VHS Tape Bonanza

A box of tapes on their way out of the library

The Japan Foundation Toronto is moving, and though that means a lot of changes and adjustments for those of us who found Bloor and Avenue pretty convenient, the upside is that the library is overhauling, which means clearing out old items, which means VHS TAPE GIVEAWAYS.

You might have guessed from my persistent interest in all things retro, that I have just a teensy bit of nostalgia for decades past, with the 80s/90s (my formative years) entrenched firmly at the top. That means I don't just treasure the memories of taping my favourite shows on the family VCR - I still own the family VCR. I actually received a VCR-DVD combo unit for Christmas of 2013! However, 99% of my tape collection is at my parents' house, so I left it there to begin the long project of dubbing dozens of old favourites onto DVD whenever I visit them for the holidays.

So, when the Japan Foundation Toronto decided to get rid of most of its videotape collection to save space...well, needless to say, the airport x-ray techs probably got a kick out of my suitcase as it went through the scanner on my most recent trip back home. It was so hard to resist! I found some fabulous Tokyo-in-the-late-80s-early-90s snapshots with videos like Neighborhood Tokyo, Tokyo Date, NHK The News 1985 and Norimono Ippai. Lots of glamour shots of the Yurikamome Line, pre-extension, in that last one. I also scored the Ichikawa classic Tokyo Olympiad, and four out of a set of Japanese recent-history programs covering events like the Hanshin earthquake, the marriage of the crown Prince (now Emperor), and the crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123, which was actually just in the newspaper here, as the 30th anniversary was yesterday.

All in all, a pretty impressive bounty of pre-millennial pop culture. I'm sad that these tapes can't be borrowed from the JFT library anymore, but on the other hand, it was good timing for me, because I was able to take the time to watch and enjoy them all, and they won't end up in a landfill, either. I was happy to see how quickly the rest of the tapes (there were at least 500 given away over two days) were picked up by other patrons to take home.

Looks like at least a few others out there still have VCRs!

Japanese Bathrooms

Cramped business hotel bathroom is still pretty neat.
This is called a "system bath" or a "unit bath" style -
it was introduced during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

I love Japanese bathrooms.

Yes, I said it! Though I'm referring primarily to the room that contains the bathing facilities, not the toilet room/W.C. I thought the bathing rooms in Japanese houses and apartments were very neat. Three primary reasons for this:

1) Shower and toilet are usually separated (unless you're in a cheap hotel bathroom, see above)

2) Completely waterproof (so easy to clean!)

3) Super-deep tubs and separate shower area

Beautiful.

I suppose I was raised to appreciate bathroom decor to some degree, but there was something gleefully satisfying about just being able to hose down all the walls and see it all go into a big drain in the floor. This is a common feature of prefabricated unit baths, which are typical in small apartments, though some unit baths are so small that the washing area is eliminated in favour of a toilet. There are usually no windows in unit baths, either, so the small space makes it wonderfully comfortable for a winter shower or bath. None of the steamy air had anywhere to escape to! I steamed my clothes on a rack above the bath by just turning on the hot water for ten minutes. The idea behind it is to keep the room watertight and thus reduce damaged caused by wet rot, which can be particularly weak in earthquakes.

Many Japanese baths are also set up on a heating system called oidaki. In oidaki, one pipe sends water from the tub to the heater and the other sends the heated water back into the tub. It conserves energy and allows the bath to be used by the entire family or even re-heated the following day. This is popular in larger apartments and homes, though less common in the smallest unit baths.

If prefab plastic isn't your thing, well, there's always the more traditional type of deep bath found in Japanese houses, usually metal or ceramic, but sometimes made of wood in the style of onsen tubs. And who can turn down cypress (hinoki)? The scent of cypress is so relaxing and nostalgic! I wanted to bring home a cypress bath set (stool, basin, water pail) but they run a little expensive. When I have my own place with a sizable bathroom, I'll kit it all out in cypress.

I dearly miss my little bathroom in Japan, and look forward to having a huge deep bathtub again someday.

Japanese Pizza

Last weekend, in a fit of weakness (spent the entire day practicing either yosakoi or tea ceremony), I ordered myself a pizza. I came home exhausted at 8 PM after three missed meals - I suppose you could count a cookie and a single Scotch Dark from Ambiance as at least 1/8 of one meal, but in general I was pretty close to starving. I had another commitment to attend to right away at home and wouldn't be able to cook anything, and I generally avoid keeping processed food in my kitchen, so there was quite literally nothing to eat.

I broke. I got on Pizza Pizza's website and ordered myself a buffalo chicken pizza, and, I'm ashamed to say, polished off most of it without even offering my long-suffering roommate a slice. Since I'm not a huge fan of pizza in general, and this particular chain is one of two that I'll willingly eat, I later lamented to some friends what I had just done. Who promptly reminded me, "But you used to do that in Japan."

Ah, Japan. It's true - the other chain I enjoy is Pizza Hut, though you won't find me ordering a Super Supreme here anytime soon. It is Pizza Hut Japan that I yearn for. I gave Domino's Japan a try, but they didn't satisfy me. Unless we're talking about pasta bowls - I ordered a few of them - but that isn't pizza.

Many people who have at least a passing familiarity with Japanese culture are aware of the fundamental differences - and some might say, travesties - separating Western-style pizza with what you might find abroad. 

Just a few examples of Pizza Hut's fabulous Japan-only menu.
When I talk about Japanese pizza, I always mention the "Idaho Special" - parsley, mayonnaise,
black pepper, corn, diced potatos, bacon and onion.

Personally, as a non-fan of the Western version, I took to Japanese pizza right away, especially when our local Pizza Hut plied me with all those flyers in my mailbox. I looked forward to Pizza Hut's monthly, eager to see what they might try next. The first few times, I called them myself (and you know it's serious if I willingly undertake a phone conversation in Japanese with a stranger!), but sometime around 2008 they set up a wonderful online ordering system that became my go-to method. I didn't buy often, because pizza in Japan is an investment - even a medium pie was in the ¥2,000 range, and if you wanted something fancy, you were looking at ¥2,500, which at today's ridiculous exchange rate is $31. $31! For a single medium pizza! You can get a medium "base" for ¥1,100, but the toppings are ¥300 yen each - hardly cheap. It's notable that prices include the delivery charge (you cannot eat in at most pizza places, including Pizza Hut in Japan) and you'll have your price adjusted if you pick it up yourself.

Pizza Hut warns you to be environmentally-conscious!

So, when I did buy pizza, it was usually with the expectation that I would stretch it over at least three meals. With Pizza Hut, I would almost always get the Mayo Q; barbecued chicken, mayonnaise, corn, mushrooms, onion and strips of nori. It came with little packets of green chili pepper sauce and maple syrup for dipping your crust in. Perhaps it was the off-the-beaten path combo of ingredients that made me a fan of the Mayo Q, but the reaction I usually get is "Ewww! Mayo!?" (Note: Japanese mayo is fantastic, especially when it is served warm, à la okonomiyaki.)

I do think that the reason I like Toronto's Pizza Pizza chain so much as well is because it's also a departure from the traditional - dare I say it, cheap and simple - pizza of my childhood. My brothers, both pizza lovers, frequently pushed for takeout on Fridays, and would get pepperoni, slathered in the cheap Italian seasoning-heavy tomato sauce that I hated from our local pizza place. I'm generally a fan of anything tomato, but it turns out that when it comes to pizza, you can just about leave off the sauce - it's the toppings that make it for me!

Bottom line - no matter how alarming it might seem, if you're in Japan or heading there soon, you really need to think about trying pizza there. I promise having sweet corn on your pizza is a mystical experience, even though the opinions I've gotten about it have been highly polarized. Pizza Hut's a good starting point - the online ordering system has made it a snap, especially with the Hut's very useful English ordering guide. Don't forget to get the cheese-stuffed crust. Try it at least once - it's an experience!

Photo of the Day - Oshiire Bed

Conservation of floor space.
Yes, that is a futon set up in that closet, the perfect size for short people!

Photoshop Crash Course

My photoshop skills, visually summed up

I don't often write about my job at 〇〇 High School or my students, mostly out of courtesy for their privacy - it's not much fun to write a blog post without photos, after all, and it would be difficult to contact many of them for permission. Still, sometimes the oddest things happened to me at school.

This particular story, I'm going to leave out a lot of details - to this day, I've never known who, besides me, was aware of what was going on, and I would hate to embarrass the student in question. It's so far out there, though, that I can say hands-down it was the strangest thing to ever happen in my JET career.

Presentations were a pretty common thing in my classroom, as my students were all very smart, high-level kids. I encouraged a lot of creativity; I wanted them to think outside the box, something many Japanese high school students struggle with. Presentations - easy at first, in groups with roleplaying, and then working up to 3-minute solo speeches - were the venue I usually chose, to help them speak more easily by choosing topics important to them. Visuals were important, and I encouraged students to use the Internet to print out images for their presentations, or draw pictures.  

We were midway into yet another set of these presentations, where a student had to give their speech several times to a few different groups. They (I'd rather not specify 'he' or 'she'!) had put together a large number of visuals for the class to look at as they spoke, and was almost finished with the presentation while the class observed. As I looked on, with one of the partner teachers beside me, I did a double take at one of the images on display. "Hey um, that picture in the bottom left there, beside the pot of stew...doesn't that look like a maxi pad?"

She squinted, looked more carefully at the photo. "Uh...yes...I think so."

Nobody else said anything.

"Maybe they got it off the internet and just...didn't notice?"

"Not notice!? How?"

Neither, though, had anyone else - the kids were very ready to eat lunch, and probably weren't as attentive as they could have been. We were all in the A/V room, as well, which I think made the strange photo kind of difficult to see clearly - with the exception of myself and the other teacher at the front. With so many students in the room, everybody was sitting quite far back from where the presenter stood.

At lunch, myself and S rushed downstairs and I sat at the computer and Googled the student's topic. Sure enough, on page three of the image search, I see another two photos from the slide, and the questionable image of what appeared to us to be a pot of vegetables with a used maxi pad & tampon sitting nonchalantly beside. It was from some kind of art website. Looking at the full-sized picture up close, my companion said, "OK, I can't look at that anymore, I am seriously going to be sick. I know it's probably just red paint, but I will be sick."

Clearly, the student had just Googled the same search term I did, picked the first few images they saw and stuck them on without really "seeing" them. At first glance, the pad did look like a napkin or tablecloth or something, because you just don't expect something like that to be on the table beside a pot of soup!

We would have shrugged it off, except...the student had to give the presentation again the next day, and was so shy, we knew there was just no way they could have done it on purpose. If we'd pointed it out, they might have been mortified and refused to do their speech, or any speech, in front of this class ever again.

What on earth is one supposed to do in this situation? I couldn't bring myself to tell any of the other teachers - the more people who knew, the more embarrassing it was for the student. Telling the student would have been just as bad, but we couldn't let the presentation go ahead a second time with that photo in there.

So I...I opened up Photoshop.

I don't know much about Photoshop. You may have noticed that the photos on this blog are usually middling-quality, an equal reflection of both my poor-quality camera, lack of talent for image composition and amateur graphics skills. There's something to be said for adrenaline, though, because you'd better believe that I took that image, and I edited the pad out of it, and used copy-paste to replace the area with a tiny little swatch from the other side of the photo. Then I went to the student's homeroom, borrowed their materials to "have a quick look," replaced the offensive picture with the fixed version, and brought it back before the end of lunch.

In a smaller classroom the next day, the student delivered the presentation for the final time, to a smaller group of attentive classmates - myself and S standing on either side, watching nervously. When the edited photo came up, I just looked at S from across the room and she mouthed "oh my God."

We were in such close quarters now, compared to the A/V room, that you could see the tiniest imperfections in the photo where I hadn't quite blended two colours together, and the background was just a touch too smooth here and there. Only because I was looking, only because I knew where the Photoshopping was, and my attention was focused squarely on only that. If we had not changed it....

What would have happened? I really, honestly do not know.

I don't know if the student was ever aware I had altered the photo. They delivered with so much more confidence that time, smiling, with a voice was big enough to reach everyone. I think if they had actually known about the picture, trying to be naughty, they would have been nervous when we came in - wouldn't have needed to be a detective to figure out who was responsible, after all. I really think this student didn't notice that a single thing had changed between Wednesday and Thursday, and never knew that this bizarre image got in there. At times, since, I've wondered if I ought to have said something, but my reaction in retrospect was fairly Japanese - I just wanted to save face for this shy student. I'm not sure there was a "right thing" to do.

To this day, I still have no idea whose eyes might have caught onto the fact that the napkin by the soup bowl was, in fact, a sanitary napkin. Maybe nobody saw - maybe it was only me; maybe they were concentrating  too much on the English words to do more than just follow along. But if any of the students noticed, bless them; I don't think they said a single word.

Photo of the Day - Tajima Beef

I love this description.
Taken at a restaurant in Rokko, Hyogo Prefecture, near Kobe.

The Takarazuka Revue; A Woman's World

If you've never heard of the Takarazuka Revue, let me open up this post with an image:

Tsuki-gumi's newest production, Romeo & Juliet(te), opens on August 10

These two are Manaki Reika and Ryuu Masaki, popular stars in the world of the Takarazuka theatre. Ryuu/Romeo is an otokoyaku - that is, a woman who exclusively plays male roles within the troupe. Takarazuka's biggest draw is that it's for women, by women, even if the women are pretending to be men - and most of them pretend very well! 

Star Troupe's Aran Kei as Percy Blakeney
in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 2008

The Revue was formed by Ichizo Kobayashi, then-President of Hankyu Railways, a private railroad well-known in Kansai. The city of Takarazuka in Hyogo Prefecture, popular for its hot springs, was at the time the terminus of Hankyu's train line from Osaka City. In 1914 he created the Takarazuka Revue to be a further tourist draw for the area, and designed it to be all-female, based on the way that kabuki was traditionally performed entirely by men. It wasn't long before the musicals and their finales with showgirl-costumes, sparkles and glitter charmed the women who flocked to see the shows. The Takarazuka Grand Theatre was built a decade later.

Since then, the Revue has performed hundreds of shows both original and adapted from Western musicals and Eastern classics, and has a second theatre in Tokyo. There are five troupes within the Revue that each have their own style and way of performing, and marquee showtime is rotated between them to ensure that each troupe has plenty of time to prepare their latest feature. The five are called Hana (Flower), Tsuki (Moon), Hoshi (Star), Yuki (Snow) and Sora (Cosmos). Each troupe is also associated with certain characteristics, such as Soa being the 'experimental' group as the newest of the five, Yuki is heavily operatic, Hana produces the top otokoyaku stars, and so on.

Becoming a Takarasienne is tough. Training is competitive and starts at high school age. No more than 50 applicants each year are accepted to the Academy. Otokoyaku training is even tougher work, as they are expected to dress, behave and speak in a masculine form from their second year of schooling. They work on deepening their voices to sing and speak in a more masculine tone, and carry themselves as refined men would.

Takarazuka Grand Theatre in Takarazuka City
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The Takarazuka audience is said to be about 90% female, and looking at the real thing, I would have estimated the numbers to be even higher than that. While in Japan I saw multiple performances, including The Scarlet Pimpernel, Love and Death in Arabia / Red Hot Sea, Phoenix Wright, The Legend of the Great King and Four Gods and The Rose of Versailles -André- / Exciter!  I was very excited to see Elizabeth, but they were very much sold out for the times we could go. 

Gyakuten Saiban (Phoenix Wright)
performed at Bow Hall in Tokyo by Sora-gumi

I was drawn to Takarazuka when I heard they had performed The Rose of Versailles, a manga I particularly liked in my university days. Tezuka Osamu also drew inspiration from the Revue for his classic Princess Knight, which I'd read at the language orientation in Osaka and is often credited as the very first manga written for girls. (Tezuka was raised in Takarazuka City and one of its other big draws is the Tezuka Museum - more on that in another post.) Luckily, Emily's host mother during her study abroad had been a fan and taken her a few times, and Laura and Marisa were also Takurazuka companions. One of my co-workers, Tanaka-sensei, was a huge fan and we went to see a Rose of Versailles side story together. I was so fortunate to have gotten to see so many shows - living in the Kansai area really does give you access to everything!

Irish Chocolate

Not sure if Irish.

When I'd been in Japan about a year or so, my friend Marisa told me that one of her friends from university was going to be doing a study-abroad in Japan. Imagine our surprise when she turned out to be living right in my city! I offered to guide this friend, Meghan, to Kobe to meet up with some friends of her parents, as I was planning to visit Kobe for Pink Ribbon Day. Kobe Port Tower was going to be lit in pink, and it was something I wanted to see.

I met Meghan and her friends from 〇〇 University just before the light-up, and after seeing the Tower and greeting her guests, we went out to Bikkuri Donkii for dinner. I was intrigued by the 'Irish Chocolate' drink on the menu. Did it have Baileys in it, I wondered? Kahlua? Was it some special kind of chocolate that was better than, say, Belgian or British? I decided to ask our server before I ordered it.

When she arrived, I managed (in my not-great Japanese), to inquire "What is the Irish Chocolate?"

The server explained that it was a chocolate drink made with cream.

"OK. So what is in it?"

"Milk, and cocoa..."

"Wait, but why is it 'Irish' chocolate, then?"

She didn't understand my question at all. "Eh?"

"Why is it called Irish?"

She just looked at me, confused, so I thought maybe it was my poor Japanese (which it was, but this didn't help). I asked "What is 'Irish' about it? Does it have Irish alcohol? Irish flavour?"

"I don't understand."

Frustrated, I ran out of ways to creatively word my question. "Does it taste like Ireland? What does it have in it that's Irish??"

A helpless shrug. The waitress didn't seem upset, just confused - my table, however, was almost in tears laughing.

Feeling quite incompetent in front of my new friends, who were all exchange students and sure to be totally fluent in three months while I continued to struggle with reading my phone bill, I decided to get the drink and figure it out myself. It was slightly coffee-flavoured, a blender drink not unlike you might get at Starbucks.  Right, coffee - you know, like Irish Coffee, except not quite. Only later did I realize where we had gotten our wires crossed - that to me, Irish means 'something from Ireland,' whereas to her 'Irish' was just a curious English word whose meaning was a mystery. In Japanese, to say something has the properties of a place, you would say the name of the country itself - in this case, airurando (Ireland) kara or airurando no mono. Had I used the Japanese word for "Irish" instead of what was printed on the menu, I would certainly have had better luck.

ああ。そうだったのか。

At least the drink was delicious. As for my new friends, Nicole and I are still in contact, and Meghan and I now get together on Skype every week to study for the JLPT, so if I must be incompetent, at least I'm in good company!

Doctor Fish

I know a few people who'll appreciate this one.

Recently I've been seeing ads pop up on my Facebook sidebar for deal-sharing services like LivingSocial, WagJag and the like. Multiple times on these ads I've spotted one particular "deal" I knew well:

Doctor Fish!

For a brief moment I thought "Wait, can it be!? We have Doctor Fish in Canada!?" No - it was not to be. That's so tragic. But I really can't imagine the service being affordable here like it was in Japan, either.

Fishy times at
Oedo Onsen Monogatari

"Doctor Fish" is a spa service that's offered at onsen and Super Sento-type places. You pay between 1,000 and 2,000 yen for about fifteen minutes, depending on the spa. Sitting on the side of the tank, you lower your feet into it and allow the tiny fish (of the Garra Rufa species) to eat the dead skin on your feet. It is maddeningly ticklish but the effect afterwards is very noticeably soft!

When I used to see these places - the locations at Tenzan-no-Yu, Oedo Onsen Monogatari and Spa World I encountered multiple times - I usually resolved that I would try one "eventually." I was very glad that I did, as it was an awesome experience. Oedo was quite expensive compared to Tenzan, but as you might have guessed from the photo above, you're paying for the atmosphere!

Would you give Doctor Fish a try, or does the idea give you the willies?

Photo of the Day - Manjuu

Two little mascots of Kusatsu, Gunma Prefecture - they are manjuu, a type of sweet usually filled with red bean paste,
Each have the onsen, or hot spring, mark on their head to show that they came from a hot spring town.

Naoshima Public Bath

This is possibly the coolest sento I have ever seen.

Just had to share this post from the Letters From Daiba blog with you all! Is this not the most fantastic public bath ever?

The tub ever has photos and illustrations drawn on the bottoms. I don't think I've ever see that before - very cool!

Photo of the Day - Separate Toilets

One of the things I really like about the washroom setup in Japan is the division between
the room for bathing and the toilet room.
In my apartment, the two were right next door to each other.

Salty Watermelon Pepsi

Oh my gosh. I dislike Pepsi, but I did love trying out whatever gimmick Pepsi Japan was trying next. I just wish I was in Japan for this one!

Watermelons are frequently eaten with salt in Japan - I never quite figured this one out, as I wasn't in the company of Japanese people the few times I did have watermelon there, and I don't much care for salt, personally. It's an exciting flavour, though; one that I'd like to try!

Photo of the Day - Washlet

Washlet toilets are often the first awesome/confusing things foreigners experience in Japan - right in Narita Airport.
Luckily, this one is in English!

Welcome

Hello everyone, and welcome to my new blog - Tadaimatte. As a bit of background, I returned from living abroad in Japan a little more than a year ago, and have found the adjustment back to life in Canada a little difficult. I think everyone thought me to be a "lifer" once I got over there, but there are important people here whom I hated being so far away from!

I've been looking for ways to connect with my life in Japan and put some of the reverse culture shock and homesickness to rest. I volunteer with exchange students and write for JapanTourist, and from time to time I write as well. I thought, why not share some of these struggles, and document some of my memories from Japan? Thus the creation of this blog. I hope everyone - ex-expats and Japan hopefuls alike - will find something close to home in my writings.

ただいま。。。って。