Kamakura

Daniel and I took a day trip to Kamakura a few days ago, a small town about an hour out of Tokyo. It’s a pretty old village with lots of temples and shrines, and a gigantic 13^th century Buddha statue that you can go inside of and climb up a bit.

 

 

There were hydrangeas in bloom all over town, and people taking photos of them just as they did when the cherry blossoms came out in late spring.

 

 

Kamakura is on the coast, so we spent part of the day on the beach. Crowds would gather whenever the fishermen pulled in a net. The fishermen only wanted the fish; they’d caught lots of fugu (blowfish). They tossed out all the jellyfish. And then they let people grab handfuls of tiny transparent fish from the net, and eat them alive.

 

 

 

Daniel and I were offered some, but declined. We’re such wimps. . .

The Cult of “Kawaii!”

“Kawaii” (pronounced like Hawaii, but with a “k”) is the Japanese slang word for “cute,” and it’s the rallying cry for a subset of girls and young women here, who seem to pursue cuteness (in themselves and the objects that surround them) with a powerful passion. The word is almost never used by boys or men. “Kawaii” can be manga characters with enormous eyes, lacy knee-highs with bows, your best friend’s new purse, your next door neighbor’s new puppy. You can hear girls shrieking “kawaii” when they meet up with each other and admire their new outfits, when they’re shopping, when they see cute children or animals on the street. Much to his embarrassment, Daniel has been the recipient of more than a few squealed “Kawaiis” since he’s been here.

 

The girls who live for kawaii dress the part. The outfits may cost a fortune and come from name designers, but to Western eyes they’re rather childish. The fashions are full of bows, ruffles, sheer and floaty fabrics, lace, flowers. The colors tend to be pinks and pastels. It’s much more ladylike than the strange Little Bo Peep look of the Lolitas. And it’s sometimes more overtly adult or sexy, with the addition of thigh-high stockings and  high-heeled shoes . . . which would look outright trashy on most women, but manages to look almost wholesome here.

 

Even those who are too old or too accomplished to fully subscribe to the kawaii trend may adapt some of its trappings. Recently I was on the subway and spotted a young woman wearing a tailored black business suit and heeled pumps. She was carrying a dark briefcase . . . and wearing dangling silver Mickey Mouse earrings. Subways are also prime spots for noticing the very kawaii charms (cartoon characters, Disney creatures, little stuffed animals, miniature desserts) dangling from the cellphones of not just teenagers, but businesswomen (and men), too.

 

A professor I met told me of a business meeting she’d attended where one of the female executives pulled a “Pooh-san” (Winnie the Pooh) notebook out of her briefcase. “In the States,” this professor told me, “you’d feel like an absolute moron doing something like that. But here it’s normal.” This same professor, who teaches at a women’s university in Tokyo, told me she’d recently asked her class to write about their life goals. And one student described her goal as “to fall in love and get married at Disneyland.”

 

Speaking of Disneyland (and it’s relation to kawaii), Daniel and I paid a visit to Tokyo’s version a couple of weeks ago. It’s a bit like Disneyland at home, but kicked up a few notches with Japanese cuteness. Riding the monorail to the park, we noticed that the windows had “ears,” as did the straps. And the straphangers were almost all adults, which we thought was a bit odd. Instead of going to the Disneyland part of the resort, which is almost identical to the U.S. version, we headed to DisneySea, a supposedly slightly more sophisticated park with renditions of famous ports/harbors, including New York, Cape Cod, generic Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Discovery Cove (invented), and a few others relating to famous books (20,000 Leagues under the Sea) or Disney movies (The Little Mermaid).

 

 

 

Granted we were visiting on a weekday, but there were almost no children there. In Japan, cartoons on television, manga (comic books), and even Disneyland are considered adult fare. A few couples walked around with their very young kids. Some couples strolled on dates. But the vast majority of park visitors were groups of girls and women, all obviously there to soak in the kawaii ambiance. Many if not most of these women were wearing mouse ears or big polka dotted Minnie Mouse bows in their hair. They carried Disney purses. Sometimes there were even Disney characters printed on their clothes. And when one of these characters (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto) was spotted wandering in the park, there were shrieks of “Kawaii” as women raced to be near them, touch them, have their photos taken with them. Papparazzi have nothing on these girls.

 

 

Another professor I was speaking to here told me that many of these young women still live at home. They may or may not have jobs. And many say they don’t want to get married—at least not yet. Living at home gives them more money to shop. (I’ll have to do an entire blog on shopping, which is quite an experience here.) And they don’t want to buy into the kind of traditional marriage that still persists in Japan (and okay, probably in the U.S., too). Who’d want to be married to a guy who comes home from work late after going out drinking with his colleagues, and then grunts approximately three words at his wife: “Bath.” “Food.” “Sleep.” You can’t blame a girl for not rushing into a partnership like that. On the other hand, that’s not really an excuse to postpone adulthood.

 

By the way, you might wonder why this blog isn’t illustrated with lots of photos of women who exemplify “kawaii.”  As a photographer, I’ve been a bit stymied in my attempts to take good photos of people in Japan. I do try to ask permission, so as not to be obnoxious. Sometimes people say no, which I respect. Often they say yes . . . and then immediately assume the most forced and unnatural pose imaginable, usually flashing a high peace sign with their right hand and grinning ridiculously. The resulting pictures are absolutely awful.

 

I can’t figure out how to get around this problem. My zoom/telephoto lens really isn’t good enough to take candid photos from far away. Besides, I think that’s kind of rude. But apparently I’m not the only one having this trouble. I just read an interview with Steve McCurry, a well-known photographer (he took that famous photo of the Afghan girl orphan that was on the cover of National Geographic) who just came out with a book of Asian portraits, called Looking East. The interview was for a Japanese magazine, and they asked him why there wasn’t a single photo from Japan in his book. He answered that Tokyo was too fast-paced for his patient approach to photography, but also averred to the interviewer’s suggestion that people in Japan were too self-conscious in front of the camera, and not genuine enough. Maybe that’s my problem with people pictures here, too?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The DMZ

Today’s announcement that the U.S. plans to lift some sanctions against North Korea makes this post particularly timely. Korea is sometimes described as the last divided country on earth, and the DMZ between the North and the South is the last remnant of the cold war. The Korean War, which split the country 55 years ago, wiped out 15 percent of the population and left millions of families divided. By all accounts, the conditions that most North Koreans live under today are little better than those in concentration camps. In the West, North Korea has replaced the Soviet Union and China as the villain of choice in international spy movies.

When I saw that it was possible to take day tours to the DMZ, I couldn’t resist, even though it hardly sounds like a tourist destination. Several different itineraries are offered, and depending on which you choose there are different security procedures to follow. For all of them, you have to submit your passport number in advance for clearance.

The DMZ winds 155 miles across the Korean peninsula; it’s five kilometers wide—a kind of buffer zone for the Military Demarcation Line that was formed at the end of the Korean war in 1953. Each country monitors the two kilometers closest to its border, and the kilometer in the middle is a kind of no-man’s land. Calling it the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone) is really a misnomer, since there can’t be many more militarized places on the planet. Lately South Korea has started describing the DMZ as an ecological paradise, since much of the land has been untouched for the past fifty years. I guess small woodland creatures don’t have a heavy enough tread to set off landmines. . .

Security clearance at the border checkpoint was surprisingly cursory. Then again, South Korea isn’t really worried about people trying to get out. The tour’s first stop was Imjingak, a kind of tourist gateway to the Zone. We were shown a heartbreaking informational film, and then left for about 15 minutes to look around at landmarks with names like the “Bell of Peace,” and “Bridge of Freedom” . . . and to check out  the DMZ souvenirs on sale (including rice and honey grown there).

From there we rode to the Dora Observatory, which is the northernmost point in the South for observing the North. Two villages within the DMZ (yes, there are a few) are visible from the observatory. One is a South Korean community dubbed “Freedom Village,” a working farm town. A South Korean flag flies from a tall pole in the center.

The other village is an oddity. When it was erected, it looked like a very prosperous North Korean town with trim blue-roofed houses and high-rise buildings. But there were no windows on the buildings. . . and no people. The village was constructed as propaganda, to try and convince South Koreans looking in that people in the north lived better. When the ruse was discovered, an embarrassed North Korea quickly installed windows. . . and people. They also put up an enormous flag pole—supposedly the tallest in the world—flying a gigantic North Korean flag. On the day we visited, we couldn’t see any sign of life in the town at all. (Although our guide didn’t tell us this, someone else who’d been there said that people were often asked not to point at the village. North Korean video cameras trained on the observatory capture photos of happy-looking tourists pointing towards the north, and use them as propaganda photos, claiming that the pointing people were wishing they lived in the north.)

The second stop on our tour was the “third infiltration tunnel.” Since about 1970, acting on information from defectors and military explorations, the South Koreans have discovered four tunnels leading from the north to the south, meant for surprise invasion. The tunnel we went into was discovered in 1978 (the most recent one was discovered in 1990) and is less than 30 miles from Seoul. It’s two meters high, two meters wide, 73 meters deep . . . and 1635 kilometers long. Supposedly it could move a full division (30,000 troops) plus their weapons through in an hour. These tunnels understandably horrify and terrify South Koreans, who live with constant fear of attack.

To enter the tunnel, you put on a hard hat and sit in a small tram, as if you were a miner going to work. The analogy is apt, because when you reach the main tunnel you can see that the walls look as if they were painted black. The North Koreans painted some of the tunnel surfaces with a coal dust paint, and when the tunnel was discovered they claimed they had no interest in entering South Korea. . . but were just looking for coal! Not only is the “coal” only on the surface of the rocks, but apparently it’s geologically impossible in the area.

Visitors’ access to the tunnel is stopped abruptly by the first of three barriers that were erected by the military after its discovery. Soldiers used to be stationed there in eight-hour shifts, but they complained about the dark, dank conditions and now a thick steel wall and video camera take their place (there’s a second barrier not far beyond the first, and then a third barrier much further towards North Korea). I was so anxious to leave the claustrophic and creepy tunnel that I opted to climb back up and out rather than wait for the tram.

Finally, we visited Dorasan Station, a large modern train station that was built in 2001 to unite the two countries, but has never yet been used for passengers (although as of late last year a few cargo trains began passing through). The station was ghostly, with empty gleaming halls, bathrooms, and concession stands, and no one buying or selling tickets, or announcing tracks.

(Below: A sign points the way to Pyeongyang, North Korea’s capital, for trains that have never run.)

The station is seen as both a symbol of division and a site of future reconciliation. It’s hoped that some day the tracks will complete the Trans Korea Railway, which will then link with the Trans China and Trans Siberian Railways, creating a major Eurasian railway system.

The tour ended with a stop for a traditional Korean lunch of bulgogi (a meat and vegetable hot pot) and various spicy kimchees. As we boarded the bus to return to the capital, David remarked, “I think I’ve finally had enough kimchee to last a while.” It was time to go back to Tokyo.

Seoul (too many possible puns, so I resisted)

Another weekend, another Asian city . . . or at least it’s starting to feel that way. This past weekend we traveled to Seoul, South Korea, just a two-hour flight from Tokyo.

While I realize I’m not exactly an Asian expert after just three months here, it’s impossible not to start making comparisons between Tokyo, Taipei, and Seoul. I feel as if I’ve now visited representative cities of the three main cultures in the Far East: Japan, China, and now Korea.

In some ways, Seoul felt like the missing link between China and Japan. The architecture (as represented by historic buildings) was not as austere as Tokyo’s, nor as gaudy as Taipei’s. The language sounded, at least to my ears, like Chinese spoken with a Japanese accent. The city was more modern and clean than Taipei, but with some of its vibrant street life. A nice combination.

The people in Korea are louder and pushier than the Japanese. The women, in particular, are quite different. There’s none of the false little girl cuteness that can be so grating in Japan. In fact, the Korean women seem tougher; there’s no doubt they can take care of themselves. What a relief not to see grown women swathed in ruffles, bows, and gauzy fabrics, sporting cartoon characters on their purses and cell phones, and speaking in baby voices.

Korean taste is gaudier, too. Although a strange point of comparison, umbrella styles illustrate the difference. In Tokyo, clear plastic umbrellas are sold in every convenience store. They’re plain, cheap, and useful—I love how they’re completely transparent and don’t block vision. In Korea, the same umbrellas are sold in street markets all over the city. . . but they’re not entirely clear; there are bright colored polka dots printed on top. (And, of course, all of these umbrellas are manufactured in China.)

Unlike their more reserved Japanese neighbors, Koreans like to protest. On our short trip we saw protests against U.S. beef imports (which have been getting a lot of press), as well as small marches and displays against North Korea, China (the Olympics), child abuse, and torture.

Korean food is very spicy and was difficult for me to eat . . . but was an absolute pleasure for David with his asbestos palate. He tried every kind of hot, garlicky kimchee he could find. David’s most frankly disgusting culinary adventure in Seoul was buying boiled silkworm larvae from a street vendor. He said they had a taste and texture somewhat like beans. Much to my amazement, Daniel—who can be a very picky, finicky eater—decided to try one, too. So I was the family wimp . . . willingly, since franky you couldn’t pay me to eat a bug. I did enjoy iced corn tea, which was refreshing and delicious, and tasted a bit like the water left over after you boil ears of sweet summer corn.

While I’ve been priding myself on how well I wield chopsticks in Japan, the steel chopsticks common in Korea proved challenging. The flat edges and sharp points make it difficult to hold on to anything. To get the food to an easily manageable size, Koreans use large scissors on the table to cut noodles, meat, and other food into smaller pieces. 

I love outdoor markets, and Seoul’s were a treat. Much of what’s sold is modern (imitation designer purses, T-shirts, kitchenware), but some is more traditional.

Ginseng:

 Calligraphy instruments: 

 Traditional Korean dress:              

Besides silkworm larvae (which I could not even look at long enough to photograph), street stalls made and sold mochi (rice pounded into a dough-like consistency):

Noodles: 

And strings of fish we teased Daniel he could use to decorate his camp bunk in a few weeks: 

For the first couple of days, we visited the usual attractions for tourists in Asia:  temples, shrines, palaces, and museums.

All gorgeous, all interesting . . . all starting to blur together a bit. For a change from the usual tourist itinerary, I decided to treat myself to a “real” Korean manicure. I chose a small salon in an underground shopping mall. The place wasn’t exactly luxurious; the art on the walls included framed sets of impressively long fingernails decorated with zebra stripes, pink polka dots, painted flowers, and pasted-on jewels. An older woman with steel-gray hair sat having her nails done on one side of me, a young woman with China-doll bangs on the other. Somehow, even without speaking English, the manicurist managed to yell at me for biting my thumbnails and not taking good care of my cuticles. After a great deal of time and a lot of attention from several different manicurists, at a cost of $20, the result was serviceable if not spectacular. And not very different from having a manicure anywhere else.

On our last day in the country, not wanting to see more palaces or museums, we signed on for a tour of the DMZ. (To be continued. . . )

The Tsukiji Fish Market

Most people visit Tsukiji soon after they arrive in Tokyo, since jet lag helps with the early morning wake-up necessary to see the market in action. But somehow the three of us didn’t make it there until this week—two and a half months after we arrived. And getting up at 5 a.m. was not fun.

 

But the trip to Tsukiji was worth an encounter with an angry alarm clock. Tsukiji is the largest wholesale fish market in the world, with more than 2500 tons of seafood passing through each day.

 

More impressive stats:

–The Tsukiji market employs over 60,000 people.

–Over 1000 “middle wholesalers” have stalls within the inner market.

–17,000 trucks transport seafood at the market (making it extremely dangerous for visitors).

–Over 400 kinds of seafood are sold, from tiny eels hardly bigger than sewing needles to the giant bluefin tuna that weigh hundreds of pounds.

–The Japanese consume about one quarter of all tuna caught in the world.

 

Tsujiki is divided into an inner and outer market. The inner market is where the freshly caught fish and shellfish are sold. The outer market deals in kitchen appliances, vegetables, pickles, and dried fish products (such as bonito flakes). We saw bags of small dried fish tails for sale, and David told me they’re sometimes placed at the bottom of a sake glass (remind me to check my sake cup next time I have a drink). The strangest thing we saw for sale in the outer market was dried squid mouths. I have no idea what they’re used for.

 

For me, one of the most amazing things was that the inner market, with its tons and tons of freshly caught fish (alive and dead), shellfish, and other sea creatures, had absolutely no fish smell at all. The air inside was as fresh as out. It was only the outer market that retained a pungent odor from the considerably older and riper dried products for sale.

  

The market opens at 3 a.m. with trucks delivering the previous day’s catch, but the real attraction for the tourists is the auction for the giant bluefin tuna, which goes on from about 5:30 a.m. to 7 o’clock. We made sure to arrive by 6, and the auction was underway. These fish can weigh over 600 pounds and sell for more than $100,000, depending on how their flesh is rated (part of the tail is cut off so that potential buyers can evaluate it). It’s these bluefin tuna that provide “toro,” the fatty belly flesh that is one of the most expensive types of sushi.

 

 

 

I was fascinated by the action and happily snapping photographs . . . when all of a sudden I started sobbing. The giant frozen tuna looked like corpses, and I was overcome by the reality of so much death: the tuna, plus all the other creatures with fins, claws, shells, spikes, and tentacles on display in the seemingly endless warehouse building. It was incredible to realize that all of this marine life had just recently been pulled from the ocean; the abundance on sale represented just one day’s catch. And to think that this scene, and these deaths, were repeated daily at Tsukiji and other markets around the world. I’d visited the Fulton Fish Market in New York, and other similar markets, and never had a reaction like this. But in the end I think it was the giant tuna that finally got to me. Their size somehow made their deaths more real and more horrible.

 

After my reaction, I’m truly embarrassed to admit that I joined David for a sushi breakfast in one of the market’s restaurants, tears barely dry. We’d been told that there’s no fresher sushi to be had anywhere, and we wanted to try it. There was no menu, and the meal started with a bowl of seafood miso soup that was full of tiny baby clams, their shells as small as a child’s little finger nail. The nigiri sushi that followed was the freshest I’d ever eaten, the flesh glistening.

 

Still, I couldn’t get the image of the giant tuna out of my head, and it may be a while before I can happily eat sushi again. By coincidence, we’d arranged to meet another family for dinner that night at an elegant  restaurant specializing in “syoujin” food: food cooked according to Zen Buddhist principles. In fact, it’s a very upscale version of the food eaten by Buddhist monks. Given the day’s events, it was a serendipitous choice. The food was delicious and guilt-free, since syoujin restaurants are vegetarian.

 

(Note: We’re leaving Friday afternoon for a long weekend in Seoul, South Korea. Back Tuesday night. We’re not planning to take computers with us, so there probably won’t be a new blog post until the middle of next week.)

Cocktails with the Ambassador

Just got back from the American Embassy, where Ambassador J. Thomas Schieffer (his brother is Bob Schieffer, the sports announcer) and his wife held a reception for this year’s Fulbright recipients (American and Japanese) at their embassy residence. Not much to say, except it’s always fun to see how the other half lives. The American Embassy Residence is a lovely mansion surrounded by gardens (and all guarded by lots and lots of security, of course). The staff—and there were many—all had impeccable manners and spoke perfect English. The bar was open and the wine and liquor were good. The food was Western, copious, and yummy. We saw some of the Fulbrighters who were stationed elsewhere in the country, who we hadn’t seen for months. And we all exclaimed over the food (baby lamb chops, crab cakes, fudge, and apple strudel), since we hadn’t eaten a western feast like this for a while. David and I introduced ourselves to the ambassador, who’s from Texas. We chatted briefly about Mississippi, and I told him about Conceive . . . and he told me he had an adopted child. Then David and I peeked at the books and photographs in the library on our way out, and walked back home.

 

Have Your Cake and Be Thin, Too

Walking around Tokyo’s streets can’t help but be a blow to the self-confidence of many American women, this one included. The Japanese women here are almost uniformly well-dressed, high-heeled, impeccably coiffed and made up. . . and very thin. And while there’s certainly anorexia here (some female students at the university here, for instance, seem to exist on nothing but energy drinks), there’s also a population of women who seem to enjoy eating heartily without consequences.

French patisseries are the rage in Tokyo right now, and there seems to be one on almost every corner. These bakeries are filled with very credible versions of French pastries, the creamier the better.

The little cakes are so popular that women sport miniature models of these desserts as cell phone charms, and pictures of them adorn purses, stationery, and even clothing. The theme carries over into children’s toys, too:

The elaborate food halls (modeled after Harrod’s in London) in the basement of nearly every department store have as many as a dozen French-style bakeries. The coffee shops that dot the streets also serve these confections. Haagen-Daz sells ice cream here in flavors like “Millefeuille,” “Tiramisu,” and “Mont Blanc” (a pastry I’d never heard of before, covered in chestnut cream that almost looks like swirled spaghetti on top). Unlike in the States, where you’d almost never see a woman consume anything so calorie-laden and decadent in public, the shops here are full of young women, solo and in groups, who order these elaborate desserts. . . and eat every bite.

The same is true in Italian restaurants, which are also popular. The Japanese women seem to have no hesitation about ordering big bowls of pasta with cream sauce. . . and finishing it all. Where the hell do they put it?

It’s true that restaurant portions are smaller here. People are expected to clean their plates and not waste food, and they do. In fact, the portions aren’t always large enough for men, who buy food at street stalls or convenience stores if they’re out in the evening, or order food with their drinks at bars. But believe me, no one is going hungry. There are more restaurants than there are in New York City, mostly very good, and almost always crowded. There’s an incredible variety of Japanese food beyond sushi, tempura and teriyaki that isn’t even dreamed of in the States. Turn on the television and half the shows seem to be cooking programs. Look on the newsstand and there are dozens of food magazines. I’d say the city is food-obsessed, but not just in the abstract: These people eat! And yet they are thin. . .

There have been reports in the U.S. press recently about Japanese efforts to reduce the population’s obesity levels. By U.S. standards, this is almost laughable, since there is almost no obesity here at all. This is one of the thinnest societies I’ve ever seen. But apparently the Japanese suffer ill health effects (diabetes, heart disease, etc.) at much lower weights than Americans do. And with an aging population, the government is trying to control the weights of older Japanese so that they don’t tax the health care system. It’s possible that the government is being prescient, and that acting preventively will pay off in the long run. Maybe the young women eating whipped cream covered pastries today will be the overweight old people of tomorrow if nothing is done to prevent it. And maybe the increasing popularity of Western food in the diet will be at least partially responsible. For instance, compare the creamy French pastries that are now so popular with traditional Japanese desserts:

Traditional Japanese sweets, called “wagashi,” are absolutely beautiful to look at. And they’re wrapped exquisitely, meant to be given as gifts for special occasions, when you visit someone out of town, or when you go to someone’s house for a meal. They’re often made with agar so they’re jelly-like, or bean paste so they’re kind of sweet and vegetable-y at the same time. In other words, they’re not French pastries! But the Japanese like to say that they eat with their eyes as much as their mouths, meaning that the look of food is as important as the taste. (That’s why some melons cost a couple of dollars, while others cost a couple of hundred. The most beautiful melons, meaning those whose pattern is so lacy and regular it resembles intaglia, cost a fortune and are given as gifts. I’m not sure anyone ever eats them, although I’m sure if they did they wouldn’t taste any different from the $2 melons.)

Food’s texture is important, too. And so is its history: traditional foods remain revered. Taste is sometimes not high up on the list. Don’t get me wrong: Japanese food is delicious. But maybe valuing food for reasons other than taste is good for the waistline.

I can’t help but wonder if the government’s effort to slim an already slim population will backfire. Taking a group with a mostly healthy approach to food and eating, and turning it paranoid and weight-obsessed might have the opposite effect, leading to yo-yo dieting, more eating disorders, and eventually more overweight people.

Speaking from personal experience, all three of us have lost weight here: Daniel’s pants are falling off, David keeps tightening his belt, and my clothes are looser. Switching from our usual sedentary school-and-work lifestyle for one where we’re out walking every day is at least partly responsible. But I think so is the fact that we’ve tried to eat more Japanese foods than Western whenever possible.

We’ve been eating lots of fish, rice, vegetables. Lots of soy in all forms: soy sauce, edamame, tofu. We drink lots of green tea, full of healthy antioxidants. There’s little dairy, and the food is much lower in fat (and has almost no trans fat). There’s also almost no high fructose corn syrup used; even the soft drinks use cane sugar.

That’s not to say that all Japanese food is healthy. Tempura is deep fried, and ramen can be greasy. The beef is delicious but well-marbled (although eaten in very small portions). Much of the food is very salty. A lot of vegetables are eaten pickled rather than fresh or steamed.

Okay, I guess this post is waffling back and forth a bit: Japanese food is healthier; no wait, it isn’t really healthy at all. Japanese women eat a lot and are thin, but wait, a lot of them are anorexic and the population is getting heavier as it ages. We’re all eating plenty and losing weight. . . but that’s because we’re walking a lot. So maybe I haven’t figured this all out yet. But I don’t think the Japanese government has, either.

From Daniel: Taipei

     Five days ago, on June 6, we packed our bags, got on the airport limousine to Narita Airport from the Hotel New Otani, and departed from Japan to arrive hours later in the city of Taipei, Taiwan. There we would stay in the (aptly named, unlike most hotels) Grand Hotel. The four-hour-long flight to get there was aboard the Hello Kitty EVA flight (no kidding!), complete with Kitty-themed food, seats, decorations, and programs on the little screen attached to the back of the headrest of the seat in front of you (how do the passengers in the front row of seats watch or eat on those trays?). I used the aforementioned screen to play free video games, much to the dismay (and annoyance) of my parents, who, early on, discovered that hearing is not the best through audio-insulated earphones, and that, if one cannot hear what is trying to be said, one also cannot hear the suggestion to remove the headset so as to hear it. I simultaneously discovered that if one shakes one’s head and shrugs while wearing earphones, one doesn’t  have to hear things!

 

     Anyway, we arrived late at night, and the full majesty and grandeur of the hotel, and, indeed, our room itself, didn’t make itself fully apparent to us until morning. The hotel was enormous, as you can see, and built in traditional Chinese style architecture by the government of Taiwan to promote tourism. You don’t know the meaning of the word “magnificent” until you see the Grand Hotel of Taipei, Taiwan.

 

     To kick off our first day in Taipei, we were to walk to the National Palace Museum. On the way, we visited the Martyrs’ Shrine, a large, solemn, Chinese-looking temple where the exact opposite point of view was exhibited from Yasukuni Shrine. We then walked on and crossed the “fishing pole” bridge (that looks just as it sounds), from which we could see the dragon boat races, in which up to twenty-one people in a long dragon boat would race in lanes on the Keelung River, which runs through Taipei. These races were part of the annual Dragon Boat Festival, at which are eaten zongzi (or jongji), a cone-shaped rice thingamabobermajiggymathinger with a filling of either beans, sausage, turnip, egg, or other things (but not alll of them together!), kind of like a Chinese onigiri, and realgar wine. On the other side of the river was a sort of miniature fair grouping of buildings. Mom warned us, for the eight billionth time, not to have any water, fruit, vegetables, or dairy that hadn’t been cooked or, in the case of water, boiled. Near the end of the carnival-like gathering was a stall where a Taiwanese woman and her daughter were operating a game in which the participant got a (large) number of ping pong balls with which to attempt to get them through cups on a rack, where each cup is assigned a specific point value. When you exhaust your supply of ping pong balls, your points are tallied up and you get a choice of prize from a wall. With a total of 97 points, I chose a plastic suction cup thingy. From the fair, we took a bus to an area where we walked around, saw Xing Tian Temple, a Buddhist temple (the characters literally mean “go heaven temple”) where people left offerings, prayed to a large wooden Buddha statue, dropped plastic fortune-telling sticks (or so we presume), and burnt incense. After that, we walked around for a while, got totally lost, and eventually took a taxi to the museum, which was, if you recall, our destination for the day in the first place. After having a snack at the café, we explored. To be honest, it was a fairly boring museum. There were exhibits on laquerwork, jadework, jewelry, calligraphy, printing, scroll mounting, and so on. My favorite was a sculpted rock that looked “exactly like a cut of steamed pork.” There were a lot of stone and jade ornaments called “pi discs” in the shapes of rings and toroi. If anyone could tell us what they are, it would be much appreciated. From the museum, we caught a cab to Dihua Street, a long road of apothecaries and tea shops, selling many pungent-smelling remedies from traditional Chinese medicine. After that, we (briefly) went back to the hotel, before leaving again at around 7:00 PM to go to the night markets for dinner.

 

     The night markets in Taipei are spectacular. They are streets of small stalls selling odd foods that you don’t want to know the insides of (or if they are insides). Needless to say, Dad loved it. I got a Taiwanese sausage, a stick with a spiral potato chip, and we all shared some “chicken” and a crumbly naan-like bread. We saw three rats and six cockroaches, as well as one cart pulling away (we read that it’s because they don’t all have licenses). The awful smell (it would be more apt to call it a stench) that refused to dissipate all night was of stinky tofu, an extremely disgustingly-scented food that I’m very glad isn’t as popular in Tokyo as Taiwan. We then caught a cab back to the hotel.

 

     There are many of them, and yet but a few seat belts amongst them. With the way they drive, I don’t think that it would help that much; similarly, bubble wrap probably wouldn’t help in the case of a building collapse.

 

     The next day, we had breakfast in our room, for, although the previous day’s Chinese buffet had been nice, it was also over U.S.$15 per person (Thirty New Taiwanese Dollars amount to about one hundred Japanese Yen, or one U.S. Dollar).

 

     We took a taxi to the Jade and Flower Markets, and looked a while at that (mainly the Jade Market was all similar stalls; I got a “silver” ring with symbols on it for only NT$100 (about $3.33) that came with a color-changing effect on my finger) and the Handicapped Market (no, before you ask, the market wasn’t handicapped!), where I got a Meiji era silver one yen coin (I have yet to determine its integrity) and a bronze (I think) oddly-shaped old Chinese coin (it too). After the markets, we walked around the neighborhood Shida, where I got some pot-stickers at a stall and Dad got lunch at a Korean place. Then Dad left; Mom and I walked around some more before eventually going to the Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial Hall, where a very odd point of view of history and the Japanese was given, indeed. Generalissimo Chiang-Kai Shek is portrayed as a hero and savior of the country, and the Japanese are vicious aggressors. The rest of Asia all really hate Japan, and, (though this does not mean that I agree) honestly, I can’t blame them.

 

     From the Hall, we walked to the neighborhood Ximending, which Mom called “trendy” (I didn’t see it). We couldn’t find a Starbucks (Mom’s last tie to the States), but we each got an ice cream and a Coke at one of the thousands of convenience stores, the abundance of which in Taiwan is second only to Japan itself. Then (you guessed it!) we took a c_b back to the hotel and all went for dinner at Shin Yeh, a Chinese restaurant, where we all had things that had nothing whatsoever to do with Shark’s Fin (there was too much of it—it had its own section in the menu, labeled “Superior Shark’s Fin Soup and Roast”).

 

     After that, we (i.e., Dad and I) got some boiled peanuts (not as good as Mississippi roasted, we all decided) and went (guess how) back to the hotel.

 

     The next day was my birthday!!!!!!!! That sentence well deserved its multitude of punctuation, for on June 9, 2008, in Taipei, Taiwan, I turned 13!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! First thing in the morning (which was pretty late for us, seeing as I had stayed up until midnight the night before to count down the seconds), we took a t_x_ to Taipei 101 (no, not an academic course on the capital city of Taiwan, but the–), the Tallest Building in the World!!! After briefly getting hopelessly (but obviously not quite) lost in the adjoining 8-story, half-underground shopping mall where the __x_ had dropped us off, we found our way outside. . . . . and immediately got whiplash. Each of Taipei 101’s eight main sections alone could be considered a very large building, being eight stories tall each and even wider. In fact, even the base of the antenna could be a good-sized high-rise!

 

     We bought our tickets and took the elevators (the fastest in the world, made by Toshiba) from the fifth floor to the 89^th floor observatory in about thirty-nine seconds. At the 89^th floor, we saw a spectacular panorama of Taipei and the surrounding cities, along with an audio tour given at a counter. We then went up to the 91^st floor outdoor observation deck (which we were extremely lucky to gain admittance to; even Taipeians often say that they have never been up there, for it is almost always closed due to weather, or some other reason), where we got an even better excellent view, but noted that there were some clouds on the horizon.

 

     We then went down to the 88^th floor, where the enormous damper is on display to the public; I got a picture with it. Then, (after getting an ice cream at the 89^th floor observatory’s Sky Café using the coupon that came with each of our tickets) we went back downstairs and had lunch at the Taipei 101 food court; I got a doner kabob. This is the moment when I realized about the ring. Anyway, after that, we went back up to the first floor to get a _ _ _ to the Confucius Temple, but it was pouring rain! Yes, the clouds we had seen earlier and had thought nothing of were now throwing buckets of water and shooting flames. The rain was almost horizontal, and from a tour bus less than twenty feet away, people were dashing in, drenched while holding useless umbrellas. The lightning blinded and the thunder deafened, and the rain chilled the hearts of the statues outside. Birds couldn’t fly, and any living thing exposed to the elements was almost instantly soaked to the bone. The wailing wind blew the rain through the open automatic door for a few seconds so that the entrance hall was half-flooded and people standing fifteen feet away got sopping wet. One couldn’t see the street or the tour bus anymore, twenty feet away though they were.

 

     We waited for awhile, but when it didn’t show any signs of dying down, we decided to get a _ _ _ _, so we went to the covered (relieved sigh) area where we had been dropped off earlier, and found that we hadn’t been the only ones to have that idea. After a long, but fast-moving, line, we boarded a _ _ _ _ and set off for a nice, roofed, art museum, which we had decided might be a better choice than an open-air temple, to go to first, given the weather. We got out, the cabbie drove off, and we found that the museum was (admittedly forseeably) closed on Mondays. So we walked (yes, walked; and I was the only one without an umbrella) to the Confucius Temple. On the way there, we saw another temple even nicer (though I regret to inform you that I couldn’t acquire the name of it). Then we got lost. Then we finally found the temple (after getting lost again twice), which was closed. From there we walked (you heard me right! No _ _ _!) back to the hotel. I had some tea, and later we went to dinner at the hotel restaurant, called “The Golden Dragon Restaurant,” getting its name from the Golden Dragon Pavilion, a building of the hotel that houses the restaurant, itself named after a brass statue of a dragon on the second floor near the hotel that had, purportedly, been melted down into metal for cannons and its shrine burnt down during “the War” (I’m not sure which war would be “the War” in Taiwan). After dinner (which was excellent), we went downstairs and I was surprised by a Taiwanese cheesecake with mango and some kind of berry, and a white chocolate disc with chocolate shavings and lettering saying “Happy Birthday Daniel.” That was the best birthday of my life!!!

 

     The next day, our last in Taipei, I got up early to use the hotel exercise room on the tenth floor with Dad. Then we took a cab to the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, where we saw some very nice things, some interesting things, some thought-provoking things, and some just plain odd things, such as Democracy and the NBA. Then we caught a hotel airport shuttle and returned to Tokyo (“I hope you had a pleasant flight with Kitty and all of us”). And so here we are.

Three Type A’s in Taipei

Daniel is busy writing a magnum opus about his birthday trip to Taipei, which he plans to post here eventually. He’s up to 15 pages already, with no sign of ending. Since it’s been almost a week since our last blog posting, I figured I’d do a general paragraph or two about Taipei, and post some photos. Then when Daniel has finished cataloging the journey, he can post his entry and fill in all the details.

We loved our trip to Taipei, which was refreshingly different from Tokyo. Taipei is noisy and dirty, with a gritty urban feel and a very vibrant street life (market stalls, food vendors, etc.). Seeing Taipei is to finally understand every urban Chinatown I’ve ever been to (New York, San Francisco, Montreal, Yokohama). We’ve been told that Taiwan is “more Chinese” than mainland China, since the culture wasn’t interrupted by the Communist revolution. The aesthetic is so different from Japan’s, full of bright colors and ornate designs (dragons), with strong street smells from the many food carts. I compared coming to Taipei after living in Tokyo to visiting Victorian London after living in a Shaker village!

The language, Mandarin Chinese, was obviously very foreign, too. We all mastered a few phrases, and David was able to read the kanji. Thank you is “xie xie,” which sounds very much like “chien,” the French word for “dog,” doubled. Dozens of times a day I felt as if I were smiling idiotically and saying “Dog dog!” to people.

Here are some photos from the trip. To start, the Grand Hotel where we stayed, modeled after a Chinese palace:

Next, a scene from the Dragon Boat races on the Keelung River:

Some photos taken at various Buddhist temples:

And even a Buddhist Mickey Mouse!

TaIpei is known for its night markets and its weekend markets. I loved the Jian Guo weekend flower market:

You could even buy water lilies there:

And the Jade Market:

The “drugstores” of Apothecary Row on Dihua Street had shelves full of mystery items:

We felt we got a rather warped view of history at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall:

Which brings us to the real reason for our trip: Daniel’s 13th birthday. To celebrate, he decided he wanted to visit the world’s tallest building, Taipei 101. The building also happens to have the fastest elevators in the world, which whisk you from the ground floor to the 89th floor observatory in about 40 seconds! The ride is amazingly smooth, and there isn’t even much ear-popping, since the elevators are pressurized like airplane cabins. The building is architecturally lovely, built to ressemble a stalk of bamboo sprouting out of the skyline. There are a lot of Chinese elements in the design, and a feng shui master was called in to vet the project.

(I did not take the above photo, since I was never in a location where I could get a clear shot like this of the entire building. The photographer’s name is David Boraks, and I downloaded this from his website. He took this photo from nearby Elephant Mountain.)

Here’s a shot of Taipei 101 as seen from our hotel:

And here’s a view of Taipei from the observatory in Taipei 101:

We saw a lot of strange (for us) food at street stalls and in restaurants.

In street stalls: Tiny cooked quail eggs strung on skewers like pearls. Fried everything. “Stinky” tofu (it really was). Noodles and dumplings. Fried chicken spiced with cinnamon. Taiwanese sausage (instant heart attack). Parts of animals with beaks and claws.

On restaurant menus: Stewed sea cucumbers. Spiced intestines and intestines in soy sauce. Pork knuckles with peanuts. Roasted pigeon. Abalone (boiled and fried). Sour cabbage with pork stomach. Fried fungus with vegetables. Fried sinew in brown sauce. And my favorite: Fried chicken testicles with sesame oil and ginger!

As a closing thought, our favorite example of “Engrish” from this trip:

Osaka: A Trip Down Memory Lane (for David)

We left Kyoto to spend several days in Osaka, the third largest city in Japan (Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Kyoto). There’s not a whole lot there for tourists, but it’s the city that David lived and taught in about 25 years ago, and he was anxious to see it again and meet up with some old friends and former students.

While Osaka is a business city, it’s much more laid-back than Tokyo, and much less serious than Kyoto. The residents of Osaka are more relaxed and less perfectly groomed than Tokyo-ites, and they’re cruder and funnier than the people in Kyoto. Since there are so many fewer “gaijin” (foreigners) in Osaka, we were much more an object of curiosity than we’d been anywhere else. Schoolgirls rushed up to say “Herro! Herro!” to us, and to exclaim “Kawaii!” (cute) about Daniel, much to his embarrassment. It’ was all rather sweet.

While David went to visit the company he used to work for, Daniel and I headed to the Osaka Castle Museum, a modern reconstruction of a castle with a turbulent history beginning in 1496.

It’s very high-tech inside, with odd historic holographic dioramas of human actors being projected onto a mini stage set. It’s very unsettling, because you feel as if you’re watching tiny people imprisoned in a glass box.

Here’s our favorite sign from the Castle, a testament to the “Engrish” (mangled Japanese English) you see everywhere:

We did NOT taste a little samurai warrior for lunch! But food was both a pleasure and a problem in Osaka. The city is known for good eating, but our problem was too much of it. Each of David’s old friends wanted to treat us to a feast. On the first day, not knowing what was in store, we all ate happily at the hotel breakfast buffet. Then came lunch at David’s friend Mori-san’s apartment. Mori-san, who runs a cram school, had prepared a very large Japanese lunch for us, including: rice, cooked eggplant, eggdrop soup, beef stew, and LOTS of tempura (chicken, pork, onion, squash, okra. . . and more). The plates had already been filled and served, and there was no way to avoid eating most of it. It was absolutely delicious, but we were stuffed.

Mori-san makes calligraphy scrolls in her spare time, and she sat Daniel down for a calligraphy lesson. He chose a favorite word, “taiyaki” (the fish-shaped sweet pastry he loves), and used a brush and ink to paint the kanji character. He repeated it until he had a version he was happy with, then Mori-san hung it up to dry and told him she’d mount it on cloth and make a scroll which she’d mail to him in Mississippi. She gave me a beautiful fan and fan case from Kyoto. David really does have lovely friends.

Later that day we met up with the Yamadayas. He’s a maxillofacial surgeon who was one of David’s students. Quite wealthy, he’d arranged a feast for us at a Chinese restaurant near our hotel, called Beijing. Again, it was sumptuous and lovely. But it was probably one of the most difficult meals I’ve ever had to eat. I wasn’t hungry at all after that lunch, but plate after plate and course after course kept arriving, and the waiters wouldn’t remove your plate until you’d finished everything on it (although I finally started motioning them to just start removing things). After a few courses I was convinced that each one that arrived was the last, but they kept coming. There were fresh peanuts, then an appetizer plate (containing jellyfish and abalone, very difficult for me to get down). Next came shark’s fin soup (another one of my not-favorites), then shrimp, then beef and broccoli, then a duck pancake, then an egg and crab custard, then rice porridge, and finally a dessert tray with strawberry yogurt, macha (green tea) pudding, and lemon sherbet. I thought I was going to be sick. As we left, Mrs. Yamadiya handed us a box of very elaborate “wagashi” (gift sweets, often used in tea ceremonies) to bring home.

The following day I skipped breakfast and ate a small lunch. I thought I had everything under control. Then we met up with the Miyamotos. He’s a retired pharmaceutical chemist, now running a museum for the company he used to work for. As we said our hellos he announced that he’d arranged dinner for us. . . at a Chinese restuarant near our hotel! David and I exchanged glances. I think I turned green. We thought it couldn’t possibly be the same place. Then he announced that the restaurant was in a hotel, and it was called Beijing. The same one! I seriously considered feigning illness and returning to our hotel.

Thank goodness it turned out to be a different place in a different hotel; this restuarant was called Peking, not Beijing. But the meal was fairly similar, although (thank God) slightly smaller. This time I paced myself better, and motioned for my unfinished plates to be removed more quickly. By the evening’s end I was full but not ill. None of us want to look at Chinese food anytime soon . . . although that’s what we’ll be eating in Taipei this weekend! Mrs. Miyamoto paints, and she gave me a fan that she’d illustrated with a very pretty morning glory design.

We visited Nishinomiya, the neighborhood David used to live in. We walked past his old apartment building as he exclaimed over everything that had changed since he’d been there (the train station was new, the covered shopping arcade had been removed, the stores were all different, etc.). David said he felt like Rip van Winkle.

That night, David and I left Daniel in the hotel and walked around to see some of Osaka’s nightlife, so different from what I’ve seen in Tokyo. We watched outside one club after another as the “Mama-san” (the club owner or manager) in her kimono, and several of her hostesses (in tacky, sexy dresses) said goodnight to their customers. These are office salarymen who have a favorite club to go out drinking in each night. The hostesses aren’t strippers or prostitutes, but women whose job is simply to fawn over these guys and make them feel good after a day of work. “Oooooh, you’re an accountant! That’s so interesting!” Ugh. We happened to be in the neighborhood at the right time to see many drunken men who’d spent their money leaving to catch the last train home to their (no doubt very annoyed) wives. 

The next morning, before taking the train back to Tokyo, we visited the Instant Ramen Museum. We’d already visited the Ramen Museum in Yokohama, but this museum is dedicated to INSTANT noodles, and to Momofuku Ando, the man who invented the process. Ando created his instant noodles in Osaka in 1958, after observing starving people unable to prepare food for themselves after the war. He said, “A culture can only prosper when its people have enough to eat.” I think the secret is some kind of quick frying of the fresh noodles, which then allows them to be reconstituted with water. Ando’s second big invention was “cup noodles” (containing freeze dried ingredients as well as noodles) in the early 1970s. Here’s part of an instant noodle timeline from the museum:

But the biggest timeline on this trip, of course, was David’s journey from just-out-of-college bachelor English teacher to author and university professor with a wife and son. And that’s better than instant noodles any day!

(P.S.  We leave this afternoon for Taipei, and won’t be back until Tuesday night. So the next blog posting probably won’t be until the middle of next week.)