X'mas season event in busy southwestern Japan city focuses on eco-friendliness

December 28, 2019

X'mas season event in busy southwestern Japan city focuses on eco-friendliness

Brilliant illumination displays have come to stay as an important part of Christmas and other open-air winter events across Japan.
The Fukuoka Christmas Market is one of these events, but it has been designed not just to entertain visitors amid cold weather but also to give them an opportunity to think about the importance of eco-friendliness.
The event was held simultaneously at four different locations in Fukuoka, one of the busiest cities in southwestern Japan, until December 25.
The  biggest site of them was set up at the square in front of the north entrance to JR (Japan Railways) Hakata Station.
The European-taste Christmas Market at the Hakata Place Light Town, the seventh of its kind, attracted hundreds of people every night.
A panel placed at a corner at the site carried an organizers' message calling for cooperating in reducing food loss and garbage while enjoying the happy event.
As part of efforts to raise awareness about eco-friendliness, organizers recommended visitors to use mug cups, rather than conventional disposable plastic and paper cups, at shops which serve hot wine and hot whisky.
The original, colorful mugs have been made with different designs every year since the first Christmas Market there in 2013.
In an additional effort to reduce the use of plastic products, wood-made knives and forks and a ceramic plate were used at a shop serving sausages.
As the number of supporting local businesses has continued to grow, this year's Christmas Market at the station square brought together about 30 shops providing foods and drinks and carrying accessories and Christmas goods.
"Some shops change sometimes and open on certain days, so you can enjoy many times," a staffer said.
The station square spreads on an area of about 200 square meters, including a rent site of 62 square meters.
The square is located at so convenient a place that draws not just interested people but also commuters or passers-by for attractive events.
As the night falls, seats in front of the stage and the light tower were occupied by spectators one by one.
At a different place at the square was a crowd of people, including families and kids, looking up at their own beaming faces displayed on a huge screen on the wall of the station building.
The use of less power-hungry LEDs is seen to spread further in Japan and this is expected to reduce the cost of night illuminations.
Many Japanese people, families and couples alike, are expected to be drawn more to heart-warming light displays in the holiday season ahead.

More attention called to "washoku" Japanese dishes as UNESCO World Cultural Heritage

November 28, 2019

More attention called to "washoku" Japanese dishes as UNESCO World Cultural Heritage

Japan's autumn this year should be shorter than usual. So had many weathermen predicted, and their prediction has almost hit, as early signs of winter appeared from the middle of November. Japan's autumn can be characterized many ways, say, "autumn of art" and "autumn of appetite” with lots of delicious foods available. The 24th day of November is designated as "the Day of Washoku" (Japanese dishes) by a domestic private-sector, nonprofit organization.
Washoku, or nihonshoku, was designated as the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage in December 2013 after years of campaign by groups and organizations in various sectors.
Japanese people's food custom has been largely westernized since the Meiji era late in the 19th century. The introduction of western foods led Japanese to favor meat-based rich-calorie dishes rather than their traditional seafood or vegetable-oriented, less oily meals. But these days, they have come to realize the reasonable, health-oriented nature of Japan's original meals once again.
Experts summarize the characters of washoku foods and dishes the following ways, washoku dishes are prepared with fresh wide-ranging ingredients in their respective season; they support healthy food life; they are made so to demonstrate the beauty of Japan's nature and seasonal changes; they have close links to Japanese people's life on seasonal events and functions related to special days like the New Year's holidays.
The Day of Washoku was designated so in 2015 by the Washoku Association of Japan, aimed at disseminating the knowledge about Japan's food culture and its traditional dishes and cuisines.
The 24th day of November, 11-24, was selected as the special day on a play on words, or the similarity of Japanese pronunciations of the terms involved and the day 11-24.
The traditional washoku meals basically consist of the main dish, usually cooked rice served in a cup, and two side dishes. One of the side dishes comes usually with a "dashi" soup prepared with ingredients like dried mushrooms and dried seaweeds. The combination enables the one to take various kinds of foods and nutrition little by little, neither too much nor too little, with the original taste of  each ingredient kept intact.
Japanese eat pumpkin on the winter solstice with hopes to bring in happiness on the cycling solar life, while the "osechi" meals with foodstuffs of good omen are served on the New Year's Day to celebrate the beginning of the year.
Japanese have had many other food-related customs to observe throughout the year, which help remind them how best to live in their season-rich country. The series of washoku-related events is expected to keep supporting their food life and health from generation to generation ahead.

Cosmos flowers charm Japanese with elegant, dignified appearance

October 30, 2019

Cosmos flowers charm Japanese with elegant, dignified appearance

As the season gradually shifts from fall to winter, the view around the living environment is becoming gloomier in many parts of Japan. People in northern Japan have already begun to prepare for the arrival of cold days, while those in warmer regions are still enjoying their days with less brighter but cute autumn flowers.
The cosmos flower, which belongs to the chrysanthemum family, is one of the most favored autumn flowers in Japan. Cosmos is sometimes called "akizakura" in Japan. This means the autumn sakura cherry blossom.
Japanese liken cosmos flowers to sakura blossoms which charm and enliven people across the country in spring, maybe because both flowers have the same character which inspires their heart, something which is fragile but strong and tough inside.
The sakura blossoms are loved by Japanese perhaps because they fall in a graceful manner quickly after blooming. The cosmos flowers are pretty, willowy and pitiable, but they can stand softly against strong winds, and if trampled on, get back on their feet.
Besides wild species, there are over 20 garden species of cosmos flowers in Japan.  They are available mostly from August to October, but a garden species called "winter cosmos" by cosmos lovers can bloom toward winter.
One day, a bunch of winter cosmos flowers was placed in a vase at the entrance hall of my home.
My wife had just obtained the flowers from a friend of her, who is living in the neighborhood. She said, "the flower (winter cosmos) can be easily spread by cutting, and we can long enjoy it," according to my wife.
The white, single-petaled flower, with a yellow center, looked dignified in chilly morning air.
The cosmos flowers including the garden species should continue to console and support many Japanese, helping them to withstand hard times ahead.

Japanese hoping to see quiet autumn after busy start of new Imperial era

September 29, 2019

Japanese hoping to see quiet autumn after busy start of new Imperial era

The "sakura" cherry blossom tree is one of the most beloved flowering trees in Japan. About 400 to 500 species of sakura trees are known, and almost all of them bloom in spring, from late March to early May, northward up on the Japanese Archipelago.
It is known that a few of them bloom toward late autumn, but spring flowering trees also sometimes bloom in autumn, depending on the weather condition and other factors. These ones are called October sakura or November sakura trees.
The phenomenon is believed to be unseasonal flowering, but some foresters say this is a kind of the reversion to the origin, or genetic throwback.
The origins of sakura trees seen in Japan, which came from the southern part of Asia, mainly the Himalayan area, had been blooming in autumn, but while these species spread to colder regions, to China and to Japan, they obtained the nature of dormancy to overwinter by shedding leaves.
In September this year, strong winds often blew in some parts of Japan and there were warm days, too. These obviously let the sakura trees believe that spring has come for them to bloom.
Japan's current Imperial era of Reiwa, which means "beautiful peace," was declared on April 1. This coincided with the blooming of sakura trees in most parts of Japan. Then, the Reiwa era began a month after, on the enthronement of Emperor Naruhito.
Greeting the start of the new Imperial era, many Japanese hoped that the coming period will be a peaceful one, unlike the just finished Heisei era, which was filled with a host of big natural disasters and serious incidents. But Japanese saw not a few serious accidents and incidents occur in the first months of the new era.
In the two months from August to September, as many as four powerful typhoons came close to or landed on the Japanese Archipelago, playing havoc with widely scattered areas of Japan.
Japan plans to hold a series of events or ceremonies in October in celebration of the Emperor's enthronement.
"The sakura flowers I just saw look like celebrating the happy occasion once again," said my wife.
"It's me. I found some sakura trees bloom when I drove up on the approach road back to our town," she said. "I haven't seen the trees right there bloom in autumn so far."
The sakura flowers are tiny and admirable, but purely white. The flowers appear to be ushering in quiet days in the autumnal air for the new Imperial era.

A boy's old picture reminds Japanese of war memories linked to A-bombings

August 30, 2019

A boy's old picture reminds Japanese of war memories linked to A-bombings

The vintage monochrome picture, taken by a U.S. Marines photographer in 1945, depicts a Japanese boy standing at attention at a temporary cremation site believed to be in Nagasaki just after the A-bombing of the city.
The boy, who was barefoot, appeared to be about 10 years old, according to Joe O'Donnell, the photographer. The photo also shows an infant held on his back with cords. The baby's head was bent back as if the infant were fast asleep, but the American man soon realized that the baby had already been dead.
The photo had been well known among concerned people in Japan as a piece showing the tragedy of war, but it drew public attention early in 2018, when Pope Francis instructed the Roman Catholic Church to distribute copies of the picture to concerned quarters as the World Peace Day card for the year.
The picture has drawn attention again this year, as the Pope plans to visit Japan in November, hoping to meet church and other related people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two cities devastated with the use of the world's first atomic bombs toward the end of the Pacific War.
The dark picture, entitled "Cremation Site, Nagasaki, 1945," was one of the photos O'Donnell took with his private camera on October 6 or 7, 1945, according to his remarks in an interview in 1999. He had arrived at Nagasaki with U.S. Marines units about two weeks before. The date of the photo taken was about two months after the A-bombing of the city of August 9, which claimed an estimated 74,000 lives.
O'Donnell, who died in 2007 at the age of 85, could not remember exactly where he took the picture. Researchers from various fields, including ordinary citizens, have tried to figure out where the photo was taken and actually who was the boy in the  picture, but no clear answer has been shown as yet.
One time, some researches emerged that the picture had been taken outside of Nagasaki, not in the city, while other ones suspected that the boy and the dead baby had nothing to do with the A-bombing, referring to old documents that some temporary cremation sites had been set up around Nagasaki following the outbreak of an epidemic in the summer of 1945.
A book, published by a photographic history researcher in 2013, focused on  edemas seen on the legs of the boy which can be taken as a symptom of the exposure to radiation. Similar edemas are also said to be seen on the baby's body.
The book's author also made a traceability study of the places in and around Nagasaki where the photo might have been taken.
The photo card, distributed for the World Peace Day last year, had the Pope's message, "the Fruits of War," printed on its back along with his signature.
As remarks and views about the vintage picture remain to be sorted out, a local physician has come up with an analysis that green spots as a sign of exposure to radiation can be seen in the eyes of the boy. according to a recent TV report.
The Pope will visit Japan, the world's sole A-bombed country, for four days from November 23 as the first Vatican leader to do so in 38 years.
His visit to Japan, coupled with the reemergence of the decades-old picture, is expected to give a strong impetus to efforts for global peace in the current turbulent years.

Summer festival season arrives, but Japanese urged to guard against heatstroke

July 31, 2019

Summer festival season arrives, but Japanese urged to guard against heatstroke

The summer festival season has come to Japan, and main characters at the festivals are usually children. This was the case with a summer harvest festival held at a community square in Tachiarai Town, Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, on a weekend late July.
The harvest event featured locally grown "edamame" soybeans. Organizers were seen selling bags with two bunches of edamame beans at 300 yen apiece at the site, but far more exiting was the "suikawari" watermelon splitting game mainly for kids.
Blindfolded players with a bamboo stick moved slowly toward a watermelon placed on the board ahead. They were groping for the target while listening to various voices from the gallery, "No, right!," or "Straight ahead," or "Hit, now."
The split watermelon was cut into pieces and served to children who stood on the line for the cool desert. Tachiarai's edamame is brand-named Yukata Musume (yukata-clad girl). The harvest of the edamame in the  town comes to a peak in late July.
As the edamame bean is a favorite to beer lovers, the one is recommended to slightly boil the juicy, sweet bean with salt water.
This year's "tsuyu" rainy season came to an end late July in most parts of Japan. This was quickly followed with dangerously hot days, with the mercury climbing far above 30 degrees centigrade.
Weathermen call for maximum caution against the danger of heatstroke, warning people must take in water and use air conditioning appropriately, not just while working or playing outside but also inside.
Water pools and showers, set up at the festival site, were seen enliven and refresh small children.

Small eco-friendly town in southwestern Japan developing itself as mushroom-producing center

June 28, 2019

Small eco-friendly town in southwestern Japan developing itself as mushroom-producing center

The mushrroom, "kinoko" in the Japanese language, is one of the most traditionally important health foods for Japanese. Many Japanese, notably the elderly, know about a convenient way to remember seven health foods consumed in Japan over the centuries.
This represents a combination of the initials of the seven foodstuffs, "ma", "go", "wa", "ya", "sa", "shi", and "i." They individually mean the bean, the sesame, the wakame seaweed, the vegetable, the fish, the shiitake mushroom, and the potato, but when pronounced as a phrase, that means "The grandchild is gentle."
Shiitake mushrooms, the most commonly used ones, cannot be found at the farmers market operated by a group affiliated with Ohki Town, Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, but more nutritious, fresh mushrooms have caught on well with visitors at the market.
At an innermost corner at the market is a gallery-like cooled room where many kinds of mushrooms grown on the fungal bed pot are on the shelf. Consumers can pick whichever mushroom they want from the ceramic pot for 100 to 130 yen apiece. If they want to have it with the pot as a whole, they can do it with an additional charge of 100 yen.
The mushroom gallery is air conditioned all the time. "We keep the temperature in the room at around 11 degrees centigrade and the humidity level at 72 percent," a shopkeeper said.
"One of the species we have right there is a product developed by ourselves, you see," she said proudly.
The originally grown product is an enokitake mushroom with very soft, fine white filament hyphae, which, when boiled, can be served as something like a noodle.
Ohki Town is a typically rural town with a population of 14,000, located on lower, flat terrain, but it began to draw attention from municipality officials and environmentalists in 2005, when its initiative to be a recycling-oriented society led to the launch of a kitchen waste-based biomass plant project.
The initiative came at a time when its mainstay farming industry, mainly rice growing and "igusa" rush grass production, came to a fix.
The town has an area of 18 square kilometers, 14 percent of the total occupied with irrigation creeks. By actively using abundantly available water, local government people and citizens chose to develop the community as an eco-friendly town to overcome the difficulties.
As another effort to be a recycling-oriented society, a citizens' group formed an organization to promote mushroom production by using farming wastes and other refuse as materials for mushroom fungal beds.
Several local mushroom growers supply their products to the farmers' market, while the mushrooms are not just for sale but also used for meals served at a restaurant adjacent to the market, with a favorable supply-consumption cycle established.
The project has boosted the town to one of the biggest mushroom-producing centers in western Japan. The Ohki initiative is seen to be an attractive community-revitalizing model, as depopulation over the past decades has hard hit rural regions in many parts of Japan.

Japan's new Imperial era telling people how precious calm, ordinary life is

May 31, 2019

Japan's new Imperial era telling people how precious calm, ordinary life is

The first month of Japan's new Imperial era, "Reiwa" in the Japanese, is passing, as the summer flower of hydrangea has begun to bloom as usual in many areas of Japan.
The Reiwa era started on May 1, on the enthronement of Emperor Naruhito, following the end of  the Heisei era which included a host of devastating natural disasters and social incidents. The most serious of the mishaps was the earthquake-triggered killer tsunami waves of March 2011, which claimed as many as about 20,000 lives in the northeastern to eastern Japan areas and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless at one time.
The series of disasters and incidents threw Japan into confusion just after that, but Japan gradually started getting back on its feet each time. This reminded Japanese that they must bind together as one to overcome the difficulties.
As the new era name means "beautiful peace," Japanese people equally hope that their life will be calm in the years ahead. But it is far from certain if their life will be so.
In the first month since the new age began, there occurred not a few traffic accidents across the country involving vehicles mistakenly driven by elderly persons. This can be seen as yet another phenomenon of the ongoing aging of Japan's population.
In an indication of Japan's uncertain, shaky social situation, a killing incident occurred in an urban area near Yokohama late in May. The 51-year-old assailant killed himself, just after stabbing more than 10 persons, including kids on their way to school, on the street, two of them fatally. The killer is said to have been in the so-called "hikikomori" (self-isolation) life.
The incidents show how precious the calm, ordinary life is and how difficult people in today's Japan live such a life.
A song written by students of a junior high school in an area affected by the tsunami disaster in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, one year after the tragedy depicted their memories linked to their victimized friends. The song says, "Ah, we were born in that town and we met you, and we shared our times with you while talking about many wishes. .... We have come to know that ordinariness is a happy thing..."
As the season goes by, flowers and plants grow in various parts of Japan, but people's life is unlikely to be exactly the same as in the ordinary year.
Japan is expected to go through challenging years in the new era, too, but calls should grow in society for Japanese people each time to remind themselves they have to work together closely in hard times.

Many Japanese recall their family history on historic change to new Imperial era

April 30, 2019

Many Japanese recall their family history on historic change to new Imperial era

Japanese people have come to see a long-awaited historic moment--the change from the expiring Imperial era name to an incoming new one following a living Emperor's abdication. (See the January 2019 spot on this blog site.)
The new Imperial era name, Reiwa, was declared at the beginning of the first day of May. (The Japanese time is nine hours ahead of the global standard time.) The new era name, announced by the government April 1, means "beautiful peace," as officially announced by the Foreign Ministry.
The incident came to the Japanese people, as Emperor Akihito abdicated the chrysanthemum throne at the end of April 30, the first Japanese Emperor for about 200 years to do so while being alive. This opened the way for his eldest son, Naruhito, 59, to start his era as a new Emperor amid fresh expectations from various walks of life.
The retired Emperor's era continued for 30 years and four months from Jan. 7, 1989, when he succeeded Emperor Hirohito on his death. The length of his era, called Heisei, proved to be less than half of the 64 years of the Showa era under his father's reign.  But, because the length almost matches the family's generation cycle, many Japanese tend to liken their family history to the incidents and occurrences during the outgoing era.
The tendency also reflects the fact that Emperor Ahikito has lived a turbulent life from the prewar years, exactly just as his father did, and after the start of his own era, he and his wife, Empress Michiko, saw Japanese people suffer from a series of natural disasters.
The author of this blog series started the Heisei era with his wife and two daughters, then 4 years old and one year old, and bought a new house in the first year of Heisei. Four years later, the family had a third child, the first boy.
The father climbed his career ladder as an English news writer, becoming the boss of a team of 20 or so news writers and reporters. Toward the end of the Heisei era, his elder daughter got married to a Japanese man living in the United States, and one year later, the new couple had a boy baby, making him a grandfather. As a result, the family's generation gear moved forward by another notch.
The change of the Imperial era name usually comes all of a sudden, following the reigning Emperor's death, but this time, the shift to the new Imperial era was planned well before, allowing Japanese to recall the memorable incidents that occurred around them in the outgoing Imperial era.
One young man, seen interviewed by a TV crew on the street, commented the shift to the new Imperial ere name "reminds me I'm a Japanese, and that this is a special feeling, you know." 
The man's comment can be an indication that the Imperial incident has been received generally in a favorable manner among the people, giving them time to think about their life and history once again.

Aging of flowering cherry trees may change spring landscape in Japan

March 31, 2019

Aging of flowering cherry trees may change spring landscape in Japan

The Somei-yoshino species "sakura" flowering cherry trees are most commonly seen across Japan, and their five-petal pale pink flowers make Japanese delighted with the advent of the warm spring weather.
Most of these sakura trees were planted from the 1950s to the 1960s, on the river bank, around public parks and elsewhere, just after the end of the Pacific War. Then, they have continued to grow, keeping in step with Japan's rebirth from the ashes of the war, but many of them are becoming old, with their extended branches dying down and their blooming power waning overall.
The Somei-yoshino sakura trees, an easy-to-grow species, are a mixture of two different species--the Edohigan and Ooshima sakura trees. They were developed late in the Edo era around the middle of the 19th century.
They are spread through grafting, not seedling. This means that the Somei-yoshino sakura trees found across the country are mostly clones.
The life of carefully managed Somei-yoshino trees is said to be 100 years or longer, but otherwise, their life is usually believed to be 60 to 70 years.
The Somei-yoshino trees are more vulnerable to a bacterium-induced disease. These trees, when 30 to 40 years old, extend their branches widely horizontally, creating a huge umbrella shape. Those which are planted in urban areas are disliked these years, mainly because they make the visibility poor on the streets.
The Flower Association of Japan, a non-profit organization, recommends replacing aging Somei-yoshino trees with less taller, more disease-resistant species, rather than plating the same species of trees again when they are to be switched.
Some of the recommended species bloom smaller flowers compared to those of Somei-yoshino sakura trees.
Another problem is that the flower color of these sakura trees is different from that of Somei-yoshino trees. So, if these recommended sakura trees are planted at many places across Japan, the spring landscape in the country may change in the years ahead, some experts warn.
Somei-yoshino sakura trees begin to bloom late in March to early April, from southwestern Japan along the Japanese Archipelago to eastern and northeastern Japan. But some sakura trees, Somei-yoshino or other species, are going to be cut down, here and there in Japan, due to not just aging but also other reasons.
In March 1984, nine Somei-yoshino trees, about 50 years old, were about to be cut down, because of a road expansion project, in Hibaru, Fukuoka City, southwestern Japan. The first of the trees was felled on the start of the project as scheduled, but early in the morning on the next day, one resident found a piece of paper with a "waka" Japanese short poem written placed on one sakura tree's branch. That read,"Poor sakura trees! Please wait just for 20 days, so the remaining trees can be alive for their last bloom."
The addressee of the poem letter was "Mr. Chikuzen Sakura Tree Keeper," that alluded the city mayor. This incident led the mayor to reconsider the project, allowing the remaining eight trees all to survive.
The sender of the letter was unknown, but the sakura trees, now called the "Hibaru Sakura Trees," have continued to bloom pretty pink flowers since then to entertain local people every spring.