Yokohama Chukagai: Adventures in Japan’s Chinatown
Posted: January 29, 2012 Filed under: Japan, Taoism, Travel | Tags: Chinatown, Yokohama Leave a comment »On the same time I visited Sojiji Temple with “Johnl”, we had some time left over, but not enough to visit another temple, so John led me to Yokohama’s famous Chinatown called chūkagai (中華街). The name basically just means “China street” in Japanese, because 中華 is a commonly used word in Japanese to describe Chinese things such as Chinese food (chūryōri 中華料理) and so on, even though the name of China itself has changed many times over the years.
Anyway, Chukagai is fairly different in many ways to Shin Okubo and the Koreatown there. Where Shin-Okubo is kind of hip owing to the KPop craze, Chukagai has more of a traditional “Chinese” feel without the benefit of a pop-culture fad.1 However, it was also somewhat different than other “Chinatown” districts I’ve seen in Seattle, San Francisco and Vancouver, and I think this has to do with the less contentious history of immigration to Japan. Because Chinese immigrants suffered a lot of discrimination when they came to Western countries, the neighborhoods were neglected and relegated to undesirable parts of the city, while the experience in Japan seems to have been relatively smoother even during the Imperial era. Thus, Chukagai felt a lot friendlier and less intimidating than the Chinatowns I had seen in Seattle and Vancouver in particular, and certainly a lot safer.2
Chukagai is near Yokohama Bay and is pretty easy to miss if you don’t know where to look. We walked past a lot of old Western-style buildings until we noticed this gate:
Once you go past this gate, things change quite a bit. It’s like a hidden world inside of Yokohama’s business district:
As I said before, a lot of buildings have the more traditional (touristy) Chinese look, and it was interesting to hear people speaking Japanese but with a noticeable Chinese accent. We had already eating at Mos Burger, so we just picked up a nikuman instead:
Nikuman is short for “niku manju” I believe and is variation on Chinese-style buns, which often have vegetarian options too such as taro root rather than meat. After we ate, we took a left from the main street and came to a back alley:
…which led to this temple:
This temple, named Kanteibyō (関帝廟）, is a famous temple in Chukagai devoted to none other than the famous general Guan Yu, referred to as Guan Di Miao there. Most Westerners might recognize Guan Yu from the famous 16th century novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, or at least the computer games based off it, but in fact Guan Yu is a deeply loved character in Chinese culture. I’ve read elsewhere that many people pray to him in certain fields, such as police officers in Hong Kong. Either way, the temple and Guan Yu have served to unite the people of Chukagai for generations, and it was probably the first Chinese-style I’ve ever seen anyway. Quite a treat, really.
If you step through the gates you see this small shrine here:
I couldn’t take pictures of the main shrine just behind it, but it was pretty awesome. The temple is an interesting fusion of Japanese religious culture and Chinese religious culture. The grilled donation-boxes were very Japanese, but the incense sticks were larger and thicker and more Chinese style. Also, I overheard a tour-guide explaining to visitors that you were supposed to 3 incense sticks at a time, whereas at Japanese temples, it is usually only one.
The inner shrine, which you can see on the temple website by clicking on the blue cloud in the picture twice, also was quite interesting, and another fusion of Japanese-Chinese culture. It was bright red and adorned with a lot of gold color. You can see General Guan Yu there in the middle, with a deep red face and long beard, which is how he is often depicted in Chinese culture. The layout of the room though looked somewhat more similar to what I’ve seen in Japanese Buddhist temples, and to the right there is a statue of Kannon Bodhisattva, who is highly revered in both China/Japan among many other places.
You can also see me here ringing the gong near the entrance like a total tourist:
Thankfully a lot of us were doing it, so I didn’t feel too silly.
Suffice to say, I enjoyed the temple quite a bit. We lingered for a while in the area, buying up some good Chinese tea before we headed to the nearest train station, Motomachi-Chukagai, which looks really cool on the inside:
The high, rounded roof above is something I usually don’t see in train stations in Japan.
Yokohama is interesting in general because of its fusion of Chinese, Japanese and Western culture, but Chukagai in particular was a pretty cool place to visit, and certain worth a visit. As with Shin-Okubo, it’s really interesting to see how a major ethnic minority has adapted and thrived within Japanese society.
Thanks again, John!
P.S. Next post will be on my visit to Fukugawa, and meeting reader “Marcus” for the first time. 
1 That didn’t stop any shops at Chukagai from selling KPop stuff though. I found that really amusing. If there’s profit to be made, someone will find a way. :p
2 The point here isn’t to criticize the Chinese communities there, but to point out that history hasn’t been kind to them.
You’re Not Getting Any Younger
Posted: January 26, 2012 Filed under: Buddhism, Health, Religion, Zen | Tags: Aging Leave a comment »Recently I found this old comic from Sinfest,1 and wanted to talk about it here.
The Buddha described the “Four Sufferings” (or “stresses” as I like to call them) in his first sermon:
- Birth is stress (as a parent, I understand this now after watching my daughter being born)
- Old Age is stress
- Disease is stress (we all know this one)
- Death is stress
Old Age is the worst in some ways. It’s very slow, drawn out and leads to increased chances of disease and death. Someone who’s healthy and robust at 30, may discover at 60 they have colon cancer, or succumb to pneumonia like my wife’s family neighbor did recently. Or as in the case of my late grandfather, dementia slowly sets in, and one simply becomes more and more feeble until one finally wastes away.
But even if we know in our minds that we’re getting older and it’s unavoidable, it still frightens us deep down. That’s really part of something very fundamental to our identity, our sense of self. Or rather, our illusion of self.
I remember a quote from Rev. Fujiwara in his book “What is Zen?” (reviewed here) where he describes the night of the Buddha’s enlightenment like so:
It began to dawn on Shakyamuni that the right way to live is to accept the four sufferings and live our this life one has received to the fullest. And in this fashion, Shakyamuni’s meditation gradually deepened.
But then he noticed a negative energy arising from the depths of his being that refused to accept the four sufferings. He discovered that desire, the refusal to accept the four sufferings as a part of life, was actually the cause of the four sufferings. He recognized a kind of negative energy underlying and controlling that desire, a primal, dark force that could not be dealt with by reason or intellect. That primal darkness is ignorance, or mumyō (無明).
Shakyamuni went on to continue to explore the self. The self that was controlled by the powerful force of ignorance could not be the true self. He concluded that without conquering this fundamental ignorance, it was impossible to accept the facts of birth, aging, sickness and death and liberate the mind.
This is very much how one might feel about their own mortality. We know logically it will happen, but our deeper, primal self will still resist it when we least expect it. And that “hidden” self is our fundamental ignorance, the root of our problems.
Getting old and dying is perfectly natural, but our behavior toward it is something worth observing and learning from.
Namu Shaka Nyorai
1 For those who may not be familiar, the character in the 4th panel is the Devil. In the Sinfest comic, the main character, often sells his soul to the Devil to get things
Rethinking the Imperial House of Japan
Posted: January 25, 2012 Filed under: Japan, Politics | Tags: Emperor, Imperial Family Leave a comment »The Japan Times recently had an interesting article about the Imperial Family of Japan, and how the current law has made the family so small, that there are very few heirs left. The Imperial Household Law of 1947 (Kōshitsu Tenpan 皇室典範) greatly streamlined the size of the family to only immediate relatives. Previously, the Imperial Family, like many royal houses in the past, had various collateral houses called ōke (王家), which had branched off from the Imperial family in the past. These houses also intermarried with the Fujiwara clan so much that the two families became very closely integrated.
Nevertheless, in 1947, the American Occupation insisted that the Imperial family be reduced because of its influence in Imperial times and WWII, and thus the law took effect. However, it seems the law may have worked too well as the existing Imperial family has had very few male heirs. Emperor Akihito has two sons: Prince Naruhito (the current heir) and Prince Akishino. But Prince Naruhito only has one child, a daughter (Prince Aiko, affectionately called “Aiko-sama”), while Prince Akishino has one son, Prince Hisahito. So, currently 3 males heirs exist and two of them are already middle-aged.
So, as the article shows, Prince Akishino who is the 2nd son of the current Emperor Akihito, is suggesting the law be updated especially as the health of Emperor Akihito is declining. The law was promulgated by the Japanese Diet, and so only the Diet can change it, but among the ideas suggested:
- A mandatory retirement age for Emperors. In the old days, the throne changed pretty often, and sometimes ex-Emperors went into retirement but exerted lots of control, but with the benefit of being free from the obligations of the throne. These were called insei (院政) or “cloistered Emperors”. By the time of the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the rules were changed, the throne was maintained until death, so the 20th century only had 4 Emperors total (Meiji, Taisho, Showa and the current Emperor).
- Allow women to maintain Imperial status even after marriage so that the Imperial family could start new collateral houses. In the old Imperial custom, women lost their Imperial status after being married (usually marrying members of the Fujiwara clan), and even today Princesses routinely renounce the throne as they get married. This tradition predates the 1947 law. A few women, who were unmarried, became Empresses but usually as a placeholder until a male heir was decided on. The one major exception was Empress Suiko who reigned during Prince Shotoku and Soga no Umako. I’ve been meaning to write about here one of these days. She was interesting.
Speaking as someone who’s not Japanese, I have little opinion on the subject (I have no right to speak about it anyway), but I thought the article was interesting.
P.S. Blog mis-fire #2 today. ;p
Sound Shifts in Korean Language
Posted: January 25, 2012 Filed under: Japanese, Korean, Language | Tags: Hangeul Leave a comment »Since I started studying Korean alongside Japanese, I noticed some similarities. However, I’ve also noticed some differences. One of them is sound-shifts. Japanese has comparatively few, while Korean has a lot, and it affects how words are read. This is a little reference post I wrote to remind myself and other language students of the sound shifts, using a Japanese-langauge textbook on Korean I bought a few weeks ago. As I write in the conclusion, it seems to explain things a lot more easily than trying to explain it in English because the languages are similar.
Anyhow, for example, the formal polite word for “to be” is 입니다. If you read it literally, it looks like ipnida, but in fact it’s read and pronounced as imnida (an ‘m’ sound, not a ‘p’). This is due to the complex way the different Korean letters affect each other, and how sounds have evolved over time in Korean language, while keeping their original spelling. Thankfully though the rules are pretty consistent. This post is to cover the common rules so that Korean can be read more easily. If you’re not comfortable with Hangeul, the Korean alphabet, this page is a good primer.
Hangeul Structure
Hangeul letters have consonants and vowels like English. For folks who studied Japanese previously,1 these are called ko-on 子音 and bo-on 母音 respectively.
Anyway, Hangeul uses the consonants and vowels to create “blocks” of sound called jamo (자모) like 마 (“ma” or “m” + “a”), 도 (“do” or “d” + “o”) and so on. Many jamo will also have a final consonant too called the batchim (받침) or pacchimu (パッチム) in Japanese-language texts on Korean. For the jamo above, adding ㄴ (called “nieun” but acts like “n”), you can make jamo like 만 (“man”, m + a + n) and 돈 (“don”, d + o + n). This point is really important.
Also, there is a placeholder letter called ㅇ which is silent at the beginning or “ng” if the final consonant. It’s needed because all jamo have to start with a consonant, so it helps keep this rule consistent. So, you can make a jamo like 안 (“an”) and although the ㅇ isn’t pronounced, the structure stays consistent with the rules of Hangeul.
Sound Shifts in Korean
Here are 7 rules for sound-shifts in Korean:
Rule 1: softened sounds
Many consonants will soften their sound if they’re inside a word, as opposed to the beginning or end (batchim). In the revised-romanization system, the letter is still written the same, but pronunciation softens:
- ㄱ has a “k” sound at the beginning or end of the word, and “g” sound in the middle.
- ㅂ has a “p” sound at the beginning or end of the word, and “b” sound in the middle.
- ㄷ has a “t” sound at the beginning or end of the word, and “d” sound in the middle.
- ㅈ has a “ch” sound at the beginning or end of the word, and “j” sound in the middle.
The example used in my Japanese textbook is that 주소 or “address” is pronounced like chuso while 소주 or “Korean liquor” is pronounced like soju.
Rule 2: Hidden Pauses
If a jamo ends with the batchim ㄱ,ㅂ, ㅈ or ㄷ, and the next jamo starts with a regular consonant, the consonants sound will change to a double-consonant and you’ll hear a slight pause in pronunciation like in the English word bookkeeping.
Case in point: the word for school is 학교 has a ㄱ for batchim and a consonant (another ㄱ) after it, so the second consonant becomes ㄲ and the word sounds like 학꾜. Another word, 학생 (student) sounds more like 학쌩, while the word for magazine 잡지 sounds like 잡찌.
Rule 3: Filling in the blanks
If a jamo ends with a batchim and the next jamo starts with the “filler” letter ㅇ, the batchim letter “shifts” its sound to the next jamo, replacing the filler letter. The word for Korean language is 한국어 but the ㄱ shifts to the next jamo and sounds like 한구거. Naturally, in the process, it softens as well (see Rule 1). The word for Japanese language is 일본어 sounds more like 일보너.
Rule 4: The missing H
The letter ㅎ (h) tends to disappear in a lot of words. For example, the word for phone is 전화 but is pronounced more like 저놔. In other words, if the batchim ㄴ, ㅁ, ㅇ or ㄹ comes before the letter ㅎ, then ㅎ disappears. Likewise if ㅎ is the batchim itself, it’s pronunciation will disappear if the next letter is the filler ㅇ followed by a vowel (the vowel sound obscures it).
Rule 5: Smoothing things out
This one is kind of tricky to explain. If a certain jamo begins with either ㅁ (m) or ㄴ (n) and the previous jamo has a batchim of ㄱ,ㄷ, or ㅂ then that batchim’s sound will kind of smooth out like so:
- Batchim ㄱ (g) will sound like ㅇ (ng)
- Batchim ㄷ (d) will sound like ㄴ (n)
- Batchim ㅂ (b) will sound like ㅁ (m)
So, going back to the beginning of the post, the formal-polite word “to be” is written as 입니다, but because the middle jamo starts with ㄴ, the previous batchim (ㅂ) sounds like ㅁ. Another example in the book is the phrase “ten years” or 십년 which sounds more like 심년 (p -> m), or the phrase for a plant (e.g. a flower or fern), 식물 will sound 싱물.
Rule 6: H finally makes a comeback
Unlike Rule 4, ㅎ sometimes also makes sounds stronger, more aspirated. If the batchim before is ㄱ, ㅂ or ㄷ (or if ㅎ is the batchim and the next letter is one of these three), then it becomes the aspirated version: ㅋ, ㅍ and ㅌ respectively and ㅎ sort of disappears (actually it fuses with the other letter in a way). So, the word for express is 급행 sounds more like 그팽 because of the way the ‘p’ and ‘h’ sounds fuse.
Rule 7: The double-R one-two punch
The last rule listed in the Japanese textbook I have is for cases when ㄹ and ㄴ are next to each other, regardless of which one is a batchim and which one starts a new jamo. Either way, if they’re side by side each other, the ㄴ becomes an ㄹ, creating 2 ㄹ’s. A great example of this less common rule is none other than Korean New Year, which is 설날 but is really pronounced as 설랄.
Conclusion
This is a brief look at sound shifts in Korean language. It’s an interesting look at how complex sound arrangements kind of naturally “smooth themselves out” in day to day speech. Such things happen in all languages, some more than others, but Korean seems a little more tricky. Also, pronunciation guides in English about Korean seem to struggle to explain this easily, so I was surprised to see how easy it was to understand once I studied it in a language that was closer to Korean (e.g. Japanese). I guess it’s a good lesson in the ladder approach mentioned by AJATT.
All you language students out there, good luck!
P.S. Blog misfire again.
1 I doubt a lot of people are doing this, but as I studied Japanese for years and now started on Korean, I am trying to leverage Japanese resources where I can. I found studying Korean through Japanese is a lot easier than through English because there’s more material, and the languages are more similar than English, so things like pronunciation can be more easily explained because I already know one language. Also it’s like studying two languages at once, because of the reading practice, etc.
Ishigakijima Chinese Oil comes to our home…and my stomach
Posted: January 24, 2012 Filed under: Cooking, Japan, Travel | Tags: Ishigakijima, Okinawa Leave a comment »My wife came home Monday after staying in Japan a little longer due to her best-friend’s wedding, but among the many things she brought back was this!
This is the famous Ishigakijima hot Chinese oil that was a huge craze in 2010 in Japan, and was so popular for a time, that orders from Pengin’s small shop on Ishigakijima Island were backlogged for a year. Rather than “going corporate”, they simply fulfilled a number of orders per day until they could work through the backlog. The shop itself is also a restaurant open for people who’d like to try the famous oil along with many excellent delicacies. Now they supposedly even have potato chips flavored with the famous oil.
So what’s the big deal?
“Ishigakijima Pengin” (石垣ペンギン) is a Chinese-immigrant to Ishigakijima Island which is a remote part of the Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa, far to the west in the Yaeyama area. The name ‘pengin’ derives from the Japanese pronunciation of his Chinese name (辺銀), but also sounds like the Japanese word for “penguin”. Due to his name, and his unusually tasty rayu oil, it became a Japanese hit and started settling like crazy after a movie was made about it.
Pengin’s rayu oil even has its own website for taking orders. You can also see his blog too.
I guess the reason why I am so happy to get this oil is that it kind of embodies all the wonderful aspects of Ryukyu/Okinawan culture. As an island culture, people are pretty laid-back and easy going, but the Ryukyu culture is also very distinct due to its past legacies and influence from both China and Japan. It’s the only thing I have from the Ryukyus even though I’ve often wanted to visit there. I guess I’ll save the bottle afterwards.
So how does it taste? If you’ve had regular rayu oil before, you know how that tastes right? It’s a sesame oil with chili in there, and a deep red color. I love the stuff in general and have tried several imported varieties here in Seattle. One variety had a lot of fried onions and garlic in it, and went very well with natto.1 Anyhow, Pengin’s rayu oil tastes noticeably different. It tastes saltier than regular rayu, but not too spicy either. My wife chopped up some nappa cabbage into a salad, and we mixed the oil in. It was quite tasty, as the salty/hot oil blended well with watery, bland flavor from the cabbage. I can’t wait to try it on pot-stickers next. ;p
So, if you get the chance, don’t miss out on Pengin’s hot oil, and enjoy a small taste of Chinese/Ryukyu culture.
1 I’m surprised that anyone would talk with me at work later in the day. 
Another Side of Soto Zen Buddhism: Sojiji Temple
Posted: January 22, 2012 Filed under: Japan, Religion, Travel, Zen 5 Comments »One of the nice things about meeting blog readers, especially overseas, is that you get to see and learn so many cool things. I was fortunate once again to meet Tokyo expert and blog reader, “Johnl”, who has his own blog now who took me along for a tour of the main head temple of the Soto Zen sect:1 Sōjiji (總持寺) founded by Keizan. Sojiji was actually surprisingly close to where my in-laws live in Kawasaki City. Sojiji is located in Tsurumi district, but as long as you can get to Kawasaki Station, you can easily get to it one stop later on the Keihin Tohoku line, among other options.
But wait, you say! Soto Zen’s head temple, or daihonzan (大本山) is Eiheiji and the founder is Dogen. Doug, what nonsense are you talking about?
Well, Soto Zen’s lineage from China started with Dogen that’s true, and his monaster Eiheiji is the original, true. But Soto Zen underwent a major revival and flourished under a 4th generation disciple named Keizan who studied under two different teachers and was able to greatly popularize the teachings. As this helpful website shows, Keizan was very open to women followers, devotional practices toward Kannon Bodhisattva, and to people at large, while still retaining the essence of Soto Zen. I mention all this because Western Zen converts tend to deify Dogen a little, but if you study the history, most of what we know as Soto Zen now is due in large part to Keizan’s contributions and its accessibility to Westerners is also due in part to Keizen.
So, for this reason, Keizan and Dogen share equal status, but comprise different roles, and their temples (Eiheiji and Sojiji) likewise have equal status as head temples. To be honest, I tend to get a lot more inspired by Keizan than Dogen, but I guess that’s a matter of personality. :p
But enough of that. Getting to the interesting stuff……….the temple itself!
Sojiji has a great website and a great map, though all of it was in Japanese only. I suspect they get a lot fewer foreign travelers than Eiheiji does (despite being a lot more accessible), so there are not that many English language resources. Here’s the main gate or sanmon (三門) which is number 2 on the map:
It’s pretty big, though not quite as large as I remember Chion-in being.
Anyhow, Sojiji is a huge property so we went right to the reception area (number 3 on the map) and there we registered for a tour that runs a few times a day. It was ¥400 per person ($4.50) which was really cheap considering how great the tour was. We had to wait for the 11am tour, so we spent some time in the gift shop next door. I got some gifts and another copy of the Heart Sutra (I like collecting them from various temples).
Our tour guide was a nice older woman in her 60′s. She was relieved that we could speak Japanese, though honestly John’s Japanese is way better than mine. I only understood the tour here and there, but she was wonderfully nice and very easy going. Turns out she was a student at Sojiji’s parochial school and spent many times in her youth in the meditation classes. She mentioned it was cold in the meditation hall, but she said she had enjoyed it.
Also, before we started the tour, we stopped at the bathroom in the reception area, where we saw this excellent statue:
It took half the night to figure out who this was online, but it turns out to be an esoteric Buddhist figure named Ususama Myō-ō (OnMark Production has more info). Essentially he is, among other things, a guardian figure for restrooms in Japan.2
Anyhow, once the tour was underway, our first stop was at the famous hyakken rōka (百間廊下) which I think means something like “hundred spaces corridor” or something like that. It’s number 21 on the map and runs all the way across Sojiji. It’s quite long:
Also, the floor has two halves: one is raised and cleaned regularly (more on that later), while the other is more on the ground. It’s also broken up at some points so people can pass through, but also leads to other buildings. This is the Karamon gate (number 22 on the map):
This gate, similar to other “karamon” gates found at other Buddhist temples, is intended for special use for visits by the Imperial family or other noble families (e.g. Fujiwara), or their messengers. A similar gate was at Nishi Honganji.
Also, from the same spot, you can look north to see the Buddha’s Hall as well (number 12 on the map):
Here we stopped and bowed to Shakyamuni Buddha, the great sage, who is enshrined there, and moved on. At the end of the hall was an area dedicated for monastic training. Here were several rooms, some of which were not allowed to go into, but we were allowed to visit the meditation hall itself (number 15 on the map). This was actually comprised of two rooms, which rows of meditation cushions like so:
or with desks like so (which I think the tour guide said were intended for reading or study):
As the website’s link shows, this room also had a huge image of Kannon Bodhisattva in the middle with a person on each side holding their hand up to receive water (symbolizing Kannon’s wisdom pouring down). It was really interesting to see and imagine what the training must be like (I’ve never attended any meditation training in my life).
From there we went north along another hall:
Here’s me facing back where we came. On the right is a small staircase which leads to the bell tower (number 14 on the map), which we didn’t see. We did come to the end of this hall which led up to some stairs and a great big hall, the hōkōdō (方光堂, number 13 on the map) which has an altar devoted to Keizan himself. The tour guide stated we were welcome to take photos in most places, though not of monk’s faces. For some reason, old habits from other temples (where photos of the central figure are discouraged), made me hesitate, so I didn’t take a photo. As the website link shows, it’s a very colorful room, and the back walls had rows upon rows of ihai funeral tablets like the ones shown here. I believe the tour guide also mentioned that it’s frequently used for weddings and funerals.
From the other hand of this hall we descended into an underground tunnel:
This was a very interesting place to visit because along the walls were photos of the daily lives of Soto Zen monks, and details explaining various aspects like the sutra changing, begging for alms, bathing routines, etc. Again, I really wanted to take photos, but hesitated out of respect of the temple. Most of the routine was pretty much the same as explained here for a Rinzai Buddhist temple.
Once we finally emerged from the tunnel, we came to a kind of reception area:
Because it’s the 100th year anniversary since Sojiji moved to its present location, there were a lot of signs and historical photographs. We spent a lot of time here and ascended the stairs to the main Founder’s Hall (number 10 on the map) or daisōdō (大祖堂). This seemed like a much bigger version of the Hōkōdō we had just come from, and similarly had a central altar devoted to Keizan, and also many ihai tablets. We paid our respects again and moved to the other end of the hall, where we came to another hallway:
Apparently, the monks who do the daily floor cleanings start here. They get a wet rag, and run along one beam of the floor, pushing their rag in front of them. Another monk would start soon after, and run along the next floor beam, and so on. When they get to another room or something gets in the way, they simply went over it and kept going. You can see something similar on this video (minute 1:47). It seems like that’s really hard for one’s back to constantly do this.
From there we came to a pair of rooms, one on each side of the hallway, which were very pretty:
This was one room:
In a smaller room in the back was this famous painting of a black and white dragon, which I am sure I’ve seen before, though I can’t find online now. That room also had several portraits of past abbots of Sojiji. The other room looked like so:
In the middle is a painting of Bodhidharma, the semi-legendary Zen figure, though we were told that this painting was unusual because he’s standing rather than sitting in meditation. These rooms, number 7 on the map, are part of the shiuntai (紫雲臺) which is explained as the abbot’s quarters, and used when meeting with lay people, temple supporters, etc.
Further down the hallway, and the last leg of our tour was this view of the garden:
Suffice to say, I was really impressed with my time at Sojiji. It really helped to give me a much fuller picture of Zen, particularly Soto Zen, than what you normally see in Western media. What I saw there was a real community of people, lay and monastic, working together to preserve a venerable tradition without the usual “noise” I see from Western Zen communities. The combination of stories from the tour guide, seeing the young monks bustling about, plus the community as a whole made me appreciate the human side to Soto Zen that gets lost in English language Zen books that tend to mystify things ad nauseum. I don’t doubt that Sojiji as a main temple has plenty of scandals and politics, but that’s part of being human.
Anyway, thanks to “Johnl” for the excellent tour, and the much needed exposure to Zen in a very different context.
P.S. I feel like I should break this post up into two, it’s quite long, but I didn’t want to stop the flow.
P.P.S. John and I also visited Yokohama’s Chinatown later that day but I want to save that as a separate post.
1 Also, in Japanese language, Soto Zen is usually not called “zen”. It’s called sōtōshū (曹洞宗) which means “Soto School/Sect”, similar to how other Buddhist sects are always referred to as sh? (i.e. Jodo Shinshu, Jodo Shu, Nichrenshu, etc). Likewise, Rinzai Zen is called rinzai shū (臨済宗). Just saying.
2 A great article in the Japan Times about the toilets and Japanese culture. The ending proverb is also a good indication of restaurants and their overall hygiene when you think about it.
This, too, is KPop
Posted: January 19, 2012 Filed under: KPop, Music | Tags: 2PM, JYP, Wonder Girls 3 Comments »KPop has been kind of a global hit in the last 10 years, and has been a frequent subject of this blog, but it’s also good to know its more humble origins:
This is a famous song called “Itaewon Freedom”, celebrating a famous district in Seoul that is more open for the gay community (hence the “freedom”). It clearly predates the current KPop fad.
Also, the singer in the middle is J. Y. Park who is now a big music mogul in KPop (namely JYP Entertainment), and the force behind such groups as Wonder Girls, 2PM, 2AM and Rain.
And now whenever you hear the phrase “Itaewon Freedom”, now you’ll now. You probably didn’t care either, but hey, you learn something everyday.
All credit goes to Eat Your Kimchi for finding this, who ironically also had a great discussion recently on homosexuality in Korea (which I think applies similarly to Japan as well).
And wheeeeerrrrrreeeee iiiiiiisssssss Namsan Tower anywayyyyyyyy?
Happy 8th Anniversary, Baby!
Posted: January 18, 2012 Filed under: General, JPop, Music, Seattle | Tags: Kinki Kids, wedding 4 Comments »Hi Honey,
It’s been 8 fun years together as husband and wife, and since you’re in Japan1 enjoying sunny weather while we’re here in Seattle stuck in a snow-storm, I thought you might enjoy this video from Kinki Kids that seemed fitting somehow.
Anyhow, from your Scottish-wannabe husband:2
Happy Anniversary!
P.S. I like Kō-chan better than Tsuyoshi. Just kidding. ;p
1 For readers: wife is staying in Japan a few extra days for a friend’s wedding. Plus she’s a Kinki Kids fan.
2 I actually did find the right tartan for my family ancestry. I’d be super impressed if you can name the clan (no cheating if you know me in person).
Day 3 of 2012: Meiji Shrine in Tokyo
Posted: January 17, 2012 Filed under: Japan, Religion, Shinto, Travel | Tags: Oshogatsu Leave a comment »In case anyone thought I forgot about this after coming back to the US, let me talk about my visit to Meiji Shrine on the third day of Japanese New Year. The first day, for hatsumode we visited Kawasaki Daishi, a local Buddhist temple, but it was so insanely crowded that we didn’t have much of a chance to explore and take care of spiritual matters for the year. So, my wife thought we should go to Meiji Shrine to make up for it (that and we haven’t been there in 6 years ), so we went.
Like all major Shinto Shrines and Buddhist Temples, it was still super crowded for the first week of the new year. Here’s us on the bridge crossing from Harajuku ward to the shrine:
My wife, on the right, is sporting a nice, new haircut for 2012. On the left you can see people holding yellow signs. These were the same Christian proselytizers we also saw at Kawasaki Daishi by the way, and often see at downtown Shibuya Ward.
If you looked to the right, you can see hordes of people coming to Meiji Shrine from the Harajuku train station:
Anyhow, here’s the outer gate or torii for the shrine:
Shinto shrines have torii gates, while Buddhist temples have sanmon (山門) gates typically (in case you were wondering). Also, one think I liked was that outside the outer gate, there were blood donation (kenketsu 献血) stations setup so people could volunteer to the local Tokyo blood bank. I really thought about donation myself since I regularly do it in Seattle, and from Japan’s perspective, minority blood supplies are rare. However, I came with my wife and daughter and didn’t want to hold things up.
As I read in Reader and Tanabe’s Practically Religious, Buddhist temples and Shinto Shrines in Japan put a lot of focus on contemporary social issues, rather than focus on doctrinal issues, and so while some mistake this for a sign of degeneracy, seeing something like blood donation stations outside of Meiji Shrine is both practical and a sign that critics may need to think again.
Anyhow, after we got through the outer gate, we followed the crowd for a while, thinking that we would avoid a long line this time, until we got about halfway through the shrine. Then the crowd came to a halt. Here we stood in line for a long time, like we did at Kawasaki Daishi, moving, stopping, and moving again:
Up ahead is the inner gate of Meiji Shrine. Along the way, we saw lots of signs and billboards about the life and times of Emperor Meiji, including this interesting one:
Interestingly, you can see Lafcadio Hearn (a.k.a. Koizumi Yakumo in Japanese 小泉八雲), one of my favorite authors on the upper-left. Ireland has no lack of superb authors.
Anyhow, through the inner gate it was more of the same: standing, moving, standing, moving until at last we reached the inner sanctum where Emperor Meiji is enshrined. Here, they had setup a large barrier and people simply tossed a coin into the space behind the barrier and said their respects:
My daughter loves to do this kind of thing, so she took a handful of coins from my hand, and tossed them at the barrier. Amazingly, all of them hit the edge of the barrier and bounced in. It was really cool to watch, I wished I had managed to record it. ;p
Anyhow, from there my wife went and got some charms for protection this year. She got a special one because she’s having a Yakudoshi year, in the form of a hamaya (破魔矢) arrow:
Anyhow, once we completed our purchases, we left and along the way back we found a huge eating area with lots of tents and such. We got some some jagabatā (ジャガバター), which is basically the Japanese word for mashed potatoes with butter:
These were really good, but we had a scary incident while waiting in line. The food stall was cooking the potatoes inside a huge steamer which had stacks of palettes on it (with potatoes between them). While we waited for our potatoes, they were changing the palettes for another batch, when the entire stack collapsed in my daughter’s direction. Luckily I caught it just in time because it would have crushed my little girl and scalded her at the same time. It took three of us to fix the stack, it was really heavy and I could barely hold onto it myself. Meanwhile we were too stunned to say much, and they were eager to get us out of there. Now that I think about it, I should have really yelled at them, but then again it was an accident and no one intended anything bad. Plus, thankfully nothing actually happened. Still I hate to think of the alternative.
Oddly enough, the next day, I noticed that the omamori I purchased at Kawasaki Daishi a couple days before had a broken string. Although I don’t take superstition very seriously, I do wonder if the omamori had done its job in protecting my daughter… or maybe it was a coincidence and the omamori charm had been shoddy quality. That’s the trouble with superstition I guess.
Anyhow, we fought through more lines, fought our way to Harajuku Station and made the long trek home.
Getting Used to American Portions Again
Posted: January 15, 2012 Filed under: Cooking, Health, Japan, Travel | Tags: Diet 16 Comments »So now that I have been back in the US for a couple days, I already have to re-adjust to American portion sizes again. There’s a joke in Japanese about amerika saizu meaning “American size” and now that I realize how true this phrase is.
We ate Friday night at a Japanese restaurant here in Seattle and I ordered ramen. Halfway through the meal I was already full and it was hard to finish the meal. To be honest, I had eaten some appetizers before, but at the same restaurant, I remember finishing the same meal (plus appetizers) and still being hungry and that was before I went to Japan.
This kind of thing happens every time I go to Japan: at first, I am hungry all the time because the portions are so small (as shown here in a recent visit to the KFC in Shibuya Ward in Tokyo):
…but then my body adjusts to it, and I find the meals more satisfying. My stomach even gets smaller. But then when I get back to the US, the portion sizes are too big, and I have trouble finishing. Then after a few weeks, I adjust to them again and my stomach gets bigger.
A friend I met in Japan told me that when he moved there, he lost about 10 kilograms after the first few months, but adjusted just fine. This friend is from Europe, not in the US, and in my experience living in Ireland, portions sizes are a little smaller than the US, though not quite as small as Japan. So, if he can adjust to smaller portion sizes and lose weight, imagine how much I would lose if I could adjust.
The problem with obesity in the US is simple: culturally, the portion sizes are TOO GODDAMN BIG. But it’s a cultural phenomenon, so it’s hard to notice it until you live somewhere else.
But it wasn’t always this way. In our grandparents’ generation, they ate the same food we did, but just smaller portions of it. What’s considered “small” now was normal then, or even generous. Gradually we’ve become adjusted to bigger and bigger portions. To accommodate this, the food quality suffered as portions increased. That’s why American food tastes like crap, while the portion sizes are so big. And because the portion sizes are so big, your stomach stretches and gets used to it, so when you do eat smaller portions, you feel hungry even though you had enough calories and nutrition.
I don’t want to live like this anymore. Knowing what I know now, I cant believe I ate the amount of food I did before. It was disgusting. It’s not even necessary! If you’re 40 pounds overweight like I am,1 you don’t have to live like this.
While staying in Japan for the past few weeks, I ate the same food (more or less) that I did in the US, but it tasted better and was much more satisfying, even though I ate less. But now that I am back in the US, it’s hard to avoid large portions, because even healthy food is served that way.
Instead, we as Americans have to make a collective effort with our wallets, our spending habits, and our eating habits to demand smaller portions, and better quality food. Business responds to demand (or rather the Law of Supply and Demand), so if you change your habits, they will change theirs’ and the culture changes as a result.
As for me:
- I will never order anything bigger than a “tall” coffee. Grande is called “big” for a reason, it’s really big.
- Better yet, I am gradually trying to phase out coffee altogether for tea. More on that in a later post. Those espresso drinks are full of calories, and I don’t like black coffee very much (nor does it have the health benefits of tea anyway).
- If your restaurant meal is big enough to have leftovers to take home, it’s too big. I will be ordering smaller meals at restaurants. If need be, just eat appetizers.
- I will eat one slice of toast, not two for breakfast.
- One cup of cooked rice at home is enough, not 2 or 3.
As I said, I really don’t want to go back to old eating habits anymore. I am tired of it, and it’s bad for my body anyway, so I really want to maintain the portion sizes I adapted to in Japan as much as possible here.
1 40 pounds overweight is probably the new “normal” in American society. That’s really depressing when you think about it. Just because being fat is “normal” doesn’t mean it’s healthy, or even attractive to look at. Sorry, but it’s true.
Hello, this blog is about my life as a father, Buddhist and Japanophile / Koreaphile. Any useful information I can pass along will hopefully make the 
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