The Boar and the Whale

You know, I think I complain too much about having to live in Aomori. Sure, it’s cold and snowy, there are no young people or any semblance of youth culture, most of the local residents would rather not have anything to do with me and those who would often speak in unintelligible local dialects. But, like I said, I complain too much. I need to learn to appreciate what I have. For example, if I had come to Japan with a checklist of exotic animals that I wanted to eat (I didn’t), I would have already checked off a good portion of it. Everything from horse to whale sperm is eaten in Japan and chances are, you can find it in Aomori. Anyway, here’s a little story about how a local culinary enthusiast helped me check two more animals off of my hypothetical list.

So there’s this guy (in the off-white shirt, above) who pops into our office on a daily basis, chats up a few people and then leaves. Anyone who works in a Japanese office is probably familiar with this type of character who seemingly drops by just to socialize. Anyway, Charlie and I can’t figure out what, if any affiliation this guy has with the local government. He certainly doesn’t look like a bureaucrat and Charlie has theorized that he might be a farmer. At any rate, he usually comes by in the mornings, says something in Nambu-ben (the local dialect that seems to consist entirely of grunts and nonsensical mumbles) and then waddles out whence he came. Well, one day he came by and apparently invited our whole office over for lunch. Everyone seemed pretty excited by this prospect and Charlie and I were invited to tag along as well.

When we arrived, we were led into a wooden shack in his front yard. This rickety structure was literally like a home-made tool shed and all of the walls shook violently every time the wind blew. Despite the rather rustic setting, the man had prepared an abundance of hand-made sushi for us as well as soba noodles. Among the toppings we could choose from for the noodles were slices of roast goose. That’s right, that gout-inducing delicacy of monarchs past.

Anyway, I’ve since found out that the guy is a hunter and tends to invite people over after he has managed to kill a rare or delicious animal. So when he invited us over yesterday, I knew that we were in for a treat.

The day’s menu turned out to be soba noodles with a broth of wild boar. You heard me, wild fucking boar. The slices of boar looked and tasted much like pork but the broth had a really rich taste to it unlike any pork broth I’ve ever tasted. It was absolutely delicious.

To make soba, you start out with the noodles themselves, which are loaded into a net. While all soba noodles are made with buckwheat, different seasonings can be added to create different flavors. I’m pretty sure that the green ones are chasoba (flavored with green tea powder) but I’m not sure how the darker ones are made.

The noodles are then soaked in a pot of boiling water for a second or two and then strained before they are placed in a bowl. The broth (in this case, a wild boar broth) is then added on top of the noodles with a ladle.

Here’s the final product, topped with chopped spring onions, seaweed and chili powder for good measure.

And here’s the full spread. He had also made tofu, something like fried rice and some pickled vegetables to compliment the meal. Wait, what’s that meat?

Oh, that? That’s just whale sashimi. Now, you’re probably asking yourself how that’s possible when commercial whaling was banned internationally in 1982. Well, to put things quite simply, the Japanese government obtained a special permit to harvest a limited number of whales for “research purposes”. And this is the product of that delicious important research. Despite the fact that what I was eating was most likely an endangered species, I really didn’t think that it was all that great, primarily because it was still frozen and tasted just like shaved ice to me. I guess I just don’t have a well-trained enough pallet though because all of my co-workers couldn't stop raving about how delectable it was.

After we had all eaten our fill, we sat around and discussed other exotic meats such as raccoon and that old Momoishi favorite, dog. When I asked Tachibana-San if he thought that dog was tasty, he started scratching his head and mumbling nervously. “We eat dog,” answered the young man seated to the left of me, “but we don’t talk about it”. He then took a brief survey, asking “Who here has eaten dog?” and everyone in the shed raised their hands except for the two of us. The hunter eyed us inquisitively and then grunted to himself. One thing is certain: whoever said that there's no such thing as a free lunch clearly did not live in Oirase.

Sensoji By Night

Located in the historic district of Asakusa, the Sensoji is Tokyo’s oldest temple. Dating back to the year 645, legend has it that the temple was built on the site where two brothers found a statue of Kannon, the bodhisattva of infinite compassion, in a river. As the story goes, they repeatedly tried to put the statue back into the river but it kept coming back to them, so they decided to build a temple in her honor on the site. Fair enough. While the temple grounds are quite ancient, most of the structures themselves have been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times during the course of history-most notably after the American firebombings of Tokyo during the Second World War (not-so-fun-fact: those air raids killed more civilians than both atomic bombs combined).

This is Kaminarimon, the temple complex’s main gate. The paper lantern that hangs in the entranceway is supposedly the largest of its kind in the world.

Hozomon is the main gate that you pass through on your way to the temple. Notice the rows of shops and booths lining the sides of the path. The entire walkway to the temple is lined with them and during the daytime vendors hock their wares to passerby; everything from locally produced snacks to Godzilla toys can apparently be found here. This shopping street, known as Nakamise, dates back hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years.

Just past the Hozomon is Sensoji’s famed five-story pagoda. According to legend, some of the ashes of the historical Buddah (Shakyamuni, in Japanese) as well as a memorial tablet are laid to rest inside.

Finally we arrive at Sensoji’s main temple.

In the garden just outside of the main walkway there are a number of statues dating back to the Edo period. These two seated figures represent Kannon and Seishibosatsu, the bodhisattva of strength and power. Did you know that the Canon camera company is named after Kannon? I’m not sure what cameras and scanners have to do with infinite compassion but hey, what do I know?

Yasukuni Shrine

As I’m sure you all know, Tokyo is a sprawling behemoth of a city; a metropolis that could make even Fritz Lang blush. For someone like myself who has spent the last eight months living in the remote reaches of the countryside, it almost came as a shock to again encounter smog, English speakers and homelessness-all of which were once a part of my daily existence. However, these aren’t the things that most people associate with Japan’s capital. When you picture Tokyo in your head, you probably see something like this:
Yes, Tokyo is full of bright lights, tall buildings and neon signs but then again, so is New York City. There’s something else just below that shiny, plastic exterior that defines the character of Tokyo just as much as the Harajuku punks and Ginza skyline do. The city’s present is inextricably bound to the weight of its past; a fact made manifest by the numerous shrines, temples and historically important sites hiding in the shadows of skyscrapers all over the city.

Since most of you will already be familiar with Tokyo’s bright exterior, I thought it might be more interesting to discuss some of the more historical areas that we visited on our trip instead. I'll start with what is probably the most recognizable: the infamous Yasukuni Shrine.

You probably recognize the name Yasukuni from international news reports, where the shrine has been repeatedly featured since Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro’s first annual visit in 2001. While the shrine’s name, translated literally, means “Peaceful Nation Shrine,” Yasukuni is actually a sort of war memorial, honoring the souls of those who died fighting in the name of the Japanese Emperor. Originally constructed by the Meiji Emperor in 1869, the shrine was built to honor those who died in the previous year’s Boshin War, the war that lead to the restoration of the Emperor. Since then, the spirits of all Japanese soldiers (as well as Taiwanese, Korean and Chinese colonial soldiers) have come to be enshrined here, including those of over a thousand Japanese war criminals who were executed during the Second World War. The main cause of controversy, however, is the 14 Class-A war criminals who were secretly enshrined at Yasukuni in 1978. When this was revealed by the media, it caused an outcry among Japanese liberals as well as in the Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean communities. Japan’s enshrinement of war criminals was seen as glorifying the numerous atrocities committed during the Second World War (and also, as symptomatic of a larger failure to acknowledge wartime agression in East Asia) and has become a sore point in Japan’s international relations ever since. While no Emperor has visited the shrine since the enshrinement of the war criminals, four Prime Ministers have, including Koizumi (who has visited once during each of his five years in office). Each of these visits has resulted in a public outcry and has done little to help Japan’s already strained relationships with its neighbors.

One point that some news reports often fail to communicate is that Koizumi’s visits to Yasukuni Shrine are an extremely controversial topic in Japan as well as abroad. While the shrine has long served as a rallying point for right-wing nationalists, many scholars, socialists and liberals here in Japan have taken offense and demanded that government officials condemn Koizumi’s visits. Some have also noted that visits by public officials to the shrine possibly violate the explicit separation of church and state specified in the Japanese Constitution.

This is the shrine’s main gate (torii). While virtually all Shinto shrines display such a gate, this is by far the largest that I have ever seen, standing a few stories tall. Does it seem a bit slanted to you or is that just parallax error?

Just inside the main gate is a statue of Omura Masujiro, who is credited as having designed the reforms that led to the creation of the modern, Western-style Japanese army. Many of you will remember him as the primary villain in the historically inaccurate Tom Cruise film The Last Samurai. He is honored here as the “father of the Imperial Army”.

This is the main shrine where worshippers pay their respects. While most laypeople simply pray from the outside of the shrine, high-profile visitors such as Koizumi have been known to enter the shrine’s main hall from time to time.

Various ema (“horse pictures”) are hung in a designated area of the grounds. While it was once customary to give horses as gifts to shrines when making a prayer or requesting that a wish be fulfilled, tablets with pictures of horses (or other animals) printed on them are now used for that same purpose. The person making the wish writes it on the opposite side of the ema and then hangs it where the kami may read it.

Here we see omikuji tied to a pole. These small scrolls contain fortunes and are randomly selected from a box. When the fortune is good, it is considered customary to keep the scroll. Omikuji containing bad fortunes are usually tied to a pole or tree (traditionally a pine tree) on the grounds in the hope that the bad luck will remain attached to the scroll. Remember when that girl in Lost in Translation tied an omikuji to a tree? Considering that she probably couldn’t read it, she quite possibly cheated herself out of some good luck. What a fool.

The Ghibli Art Museum

One of the highlights of my recent trip to Tokyo was being able to see the legendary Studio Ghibli Art Museum in Mitaka, a Western suburb about 15 miles outside of the city. Considering myself a fan of the studio’s more popular films (like My Neighbor Totoro and Princess Mononoke) and having watched some of Ghibli’s more obscure titles (like 耳をすませば) while taking animation-based conversation courses in college, I was quite curious to see what the creative minds at Ghibli had built in Mitaka. I’m pleased to report that the museum is every bit as whimsical, fantastic and enjoyable as the films that inspired it.

Like many things here in Japan, visiting the Ghibli Museum is no simple affair. Unlike most museums, you cannot simply purchase tickets as you enter. Rather, a ticket must be purchased in advance for a specific day and time. When I tried to buy tickets a few days before our trip at my local Lawson (using the handy Loppi machine, of course), I saw that they were essentially sold out for the next two months. The Ghibli Museum appears to be a very popular attraction for both Japanese and foreign tourists and I had been warned by numerous people that tickets would not be easy to come by. I had heard though, that a certain number of tickets for each day were reserved for foreign visitors and that they were available at the JTB chain of travel offices. So I went down to the JTB in Hachinohe to attempt to reserve two tickets. At first the travel agent thought that I simply wanted to buy train tickets to get to the museum but when I clarified that I needed an actual museum ticket I was told that I would have to buy it at Lawson. As it turns out, tickets for foreign visitors are available at most JTB locations worldwide except for those inside Japan. How very convenient.

Frustrated but not yet discouraged, I pressed on. A little research revealed that there was actually one JTB in the country that would sell me a ticket: the Mitaka office. Since they are only allotted a limited amount of tickets per day we would have to get there before they sold out but it seemed like it was still worth a shot. We showed up only about an hour before the 1:30 entry time and upon walking into the JTB office we were immediately asked “Ghibli tickets?” After presenting my passport and ¥1000, I was given a voucher which I was able to exchange at the museum for a ticket.

Mitaka is only about a half hour away from Shinjuku on the train but it really has a completely different feel from the concrete jungle that is Tokyo proper. Cobblestones line the narrow streets, trees dot the landscape and everything seems to move just a little bit slower. Deep in the heart of Mitaka lies Inokashira Park, one of the largest parks in the Tokyo area. At the park’s southern tip you will find 三鷹の森ジブリ美術館, the “Ghibli Art Museum of Mitaka Forest”.

Here we see the front gates of the museum.
Just through the gate is a ticket booth manned by none other than Totoro! Of course, this isn’t an actual ticket booth. Rather it’s Ghibli’s subtle way of reminding you of all the fucking hoops you had to jump through to come here in the first place.
Here we see the entrance to the museum itself where guests enter the magical world of Ghibli.
As you can see, it’s a pretty wacky building, built to accommodate the museum’s various exhibits and attractions.
Unfortunately, you’re not allowed to take any photographs inside the museum, so you’ll have to rely on my descriptive abilities in addition to a few promotional photographs from the Ghibli website. I did manage to snap this one photo of the museum’s main hall before I was reprimanded by a security guard. As you can see, the center of the building houses a maze of stairways and catwalks that invite the enterprising explorer to blaze his or her own trail through the museum. It is said that there is no “correct” route to follow although it is admittedly not a very large building.


The first floor of the museum seems to be dedicated to the medium of cell animation. To this end there are various exhibits scattered throughout the ground floor that demonstrate the principals of traditional animation in a number of imaginative ways. The one that Ryan and I most enjoyed was a giant disk in a glass case that was covered with tiny models of Ghibli characters in various stages of performing actions (pictured at right). The disc spun at a constant speed and a strobe light flashed on and off between “frames”. The end result was that if you fixed your eye on a single spot on the disk, you would see a three dimensional cartoon come to life. Kiki and a chibi Totoro swing a jump rope, the catbus scurries through the sky and Totoro jumps up and down excitedly. This might not sound that great on paper but it’s truly delightful to watch in person.

In addition to these sorts of exhibits, the first floor also houses the so-called Saturn Theater where exclusive Ghibli short films are screened. Each visitor to the museum is allowed to see one film screening and there are generally three different films showing on a given day. Unfortunately, we totally forgot about this and left the museum without seeing any of the shorts.

The second floor is home to the museum’s permanent and special exhibitions. The special exhibition space features a rotating exhibit centering on either one of Ghibli’s films or the films of another animation studio (for example, last year’s Pixar exhibition). I didn’t recognize the film that was featured this time around (and I forgot to jot down the name) but it seemed like it was an older anime about a girl and her dog whose family lived in a little house on top of a hill. Regardless, the exhibit was beautifully produced and featured model recreations of scenes from the film as well as a life-size recreation of the girl’s house.

The permanent exhibition space houses a recreation of Hayao Miyazaki’s workshop where hand-drawn concept drawings and sketches as well as real production cells cover the walls. Unlike in most museums, these were not housed behind glass but were merely tacked-up on the wall so that you could even touch them if you wanted.

On the third floor are the museum gift shop and book shop as well as just about the coolest thing in the entire museum: an almost life-sized catbus! I would have loved to have sat inside it but it was swarming with hyperactive children at the time of my visit. There’s also a balcony that leads to a metal spiral staircase that goes up to the roof of the building. There’s another similar staircase inside the building that goes all the way from the ground floor to the roof.

On the roof you’ll find a shockingly attractive and tall foreigner. Here we see the robot from Laputa posing next to him for a photo.
And that’s about that. I would highly recommend the museum to anyone who visits Tokyo, especially those of you who are fans of Ghibli’s movies. The entire museum has been designed with such imagination and attention to detail that it’s a pleasure to simply walk around and let yourself be sucked into the fantasy.

Better Living Through Technology

For a few months now, I’ve been planning an excursion down to Tokyo, to survey the sprawling metropolis that I’ve long dreamed of exploring. While this will mark my third time in what is essentially the world’s most populated urban area, it will be my first visit of any real consequence and will hopefully afford me the opportunity to check out many of the city’s various districts. As I haven’t seen any live music in almost a year, I was also hoping that it would afford me the opportunity to check out a show or two. Swedish indie-pop heartthrob Jens Lekman and northwestern hippie extraordinaire Phil Elverum (currently going by the handle of Mt. Eerie) are playing a show together in Shibuya on the 21st so that seemed like a pretty sure thing. I had also originally planned to see Tokyo post-rockers Mono tomorrow night but when that show sold out last week I suddenly realized that I needed to buy advance tickets for the Mt. Eerie show or risk heartbreak.

Now, having never purchased tickets for anything other than a movie or a train in this country, I wasn’t quite sure where to start. Luckily, the handy Tokyo Gig Guide listed the tickets as being available at Lawson. For those of you who don’t know, Lawson is one of many 24-hour convenience store chains (or conbeni as they are called) located throughout Japan. Unlike in America, you can accomplish many things at convenience stores here that you would never dream of back home: paying bills, sending packages, making payments for online purchases, buying alcohol at all times of day, even purchasing edible food. While this might seem revolutionary, it really stems from necessity; the average Japanese person works later than 5 pm almost every night including Saturday, by which point the banks and post offices are closed. Even though I generally get off of work by 4:15, it’s still really convenient to be able to do some of these things after normal business hours.

Like some of the functions listed above, the purchasing of concert tickets is accomplished through the use of the magical Loppi machine. Short for “Lawson Online Purchasing,” the Loppi allows you to select anything from a travel package to a video game and then prints out a ticket with a bar code that details your order. You then take the ticket to the register where you pay for your purchase; if it’s something like a movie ticket it’s printed out for you at the register whereas large items like computers are delivered to your door. Since the penetration of home PCs is still relatively low in Japan and since credit cards are not widely used, this system has really helped to popularize the idea of online shopping.

As I had never used a device like this before I was a little apprehensive but since it was my only hope, I decided to give it a shot. Armed with an English guide to navigating the menus as backup, I strode into my local Lawson (literally a block away from my house) and bravely faced the terminal. For the most part it was easy to use and I only got stuck once (I hit the wrong key after entering in some of my personal information) but one of the clerks helped me figure out where I went wrong.

A few minutes later I had my tickets in hand and amazingly enough, they were actually cheaper than if I had bought them at the door. After having being extorted at the hands of Ticketmaster numerous times in my life, this was a source of absolute amazement for me. However, the fact that I just paid the equivalent of $30 USD to see an indie rock show was perhaps even more amazing.

Well, with that I’m off to Tokyo for five days with my traveling partner, the always offensive and occasionally charming Ryan Castle. Hopefully I’ll return from my week of revelry full of hilarious stories and incredible photographs. If not, I’ll probably just make some shit up.

P.S. If there’s anything you think I should check out while I’m down there, feel free to leave a message in the comments.

School's Out For...Winter?

Growing up, there were always a few things that alerted me to the fact that the school year was about to end. The bus driver opening up the emergency exits in the roof of the bus to let in cool air (conveniently disregarding the fact that this also illuminated the flashing emergency lights on the back of the bus) was a sure sign. As was the mournful song of my suburban neighborhood’s phantom ice cream truck-often heard but never seen. In my later years it was the public school kids I would encounter at the mall who asked in a perplexed tone, “You’re really not on summer vacation yet?”

This year I got to observe a very different year’s end-taking place not during the balmy days of June but rather during the last dying days of winter. As the new school year starts in April, most schools over here let out in mid to late March, rendering Alice Cooper’s classic summer jam “School’s Out” entirely useless.

Now that I’m a teacher, the end of the year no longer means that I can look forward to three straight months of watching MTV with my brother; instead, I get to look forward to a number of boring graduation ceremonies. I do really like a number of my 6th graders at the elementary schools and my favorite class clown is in the 3rd grade at my middle school (consider this a shout-out if you’re somehow reading this, Tachibana Kenma), so I was pretty sad to see many of them go. Hopefully they’ll be going to a better place. Like Momoishi High School, where many of the girls will apparently date twenty-something dudes in pimped-out cars in exchange for designer handbags, or so I’m told.

Although I’m rather famous for my horrible memory, I really can’t remember having a graduation ceremony in either elementary school or middle school, which I’m pretty sure means that no elementary or middle schools in America have graduation ceremonies (at least that’s what I’ve been telling everyone over here who asks me about it). Come to think of it, I can’t really remember much of my high school graduation either although I do seem to recall Chris Smith raising the ire of teachers by wearing a fraudulently procured honors tassle, so I guess it must’ve been some kind of a big deal. Over here they seem to do it all backwards with large ceremonies for elementary and middle school and a smaller one for high school where the students don’t even receive individual diplomas.

The first graduation ceremony I attended was last week at my middle school, Momoishi Chuugakkou. Upon arriving at the school I was told to wait, as I would be entering the ceremony along with the guests of honor. Just before the start of the proceedings, I was ushered towards the gymnasium along with a bunch of old guys in suits and an old lady in a pastel green kimono who thanked me for “coming to Japan”. The hallway leading up to the gymnasium had been decorated with red cloth and tissue paper and the third graders lined the sides, greeting and bowing to guests as they entered.

I was really surprised when I saw the gymnasium as it had been decorated quite extravagantly for the occasion. After a few brief introductory speeches, the first diploma was handed out with the principal reading the text in full, “In the 17th year of Hesei, in the town of Oirase, in the district of Kamikita, in the prefecture of Aomori…” Subsequent students were only called by name until the final recipient received her diploma, at which point, the full text was again read.
The actual handing out of the diplomas worked something like an assembly line with a student being called up to the stage by name, bowing to the principal and then receiving his or her diploma. At this point the next student is called up and when the previous student proffers his or her departing bow, the new student offers a bow in greeting. It was quite an efficient system, made all the more impressive by the clockwork precision with which it was performed: the students and principal folded their bodies neatly in half as they bowed and then sprung back up in perfect synchronization, as if controlled by an invisible system of strings and pulleys.
Meanwhile, the rest of the students sat and watched the ceremony with the same detached boredom as I. Notice their resemblance to an unblinking mass of black and white cartoon characters.

After the diplomas were handed out, it was time for a number of long-winded speeches from officials from the board of education, as well as the ex-Mayor (can you imagine the mayor coming out to your middle school graduation?). Now, a Japanese ceremony involving children is practically guaranteed to involve some sort of song and graduations are certainly no exception.
First, there was a song sung by the entire student body. Notice the student conductor in the middle.
Next there was the 3rd grade’s solo performance. By my estimates, roughly 100% of these girls were crying by the end of the song.
Finally, the 3rd graders took to the stage for the grand finale. I had been previously warned about the crying but I was surprised to see even a few of the “tough guys” crack on stage.
On an unrelated note, you might remember me telling you about the school’s stuffed alligator months ago. I managed to snap a photo of it on my way out. This is why you don’t mess with Happy Gilmore.

Well, today I had the pleasure of attending yet another graduation, this time at Momoishi Elementary School. You would think that since the children are much younger, the ceremony would be simpler and shorter in length. No such luck. In reality, the ceremony was longer and more involved, despite there being far fewer students.

When I arrived at the school, I was quickly ushered into the fancy conference room to have tea with the big guys while we waited for the ceremony to start. I quickly chose a relatively uninhabited corner of one of the tables and slunk down low in my seat hoping not to be noticed (somehow that never seems to work for me in this country). Within seconds the town’s head bureaucrat had spotted me from across the room and in his usual greeting to me shouted “Mister Mehan!” in heavily accented English before motioning for me to join him. So I ended up sitting in the presence of the head bureaucrat, the ex-Mayor (who everyone has continued calling “Mayor”), the new superintendent and a number of other important old men while they spoke their unintelligible old men talk and threw around pronunciations like watakushi that I’ve only ever heard in Kawabata Yasunari’s old radio broadcasts.

Once the actual ceremony was under way, it became clear that there were some differences when compared to the middle school variant that I had observed earlier. After being presented with a diploma, the elementary student had to hold the open diploma over his or her head and then bow with arms kept straight. The student then performed a full 180º heel-pivot before walking off stage. This last Michael Jackon-esque move proved a bit precarious although none of the students actually fell over.

After the speeches (this time also including a speech from the superintendent), the kids performed some sort of call and response shouting thing that I often see at school events. One of the groups would then sing a song, followed by some shouting and then another song. It was kind of like a musical but without all the stuff that would make musicals interesting, were they actually interesting. This process induced more crying than even Chris Carraba himself could hope to muster from a room of prepubescents; many students shouted out lines like “Thank you for all your kindness!” before bursting into a fit of sobbing.

Most sad of all is the fact that these kids will now enjoy only one week of holiday before either returning to Momoishi Elementary or starting life at a new school. Japanese students spend 240 days out of the year at school, 60 more than their American counterparts-and that’s not counting after-school activities, required study time during holidays and outside tutoring classes. Hell, if I had to go back to school in a week, I would probably cry too.

Doraemon: The Movie: The Review

When it comes to the topic of Doraemon, the world’s population can be pretty cleanly separated into two groups of people: people who have never heard of Doraemon and people who live in an East Asian country. That’s because Doraemon is literally inescapable in his homeland of Japan and in many other places throughout East Asia. Created in 1970 by manga artist Hiroshi Fujimoto, Doraemon has grown from a simple black and white comic strip into a long-running television show, a series of annual movies and an extensive line of merchandise. In some ways, he is almost like the Japanese version of Mickey Mouse; he seems almost as widely recognized and plays a similar role as a cultural symbol.

The series follows the exploits of Doraemon, a robotic cat from the 22nd century and his owner, the schoolboy Nobita. As the story goes, Nobita is so lazy and incapable that he causes hardship for his future descendents. As a result, they send Doraemon to him from the future, in an attempt to assist Nobita and thereby increase the quality of their own lives (if my future descends are reading this, I would prefer something cooler like a robotic shark or alligator plzkthx). The television show usually finds Nobita getting himself into some kind of jam, only to be saved by either Doraemon’s time machine (located conveniently in Nobita’s desk drawer) or one of many futuristic gadgets (which Doraemon carries around in his seemingly bottomless kangaroo pouch).

Well, I watch the Doraemon television show from time to time and it’s fun to watch and pretty easy to follow even with my limited understanding of Japanese. So when I heard that the new Doraemon movie, Nobita’s Dinosaur (のび太の恐竜) would be coming out this month (to get technical, it’s not actually a new movie but rather, a remake of the first Doraemon movie from 1980), I thought it might be a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Unlike in America, seeing movies during the day in Japan is more expensive and late shows are cheaper. Since Doraemon, a children’s movie, does not play past 5:00 pm, we had to pay about $17 USD for tickets. At least this price was slightly offset by the plastic toy that was given to each ticket buyer as well as the fact that the movie is 2 hours long. While we were waiting for the film to start, a boy, who couldn’t have even been 6-years old, spat the words “You people won’t even be able to understand” derisively at Charlie, Ryan and myself. I certainly hoped that he wasn’t right.

The film opens with Nobita immersing himself in his latest nerdy obsession: learning about dinosaurs. After perusing a book on dinosaurs, our protagonist decides that he ought to go do a little fieldwork of his own. When he’s caught analyzing rock formations in a neighbor’s back yard, he is reprimanded then asked to dig a hole for the neighbor to dispose of his garbage in. Nobita complies and in doing so, makes a fortuitous and inexplicable discovery mere inches below the soil. While he initially writes off his finding as an oddly-shaped rock, he quickly realizes that it’s no rock at all-it’s a fossilized egg!

Well, Nobita then proceeds to do what any fourth grader would do with an egg-shaped rock: he wraps it up in a time-traveling cloth (one of Doraemon’s high-tech toys from the 22nd century, natch). After a few hours, the rock has been effectively returned to the prehistoric era and when Nobita removes the cloth, there is a large, spotted egg in its place. He resolves to care for it until it hatches and spends the next few days huddled under a heavy blanket with the egg, in an effort to keep it warm. The plan works and soon the egg hatches, revealing what appears to be a small, orange plesiosaur (it’s worth noting that this is not actually a dinosaur but rather, an aquatic reptile).

We’re then treated to a number of scenes of the plesiosaur doing sickeningly cute things such as playing with a ball and eating sashimi. Since the only things he seems to be able to say are “Pi!” and phonetic variations of “Pi!” Nobita appropriately names him Pisuke. Through a series of rapidly infeasible episodes, we see how Nobita and Doraemon manage to keep a rapidly growing dinosaur concealed within their tiny room in their tiny Tokyo home. Of course, Pisuke is a dinosaur (well, sort of), so no amount of comical antics will keep him hidden from Nobita’s parents for very long. Realizing this, Nobita and Doraemon somehow transport the now almost full-grown Pisuke to a local pond. Of course, no one notices them moving a dinosaur through the streets of their quiet neighborhood. For that matter, no one seems to notice that there’s a huge dinosaur living in their small pond either. Go figure.

All seems well until one day when a space cowboy wearing what appears to be a rubber mask purchased at an adult toy store appears in Nobita’s room and in an evil monologue, reveals his intentions to capture Pisuke and exploit him for profit. Things get even more complicated when Pisuke decides to show up at Nobita’s window later that night. All of a sudden, the normally unobservant people of Tokyo are alerted to the fact that there’s a huge fucking dinosaur living in their neighborhood and when Nobita awakes the next morning, the entire neighborhood is abuzz about the beast in their midst. Nobita and Doraemon rush down to the pond to find camera crews and divers preparing to trap their prehistoric friend. Doraemon somehow uses a rubber ducky to create a diversion; meanwhile, Nobita uses one of Doraemon’s gadgets, a shrink ray, to shrink Pisuke down to a manageable size and escapes with the reptile in tow.

It’s about this time that Nobita and Doraemon stumble upon the brilliant realization that modern-day Tokyo is no place for a plesiosaur. To that end, they hop into Nobita’s drawer and start up the old time machine. As they’re traveling back to prehistoric times another time machine appears behind them in the tunnel of computer generated Dali-esque melting clocks. It’s that dastardly porno space cowboy! Now at this point I found myself wondering why the cowboy doesn’t just use his time machine to travel back in time and get his own damn dinosaur but I guess that just wouldn’t be evil enough. Anyway, an exciting chase scene follows with our heroes making a characteristically narrow escape. They then drop off Pisuke on a beach and after a teary farewell scene (featuring Pisuke’s head flying through the air in slow motion, tears streaming from his eyes, shouting “Piiiiiiiiii!”) it’s back to the future for our protagonists.

Well, Nobita has been bragging to his neighborhood pals (i.e. the girl that he’s crushing on and the two bullies who regularly beat him up) about this great thing that he’s found but now he’s got nothing to show them. So when they all show up at his house, he asks Doraemon to bust out his time-traveling computer monitor so that they can all have a look at Pisuke. Oh no! It looks like some very evil-looking plesiosaurs are going to have Pisuke for lunch and not in the good way. Oh that’s right! Pisuke is native to North America, not Japan, what were they thinking? Wait, why was that egg in Japan then? I guess Pisuke’s mom must have been the prehistoric equivalent of a JET participant or something. Anyway, Nobita jumps into the magic drawer without thinking (although it doesn’t seem like he gives things a lot of thought in general) and the rest of the crew has no choice but to follow.

Upon their arrival, the time machine is somehow damaged, rendering them temporarily trapped in the past. They find Pisuke fairly easily but without the flying time machine, they are unable to proceed. Luckily, Doraemon has just the thing for such an occasion-his famous head-mounted bamboo-copters and five of them at that! They again shrink Pisuke, don the propellers and head for North America.

[Editor's Note: At this point in the movie I started falling asleep, so it gets a little hazy from here on out. Forgive me for things being out of order and for leaving out whatever parts I slept through.]

Okay, so somehow the propellers all break and they have to land somewhere. Then the space cowboy shows up with a whole posse of guys with guns but instead of simply killing all of the children and taking Pisuke they give them a treasure chest full of toys instead? I’m not sure why they do this, maybe they decided to switch things up a bit and do something not evil. One of the kids figures out some way to fly using something in the toy chest but I can’t remember what it was.

Then, at some point, they’re all sitting around on a beach and in a parody of that famous Jurassic Park scene, ripples in their water bottles alert them to the presence of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. That part was pretty funny, I guess.

In one of the movie’s most ridiculous scenes, the entire cast of characters walks around underwater, laughing, talking and joking all the while. I guess this could be explained by Doraemon’s “deep sea cream,” although it’s never mentioned that they actually use it in the movie. In my opinion, it’s pretty irresponsible to put a scene like this in a children’s movie because kids are always trying to do the things that they see in movies and they are also pretty dumb.

There’s also a scene in there somewhere where they come upon a herd of brontosaurs and all is well until a Tyrannosaurus Rex shows up and starts tearing shit up. Luckily, Doraemon has a package of little white candies with him that can make any animal docile. He pops one in the T-Rex’s mouth and all of a sudden, the beast is subdued. Then, instead of eating the brontosaurs, the T-Rex helps the kids apply a huge band-aid to the side of the brontosaur that he has harmed. Seriously.

Later, the scene shifts to the bad guys’ evil lair where we find out that the boss of the cowboy is something of a dinosaur collector and only needs one more type of dinosaur to complete his collection. And guess what type of dinosaur that is? If you said “the spitter,” you are wrong because that is not really a type of dinosaur. Of course, our heroes cannot allow this anachronistic injustice to take place and they eventually show up at the secret hideout and do something that causes the entire place to explode. Inexplicably, this does not harm any of the dinosaurs but rather, sets them all free. Also the Time Patrol shows up and arrests the evil gang. Yes, that’s right, the Time Patrol.

Finally, the children somehow make it to North America, most likely by using one of Doraemon’s gadgets. Upon arriving there, Pisuke sees a group of fellow orange plesiosaurs swimming out at sea and he heads out to meet them. There’s another tearful goodbye and then the group somehow makes it back to Japan and Doraemon somehow fixes the time machine and they all head home. I’m pretty sure that the movie ends with them all walking out of the house with Nobita’s mom asking them what they’ve been up to but I really can’t rule out the possibility that I fell asleep between that scene and the end credits.

In the final analysis, this movie was pretty ridiculous and boring. However, I realize that cynical, overly critical 22-year old Americans are probably not this film’s target demographic. As a matter of fact, the rest of the theater, consisting of mostly 3 to 10-year olds and their parents, seemed absolutely delighted by the action onscreen and laughed heartily every time a funny face was made or a pair of pants fell down. So I suppose I can say this; if you are either the type or person who thinks that pants falling down and funny faces are really funny or the type of person who can appreciate a very expensive nap, this film is for you.

Hina Matsuri And A Painful Encounter With The Tea Ceremony

“Hina Matsuri, huh?” Tachibana-San asked himself as we walked out to the car on Friday morning. “Yeah, I think it’s the doll festival,” I replied. “Oh right, with all the dolls on the tired stage, now I remember.” It’s really true that Japan has so many holidays and festivals that sometimes even Japanese people can’t keep track of them all. But I can’t really blame Tachibana-San for forgetting about Hina Matsuri (sometimes known as “Girls' Festival”), since he’s too young to have daughters and that’s really the only situation in which the holiday would be relevant to him. You see, although Hina Matsuri is technically a doll festival, it is generally only families with daughters that buy and display a set of dolls (hinaningyo) in their house. While the custom originated in the Edo period (back when dolls were thought to possess the ability to contain evil spirits), the prevailing belief nowadays is that a set of dolls should be displayed on the day of the festival (March 3rd) and then promptly taken down. Otherwise, it is said that the family will incur difficulty in marrying off their daughters.

The actual dolls themselves are customarily displayed on a multi-tired stage lined with red cloth. The top tier houses two dolls, representing the emperor and empress and the tiers below contain members of the court and sometimes various pieces of furniture or household items. Doll sets can range from the small, plastic Hello Kitty versions that they sell at rotating sushi restaurants for about $4 USD to the far more elaborate sets that feature a full compliment of dolls in real silk kimono and generally cost a few thousand dollars (one such set, which was on display at Koyoh Elementary School, can be seen above). Most parents with daughters will own the latter type; luckily, a family generally has only one set of dolls that is handed down from generation to generation. For those who haven’t been lucky enough to inherit one, every department store (not to mention Toys R Us) sells them starting in about December.
Well, having nothing better to do on Hina Matsuri, I spent my morning at Momoishi Kindergarten where, as you can see, they had a full set of dolls. They also have what appears to be a working prototype for a break-dancing robot.

Since there isn’t that much to do on Hina Matsuri aside from displaying and looking at dolls, Megumi-Sensei, the Vice-Principal of the school, decided that it would be a good opportunity to teach the children about sado, the Japanese tea ceremony. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the tea ceremony, it is a highly codified, formal tea party, dating back to the 13th century. It shares a number of regulations with zen meditation (you have to walk, sit and stand in certain ways, you can’t step on the seams of the tatami, etc.) and applies similar ideas of discipline to a social event. During feudal times, some samurai were even known to participate in the tea ceremony before engaging in battle, as a means for reminding themselves of the level of discipline that they were expected to embody both on and off the battlefield. As Megumi-Sensei put it, “This isn’t tea time.”

At any rate, teaching discipline to a bunch of 3-5 year olds is anything but an enviable task (trust me, after half a year I’m still trying to teach them things like “how to pay attention for 3 minutes” and “how to not bite your neighbor”). Megumi-Sensei had a rather brilliant idea though-to have the older kids (most of whom are somewhat familiar with the ceremony) teach parts of the ceremony to the younger kids. This kept the older children busy and prevented them from getting bored and made the younger students pay closer attention. Since I had never participated in the tea ceremony before, I was assigned a 4-year old “buddy” who helped walk me through.
For the purpose of teaching the ceremony, a number of tatami mats were laid out on the floor of the main hall and at the head of the room a flower arrangement was displayed, featuring flowers that bear some special significance on Hina Matsuri.
As you can see here, Megumi-Sensei went all out, wearing a full kimono (as is customary for the host) and procuring all of the necessary tools to brew tea by hand in the traditional manner associated with the ceremony.
If I had to describe the tea ceremony to you using an economy of words, I would probably say something like “It involves sitting in the extremely painful seiza style for a really long time and lots of bowing.” Now I’ve got no problem with bowing but the sitting is another story. As it is, I can’t really sit in seiza to begin with as my legs are quite long and I’m not very flexible. But the kids didn’t know that, so they just kept telling me that I wasn’t doing it correctly while I kept replying “But I can’t do it!” while attempting to bear the dull pain with a grin. Compounding this problem was the fact that you’re not supposed to touch either the seam in front of or behind you. Of course, I’m large enough that when I sit in pseudo-seiza, my knees hang over the front seam and my toes brush against the rear. This meant that throughout the entire ceremony I had kids yelling either “Move forward!” or “Move back!” at me from both sides. My “buddy” seemed very disappointed with my performance.

Anyway, enjoy these photos of the tea ceremony. Megumi-Sensei was quite right; tea time it aint.

Meet The New Town, Same As The Old Town

As of March 1st, Momoishi Town and Shimoda Town are no more. What now stands in their place is Oirase Town; a towering colossus among cities and a beacon of civilization in the far east. Well, okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. However, if I told you that two small towns of just over 10,000 people combined to form a small town of just over 24,000 people, I wouldn’t expect you to be very interested (by the way, there was an excellent article in the Times a while back about why all of Japan’s small towns are suddenly consolidating; unfortunately it is now only available to TimesSelect members).
If there’s one thing that there’s no shortage of in this country, it’s official ceremonies, so it should come as no surprise that the merger was rife with them. On the night of the 28th, Momoishi’s bureaucrats gathered outside of town hall to retire the Momoishi flag and the sign outside of town hall (the latter was a bit of a farce though, as the new sign had already been installed, so a foam decoy sign was simply rigged in front of it).

Then, the next morning at 8:30, all of the bureaucrats of Oirase Town stood outside on a cold, snowy morning to observe the unveiling of the new sign. Exciting stuff.

Well, right about now you’re probably asking yourself, "What does this town merger mean for our humble narrator?" Good question. I will present the answer to you in three parts:

1.) For months the Shimoda mall has played a large part in my life: giver of nourishment (in the form of overpriced beer, frozen pizzas and fast food), killer of time, my own private parking lot away from home. However, there was always something eating away at me in the back of my mind every time I bit into a Mos Burger or watched the latest Hollywood movie with Japanese subtitles. And that was the fact that I knew I could never truly claim the Jusco as my home turf. Well, now that both the mall and myself are proud residents of Oirase Town, all you Nambu area punks had best pay your respects to me when you visit Jusco or you had best watch your backs.

2.) Thanks to the merger, Charlie Mac and myself have now joined the ranks of ALTs who are based out of an office with more than one ALT. This might not sound like a big deal but in the past few months, sitting around in the office with the same four people everyday had started to seem less like a job and more like one of Sartre’s plays. So moving to a new office was a quite welcome change of pace for me. In addition to Charlie, I can now also count a number of ex-Shimoda bureaucrats among my co-workers, many of whom are somewhat young and pleasant to be around. Perplexingly enough, various co-workers have been saying things like “Oh, you and Charlie are very good at English” or the more confusing “You and Charlie always speak in English!” I’m not sure exactly what language they had expected us to converse in but a few people have seemed quite surprised by this.

3.) About a week before the merger, two guys from the department in charge of the new Oirase town office network came into the Momoishi board of education to ensure that our computers were up to spec. After checking out everyone else’s machines, they stood next to Yayoi-San’s desk and stared in dismay at my Powerbook. Clearly qualified network technicians, they asked Yayoi-San, “Why is there an apple on the front of his computer?” When she told them that I speak a little Japanese, they came over to my desk to ask me a few questions. “Do you run Windows on that?” “No.” “Can you run Windows on that?” “No.” “Oh, well then I’m sorry but you won’t be able to use the new network, it’s Windows only.” While I was a little bit skeptical as to whether or not this was really true, I must admit that I was at least a little bit worried. For a JET, being told that you will no longer have access to the internet at work is comparable to a diver being told that he will no longer have access to oxygen underwater. Luckily, when I showed up at my new desk last week, I was greeted by this:
That’s right, all of the members of the Oirase board of education received brand new laptops and for once, the ALTs were not excluded (almost all Japanese office workers use laptops as opposed to desktops, the reason is probably that they get shifted around quite frequently). As the story goes, the new superintendent fought pretty hard for us to have them, so my hat goes off to him. Viva Oirase!