February, 2010

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26
Feb 10

Okinawa, the Tropical Japan

When most Westerners think of Japan, they think of one large curved island, roughly the size of California. However, Japan is actually made up of 6,852 islands, most of which are very small and uninhabited. (97% of the Japanese population lives on the largest four islands—that “one large curved island” is actually made up of four islands connected by bridges.) The stretch of Japan includes places with harsh winters similar to nearby Russia (Hokkaido) to tropical islands far south from the main island of Honshu. Okinawa, located almost 1000 miles southwest of Tokyo, is perhaps the most famous of the tropical Japanese islands.

Okinawa Location

Location of Okinawa relative to the main island.

While all of Japan is essentially a series of islands, most of the inhabited parts are reachable by train and car once you land in Tokyo. However, to get to Okinawa, you’ll have to take a plane or boat, even from the main islands. Okinawa Island is too far from the mainland for bridges.

Okinawa Island is the most populous area of Okinawa, but Okinawa Prefecture actually consists of hundreds of smaller islands called the Ryukyu Islands that curve southwest of the main island of Japan for roughly 620 miles. The tropical climate of the Ryukyu Islands makes Okinawa Island a popular vacation spot even for native Japanese, as temperatures are warm year-round and swimming, surfing, scuba diving, fishing and other water sports are frequent activities at Okinawa’s many beaches. You can expect temperatures to drop no more than 68˚ F. In the summer, temperatures are more frequently in the 80s and 90s.

Besides the many pleasant beach activities, Okinawa is home to many historical sites that showcase classic Japanese architecture, such as Shuri Castle and Nakagutsu Castle. Parks, caves, and capes are popular destinations for tourists looking to relax and explore. The Churaumi Aquarium, the second largest aquarium in the world, features enormous whale sharks and mantas.

There are four U.S. military bases in Okinawa, making this the most likely stop for any U.S. serviceman or woman who’s stationed in Japan. This is a rather contentious point with the Japanese government, as these bases were established after World War II as part of the US’ decision to “keep an eye on” the Japanese due to their role in the war. Obviously, times have changed, but the U.S. presence remains. Although the U.S. has agreed every few decades to give up more of its territory, U.S. law and land still makes up 18% of the main Okinawa Island.

Did you know that Japan had tropical islands? If you won an all-expenses paid vacation to either Tokyo or Okinawa (but not both), which would you choose and why? Do you think the U.S. should still have so much military presence in Japan?

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23
Feb 10

“Out with Demons! In with Luck!”: Throwing Beans for Setsubun

Earlier this month, you might have been walking down a Japanese residential street only to come across Japanese people tossing beans outside of their front doors.

Maybe you even visited a nearby temple or shrine and saw someone wearing a mask made to look like the classical Japanese art depiction of a demon (complete with two horns) dancing around and falling victim to a crowd’s flying beans.

The bean-throwing and demon-mask antics are part of Setsubun, a traditional Japanese holiday that takes place on the eve of the new season. The most widely celebrated of these holidays takes place on February 3rd. How is early February, in the midst of winter, a new season? The seasons traditionally celebrated by Setsubun are based on the ancient Japanese lunar calendar and there are 24 seasons in the year! According to this ancient calendar, early February is the start of spring and is called Risshun.

So about the time we’re asking groundhogs to predict how much winter is left (throwing beans doesn’t seem so silly in comparison, does it?), the Japanese are already celebrating the start of spring, be it in a traditional sense. (Meteorologically, Japanese spring starts between March and May, depending on the region.) The traditional Setsubun celebration was meant to cleanse all bad luck from a person’s house that accumulated in the former year (in traditional Japan, like traditional China, the New Year begins in spring and is based on the lunar calendar) and drive away any malevolent spirits that have been possessing the home. The homeowners then ask that good luck and good spirits come into the home.

The Japanese word for beans, mame, is a homonym for “the eyes of evil,” so it is believed that beans were chosen as the tools with which to drive away the evil because the homeowners would then be grabbing evil by the eyes and tossing it away from the house. The beans are usually roasted soybeans. During this ceremony, called Mamemaki (bean throwing), homeowners shout, “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” which means “Out with demons! In with luck!” as they either throw beans out the door or at a family member wearing a demon mask.

Today most Japanese don’t believe in the spiritual aspect of the tradition, any more than people in North America believe that groundhogs can predict the weather. But the tradition is a part of their culture and it can be fun to participate in the festivities. During Haru Matsuri (the Spring Festival in early February), Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples hold a celebration and on Setsubun participants can grab some beans and throw them at people wearing demon masks.

Have you ever participated in Setsubun? (It’s a popular activity in Japanese classes in North America, too.) Would you want to be dressed up as the demon and attempt to avoid the beans or would you rather do the throwing?

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19
Feb 10

Japanese Pastries: Red Beans and Rice

While Japan has a plethora of “Western-style” bakeries in which you’ll find the typical cakes, cookies, cupcakes, éclairs and other pastries you’re used to finding in North America or Europe, no trip to Japan is complete without sampling the classic sweets that are uniquely Japanese. Like in the West, chocolate is a popular filling for modern Japanese sweets, but for the classics, don’t be surprised to find fillings made from ingredients like red beans and rice.

No, Japanese pastries are not filled with actual chunky beans and rice. Anko is a word you’ll often see when ordering Japanese pastries. It refers to a red bean (azuki) paste that’s mildly sweet and has been the main ingredient of Japanese pastries long before things like chocolate made their way to Japan.

Anko is a popular fillings in classic Japanese pastries such as taiyaki (a fish-shaped cake—and no, it doesn’t taste anything like fish), manju (a steamed bun based on an ancient Chinese dish—read more here), dorayaki (a pancake-like pastry with filling), and shiritama (dumplings).

Rice isn’t usually a filling but a sweet in and of itself. By fermenting the rice, Japanese pastry-makers can get the rice into a sweet, gelatinous consistency like that in mochi (rice cake), daifuku (sweet rice cake), and shiruko (a soup made of sweet rice cake).

One popular classic Japanese pastry is anpan. Anpan is literally a sweet bread filled with a sweet filling that dates back to the late 1800s. Typical classic fillings include anko, pickled cherry blossoms, chestnut jam, white bean jam, and green pea jam and modern fillings include chocolate cream, custard, fruit-flavored cream and cream cheese. While it sounds like enough to send anyone running to the dentist, the Japanese version of “sweet” is quite different than you may be used to in the West. Even Western-style cakes in Japan are mildly sweet. Japanese-made pastries are delicious without being cringe-worthy sweet. You won’t find yourself scraping off frosting to avoid getting cavities.

If you’re ever in Tokyo, consider taking the train about an hour outside of the city to Saitama’s Kashiya Yokocho (“Confectioners’ Alley”). This classic-style alley of mom-and-pop-style homemade pastry and candy stores is made to elicit the feelings of 1950s Japan. The popular ingredient for pastries there are sweet potatoes. You can find sweet potato anpan, ice cream, chips, coffee and even beer.

The mild sweetness of Japanese sweets can truly only be tasted to be understood, so track down the nearest Japanese style bakery and give it a try. One popular chain of Japanese supermarkets in the US is Mitsuwa, which has one location in New Jersey (only a 20-minute shuttle ride from Manhattan), one outside of Chicago, and six in California.

What’s your favorite Japanese pastry? What’s the best Japanese pastry filling?

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17
Feb 10

Toyota’s Gas Pedal Problems Becomes a Global Issue?

Toyota Recall

The Avalon, Camry, Corolla, and other models are affected by the recall.

If you’ve been paying attention to car news—and I certainly hope you have if you own a Toyota—Toyota is calling for massive recalls after discovering a glitch with the gas pedal in some models of its cars that causes the accelerator to become stuck, overriding brakes and causing accidents, injuries, and deaths across the globe. While this is no doubt a serious problem for which the Japanese automaker must take action and face the consequences of a huge sales drop, some lawmakers in Japan are worried that this problem in the private sector will become a “global issue.”

Japanese Foreign Minister Okada Katsuya has been quoted as saying, “I’m worried. It’s not just the problem of one company but a domestic issue.”1 He’s not alone. The US is the largest buyer of motor vehicles and so it has the largest number of recalls associated with this problem. Toyota CEO Toyoda Akio has been subpoenaed by the US Congress to testify before a congressional committee about the company’s safety procedures.

But what does this, the matter of a private company, have to do with Japan’s relationship with the US as a nation? Well, Japanese lawmakers are already having a difficult time negotiating with the US over the relocation of an American marine base in Okinawa after the new Japanese Prime Minister, Hatoyama Yukio, halted negotiations as part of his party’s promise to “reexamine” existing ties with the US. The Japanese government has also been asked by the American government to be more lenient with “green” tax laws for vehicles that benefit Japanese cars in Japan far more than American cars.

Lawmakers fear that on top of these problems, if the Toyota heads appear unfriendly or unwilling to work with the American Congress at these hearings, this could spark a tense tax-related “trade war” with America similar to one the countries experienced in the 1980s and 90s. However, not everyone is that concerned, pointing out that this is the matter of a private company and they believe that Toyota will do its best to comply with the US Congress’ wishes.

Should the problems of one private company in a foreign country be responsible for “tension” between the two nations? Would any American expect, for example, Japan to start a trade war with the US over the mistakes of Microsoft in their country? Or, does it make a huge difference because Microsoft’s products are less likely to cause injury, even when they fail, than that of Toyota’s?

1 Associated Press. “Japan worried that Toyota’s problems cut hurt U.S. ties.” Japan Today. 14 Feb. 2010. Politics. 15 Feb. 2010. <http://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/japan-worried-that-toyotas-problems-could-hurt-us-ties>.

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15
Feb 10

What’s a Jibly?: Traditional Animation Has Never Left Japan

This past December’s theatrical release of Disney’s The Princess and the Frog reminded anyone over the age of 10 that Walt Disney was once a name eponymous with hand-drawn, 2D animation of fantastical stories that awaken children’s imaginations. In the midst of 3D CG movies rife with pop culture references, cheesy plotlines, and stars-of-the-day, The Princess and the Frog promised a return to the company’s roots, the types of movies that Disney is known for worldwide.

Or not. Maybe Disney was onto something when they moved from Beauty and the Beast to Valiant (a 2005 CG movie about British homing pigeons fighting an evil German hawk during World War II if you, like most of the world, never saw it). The Princess and the Frog has earned a respectable $100 million domestically after over two months in release, but it took only a couple of weeks for 20th Century Fox’s “stellar” CG children’s film, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, released shortly thereafter, to earn double that.

The children of America may have been raised to believe that kids’ movies should be CG, crude and generally forgettable, but in Japan, CG has yet to appear in more than a handful of animated films and when it does, it rarely plays more of a role than it does in live action special effects flicks here: to paint the background of a world and make action sequences stand out.

Japan gets and loves Disney films (as the two Disney theme parks in Tokyo can attest), but they also have their own answer to Disney: Studio Ghibli and, when one of the studio heads himself chooses to direct, Miyazaki Hayao. Miyazaki and his co-heads, director Takahata Isao and producer Suzuki Toshio, have animation careers that date back to the 1960s. Miyazaki in particularly made his mark at Toei Animation, another essential staple in the folds of Japanese animation that still produces work today. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the founders of Ghibli worked on two animated films together, one of which, Kaze no Tani no Nausicäa (US title: Nausicäa of the Valley of the Wind), remains a veritable classic of Japanese animation today.

After Nausicäa, Miyazaki, Takahata, and Suzuki formed Studio Ghibli and released their first film under the studio’s official title, 1986’s Tenkuu no Shiro Laputa (US: Castle in the Sky). Fifteen award-winning films have followed this award-winning start to the Studio Ghibli tradition: break box office records in Japan and entertain and delight adults as much as children.

A little longer and perhaps slightly less action-oriented than their American animated film counterparts, the Studio Ghibli offerings usually follow the story of a young girl or boy (girls tend to appear more often than boys) who face spiritual, fantastical and compelling adventures as they learn to understand the importance of their friends, their family, and even the planet. There are definitely exceptions to the magic and fantastical—1988’s Hotaru no Haka (US: Grave of the Fireflies) comes to mind, as it deals with a young boy and his even younger sister who must deal with tragedy and survival after they lose the rest of their family to bombings in World War II—and exceptions to the young boy and girl protagonists—how about 1992’s Kurenai no Buta (US: Porco Rosso), which followed a Humphrey Bogart-esque Italian humanoid pig’s career as a World War I fighter pilot?—but the films always deliver on epic, thought-provoking themes that encourage children to dream and think about the world around them.

The folks at Disney know that Studio Ghibli films are something special, as current head of the animation department at Disney John Lasseter made it his mission to bring as many of the Studio Ghibli films to an English-speaking audience as possible—and uncut, at that. It was thanks to Disney’s international release of 2001’s Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (US: Spirited Away) that the film got enough exposure to win an Academy Award for best animated film, a first for Japanese animation.

While Disney has been going the way of CG, never has it been easier to get your hands on Studio Ghibli films in America. If you’ve grown up from jokes about passing gas and fish with cell phones in your animated films, try a Studio Ghibli film and take a peek at the kind of quality animation that’s been around in Japan for decades—the kind that won’t buck to current trends and yet, makes a huge impact on the nation regardless.

What are some of your favorite Studio Ghibli films? Do you find Studio Ghibli films more or less entertaining than Disney films?

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5
Feb 10

New Site Blog!

Welcome to the new blog for theJapaneseTutor.com website. Here at the blog, we will post little snippets about the Japanese world from its language to its culture. Updates to the main website can be found here too!

Thank you for visiting!