Friday, November 22, 2024

Daruma Dolls History & Symbolism

Daruma Dolls　だるま

Symbolism | History | Festivals | Buy Daruma

Daruma dolls at Shorinzan Daruma Temple in Takasaki

You are about to start a big project? You have a big dream that you truly wish to come true? You wish that the new year becomes a successful one or at least one that passes without any major hassles and setbacks? A Daruma doll is your perfect companion for achieving all that. Just place the Daruma into a spot in your house that you pass frequently. Whenever you spot it, it will remind you of your big plans or at least give you a nod on keeping up with your daily struggles.

The Daruma doll is one of Japan's most popular lucky charms. It's cute but loaded with symbolism.

When you buy the Daruma, it has blank white spots where the eyes should be. You take the new Daruma into your hands and make your wish and tell him what he is supposed to help you with. Then, you draw him one eye. Traditionally, on the left side.

The Daruma will not be satisfied as long he hasn't got his second eye drawn in. Just as you are not satisfied until you have achieved your goals.

Seeing the one-eyed Daruma, however, will remind you of your own struggles, it will give you strength in going on whatever the circumstances.

One-eyed Daruma doll in a Japanese home

Symbolism of the Daruma Doll

The missing eye is however only one of the many features of the Daruma doll.

First of all, it is a roly-poly or stand-up doll. Hollow and made of light papier-mâché, the Daruma doll has a weight inside. The base is small and flat. If you tip it, it is supposed to quickly stand up on its own again. Which conveys the meaning that whatever happens, you will be back, overcoming any adversity.

The typical Daruma doll is red. The color is said to hark back to the ancient robes of Buddhist head priests. Red is however also considered a color to ward off illness.

The pronounced eyebrows of the doll resemble cranes. Birds symbolizing longevity. The beard is styled in the shape of two tortoise shells (it takes a bit of imagination to see that), another symbol of longevity.

"A crane lives for 1000 years, tortoises live for 10.000 years" a Japanese proverb states.

Below of the face of the Daruma, a Chinese character is painted in gold or black. That character is often 福 (fuku), meaning good fortune.

The typical Buddhist temple or merchant at a Daruma festival will also offer you the chance to "supercharge" your Daruma. They offer paper slips to be glued to the back of the head of the Daruma specifying its purpose.

"Prosperous Business" is a common inscription on those paper slips, "Traffic Safety" is popular with drivers, 大願成就 (daiganjouyu) however is for those who want to achieve the realization of their big project, ambition or dream.

Daruma dolls for sale at Hatsudaishi Festival in Kawagoe, Saitama

History

Daruma dolls are named after Bodhidharma, a monk who arrived in China in the 5th or 6th century from either India or Persia. Bodhidharma is credited with spreading the new meditative school of Chan Buddhism. A school of Buddhism that much later led to the development of Zen Buddhism in Japan.

Bodhidharma's meditation style was quite radical. Nothing, absolutely nothing was supposed to interrupt his meditation. At one time, he is said to have stared at a wall without any movement for 9 years, sitting in the lotus position. His arms and legs fell off while Bodhidharma focused all his mind inwards.

Once, he fell asleep during meditation. Angry at himself for that breach of proper conduct, he cut his eyelids off.

Daruma dolls have no arms or legs and their spots for the eyes to be painted in are large and round.

Daruma dolls for sale in Japan

The Daruma doll in its current fashion was developed and popularized in the 1600s in the city of Takasaki in today's Gunma Prefecture.

The Shorinzan Daruma Temple in Takasaki, belonging to the Zen school takes credit for morphing traditional roly-poly dolls into Buddhist lucky charms in the image of Bodhidharma.

Takasaki is still the home of the Daruma doll today. About 80% of all Daruma dolls sold in Japan are made in the city.

Shorinzan Daruma Temple in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture

Daruma Doll Festivals

Across Japan, Daruma doll festivals are held shortly after New Year's, enabling people to buy Daruma dolls to accompany them throughout the year.

The largest such festival takes place right at the birthplace of the Daruma doll, at Shorinzan Daruma Temple in Takasaki on January 6th and 7th. About 400.000 people are said to visit the festival each year.

Closer to Tokyo is the Hatsudaishi Daruma Festival at Kitain Temple in Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture. Taking place on January 3rd, the festival is just a short train ride away from the capital and it's located in perhaps the most original historic town in the Kanto area. Kawagoe features rows upon rows of ancient merchant houses, still open for business today. The city is the perfect setting for a Daruma doll festival.

On sale Daruma dolls at a festival in Japan

Expect a very crowded festival. People from all over Tokyo attend to buy their new Daruma dolls. There are plenty of food vendors as well, of course, but the Daruma dolls are main.

All the vendors selling the dolls come from Takasaki. You buy the originals here.

Some of the dolls may be blue or yellow, or some such. Vendors try to catch up with what's cool in Harajuku or so, it seems.

But the vast majority are in the traditional style as developed at Shorinzan Daruma Temple.

They come however in many different sizes. From very small to really large. Generally, the bigger the Daruma doll the more expensive it gets.

Daruma dolls come in many sizes

Successful Daruma Dolls

Once you reached that goal your Daruma doll was supposed to help you with, once you made it through the year safely, you paint the doll its second eye. Mission accomplished, that means.

Daruma festivals always offer spots to discard your used Daruma dolls. People do a short prayer expressing thanks to the doll, then throw it onto the big heap of two-eyed Darumas.

The Daruma dolls are then ceremonially burned by the temple.

Not that many of those Daruma doll burning ceremonies are public anymore (mostly because of fire safety laws) but at Dairyu-ji Temple in Gifu, Gifu Prefecture, you can still witness the ceremonial burning of about 10,000 used Daruma dolls on every second Sunday after New Year.

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Buy Daruma from Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture

Goods from Japan offers a variety of Japanese daruma from Takasaki in Gunma Prefecture - the spiritual home of daruma dolls.

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Votive plaques (ema) in the shape of daruma

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Daruma dolls for sale in Kawagoe, Saitama

Mission accomplished. Two-eyed daruma dolls discarded at the Hatsudaishi Festivalal in Kawagoe, Saitama

Shorinzan Daruma Temple in Takasaki

Sunday, November 17, 2024

Sachiko by Shusaku Endo Review

Japan Book Review: Sachiko

Sachiko

by Shusaku Endo

ISBN: 978-0231-197311
Colombia University Press, 1982 (Translated into English in 2020)
411 pp; paperback

Set in 1930s and 40s Japan, Sachiko is another of Endo Shusaku's books infused with raw emotions and thought-provoking prose that captivate the reader.

The titular Sachiko is a young girl who enjoys her days growing up in her Catholic Nagasaki community, playing with her Japanese and American friends. Nagasaki, still the home of Japan's largest Catholic community, has been the Catholic capital of Japan since the 16th century. Of course, since 1945 Nagasaki has been known around the world for something else, something that plays prominently in this book. Except for a brief aftermath chapter, the book ends in 1945.

The apple of Sachiko's eye is Shuhei, a somewhat mischievous boy who turns into a want-to-be poet during his college days. Playing it close to the vest regarding Sachiko, he nevertheless has future plans, which do not include going off to war.

Sachiko

The third protagonist is a local priest named Father Kolbe, who is based on the tragic/sacrificial real life of Polish Franciscan priest Maximilian Kolbe who spent the years 1930-36 in Nagasaki. In the book, Kolbe has some interactions with the children, but is not an integral part of their lives. His main contribution to Sachiko was a bookmark he gave her with the words, "Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends," a quote from the Bible which is referenced several times later in the book.

Sachiko, Shuhei, the American boys and Father Kolbe go separate ways early in the book, with the Americans returning to America, Father Kolbe returning to Poland and Shuhei going off to college and then, as the World War II situation in Japan gets increasingly desperate, to serve in the military, much to his chagrin. Sachiko and Shuhei's historic Oura Church, a real church built in 1855 and which still stands today, has told him that for Christians to kill is a sin, so he is left perplexed. Sachiko stays in Nagasaki and eventually goes to college, never forgetting her unrequited love for Shuhei.

For much of the book, the chapters alternate between Sachiko's life obsessing over Shuhei and the life of Father Kolbe in Poland. As in many of Endo's books, the reader will wonder how the various characters will eventually tie together. Sometimes Endo's characters tie together, sometimes they don't.

Endo is a master at putting his characters in untenable positions and letting the reader decide if the characters' resulting actions are heroic or spurred by cowardice. Depending on his work, the answer is not always clear. Think of Endo's Silence, which was made into a well-known Martin Scorsese movie of the same name.

As usual in Endo's novels, there are unanticipated turns at the end of this book, and the reader may be left feeling melancholic. The writing is excellent, the characters believable, and the historical references real.

Review by Marshall Hughes.

Buy this book from Amazon USA | UK | Japan

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Monday, September 23, 2024

Christianity Social Justice & the Japanese American Incarceration

Japan Book Review: Christianity, Social Justice, and the Japanese American Incarceration during World War II

Christianity, Social Justice, and the Japanese American Incarceration during World War II

by Anne M. Blankenship

ISBN: 978-1-4696-2920-9
The University of North Carolina Press, 2016
282pp; paperback

Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was one of the most famous, and infamous, executive orders in American history. The order forced 120,000 mainly West Coast Japanese-Americans, many of whom were born as U.S. citizens, into relocation camps, starting about 10 weeks after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941.

Of course, many books have been written about this dark period of history, many of them "going inside" the camps and telling of the detainees' stories. Anne M. Blankenship's book has a different take. It discusses the reactions of American Christian Churches to Order 9066, which was signed on February 19, 1942. As readers can probably guess, some churches reacted more lovingly and, well, Christian than other churches.

Leading the way, without a doubt were the Quakers (also known as The Society of Friends). They showed the most love and the most courage. Catholics also show fairly well in the book, with Protestants, depending on denomination, running the gamut from nearing Quaker-levels of help to being too afraid of the government to help much at all, or, in a few cases, doing nothing.

Christianity, Social Justice, and the Japanese American Incarceration during World War II

The Quakers quickly answered the calls from the War Relocation Authority (WRA) for teachers to teach in the camps, although other Quakers opposed this because, "That's helping the government and you ought to resist."

The book focuses on five main areas; the backstory which led to the formation of the camps, the organization of the Christian aid before and during the incarcerations, the building of churches in the camps, the experiences in those churches and, finally, what happened when the Japanese were released.

There was quite a battle and quite the infighting as to whether Japanese Christians should go back to their ethnic enclave churches after their release or try to mix with other churches. The congregants, their pastors, the (mostly) white pastors of their former churches and, unfortunately, even the government had their own ideas.

With so much research done on the book - there are 50 pages of notes to go through at the end - there are bound to be some new insights, conceivably even for those who went through the internment. There are likely thousands of the detainees still living, although the youngest of those would be around 80 years old today. I myself have met dozens of the detainees over the years and have friends whose parents were in the camps.

Blankenship's work cannot possibly be called a "light read" and there are no useless tangents, but those interested in this historical chapter of American history will find the book thorough, thought-provoking, educational, if perhaps a little melancholic. Kudos to the author, by the way, for not injecting her opinions into the book. At no point do readers feel they are being proselytized. Readers cannot discern Blankenship's personal viewpoints, whatever they may be.

Review by Marshall Hughes.

Buy this book from Amazon USA | UK | Japan

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Saturday, July 27, 2024

Japanese Kelp Kombu

Japanese Kelp Kombu 昆布

Umami | Kombu in Japanese Cooking | Hokkaido Kombu | Buy Kombu

Dried kombu

Japan being an island country, it may come as no surprise that Japanese cuisine relies heavily on products taken from the sea. Not only fish, shrimps, crabs and other oceanic creatures but also a large variety of seaweed.

Wakame and nori may be the most widely known of these seaweeds outside of Japan. Nori as an essential part of maki sushi (sushi rolls), wakame for the delicious wakame soup accompanying many traditional Japanese dishes.

Then, there is kombu, Japanese edible kelp. Kombu, growing in the cold waters around Hokkaido and parts of Tohoku, made a comparatively late entry into Japanese cuisine.

Sure, kombu was delivered to the court of the Shogun as a tribute by the rulers of the northern domains already in Edo times (1603-1868) but kombu really took off in the general Japanese kitchen during the Meiji period (1868-1912) when Japan fully colonized Hokkaido.

Steam ship ferries and the newly constructed railway system made kombu, previously mainly a staple in Ainu cooking, available all over the country at a low price.

Amazingly, the southern-most island group of Okinawa, only recently acquired after a war with China (1894-95) picked up on the kombu the strongest. Okinawans know what's tasty and are generally more than ready to incorporate new ingredients into their cooking.

Fishing for kombu in Rausu, Hokkaido

Umami

Meanwhile, in mainland Japan, Tokyo Imperial University chemistry professor Kikunae Ikeda (1864-1936) sensed during a meal that featured a soup made of kombu dashi (kombu soup stock) a taste he had never encountered before. It was not in the usual range of sweet, sour, bitter and salty. Ikeda immediately focused his studies on that so far unclassified taste. In 1908, he was able to identify Glutamic acid as the source of this particular taste. Kombu is particularly rich in Glutamic acid.

Ikeda named his newly discovered taste variety umami, drawing from the word umai (delicious) in Japanese. Today, umami is a taste variety recognized world-wide.

Rishiri Kombu at Wakkanai Fish Market, Hokkaido

Kombu in Japanese Cooking

Japanese cooks and housewives most likely missed the newspaper stories reporting Ikeda's discovery. They were the ones to actually put that northern sea weed to real use.

Kombu leaves were large and they usually came air dried, the only way to keep them edible after their long journey from Hokkaido.

Cut up into small pieces and boiled, kombu leaves would make for a perfect dashi soup stock, they soon discovered.

Soups based on kombu by itself, soups using kombu in combination with shaved bonito flakes (katsuobushi), kombu combined with shiitake mushrooms, with dried sardines or tobiuo (flying fish), kombu with any type of vegetable. The combinations are endless.

Soon, kombu dashi became the most popular Japanese soup stock, employed in the making of miso soup (a soup that goes with most traditional Japanese meals) as well as in many other types of soup.

Boiled kombu on the other hand could be a great addition to sashimi fish platters.

Small pieces of kombu were frequently added when preparing sushi rice. The strong umami qualities of kombu bringing out the taste of the rice all the stronger and with it, the taste of the sushi.

Boiled and further processed kombu is also frequently employed as tsukudani (rice toppings), and boiled kombu is often served in Japanese salads.

Thick layers of boiled kombu are also rolled up around minced herring. That particular dish, known as kobumaki has become one of the staples of osechi ryori (New Year's Day dishes) but is also enjoyed in other seasons as part of traditional Japanese meals.

It's usually called kobumaki (and not kombumaki) because kombumaki would be somewhat cumbersome to pronounce. The kobu part of the word is taken from yorokobu, meaning being happy or glad.

Rishiri Island

Hokkaido Kombu

Kombu grows as a dense forest on the ocean floor, often in coastal waters.

In the northern regions of Hokkaido, most famously in the waters near Rishiri Island, a small island off the far northwest of Hokkaido, as well as the sea off the Shiretoko Peninsula in the far northeast of Hokkaido, fishermen harvest naturally grown kombu from their boats.

This type of kombu is marketed as tennen (天然), as a product taken straight from the wilds of nature.

Rishiri Kombu and Rausu Kombu are the most famous varieties of tennen kombu sold in Japan today. Rausu being a very picturesque village on the eastern side of the Shiretoko Peninsula, home to many kombu fishermen braving the cold ocean here.

In the south of Hokkaido, kombu tends to be farmed. That is, the kombu forests grow under direct supervision of the fishermen and are regularly harvested.

The two most famous brands from southern Hokkaido are Hidaka Kombu from the town of Hidaka and Shiroguchihama Kombu produced in an area known as Minami Kayabe.

When cutting Shiroguchihama Kombu, the inside of the leaves turns out to be white. Pure mannitol showing up, the sugar alcohol built up inside the salty plant. It's exactly that mannitol that is responsible for the strong umami taste of kombu.

Minami Kayabe, located near the city of Hakodate in the very south of Hokkaido was a Japanese domain already in Edo times. The local ruler not only paid his tribute to the Shogun in Edo with the locally grown kombu but also delivered it all the way down to the Imperial Court in Kyoto.

Rishiri Kombu

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Kombu as such is generally sold in dried form. When you open a package of dried kombu, some of the dried leaves will have a white residue on them. That is not mold, it is the mannitol making its way to the surface. The very substance responsible for the taste of the kombu.

Dried kombu can be shipped internationally. Kobumaki are best enjoyed on your visit to Japan.

Buy a 500g Pack of Hidaka Kombu

Suribachi & Surikogi Set

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Sunrise near Rausu, Hokkaido

Thursday, July 25, 2024

Kuni A Japanese Vision and Practice for Urban-Rural Reconnections

Japan Book Review: Kuni: A Japanese Vision and Practice for Urban-Rural Reconnections

Kuni: A Japanese Vision and Practice for Urban-Rural Reconnections

by Tsuyoshi Sekihara and Richard McCarthy

ISBN: 978-1-62317-731-7
North Atlantic Books, 2022
148pp; paperback

Japan's rural areas are hemorrhaging people, and those remaining are quickly aging. Many communities are being abandoned altogether. Japan's cities are too big, with increasing numbers of people living lonely, unfulfilling lives.

What to do, what to do…

Authors Tsuyoshi Sekihara and Richard McCarthy lay out their ideas for helping solve these problems, with a special emphasis on "kuni," a Japanese word which usually means "country" but in this case means "community that is small but independent."

Kuni: A Japanese Vision and Practice for Urban-Rural Reconnections

Some readers may jump the gun and guess right off the bat - with some justification - that the authors swing heavily left politically. They may wonder how long it will take before words like "systemic racism" and "climate chaos" appear. The answer is…three pages.

Still, these readers should not give up. Most of the ideas presented don't really have much of a political bent. In fact, the authors seem to, in many cases, advocate for small governmental oversight. They have some harsh words for rural politicians "whose imagination and relevance faded years ago, but whose positions remain."

There are certainly statistics to back up the claim of dying rural areas, although anybody living in Japan probably knows of the decaying of Japan's rural areas. Sekihara asserts that 300 villages disappear in Japan every year, although an attribution for this is not presented.

Boiled down, the main gist of the book is that rural Japan (and to a lesser extent, rural America) are dying and the best way to fix this is to "right size" towns to anywhere between 500 and 2,000 people and to get people in urban and rural places to reconnect personally and economically.

"The conditions needed for kuni to emerge are democracy, science and technology, transportation infrastructure, the communications revolution, a declining birthrate and aging population, a stagnation below the surface, the death of culture, and citizens dichotomized by ideology."

One of the more interesting proposals is to offer a kind of disaster insurance to people in urban areas who visit and buy products (most often rice) in rural areas. In the case of disasters - for example earthquakes and tsunamis - these urbanites will get temporary lodging and food in rural areas while their areas are rebuilt.

There are a few minor annoyances with the book. One is that that the chapters veer back and forth between the two authors, and their writing styles are not in sync. A second is that the book tends to wander into the weeds at times. Readers may ask, "what was the relevance of the last 10 pages?"

While not all readers will agree with the solutions and conclusions of the authors, at the very least there are some interesting, thought-provoking ideas presented.

Review by Marshall Hughes.

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Sunday, June 30, 2024

Japanese Mortar and Pestle Suribachi & Surikogi

Japanese Mortar and Pestle Suribachi and Surikogi すり鉢とすりこ木

Suribachi mortar with sansho wood surikogi pestle

Some typical Japanese dishes need traditional Japanese kitchen tools to get them right or to make them at all. The suribachi / surikogi (Japanese mortar and pestle) combination is one such essential tool.

Just the other night, my wife and I prepared hourensou no goma-ae (spinach dressed in black sesame) and maguro no yamakake (Tuna sashimi topped with mashed Japanese Mountain Yam). Both are very typical Japanese appetizers or side dishes, both go very well with sake.

Further down this text, you can see images of our use of the suribachi and surikogi preparing said dishes. Just as one possible example of the many uses of the Japanese mortar and pestle.

Suribachi with its typical comb pattern

Suribachi History

The combination of mortar and pestle is one of the oldest kitchen tools in any culture, dating back to the stone age. Hard grain for example could be much more easily cooked or baked after being ground in a mortar. Coarse rock salt was ground for convenient use in the kitchen, even meat went through the mortar and pestle treatment to make it easier digestible.

Those mortars and pestles were typically made of stone, a tradition carried on up to today. Stone mortars and pestles are still frequently in use for grinding spices, the expensive ones made of Italian marble.

As so often, however, the tradition in Japan is a bit different. Mortars and pestles were certainly in use in ancient Japan but in Heian times (794 - 1185), ceramic mortars arrived from China.

Those were much easier to handle than stone mortars and the Japanese pottery kilns soon got in on the business, especially the Bizen kilns in what is now Okayama Prefecture.

It's said that the Bizen kiln folks invented the comb stroke patterns inside the Japanese mortar. Rather than leave the mortar's grinding surface flat or grainy, they drew a well thought-out pattern with a metal comb before sending the pottery into the oven, greatly enhancing the grinding capacities of the mortars.

Those patterns / their variations and improvements over time still set Japanese mortars apart from any other mortars today.

There was one big problem with those patterns ingrained into the mortars, though. Pestles made of stone would quickly destroy that preciously combed surface inside the mortars.

Sansho wood surikogi

The Surikogi

Thus, wooden pestles were introduced. The wood for those pestles had to be hard enough to do even the toughest grinding job, the wood had to be resistant to all the acids released in grinding vegetables, the wood needed a resistance against mold.

After what must have been many experiments, the old masters found out that the wood of the sansho tree, the Japanese Mountain Pepper tree, was the perfect wood for the job. Extremely resilient but at the same time giving off a slight fragrance even after long-term use. A welcome flavor to any dish on the table.

Grinding black sesame in a suribachi

Uses Past and Present

Common folks used the suribachi on a daily basis. Miso soup has been a staple of Japanese cuisine for hundreds of years and the boiled soy beans making up the miso (soy bean paste) used to be available on the markets only in the form of soft-boiled beans. Thus, every household had to have a large mortar and pestle to turn those boiled soy beans into the paste needed to make a good miso soup. Suribachi were also used for processing all that other food needing a good grind. The mortar and pestle at the house did the job the electrical food processor would take on in the 1960s.

Miso paste became available factory-made at the beginning of the 1900s, other ready-made foods followed post World War II.

In a diminished but more specified capacity, the suribachi stayed on in Japanese household kitchens. Tororo, mashed yama imo (Japanese Mountain Yam), essential as a topping for many udon noodle dishes but also frequently used on top of tuna sashimi, can only produced with a traditional Suribachi grinder. In Japanese, the ground yama imo is called tororo when referring to the soft mush as such, it's called yamakake upon being placed on top of food.

Sansho peels, the edible parts of the sansho (Japanese Mountain Pepper) fruits frequently used as a spice, need to be ground in a traditional mortar for maximum effect.

Traditional families never gave up on the use of their Suribachi, younger generations re-discovered the suribachi / surikogi combination as essential tools in modern gourmet cooking. The sansho wood surikogi still being the favorite today.

Preparing hourensou no goma-ae in a suribachi

Suribachi Sizes

Suribachi come in many different sizes, their use depending on the amount of spices / foods to be ground.

Suribachi sizes are typically measured by the diameter of their upper rim. The Chinese 寸 (sun) indicating an old Chinese inch (about 32 mm) used to be the standard measurement. Today, you often see suribachi sizes advertised in号 (go). 号 (go) however simply means "number" like in suribachi 6号, meaning Number 6 size which would usually be about 19 cm.

Different Japanese manufacturers however slightly vary in their use of those numbers, more or less based on the measurements in 寸 (sun).
Fortunately, many if not most manufacturers today also use the metric system.

In any case, the difference from one size to the next larger one is usually about 3 cm.

For grinding spices, a rather small suribachi is best, about 10 cm in rim width. For two person-dishes, a size of 18 or 21 cm may the most convenient, larger families / parties of course needing larger Suribachi.

Grinding Japanese Mountain Yam in a Suribachi

Surikogi Sizes

Generally, the surikogi should be a bit longer than the rim diameter of the Suribachi. About one third longer, some sources say. But that's not a strict rule. The mortal and pestle should simply fit comfortably when working with the tools.

Refining the ground yam with a surikogi

Where to Find

Well-stocked Japanese department stores usually offer a number of suribachi / surikogi combinations. It's of course more of an adventure to travel to the traditional kilns deep in the countryside of western Japan and to an old-fashioned lumber workshop nearby with a master cutting the surikogi by hand.

You can also order your suribachi and surikogi right from your home from Goods From Japan.

Buy Japanese Kitchen Utensils

Goods from Japan offers a variety of Japanese foods and kitchen utensils.

Suribachi & Surikogi Set

Buy ground sansho pepper from S&B

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Purchase a range of Japanese foodstuffs and drinks from GoodsFromJapan.

A dish of tuna topped with ground Japanese yam, spinach dressed in black sesame and a cup of sake

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by Johannes Schonherr

Wednesday, June 05, 2024

Satsuma Rebellion Illustrated Japanese History

Japan Book Review: Satsuma Rebellion Illustrated Japanese History - The Last Stand of the Samurai

Satsuma Rebellion Illustrated Japanese History - The Last Stand of the Samurai

by Sean Michael Wilson

ISBN: 978-1-62317-167-4
North Atlantic Books, 2018
104pp; paperback

Satsuma Rebellion Illustrated Japanese History

Two of the most momentous events in Japanese history were the ending of the 265-year rule of the Tokugawa regime at the end of the Edo Period and the subsequent beginning of the Meiji Restoration in 1868. These events, of course, did not happen smoothly.

A major incident of this time was called the Satsuma Rebellion which occurred when a group of disaffected ex-samurai, who had lost power and influence at the start of the Meiji Restoration, started to rise up. In all, some two million samurai had been downgraded and were struggling while attempting to join the ranks of everyday businessmen and farmers.

The Satsuma Rebellion was the most famous of the more than 30 rebellions that the new government had to quash. Saigo Takamori, a noted and influential samurai in the Edo Period, assembled a group of these former samurai to take on the new government. Saigo had fallen out of favor with the new government when his plan to invade and conquer Korea was rejected.

While the basic story is well-known - not just by Japanese school students who are still taught this history but by people with more than a passing knowledge of Japanese history - readers of this graphic novel will deepen their knowledge of the important people and events of this pivotal period of time.

For example, Emperor Komei's "Expel the Barbarians" order led to many deaths including, possibly, his own. His passing, under suspicious circumstances, led immediately to his 14-year-old son, Emperor Meiji, ascending the throne.

There are actually a number of interesting, tangential characters in the book such as: Edward and Henry Schnell, Dutch-German brothers who were arms dealers and brought two of the first Gatling guns to Japan; Thomas Glover, a Scot who brought the first steam locomotive to Japan and who established companies that later became Mitsubishi and Kirin; and British merchant Charles Richardson whose rudeness towards powerful Japanese caused a major political crisis.

Despite being outnumbered six to one by government forces, and despite being on the losing end of the battle, Saigo is today greatly revered by many Japanese. There is a famous bronze statue of Saigo in Tokyo's Ueno Park. It has been standing there since 1898.

As with "Black Ships," Wilson's first Japan-related graphic novel, the art work in this book (done by Akiko Shimojima) is sufficient but not spectacular. There are no editing gaffs as seen in the first book.

If graphic novels pique readers' interest and inspire them to do more research on the main subject, then probably they are well-written. This book will do those things for many readers.

Review by Marshall Hughes.

Buy this book from Amazon USA | UK | Japan

Looking to buy Japanese things directly from Japan? GoodsFromJapan is here to help.

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Monday, April 29, 2024

Black Ships Illustrated Japanese History

Japan Book Review: Black Ships Illustrated Japanese History - The Americans Arrive

Black Ships Illustrated Japanese History - The Americans Arrive

by Sean Michael Wilson

ISBN: 978-1-62317-091-2
North Atlantic Books, 2017
105pp; paperback

Black Ships Illustrated Japanese History review.

Black Ships Illustrated Japanese History - The Americans Arrive

Most people even vaguely familiar with Japanese history will recognize the name of Commodore Matthew Perry, the American who is usually credited with the opening of Japan to Western trading.

Those a little more familiar with Japanese history will know that there was trading going on before Perry and his four Black Ships showed up unannounced on May 17, 1853; specifically trading between the Dutch and the Japanese (limited to Dejima, an artificial island off of Nagasaki) and some trading with the Chinese.

Sean Michael Wilson has written this graphic novel filling in Japanophiles on more details about Perry and his trips (there were two) to Japan.

On Perry's first trip he came with a letter from U.S. President Millard Fillmore demanding that the U.S. be allowed to trade with Japan. The Japanese were not amused.

Perry was a gruff, tough-minded man who would not take no for an answer. He demanded that he deliver Fillmore's letter in person to Japan's highest-ranking officials in person. The Japanese bakufu (leaders) were trying to get Perry to go to Dejima and trying to let a lesser person receive the letter. Perry said "no" and gave the Japanese a threat along the lines of "we'll be back and we'd better get what we want.

Perry and his four ships, called the Plymouth, Mississippi, Saratoga and Susquehanna, then sailed back to America, signing an agreement with the Ryukyu Kingdom (now Okinawa) on the way back. Perry returned earlier than originally planned, this time with 10 ships and more artillery. The early return was mostly because America garnered information that other countries such as Russia and England were closing in on Japan and trying to set up their own trade agreements.

Russia brought ships to Japan just after Perry left, but the ships were destroyed in the aftermath of an earthquake, leaving the Russians stranded. Still, they managed to score some trading agreements as Japan figured if they could trade with America they might as well trade with Russia.

Even readers who think they know a lot about Japan's opening to the West will likely glean new information into a fascinating and important part of Japanese and American history.

One slightly annoying part of the book is that there are at several places where multiple random question marks are inserted in the dialogues. Besides that, the book is interesting, informative and well-drawn, but at only 105 pages it is not exactly a graduate-class level on Perry and his impact on Japan's history. Of course, not many graphic novels are graduate-class level tomes. Black Ships can easily be read in one sitting.

Note: The book is the first of, to date, two graphic novels by Sean Michael Wilson about Japan. The second in the series is focused on the Satsuma Rebellion.

Review by Marshall Hughes.

Buy this book from Amazon USA | UK | Japan

Looking to buy Japanese things directly from Japan? GoodsFromJapan is here to help.

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Monday, January 08, 2024

Tokyo Outdoors 45 Walks Hikes and Cycling Routes

Japan Book Review: Tokyo Outdoors

Tokyo Outdoors: 45 Walks, Hikes and Cycling Routes to Explore the City Like a Local

by Matthew Baxter

ISBN: 978-1-919-63155-4
108pp; paperback

Tokyo Outdoors: 45 Walks, Hikes and Cycling Routes to Explore the City Like a Local.

If you have a free day and don't feel like spending Tokyo money, and are in fact just looking for interesting walking, hiking or cycling routes in Tokyo, then this could be the book for you.

Most of the suggested 45 itineraries consist of two pages, with five or six places of interest to see on each route, a recommended café, a recommended meal spot, and finally helpful QR codes which lead to maps (usually written in Japanese) corresponding to each trip. All of the maps can be downloaded at once by using the QR code on page 4.

The book is the fourth in a series written by Matthew Baxter, following his Super Cheap Hokkaido, Super Cheap Japan and Super Cheap New Zealand versions. Each book is similar in size, length and style.

Before getting into the hikes and bikes, Baxter presents three pages of details about things like transportation to and from Tokyo's two international airports, how to use Tokyo trains (both public and private lines) and how and where to rent bicycles for those who want to cycle. While anybody living in Japan will already know much of this information, it is handy for foreign tourists.
The routes are mostly in Tokyo, but on occasion stretch to Nikko to the north and Yokohama to the south.

At the end of the book is a helpful three-page section highlighting the top three (sometimes five) hikes for cherry blossoms, autumn leaves, shopping, art and museums, history and culture, day hikes and long cycling rides. The Tamagawa River ride, one of the suggested cycling courses, is 45 kilometers (28 miles) in length, although "train lines run along much of the river, with dozens of stations to pick up or drop off your rental bicycles."

There is also a two-page "festival and events calendar," with a couple of suggestions for each month.

A few small downsides of the book would include that the photos, all black-and-white, are small not especially helpful, and that a few facts are omitted or open to question. For example, it is not mentioned that Odawara Castle is actually a 1960 rebuild of the original castle which was torn down by the Meiji government in 1872.

Ignore a few oversites, and you have a book with useful suggestions about how to spend some enjoyable free days in Tokyo and its surrounding areas, without splashing out much cash.

Review by Marshall Hughes.

Buy this book from Amazon USA | UK | Japan

Looking to buy Japanese things directly from Japan? GoodsFromJapan is here to help.

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Saturday, December 09, 2023

Aizuwakamatsu Hand Painted Candles

Aizuwakamatsu Hand Painted Candles 会津若松　絵ろうそく

Japanese Candles | The Wick | Hoshiban Candle Store | Buy Hoshiban Aizuwakamatsu Candles

Aizwakamatsu e - rousoku

Japan's Tensho Period (1573-1592) was, like most of the 16th century in the country, a period of wars. Oda Nobunaga just started out to unify the country, bloodily battling scores of local rulers.

At the same time, the late 16th century was a period of cultural refinement. Not only at the Imperial Court but across the country. Local daimyo (feudal rulers) competed in the arts as much as on the battlefield. It was the time when the Tea Ceremony became codified, the time when the finer points of ikebana (flower arrangement) became strictly regimented, the time when kodo (the Way of Incense) became an art.

Gamo Ujisato (1556-1595) was a clan chief and warrior fighting for Oda Nobunaga and his successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi. For his exploits on the battlefields, Hideyoshi appointed him as the ruler of the Aizu domain, in the west of today's Fukushima Prefecture.

Newly residing in Tsuruga Castle in the center of the regional capital Aizuwakamatsu, Gamo finally found time to concentrate on the arts. Gamo had already been one of Japan's most celebrated masters of the Tea Ceremony but it was his decree demanding the production of hand-painted candles that still makes him a popular figure in Aizuwakamatsu today.

Supported by the daimyo succeeding Gamo, the tradition of producing hand-painted candles has been flourishing in Aizuwakatsu since the time of Gamo's decree.

Gamo ordered the production of candles with artfully designed floral motifs. The floral motifs developed as response to Gamo's order are still the motifs on Aizuwakamatsu painted candles today. They are the perhaps most popular souvenirs bought in the city by visitors in the know.

Tsuruga Castle, Aizuwakamatsu, Japan

Japanese Candles

Regardless of the elaborate paintings adorning them, even a cursory look at the candles themselves makes clear that they are very different from Western candles. Those are Wa-Rousoku, Japanese candles.

Japanese candles predate Gamo's order by centuries. They served as the main source of light at night even in poor households.

Western candles in the middle ages and beyond were typically made of tallow, hardened beef fat, a byproduct of the Western meat-eating culture.

In Japan, strict interpretations of Buddhist teachings prohibited the consumption of four-legged animals from the 700s on until the early 1870s.

That meant that tallow was unavailable.

Beekeeping was also not a popular feature in old Japan, thus bee wax candles were unknown.

Instead, the ever useful and very versatile lacquer tree (Toxicodendron vernicifluum) was employed. While the sap of the tree could be used to create beautiful lacquerware, the oil-rich fruits could be cooked and pressed, resulting in a hard, waxy residue known as mokuro (Japan Wax).

That mokuro wax is what traditional Japanese candles are made of.

Aizuwakamatsu hand-painted candles

The Wick

The wicks of Western candles were commonly made of flax, later it became cotton.

Traditional Japanese wicks are a bit more complicated. They are made of washi paper infused with the pith of rushes (Juncaceae), a common plant in Japan. The wick is stabilized by silk floss.

Typically, the lower part of a Japanese candle is hollowed out, making it easy to place the candle on a nail or the thorn of a traditional candle holder.

It was those wa-rousoku candles Gamo Ujisato had in mind when he ordered candles to be painted.

Hoshiban candle store in Aizuwakamatsu

Hoshiban Candle Store

The historic Aizuwakatmatsu neighborhood of Nanukamachi, a short bus ride northwest of (reconstructed) Tsuruga Castle is still a center for the production of hand-painted (e-rousoku) candles.

The perhaps most famous of the candle stores located there, is the Hoshiban. It's situated in a historic building though the building is most likely not as old as the business itself.

The Hoshiban started out in 1772 as a direct supplier to the daimyo at Tsuruga Castle. Run continuously since then by the same family over many generations, the Hoshiban is the perhaps most authentic of all the candle shops in Aizuwakamatsu today.

Enter the store and take a look. There are the shelves with the traditional hand-painted candles. Intricately painted candles in many sizes ranging from very large beauties only the richest of Buddhist temples might want to use for special ceremonies to small candles intended for the purchase by the curious visitor.

Other shelves feature fantastically shaped creations, barely passing for a candle if there wouldn't stick a small wick out of them.

Hand painted candles from Aizuwakamatsu

Those are made of paraffin, the sales lady quickly points out. Paraffin being the oil / coal based substance almost all modern candles are made of. Cheap stuff, invented in Germany in 1830 and put to industrial use in England in the 1850s. Paraffin is easy to work with, hence those strange creations on display.

But main and center are the e-rousoku, the hand-painted traditional wa-rousoku candles.

Take your time choosing. While you are at the store, the master of candle painting might just sit down close to the street view window, the place with the brightest light, and start painting candle by candle by hand.