Today was the first day of normal Kansai Gaidai. The start of normal classes. It makes me feel almost like a student. I went to the minzokugaku class with the normal students this morning. It is an anthropology class conducted entirely in Japanese (being for Japanese students and not foriegnors). Its hard to read of course, but I came out feeling way more capable of understanding Japanese. And came out shuddering with excitement of actually having to see/speak/communicate in Japanese and not this half assed english we use in the foriegnor's classes.
The professor seemed to want to wake students up to the fact that there is folklore all around them. That anything can be seen from various perspectives at any time. He used the symbolism of baseball as an example. There are certain things we expect from a pitch, that we recognize as baseball. However, only someone familiar with baseball would be able to read a sports newspaper and understand what they are talking about. He analyzed how the sentence "I have a dog" in english can actually be interpreted differently and in different language to people of different ages although they all are speaking Japanese. He expects his students to do fieldwork and interview people.
I had the realization that sadly, for Japanese students, Japan is entirely normal. It is easy for them to think they understand it all. For me however, I am reminded 24 hours a day that I dont know hardly anything. Which is really a good thing. Its like sakura constantly lighting up the landscape, always something to look for on the hillsides, of experience.
And the blossoms, falling. Hanazuku (?) blowing flowers. They blow through a grove sandwiched between apartment blocks with fields beyond. It is early evening as I bycycle back to the homestay.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Mada chiranai
The sakura are at their peak, mankai. full, globes almost. They will fall, maybe before tomorrow, if it rains. Its like a picture. Treasure each moment.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Sakura!
I sit under pink clouds of sakura. Ive gone sakura crazy.
The Sakura (cherry blossoms) are indescribably beautiful,
what if everything had such potential beauty inside
waiting to saku (bloom).
Thats a wonderful feeling
The Sakura (cherry blossoms) are indescribably beautiful,
what if everything had such potential beauty inside
waiting to saku (bloom).
Thats a wonderful feeling
Matt, Here!
Matt arrived and it was a new beginning.
We went to tea at Yabe Sensei's. A kind of fantastic experience for the first night I think. The wagashi- Yomogi blossoms half open with yellow strands inside. Like kiiro no hana by the river (mustard fields) where I eat a different kind of anpan (bread with sweet bean inside) each morning or so. Big sweet beans insde. Matt was struck by the tea, made me real happy.
Matt (my brother)'s coming was exactly what I needed. It is easy to get wrapped up in your own head here. With social rules and distances, real family is a like a kick in the pants, which is exactly what I needed.
Fushimi Inari once again, what is space? What can money buy? what is time? Thousand of gates, they make a tunnel, like walking through the frames of experience that come together to make animation- the gates animate the world, as you enter sacred space and leave sacred space.
Dappled evening light, orange gates, stone steps. A bright white cat gazes out on kyoto right there before us. Its like the fox. You have to be kind continuously to a cat, and a fox even more, they are elusive beings. Like shinto. Like business. Gotta keep feeding it and loving it, or it might as well just wander off down the street. O kamisama.
Sumiya, the best preserved Edo period pleasure house. Warm sunlight, tea cottages. Miniature landscapes. I suppose that the journey from the group room to the tea house, futari de, (in a couple) would take just as long as a journey from the city to the mountains, hence the miniature garden takes on real space proportions. Click click of something blown against the shoji.
A screen of sakura ki (cherry trees) with just a few blossoms, or maybe the last, now perhaps, then.
The first sakura blossoms
a few flakes of snow
arashiyama
Kiyomizu dera at night, me and Matt follow paths and crowds through the old streets of gion lit by lanterns. Then up to the temple all lit up in anticipation of the blossoms to come.
Katsukura is prolly my favorite restaurant. Me and matt ate a lot of cabbage and rice and miso there, oh it was nice.
The kinkakuji (golden temple) is a vision of paradise. But to me it was simply a redereing of an alpine environment. But maybe the Wallowas in Oregon or the Sierras in California are actually a kind of paradise on earth.
Off to Matsumoto in Nagano once again. Glimpes of Nagoya, missing the bullet train. The trains on the way- through mountains, craggy pines, peaks, forests waiting to saku (bloom). Emerald rivers slip between giant white boulders. The kindness of Taka's family once again is wonderful. Wasabi fields, the castle, and lots of talking with the family. I already want to go back.
To Takayama through the Japan Alps. Pines with clumps of snow, translucent swaths of maple, white mountains, elegant and majestic. We stay at the youth hostel in a monastery.
Bought a demon mask, luckily it is a kind demon so I dont die of the stomach virus that I contract eating raw egg the next morning.
We go off to Nagoya and my fever goes up, but I dont worry about it.
Meet Yosef. This was a fantastic experience. I am looking forward to meeting him again, as soon as possible. I learned more about shape changing and a lot more about what it is like to a morman missionary in this country. Although I imagine it is different for everyone. We talked in Toyota city where there is a clown, a lone singer practicing his karaoke, and a man with angel wings trying to explain a phrase as a ticket to heaven. What a place.
Meanwhile I was quite sick, and matt was pretty culture shocked and sick too.
We travel back to Osaka to meet Nick, we wander about the station in Nagoya, Matt in a rather amuzing culture shocked state at this point. Me, just darn stomach virused.
Meet Nick and we all take in the homestay. The next day we get a nice tour of the healthcare system as I try to negotiate my insurance, thanks to the nice nurse I do get some medicine. Then off to Kobe to meet Chika, Greg, and Risa. Kobe and then Karaoke. I am quite feeble at this point the medicine kicks in and we all have a lot of fun.
The next day Electric Town and Namba in Osaka then we all ate at the homestay family and everyone loved the adorable kids.
The next day we all went to Mizuki (homestay sister)'s preschool graduation. Which was a very moving experience. With a backdrop of the cherry blossoms, the children are not so much finishing preschool as they are beginning their school experience.
Matt leaves, and my perspective could not be more different. I feel a foot taller actually, surrounded by a beautiful world, I stop a bakery in the train station and sketch for at least an hour the people. Its fantastic.
One songbird fills
this little corner
of Nagaomura (the village by the homestay) with
its music.
nagaomura
semaimichini
itorinokoe
utaukoto
ipai
chyotto e o kaita
e no yo o omota
ii o tenki ya na-
kimochi ga ii na-
We went to tea at Yabe Sensei's. A kind of fantastic experience for the first night I think. The wagashi- Yomogi blossoms half open with yellow strands inside. Like kiiro no hana by the river (mustard fields) where I eat a different kind of anpan (bread with sweet bean inside) each morning or so. Big sweet beans insde. Matt was struck by the tea, made me real happy.
Matt (my brother)'s coming was exactly what I needed. It is easy to get wrapped up in your own head here. With social rules and distances, real family is a like a kick in the pants, which is exactly what I needed.
Fushimi Inari once again, what is space? What can money buy? what is time? Thousand of gates, they make a tunnel, like walking through the frames of experience that come together to make animation- the gates animate the world, as you enter sacred space and leave sacred space.
Dappled evening light, orange gates, stone steps. A bright white cat gazes out on kyoto right there before us. Its like the fox. You have to be kind continuously to a cat, and a fox even more, they are elusive beings. Like shinto. Like business. Gotta keep feeding it and loving it, or it might as well just wander off down the street. O kamisama.
Sumiya, the best preserved Edo period pleasure house. Warm sunlight, tea cottages. Miniature landscapes. I suppose that the journey from the group room to the tea house, futari de, (in a couple) would take just as long as a journey from the city to the mountains, hence the miniature garden takes on real space proportions. Click click of something blown against the shoji.
A screen of sakura ki (cherry trees) with just a few blossoms, or maybe the last, now perhaps, then.
The first sakura blossoms
a few flakes of snow
arashiyama
Kiyomizu dera at night, me and Matt follow paths and crowds through the old streets of gion lit by lanterns. Then up to the temple all lit up in anticipation of the blossoms to come.
Katsukura is prolly my favorite restaurant. Me and matt ate a lot of cabbage and rice and miso there, oh it was nice.
The kinkakuji (golden temple) is a vision of paradise. But to me it was simply a redereing of an alpine environment. But maybe the Wallowas in Oregon or the Sierras in California are actually a kind of paradise on earth.
Off to Matsumoto in Nagano once again. Glimpes of Nagoya, missing the bullet train. The trains on the way- through mountains, craggy pines, peaks, forests waiting to saku (bloom). Emerald rivers slip between giant white boulders. The kindness of Taka's family once again is wonderful. Wasabi fields, the castle, and lots of talking with the family. I already want to go back.
To Takayama through the Japan Alps. Pines with clumps of snow, translucent swaths of maple, white mountains, elegant and majestic. We stay at the youth hostel in a monastery.
Bought a demon mask, luckily it is a kind demon so I dont die of the stomach virus that I contract eating raw egg the next morning.
We go off to Nagoya and my fever goes up, but I dont worry about it.
Meet Yosef. This was a fantastic experience. I am looking forward to meeting him again, as soon as possible. I learned more about shape changing and a lot more about what it is like to a morman missionary in this country. Although I imagine it is different for everyone. We talked in Toyota city where there is a clown, a lone singer practicing his karaoke, and a man with angel wings trying to explain a phrase as a ticket to heaven. What a place.
Meanwhile I was quite sick, and matt was pretty culture shocked and sick too.
We travel back to Osaka to meet Nick, we wander about the station in Nagoya, Matt in a rather amuzing culture shocked state at this point. Me, just darn stomach virused.
Meet Nick and we all take in the homestay. The next day we get a nice tour of the healthcare system as I try to negotiate my insurance, thanks to the nice nurse I do get some medicine. Then off to Kobe to meet Chika, Greg, and Risa. Kobe and then Karaoke. I am quite feeble at this point the medicine kicks in and we all have a lot of fun.
The next day Electric Town and Namba in Osaka then we all ate at the homestay family and everyone loved the adorable kids.
The next day we all went to Mizuki (homestay sister)'s preschool graduation. Which was a very moving experience. With a backdrop of the cherry blossoms, the children are not so much finishing preschool as they are beginning their school experience.
Matt leaves, and my perspective could not be more different. I feel a foot taller actually, surrounded by a beautiful world, I stop a bakery in the train station and sketch for at least an hour the people. Its fantastic.
One songbird fills
this little corner
of Nagaomura (the village by the homestay) with
its music.
nagaomura
semaimichini
itorinokoe
utaukoto
ipai
chyotto e o kaita
e no yo o omota
ii o tenki ya na-
kimochi ga ii na-
Hiroshima and what followed until Matt came
Well, what can I say, so much has happened since the last time I managed to post. I'll be brief and succint.... although in reality I've filled a couple of notebooks.
Hiroshima:
First I read an american book recounting the events, sickening, but not quite the same. When I get there the professor leading the tour tells me and Greg. If you were here at the station, you would be on fire. After you hear her, the survivor, you'll want to get the hell out of here. We walked the long way to the monument. Saw the many islands and canals of the beautiful city. The air was fresh. Saw the rebuilt Hiroshima castle. Heard the speech.
Water droplets fall from grey sky, manikens of shredded and dying children, shredded clothes on display. Lumpy juniper trees line the monument. To world peace perhaps, the price paid.
Life is a living hell for the survivor. Gotta make a better world. Peace.
Later at the youth hostel had quite a discussion about the atomic bomb with a couple of guys in the bath, even they had a diversity of opinions. Its clear it was a disaster and war is bad.
Trip to Miyajima, the sacred island in the clouds with a coupl of sprites. Chased, and was chased around by, deer. My fortune read only the best at the shrine. Magical.
The slow train back through steep mountain valleys with red roofed houses and the occasional thatched roof. Onomichi with its boddhisatvas carved into the rockfaces above the old town of crooked streets and wooden houses. Fukuyama, with a castle and some not so tasty fish cakes.
Okayama: with the black crow castle looming over the river in the sunset. And koruakuen one of the three most famous gardens in Japan, a vast and miniature world at the same time. Definitly in winter however. Hidden in a grove deep in the park me and Greg chow down on some kibi dango (soft brown simple mochi that the peach child himself, Momotaro used to make friends with the fox and wolf in order to subdue the demon) to the sound of birdsongs and bamboo trunks clinking together in the wind.
Wara wara. Laugh laugh. Its the name of a bar, it sounds like Walla Walla. So its funny. But who is laughing at or with who?
Later, after return days past...
Hitori de, (alone)
Cold cold spring. Wrote some bad haikus in Japanese as I sit beside and old style building with singed wooden paneling. Swaying lanterns. Tanuki,. Withered trees and blossoms. Mayou. Getting lost. Getting rained on, getting obsessive.
Saw Tanuki Ponpoko Heisei. Its about shapechanging little beasts called Tanuki. They are incredible. And the fact that things can shape change is incredible.
Hiroshima:
First I read an american book recounting the events, sickening, but not quite the same. When I get there the professor leading the tour tells me and Greg. If you were here at the station, you would be on fire. After you hear her, the survivor, you'll want to get the hell out of here. We walked the long way to the monument. Saw the many islands and canals of the beautiful city. The air was fresh. Saw the rebuilt Hiroshima castle. Heard the speech.
Water droplets fall from grey sky, manikens of shredded and dying children, shredded clothes on display. Lumpy juniper trees line the monument. To world peace perhaps, the price paid.
Life is a living hell for the survivor. Gotta make a better world. Peace.
Later at the youth hostel had quite a discussion about the atomic bomb with a couple of guys in the bath, even they had a diversity of opinions. Its clear it was a disaster and war is bad.
Trip to Miyajima, the sacred island in the clouds with a coupl of sprites. Chased, and was chased around by, deer. My fortune read only the best at the shrine. Magical.
The slow train back through steep mountain valleys with red roofed houses and the occasional thatched roof. Onomichi with its boddhisatvas carved into the rockfaces above the old town of crooked streets and wooden houses. Fukuyama, with a castle and some not so tasty fish cakes.
Okayama: with the black crow castle looming over the river in the sunset. And koruakuen one of the three most famous gardens in Japan, a vast and miniature world at the same time. Definitly in winter however. Hidden in a grove deep in the park me and Greg chow down on some kibi dango (soft brown simple mochi that the peach child himself, Momotaro used to make friends with the fox and wolf in order to subdue the demon) to the sound of birdsongs and bamboo trunks clinking together in the wind.
Wara wara. Laugh laugh. Its the name of a bar, it sounds like Walla Walla. So its funny. But who is laughing at or with who?
Later, after return days past...
Hitori de, (alone)
Cold cold spring. Wrote some bad haikus in Japanese as I sit beside and old style building with singed wooden paneling. Swaying lanterns. Tanuki,. Withered trees and blossoms. Mayou. Getting lost. Getting rained on, getting obsessive.
Saw Tanuki Ponpoko Heisei. Its about shapechanging little beasts called Tanuki. They are incredible. And the fact that things can shape change is incredible.
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