WIT Life #91: More than just mochi
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WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
I have already written about my obsession with Kansai Yamato, an amazing mochi maker located in Honolulu’s Ala Moana mall. I am lucky enough to be back in Hawaii with my current group (someone up there likes me!), so of course I had to pay a visit as soon as I got into town. As the shelves were fully stocked, I was able to find some items I had not seen before. In addition to the wide variety of mochi, they had some other goodies like the kabocha bread in the picture on the right. As a huge pumpkin fan, I had to try it. I was expecting something along the lines of Japan’s mushi pan (steamed bread), but it was more substantial, similar to the consistency of a moist muffin (shittori shite iru). These two large piec
es cost $2.99 plus tax, well worth the price.
Aside from getting some of the unusual flavors that I come to Kansai Yamato for (peanut butter & chocolate, Oreo, etc.), I got a mochi sampler ($3.99 plus tax) that included a variety of types. Shown on the left, it is comprised of (from top left clockwise) peanut butter, Okinawan sweet potato, kinako with red bean paste and what is labeled as honeydew (though it’s not very green in color). Clearly my sweet tooth will be satisfied for the next few days…
JETAA Chapter Beat 5.5.10
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Freelance writer/editor Jonathan Trace (Fukuoka-ken, 2005-08) takes us on a walk around the JET Alumni community for another edition of JETAA Chapter Beat.
- May Happy Hour – May 7th, 6:00 at Wann Izakaya.
- Japanese Used Book Sale – Saturday, May 22nd, 11:00 to 2:00 at Sammamish High School. The Semi-Annual Used Japanese Book Fair is back, so come out and browse this year’s selection.
- Walk for Rice 2010 – Saturday, June 19th, 8:00 registration, 1:00 start time at Seattle’s Seward Park. Join the PNWJETAA Team and help raise money for the ACRS Food Bank and fight hunger.
- J-Dinner – Thursday, May 6th at Kushi. Spend a night out on the town in DC with other Japanese people and people interested in Japan. Happy hour begins at 6:00 with dinner to follow at 7:30.
- Tampa Subchapter Tsudoi – Friday, May 7th, 7:00 at Panera Bread in the Brandon Mall. The Tampa Subchapter will be hosting their monthly Tsudoi, an informal time for anyone interested in Japanese and Japanese culture.
- 11th Annual Hakone Matsuri – Sunday, May 16th, 11:00 to 4:00 at Hakone Gardens in Saratoga. The Hakone Foundation, Hakone Gardens Supporting Committe and the Consuate General of Japan in San Francisco are happy to present this years Hakone Matsuri. Events include Japanese calligraphy, tea ceremony, a silent auction and more.
- Kabuki Club – Saturday, May 22nd, 2:00 at the San Francisco Public Library, Paley Room. This month the Kabuki Club will be viewing the final two acts of Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Blossoms.
- Japanese Cooking Class – Saturday, May 22nd, 12:00 to 2:30 at the Cooking and Crafts Room on the 2nd floor of the Nikkei Centre. Naomi-sensei will be giving a lesson on Harusame Salad, Yahata Maki, Kinpira Renkon and Azuki Shiratama for dessert.
- JETAA Meeting – Wednesday, May 12th, 6:30. Come discuss the future of JETAA Chicago.
- Japanese Garden Children’s Festival – Saturday, May 15th and Sunday, May 16th, 10:00 to 3:00 at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Learn about children’s celebrations in Japan during this weekend of activities including Koto harp and Shakuhachi flute music, folktales, Karate and more.
- O-Shaberikai – Wednesday, May 5th, 5:30 at Coo Izakaya in Civic. Join in and meet Japanese people living in Canberra and other locals interested in Japan.
- Softball Challenge – Saturday, May 15, 12:00 to 4:00 at Fellows Oval ANU. JETAA Canberra and the AJS and CJC are forming a team for this year’s event, so grab your glove and join in. Practice will be held on Saturday, April 17th from 1:00 to 3:00 at Yarralumla Neighborhood Oval.
- Portland Taiko 2010 Benefit Banquet – Wednesday, May 5th, 6:00 at Won’g King Seafood Restaurant. Portland Taiko will be having a live performance, silent auction and 11 course feast, so be sure to check it out.
- J-Kaiwa – Friday, May 7th, 7:00 to 9:30 at the Hawthorne Lucky Lab. Come down and practice your Japanese and make some new friends. Nijikai to follow at the Hollywood Bowl.
What happened at your chapter’s event? If you attend(ed) any of these exciting events, JetWit would love to hear about them. Just contact Jonathan Trace with any info, stories or comments.
Attention Portland JETS — It’s time for Iron Chef
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The Portland JETAA Chapter has invited us to join in their annual Iron Chef Competition!
Date: Saturday, May 15th
Time: 4pm to 8pm-ish
Location: Portland!
The Iron Chef event is a potluck event to enjoy cooking and eating Japanese food. Everyone brings Japanese food they prepared at home to compete in 3 categories: side dish, main dish, and dessert. Three judges will taste each of the dishes and then pick the best dish and runner up in each category.
This year Portland has added a Seattle vs. Portland category. We will pick one person to represent us and make a dish using this year’s ingredient, Sensei Sauce . The owner of Sensei Sauce will actually be coming by to judge our part of the competition!
Some people are planning to go just for the 15th, but others may stay overnight on Saturday. If any of you would like to stay over but don’t have somewhere to stay, let us know. Portland has generously offered to ask their members to host us.
The 15th is coming up soon!
So please email social@pnwjetaa.org ASAP if you are interested in coming.
The RSVP deadline is next Wednesday, May 12th. We are going to limit our group size to 20 people, so spots will be first come, first served.
We’re really excited about the competition and hope many of you will come too!
Interview with Author Bruce Feiler
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JQ Magazine editor Justin Tedaldi (Kobe-shi CIR, 2001-02) spoke with JET alum and Learning to Bow author Bruce Feiler (Tochigi-ken, 1987-88), who will be appearing tonight at Barnes & Noble on the Upper East Side to promote his new book The Council of Dads. (Visit Examiner.com for complete details.) The full-length interview will appear in the next issue of JQ, out later this month.
What made you want to write Learning to Bow?
It kind of grew out of a series of letters I wrote home of the “you’re not gonna believe what happened to me” variety. And when I went back to Savannah six months later, everywhere I went, people said, “I just loved your letters,” and I said, “Have we met?” It turned out that my grandmother had copied them, and they got passed from person to person—they went viral in the 1980s, if that’s the word—and I thought, wow, if that’s interesting to me and to these other people, I should write a book about it. It really was the sense that this story from this point of view wasn’t being told. In the 1980s, you couldn’t pick up a newspaper without reading an article about Japan or education, and the fact that here was a book that combined both, but had some sense of humor, I just think it was the right book at the right time, and I’m amazed and touched that, so many years later, for a lot of people, it’s the first book they read when they go to Japan…This was before the Internet, before e-mail, before blogs. The world seemed much bigger than it is today.
Have you returned to Japan since your time there as a teacher?
That’s a really good question, and the answer is no. I’ve kind of been to every place around it, but I’ve never been back to Japan. I keep looking for the right assignment, because I really want to go back and kind of write something, but I haven’t been back.
What kind of outlook did you take back home with you from your time in Japan?
People go to Japan today and they call me up, which still happens from time to time. I say the same thing that I’ve said for decades now, which is: don’t go over to Japan trying to change it, thinking that you know better. Go there trying to understand. I think that that essential way of experiencing another culture is by not going in as a sort of a haughty Westerner, looking down on it, but actually jumping into the deep end, completely immersed in yourself, befriending the people, and opening yourself up to the culture. That way of living is the thing that I would take from my experience, and pass on to my daughters today.
Have you thought about writing another book about Japan?
Sure, I would like in my life to go back and revisit that. I mean, we’re coming up on 25 years since I was living and working in Tochigi, and I would love the opportunity to go back, walk those streets, seek out friends, maybe some of those students, and use that as a prism to talk about how Japan has changed in the last quarter-century. I think that would be a great privilege, and if anybody reading this wants to send me on assignment, I’m ready to accept.
What was your best and worst memory of Japan?
I’d say my best memory was climbing Mt. Fuji, and the worst memory was…trying to fit my feet into the free giveaway slippers at Japanese schools.
Yeah, those are tough.
[Laughs] I haven’t thought about that in a long time.
WIT Life #90: 感謝の気持ち
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WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
Following our time in America’s heartland my group and I have since moved to the Bay Area, where we are continuing our study of food safety here in the States. One participant requested that we go to eat at a vegan restaurant, as this is not a common concept in Japan. In fact, one night we had a heated conversation regarding the distinction made between the values of plant/animal lives, as well as the viab
ility of vegetarianism. Veganism was a whole other extreme for them, but as they say, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. So we were off to San Francisco’s Cafe Gratitude.
My participants were surprised at how delicious all the food was despite the limited ingredients. We had a sampler which included Read More
JQ Magazine editor Justin Tedaldi (Kobe-shi CIR, 2001-02) sums up the weekend-long annual event in Brooklyn. Originally published for Examiner.com.
“Today is a perfect kickoff for the historic months to come,” said New York’s Ambassador and Consul General of Japan Shinichi Nishimiya at the top of the 29th annual Sakura Matsuri Cherry Blossom Festival at Brooklyn Botanic Garden held the weekend of May 1 and 2. The historic months the ambassador referred to reach back 150 years, when a samurai envoy marched down Broadway in 1860 as part of the first Japanese diplomatic mission to the U.S. and Japan, which will be reenacted in June to celebrate the occasion.
For Japanese, springtime means hanami, a custom associated with enjoying the beauty of sakura (cherry blossoms), typically as part of an outdoor party in flower-viewing spots across Japan. While BBG’s sakura were already past their peak bloom before the event due to unseasonably warm weather, tens of thousands of people were still expected to attend over the weekend, according to Kate Blumm, BBG’s communications manager.
The dozens of performances, cultural exhibitions, art displays, and foods on tap at Sakura Matsuri—not to mention the brilliantly sunny weather—more than compensated for the lack of pink on the trees. After remarks from other speakers including Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, New York’s own Soh Daiko taiko drum ensemble hit the Cherry Esplanade Stage for a surging performance, followed later by classical and Okinawan dance, a martial arts demonstration by World Seido Karate, and a samurai drama representing the more traditional facets of Japan.
But Sakura Matsuri sported more than just time-honored acts. “We’ve ramped up the anime, J-pop, and manga sort of things,” said Blumm, noting that organizers have “been drawing a completely new crowd since we started J-Lounge. It’s been a big hit.” Located in BBG’s Osborne Garden, J-Lounge became a Mecca for young people with an interest in more contemporary Japanese pop culture. In addition to its manga and anime artist alley, other showcases included anime stand-up comedy, music and dance performances, and a guest appearance by Pokémon voice actress Veronica Taylor, who gave voice to characters created by Brooklyn-based graphic novel artist Misato Rocks!
“For me, it’s all about the contrasts,” explained Blumm, observing Sakura Matsuri’s blend of old and new. “Being immersed in a spectrum of cultural elements, the patrons become part of the festivities.” The most obvious example of this was the multitude of visitors engaging in cosplay, or costume play, a performance art of dressing in elaborate costumes (typically designed by the cosplayer) inspired by characters in Japanese popular fiction.
Cosplay began in Japan, but now enjoys a devoted following among young Americans, usually at anime and comic book conventions. The fact that more cosplayers have been popping up at Japan-themed gatherings like Sakura Matsuri was not lost on BBG: some of J-Lounge’s top attractions included “high tea” for lady cosplayers, a performance by artist/singer Mario Bueno, and the “Iron Cosplay” competition.
“We do this about two to three times a year,” said attendee Michelle Kwon, who with her two friends resembled characters from the anime and manga series Lucky Star, about a group of pastel-haired schoolgirls. “It’s great being able to recognize other characters that we like from animation. We’ve taken probably hundreds of pictures today.”
Some cosplayers were able to draw crowds of their own based on their costumes. Attendee Ferdinand Garcia and his three friends went as a Naruto-inspired ninja warrior clan, and received an unusual photo request from a patron: “We posed for a lady from Albania who was carrying this fish around with her,” Garcia said. “She wanted to take pictures of this fish in all these different places.”
Some criticized the cultural mash-up, Attendee Natsumi Onodera from Tokyo said the event was “not traditional, so I’m afraid non-Japanese people might misunderstand the culture.” Her friend Sachie Hayashida from Fukuoka was blunter: “There’s no Japanese people here,” she said. Both of them are currently studying abroad in New York, and were invited to Sakura Matsuri by one of the performers.
Brooklyn resident Kate Russell, a first-time visitor, enjoyed the variety between kimono and cosplay.
“It was great. I liked the classic cultural events and ceremonies, but also the modern, like seeing all the characters,” she said. “I will come again next year, because I want to see the cherry blossoms.”
For a full schedule and list of performers and events, visit Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s website.
