雨にも負けず、心はいつも晴れ

One of the things that I've forgot to write about last time I was in Japan was about Xmas at Nikko, a.k.a. Natal de Nikko. It's a "traditional event" among Brazilian exchange students, where people - not only students, and not only Brazilians - from all over Japan gather in Nikko to celebrate Christmas.

Well, I went there again this year. And, like I did with Himeji Castle, I'll write about both this year's and 2005' Xmas.

In 2005 I was told about the event by Silvia. So we managed to make our reservations early, including reservations for the Moonlight Nagara to go during the night using Seishun 18 Kippu. That's the most unexpensive a night trip to Tokyo may get, perhaps...

Among the group who went to Nikko, a few known faces. Most from people who had climbed Mt. Fuji together the same year. Still, that's far from being a problem. We met lots of people and made new friends... some of which I met again in 2007. But I'll talk more about that later.


A fortunate coincidence was that back then the 24th and 25th were in a Saturday and Sunday, respectivelly. So we managed to party exactly during Xmas (Christmas is not a holiday in Japan, and many students and workers have to work/study on the 25th when it's on a weekday).

Another fortunate thing was that just a couple of days before (23rd I think) it snowed hard in most parts of Japan. I even posted some pics back then. So, in Nikko we also had lots of snow to play with! Including a rotenburo (open-air bath). Imagine taking a hot bath under the snow... Perfect! Haha!

And what else can be said? "Real" Xmas with a "real Xmas dinner" and surrounded by friends... That was one of my best times in Japan back then. On the next day, a visit to Toshogu (Tokugawa Ieyasu's mausoleum) before going back to Tokyo.


Back to the present. This time, the event was on 22nd and 23rd (because it had to be held on a weekend, as I said before). And this time I wasn't too sure if I should go or not. Since I had a good time two years ago, I decided to give it a shot again this year. Besides, this time I'd know more people around there since some people from other events I've been, like "churrascada de Gifu" or "京都の紅葉" would be there. As well as some old friends, like Claus and Seiji (who I've first met at 2005' Nikko Xmas).

But, since I took some time to decide, Moonlight Nagara was not an option anymore. So I tried the night bus. The only problem is that it was an "extended weekend" (the 24th - Monday - was a holiday). Meaning: LOTS of people travelling.

But after meeting the group everything was allright. There were other reminescents from 2005' Xmas and a friend who came to Japan together (via Monbusho scholarship), but I'd never met since April - Minghini.


Less snow around the Okunikko Kougen Hotel this time, but more fun. And, just as before, Xmas party with friends is the perfect way to celebrate! (Well, there's the family... but being thousands of kilometers away surely complicates things.)


After partying until late at night (some didn't sleep), we went to Toshogu. And from there back to Tokyo. In Tokyo, I had to wait for my bus at 11pm... We arrived before 5pm. So I went to check Claus' new house (it's become some sort of tradition... I always pay him a visit when I go to Tokyo), play DDR and Carcassonne (it was fun, even though I always lost) until I had to leave. Valeu pela hospitalidade!

And thanks to all who organized the event and those who were there. Those are the two necessary things for it to be successful!

For those wondering about the post title, it's the b2007 motto, meaning that not even the rain can beat us; and inside our hearts it'll always be a nice sunny day. Those are my wishes to you in 2008!

Autumn in Kyoto - part 2

Continuing the posts about 紅葉 (autumn leaves)...

November 24th. Lucia, Hiroshi, Kaori and me scheduled a visit to Shugakuin Imperial Villa. Being one of the imperial places, it requires reservation in advance. Luckily, the weather was really nice that day, what turned the strolling more enjoyable.


Again, being an imperial place, it means that people have to follow a route with one guy explaining details of the place and another at the back to make sure the group stays together... or something like it.

Still, that place is SO worth a visit during fall/autumn... Very beautiful!


After that, we went looking for other places to see the leaves... But choosing the Philosopher's Walk area wasn't one of our best ideas. The momiji around that aera were still a little green. It was a fun day nevertheless. And we still could gather some other Brazilians around for dinner.

November 26th. There was a group at the university who was scheduling a visit to Kodaiji at night to see the "light-up" event. I thought of going, but actually had forgot that after the events of the last days. By sheer coincidence I walked around their rendezvous point about the time they left... or maybe my unconscious mind remembered that.


It was beautiful all right. But sort of crowded. And at night. Those conditions make it hard to take good pictures. While I was trying, most of the group went ahead and finished the visit before... It was more a less at that time that I noticed that I needed a tripod. It was time to go shopping again...

Grande Livro

Being in a country which culture is so different from our own, it's no wonder that sometimes foreigners discuss Japanese behavior (as society) and its reasons. Most of the time with a bit of humor; and nonsense. Besides, it's also a good way to look at ourselves and our own culture. Not wanting to jugde it better or worse than our own...

Among the "theories", maybe three are good enough to mention. One was mentioned briefly before, and, according to it, Japan is the Matrix. Yes, like the movie. Because "it's a simulate reality built to keep people docile (refering to honne and tatemae and some of its implications, probably). But if you step out of the behaviour you're supposed to follow (= become a "free human" in Matrix), "Agents" appear out of nowhere to crush you".

The second one says that Japan's aim is become like the world described in Brave New World (Aldous Huxley). From Wikipedia:

"(...) humanity is carefree, healthy and technologically advanced. Warfare and poverty have been eliminated and everyone is permanently happy due to government-provided stimulation. The irony is that all of these things have been achieved by eliminating many things that humans consider to be central to their identity (...). It is also a hedonistic society, deriving pleasure from promiscuous sex and drug use, especially the use of soma, a powerful drug taken to escape pain and bad memories through hallucinatory fantasies. Additionally, stability has been achieved and is maintained via deliberately engineered and rigidly enforced social stratification."

(Just in Japan's "defense", if it's becoming like Huxley's Brave New World, than maybe the US is becoming like George Orwell's 1984...)

The third one I'll have to give proper credits for Cris. His theory is that there's a book he calls "Grande Livro" (It has some wordplay here. "Grande" in Portuguese means "great" or "big"... And "livro" means "book"). In this book it'd be written all the situations a Japanese person may go through during his/her life, and how he/she should react to it. And all Japanese people would be aware of the contents of that book. It's mostly based on how most Japanese usually have similar behaviors (especially when in groups) and have problems "dealing with unpredicted situations" in the way we call in Portuguese "ter jogo de cintura". (In English, the best equivalents I found were "being flexible" or "dancing at the edge of chaos", although I've never heard the latter before...).

But Carol found something that suggests part of that theory may be true... From a presentation at the 9th Kyoto University International Symposium:

Civility in a Polytheistic World: A perspective from the Japanese experience

Toshio Yokoyama

"(...) Japanese society during that [spanning about 200 years from the late 17th century] period was sutained by numerous factors including the seclusion of its islands from the outer world, an intricate ruling system structured under the motto of quietude, and an overall balance between production and consumption which absorbed diverse local and temporal imbalances. The fact of that this stability was not won at the cost of gloomy stagnation seems to owe a great deal to common people's spontaneous in the social order, they cultivated what they thought to be elegant civility towards other humans as well as non-humans in their daily lives.

Two genres of popular household encyclopedias, setsuyoshu and ozatsusho played important roles in maintaining such orderly culture in Japanese society. The former provided instruction in self-depreciated forms of written communication, while the latter provided guidance on forms of un-offensive behavior which were recommended to be employed towards the numerous benevolent, but sometimes fearful, gods in heaven and on earth.

My studies of the nation-wide distribution and wear and tear of extent copies of these books reveal a society in which the Yin-Yang school of astrology and geomancy thrived. The page most universally consulted during the 18th and 19th centuries featured the rokuju-zu or chart of sixty , the key entry point to the instruction of the Yin-Yang school. This chart taught the reader his or her own cosmic attributes, in terms of, for example, the five elements of wood, fire, earth, metal and water. The chart would then offer guidance on, for example, the compability between his or her attitudes and those of a partner. The knowledge about such cosmic attributes was also indispensable when seeking instruction on any serious action scheduled on a certain day , as each day also carried, according to the Yin-Yang school, certain cosmic and divine attributes and the compability between one's intended act and the chosen days was often a grave matter.

Setsuyoshu and ozatsusho civilized their users in 3 ways. First, they afforded the user a grand world view, together with a sense of his or her humble but unique position in the all-embrancing cosmos ; second, they urged the user to put more value on harmonious relations between the humam and non-human constituents of a whole community than on any individual's merit; and third they infused each user with a sense of blessed security whenever one's mode of life was thought to be properly conducted and therefore encouraged by surrounding gods.

The 19th century witnessed the Japanese society's detachment, to a certain degree, from the Yin-yang school. The change of intellectual climate, however, was slow and never violent, a testimony, perhaps, the fact that the school had not assumed any character of rigorous orthodoxy, thereby avoinding harsh criticism from non-believers. The schhol's subtle civilizing influence survived in many parts of japanese society well into present times.

Those numerous gods with whom people used to share one world might be interpreted as equivalent to any of the poweful products of modern science and technology, the proper use of which would be beneficial, but any uncontrolled dependence on them could be disastrous. To achieve harmonious coexistence with those new non-humans, the traditional sensitive mode of perceiving the relations between oneself and the environment on a cosmic scale might be of some help, as it can lead us to recognize what is lacking in our minds as we try to civilize modern human activities within the complex human and ecological community on this planet."

Again, don't take this post too seriously or as an offense. But it's interesting, isn't it?

Autumn in Kyoto - part 1

Time for autumn leaves... or at least it was.

November 17th and 18th. A group of (mostly) Brazilian exchange students from many parts of Japan come to Kyoto for the event "Kyoto no koyou". Some of them I met for the first time, and some I've not met for a while (since Gifu BBQ, perhaps). When the group is together, it means a fun day nevertheless.

So we went to see some autumn leaves... with lots of chat, jokes and fun along the way. The first stop was at Heian Jingu that, although it's more known as a place for hanami (see cherry blossoms in spring) rather than a place for koyou (autumn leaves), had some beautiful scenaries like 泰平閣 (taihei-kaku), a bridge that appeared in "The Last Samurai" movie (as I was told that). There was some sort of wedding ceremony going on, and kids around in kimono... probably because of the 七五三 (7-5-3).

(Damn it... I want to upload larger pics...)

After that people wanted to go to Kiyomizu-dera. But crowded buses (weekend in Kyoto) made us change our course to the "light-up" at Chion-in. It was beautiful, and for me it had a plus: I've been to Kiyomizu already, but that was my first time at Chion-in. After that, most people went to a hotel (or kyokan, I dunno). Since there weren't vacancies for all and I live in Kyoto anyway, I went home, meeting the group again at Kinkaku-ji the next day.


After that, a walk at Kiyomizu-dera, watching those who went to the Jishu shrine, a shrine dedicated to the deity of love. From Japan-guide: "In front of the shrine are two rocks, placed several meters apart from each other. Successfully walking from one to the other rock with your eyes closed is said to bring luck in your love live". And answering a question that some are probably wondering about: no, I didn't try to do that.

After that, some karaoke that included Sakuraba's performance of Bounce with Me... haha!

November 23rd. Holiday. Shell and Chi-chan came to Kyoto. As the saying goes: if I don't go to Himeji, the gang comes to Kyoto... heh! Our first stop was at Kyoto University Yoshida campus. Some will wonder what was I doing at the university on a holiday... One, they wanted to go there. Second, there was the university's culture festival going on there. They call it November Festival (１１月祭), and guess almost all universities and schools have one of those, like 工大祭 in Himeji...

Anyway, after that, guess our next stop... If you guesses Kiyomizu-dera you're right. Yes, Kiyomizu on a holiday during the koyou season... That's surely equal huge lines and queues. At least it wasn't for the "light-up" event, when it would be even more crowded... But it was still enjoyable, mostly because of the company. I probably wouldn't have the patience to stand there alone.


For dinner, I tried to gather the groups I knew that were wandering around Kyoto. Claus, Marilia, Paulo and Mitsue came from Tokyo for a little tourism. Noemy and Lee came from Himeji to see the autumn leaves. So, Shell, Chi-chan and I managed to meet with Claus's group and eat at a "omuraisu" (omellete + rice) restaurant. There were some problems meeting with Noemy and Lee, so they couldn't have dinner with us, but we met later and could talk for a while before the groups dispersed.

The red leaves weren't over yet, but I'll leave that for another post.

Oddities...

Some strange articles around...

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Banning Samurai Swords (London)

"The government said Wednesday it would ban the sale of samurai swords because the weapons had been used in a number of serious, high-profile attacks.

The Home Office said the swords would be added to the Offensive Weapons Order from April next year, meaning they could not be imported, sold or hired."

Samurai swords are killing people, so we should ban them. Why not use the same logic to, for example, guns...? But it's just an interesting thing. Can't blame the guys too much because, at least, they recognized in a way that it's not the weapons that necessarily kill people. It's the people who wield them...

"However collectors of genuine Japanese swords and those used by martial arts enthusiasts would be exempt from the ban.

'In the wrong hands, samurai swords are dangerous weapons,' Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said."

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Gags about poverty (Japan)

"On TV Asahi's popular variety show "Zenigata Kintaro," whose title is a parody of Zenigata Heiji, a famous fictional hero, comedians visit the homes of people who claim to be poor and learn how they get by on very little money. On each program, four contestants are profiled and a panel of judges chooses the most interesting or original survival story and awards the winner ¥200,000.

The situations are played for laughs, even though some contestants make do without running water or electricity, others live in spaces that barely give them room to sit down, and almost everyone survives on diets that wouldn't nourish a gnat."

... Really. For "survival stories" they should go to some places outside Japan...

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Kogyaru grow into monster mums (Japan)

"Generation kogyaru has come of age. Heaven help their kids, says Shukan Bunshun.

'Kogyaru' means high-school girl, but the kogyaru phenomenon of the 1990s had more to do with what went on outside class. Kogyaru fashion called for thick makeup, dyed hair, bronzed skin, short skirts, loose socks and high-rise platform-soled shoes. Kogyaru mores were as loose as the socks, typified by telephone clubs, date clubs and various other avenues of easy coupling whose most noted aspect was enjo kosai — casual sex with older men for pocket money to buy brand-name goods. "

"Yuka, 26, paints her first-grade daughter's ultralong nails. The school protests — the child's nails are so long she can't hold a pencil properly. Never mind, says Yuka: 'Writing with a pencil isn't important. Nowadays people write with computers and cell phones. In junior high school she'll have to wear a uniform. Now is the time to develop her fashion sense. For a girl,' she says — a surprising throwback to pre-kogyaru, pre-feminist thinking — 'the main thing is to be attractive.'"

What can I possibly say?? Poor kids is the only thing I can think of...

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Lately I'm having fun reading the blog Muito Japao. It has some curiosities about Japan that you probably would have to live here to know otherwise... sometimes not even that. Some posts I read and after realise how different it is, but I got used to that after staying for a while in Japan. Others are things that I've never saw myself... but wouldn't be so surprised if they existed here.

One of the things is some kind of mask to keep one's face small. For some reason, for Japanese standards, small faces are beautiful.

The posts are in Portuguese, but most of them have pictures. Some of them self-explanatory.

Himeji Jo returns!

Backlog!! Ouch! History repeats itself all right... I have a bunch of things in backlog, and I'm sure that some of them will never see daylight, exactly like what happened two years ago. Well, I'd better do some catch-up and update what I can...

This one happened some time ago. October 12th and 13th to be precise. But I think it's worth starting here.

Among the people I met again since I returned to Japan, there's the Himeji Gang. But the gang is not complete... and among those who I haven't met yet was Jojo. Then, when word spread that she'd return and spend some days to Himeji I simply had to make my move and try to meet again.

The gang had scheduled a night at Tiger Pub. But since I could take the day off, I decided to meet some other people. Which meant a visit to University of Hyogo - Shosha Campus!

And some nostalgic meetings. Lunch with some English professors, as Silvia and I used to do before. Then, meet again N. and group. We did English class and some others together, and although English is far from being N.'s specialty, he made the classes interesting (= funny)... haha!

After that, meeting with Noemy, the current exchange student under the program Silvia and I went two years ago, and some of her friends... And they're living way better then we did before... But that's good news. It means that things are improving, I think. I may be just a little jealous because the place is even better then the one I'm living now... hehe!

Finally, meeting Jojo and the gang again at Tiger! There's one sentence she said that defined exactly the feeling: "Meeting [almost] everyone in Tiger again makes it feel like we went back on time!" My thoughts exactly... I could imagine the other absent people around sometimes... and no! I was not hallucinating!! Nor drunk! LOL

(I wanted to upload a larger picture, but for some wierd reason, Blogger won't let me do it...)

The only bad point is that it was too brief... and since I live in Kyoto now I could meet again after I returned. Make sure you come visit Kyoto next time, Jojo! Kyoto, kimono and karaoke... that's your perfect combination, right?

More everyday life

Some other short misc stories...

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Being in Japan is a good way to know Japanese culture. Even parts that even most Japanese don't know...

Eating with a group one day, some Japanese guy mentions that it's said the farther (from the edge that touches the food) one holds one's chopsticks when eating, the more detached from his/her parents one is. An interesting bit of Japanese culture, except that nobody else knew that, and there were other Japanese at that table...

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Sometimes differences appear in things you don't expect...

I've read the last book of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. And there was a friend who had just read it and was anxious to talk to someone about the book. We discussed for a couple of days, and one of her comments, after she found someone else who had also read the book was quite interesting...

In her opinion, one of the most shocking things on the series was scenes where someone is tortured (I won't give names to avoid spoiling too much). It'd be shocking considering those books are read by lots of children, although it happen only in the latter volumes (when many of the readers have aged a little as well).

But when she commented that with her friend (I can't quite remember if she was Japanese or Chinese...), that friend said that more shocking than the torture scenes were those where couples (ah well, those who've read will know) kissing each other in public and such...

I won't be so hasty to call that cultural difference, though. Cultural background may have helped, but I'd attribute the reason for such difference more to their personal opinions.

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There are times when chance decides to play with us.

I was with a group or Brazilians around downtown Kyoto (Sanjo Kawaramachi), and as we were walking, we were talking about a variety of things. It came to the point when we were discussing some "strange behaviors" of some Japanese men. I mean, Japan is a country where people touch each other less than in Brazil (and I miss that sometimes), especially when it comes to physical contact between men and women.

(Note: I'm ignoring physical contact in crowded places and other sorts of involuntary contact.)

But when it comes to man and man, sometimes we see things that would be very suspicious in Brazil. Two guys massaging each other in public? Giving hands? And the looks of some may rise some suspicion already...

So that was more a less how the conversation was going. And then one of the girls said: "So what if men give hands to each other? It's so kawaii (cute)..."

At that moment, two girls who were walking in the opposite direction passed through us. And as it happened, we heard one word from their conversation...

"kawaisou (pityful / poor)..."

The timing and the subtle change that modified completely the meaning were so perfect that all of us couldn't help but laugh.

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Living in an international environment is excellent make one reconsider one's prejudices and stereotypes. Still, sometimes I wonder...

How would you react if you met an international student from Iran studying nuclear technology? Ironic to say the minimum...