Japanese Food

Everybody knows and loves sushi and there are now even sushi robots in London (not on the streets). Raw fish however isn't so good if your a vegetarian like me. Instead Japan offers a form of vegetarian cooking known as Shojin Ryori.

This is organic food before the term was invented. Only fresh seasonal ingredients are used and all processes are done by hand (machines aren't used at all). The cook has to show the utmost respect and concern for nature at all times.

A Japanese chef who ran a Shojin Ryori restaurant in Tokyo is Toshio Tanahashi. To read more about him and his food philosophy click here.

One essential ingredient of Japanese cooking is of course seaweed. Although little eaten in Britain it is, according to a radio documentary, becoming a booming business. In the west coast of Ireland nori, a type of Japanese seaweed, is being cultivated in the clean coastal waters. In that part of Ireland some locals have long since realized the health benefits. To listen to a fascinating podcast about seaweed and Japanese food click here.

Akihabara

This is the electronics district of Tokyo where it is said you can buy the same camera in ten or more different pastel colors or else perfectly packed computer components for machines no longer made. Truly a computer and gadget obsessed person's fantasy. In a culture that is famous for the new and throwing out the old it comes as a surprise to imagine people restoring and caring for old technology. 

After the war Japan became the manufacturing envy of the world. Names like Sony are commonplace all over the world. A grey haired, middle aged Japanese man Akio Morita famously invented the walkman or the early i-pod well before Steve Jobbs and Apple. 

The Japanese have a different relationship to technology than some western countries. The desire to make a robot and the general cultural acceptance of robots is greater in Japan than other countries. Also Japan's declining birth rate and longevity is driving robot development in areas such as caring for the elderly.

For a lighthearted take on robots and Japanese culture watch the youtube clip below.

Image found on the internet

Meditation

Buddhism came to Japan from India, via China. Mediation is used in Hinduism and other religious traditions too. In Japan sitting down, folding your legs and letting your scattered thoughts go is known as zazen.

This is surely a valuable activity not only for Japan but for the entire world. Try to forget the terrible pain in your legs, keep going expecting nothing to happen and no progress to be made and if you're lucky you might achieve a stillness of mind.

Sazuki Roshi a Buddhist monk was told by his master in Japan to spread the teaching abroad. Not speaking any English didn't deter him as he began meditation classes in the back of a small grocery store in San Francisco in the 1960's.

Japanese Brushes

You can buy beautiful brushes for painting and calligraphy in Japan. The tradition of brush making is still found in art and even makeup brushes. In the drawing of manga (Japanese comics) a thin outline brush is used. Brushes vary in size and shape and varying mixtures of animal hair including horse, goat and wolf give differing characteristics and handling properties.

Specialised brush makers are a national treasure in Japan. One such man had a shop in Tokyo full of the most beautiful brushes. His father had been a brush maker with a small shop in the working class part of Tokyo. This area was also the home of many other crafts.

Now younger people are less likely to want to study the traditional crafts and according to the master mentioned above materials are harder to find. One such material (hair) comes from a certain type of animal found only in China. The brush maker after buying a bundle of hair has to decide which hairs are suitable to make a high quality brush and which are of inferior quality to make brushes of lesser quality and price.

The owner of the shop, who may no longer be alive, had a famous customer- the Spanish painter Juan Miro. The artist had heard about the shop and demanded the maker sell the best brush in the shop. Not wanting to sell it he eventually agreed. Later the artist gave the brush maker a painting as a gift. I don't think the painting below is the gift but illustrates Miro's style.

Image found on the internet

Japanese Courtesy

The Japanese are considered to be formal and reserved, especially when meeting strangers. A bow is followed by an exchange of names and a business card produced. The foreigner visiting Japan, especially if he or she is on a business trip is advised to take plenty of business cards.

People used to say though, not so much these days, that "politeness doesn't cost anything". In London where a lack of respect can lead to arguments, violence and even death I admire the Japanese self restraint and courtesy. How else could such a large population living so close together survive?

Some years ago a Japanese friend and I discussed bowing. Bows range depending on the seniority and importance of the meeting. More astonishing is the fact that the Japanese even bow in cars or on the telephone.

For more information on how to bow with confidence see the link here.

Muji Store

If Sweden has Ikea then surely Japan has Muji. "The name Muji is derived from the first part of Mujirushi Ryōhin, translated as No Brand Quality Goods on Muji's European website." In the U.K. the company produces mostly household items, stationery and clothes whereas in Japan the company has wider interests including construction, florists, restaurants and campsites.

Some years ago The Geffrye Museum of the Home in London hosted an exhibition titled: At Home in Japan: Beyond the Minimal House. Click here for more information. The exhibition set out to show "real" Japanese homes rather than the minimal interiors most western people associate with Japan. In Britain Muji is an astonishing success and that success is no doubt connected to the need people have to live more simply with less objects taking up space. Another point to mention is that Muji in Britain is primarily for urban dwelling.

Muji is as much a western construction of Japan as a Japanese creation. In this scheme of things Japanese homes should all be white, oatmeal, grey and symmetric and minimal with no messy decoration or toys and wine stains and the rest of the clutter of normal life. 

I still enjoy Muji and I'm quite fascinated to see the stores in Japan. Some years ago a Japanese product designer was commissioned by Muji to design a rice cooker. I haven't much use for a rice cooker but I still haven't given up hope of one day buying one (though they are not available in Britain) and I wouldn't be able to understand the Japanese operating instructions.

Entering Muji is to suspend the normal functioning of your brain as you convince yourself you need a matt black pencil sharpener, wooden toys in bright colors, transparent stationary or a set of coloured pencils. Everyday objects you don't normally notice suddenly become works of art in Muji stores.

Crowds of People

Taking public transport to work in Tokyo is surely as near to hell as you want to get. My solution is to leave home at four in the morning and return home at eleven in the evening. I'm sure I would avoid the crowds but a lack of sleep might be a problem. What an amazing experience though to stand on a bridge and see thousands of people all jostling through the city.

The Canadian writer William Gibson perfectly captures Tokyo's kaleidoscopic world in his Bridge trilogy of novels. In the extract below from the opening chapter the writer imagines Tokyo's Shinjiku station at rush hour.

CARDBOARD CITY

"Through this evenings tide of faces unregistered, unrecognized, amid hurrying black shoes, furled umbrellas, the crowd descending like a single organism into the stations airless heart, comes Shinya Yamazaki, his notebook clasped beneath his arm like the egg case of some modest but moderately successful marine species evolved to cope with jostling elbows, oversized Ginza shopping bags, ruthless briefcases, Yamazaki and his small burden of information go down into the neon depths. Toward this tributary of relative quiet, a tiled corridor connecting parallel escalators.

Central columns, sheathed in green ceramic, support a ceiling pocked with dust-furred ventilators, smoke detectors, speakers. Behind the columns, against the far wall, derelict shipping cartons huddle in a ragged train, improvised shelters constructed by the city's homeless. Yamazaki halts, and in that moment all the oceanic clatter of commuting feet washes in, no longer held back by his sense of mission, and he deeply and sincerely wishes he were elsewhere.

He winces, violently, as a fashionable young matron, features swathed in Chanel micropore, rolls over his toes with an expensive three-wheeled stroller. Blurting a convulsive apology, Yamazaki glimpses the infant passenger through flexible curtains of some pink-tinted plastic, the glow of a video display winking as its mother trundles determinedly away.
Yamazaki sighs, unheard, and limps toward the cardboard shelters. He wonders briefly what the passing commuters will think, to see him enter the carton fifth from the left. It is scarcely the height of his chest, longer than the others, vaguely coffin-like, a flap of thumb-smudged white corrugate serving as its door."

Shinjiku Station (image found on the internet).

Ikebana

This is the art of flower arranging but doesn't always use bright, exotic flowers and spectacular volumes and changes of scale. At times understatement is what is important. Attempting to make something look unforced and natural is harder than it looks. It seems a contradiction to have artful artlessness but this is the riddle or paradox inherent in many Japanese traditional cultural customs. 

The suffix do in Japanese, as in Korean, indicates that an activity can be a path or way of life to follow. The word judo or kendo are martial arts examples.

If you go to Kew Gardens in London you can on occasions see Ikebana displays inside their Japanese farmhouse, called a minka in Japanese.

The photo of the minka  below was taken from Kew Garden's website. And the black and white image is of Constance Spry (courtesy of the Telegraph newspaper).

Shinto

Shinto is the native religion of Japan. Some years ago I saw a documentary about Japan. A car was made and produced by a leading company such as Nissan or Toyota but it didn't sell. In the end the company learned that the car's front grill resembled a sad face and so the car might have a negative spirit.

All places both natural and manmade can have a spirit or kami and it is best not to offend them by forgetting to remove your shoes as you enter a house for example. Do German car companies think about these things when they design cars for export to Japan?

In sumo wrestling the contest begins with the ritual of the athletes throwing salt into the arena. This symbolic act is a purifying of the space in the Shinto tradition. Also It isn't uncommon to see cones of salt in japan which must surely serve a similar purifying idea.

Japanese Art

Japanese art is some of the best in the world. Chinese and Korean influences are there but Japanese art remains unique and beautiful.

Everybody knows the famous print The Great Wave by Hokusai but there are other really good, lesser known artists too. One such artist is Tōshūsai Sharaku. Very little is know about the artist but his unusual large stylized heads are much admired in the west.

Van Gogh admired and learnt from Japanese art and dreamt of establishing a colony of artists in the south of France. He thought that Japanese artists worked and lived together rather like a family.

In the case of Japanese prints- or ukiyo-e as they are called in Japanese- young artists served an impossibly difficult apprenticeship. Originality was not admired or encouraged. The young artist had to copy the master's work. Often the artist was an orphan and took on the name of the master (which was also the name of the school).

A sympathetic and intelligent introduction to Japanese art can be found in a modest book written by the professor and author Langdon Warner. The book, which may no longer be in publication is The Enduring Art of Japan.

The writer travelled widely in Asia including along The Silk Road. The film character of indiana Jones was based on Warner himself.

Image found on the internet

These three paintings are my own work, made recently using Sumi ink or Japanese black ink. The ink usually comes in dried ink sticks which you have to rub on a rectangular shaped stone dish in order to produce the required tonal density. It is a very expressive medium and great subtlety can be achieved ranging from the darkest blacks to subtle, silvery grays.

Onsen

After a stressful day at work how nice it would be to go for a natural bath in the hot spring waters of an onsen. The volcanic island activity in Japan produces many natural hot springs. If you are unable to visit an onsen you can go instead to a sento. These are shared baths found in towns and cities.

Japanese traditional baths are also very beautiful. They are made of cedar wood and are rectangular in shape. You enter the bath only after having first washed outside the bath. The water is thus left clean for further use.

Japan has an aging population and a rapidly declining birthrate. Many villages in the countryside have very few, if any young people. To learn more about how one city is making use of its elderly citizens and how Japan is confronting these and other issues please listen to this fascinating BBC World Service podcast from Peter Day's World of Business.

Japanese Fashion

Japanese fashion has it all. From salary men in thin dark suits to Tokyo girls wearing ultra exclusive, tiny designer handbags carrying dogs the same size as a small handbag. I love the strange and unusual in Japanese fashion. Teenage girls in lycra lemon tights or skinny girls in gothic black dresses or bright over sized watches and painted nails. For some very odd reason Japanese kids come to London and like old, vintage and charity shop clothes.  Are they bored of too much Dior and Gucci? Don't get rid of your old clothes just give them to Oxfam and soon or later you will see them appear in Japan.

Oscar Wilde once said something like you don't need to go to Japan because everything Japanese can be found on Oxford Street. Now it is surely the reverse: everything English can be found on the streets of Tokyo. It is a well known fact that Paul Smith the men's clothing designer is a big big celebrity in Japan.

The people who created and still create traditional arts and crafts in Japan are known as shokunin. Here is a short video you might enjoy showing textile dyeing and a wonderful loom in operation. The Indian soundtrack though is quite annoying and distracting. Here is the youtube link

A final word must go of course to Oscar Wilde who said of Japan (though I'm not sure I agree):

''In fact, the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people.... The Japanese people are ... simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art.''

Oops.. sorry forgot to add this. A beautiful Channel 4 ident (a kind of gap in the T.V. programs) of Tokyo at street level. It is really beautiful like your walking through the streets and the kids voices. Like the classic SF movie Blade Runner but without the androids.