nostalgia...

Busy week at work... took on a project that unexpectedly took more time and energy, and had less help, than I had expected. I think it's finished now... or at least one phase of it is finished... enough that I can bow out of the rest of it I think without seeming to drop it in the middle.

We are supposed to be finishing up the year with our service learning projects. I don't think I can manage the two that I had planned - just one, maybe. I feel tired and the end is in sight and I just want to coast on the wind and slip sweetly into the hangar... but I've promised to create children's books about immigrant children's experiences, and a museum-quality display about the Black Panthers; I need to follow through on at least one of them.

I think the students I'd selected to do the books are not mature enough for the interviews or careful enough for piecing together the finished products, so I won't follow through on that. I'm nervous about holding the older students' attention for the Black Panther piece, but hopefully that will happen of its own accord because the material is really very compelling.

The translator I mentioned in the previous blog entry seems to be becoming a friend and has touched off other things for me... or re-awakened I should say... perhaps due to hearing him quote Persian poetry, I uploaded a new stack of my Iran photos (that's me with the flying lions at left... aka the Gate of All Nations, where all the subject nations' representatives brought their gifts to Darius on New Year's Day...) And definitely due to hearing him quote Chinese poetry, I've been thinking about all my Chinese and Japanese studies, my poetry... I've looked up my favorite poems online, of which I could only remember a few words - found them in their entirety and enjoyed that I can still read them and delight in them. I found my dear old Genji Monogatari online, with multiple modern Japanese translations side-by-side so that you can compare them, no less (you can even check which ones you want, and what commentary, and the page will reload exactly to your specifications - heh). I have thought about my thesis, and marveled that you were actually willing to read it for me, Amy n Nadine! What great friends I had and not sure I barely appreciated it at the time! Only as time passes do I realize how rare and precious those friendships are, and how little I deserved them, young and stupid as I was... I remember our trip to Cape Cod, Nadine, where I did a good chunk of proof-reading; I remember happy things from that trip (when for so long I've only thought about one negative event) - snow on the beach and stars at night, and sitting by the fire marking up my draft... I wonder where my thesis is... my Japanese books are still packed away in boxes and I sprang out of bed this morning fully intending to disinter them, but other things distracted me (such as uploading Iran pix to Flickr). I wrote Sylvia and it amused me to note the difference between this note and my previous epistle to her - it's like the Harvard student in me has been re-awakened and I used words like "epistle"... that oh-so-ironic language, with perfect grammar and elaborate vocabulary... self-mocking and showing off at the same time.

I've been hoping to make an East Coast trip this summer, though it looks relatively unlikely; that was one reason for contacting Sylvia. I have friends and/or relatives in DC, NY, Boston... and I miss the East Coast... I am trying and trying to find Chicago homelike, particularly as it's so much cheaper than back East, but if I could wave a magic wand and transport us to NYC or even Boston - job and housing of course being equal or better - I would do it, I would do it, I would do it in a nanosecond.

So I'm being nostalgic for a former life. I need to shake it off and get on with my day. But it's interesting to remember who I once was, what once engaged me and took all my time... and how I used to be, as I bragged to impress my translating friend, one of the best translators of Heian period Japanese prose in the country (maybe the world). I didn't even think of it like that at the time but it must have been true, thanks in large part to the fact that there are so few of us and that I was trained by the best. What happened to that life? I know what happened to it but... life's twists and turns are so strange, and one throws away or disregards pearls when one is young... I should have just at least finished up my Master's at Columbia... at the time I thought I just couldn't, but... I think back over all the turning points and wonder what would have happened if I'd gone another way... I don't wish that I were an academic, not at all, that life is painfully circumscribed, particularly in the field to which I would have devoted myself... but I wish I had finished my Master's and that I had finished more of the projects I had going at the time, whose fragments are also packed away in boxes that I've not opened since our 2007 move.

Well, maybe when I retire...

best experiences in Japan:Festival at Kasuga Taisha

Nara, the earliest permanent capital of Japan, is one of my favorite places in the world.

A 1300-year-old shrine called Kasuga Taisha (which I supposed could be translated as "Great Shrine of the Spring Sun") is one of my favorite places in Nara.

("shrine" is the translation for several different words used to designate a place of worship for Shintô, Japan's indigenous belief system).

Kasuga is famous for its 3000 lanterns, but even without them it would be a special place... it feels old and serene, and it's so beautiful.

I have strong memories of visiting there in 1988 with my parents. It was magical.

We approached the shrine by climbing hundreds of steps amid towering ancient trees. These particular trees often surround sacred places in Japan, and they never fail to create an awe-inspiring sense of grandeur—even of some ancient power or life force.

I remember wandering the grounds, of course taking pictures of the lanterns and continuing to feel a sense of awe but also of peace and relaxation.

Here are two photos I took on that visit (scanned in).

Stone lanterns line the steps that approach the shrine	Bronze lanterns hang from the eaves of the shrine buildings

Click on a photo to see a larger version. The large version will open in a new window; close that window to continue.

At that time we learned that the lanterns are all lit twice a year, and I wished that someday I'd have the chance to see that.

This time around, by pure coincidence, we were in the right area at the right time!

It was the festival of O-Bon, when the dead come back to visit. Families put out lights and incense to guide their ancestors home. People visit temples and shrines at night to enjoy the lights and also to pray, since at this time there is a special connection with the spirit world.

If you want to know more about the festival, this guy's site has some photos and info about O-Bon, including an extensive Q & A.

Kasuga Taisha with all its lanterns lit—it was just a magical sight. Charming, delightful, beautiful.

First we wandered the grounds for awhile (okay, we were lost), following winding paths lined with row upon row of stone lanterns.

Each little stone window was sealed with paper, and candles within cast a warm, flickering glow.

Stone lanterns (used flash)	Same lanterns (one step closer; no flash)

Click on a photo to see a larger version. The large version will open in a new window; close that window to continue.

I had a hard time photographing this—would have needed a tripod to do it properly—but use your imagination & maybe you can get the idea....

Then we joined the queue for the main building. Inside the gate, we came fairly quickly to the main worship hall...

Left: Main hall (honden) from a distance. Right: The vestibule (haiden) is as far as the public can approach. In the foreground are candles people have lit, and beyond that, a white cloth where people have thrown coins. Beyond that is the entrance to the inner sanctum, where only priests and miko may enter.

After that we proceeded through courtyards and walkways...up stairs and down...past row upon row upon row of bronze lanterns, lit from within with flickering candles.

Bronze lanterns hanging from the eaves (with flash)	Same lanterns (no flash)

Click on a photo to see a larger version. The large version will open in a new window; close that window to continue.

Aside from the lanterns, and some tea light candles tucked into the corners of each stair step, it was pitch dark.

I stumbled along with the crowd, disoriented, just looking at the lights and taking pictures...so it all seems like a dream to me now.

All I remember clearly is the lanterns—everything else is a blur. Just like in these photos.

In another post I talked about how distressing the huge crowd was for Loopy.

But having acknowledged that, let me say that for me, even the unbelievably huge crowd didn't detract from the pleasure. Everyone was in a holiday spirit and so plainly enjoying themselves that it just added to the festival atmosphere.

Furthermore, we were guided at every turn by priests, miko, and boy scouts (!!) whose voices sang out in the dark with gentle admonitions like "please watch your footing here, it's a little slippery," and "please move along, other people are waiting."

Everyone was very orderly, moved along, etc., so for those of us without claustrophobia, it felt safe, easy, comfortable, and pleasant to be among them.

It was one of those times when you really appreciate that people in Japan obey the rules.

More than that, you appreciate how right they are that life is so much easier when everyone obeys the rules instead of having to be an individual, a rebel, do it their own way, etc. (That observation prompted a whole 'nother train of thought that I'll get to at some point, I hope).

The sense of collective delight was palpable—it wasn't just foreigners who were having a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I felt swept along in a sea of bobbing lights, disoriented but not afraid.

The sense of magic was also palpable...

In fact, it wasn't too hard to imagine that among all those bobbing lights, spirits might indeed be wending their way...

two broads abroad (one broad, one broader)

So, we've been doing a lot of sleeping since we got back, but I feel pressure to get some photos up here--soon I'll start having other things to say and what if I'm not caught up with Japan yet? Then what will I do? (Laughing at self here!) But still....

I thought about trying to do a mini-travelogue ("then we went to Nara and saw these temples, then we went to Kyoto and saw these temples...") but decided a thematic approach might be better. So Loopy & I compiled some short lists.... We'll start with "Worst experience, best experience."

Worst experiences in Japan

for me

• Discovering that most of my expenses for my "tour guide" duties were NOT going to be reimbursed, i.e., we were actually going to be spending a lot of our own money to spend a lot of time with people we disliked (two of my non-favorites pictured below)--not only that but we were taking them to places they didn't seem to enjoy, when left to ourselves we'd really rather be visiting other places entirely. Ugh. Aak.
  

  Señora "Do they have chicken teriyaki?" (NO!!!)	Mademoiselle "Is there fish in this?" (YES!!!)

  
  
• The day after that, a particularly long & awful day trip (the one that was organized by someone else, I must add--but we still had to go, and still had to pay for it) was topped off by missing the last train home, having to take a sleeper train, and throwing up from bad sushi. Loopy describes it all in great detailhere.

for Loopy

• Standing in line for the train for 45 minutes at the Nagoya Expo, in high heat & humidity, amid a massive crowd (crowds give her serious claustrophobia)--after she'd already waited around for me to see "just one more thing" repeatedly for about four hours. The heat gave her a terrible heat rash on her ankles, which caused her pain for the rest of the trip (her description here--she doesn't mention how bad I was, which is very sweet of her, but it was all my fault & I feel terrible about it).
  
  
• Festival at Kasuga Taisha
  
  You will see this show up on my "best" list. I have no excuse for this evidence of utter heartlessness.
  
  Loopy describes what she liked about the event here, with pictures. What she didn't like was the horrendous crowd, heat, and walking.
  
  Another massive crowd--and this time, in addition to the panicky claustrophobic misery, she had to contend with people poking their umbrella points in her face (it was a crowd of short people in the rain) and flashbulbs going off in her eyes continually.
  
  Then, after we managed to escape that, we realized that the vast crowd had stopped all traffic and there was no hope of a taxi or bus, so we had to walk almost a mile to where traffic was moving--still in the heat, exacerbating Loopy's rash from Nagoya, so by the end of all this poor dear Loopy was in terrible pain. The next day her ankles looked like they'd been ironed (as in burnt, not as in flat). It was awful.
  
  In the photo you can see her being a very, very, very good sport. If you are wondering (1) why she ever goes anywhere with me at all and (2) why I'm still alive, you are not the only one.

Gotta go sleep some more, but tune in tomorrow for "Best Experiences"!

home sweet home

for better or for worse, getting married and settling into a wonderful house has seriously undermined my wanderlust.... although I can take 50% of the above (the spouse and the lust) with me when I wander, I do miss my home. Not like the old days, when there didn't seem to be anyplace I particularly wanted to be--at least not enough to outweigh the charms of a ruined Silk Road city or a sunrise boat ride on the Ganges.

Loopy seems quite irked to be back in the US, and she'll no doubt tell you all about it, but I confess I am very content. I loved the Detroit airport, even though--as always on a return from Japan--everything seemed dirty and broken, and--as always on a return from anywhere--the agents-formerly-known-as-INS* seemed to take precise and calculated delight in waving us through unquestioned, just to emphasize the intentionality of their insults to our swarthier fellow travellers.

But I loved:

• eating a bacon cheeseburger
  
• exchanging glances with confident dykes
  
• seeing women unapologetically in positions of authority (wearing uniforms that did not involve white gloves or pink neckerchiefs)
  
• having the waitress bring a coke instead of a sprite and not apologize as though she'd accidentally severed my hand

And, while this may sound odd, I realized I missed just being around Black people (hell, I miss that in friggin' Madison!).

There are many many things I don't love about this country, as you are all well aware. In case the immigration dudes weren't enough of a reminder, there was the CNN monitor blaring xenophobic racist bullshit across the airport.**

So don't think I've gone all soft on Amurrica now, or that I'm going to stop wandering off (already talking about a spring trip to Rome with our Kyoto fellow-traveler, who was very congenial).

All I'm saying is... well, I already said it.

Ah, I see that it's now 12:04, which concludes the 38 hours we've spent enjoying August 26th, our tenth wedding anniversary & twelfth year together--the longest anniversary day we're ever likely to spend. I've been trying to figure out all day how long a day lasts on planet earth--in other words, for how many hours is it August 26th someplace on the planet? But I'm too sleepy.

Anyway, I have been not-in-bed--in various places on the planet--for 30+ hours, and that's too long. I just needed to unwind a bit--you know how it is.

The last thing I'll say is that it was soooooooooooo wonderful to see Danielle at the airport after such a looooooooong and painful journey. She & hubby Mike kept our car for us while we were gone & drove us to & picked us up from the airport. They're so great.... we should spend more time with them.

Sorry for all the babbling....... soooo tired.....

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*Did you know that "Homeland Security Agency" is a precise translation of the words whose acronym is "Gestapo"? I'm completely serious. Oh, wait, I just looked that up on Wikipedia and I'm completely wrong--Gestapo is short for Geheime Staatspolizei, "secret state police." Damn, I've been misleading people for years on that one. I'm leaving this in in case you were one of them. Shame on me.

** CNN outrage topics du jour: how can the Labor Board give jobs to FOREIGNERS??? and, how DARE a school board in Texas require principals of schools with large %s of Spanish-speaking students, to speak Spanish themselves? (you'd think those students might have something to say to the principal that s/he'd want to hear--of all the crazy things!) I honestly think a serious racist onslaught against Latinos is coming--already underway in many places, but seriously, something bigger is in preparation on a national scale. As evidence, look no further than the heaps of anti-immigrant junk mail on my dad's desk, or CNN again, which is full of xenophobic spew every friggin' day. But enuffa that....

for the last time....

...for a while anyway, I am currently...
1) sitting in a hotel lobby, unable to see our pile of bags--including my purse with passport and wallet inside--yet feeling completely confident that no mishap will befall them.
2) waiting for a taxi that will probably arrive precisely when promised
3) to go to a train that will probably depart precisely when promised (I would say definitely but there was a typhoon just a few hours ago, which adds maybe a 5% chance of non-punctuality)
3a) in full confidence that if the train is late, all train station employees will be extremely helpful and extremely apologetic (I wish I could trade Franklin some helpful train station employees for some sleazy lingerie catalogues)
4) sitting within a hundred yards of twenty-seven vending machines, seven noodle restaurants, and a hundred shops selling adorable little hello kitty tsotchkes.
5) fondly remembering my breakfast of fish, rice, unidentifiable dishes # 1, 2, and 3, and my plum-flavored toothpaste.

Ah, Japan.

first twenty-four hours...

My first 24 to 48 hours in a different culture (I mean a really different culture) tend to make me feel blind. There:s* a visual cacophony that the brain can:t process. Images reach the retina but aren:t perceived.

This happened a little in Thailand, first stop on my long-ago round-the-world journey, although Bangkok is enough of a global city that I could get my bearings to some extent. But I do remember having breakfast in the hotel cafe and just feeling a huge shock hit me like a brick wall. To stop my head from spinning, I left the cafe and just started walking, since I was on a major thoroughfare through the city (think Broadway)(only not at all like Broadway, starting with the orchids growing wild in the crooks of the trees). I walked about three miles before I felt human again.

But I had this experience in Nepal most intensely. I literally couldn:t process anything...the first time I left the hotel I felt like I was feeling my way down a wall in the dark, even though I was walking down the street in broad daylight. I was heading for a guidebook-recommended restaurant called "KC's" just a minute or two from the hotel. I remember catching sight of the restaurant:s sign, the only Roman lettering I saw, and latching onto it desperately, feeling like I was struggling toward it through some kind of storm or chaos--even though the chaos was all in my head as my brain struggled to make sense of anything, anything at all, that met my eyes.

This effect is of course much less in Japan, but still, when we walked out today and wandered a bit in the temple area, I was amazed at how many more details I saw that I had completely missed on the first day. I didn:t notice that there were gigantic straw shoes (at least one story tall) hanging on the temple gate (an offering from some locality or other), or that the whole end of the temple is decorated magnificently...or that there:s a garden on the west side...

And, speaking of the first twenty-four hours, here:s what I meant to blog from that day:

1) "Let:s never go home" - spoken after eating the most delicate, delicious, wonderful sushi ***ever*** in a total hole-in-the-wall bar...

2) "Let:s never go to Japan again" - spoken after two and a half exhausting hours at the train station, during which we struggled with train schedule books (which I kinda enjoy actually), were yelled at by Belgians, and then tried to figure out how two rotund foreigners were going to get around the country on trains built for teeny weeny people (how do sumo wrestlers survive, anyway? - maybe it helps to be a national icon)....final conclusion: rather than buying two expensive seats (wider) it:s actually cheaper to buy one cheap seat (beside the two we get for free with our rail passes) giving us a total of three cheap seats.... also known as, "our trip around Japan with our imaginary friend." Sheesh.

Tomorrow we go to Nagoya and my job as guide & interpreter (how we got to Japan in the first place) begins..... We:ll try to keep posting but as you know, life on the road is unpredictable.....

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*The colon (:) on this Japanese keyboard is in the same place that the apostrophe is on a US keyboard. I have been spending many precious minutes (as hordes of cranky impatient Europeans mill about waiting to use the sole computer of this establishment) going back and changing the colons for apostrophes. 'Nuffa that.

genshi bakudan

Today was the 60th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima. A couple of thoughts...

1. On the news this morning, about fifteen minutes was devoted to a respectful reflection, interviews with survivors and present-day residents of Hiroshima, etc. (Made me cry....one of the survivors talked about how she still has a moment of terror every time a camera flash goes off...) Then on to the typhoon in Okinawa and a guy who keeps 300 bugs in his apartment. Now, think about it. If anyone had ever dropped a nuclear bomb on the U.S., CNN would be all-bomb-all-the-time on every anniversary forever after.

2. Fifty thousand people were killed instantly, and another 100,000-plus died of their injuries later. And people have the nerve to say, of Sept. 11, that "nothing like this has ever happened before." Uh, scuse me but, yes, it has, and we did it.

3. And here's what "we," or rather our esteemed leader FDR, had to say about it:

But the greatest marvel is not the size of the enterprise, its secrecy, nor its cost, but the achievement of scientific brains in putting together infinitely complex pieces of knowledge held by many men in different fields of science into a workable plan. And hardly less marvelous has been the capacity of industry to design, and of labor to operate, the machines and methods to do things never done before so that the brain child of many minds came forth in physical shape and performed as it was supposed to do.

This wasn't some reflection in a memoir fifty years later--this was the friggin' press release the day after it happened. How cold-blooded can you get?

4. If the U.S. were anything resembling a "civilized" nation, we would apologize. But no, we can't do that, because that might cause people to have some doubt about our current endeavors in Iraq etc.....

Gotta go.......

More: here, here, and here.

seldom asked questions...

while looking for a Tokyo subway map I came across this, which appears to be either a blog by people traveling/living in major cities, or a cleverly designed vehicle for ads for travelers, or both.

Here's the post that amused me (in its entirety, so you don't need to click the link & get the cookies yourself).

And about those porcelain statues with the giant testicles...

(yes, that was the title of the post)

There are a million questions we had about Japanese culture.

• Why do people slurp ramen?
  
• Who are the people on Japanese money?
  
• Why are there statues of racoon dogs* outside ramen shops and why do they always have giant testicles?
  
• When Japanese TV shows crime suspects, why are their handcuffs fuzzed out?
  
• Did the yogurt drink ‘Calpis’ get its name because it’s cow piss? (No.)
  
• And most importantly, why are there always Love Hotels near shrines?

The Japanese Seldom Asked Questions page answers all of these and more; amazing, really.

Japanese Seldom Asked Questions [Official Page]

On the same blog/site there's also a post about this story about how some relatives of Taiwanese men who were conscripted into the WWII Japanese army came to the Yasukuni Shrine (which honors war dead or something—it's associated with Japanese imperialism and until recently was very much frowned upon, but in keeping with the upsurge of fascism worldwide, its image has been a bit rehabilitated—ANYWAY!) to retrieve the souls of the conscripts and take them back to Taiwan. But a right-wing Japanese group wouldn't let them. So they went home without the souls.

Loopy was trying to tell me the other day that the culture probably isn't as different as I remember from an insecure age 15.

I actually think it might be more different, as I was a pretty oblivious kid in some ways.

But I'm happy to leave the jury out on that one til Loopy can decide for herself.

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*Raccoon dog??? I always thought these animals (tanuki in Japanese) were badgers.

But it turns out that this animal is native only to East Asia, so it's not a badger or racoon or dog, it's just a tanuki (stuffed one at left). They play a role in Japanese folk lore, sort of a gentle trickster (as opposed to the fox, the cruel trickster). More on tanukis here.

Which leads me to another question: why does so much folklore worldwide seem to have tricksters in it? I don't like these stories at all, but apparently that puts me out of touch with most of humanity through most of history.