last day

Before (September)

After: Snow-dusted Youtei-San

The sun shone brightly on my last morning in Niseko. Mr and Mrs T sat on the sofas sipping coffee. They invited me to come back in the winter season for the skiing, politely forgetting that I cannot ski. On the table were leaving gifts to me - a Japanese 'house coat' (think a full-body apron) so that I can 'make pies for my boyfriend'. And my very own Hanko. Now I can sign everything using my name in Japanese kanji. Warning: I will be signing many things this way from now on.

Matronly - a cooker of soggy pies

little case

open sesame

my name!

I got them something too... a tourist guide to England. Ahem. With pictures of the Queen and Thatcher. Both of whom Mr and Mrs T seem to like (or at least they like the movies). 

I'm sad to go as I'm not sure I'm ready for the bustling city again. Another six months of never being alone in a cafe; never walking down a road in silence; of drinking bottled water instead of tap; of bumping into people a hundred times a day, even when doing a simple task like crossing the road. 

I took Hana out for a last walk, making sure not to go too close to Sesame, the huge scary dog, who always barks at Hana. The crickets jumped in the grass. And a "stinky bug" landed on my sleeve. Youtei-San is quite clear today, a slash of white runs down its sides like a ribbon. The snow ploughs are being gathered up in Niseko-village and the gardeners tie wooden slats around their fruit trees, ready for the long white winter. 

sayonara party

Upstairs in Mr T's 'Noodle Workshop'

The house was full of smoke. 

Mr T was grilling ostrich sausages on the stove. Little bright pink fingers. Downstairs, I was watching the pie in the damned microwave-oven. My hair sticking up in all directions and my clothes saturated with flour. Mrs T still apologising for pouring my chicken stock down the sink by mistake. ("Oh my God!" I'd said when she did it. And then "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Oh my God! No. It doesn't matter!)

Neighbours each brought a dish. Some people were louder about what they brought the others. The jewellery-designer had brought a bottle of red-wine juice which she had made herself, her hands stained red, and she explained how the grapes grew wild. How she'd peeled their skin and pressed them down with her. Yamagiwa-San brought an enormous bottle of Shochu. Almost everyone's dish included pumpkin in one form or another. 

The failed pie and less failed apple crumble

The pie failed. (Think Bake Off 'soggy bottom' times a hundred). Still, there was plenty of other things to eat and there was plenty of booze going round so no one cared. People gossiped about the village - new cafes and izakayas, the foreign girls in the town hall, golf stories and holidays to Hawaii and Nepal. At the end, I made 'English tea' (yeah, with milk) and everyone dutifully drank it in between their cold Sakes.

Mr T's inside barbecue

There were also Ginko nuts wrapped in foil. Which had a strange green, wet, smoky flavour. When I asked what they were, everyone said 'Ginko! Ginko!' And looked at each other in confusion when they realised I didn't get it. And then the jewellery-designer - who is an international well-travelled woman in her sixties who insists on speaking English with me - patted my arm, whispering earnestly: "It is Ginko." 

Neighbours. Including the 14 year old A-chan in fur

The husbands were all eager to go home at around 10pm (to see to their dogs). The wives were all eager to stay and drink more and chat about learning languages abroad and childhood trips to the dentist. At one point, a women pointed out how much fatter she'd become (she has three young children) - 'It's true you are getting chubby around the face' was one particularly memorable quote from Mrs T. Her neighbour didn't seem to mind though, heartily agreeing.

Yamagiwa San and Mr T - you can spot Jeweller-designer's be-ringed hands moving erratically to the right

gathering

The evening ended in the calm steady domestic chat over the washing up - whose Tupperware was whose etc. Who was going to take which leftovers home. At this point, Mrs T really came alive, insisting that there was no way on earth she would allow another box of pumpkin to be left 'by accident' in her kitchen. 

The cars pulled out of the drive one by one. Nothing could be seen outside in the total night-time blackness apart from the flashing of their lights. Trundling down the lane and out of sight.

夕焼けor 'burning evening' or sunset

a kanji post-script

A post-script to the Nisekonian story is the discovery of the kanji for 'mother-in-law':

姑

The kanji is made up of the symbol for 'woman' and 'old'. So a mother-in-law is 'an old woman'.

Take a look at the kanji for 'father-in-law' however... 

舅

A little different this time. The bottom bit is 'man' and the top is 'mortar'. So 'a strong man'. A man that binds families together. 

Similarly, the kanji for 'son' and 'daughter' carry different meanings. The one for 'daughter' is 娘 or 'good woman' and the kanji for 'son' or 息 also the carries the meaning for 'breath' and is made up of the radicals for 'heart' and 'self'. So the son is your very heart and self - the breath of life? Whereas your daughter is just pretty 'good'.

Still, the Kanji come from China originally, so if you're an offended mother-in-law, don't go blaming Japan! Blame ancient China instead. 

nisekonian

View of Niseko

On the last full day of the homestay, Mrs T and I went to visit her 'Nisekonian' friend. She is a woman in her early seventies who has been born and raised and lived all her life in Niseko. I'm ashamed to admit that when Mrs T explained this to me in the car on the way there, I was a little worried that I would have to face the same barrage of questions ('Does she eat natto?) that Japanese people who rarely meet foreigners usually ask. Or, worse still, I was worried I'd be ignored as an uncomfortable unacknowledged presence in the room.

But my prejudices were proved wrong. Mrs N is a large lady (in Mrs T's words: 'she's got really fat') in her early seventies with dyed brown hair and a round enormous face. She rarely smiled properly or laughed or frowned, and so her face had an impassive, calm quality to it, as if she were viewing everything in a wise, world-weary way. So, when I met her, she was so calm and slow in her movements that I felt as though we had met a hundred times before.

She talked so deliberately and slowly that I understood her Japanese without the usual struggle. For once, I didn't have to be embarrassed about being unable to follow the conversation or stressed when being asked a question I didn't quite get. She told me about her childhood in Niseko - she had to go and draw water from a well, even in winter, as there was no running water - and about her daughter, who refused to leave Niseko for thirty-five years. Refusing to even go as far as Hakodate (a city barely two hours drive away). She asked about the underground system in Tokyo as if it were something exotic and distant ('very speedy, I imagine') and had never heard of the Tokyo electric district, 'Akihabara'. Since I have only met people in Niseko who have retired early from working in Tokyo, and who exclusively talk about Tokyo in the way that southern English people talk about London boroughs, this came as a surprise.

The most interesting thing about Mrs N's life, however, wasn't her Nisekonianism per say. The most interesting thing was her mother-in-law. An old lady who sat knitting in the corner of the living room as we drank our coffee. The kind of Japanese old lady who walks with her head almost touching the ground. Her back curved, her small body wrapped in layer upon layer of puffy winter clothing.

Her mother-in-law had not left the house for as long as Mrs N had known her. They have been living together in the small four-room bungalow for 40 years.

"She gets on my nerves," said Mrs N. "We get on each other's nerves." Then she laughs. And after that she explains to Mrs T how she can't leave her mother-in-law alone, because she can't cook for herself. And even if she tries to leave food warm for her in the rice-cooker or on the gas stove, she worries that her mother-in-law can no longer hear the beeping of the appliances. She doesn't know when the food is ready, or when the gas needs to be switched off. "It's a worry," said Mrs N. "She's not even my real mother."

I asked Mrs T why the Nisekonian's mother-in-law has not left the house in 40 years. Mrs T said, "she hasn't got any friends. She can't go out on her own. She hasn't got a reason to go out, and so she doesn't go out."

We took Mrs N out for a drive to Hirafu. I haven't been on a 'spin' - a drive for the sake of driving - for a long time. It was relaxing, bright and warm in the car, the weather sunny because it was the day after the typhoon. We walked in the sunshine towards Youtei-San - only a few hundred metres or so, on account of Mrs N's knees.

When we returned, her mother-in-law was sitting on the same spot of the sofa, head bent over her knitting.

Book Review: Growth of the Soil

The 1935 Cover

The Norwegian Nobel Prize winning writer, Knut Hansum, was once described as "the father of the modern school of writing in every aspect" and his novel, Growth of the Soil (1917), as "the monumental work." According to my research, ahem, Wikipedia, Ernest Hemingway even said of Hansum that "he taught me how to write." There's some background, anyway. 

I started reading the novel on my Dad's recommendation. He said it was "Wahnsinnig" which means "mad" as well as "genius" in German. Wahnsinning, wahnsinning. 

There you are, living in touch with heaven and earth, one with them, one with all these wide, deep-rooted things. No need of a sword in your hands, you go through life bareheaded, barehanded, in the midst of a great kindliness. Look, Nature's there, for you and yours to have and enjoy. Man and Nature don't bombard each other, but agree; they don't compete, race one against the other, but go together. 

Growth of the Soil follows Isaak as he goes out into the Norwegian wilderness and begins to build a house for himself. Like Robinson Crusoe, Isaak constructs his household, step by painstaking step. With each slow movement, carefully drawn out plan, with each acquisition - an axe, a roof, a cow, a shed, a horse, a window, a wife - we see Isaak's world growing in the midst of a snowy wasteland. His wife, Inger, simply turns up one day uninvited from the village, a woman with a facial disfigurement - a cleft lip - who feels excluded from her community. She comes and helps to build the farm, necessitates the need for rooms, and a bed. Even a clock. Later, a sowing machine. Geissler, the town clerk who later becomes a mysterious, solitary roamer, names the farmstead: Sellanraa. 

There is something wholesome and reassuring about the arc of the novel. Like Robinson Crusoe, or a little more recently J.M.Coetzee's Life and Time of Michael K - it's a novel which shows you how you can survive everywhere, anywhere. It shows you how things can progress and improve. How a person can overcome all sorts of obstacles with slow, deliberate, logical steps. You have an axe, and trees, so you can build yourself a house. You have a cow, so you can make milk and cheese. What else do you need? The simplicity of life is reassuringly beautiful. 

The style too has that kind of simple beauty. It moves from dialect and inner monologues to poetic passages on the 'deep-rootedness' of natural things. I particularly liked the word 'kindliness' - I'm not sure what the original Norwegian might be - but, for instance, 'the kindliness of the trees' makes me think of a friendly spirit, of branches bowing towards me in greeting. But there is also a darker side of nature, one that is brought out in worrying, gothic fairy-tale like details:

The big mushroom does not flower, it does not move, but there is something overturning in the look of it; it is a monster, a thing like a lung standing there alive and naked - a lung without a body. 

And, of course, there are disturbing events in the novel. And the solitude of the Norwegian wilderness is broken on several occasions. But I won't go into it here, for fear of spoilers...

Isaak and Inger

One of the more memorable part of the novel for me is the constant travelling they must do "to the village". The long trips. The stamping around through the snow for miles and miles. The sons sent to school far away, "in the village". But as the novel progresses, the village moves ever closer. Isaak finds himself living, not in a wilderness, but in a neighbourhood. It's not just the plants which grow, or the outbuildings, or the stock, or even Isaak's family - it is the community and, by extension, the country. 

The sheer repetition - (the main event of the story is repeated again in Book 2 but with different characters) - of actions, events, phrases, stylistic quirks, reflects the repetitiveness of life itself. After all, isn't that what a community is? Something which constantly repeats itself - birth, marriage, death. So although the novel is long, and although the second 'book' is the first book rewritten, this repetition is a part of what is "Wahnsinnig" about the novel - its genius.

There are many parallels with The Secret Garden. The descriptions of nature as a moral power; of taking care of your 'garden' or farm as a kind of moral imperative. For instance, Isaak's son, Eleseus, is very clever - he can read and write! - but his downfall is that he is too clever. He can't do anything practical. He spends his father's money in trade and bad investment. He uses his head where he should be using his hands. The loner Geissler, too, is a man full of ideas. But he has no farm, because he cannot stay still. He cannot work like Isaak can, cannot build solid foundations for himself. It's all air and promises and words. This was Colin's problem in The Secret Garden - he was too much in his head, and he almost died as a result of imagining his own death.

The impression, too, is the same - I mean the happiness and satisfaction of reading about practical, tangible progress. The number of sheep increase; the number of circles around the garden Colin can walk increases. The corn grows; the roses grow. And reading it I felt a deep reassurance and contentment, knowing that, as long as the roses keep on growing, all would be well.  

Perhaps Hansum yearned for Isaak's way of life. The ideal life - embedded in the 'kindliness' of nature - happy with solid, practical work, far removed from the life of a writer. Building a house of words is like building a house with no foundations. Dependent on readers, on politics and social changes - but Isaak is dependent on no one. He has his land, his livestock, and nothing can take it away. 

The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest - who trod it into being first of all? Man, a human being, the first that came here. There was no path before he came. 

A man comes, walking toward the north. 

Day 3: 摩周湖 or the Magic Hidden Lake

Bella and the Sea of Okhotsk 

 Yamagiwa-San was waiting for us outside the pension, a cigarette in hand. He'd been up since 4.30am as usual to walk the dogs in the dark.

We all drove together in convoy towards the Shiretoko Natural Park, a place so remote the road simply stops after 20km or so from Abashiri. The sea was wild and grey; the clouds low over the mountains. At each stop, we scurried from the car to the souvenir shops, too cold to stand outside and peer at the mountains for very long.

Salmon Chip Ice Cream. Everything was salmon flavoured.

There were signs in the toilet warning you not to feed the bears. Northern foxes darted out onto the road and vanished into the shrubs. A huge stag stood at the edge of the road and watched the cars driving towards him, before elegantly jumping the roadside fence and loping away.

A famous waterfall the name of which I've forgotten.

 It was cold. But the dogs were curious. Bill would tap the window with his tiny sausage-dog paw every five minutes or so and Yamagiwa-San would open the window so he could stick his nose outside. The wind blasted the back of the car where Ellie and I sat; the rain spitting on the edges of the seat. Sorry! Sorry! said Yamagiwa-San, but you'll have to grin and bear it, I'm afraid. For the sake of the dogs. As you can imagine, I spent most of the car journey glaring at Bill every time he raised his little paw to the window, muttering - don't you dare, don't you dare! But he did dare. And Ellie and I, wrapped in coats and scarves, were at the mercy of these tiny dogs. 

cold and windy

On the final sightseeing stop, we were driven up and up on winding mountain roads to a mysterious destination everyone referred to as 'Mashuko'. Apparently, it was not clear whether we would even be able to see Mashuko, as it was more often than note entirely concealed by fog and cloud, even on sunny days.

However, we were lucky.

The Magic Lake

It was a beautiful deep blue lake embedded within a Volcanic crater, perfectly hugged by sheer rock and cliffs. The sides of which were studded with bare trees - a landscape I'd never seen before.  

View from the other side, over towards Shiretoko Peninsula

After seeing Mashuko, I was calm and happy inside. Satisfied with what I'd seen, I suppose - a charmed and content tourist. We were dropped off at our guesthouse and said goodbye to Yamagiwa-San's student and her family - who kindly gave us gifts (we had none to give them, of course. Awkward) and invited us to visit them in Nagoya. 

The first thing I did was get into a (shared) hot bath and warmed my frozen bones. The guesthouse - a rustic hostel in the middle of nowhere - was full of men in their thirties and forties on their own, all hobbyists of one kind or another -  cameramen, horse-riders, bird-watchers, cloud-spotters - who proceeded to show us all the photos they had taken over the weekend over dinner. They were astounded at our use of chopsticks and our ordering of sake (Do you like Japanese sake? Yes, it's why we ordered it. Do you drink sake? Yes, it's what we're doing now. Do you like Japan? Yes. Can you eat Natto? Yes. This is Miso Soup. Do you drink Miso Soup? And so on.) 

But I'll complain about this another time. 

We were woken up at 6am by a hobbyist shamisen player who stood alone at the edge of the field outside, singing and plucking out quick melodies in his pyjamas.  

Day 2: Abashiri or 木漏れ日

The mountains in the background are a married couple - the left is the wife, the right the husband.

The rain lifted and the sun came out, filtering through the Autumn leaves - a scene which the Japanese call 木漏れ日 or Komorebi.

Lake Onneto

Now we could really begin to praise the Kouyou - the sun bringing out the red of the maple tree, the yellows of the white birches. Beautiful! Beautiful! said Yamagiwa San, peppering the car journey with history lessons, explanations of names, town populations and the relative heights of mountains.

Arriving at Abashiri - the famous roadside scene as seen on numerous postcards

At the Notoro Coast line we were assaulted by rough wind and angry waves and a rough grey sky. On the other side of the sea, I could make out the line of the Shiretoko Nature Reserve, the huge rolling mountains. A column of black cloud seemed to lead there in an otherwise white sky. At Cape Notoro, with nothing but ferns bent back with the wind and a lonely lighthouse, I felt like I had come to the end of the world.

But at the same time I felt like I had come back home. Because, as we walked, wind beaten, along the coastal trail, memories of walking along coastal paths in Wales and South England came back to me so strongly I forgot where I was. The dogs were excited, weaving in and out of our legs, barking and stopping to hide in the long grass before jumping out again. The sheer cliffs and roaring white waves brought back half-made-up visions of sitting in the car and looking out at the sea; of styles and kissing gates to be climbed; of taping down raincoat hoods with velcro straps.

Not Really Japan?

Apart from wakening my imagined British nostalgia, driving to the fishing post of Notoro reminded me of how lonely a place this must be for the handful of people stationed here. Especially in winter, where the roads are unpassable because of the heavy snow.

Pointing things out

Of course, no visit to the fishing town of Abashiri is complete without seeing the Abashiri Prison. The first prison in Japan, after they decided not to deal out capital punishment for everyone who went against the law. The old prison is a rather eerie place, set on a long sloping hill, and filled with dolls. Some of them actually move. On entering the prison, the prisoner must walk across a bridge and look down into the water where they 'reflect on their crimes'. The lake now is filled with lily-pads, so you can no longer make out your reflection. 

The scary dolls. Sleeping on wooden benches.

Shamefully taking part in a 'fun reconstruction' of the prisoner's terrible ordeals

In the early 19th Century, the prison was effectively a forced labour camp. The prisoners' built all the major roads in Hokkaido. And the prison grounds themselves were the largest farming operation in the whole of Japan - making and pickling, for instance, over 8,000 Daikon roots every year. It was said that 1 out of 6 prisoner's would die from overwork in their time in the prison. Gradually, however, conditions improved as prison reforms were introduced.

Prison cells in the late 19th Century.

In sharp contrast to the terrible physical suffering of Japanese prisoners of the Meiji period, we spent the evening having a six course Italian meal in the pension we were staying at, in the company of Yamagiwa-San's former student and her family. 

The former student is the lady sitting down at the back, left. Her husband sits opposite, her son on her right, and the two girls are her daughter (left) and niece (right). 

 It turned out that the son and daughter had done various homestays in New Zealand and/or Australia and could speak English - a secret English that would never come to be actually spoken, though. We ate and drank and were merry and no one asked us if we could eat natto or use chopsticks, for which I was truly thankful. The evening was passed with lots of stories about Yamagiwa-San - how he was her 'first love' or 初恋 at school, for instance. I can't imagine ever going for a weekend holiday with my secondary school teacher, but then again I was never lucky enough to be taught by Yamagiwa-San. 

Day 1: Obihiro or 雨女

Bill (Left) and Bella (Right)

It rained all day.

We sat in the car. Yamagiwa San driving, me in the passenger seat, Ellie right at the back. The two dogs - Bill and Bella - relaxing in the cushioned luxury of the middle seats. We drove past the famous tourist spots of Lake Toya - the volcanic lake, framed by mountains rages - and saw nothing. We drove on mountain roads across valleys and passes and endless sweeping forests of autumn leaves - and saw nothing. We drove across the wide plains and marshlands outside Obahiro, the roaring Pacific ocean opening up to our left like a thick grey carpet- and saw nothing. Everything was fog and cloud. Yamagiwa San would explode with an occasional 'Bad weather!' 'Pointless!' 'Damn it!' but it didn't change anything.

Ellie explained that she was an 雨女. A Japanese word which means roughly 'a woman who always brings rain'. If we had known, could we have performed some sort of magic rite to expel the rain-demon inside of her?

The Rain Woman aka Ellie on an Ainu throne

We went to another Ainu musem and walked around the old fishing boats and weaving machines and wooden ornaments. There were books in the shop which taught the Ainu language - the examples about Grandmother's going out to look for mushrooms or picking berries.

In Obahiro, Yamagiwa San drove over a parking block in the multi-storey car park and burst the front tyre of the car. So we arrived at the hotel in a state of alarm and vexation - the dogs whining because they were hungry, the car limping on a flat wheel, and all of us tired and bored after five hours in the car. "I have to see to the dogs! I have to see to the dogs!" Yamagiwa San repeated, the pathetic yelping from the back seats like needles in his heart.

Our morning stop at the garage

In the evening, we doused our sorrows with beer and sake in an Izakaya. Yamagiwa San ordered traditional Izakaya food for us - raw fish stomach in soy sauce, raw squid and wasabi, deep-fried pig intestines, sashimi and roasted chicken livers on skewers. He chatted to strangers who came and went, sitting next to us in the bar, talking about the weather, about how we were his daughters and don't we look alike? He talked about old friends, trips to America, and cracked terrible jokes which I only understood five minutes later - (e.g. punning Beer is 'poison' or Beer is 'a healer' in Japanese) - and repeatedly mourned the flat tyre.

Walking the dull, even and empty streets of Obihiro, we arrived back late at the hotel. Yamagiwa San excusing himself to go and say goodnight to the dogs.

calligraphy class

I was obscenely late for calligraphy class.

I was under the impression it started at 7.30, but of course I was wrong and dashed out of the house the moment it started at 6.30. It was pitch black outside. I couldn't tell one street from another. Panicking, I drove in circles around a block of houses which all looked exactly the same. So great was my panic that I phoned Mrs T and she tried to explain in hesitant English where the house was - but her English only confused me more and so I put the phone down. But I managed to find it in the end, turning up 20 mins before the scheduled end of the lesson.

Calligraphy class - or Shodo class (書道) - takes place in a large but innocuous bungalow in Niseko. At the front is an attempted Japanese garden, full of bonsai trees and mini-red maples and awkwardly-placed rocks, which I nearly tripped over in the dark.

Inside there was a huge traditional living room with low table or 食卓 where six people were sitting gathered, sitting in seiza-position, laughing and chatting over their ink-splattered pages. The teacher's wife and grown-up daughter prepared sweets and green tea in the kitchen. A Shinto shrine or 'Kamidana' 神棚 - an object recalling an elaborate wooden doll's house - hung in the right-hand corner of the ceiling. The walls were plastered with calligraphy from different artists, styles, time-periods.

I hurriedly sat and took out my borrowed utensils, which impressed everyone (of course, not mine) and so I felt a fraud when I began my attempt at 紅葉 (leaves turning red and yellow in Autumn) - each Kanji looking like a child's attempt to write for the first time.

Failing to sit in seiza (a sustained injury to my knee... kind of. Or just pure laziness) and being watched by a room of experienced calligraphers, I felt more than a little self-conscious. More so when it became apparent that everyone was talking about me, but not to me, because they did not know how much Japanese I could speak. The teacher's daughter sat next to me and repeated again and again the word 'daughter' in English while pointing at herself, which was rather unnerving.

Still, the other students - the majority middle-aged men who I'd seen volunteering at the library - spent their lesson fashioning a name for me out of Kanji. My first name (in Katakana - エリーネ）had already been chosen by my host-family:

The first syllable or 'E' sound is 恵 meaning 'Blessing'.
The second syllable or 'LI/RI' sound is 利 meaning 'Profit'.
The third syllable or 'NE' sound is 音 meaning 'Sound'.

Eluned = 恵利音

But what about my surname? The one I rashly transformed into グラミチ or 'Gu-ra-mi-tchy' before coming to Japan last year.

The Shodo Class decided on:

The first syllable or 'GU' sound is 具 meaning 'Both'.
The second syllable or 'RA' sound is 良 meaning 'Good'.
The third syllable or 'MI' sound is 美 meaning 'Beauty'.
The fourth syllable or 'CHI' sound is 知 meaning 'Wisdom'.

So 'Both Beauty and Wisdom are Good' or something of that sort. Gramich =　具良美知

It was terribly nice of them, really, and was worth the amazing level of self-consciousness and general anxiety of the lesson, my coming late and so on and so on.

My attempts at calligraphy were pretty shoddy. Calligraphy ought to be an extension of one's state of mind: a fusion of personal will and spontaneous, natural expression, dictated by the ink and the brush as much as a person's movements - so I suppose my rushing around didn't exactly induce a Zen meditative state... That's my excuse anyway.

Still, until next Thursday night. What Kanji will I attempt then...?

recipe lane

homestay dad's udon: i.e. an inspiration 

It never occurred to me that a person can really 'learn to cook'. I always assumed it was one of those skills a person is born with - like gymnastics or singing. During my homestay, though, I've got a bit fired up (ha) about homecooked food and want to learn a few things for when I go back to Tokyo. My homestay mother doesn't really like to cook and usually complains that her food doesn't taste of anything much. (Her husband agrees). I think their standards are much higher than mine: after living off conbini onigiris and salads in Tokyo, her 'simple' dishes are like nectar from the gods.

Pumpkin in soy sauce and mirin or かぼちゃ煮物

Ingredients:

One Small Pumpkin

For the sauce: equal amounts of Soy Sauce and Mirin, (a thimbleful of) Sake, Water, Salt, (a tad of) Sugar

1. Chop up pumpkin into bite-size pieces. 

2. Put in a saucepan with a cup of water and simmer until soft. 

3. Mix together sauce ingredients and pour on the pumpkin. Ta-dah!

Japanese potato croquettes　or　じゃがいものコロッケ

Ingredients:
Potato (Don't ask me how many! Do a bit of 目安）
1 Onion
(Go easy on the) Minced beef
(Some) Panko flakes or breadcrumbs
1 Egg

1. Peel and chop potatoes. Boil them until soft. While the potatoes are cooking...
2. Finely chop the onion and fry with the mince meet until brown. Put aside.
3. Mash the potatoes! (If you don't have a masher, wait until potatoes are really soft and use a fork).
4. Mix mince and onion with mashed potatoes. Make little round patties with your hands and dip into...
5. Beaten egg and
6. Panko flakes until covered.
7. Deep fry in oil (not sure how this works - how much oil etc? Sorry - rubbish instructions)
8. Then pat dry with paper towels. You can freeze them to eat later as well.
9. Eat them with shredded cabbage, sliced cucumber and a tomato. Brown sauce and/or Mayonnaise optional.

Homestay Mum's Oden

Oden - well, you buy Oden instead of making it. You warm it up in a big pot and eat it with Karashi (Japanese mustard). And then you wonder what you're eating... The answer is always 'Fish' (unless it's a boiled egg, daikon, konbu seaweed or konnyaku) but the reason why it's fish is really not clear. For instance, those long tubes are made of fish, and the white floating spheres. Surprising.

second attempt on Sapporo

I think I did better this time.

I started the day right, in proper Japanese time, opening my eyes with the dawn light. (Mr and Mrs T were already awake, of course). Mr T was going to Sapporo on business and offered me a lift. After breakfast of natto and rice, we did ten minutes of a ballet-like calisthenics programme which runs on Japanese TV.

Never seen such enthusiastic gardening. No tea-breaks here.

In Sapporo, I attacked. I went to the Hokkaido Museum of Literature (not even open when I arrived. I had to wait in the park and watch community gardeners hard at work among the rose beds) and saw a rather confusing exhibition of European-style fairy tale engravings based on Studio Ghibli films.

I was told off for taking this picture

The prints were titled and arranged weirdly, with such gems as:

"The Prince lets out the hairy man."
"For a moment, the dove's head becomes that of a beautiful girl."
"The Gazelle cuts off the servant's head."

But then I managed to find the permanent exhibition. A modest single room housing the photographs and major works of Hokkaido authors from the 1800s to the present day. The first was a woman author, Chiri Yueki 知里幸恵 writing in the early 20th Century, whose most famous work focusses on Ainu mythology. I would love to read more, but as usual, I was left deciphering the barest information and moving on.

In one corner was a section dedicated to our old Niseko-based friend Arishima. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION as follows: Arishima studied abroad in Germany, France, Austria and Italy for three years. Seemingly leading a life of ease with his little brother, moving from hotel to hotel ('studying'). In one hotel in Schaffhausen called 'The White Horse' he met a Swiss woman called Louise Mathilde Heck, the daughter of the proprietress. He only stayed there a week, but their correspondence continued for many many years. That's nice, isn't it? He started the correspondence with 'Dearest Tilda, do you still remember me?'

I dashed to the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art. Here, I have to admit, I had a nap in the general seating area, before bravely entering into an exhibition on Finnish Glass. The exhibition-literature mostly reiterated the fairly basic point that Finland is very good at making glass and has won all the glass art competitions that there ever were. There were some things that were mesmerising - one, entitled 'Oasis', was a knee-height glass cube filled with tiny coral-like objects: all different shapes and infused with colour. Then there were rooms with bubble-filled glass illuminated in fading blue light. I thought it was a bit tacky (!) at first, but then I came to like it. It was like being in a crystal ball or something.

Twisting and turning wing-like object outside the museum

Across the hall was a rather different exhibition. Paintings of 'Human Images' by the Japanese answer to Francis Bacon, Katstumi Fukai. Only not as good, and doubly as scary and grotesque, lacking Bacon's sense of self-awareness, perhaps (please don't ask me further questions on this point). The images were full of monsters and open bleeding body parts. And I stood in front of one of the paintings (entitled 'HOLE' or, you know, 'SCREAM', or 'PAIN' or whatever it might be) and I thought 'ah, I don't like this one. It's a bit disgusting'. But then I thought, no, no, it's disturbing me, it's making me feel things, so it has succeeded... In any case, Fukai committed suicide at the age of 30 after battling with ill-health all his life. Certainly this came across in his work.

'Lukewarm Water'

The exhibition left me dazed and a little depressed so I hurried out but the woman at the desk stopped me and said, "Excuse me, but surely you have already viewed the second floor of the exhibition...?" So I dutifully apologised, hung my head, and returned to view yet another floor of the same.

lady of the park

On the long drive back, Mr T told me of his plan to go abroad and learn English for 6 months at a homestay. Probably Canada or England. Definitely not Australia, he said. And it occurred to me with what ease he could simply do that, in his idyllic semi-retired state. He could simply leave off his business for a while and go wherever he liked, do whatever he liked. I hope that I can do that when I'm in my early sixties.... It seems unlikely, but it's something to aim for anyway.

Shiraoi: Ainu museum

The Shiraoi Ainu Museum is a two hour journey from Niseko on winding mountain roads. The swathes of forests, all turning red and yellow now, stretched towards the Pacific Ocean.

At the museum entrance, we were met by this rather large gentleman (above). If he were to speak, he might sing a traditional Ainu song, one that goes something like this: 

toita toita kukkikuki
eha ocaya hinakuan
eha isamoma tane kusan

I work in the fields
If there is a "Yabumame" (bush bean), then where is it?
If there is no "Yabmame", then I will leave. 

There was a performance of these songs in one of the traditional Ainu houses (or 'Kotan') - large wooden huts with thatched roofs made of kogon and bamboo grasses and beautiful inner-rooms, decorated with woven black and yellow reeds. It was a lullaby, where a woman in long robes and a heavy black head-dress, sang to the doll she was cradling. She rolled her 'rs' softly in between verses, like putting an infant in a car with the engine running so that she falls asleep.

Kotan

The dance performance consisted of a young man looking for a bird to shoot with his bow and arrow. He stamped out a rhythm at an ever-increasing pace, pointing his arrow to the ground, then to the sky, then to the ground. The next dance was the women circling the fireplace and clapping rhythmically, turning to their right and left, and swaying their arms from one side to the other.

A woman weaving bamboo grass

The museum reminded me a little of the 'St Ffagan - the Museum of the Welsh Way of Life' near Cardiff (first destination of Welsh school trips) in that it was outside and centered on performances in traditional buildings. And yet, there was something about the Ainu Museum that was, well, a little sad. St Ffagan's is often criticised because the existence of the museum implies that the Welsh Way of Life is something of the past, not to be repeated, which is clearly not the case. Perhaps there was a time forty years ago where a 'Welsh Way of Life' was endangered and seemingly 'on the way out' in some form, but the Welsh Language Movement (Cymdeithas yr Iaith) and Plaid Cymru and the Youth Movement in Wales did not allow for that to happen. Recently, Welsh language-speakers are increasing in number and Welsh cultural life is obviously impossibly far away from being 'extinguished'.

But is the same true of the Ainu Museum, I wonder? There I really felt that I was in a museum. Even though I would like to say the opposite, of course. And the reason for that, perhaps, is the fact that Ainu is not a written language. It has no alphabet, no way of recording it for posterity. All the native speakers have died, and the language is being lost. There are around 25,000 Ainu people still living in Japan - two thousand live in Tokyo.

Ainu-designed cotton Kimono

And I wonder what it is about Ainu culture that these two thousand people in Tokyo inherit that make them Ainu, and not Japanese? Especially in Tokyo - this huge sprawling metropolis of modern technology and development. It's not language anymore. Maybe I'm guilty of placing too much important on language as a symbol of culture and belonging, but if they don't have a separate language, then what makes them Ainu? I can't imagine the men wearing full beards and moustaches and traditional head-dresses. Nor the woman tattooing their arms. You can't do those things and find work in Tokyo! Maybe they practice skills and techniques - like wood-carving and weaving - which are distinctly Ainu. Or perhaps it's self-identification (I am Ainu) and personal history (my mother is Ainu). But history goes on and one's ancestors only become further and further removed until they are no longer ancestors, but strangers: forgotten people.

Ainu wood-carving

What is left? Will it be mementoes of the past - keyrings of Ainu design (like 'celtic' designs); cotton kimonos; ornaments and souvenirs.

I suppose - please forgive the comparison - it's a little like the difference between seeing animals in the wild and in a zoo. There's preservation for preservation's sake - and there's a natural survival. And Ainu culture seems to be leaning more towards this fearful, anxious preservation than the natural transmission of cultural knowledge.

The museum even went so far as to illustrate my metaphor. For some inexplicable reason they decided to 'showcase' animals at the museum in small, ugly cages. To attract visitors, I imagine.

Hokkaido dog - father to the 'Softbank' mascot

And who are these tasty treats for?

Bear. Sad bear. 

There were five bears in tiny cages walking round in circles. You could feed them little cakes which you threw down a pipe for them to eat. It was rather odd and sad at the same time. It made me think nostalgically of the fat pig in St Ffagan roaming his field.

At the lake or 'Poro'

The Ainu Museum was full of interesting little facts - like he Ainu 'Bear Soul-Sending' Ceremony. The Ainu believed that the souls of animals yearned to be in heaven and that by killing them they were effectively 'set free'. And so, in the 'Soul-Sending ceremony', a bear would be shot down with arrows and the Ainu saw its writhing in agony as an expression of supreme pleasure at being brought close to heaven. (Yukio Mishima anyone?)

After the museum, we had to go and have some beef. Like proper tourists, every place has its 'famous thing' (名物) that you must go and try. Shiraoi is famous for its beef, so we drove around to find a place...

Bibs were not optional

The drive back, we let Mr T sleep in the car and had a bit of a wander and discovered this:

Pretty, isn't it?