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Mt. Fuji – Ever-lasting mountain

This June I happened to visit Yamanashi Prefecture, just west of Tokyo, for my business.
I and my business partner popped in Fujikyu Railway at Otsuki station and went south until Kawaguchi-ko station, that lies on the skirt of Mt. Fuji.
Weather forecaster had told that it might have been raining on the day, but when we went Yamanashi we got a fine day.
So we could see magnificent faces of Mt. Fuji everywhere on our way of business, getting on the railway.
I now live in Kansai area, western Japan, so I don’t have a chance to see this most famous mountain in Japan unless I go on a trip to east, like the
business tour we did on June. I and my business partner, Mr. Sumida, were lucky to see Mt. Fuji fully on only one-day trip.

Have you ever seen Mt. Fuji?
If you had an experience to live in surrounding areas of the mountain, either Ymanashi or Shizuoka Prefecture, then you must have seen it.
Or if you had lived or worked in Kanto area, then you might have had chances to see it far in the west when you lifted yourself onto tops of tall buildings.
But if you assume there is no such tall buildings and there is also no air pollution, then you should see a shape of the mountain from almost ubiquitous places in southern Kanto area, even on the ground.
You can find a place name called “Fujimi(富士見)” in many cities in Tokyo and nearby prefectures.
The original meaning of “Fujimi” is ‘a place from which Mt. Fuji can be seen’.
But nowadays you might not be able to see the high mountain far west when you stand at a “Fujimi”. If so, then it must be thanks to modern developments – high buildings and air pollution.

“Fugaku sanju-rokkei (富岳三十六景)” is a series of woodblock prints drawn by an Edo era’s famous artist Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎, 1760-1849).
“Fugaku sanju-rokkei (富岳三十六景)” means ‘36 views of Mt. Fuji’.
It is one of the artist’s greatest masterpieces, and well-known even worldwide.
For this work, Katsushika Hokusai chose 36 places from Kanto area to Tokai(東海) and Koshin(甲信) areas, and drew views of Mt. Fuji from each of places, with dynamic contrasts between the mountain on the backgrounds and humans’ lives on the foregrounds.
Mt. Fuji stands conspicuously tall compared with surrounding mountains and hills. So it can be seen from very far.
Out of “Fugaku”’s 36 prints, around a half consists of views from places that are located within modern Tokyo metropolitan 23 wards (東京23区).
In the past Tokyo was called Edo(江戸).
Residents of Edo could see Mt. Fuji in their daily lives, as “Fugaku” shows.
Once upon a time Tokyo had its gift to be able to see the highest mountain in Japan everywhere.
Modern Tokyo has almost lost it, though. It is thanks to modern developments that modern Japanese people have built.

I visited Yamanashi Prefecture and went deep south near Lake Kawaguchi(河口湖).
From there I saw the great Mountain Fuji.
I have seen it many times in pictures and television, of course.
But when I stood in front of the great mountain, we couldn’t help but uttering a voice of admiration and awesomeness.
It was beautiful.
It was covered by white snow even in early summer.
It is a typical ’strato-volcano’, in the course of geographical history erupts again and again and adds layers of ashes taller and taller, and finally has made itself the tallest one in Japan.
It is tall conspicuously in the region, and no mountain can prevent it from being seen from its skirt.
Japan has a lot of volcanoes, but I think any of them can be compared with Mt. Fuji for its beauty.
Seeing the mountain, I found that Mt. Fuji is really unique, and the sacred one in Japan.

The mountain is beautiful.
But unfortunately, towns are not.

Towns we visited for my business are full of industrialized constructions made of iron and concrete.
They are really what we can see in any cities and towns of modern Japan.
It was disappointing that disgusting buildings stood in front of Mt. Fuji and artificial ugliness much spoiled natural beautifulness.

- It’s beautiful. It’s rare in Japan, or even in the world!
- And it’s rare phenomenon that residents spoil such a rare natural beauty to such a nasty point.
- Japan can no more drive itself with only old industries. It should try more to vitalize new industries such as tourist industry.
- These towns must try to build themselves in a manner to fit Mt. Fuji’s natural beauty. This great mountain deserves tourism, and its potential attractiveness hasn’t fully been developed yet.
- We are Japanese, and even we feel magnificent when we stand in front of Mt. Fuji. Why foreign people don’t feel the same and enjoy it, if we develop its beauty more and PR it worldwide?

I and my business partner Sumida talked so with each other, seeing Mt. Fuji from a station.
You foreigners might have had a chance to see Mt. Fuji, from a skyscraper in Tokyo or while going on a trip by Tokaido Shinkansen express train.
But I’d like to tell you that its beauty deserves more staying and enjoying than only taking one or two glimpses from remote places.
We think Japan should try more to develop its tourism, in a way not in the past but more sophisticated and, especially, in a way to preserve indigenous natural beauty, and even enhance it.
Japan must strive more to attract foreign people (as well as Japanese themselves, of course) and let them enjoy its beauty they should have.

It is my impression when I visited Yamanashi and Mt. Fuji this June.

(Oda Mitsuo, the president of Asia noTofu)

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Shall we Gaman?

June has come.
In Japan archipelago “Tsuyu(梅雨)” has begun as early as in May.
It was one of the earliest beginning of rainy season in meteorological record of Japan.
“Tsuyu” is Far East Asia’s rainy season in early summer.
It brings much rain from central China, Korean peninsula and Japan, except for northern Hokkaido.
In Japan Okinawa archipelago enters “Tsuyu” first, usually on May.
The meteorological front called “Tsuyu Front” goes up northward slowly, and in a usual season mainland Japan has much rain from June to July.
“Tsuyu” is the forerunner of summer season.
After rainy days cease, Japan has hot and humid summer days.
Last summer 2010 was one of the hottest ones in the record, too.
All around Japan many people were knocked down by the heat, fell down, and even died.
How will this year’s summer go?

This summer is different than usual.
It is expected that the outcome of nuclear power station disaster will influence every corner of daily summer life.
Not only stations struck by earthquake and tsunami, but also a station located in Hamaoka, Shizuoka prefecture, where there was no damage on 3/11, is now shut down by a decision of the government, that takes citizens’ steeply surging concern into consideration, because Hamaoka station is built along the coastline of Shizuoka and pundits warn that it is a remarkable probability that Tokai great earthquake will occur in the near future and coastline of Shizuoka will be hit by huge tsunami caused by the earthquake.
Because of shutdown of several nuclear power stations, a concern of power shortage lingers on, especially in this coming summer, in that heat wave pushes power demand up highly.

So companies are forced to think their devices to curb power consumptions.
People strive to save power at home in various ways.
Above all excessive use of air conditioners is criticized.
Instead people turn their interest again to an old-fashioned cooling product – electric fan.
Japan’s summertime is almost unbearably hot and humid, both night and day, especially in city areas.

“Gaman(我慢)”, getting patient, is a word Japanese people like to use.

I hope that this summer won’t be unbearbly hot one again.

When one gets “Gaman” in an unbearable heat and end up dying from it, it must be called another disaster.

(Oda Mituo, the president of Asia no Tofu)

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May in Japan

In mainland Japan cherry blossom season ended.
Mountains are covered by green new leaves of trees, and confortable and beautiful May comes.
May of this year is, though, felt far from confortablely.
Damages of great tsumai and nuclear disaster haven’t waned yet.

Our office is in Kyoto.
In a usual cherry blossom season, Kyoto invites many foreigners.
But this spring I heard fewer than usual foreign tongues spoken around
sightseeing places.
Great earthquake and nuclear disaster made so many foreign people go away
and kept them away from Japan.
The number of sightseers from abroad has decreased drastically, and cities and towns famous for their sightseeing assets get severe economic damages.

A task to get foreigners back into Japan again hasn’t begun yet.
It will take a long time to recover its reliability from outside world.
So we continue issuing our newsletter for foreigners.
It is our task!

Lastly, May in Japan is really beautiful and confortable season!

(Oda Mitsuo, the president of Asia no Tofu)

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It was a disaster, but…

As you know well, Japan was struck by a powerful earthquake on March 11th, 2011.

The earthquake caused huge waves of tsunami, and they destroyed eastern coast of Japan and brought heavy casualties.

Tsunami swept away safety systems of Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plants, and even after 3 weeks of tsunami they haven’t fully been calmed down.

Last month we spent one of the most unforgettable and lamentable times in last half a century of Japan’s history.

When I read Japan’s history, I can see full of records of earthquakes, tsunami, and volcano eruptions.
Dating back some 1,100 years, the nealy same gigantic earthquake and tsunami as last month’s one seems to have occured in eastern Japan – Jogan earthquake(貞観地震).
Its record was so ancient and obscure that we didn’t take a full consideration for it. We must say that we had a mistake.

When I read Japan’s history, though, I also find that Japan restored itself again and again after being struck by such destructive disasters as this time, and with spending not a long time.
So I believe Japan will recover itself again too, and with relatively a short period.
It must be done by ourselves, who live now and here.

Mencius (孟子) is a philosopher of confucianist school in ancient China.
I’d like to quote his words now (sorry but I use the masculine words in my English translation in order to avoid a lengthy description):

「人ハ恒ニ過チテ然ル後ニ能ク改ム。心ニ困シミ慮ニ衡リテ而ル後ニ作リ、色ニ徴ワレ聲ニ發シテ而ル後ニ喩ル。入リテハ則チ法家・拂士無クシテ、出デテハ則チ敵國・外患ノ者無クシテハ國恒ニ亡ブ。然ル後ニ憂患ニ生キテ安樂ニ死スルヲ知ルナリ。」

-Man will be only able to reform himself after he makes a mistake.
Only after having heartaches and being worried long, man will be able to stand up.
Only after getting his face pale and uttering his woe loudly, man will be able to be enlightened.
Why can’t a country be destined to ruin if there is no strict politician inside?
Why can’t a country be destined to perish if there is no enemy outside?
Considering these, you will know at last that you can only die peacefully after you live through painfull times.

——————————————————————————–

(Oda Mitsuo, President of Asia no Tofu)

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Volcano eruption

In Japan, cold days come again in recent weeks.
Just before spring comes, every year we have a gale called “Haru ichiban(春一番)”, that blow strongly around February and we know it brings spring warmness in time.
This year we haven’t “Haru ichiban” yet. Spring pronably draws nigh, but we haven’t felt it yet.

In Kyushu, a volcano contineus to erupt and brings many damages to local economy.
Now erupting “Kirishima Shinmoe-dake(霧島新燃岳)” is one of the acitve volcanoes located in Japan archipelago.
Our archipelago lies along the pacific rim that occurs frequent volcano eruptions and powerful earthquakes, just as Taiwan, Indonesia, Andean countries, and west coastal area of north America.
So from the ancient time we have had a lot of records of volcano eruptions.
Even Mt. Fuji, that seems not active now, bursted into eruption only 300 years ago, that brought Kanto region a severe damage.
300 years are very short from the viewpoint of the earth’s long history.
In some time a mountain of Japan’s national symbol will also resume its action, as was usual in its own geological history, because it is really a volcano.

(Oda Mituo, the president of Asian Tofu)

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Setsubun Festival and Ume Flowers

In Japan the date of Setsubun Festival(節分) is coming soon.
The origin of Setsubun Festival can date back to ancient Japan. It is held at a night of early February of Western calendar.
At the night of Setsubun, Japanese have a tradition to do “Mamemaki(豆まき)”, that means ’sprinkling soybeans’ at their home.
To do “Mamemaki”, each family goes to buy a package of baked and cooked soybeans.
Firstly, family members sprinkle handfuls of soybeans to outside home, shouting vigorously “Oni wa soto!(鬼は外)”.
“Oni wa soto” means ‘Evil demons, get away!’.
Next they turn inside, in the same manner sprinkle handfuls of soybeans into the house, shouting “Fuku wa uchi!(福は内)”.
“Fuku wa uchi” means ‘Fortune deities, come in!’
What a simple but fundamental wish.
From ancient times to modern times things people wish seem to be unchanged – Be happy and don’t get myself bogged in bad luck.
Setsubun is a festival to pray for happiness simply.
It might be a reason why it survives through long history of Japan.
続きを読む…

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Morning Snow

In Kyoto, where I live, it snows in this morning.
This week Japan archipelago has had the coldest days in this winter.
San’in region, which is located in northern skirt of western Honshu, is struck by heavy snow and it has got damages in its ports, houses, and traffic systems.
Personally, I prefer winter’s coldness to summer’s unbearable hotness.
But annoyance to inhabitants in Japan is not winter’s coldness, but winter’s heavy snow.
Indeed Japan is one of the most snowing countries in the world, although this fact is relatively unknown.
Japan’s snow can be even a resource of tourism for Asian people, many of whom have little seen snowing scenery.

(Oda Mituo, the president of Asian-curd)

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Happy New Year 2011 from Japan!

Happy New Year 2011 from Japan!

In countries in East Asia region, it is common to celebrate New Year Festival according to traditional Chinese calendar. Contrary to them, in Japan New Year Festival called “Oshogatsu(お正月)” have been held just in the beginning of January. We celebrate New Year Festival gorgeously according to East Asia’s tradition, but at the same time hold it according to the contemporary calendar. That seems to be our uncommon feature in the world.

From yesterday Japan is in the midst of Oshogatsu Festival. That’s business as usual for us every year.

From the midnight of New Year’s Day on, shrines and temples in every city and neighborhood are packed with people who come and pray for the good luck of this year – “Hatsumode(初詣)”.

This new year we have a bit nasty weather, though. Many regions in Japan are struck by frost and snow now.

So we might have a thin chance to see new year’s sunrise – “Hatsuhinode(初日の出)”, that we have the tradition to greet in the morning of new year’s day, often recommended to climb onto a mountain before dawn and see it from its top.

January 1st, that is New Year’s Day and the beginning day of “Oshogatsu”, is called “Gantan(元旦)”.

In “Gantan” it is the tradition that all family members gather and take specially prepared foods together.

I am from Kansai(関西) region. To speak about my family’s tradition, in the morning all family members greet and start by taking a dish with a symbolical meaning.

This dish is called “Mitsuzakana(三つ肴)”, that means “three kinds of meals”.

“Tataki Gobo (たたきごぼう)” – (Tendered) Greater burdock. “Gobo”(Greater burdock) is a vegetable that has a long, thick, and straight root under the soil. This vegetable is boiled and cooked, and to take it is said to symbolize the steady prosper of family, like the vegetable’s steady root.

“Kazunoko(数の子)” – herring’s roe, A fish roe consists of many eggs, and so has Kazunoko. To take Kazunoko is said to symbolize many offspring of family in the future.

“Gomame(ごまめ)” or “Tazukuri(田作り)” – dried infant anchovy (a kind of small fish), that are cooked again for dish. In Edo Era(1600-1867) anchovy were once widely used as an essential fertilizer for crops, rather than a food. And to take it as a food in “Oshogatsu” had also a symbolic meaning. It is said to have been farmers’ wish for abundant harvest in the coming season.

In Edo Era, in that tradition of “Mitsuzakana(三つ肴)”started, these foods were minimum luxuries that even ordinary poor households could afford to prepare in Oshogatsu.

But now time has changed.

These mean foods are no longer luxuries,

We have still kept old times’ traditions in Oshogatsu, though.

Today I’d like to reflect the past times of Japan, and at the same time think of coming times of the country and society where I live.

(Oda Mituo, the president of Asian-curd)

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Chilliness

Chilly season comes.

In Kyoto temperature goes down around freezing point at dawn.

On Kamo River, that flows throughout Kyoto City vertically from north to south, migratory winter birds have come.
Yurikamome (ユリカモメ), an all-white variety of western “Black Headed Gull”, is one of those, that comes late autumn and stay through winter.
It is a bird with a pretty and white figure, and now we can see flocks of Yurikamome flying around swiftly above riverside and sometimes make tourists walking on bridges on the river surprise.

Yurikamome is said to have been called “Miyakodori” (都鳥) – Capital city’s bird – in ancient Japan.
Once Kyoto was the capital city of Japan, and “Miyakodori” was the symbolic bird in Kyoto, and was referred to in so many tanka (Japanese short poems) in the past.
Now time has changed thoroughly, but the same species are flying onto 21st century people.

(Oda Mituo, the president of Asian-curd)

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December

December is a characteristic month for the life in Japan.

Traditionally, Japanese people have celebrated New Year most.
This is inherited from Chinese tradition.
But from Meiji restoration (明治維新, Meiji ishin) on, Japanese abandon Chinese calendar and pick up western calendar, so New Year in Japan has coincide with western one. That in turn causes contradiction against areas where traditional Chinese calendar has continued to be used for New Year festival such as mainland China, Taiwan, Mongolia, Tibet, Korea, and Vietnam. They still celebrate New Year with traditional calendar, so for them January 1st is never to be the most special day (traditional New Year in 2011 will come on Feb 3rd).

Westernized Japan, however, fit their time to the west. So now we celebrate January 1st as New Year.
But we celebrate it more than the west, because we don’t have Christmas holidays but New Year holidays. Christmas is never solemnly celebrated in Japan unlike the west (except for Japanese whose denomination are Christian), but only a commercialized night of receiving a gift from papa and mama for children, boozing excessively for adults, and affairs in a sweet room for young lovers…
So it is true to say that we are half-heartedly westernized.

Aside from Christmas, in December Japansese people are busy.
Busy for “Bonenkai(忘年会)”, passing year parties held by any circles of people, such as companies, students, clubs, and neiborhoods.
Busy for “Oseibo(お歳暮)”, gifts that traditionally each persons with relationship changes at the end of the year, although this custom gradually has faded away.
Busy for cleaning all the rooms in houses and offices thoroughly, that is called “Osoji(大掃除)”.
Finally, we are busy for preparing “Oshogatsu(お正月)”, New Year’s Day: making mochi(餅) cake, ornamenting kadomatsu(門松) and shimenawa(注連縄) at the gate of the house, installing kagamimochi(鏡餅) in tokonoma(床の間), that all have symbolic meanings for greeting a sacred and refreshed time.
And ordinary Japanese people will spend the last day of the year, Omisoka(大晦日), with families.

(Oda Mituo, the president of Asian-curd)

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