| Submitted by: Mark Leeper United States |
| Submission Date: 09 February 2005 |
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Just somehow it seems the language of UNIX is English. We had to take a train and a ferry to get to Miya-jima Island. On the way we talked to some Mexicans who were in Japan working for their company, the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain. Then we kept running into them all afternoon.
Miya-jima is a Shinto shrine with a Torii gate incongruously placed in the water off the island. Foreigners were not allowed on the island but could visit the shrine by boat. Hence the Torii gate out in the water. The island itself is beautiful. Its chief inhabitants are deer. The island suffers from Galapagos Photographers' Folly. That is when you first get to the island you see a deer 30 feet away and quietly take a picture. Then you see one actually 20 feet and you take another. The next might be seven feet and you feel proud of yourself. Then you realize these are special deer. They were raised not to fear humans. They think of humans as sources of handouts and nothing else. They constantly are looking for food and if they are not getting food from the people they are raiding the trash bins in the hopes of finding something edible. I saw a whole family who had turned savage. They had brought down and killed a shopping bag and each was eating a different part. Mamma was having a hard time getting down the plastic handles. Some tourists were filming this, but eventually they got bored and went away--the tourists, not the deer. The deer stood their ground oblivious to the presence of humans. Another reason the deer let the people get so close is also purely greed. They have a really good reason for wanting the humans coming and being happy. The deer hold a majority of the stock in the island. This could be bad news for the Shintoists, but the deer, being only deer, have not yet figured how to vote as a block.
Well, I may be exaggerating a bit, but there are a lot of deer and they have no fear of humans. There are signs up warning you that the males may butt people with their antlers. The females have no defense at all. It looks like just another sexist society. Most of the males have their antlers sawed off in any case indicating that there has been some attempt to create justice and equality among the sexes.
The point of the whole island was, of course, at one time the shrine. But like a lot of shrines concessions were put up on the way in to catch visitors. Now it is sort of a tourist island with shops and hotels. The shrine is still there if you want to visit it, certainly. The specialty of the island seems to be maple leaf shaped cookies that are about an inch thick. A large number of shops have in their windows the same machine that bakes these cookies. The machine is a marvel of automation that in the back is pouring cookie batter and in the front is putting fully backed cookies on a conveyer belt. Many of the shops have the same machine in their window. it is fascinating to watch, as automation often is.
When the time came we headed back to the ferry and on it back to the mainland (which is just another island). We had some time for dinner so after checking the time at the train station we went to a restaurant which turned out to be the equivalent of a bar. People were drinking mostly beer and sake (which is beer also, by the way, not wine). I had squid and yakatori. The former was pretty good. There was a fair amount of squid. It was a piece about four inches long and an inch and a half wide cut into rings. The yakatori was not very good. On skewers there was scallion, gristly meat, sausage, and fat of some sort (bacon?). It turned out to be expensive also since there was a 200 yen service charge for each of us that added a fair percent to a bill that was going to be only about 1200 yen anyway.
I was in the mood for some dessert and getting on the train I got an ice cream bar from a machine for 100 yen. That turned out to be the best bargain of the day. It was good ice cream and it had almond pieces in the coating. It would have cost more at home, and that usually is not true for Western style food. I guess there is not that much demand for dairy products. They are not naturally used much in East Asia. I am told when Matthew Perry arrived the Japanese wanted to see his ships. 'Oh, you have cows on your boat.' 'Yes, that way we can have dairy products.' 'Oh!... What are dairy products?' Perry's men told them. The Japanese turned a lovely shade of green and asked to be excused. They no doubt went back to their homes for lovely meal of squid. Now Americans often find the concept of eating squid disgusting. It is actually quite good. The Soviets used to laugh at Americans for eating corn which they fed only to livestock. At home we take the glandular secretions of a cow, separate out the fatty portions, let them congeal, and call it 'fresh cremery butter.' And when you eat honey you are eating something an insect had in its mouth. Speaking of differences, the Japanese never had kissing until they saw Westerners doing it.
On the train a man sat down with us reading a book in Japanese about Netscape and Java.
The Shinkansen back to Kyoto was uneventful except for a group of drunken Americans (possibly from Louisiana, certainly from the South) who had reservations on our car. We were treated to overhearing stories about being met by their guide and seeing their golf clubs he was quoted as thinking 'Ah so! We gonna play SOME GOLF!' My suspicion is that was not what was going through the guide's mind. Americans can be pretty embarrassing. Later in the trip they were trying to open a bottle of sake. They said they wished they had a corkscrew. Evelyn offered them one. Of course sake does not come in corked bottles so it did them no good, but they got it open (I think it was a screw-off--and they were also) and after handing the bottle around and drinking from the bottle one of them came back and offered Evelyn a swig. She politely refused.
We were a little late getting back. I was thirsty and got myself a can of a soft drink called 'Poccari Sweat.' I was intrigued by the name. I think it was like Gaterade. It did not taste very good but it was thirst quenching. From there we made reservations for the train to Himeji. Then took the bus back to the hotel.
Evelyn had found an abandoned manga on the train so I got a chance to see it. It was in general stories aimed at female readers, but even so there was on story that featured female nudity. The mangas are really somewhat course entertainment. Whatever sells. The ones that sell to men seem to have both *** and violence. To women they sell mostly just the sex.
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10/18/96 Himeji: Feudal Castle II
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The semi-Classical radio station was playing what sounded like hunting music with bird sounds. They also played some light classics like 'Funeral March of the Marionette.' Most Americans think of that as the Alfred Hitchcock theme.
Walking to the train station we passed a Lawson's and stopped to try to find breakfast. The cash registers here have big rectangular displays that list all your items at one time, almost like seeing a spreadsheet. When no in use they carry advertising complete with pictures. It seems like a smart idea. There is no reason we could not do that back home. We just don't because we are not ready to do it yet. We know how to do it, but the time is not right for us. We don't want to invest this soon. The Japanese seem to have the attitude that it can be done now and it is a better way to do things so it probably should.
I have heard that McDonalds changed some of their basic formulae for Japan. The Japanese like hamburger meat to taste a little sweeter than we like it in the U.S. I wondered where this taste came from. Well as it seems to me now the Japanese have had hamburgers here all along. Steamed buns are really just sort of sealed hamburgers. When the Japanese prefer the inside sweeter, they are probably just imitating steamed buns, which often have a sweet-ish sauce. The differences are really small. A steamed bun completely surrounds the filling, a hamburger bun does but has a crack allowing the halves to be separated. A burger holds together by itself usually, a steamed bun has more small pieces. Beyond that, they are pretty similar. I had two buns, both which had meat and small crunchy vegetables, one had a very spicy curry sauce. We ate them on the train to Himeji. The weather was clouding up again. I was expecting Himeji to be just a small town. There are some small towns in Japan but you cannot prove it by my experience. Every town we visit ends up looking like some urban center. This is really a very densely populated island. We got into Himeji and made sure we left by the north exit. Pretty much as soon as we hit the street we could see the castle. Himeji Castle is a second castle built (or in this case extended from a previous castle) by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The castle in Matsumoto was called the Black Crow and this one is the White Egret or the White Crane. I believe it is the largest of the Medieval castles still in Japan and certainly the largest that is still the same shape it was in the late 1500s. The original castle dates back to the 1300s, but it was extended by Hideyoshi's order in 1581. It has a main tower five stories high and three supporting towers. >From a distance it was impressive. It would be even more so up close.
Himeji was heavily bombed in the war so besides the castle, there is not a lot of character to the town. They partially make up for it with some sculpted statues going up the main street. Included are several nude figures the strangest of which is a nude man marching with a saxophone. There are, however, several nice statues on either side of the main street.
When we got to the end of the main street the castle still loomed well ahead and high above us. There is a park and we had to walk around it (clockwise) to get to the entrance. When you get the ticket, again there is a sign that says if you want an English language guide, you can ask. We did and got another elderly man, plus there was a younger woman. The sign said the tour was an hour and a half. The guide warned us that it might be closer to two hours. Fine, as long as it takes. The guide said that he wanted to take six minutes and explain a little about the history of the feudal period. Fine by me. He talked about who Hideyoshi was and Ieyasu. To give him feedback. He would mention a battle and I would say something like 'Sekigahara.' He clearly was pleased that this American actually knew a little Japanese history. But he talked as if Toyotomi and Tokugawa were actually enemies. I thought of them as being allies and friends. He said they were not. Actually they were a little of both and there must have been a misunderstanding between them. Toyotomi Hideyoshi was Ieyasu Tokugawa's father-in-law and initially he gave Ieyasu his opportunities. He did not live to see it, but Ieyasu betrayed the Toyotomis and Hideyoshi's son was really Ieyasu's enemy. But I had to do a little more research to realize that. But I think he was impressed that I was conversant with who these figures were.
He told us that the castle had five stories and I asked if like pagodas they are always an odd number of stories. The castles were built by Buddhists and Buddhists consider that odd numbers are lucky, even unlucky. He was not sure if it was always true, but he thought it might be. Later he showed us some paintings one of the lords had made of carp. I asked what was the special symbolism of carp. Well, a carp swims up waterfalls and it is a symbol of courage. But he seemed surprised that I knew that carp had to be symbolic. He asked how did I know so much about Japan. I told him well, we'd been in Japan for a week already. But then I told him I had always had a special interest in Japan going back to being a small boy interested in Gojira. More to the point I got interested in samurai films. |
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