Arty-choke

The bi-annual Design Festa at the Tokyo Big Site Centre in sunny Odaiba is the biggest art & design festival in South East Asia. Kudos to Hayley for getting involved as a photographer and interviewer of some of the thousands of artists showcased last weekend. There was so much to see, possibly too much, hence the frankly unforgiveable title of this entry.

The first day kicked off with a performance by Kogakusyu-sho whose combination of piano, Taiko and some other drum (creating a sound reminiscent of The Bad Plus) thundered through the Asgardian acoustics of the Big Site (described by Brian, who joined us for the second day as "an utterly wanton waste of vertical space"), like a troupe of concrete rhinos in a rush. I was a hairs breadth away from buying a CD, so impressed was I by the sonic onslaught...but then they reminded me why I'm turned off a great deal of Japanese pop...to call upon an earlier entry, Japanese pop is, by and large, a saccharine tapestary of unremitting cheese.



Disciplines were many, from pottery to painting, design, music, dance, fashion, crafts, make-up, digital projections, performance art...too much. By the end of the second day I was still coming across new things to see, and I spent about sixteen hours wandering around.

Some work was, sadly, unphotographable, due in part to my skills as a photographer, but also display space. I wish, for example, that I'd managed to get a photo of this delightful womans' work, but the weekend wasn't without its' gems.



The Design Festa Gallary in sunny Harajuku will display anybodys' work, so the Festa was mostly made up of independant artists, but organisations such as Digital Hollywood, apparently, a famous graphics school and representatives of sundry studios were present, but the stars of the whole event, as far as I was concerned, were Hanakengo. Click the picture and follow the directions to see them in all their glory.

For those of you as perplexed as I, their website might provide some invaluable insights...but then again, it may not.



For those of you who don't recognise him, that's Taiwans' Mr Eyeball (possibly related to The Residents), momentarily caught off-guard before his performance...



...which made about as much sense as Hanakengo, but was very entertaining non the less.

Too much to see, too much to write about, like giant bubble making machines...



...sinister Finnish jewellery...



...sentient spermatozoa...



...apples with faces...



...old men carving...



...puppets of old men drawing...



...forbidden Library books...



...green fabric boxes on wheels that lure children into some unexpected peril...



...it's enough to make you just...



...and who can blame them? They must have been dancing for about sixteen hours.

When you're tired of Japan, you're tired of rice

I've been here for roughly seven months and seventeen days. I haven't written anything about the food yet. Rest assured, I am still me.

In keeping with Shinto values of harmony and purity, the Japanese diet depends a great deal on the seasons and the quality and freshness of the ingredients. Technical jiggery-pokery of rice aside, I think this attitude towards freshness is what makes Japanese sushi much tastier than that which I've encountered in Blighty. I'd be prepared to lay money on it being a reason why fruit and veg are so expensive here. Another possible explanation for the high price of greens is that what little workable farmland there is in Japan is mostly given over to rice. Rice yields more per unit of land than any other crop and so, in many ways, has formed the backbone of the empire. They can be quite nationalistic about their rice, sometimes proclaiming that it's the best rice in the world. I'll admit it's tasty, but you can't make a risotto with it.

The Japanese do a great deal of importing - from what I can gather, the indigenous diet mainly consists of rice, daikon radish, sundry mushrooms including shiitake (not pronounced "shite ache"), soy beans and fish. Shinto's spirit of harmony has created an assimilative culture - many "Japanese" dishes come from other parts of the world. Yaki Niku (cook your own meat) for example, is Korean in origin. The practice of frying food is, apparently, owed to China, and even Tempura, variously depicted as shrimp or vegetables deep fried in a thin batter, was introduced by the Portuguese Jesuits. I've asked some Japanese people what a typically Japanese (ie, with no external influences) meal consists of. Rice has been the first word on their lips. Everything else is merely an accompaniment; fish, maybe some lotus root...then they tend to trail off embarrassedly.

They're great believers in the natural flavour of food, hence their partiality to raw fish. Sauces are usually served as dipping condiments in separate dishes, and rarely mixed. My method of throwing anything I can find in a big pan and cooking it for hours at a time hasn't been expressed here, although I've found solace in Miso Udon - udon noodles cooked in miso soup, miso paste being a preserve of grain, salt and soybeans. Soybean jam is often the centre of Japanese deserts, wrapped in a parcel or ball made of ground rice, formed into a paste...yummy, sticky, fat and really healthy.

Regional variations of dishes are marked, but all local cuisines are represented in Tokyo and Osaka, the latter being the nations culinary capital. Osaka Takoyaki (octopus in balls of batter) and Okonomiyaki (savoury pancake made with cabbage and a variety of other ingredients, the name meaning "cook it as you like it") are considered the finest in Japan, although my beer addled brain chose to forget this gem of a factoid whilst I was actually there (sorry Matt). Kyoto is home to a variation of the aforementioned bean jam and rice cake, the rice parcel folded into a neat little triangle and coloured green, maybe with seaweed.

In the introduction to the edition of “Naked Lunch” that I’ve read, William Burroughs explains the term as the moment when you look at what’s on your fork (or nestling between your chopsticks) and suddenly realise what it is, where it’s come from and it’s relation to you. I’ve experienced the very antithesis of this several times since coming here, often looking at what I’m eating and thinking “what exactly is this?” I know that Surusuru is made with tofu, natto, raw egg, seaweed and…some bizarre white gloopy substance that generally befuddles me. It’s nice, but utterly impossible to eat with chopsticks. Natto itself is a classic weird bit of food - it’s fermented soy beans. If you can get over the fact that it looks like snot and smells like feet, it’s quite tasty, but again, eating it with chopsticks is an uphill struggle. Natto is almost a point of victory for the students when we’re talking about Japanese food and my enthusiasm for it - when we finally get to Natto and I confess that I’m not keen on it, I can almost hear them thinking “Ha-ha, we are inscrutable.” Despite the surface ickyness, Natto is one of the healthiest foods known to humanity. Japanese food as a whole is incredibly healthy, contributing greatly to their longevity and the resultant density of population...although the lack of habitable space probably has something to do with that also.

This next bit isn't for the faint hearted...

The expression “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse” is beautifully (or grotesquely) realised here - Lyle, another ALT, has told me about a place where you can ride horses in a lovely paddock, and finish up your day with a horse burger. I'm curious about eating horse, but as of yet, I've not tried it, and as for whale, I've only eaten it once - it's very expensive (you'd think they were endangered). My eating ethics have undergone a drastic shift over the past few years anyway, but more so since I came here - I’m not sure I would have eaten whale if I’d been told what it was beforehand, but since eating it and finding it to be incomprehensibly tasty, it’s made me re-reconsider a few issues. Lyle didn’t partake of horse burger, and I quite understand that - in the English speaking world we’re not brought up to consider these animals as food. The idea of a nice fat Sunday roast would be anathema to Hindus the world over.

I've heard stories about restaurants where you can eat tentacles cut from a live octopus. The fact that the twitching suckers attach themselves to your tongue is considered part of the taste experience There are places where you can eat whole fish, still wriggling. Now that's fresh. I’ve eaten whole (dead) fish since I’ve been here. Yes, their eyes were removed, but tuna heads are quite popular in Japan, the eyes being "the best bit". Whilst on that whale-munchin' night out with the Rinko staff, I partook of sashimi squid - this isn’t slices of squid lovingly laid out on a shiso leaf; this is a whole, albeit small, squid, complete with eyes and internal organs. There is nothing quite so alarming as the sensation of squirting squid guts when you’re not expecting it. Or when you're adventurously practicing your reading in a yaki niku restaurant and get served a dish of intestines. Even some Japanese people find that just a bit weird.

Love Japanese food as I do, they aren't really that into ovens...right now I am salivating at the mere thought of a baked potato with beans and cheese...mmmm...roll on Christmas.

Onomatopoeia? You must be barking

Convinced as I am that my mobile phone is a Satanic Contractual necessity, I tend to ignore it until the end of the day (except when the bastard wakes me up...and when I want to know what the weather is...or train times...whatever). The other week, a teacher from one of my schools was constantly trying to get in touch with me, but I was never noticing until it was far too late to call back. Finally, he got through to me, and whatever emergency that required my attention could be laid to rest...

...one of the students wanted to know how to spell "yuck"...

"Onomatopoeia" - The formation or use of words such as "buzz" or "murmur" that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.

This formation is subjective depending on the way your culture hears these sounds. For example, dogs in Japan don`t say "Woof" - they say "Wan". This has come up in lessons once or twice, and I`ve been asked to demonstrate what the English dog utters. The result has me, temporarily driven mad by the sheer absurdity of it all, barking in front of forty-odd students.

Funnily enough, although it`s to be expected, I`ve been listening to local dogs recently...sounds more like "wan" every time...

There`s more besides - dogs seem to have the monopoly here, saying "kian kian" (when puppies), "gari gari" (when biting) and "paku paku" (when gnawing bones). That`s another interesting thing, if you consider the etymology of Pac Man (also, so I`ve heard, based on a Japanese {and Native American} folk tale about a massive head that rolls around eating stuff...but I`m having a hard time verifying that).

Ahem...cats say "nyaa nyaa" or goro goro (when purring); mice, "chu chu"; ducks, "ga ga"; pigs, "bu bu" (the Japanese for "pig" is "buta"); bees, "boon"; birds, "pi" or "piyoo" and frogs, "kero kero"

Interesting stuff, although I`ve yet to be convinced of the academic validity of the correct pronunciation of "woof".

For a pretty good list of animal noises around the world, why not check my source?

Halloween

The annual Halloween parade is probably the biggest event in Kawasaki apart from the Cock Festival. Be-costumed freaks and Techno in the streets was the order of the day.







Some of the effort put in was astounding...









...as was the turnout...







...complete with band...



...and those who are just too cool for school...



The costumes were judged by a panel of similarly festooned characters, presided over by a bear in a pumpkin.



We didn`t see the individual winners, but the group category award was picked up by a collective of traditional Japanese beasties, the most notable of whom was a young lady dressed as a Kappa.

Kappas are water demons, resembling a turtle that walks on two legs, complete with beak, bird feet and a dish of water on its head that gives the creature supernatural powers & weakens it should it spill. Kappas like cucumbers, Sumo Wrestling and removing peoples intestines through their anuses.

I read a story about a Kappa and a Priest in a book of tales translated for Victorian children (I`m sure the original versions wouldn`t have described every other garment as "quaint"). On his pilgramage, the Priest comes a cropper with a Kappa. Thankfully he has a number of cucumbers in his pouch, so he manages to satisfy the creature enough to earn its mercy & hear its story. Apparently, the only reason the Kappa pulls peoples guts out through their arses is because it wishes to be a human, and resents people for being what it desires. To top it all off, the Kappa is immensely sad and lonely. As befits a Buddhist, the Priest tactfully points out that if the Kappa didn`t kill people it would probably have more friends and it would stand a good chance of being reborn as a human. The Kappa has a sulk at this and the Priest goes on his way. Years later, after thinking about what was said to him, the Kappa decides to visit the local village he has been terrorising in an effort to make peace. Unfortunately, countless rectal eviscerations have left the villagers a little sceptical, so they stone the fellow to death. The Kappa didn`t put up any resistance, and once the deed was done, the villagers felt remorseful and built a shrine in his memory. This shrine is later visited by the Priest, who hears the villagers story. Although he is sad that the Kappa died in such a manner, he is happy that it will probably be reincarnated as a human.

"The Japanese ghost is a thing of the summer..." writes the appropriately named Tim Screech. Whilst Western ghosts are invoked through an already creepy atmosphere, the abandoned house, the creaky stair, Japanese ghosts are of "...the tangled bedclothes or the broken fan...spawned of steamy weather, squeezed out, as if in some fetid moment from other things."

The Japanese word for Ghost, Obake, literally means "changing thing". Everyday, routine objects are capable of breeding Obake. Recent Japanese Horror films such as Ringu and One Missed Call describe such haunted objects, a video and mobile phone. (Funnily enough, a great many of these films have been remade by Hollywood, although if the American rendition of The Ring is anything to go by, I suggest you check out the originals. Japanese horror is a much subtler fish, relying on a slight shift in the mood of the mundane, rather than a CGI onslaught of teeth, roaring and gore)

These changes in everyday objects can be harmless or amusing, like an umbrella Obake, in possesion of one eye, a rolling tongue and a foot for hopping, but others are far more sinister...

In the Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan (ghost story of Tokaido Yotsuya) an unfaithful samurai poisons his sick wife, Oiwa, over an affair fabricated to save his reputation. Administered as a medicine, the poison disfigures her horribly and kills her pretty much instantly. The Samurai goes to tell his mistress what has happened, when he is greeted by his dead wife in the street. Panicking, he beheads her, only to discover that he has actually beheaded his mistress. In a state of shock, he runs to his mistresses father, only to be met by his dead wife again. He draws his sword and strikes her down, only to discover he has killed his mistresses father. He flees to a shack in the mountains, where he is tormented by images of Oiwa coming from lanterns or the fire, until he goes mad and kills himself.

The scary thing about Obake is that they, like Ghosts, turn our perceptions of the world upside down. Damnable phenomena like these illustrate that our world isn`t as solid and immutable as we like to think it is.

Although Obake can refer to anything that is just a little bit strange, they can be roughly split into three categories. Oni, Demons or Ogres are probablythe most solid, famously guarding the various Buddhist Hells or being vanquished by sundry folk heroes. Yokai comprise all manner of weird beasties, including the Kappa, Mount Kuramas` Tengu and the Rokurokubi, a female monster with a very long and flexible neck, otherwise indistinguishable from other women. Then there`s the Yurei, amongst whom Oiwa and The Rings` Sadako might be counted. According to Shinto beliefs, all people are endowed with a soul or Reikon. Should a person die in an unexpected or emotional state, the Reikon stays behind, as if it had more work to do, whether it`s revenge, setting a reputation straight or receiving a proper burial. Sound familiar? Another feature of Yurei is their absence of legs. Like the Western Ghost, they float, unnconnected from but still present in the world. It`s interesting that two non-existent phenomena from opposite ends of the planet should have such features in common.

Hearty cap-doffing to Tim Screech, Professor of Japanese Art History at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London for his really interesting article that formed the bulk of this entry. Points I have tried to raise above are better made therein.