I was surprised to read on the BBC website this week that the bizarre Japanese fashion ‘manba‘ has recently become popular in England!

Manba is an extreme branch of the fashion known as ‘ganguro‘, where young people (usually women) make their skin really dark (with self-tanning products from Afro-Caribbean stores) and paint white circles around their eyes.  In this fashion, bright clothes, glitter and coloured hair are also popular.  As with many fashions, there is also a particular kind of music known as ‘eurobeat’ which is popular among follows of ganguro.  There is a kind of dancing which goes with the music (called ‘para-para’), which mostly involves side-stepping and moving your arms and hands (remember dancing to Whigfield’s ‘Saturday Night’ when you were a kid? Yeah, it’s a bit like that but without the jumping!).  Apparently the ‘eurobeat’ music is made in Italy, but only available online or in Japan.

The ganguro fashion is not so common in Japan these days, so I was really surprised to hear that ganguro’s most extreme form, manba, had somehow made its way to England!  The BBC website has an interesting page about the new trend here, including videos and a report by BBC’s Nina Robinson, where she interviews the UK’s Eilish and Declan, who are manba followers. They say that they keep up with the fashion by talking to other fans, including Japanese people, who they speak to using Mixi (like Facebook in Japan), which they have to use with a translator as they don’t speak Japanese.

I first heard about this fashion when I watched the wonderful Jonathan Ross on his BBC Japanorama show.  Here’s a clip:

Another clip worth watching on this subject is this wonderful “How to: Manba make-up!”:

One girl, Toni, observed on the BBC website, “We’re Western girls trying to be Japanese girls, trying to be Western – it seems like a funny circle to go around.”.  Well, I have to say I agree, but hey, it’s fashion, and fashion never did like to follow the rules!

Apparently, today is “Pear Day” in Japan.  In Japanese, that’s なしの日 (nashi no hi).  The reason for this is the date – 07/04.  7 in Japanese is なな (nana) and 4 is (sometimes) し (shi).  So, when you put them together, you can make なし (nashi) which also happens to mean ‘pear’ in Japanese.

I don’t know if this is actually true though!  I asked Japanese friends about it and they had never heard of it, but when I Googled I found two other definite mentions of it (1, 2).  If you have heard of “Pear Day” or なしの日 please leave me a comment to let me know!

Out of curiosity, I then Googled “Hello Kitty pear”, and look what I found…

Kawaii!!  haha! (With thanks to the website I found this on.)

NaBloPoMo?  No, it’s not a new Japanese word.  it’s “National Blog Posting Month“!

The idea is that when you join this ‘NaBloPoMo’ thing, you promise to post a blog every day for a month.  So… I hereby promise to attempt to post something every day from July 3rd (today) until August 3rd!

On some occassions I might be busy or not at my computer, so I’ve now enabled WordPress’s ‘post by email‘ service so I can sometimes post from my cell phone.  If I’m using this, there’s a chance my posts will come out a bit wonky, so apologies in advance if that happens.  I will try to tidy them up afterwards.

It would be easy to just randomly post every day, but I’m going to make a real effort to try and say something interesting (at least interesting to me), so if I can’t think of anything exciting that’s happened, I will write about Japanese language or customs.  I hope everyone who reads this blog finds something of interest in amongst these posts!

Don’t forget, you can subscribe to my blog, if you want to!

And, if you have your own blog, why not join me!   Visit NaBloPoMo

(By the way, you can visit my NaBloPoMo page here.)

As I mentioned last week, I’ve started a new hobby – Japanese calligraphy.  Last week, I was a little bit confused about the two words used to describe this art – shodo (書道) and shuji (習字).  So I asked this week and found what I learnt to be very interesting.

The kanji 道 (dou) means ‘way’ and is used in 書道 (shodo – Japanese calligraphy or ‘the way of penmanship’), 華道 (kado – Japanese flower arranging or ‘the way of flowers’), 剣道 (kendo – a Japanese martial art or ‘the way of the sword’), 茶道 (sado – Japanese tea ceremony or ‘the way of tea’) and (I’m sure) many other traditional Japanese arts.  However, these arts have a different name for when we talk about practicing them in our daily lives (perhaps with the exception of ‘kendo’, but please correct me if I’m wrong).

書道 (shodo) = 習字 (shuji)

華道 (kado) = 生花 (ikebana) or お花 (ohana)

茶道 (sado) = お茶 (ocha)

So, from now on I will refer to my new hobby as ’shuji’, which I believe is the correct way to name it.

Today’s class was fun, although it was a little more difficult than last week.  I started out feeling great, though, as the teacher at my school got a shuji kit for me!  It was only about 2000 Yen, which I thought was pretty good.  And the lessons are only costing 1500 Yen for one hour a week, which I also think is really good.  Here’s my new shuji set:

At the top, centre, you can see the ink (すみ), and directly below this you can see a kind of charcoal (in the red box) which is also used to make the ink (this is also called すみ I think).  My teacher said, if I have lots of free time somewhen I should try making this ink.  Apparently you put some water in the tray (the next item below the red box) and then mix the charcoal with the water.  She said it takes a long time but the results can be better.  I will try it sometime!

To the left of the ink tray you can see my two brushes.  The thicker one is for writing the kanji and the thinner one is for writing my name.  The blue mat it is all laid on is a kind of pencil case believe it or not!  You roll the brushes up in it.

Today, I made my name stamp:

Sorry, it’s not a very good photo.  Hopefully you can see that it is あり (my name written in hiragana) but it’s backwards,of course, because it is a stamp!  This is made out of a normal eraser.  You just use a little tool to dig out the shape.  It’s very cool!

Today, my teacher asked again what kanji I wanted to practice.  I decided to choose 夢 (dream).  As I said last week, this is the first kanji I tried when I practiced shuji once three years ago.  I wanted to see if it would be any better this time.  I still found it pretty hard.  Let’s compare…

Here’s the one I did 3 years ago:

And here’s the best one I did today:

And here it is again (on the right) next to my teacher’s one (on the left):

I especially don’t like the three boxes part  I practiced that over and over again but I think I was thinking too much today!  I will practice again sometime when I’m feeling more relaxed.

Still, I think I have improved since my first attempt.  Also, I remember when I first tried how hard it was to get the proportions right.  I’m a bit better at that now.  My teacher said that when kids practice shuji that’s a common problem.  They do the first part really big and then run out of space on the paper.

Anyway, my second class was lots of fun and I’m already looking forward to going back next week!  And, of course, I can practice at home now any time I want to now!  I hope it helps me to improve my kanji!

Finally, a call for suggestions… I need to think of more kanji I want to write!  I’ve done the obvious ones, so I need to think which ones I should practice, and which ones might be nice to write.  So, any suggestions? Please leave a comment!    Thanks!

Today I took a trial Japanese calligraphy class at my Japanese school.  Japanese calligraphy, or ‘shodo‘ (書道) is not just about writing kanji.  It’s kind of like art.

I have only done Japanese calligraphy once before, during my first visit to Japan in 2006.  Here is the kanji I wrote back then – it means ‘dream’:

I remember thinking that class was tough, and not feeling very pleased with my awkward, chunky kanji.  It had no feeling and no life.  But in those days I couldn’t even write katakana and hiragana, so I think I was expecting a bit too much of myself.

Today’s class was conducted in Japanese, which was something I really liked.  I understood most of what the teacher said, even if I couldn’t respond.  She introduced the names of the tools in simple Japanese: “これ　は　~です”, although I’m afraid I don’t remember the specific names now.  At one point she told us that the kanji we write shouldn’t be the same as the one we are copying (that she drew), it should have our own feelings and artistic style in it.  She said we shouldn’t think about it, we should feel it. (I was just pleased that I understood this in Japanese!!)

The class was only one hour long, but for 1000 Yen and no material fees I thought that was really good.  So good, in fact, that I asked if there could be any more classes and we have arranged to have another one next week, and probably more in the future!  So I will be getting my own calligraphy set, too!  A friend once told me that learning calligraphy is a really good way to remember kanji, and I can easily believe that’s true.

I found today’s class very relaxing, and it had a certain ‘zen-like’ quality about it which just made me feel very relaxed and at peace.  And, compared to my previous efforts, I was very pleased with the results!  Below are photos of the best kanji I produced.  In both photos, the one on the left is the one my teacher drew, and the one on the right is mine.

This one is ‘hana’ which means ‘flower’.

This is ‘ai’ which means ‘love’.

This weekend I spent almost all of the time studying Japanese in one way or another!  I’m kind of exhausted now, but it was excellent and I hope to have more weekends like this in the future!  I feel like I have learnt so much recently, and hopefully this is all adding up to help me with the dreaded JLPT in December! がんばります！:D

As you all know, I am obsessed with Japan’s many and varied flavours of Kit Kat.  Well, a new one was launched this week, and it’s certainly something worth posting an extra blog about!

It’s ramune (ラムネ) flavour.  What?!  Yeah, that’s what I thought too!  See this wonderful link for more info on ramune…  It’s a kind of soda drink (or fizzy drink, for us Brits!).  I’ve actually never tried ramune, but have sat watching a Japanese kid I know trying to drink it without getting the marble stuck in the neck, and it’s quite fascinating.  I have a real urge to find some and try it now!

Anyway… the Kit Kat is BLUE chocolate, and it’s kind of fizzy tasting and, well, I just can’t stop eating them today!  They’re so yummy!  Well done, Kit Kat people!!

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Following the success of our strawberry picking adventure,  my friends and I decided to go cherry picking!  Actually, we went on 31st May, so I apologise for the delay in blogging, but I’ve been rather busy lately!

I think we went to a place called Shirane, but every time I say the name of the place to someone they reply with the joke ’shiranai’, which means ‘I don’t know’.  haha!  Anyway, it was around the area of the “Southern Alps” or “南アルプス市”, in Yamanashi Prefecture.  To get there, we drove through Nagano Prefecture, where we stopped at the impressive Lake Suwa.

At this service area, we found a Mos Burger, some delicious regional Kit Kats, and… a Highway Spa! I was surprised that such a thing existed, but I suppose it’s quite a normal idea when you’re in an area such as Nagano, which has many spas and hot springs (onsen).

When we arrived at our destination I was a little surprised to find that we had to climb ladders to pick our cherries!

I guess I just didn’t think about how cherries grow, and that they would be on tall trees!  haha!  Well, the men in the group rushed straight for the tallest ladders, and I, my friend and her mum took it more slowly, staking out the best trees (whilst I took lots of photos, of course!).

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This is how you pick cherries, right??

The cherries were really colourful and I enjoyed just looking at them and taking photos. I found I could only eat so many before I began to feel full, though!

Actually, I have to confess, my friend’s mum and I cheated at one point, and we got the cherry man to climb the tree for us to get the better cherries.  He actually climbed right off the ladder and into the tree!!

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おいしかった！

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It was a really fun trip!  The only downside to cherry picking, which was the same as strawberry picking, is that you have to just eat what you can as you can’t take them home.  That’s a shame, but as an interesting day out it’s a lot of fun, and I’d recommend it to anyone!

Almost every day for the last 14 months I have walked past a tiny little onigiri shop in Kurokawa, where I live.  I’ve always looked inside and thought “wow, those rice balls look good!” but I’ve always felt too scared to try and buy one.  What if they ask me something and I can’t answer it?  What if I become the stupid foreigner who can’t even buy lunch??

Well, recently at school the new teachers have been going to the onigiri shop, and enthusing about how delicious and cheap the onigiri are.  Just 100 Yen for a rice ball twice the size of those in the convenience store, which cost at least 100 Yen, if not more.  And I’ve been thinking that I should go in there and try it out.

So, finally, today I was brave enough to give it a go.  And I was successful!  Here’s how it went…

First I walked past the onigiri shop to go to the post office, glancing in to see how welcoming it looked.  Then, I came back to the onigiri shop and kind of hung out in the doorway, trying to make out the names of the different flavours.  Now, this shop is tiny – just a counter with two women behind it – and you have to ask for what you want.  One of the ladies smiled at me and said something, which I know to be a kind of ‘welcome, how can I help you’ phrase.  I said “ああ。。。ちょっとまって” (umm… just a moment), then, still baffled by the kanji, I said “Umm… salmon??  ふたつください” (Um… salmon? Two please.).  Now, salmon has a Japanese word (さけ) but I temporarily forgot this.  However, ’salmon’ is used often enough that she understood me fine.  So she responded, “さけ？　ああ。。。salmon. salmon.” with a smile.  She repeated the word ’salmon’ like it was a new and exciting word for her to try saying, which I found thoroughly endearing!

As she was wrapping the rice balls for me, the other lady, who had been studying me quietly, said “お国はどこですか？” (Where is your country?).  I answered “イギリス” (England) and smiled.  “わああ！” (Waa!) they exclaimed.  “とおい！” (That’s far!).  And we all smiled and laughed together.

I thanked them and left with my two chunky rice rice balls which were, I’m happy to say, as delicious as I had heard.

In my experience so far in Japan, there seems to be two very different kinds of people.  Those who react to foreigners with curiosity and excitement, and those who react with terror and panic.  I was very happy to find that these onigiri shop ladies fall into the former category, along with my Circle K ladies, Post Office people and 99 Store staff.  Sadly, one of the Lawson’s ladies falls into the latter category!

I recently received a letter from a friend, and in that letter she asked me “Don’t you find living in a country as ‘foreign’ as Japan to be exhausting?”.  Well, yes, at times it is exhausting.  Sometimes the tiniest of tasks take ridiculous amounts of preparation and/or courage.  But on days like today, when I manage to achieve something new (albeit something tiny), I feel that it’s worth it.  The little triumphs far outweigh the setbacks and failures.  And facing almost daily challenges really is why I choose to live in a country “as ‘foreign’ as Japan”.

To those of you who have never been in this situation, this might seem like a boring or irrelevant post but, given how stressed out I felt about not understanding this procedure, I decided to write about it for anyone who might go through the same process.  I wish I had been able to read something like this a few months ago.

So, here’s the story (and, don’t worry, it has a happy ending!).  Once upon a time there was a girl who’s passport was due to expire…

My passport was due to expire in February 2010, but I’m hoping to go home during the summer to visit my family.  In order to leave the country (and be allowed back in!), I need to get a re-entry permit.  And in order to get a re-entry permit (I believe) I needed to have at least 6 months validity on my passport (actually, I can’t find this written down anywhere now, but I was definitely told it by someone!).

So, first I had to get a new passport. Fortunately, this was unbelievably efficient!  I posted my passport to the British Embassy in Tokyo, along with certified photos (which I had to send home first to get certified by someone who’s known me for at least two years), and a credit card payment form, and received it back with a shiny new passport in a matter of days!  My old passport was, thankfully, still in one piece, and my visa untouched (I had been worried that they might accidentally cut it up or something!).

Task one accomplished, my next step was sorting out my visa.  Unfortunately, the British Embassy has nothing to do with visas and won’t touch them, so I just asked them to leave those pages of my passport uncut.  Then, today, I went to the Nagoya Immigration Bureau.  I wasn’t looking forward to this, but actually it was fairly easy.  First I went to the information desk.  The lady spoke English, as I had expected, and gave me the forms and told me where to go and what to do.

The whole place was swarming with people from all over the world – Brazilians, Chinese, Americans… It was quite good for ‘people watching’ actually!   I gave my passports and Alien Registration Card to the person behind the counter, she gave me a number, and I took a seat.  After not too long my number was called and it was all done!  They actually left the photo page in the old passport, but transferred all of the other parts to the new passport.  I think, when I travel in the summer, I will take my old passport with me, just in case, but I don’t think I need it now.

Next task – obtaining a re-entry permit.  I had already filled out the form, but didn’t realise I had to pay the money in the convenience store, not over the counter, so I was sent off to Lawson’s (which was in the same building, just across the way).  After I had paid my 6000 Yen for a multiple re-entry permit I came back to the main room and was able to get my passport back with a re-entry permit in it.  Now, I am allowed to leave the country and come back again as many times as I want within the period of my visa.

Actually, the whole thing was incredibly painless and didn’t take that long at all!

One more task – changing my Alien Registration Card to show my new passport number.  This meant going to the Kita Ward Office near my house.  This was the part I was most nervous about.  I went to this place when I first came to Japan, with a co-worker, to get my Alien Registration Card, but haven’t had t go back there since.  When I went there with my co-worker they didn’t seem to speak any English.

So I walked in and went to the information desk.  I cobbled together a few Japanese words and showed them my two passports and Alien Registration Card, and they figured out what I wanted and sent me to the Foreign Resident Registration desk.  I was greeted there by a surly looking woman.  I asked her “英語を話せますか？” (Can you speak English?) and she replied “英語を話せない。” (I can’t speak English.)  Gulp.  I took a big breath and threw out my best Japanese sentences, making a million mistakes I’m sure!  Anyway, she understood me, and asked me to wait.  After not too long she called me, asked me to sign a form, confirmed everything and told me in simple Japanese that it was all finished.  My new passport number was written on the back of my Alien Registration Card and had been officially stamped.

What a relief!

It doesn’t sound like much of an ordeal now I’ve written it all down, but I really hate paperwork, and I was worried about doing everything properly, or not being able to communicate, so it’s a real relief to have it all sorted out now.  And also a relief to know I can start planning a trip home to see my family.  I left England in March 2008 and haven’t been back since, so it’s about time I visited!  Mind you, it will only be a flying visit as my holiday time is so limited.

The end.

Today I had a very Japanese day!  One of my friends invited me and another friend to her house to make chirashizushi (ちらし寿司, scattered sushi), tempura (天ぷら, deep fried battered vegetables or seafood) and to practice the Japanese tea ceremony (茶の湯, chanoyu).  It was great fun – I really enjoy cooking with other people, especially when I’m learning about Japanese things at the same time.  My friend has a gorgeous house and I’m very jealous of her kitchen (いいな！), which is amazing compared to my two electric burners in the hallway of my apartment.  I read a great book once called Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat, by Naomi Moriyama, and I couldn’t help thinking of that book today.  The book is about cooking Japanese food and eating in a Japanese way, but it’s been difficult for me to follow any of the recipes because of my lack of kitchen, equipment and supplies.  In the book, the author talks about her “mother’s Tokyo kitchen”, which I now picture to be just the same as my friend’s.  Lots of cupboards and drawers containing jars of mysterious things I don’t know how to cook, and packets of amazing things I can’t identify.  And a vegetable garden just outside the door, containing fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs.

First we prepared the chirashizushi.  Chirashizushi is ’scattered sushi’, which basically means it’s very easy to make, compared to regular sushi.

My first job was ripping apart shrimp which, as an ex-vegetarian, did make me a little squeamish!

As I pulled off their heads I could see grey slime leaking out, which I could only assume was their brains or guts… eeew!  Removing their shells was difficult, and slimy, but strangely satisfying!

Whilst I was doing that, my friends were preparing other ingredients, such as lots of sashimi (raw fish) and this thin omelette:

You place the sashimi and omelette on top of a bed of rice, in any way you like (although you should try to make it look attractive):

Next, we made tempura.  I’ve eaten tempura many times in restaurants, but never tried to make it myself.  In order to make tempura you have to have hot oil, around 180 degrees, I think.  It’s kind of dangerous!  And you have to be careful not to put anything too watery into the hot oil, otherwise it will really spit!

Finally we could eat lunch! I think we were cooking for a couple of hours to prepare all of this, but it was worth it as it was all delicious!  おいしかった！

After lunch, it was time to practice the Japanese tea ceremony.  I have tried this once before, in a tea house in Shirotori Garden, but this was my first time to try actually performing the ceremony myself and making the tea.  The tea used in tea ceremonies is matcha (抹茶).  This matcha was the best I’ve ever tasted – really delicious.

First, we ate a Japanese sweet – it was like a very soft mochi with red bean paste inside and kinako powder on the outside.  I’m not sure of the name but perhaps it was ‘warabimochi‘.

(And yes, that is a very cute dog trying to eat my sweets that you can see in the background!)

Traditionally you eat the sweet first because the matcha tea is very bitter.  Actually, I didn’t think this tea was so bitter, though.  The sweets are eaten from a special paper called a ‘kaishi’, which would traditionally be carried by the guest in a decorative wallet or the breast of the kimono.

The Japanese tea ceremony is very intricate, and it was amazing to watch and have a go at it (although I think perhaps I’m too clumsy to be good at it!).  It’s all about subtle, slow, elegant movements, and although my friend was just wearing casual clothes I could almost imagine her in a kimono!

First you clean the bowl (茶碗, chawan) with hot water, using the special whisk (茶筅, chasen):

When the chawan is clean, you tip the water into something and wipe the chawan with a small cloth (茶巾, chakin).

Then, you put two small scoops of matcha powder into the chawan, using a bamboo scoop (茶杓, chashaku).  Next you use a bamboo ladle (柄杓, hishaku) to take water from the hot water pot (水指, mizusashi) to the chawan.  There is a certain technique to this, which was too hard to perfect!

Then, you use the chasen to whisk the matcha powder and water together, until it is smooth and bubbly.

The first movements should be like drawing the Japanese character ゆ with the chasen, and then you should whisk with clockwise motions (and never switch to anticlockwise!).

Here’s one I made earlier…

Finally, you can drink the tea.  The person who made the tea should pick up the chawan with their right hand, placing the left hand underneath the chawan to steady it, and place the chawan in front of the person who is going to drink it.  Then that person picks up the chawan with their right hand, also placing their left hand underneath it.

You should drink it in two sips, and then on the third sip you should sort of slurp up the remaining part with a little sound.  This seems very un-ladylike to me, but it’s what I was told today!

There is a lot more to the tea ceremony than that, though (and even what I learnt today was really difficult to do properly).  But it was a lot of fun practicing, and we did it all mostly in Japanese, which was also fun!

I really enjoyed spending a day doing very Japanese things, and it’s made me lust after my own Japanese house with a garden, a tatami room and amazing kitchen… one day!  Maybe if I stay here long enough I can even learn to cook real Japanese food myself, and read the labels on the packets… That’s the dream, anyway!

(You can see all of today’s photos here.)