12 Japanese Words To Get Around With

Study hard!  Treats if you pass!

For readers learning Japanese, or who want to learn, below is a list of 12 words to get you started right!  These are words that I use constantly, and which I felt the lack of before I learned them.
A list this short, however, is bound to be controversial, so to my readers who already speak Japanese--do you agree?  Disagree?  What's on your list of essential words for the beginner?  Please comment--I'd love to know!

Ja--sore dewa, benkyou shimashou!! (Then let's study!)

Domo arigatou (gozaimasu)
 "thank you (very much)"....this is the number one word to learn no matter *which* language you're learning.  
  "DOH MOH AH REE GAH TOH U (GO ZAH EE MAHSS)"

Yoroshiku (onegaishimasu)

 "please treat me kindly".....is the best way I know how to translate this difficult-to-translate-but-you-need-it-every-five-minutes phrase.  Learn this one!   You can say this when you meet someone.  It's what they'll probably say to you.  There's another phrase that means "nice to meet you", but this one is more multi-purpose.  "YOH ROH SHE KU"

    Onegaishimasu!  possibly cheating and making the list really 13 words here, but by itself  this word means  "please (do me a favor)".  Cream with your coffee?  Onegaishimasu!  May I take that away for you?  Onegaishimasu!  Would you like fresh towels?  Onegaishimasu!  Pay by credit card?  "OH NAY GAH EE SHEE MAHSS"

 

Itadakimasu!

"Bon appetit!"  Note the lack of appropriate English phrase here...  Put your hands together, bow forward a little, and say in a cheerful voice "EEt TAH DAH KEE MAHHHS(u)!!"  The literal meaning is "I humbly partake/receive", which I think is a fine thing to say before eating a meal, whether you're being fed by someone else or not.

Gochisosama!

 "It was a feast!"...again, no good English equivalent, but you get the idea.  As with "Itadakimasu!", put your hands together, bow forward a little, and in a cheerful, grateful voice say "GO CHEE SOOH SAH MAH!",  bonus points if you remember to stick on the verb "DESH TAH!" (deshita).

Oishii!

 "Delicious!"  I needed this word almost as soon as I got here--you get along so much better in a foreign country if you're willing to try all the food people give you, and even better if you can praise it as  delicious.  If you still have food in your mouth and you need to say this, put your hand in front of your mouth and speak from behind your hand.  "OH EE SHEE!"  Lengthen the last "eeee" to indicate just how delicious you think something is:-))

Kawaii!

 "Cute!!"...this is probably the most controversial word to include in a short list like this, but I stand by it. This is the Land of Cute--if you come to Japan you will be surrounded by Cute, and will need to express that. You will seem like far less of a scary foreigner if you can, when looking at someone's cute baby or toddler on the train, smile benignly, bow forward a little, and say "KAH WAH EEEE!".  Trust me on this.

 

Sumimasen!

"Excuse me!"/ "I'm sorry!"/"Thank you!"....this is very nearly an all purpose word that you need a hundred times a day.  Somebody picks up and returns something you dropped? "Domo! Sumimasen!"  Bumped into someone?  "Sumimasen!  Gomen nasai!"  Need to call the waiter/shopkeeper?  "Sumimasen!"  Making your way through a crowd?  "SOO ME MAH SEN!"

Gomen nasai!
"I'm sorry!" ...Like "thank you", a word you need no matter what language you're learning.  As above, it can be used with "Sumimasen!" if you've bumped into someone, or you can just say "Gomen nasai!" while bowing forward a little.  "GO MEN NAH SAH EE!"

Hai, dozo!

 "Here you are!"...offer things with both hands and bow forward a little, even to children.  When my oldest son was a year old, an elderly gentleman on the train played an adorable game with Koshi's shoe that Koshi had taken off and (for some unfathomable reason)decided to give to the old man.  The kindly grandfather received it, bowing and saying "Ah!  Arigatou!...."  waiting a beat, then handing the shoe back to Koshi, bowing and saying "Hai!  Dozo!"  They played like this, over and over, for a good ten minutes--Koshi was overjoyed.  *So* cute:-))  Use this when allowing someone to go ahead of you, too.

Kudasai!

 "Please!"...any food word plus "KOO DAH SAH EE", will get you what you want in a restaurant or shop.  Note:  this is not the same as "please do me a favor"--use "Onegaishimasu!" for asking someone to do something for you.

 

Mada (mada) dame desu!

 "I don't know anything!"...when somebody tells you how "Jouzu!" (good!) your Japanese is, shake your hand and say "MAH DAH DAH MAY DESS!".  Literally this means "it's still awful!".  It's good to be humble:-))  Repeat the "mada" twice to emphasize how far you still have to go.

 

Oshiete (kudasai)!
"Please teach me!"  Everybody likes to be an expert now and again.  If you don't know what to do, "Oshiete kudasai!".  Need help with the o-hashi (chopsticks)?  "Oshiete kudasai!"  Can't figure out the toilet in the hotel room?  Point and say "OH SHE AY TAY KOO DAH SAH EE!"

Dewa,  i-----ppai benkyou shite, kudasai!  Gambatte, ne!  (So, please study a----lot!  Do your best!)

Friday Field Notes--Wagtail Wars

水仙... Narcissus

初雪や
水仙の葉の
たわむまで


hatsuyuki ya
suisen no ha no
tawamu made

First snow

Just enough to bend

the leaves of the Narcissus

(Basho)

  

Of course, there's no snow.  But the narcissus were up around the gingko tree, and the neighbor's paperwhites are in bloom--just when I was starting to feel lonely for flowers.  That Haiku by Basho was the first one I memorized in Japanese, and it's still my favorite.  It always comes to mind when I see narcissus, be they snow-covered or not.   

As I was walking home from school...

Tsugumi  Turdus naumanii (Nauman's Thrush)

...look!  See who's come back?  Tsugumi!  I've waited and waited to see him again.  Nauman's Thrush--he migrates down from breeding grounds in Siberia to winter in Southeast Asia, China, and here.  Two years ago, a couple of them came to visit the persimmon tree next door. That winter vacation was particularly good weather, and the tree still had a number of persimmons on it.  It attracted quite a number of birds, and I had loads of fun hanging over the balcony with the binoculars while putting the futons out every day.  I didn't fall off, but did drop my pillow.  And a blanket--had to clunk down four flights of stairs and run around back to go get them...

I'm assuming, actually, that this is Nauman's Thrush, and not the Dusky Thrush, since Nauman's was the only one listed in my field guide....but it could be wrong. The Dusky Thrush appears to have been split off, or is a subspecies (Turdus eunomus), but they are sometimes still considered conspecific.  Ahhh--ornithological battles...split? species? subspecies? hetero or conspecific?  Reading down the list of bird books at Avibase, the older editions list Dusky as Turdus naumanii....then as Turdus naumanii eunomus, indicating subspecies status, and finally Turdus eunomus.  Species status, as the cannon smoke gradually clears.

And thus, with some trepidation, do I approach the Battleground of the Wagtails.

Hakusekire (Motacilla alba)

I never saw Wagtails growing up--for whatever reason they never graced our Hickory tree (though in observing them here, I notice that I never see them in trees, always fields, parking lots, or along the river).  They were the first bird to catch my eye in Japan--darling tails wagging, showy flashes of white feathers in flight, beautiful monochrome black, grey, and white.  Common, but striking, and a joy to watch.

Wounded Wanda (Walter?  But I think Wanda)

 At first, I didn't have any idea what they were called, nor did I possess a bird book (an annoying situation--but I couldn't yet read Japanese, so the Japanese guides were of little use to me).  So... I pestered people.  "What's that bird's name?!"--and received confusing, and sometimes outright contradictory, answers.

The situation, I've discovered, is *not* helped by the fact that the common Japanese names don't match up with the English common names, and further confused by the fact that Japanese "Hakusekire" (White Wagtail) covers birds whose taxonomic names reveal them to be subspecies, or full species split off from M. alba.

What about the "black-backed race that exists in Asia" (as my mother's Birds of North America has it)?  Let me first just say that I know for a fact that I've never seen Segurosekire--the Japanese Wagtail, Motacilla grandis, a situation I hope to remedy with a few more trips to Maioka Park, where I know he hangs out.

Hakusekire...Motacilla lugens... Black-backed Wagtail (d'oh!)

Does that seem straightforward? How about this--"Segurosekire" translates into "Black-backed Wagtail"...which is what you'd *think* Motacilla grandis would be called in English.  It's not, though--as I said above, M. grandis is the Japanese Wagtail.  But wait!  There *is* a species (split off?) called the Black-backed Wagtail.  That's who I think is in the photo above--Motacilla lugens.  In Japanese, however, that bird is called "Hakusekire"--White Wagtail.  (*coughing* ... *choking*... fighting my way through thick smoke of cannon fire...)  In any case, Motacilla lugens clearly differs from M. grandis, whose head, throat, and back are entirely black, with white supercilium (eyebrow).

M. alba-male Hakusekire, White Wagtail

Now this, surely, is the White Wagtail--Motacilla alba.  Hakusekire.  The bird in the video above and photo to the right is the male.  I've been calling all the birds around here Hakusekire, because they're clearly not M. grandis (compare the faces). 

For quite a while I referred, in my bird-bookless state of confusion, to the bird in the photo as Segurosekire (wrong!)

M. alba-- female Hakusekire, White Wagtail

...and to this bird (left) as "Hakusekire" because of the coloration, and because I'd only seen them singly.   No.  I discovered, after I finally got a field guide I could read, that the birds I was seeing were not M. grandis, but M. alba.  Both of them--male and female.  I worked that out, actually, on my own by watching them in the parking lot while banging the futons.  I noticed that they tend to hang out in pairs--surely a Mommy and Daddy Wagtail.  My guidebook seemed to confirm *that* guess, at least.

Take a few deep, calming breaths and watch the female M. alba scurrying along the river (these photos and videos were taken at the same time along the Kashio River).  Isn't she sweet?  Wag, wag, wag... I never get tired of watching wagtails...

Motacilla cinerea-- Kisekire, The Grey Wagtail

 One day, quite some time ago, I saw this lovely wagtail in our river--yellow on breast and rump!  Clearly a different species, but not yet owning a field guide, I christened him myself-- Kisekire.

Grey Wagtail (M. cinerea) Kisekire, male

"Kisekire" translates to "Yellow Wagtail".  Sensible--no?  Imagine my delight when I finally got a Japanese field guide and discovered that I had hit upon the correct Japanese name all by myself.  But wait!  In English he's called... The Grey Wagtail.  And, if that weren't enough, there is in fact a Yellow Wagtail (M. flava)--but he's called the Long-Nail Wagtail in Japanese.  The taxonomic names do, however, match up here.  I won't even go into the Citrine Wagtail... Here--watch another video of my favorite Kisekire In The River.  I was o-cha toban at baseball practice that day, and just happened to have the charged up video camera with me:



Dusting off, I won't go into M. alba versus M. yarelli--the Pied Wagtail, apparently split off (given the taxonomic names), but between which there appears to be some hybridization (so oughtn't the Pied have subspecies status?  Is there not some flaunting of the biological species concept going on here?).

Never mind--here is Wounded Wanda.  Or possibly juvenile Walter (family in-joke).  I saw her while riding my bike.  I stopped (and didn't fall off), turned around, and watched her for quite a while.  Look closely at her foot--deformed?  Injured?  She didn't fly away, but approached me quite close.  I was enchanted--isn't she a pretty thing?  But I've never seen her again.  I've worried so that a cat got her...



(smoke clearing)..Mata asobou, ne!

A Guessing Game

Walking back from school this morning along the river, I saw this in the empty lot behind a neighbor's house.

Any idea what this is and what's going to happen here?

Guessing Game!  I'll come back later (I have to go up to school this morning for Open House to watch my kids' classes and see whether they behave themselves and raise their hands to answer the teacher's questions)....and tell you what it is (if you don't already know).

Hmmmm....cut and folded paper suspended from twine strung around trees...

(...and no fair Mr. Harris telling what it is!  Mr. Harris has lived here for over 30 years, I think, and so must content himself with smug satisfaction;-))

Gambare!!


TADAIMA--!
 I'm home!  Did you guess?  Oooh--Martin is *very* close!  Martin gets a cookie:-))

This lot has been cleared to build a new house.  Before building, Shinto priests come and perform a purification ceremony to ward off evil spirits.  Shinto rites are very old, and even though most people do this, there's little actual superstition still attached to the rites.  It's as though the superstition has evaporated out, leaving the custom behind.  The ropes are "Shimenawa", and the papers are "gohei", a custom remaining from the time that the rope and paper were used to demarcate sacred places and keep evil spirits out.  Because, who wants evil spirits in a brand new house that doesn't even have toilet rings yet?  

I just went by the site, and they've started laying the foundation for the house (took a photo, but it's somewhat unintelligible--I couldn't get very close because of the cement mixer).   So since there's no photo of that--have a look at this!  Somebody had the foresight to video a purification ceremony and put it up on YouTube!  This ceremony is taking place inside the unfinished house: :


Parts 2 and 3 will come up after you watch part 1.  Enjoy--Mata asobou, ne!
  

SpyShopper--In the Shopping Basket...And a Recipe

The first several times I went shopping for real in an actual grocery store (not in a conbini), I spent half the time surreptitiously ogling other ladies' shopping baskets to see what sorts of things they had in their baskets.  I was surprised at the number of green vegetables, the fish, the...the other stuff that I couldn't identify, but which looked to be healthy food and not junk food.  I saw far less processed food, and a great deal more ingredients to cook food.  Every time I go home, I'm surprised by the difference in what's in those baskets.  Not just the size of the basket, either--although American shopping carts are at least twice the size of the baskets I use here.  Japan is like much of Europe, in that women still tend to go shopping every day (or every other day), and so can carry their purchases around in just one basket--they don't necessarily need a cart.  Since they go every day, they tend to buy a great deal more fresh food rather than boxed or processed.

So what's up there in my basket?  Nira--garlic chive, mah favorite!  High in Vitamin A, and warming in the winter.  Do you have some shoyu (soy sauce), a little sugar, and some sake (or mirin--sweet cooking sake), and some powdered dashi (soup stock--look for "Hon Dashi")? 

If you do, here's how to make Nira no Tamago Toji (Egg With Garlic Chives) (serves 4)

300g garlic chives (one bunch, like up in the basket), sliced 4-5cm
4 eggs, beaten

Soup
120ml dashi (stock--put the powdered dashi into hot water)
1Tbsp sugar
1Tbsp shoyu
1Tbsp sake (or mirin)

Bring the soup ingredients to a boil, add the chives, and simmer until cooked (2 or 3 minutes).  Beat the eggs and pour them over the soup.  Put the lid on the saucepan and simmer until the egg is mostly cooked.
(Note:  I make this with double the amount of soup 240/2/2/2, because my kids like it.  It's fine either way.  If you're cutting the recipe in half, just use two eggs and leave the soup amount the same, 120/1/1/1).

Enjoy!  I put the recipe up, because it's no use telling you all about nifty vegetables if nobody knows what to cook with them :-))

Other things in the basket:  a Naga Negi (Allium fistulosum, Japanese bunching onion), cha-wan mushi (savory steamed egg custard--which I *could* make myself, but these were for a busy day), moyashi (bean sprouts), curry roux, ramen (ok--not everything is perfectly healthy, but the bean sprouts go on top of the ramen, so that helps...right?).

Full disclosure:  the basket photo above is Pre-Snacks!

...I also bought a bag of Nori-Shio (Laver-Salt) chips.  Number Two Best Flavor Ever (Number One is Ume-Shiso, which is not out right now--even chip flavors are seasonal here, which I like).  Note that those bags are 60grams, and there's only one other bag size of chips--130/5grams.  *Everything* is sold in smaller amounts...

...Consomme-flavor chips, a close runner-up.  These are so much tastier than barbecue!

...A seasonal flavor:  Wasa-beef (wasabi & beef), which I haven't actually tried yet, mainly because I don't think the kids will eat them.  I *have* tried Wasabi & Mayo, which were very nice, if a bit spicy-spicy in the nose...

...I also got some Ume-Kombu (dried kelp with ume powder), on the left....

...but decided to forgo the little dried Iwashi snacks this time (yes--kids really do eat these.  Kittehs, too.  And crawdads.)

Maybe next time...:-))

Oishiso, desho! (looks delicious, doesn't it!)

Mata asobou,  ne!

SpyShopper--Vending Machines for Vices

When I arrived in Japan (many moons ago now), I was astounded, just astounded, to see vending machines...with cigarettes in them.  Not that I thought that cigarette machines didn't exist--no, I'm old enough to remember them in America (and as for how long ago *that* was, I haven't sufficient fingers and toes to work that out).

Be that as it may, I certainly recall those old, dark brown, somewhat squat, rectangular machines with the single row of pull-handles.  My parents still smoked (as did everybody else back in the late Cretaceous), and I'm pretty sure the reason I remember the pull-handles is because I was allowed to pull them after my dad had put the money in.  Of course, by the time I arrived in Japan in 1997, these sorts of machines had gone extinct in America--so I was surprised to discover a residual population of them in Japan.  The populations appear to have interbred at some point--note the Marlboros and the Winstons;-))

Vendingium japonica

...And then there are these unusual specimens, which are (to the best of my knowledge) endemic to Japan.  I've certainly never seen a vending machine with beer in it--not even in Germany, though the cup sake on the right immediately pegs this one as a Japanese cultivar...

The Age of Adulthood in Japan is 20--in fact every January (around the 15th) is the Coming of Age ceremony for all young adults who will turn 20 during that year.  These secular ceremonies are held all over Japan, and are a fairly big deal.  Girls get *really* dressed up in elaborate silk kimono (no photo--if they still have some in the kimono shop in Daiei, I'l  take a picture today and post it) with long sleeves for unmarried women, fur stoles and muffs, hand-stitched bags, and such.  They get up at 3 or 4 in the morning to go get their hair specially done for this (at least, according to my daughter's kindergarten teacher they do.  That's what time *she* got up).  Upon attaining the age of 20, the new adults may legally vote, and purchase alcohol and tobacco.  I knew that 20 was the drinking and smoking age even before I knew about the Coming of Age ceremonies, because all cigarette and alcohol vending machines come helpfully labeled with these:

Ooooh--the sign says we can't buy these until we're twenty!  Right, guess we'll just have to wait then....

Seriously?  "Underage smoking is prohibited by law", according to the helpful sticker there, plastered importantly across the bottom of the machine.  I was, and am, mystified by the existence of these machines.  In supermarkets, the situation is even more bizarre (if that's possible).

Every time I go to Daiei (the closest supermarket, around the corner), I am struck anew by the fact that there are cigarettes for sale in locked plexiglass cases in front of several of the registers, and a cigarette vending machine less than ten feet away on the other side of the registers....

Honestly--anyone else reading this who has spent time in Japan, if you know the reason for this, *do* let me know.  This sort of thing keeps me awake at night--and lord knows that sleeping in a room on futons with three kids rolling over me all night, I get little enough of that.  I'd be much obliged to anyone who could put this particular conundrum to rest:-))

SpyShopper--In The Liquor Aisle

Since I recently posted on how to make your own Umeshu, I thought readers might be interested to see what's available in a basic liquor aisle--and how much things cost.

The tall green bottle there in the photo is the best known brand, Choya--the one with several plums in the bottle and a wide mouth so you can get them out and eat them.  Dr. Coyne over at WEIT just bought a bottle of the Choya to try, and paid about $12 at Binney's in Chicago.  The price on the bottle in the photo is Y1000, or about $11 or $12 given the current exchange rate--not bad!!  So Binney's, it would appear, has very reasonable prices:-))

Here's more of the Umeshu section of the liquor aisle.  It comes in glass bottles, and also cartons and cans--straight and carbonated (umeshu soda is *good*!)  The medium size white carton is "Sarari to shita umeshu", a commercial for which I posted the other day.  It's not terribly expensive ($5-6 for a medium carton, $8-9 for a large carton), and umeshu mixes well with lots of things--soda, tonic, milk (for a yogurt-like drink), hot green tea, ginger ale, sour mix, and I'm thinking of heating some umeshu to steaming and mixing it with some of my sweet ginger syrup that I put in tea...

 ...as long as we're in the liquor aisle--here's a new one I saw today.  Apparently Sapporo Brewery and Royce Chocolates have teamed up and produced some type of hops-based drink that incorporates chocolate (bitter)...

...and sweet...

...for Y260 a can, which I though was a little steep.  And slightly weird--I can't quite imagine that beer taste and chocolate taste would...match.

If anybody is desperate to know what it tastes like, tell me and I'll buy a can--in the spirit of scientific inquiry, you know ;-))

UPDATE
 So...I went to get butter.  Which I promptly forgot, as I remembered six other things I needed, prompting a call to my husband at 7pm asking *him* to pick up some butter.  This is not the recommended way to stick to a budget.  I did, however, get a can of Sapporo/Royce Chocolat Brewery-Sweet.  And I did taste it.  Not being a beer drinker under normal circumstances, I think I've gotten in *waaay* over my head in attempting to drink and describe something which is, basically, beer.  Or...ale?  Dark ale?  A stout?  Not Budweiser--not by a long shot.  I could certainly taste cocoa (I think), but the oddest thing was having an extremely strong memory flashback triggered by the initial taste on my tongue...yet being utterly unable (still--this is the next morning) to recall the memory.  Like having an important-looking light flashing desperately on the dashboard of your car, but not having the faintest idea what that light is for.

Back to the beer (beer?).  At Y260 a can, I personally wouldn't buy it again--it just wasn't all that.  Though, to be fair, it was in a can.  Possibly a fresher version would be better, or more interesting.  To be more fair, I should find a friend who likes beer more than I do to taste it and give an assessment.  Gomen Nasai!

Monday Manglish--Well, Almost...

I stopped to look at this while walking through the Daiei the other day.  I thought at first that my daughter would like it, but it's more like a dress...so maybe not.  It resembles her "Attack Heart" sweatshirt, so I stopped to see what it said....

"The State of N.Y.    is a state in the Mid-Atlantic & Northeatern regions of the U.S."  heart.

Weeeeellllllll....almost.  It's not grammatically incorrect (though they left the "s" out of "Northeastern")--quite the contrary, it's almost painfully grammatical.  And textbook-ish, as though somebody lifted a sentence right out of their high school English textbook and (mis)copied it onto a T-shirt dress.  It's a cute dress, with cute, sparkly hearts--it just that you don't normally find precise statements (with or without spelling errors) of the geographical location of the State of New York adorned with pink and white sparkly hearts....:-))

Friday Field Notes-- Scalawags on a Frosty Morning, and a Digression

waiting....

Walking the kids to school this morning, I noticed the buds  were reddening on the weeping plums we pass on the way--when they bloom, I'll show you.

Prunus mume

 ...On the way to baseball practice last weekend, one of the plum trees I passed was already opening up.  I nearly went backward off my bike looking up at the blossoms.  So I got off and stood underneath to look at the flowers against the bright blue.

Raphanus sativus var. longipinnatus

It was cold this morning--I could see my breath.  But it never gets so cold on the Kanto plain that the ground freezes--winter fields are planted with negi and hakusai and daikon (above).  Daikon leaves can be put into miso soup, and the large, white root (can you see it in the middle of the picture?  It sticks right up out of the ground) can be pickled or simmered or put into Tonjiru.  If I forget, remind me to post a (very simple!) recipe for Simmered Daikon.  I noticed on Wiki that there is a variety of seed that grows successfully in Southern England, so possibly there's a variety that grows in Canada or the States as well--if you can't get it at an Asian market in your area. Try it if you can get it--it's low in calories (3oz/85g=18kcal), yet filling, and contains 34 percent of the RDA for vitamin C.

Brassica rapa subsp. pekinensis-- Napa cabbage

...a beautiful hakusai...

...leaves still sparkling with frost...

Chaenomeles japonica of the family Rosaceae

It hasn't been too cold here, so the plums and Boke are starting to bloom a little early.

I'd never seen Boke before coming to Japan, so I had to pester people 'til I found out what it was called (boh-kay).  Later I discovered that it's a flowering quince, which I'd never seen, but only knew the word form Edward Lear ("they dined on mince and slices of quince").

Boke can also be grown as bonsai...

Bushes with red flowers are common, but I love the pink ones... ...white and blush and rose pink all together.  Somehow they seem more delicate.  Fragile--like my grandmother's Haviland.  Pink Flowering Quince would be a lovely china pattern, don't you think?


Stopping to look at this and that, I'd forgotten that I was supposed to return the community center keys--the reason, in fact, for walking this direction back from the school.  Forgetful, I suppose, but, well, there you are.  I hate to be rushed and have no time to look about me.  Right--off you go, up the street.

...It's a smallish temple.  The monk and his wife live in attached rooms around back.  The cemetery abuts the mountain, up the steps and left around back of the temple.  Most mornings the sparrows are there, but this morning I could hear nothing but the Hiyodori squeeling--hooligans that they are ;-))

I walked around back to drop the keys next to the milk bottles sitting on top of the mailbox.  The big tree in back was a-flutter with Hiyodori eating berries that fell to the ground making small "thunks" that sounded as though a box full of Pachinko balls were being poured from the treetop....

 After a bit, a dark shape darted out of the berry tree and over my head.

Somebody had had enough, I expect, and went to sit by himself in the now leafless gingko tree, ruffed head feathers just visible among the sheaths from which next spring's leaves will sprout.  I remember full well the first time I heard Hiyodori--I listened for a good twenty minutes to raucous squeeling, unable to ascertain whether it was actually a bird I was hearing, or kids squeeling their car tires in the distance, or a large rubber something slowly deflating.  Hiyodori are an extremely common bird in Japan and East Asia, but unknown in North America, which must explain my utter inability to determine that I was, in fact, hearing a bird.  I'd never heard *anything* like the ruckus they made.

 A digression...

Gibt geheimen Sinn zu kosten, Wie's den Wissenden erbaut...

Forgive me for possibly boring you with another ginkgo photo--I love them so much, I tend to assume everybody else must love them as well and want to look at them as much as I do.  If that's not the case, I must beg your patience. 

 I first remember seeing ginkgos regularly in college--my university had several scattered about the campus, and two large ones  in the old crescent area of the campus.  The two big ones were male and female, and extraordinarily stinky in the fall when the seed fruits ripened and fell to the ground.  I didn't know 'til then that trees came like that--in two sexes, I mean. 

A number of years later, after I became a German teacher, I traveled back to Germany--to Jena and Weimar, in fact, where Goethe lived in his middle years.  There I discovered that Goethe, too, was fascinated by Ginkgos--and suddenly the cardboard-cutout literary genius,whose Faust I'd struggled to read bits of, became a real person.  An interesting person--a person I suddenly wished I could know and talk to.  I read Italienische Reise and learned how many different things he was interested in, how he studied geology, optics, biology--climbed Vesuvius, formulated a theory on optics, and hypothesized that Ginkgo Biloba represented the Urbaum (the "original tree", from whence all other species had sprung) many years before Darwin's Origin of Species.  Many years, in fact, before fossils recognizably related to the modern tree were found and dated to the Permian (the Permian! 270 million years ago!).  A living fossil.  That just sends shivers up and down.

Goethe wrote a poem to his girlfriend, Marianne von Willemer, about the Ginkgo (click on the link in the caption above for the original German and several translations), attaching two leaves to the bottom of the page.  This was roughly around the time that Ginkgos were re-introduced to Europe from China, hence (I assume) the exotic fascination they held for Goethe, and the poem's inclusion in the West-oestlichen Divan anthology.

...(end of digression)...

 
So if you're out and about, and you hear somebody squeeling "Hiiiii-yo! Hiiii-yo! Hiiii-yo!", rather like letting the air slowly out of a balloon, it's the Brown-Eared Bulbul.  See his brown "ears" (the brown patches on his cheeks)?

...All that noisy-noisy and scruffy feathers sticking up all over his head--what a scalawag...:-))


(p.s.--You know, Goethe gave poor Marianne that romantic poem on the occasion of their last meeting--he never saw her again after that day in Heidelberg.  What a scalawag ;-))

SpyShopper--Vending Machines

Per a reader request, I'm starting a series on The Vending Machines of Japan.  I know that sounds like a coffee table book, but bear with me--I have been fascinated by vending machines here since the day arrived.  Literally.  I distinctly remember my first encounter with a vending machine at Narita.  I was exhausted, just arrived, thirsty.  Scanning the arrivals lounge, I spied a machine.  Unfamiliar cans and plastic bottles, except for the Coke, and a great many more choices than I'd ever seen in a machine.  I was thirsty, so I didn't want Coke....but what?  I couldn't read.  Anything.  For the first time since age (4? 5?), I was completely illiterate--an odd feeling.

I hadn't any idea what to choose, so I simply chose a can with the prettiest picture on it, put in some money, and picked up the can.

Which I promptly dropped.  Hot!  A hot can out of a machine.   Pulling my hand into the long sleeve of my shirt, I picked up the can again, opened it, and took a sip.  Tea.  Not black--some sort of green tea.  Good--and warm.

Looking again at the machine, I noticed what I (in my jet-lagged state) hadn't before--that some of the prices had a blue background, and some were red.  The tea I had chosen had its price listed on a red background--hot.  Cold and hot.  Now that I can read, I can see that it says right there "つめたーい" (tsumeta-i) and "あったかーい" (attaka-i), cold and hot, respectively.

L to R: pure green tea, royal milk tea, straight tea, lemon drink, soda, vitamin drink

At the time, I was astounded by the variety of drinks to be found in vending machines--machines that are *everywhere*.  Sometimes every few feet.  They contained 4 or 5 or more types of tea, an equal number of coffees, juice, sports drinks, yogurt drinks, vitamin drinks, and very little in the way of sweet carbonated drinks.

click on images to enlarge

Top row--mix juice, peach/mango soda, coffee,hot green tea, hot lemon tea, hot cocoa, hot milk and coffee.

Bottom row--hot cafe au lait, hot blend coffee, hot different blend coffee, hot another blend coffee, hot sugarless coffee, hot different milk tea.

And the next machine up the road will have a different offering.

The problem with having bounteous vending machines all around, is that when I go home, I'm *shocked* by the lack of variety in American machines. The machine above is a Coke machine--see all the tea and coffee?  You could picket Coca-Cola offices and demand that they put into US vending machines all the good tea and coffee they've developed in Japan.   "Non-carb drinks" they're called.  They're so much better for you:-))
Click on that photo up there--the tea (in a pet bottle in this case)  on the top row, all the way to the right, is So-Ken-Bi-Cha, the tea in the hot can with the pretty picture I had the day I arrived.  My goodness, I love vending machines in Japan!

Mata Asobou, ne!

On Design--Onigiri Technology

I liked o-nigiri the first time I ate one (I think it was kombu...),although I thought the nori was funny to eat--papery and dry.  It stuck a bit to the roof of my mouth, just the way I imagined paper would (if I were given to eating paper).  It didn't occur to me to wonder, that first time, how it was that the nori was dry and not wet from the moisture in the rice. 

I couldn't read yet, so I think I just randomly picked one off the shelf at the combini (=convenience store).
I thought it was hard to open the package. I couldn't understand why I kept tearing the nori when tearing off the plastic--I was sure I'd seen people eating o-nigiri, just like the ones I was buying, wrapped in neat triangles of smooth nori.  (Nori is "laver" in English, but doesn't everybody just call it nori?)

Then I noticed the numbers on the plastic.  1...2...3...duh.  The plastic was pre-torn around the number one--what would happen if I started tearing at the one?  Watch (Cici is camera-man this time):



When I finally got one of these open the right way, I stood there staring at the layered wrapper in one hand, and the crisp nori around the onigiri in my other hand.... and wondered who on earth had worked out how to wrap onigiri that way.