"Mikan" mandarin oranges enliven Japanese families in happy holiday season

December 26, 2015

"Mikan" mandarin oranges enliven Japanese families in happy holiday season

Japanese "mikan"mandarin oranges are an indispensable item for merry family gatherings in Japan during the happy New Year's holidays.
Mikan oranges, known as satsuma mandarin or citrus unshiu in the West, are one of the fruits which are closest to Japanese, particularly in the winter time.
Tara is a small rural town located in the southern part of Saga Prefecture, southwestern Japan, but it is proud of being a top mikan producing area in the prefecture. Saga is third in rankings of per capita mikan production volume among Japan's 47 prefectures. Mikan, to be pronounced "meekanh" in the Japanese language, literally means "sweet citrus."
Tara mikan growers believe that sea breezes blowing up from the Ariake inland sea to the east from the town  help make sweet and slightly sour oranges in the region.  
Various kinds of citrus oranges occupy the shelves in the front area at Tara Farmers' Market in the center of the town, and attract mikan lovers from not just from Saga but also from other prefectures.
Tara became well known when it developed a very early tangerine species, called Ooura Wase, in 1980. The orange can be harvested from late September. Because other early growing species were developed in later years, Tara can supply many kinds of mikan oranges from autumn to next spring seamlessly.
Mikan oranges at the farmers' market come with tags showing the product name, the grower's name and his or her producer numbers, which assure consumers of the safeness of their products.

Local mikan growers ship most of their harvests on agriculture cooperative-run channels, but they can also supply part of their products to the farmers' market. This enables them to be keen to changes in consumers' taste.
One species at the farmers' market is yellowish green. The orange, called "Haruka," looks like a lemon or a lime, though it is larger in size. "This can be eaten, not for juicing, like lemons," a market employee said. "Just try it. You will find a sweet, good smelling orange," she said.
A wide variety of mikan oranges are available for Japanese consumers at present. This reflects decades of efforts by mikan growers in Japan to counter America's pressure from the 1970s for liberalizing Japan's orange imports.
Mikan oranges have been always with Japanese in their life over centuries. Dried mikan skins have been used as a material in Chinese medicine or as an ingredient for spices.
Mikan juice also can be used as an invisible ink.  Letters written on white paper with mikan juice appear, when dried. This used to be fun for children when they gathered to play at someone's house in winter.
Mikan growers have to keep a watch not just on consumers' taste but also on climate changes. The global warming is pushing up the temperature of farming areas in various parts of Japan, in some cases, making it difficult to grow certain farm products.
Mikan production is so vital to the town's economy as the white flower of mikan is designated as the town flower. Tara mikan growers may try to adapt their business more to the situation in the years ahead.







 

Town’s small bakeries out to serve for health-conscious people in Japan

November 28, 2015


Town's small bakeries out to serve for health-conscious people in Japan

Small home-made bakeries in Japan are trying to serve products with safer ingredients following an increase in health-conscious consumers. Many of them use domestically produced wheat flour amid the "locally produce, locally consume" campaign.

Happa Nekko (leaves and roots) Bakery, facing a small but rather busy highway in Chikushino City, Fukuoka Prefecture, uses wheat flour produced in Kyushu, southwestern Japan, and Hokkaido, northernmost Japan. Its most favored product is Nekko Bread, a small baquette, but the product is usually sold out past soon.
"We see the bread sold out frequently, because we cannot bake it a lot," a female employee said. "We can accept reservations," she said.
In Chikuzen Town, also in Fukuoka Prefecture, Haru Bakery attracts families in the neighborhood.
On one Sunday, a couple, accompanied with two small boys, was seen looking for their favorites at the shop.
The shop is among 13 home-made bakeries selected from the Chikugo region in the southern part of the prefecture for a tourist campaign "Let's go out to find bakers with much love for bread."

A bakery located in a largely rural area in Ukiha City, in the same prefecture, features a fashionable setting and greenery. Chez Sagara, the bakery, has an eat-in service, but customers have to be patient until their buy is baked again to be crisp.
Happa Nekko, or leaves and roots, is named so as it hopes to adapt itself to the local community.  "Leaves" denote children who will be leaders in the forthcoming period and "roots" mean adults who support today's society. A wood terrace set up as an eat-in area allows customers to enjoy their time while having a chat. The bakery also provides catering service for town meetings and other events in the community.
Rice has been Japan's staple food over centuries, but domestic rice consumption has been halved from the 1960s to the 2000s following a series of changes in Japanese people's eating habits.
Bread began to be widely eaten in Japan around the 1970s, particularly among young people in urban areas. The spread of bread-eating habit also can be linked to the theory that excessive intake of rice may be unfavorable to health. But the consequence was a steady increase in Japan's wheat imports over the past decades. At present, Japan relies on imports for 90 pct of its wheat consumption.

As Japan has become vulnerable to changes in international wheat prices, Japanese are turning their eyes to domestically produced wheat.
Japanese consumers are becoming more aware of the importance of domestic farm produce from a point of view of securing food security and ensuring food safety.
The "locally produce, locally consume" movement is aimed at not just encouraging domestic consumption of domestic products but also mutually linking growers and consumers so that they can better understand each other and think about truly healthy foods.
Small bakeries across Japan should continue to serve customers with various products just out of the oven, helping to bind people together in the community.

“Toy doctors” working in Japan with hopes to nurture children’s gentleness to things

October 30, 2015

“Toy doctors” working in Japan with hopes to nurture children’s gentleness to things

“Toy doctors” are operating as volunteers across Japan with hopes to nurture children’s minds to take good care of things. Various kinds of toys are available to kids, but they tend to be easily thrown away when they are broken. This is more pronounced in today’s mass consumption society, but toy doctors believe that broken toys will be reborn only with a slight work of repair. They believe that toys can be long used, if treated carefully and gently.

The F Net “toy hospital” group covers the western part of Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan. The F Net is actually a “travelling hospital,” which visits 11 places in the Fukuoka area once a month and repairs broken toys brought in, basically with no charge. The group also opens a toy hospital at a Toys "R" Us shop at a shopping mall in Fukuoka City a few times a year.
F Net toy doctors carry with them small boxes containing miniature repair parts, such as screws, motors and speakers. Toys are returned to clients if they are fixed within the day, but otherwise, they are “hospitalized” or taken to doctors’ home for further repair.
The F Net group, led by Masatoshi Sugi, 73, consists of 28 toy doctors at present. The group also has two female members, called “nurses” who serve as receptionists at toy hospital events.
The group belongs to the Japan Toy Hospital Association, established as a nationwide voluntary organization in 1996. The association had 1,184 toy doctors registered as of March 2015. As the association opens workshops for prospective toy doctors every three months, its members are gradually increasing, an association official said.
Sugi, who works as a toy doctor from 2008, believes that the toy hospital movement is contributory to the environmentally friendly 3 plus 2 R endeavor, which means “reduce,” “reuse” and “recycle” as well as “refuse” unnecessary things and “repair.”
Sugi is one of about 10 “key men” recognized by the association as master toy doctors. They are in charge of organizing workshops and other major regional events.
A headache for the F Net group is the aging of its members, who are retired elderly persons. Their average age is 71, and the oldest of them is 80.
Sugi, a former architect, fears that his group’s activity will not be sustained without rejuvenation. This is why the group has put the “U-65” help wanted ad on its website to get new members aged 65 or younger.
Another concern for the group's toy doctors is that toy manufacturers appear less cooperative than ever toward their activity. When its members visited toy factories before to have parts for repair, factory people readily came up with necessary items, but they are recently asked to take a formal procedure to obtain necessary parts, said Sugi. “We are, so to speak, a natural enemy to them (toy manufacturers),” he said smilingly.
The group asks families with unnecessary or broken toys, mainly those driven with batteries, to leave them  "to medicine" before discarding them. Repair parts can be recycled from these items.
F Net toy doctors wear a blue apron with a logo of the association when they attend toy hospital events.
They operate toy hospitals sometimes at events organized by local public welfare organizations for child-raising young mothers. These occasions are expected to have the F Net group better known to young families so that their toy hospital may be used more.
One day, a young mother appeared with a toy she said was bought at a flea market, according to Sugi. The mother reservedly asked for repairing the toy, telling him it had cost only 50 yen.
The episode shows that there are young families living a steady life by reducing consumption and reusing as many items as possible.
Sugi recently contacted the Little Mama business group engaged in various child-raising related operations. and proposed cooperating with each other. Its Fukuoka branch regularly opens flea markets in Fukuoka and its vicinity. He hopes to open an F Net toy hospital in cooperation with Little Mama some time in the near future. 

Japan racking its brain on how to overcome fast aging of society

September 28, 2015

Japan racking its brain on how to overcome fast aging of society

The third Monday of September is a national holiday in Japan. The Respect for the Aged Day fell amid a long string of holidays this year, and many buoyant children were seen on television getting reunited with their grandfathers and grandmothers at airports, railway stations and elsewhere. The life expectancy of Japanese men and women is getting longer and longer, but the situation is rather ominous.
According to a government report, the number of people aged 65 or over came to 33.8 million as of September 15, accounting for 26.7 percent of the total population. Both figures were the highest ever. The percentage of those 80 or older increased to 7.9 percent. Every one of 10 women was 80 or older. A different report showed the number of centenarians in Japan has surpassed 60,000.
According to an estimate by the National Institute of Population and Security Research, elderly people will account for 36.1 percent of the total population in the year of 2040, when “second baby-boomers” born in the early 1970s will be 65 or older.
The unabated fast aging of society pushes up the government’s social security expenses, particularly medical care spending for the elderly. This represents a threat not just for the country but also for elderly people themselves, as the government has come to reduce the social security budget, rather than beefing up the social security system.
Japan’s universal health insurance system, established in 1961, made medical service widely available to people of all walks of life, contributing to extending the life expectancy of Japanese people. But Japan’s population started decreasing around 2008, because of a declining birthrate. The situation surrounding elderly people is becoming complex following changes in Japan’s social structure, notably a trend toward the nuclear family. Pension income and support by the younger generation are less dependable than ever for elderly people. About one of five elderly persons in Japan is said to be living below the poverty line.
Japan is becoming a difficult country for elderly people to live in, critics say. The one can easily find newspaper articles about cases in which elderly people fell victims to clever money transfer frauds across the country. The damage involved is estimated at tens of billions of yen a year. Traffic accidents linked to erroneous or inappropriate driving by old persons are often reported. Many old people tend to feel small in the situation.
Community-sponsored meetings to show respect to the aged take place in various regions on the national holiday. A 91-year-old woman was fatally hit by a passenger car in Kumamoto Prefecture on the very day, September 21, when she was crossing at the crosswalk on her way to a meeting for the aged. The driver of the car involved was an 86-year-old man, who was going home after attending the same meeting.  
An extended life expectancy is a desirable event, but an unwelcome situation had come before Japan recognized it. The current regime of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is busy improving Japan’s defense capability by allowing itself to exercise a collective defense right, when necessary, and pulling up Japan’s economy from years of deflation. Many elderly people have realized that they have to defend their life by themselves from now on. Someone may try to explore a new life path or pattern, but this is not feasible for all elderly people.
How to support elderly people’s life is a matter which must be addressed by the whole society. The Respect for the Aged Day, the national holiday, is expected to be an important occasion for Japanese to seriously think about how to overcome the aging of society, which may otherwise erode Japan’s national strength in the future.

Frog statues, wind-bells welcome worshipers at centuries-old temple in southwestern Japan

August 30, 2015

Frog statues, wind-bells welcome worshipers at centuries-old temple in southwestern Japan

The Buddhist temple is dedicated to the "Kannon" goddess of mercy, but it is widely known as Frog Temple. The temple premises are packed with about 3,000 cute frog statues. Also on hand to greet visitors are hundreds of “furin” glass wind-bells hung with colorful strips of paper on which various wishes are written by worshipers.
Visitors find themselves heartened and encouraged while looking at faces of frog statues and reading messages written on plates held by them or placed beside them.
The temple, located in the countryside in Ogori City, Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, dates back to the eighth century. Its principal object of worship is a rare standing figure of Kannon, a prefecture-designated cultural asset. Other Buddhist statues also stand here and there on the premises, among them a "jizo" figure with a gentle face,

Nyoirinji Temple, formally called so, is unlike other old Buddhist temples, which greet visitors for worship with a solemn atmosphere. Nyoirinji features a relaxing atmosphere for visitors, sheering them up when they feel down.

Why are visitors so attracted by the flog statues at Nyoirinji? The Japanese term for the flog is pronounced “kah-eh-roo” and this pronunciation also goes to a word which means “return”or “change.” The messages shown to visitors read, on a play on words, for example, “Happiness will return” and "Youth will be regained.” The message “Change yourself” can be found on an allay.
One flog statue has a hole in the mouth. It is said that if the one successfully gets through the hole, he will regain youth.
The flog statues have been collected by the current chief priest over years. A room next to the main hall of the temple is filled with hundreds of ornaments and toys made in the shape of flogs. Visitors can enter the room and enjoy their time there.
Worshipers donate 500 yen for a furin glass wind-bell. After writing their wishes on strips of paper tied to the bells, they hang them from shelves or place them on fences in the precincts.
"You can write any wish in your mind” on furin bells, an old sexton said. “Furin bells are on display on the premises through the end of September,” he said.

The practice started a few years ago to enable visitors to heal themselves in summer while feeling a refreshing breeze with the sound of furin bells.
Nyorinji was once about to be abolised during the warring period around the 16th century. But this was averted as believers got together to request for its preservation.
Because Japanese feel various kinds of stress in their hard daily life, they seek something which can bring them to a stress-free atmosphere.

The relaxing time at the time-honored temple is expected to keep cheering up many people and give them power for living
.

Young war victims remembered as Japan tries to pass Pacific War memories on to next generation

July 26, 2015



Young war victims remembered as Japan tries to pass Pacific War memories on to next generation

The summer vacation is a special occasion for Japanese school kids to study about the importance of peace and the preciousness of human lives. The Pacific War, which continued for three years and eight months through the summer of 1945, killed about 800,000 Japanese civilians, in addition to 2.3 million Japanese Imperial Army soldiers. This tells young Japanese that once a war broke out and indiscriminate bombings began, innocent people may also fall victim. Among the noncombatants killed in the war were an estimated over 10,000 children, including infants and elementary school pupils.
The heaviest casualty involving children occurred in Okinawa, the theater of a fierce ground battle fought between Japan and the United States from March to June of 1945. Many children were also killed in U.S. air raids on major cities across Japan and, to be even more tragic, in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. But school kids in small cities and towns were not free from U.S. air raids if they live near military facilities.
The Japanese Army’s Tachiarai Airfield in the northern part of Kyushu, southwestern Japan, was then said to be the largest in Asia and in charge of supporting operations in the Chinese continent and in Southeast Asia, but it was extensively damaged by U.S. air raids on March 27 and March 31 of 1945. Related facilities, including some barracks and aircraft manufacturing and repairing shops, had been relocated to neighboring areas, but these areas were also exposed to attacks mainly by B-29 bombers. As a result, dozens of kids were accidentally killed in a series of bombing and shooting around the airfield.
Displayed on the walls of a round room in the center of Tachiarai Peace Memorial Museum in Chikuzen Town, Fukuoka Prefecture, are the names of about 300 persons who lost their lives in U.S. air operations in the Tachiarai area. Among these victims are 34 elementary school kids, and 31 of them were killed when they tried to take shelter from a sudden air raid in the Tonta-no-Mori forest in Amagi to the east of the airfield on March 27. The remaining three pupils were killed on the same day at the Sangenya-no-Mori forest in Ogori.
The day when the incidents occurred was a closing ceremony day for elementary schools in the area. An early warning rang in Amagi when the school principal was speaking to his pupils at the ceremony. A few minutes later, an air raid warning was confirmed on radio. When pupils hurriedly began to evacuate in groups, a formation of over 70 U.S. bombers and fighters was already approaching the Tacharai area.
One of the groups had to pass an area with military facilities located before reaching their home in the village of Hitotsugi. The group had been led by a male teacher. When the group tried to pass the area, the teacher heard big sounds of explosion and realized bombing had started against areas around the airfield. He decided to take a different route and eventually, took the pupils
to Tonta-no-Mori, but 31 of them were killed there as a few bombs hit the site.
The teacher had retracted his steps before the attack, in search for the kids who separated from the group. When he returned to the site, he found many kids seriously wounded and lying in bloodshed. With his body muddy, he rushed back to the school and reported the incident to the principal.
The incident in Ogori also occurred in a similar situation. The three pupils killed there were on their way home after attending a closing day ceremony. The bodies of two of them were recovered, but a third pupil’s death was confirmed as his cap and other belongings were found hung on a tree.
The two sites, 8 kilometers apart, were actually vacant places in mulberry fields. According to a history book compiled by Ogori City, military supplies had been hid at Sangenya-no-Mori. Further, five wooden mock anti-air guns had been set up nearby.
The teacher who escorted the pupils to Tonta-no-Mori in Amag, currently called Asakura, attended ceremonies in memory of the young victims in later years, but it is said that he appeared “as if he were sitting on thorns,” said a local person who is familiar with the situation.
Tonta-no-Mori is preserved as a park to remember the tragedy. Pupils of a nearby elementary school visit the park on a peace study tour on the very day every year. At Sangenya-no-Mori, a black stone monument is built in memory of the three pupils and four others who lost their lives there. The monument is in the shape of an opened book. Three stars are marked on a corner of the opened page in dedication to the three young souls.
Groups of school boys and girls, accompanied by teachers and others, are seen visiting Tachiarai Peace Memorial Museum during the summer vacation. The museum, opened by Chikuzen Town in 2009, has a collection of over 10,000 war-related items. The facility defines itself as an “information sending base” to hand the war episodes down to the next generation and demonstrate the importance of peace.
One of the bombs dropped on Tonta-no-Mori hit a tall chinquapin tree and burned it down. The charred tree is currently placed as a monument in front of a city library. One day, three pupils were reading speeches in front of the tree. "They will make a speech at the forthcoming peace festival (of the city). So, they're rehearsing it," said a member of the festival organizer. The children introduced themselves as members of the Asakura Peace Kids, a local children's group.
The year of 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the Pacific War. Those who personally experienced the war believe that Japan should take the occasion to reconfirm its commitment to upholding the postwar pacifist constitution. But, as the security environment is unstable in East Asia, the public opinion is divided over the government’s policy of passing a bill to increase Japan’s war preparedness by enabling itself to exercise a right to collective defense.　
The number of elderly war witnesses in Japan is decreasing year by year. How to pass the bitter war memories down to the young generation is becoming an even more important task for Japan in properly positioning itself in the hard international situation.

Japanese dwelling on how to survive increasing volcanic activities for safer llife

June 26, 2015

Japanese dwelling on how to survive increasing volcanic activities for safer life

Mt. Mimata is one of the most popular points in the Kuju Mountains in Oita Prefecture, southwestern Japan. Its slopes are covered with pink rhododendrons every spring and colored leaves in autumn, but climbers taking the Chojabaru route from the north catch sight of thick, white smokes rising from fumaroles on a hillside on their way to the top.
The bleak view reminds them that the scenic mountain is amid an ever active volcanic area. The northeastern side of the neighboring mountain is commonly known as Mt. Iwo (Sulfur). Actually, there remain deserted sulfur mine sites in the area.
Japanese are always aware that the archipelago where they live is on a chain of active volcanos. But they have to pay an even more watchful eye than ever to volcanic activities across Japan following a series of major volcanic eruptions in recent years.
A tragic volcano-related accident occurred in September 2014, when Mt. Ontake, located in central Japan, erupted all of a sudden, claiming 55 lives. Of the victims, mostly day trippers, 20 had been fatally hit with falling rocks when they followed trails down the mountain or when they took shelter with a hut. More recently, a volcano on a remote island south of Kyushu, southwestern Japan, erupted in May 2015, forcing all of 120 or so islanders to evacuate to a different island.
Almost 7 percent of volcanos around the world exist in Japan. The series of recent volcano-linked incidents is an indication that many of the volcanos in Japan are entering an active phase, experts say. There occurred vapor explosions on Mt. Iwo in 1995. The explosions sprayed up volcanic ashes on widely scattered areas and left a line of cracks in the sulfur-covered field.
Before climbing to the top of Mt. Mimata, which has a height of 1,745 meters, the one finds a stone shelter on Sugamori Pass. There was a privately run stone-made hut on the pass until 1997. The facility had been operated by a young couple, and "it was filled with many climbers in the high season every year," an old climber recalled. But because the husband died of illness, a land lease for the hut was not extended.
A different shelter was built there in 2000, with the outer stone walls of the old facility reused. In front of the new shelter is a bell, to be rung to make its whereabouts known to climbers even when visibility is poor because of volcanic ashes and smokes.
Monitoring devices, placed at points around Mt. Iwo, collect data about volcanic vibrations, land inclinations and other phenomena. The data are sent via a relaying post near a mountain trail for an analysis to a monitoring organization.
Those living on the Japanese Archipelago are favored with the beautiful four seasons, but they are destined to live with hard natural disasters, among them volcanic eruptions, over generations. The March 2011 killer earthquake-triggered tsunami waves damaged northeastern areas of Japan. The mishap has made Japanese more aware of the need for them to be fully prepared for natural disasters.
In an effort to survive the increasing seismic and volcanic activities, Japan is trying hard to refine its related analysis technologies and grow as many researchers, including volcanologists, as possible hurriedly.