Packing
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Thursday June 16, 1991
I am in the midst of packing. I am the only person packing now and I think the only person who has to ship things home. These younger people have lived temporary, disposable lives here and have no qualms with leaving their books and other acquisitions.
Sakura
Posted by Jeanne Belisle Lombardo.
It is the beginning of March and my mind goes to spring 14 years back when I had just arrived in Japan and was awaiting my first sight of the famous cherry blossoms. This memory was just inspired by my 8-year-old son who, along with his sister, has grown up hearing stories of Japan. This particular instance began when he spied the small music box I keep on the top of my computer desk in the study. It is not much of a music box, just a matchbox sized mechanism inside a heavy paper casing with the picture of an apprentice geisha, a maiko girl, playing hanetsuki. It tinkles out "Sakura Sakura" when the holder rotates the little arm with its small red ball on the end. It is something I picked up at the sundries counter of the Okura Hotel in Tokyo, where it lay with the chewing gum and postcards. It is one of my treasures. And now he has asked me to play it for him, again.
Sakura Sakura is, of course, the anthem to the cherry blossom and anyone with any interest at all in Japan is sure to hear it and remember it. Even those with a less intimate knowledge of Japan may find it familiar, for it has a slow and haunting melody that is world famous. Whether it is played on the traditional stringed koto, or on a tinny little music box, it has the power to evoke what is at the heart of the cult of the cherry blossom. Sakura Sakura captures that painfully bittersweet quality we all feel when we behold something of exquisite beauty that has but a brief and glorious hour and then is swept away by a sudden oblivious gust.
When my children were infants, I would amuse them with the music box, and, missing Japan terribly, I would create stories for them and word pictures. I never let them listen without closing their eyes and imagining the ethereal pink mists floating in the branches. They told me at these times that yes, they could see the clouds each time I played the music. Now at 8 and 10, they still ask to see the cherry blossoms and to hear of the little sweet rice cakes and sake. That, somehow, makes up for the transitory nature of their, the blossoms', and my, existence.
Now I have just come in from smelling the sweet aroma of the orange blossoms on my patio. It will be another day with a brilliant blue sky and mild weather. But I hunger for that other clime and the anticipation hanging in the air when the only possible opening to any conversation would be when the blossoms would open. I hunger for the chill of early April and the mounting impatience as the weeks go by and the blossoms, like beautiful women, make us all wait. I hunger for the excitement that their arrival triggers and the "O-Hanami" blossom viewing parties under the branches laden with pink and white wisps of clouds. I hunger for all that my little music box speaks of, which is all that remains to me now of cherry blossom time in Japan.
Suitcase Packed
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
July 1991
Items purchased or received in Japan with value in yen for customs.
- 13500 Sony V8 camcorder
- 500 1 sweater
- 10000 3 used kimono
- 5000 5 T-shirts
- 2000 an paste and miso paste
- 1100 umeshu
- 3000 bamboo box
- 4000 miscellaneous cosmetics
- 2000 6 fans (uchiwa)
- 4000 2 hair ornaments
- 2000 stationery and paper
- 2000 chopsticks (gift)
- 2000 calculator
- 500 coin purse (gift)
- 1500 dried shitake (mushrooms)
- 2000 drawstring purse
In addition to the two large suitcases I brought to Japan, I have to carry the Mac carrying case with the 512K Mac, external diskette drive, and various cables. And the large bamboo basket that I received as going away present from the orphanage.
An American Aroma
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Actually, the erasers simply have the scent of erasers. The design does not seem to have a scent at all.
My Box
Posted by M2.
When I lived in Japan, about every month or two but sometimes twice a week I would visit my box. It was in the big Tokiwa department store that dominated the train-station end of the main street of Oita. To get to my box, I had to go in through the first array of glass doors, past the snow-stomping carpets (although it never snowed in Oita-shi while I was there and Japanese are probably more snow-shufflers anyway), through the second array of doors, past the white-gloved welcome-ladies, veer to the right toward the second batch of white-gloved this-way-to-the-second-floor ladies, up the escalators, and around to the right. I'd look for the column that was near the formal entertainment supplies, and down on the second shelf at waist level was my box.
It was a beautiful box in the way that Japanese things are supposed to be beautiful: simple and elegant and otherworldly. It had three sections and a lid, and the one time that I allowed myself to pick it up, I decided that someone had woven together strips of something flat, and then lacquered and buffed and lacquered and buffed, until only the hint of the weave was left. The color was a rich mahogany that seemed as deep as the ocean. I loved my box. Sometimes I'd take friends to look at it with me.
"Why don't you buy it?" they'd ask. The answer was that it was an impossible 40,000 yen and I was, well, a tightwad. I debated with myself for months, but the truth was that I didn't have another job lined up for when I got back to Texas, and I couldn't see myself spending hundreds of dollars on a pretty box when I was going to need that money for rent.
So I didn't buy it. In the last few days, I didn't even let myself look. When I went to Tokiwa, I bought chopsticks and fans as omiyage for friends back home, and furoshiki and weird-English t-shirts that defied comprehension for myself, but I stayed away from my box.
I packed everything I owned in two suitcases and was ready to leave the next day when Melissa (a.k.a. the other Melissa) came by for our last taste of pumpkin, eggplant and onion pizza. We talked about leaving Japan, saying goodbye to friends and the glories of pumpkin pizza, and eventually I mentioned the pangs I felt over moving far away from my box.
"But you have to get it. You have to!" she said. "You'll regret it forever if you don't buy it. You can get more money later, but you'll never be able to get that box again. Look, I'll loan you the money, just go get it."
I actually had pretty much my entire life's savings in my purse, so we ran to Tokiwa just half an hour before closing time. I rushed to the familiar floor and department, pointed to my box and said in atrocious Japanese that I wanted to buy it. There was much nodding and bowing, and my box was picked up and carried away.
A few minutes later they came back with a lovely wooden crate with important-looking kanji stamped on it. Wrapping in tissue paper commenced, but the other Melissa and I shared a look of mutual paranoia and agreed that visual confirmation was necessary. It took a long time for them to uncrate and unwrap it, but sure enough, they hadn't packed my box. It was another, similar box but not mine. Not nearly as ethereally gorgeous. Hands were waved, heads were shaken, and by sheer pantomime the clerks managed to get the idea of floor display and brand new box, even better across. Heads were shaken and hands were waved, and I conveyed my determination that only the One True Box would do. I was breaking the rules with the reckless abandon of an ignorant gaijin, but I didn't care and they could tell. My box was retrieved from wherever they had taken it, carefully swathed in tissue, placed in the little crate and rewrapped yet again.
By then the store had closed. The music had been turned off and the unnecessary lights were dimmed. Most of the employees had gone home, or out drinking, or wherever department store employees go at night. Only the white-gloved escalator ladies remained to guide us out of the store. There were more than usual, spaced so that at no point would we the errant gaijin customers be out of sight. As we approached each one, she would point the tips of her fingers at us (palms and fingers in a rigid, flat plane) and then with a fluid slide would pivot and point flat-handed toward the exit. They said nothing. They didn't smile. They just pushed the space in front of us toward the doors and the warm night air. I carried my bag through the Twilight Zone and back to my apartment.
That night I dreamed of my box being crushed in transit, the dark red lacquer cracked and splinters of bamboo revealed like bone. In point of fact, the trip broke the little outer crate, but my box made it to Texas without a scratch.
Today, it's in my bedroom, on top of the antique kitchen tansu that serves as my dresser. And the other Melissa was right. My box is one of the few treasures I own, and still one of the few things Im in love with.
Textures and Fabric
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
I share Jeremy Hedley's love of architecture, specifically traditional Japanese houses. So I can't keep from add my own shots to his collection of Textures and Fabric. These are shots of the decaying houses in the Kamegawa suburb of Beppu-shi, circa 1990. Although Beppu-shi, being a traditional onsen town, had maintained the flavor of an older Japan, these old houses were allowed to crumble so they could be replaced by less sensual, though more comfortable, modern houses. Although I would gladly do it (and do living in an old, uncomfortable American house), who are we to tell the Japanese to suffer for art. Still, there is a balance, if only people cared more to find it.
Rabbit Plates
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Monday December 31, 1990
"Buy hare plates at Tokiwa."
I coveted these plates for months. They are quite unlike anything else I own. To me they look more Chinese than Japanese. I think it is the complexity of the design and the shade of green. But I wasn't sure about the yellow. I don't really like the color yellow. That is, I didn't used to. But after months and months of cold, gray, dreary days, I craved the it. Give me Van Gogh yellow and lots of it.
The set of 5 plates was 5000 yen (about US$35.00 at the 1990 exchange rate). What a bargain. Every Christmas, we eat fruitcake or other desserts off them. I'm the only one allowed to wash them, of course. It's not that I don't trust ajm or jqs. It's that if they are broken, I want to have only myself to blame.
Yukata Material
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Monday, May 13, 1991
I imagine that yukata will be very sensible for lounging around the house during the equally hot and humid summers in Austin when I return. Although I've gotten several very cheap, gauzy bathrobes at the five and dime above Marashouku, I'd like a nicer one, like the yukata worn during Bon Festival dancing.
Amazon Japan
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
I'm feeling smug as I've just managed to order something from amazon.jp. I'm hoping that what I ordered is an unabridged Japanese language version audio book of Harry Potter. But I couldn't ferret out all the meaning from the product description in Japanese. However, I did figure out that for those of us who grew up in the age of radio, listening to an audio performance will provide a certain nostalgia; and for those who grew up with TV, a new sense of wonder. Or something like that.
Ordering from amazon.jp turned out to be fairly simple, especially because I'm familiar with the layout of amazon.usa pages. And once I got into the checkout process, I was able to choose English language prompts. The only moment of panic came when I made an error in the form and the system threw me into the Japanese-language error messages. But I was able to translate that it didn't like a space in the furigana of my name. So all was well. I mean, as long as I actually bought what I'm hoping I bought. I should know in six to eight weeks.
I love Japanese books on tape, especially if I have the book to follow along with. Listen to the sample from Book 5 to see what I mean.
Short and Stout
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Now sans handle, my little teapot is a sad thing to see. I was washing dishes after a long and tiring day of pulling weeds. And as I put the teapot under the stream of water to rinse it, the water forced it from my rather limp grasp. I didn't actually drop it. It just slipped against the bottom of the sink and then the handle was in three pieces.
I'm not upset because I've lost a possession, but because I lost a little bit of beauty that was part of my daily routine. I'd meant to photograph it a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to take a photograph of my desk in its pleasant jumble of objects required for study: teapot and teacup, and my many reference books for reading "Harry Potter" in Japanese.
Why did I break the one irreplaceable thing I was washing? Why didn't I break one of the cheap summer dishes instead. I want to replace them anyway.
I still have the five swirly plates. And the two cups, that I never use because they are big like coffee cups. And the funny sugar bowl and the odd creamer with a handle that looks like a bird wing.
