日本のぶんか

This past week, I have had the chance to experience firsthand various bits of Japanese culture, all of which have made me fall even more in love with Japan. I have slowly gotten more and more used to the feeling that no matter where I am or what preventative measures I take, I am always and will always be in someone's way. There are just so many people here: imagine half the population of the entire US being packed into my home state of California, then pushing the landmass out to sea, and you essentially have Japan. But it's just such a magical country, so despite being packed tight as a sardine can, I still find tranquility everywhere I look.

First, there was serenity in playing traditional music on traditional Japanese がっき (instruments). Ariyama-san, all of the CET students' adorable Japanese landlady, hosted an evening of music and food for all of us one night last week after our classes. She invited in two expert musicians to teach us how to play simple melodies and rhythms on three different Japanese instruments. The first was the koto, shown below. I particularly like this picture because it seems to me like Dan here could easily be messing around DJing a turntable, when in fact he's playing the iconic, traditional song, sakura (cherry blossoms), on the koto.

ダンさんはことがひけます

The koto is a thirteen-stringed instrument with moving bridges that you can tune in a variety of ways to produce much of the typical "Japanese" music you might hear in the sushi restaurant nearest you, wherever you happen to be right now.

こと

The Shamisen is a three-stringed lute ornately decorated and traditionally played with a tortoise-shell pick, as shown below.

しゃみせん

きれいな物

Lastly, the san-no-tsuzumi is an hourglass-shaped drum that is only drummed on one side, and is held like the sensei here is demonstrating. It is a deceivingly difficult instrument to play correctly, and even more difficult to play well.

さんのつずみ

Just watching the sensei prepare the instrument to be played was one of those moments when I realized, "Wow, I'm really in Japan right now," and felt honored to be seeing real passion and specialized expertise displayed before my very eyes.

先生

Everything from the way they tenderly warmed the instruments up to the beautiful wrappings they carried them in (shown below is the instrument case for the koto, complete with the obi bow of the kimono) made me feel at peace. And that sentiment particularly surprised me considering a stateside experience I had last year. Michael and I were able to go see a kabuki performance last spring at the Boston Symphony Hall, but were amazed by the way the Eastern music sounded like nails on a chalkboard at times (while even the tuning exercises of the Boston Symphony, who also played that night, sounded sweet) to our Western-tuned ears. Perhaps I'm coming to think of Japan as home, now.

おび

Next came my amazing experience at a Japanese onsen (bathhouse). I'm so very sorry that I do not have any pictures from this particular experience (I'll just include other pictures of mine), but I will do my best to describe my experience (and you can always google onsen to get a better idea of what it was like). But I figured taking touristy shots of naked women bathing would not have been appropriate.

On a lazy weeknight after an exhausting day of Japanese class followed by hours of homework, around 9:30pm our housemates asked if we (the Americans) wanted to go to an onsen. And while I had come to Japan telling myself I would be more spontaneous, we were all sorely tempted to hit the sack a little early. But I am SOO glad that we chose the adventurous route.

We left the house on bike (after discovering for the first time that our bike headlamps (the ones that come with any and every bike you buy in Japan, work with pedal power. Way to be efficient and eco-friendly, Japan!!!), and rode to the onsen with the cool summer night air whipping our faces and waking us up.

じでんしゃのドライブ

The onsen we went to is just in a small strip mall that's near the university, but as soon as you take your shoes off at the threshold (this is Japan afterall), I felt as though I were in Miyazaki's Spirited Away, entering an entirely different world inside this tiny bathhouse. In the entrance area, there were counters of food, massage chairs, ticket machines, and indoor fruit stands... everything told the American in me to CONSUME, but we quickly bought our tickets and moved on into the second locker room (women only), where our roommates urged in Japanese to "Take off all your clothes," because apparently we were being too timid in our American towels. It took a good while to get over the fact that I was now entirely naked with not only my roommates, but a good hundred other random strangers. But by the time we entered the first bath, it seemed sincerely mundane and natural. The hot water soothed my tired muscles, and we had fun experiencing the jet bubbles, which come not only from the walls in the tiled bath, but also from the floor of the bath as well. What I did not like, however, was the section of the bath that sends electrical waves through your body, which is supposedly good for you, but feels really unnatural and temporarily numbed my body from the waist down.

りっぱなえ

The next bath was a honey and peach-scented outdoor stone bath with waterfalls all around the sides. The water was a murky green color that was not particularly comforting to inspect too closely, but the warm water (it was cooler than the initial bath) was heavenly, so I couldn't stay weirded out for long. There were small wooden tubs just big enough for one. When you climbed in to one of those, you displaced the water over the top, until you plopped down and let the running faucet quickly refill it to the brim around you. There was a Cleopatran milk powder bath that made my skin silky smooth. There was a body conforming jet-tub that was essentially a full-body massage chair in jacuzzi-form. There were several tatami mats where one could sit under the Osakan night sky cooling off from all the hot water, and eventually we went inside to use the shower section, where you squat on a tiny plastic chair in front of a mirror vanity and rinse yourself off, shampoo, condition, and wash before re-entering the bath area whenever you like. There was a sauna, where I honestly thought I would die for the 30 seconds I managed to sit for. I remember seeing 80 degrees on the thermometer, feeling the air physically burning my lungs everytime I inhaled, and thinking "I don't know much about Celcius measurements other than if you have a 40 degree fever, you're dead (a random standard I've remembered since I got sick in France 6 years ago), so this is twice dead,"and promptly leaving. Then there was my personal favorite area: a granite stone slab laid flat on the ground with about a quarter-of-an-inch deep running hot water. I laid down and could have easily stayed there all night, looking up at the seam where the wooden covering met the night sky. It was so relaxing. And once I was done there, I went inside, and entered the final bath, a 20 degree celcius (yikes it was cold) rinsing bath, which took a lot of courage to relax in for a minute.

Thoroughly refreshed, we got redressed and blow-dried our hair before biking in the wind back home. That night was my best night of sleep in Japan yet, and I just can't wait to go try more onsen now. I'm fairly sure that going to bathhouses is a new favorite hobby of mine.

Another new favorite hobby: going to Japanese temples and shrines. Part of my homework for my Japanese class over last weekend was to go out and talk to strangers (and then write about it), so I chose to go explore on my new bike. I wound up in a neighborhood near the university, where I stumbled upon this Buddhist temple, and talked to the monk there for a good fifteen minutes.

お寺の人

お寺のどう物

At that point, I decided that I would also like to go see a Shinto Shrine to compare and contrast. I went to the Kishibe shrine, and wound up talking to an old man about shrines. He told me exactly what people do at the shrines, so then I went to try it myself. 

First, you wash your hands with these little cups you see pictured here, then you rinse out your mouth, too, to purify yourself before speaking with the gods. 

あらうところ

はじめてじんじゃに来ました

You approach the shrine itself...

じんじゃ

...which totally seems like a place gods would want to hang out...

かみところ

...and generally looks something like this...

きしべじんじゃ

You take out a 1, 5, or 10 yen coin, and deposit it in the box as an offering.

一円を入れます

Then you ring this gourd-like bell by shaking the large rope connected to it.

かみにかんしゃをします

And finally you bow twice with your hands pressed together, then you clap twice, and bow once more to say thank you to the gods. Witnessing the Buddhist and Shinto religious rituals is definitely something I'm really looking forward to do more of this semester, and it was a really interesting first time for me at a Shinto Shrine. Overall, though, as you can see, I'm experiencing Japanese culture more and more firsthand every day. Keep it coming, Japan, because I'm loving every minute of it.

Just a heads up, I have a special blog post ready for you sometime this weekend. I'll be showing you another equally important part of the culture I'm experiencing: FOOD!!!