Festivals Part 3 – Complete Bollocks

Long Ago and Far Away in Enchanted Lands across the seas lived Kings and Queens, Princes and Princesses, Good Fairies and Wicked Witches, Ferocious Giants and Gentle Dwarfs, Dodgy Priests and Giant Pink Phalluses.

In ancient days, an Aino chieftain of Iwanai went to sea in order to catch sea-lions, taking with him his two sons. They speared a sea-lion, which, however, swam off with the spear sticking in its body. Meanwhile a gale began to blow down from the mountains. The men cut the rope which was fast to the spear. Then their boat floated on. After some time, they reached a beautiful land. When they had reached it, a number of women in fine garments came down from the mountains to the shore. They came bearing a beautiful woman in a litter. Then all the women who had come to the shore returned to the mountains. Only the one in the litter came close to the boat, and spoke thus: "This land is woman-land, It is a land where no men live. It being now spring, and there being something peculiar to this country of mine you shall be taken care of in my house until the autumn; and in the winter you shall become our husbands. The following spring I will send you home. So now do you bear me to my house."

Thereupon the Aino chief and his sons bore the woman in the litter to the mountains. They saw that the country was all like moorland. Then the chieftainess entered the house. There was a room there with a golden netting, like a mosquito-net. The three men were placed inside it. The chieftainess fed them herself. In the day-time numbers of women came in. They sat beside the golden mosquito-net, looking at the men. At nightfall they went home. So gradually it got to be autumn. Then the chieftainess spoke as follows, "As the fall of the leaf has now come, and as there are two vice-chieftainesses besides me, I will send your two sons to them. Yon yourself shall be husband to me." Then two beautiful women came in, and led off the two sons by the hand, while the chieftainess kept the chief for herself.

So the men dwelt there. When spring came, the chieftain's wife spoke thus to him: "We women of this country differ from yours. At the same time as the grass begins to sprout, teeth sprout in our vaginas. So our husbands cannot stay with us. The east wind is our husband. When the east wind blows, we all turn our buttocks towards it, and thus conceive children. Sometimes we bear male children. But these male children are killed and done away with when they become fit to lie with women. For that reason, this is a land which has women only. It is called woman-land. So when, brought by some bad god, you came to this land of mine, there were teeth in my vagina because it was summer, for which reason I did not marry you. But I married you when the teeth fell out. Now, as the teeth are again sprouting in my vagina because spring has come, it is now impossible for us to sleep together. I will send you home tomorrow. So do you tell your sons to come here to-day in order to be ready."

The sons came. The chieftainess stayed in the house. Then, with tears streaming down her face, she spoke thus; "Though it is dangerous, to-night is our last night. Let us sleep together!" Then the man, being much frightened, took a beautiful scabbard in a bag in his bosom, and lay with the woman with this scabbard. The mark of the teeth remained on the scabbard. The next day dawned. Then the man went to his boat, taking his sons with him. The chieftainess wept and spoke thus: "As a fair wind is blowing away from my country, you, if you set sail and sail straight ahead, will be able to reach your home at Iwanai." So then the men entered their boat, and went out to sea. A fair wind was blowing down from the mountains, and they went along under sail. After a time they saw land; they saw the mountains about Iwanai. Going on for a time, they came to the shore of Iwanai. Their wives were wearing widows' caps. So their husbands embraced them. So the story of woman-land was listened to carefully. All the Ainos saw the beautiful scabbard which the chief had used with that woman.

The chieftainess spoke thus: “From this day on, a celebration will be held to celebrate the return of our husbands to us so that we may bear children. But also let it be known that they were unfaithful to us. And should any man be deceitful in this manner to his wife, he shall be punished and his penis bitten off and shown to all men in warning.”

To this day a yearly festival is held in which a large metal phallus in a boat, representing the “safe” return of the chieftain thanks to his scabbard is paraded through the streets along with all the noise making that accompanies a good festivals in Japan.

The metal phallus represents the scabbard that protected the man in the story and shows that he is still virile. It is carried in a boat showing the faithful and safe return of the husbands to their wives, even across great distances.

The pink non metal phallus carried by women shows the punishment that awaits unfaithful husbands. On the day many lollipop like sweets in the shape of a phallus are eaten to again reinforce the message of what will happen to men who stray.

Technorati Tags: festival,penis

A young woman walks alone at the head of the parade wearing the “widow's cap”. It is said that the wives believed their husbands had been taken by the Tengu (the red faced devil) who thus stands between her and any children she might have had represented by the young girls in the white and orange robes.

I have taken the story above from Aino Folk-Tales by Basil Hall Chamberlain. He was an anthropologist who studied the Aino and Japan in the 1880s and collected a series of stories and folk-tales on one of his visits. Modern Aino (also Ainu) live only in the northern island of Hokkaido although it is believed that they once occupied a much larger area of the Japanese mainland until they were gradually forced northwards.

On another note it’s cherry blossom season again and since it is basically illegal to not take a picture of one when they are blooming…

Relax in the evening with a can of…

The drink that’s cheap to buy, easy to drink and only one typo away from being a complete marketing failure*.

*salt

Festivals Part 2 - Setsubun

Setsubun 節分 is the last day of winter in the Japanese calendar, falling on February the 3rd this year. I had heard of the festival before but didn’t know what you actually did until my housemate explained it to me. The first time she explained it she said that we had to run around the house throwing beans at each other. Since I’d never heard of this I thought she was making it up and trying to play a trick on me. It turns out she was joking after all. What actually happens is that someone first puts on an Oni (demon) mask and then they run around the house while everyone else chases after them and throws beans at the demon. As you chase the Oni out of the house you shout Oni ha soto! Fuku ha uchi! (Demon out! Good luck in!). Since there were four of us we teamed up and took turns wearing the masks and throwing beans to purify the house.

After chasing the demons outside and slamming the door you have to eat the same number of beans as your age (obviously not the beans that you’ve just thrown all over the house) for good luck. Next you face a specific direction, this year it was East North East and eat a long roll of sushi all in one go without talking. This meant that the four of us had a very strange evening meal as we ended up staring at the wall in complete silence while eating sushi. However, I am assured good luck and strength for the rest of the year so it was probably worth it.

I much prefer running around throwing beans to carrying massive pieces of heavy wood on my shoulder for several hours. In my book that makes it a good festival to follow and look forward to it again next year.

Demon masks and sushi rolls.

Scary Demons.

Banished Demons.

Festivals Part 1

In Japan festivals are often held in to get the local community together. There are variations, but a common theme is for everyone to make a massive and extremely heavy portable shrine with a heavy wooden frame called a mikoshi. A few street blocks will get together to build one, then meet up with other groups and march through the streets shouting and generally making a lot of noise. It seems that the specific god you carry a shrine for is not really that important as long as the frame and shrine are very very heavy. This is probably so you can show your devotion and willingness to suffer to the shrine’s god. They are really very heavy.

Of course merely carrying them through the streets is much too easy and you must continuously rock it from side to side and bounce it up and down on your shoulders. Since I’m somewhat taller than the average Japanese man I was asked to help at the back with the frame sloping down towards the front slightly. Since there weren’t many others as tall as me I ended up getting my shoulders constantly battered by the frame. At some points the shoulder of the person in front of me wasn’t even touching the frame. Crouching down didn’t work either as it just ended up destroying my thighs. Interestingly having your shoulders repeatedly battered by a chunk of wood in the rain (of course it was raining) doesn’t cause much visible bruising but it does turn the skin on your shoulders rather scaly, which leads to the skin flaking of a few days later. There were a few brief rests to watch some taiko drumming and afterwards there was a small meal provided where everyone has the chance to talk with each other, or just sit there exhausted. But mostly the festival seemed to be about carrying a really heavy thing for several hours. It must be one of those cultural differences.

He’s not even touching it!

Even my shorts are drenched in sweat.

We really didn’t have enough people.

Okinawa Summer Holiday 2013

For my summer holiday this year I went to Okinawa, a chain of islands south of the main islands of Japan leading down to Taiwan that form the Ryukyu islands. The temperature is generally above 20°C all year round and the islands have some of the most abundant coral in the world. Okinawa is also recognised as being the longest lived country in the world with 4 times more people over 100 years old than anywhere else. The island are a popular summer holiday destination for Japanese tourists and great for diving and beach holidays. My friend Martin (the same who brought me my passport at the last minute when I first came to Japan) managed to get a place on a science course at a university there over the summer, which was perfect timing since his course finished the exact same day as my summer holiday started.

On arrival I met Martin at the airport where he had been waiting for 6 hours since he had no idea where our hostel osaru-oyadou (Monkey’s Inn) was; he kindly left the planning up to me then forgot to ask where we were staying. Since I’d forgotten to print a map I didn’t know where the hostel was either except for some vague instructions from Hostelworld.com. But by following those we actually managed to find our hostel by chance just walking along a side road trying to get back to the main road which was on the instructions so it kind of worked out anyway.

On our first day we looked around the city a bit seeing some of the sites such as a Chinese garden that aims to transport you into a world of tranquillity and make you forget you’re in the big city of Naha.

We next went to a rather nice beach in the middle of the city with very hot sand and probably the clearest sea water I’ve ever seen. There was just one tiny problem with the beech, aside from the sand burning your feet; a massive flyover crossing the bay blocking the view out to sea. We came back to this beach on the second day of out holiday after visiting the castle. We had intended to get here around 4 pm just as the sun was starting to go down, but due to us getting up really late to visit the castle we didn’t actually arrive at the beach until about 9 pm when it was already dark. Still not to pass up the opportunity we went for a swim, the water was still very warm and we only got out when we started to get stung by jellyfish, which unfortunately are rather small and hard to see, especially at night.

Next was visited the main shopping street in the middle of Naha called kokusaidori which consisted of mostly souvenir shops and restaurants for the tourists, but also loads of shops with massive models of comic book characters and films. We also saw about 4 different full size Velociraptor  models in different shops on this street. Why they have them or where they even got them from I have no idea but they seem to be popular. Possibly the Okinawans like to display them on their mantelpieces.

For dinner we went to an all you can eat hamburger steak restaurant where I managed to eat enough food for the next day as well as being able to ride on a zebra! Although unlike Europe I don’t think our burgers were made from these particular zebras. (On a side note the Japanese actually eat horse sashimi  (raw meat) known as basashi and it’s readily available in larger cities. It’s very tasty!)

Still within Naha was Shuri Castle, the former palace of the Ryukyu Kingdom and which dates back to the 1300s. However, as I have mentioned before, Japanese castles and temples have a habit of getting burnt down over the centuries and simply rebuilt in the same location, and sure enough Shuri castle’s latest restoration was finished in 1992 which makes it 21 years old! Although there was scaffolding up when we visited so even that 1992 date might be a bit optimistic for what we in Europe would call old. Still it was nice to look around and we arrived just in time to see some traditional dance being performed at the castle.

One of the things that Okinawa is most famous for are Shisa statues which adorn the entrance of pretty much every single building there. Shisa look like a cross between a lion and a dog and are almost always in pairs, one with its mouth open the other with its mouth closed. The open mouthed Shisa is to ward off evil spirits while the closed mouthed Shisa is to keep good spirits in. Back in the shopping street Kokusaidori every other shop was selling these, with hundreds of different models to choose between. Here are the two Shisa guarding Shuji castle.

Our last trip on the mainland was to Churaumi Aquarium the North of the island. The aquarium is one of the largest in the world with a massive tank holding 7,500 cubic metres of water and several whale sharks and manta rays.

After the aquarium we went to Emerald beach for a swim and which is only 5 minutes walk away. I’d somehow managed to forget my goggles in Tokyo so bought a new pair to use at the beach there and later on Zamami island. And it was quite lucky that I did as while chasing a fish underwater I came across a facemask on the sea bed buried under some sand which were perfect for Martin who had also forgotten to bring any goggles. We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming around before having to catch the very early 6pm bus back to Naha and our hostel.

Finally it was time to go to Zamami island. This was the part of the trip I had been most looking forward to. About 30 km to the West of Naha are the Kerama islands and while these don’t quite have the picture perfect white sand beaches you see in postcards of tropical paradises they are pretty close and in addition also have some of the best coral reef and diving areas in the world. To get there we took what I think is the fastest boat I’ve ever been on, which isn’t saying much since the only other boats I’ve been on are ferries to France and some rowing boats in city lakes.

(Click either picture for video, parental advisory explicit lyrics)

On the island we went to the nearest beach and started swimming around. There was absolutely loads of coral and thousands of fish everywhere just a few metres below the surface so that all you need to see everything was a pair of goggles or recently found facemask. Obviously I can’t show you the pictures of the fish as my camera is not waterproof despite it having an underwater setting on it, not quite sure what that’s there actually, but if you should ever be in Okinawa a trip to Zamami and some snorkelling is an absolute must. Since both me and Martin were super organised for the trip we had decided not to bother booking a hostel and just find somewhere to sleep outside for the night. Our first night we spent at an outlook post which had a stunning view of the sunset.

Before we settled down for the night on a large picnic table (actually comfy) we went into the village to look around and find some food. Guess who we met in an izakaya there. None other than Mr Miyage from the karate kid. It turns out he isn’t dead but just running a bar on a tiny Okinawan island.

With an early start the next day…

 

…it was off to a different beach for more snorkelling, lots of fish and some horrendous sunburn, the first of the trip for me . Despite taking more care than usual and putting on loads of sun cream I was still well done by the sun. Unfortunately you just don’t feel the heat while swimming around in the water. We decided to spend a second night on the island and take the ferry back the next afternoon rather than cutting our time on the beach short that day and so we “borrowed” some deck chairs from the beach that one of the tourist companies on the island were renting out and decided to sleep on them for our second night (actually not comfy at all).

My pillow for the night.

The next day we did a little bit of snorkelling in the morning but unfortunately there were rather a lot of tiny jellyfish in the water which made it rather painful, especially on sunburn, then it was back to Naha, a bit of souvenir shopping on the high-street and a final night in osaru-oyado before flying back to Tokyo.

 

I’ve uploaded all of the photos Martin and I took to my Google drive which you can view here. I will take them down after a while as they take up quite a lot of room of my free storage so please feel free to download any you like. If you would like to download all of the pictures they are in a .zip file here.

Parasitastic

Japan is a strange place with some very strange things in it. Today I definitely visited one of the weirder museums not just in Japan but probably the whole world. Since it was raining and cold today I thought a trip to somewhere indoors would nice so of course I visited the world’s only parasite museum (or at least only completely dedicated parasite museum). Not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a great day out but since the rain and wind were washing away the Sakura and making what should be the nicest time of year in Japan a bit damp it seemed like a good idea.

Visiting the museum is probably one of the only times I’ve been glad I can’t yet read Japanese fluently as I’m not sure I want to know what all those parasites would do to me. Not that there is much to say anyway so here are some pictures. Here are some pictures!

A mantis with some worms exploding out of it and some really creepy ant-like things.

A gentleman whose trousers no longer fit and another who no longer has a face, both spread by mosquitos.

A stomach with worms exploding out of it and a mouse with an exploding stomach.

A crab with what looked like really cute furry gloves but which was actually a parasite. Also it looks like I have to watch out for that well known Gnathostomiasis. Not that I can even pronounce it but if I ever see it walking down the street I’ll be well prepared to run away from it.

What pleasures will I beguile you with next time, I’m sure your all looking forward to it. For anyone interested in visiting this weird and intriguing (and free) museum please see here http://www.kiseichu.org/Pages/english.aspx where their website wisely informs you to ‘ Try to think about parasites without a feeling of fear, and take the time to learn about their wonderful world of the Parasites.’

Little Thing Part II

Japan likes vending machines. As I have already noted before they’re everywhere in Japan and very useful during the hot sticky summer months when you could easily be sweating at 0.000025m³·s⁻¹ (i.e. a lot) and the cold winter when you have a long wait for a train and want a hot drink. It may seem that your average vending machine does not and cannot be much improved, they are after all pretty simple and efficient to use; insert money, press button, drink. If you think that then you are wrong. Japan, well known for its technology products has decided that actually the humble vending machine is not modern or snazzy enough for the 21st century and has therefore built new ones with massive touchscreens on them.

Finally, vending machines are released from the shackles of mere buttons and can reach their full potential. Pictures of the products are displayed on the screen and all you have to do is swipe you train card (plastic cash which you could use on the older machines too) or mobile phone, across the scanner and touch the screen, none of this messing around with buttons, oh no. Since there is now a screen available to display images the designers obviously had to come up with a cute mascot that could be shown on the screen when no one is buying anything. Yes, of course the machines can detect when you approach to buy something (there is a little camera above the screen). They will even recommend you a drink based its guess of your age and gender. It recommended me milk tea the other day so I guess it can also racially profile and knew that I was British!

Over Christmas I went looking for some presents and ended up in a store called Loft or at least the store next to it that just joined onto the side but didn’t have a name I could read. They had a great Christmas display in there of a complete model gingerbread village, with a working electric miniature railway.

The sign in the first picture says “Please don’t touch. Please don’t eat” just to remind you not to start munching away at the display. Of course I had to buy one of the kits for baking your own gingerbread house, but because I don’t like cooking, I’ve left that up to my mum, I’m sure she’ll figure out the Japanese instructions.

Keeping with the food theme, here is some tasty frog I ate in a random Japanese drinking bar or izakaya. Not quite believing if it was actually frog and not just something else which happened to be the same word for frog me and my friend had to ask the waiter if it was the frog that goes pyon pyon pyon (the Japanese onomatopoeia for jump, I guess the English would be boing boing boing). It was, and it was also very tasty being a mixture between a fish and a meat flavour. The meat was also very soft rather than chewy as I’d thought. I recommend it if you have the chance and can now add it to my list of weird things eaten.

Oh. Also, a pig in a wig that was walking along the pavement. I don’t know either.