The Travelling-on-Trains Fairy Tale

Written and Illustrated by Louise

Once upon a time, there was a karate student, intelligent, modest and with great hair, who went on an epic journey, travelling intrepidly and fearlessly into the great unexplored reaches of western Honshu. Because she preferred to spend her money on other things (like food and nice places to stay), she bought the cheapest train tickets she could (aka the Seishun 18 Kippu), which each gave her five days free travel on Japan Rail (JR) local and rapid trains, anywhere in Japan. Those trains are actually the slowest you can find, but the magnificent karate student bravely endured this hardship.

At first she amused herself by watching the outside going past (though the insides of tunnels are pretty boring) and by looking at other people's shoes ('Can one judge a person by the shoes they wear?' she asked herself); then when it got dark she meditated (i.e. practiced being a vegetable); and when this became too tiring, she read the insides of her eyelids.

Snacks for the journey. Note the Tiger-Bun (or toraman) on the left.

Snacks, a bit later

Snacks see the sea

Who ate the snacks? Must've been the Tiger-Bun

In this way, the courageous karate student travelled without major mishap up hill and down dale, from Saitama to Nara, to Koya-san, to Hiroshima, Tsuwano, Matsue and back to Nara. Snacks were bought and eaten, photos taken and sights were seen. But little did she know what would happen on the last leg home.

The day started like any other, not a cloud in the sky and no premonition of what awaited. The first sign that something was amiss came when the first train to Kyoto kept stopping between stations. The karate student used her super-duper Japanese skills and picked out one word in the conductor's announcements: traffic lights. 'The train signals must keep changing', she deduced. 'Not to worry, I have 40 minutes to spare before my next train from Kyoto at noon.' That first train arrived at Kyoto 37 minutes late, so the athletic karate student ran into the station for her next train and on the way past read the station signboards.

Shock, horror! There had been a level crossing accident between Kyoto and Maibara, her next transfer point. 'Hmm.... I still have to get home, so I'll go as far as I can along the line, and maybe it'll have been sorted out by the time I get there,' she thought. This she did, but nope, it hadn't.

What to do, what to do. By sheer chance, the station that the fortunate karate student had reached was connected to a private railway line that also went to Maibara, though the long way round. With some help from a very friendly station attendant, she decided to take the private railway, throwing her luck to the winds and gambling that it would be faster than waiting for the JR trains to start again.

Thus, along with half the population of Kansai (the other half travelling in the opposite direction), she crammed into a rather slow, hygienically challenged train, and became more acquainted with her fellow passengers than she really wished. But because the karate student was the type of popular, kind and generous person everybody wants to know, she made some lifelong friends without even mussing her hair, and arrived at Maibara only three hours late.

To cut a long story short, she continued on her journey home, navigating at each transfer point by sense of smell (her carefully prepared itinerary no longer applicable), and arrived successfully at Omiya, Saitama, at midnight. But this wasn't the end of her troubles. Omiya is not home for the patient karate student, and to her disappointment, as her train pulled into the station, she saw the last train to her final destination pulling out.

Having fun at the end of a long day. Ha ha.

Now Omiya is a nice place in which to shop and go to karaoke in the daytime or early evening, but after wandering around for a bit, the tired but undefeated karate student concluded that Omiya in the early morning was not where she wanted to be. No internet cafes presented themselves, and spending the night in MacDonalds was decidedly unsavoury, so after a short conversation with a couple of friendly taxi drivers, she set off at last on the final, most expensive, part of her journey. In record time the taxi had dropped her home, and she lived happily ever after.

The End

Christmas in Japan

Erica here.

There are a few things that are different about Christmas in Japan. Christmas presents are not usually exchanged except among couples, close friends and given to small children. It is not common to give out Christmas cards and there is no Boxing day or Boxing day sales! Instead, New Years is very important. New Year postcards (nengajo) with well wishes are mailed out to family and friends and there are big sales everywhere after New Years!!

Although Christmas is not really celebrated as much in Japan, all the English schools I work at were very festive and had Christmas parties. At the Shiramizu Christmas party, Arakawa Sensei dressed up as Santa and handed out presents to the students. Aside from presents and snacks, we got to watch Hansel and Gretel and a Christmas song (in Japanese) through a black theatre. Yamazaki Sensei and two of her helpers told this story on a board that was covered in a black cloth and a black light over it. Then they would put pictures up on the board and because of the light, the pictures would glow. There was a narrator and even music. All the kids enjoyed it very much!

The Black Theatre board with the lights on.

Lights off!!

Santa!!! Now where did Arakawa Sensei go??

忘年会 Bonenkai!

Group picture (from Arakawa Sensei's blog)

Erica here. I meant to write this before the year ended, but here we are! Happy New Year everyone! At the end of last year on December 19, there was a Shiramizu bonenkai (forget the year gathering end of the year party) at Uta Min (魚民) restaurant, beside Sugito Takanodai station.

Since alcohol was being served, only people over the age of 20 were allowed to attend, so most of the participants were adult students, parents of the students and of course, all the Sensei. The venue was a restaurant that included ‘all you can drink’ beverages, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. Everyone was in a merry mood and had plenty to drink. We played bingo and everyone was excited because there were some great prizes which included a Sony mp3 player, a coffee maker, a very popular scale that not only measures your weight but the percentage of body fat among other things and various smaller prizes like socks and Shiramizu towels.

Near the end, we all had to stand up and give a short speech about how we did this year and what we hope to achieve next year. This took a little while because there were about 40 of us. It was a very enjoyable night!

The 37th All Japan Karatedo Championships

Erica here.

On the weekend of December 12^th and 13^th, the All Japan Karatedo Championships were held. I’m told that this is THE competition to win if you’re going to win one. To qualify for this competition, you must have won a competion in your prefecture. Then you compete with all the other gold medalists in your area and the winner advances to represent their prefecture at the All Japan Karatedo Championships.

All of Saturday was used for qualifying matches for team kumite and this took place at the Tokyo Budokan. On Sunday the 13^th, the day I went to watch with Richard Sensei, the final rounds for team kumite, qualifying and final rounds for men and women's kata and individual kumite occurred at the Nippon Budokan.

Men's kumite. Intense.

We arrived at roughly 9am, when the competition started, and already the first 2 levels of seats were filled!! So we settled up on the third level and watched the individual men’s kumite. When I first started watching, the fighters were so fast I wasn’t able to tell who had scored a point first. Then after awhile I slowly began to be able to tell, with the help of Richard Sensei of course. There were 2 big screen TVs on either side of the stadium that had instant replay and that helped spectators to see the reasons for some of the calls the judges made. For example, there were quite a few times when to us it looked like red had scored the point, but the judges would award the point to blue. A replay of that point would come up on the big screen and we’d see that red had actually missed and blue had scored with a counter attack, but from our angle it looked different.

Kata being shown on the big screen.

After the qualifying rounds were over for kumite, kata started and it was amazing to watch. For me, I got to see katas that I’ve never seen before. Sitting up in the stands with Richard Sensei and Arakawa Sensei, we would guess which colour would win right before the judges made their call. Richard Sensei got all of them right except one. I stopped after awhile because I kept guessing the wrong one =_=’

Results!

Men’s Kumite -- Araga Ryutaro

Women’s kumite -- Miyamoto Yu

Men’s kata -- Furukawa Tetsuya (Suparinpei – Goju-ryu)

Women’s kata -- Usami Rika (Chatanyara Kushanku – Shinto-ryu)

Men’s team kumite -- Kyoto

Women’s team kumite -- Tokyo

This is definitely a must watch event!

Me! It was really windy =p

Mochitsuki

Louise here,

Last Wednesday, instead of going to karate practice in the morning as we usually do, Erica and I accompanied Arakawa Sensei to the Sugito Shirayuri Kindergarten to see how to make mochi, (rice cakes).

Rice is the staple food of the Japanese, and is very important to their way of life. According to Boyé Lafayette De Mente, in the book “Japan Unmasked: The character and culture of the Japanese” (2005, Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing), the methods of wet-rice farming have shaped their culture significantly, by requiring group cooperation and self-sacrifice.

Nowadays, most mochi are made by machines in factories, but we saw group work in action at the kindergarten, where the parents and teachers carried out the traditional way of making mochi. (Also see Wikipedia's article about mochi)

Pounding za rice, yoisho!

Rice was steamed in pots over a fire, then put in a large wooden mortar called an usu. People took turns pounding the rice using large wooden mallets, called kine, while the rest (including the kindergarten kids) cheered them on in time with the strikes. The rice was kept moist with hot water by a brave soul wiping and turning it with his hand between strikes. All the kids had a go pounding as well, though using smaller kine and helped by the parents.

When the rice was smooth, stuck together and well mooshed, it was taken out of the usu and another group of people separated it into small cakes. These were rolled in sweet soy powder (kinako), and were then ready to be eaten.

Making cakes

I had a go at pounding the rice, and I can see why it requires a group effort, because it was rather tiring. It helped having people cheering me on though, and it was fun being a part of this traditional event.

Karate Interns Past & Present!

This is a great picture of all the interns past and present, which I snatched from Carl's English Shiramizu website. (Thanks Carl!)

While we've had 2 interns the last couple years at the same time, there are two reasons why we're going back to inviting one intern from 2010. First, the part-time jobs can be maximized for a single intern increasing their income hopefully. Second, the intern's acquisition of the Japanese language and understanding of the culture should progress faster by being on their own.

While there is no religious comparison, the internship was originally thought of to be something a little difficult to succeed at, like trainee monks who enter a Buddhist temple for a few months, or even years, to go through a rigorous study program (shugo) in order to qualify for an official monk status.

It really all depends on each intern's effort. The internship is only as good as the interns in the program, and to date, our interns have been great, very motivated and positive, plus they have gotten involved in as much as possible.

We've received lots of interest in the 2010 position, so we're looking forward to starting the interview process soon.

Richard

Sainokuni East Friendship Competition

The 6th Sainokuni East Friendship Competition

Erica here!

As Louise mentioned, we participated in the Tobu Taikai last week and were both surprised. Kumite is definitely not my favorite and after the Sugito tournament (where I won a gold medal in kata) Arakawa Sensei insisted that I needed more kumite practice. So practice we did, but it did not raise my confidence very much.

In my division at the Tobu Taikai, there were 5 other girls with kyu (non dan) rankings. They were all from the same university club and I was nervous and a bit disheartened (my previous kata match did not go as I planned). But for kumite we had an odd number of people in our division and I was the lucky one to be given the bi into the next round. So my first match was a semi-final one. I went in hoping for the best and surprisingly I won the match advancing me into the finals! There I hoped for the best again and at first I was in the lead, but she started catching up! I scored another point and the match was over. Much to everyone's surprise, I won gold in kumite.

Gold?.....in kumite??

At the end of the competition, when we were all supposed to line up with our clubs and bow out, everyone was running around like crazy. I looked around wondering what was going on when I realized people were going up to the bleachers to get their programmes. So of course I went and grabbed mine and discovered a number on the back of it. The reason for it was that there was going to be a draw!! The prizes included a digital picture frame, something that looked like a mini-heater (I'm not sure because I couldn't really see) and a brand new bicycle!! That's what all the kids were excited about. It was a very nice way to end the day =)

PRIZES!! It's so new and shiny!!