FunBlog

One of the main advantages of watching anime in Japanese with subtitles is that even if you don’t understand Japanese you can pick up a lot of information that will be lost in the English dub. A little effort spent in learning a few words can pay off in a wealth of information about the culture and the relationships between the characters.

I’ve collected a lot of notes on the subject and I’m going to try to organize them into posts. If you have been watching anime for years you will probably find this stuff very elementary, but newer viewers may find this useful.

The first thing to master are the honorifics. There are only 5 to learn, but there are many subtleties in how they are used.

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Maybe The Economist is preparing a special report on Japan for their next issue. That might be why they have just posted on their web site a strangely unfocused column that seems to be mostly about the Tokyo dining scene, but which begins with a description of a high-tech toilet that is far more sophisticated than the one I described.

This one features a massive remote control that appears to have tremendous potential for evil if it should fall into the wrong hands.

Chinese President Hu Jintao has just completed a rare state visit to Japan, supposedly establishing an “everlasting warm spring” in the relationship between the two countries.

Meanwhile the writers of Nijuu Mensou no Musume (The Daughter of Twenty Faces) seem to be busy trying to set Sino-Japanese relations back several decades. Consider the following elements from Episode 2:

1. All of the Chinese characters are depicted as duplicitous.
2. One of them is drawn in a way that amounts to an offensive racial stereotype.
3. The most sympathetic Chinese character, an attractive woman, gushes about how much she enjoyed “entertaining” Japanese troops during the war.

I predict that this is one anime that will not be popular in China, and it probably won’t be licensed for Region 1 either. It’s no great loss. I’ve rarely seen a story so riddled with logical holes.

Raymond Chen discusses Hello Kitty Air, an airline devoted to Hello Kitty, with Hello Kitty images plastered over everything including the barf bags.

(Actually I’m not sure that this should be under the category Japanese Culture. Hello Kitty is a Japanese invention, but it seems to be Taiwanese women who are “way too into this Hello Kitty thing.”)

Filed under Useless but Very Cool: Get some aeronautical engineers and origami experts together and design a paper airplane that can be launched from the International Space Station, reenter the atmosphere and land safely on Earth. Unfortunately there seems to be no control over where it will land… (article in The Register.)

That’s the end. I’ve gone through all my photos and posted everything that looked reasonably interesting.

If you are considering a trip to Japan I strongly recommend that you go for it. Japan is a strange and wonderful place, full of beautiful things, and a few things that are just a bit odd. The people are friendly and hospitable, service is uniformly excellent and the trains really do run on time. (The average delay for a shinkansen leaving the station is supposed to be about 6 seconds.)

The country has a reputation for being clean, safe and expensive, and that’s pretty accurate. Still at today’s exchange rates it seems less expensive in relative terms. Many other currencies have appreciated much more against the dollar than the Yen has.

I would like to thank our tour organizer, Mike Roberts of Samurai Tours. He did an amazing job and I’m sure we saw a lot more of Japan than most visitors get to see. I would also like to thank our local guides who illuminated much that would otherwise have been obscure.

All Entries For This Trip.

Here are some photos that I think are interesting, but which don’t seem to fit anywhere else.
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Kyoto is much smaller than Tokyo, but it does have its own version of shopping districts. Teramachi and Shin-kyogoku are two parallel covered streets which seem to go on forever, connected to each other by short alleys so that they form a single complex. The complex is usually crowded with young people.
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I stumbled on this place by accident: a complex of buildings devoted to the practice of martial arts. It is located just around the corner from the Heian Shrine.
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The Heian Shrine is dedicated to two emperors: Kammu, who founded the city of Kyoto in 794, and Koumei, the last emperor to spend his life in the city. It is thus a focus of civic pride.

The entrance is marked by a suitably imposing torii.
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The ancient city of Nara, capital of Japan from 710 to 784, is a short train ride from Kyoto. Many people make the trip, and what most of them want to see is the great temple called the Todai-ji.
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The Kennin-ji is the oldest Zen Buddhist temple in Japan, established in 1202. It is notable for its artworks and beautiful gardens.
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This is Gion, the “Geisha District” made famous by the book and movie Memoirs of a Geisha. Perhaps I should call it a “Geiko District”, since in Kyoto a geisha is called a geiko (”art child”) and an apprentice geisha is called a maiko (”dance child”).
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The Ginkaku-ji (Silver Pavilion) is a Zen Buddhist temple that was built in 1474 by the Shogun Yoshimasa Ashikaga. Being the Shogun he presumably had nearly unlimited funds to work with. It’s interesting to consider how he spent them.
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In Hiroshima the Memorial Peace Museum is apparently THE place to bring elementary school children.
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The Homotsukan Treasure Hall contains hundreds of art works and other treasures donated over the centuries to the Itsukushima Shrine.
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Mt. Misen, the tallest mountain on the island, has been considered sacred since ancient times. The easiest way to get to the top is to take the ropeway that runs up the side.
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The Daishoin Temple on the lower slopes of Mt. Misen was founded by Kobodaishi in 806 and is the headquarters of the Omuro Branch of Shingon Buddhism.

The temple can be reached by climbing a very long staircase.
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Itsukushima Shrine is the largest shrine on Miyajima and the place most people want to see first. It dates back to the 6th century, though it was built in its present form in 1168.
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Miyajima (Shrine Island) is, as the name implies, the site of a number of striking shrines and temples. It claims to be “one of Japan’s Three Most Scenic Spots” (the others being the Amanohashidate sandbar and Matsushima Bay, neither of which I have seen.)

The island was visited by Kobodaishi in they year 806 and has a number of Shingon Buddhist temples. Because of the island’s sacred status, no one is allowed to die or be born there. I don’t know what the penalty is for breaking this rule.
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The Kokoen, located a short walk from the castle, consists of 9 formal gardens, some of them very beautiful.
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The city of Himeji boasts Japan’s most impressive-looking surviving castle. A castle was first built on the site in 1333 but was largely destroyed in the subsequent civil wars. The present form was built in 1601.

Even though it is made mostly of wood and plaster it has not burned down since, even when the city was bombed to rubble during the Second World War. However much of the original wood was replaced in a restoration project begun in the 1950s.
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Doutonbori Street is Osaka’s primary entertainment district. It comes to life at night: bright, noisy and crowded.
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An interesting cluster of temples is located near the center of Koya-san, where Kobodaishi first established his monastery.
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We leave the cemetery by the “corporate monuments path,” along which major corporations have built monuments for the spiritual benefit of their workers (and also possibly for the advertising value.)
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Many years ago, in a time when the land was wracked by famine, a baby girl was abandoned by her desperate parents. An elderly couple found the child and decided to raise her themselves. They were poor but good-hearted, and many were the nights that they went hungry so that the little girl could have food.
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At the heart of the cemetery lies the Okunoin, a temple or mausoleum built over the cave where Kobodaishi, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, has spent the last 1,100 years in deep meditation to save this world. This is a big job and he is expected to finish it in approximately 5.7 billion years, just in time for the Miroku (Maitreya) Buddha to come to Earth and take everyone to Heaven.
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On the eastern side of the plateau there is a gigantic cemetery, centuries old, where monuments for half a million people sit beneath towering 700-year-old trees.
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There are no hotels in Koya-san itself, but there are about 50 temples that will accommodate overnight guests for a reasonable fee. The Shojoshinin is one of the few that will accept Westerners.
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Koya-san is an alpine basin located in the mountains south of Osaka. It is the headquarters of the Shingon sect of esoteric Buddhism. It was first settled in the year 816 by the monk Kukai, who usually referred to today by the name Kobodaishi.
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A ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn, but “traditional” does not necessarily mean “primitive” or “austere.” Often they are equipped with all the latest modern conveniences.

For example the toilet in my bathroom had a complicated control panel with numerous buttons, all labeled in Japanese. This was intimidating since my Japanese is pretty limited and I can’t read kanji at all.
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The Asunaro Ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) is similar to most such establishments. It has an old-fashioned look but provides most modern conveniences.
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Takayama is noted for its spectacular Spring and Autumn Festivals which feature huge wooden floats: centuries old, brightly painted and intricately carved. Between festivals the floats can be seen in this museum.
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The Hida Folk Village (Hida no Sato) is a collection of traditional village houses dating from the 18th through the early 20th centuries. Many of them were moved here to preserve them when waters from a nearby hydroelectric dam eliminated a number of old villages.
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In 1692 the region was placed under the direct rule of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The Jinya served as the official residence and headquarters of the Shogon’s governor, as well as a warehouse for storing taxes (which were paid in sacks of rice.) The building was actually used for government offices right though the 1960s, but has now been converted into a museum.

At one time there were 55 such Jinyas located around Japan. This is the only one that survives.
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Takayama is an ancient city in the mountains of central Honshu. Its present form dates back to the 16th Century, but the area has been settled for much longer than that. Because of its relative isolation the area has a distinctive culture.

The region is known for fine woodworking and for the expensive Hida beef, which is extremely tender and very high in fat content.
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Below, a shinkansen (bullet train) pulls into Tokyo Station.
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Iemitsu, the third Tokugawa Shogun, was not content with building the world’s most elaborately decorated shrine for his grandfather. He also build an elaborate mausoleum for himself, located a short distance away. This is the Taiyuinbyo, which also serves as a functioning Buddhist temple.
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Before he died Ieyasu Tokugawa, the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate, requested that a simple shrine be built for him so that he could serve as a guardian kami for the Japanese nation. The shrine was eventually built by his grandson Iemitsu, the third Tokugawa Shogun, but it was anything but simple. Most Shinto shrines are unpretentious, even austere. This is the most ornate Shinto shrine in Japan.

Ieyasu is still revered because he brought an end to a long series of bloody civil wars and began a period of peace an prosperity that lasted more than 250 years.
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Nikko is a small city located about 140 km from Tokyo. It is an easy day trip, and well worth it since it contains some of the most impressive temples and shrines in Japan.
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