A Gaijin's Guide to Japan: An alternative look at Japanese life, history and culture. Ben Stevens
lips pouting and black hair dutifully gleaming as she stands upon a floodlit podium with (in near-darkness), a cast of thousands below her, all of them pointing, gasping, taking photos, fawning, fainting, etc.
It’s tastefully done, anyway, and doubtless helps sell said product.
DťJť
Traditional training hall for Japanese martial arts. A dŦjŦ may have bare wooden floorboards for such martial arts as karate or kendŦ , or a special type of tatami for budŦ that involve throwing, i.e., judŦ and aikidŦ.
Strictly speaking, a dŦjŦ should be cleaned by the lower-grade students either prior to or after the training session, although in all but the strictest dŦjŦ that’s gone rather out of the window.
It used to be that a student wishing to join a dŦjŦ—particularly if its head sensei had a particularly good reputation—was permitted to do nothing else except clean the dŦjŦ for anything up to a year before they were considered a student and allowed to begin their training.
Unlike some dŦjŦ nowadays, then, it wasn’t all too common to find lots of fourteen-year-old black belts strutting around.
DťKYť
A Buddhist monk, DŦkyŦ was present at the Imperial Court in Heijo-kyo (present day Nara) when, in 761, the Empress Koken fell sick and seemed likely to die. Somehow DŦkyŦ succeeded in curing her, and the grateful Empress subsequently made him her Prime Minister. Soon it was popularly believed that the Empress and the monk were embroiled in an affair; DŦkyŦ himself was rumoured to be extremely well-endowed. (A saying of the time was that ‘…when DŦkyŦ sits down, three knees protrude’.)
The monk, however, was getting greedy for more power. In fact, he declared that no less than a Shinto god or kami had declared that he was to be the next Emperor. Curiously, this seems not to have annoyed the Empress Koken (or ShŦtoku, as she was now known). In any case, DŦkyŦ continued to live within Nara, enjoying his many privileges and doubtless exercising his third knee on occasion.
But his arrogance had angered many within the Imperial Court—and when ShŦtoku died in 770, DŦkyŦ’s enemies were at last able to have their revenge. DŦkyŦ was banished to a distant part of Japan, where he languished in obscurity for the following two years until his death, aged seventy-two.
DRINK DRIVING
Alcoholism has long been recognised as being almost epidemic within Japan, particularly manifesting itself in drink driving. In fact, in any given week you can almost guarantee that several police officers will be arrested for the offence (and this is an entry that I will, for obvious reasons, leave entirely free of any ‘comic’ exaggeration).
On television, news reporters can frequently be seen running up to people who are obviously not sober, and demanding to know why they are about to get inside their vehicles. To which the frequent response by the intoxicated driver runs something along the lines of, ‘Dakara nani?’—‘So what?’ The near-daily interviews with the relatives of those killed by drunken hit-and-run drivers could tell these halfwits exactly ‘what’, though, depressingly, no one seems to be taking the slightest bit of notice of those people whose lives have been left shattered.
EARTHQUAKES
Over 1 000 a year in Japan, although it’s unlikely that you’ll even feel the majority of these. Start to worry when an earthquake measured on Japan’s shindo scale starts to be less of a one and more like a five, six or seven. In Tokyo’s Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, over 100 000 people lost their lives; and some seventy-two years later, an earthquake killed more than 6 000 people in Kobe.
So why is Japan so prone to earthquakes? Well, the fact that it’s got around one-tenth of the world’s total number of volcanoes, along with its many onsen or hot springs, points to some pretty severe disturbances going on within its core. And indeed Japan is situated right above the point where several of the Earth’s tectonic plates meet.
All of which explains why there are frequent televised reports detailing the evermore ingenious ways in which construction engineers are building earthquake-resistant homes and businesses.
It also provides a reason for why, on the anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake each year, Japan’s self-defence force and paramedics practise an emergency drill in anticipation of Japan’s long-overdue—given that earthquakes in Tokyo should technically occur about once every seventy years—‘big one’.
EATING
A bewildering array of kata is attached to the above activity, which is only partially understood/practised by many Japanese themselves. However, the following basic points may assist a gaijin to endear him/herself to their dining companion(s).
1 Before commencing dining, clasp your hands together as though in prayer, slightly bow your head and say ‘Itadakimasu’. (Ee-ta-da-ki-masu.) This has roughly the same meaning as ‘For what I am about to receive, may I be grateful’.
2 It is likely that you will have a variety of shared dishes from which to choose. Don’t pick up something with your hashi (chopsticks) and then change your mind and put it back. Deposit selected food on your own personal plate which will have been given to you, along with your own rice bowl.
3 Don’t pick up your plate, which contains selected food (i.e. sashimi), when eating from it. You can, however, do this with your rice bowl and (if served) soup.
4 Don’t use your chopsticks to point at someone, or even something. A major faux pas. Also, don’t leave chopsticks standing up in your rice bowl; Japanese Buddhists only do this when honouring their ancestors at household shrines.
5 Appreciation for your meal can best be signified by saying ‘Oishii’ (‘Tasty’). The Japanese are not, as a rule, noisy eaters.
6 When finished, say ‘Gochisosamadeshita’ (‘Go-chi-so-sama-deshi-ta’). It means something along the lines of ‘I have eaten a feast’. A gaijin’s ability to say this correctly is genuinely admired by the Japanese. Don’t say ‘Gochisosamadeshita’ before everyone else has finished eating.
In conclusion—chopsticks and difficult lingo aside—the experience really isn’t that daunting. Following the above few points, however, will ensure that you help create the necessary wa at the dining table.
Incidentally, it’s not considered polite to eat whilst ‘on the move’—i.e. walking along a street—or, generally speaking, on public transport.
EEYORE
Listen to the Japanese talking amongst themselves—especially those who are below the age of thirty—and you may well come to the conclusion that they possess some sort of bizarre fetish for the donkey from Winnie-the-Pooh. However, what can be pronounced exactly like the donkey’s name is in fact ii-yo, or ‘that’s fine’. Just to let you know, as I am not the only gaijin who’s initially been baffled upon overhearing this.
ELECTRIC TOILETS
Commonly encountered all over Japan. Pressing one button, should you so desire, warms your seat. Pressing another causes jets of water to gently cleanse those intimate nooks and crannies. If you’re embarrassed about ‘noises’, the electric toilet upon which you are perched may emit the sound of running water, or birdsong, while you perform your business. A ‘medical’ toilet is apparently being developed, which