Use of Books

Keiko went to see her parents a few days ago. They had lunch together and enjoyed talking about various things, e.g., politics, religions, and books. During the lunch, Keiko's father proudly said that he had got a present from her mom, i.e., two books worth 110,000 yen or about 1,100 dollars. He had found them at a book store in Jimbo-cho and thought their prices reasonable. He is a retiree and often goes to Jimbo-cho, a place famous for used or old book stores to find books about histories of piracy. He's been collecting such books and now has dozens of them. The two books are both about a history of piracy in some regions of Japan, but according to a friend of hers, who often buys books on the internet, are sold at 40,000 yen. Keiko asked her father if he had read these books. He said no. So, she asked him why he bought so many books that he didn't read them. His answer is "to read them some day." Keiko, who is a heavy Kindle device user and is not interested in physically owning books, can't understand what is so fun about collecting something without using them.

Funny Things About Words - Miyamoto Takahashi and a Good Luck

I watched "CSI: Cyber" yesterday. The episode was about the death of teenage boy and girl and one of the suspects was their Asian classmate named "Miyamoto Takahashi." It sounds very strange to me, because Miyamoto and Takahashi are both typical Japanese last names. I also was surprised that this name had been overlooked. Any Japanese, even a kid, would say this is strange. On the same day, I read "Nihonjin no eigo (i.e., English as it is commonly produced by native-speakers of Japanese under the influence of that native language)" by Mark Petersen, a professor at Meiji University in Japan. In the book, he wrote about his experience about a beer tagline "Yebisu, Legendary Character, Brings You a Good Luck" As an English teacher, he was disappointed when seeing it for the first time, but glad to see it changed to "Yebisu, Legendary Character, Brings You Good Luck" a few years later.  Yes, "a" was deleted.

These reminded of me that I am a Japanese native-speaker, because I still have a strange feeling about "Miyamoto Takahashi," but not about "a good luck."

Japanese Sweets - Senbei

I bought senbei at Matsuzaki Senbei on B1 of the Ginza Matsuya Department Store. Senbei (煎餅) is a Japanese rice cracker and comes in various shapes, sizes, and flavors, usually savory but sometimes sweet. I got sweet ones because the pictures on them were so cute. From the top left, "an umbrella (meaning the rainy season to come)," "something green and something brown (see below for a meaning)," "a cherry blossom (meaning spring)" and "an iris flower (which blooms from late April to early May)." I didn't know what it was about the second one, so I asked. The answer was "ayu or early summer sweetfish (which is famous for a seasonal delicacy in Kyoto)." Although I preferred savory senbei to sweet ones when I was younger, this has changed. If you like a butter flavor or more greasy sweets, senbei may not be fatty enough, but it definitely is a simple-tasted and filling Japanese granny made cookie.   

Reasons for Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment is a hot issue across the world and Japan is not an exception. As I wrote in another post, Junichi Fukuda, the top bureaucrat of the Finance Ministry, resigned over a scandal which is now famous for the remark "Can I touch your boobs?” He still didn't understand that what he had done was wrong. Another man didn't understand it, either. Seeing female diet members holding #Me Too sings, LDP lawmaker Takashi Nagao said that they didn't have to worry about being sexually harassed because he would never harass them. One more example. A female reporter interviewed about Fukuda said that she hadn't been asked if he could touch her boobs, but had been told that she couldn't get married because "you know why."

So, why does sexual harassment occur? The following are possible reasons:
(1) They don't think it wrong, because they have something mentally wrong with them or are not intelligent enough to understand human rights;
(2) They know sexual harassment is wrong, but are not intelligent enough to understand that sexual harassment "is said" to be wrong and can't imagine that doing sexual harassment would ruin their career;
(3) They know sexual harassment is wrong, but think it's not a big deal because everyone does it. 
(4) They are aliens.

They should be fired anyway. 

Automatic Translation of a Dirty Word

While working as a translator, Sachiko, a friend of mine, hired a British woman, "Ms. B," as a proofreader for her team. Ms. B is fluent in Japanese and her job was to proofread documents translated by Sachiko's team members into English. Ms. B often came late and failed to correct spelling and grammatical mistakes. But her biggest problem was she never admitted to making such failures. Ms. J, a translator of Sachiko's team, is a Japanese woman. As she spent many years in an English spoken country, she was fluent in English.

One day, Ms. J asked Ms. B to proofread her translation and send it back in an hour, which, Ms. J thought, was enough for Ms. B to proofread it, considering her high quality translation. Thirty minutes later, the document hadn't come back. Forty minutes later, the document still hadn't been back. And when one hour had passed, Ms. J started to peek at Ms. B. Seventy minutes later, she finally received the proofread translation. She reviewed and sent it back to the client and reported the completion of the task to Sachiko. But after that, she didn't go back to her work. Instead, she went to Ms. B's place and told her to keep the deadline. Ms. B, being proud of her own proofreading ability, said that she couldn't make it because of the poor quality of the translation, to which Ms. J talked back and it went on and on.....Sachiko had to step in. 

A few minutes later, Ms. J was back to her place when Sachiko heard Ms. B saying "iya na onna." It was a murmur, but clear enough for Sachiko to hear. It literally means "an obnoxious woman," but in Sachiko's brain, was translated automatically to "bxxxh!" Sachiko turned around and found, thank God, that Ms. J hadn't heard it. Sachiko sometimes remembers this, but still believes that the translation of "iya na onna" to "bxxxx" was correct.

Japanese Sweets - Carp Streamer Sweets

On April 20, I went to the Ginza Mitsukoshi Department Store in Tokyo and bought carp streamer shaped sweets. If you can't imagine what it's like, please see the photo. I make it a rule to buy seasonal sweets and so, when finding these cute wagashi at Tsuruya Yoshinobu, I had no hesitation to buy one.  

May 5 is the Children's Day and we put koinobori (meaning carp streamers), i.e., carp-shaped windsocks, in a garden. It is difficult to put real ones in Tokyo, but we have smaller ones for indoor decoration. The origin of the tradition is unclear, but this date used to be for only boys and still is mainly for boys. (Girls have another day March 3 [Doll's Festival Day], though it's not a national holiday.)

The sweet, named "satsuki bare (fine day in May)," is white bean paste and gyuhi (i.e., sweet mochi) wrapped with a skin made from flour, eggs, water, etc. The taste of beans is a little gentler because of the use of white, not red beans for the paste. Also, as I didn't know mochi was used, the chewy and gummy mochi texture gave me a happy surprise. You can get this sweet for only a limited period (mid April to May 5). Its cute appearance, taste of white bean paste, and mochi chewy texture deserves 3.5 stars. I deducted 0.5 star because it had no seasonal flavor, such as mugwort, cherry or oak, but it's not to blame for it. The seasonal sweet is perfect in itself. 

Dirty Old Men Doing Sexual Harassment

A couple in their sixties lives two doors away. The husband, after retiring from one of the ministries, works for a private company, while the wife is a dedicated homemaker. He told me that I looked younger after having a hair cut and it's not once or twice, but more. I was uncomfortable. He might not mean to offend me, but still I don't like it. And that is why I don't like him. His attitude toward construction workers or delivery staff is different from that toward condo residents. He listens to my husband, but not to me. His wife is often waiting for him at the outside entrance porch to welcome him on his way home and I suspect that this is what she is told to do by you-know-whom. (Otherwise, how come does a wife often or possibly everyday wait outside to welcome her husband coming home?) I call him secretly "sekhara oyaji (a dirty old man doing sexual harassment)." I'm pretty sure that he was referred to the current company by the ministry based on the so-called "amakudari" system, i.e., descending with a golden parachute from a government official position into an executive of a private company to bring about bid-rigging or price-fixing projects for the company. He looks unhappy these days, but has got what he deserved.       

Sexual harassment is rampant across the globe and in Japan, Mr. Junichi Fukuda, the top bureaucrat of the Finance Ministry, has quit over a sexual harassment scandal. (By the way, his case is much worse as he said to a female reporter “can I touch your boobs?”) He also has got what he deserved. For details, please go to: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180418/p2g/00m/0fp/089000c.   

Head Understands but not Heart

Sachiko, a friend of mine, used to work as an interpreter for an American company and interpreted for the management which mainly consisted of non-Japanese speakers. As an in-house interpreter, she was generally requested to translate communications between native and non-native English speakers using the so-called "whispering" technique. This skill is the same as simultaneous translation, but one aspect, i.e., no script is given to the interpreter. (Yes, simultaneous interpreters are usually given transcripts beforehand.) That is why this technique is often used for business which usually can't have scripts, but has to deal with things on the spot, such as project or management meetings. Speed is so important that "whispering" interpreters have to translate like a machine as if they were not there.

At that time, Sachiko was engaged in a project and a man was invited from the U.S. for the project. He was an American, but originally a Cuban, with one problem. He used dirty words, i.e., sxxx and fxxx. They were not supposed to be used even back then, but were used much more casually than now. Sachiko didn't interpret these words first, but Japanese staff, although being unable to understand other parts, caught these words and asked her to interpret them. They were not offended. They knew the meaning and enjoyed having the first-hand experience of hearing these words. The speaker and the listeners were both non-English speakers. Sachiko always says that understanding something in the head and in the heart is different.

Japanese Sweets - Why Kashiwa Mochi on Children's Day?

On April 13, 2018, I bought kashiwa mochi, a seasonal rice cake delicacy, at Minamoto Kichoan on B1 of at the Ginza Matsuya Department Store. Kashiwa mochi is a Japanese traditional sweet wrapped in a kashiwa, i.e., oak, leaf, eaten on the Children's Day (i.e., May 5) to hope the continuity of the family. The tradition started during the Edo period based on the fact that oak leaves don't fall until the new ones come out. I got two types of kashiwa mochi, one is with koshian, i.e., red bean paste whose texture is smooth because the paste is sifted to remove bean skins, in it and the other is with tsubuan, i.e., red bean paste whose bean texture is more perceptible because the paste is not sifted. Surprisingly, the confectionery has outlets in not only Japan, but also the U.S., the U.K., and other Asian countries. So, if you can buy this mochi sweet in Japan or somewhere else on around May 5, the Children's Day, I recommend eating it to enjoy the flavor of a fresh oak leaf. The size of the sweet varies between confectioneries and those I bought were a little smaller, but their taste was worth four stars.

A Mystery Solved - Rampo Edogawa and Hanns Heinz Ewers

I have been reading "50 Mystery and Detective works you should read." This nearly 10,000 page book is 162 Japanese yen or about 1.5 US dollars (as of the date of this post) and contains dozens of mystery and suspense stories around the world translated into English. It is good for reading before bed. Last week, I started to read one of them, "The Spider (1915)" by Hanns Heinz Ewers. I didn't know the author. Starting to read for a few minutes, however, I felt like deja vu and realized that a long time ago I had read a very similar story by Rampo Edogawa (1894 - 1965), "Doctor Mera's Mysterious Crimes (1931)." Rampo Edogawa, the father of the Japanese modern mystery, is one of the most famous Japanese suspense and mystery authors. He admired Edgar Allan Poe so much that he made his pseudonym sound like Poe. For details, please go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edogawa_Ranpo. 

The plot of these two stories is almost the same, but the tone and mood of the two stories is different. A psychological entanglement in "The Spider" between a man and a woman does not exist in this Rampo's story. Instead, the fear of imitation is more emphasized. Rampo admitted that it had been based on The Spider. There is no secret about it. But I am still amazed at this discovery and understood why I, who was a child being interested only in western mysteries, was so thrilled by the story. A mystery has been solved.

People Who Can't Think - Japan Sumo Accociation

A Japanese sports commentator Mr. Seijun Ninomiya said last week as follows: "There are two types of stupid persons. One is those who can't do what is told to do and the other those who do only what is told to do." The referees and staff members of the Japan Sumo Association who told female nurses resuscitating a man who collapsed in a ring to leave the ring are the latter. They did so because the rule said so. I wrote about it in another post "A Demand to the Sumo Association." The association apologized saying that these remarks were not intended to discriminate women. But if this were true, the incident would not happened. Some say that they are not responsible, as barring women from sumo rings is a tradition. But if so, what is the tradition for? According to the Japanese Britannica dictionary, a tradition ("dento" in Japanese) means cultural forms or attitudes, such as ideas, art, social customs, technology, which are passed on or given to the next generations. So, the right question is whether or not the Sumo Association's attitude toward women be passed on to the next generations. The answer is no, because what should be passed on is not what was passed on, but what we think should give to our children and grandchildren. Recently, however, the meaning of "traditions" has changed to the repetition of what was done without thinking. This made me think that "inability to think," a phenomenon indicated by Hannah Arendt in “Eichmann in Jerusalem," is still rampant and shiver with the existence of evil anywhere.  

A Case of Suicide - Mr. Susumu Nishibe

It was found that a conservative commentator Mr. Susumu Nishibe, who was believed to have killed himself in January this year (2018), had actually been helped by two friends in his suicide.

Japanese Sweets - Yomogi Mochi & Domyoji

On April 6, 2018, I bought two types of Japanese sweets at B1 of the Ginza Matsuya Department Store in Tokyo. One is yomogi mochi (the green ones on the left) and the other domyoji (the pink ones on the right). Both are seasonal and colorful Japanese sweet delicacies. 

Yomogi mochi (green ones):
This mochi sweet is made from rice powder, water, sugar, anko (sweet bean paste) and Japanese mugwort. The mugwort's deep and fresh green color jumps into your eyes and its flavor brings you spring. The texture is soft and smooth. I bought them at Kanou Shoujuan (叶匠壽庵), a Japanese confectionery in the Shiga prefecture, next to Kyoto, but you can buy its sweets across Japan.     
 
Domyoji (pink ones):
This is also a spring sweet delicacy. It is made from rice powder, water, sugar and anko (sweet bean paste), and is wrapped with a pickled cherry leaf, which creates a harmonious contrast between sweetness and saltiness. Also, as the particle size of the rice powder is larger than that of yomogi mochi, you can enjoy more strongly the texture of rice. I bought them at Mosuke Dango (茂助だんご). It has only three stores in Japan and all of them are in Tokyo; two in Tsukiji, which is famous for a fish market, and the Ginza Matsuya Department Store. 

I would give them four stars. It means a perfect score because I save five stars for something special. If you have a chance to come to Japan, buy them. They won't fail you.     

A Demand to the Japan Sumo Association

On April 4, 2018, women trying to give emergency treatment to a man who collapsed in a sumo ring was urged to leave the ring because sumo rings are sacred and therefore women are not allowed to enter them. Please go to https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180405_04/ or other websites for details.

It's appalling and I don't know what to say. A man collapses before you. He may die. Several women are resuscitating him by providing emergency medical treatment, but are told to step down from the ring because a sumo ring is sacred and women are not allowed to enter it....... The Japan Sumo Association apologized. But for what and to whom?

Whether or not women should be allowed to enter a sumo ring has been discussed for a long time since at least 1990 when the then chief cabinet secretary, Ms. Mayumi Moriyama, was barred from giving sumo trophies to wrestlers in the ring because she is a woman. I remember this and felt angry, but let it go. I hate discriminatory treatment against women, but I also understood that sumo was a traditional sport and it would take time to change the culture. But this time, the issue is life or death. Which is more important between a man's life or the outdated tradition? What would the person(s) telling the women to stop saving a man's life have done if he had died? Isn't is an attempted murder or at least a manslaughter? It is obvious that the sumo culture is not only outdated but also wrong.

This incident and the Takanohana scandal both suggest that the Japanese sumo world is rotten to the core and among other things, they seem to have forgotten the most important thing, i.e., sumo is one of the most loved Japanese traditions. Are we okay that in the sumo world, just a rule is more important than people's life?

Chairperson Hakkaku, please find the person(s) who made such stupid and discriminatory remarks which potentially may have killed a man and more severely punish them than you did to Takanohana. The gravity of this incident is much more greater than that of the Takanohana scandal.    

Spinach

My dad and mom met through a matchmaker. They fell in love and at the third or fourth date, mom went to his home to see his parents, and brother and sister. They all welcomed her with a traditional Japanese feast. The feast included ohitashi, a Japanese traditional spinach salad or boiled spinach with soy sauce on it. Mom had a problem. Until then she had never had such ohitashi. At her home, ohitashi was boiled spinach with Worcestershire sauce. My maternal grandma was born in San Paulo and grew there until coming back to Japan when she was eight. She liked ham, cheese, bread and coffee, and preferred Worcestershire sauce to soy sauce. It was a historic change for my mom, but she couldn't say so and has adopted the Japanese way since marriage. And more than ten years later, she talked about that cultural shock for the first time to me. I was ten years old. My mom has never complained about it but I suspect that she may sometimes want to have boiled spinach in grandma's way. My grandmothers both died more than five years ago. They were born in different places, one in Japan and the other in Brazil, but both worked hard and loved their children and grandchildren. They lived the prewar and postwar periods. I sometimes remember them these days. I don't know why.