Sunday, 6/2/02
Hi everyone! Hai. The weather is dazzling: the late spring that everyone says is so nice has arrived in Japan. I can’t get enough of it! Except that spring turned into summer yesterday when the temperature climbed an extra 15 degrees (Fahrenheit) and the humidity went way up. My thoughts are turning toward keeping our clothing and photographs and books dry. I’ll be ready to send home a box of books in a couple of weeks, including Barbara Kingsolver’s fine “Animal Dreams,” which I just finished. I’d prefer for none of the books to have mold on them when they arrive in the States. It’s still lovely, though, and we’re all doing great. We found a store that sells imported foods and got the spices to make (Indian) chicken biryani. It was a very nice change from Japanese foods, and we’ll probably do it again several times before we go home. Speaking of going home, Cary is really noticing how brief his time here has been. He leaves in fewer than two weeks, and is managing to fit in all kinds of events including a jazz jam session and a few solo trips here and there. We’re also planning several more day trips in the next couple of weeks (Kyoto and Nara, mainly), and next weekend we’ll be traveling with the Hishikawas to Koya-san, a Buddhist center a couple of hours from here. I may be wrong, but I believe virtually every Evergreen faculty member involved in this faculty exchange makes the pilgrimage to Koya-san. I am looking forward to it.

The technology issue continues to be a baffling problem at work. These machines are real marvels of advancement, yet the students can’t record any of the examples on their minidisks. My assistant has to record them at a time when no one else is touching any of the machines. What a pain for her. She said that she’s learning to imitate my lecture style when she translates for me (I told her that it was mostly acting). At this point, I ask her to translate just the five or six main points or concepts in each lecture so that the students still have to work to follow what I’m saying. We had a rather lively time in class on Monday when I was trying to explain Jimmie Rodgers’ “Blue Yodel #11.” There’s the verse: “I believe to myself, someone’s been riding my mule [repeat]; ‘cause every time I want to ride, she acts such a dog-gone fool.” It’s an interesting metaphor, and I was starting to explain it but realized that I first had to explain what a mule is. Now here’s the problem: no mules in Japan. No donkeys in Japan. Only a few horses in Japan! So I started in on explaining what a donkey is, and how you cross a horse with a donkey and get a mule. But they’re all ill-tempered all the time. And sterile. And after ten minutes, that’s not even what the verse is about because it’s a metaphor. Oops, time to explain “metaphor.” My head was spinning but I managed to get to the brother duos of the 40s and 50s by the end of class! Next week I’m dealing with urban blues, jump bands and rock’n’roll. No metaphors there, no sir.

Did I mention that Cary found a four-inch mukade (centipede) just outside our apartment last week? I could barely speak for being so unnerved (poor Cary! he knew I was trying to tell him that there was a mukade, but he couldn’t tell if it was crawling on him or what). Well: it made a horrible buzzing noise when it was hit by a rock. Eeek. I will be happy if I never see one of these things again. They look like a four-inch long daddy-longlegs spider with articulated legs. Cary mentioned (and I agree), by the way, that mukade are right up there with scorpions in the “creep factor.”

I also forgot to mention that my last two missing boxes showed up a couple of weeks ago, two months after they left the mailroom in my building at home. Now I have everything, except the one thing I forgot and can’t get here: Neosporin, for Morgan’s various cuts and little accidents. I found out, after the fact, that most of the over-the-counter medicines that I blithely mailed here (decongestant, allergy medicine, cough syrup, etc.) are highly illegal in Japan because they are at a stronger strength than what is allowed here. I read that the standard non-negotiable jail sentence for importing illegal medications is three weeks. That would have seriously delayed my classes and definitely put a crimp in my plans to go cherry-blossom-viewing with Yoko that first week in April! Our collective health has been excellent the whole time we’ve been here – including Morgan’s (not even a sniffle) – so we haven’t even used any of these highly illegal medications. Maybe some of our friends here can use them when we go home.

We met Micheal Hishikawa and his wife Angela on Tuesday for a visit to Ohara, the area in north Kyoto where the Tendai sect of Buddhism developed. It is also the root source of shomyo Buddhist chant, one of my great musical loves. (In Micheal’s e-mails to me about the trip, he kept writing it as “O’Hara” instead of “Ohara” – an inside joke for the Irish enthusiasts among us…) The weather was perfect, heavenly. We walked up a gorgeous shaded trail through a bamboo-and-cedar forest to the Otonashi no Taki (“Soundless Falls”). It is the site where one of the founders of shomyo is said to have quieted the falls so that he could hear himself chanting. It was a magical place with unfamiliar but mellifluous birds singing endlessly and frogs doing their own competitive chants. We went downhill to Raigo-in temple, a major training center for shomyo chant, where I was able to buy a CD of shomyo. After lunch we went to Jikko-in where monks were chanting softly (regular chant, not shomyo). We had ceremony-type tea (frothy, olive green) with a delicious wagashi (traditional treat). Morgan drank her tea easily and said she liked it, and compared the bitterness of the tea with the sweetness of the wagashi. A small display at the temple held a beautiful row of small suspended bells, that we tried. I tried to strike one as quietly as I could, but the sound absolutely shot out from it. It was the most lively bell I’ve ever struck: like it was on a spring anxious to be propelled outward. Another display case held, incredibly, what looked exactly like Indonesian angklung (tuned bamboo rattles)! In a Japanese Buddhist temple? The temple had a gorgeous garden with irises, pond, carp, azaleas, and at least one frog. We looked in at a couple of other temples (Shoren-in and Hosen-in), and saw a 700 year old white pine that had been worked into a mountain shape, along with a Heian-era temple bell.

Thanks to Cary’s prompting, I had asked Micheal earlier if there were ever any performances of shomyo, and when he asked, he found out that they occur at at Sanzen-in temple at least once a week. I was disappointed, knowing that I probably wouldn’t make one of the performances. As we were leaving, the monk mentioned that there happened to be a rehearsal that afternoon that we could attend! So we arrived at Sanzen-in at a little before three, rushing along to get a place. In one of the hallways, the floor suddenly came to life in sound, with dozens of brilliant little squeaks and chirps leaping out from under our feet like tiny aural sparks. Those are called “nightingale” floors, and are specially constructed to warn of intruders! We found places right at the front, and within seconds the musical instruments were playing and the singing began. We weren’t five feet from the nearest monk: they wore a white robe underneath, with a bright red robe on top, and a purple robe lined with dark green on top of that, and finally a black brocade robe on top with a thick silk rope in dark purple around their shoulders. The singing and playing lasted for at least an hour and a half, and the man who appeared to be the head priest conducted the whole formal service. We were very, very fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time, and it was yet another unforgettable experience.

On Wednesday night we met Yoko and went downtown into Kobe for a dinner party. The party was held at a Chinese restaurant, and was a welcome party for myself and for Myles, who is a new permanent hire and arrived at the same time I did. The group hosting it was the general education faculty, a very nice bunch of faculty who I’ve been getting to know and whose company I really enjoy. We were served endless courses of food, had plenty of laughter and fun, and as it was winding down several hours later, I had had a couple of glasses of beer, a small glass of Chinese sherry, and at least one glass each of red and white wine. I don’t actually remember how much I had to drink, but it was probably more than I have had in an entire month. Within minutes after we finished dinner, several people starting speaking animatedly about going out to do karaoke. Whee! Cary had to go home to replace the babysitter, and Myles begged off, but I went along because I was dying to see what it was like. Oh my! The seven of us were in a “booth” about half the size of my office at home, with a large television screen and several large books of song titles. Most of them were in Japanese, but there was enough of an English selection that I was overwhelmed almost immediately. Luckily I landed on “Over the Rainbow,” and luckily it was in a key I could sing. Each room in the place had a name (ours was the “Starlight” room; others on our floor were “Wild Turkey” and “Black Hole”). More beer! I shared Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” with two other women faculty (Americans), but it’s just as well that we finished after a couple of hours because my next, desperate, selection would have been Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine.” We caught almost the last subway back home and I definitely noticed the impact of mixing alcohol the next day. I don’t think I’ll repeat that particular sequence of events, but I have to say that the highlight of the evening was seeing a normally staid and conservative professor turn into a dancing, rapping, high-kicking acrobat when it was his turn to grab the microphone. He is apparently a serious karate enthusiast who was easily able to do mid-air splits and kick above his head! I never would have guessed it of him!

On Thursday afternoon I went over to Peter Damashek’s place on Rokko Island (he is the American fiddler that was at the Osaka Irish music session last week). Rokko Island is a sort of man-made gaijin oasis for rich people. It was like being in a verrrrry wealthy area of the States. Within minutes of setting foot on the island, I had met one of the players of the Orix Blue Wave (the Kobe major league baseball team) – and a nice guy he is, too. At Peter’s place I met up with a couple of other singers of Irish music, one of whom (James) works at Universal Studios in Osaka with Peter. About halfway through the afternoon, as we were drinking tea and trading songs and ideas and stories about the songs, I had the nagging suspicion that I had been invited to be there as a sort of audition. Sure enough, about ten minutes later they invited me to join them at Universal Studios in June and July as a guest performer. This Japanese Irish music thread is certainly taking me into some complicated and fascinating webs!

Our biggest adventure of the week, however, happened these past few days, when the three of us took a shinkansen (one of Japan’s famous “bullet trains”) to Hiroshima with the aim of staying overnight on the island of Miyajima and on the mainland town of Iwakuni. It was our first overnight trip since we’ve been in Japan. One of my friends from the Irish studies group who lives in Hiroshima kindly made the reservations for us. The shinkansen is something else. We simply flew to Hiroshima! The train goes 300 km/hour! It was very fast, very easy, very peaceful, and very expensive. The major draw at Miyajima is the enormous torii gate that appears to float in the water in front of Itsukushima shrine; it’s one of Japan’s most memorable sights. The entire shrine, in fact, is built out into the water so that it appears to float at high tide – including a beautiful old noh theater. When we arrived, it was high tide and perfect weather. There just happened to be a Shinto wedding occurring right at the moment we arrived, with gagaku musicians in full dress. I thought that this was about the luckiest day of my life until a dazzlingly-clad (and masked) bugaku dancer appeared and began dancing in front of the couple on a small stage. Well! With the torii in the background, the gorgeous music, incredible dancer, clear weather, shrine, temple nearby, pagodas, and everything else, I was in ethnomusicological and architectural heaven. Later I was invited by the couple to have my picture taken with them; luckily I had the presence of mind to congratulate them in Japanese and bow deeply.

We later went to the Treasure House and saw a 900 year old sho (a mouth organ) and a lovely old biwa (pear-shaped lute). We also went to a huge pavilion called Senjo-kaku (the pavilion of 1000 mats) with great hanging mats from the ceiling and huge beams holding up the structure. It took my breath away. We loved the Miyajima History and Folklore museum for its old carvings, grinding stones, well buckets, hair ornaments, and beautiful garden. At our hotel the people brought an enormous feast to our (Japanese style) room. There must have been 20 different plates of food for each of us. We were able to identify only about 10% of what we ate, but we enjoyed all of it. I’m pretty sure we had sea urchin sashimi. Morgan’s dinner came stacked up in a tall container in the shape of Hiroshima castle! She was thoroughly charmed by it. Morgan and I went into the women’s onsen (public bath), where they have multiple spigots of hot water and a large bubbling bath. You soap up your body thoroughly and rinse off before getting into the bath. We did great until it came to the “getting into the bath” part, at which point it was too hot for Morgan. Not for me! I loved it.

In the morning we had an enormous breakfast with multiple unknowns, then went over to the cable ropeway for the trip up Misen-san, Miyajima’s mountain. Boy, did we climb. And when we got to the top there were dozens and dozens of wild monkeys. Morgan was enthralled, looking at a group of them about twenty feet away, not realizing that there was one quietly sitting on the rock next to her, not two feet from her. I gently said “Morgan, turn to your left.” Well, it was wonderful to see her reaction of delight and awe. We hiked up to the very top – another twenty minutes – and it was hard to do, but worth it. We passed several temples where we could hear chanting and drumming, and drank water from a kettle that has had a fire burning under it for hundreds of years. It was a long, arduous hike all the way back down into town, and it simply ruined my knees. We stopped in at a beautiful temple called Daisho-in on the way down, and Morgan and I rang the huge temple bell. What an experience! We also visited Daigan-ji (built in 1201), dedicated to the deity of music. The two odd and discomfiting notes in our visit to Miyajima were the collection of barely-dressed white prostitutes trailing after various men, and the fact that I nearly paid $200 for a tea box (I thought it was $20!). In the first case, it was a chilling reminder that human beings can be mere commodities, and in the second case, it was a chilling reminder that I need to count my zeroes correctly.

We went off to Iwakuni to see the famous five-peaked bridge (Kintaikyo) and to watch the opening night of the summer cormorant fishing season. The bridge is just extraordinary, with its old worn steps and bolts. Part of it washed out in a flood and has been replaced, but it still retains its samurai-era magic. We stood up at the top of the middle bridge and watched the cormorant fishing. Since it was the first night of the season, there were Shinto priests on hand to bless the boats, the river, the fishermen, the crew, and the cormorants. There were also dozens of officials and about 150 million speeches. The fishermen wore loose black shirts and pants with grass skirts around their waists. Before they went out for the fish, the crewmembers built small bonfires in wire cages suspended from the end of each boat. When they were ready, the fishermen freed the birds and took off into the water on the boats. What a sight! The bonfires lit the water all the way to the bottom of the shallow river, making it easy for the birds to see the fish. In the darkness, it was all bonfires and boats and fluttering birds and shouts and reflected fire. There were also a number of pleasure boats full of people and gay lanterns and music. We could see one that was packed with ladies in elegant kimono, drinking sake and laughing. There was even a stage set across two boats, which was used for a set of women (dressed in shocking vertically-striped hot-pink/white/sky-blue kimono) to dance on…to music that mixed disco beats with pop singing and a few traditional sounding plucks of strings. Of course we were starving, and the only place open was a 7-11 “konbini” (convenience store). We had edamame, onigiri, inarizushi, and peanuts with spicy crackers. Who would have thought that 7-11 would have good food?

The next morning we walked around in the old samurai quarters of the town, and took the cable ropeway up to the top of the bluff to explore around the recently rebuilt castle. Morgan discovered a large play structure with a slide that was all rollers. What a thrill! Even Cary and I went down it: one of the fastest I’ve ever been on. On our way back home we spent several hours in Hiroshima. Cary had been to the Peace Memorial Museum before, so he took Morgan to the children’s science museum while I went to pay my respects. As you can tell from these gazettes, I’m generally not at a loss for words. Well. There’s a first time for everything. Let me just say that I came away feeling that there are not enough paper cranes in the world to make an adequate response to what happened in either of the bomb sites.

My best and warmest thoughts go out to all of you,
Sean