Life's Little Pleasures

Summer is in full swing, with only a few occasional rainy days interrupting the warm sunshine, that is supposedly so precious in these parts. The rain was something to be expected. It is June, after all, which they call the rainy month here. So be it, it's not as bad as the Mexican monsoon. When it doesn't rain, however, everybody is complaining about how hot it is, which makes me think with a slight worry about the coming winter. Because the heat is really not that bad. Somewhere around 30°C, which is very bearable. In fact, if you ask me, it is the perfect weather! And if this is "hot", how cold does it have to get for people to complain? Cause complain they will, it's in their nature. But being used to milder climates, I might reach that point way sooner than they... We'll see. But right now that seems like a distant dream to me anyway. Seeing the covered snow-blowers in people's garages, while cruising past on my bike, wiping the sweat off my forehead gives me a feeling of absurdity. Nevertheless, they are an obvious foreshadow of things to come.

Starting out my entry with a discourse about the weather makes one wonder what I'd been up to all this time. Not much, I have to admit as I sift through my memories of the set routines I have become comfortable with. teaching is getting easier and more fun, as I am getting to know my students better and better. Also, the official side of it, that is lesson plans and progress sheets, which used to be a pain, almost fill out themselves. All I need to do is hold the pen. The kids are still fun to teach, you can also see that they have become comfortable with their teacher... sometimes a bit too comfortable. Being a bit rowdy is permissible of course, as long as it doesn't keep them from learning. When it does, though, I have to act tough and restore order, maybe even threaten them that they won't get a sticker at the end of the lesson.

That usually works, as it is my signature and a funny sticker of their choice that keeps track of their attendance. When they have collected thirty, ten, or even five, they can trade them in for a little gift: maybe a cool eraser, funny looking stationary, or maybe a pencil case. They love it. So much so, that some of them have resulted to a dishonest way of obtaining them. I'd heard of cases like this before, but the other day it happened to me: I noticed how the present sheet of a little student of mine was almost full.... even though I knew I hadn't been teaching her for so long. A closer look at her sheet revealed that she had placed stickers from previous present sheets with scotch-tape into the empty spaces, along with a fake date and MY FORGED SIGNATURE. I couldn't believe it! It was well forged too. And she is just six years old!!! In fifteen years she might be working for government intelligence, or maybe against it if she's really good.

As far as my free time goes, I am still trying to make the most of it, even though the famous tourist attractions of the area seem to have been covered. So on weekends I like to just go on bike rides, and get an immediate impression of our beautiful valley. It is really not that big. Going up to Hotaka, where the wasabi farm is, takes maybe two hours, Matsumoto only one. Along the way there are nice looking orchards and vineyards, fields and rice paddies, where you can see farmers spraying vast amounts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Ugh, how disillusioning! On one hand Japanese people are scared of the low quality, "poison" food that the US is trying to export to them, on the other they are all about chemistry themselves. I have yet to find an organic farm here. So what can you do, but become self subsistent?

I have decided that the first step of growing my own food should be something easy, yet delicious. So I set up a flower-box outside my window with a few plants of basil, and two tomato ones. Surpassing my expectations, they started growing like there is no tomorrow. For the past few weeks I've been harvesting a bunch of basil every week, to satisfy my craving for pesto. The recipe is part improvised, part inspired by ideas from the internet. In a small hand-mortar I grind garlic, walnuts, a bit of salt, olive oil (extra virgin), Parmesan cheese, and of course my own lovely basil. However, by now the amount of basil is so great, that I will start making pesto for others, possibly with a food-processor. Also, I have heard that there is a store that sells real pine-nuts, which got me excited. Fellow teachers have expressed their interests, and even my boss, Nagahara-san, asked me if I could make some for her... So next week we'll have a pasta-pesto session. (Yeah!)

The tomatoes are growing well too, though they are still green. As it seems, there'll be way more of them too than I'd expected. To top off this list of home-made culinary delights, I have started making my own yogurt. It is easier than you'd think. All you need is milk... and yogurt. That's the live cultures of bacteria that had been passed on through generations and generations... of bacteria -- or who knows, maybe even people. I got my first yogurt from my colleague Yanik, who has received it from Kaori, the teacher who took us to the tea ceremony. The sample he gave me was not bigger than an ice-cube. I put it in a carton of fresh milk, covered it with a towel, and let it sit at room temperature for 36 hours. Voila, a liter of milk became a liter of yogurt. I poured it into my ice-cube tray for further projects, and ate the rest with fruit and granola. Right now I am making my fourth batch. Not only does it reduce the cost of my groceries, but it tastes a whole lot better. Not to mention that it is "pure"... well, as pure as the milk at least. Never mind. I still like it.

Kiso, and the Quest for an Inro

After hearing that I was in Japan, a friend of mine in Hungary asked me if I could send him a special item. It's a so called inro, and it seems to be virtually impossible to find anywhere else. He practices two martial art forms, iaido and jodo, the former of which is the art of wielding the katana, the ancient long sword of the samurai. The inro, he asked me for, is simply a small wooden case on a string, with three or four compartments. In the old days people used to tie it to their belts to carry medicine, tobacco, or other small items in it, as the traditional Japanese clothing had no pockets. My friend wants to keep the cleaning kit for his katana in it: a dry cloth, an oily one, and a piece of leather. He sent me a very good description of what kind of inro he wanted, approximately what size, color, design, and cost. So I was very confident to find the best one at the famous lacquer ware festival in Kiso, that just happened to be on the first weekend on June.

Kiso itself is worth a visit, even when there is no lacquer ware festival. There are several villages that take pride in being in the "Kiso" valley, situated between two awesomely steep mountain ranges, with a wild flowing river in between. The mountains are covered with different types of trees, which reflect the sunlight in various shades of green, even if the sky is slightly overcast like it was during our visit. From the train we could get a few short glimpses of breathtaking scenery, water cascading down steep rocks, flowing on into deep rapids, before taking another thirty meter plunge into the next pool. I knew next time I had to come back by bike. Supposedly there is also a place where people go swimming and diving off the cliffs. Sounds exciting, although the person who told me about it, is the same one who snowboarded down mount Fuji the other weekend. EXXX-treme!!!

This time, however, I was driven by other aims. I knew my friend Dana was up for a cultural experience, so I asked him to join me. As soon as we got off the train we were rewarded with a lovely view of picturesque streets, old style hoses, and a multitude of shoppers and vendors in between. We didn't mind them, as it was the festival we had come to see. Following the crowd we observed the stalls with their bowls, tables, chopsticks, and other lacquer ware handicrafts.

At one store, which had an especially wide selection of items, I asked about an inro. The answer was an apologetic smile, and that they didn't have any. I was offered a really nice looking katana instead, and a story about Takeda Shingen. With my meager Japanese, however, I only understood the name of the famous warlord who had conquered the valley in the 16th century. My guess is that the katana he was trying to sell me was an authentic replica of Lord Takeda's sword, and had I been interested in buying it, he might have included a lacquered arm-rest as well. The latter item is really nothing more than a fancy looking piece of furniture, made for the chairless culture of sitting on the tatami. Even here, people want to lean on something, especially having taken a few deep looks into the sake-cup. Who knows, that arm-rest might also have been Takeda's, who was a big fan of sake.

We walked on to look for an inro elsewhere, but unfortunately everywhere I asked, the answer was no. We found some fantastic looking chopsticks though, for a surprisingly cheap price! As we continued down the small street, the town slowly came to an end, but the next one, Naraijuku, was just a stone's throw further, so we followed the road.

If the first town was interesting looking, the next one was amazing. There, we almost felt like thrown back into the times when the Kiso valley had been an important connection between the Imperial capital Kyoto, and the shogun's capital Edo (which later became Tokyo). In those days Naraijuku was a post-town, with a temple on each side, and many inns for common travelers, honjin for lords and dignitaries, and waki-honjin for those somewhere in between. We could almost feel the hustle and bustle of the busy post-town in the hustle and bustle of the lacquer ware festival. Of course I kept asking for an inro, but once again I was told to look for it elsewhere. Fortunately, however, the friendly shopkeeper gave me a map and explained me where I could find one. I was happy.

Once I got to the house he'd pointed out, I became skeptical. Something was not right. Although the kanji characters of the name seemed to be the same as the ones he'd circled on the map, the place was obviously a café. Nevertheless I walked in, and asked the friendly lady behind the counter about inro. After a long explanation, she made me understand that I'd come to the right business, but the wrong branch. Apparently they also had another store, about five minutes from there, where they sold inro. (YEAH!!!) She showed me on the map exactly where it was, and gave me a business card just in case. I was superbly excited. So much so, that I didn't think much about her pointing to the telephone number on the card, and expressing her deepest, most sincere apologies.

As soon as we left we café, we found ourselves in the middle of a procession. Latter we learned that this was the royal tea procession. Because the shogun wanted to enjoy the same quality tea as the emperor, every year the royal tea containers were carried down to Kyoto and then back to Edo. We looked at the procession with awe unable to say much. The costumes were so striking, that I didn't mind letting the gaijin-tourist hang out, and take as many pictures as I could.






Once the procession had passed, we continued looking for the inro place. No more than a few blocks furthere, however, we stopped at a stand where they were selling wine. Of course we had to try. It was not bad. The red one was a little sweet, but the white wine was delicious. Only after finishing our glasses, and enjoying the babblings of the local old man (friendly, nevertheless, but drunk as a brush binder), did we notice the sign that advertised our little town: Shiojiri. Go figure, if there is a place famous for its wine, then it's ours! The attendant was also quite happy to meet some people from his town, even if they were foreign English teachers. His English was quite good, and when we told them where we worked (above Nagahara's Liquor Store) he even gave us a glass of white wine on the house, and we toasted to Shiojiri.

 Quite happy from the nice encounter, and the wine, we set out to finally find the place where they had inro. Of course I immediately understood why the lady in the café was apologizing so much, when I saw that the store was obviously closed. Bummer. Never mind. We went back to walk through the town again, and hopefully find something to eat. In the meantime I stopped by some other stores, and eventually I was told that they didn't make any inro  in the Kiso valley any more. It's a thing from the old days, and demand has gone down so much that there was no point in selling them any more. I obviously couldn't hide my disappointment, because the lady in the store brought out some tea for us, chatted a bit about things I couldn't grasp, and finally gave us what looked like tombola tickets. She even told us where to go to pick up our winnings.

The tombola was very straight forward. We handed in our tickets, picked a number, and were rewarded with two sets of beautiful lacquered chopsticks. Nice. Now, we really became hungry. Ordering food in a nearby noodle shop was not easy, as the menu was all in Japanese, but eventually we each got a bowl of hot soup with soba noodles. It was pretty good. After leaving the restaurant, I spotted what looked like an antique store. I walked up to the guy, and tried for the last time to buy an inro. And guess what, he even had one! It was small, with four compartments, which might not have been big enough to store a piece of cloth or leather in it. However, the inro had a beautiful design, carved out of ivory, and its origin went back to the Meiji era. Not surprisingly, the price was a tad bit high for my taste.

I felt beaten... after looking for an inro all day, this is what I found? Too bad. But there's gotta be one somewhere! Maybe if I call the number on the business card I got, I could custom order one. Or maybe get one somewhere else. Or maybe check what e-bay has to offer? The latter one might actually be a good idea. So I didn't feel that bad after all. Despite of my futile search, the day was interesting, and I will definitely come back to Kiso soon.