What is it? これはなに？

Time for a new challenge! Ready? Steady... Go!

What is it?

a/ a miniaturized kanji memorization notebook;

b/ a set of oil-blotting sheets;

c/ a portable paper bookmark set;

d/ a chewing gum wrapping paper;

e/ a block of hand-sanitizing paper;

f/ a block of disposable shoe deodorizing pads.

Good luck with guessing! 

(answer below)
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it's...
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晴明神社の秋分 - The Autumnal Equinox at Seimei Shrine, 23/09/2011

Here are some pictures of the celebrations carried at 晴明神社, Seimei shrine during the Autumnal Equinox, which is a national holiday in Japan. I'm really sorry the quality is not better, but I don't have a professional camera, and in order to see the best part of the celebrations I had to postpone my visit till the late afternoon. (And as a newly-formed photographer with not much experience in the field, I reluctantly had to admit that the proper light is very important in photography...)

(Reluctantly, because it means that in these quickly disappearing days that are not enhanced with the daylight saving time (the Japanese simply don't play in that game of turning clocks forward or backward; to be honest - I understand them very well, I never know which way to change it anyway), I would need to at least CONSIDER getting up earlier... <sigh>)

Paper lanterns with names. Seimei Jinja, 23/09/2011.

The fair following every festival or event at any shrine or temple. There is everything here, from Disney princess' balloons, plastic manga toys, caramelised fruits and vegetables, grilled fish and meat, to games for every possible device and platform one can think of.

 

Young monk preparing for the celebrations; viewed from behind the rack where people tie up the bad 御神籤 (omikuji), fortunes that they had tossed, hoping that the bad luck stays in the shrine instead of following them.

Assistant moving a tree with the mask of an 鬼 (oni), demon. Demons seem to be an essential part of this shrine's history. I haven't yet figured out why though.

The group of children in period clothes after paying a group tribute to the main kami. 

Two Japanese young women wearing autumn-inspired kimono and obi sets, marking the change of season; in the background - leaders of children processions in period clothes.

View of the so-called 'guest kami dwelling', much smaller than the 本殿 (honden), the sanctuary of the main kami. The red sign on the bell rope reads 奉納(hoonoo), dedication/offering.

View of the kami dwelling through 絵馬 (ema), the wooden plaques bought at the shrine where one can put their wishes/ dreams/ thanks to the kami. To ensure privacy, some of them had post-its stuck on top of the text to make them impossible to read by incidental on-lookers.

絵馬 (ema) rack

Paper lantern in front of the kami dwelling.

The sign reads ’The Misfortune-Cleaning Peach’. I followed the example of the people and treated it with utmost respect, caressing and then bowing. The grateful bows and approving looks of the Japanese queued behind me- priceless.

The sacred tree of the shrine. If I understood correctly,  was planted over 300 years ago!

The Autumn Girls. It was the first time that I encountered the situation when I was speaking in Japanese, but got responded in English. I found that pretty rude, but before I came to Japan I read that it is at some point unavoidable, as Japanese want to 'practice their conversation skills'. To be honest, it was the one and only time so far.

Very vigorous お神輿 (omikoshi) when the crowd of men dressed in special festival clothes with the emblem of the shrine presents the portable shrine to the main kami three times before it is placed on the ground for the sacred rituals.

The portable shrine in its full glory.

View of the shrine in the lights of the dying day.

The 本殿 of the main kami, the deified Abe-no Seimei (depicted in the stone on the left).   

The queue of people wanting to pay tribute to the main kami.

Two Japanese girls in 浴衣 (yukata), summer kimono, playing next to the sacred tree.

This is a... rubbish bin. But a special one. This is the place for the old charms, ofude (straps of paper with protective characters/spells written on them), darumas and fortunes, so that they can be burned in a sacred atmosphere of the shrine, and their power is properly destroyed. I knew that you were supposed to give these back, I just always wondered how! Now I know!

If you're interested in the shrine, you can visit their webpage: http://www.seimeijinja.jp/. Describing this webpage as an interactive is an understatement - it's hyper(inter)active! In the nutshell - you can clearly see how well the shrine is doing financially, as the webpage is first-class. (Just compare it to the poor Matsunoo Taisha's... http://www.matsunoo.or.jp/index-1/index.html The big plus for Matsunoo is that it has an English sub-page, though.) 

My personal favourite is this sub-page: http://www.seimeijinja.jp/guide/index.html. You can even see little films featuring miko, the shrine maidens, explain the shrine objects with their history and meaning! They are pretty complicated though, I wish I could understand all of them...  

But soon, I hope!

Oh, and I would forget - if you can read Japanese, how about reading a manga presenting the story of the shrine? You can find it here. Level: upper-intermediate/ advanced.

Japanese pronouns... or why expressing the concept of 'I' can be problematic

If you're studying Japanese, one of the first sentences you learned was most likely わたしは（your name）です, translated roughly as 'My name is ・・・' (more literally: 'As for the things concerning myself, I'm ・・・'). How very important this sentence is you probably won't realize until further studies on the language. 

Firstly, there is no clearer example of the core Japanese sentence pattern. subject + は + predicate + です. You might not even realize that, but with that sentence alone you  really can express most of what you want to say, whether it's talking about yourself, somebody else, an object, an animal, literally anything else, and using either personal names, nouns and adjectives.

Secondly - it contains は particle, also called a subject particle. Later in your study the problem that will weigh on your mind the most will probably be the difference between は and が, a so-called subject particle. The easier way one could put it is: generally, they mean more of less the same thing, but the latter puts more pressure on the subject, whereas the other is marking the topic with a rather vague: as for ~, concerning ~, regarding~. 　

And then thirdly - it contains わたし, the pronoun expressing the idea of 'I'.

And everything would be fine, people would live happily ever after... if only not that it is THE Japanese, the language which is probably the most brilliant mixture of the wonderfully painless with the totally incomprehensible.

In Japanese, they are many ways to cover the concept of 'I'. Each carries different meanings and highlights different aspects that you want to accentuate about yourself.

For example, わたし, watashi, is the most safe pronoun you can use as a beginner. It's polite and can be used by both sexes. Alas, in informal conversation it is considered slightly feminine, and it resembles another ultra-feminine pronoun, あたし, atashi, so in order not to be perceived as too effeminate, boys quickly learn to use 僕, boku, or 俺, ore. While 僕 is fairly neutral, 俺 sounds really strong if not arrogant, and highlights the feeling of superiority towards the person one is talking to. If you're talking to a 目上, me-ue, person higher in status than you, and you want to show your humbleness, you use わたくし, but in a club of interest or a team of people, one tends to use 自分, jibun, instead. Amidst the eldery, also わし can be heard.

(Accordingly, there are numerous pronouns expressing the concept of 'you' (like あなた, anata, 君, kimi, おまえ, omae), and the valuating titles you add to the name of the person you’re talking to (like ~さん, ~ちゃん, ~君（くん）, ~様）　but maybe I'll plunge into it some other time.)   

All of that is even more confusing when one realizes that the practice sometimes doesn't necessarily follow the theory. For instance, young high school girls tend to use 俺 while talking to themselves A LOT. Increasingly more and more women are using 僕 as a form of statement against sex divisions in the language. While talking about one's feelings/ opinions/ fears/ concerns, 自分 is considered the most appropriate, as it is not too intrusive concerning the privacy of the other.

And the most funny thing is... that in daily conversation, when it is obvious that the person is talking about themselves, 'I' pronouns are generally omitted.

There is the perfect phrase in Polish that summarizes it all: I bądź tu człowieku mądry! :-) (Roughly translates as: And be smart [in all of that]!)

Here is a funny manga showing how Beef Jerky <sic!>, an American 留学生, struggles with Japanese pronouns. Enjoy!

(for those who didn't get the joke with the name - especially vegetarians and women, because my experience shows it is highly unlikely not to know Beef Jerky if you are a man - please, google the name)

The Ice Cream Story

Browsing through my local supermarket yesterday, I suddenly felt a strong urge to treat myself with an ice-cream. It was so strong that I decided not to fight it, but instead to move towards the freezer section of the supermarket and try to find something nice.

The amount of colours, textures and flavours was baffling. So were the prices. I couldn't possibly carry the most economical and also heaviest 2 litre tub (approximately 900 yen) as I had other groceries too, so I picked myself some single-wrapped cone with chocolate on top (approximately 230 yen, picture below).

It looked very edible and scrumptious at the time. Plus, I have to admit I got curious to buy it after I noticed the manufacturer - Lotte, a pretty famous Japanese sweets company that recently bought Polish chocolate company E. Wedel. (Name, Lotte, refers to Charlotte, the heroine that Goethe's character Werther was withering with unrequited love to, and eventually committed suicide in such an unskilled way that as a result he was bleeding out for days. Sounds fascinating, I know, but nevertheless 'The Sorrows of Young Werther' (original title 'Die Leiden des jungen Werthers') is considered the masterpiece of Romanticism). 

Sorry for the digression, back to the story.

When I finished my shopping, I moved to the cashiers. I always try to pick either the man or the old woman, as I find their Japanese the easiest to understand. But let's face it - doing shopping in the self-service supermarket is not the most stressful experience requiring smooth talk in any language, as long as you know what you're expected to do.

This time I've picked the most interesting lady so far. I'm not joking, she must have been at least 98, if not older. She was absolutely lovely and helpful, chatting with me in Japanese (most of which I didn't grasp, of course, but covered that with very Japanese noding), while she was skillfully jostling the products from basket to basket. (That's how they do it here - they carefully take the items from your basket, scan the barcodes, and then put the items into the next basket, so that after you paid you can take your shopping to the special bagging area and pack your bags without any hassle or any impatient clearing throats of people in the queue. Ingenious.)

-Would you like some dry ice? - she asked. (ドライアイス、dorai aisu)

Probably looking very stupid, I asked whether she could repeat the question.

- Dry ice- she repeated, and then looked ahead, looked in the basket of already scanned items and pointed at my ice cream.

Still not really understanding what she could have in mind I've put up a brave face and agreed hopelessly, and with serious relief noticed that nothing else is being expected for me for the time being. Till after I paid, when the lady gave me... a token. It was a cheap aluminum token with surprisingly not misspelt 'fresh' embossed on it (Japanese do not distinguish between 'r' and 'l' sound, that's why it's so hard for them to grasp the concept that it actually makes a difference in English or any other language whether you say one or another). 

- ドライアイスのため (dorai aisu no tame, for the dry ice) - she explained kindly.

And then I understood.

Next to the exit of the supermarket there are two weird machines. They are big, black and surprisingly understated when you compare them to the usually bursting with colour Japanese vending machines. I approached them, and to my relief I've spotted ドライアイス written on one of them. There was a nice picture tutorial on it, telling me to hang the plastic bag on two hooks inside, to absolutely make sure that there are no hands inside before switching it on, to close the door, put the token in the slot and then press the green button. So I did.

The noise was horrible. It reminded me of some big industrial vacuum-cleaner that got blocked. And then something filled the bag, the bag itself disappeared in the cloud of unidentified mist, and some mist even started to find its way trough the closed door. I took a brief look around but nobody seemed to pay the slightest attention to me, which calmed me down a great deal and ensured I haven't done anything wrong. (Foreigners are always under some observation in Japan as exotic species, but as long as they don't do anything seriously wrong/ funny/ inappropriate, the observation is very discreet and don't evolve into staring.) I waited for the mist to disappear, and then opened the door. The bag was now filled with some powder that reminded me of artificial snow. I touched it through the bag - it was so cold that it almost felt like burning. I put my ice cream inside and tied the bag tight. 

At home I took my ice cream, opened it and ate it. It wasn't anything special. To be honest, it was one of the most mediocre ice creams I've ever had, and I've eaten some really plain ones in my life. In theory it was supposed to be vanilla and chocolate with some nuts on top, in practice it all tasted like cold sugar. Or rather - a cold sweetener, as it wasn't that sweet at all.

But the observation of the powder that seemed to gradually disappear without any trace (or water residue) took me most of the evening. Who would have thought that a plain urge to eat an ice-cream would lead to my discovery of such interesting invention!

   

I've just checked the freezer - the substance disappeared completely, regardless of being kept in the cold. I still have no idea what it is, but I simply can't wait to buy some more frozen goods to check out the weird substance again! Is it some form of nitrogen, I wonder? Need to ask my best friend to ask her mum, the Chemistry PhD :-).

読本４：子宮頸癌

An actual medical pamphlet about ovarian cancer. Level: intermediate/upper-intermediate.

(Let me just express the wish of having a camera which doesn't distort the shape so much! Or maybe it's just me who can't use the camera properly... But believe me, the pamphlet is regular A4 format with straight edges. Honest!)

Online Registration

Today I finally completed the online registration for the university - something I've been dreading for since we've been told that it has to be done. I'm not the best person when it comes to completing any weird internet-based procedures, I always manage to either delete everything that I've been meticulously inputting for hours by accidentally moving a mouse and thoughtlessly clicking on something, or in the end forget to click a special little button that confirms/saves/starts/whatever-it-does, which results in more or less the same effect = unnecessary stress and wasted time. (Recently my 恋人, koibito, special person, got me some program that is retrieving the lost input information, it's called Lazarus and it really helpful, if you have the same problem.)

And this registration was additionally all in Japanese! Even my rikaichan (the Japanese dictionary add-on to Firefox; if you're studying Japanese and by any chance not have it, please consider getting it, it's a life saver! you can get it here: http://rikaichan.mozdev.org/) was sweating with stress after seeing the student manual with details on how to do that:

The student manual in its full glory (A3 format, including all the instructions for registering and the entire timetable for 2011, spring and autumn semester, with already decided classrooms and teachers and descriptions of the courses... what a far cry from the problematic timetable issue in Polish schools, which ALWAYS end up full of clashes anyway!)

The step-by-step guide to the online registration (with pictures, thank goodness)

The list of classes for foreign students (obligatory and faculty)

But I was firm and I managed (or so I think...) Plus I didn't have much choice, as the deadline for online registration is tomorrow 8 pm. It wasn't that bad, once I understood what to click in what order, and how to add subjects. Oh, and after I consulted with my rikaichan which button is safe to click, because every single button there was full of the weirdest possible kanji combinations I've ever seen.

As exchange students, we are obliged to take 10 units of Japanese per term (10 x 1.5h= 15hrs/week), and then a minimum of 5 units extra classes. I chose 7 classes worth 9 units together, as I figured that I don't have anything better to do in that time anyway, I could as well attend some extra classes. That gives 7 x 1.5 hrs = 10.5hrs/week. Plus part time job, 3 hours a week. That means that in the long term I'm going to be pretty tired, but hey, that's what the year abroad is for, right?

To make the most of it.

Bad Hair Day

Japanese young people, especially male students (but girls don't fall behind, no-no-no), seem to have the particular interest in getting their hair the messiest and weirdest- colour possible. It might be fashion, but I think it's rather letting some steam off after years of obeying the strict school regulations (I'm not sure whether there any particular rules about hair though - need to ask Hiroha-san). Japanese kids and then teens need to wear uniforms for all their school years, starting sometimes as young as kindergarten. Clothes can be changed easily, so even if you like to dress extravagantly on the weekends, on Monday you just jump into your regular uniform without anybody knowing. If you decide to have your hair dyed pink, it would be much harder to hide that fact, and would end up with a serious talk at principal's office. After all, in the image-concerned Japan, a pink-haired student wearing the uniform of given school is not the most perfect advertisement for the serious school he's supposed to attend to.

Don't get me wrong, there are perfectly 'standard' hairstyles too, especially long and semi-long female hairstyles and up-dos. But if the person wants to stand out- believe me, they really do. The colours range from all shades of the characteristic, bleached Asian-hair orange blonde, orange blonde then dyed pigeon blonde, resulting in mould-green blonde, blonde with pink and teal streaks, black with rainbow-coloured bangs or ends. Even if the hair looks black, brown or dark-brown, a closer look confirms a pretty expensive cut and four or five different shades applied.

And then of course is the entire range of hair-styling products one can use - waxes, gels, jellies, foams and whipped (sic!) creams. The general rule is - the rougher and spikier the hairstyle - the better.

I've never been much of a hair-concerned person. Most of my life I've never had any special hairstyle - I was leaving my hair loose or catching it in a ponytail or some up-do. I don't even own a hair dryer. Getting my hair done has never taken more than washing it, and the products used are just a shampoo and a conditioner, plus occasionally some hair dye. Seriously, I am as far from having my day ruined because of the bad hair as the North Pole is from the South Pole. I've always thought there are more important things to be concerned about, really.

Before I came to Japan, for that very reason, I've come to the conclusion that getting a haircut in Japan will be far too much a stressful experience to be worth it. So I went to the hairdresser's and ask for a short haircut. Theoretically it was supposed to look a bit like these: 

In practice it looked like nothing like it, but at least it was short and didn't suppose to require any hairdresser's influence for a year, as it would grow back nicely and more or less evenly. Oh, forgot to mention that it was supposed to be easy to take care of. Well, WAS supposed, meaning that for the first time in my life I get up wondering what sort of hairstyle I'm going to have after a well-deserved night rest, and whether it would be hard to smoothen it easily.

Yesterday, getting up slightly later than I expected and not having enough time for a shower before going out, I realized with some concern that my hair had somehow managed to achieve their weirdest state ever. Looking like Christopher Walken in 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' I set off for school, hoping I could fix it temporarily till lunchtime and then wash it quickly during the lunch break in the time I'm usually idling away anyway when waiting for the pasta to boil.

Walking briskly I heard some rumours behind me. I'm not faint at heart, but I've never liked the noisy groups of young males. They are so unpredictable that one must always be prepared, should the confrontation occur. Wondering how to behave if they decided to start bothering me (pretend to be deaf? mumble something under my breath? starting chatting vigorously in Japanese for an initial shock effect?), I heard that they try to convince one of them to go and say something. I started to wonder why is it taking them so long. After all, if they wanted to just bother me, they would have done it without much thinking. They obviously wanted to talk to me, yet they were too shy to ask. In the end the bravest one, now bright red, started:

 　

- あの・・・ (Anoooo, the Japanese expression used to attract the attention of the recipient, while at the same time showing the speaker's hesitation)

 Me:　- はい、どうしたんですか？(Hai, dooshitan desuka?) What happened?/ What's wrong? (the expression showing more concern towards somebody/their problem; encouraging the speaker to say what's bothering them)

The huge wave of relief came upon him, as he had obviously panicked that he stopped a foreigner and would need to talk in English (which he can't despite studying English for at least 8 years). 

Pointing at my hair he asked with serious admiration: 

- How do you do that?

Honestly, nothing in Japan has yet made my day so much as this encounter! :-)

Vivat the Headless Horseman! :-)