frozen inside of the ice. I imagine that this required somehow convincing the fish to keep perfectly still until the water had time to freeze around them. Truly remarkable.
The end product is an impressive display along one of Sapporo’s main drags.

Vintage Murakami

At roughly half of the schools that I teach at, I’m usually asked to eat my lunch in one of the classrooms with the students. The idea is that this will give them a casual atmosphere in which to converse with me in English and ask questions about America. The reality is that I usually sit and silently munch on my kyushoku while the entire class makes fun of me in Japanese. Well, I was eating lunch at Momoishi Middle School last week when one of the teachers, Nakamura Sensei, decided to strike up a conversation with me. “I hear that you’re interested in Murakami Haruki,” she said. We ended up having a rather long discussion on the topic and agreed that The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World are by far his best novels. Anyway, at the end of lunch she asked me when I would be coming to the school next and promised that she would show me a rare piece of Murakami memorabilia when I returned.

Well, when I sat at my desk in the teacher’s office today, she came by with a magazine. Despite the fact that Murakami is generally a very reclusive character (he spends a lot of time outside of the country and unlike many contemporary Japanese authors, he generally shies away from interviews and does not appear on television shows), he had apparently allowed a small literary-type zine by the name of “Arne” (アルネ) to interview him and publish photographs of the interior of his house. Anyway, this issue is apparently now out of print and fairly hard to track down, so being able to page through it was quite a rare privilege indeed.

I’m generally of the mindset that artists should have the same right to privacy as anyone else, despite the loud assertions of “MTV Cribs” and People Magazine that anyone producing art for public consumption should have to make their personal lives similarly public. However, I must admit that in the case of the enigmatic Murakami, curiosity got the better of me, especially since I know that many of you are avid fans of his work. I didn’t have a camera with me, so I was unfortunately unable to take any photos and what you see above is the best image I could find of the article online. However, if you’d like to join me in killing the cat, I’ll do my best to describe the article to you below.

While he has historically spent a great deal of time overseas, Murakami (村上春樹) currently lives in a rather modest house in Yokohama-essentially a suburb of Tokyo. While I didn’t waste time trying to decode the full-text of the article (most of which I probably wouldn’t have been able to read anyway), I tried to glean as much information as possible from the photos, captions and sidebars. As one might expect, his house has a very clean, minimalist look and seems almost entirely Western-style, at least from what was shown (for example, there were no tatami rooms in any of the photos). I’m proud to report that he’s a Mac user, as his G4 imac and ibook suggested. His personal library seems extensive and a snapshot of one shelf revealed many supposedly “postmodern” forbears and contemporaries such as John Updike and Tim O’Brien. He also had a number of books on rock history and criticism on display, including titles on the Doors and B.B. King as well as a booklet from The Pet Sounds Sessions boxed set. These were literally book ended by a framed picture of Murakami completing the New York marathon (his finishing time was apparently 3 hours and 13 minutes).

Perhaps the most interesting photos were of his office, where he does the bulk of his writing. At the head of the room sits a solid, wooden desk with the aforementioned G4 imac perched atop. The walls of the room are lined with record shelves that house thousands of vinyl LPs-he estimates the collection consists of around 40,000 pieces (this should come as no surprise as he once owned and operated the jazz club “Peter Cat” in Kokobunji, later Sendagaya). He also has an extensive collection of CDs stashed away in pullout shelves, admittedly so that “they can’t be seen,” as he prefers displaying the full-size artwork of the LP jacket (the first defense of the true scenester). At the end of the room sit two large cabinet speakers, two very-expensive looking turntables and a leather sofa.

There were also photographs of his bicycle (he’s reportedly very athletic, especially for an author) but since I’m not very knowledgeable about bikes I couldn’t tell you anything about it aside from the fact that it was obviously a fixed-gear bike with a Panasonic frame.

Finally, there was a photomontage of different editions of his books from around the world-he keeps a complete collection in his home. It was interesting to see that many of the Japanese editions often feature the English titles on their covers as well, which supports his claim that he often comes up with the English title first.

In completely unrelated news, while being driven back from the school by Okubo-San, I observed an old man standing in the middle of the street and urinating into the snow. He briefly looked up to make eye contact with me and then returned his attention to the business at hand.

The Sapporo Snow Festival

The Sapporo Snow Festival (yuki matsuri) is one of Japan’s largest winter festivals and quite possibly, one of the largest in the world. Attracting millions of visitors from around the world to Hokkaido during one of the island’s coldest and snowiest weeks is a feat matched only by the feats of craftsmanship featured in the festival. Begun in 1950 by high school students building sculptures in Odori Park, the snow festival has grown to become an event that encapsulates the entire city.
In order to avoid the largest crowds, we decided to visit the festival the weekend before it opened and to then stay through Monday the 6th, the opening day of the festival. While there were certainly some downsides to this plan, it afforded us the unique opportunity to witness some of the sculptures in their early stages. Here, we see workers etching a title into the stage of one of the ice sculptures.
The most famous of the festival’s attractions are the giant snow sculptures. Built by soldiers from the Japanese SDF, each sculpture takes the efforts of thousands of men over the course of days to complete. Generally, they commemorate important moments from the previous year. This sculpture recognizes the accomplishments of Japanese golf sensation “Ai-chan” Miyazato who won this year’s Japan Open Championship. Hopefully the fellow in the front should give you some idea of scale; these things are literally a few stories tall.
Just about the coolest sculpture in the entire festival was this giant scene from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. The film is set to be released here in Japan in early March, and this is likely the largest advertisement that anyone will see for it.
One part of the festival that we missed most of was the sculpture competition. Teams are invited from all over the world to create snow sculptures that are then graded by a panel of judges. Since the judging is done on Wednesday, most of the sculptures were still in their early stages over the weekend. Here we see the Lithuanians breaking ground on their block of snow.
There were a few sculptures commemorating 2006, the "Year of Exchange" between Japan and Australia. This is a snow replica of Melbourne's famous Flinders Street train station.
Here we see a life-sized snow replica of the main hall at Horyuji in Nara, the world's oldest surviving wooden structure.
While most of the ice sculptures were being exhibited across town in the Susukino Ice Festival, there were a few on display in Odori Park.


One of the really fun sections of the festival features sculptures of popular characters from television and movies. I nearly flipped my proverbial lid when I saw this larger than life Wallace and Gromit (I also found out that I’ll finally get to see the movie when it’s released here in March).



Did you really doubt, even for a second, that there would be a Hard Gay sculpture? In fact, there were three separate ones; enough to satisfy even the most fervent fans. Fuu!
At night, the large sculptures are brought to life with light and sound shows. The Narnia sculpture was practically ruined by a tacky laser show and booming music. Nothing is scarier than pastel-colored polka dots.

In an expected show of defiance towards China, one of the giant sculptures commemorated Tiawan’s famous landmarks.
There was also a play area with interactive sculptures that you could play with and slide on. I kept telling Greg and Leo that we should've rented tuxes for this photo but they were apparently less dedicated to a fully realized "March of the Gaijin" than I.
This igloo even featured an incredibly life-like sculpture of Greg in the doorway! You've got to admire that attention to detail.
And really, what weekend in Hokkaido would be complete without drinking inside an igloo?

There's still plenty more to be said on the topic of Sapporo and the festival, so you will stay tuned for more updates throughout the week, won't you?

Sympathy For The (Foreign) Devil

About two weeks ago, I returned to the office after a day of teaching to find some sort of official document sitting on my desk. From what I could gather, it detailed a party to be held on the 8th of February. I stamped my hanko on the second page (to verify that I had read the document and would be able to attend) and then handed it to Okubo-San. I then asked Baba-San if I could pay the $30 party fee the next day. She said that I could and then asked if I had a ghost mask. I was a little surprised by the question but immediately produced my Halloween mask from one of my desk drawers. She nodded in approval and then asked me if I had a costume to go with it. When I told her that I did, she said, "Make sure you don't forget to wear your costume to the party". While this was a strange request for what I was assuming was a party to celebrate our upcoming town merger, I simply made a note of it and shrugged it off.

The next day, I headed out to Jusco after work to do some routine grocery shopping. As I was strolling through the aisles, something caught my eye: shelled peanuts. Having never thought to buy peanuts before, I immediately placed a bag in my cart. Right about then however, I noticed something a little strange. Unlike the bags of peanuts we have back in the states, this bag of peanuts had a monster mask tied to it. How curious.

With my suspicion aroused, I decided to return home to see what a little internet sleuthing could turn up. It so turns out that today is Setsubun, or the last day of winter according to the Japanese lunar calendar. While there are various traditions associated with this day, most of them center on the idea of spiritually cleansing the household for the coming year. One of Matt’s principals described the holiday to him with the English explanation “Oni (demons) out, happy in”. While that may sound comically reductive, it’s actually just his translation of the phrase oni wa soto fuku wa uchi (“Demons out, good luck in!”) which is traditionally chanted on Setsubun while one engages in the symbolic act of throwing soybeans out of the front door. This custom is called mamemaki (lit. “bean throwing”) and is said to drive away evil spirits while also symbolizing the sowing of seeds into the earth and the advent of new life. Another common custom is to eat as many beans as you are years old, plus one for the coming year. This is said to provide good health and prosperity for the entire year. In recent years, shelled peanuts have become popular to use since they may be eaten even after being thrown on the ground.

Well, I was sitting at my desk reading Murakami Ryu’s Coin Locker Babies at Koyoh Elementary on Wednesday when the 6th grade teacher came over to my desk and asked if I could end class five minutes early so that I could perform mamemaki with the students. I obliged and at the end of class, he produced two large bags of peanuts from his desk drawer. He remarked that each child should collect 11 or 12 peanuts (depending on their age) and then handed me a bag. As I reached inside to begin distributing peanuts, the teacher started shouting “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” and lobbing handfuls of peanuts directly at the kids. The classroom accordingly descended into a state of pandemonium with students competing with each other to collect the requisite number of nuts. If only they let me do this whenever I felt like it, I wouldn’t have any discipline problems to speak of.

When I rolled into the office this morning and glanced at my schedule as I normally do, I noticed that I was scheduled to participate in mamemaki at the kindergarten today. I assumed that this would mean I would get another chance to pelt children with peanuts but in true Momishi Kindergarten style, they had something far more elaborate in mind. When I arrived at the kindergarten, I was immediately greeted by the principle who said that she had a small favor to ask of me, “Will you be a demon for mamemaki?” When I agreed, I was clandestinely whisked away by one of the teachers to a shed behind the school. “The old man who drives the bus will be the head demon, he will tell you what to do.” When I entered the shed, I was greeted by the following sight:

After we exchanged pleasantries, the man exclaimed, “Oh, you speak Japanese fluently!” “No,no,” I replied, “I’m still not very good.” I’m pretty sure that he thought I was just being obligatorily self-deprecating because he immediately produced both a hand-drawn map of the school and a script and began to explain to me, in great detail, his plan. From what I gathered, I was to be a specific kind of Oni, who had specific lines to be delivered at specific times while following a specific route through the school. Of course, I caught almost none of this and figured that I would just follow his lead for better or worse. Unfortunately, I hadn’t brought a mask like him, so I had to don my hilarious costume and put on my best demon face. I don’t think I did a very good job.
A few minutes later, brandishing huge papier-mâché clubs, we entered the main hall where all the children were gathered in a circle. While the head demon recited a series of lines about all of the horrible things he was going to do to the children, I mostly just growled and tried to make what I thought were appropriate demon noises while stomping around a lot. He then said that he was looking for a specific type of child and started combing through the crowd. While most of the kids knew that we weren’t really demons and laughed at us, there were a few children crying, averting their eyes and cowering in fear. It was the latter variety, I learned, that we were looking for, who were to be dragged off (quite literally) to our “demon cave”.

Well, we were supposed to capture three children each using this method but some of the braver souls decided that they weren’t going to relinquish their peers without a fight. So we soon found ourselves surrounded by pint-sized warriors who attempted to stop us using any means at their disposal. Luckily, we weren’t supposed to be pacifist demons and a large, green wrestling mat had been placed in the center of the room expressly for the purpose of dealing with the more bold students. Most of them were thrown or body-slammed into the mat and then dragged off to join their scared friends in the cave.

After engaging us in battle for a few minutes, a small group of kids wised up and realized that maybe they were going about this the wrong way. Applying their knowledge of Setsubun myths, they began to pelt us with peanuts, at which point we were forced to retreat like two unpopular umpires.

After changing out of my costume, I returned to the main room to find that the tables had turned. The children had donned their homemade demon masks and the teachers were emptying garbage bags of peanuts in their small faces, one fistful at a time. I was presented with a huge box full of peanuts and you’d better believe that I let ‘em have it.

Afterwards the children returned to their classrooms, where they were encouraged to eat the requisite amount of peanuts to ensure a good year. While this meant five or six peanuts for most, I got to enjoy 23 whole peanuts. A number of kids came up to me to remark that one of the demons had been wearing the same pants and shoes as me but I assured them that it was just a simple coincidence. Most of them believed this and a few inquired as to whether I had a demonic brother who lived in the area.

So let’s recap, shall we? In accordance with the traditions of Setsubun, I was allowed to throw peanuts at small children, encouraged to scare them and make them cry, allowed to throw them into a mat and to top it all off, I got to eat 23 peanuts. Best holiday ever? I do believe we have a winner.

Imagine, if you will, what would happen if I engaged in these sorts of activities as a teacher in America. I would wake up tomorrow morning and have about 50 court subpoenas in my mailbox and a county sheriff at the door. The Japanese, however, see nothing wrong with scaring kids and roughing them up a bit in the name of good old-fashioned fun and I would tend to agree. By which I mean it is hell of fun beating up on defenseless five year-olds.

Now, the most astute readers out there are probably scratching their heads right about now and asking “But what about that party?” Well, never one to let a plotline slip through my hands, I confidently walked into the office a few days ago and inquired as to why I was asked to wear a mask for next week’s event. “Is it because of Setsubun?” I asked knowingly. “No,” answered Baba-San, “the mask is for yokyou”. Being unfamiliar with the term yokyou, I looked it up to find out that it means “entertainment or sideshow”. Oh.

Tonight I’ll be leaving for the northern metropolis of Sapporo, where I’ll spend four days enjoying the sights of the 57th annual yuki matsuri (snow festival). Expect a full report sometime next week. Until then, I hope you all have an enjoyable Setsubun, wherever you may be. I encourage all of you to promote internationalization in your communities by taking to the streets and throwing peanuts at passerby (disclaimer: I am in no way liable for any injuries incurred by yourself or to others as a result of engaging in mamemaki).