Glorius View

Sometimes we can see Mt. Fuji from our school. . .

音姫 (The Sound Princess)

Have you ever felt embarrassed by the natural gaseous and liquid sounds we all make while doing Number 2?  For anyone who has, the public restroom in Japan is the place to be.

Witness the Otohime:



Incredibly, there's a Wikipedia article entitled "Toilets in Japan."  I think it's pretty good.  In the "Japan-specific accessories"  section you can find "The Sound Princess."  It mentions that "many Japanese women are embarrassed at the thought of being heard by others during urination. . ." 

See article here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilets_in_japan

When I first read that part of the article, my first reaction was surprise that people would be embarrassed to be heard urinating.  Really, urinating?  Well, I'm a guy, and. . .well, I don't know if gender should have anything to do with this, but I don't mind people hearing it.  I can even see being proud of it, as Tom Hanks' character Jimmy Dugan might have felt in this classic scene (if he'd been sober enough to think about it):



To be embarrassed to have someone hear one's peeing is a little messed up, was my first reaction, but I'm trying now to step back and not judge it.
 
My second reaction was that I was easily able to imagine a lot of women in Japan being embarrassed in such situations.  Many of my Japanese friends say that Japanese people are generally shy, but I don't really agree with them.  I've come to draw a distinction between shy and embarrassed, or somewhat easily embarrassed.  I see shyness as a personality trait that can exist regardless of how others see us.  When we feel shy, we feel bashful or reluctant regardless of how others react to us, or how we think they're reacting to us. . . Bashful people can meet fans or foes and still feel bashful.  Someone who is easily embarrassed, on the other hand, might possibly feel confident and grand when others hold him/her in high regard; but this person might shrink in the face of looking awkward, incompetent, uncool, or otherwise bad.  I don't know that being either shy or easily embarrassed is better or worse than the other, but I do think they're different conditions.

My third reaction was, "Why am I not embarrassed by having others hearing me urinate, but the other sounds. . .?"  Generally, I'd rather not emit gas or have others hear me doing Number 2; and yet, a Number 1 audible is no problem for me.  How arbitrary is that?  I really don't know. . .I really don't.

P.S. Otohime is also the name of a goddess in Japanese mythology, and of a character in the manga / anime series One Piece, which I love:

the autumn leaves, 紅葉 （こうよう、kouyou） and leaf peeping, 紅葉狩 (もみじがり、momijigari)

There's a single word in Japanese that describes the changing color of the leaves during autumn:

紅葉　（こうよう、kouyou）

Having grown up in Hawai'i, the autumn leaves are still kind of exciting for me.  I love seeing them in the parks, on the sidewalks as I make my way to school. . .I love stepping on them.  In Japanese culture, the term hanami describes a "cherry-blossom viewing party," for many people a reason to drink outdoors alongside hundreds of other people.  They're a pretty big deal.  I started wondering if we had corresponding autumn leaf-viewing parties.  At that point, some part of my mind recalled an episode of The West Wing (in Japan the show is called　"ザ・ホワイトハウス"), in which they use the term "leaf peeping."  I didn't know it but it's a real thing in America.  President Bartlet didn't know it either.  People go out and look at and take pictures of the changing colors of the leaves, and there's an official term for this.  The Wikipedia entry for leaf peeping is at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf_peeping

and in that article, I found out that there is a Japanese equivalent, called momijigari (紅葉狩).  Travel agencies offer tours. 

This video came out kind of small (taken with my i-Phone), so it might be hard to see that they're trying to catch the leaves raining down on them.  If you full-screen it you should be able to see it a little better.


                    

animate

Continuing from yesterday's entry, right after the police stopped me to go through my wallet, I went on to breakfast, and later that Sunday came upon an event courtesy of Animate, a manga/animation store that seems pretty big here.  Ikebukuro has a couple of Animate buildings, and whenever I go there it's crowded.  I'm not sure what this event was about, but there were some cars.

 

This is one of the stores.

 

I'm not sure if this bus had anything to do with Animate, but maybe. . .The lady to the left seemed pretty ecstatic to have the picture.

That night, Animate was more packed than in the day.

the cops here

I meant to post this a few days ago, on Sunday, but work called. . .
I was leaving my apartment building, heading out to get breakfast, when a police squad car pulled up beside me and one of the cops got out, smiling, “Sumimasen!”  He said sorry, but he wanted to see my ID.  I asked him if something had happened, and why he wanted to see it.  He said sorry, that they were looking for drug-users and asked me if I do drugs.  I said no, I don’t.  He asked again to see my ID.  I said that I was pretty sure it was illegal (fuhou, 不法 ) for him to ask me without a specific reason, and he said yes, and sorry, but could he see an ID?  I said again that I was pretty sure it was illegal, but he asked again to see an ID.  I let him see my ID card; he checked it out and asked if he could look through my wallet, which I permitted (saying once again that I was sure it was illegal for him to be doing this); he kept smiling and looked through it for signs of drugs or any other wrongdoing, returned it to me, said thank you, and he and his squad card were on their way.  I made it to the restaurant 15 minutes before they stopped serving breakfast.

Over the years, I’ve had a few encounters with the Japanese police.  One notable trait is how utterly polite most police officers are here.  It doesn’t seem to matter what they’re saying, but they’re cordial and almost subservient.  Of course, one could argue that a person in authority can act as subservient as s/he wants simply because s/he knows that s/he’s the one in power.  But anyway. . .I know some foreigners here who can’t stand the cops, but I don’t take great issue with how I’m treated by the police.  I find it annoying when they stop me for no reason to check my ID.  Actually, I shouldn’t say that there’s no reason.  The reason, at least sometimes, has been that I’m Chinese-American, but they don’t know the American part just by looking at me.  So they stop me, and when they see on my ID that I’m American, we’re usually done; they apologize and/or thank me for my cooperation, and I’m on my way.

So yeah, profiling isn’t a great controversy here.  There may be laws against it—I don’t know, honestly—but in any case this isn’t a very letter-of-the-law kind of country.  People don’t often sue for being approached, carded, and searched by the police.  I see good and bad in that, the good being that people don’t often game the system to extract a financial settlement with the police.  The bad is that individual rights are sometimes not given their due respect. . .I’ve been hearing stories from colleagues at work who say that the country’s changing, and they tell me stories about how (non-Japanese) Asians are more frequently being stopped and searched without cause.  I feel that it’s not hard to believe; once, when an officer stopped me on the sidewalk, he said that the police were looking for Asian (meaning Asian but not Japanese) people who might be stealing bicycles in the area.

In the end, for me it’s fairly easy to tolerate such mindsets mainly because the police are so damn polite.  Also, even if some of them are acting on prejudice and generalization, at least they don’t abuse me, and at least they’re constantly apologizing.  I suppose the politeness is the spoonful of sugar that M.Poppins once sang about.  I don't mean that my tolerance is the right way to go about it; maybe I'm supposed to draw a line and object.  I'm still trying to figure this one out.  But I wanted to make the observation that the way in which I'm asked to do things has had a pretty significant impact on my likelihood to comply.  A couple decades ago, one sleepy summer vacation day, I saw an episode of Oprah where a tabloid reporter on the show said that she felt she could ask any question of anyone, as long as she found the right way to ask it.

Funny, as I was typing this entry,  I recalled a former colleague (from Britain) telling me about his British friend who was so pissed off at the Japanese police that he had part of the Japanese Constitution ( the part that said it was illegal for police to ask for IDs without a specific reason) printed on his  shirt.  He said that if they ever asked for his ID, he’d sit on the sidewalk and refuse to provide it.  I don’t know how well that worked out for him.

International Market Festival in Saitama ( 国際フェスティバル世界市 )

The jazz club at one of my schools performed at the International Market Festival in Saitama ( 国際フェスティバル世界市 ), near Saitama Super Arena..  The teacher in charge of the club invited me and gave me a flier with the time and place, but how to find the exact spot looked to be a bit of a challenge when I got there.  There were so many people there.  I looked for the Super Arena and found it packed, people lined up by the hundreds.  I was like Wow, this festival is huge, and what an experience it'll be for a group of high schoolers to perform for such a crowd.

 
I was kind of rushing around when I took these pics so I didn't notice that some people are smiling, making peace signs etc. for me.  I wish I'd known at the time; I would've waved or something.  More often than not, I feel like when I'm out taking pictures here (in Tokyo) a lot of people would rather not be in them, and I try to keep a certain distance so that they don't feel bothered.  Who knows, though--maybe I'm imagining a lot of that vibe.  Anyway, it was nice when I saw the photos on my computer, that there were some smiles and friendliness.

Well, it turns out that I was on the wrong side of the venue.  The Backstreet Boys were performing on this side, and that's why there were so many people.

To tell the truth, I didn't know that they were still together.  But hey, it looks like they're doing all right after all these years.  The crowd spanned a wide range of ages; when I talked about this at my high school, some of my students had wanted to go but didn't have the chance.

Finally I found the Festival.  It was nice.  A small but crowded event, some merchandise booths and, of course, food.

 After the jazz club, there were some dancers who came out with these canes and Mid-Eastern flavored music with phat beats.  It was pretty sexy.

And at the end of the night was the jazz club from Dokkyo University.  I don't listen to a lot of jazz, but I--we--were impressed.   Not only at their musicianship but also their stage presence. 

It'd been a while since I made my way to Saitama for anything.  Over the years I've heard a lot of jokes in Tokyo about how inaka (rural) Saitama is, compared to Tokyo. . .More than a few of my friends have used the word Dasaitama (a play on words, as dasai = cheesy, tacky) as a nickname, perhaps affectionately, although I don't know.  But anyway, I almost always like going out there.  It's a different vibe, a different atmosphere.  I can't explain succinctly what it is, but I think part of it has to do with there being a lot of families doing family things.     It's only a part of it, though.  I'll have to give it a bit more thought.

Anyway, it's a pretty nice area, near Saitama-Shintoshin Station ( さいたま新都心駅 ).  Quite a few restaurants and shops.

grapes for over a hundred dollars each

Man, this is insane.  Over a decade ago I heard about melons that sell for a hundred dollars, but nothing like this.  When I go walking through the basements of department stores, I see melons sometimes.  I don't price them because I know I'm not going to  buy them.  The melons I buy at the supermarket might be 580 yen each, somewhere in that vicinity.  At Lawson's 100 they sell an eighth of a cantaloupe (in the summer) for a hundred yen. 

But melons that go for the price of brand-new cars. . .I believe that such things exist; I just haven't seen them yet since moving here.  I suppose if I changed my lifestyle. . .Geez man how can you pay that much for a melon?
http://news.yahoo.com/japans-luxury-fruit-masters-grow-money-trees-072811811.html

Or read below
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Japan's luxury fruit masters grow money on trees

 To go to the original url, click here: 

Tokyo (AFP) - With melons that sell for the price of a new car and grapes that go for more than $100 a pop, Japan is a country where perfectly-formed fruit can fetch a fortune.

An industry of fruit boutiques has defied Japan's sluggish economy to consistently offer luscious and lavishly tended produce for hefty prices -- and it is always in demand.

In July, a single bunch of "Ruby Roman" grapes reportedly sold for 400,000 yen ($4,000), making the plump, crimson berries worth a staggering 11,000 yen each.

Every May, a pair of canteloupe melons grown in the north of Hokkaido is auctioned off. They regularly fetch the price of a modest new car.

The hammer fell on this year's pair at a cool 1.6 million yen.

While such cases are at the extreme end, top-notch fruit is a valuable commodity in the world of business and as a seasonal gift, signifying just how much importance the giver attaches to the relationship.
"Most of our products are for gift purposes, so we collect large and high-grade products from all around Japan," says Yoshinobu Ishiyama, manager of a branch of Sun Fruits at Tokyo Midtown, a glitzy office-commercial complex that is also home to a Ritz Carlton Hotel.

"We offer rare products. Above all, they have to be delicious," he says.
'You never forget the experience'

Inside his bright, white-tiled emporium, an array of mouth-watering fruits gives off a heady, brain-tingling aroma as soothing music lulls his well-heeled customers.

While Ishiyama doesn't have anything you could trade for a mid-range auto, he does have a slightly more affordable example of the "Ruby Roman" grapes -- a snip at 31,500 yen for a bunch.

A single white peach -- flavourful, perfectly round and about the size of a newborn baby's head -- goes for 2,625 yen. A bunch of Muscat of Alexandria grapes has a 7,350 yen price tag.

Then, there is the unrivalled symbol of expensive gifts in Japan: musk melons.

Sitting in individual wooden boxes on the top shelf of a glass-door refrigerator at the back of the shop, they will set you back as much as 16,000 yen.

There are also square watermelons -- grown in plastic boxes and usually for decoration -- which start at 5,000 yen.

As with everything in Japan, presentation is key: serried ranks of cherries line up in boxes, their stalks all facing in the same direction; strawberries nestle in soft packaging, their highly-shined, deep red surface uniformly patinated by seeds.

View gallery."

Square shaped musk melons on display at a tasting event in Tahara Aichi prefecture, central Japan (A …

It goes without saying that there are no blemishes. Nothing is bruised, everything is exactly the right shape, as if each fruit has been cast in wax by a master craftsman working off the original blueprints.

Of course, not everyone buys their bananas at places like Sun Fruits; much more affordable offerings are on display in the average supermarket.

But to lubricate the wheels of social exchange in a country that has a deeply ingrained culture of gift-giving, nothing matches high-end fruit.

At summer and year-end, households send packaged gifts to relatives, business associates and bosses to express their gratitude.

If the two sides of the exchange are of a broadly similar social standing the gift is reciprocated. A 4,000 yen box of cherries might be given in exchange for a 5,000 yen presentation pack of mangoes.

If the giver owes for social favours dispensed through the year, there could be no change from that 16,000 yen musk melon. But the boss who receives it will understand how grateful you are.

The giving of high-end fruits creates a lasting impression on Japanese clients, says Tokyo-based corporate trainer Farhad Kardan, who was strolling through Sun Fruits choosing possible gifts.

"You buy these delicious things and share a great time with people who are close to you," he told AFP.
"You never forget the experience of having eaten something so delicious. What you pay for is for the quality and the value."

How can fruit cost so much?
Despite more than a decade of deflation, prices for fresh food in Japan are considered high by world standards, partially as a result of farming practices and import preferences. Consumers are accustomed to paying a premium on Japanese-grown produce, with many believing it to be safer and better quality than imports.

But even so, many open-mouthed visitors to Japan wonder: how can a piece of fruit cost so much?
Ishiyama says his master musk melon grower Toshiaki Nishihara puts a whole lot of love into each fruit he raises in his computer-controlled greenhouse in Shizuoka prefecture, southwest of Tokyo.

He hand-pollinates his crop and selects only one melon on each plant so that all the nutrients, sugar and juice are concentrated in the chosen fruit.

Like their $16,000 cousins from Hokkaido, the best-quality melons are perfect spheres with a smooth, evenly patterned rind.

"The prices are very high because of the care and cost that go into the fruits," Ishiyama said.
The AFP team who visited Sun Fruits was about to walk away empty-handed when they spotted two regular apples by the door -- a bargain at a little over $4 for the pair.