It’s that time of year again, here in Japan: as I mentioned a few weeks before, the month of June is the rainy season… but once that ends, comes the Japanese summer. And, just as I mentioned then, I have gone from trying to get my clothes dry in the face of nonstop rain, to trying to keep myself from resembling a gigantic fountain of sweat. To say that I find this unpleasant simply does injustice to the more-or-less constant moist feeling that is currently driving me up the wall. And then there’s the heat itself.
Maybe I’m biased, since I grew up in a temperate zone with the further moderating influence of the Saint Lawrence River, but summer in Japan can be really, excruciatingly, HOT. It’s not so bad in places farther north, like Hokkaido, but Osaka is one of the hottest places in Japan… and I’m in it. The heat is made worse by the everyday fact of 100% humidity, which ensures that sweat does not evaporate and people look not so much like human beings, but melting popsicles that somehow manage not to shrink as they do so. This is my first summer in Japan, so the experience of this level of torment is brand new to me… and I’m coming to terms with the sinking realization that I’ll be dealing with it again next year as well if I choose to stay on. That’s quite the sobering thought.
In spite of this, I am also in good spirits, because July in particular (less so August) is the month when all the big summer festivals are held. These are hard to describe in full without actually being there. Japanese festivals as a whole are generally centered around religious practices at a Shinto shrine or Buddhist temple, but religion in Japan being what it is (Shinto, Buddhism, and Christianity aren’t so much separate entities here as they are one big, amorphous mass that people freely engage in as appropriate to the occasion), the atmosphere is not so much solemn contemplation as it is an excuse to have a carnival party. I am not in any way opposed to this, mind you.
The first prerequisite to a proper Japanese festival is to festoon the area with paper lanterns. There’s probably a very good reason for this that dates back at least a few centuries, but as far as I’m concerned, they look cool. The second is the food: Japanese festival food is usually quite varied, but you’ll usually find some manner of meat-on-a-stick, fried potatoes, fried chicken, corn-on-a-stick, candied banana-on-a-stick, candy apples, noodles-on-a-stick, taiyaki (waffle-y things filled with sweet stuff and shaped like a fish), shaved ice, ice cream, and pretty much any other kind of Japanese food that’s capable of being carried with a single hand. I have sampled pretty much all of these things (not all at once), and can confirm that they are every bit as satisfying (and indigestion-inducing) as Fair food back home. And as with Fair food, you have to buy some of it; it’s just part of the experience.
The third necessity is carnival games. These are generally not too different from their Western counterparts, other than that they tend to be much simpler and less mechanized. Nevertheless, they are every bit as fiendishly difficult, and probably rigged in some way. (One of the popular expressions for them is kodomo-damashi, or “cheating the kids”. At least they’re honest, here.) Perhaps the most time-honored activity is the goldfish-scooping game: you get a “net” made of thin paper, and have to try and get a goldfish from the tank without it ripping. I have judged this to be nigh on impossible. Another is the kujibiki, or “lot drawing”, where you pull on a rope that is hypothetically attached to a prize, or more commonly, to a worthless trinket. I’ve heard tell that the really good prizes aren’t actually connected to any of the ropes you can pull, and in my experience that’s probably true. I really should stop wasting my money on these things…
But perhaps the most important part of a Japanese festival is the traditional clothing. Most of the time, people in Japan walk around in regular Western clothing, same as most places in the industrialized world. Kimonos are a rare sight indeed, and unless the wearer frequently engages in a culturally-significant activity that requires one, he or she will likely rent for the one or two special occasions per year that require it (much the same as formalwear in the US). This is hardly surprising, since a properly made silk men’s kimono with all its accoutrements can cost well over $1000, and women’s models several times that much. Even the cheaper variants would set you back more than a discount suit. But summer festivals are special because people get to break out their yukata.
Written with characters that give it the meaning “bathrobe”, the yukata is a lightweight, usually cotton kimono that’s especially appropriate for the summer months. Being comfortable, relatively inexpensive and easy to come by, they make popular attire for the occasion of a summer festival, paired with wooden clog sandals called geta. Seeing people dressed that way really makes me want to do likewise, but sadly, I don’t have one. This is something I will have to correct, once I can scrounge up enough pocket money.
Of course, I’ve really only scratched the surface here, which seems to be a recurring theme in these columns. I apologize for that, but it’s really something you have to experience firsthand to get in full. Festivals happen in every season, and each one has its own particular character (though they’re all relentlessly upbeat). So I consider myself lucky that I have one festival down in my area for this month, and two to go…
16 July 2008
09 July 2008
Real ramen
For me, one of the pleasures of living in Japan is being able to try out all sorts of food that is hard to obtain in the US. This is actually a far cry from how I used to be: I already mentioned my disastrous first experience with green tea (it didn’t agree with me), but much the same can be said of my encounters with many different kinds of fish, shellfish, mollusks, and, well… I guess you can see that I was never too fond of seafood. But since I’ve come to Japan, I’ve broadened my horizons substantially. What I once dreaded with a kind of loathing, doesn’t really bother me; sometimes (as is especially the case with green tea), it’s something I’ve learned to savor. And yet, there’s something even more basic, which I find myself coming back to, and with which many of you are probably already familiar. I am talking, of course, about Ramen.
In the US, there is basically only one “kind” of ramen: the instand kind. Found in packets in supermarkets, they sport a limited variety of “flavors” (all of which seem to taste quite similar). I first encountered it some time during my childhood, and (reluctantly) made a regular meal of it during my college years. It’s popular not so much for being healthy (it’s not), or for how it tastes (not so good), but the fact that it can be purchased in bulk for cents per package. But for ramen in Japan, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. True ramen is best served fresh.
There’s nothing quite like walking around the streets of Osaka and coming upon a ramen shop. Ramen in Japan is generally served at specialist establishments, ranging from high-class restaurants to streetside, standing-only noodle stalls. Either way, the ingredients are fresh, and nothing is freeze-dried, pre-fried, or otherwise altered. Instead, what you have are the basic ingredients of a good, authentic ramen dish, which come in various configurations. For starters, you have a base broth that comes in a variety of flavors: the most basic is salt, but soy sauce, miso, and pork bone flavors are also found pretty much anywhere. The pork bone in particular is a heavy broth, formed by boiling pork bones for hours until the mixture becomes cloudy. (It’s not exactly good for you, but it tastes really, really good).
After that, you have the ramen noodles: a distinctive yellow color, they are dredged in boiling water only briefly before being added to the soup. Then you have a variety of vegetables, which vary depending on the season and the whim of the establishment, topped off by a few slices of barbequed pork (char siu). The result is something that really ought to be tasted firsthand to be appreciated, but as I think you can tell from this description, I’m quite fond of it.
What might surprise you even more, though, is that ramen didn’t start out as a Japanese food. In fact, it is still considered Chinese food in most parts of Japan, and is often referred to as “Chinese soba” (soba are buckwheat noodles), rather than the more Chinese-esque “ramen” (which means either “lo mein” or “pulled noodles”, depending on who you ask). As the story goes, the dish was originally brought over by Chinese who came to make a living in Japan, or by former Japanese soldiers repatriated after the War, with either group, in any case, going on to found a multitude of noodle shops based on the dish. Simply change up the ingredients a tad so as to suit Japanese tastes, and you have the ramen that is known in Japan today, every bit a Japanese original as it is a Chinese import. (As I understand it, Japanese-style ramen is generally considered Japanese food in China.) And it’s really hard to understate how much it pervades Japan now, where it seems like you’re bound to run into a ramen shop (or failing that, at least someplace that serves ramen among other things) without going more than a mile or so away. Whether it’s the attractive price, the convenience, or simply the taste that brings in customers, ramen shops really are everywhere.
Of course, I don’t mean to give you the impression that instant ramen doesn’t exist in Japan. It certainly does; in fact, it was invented here. The credit (or scorn) belongs to Momofuku Ando, a Taiwanese immigrant to Japan, who founded the Nissin Foods Corporation. In 1958, after much experimentation, he hit upon a way of flash-frying noodles to make them readily available for consumption in a “just-add-water” model. It didn’t take long for the noodles, as a major convenience food, to catch on, and soon after there were scores of imitators (perhaps most well-known to American consumers is Maruchan ramen). Thus began the path to the instant ramen so well known in American supermarkets.
In spite of this similarity, though, there are many different variations on instant noodles in Japan. They are getting closer to resembling fresh ramen in spirit, as well: usually it involves a prepackaged Styrofoam container where you just remove the lid, add water, and mix in the other ingredients when the package instructs you to do so. These instant varieties have also worked their way into the cultural fabric of Japanese society, and are readily used in fiction as a staple food of people who can’t cook, or haven’t been paid yet for the month (truth in television, as I can definitely attest). Even so, there really is no substitute for the real thing.
Real ramen, of course, is one of the many things I will miss when I eventually come back to the US. Having experienced the genuine article firsthand, it’s hard to go back to the instant kind without being reminded of something wholly superior. Nevertheless, should you ever find yourself in Japan, I definitely recommend that you check out a ramen shop and try authentic ramen for yourself. It’ll make a believer out of you. As for me, I can make a hobby of sampling the regional varieties, which seem to be more numerous than regions in Japan. This isn’t necessarily a problem, but there are just so many choices… it makes me want to try them all.
In the US, there is basically only one “kind” of ramen: the instand kind. Found in packets in supermarkets, they sport a limited variety of “flavors” (all of which seem to taste quite similar). I first encountered it some time during my childhood, and (reluctantly) made a regular meal of it during my college years. It’s popular not so much for being healthy (it’s not), or for how it tastes (not so good), but the fact that it can be purchased in bulk for cents per package. But for ramen in Japan, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. True ramen is best served fresh.
There’s nothing quite like walking around the streets of Osaka and coming upon a ramen shop. Ramen in Japan is generally served at specialist establishments, ranging from high-class restaurants to streetside, standing-only noodle stalls. Either way, the ingredients are fresh, and nothing is freeze-dried, pre-fried, or otherwise altered. Instead, what you have are the basic ingredients of a good, authentic ramen dish, which come in various configurations. For starters, you have a base broth that comes in a variety of flavors: the most basic is salt, but soy sauce, miso, and pork bone flavors are also found pretty much anywhere. The pork bone in particular is a heavy broth, formed by boiling pork bones for hours until the mixture becomes cloudy. (It’s not exactly good for you, but it tastes really, really good).
After that, you have the ramen noodles: a distinctive yellow color, they are dredged in boiling water only briefly before being added to the soup. Then you have a variety of vegetables, which vary depending on the season and the whim of the establishment, topped off by a few slices of barbequed pork (char siu). The result is something that really ought to be tasted firsthand to be appreciated, but as I think you can tell from this description, I’m quite fond of it.
What might surprise you even more, though, is that ramen didn’t start out as a Japanese food. In fact, it is still considered Chinese food in most parts of Japan, and is often referred to as “Chinese soba” (soba are buckwheat noodles), rather than the more Chinese-esque “ramen” (which means either “lo mein” or “pulled noodles”, depending on who you ask). As the story goes, the dish was originally brought over by Chinese who came to make a living in Japan, or by former Japanese soldiers repatriated after the War, with either group, in any case, going on to found a multitude of noodle shops based on the dish. Simply change up the ingredients a tad so as to suit Japanese tastes, and you have the ramen that is known in Japan today, every bit a Japanese original as it is a Chinese import. (As I understand it, Japanese-style ramen is generally considered Japanese food in China.) And it’s really hard to understate how much it pervades Japan now, where it seems like you’re bound to run into a ramen shop (or failing that, at least someplace that serves ramen among other things) without going more than a mile or so away. Whether it’s the attractive price, the convenience, or simply the taste that brings in customers, ramen shops really are everywhere.
Of course, I don’t mean to give you the impression that instant ramen doesn’t exist in Japan. It certainly does; in fact, it was invented here. The credit (or scorn) belongs to Momofuku Ando, a Taiwanese immigrant to Japan, who founded the Nissin Foods Corporation. In 1958, after much experimentation, he hit upon a way of flash-frying noodles to make them readily available for consumption in a “just-add-water” model. It didn’t take long for the noodles, as a major convenience food, to catch on, and soon after there were scores of imitators (perhaps most well-known to American consumers is Maruchan ramen). Thus began the path to the instant ramen so well known in American supermarkets.
In spite of this similarity, though, there are many different variations on instant noodles in Japan. They are getting closer to resembling fresh ramen in spirit, as well: usually it involves a prepackaged Styrofoam container where you just remove the lid, add water, and mix in the other ingredients when the package instructs you to do so. These instant varieties have also worked their way into the cultural fabric of Japanese society, and are readily used in fiction as a staple food of people who can’t cook, or haven’t been paid yet for the month (truth in television, as I can definitely attest). Even so, there really is no substitute for the real thing.
Real ramen, of course, is one of the many things I will miss when I eventually come back to the US. Having experienced the genuine article firsthand, it’s hard to go back to the instant kind without being reminded of something wholly superior. Nevertheless, should you ever find yourself in Japan, I definitely recommend that you check out a ramen shop and try authentic ramen for yourself. It’ll make a believer out of you. As for me, I can make a hobby of sampling the regional varieties, which seem to be more numerous than regions in Japan. This isn’t necessarily a problem, but there are just so many choices… it makes me want to try them all.
02 July 2008
Obama for Obama
Living in a foreign country does strange things to your perception of time. Not only does each place have its own particular pace of life, but the calendar looks completely different as well. For me, the academic year started back in April and the last major vacation time was the “Golden Week” holiday at the beginning of May. So, I was quite surprised to discover that the Fourth of July is almost here.
As you can imagine, Independence Day isn’t really a holiday in Japan. But since I am an American, I would be remiss if I let the Fourth go by without something topical, so today I’m going to talk about the upcoming elections back home. Well, sort of. I am keenly aware that politics is an especially thorny issue: it’s one of the “holy trinity” of subjects – along with religion and sports – that ought not to be brought up in polite company, lest it devolve into fisticuffs (or worse). But in spite of being out of the country, it’s a topic I can rarely avoid.
As an American living in Japan, I frequently get asked about the upcoming U.S. presidential election. U.S. policy toward Japan has changed little in the past few decades, regardless of the Administration in the White House. However, the person who is elected to the U.S. presidency can set the tone for the world economy, and the stance towards countries like North Korea, China, and Taiwan, has the potential to impact Japan greatly. Because of this, even among mere acquaintances, there is a keen interest in which candidate I support. In response, I’ve done my best to explain both my views and those of my compatriots, in spite of my severe deficit of working political vocabulary in Japanese. (Surprisingly enough, gestures do seem to work in communicating this sort of thing, if you’re inventive.)
It’s a particular challenge to convey the attitudes of my fellow countrymen towards the Democratic candidate, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, since he tends to inspire a passionate, emotional response either for or against him. His most ardent supporters have done major grassroots organizing for him without even being invited to do so, treat him rather like a rock star, hold parties during his speeches, and so on. I may be able to get the basics of both candidates’ policies across in Japanese, but charisma is something that’s tough to translate into words at the best of times, let alone when you’re doing so for a foreign audience.
I can’t really blame the people around me for not grasping the emotional aspect of the election, though. Japan, being a separate country, is detached from the Presidential race and the passions it has inspired both for and against each candidate back home. But even so, there is one place that is unabashedly and wholeheartedly supporting Barack Obama. In fact, it’s not a stretch to say that they absolutely adore him. And it isn’t hard to see why, seeing as how the place I’m referring to is also called Obama.
Obama (meaning “little beach”), a city of 32,000, is two hundred fifty miles northwest of Tokyo. (In train terms, that’s about four hours northeast of me, with three transfers minimum.) It has a long and storied past: situated on the Sea of Japan, it has been around for at least the entire length of Japanese recorded history, and was the entry point of much Continental Asian culture, including Buddhism and the Chinese writing system. The religion, language and culture that first arrived in Obama spread throughout the country, forming the basis of the first centralized Japanese government during the Heian period some 1200 years ago. Its preponderance of ancient temples and heavy Chinese influence have also earned it the nickname of “Nara by the sea”, after the more famous inland city. The city of Obama was also a regional center of government, first as the capital of Wakasa Province, and later as the seat of the Obama Fiefdom during the Edo period. So, the city is actually pretty well-known in Japan already. But then, two years ago, they began an association with an American bearing an all-too-familiar name.
Barack Obama himself is not connected in any way to Japan. His father was born in Kenya, and while he spent parts of his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, that’s as close as he got. But when he came to Japan as a US Senator, he encountered a customs official from Obama the city, and noted it in a TV interview. Word reached town, and the mayor’s office sent him a pair of the town’s famous lacquered chopsticks and a letter of support. Then, Obama the politician announced his candidacy for US President, and what started as an amusing linguistic accident turned into a case of full-blown Obama Fever.
During the state primary elections earlier this year, local business owners in Obama started organizing impromptu “let’s-root-for-Obama” parties on the dates of contests, and “Go Obama” posters, “I Love Obama” t-shirts, and even snacks bearing the Senator’s likeness became ubiquitous there. Senator Obama, for his part, seems to be keeping a sense of humor about the situation, though his actions have only further fanned the flames. Once he found out about the craze, he sent them a thank-you letter, even calling them a “nice town” in an interview. This recognition had the predictable result of making the place even crazier about him.
Now that Obama the politician has become one of the two main opponents in the US national elections, I can only imagine that the city’s Obamania will grow to even more ridiculous levels. But you do have to wonder: sure, they’re treating him like a hometown candidate and the city’s Favorite Son, but not only is the shared name just a coincidence, the residents of Obama won’t be voting in the US election (being Japanese citizens, and all). This makes the whole thing patently absurd, and yet the enthusiasm is infectious. You can bet that if he wins, the city will be downright proud of “their” President. And that’s why there’s at least one place here in Japan whose inhabitants can safely say they’ve thrown their entire support behind Barack Obama in ’08.
(In fairness to the other presidential candidate, there simply aren’t any Japanese cities whose names sound even remotely similar to “McCain”. Sorry, Senator…)
As you can imagine, Independence Day isn’t really a holiday in Japan. But since I am an American, I would be remiss if I let the Fourth go by without something topical, so today I’m going to talk about the upcoming elections back home. Well, sort of. I am keenly aware that politics is an especially thorny issue: it’s one of the “holy trinity” of subjects – along with religion and sports – that ought not to be brought up in polite company, lest it devolve into fisticuffs (or worse). But in spite of being out of the country, it’s a topic I can rarely avoid.
As an American living in Japan, I frequently get asked about the upcoming U.S. presidential election. U.S. policy toward Japan has changed little in the past few decades, regardless of the Administration in the White House. However, the person who is elected to the U.S. presidency can set the tone for the world economy, and the stance towards countries like North Korea, China, and Taiwan, has the potential to impact Japan greatly. Because of this, even among mere acquaintances, there is a keen interest in which candidate I support. In response, I’ve done my best to explain both my views and those of my compatriots, in spite of my severe deficit of working political vocabulary in Japanese. (Surprisingly enough, gestures do seem to work in communicating this sort of thing, if you’re inventive.)
It’s a particular challenge to convey the attitudes of my fellow countrymen towards the Democratic candidate, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, since he tends to inspire a passionate, emotional response either for or against him. His most ardent supporters have done major grassroots organizing for him without even being invited to do so, treat him rather like a rock star, hold parties during his speeches, and so on. I may be able to get the basics of both candidates’ policies across in Japanese, but charisma is something that’s tough to translate into words at the best of times, let alone when you’re doing so for a foreign audience.
I can’t really blame the people around me for not grasping the emotional aspect of the election, though. Japan, being a separate country, is detached from the Presidential race and the passions it has inspired both for and against each candidate back home. But even so, there is one place that is unabashedly and wholeheartedly supporting Barack Obama. In fact, it’s not a stretch to say that they absolutely adore him. And it isn’t hard to see why, seeing as how the place I’m referring to is also called Obama.
Obama (meaning “little beach”), a city of 32,000, is two hundred fifty miles northwest of Tokyo. (In train terms, that’s about four hours northeast of me, with three transfers minimum.) It has a long and storied past: situated on the Sea of Japan, it has been around for at least the entire length of Japanese recorded history, and was the entry point of much Continental Asian culture, including Buddhism and the Chinese writing system. The religion, language and culture that first arrived in Obama spread throughout the country, forming the basis of the first centralized Japanese government during the Heian period some 1200 years ago. Its preponderance of ancient temples and heavy Chinese influence have also earned it the nickname of “Nara by the sea”, after the more famous inland city. The city of Obama was also a regional center of government, first as the capital of Wakasa Province, and later as the seat of the Obama Fiefdom during the Edo period. So, the city is actually pretty well-known in Japan already. But then, two years ago, they began an association with an American bearing an all-too-familiar name.
Barack Obama himself is not connected in any way to Japan. His father was born in Kenya, and while he spent parts of his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, that’s as close as he got. But when he came to Japan as a US Senator, he encountered a customs official from Obama the city, and noted it in a TV interview. Word reached town, and the mayor’s office sent him a pair of the town’s famous lacquered chopsticks and a letter of support. Then, Obama the politician announced his candidacy for US President, and what started as an amusing linguistic accident turned into a case of full-blown Obama Fever.
During the state primary elections earlier this year, local business owners in Obama started organizing impromptu “let’s-root-for-Obama” parties on the dates of contests, and “Go Obama” posters, “I Love Obama” t-shirts, and even snacks bearing the Senator’s likeness became ubiquitous there. Senator Obama, for his part, seems to be keeping a sense of humor about the situation, though his actions have only further fanned the flames. Once he found out about the craze, he sent them a thank-you letter, even calling them a “nice town” in an interview. This recognition had the predictable result of making the place even crazier about him.
Now that Obama the politician has become one of the two main opponents in the US national elections, I can only imagine that the city’s Obamania will grow to even more ridiculous levels. But you do have to wonder: sure, they’re treating him like a hometown candidate and the city’s Favorite Son, but not only is the shared name just a coincidence, the residents of Obama won’t be voting in the US election (being Japanese citizens, and all). This makes the whole thing patently absurd, and yet the enthusiasm is infectious. You can bet that if he wins, the city will be downright proud of “their” President. And that’s why there’s at least one place here in Japan whose inhabitants can safely say they’ve thrown their entire support behind Barack Obama in ’08.
(In fairness to the other presidential candidate, there simply aren’t any Japanese cities whose names sound even remotely similar to “McCain”. Sorry, Senator…)
25 June 2008
Doing the laundry—or trying, anyway
I apologize for the rather mundane title this week, but the fact of the matter is that I’m at a bit of an impasse regarding my laundry. I have just washed as big a load as my undersized washer will allow, only to discover that the weather has shifted into torrential-downpour mode, with no signs of letting up in the near future. This is a problem.
Perhaps I should explain. First, the month of June is set aside in Japan for the rainy season, or tsuyu. (The name itself is a picturesque visual metaphor using the characters for “plum” and “rain”, but maybe that’s because “month of perpetual moist gloom” seemed a bit too dreary.) For the better part of the month, there is rain at some point during the day. And if it doesn’t rain, it’s generally overcast and threatening rain, or more rarely, sunny but scorching hot and with 100% humidity. Also, when it rains, it doesn’t seem to hold anything back. Since I tend to misplace my umbrella with alarming frequency, this has likewise meant more days than I’d like to admit where I have ended up soaked through, courtesy of a well-timed cloudburst. I would suspect that this is just another example of nature not being particularly fond of me as a person, if not for the fact that people around me seem to treat it as perfectly normal. That’s fair enough, and even I’m making do for the most part, except that…
I don’t have a clothes dryer. To be honest, that’s pretty much the norm here. In a country where space is a premium and resources are expensive, clothes dryers are seen as luxury items that require both the room to put them and the funds to pay for the electric bills they incur. Consequently, only families, or the relatively well-off individual (or at any rate, not me) actually have one. Instead, most people (including me) hang their laundry out to dry on the balcony of their apartment, airing their drawers for all to see. Since everybody does it, though, it’s not considered the least bit embarrassing to do. Even so, I still find the idea incredibly novel.
You see, I grew up in a house in America which had a clothes dryer as part of a pair. In my childhood, I saw washer and dryer as inseparable, two halves of a whole, yin and yang, and other dualistic metaphors. We washed our clothes in the washer, and when they were done washing, we put them in the dryer to dry. This was the natural and true state of affairs for the Universe, and I could scarcely conceive of it any other way.
Now, even in my childhood, I was aware of other people I knew at least sometimes hanging up their laundry to dry, and I even helped in this endeavor. But somehow, it never occurred to me that I would ever do this with my own clothes. Looking back, I suppose this was the inevitable result of both of my parents working, and my sister and myself being out of the house for most of the day. Knowing what North Country weather can be like, hanging laundry outside would more likely than not end up with us coming back to find the laundry quite a bit less dry than we had left it. But at any rate, the end result is that my time in Japan is really my first experience with drying clothes by air.
And that brings me to the conundrum with which I started this column. I now have a massive pile of clean, but extremely damp, clothing items, and the place where I was going to hang them all up looks rather like the deck of an oceangoing vessel in the middle of a gale. This is especially a problem, because I have work tomorrow and, as usual, have neglected to wash my things until I really, absolutely need more clean clothes. I suppose I’ll just have to spread them around the apartment in ridiculous fashion in the hopes that they’ll be dry enough in the morning to use, but one way or another, it’ll work out. I’m used to doing things counterintuitively by now.
Still, maybe I ought to take a cue from my students at the junior high school where I work. In response to the incessant weather of late, they’ve fallen back on what is apparently an ancient standby, the teru teru bozu (roughly, “sunshine monk”). This is a simple figure made in the same fashion as a tissue paper “ghost”, often decorated with the same silly face as is drawn on Japanese scarecrows. Simply hang this talisman in the window, and you’ll have sunny weather before you know it. Or at least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. I have no empirical studies available examining its effectiveness, but at this point, I’m willing to try pretty much anything in order to get my laundry to dry, so here goes nothing. At the very least, I won’t be having too much of this problem once the Japanese summer officially hits… then I’ll be needing to figure out how to keep myself dry. But that, I’m afraid, is a story for another column.
Perhaps I should explain. First, the month of June is set aside in Japan for the rainy season, or tsuyu. (The name itself is a picturesque visual metaphor using the characters for “plum” and “rain”, but maybe that’s because “month of perpetual moist gloom” seemed a bit too dreary.) For the better part of the month, there is rain at some point during the day. And if it doesn’t rain, it’s generally overcast and threatening rain, or more rarely, sunny but scorching hot and with 100% humidity. Also, when it rains, it doesn’t seem to hold anything back. Since I tend to misplace my umbrella with alarming frequency, this has likewise meant more days than I’d like to admit where I have ended up soaked through, courtesy of a well-timed cloudburst. I would suspect that this is just another example of nature not being particularly fond of me as a person, if not for the fact that people around me seem to treat it as perfectly normal. That’s fair enough, and even I’m making do for the most part, except that…
I don’t have a clothes dryer. To be honest, that’s pretty much the norm here. In a country where space is a premium and resources are expensive, clothes dryers are seen as luxury items that require both the room to put them and the funds to pay for the electric bills they incur. Consequently, only families, or the relatively well-off individual (or at any rate, not me) actually have one. Instead, most people (including me) hang their laundry out to dry on the balcony of their apartment, airing their drawers for all to see. Since everybody does it, though, it’s not considered the least bit embarrassing to do. Even so, I still find the idea incredibly novel.
You see, I grew up in a house in America which had a clothes dryer as part of a pair. In my childhood, I saw washer and dryer as inseparable, two halves of a whole, yin and yang, and other dualistic metaphors. We washed our clothes in the washer, and when they were done washing, we put them in the dryer to dry. This was the natural and true state of affairs for the Universe, and I could scarcely conceive of it any other way.
Now, even in my childhood, I was aware of other people I knew at least sometimes hanging up their laundry to dry, and I even helped in this endeavor. But somehow, it never occurred to me that I would ever do this with my own clothes. Looking back, I suppose this was the inevitable result of both of my parents working, and my sister and myself being out of the house for most of the day. Knowing what North Country weather can be like, hanging laundry outside would more likely than not end up with us coming back to find the laundry quite a bit less dry than we had left it. But at any rate, the end result is that my time in Japan is really my first experience with drying clothes by air.
And that brings me to the conundrum with which I started this column. I now have a massive pile of clean, but extremely damp, clothing items, and the place where I was going to hang them all up looks rather like the deck of an oceangoing vessel in the middle of a gale. This is especially a problem, because I have work tomorrow and, as usual, have neglected to wash my things until I really, absolutely need more clean clothes. I suppose I’ll just have to spread them around the apartment in ridiculous fashion in the hopes that they’ll be dry enough in the morning to use, but one way or another, it’ll work out. I’m used to doing things counterintuitively by now.
Still, maybe I ought to take a cue from my students at the junior high school where I work. In response to the incessant weather of late, they’ve fallen back on what is apparently an ancient standby, the teru teru bozu (roughly, “sunshine monk”). This is a simple figure made in the same fashion as a tissue paper “ghost”, often decorated with the same silly face as is drawn on Japanese scarecrows. Simply hang this talisman in the window, and you’ll have sunny weather before you know it. Or at least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. I have no empirical studies available examining its effectiveness, but at this point, I’m willing to try pretty much anything in order to get my laundry to dry, so here goes nothing. At the very least, I won’t be having too much of this problem once the Japanese summer officially hits… then I’ll be needing to figure out how to keep myself dry. But that, I’m afraid, is a story for another column.
18 June 2008
Living in an earthquake-prone country
We interrupt your regularly scheduled column to bring you a very special episode of “Life in Japan.” This has less to do with anything relating directly to me in the past week, and is more to reassure everyone back home that, despite what they may have heard, reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. But I’m getting ahead of myself… so let’s start from the beginning.
From what I understand, there was an earthquake here in Japan this past Saturday. In fact, it was a relatively strong one, with a magnitude of 6.8 or 7.2, depending on the source. I know this, because relatives and friends immediately started contacting me that evening (just as they were all waking up back in the other hemisphere) to make sure I was OK. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have found out until the next day.
I apologize if I sound somewhat unimpressed by all the fuss, but the thing is, earthquakes aren’t exactly all that rare an occurrence here in Japan. While really strong earthquakes do come along every few years, and have the potential to do a lot of damage if they strike in the right place (such as the Kobe earthquake in 1995), it’s really just par for the course here. Japan, you see, is located along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a region characterized by frequent seismic (and volcanic) activity. As a result of multiple oceanic and continental plates scraping against each other in the ultimate low-speed collision (a few centimeters a year, give or take), Japan experiences up to 1500 low-intensity earthquakes per year, with really major ones coming up a few times each century. (The biggest ones by far in the past 100 years were the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 which devastated Tokyo, and the aforementioned Kobe Earthquake in 1995.)
Japan also has a number of (mostly dormant) volcanoes, which have substantial eruptions every millennium or so. All this might still make some people uneasy; I admit it does look kind of scary on paper. But of those 1000-odd quakes that Japan experiences each year, I have only felt a grand total of one. It was in October of last year, and took the form a low frequency rumble with a little vibration, which lasted all of about 30 seconds. Not quite the grand cataclysm I was expecting it to be, and frankly, I was slightly disappointed (not that that’s what my parents would want to hear). It was really quite anticlimactic.
I suppose that I really shouldn’t blame people back home for worrying about me. After all, the geography of foreign countries is not something given much focus (or at least paid much attention) in US schools…but then again, certain members of my family are liable to call us up in Clayton on a fairly regular basis to ask how we’re coping with the latest winter storm in Buffalo, so maybe it’s not the schools’ fault. Regardless, to give you a sense of the distance between me and Saturday’s earthquake, the epicenter was in Iwate Prefecture, which is about 240 miles north of Tokyo. I live in Osaka, which is about 250 miles west of Tokyo. I’m not quite sure if the Pythagorean Theorem is valid for figuring distances like this, but by my reckoning, that puts me somewhere between 350 and 400 miles away. In US terms, that’s roughly the same distance as it is between Clayton and Washington, D.C. So, I’m in no way particularly affected by the quake.
I think, though, that geographical concerns aside, the news media in the US has also helped paint the picture in a somewhat more disastrous light than absolutely necessary. I could spill much ink ranting about the various preoccupations of news outlets in the US (most of which seem to involve famous people doing very foolish things), but the exploitation of disaster seems to be up there in the top ten. And with the recent earthquakes in China that killed over 50,000 people and left millions of others homeless receding from its remarkably-short attention span, I can only assume that they were trying to draw as many parallels as possible in order to keep milking the situation. This is the only way I can explain headlines such as “Japan rescuers search for quake missing”, or “Japan earthquake death toll rises”. Neither of these is untrue, of course, but it’s somewhat less compelling when you read on and realize that the number of missing is one dozen, and the confirmed death toll is a whole ten people – including a man who died after fleeing in terror from his house and being hit by a passing truck. While I realize that it is no less a tragedy for these things, and it has gotten significant coverage within Japan as well, the effort – at least initially – to compare it to last month’s earthquake in Sichuan is completely laughable.
This is not to say, however, that I am completely at ease with being in a nation known for occasionally having its largest cities (which are among the largest cities on Earth) completely leveled. The statistical chances of me being in the wrong place at the wrong time during a seismic event are extremely low, but they are still higher than they would be back home. And while Japan has extensive building codes, which require structures to be able to withstand fairly strong earthquakes, I’m not too keen on being in one that isn’t up to snuff if a Big One comes. The people around me seem to take this relatively in stride, worrying more about ever-increasing gas prices, declining job benefits, and the periodic saber-rattling from North Korea. Guess that means I just need to adapt.
Of course, come to think of it, all this tectonic monkey business also has its perks: after all, it means that the country has tons of hot springs, which I am immensely fond of (and will probably devote a column to at some point). So, you know what? All things considered, living in an earthquake-prone country isn’t half bad.
From what I understand, there was an earthquake here in Japan this past Saturday. In fact, it was a relatively strong one, with a magnitude of 6.8 or 7.2, depending on the source. I know this, because relatives and friends immediately started contacting me that evening (just as they were all waking up back in the other hemisphere) to make sure I was OK. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have found out until the next day.
I apologize if I sound somewhat unimpressed by all the fuss, but the thing is, earthquakes aren’t exactly all that rare an occurrence here in Japan. While really strong earthquakes do come along every few years, and have the potential to do a lot of damage if they strike in the right place (such as the Kobe earthquake in 1995), it’s really just par for the course here. Japan, you see, is located along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a region characterized by frequent seismic (and volcanic) activity. As a result of multiple oceanic and continental plates scraping against each other in the ultimate low-speed collision (a few centimeters a year, give or take), Japan experiences up to 1500 low-intensity earthquakes per year, with really major ones coming up a few times each century. (The biggest ones by far in the past 100 years were the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 which devastated Tokyo, and the aforementioned Kobe Earthquake in 1995.)
Japan also has a number of (mostly dormant) volcanoes, which have substantial eruptions every millennium or so. All this might still make some people uneasy; I admit it does look kind of scary on paper. But of those 1000-odd quakes that Japan experiences each year, I have only felt a grand total of one. It was in October of last year, and took the form a low frequency rumble with a little vibration, which lasted all of about 30 seconds. Not quite the grand cataclysm I was expecting it to be, and frankly, I was slightly disappointed (not that that’s what my parents would want to hear). It was really quite anticlimactic.
I suppose that I really shouldn’t blame people back home for worrying about me. After all, the geography of foreign countries is not something given much focus (or at least paid much attention) in US schools…but then again, certain members of my family are liable to call us up in Clayton on a fairly regular basis to ask how we’re coping with the latest winter storm in Buffalo, so maybe it’s not the schools’ fault. Regardless, to give you a sense of the distance between me and Saturday’s earthquake, the epicenter was in Iwate Prefecture, which is about 240 miles north of Tokyo. I live in Osaka, which is about 250 miles west of Tokyo. I’m not quite sure if the Pythagorean Theorem is valid for figuring distances like this, but by my reckoning, that puts me somewhere between 350 and 400 miles away. In US terms, that’s roughly the same distance as it is between Clayton and Washington, D.C. So, I’m in no way particularly affected by the quake.
I think, though, that geographical concerns aside, the news media in the US has also helped paint the picture in a somewhat more disastrous light than absolutely necessary. I could spill much ink ranting about the various preoccupations of news outlets in the US (most of which seem to involve famous people doing very foolish things), but the exploitation of disaster seems to be up there in the top ten. And with the recent earthquakes in China that killed over 50,000 people and left millions of others homeless receding from its remarkably-short attention span, I can only assume that they were trying to draw as many parallels as possible in order to keep milking the situation. This is the only way I can explain headlines such as “Japan rescuers search for quake missing”, or “Japan earthquake death toll rises”. Neither of these is untrue, of course, but it’s somewhat less compelling when you read on and realize that the number of missing is one dozen, and the confirmed death toll is a whole ten people – including a man who died after fleeing in terror from his house and being hit by a passing truck. While I realize that it is no less a tragedy for these things, and it has gotten significant coverage within Japan as well, the effort – at least initially – to compare it to last month’s earthquake in Sichuan is completely laughable.
This is not to say, however, that I am completely at ease with being in a nation known for occasionally having its largest cities (which are among the largest cities on Earth) completely leveled. The statistical chances of me being in the wrong place at the wrong time during a seismic event are extremely low, but they are still higher than they would be back home. And while Japan has extensive building codes, which require structures to be able to withstand fairly strong earthquakes, I’m not too keen on being in one that isn’t up to snuff if a Big One comes. The people around me seem to take this relatively in stride, worrying more about ever-increasing gas prices, declining job benefits, and the periodic saber-rattling from North Korea. Guess that means I just need to adapt.
Of course, come to think of it, all this tectonic monkey business also has its perks: after all, it means that the country has tons of hot springs, which I am immensely fond of (and will probably devote a column to at some point). So, you know what? All things considered, living in an earthquake-prone country isn’t half bad.
11 June 2008
Taking the train
In my time in Japan, I’ve become something of a train nut. It’s been building for quite some time now: looking back, when I was a kid, my father would always be tinkering with his train layouts in his spare time, and he had (and maybe still does have) an impressive collection of tapes about trainspotting. Not the critically-acclaimed film about drug addiction, mind you, but the hobby of standing near railroad tracks and filming a train going by. Sometimes, these trains would be ridiculously long, and my father would sit there and watch as car after car passed by on screen. I never quite understood the appeal, but I didn’t mind too much all the train shows and exhibits he’d take me to, and after all these years, I guess his hobbies ended up instilling me with a latent appreciation for trains. I didn’t realize just how far I’d come, until a student labeled me a “train otaku” (an otaku is basically a hyper-geek of a specific hobby) after I gave him precise, unsolicited directions to a place he mentioned in passing that he’d like to visit. This is all a roundabout way of introducing my topic for this week, which is rail travel in Japan.
Those of you familiar with rail transportation as it exists in the US can be forgiven if you must momentarily suppress a shiver of revulsion. The heyday of railroads in the US can firmly be placed over 100 years ago, and its long decline has only been hastened by the advent of the automobile, as well as lack of upkeep in general on long-distance routes. (On a local note, there used to be a rail line into downtown Clayton, ending at a ferry terminal in what is now Frink Park. The track was disused for years before finally being removed in the ’60s.) It certainly doesn’t help the situation any that Amtrak, the government-run passenger service, is only slightly better than “abysmal”. Having few tracks of their own, they mostly run on freight lines, and when they’re behind schedule (i.e., all the time), it’s behind the freight trains they go. I won’t even get started on the safety record.
But here in Japan, things are quite different. The country in general has a very extensive rail network, which is no small feat for an archipelago that also happens to be covered by mountains. But aside from the impressive array of tunnels through solid rock and under bodies of water, the trains are also – for the most part – fast, safe, and reliably on time. (Japanese people tend to think of a train as “late” if it’s off the schedule by a couple of minutes; I’m just grateful it appears within the same hour as the listed time.) Osaka in particular is great for getting around by train: including the quasi-national Japan Rail (JR), there are some ten-ish operators and a plethora of lines to choose from in this prefecture alone. In fact (according to that bastion of trivia, Wikipedia), some 10 million people in the region use trains as their primary means of transportation, which is second in the world to (you guessed it) Tokyo.
Of course, Japan is better known for its high-speed trains, the Shinkansen (“Bullet Train” to the uninitiated). These trains move at phenomenally fast speeds, and will eventually form one grand arc across the spine of the island chain, from Sapporo to Kagoshima. Needless to say, this is primarily a means of intercity transportation – what with the “Super Express” surcharge and all – but I’m lucky enough to have ridden on it several times in the past. The experience is, in all honesty, quite mundane: although going through tunnels can be punishment on the eardrums, it’s rather like stepping off the platform in one city and stepping out onto another in a completely different part of the country. In a way, it doesn’t really allow you to take in the points in between in any meaningful fashion; they’re all a blur in the window. And that’s why, when I went to Tokyo for the New Year holiday, I took the regular train. It was, as it turns out, quite scenic, and I felt like I really got to see more of the country. It was also, as it turns out, 10 hours spent standing in uncomfortably crowded trains, versus two and a half with my own seat on the Shinkansen. Shizuoka Prefecture in particular was a form of torment, where the only regular trains were local ones, and the Shinkansen ran directly parallel, whooshing past every 15 minutes or so. All-in-all, while it was certainly an interesting trip, maybe next time I’ll just take the Shinkansen.
In spite of this long-distance experience, however, I am still quite fond of the trains within Osaka. I commuted using one for my first six months here, and I still make an effort to go to interesting places (or at least into the city) via rail every so often. In a way, the journey itself is part of the fun – even if people look at me funny when I can recite the train announcements verbatim. It’s probably far more enjoyment than I should be taking out of what is essentially a mass transit system, but I can’t help but feel a thrill when I learn that Hanshin Railway and Kintetsu Corporation will soon be operating through trains between Kobe and Nara via Osaka’s central rail hub at Namba. It’s a new route to explore, taking me through places I’ve never been (or at least, I haven’t seen from that particular vantage point). Does no one else find this exciting?
In the interest of full disclosure, though, I should at least mention that while riding Japanese trains is largely a painless experience, there are a number of issues that come up with rather unfortunate regularity: the number of “chikan” (molestation) incidents during peak hours, which has resulted in most railway lines adding “women-only” cars for particularly crowded periods; the general crowdedness of trains in general during rush hour; and the occasional decision of a beleaguered white-collar worker to slip the surly bonds of personal responsibility, and paint the tracks a shade of crimson (I feel kind of gross for writing that, but it’s sadly true).
Luckily, once again I can thank my lucky stars that I live in Osaka, because whatever problems might impact rail travel here, it’s worse in Tokyo. I suppose that’s inevitable considering Tokyo’s absolutely dizzying array of rail options, the number of people who use them, and the cascading effect a small delay on one line can have on precisely-timed transfers everywhere else, but at least Osaka doesn’t have people whose sole job it is to stuff more people into the train when it’s already full. That said, with my train obsession in full swing, there’s no way I’ll be able to stay away for too long, no matter where in the country I go.
Those of you familiar with rail transportation as it exists in the US can be forgiven if you must momentarily suppress a shiver of revulsion. The heyday of railroads in the US can firmly be placed over 100 years ago, and its long decline has only been hastened by the advent of the automobile, as well as lack of upkeep in general on long-distance routes. (On a local note, there used to be a rail line into downtown Clayton, ending at a ferry terminal in what is now Frink Park. The track was disused for years before finally being removed in the ’60s.) It certainly doesn’t help the situation any that Amtrak, the government-run passenger service, is only slightly better than “abysmal”. Having few tracks of their own, they mostly run on freight lines, and when they’re behind schedule (i.e., all the time), it’s behind the freight trains they go. I won’t even get started on the safety record.
But here in Japan, things are quite different. The country in general has a very extensive rail network, which is no small feat for an archipelago that also happens to be covered by mountains. But aside from the impressive array of tunnels through solid rock and under bodies of water, the trains are also – for the most part – fast, safe, and reliably on time. (Japanese people tend to think of a train as “late” if it’s off the schedule by a couple of minutes; I’m just grateful it appears within the same hour as the listed time.) Osaka in particular is great for getting around by train: including the quasi-national Japan Rail (JR), there are some ten-ish operators and a plethora of lines to choose from in this prefecture alone. In fact (according to that bastion of trivia, Wikipedia), some 10 million people in the region use trains as their primary means of transportation, which is second in the world to (you guessed it) Tokyo.
Of course, Japan is better known for its high-speed trains, the Shinkansen (“Bullet Train” to the uninitiated). These trains move at phenomenally fast speeds, and will eventually form one grand arc across the spine of the island chain, from Sapporo to Kagoshima. Needless to say, this is primarily a means of intercity transportation – what with the “Super Express” surcharge and all – but I’m lucky enough to have ridden on it several times in the past. The experience is, in all honesty, quite mundane: although going through tunnels can be punishment on the eardrums, it’s rather like stepping off the platform in one city and stepping out onto another in a completely different part of the country. In a way, it doesn’t really allow you to take in the points in between in any meaningful fashion; they’re all a blur in the window. And that’s why, when I went to Tokyo for the New Year holiday, I took the regular train. It was, as it turns out, quite scenic, and I felt like I really got to see more of the country. It was also, as it turns out, 10 hours spent standing in uncomfortably crowded trains, versus two and a half with my own seat on the Shinkansen. Shizuoka Prefecture in particular was a form of torment, where the only regular trains were local ones, and the Shinkansen ran directly parallel, whooshing past every 15 minutes or so. All-in-all, while it was certainly an interesting trip, maybe next time I’ll just take the Shinkansen.
In spite of this long-distance experience, however, I am still quite fond of the trains within Osaka. I commuted using one for my first six months here, and I still make an effort to go to interesting places (or at least into the city) via rail every so often. In a way, the journey itself is part of the fun – even if people look at me funny when I can recite the train announcements verbatim. It’s probably far more enjoyment than I should be taking out of what is essentially a mass transit system, but I can’t help but feel a thrill when I learn that Hanshin Railway and Kintetsu Corporation will soon be operating through trains between Kobe and Nara via Osaka’s central rail hub at Namba. It’s a new route to explore, taking me through places I’ve never been (or at least, I haven’t seen from that particular vantage point). Does no one else find this exciting?
In the interest of full disclosure, though, I should at least mention that while riding Japanese trains is largely a painless experience, there are a number of issues that come up with rather unfortunate regularity: the number of “chikan” (molestation) incidents during peak hours, which has resulted in most railway lines adding “women-only” cars for particularly crowded periods; the general crowdedness of trains in general during rush hour; and the occasional decision of a beleaguered white-collar worker to slip the surly bonds of personal responsibility, and paint the tracks a shade of crimson (I feel kind of gross for writing that, but it’s sadly true).
Luckily, once again I can thank my lucky stars that I live in Osaka, because whatever problems might impact rail travel here, it’s worse in Tokyo. I suppose that’s inevitable considering Tokyo’s absolutely dizzying array of rail options, the number of people who use them, and the cascading effect a small delay on one line can have on precisely-timed transfers everywhere else, but at least Osaka doesn’t have people whose sole job it is to stuff more people into the train when it’s already full. That said, with my train obsession in full swing, there’s no way I’ll be able to stay away for too long, no matter where in the country I go.
04 June 2008
Learning the language... again
Last week, I gave you something of an outline of where I live. Osaka is quite the interesting place to be, and not just because of variances from the established “norms” of Japanese society that can be found here. For me, one of the absolutely fascinating parts of living around Osaka is to have firsthand experience with a separate dialect of Japanese. No doubt, this is a result of my fascination with languages in general, and my studying of linguistics in college. If not for that, I might just find it a tad bit horrifying.
Picture if you will, a young man growing up in the North Country. We’ll call him “Bob”, because that’s my default name for hypothetical individuals (don’t ask). We North Country residents speak a fairly standard Northeastern US variety of English, with some Northern Cities Vowel Shift (noticeable particularly in words with a short “a”, which becomes something of an “ee-a” diphthong), and a tiny bit of Canadian Raising for some (if your “about” sounds roughly halfway between “a boat” and “a boot”, you belong to this group). All-in-all, it’s a pretty easy-to-understand dialect, which doesn’t stray very much from the generalized Midwestern accent that’s pictured as “Standard” American English. Now, imagine that this child of the North Country is an Anglophile, and is thus determined to spend time studying abroad (and maybe even living) in the UK. He applies himself earnestly to understanding the vagaries of the Queen’s English, learning about using the tubes for transport, driving a car with a boot and a windscreen on the left side of the road, and even taking a lift to one’s flat. And he’s all set to go… until the study-abroad program places him smack dab in the middle of Scotland.
Suddenly, all that studying is looking like it might have been for naught: the people around him speak something he is so completely unprepared for, that it might as well be a separate language altogether, and while people seem to understand him perfectly, relatively few seem willing to bring themselves down to his level just because he dinna ken any Scots. And so, with much resignation, he sets about learning the language… again… so as to be able to communicate effectively.
This encapsulates something along the lines of what I experienced in my first visit to Japan, back in 2006. While I had studied the language officially for two and a half years by then (and several years previous on my own), textbook Japanese only gets you so far in Osaka and Kyoto. Here, people have been happy speaking their own dialect for at least the entirety of Japan’s 1300-year recorded history (though it was the de facto standard for the first 500 years or so), and they see absolutely no reason to change that, just because some uptight politicians out in the eastern boonies (i.e., Tokyo) say so. And while the people I encountered understood full well what I was saying (since they learned Standard Japanese in school), that was no guarantee that I’d understand what they said back to me. Apparently, knowledge of a lingua franca does not necessarily mean that people actually feel obligated to use it. Combine this with the general assumption that my lack of understanding indicated incomprehension of Japanese as a whole, and you can see why I quickly made it my goal to learn to understand what the heck people were saying to me. (I’m particularly grateful for a little yellow book called Colloquial Kansai Japanese, which runs through the basics of the local idiom with tongue firmly in cheek.)
Armed with this knowledge upon my return to Japan, I have found that knowing the local dialect this time around really adds some profound enjoyment to living here in Osaka. Not only is it always good to understand what others are telling you, but people always seem to be pleased that I can communicate with them on their terms, in a far more natural style than the intentionally-artificial Tokyo Standard. It really makes you feel like a part of the place you’re in.
Of course, it’s not perfect: for one thing, while I’ve got a sense of the differences in vocabulary and grammar, I have a hard time with the intonation, which is substantially different from Tokyo Japanese. The result is that I sound like a Tokyo speaker trying really hard to be convincing in the dialect, and almost (but not quite) succeeding. Luckily, people seem to give me credit just for making the effort. The other thing, though, is that the dialect of Osaka is known throughout Japan as being the language of comedy. This is probably due to a number of things: its (relatively) relaxed approach to formality compared to Tokyo, the willingness of performers from Osaka to use their own dialect on stage, and (last but not least) the presence of the influential Yoshimoto Kogyo talent agency, based in downtown Osaka. And while I may not be pitch-perfect when I’m trying to speak the dialect, I’ve absorbed enough of its idiosyncrasies into my everyday speech that I unintentionally provoke laughter at times when I speak to people I know from Tokyo. I guess that’s something I’ll have to work on… though the people I stayed with in Tokyo helpfully assured me that “Osakans never learn to speak properly, no matter how long they stay here”. Such heartfelt encouragement…
By the way, this kind of thing is exactly why I have mixed feelings about the prospect of learning Chinese at any point. Being able to read the language is all well and good (as I can to a slight degree already, thanks to the use of Chinese characters in Japanese), but Standard Mandarin is only entirely useful when you’re in the northern part of the country. The varieties of Chinese spoken around places like Hong Kong and Shanghai are called “dialects”, but only by virtue of the fact that they all descend from the language of the Han Dynasty, spoken some 2000 years ago. This is in the same sense that French and Spanish are “dialects” of Latin (!), and they are about as distinct. That should give you some idea of why even I, with my love of a challenge, would hesitate to commit myself to it. In that respect, I guess I should be thankful for how “easy” I have it here in Japan.
Picture if you will, a young man growing up in the North Country. We’ll call him “Bob”, because that’s my default name for hypothetical individuals (don’t ask). We North Country residents speak a fairly standard Northeastern US variety of English, with some Northern Cities Vowel Shift (noticeable particularly in words with a short “a”, which becomes something of an “ee-a” diphthong), and a tiny bit of Canadian Raising for some (if your “about” sounds roughly halfway between “a boat” and “a boot”, you belong to this group). All-in-all, it’s a pretty easy-to-understand dialect, which doesn’t stray very much from the generalized Midwestern accent that’s pictured as “Standard” American English. Now, imagine that this child of the North Country is an Anglophile, and is thus determined to spend time studying abroad (and maybe even living) in the UK. He applies himself earnestly to understanding the vagaries of the Queen’s English, learning about using the tubes for transport, driving a car with a boot and a windscreen on the left side of the road, and even taking a lift to one’s flat. And he’s all set to go… until the study-abroad program places him smack dab in the middle of Scotland.
Suddenly, all that studying is looking like it might have been for naught: the people around him speak something he is so completely unprepared for, that it might as well be a separate language altogether, and while people seem to understand him perfectly, relatively few seem willing to bring themselves down to his level just because he dinna ken any Scots. And so, with much resignation, he sets about learning the language… again… so as to be able to communicate effectively.
This encapsulates something along the lines of what I experienced in my first visit to Japan, back in 2006. While I had studied the language officially for two and a half years by then (and several years previous on my own), textbook Japanese only gets you so far in Osaka and Kyoto. Here, people have been happy speaking their own dialect for at least the entirety of Japan’s 1300-year recorded history (though it was the de facto standard for the first 500 years or so), and they see absolutely no reason to change that, just because some uptight politicians out in the eastern boonies (i.e., Tokyo) say so. And while the people I encountered understood full well what I was saying (since they learned Standard Japanese in school), that was no guarantee that I’d understand what they said back to me. Apparently, knowledge of a lingua franca does not necessarily mean that people actually feel obligated to use it. Combine this with the general assumption that my lack of understanding indicated incomprehension of Japanese as a whole, and you can see why I quickly made it my goal to learn to understand what the heck people were saying to me. (I’m particularly grateful for a little yellow book called Colloquial Kansai Japanese, which runs through the basics of the local idiom with tongue firmly in cheek.)
Armed with this knowledge upon my return to Japan, I have found that knowing the local dialect this time around really adds some profound enjoyment to living here in Osaka. Not only is it always good to understand what others are telling you, but people always seem to be pleased that I can communicate with them on their terms, in a far more natural style than the intentionally-artificial Tokyo Standard. It really makes you feel like a part of the place you’re in.
Of course, it’s not perfect: for one thing, while I’ve got a sense of the differences in vocabulary and grammar, I have a hard time with the intonation, which is substantially different from Tokyo Japanese. The result is that I sound like a Tokyo speaker trying really hard to be convincing in the dialect, and almost (but not quite) succeeding. Luckily, people seem to give me credit just for making the effort. The other thing, though, is that the dialect of Osaka is known throughout Japan as being the language of comedy. This is probably due to a number of things: its (relatively) relaxed approach to formality compared to Tokyo, the willingness of performers from Osaka to use their own dialect on stage, and (last but not least) the presence of the influential Yoshimoto Kogyo talent agency, based in downtown Osaka. And while I may not be pitch-perfect when I’m trying to speak the dialect, I’ve absorbed enough of its idiosyncrasies into my everyday speech that I unintentionally provoke laughter at times when I speak to people I know from Tokyo. I guess that’s something I’ll have to work on… though the people I stayed with in Tokyo helpfully assured me that “Osakans never learn to speak properly, no matter how long they stay here”. Such heartfelt encouragement…
By the way, this kind of thing is exactly why I have mixed feelings about the prospect of learning Chinese at any point. Being able to read the language is all well and good (as I can to a slight degree already, thanks to the use of Chinese characters in Japanese), but Standard Mandarin is only entirely useful when you’re in the northern part of the country. The varieties of Chinese spoken around places like Hong Kong and Shanghai are called “dialects”, but only by virtue of the fact that they all descend from the language of the Han Dynasty, spoken some 2000 years ago. This is in the same sense that French and Spanish are “dialects” of Latin (!), and they are about as distinct. That should give you some idea of why even I, with my love of a challenge, would hesitate to commit myself to it. In that respect, I guess I should be thankful for how “easy” I have it here in Japan.
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