Places I've been in Japan

This map shows interesting places I've been and/or lived in Japan. They're not all in Tokyo, so be sure to zoom out too.

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Mikoshi in the Japantown Parade

Today I went to Japantown to help carry the Mikoshi in the Sakura Matsuri parade. My friend Kiyomi and her family help to organize it every year, so she got a bunch of friends together to help carry it. A mikoshi is a portable Shinto shrine that is used at festivals to give the god of the shrine a tour around the neighborhood. This is very common in Japan, and there are even places where they have dueling mikoshi, where they batter the neighboring shrines mikoshi into submission, or at least attempt to.

There were two mikoshi in this year’s parade, and we helped carry the large Taru Mikoshi, or barrel shrine. It's called that because the mikoshi is made up of a large pyramid of sake barrels on top of a wooden platform. There was definitely a sake theme to the event, with everyone wearing happi coats provided by sake companies, and plenty of drinking to go around.

We got there at 10 AM to get dressed in Happi coats and little white shorts. I chose the Japanese style, so I had to ask for help to figure out which way they went on. They then wound a big white cloth around my stomach for support. Apparently the Mikoshi is very heavy and you need it. For some reason they don't think to wind cloth around your shoulder, though, which is where everyone gets bruised and raw. We also wore little tabi shoes and sake company happi coats, which is ironic since I don't drink.

Just as we finished getting dressed, a group of about 50 pilots-in-training from JAL showed up. Apparently they have a training facility up in Napa where they spend 2 years learning how to fly. Who knew? I guess it's a pretty nice perk to be able to visit someplace like Napa Valley during your training. Anyway, they all got matching JAL happi coats. Since they were fresh off the boat, or plane, I guess, they were among the most enthusiastic participants, with innumerable cheers.

We hung around for a couple of hours and ate lunch before meeting up to carry the mikoshi. First, everyone warmed up with some sake, and then Japanese style calisthenics with much shout-counting in Japanese. We practiced lifting and shaking the mikoshi, which really is quite heavy. It's amazing no one ever drops it, but I guess that's why they had over 100 people to hold it. Of course, a lot of people dropped out as the march went on. They also didn't let really tall people carry it, because they would be crushed down to the height of normal people and get injured.

The whole parade is fairly long, but since the mikoshi is so heavy, we started out 4 blocks from the finish. We watched the whole parade go by and cheered everyone on. The mikoshi leaders kept running out into the parade to offer sake to those of age, and especially those of significantly more than sufficient age, each of whose drink was heartily cheered by the JAL contingent.

When the last of the parade had passed by, the mikoshi leaders stripped down to their fundoshi (the Japanese loincloths that Sumo players wear), climbed on top of the sake barrels, and we were underway. The leaders use a whistle to tell everyone when to raise, lower, and shake the mikoshi. Once we got the shrine moving and out onto the street I realized that the mikoshi was a lot heavier than we had thought. We bounced our way down the street until we reached the first intersection and put the mikoshi down on stands to rest.

You can see some pictures of the SF Taru Mikoshi at http://flickr.com/photos/tags/tarumikoshi/. In one of the ones from 2006 you can even see a tuft of my hair peeking out from behind the woman in the yellow happi coat.

One of the hardest parts about moving the mikoshi is that since everyone is packed in so tight holding it up, you have to step in unison otherwise everyone is stepping all over everyone else. I'm not sure if it was my fault or not, but my left tabi shoe got unfastened every single block.

I didn't see any of the crowd because I was too busy lifting and chanting "seiyo" (no idea what that means) to notice anything. Some of the other mikoshi people were filling pots with water and splashing them all over us. The march was a blur of water, shuffling feet, and the omnipresent crushing weight of the mikoshi on my shoulder. I folded up a small towel to cushion my shoulder (since my shoulder blades or something stick out like little vestigial horns), but it didn't really help. As I write this tonight my shoulder is still red and sore.

When we got down to the last block, which seemed like it took forever, we started spinning the mikoshi around and bouncing it up and down. It didn't seem like anyone had much energy left to bounce it around, especially since we shed carriers as we reached the end of the march.

After that, we set the mikoshi down at the end of the parade (4 blocks has never seemed that long!) and went to the hot springs to shower off, followed by bento and lot’s of drinking. Lot's of Japanese people living here in the US seemed to come out of the woodwork for this festival, including a large contingent from Sunnyvale, of all places. Several people commented that while the parade was very different from festivals in Japan, it was nice to see some of their crazy customs here in a foreign land.

4/25 Update: My shoulder is no longer red, but now it has turned a nice greenish yellow shade. Apparently I have an enormous bruise covering the entire top of my shoulder. It's huge.

4/28 Update: The greenish yellow has faded, and now I am only left with some rough skin where the mikoshi sat on my shoulder.

Japanese Music in SF

I went to see a Japanese music show in SF last night. There were a bunch of bands from Tokyo there, although they are more accurately from Chiba (The Daly City of Tokyo). I missed some of the opening bands, but I managed to catch the last 3 (out of 5).

The first band was the Stance Punks (http://stancepunks.com/htdocs), who are actually somewhat famous since they wrote the theme song to Naruto (a famous anime). They were the spitting image of a punk show, and it was great. Enormous spiked hair, lead singer with a suit and skinny tie, and tons of energy. I don't think I've ever seen as much sweat fly off a person as when the singer shook his head. It looked like a waterfall, but going up instead of down. Simply amazing. They put on an awesome show, although I felt bad that we didn't greet them with a mosh-pit worthy of a good punk band. There were so many different kinds of bands in the show that I don't think there were enough people there interested in moshing. Oh well. I hope they didn't think too badly of us.

The next band was Pez (http://www.worldapart.co.jp/pez/eng), which was a 5 piece jazz group. They were a lot of fun, and their keyboardist was really getting into it with his dark glasses at night look.

The headliners, and the real reason everyone came to the show, was Tsushimamire (http://www.gakki.ne.jp/~mamire), a bouncy girl rock metal band. I'd actually seem them before, around the time last year when my friend Tomo came out and did a live painting in SF, and they are great. They are very happy and sincere Japanese girls, and they come out in their little dresses and look very very Japanese. And then they begin to rock. They have so much energy and they put on a great show. The crowds love them.

They play a mix of happy bounce rock, combined with the occasional death metal cookie monster vocals, with a smattering of ska thrown in for good measure. There are some mp3's on their site if you're interested in actually understanding what I'm talking about, instead of just nodding and pretending that you understood because it's easier than asking me to describe it better.

Since this was the second time I've heard them, I was finally able to understand some of the lyrics. Especially the ones with English parts! I still can't understand any Japanese hip-hop, though. I tried translating some Gagle, but it turned out to be super hard and full of weird words, kind of like the Beastie Boys, except more samurai.

Tsushimamire has some interesting lyrics, including a song about pickled plums, and one about a homeless man who listened to their first concert on the street. My favorite, though, is ochassuka, or Tea Time Ska, which alternates fluffy japanese with ska and the aforementioned cookie monster death metal growls. You really have to listen to appreciate it.

If you ever get a chance to see Tsushimamire, I highly highly recommend that you go. It's an experience not to be missed, along with such notorious San Francisco acts as Captured by Robots (android jazzercise s/m metal) and ArnoCorps (Schwarzenegger themed band - www.myspace.com/arnocorps). You won't be dissapointed!

Cool places in Tokyo

http://saisyokukan.com : A super yummy vegetarian fake-meat restaurant run by a nice Taiwanese lady. They have great vegetarian "chicken" karaage. Ikebukuro 2-73-4

Cafe Eight : A great chinese fertility restaurant. Giant genitalia all over the walls. Plus they have a little shrine in the back with several golden penii. You pick the one that matches your shape and get a fortune from it. Nishi-Azabu 3-2-13, Court Annex 2F

Homeless

Someone asked me yesterday if there are homeless people in Japan. Japan is widely seen as the land of the middle class, and although that perception is slowly changing within Japan, it is still basically valid. However, there are definitely homeless people in Japan, especially in Tokyo.

Homeless people in Japan act very different than in the States, however. As far as I know, there is no panhandling (at least, I've never been asked for change - although that could just be because people assume I don't speak Japanese). It may also be related to the fact that there is no tipping in Japan, as they are both things you do with your leftover change.

The other major difference is the cleanliness and presentability of the homeless. With most of the homeless in Japan, you often are hard-pressed to identify them as such. They are usually dressed in decent clothes and look like they are fairly in control of their lives (i.e. not completely strung out on drugs). While I don't have any hard data, I get the feeling that people in Japan are homeless for often quite different reasons than in the US. There is definitely a significant percentage of the homeless who were involved in Japan's business / manufacturing world, but for whatever reason, were not able to make it in that life. That is, some of the homeless were definitely former Salarymen who couldn't deal with the stresses of the job, rather than people who lost it because of drug or alcohol use. Given the strict penalties for drug use in Japan, I think it is less prevalent than here in the States.

Japanese homeless encampments are also completely different than in the states. The most common way to see the homeless in Japan is when they sleep at night in the downtown districts such as Shinjuku. Every night large numbers of homeless set up for the night outside businesses that have closed down. They lay down their bedding and surround it with cardboard boxes so that all you can see on the outside is an 8x2x2 foot cardboard box with nothing unsightly protruding from it. I will upload a picture later when I can figure out how to download it off my cell phone. This neatness may be part of the reason why shop owners don't complain about homeless people sleeping outside their business. I am sure that the Japanese homeless are also very conscientious about packing up and removing their belongings before the start of business the next day.

The other places where you often see homeless encampments are in public parks and alongside riverbanks by train lines. In these cases the homeless may not really be considered homeless, as they seem to live a more nomadic life. They construct tidy tents out of blue plastic tarps that are actually around the same size as many Japanese apartments. Some even have stoves and cell phones in their houses.

I haven't actually spoken with any of the Japanese homeless, but friends who have said that they seem completely normal, other than the fact that they live outside of traditional Japanese society. Given Japan's much stronger social system, it seems as if the traditional Japanese propriety extends out into the world of the homeless.

The song of the Yaki-imo man

Tonight I heard the lilting song of the Yaki-imo driver as he steered his little truck with a wood-fired grill through the snow-lined alleys, so I ran outside for a toasty treat. Although his song reminds me of a haunting chinese melody, the lyrics consist solely of the emotional phrase "grilled sweet potato". As the wizened old man handed me the same wrapped in newspaper, I could barely make out the price he requested through his semi-toothy grin.

Mobile vendors in Japan often drive through back-alleys singing songs about such mundane topics as vegetables, recycling, and a kerosene truck whose song sounds suspiciously like a US ice cream truck. Even though it can be hard to make out the words, you can learn which tunes are used for a particular thing, as all the vendors for something will sing the same song.

Short Legs

Yesterday I ate lunch at a tiny Chinese style restaurant near where I live. It was one of those places with just a kitchen and a bar/counter with space for about 10 people. They have a little riser box underneath the counter to rest your feet on, and, would you believe it, the space between the box and the counter was so small I couldn't even get my legs in! I could kind of do it if I angled my legs to the side, put them in, and then twisted them upright, but that was with my heels sticking out and feeling like there was a piano on my thighs. I had to push my stool back so that I was sticking out into what little space there was behind me and bend forward to reach the counter. And I'm only 5'10"!

Question for the day: There are a lot of Chinese restaurants in Japan run by Japanese people, yet you don't really find Chinese restaurants in America (okay, in California) run by white people. Why is that?