I've long harbored a desire to be a new member of the Beastie Boys, and while driving through Naha I thought I'd found my chance when I saw: Black Candy, Beastie Shop. Unfortunately it has nothing to do with the Beastie Boys and everything to do with Japanese fighting beetles! These were some of the coolest looking bugs I've ever seen, and they were hundreds and hundreds of dollars! Every year in the mainland there is a big tournament where the kids can have their beetles wrestle. Apparently these tournaments are a source of financial loss for many in the Ryukyus.
The other thing I saw here recently that I know I won't see in the U.S. any time soon was this: This is the paper place mat that comes on the food tray your given at MOS Burger. MOS is like a WholeFoods-meets-McDonalds kind of fast food chain. If you click on the image and look closely you will see that not only are there all sorts of trivia questions on this mat, but there's even a geometry problem. I was so embarassed at my complete lack of ability in mathletics.
We went to the Onna Glass Factory on 58 in Onna-son and I've got photos to show it!
Okinawa is known for its beach glass, Ryukyuan glass I think I've heard it called. In any touristy-shop worth its sea salt you should find at least 10 pieces of glass made here in the Okinawa. I'm not totally fluent in communicating the aesthetics of glass but I can tell you how I understand Ryukyuan glass, which is to say it seems to be generally rustic but the master glass makers here also create amazing sculptures and abstract compositions - way better than Chihuly's stuff that was all over Atlanta for so long.
A lot of the glass I see here is pretty playful, which was what I was hoping to be able to get when we went to the shop. Word to the wise, bring a friend that can communicate in Japanese because there are a number of things you can do at the shop. When you arrive you are greeted by what looks like the gift shop, but is actually the staging area for your experience. Throughout this room are glass works in different shapes and colors and dimensions. The size and color largely determine the cost of the glass making experience.
I chose blue because it's cheap and also because that's the color I think of most when I think Okinawa. I chose to make one that was pretty playful and really not much bigger than a standard "rocks" glass at a bar. It had several divets put into it that accomodated my fingers nicely - ergonomic, but not nerdy; relaxed. Shinpai shinai de, ii sa! Which is the most complicated thing I can say in Uchinaguchi (the indigenous Okinawan language), it means, basically, don't worry, everything will be okay. That's what this cup told me.
So, you walk in and you realize just how committed you have to be to the artform to do this in Okinawa: it's crazy hot in the factory! Crazy hot. This was another one of many experiences I've had here in Okinawa where I am allowed to do really UNSAFE things with minimal concern. Like walking around these blast furnaces wearing shorts and flip flops. But don't worry, you really can't hurt yourself because you will be surrounded by, like, a dozen people. Sometimes I felt like I was being corralled by the artisans, bringing a depth of meaning to the old phrase, "like a bull in a china shop." After you've gone through the several steps for making your piece, they put the glass into a furnace that is less hot than where it can slowly cool over the next 12 hours or so. This way it doesn't shatter. You can pick it up from them the next day.
The week before the 沖縄全島エイサまつり (All-Island Eisa Festival) we drove down to Kannondo Temple to receive a blessing for our upcoming performance and to show proper filial piety to our ancestors.
Japan is not a religious place, in the sense that Westerners mean it, in fact, when Admiral Perry forced Japan to surrender its ports to Western ships he demanded that the Japanese also allow the traders to establish churches as they pleased and that freedom of religion by enacted. The Japanese had no idea what he meant, and so they had to create a word that meant religion in the sens that Westerners meant. To this day the Japanese do not believe themselves to be religious at all, but you will see nearly all Japanese people visiting Shinto shrines, praying in Buddhist temples, and even having Christian wedding ceremonies (albeit Christian in the most "Walt Disney Presents" manner, replete with Cinderella-Princess dress). That's because religion in the Western sense means a way of seeing the world that assumes that there is this world and then there is the more real, more perfect, Heavenly world where God(s) live.
In Japan, as most of East Asia, there is no other world in which you might find something divine. This world is perfectible according to the perfection of practices, i.e. meditation, chanting, etc. And so, when you visit Japan, you will see the red torii gates, the shimenawa (the hemp ropes tied around trees), the zig-zag paper called shide. You will see Buddhist temples and monks walking the streets in the morning silently asking for alms. And the history of Japan is a history of feuding Buddhist temples, of the Imperial Appropriation of Shinto for the justification of becoming a Colonial power (thanks to the Japanese being forced open they came to the West and realized they needed some of that opiate of the masses to get the common folk to die en masse for the Emperor just like the Pope in the Middle Ages).
But Okinawa is not Japanese in this way. Okinawa has a long tradition of women shamans that acted as mediums between a world of the dead and the forces of life and death. More prominently over the past several hundred years, the Ryukyu Kingdom ("Okinawa" before becoming a colony of Japan) looked almost completely to the great power in the region for the past millenia, China. From China the Ryukyuans learned statecraft, which meant they learned Confucianism. Confucianism holds as a central tenet the veneration of those that came before us, our ancestors; and this resonated with the (now) Okinawans. So into Confucianism were the Ryukyuans that the Chinese gave as a symbol of affection a plaque to hang above Shuruijo (the castle where the Ryukyuan Emperor lived) that says this is the land of perfected propriety, which is a high honor in the Confucian worldview.
And so the Okinawans never really built many Shinto shrines or Buddhist temples. When the Japanese formally colonized Okinawa in the 19th century they brought with them a real need for a Buddhist temple, but the only place that colonizing Japanese would want to live in this (to their minds at that time) backward place was the capital, Naha. And so today we have Kannondo* Temple where Conan the Praying Dog lives. *Kannon is the Japanese name for the Chinese Guan Yin, or the Sanskrit Avalokitesvara, do just means (the/a/on) "path of-"
Kannondo is a Zen sect (apparently, according to the world news reports) and I am not surprised by this praying dog business because there is a classic Zen parable where a monk asked Master Joshu (as he is known in Japan):
"If there is no world beyond this one (no heavenly, or Nirvana state - Nirvana being a Hindu belief), then everything must be of the same nature as the Buddha. Do dogs have Buddha-nature?" To which Joshu answered, "Mu," which is a negation but also not a negation. This is a very famous koan that Zen students must consider as they develop their understanding of the Zen path. So, of course, Kannondo next to Shuri Castle will have a dog that prays, why not?
The monk who watches out for Conan (who is named, apparently, after Sir Conan Arthur Doyle, not the Barbarian, or Mr. O'Brian), was super nice to us and in exchange for translating a letter he received in English from someone in India, he gave us some nice postcards which I will be sending out soon.
Here's the graphic evidence, you're moment of Zen, if you will:
So last week was Obon, like a Japanese Dia De Los Muertos, where the spirits of our ancestors return to us and we offer them food and drink and entertainment.
The offerings go on the family altar, usually some fruit and some rice (this is when you put your chopsticks in the rice sticking up), a glass of water and/or some sake (or awamori in our case).
The entertainment?
Eisa, of course.
We live in Okinawa City, which boasts the best Eisa teams in the country; so each section of the city (Goya, Takahara, Awase, etc.) has a team that goes through the neighboroods playing during Obon.
I was working on the last blog when I heard something, I opened the window and this is what I saw:
I grabbed my wife, who was recording another gorgeous song, and we ran downstairs to find the dancers. And what do you know? They came to us!
These teams rely on the patronage of the neighborhoods, so they will come around with a collections box. We live next to a conbini (convenience store) so we bought them a 6-pack of beer and a few liters of water and gave them Y1000 (we're not sure what we're supposed to give so this seemed to cover all the bases).
So, what happens when two Eisa teams meet while doing the rounds? Well, they have to battle, of course.
The two teams will face off where both teams have to try to maintain the rhythm (because although the songs are the same name, each group has a slight variation of the traditionals). If someone on your team gets off beat you lose and your whole team has to get out of the way and let the others through. To determine this a crowd is really necessary and so the teams really try hard to avoid heavily trafficked areas unless they think that they are rock-solid.
We went to the Goya neighborhood (near Koza Music Town) because we heard that the two best teams in Okinawa, Goya and Senda (spelling?), have a tradition on the last night of Obon of squaring off. On the way we saw these folks:
So, we went down to Yonabaru to witness the 400 year old tradition of an all-city tug of war. I really wanted to see the big rope (that takes a year to make) and just take some pictures, maybe have a beer and that would be it, really. But I was wrong. It was much more than that.
First off, any where I go I will be singled-out and subsequently press-ganged into the affair. That's what I get for being 6'6" and so gaijin. (There's this one guy that renounced his American citizenship and has been writing editorials for years now in the Japanese newspapers about how unfairly he's treated in Japan for not being Japanese (looking). But, maybe I've been here for too short a time, I always feel welcome wherever I go in Okinawa and I can barely say, "my name is Paul, sorry my Japanese is so poor.") But I've digressed....
Yeah, just as I'm watching the guy giving the instructions on how to do this whole tug o' war thing (I had assumed this was a practiced team I was looking at), then I'm told that I need to put on this hachimaki (head band) and go pick up the rope for the parade through town.
I felt bad because the guy they paired me with was nearly a foot shorter than I and so he really couldn't carry the rope with me. There I am in the hot, hot sun in this procession with this enormous rope. The rope's so big that there are people standing on it, dressed in ancient ceremonial garb. All I can think is, "great, this guy's gonna get killed 'cause I drop the rope or I'm making the rope tilt too much." Meanwhile there are all these photographers and tourists coming up and taking pictures of this giant white guy carrying the rope being followed by a much smaller, slightly embarrassed Okinawan.
We get there and I'm freaked out: there are hundreds of people there waiting around and I know that we are to drop the rope by dropping the heavy logs that we've had propped on our shoulders to carry this enormous rope. I know that I have to be careful because they are going to throw the logs backwards (toward me) and then we are to start pulling as quickly and as hard as we can.
Somehow they are able (I still don't understand even though I was right there in the front) to thread the two loops together and then, completely by surprise to me, they start tossing the logs over their shoulders. I'm wearing flip flops and there are really big logs being thrown at me and I'm being bumrushed by the villagers as we being this all city tug o' war. I'm sorry there are no photos or videos of this singular experience, I am happy to report that I was not injured nor did I lose my flip flops. We won the first one, I didn't realize there would be a second one (including picking up the rope and threading them together again - even getting the people back up there on the rope!) and so the second one I was wiped out. But it's good because both sides got to win.
Then the second competition really gets going. Each side has a couple of standards on long poles with flowers. The musicians and dancers get everyone all frenzied up and the two sides see who can endure hoisting their standard up the longest. Crazy site.
At the end everyone takes a bit of the rope and puts it up at home or their business for goodluck for the next year.
We got some waters and drove to the 10,000 Eisa Dancers Parade in nearby Naha and that was pretty awesome. Then we went to an Okinawan restaurant and we ate the yummies like goya champaru (stirfried bitter melon with tofu) and mimiga (the skin of pig's ears), and listened to a guy play sanshin and sing the Okinawan standards, like "Haisai Ojisan (Hey Uncle)" and "Shima No Uta (Island Music)" and then we topped it off with my new favorite desert - Okinawan Zenzai, but that's another blog posting in itself. Before returning to our homes we made a night time visit to Shuri Jo, the ancient capital of the Ryukyu Kingdom. It was a beautiful site, all lit up at night.
So, my wife and I and some folks from the lab are participating in an EISA team and we've been practicing for about a month or so... and it rules.
This weekend we went down to (Yonabaru first, but that's the very next blog) Naha to see the end of the 10,000 Eisa dancers parade.
Eisa seems to have derived its name from a Buddhist chant and is celebrated at the end of the Obon festival as a "one last hurrah" for the ancestors. More at wikipedia.
So the original Eisa dances would have looked something like this:
This team is from Uruma City, where we work.
Okinawa has, over the last century, been developing a more and more energetic dance:
The central region of Okinawa Honto (the main Island) is really renowned for their Eisa teams, and so I feel really honored to represent Okinawa City in the Zento (All-Island) Eisa Festival at the end of August.
Typically the Eisa team will have the sanshin players and singers, big drummers (that's what I'm practicing), the smaller drums, dancers (female and male dances are slightly different), and then a clown-like character that whips everyone into a frenzy. We feel fortunate to be able to participate as usually women are not allowed to play drums and this is really more of a young man's event - oh, and usually no gaijin.
Where we practice is in an old folk's home and I really enjoy getting to practice in front of them because they get all jazzed up and start clapping and singing and I really feel like I'm participating in a deeper human community. I feel honored to welcome their ancestors for one last dance until they come next year. Even more profoundly, sometimes, I feel trusted, a deep trust that is easy to overlook maybe. Some of these folks can't leave their rooms, so they sit up in their beds and they dance and sing and clap. Maybe they will be the ancestors that will come next year during Obon. On the opposite of the spectrum, though are these little kids running around, also practicing these dances and the cycle is just really moving. That's when I feel the strongest need to show my ki-ai that's what all the shouting is about: it's the bellowing of the living, it's a connecting of the heart and the body and mind in an affirmative SAH and I feel so much more alive and grateful for that gift.
In my confucian studies I've come to understand that truth means something different, perhaps more, in a confucian world. What is true is behaving in a way that is true to those who have come before you (those you learn the Eisa dance from) and behaving in a way that can be trusted by those to come (the kids who watch us and practice what we do). And these practices really deeply resonate with me on this level, I feel like this is the most concrete expression of that definition of performative truth; and I feel more convinced that this is the notion of truth that more people should come to know and express.
So today I went to work and that was alright. But then things got fun-ner:
After work we headed up the hill to the Goya area of Okinawa City where we had our second practice with the Gaijin Eisa team. We're really delighted to be able to participate in this oh-so-Okinawan tradition because for the most part you're not allowed to dance Eisa after the age of 25. We will be performing at the end of August as part of a really large Okinawa City Eisa Festival. Here are some photos: Then we met up with Miyagi-san and had Yaginiku, goat meat soup. The Japanese used to eat a lot of goat meat, but since the end of World War II this meat has been replaced steadily by beef. It's still eaten in some places, including Okinawa. Part of the reason goat meat has lost its favor is because goat meat has a pretty strong smell. That said, you can put some fresh mugwort in the soup and that not only adds a nice flavor it also changes the aroma a bit. The belief is that goat meat will reinvigorate the consumer and is to be eaten after strenuous activity. And I gotta say I did feel pretty jazzed up afterwards. After a delicious bowl of goat soup with the mugwort and ginger and awamori hot sauce I knew I had to try it, goat sashimi: I'm not sure how well you can see from this picture, but there are two cuts of goat sashimi here. There were a very few cuts that were a deep red, almost purple, very thinly sliced and were heavenly. My favorite, though, had to be the thick cut from the back of the goat which still had the skin on it, nice and thick. What an amazing texture! It was like eating a celery stalk made of goat meat - incredible and three totally different experiences.
Usually your told not to drink anything cold with the goat meat as it can be pretty fatty and there is a fear that drinking cold liquids will congeal the fat and give you a bad stomach ache - so usually you drink hot tea with it. But this taste experience lacked one thing. That's right, wasabi ice cream. We went to Gelo Bello and saw that they have a new exhibit, this time from Dr. Cue. We watched some Spongebob Squarepants and called it a night.
Okinawa is the bull fighting capital of Japan. Who knew? It's not like in Europe, with matadors bleeding the bull to death. Here it's more like sumo wrestling (they even purify the ring with thrown rice), or maybe more like bull arm wrestling. Here's the beginning of the first match:
So, basically, the bulls are brought into the ring, and brought to face the other bull and then they should lock horns and start to wrasslin' and for the most part that's what happened. Although in this clip all that happened was the other bull got too afraid and was led out of the ring.
But, in the third round one of the handlers lost control of the bull and it was gored by its opponent and that was pretty sad to see happen. The bulls are for the most part spoiled rotten by their owners and so I'm sure the bull will be fine, but it was hard not to feel a little bad for him, 'cause I'm sure that it hurts like hell.
So, about 2,500 years ago in China there began this festival of racing boats across a river. This has become part of the annual Summer Harvest rituals of East Asia since antiquity. The tradition comes to Okinawa by way of China, with whom the Okinawans have strongly identified over centuries of trade, but that's another post.
The point is: Every year on the Lunar calendar 5/5, East Asia celebrates this festival. In Okinawa they call it a Haari, others call it Matsuri, I call it fun. Before the race can begin the village assembles at the village shrine (where their ancestors dwell) and ask for them to join in the celebration, then they play drums and walk to the harbor's kami (something like a spirit) shrine and ask for favorable conditions and their influence to get a really good race going. Then a costumed group goes out into the water to show how its done:
Our Institute is currently building an amazing facility in Onna Village and to be good neighbors we entered two teams (one boys and one girls) for the race. This race is not so much about having a bunch of strong folks as much as having a tightly synchronized group.
The men did really well, but there were some really great mens teams out there. The women's team did even better than the men's but, were just 4 seconds short of the finals. We didn't win the cup (made of Ryukyu Glass, of course) filled with Orion beer. But we did win two gorgeous fish, and we promptly ate them as sashimi and in a soup at the after party.
My co-workers and I went to Ryukyu Mura, which is like a traditional Okinawan Village Themepark. Before being called Okinawa by the Japanese, these islands were called Ryukyu. They were an independent, but poor, kingdom which had its golden age a couple hundred years ago when it was trading freely with China, Korea, Japan, and most of South East Asia. The Japanese conquered Okinawa in the late 19th century and has been slowly eliminating the indigenous culture since then. This village presents a Disney-fied version of what is "Traditional Ryukyuan" living. That said, I highly recommend visiting here, because it's a beautiful park and it's a lot of fun. Especially when they start doing the traditional dances, etc.
The Okinawans don't think of themselves as Japanese, they have a very unique culture that is a blend of indigenous ways of being and heavy influences from both Japan and China. Champuru, mixed, culture. Here you can see the influence of Chinese dragon dances, brought to Okinawa you get something a little different:
When the Japanese conquered the Ryukyus, they forcibly disarmed the population. Prior to this, there had been Okinawan samurai-warrior-types. From this the Okinawans developed the martial art system, Karate, which means "empty hand." In order to teach this deadly art, the Okinawans had to find ways to make it seem like they weren't doing anything particularly lethal, like dancing. If you watch in these videos carefully you will see that these dances are also very much like the movements that you learn in karate:
Here is a bit of the Eisa dance, which is pretty rousing:
No party is done in Okinawa until everyone dances as a group. This is when the really giant gaijin (not-Japanese), me, was picked out of the crowd and had to dance with everyone:
Our organization, in a sign of community affection, is entering this year's haari (Dragon Boat Race) in Onna-son. But I'm not entirely sure how we'll fare in the competition. Largely this concern comes from my total lack of dragon boat experience, and I think you can see that in these photos: not really sure how to hold the paddle, exhibit A exhibit B (although, to be fair, these folks were much better than we were)
The picture in the masthead I took when I first visited Okinawa in 2007 and I didn't really know much other than these lion/dogs were a traditional Okinawan decoration/amulet. They are everywhere: at intersections at bridges (this is leaving Ikei Island) Entrances (this is from Ocean Expo Park) this one is at the entrance to the Peace Park's Peace Museum.
The story of the shisa is a really interesting one and I suggest you read more at this wikipedia entry.
This is Starbucks Japan's newest product offering. It looks kinda like a Frappuccino, but there's something weird going on in the bottom, right?
According to their website it's, "a jelly-filled cup of Frappuccino fun." I worked for about 7 years at Starbucks before and during my college years and so I had to try this.
My initial hope was that it would be like a Frappuccino and bubble tea, y'know? I love Frappuccinos (that's how I ended up working at Starbucks, oh the magic of the Rhumba Frappuccino) and I love taro bubble tea - put the two together, it must be delicious, yeah?
Well, the jelly is exactly that. I was hoping this was an artifact of translation (since I've yet to learn what you call those "bubbles" or "pearls" in bubble tea in English) and was really not prepared for the coffee jelly. They scoop it into the drink and then add Frappuccino to it. The jelly is not very sweet, and that's a good thing because the Frappuccinos are terribly sweet.
For those of you wondering about Japanese cuisine, this drink is a great entry point. The Japanese love texture, seemingly above all else. That's why you can have a beautiful-looking meal and bite into it and realize it's cold (which is what happened one morning when I ordered the French breakfast at a lovely hotel here). The point is not that the flavors together enhance one another - unlike in Chinese cooking or in Italian sauce making - but that each ingredient really speak for itself and being brought together it is aesthetically-pleasing.
The site, then, of what is good and beautiful in Japanese food is not primarily in the mouth. Or maybe more true, the palate is not so simply localized and instead exists throughout the body in a manner that we simply don't understand as Westerners on first encounter (we've yet to develop our palate). This lack of refinement is already known when the Japanese deal with Westerners, that's why we can completely blunder our social interactions - they have the same attitude of permissiveness when they raise their children. But, at some point, just as with Japanese children, we will be expected to start behaving properly and demonstrating our cultivation of what it means to be Japanese, their mores, their language (verbal and nonverbal). This social sense of who we are, I would argue, is fundamentally more of an aesthetic ordering than what we in the West are expected to demonstrate as we become who we are.
The Japanese prefer personal seals (sometimes they are called inkan, other times they are called hanko - I'm not sure why the two names) over what they feel are easy-to-forge signatures. There is some flexibility for gaijin on this matter, though. You can establish a bank account, a cellphone contract, even a lease with your signature, but there's a caveat: If you start an account with an inkan/hanko, you are forever bound to using that same stamp for the term of your account (no signing one month and stamping another), so don't lose your inkan!
You can buy inkan in many places and there are inkan stores that will make a seal to your specifications, typically in less than a week. It seems that if yours is a Western name, it's likely you will get an inkan that is in romaji (the alphabet), I am guessing that all others will have their names transliterated into katakana (the Japanese syllabary). Here are some examples of inkans/hankos: This is from the ANA Visa people and it's the organization's official seal. This is from the Roshi (Abbot), Fukushima, of the Tofukuji monastery there are several seals on this fan.
You should only use your inkan for official documents, don't go slapping it on any old thing (which was my first impulse). For that, you use an unofficial stamp (again you can buy these all over the place), they are called sanmonban. You use sanmonban for signing for packages, maybe as a neat little embellishment to a letter to your buddies back home, whatever.
Here's an informal stamp that I use: It says "Po-Ru" which is the transliteration into katakana of my name.
To register your inkan you must go to City Hall (near Koza here in Okinawa City) and present your gaijin card and pay some money. In Okinawa City you receive a Hibiscus Card (like a credit card) which is used to further verify your address. Here's where in City Hall you go to register (also the same window to get a gaijin card, by the way): You go to the window there, don't worry, they speak English, and tell them what you'd like to do. They will ask for your identification and Hibiscus Card and then tell you how many tickets to purchase: I guess it wouldn't be right to give the municipal authorities money outright, so they have this ticket system in place. You put your money into a vending machine next to the window and select the tickets you want and then present the tickets you've purchased to the office clerks. You'll notice that you rarely just put money into someone's hands in Japan.
Uruma City is the bullfighting capital of Japan, and it's the immediate eastern neighbor of Okinawa City. We work in Uruma City, which is where I saw this manhole cover: Then, on the way to Ike Island (also part of the Uruma City district), I saw this man brushing his huge bull on the side of the highway: He's going to be fighting on the 31st of March. But the bull fights are a little different here, instead of being killed my matadors, they buck-up against other bulls, maybe like sumo wrestlers? They try to knock each other out of the ring, I guess. I'll be sure to fill you in!
Okay, so this post will have very little to do with Okinawa in particular, except that I became aware of this subject while wandering through Best Denki and saw a game show that featured it.
Cormorant Fishing is an ancient art that is still practiced in Japan. The master trains the birds to live with people, wear a "leash" of sorts, catch and throw-up large fish for the master fisherman. Pretty cool.
But, while reading today's edition of The Japan Times online I came across a great English-based blog "The Blog from Another Dimension" and a posting entitled "Cormorant 0, Fish 1" here and learned that instincts ain't all that great. (SPOILER WARNING: obviously, from the title, the bird doesn't get the fish; better still, the bird dies trying to eat the fish! You gotta see it to believe it.)
And then, at the bottom of that page, in the comments section, a link to an article posted by the BBC wherein pythons, not indigenous to Florida, are just as avaricious as the above cormorants. The snake ate an alligator, and exploded. Here.
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