Changing impression of Japan

    

As being a Japanese, taking this course and writing this blog meant that I had to re-think what Japan is and what the unique aspects of Japan are. The last couple of posts which I had to come up with interesting topics by myself was quite challenging. In the beginning of this course, everything about Japan I could see was not quite interesting enough for me as I have been living in Japan for my entire life.

 If someone asked me in the begging of this course, what are the Japanese culture, what makes Japan interesting place to visit, all I could think of must be the old, traditional aspects of Japan that most people outside of Japan have had enough of. Then, I had to force myself to look into Japan from the outsider point of view. I realized how our culture is a great mixture of the East and the West. Everything I see in my daily life were not quite Japanese but were not quite Western neither.

 And then, when I tried to imagine Japan, I could only see the positive, peaceful and calm Japan in my head. In the latter part of the course, we watched The Cove, The Great Happiness Space and Against Coercion. These two films reminded me of the dark side of Japan and I realized I had been ignoring the negative aspects of Japan.

 Controlling of the media, moral issues, nightlife, night jobs, stressful society, conservative government structure and irrational rules. I started to think that Japan is not as peaceful as it seems to be. We might not feel the downsides of Japan in the daily life but then when I look back on my past, I was always under the pressure of something and was not able to tell or follow my intentions due to this inflexible Japanese society. This course gave me an opportunity to observe my own culture from the outside and to  rethink when I stumble on something that I do not understand well.

Japanese Snack food 2 -Snack food for wait loss-

There is always a stereotype of all Asians being skinny. This is not true. As we often eat western greasy food such as hamburgers and pizza (yum!), people are gaining weight. Especially girls are concerned about their appearance and most people wish to be in fit....or skinnier. Going to a gym is almost like a trend here, not only for young girls but also for middle aged women. Many books on weight loss and work out DVDs are always popular and picked up in TV shows as well.



Since many people are willing to try any possible low calories snack/ sweets, we have uncountable number of them. Low calories cookies, candies, cakes, chips, jelly, drinks, rice, soup, smoothie etc....



Snack food I want to introduce in this blog is "Harusame noodle soup". It looks like noodles but these are made from gelatin (!!). Noodles, pasta, bread....these are all made from wheat which is carbon hydrate, meaning it is the biggest factor of fat. Why not eat gelatin noodles instead of wheat noodles?



There is a always a pile of Harusame noodle soup in my apartment. I usually buy these noodles by ¥100-¥150 yen each. Price varies by flavors and sellers. Sometimes I eat this for breakfast, lunch and even for light supper. Also, when I am hungry at late at night, I do not want to eat heavy food (eating heavy food at night makes you fat...!) so I always choose Harusame noodle soup.



There are so many flavors available at drugstores, supermarkets and convenience stores.

----Introducing Harusame Noodle Soup-----   This is a short clip I made for this blog post. Enjoy!

Japanese sweets and snack food

Japanese sweets are so unique and very original. Of course we have some nice  foreign sweets such as chupa chups, kit kat, snickers, pringles and such but who can live without Japanese sweets? No one! The most popular Japanese sweets must be Pocky. We have some flavors such as strawberry, green tea, coconut chocolate, white chocolate etc. Pritz is as popular as Pocky, and both sweets are products of Glico. You can find limited flavors depending on seasons and many people are so excited whenever new interesting flavors come out. Pritz recently started selling "Super Butter" flavor....this is the best! Since I think most viewers of this blog already know about Pocky and Prits, I will introduce a relatively new sweets which I keep buying these days.

This is gummy candy which I am addicted to these days. One package is about ¥100, price differs depending on where you buy this. This kind of tiny gummy/ candy packages tend to be cheaper to buy at drug stores than supermarkets and convenience stores. When you look at package of Japanese sweets, each sweets has its own catch phrase to attract people. For example, this one says "-From Danish mothers wisdom- tender boiled apple-" I think this expression "tender" is used as something is soft, but to add warm feelings to it, they wanted to use the word "yasashii" (tender), I guess. Also the picture of the package gives you warm and kind of nostalgic feeling. Maybe when you buy this, you will think about your mother's homemade sweets while you are eating this and feel nostalgic. That must be their strategy.

And...they have juice too!!! It says it contains 1/2 apple... I highly recommend all viewers to try this gummy candy and juice. You won't regret it! Let's feel nostalgic.... :)

花見 -Hanami-

In the end of March to mid April, the beautiful sceneries of cherry blossoms are everywhere in Japan. When the wind blows and many cherry petals softly fall on the ground, it is just speechless. One thing Japanese people always enjoys the most during this season is "Hanami". "Hanami" is like a picnic which purpose is to eat, drink, talk with your friends or family while seeing beautiful cherry blossoms. Some people even bring Karaoke machines and enjoy Karaoke party under the cherry trees.

I went to Kyoto with my friends the other day to see cherry blossoms. We went to famous Yasaka Jinjya, just a few minutes walk from downtown main streets. It was pretty crowded with people came to see cherry blossoms although it was a pretty cold day. There are two long path ways within Yasaka Jinjya park and both ways were full of fast food stands. Fast food stands are popular in Japan but they are mostly only seen during festivals. There are Yakisoba stand, Okonomiyaki stand, Kebab stand (relatively new, I suppose), Fruit candy stand (We used to only have Apple candy stand but they start selling candies with other fruits such as strawberries and grapes) , Shooting game stands and such.

 There were even tables and zabuton (Japanese cushions) prepared by some shops selling food under the tent. (Not by food stands owners but by more expensive food sellers, such as people selling ramen.) Please take a look at the picture below. These seats look simple but cosy. There were many couples, family and friends having meals and snacks together and some were drinking beer at the table.

People are supposed to prepare their meals and blue seats to sit on most of the times since not all places have seats prepared or have food stands selling food. The one thing which is becoming a problem is that some people do not take their garbages home. It is the most important rule when people get together and have fun eating meals in public places. If you go to Hanami and appreciate the beauty of nature, please do not forget to take garbages home with you. Enjoy the rest of Hanami season! :D

Annie Leibovitz and James Nachtwey

In class, we watched films of two photographers; Annie Leibovits and James Nachtwey. They are similar in the way of taking pictures; both Annie and James, once they have decided what they are going to shoot, they try to get to know the people, objects, places and problems that they are going to deal with. They are not just taking pictures but they are doing the research through photo shooting. Of course Annie and James are different in many ways. Annie is a photographer for Vanity Fair, while James is a war photographer. Annie is an expert of expressing beauty and personal messages of human beings, while James is an expert of conveying silent messages regarding world issues. Annie is an inventor------she tries many things to make the picture special by using materials that no one else uses. Also Annie is a communicator-----, she always tries to get to know the person before the shooting, so that models can feel relaxed and do photo shooting without tension.  James is a fighter-----, he fights against unfairness through taking pictures of unsolved problems still occurring in the world. Also, he is an activist-----, he goes to the places where problems are happening, get close to the problems and throws questions to us without words but through pictures.

John and Yoko by Annie Leibovitz

http://jrn331.wordpress.com/

This picture of John and Yoko was taken by Annie, five hours before John's death. Through this picture, we can see John's personality. He is a popular musician who's loved by everyone; however, John Lennon, as a person is vulnerable, sensitive and always need love from the person who he loves. His posture expresses how much he needs Yoko and he depends on her.

Coke Factory by James Nachtwey

http://www.jamesnachtwey.com/

This is a picture of Coke Factory taken by James Nachtwey. This picture brings up the environmental issue. The area around coke factory is polluted by smoke coming out from the factory. There is one person who's working under terrible air pollution. This picture shows how harmful the coke is for human bodies and how the use of coke have negative effect on not only workers but also on the environments.

Japanese people

Japanese people (portrait)



In today's post, I am going to talk about my friend Shizuka. I met her for the first time in freshman year because she was my friends' friend, but I have not really talked to her before. I met her again in "Japan and western film and literature" class and became good friends. Since then, we often hang out at CIE and pictures here are taken when we went to moss burger after school.

Shizuka is very openminded, cheerful, and always ready to be your friend. Unlike typical Japanese, she is not shy at all. She says what she wants to say. Probably direct, but in a positive way. Japanese people in general, they become really shy when they are in class and rarely give their opinions; however, she is completely different. We have been taking Japan and western film and literature class for a while now and I think she is the most talkative Japanese student in class. I was so surprised by how friendly she is and how quickly she becomes friends with many people. Also, she has studied in England for a year and she often uses British term which is quite funny to me.

Interesting fact about Shizuka.....She is weird. She often says very random things! What she says really make us laugh. For example, if we were talking about sports, she can just randomly says things like "I had fried chicken yesterday!".....and she often do not get jokes. She looks so confused when she doesn't get jokes. I think she is a bit different from others and that's why I like spending time with her. When we went to moss burger, we talked about fashion.....then she suddenly took out her credit card from her wallet and said "LOOK! JCB CARD, isn't it cool?" hahaha amazing!

Neighborhood Hirakata

2nd blog post!



First of all, I am not originally from Hirakata nor Osaka. I moved here for school. As soon as I got here, something got my eyes.....BICYCLES! I think Hirakata city must be one of the cities which have the largest number of bicycles....I can't remember how many times I almost got hit by them.



Anyway, I am not gonna talk about bicycles today. I am gonna write about "Neighborhood Hirakata". Hirakata is a small city; however, the location is pretty good. As it is located in between Osaka and Kyoto, we can access to two cool cities by trains easily. Other than that, there is not much to do....



Today's post will be about a small shopping mall Izumiya. It's in my neighborhood and I think it is only known in Kansai area. Izumiya is similar to AEON, just smaller than AEON though, they have its own commodity brands/lines etc. Izumiya is very crowded on the weekends. Whenever I walk pass by Izumiya, I see so many middle aged obasan coming to Izumiya by bicycle.

I always buy groceries at Izumiya after school. It has to be after school, because everyday after 6~7 PM, 10%to 40% off stickers are put on many things. No one wants to buy groceries with standard price knowing that they will be on a sale price in the evening. For example, I have bought fruits, seafood and obentou by 40% off. I always go to get some 40% off sushi though, everyone likes sushi so I don't get to buy them before obasan buy them. It is almost like a competition. Today, I went to Izumiya after school and bought some food for dinner....by 40% off, of course.  Let me share what I got;

A pack of Onigiri (3), Original price ¥258 ----> 40% off

Kokusan gyumeshi (Gyu-don) Original price ¥650 -----> 40% off!



I was happy that I managed to get these two obentou. This "sale price from evening"  habit is done not only in Izumiya but also in most supermarkets in Japan.