Taketomi-jima Island

Taketomi-jima Island is a fifteen-minute cruise from Ishigaki-jima Island, and is known with its effort to preserve its culture as well as its neghbourhood and scenery. Walk from the port for 5 minutes, and you will find yourself at the center of the township, where you can rent a bicycle to see the sights. The neighbourhood of Taketomi, or Takidoom in the local pronunciation, however, is worth walking around. Another step will give you a new look of the traditional houses surrounded by stone hedges. Another turn at a corner may provide you a refreshed look of the village and an encounter with other people who will welcome you. Any beach is a several-minute ride from the edge of the township. If you visit Kaiji Beach, you can find star-shaped sand. A guide for another group warmly and enthusiastically taught us how to search for the sand, and even told us that sometimes you are lucky enough to find sun-shaped sand. The word hospitality is much consumed or wasted in brochures for sightseeing, but you can find it alive here in Takidoom. When I had been given a small bottle of star-shaped sand as a souvenir, I used to put it aside with no interest in it. Now I feel ashamed of my deed. What my friends wanted to give me was not only the sand but what they felt in Okinawa Islands.

Terminal

Getting off the bus, I found myself stand at the end of the road in a small port town, Shirahama. "There live around 100 people in this town," said the bus driver, "and they even have an elementary school." "There is another village westward, and you should take a boat to get there. The village is inhabited by about 50 people." "There used to be another hamlet beyond the village, but it has been abandoned." I wonder if we can tell where Kishiwada City ends and where Kaizuka City starts. The border seems somewhat artificial. Here, at the end of Iriomote-jima Island, we can find borders clearly, not only borders between towns and villages but also the border between the human civilization and the nature. In the port, corals grow on the wharf, and tropical fish gather around them. This is the border.

The Taxonomy of OKONOMI-YAKI

OKONOMI-YAKI in a wide sense can be divided into MAZE-YAKI and BETA-YAKI. Today, when you order a sheet of OKONOMI-YAKI, you are most likely served with MAZE-YAKI. MAZE means to mix. We mix flour, water, shreded cabage, and others before we bake MAZE-YAKI, or OKONOMI-YAKI in a narrow sense. BETA means being flat. We mix only flour and water, and bake a crepe-like sheet, which will be topped with shreded cabage and others. Some paste with flour and water is added later to fix the toppings. BETA-YAKI is sometimes called YOSHOKU-YAKI. To make the situation more complicated, in Kishiwada OKONOMI-YAKI and YOSHOKU-YAKI, or YOSHOKU in short, used not to be distinguished. MAZE-YAKI has its local versions such as HIROSHIMA-YAKI, as TAKO-YAKI has its local version, AKASHI-YAKI. OKONOMI-YAKI and TAKO-YAKI have their higher category, KONA-MON. KONA means flour. MON means a thing or things, or foods here.

KASHIMIN---A Type of Okonomiyaki

S and I walked down along "Kawai no Tanisuji", with which name the street which runs in front of Izumi High School used to be called decades ago. We crossed Shiro-mi Bashi crossroads. If you turn left there, you will get to Kishiwada High School. We went through Sakai-machi crossroads, and turn into the left at Uoya-machi crossing. We soon took a right turn into a narrow back alley. A banner "KORI (ice)" indicated there should be a junk food shop. We walked into "Torimi", an OKONOMIYAKI shop. The iron plate counter was thronged with middle-aged men with beers in their hands. A young couple were compactly waiting their turn to sit in front of the plate. A drunken flock bumped out of the shop. We could finally occupy small chairs surrounding the counter. At the corner, a shopkeeper cooked KASHIMINs. She first baked crepe-like things, and then put shredded cabbage and chicken mincemeat on them. So, KASHIMIN is one kind of YOHOKU-YAKI, not OKONOMI-YAKI. Its name KASHIMIN comes from KASHIWA (chicken) and MINTI (mincemeat), but chicken meat is rather chopped than minced. We wlked out of Torimi. "Shall we try another one?" "I'm afraid I'm full." We kept walking to the next KASHIMIN restaurant. The next shop, Yamato, is said to be the originator of KASHIMIN. We walked down toward the sea side through one of the old neighbourhoods of Kishiwada. In the old town, we found an old sweets shop, old warehouses along with old houses. Finally, we came to see an old embarkment. There must have been a sea shore some time ago. From the main street along wich we were walking, some alleys reache the embarkment. At the end of one alley, near a part of the old embarkment, we saw an old OKONOMI-YAKI shop. Its lantern writes "Okonomi-yaki." Its shop curtain reads "Okonomi-yaki." Nothing tells us its shop name. "Hello. Is this shop's name Yamato?" "Yes." answered a young woman, baking something on the iron plate. "Is KASHIMIN available here?" "Of course." She turned to the door to the back room, calling, "We've got guests!" An old man appeared through the door. The woman started cooking. I wondeed what did she call him for. She baked two crepe-like sheets. She turned them over a couple of times till they became crisp. This crispness gave KASHIMIN here unique taste. They were topped with shreded cabage and chopped chicken. Here KASHIMIN is YOSHOKU-YAKI, too.

The Davinci Code

I finished reading "The Davinci Code" after a quite long absence. It unabled me to keep reading the story that I should go to Yaeyama to prepare for the next school year's school trip and that I should organize a students' trip to Australia in the next spring. Anyway, "This is pure genius." said New York Times? That I doubt. The most disappinting part is Bishop Manuel Arigarossa's behavior, or rather how the author, Dan Brown, describes the man. Arigarossa bargains first with 'the Teacher' and then with Captain Bezu Fache too easily. As for the first dealing, I can hardly understand why separating Opus Dei from Catholic Church meant so much to him. For instance, in real Japanese society, Soka-gakkai get independent, or was forced to get independent(?), Nichiren-shu. That looks to have caused almost no serious damages or difficulties on Soka-gakkai. It may be because I am not a Christian that I cannot sense the stress or pressure Arigarossa has got. A Christian member of this group could help me understand that.

Hagi & Tsuwano

Another typhoon was aiming at Japan last weekend. In December! Although it ceased to be a typhoon before crossing Taiwan, its effect brought Japan another disaster. It was the worst weekend to have a trip, but we had a "workplace comfort trip" in Hagi and Tsuwano. I hope you don't remember the phrase "comfort woman" for the trip. It has nothing to do with the sort of it. It rained for 2 days, and it was from the window of the train to go back to a Shinkansen station in Yamaguchi Prefecture that I could finally see the sun, although it was setting at the time. However beautiful the sunset was, the scene left some unsatisfied feeling in me. Hagi & Tsuwano tours used to be popular among young women, and my wife had visited there with her friends some years ago. No wonder I found some cute shops and cafes there, especially in Tsuwano.
Hagi Yaki Entering a Japanese-style cafe, I found a cozy garden and a tea ceremony hut. A lady owner appeared in Kimono, and offered me Japanese green poudered tea in a cup made by a famous potter. After a while, I had a chance to ask her about the potter, Hagi-yaki and so on. It was a luxuary one-to-one tea ceremony and a lecture.
Yoshida Shoin "OYA WO OMOU KOKORO NI MASARU OYA-GOKORO. KYO NO OTOZURE IKANI KIKU RAMU." (I think of you, my parents. However, you, my parents, think of me more deeply. As such, how do you find the news that I should be executed today?) I read the original letter with the message above. It was written by Yoshida Shoin himself, who was a harbinger of modern Japan, and died at the age of 29 without seeing even the beginning of Meiji Restoration.
Toko-ji Temple Toko-ji Temple is the third largest Obaku-shu temple in Japan. Obaku-shu is one of Zen denominations. The biggest one is in Uji, Kyoto, and the second is in Nagasaki, which were both established by the founder of Obaku-shu, Ingen Zenji. In one sense, this temple is the largest branch of the sect in Japan.
An'no Mitsumasa My most favorite painter, who have drawn and painted many pictures for many picture books with lot of imagination and unique sense of humor.
Urakami Christians When I visited Nagasaki, I learned that some Christians captured at the end of Edo period were sent to Tsuwano. Today I was lucky enough to have a chance to visit the very place where they were imprisoned till the death of some of them. Rather than having sympathy to them, I feel embarassed or ashamed to realize how cruel human beings can be.
Mori Ogai's grave Mori Ogai is one of the two biggest novelist at the beginning of Modern Japan, along with Natsume Soseki. Although I prefer Soseki, I although enjoyed reading some of Ogai's novels too. While Soseki was born, was raised, and died in Tokyo, the center and capital of modern Japan, Ogai was born and raised in Tsuwano, a tiny mountain town, until he went to Tokyo to attend a university there and to make a doctor for the Army later. The fact that he rather prefered to burried as a local Iwami persona at his death is a little bit mazing.

Hokkaido

We took the 7:07 bus from the bus stop just across the corner to Mozu Station. We changed trains at Otori Station and arrived at the Kansai Airport 30 minutes before the planned meeting time. It enabled my daughters to have breakfast at a cafe. They had come to dislike eating on board from their last flight experience to Los Angeles. At 8:35, we finished check-in and forwarded to a gate to be stopped at a security check. I had a "Swiss Card", which contained a tiny knife. The flight took us about 2 hours, and was, for our luck, not long enough for my daughters to have airsick, although it bored them. The Memanbetsu Airport was a tiny one. It does not have either mouthwatering restaurant or cute shop. We had some time before getting rantal car, and difficulty killing the time. Some depressing start. The arrival at Meruhen-no-Oka (Marchen Hill) after driving a while changed our feeing. We felt very Hokkaido-like. We felt happy to have come to Hokkaido. Waving hills and fields, waving to the end of our sight. A small red-roofed hut is dotted among in a broad sun-flower fields. It's really as if we were in a Marchen (a fairy tail). My daughters felt saticefied at last. We drove across a plain to get to Abashiri, where there are lakes and hills, and drove up a hill to find Okhotsk Floe Museum, which is at the top of Mt. Tento near the town of abashiri. Experiencing drift ice is very cool. We explored the exhibitions, with so many Chinese speaking people walking about. They keep chatting and shouting in Chinese, and even a group asked me in Chinese to take their pictures in a virtual floe room. At the cafeteria in the museum building, we had our first meal in Hokkaido, "Omoide Rahmen." The noodle had pieces of crabmeat, a cuttlefish and a scallop, and its soup was delicious, alittle bit salty though. Our next destination ws Abashiri Prison Museum. Dummies were so real that their impression led us to feel that we are just watching dummies when we see real human beings at other sight-seeing spots. At the rest room here, we enjoyed our first potato junk foods in Hokkaido, "Imo Mochi." When we find "Imo something" in Osaka, they are usually made of sweet potatoes, while in Hokkaido, those called "Imo something" are made of potatoes. Imo Mochi somewhat tasted like Mitarashi Dango, although its potato dumplings were fried. Tonight's stay is at Abashiri Grand Hotel. It is located at the joint of Yobuto Peninsula along Abashiri Lake. The hotel's disposable toothbrush is very easy to use.
We wake up next morning to find the hotel embraced softly with mist. So told, Hitomi cleared the window, and said, "I can see nothing as the windowpane is clouded." It was not the clouded glass that diturbed your sight, but mist. We drove along lake Abashiri, ran through the town of Abashiri, and went over the open field to Ko-Shimizu Natural Flower Garden to find a sign which said, "The bloom season is over. Please visit us in June or July next time." Flowers were scant. We consoled ourselves with the idea that we came to see Okhotsk Sea. My two daughters were playing at the sea shore innocently. We ran straightly eastward, turned in a right-angled manner to the south, and went down straightforward to Yuri-no-sato Lily Park. The rich variety of lily flowers surprised us a lot, and the sight of the park made up for what we could not experience in Ko-Shimizu Natural Flower Garden. The park also gave us an opportunity to have our second junk food in Hokkaido, sweet corns. They surely tasted good. After leaving Yuri-no-sato Lily Park, the road started winding after a while, and led us to the maountain pass between the Okhotsk Coast and Lake Kussharo. The area around the pass is called Highland Ko-Shimizu, which commands the lake, as well as even Mt. Shari-dake, Shiretoko Range of Mountains, and the Okhotsk Sea. The resthouse there provided us junk foods made of potatoes in a cool breeze: Imo Mochi, Imo Dango, Pote Rosu. Takako and Hitomi enjoyed siphon cakes, and Yuri had her favorite Shiruko. In front of the house, Chomei-no-mizu (Long Life Water) was fountaining. We left Ko-Shimizu Pass down to the basin of Lake Kussharo, and visited the foot of Mt. Io first. "Io" is the japanese word for the english word sulfur. The area was full of sulfur springs. The air smelled like boiled eggs, and the tempreture was a lot hotter than that of "normal" Hokkaido. We ate eggs steamed with the vapor from spiracles on the ground. The heat and smell was nearly knocking us down. We checked in Shizen-juku, an outdoor resort. We stayed at Suomi, a sweet lodge with a bath and toilet. We dined out for supper, out to an Ainu-flavored restaurant. There were several Ainu folkcraft shops around it. We also found Ainu Ethnic Museum near there, but it was closed at the time.

Concept

I wonder if concepts are translatable in our minds.the Transformation of ConceptsCan concepts be shared among different languages in our minds?

Mt. Hiei

Saicho, Honen, Shinran, Dogen, Nichiren.... A galaxy of well-known names of Buddhist priests in Japanese history could be found here and there on Mt. Hiei. In the mountain, Enryaku-ji Temple was founded by Saicho. He was contemporary with Kukai, who founded Kongobu-ji Temple in Mt Koya. They went to Tang Dynasty China together. Saicho came back to Japan after several months, while Kukai stayed there about 2 years. Kukai concentrated himself on studying and mastering esoteric Buddhism, while Saicho brought back various new information on contemporary Chinese Buddhism. That enabled, it seems, Mt Hiei to provide so many important priests later in the history.

Teaching and Theories

I appreciate the theoretical way of coping with our teaching process, to employ a theory to guide our procedures. That will give us tools to plan the procedures beforehand and evaluate them afterward, and save us either from randomness or from stagnation. The practice guided by the theory enriches the theory in turn. Which theory or theorist is correct? "Infinite are the arguments of mages."(Ursula Le Guin)

World War II Memories

From around August 6th to around August 15th, we have a kind of a series of World War II memorial days. TV broadcast many memorial programs. Memorial gatherings are organized by leftisits and rightists as well. Memorial feelings come to its uplift during this time of the year. The latter half of the season overlaps with the Bon Festival, Buddhist All Souls' Day, during which we visit our family tombs and invite the spirits of our ancestors to our homes. After the celebration is over, the spirits are sent back to the yonder world. The custom helps highlight the memorial feelings. Another reason why we prefer looking back to the past during the season might be that memories of persecutions are less bitter than those of assaults.

Teaching Writing

As English being the top business language in the current world, mastering it is one of top priorities for many business people. In Japan, many workers are pressed to take TOEFL, and English conversation schools are flourishing. Things are much the same in other East Asian countries such as China and Korea. There ought to be potential needs for writing proper English. They, however, have been paid scandalously little attention to. Some business people are making the best of Words' templates. I still believe niche marketing of teaching English writing through Internet is possible all the same, and ex-exchange-students are on a good position to provide the service. The problem might be how to organize the whole process of teaching-learning, and, of course, to find prospects.

Iraq and so on

Last night, when I was watching the news on TV, I've got an interesting idea. A reporter from Bangladesh, who was attending the World Water Forum, was interviewed on the Iraqi issue, and said that the Husein Regime should be ousted by the Iraqi people, not by the outsiders. I agree with him. Unless the people get ready enough to govern themselves democratically, they will have another Husein after the war, as we had another emperor, Douglas MacArthur, after World War II, as North Korean people have their second Kim Il Sung, as Chinese people have their fourth generation of Mao Zedong's, and so forth. By the way, although it seems all the eyes in the world are stuck on Iraq, I myself am rather interested in East Asian affairs. It looks, in China, the 'abdication' from the third generation to the fourth has been smoothly done. The difference between the preceding generations and the fourth is that the formers are 'revolutionary' generations, while the latter is not. The leaders who lack the experience of the revolution, or the civil war between the Communist Party and the National Party, might loosen their grip, which leads China to rather open and democratic society. What we must keep in our mind is the shadows of the Great Cultural Revolution and the Tian'an-men Massacre. Do they brake the change or hasten? Anyway, multiparty system will be unevitable, history teaches us, even in China. The system will certainly give birth to parties like the Tibetan *** Party, the East Turkistan *** Party, and such. The bigger problem is if we will see such as the Kantonese (or Yue) *** Party, the Fujian (or Min) *** Party, the Shanghai (or Wu) *** Party, in addition to the Democratic Prgressive Party of Taiwan(if we count Taiwan among provinces in China as the Beijing Administration hopes), the Hongkong Democratic Party etc. Those provincial parties might split China into 5 or more pieces.... either with or without civil wars.

Western Science Fictions and Fantagies

I'd like to find Harry in Vol.6 to be more grown-up. In Vol.5, he lost his temper so easily that he should have been swallowed by the dark side if he were in Star Wars, like Anakin. In "Wizard of Earthsea" the hero boy wizard, Ged, is so passionate and proud that he releases s shadow from the dark side of the world. A boy with a quick temper might be one of popular figures in Western fantagies, while, in Japan, Pikachu's master is a childish carefree boy who is almost always being taken care of by his friendly fellows. One of the most popular figures in Japanese history is Yoshitsune of the Genji clan. He is said to have been a genius in battle fields but a poor or childlike (childish?) politician at court. He is often taken care of by supporting players such as Benkei. Do you know the Japanese phrase "Hogan Biki", the sympathy for the weak or a tragic hero? Hogan is Yoshitsune's position in the Imperial Court. A matured statesman could hardly make a tragic hero. Laws to privatize Japanese post offices are on the House of Councillors now. I wonder if Prime Minister Koizumi is trying to be a winner or a tragic hero.