Mmmmm--December in Japan brings the strawberries (grown in greenhouses, so as not to compete with the summer melons...). Sweeter, more perfect berries are simply not to be found...
...hand-picked and gently placed all the same direction in the package--for the top of the Christmas cake, or just to eat dipped in sweetened condensed milk.
But when was the last time you paid $6.80 for 11 strawberries?
Of course the robotic dancing girl is cute! Yeah--American robotics experts would probably try to program a robot to dance, too. But they'd program it to do the Thriller dance. Or MC Hammer.
This is *so* Japan--right down to the girly foot flip...
All night and for the better part of the morning we had what my dad would call A Real Rip-Snorter. My poor husband had to walk to the bus stop in it, and I thought for sure a call would come delaying school for an hour 'til the worst of the rain was past. But it slacked off just in time, much to my children's chagrin. By the time they went downstairs to line up, the rain was reasonable enough for me to take the camera with me and not worry about ruining it taking pictures of puddles...
...Yerres, effet de pluie
(Caillebotte) My favorite painting at Indiana University's Art Museum--I've watched spreading rings on water ever since, and wondered how ever he painted raindrops on the river in the rain... surely not from memory?
I thought I'd take a photograph. My own Effect of Rain on the River...
...forgetting that we'd been having a Rip-Snorter, and that the river would be the color of cocoa milk and rushing too quickly for raindrop rings to spread, touch, cancel one another out..
...so, stepping over ginko leaves fanned out in the puddles flanking the road, I decided to have a look at the neighbor's garden instead....
...the Yuzu (Citron) looked washed and refreshed, but the mums...
...were decidedly downcast.
Those camellias enjoying partial protection from the onslaught were adorned with droplets...
...the unprotected were unceremoniously stripped of their petals, leaving stamens bare...
Twisting branches of pines shine blackly after rain, but gusting winds left only a few drops on the tips of needles...
...September's misting rain clings, water's surface tension holding the shape of the drops...a Hasegawa before my eyes, pine trees in the mist.
That September morning we walked to school together, Cici and I, looking for acorns, admiring the green of the maples sprinkled with diamonds of mist that ran together to form larger drops.
That was the same morning that I saw, for the first time up close, so many Jorougumo (Nephila Clavata) repairing their mist-damaged webs. Before the sun came out to dry the mist, I found...
...Jorougumo, pavéd with mist, fit for a Gentlewoman to weare upon her breast as a brooch...
...December's momiji glows faintly as the sun struggles behind heavy cloud cover, abacus-rows of drops not yet shaken off by the wind...
The storm was too much for the cherry trees...
...their bronze bangles adorn the rain grate...
...the Ginko's gold carpets the lichened stones in the park...
It was difficult walking against the wind--I had to close my umbrella, or risk losing it. Watching the leaves swirl around me put me in mind of The Night Before Christmas--
"As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;"
A break in the clouds--my eyes watered in the sudden glare...
...the stubble of the rice paddy and the neighbor's cypress granted momentary brilliance...
...as the wind pushed the storm north and east.
Touched by the emerging sunlight, the Big Pine of the park stands starkly, weirdly, against the angry backdrop of the retreating front.
Fall's pruning, the loss of leaves reveals the structure of trees, the shape of branches, the sparrow's hidey-holes. Winter means a leisurely study of architecture and avian fauna normally camouflaged.
Winter means migrating birds (my inner bird-watcher trembles in anticipation of a new "tick!")... but that's for next time. I *did* find a new bird (to me)--but I'll have to put him up next week, since he's nothing to do with the rain...
As promised, here is the rest of the piece on the Fall Festival held at my kids' school two weeks ago. The first time I posted on this, I wrote about what the first, second, third, fifth, and sixth graders did for the festival. Everybody but the fourth graders, because it would have made the original post too long.
The fourth graders, for the second time (last year's fourth graders were the guinea pigs, apparently), made charcoal out of bamboo, as well as a number of traditional toys. I stopped by school several times to watch the sumi-making process ("sumi" is charcoal or ink)
After they'd gone across the street to cut bamboo (with help, of course, from the teacher and a couple of community members who live near the school), they spent the last hour of the school day one afternoon sawing the long stalks of bamboo shorter, then splitting it so it would burn better.
...Koshi manfully wrestles with the saw:-)) It was harder to saw through than he thought! The group members had to take turns as they got tired...
(Yes--they really trust 10-year-olds with actual sharp saws in Japan. Not yet an overly litigious society...)
the split bamboo
....one of the maintenance guys used the iron rings below to split the bamboo length-wise. Then it was cut a little smaller to make pieces of a uniform size for burning to make charcoal. Watch the video below to see how he uses those tools to split the bamboo!
...sledgehammer and iron bamboo-splitting rings (small, medium, and large for various sizes of bamboo).
See? Tap the bamboo down onto the iron ring with the sledgehammer, turn it upside down, and push. Voilà! The bamboo was then dried for a week, and the following Friday put into this contraption:
...I was so waiting for Bilbo Baggins to walk out of there...
...he had to seal the edges with clay so the smoke would only go out the actual smokestack...
...and as you can see, this is a completely hand-made affair. Plugged up with a can of DyDo coffee... But it worked just fine--made lovely charcoal (which burned over 24 hours), deep black, perfect to put in the fridge or the shoe box to absorb odors or to filter water in the manner of a Brita.
...Lovely black charcoal, still clearly a piece of bamboo...
... after cutting the charcoal into uniform sizes, the kids bound it with twisty-ties and bagged it for give-away at the festival...
On the day of the festival, I discovered that the kids had made a lot more than just charcoal out of all that bamboo...
Pakah! Pakah! Pakah! Clip-clop, clip-clop! Horses' hooves made from bamboo. You probably had a pair of these when you were a kid, but maybe made out of plastic or cans (stand on top, hold onto the strings, and try to walk). I thought the bamboo made a more realistic, more satisfying, clip-clop...
...the ring toss game--a common game world-wide, but not often made of bamboo...
...low stilts, a nice size for kids to practice walking and balancing on.
....then there were the games the kids had made for parents and siblings to try at the festival, like the bamboo spinner below--as simple a toy as ever there was, consisting only of a flat piece of bamboo and a piece of string threaded through a hole drilled in the center. Markers were out for us "O-Kyaku-san" (Honorable Customers) to decorate if we wished...
Watch Papa below play with the Spinner:
In order to get a baggie of charcoal, we customers had to go around and play with/make all three toys the kids had prepared--the Spinner, the Shooter, and the Take Tombo (Bamboo Dragonfly).
...the Shooter. You stuff wet toilet paper inside this, then use the piece on the left to "shoot" out the toilet paper. Papa was much better at this than I was--he made the pasty toilet paper go at least 10 feet!
My favorite toy, though, is the Take Tombo (Bamboo Dragonfly)--a very traditional children's toy, which in all likelihood originated in China (though it doesn't do to say so to the Japanese ;-)).
...one of the kids is getting ready to make the Bamboo Dragonfly fly! It takes some practice to really make it go--but once you get the hang of it, it's great fun to make it fly far and high.
And most interesting of all (at least to me), was watching an older gentleman whittle one.
Watch:
Did you see how he whittles from the center out, but on opposite sides to balance it so it flies straight? Here's the last bit, where he whittles the handle and puts it in, then demonstrates how to make it fly:
I love those Bamboo Dragonflies--they remind me of the oak seed pods my sis and I called Helicopters and played with as children (another natural toy :-)). But by far my most favorite thing that day was this table full of animals and bugs made of leftover bamboo bits (made by a community group that makes hand crafts like this):
rice straw boots, bamboo animals and bugs
...the Crab...
...the Stag Beetle below...
...the Preying Mantis...
...the Dragonfly...
...and the Kitteh (with the Fox and another Crab visible in the background).
Outside, the fourth graders had also made bows and "arrows" out of bamboo, though I didn't get a good photo of those. I do know, though, that those kids were having a ball that day:-))
Happy Thanksgiving--hope everyone ate their fill of Pumpkin Pie Especially Making! Was yours mild and delicious? Did it give you fresh and natural flavor :-))? One can only hope so, though we should all be so fortunate as to have our pie, and eat cake, too. As usual, it seems, recent American inventions like the Pake appear to be recently immigrated ideas from Japan. I recall seeing both Cake Pie and Pie Cake in convenience stores back in 1999--both of which were naturally much smaller than their American counterparts, and therefore much less hazardous to your health :-)) Although to be completely fair, neither pie nor cake is of Japanese origin (obviously). And given the amount of Manglish I see, you could certainly say that the borrowing goes both ways...
Taking public transportation with two boys became so much easier when they learned how to play the Dragonballs game that's making the rounds of the elementary schools. At least, as long as they whisper:)) This game kept my two amused for train rides, bus rides, and boring rainy weekends. I've even heard them playing it in the bathtub. Extremely simple, requiring no equipment beyond two pair of hands, the object is to win by making the blasting "Haaaaa!" motion when your opponent is "charging".
There are three motions that you say while making the hand motion:
"Barrier!"
This motion blocks your opponents blast...
"Charge!"
....this motion charges you up so you can blast
(you have to charge up after eight barriers, or you lose automatically)
"Haaaaaa!"
Blasting energy! To win, you must make this motion at the same time that your opponent is "charging". If your opponent puts up "barrier", you keep playing.
Clap twice between each motion until one person wins! Which probably sounds boring to adults--but for elementary-age kids? *Loads* of fun--trust me:))
Watch Koshi and Teddy play:
This game has saved my sanity more times than I can count:))
