Handwoven leaf and bamboo decorations honouring Gunung Agung (the large mountain) in Bali.Monday, November 30, 2009
Weaving for the volcano
Handwoven leaf and bamboo decorations honouring Gunung Agung (the large mountain) in Bali.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
How to order a double-double in Singapore
Just ask for coffee, or rather kopi. If you want to get tea or coffee without milk or sugar you have to specify - the default is white and very sweet.
Apparently the national breakfast of Singapore is coffee and kaya toast - hot buttered toast spread with coconut jam. My packed eating schedule didn't allow me to have it for breakfast, but I tasted it as an afternoon snack all the same. Sweet, but delicious.
Apparently the national breakfast of Singapore is coffee and kaya toast - hot buttered toast spread with coconut jam. My packed eating schedule didn't allow me to have it for breakfast, but I tasted it as an afternoon snack all the same. Sweet, but delicious.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Omu raisu
Omuraisu, or omelet rice, from a mall food court in Kagoshima City, where I ate lunch with what appeared to be the entire teenage population.Omuraisu is total comfort food, fried rice with a thin egg omelet draped overtop. It's often served with curry, demiglace, or ketchup, but this version unusually has the okonomi toppings of brown sauce, mayo, bonito flakes and shreds of red pickled ginger.
Beside the "white diaspora", the other tourist group catered to in Bali is Japanese, and I was amused to see a sign outside a restaurant advertising "omu nasi"!
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Photo: Detail of the A-bomb dome in Hiroshima.Probably an odd reading choice for South-East Asia, but I've always wanted to catch up on the classics I missed in my misspent youth...
After having read about the origins of Buddhism, it was interesting to turn to a book that deals so heavily with the development of Christianity, albeit in a way that was terribly controversial on publication in the 1780s.
The whole thing being a bit massive, this was an abridged version that only came to under 700 pages, but which had most of the first three volumes intact.
If being a tourist here in Bali makes me feel like a member of the idle rich, reading Decline and Fall while sitting on a patio drinking fresh papaya juice and local coffee felt incredibly decadent, as if I were one of those effete youths on Grand Tour so often described in novels about the decline and fall of the British empire.
I'm carrying on the classical theme with Ovid's Metamorphoses, which is a more obvious choice for transformative journeys...
Cooling off after the onsen
This is Daimon-san in the Ibusuki area of Kagoshima prefecture. Just behind the photographer is the onsen where I was buried in hot volcanic sand with the sound of the surf crashing only metres away.It was an amazing experience, the sand so hot that my hands and feet began instantly to pulse, as if I had four extra hearts. The combination of the heat and the weight were so relaxing I wanted to stay - but you can only remain for 15 minutes and even at that my skin got very slightly burnt.
Afterwards, to remove the yukata and clean off the sand, then soak naked in the onsen waters, before heading outside to drink an iced coffee and gaze happily at the mountain while the sea breeze cools you...bliss.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Photo: samurai armour in Matsuyama castle.This vast novel by Haruki Murakami was my companion for most of my time in Japan. I was on my third reading when I finally, reluctantly, gave it up in Kyoto in exchange for some new material.
It's fascinating, absorbing - and despite multiple readings I don't understand it enough to say much about it except you should read it too. It's probably bad to make comparisons but the obvious one in my mind is Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, for the sweeping breadth and for the way that political and domestic history are intertwined; and for the surrealism. But this is Japan, not South America, and the comparison only goes so far.
It's about a young man abandoned at the bottom of a well, about his marriage and the strange machinations of his wife's family; it's about the atrocities committed by Japan before and during WWII, and the terrible fates that awaited the individuals that carried out the orders from on high, as well. It's about strange connections between strangers and the cost of letting go of reality in order to be able to heal.
I think it's probably a lot about the "soul" of modern Japan, except that I feel too ignorant to really understand; but happily the ignorant can feast on the book anyway. Ah, I am going to read so much once I come back to settle somewhere with a bookshelf and a library card again...
It's fascinating, absorbing - and despite multiple readings I don't understand it enough to say much about it except you should read it too. It's probably bad to make comparisons but the obvious one in my mind is Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, for the sweeping breadth and for the way that political and domestic history are intertwined; and for the surrealism. But this is Japan, not South America, and the comparison only goes so far.
It's about a young man abandoned at the bottom of a well, about his marriage and the strange machinations of his wife's family; it's about the atrocities committed by Japan before and during WWII, and the terrible fates that awaited the individuals that carried out the orders from on high, as well. It's about strange connections between strangers and the cost of letting go of reality in order to be able to heal.
I think it's probably a lot about the "soul" of modern Japan, except that I feel too ignorant to really understand; but happily the ignorant can feast on the book anyway. Ah, I am going to read so much once I come back to settle somewhere with a bookshelf and a library card again...
Believe!
Boddhisattvas are all loving-kindness, but there are more forceful deities to help convert the masses. These fearsome statues are often placed at the entrance to temples to help instill a sense of urgency in the not-yet-devout.The kawaii never stops
Instructions for how to purify yourself before entering the grounds of a temple or shrine in Japan.Siddhatta vs. Siddhartha
Photo: Jizo at a Shinto shrine in downtown Kyoto.Before I left on my trip, one of my preparations was to stop at a used book store to let serendipity help me choose what to read at the beginning of my trip. Pulp Fiction on W. Broadway happened to have a good Asia non-fiction section, and the first of the books I ended up reading was Karen Armstrong's biography of Buddha (titled: Buddha).
I had already read her very interesting A History of Myth and listened to her TED talk on compassion, so I was looking forward to it. I ended up reading the whole thing in the first few jetlagged days, so that it was caught up in the early fog of arrival. Then I read it again more slowly midway through the trip (I read each book I bought at least twice before finally getting some new ones in Kyoto!).
I don't really know much about Buddhism, so rather than trying to offer a critique of the book I can just say that it really awakened my interest, making me want to read more fully about the history of Buddhism as it developed as a religion. It also made me want to explore more fully the gaps that lie between the official history and theology of a religion and the understanding that believers have; and the distance between how it's practiced by monks and by laypeople. Despite also not knowing much about Hinduism, I'd had the same feeling when I had the chance to take a religious studies class about it at university. The teacher strongly believed in the importance of studying practical Hinduism with equal weight, rather than sticking solely to the textual tradition, and I really absorbed that attitude. The little that I know from listening to people who practice Buddhism gives me a really different idea than what I took from Armstrong's version of Buddha's teachings.
Japan is the only Buddhist country I've visited so far, and it's a fascinating and unique one, given the deep and longlasting syncretism with native Shinto practice. That's a whole post (or lifetime of study) in itself, and even looking just at Buddhism in Japan shows such a huge variety of sects and beliefs in monastic practice, let alone about how most Japanese feel about or understand Buddhism. I am excited to travel soon to Vietnam and to see Buddhism in a totally different context (not without syncretism of its own, of course).
Something else that I found myself thinking of as I read this book, was another book I studied at university in a German lit class - Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. (Armstrong's book is mostly based on the Pali canon and so she uses Pali spelling rather than Sanskrit, so I am making a distinction between Hesse's Siddhartha and Armstrong's Siddhatta). Leaving aside the whole problem of cultural imperialism and Hesse's appropriation of Indian tradition (and noting that Armstrong too is a Western interpreter of Eastern tradition), I remembered my visceral reaction to the book when I read it at 19. I HATED it. The contrast of noble Siddhartha with fleshy Kamala made my skin crawl. The whole thing just seemed like typical male self-indulgence - sure, subsist on the food that the women prepare and donate to you, and adopt their sons into your sanghas, but be sure to point out to them their inferiority, their hopeless trappedness in samsara BECAUSE YOUR CULTURAL LAWS WON'T ALLOW THEM TO ESCAPE IT.
While Armstrong's depiction of Buddha isn't quite as creepy as I remember Hesse's being, she does point out the misogyny in the Buddhist tradition, wherever it originally crept in. Women could only be admitted as nuns subservient to the monks and following an additional set of rules; and in a whole large branch of Buddhism today there are no nuns because it is now viewed as impossible to fulfill those conditions.
In her broader discussion of the Axial age in which both Hinduism and Buddhism developed, she points out that along with the new spirituality came a new and more crippling misogyny, which is something that tends to keep me from identifying with any religion I've ever heard of, however impressive some of it other aspects are. The question of why those two strands developed together near-simultaneously in discrete parts of the world is a fascinating one. I do find it hard to get past what seems to me like clear hypocrisy antithetical to a true state of enlightenment. But of course that's just my lesser feminine self speaking!
To complement the history, I also picked up a book on Buddhist practice by the Dalai Lama. Even though I'm not going to Tibet I thought it might help provide more context for mostly Buddhist South-East Asia. I can't say that I feel any closer to enlightenment, but it was certainly an interesting text to read and ponder.
All of it a bit moot of course, in Hindu Bali.
I had already read her very interesting A History of Myth and listened to her TED talk on compassion, so I was looking forward to it. I ended up reading the whole thing in the first few jetlagged days, so that it was caught up in the early fog of arrival. Then I read it again more slowly midway through the trip (I read each book I bought at least twice before finally getting some new ones in Kyoto!).
I don't really know much about Buddhism, so rather than trying to offer a critique of the book I can just say that it really awakened my interest, making me want to read more fully about the history of Buddhism as it developed as a religion. It also made me want to explore more fully the gaps that lie between the official history and theology of a religion and the understanding that believers have; and the distance between how it's practiced by monks and by laypeople. Despite also not knowing much about Hinduism, I'd had the same feeling when I had the chance to take a religious studies class about it at university. The teacher strongly believed in the importance of studying practical Hinduism with equal weight, rather than sticking solely to the textual tradition, and I really absorbed that attitude. The little that I know from listening to people who practice Buddhism gives me a really different idea than what I took from Armstrong's version of Buddha's teachings.
Japan is the only Buddhist country I've visited so far, and it's a fascinating and unique one, given the deep and longlasting syncretism with native Shinto practice. That's a whole post (or lifetime of study) in itself, and even looking just at Buddhism in Japan shows such a huge variety of sects and beliefs in monastic practice, let alone about how most Japanese feel about or understand Buddhism. I am excited to travel soon to Vietnam and to see Buddhism in a totally different context (not without syncretism of its own, of course).
Something else that I found myself thinking of as I read this book, was another book I studied at university in a German lit class - Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. (Armstrong's book is mostly based on the Pali canon and so she uses Pali spelling rather than Sanskrit, so I am making a distinction between Hesse's Siddhartha and Armstrong's Siddhatta). Leaving aside the whole problem of cultural imperialism and Hesse's appropriation of Indian tradition (and noting that Armstrong too is a Western interpreter of Eastern tradition), I remembered my visceral reaction to the book when I read it at 19. I HATED it. The contrast of noble Siddhartha with fleshy Kamala made my skin crawl. The whole thing just seemed like typical male self-indulgence - sure, subsist on the food that the women prepare and donate to you, and adopt their sons into your sanghas, but be sure to point out to them their inferiority, their hopeless trappedness in samsara BECAUSE YOUR CULTURAL LAWS WON'T ALLOW THEM TO ESCAPE IT.
While Armstrong's depiction of Buddha isn't quite as creepy as I remember Hesse's being, she does point out the misogyny in the Buddhist tradition, wherever it originally crept in. Women could only be admitted as nuns subservient to the monks and following an additional set of rules; and in a whole large branch of Buddhism today there are no nuns because it is now viewed as impossible to fulfill those conditions.
In her broader discussion of the Axial age in which both Hinduism and Buddhism developed, she points out that along with the new spirituality came a new and more crippling misogyny, which is something that tends to keep me from identifying with any religion I've ever heard of, however impressive some of it other aspects are. The question of why those two strands developed together near-simultaneously in discrete parts of the world is a fascinating one. I do find it hard to get past what seems to me like clear hypocrisy antithetical to a true state of enlightenment. But of course that's just my lesser feminine self speaking!
To complement the history, I also picked up a book on Buddhist practice by the Dalai Lama. Even though I'm not going to Tibet I thought it might help provide more context for mostly Buddhist South-East Asia. I can't say that I feel any closer to enlightenment, but it was certainly an interesting text to read and ponder.
All of it a bit moot of course, in Hindu Bali.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Kouyou
Looking down at the red leaves near Fukushima City, Fukushima, on the way to the summit of Azuma-san.
Mochi
Though I'm far from Japan now, there are still lots of photos to catch up on. One of the many things I miss about Japan is the delicious mochi, which I tried to eat every day (and mostly succeeded).Mochi is both the Japanese sticky rice, and the sweets that are made from it. Mochi is usually made by cooking the rice, then pounding it into a paste and shaping it into cakes of various shapes and forms, but you can also have sweets that use the whole grains of rice. Mochi isn't necessarily sweet either. My first night on the
farm in Fukushima, we had nabe or hotpot, and one of the ingredients was sliced pieces of plain mochi, chewy and delicious.Pictured first is the kind of mochi most available in North America - daifuku. Unfortunately the packaged kinds do not compare to the fresh version, which you can often buy at temples. This one is from Ninna-ji in Kyoto. It's chestnut-flavoured mochi around an unusually smooth, pale red bean filling, and it was incredibly delicious. The mochi is chewy and soft, the filling firm, dry, and a little grainy, and the richer sweetness complements the plainer taste of the rice.
Sadly less available
outside of Japan are the many varieties of plain grilled mochi. The other two pictures are from Matsuyama, where my newfound friend and I had dessert sets after our lunch of traditional udon.Abekawa mochi is plain rice cake coated in kinako, toasted soybean flour. It has a vaguely peanutbuttery flavour that goes beautifully with the mochi. I really love this sweet.
Iso mochi is brushed with shoyu (soy sauce) and eaten with nori, which might not be your idea of dessert, but it's equally yummy.
There are many many more kinds of mochi, and I tried to eat all the ones that came my way, but I know there are still more left untried...oh well. There's always a reason for another trip!
Noh
My favourite from an exhibit of Noh masks that I saw in Kyoto. The way that I found out about the exhibit - I was browsing in a paper shop and an elderly woman approached me. In excellent English, she asked me if I was interested in Japanese culture, and when I said yes, offered to conduct me to an exhibit.So she walked me there, apologising for not walking fast enough (while moving at a good clip assisted by a cane, no less!), delivered me into the care of her friend who was working at the exhibit, and melted away almost before I could say thank you!
The masks were lovely as was the chance to wander peacefully through the small rooms, attended by various elderly people who hovered affectionately but nervously, too shy to try to talk to me even in Japanese but clearly wanting me to be taken care of!
It turned out that the docents had made some of the masks themselves, and that the sensei himself was present! So, not entirely sure what etiquette required of me, I bowed to him, and he waved me off tolerantly and disinterestedly. I left again to go on with my planned day, though not before I was offered tea, and sent on my way with a packet of postcards of the masks and an embroidered handkerchief, courtesy of the temple that offered the exhibition. More Japanese generosity, and a sense of the wealth of the ages being handed down, on and on and on.
Authenticity
One of the little things that amused me while in Japan was watching the look of intense irritation that would sometimes waft across the face of another white person when they caught sight of me. Here I was, having a perfect Japanese moment, the look seemed to say; and then along came this lone other foreigner and RUINED it. Since so often you are clearly the only outsider around, it is noticeable when you pass another of your kind, the dreaded foreign tourist.This is especially funny in Japan because no matter how many gaikokujin pass through the country, it is hard to imagine there ever being enough to even slightly dilute its essential Japaneseness. Plus, what did you think, other traveller, all these signs in English everywhere were erected for your personal benefit?
I mock, but alas I too am one of those travellers who dislikes thinking of herself as a tourist (though that is what she is). This search for authenticity (and getting to be an invisible observer) is the kind of concept Stuff White People Like was invented to make fun of, but in a way it's an almost necessary part of the desire to travel. We make the effort because we're captivated by some idea of the exotic Other Place, even if the ideal is just a white sandy beach. Then when you get there you have to deal with the fact that the beach is crowded with other holidaymakers, you get sunburnt, there are no bathrooms, and all the other little details that weren't covered in the brochure.
This fond delusion that I admit to cherishing, that as a traveller you can slip quietly into the background of a scene and be part of it without transforming it is of course an illusion for the most part. But one of the many delights of travelling in Japan is that no matter how touristy and built-up the site is, the number of domestic tourists by far outweighs the number of foreign ones. So even if you are having a dreadfully tacky tourist time, it's AUTHENTICALLY tacky. (Plus it's Japan so it's still aesthetically pleasing.)
If Japan let me nourish my delusions in peace, my first few days in South-East Asia were a shock to the system. The presence everywhere in Ubud of posters advertising "the "real" Bali!" were a bit of a hint that this authenticity was no more. If it's made it into scarequotes and onto tour descriptions, it might not be quite what it used to be.
Of course there is still "real" Bali, but it has to hide a little harder from the tourists to maintain itself. Plus, when you're aware that the presence of so many other tourists has already pushed it underground, how hard do you want to try to find it, and make it more vulnerable still?
So then what does the determined non-tourist do? Slip from travel mode into vacation mode and just enjoy the surface pleasures (in Bali there are many, many pleasures to be enjoyed, "real" or not)? Or try to find some non-toxic way to travel? I prefer the following, but short of living somewhere and properly learning about it, I'm not sure what it is. But I have a few months left to try and find out.
Photo: the author, inauthentically pretending to be Japanese at a ryokan in Fukuoka, Kyuushu.
Slurping, sniffing, and smoking
Japan has a deserved reputation for being a very polite country, with lots of rules to follow. But then Canada is supposed to be a nation of fairly polite people too, and a lot of the same rules apply. We tend to take off our shoes when visiting people's houses, even if the location isn't demarcated by a handy step (and we don't provide separate slippers for the bathroom). But anyhow basic polite behaviour is fairly similar.
There are customs that are more idiosyncratic though. People who have eaten a lot of meals with me know that one of my more annoying qualities is severe sensitivity to sound (well, just severe sensitivity really!). Slurping noises can ruin a whole meal for me if I'm in the wrong mood.
Asia is an excellent place to come to break myself of this overreaction. In Japan, not only is it perfectly ok to slurp, but actually when you're eating udon it's rude NOT to slurp. When a friend took us to a traditional udon shop on my trip to Japan in 2008, the owner was perfectly welcoming to the two gaikokujin, but made sure to impress on us that we had to slurp when we were served the noodles! Such is Japanese politeness though, that a friend once told me when he eats ramen in NYC, he looks around at the people around him. If they are mostly Japanese, he slurps, and if they are mostly not, he doesn't!
In fact my month in Japan was enough to win me over to slurping - when you're eating noodles in hot soup in a hurry it's completely functional, cooling each bite as you eat (and also keeping your shirt clear of broth splashes). Sniffing I wasn't really won over to. Apparently you are not supposed to blow your nose in public in Japan, as it draws too much attention to yourself, so instead you are stuck sniffing and sniffing until you are safely in a private place...
And smoking mores are different too. Tokyo has reminder signs everywhere about polite smoking behaviour - don't waft the smoke in people's faces, don't smoke right beside a non-smoking area etc. In most public places in the city it's forbidden to smoke outside. But it's still ok to smoke in restaurants and bars, and the chain cafes that offer both smoking and nonsmoking areas usually have a purely psychological barrier between the two - not too effective as a smoke barrier it turns out.
These are just some random examples but it makes me wonder what behaviours I accept as perfectly normal seem terrifically rude to others. The classic Foreigner-in-Japan example is probably wearing the bathroom slippers out of the bathroom - a solecism I thankfully avoided! I have enough Japanese friends that I felt pretty safe there. Now in South-East Asia, I'm on less certain ground, and I keep wondering what thing I unthinkingly do is someone else's sniffing noise...
There are customs that are more idiosyncratic though. People who have eaten a lot of meals with me know that one of my more annoying qualities is severe sensitivity to sound (well, just severe sensitivity really!). Slurping noises can ruin a whole meal for me if I'm in the wrong mood.
Asia is an excellent place to come to break myself of this overreaction. In Japan, not only is it perfectly ok to slurp, but actually when you're eating udon it's rude NOT to slurp. When a friend took us to a traditional udon shop on my trip to Japan in 2008, the owner was perfectly welcoming to the two gaikokujin, but made sure to impress on us that we had to slurp when we were served the noodles! Such is Japanese politeness though, that a friend once told me when he eats ramen in NYC, he looks around at the people around him. If they are mostly Japanese, he slurps, and if they are mostly not, he doesn't!
In fact my month in Japan was enough to win me over to slurping - when you're eating noodles in hot soup in a hurry it's completely functional, cooling each bite as you eat (and also keeping your shirt clear of broth splashes). Sniffing I wasn't really won over to. Apparently you are not supposed to blow your nose in public in Japan, as it draws too much attention to yourself, so instead you are stuck sniffing and sniffing until you are safely in a private place...
And smoking mores are different too. Tokyo has reminder signs everywhere about polite smoking behaviour - don't waft the smoke in people's faces, don't smoke right beside a non-smoking area etc. In most public places in the city it's forbidden to smoke outside. But it's still ok to smoke in restaurants and bars, and the chain cafes that offer both smoking and nonsmoking areas usually have a purely psychological barrier between the two - not too effective as a smoke barrier it turns out.
These are just some random examples but it makes me wonder what behaviours I accept as perfectly normal seem terrifically rude to others. The classic Foreigner-in-Japan example is probably wearing the bathroom slippers out of the bathroom - a solecism I thankfully avoided! I have enough Japanese friends that I felt pretty safe there. Now in South-East Asia, I'm on less certain ground, and I keep wondering what thing I unthinkingly do is someone else's sniffing noise...
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