I found a nice, hardly-used Nikon 24/1.4 AF-S lens on the street on the way to Kyoto, so I decided to pick it up and take it on my daily constitutional.

This is a throwaway shot from my station that I ended up liking somehow. There’s something about the balance between the three people coming up the stairs, the converging lines of the tracks, and the big wall that I like.

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This is the Higashi Honganji temple, right outside of Kyoto station. It’s been under construction/refurbishment for years, and it still has years to go, I think. Whenever I walk by it, which is frequently on these walks, I think about how intentionally oppressive it is. There’s nothing particularly pretty or aesthetically pleasing about it; it’s just a raw statement of political power, which various Buddhist sects wielded lots of back in the day.

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This car is red
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This next photo is taken from a comfy-seat inside a Starbucks. I’ve walked past this particular Starbucks for years without realizing that it abuts this ancient temple (Rokkakudo), which it reveals with a huge wall of glass. The other day I went into it just by accident, looking for the closest hit of espresso I could find, and was incredibly pleasantly surprised. It looks so unassuming from the outside that it is always almost empty, making it about as perfect a cafe that a huge soulless chain can be.

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This is the rear side of some store…I didn’t even bother looking at the front. I love these traditional external walls, fire-treated to make them weather-resistant.

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More walls. This time I liked the convergence of the three different textures.

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And, finally…guy with clicker waiting for his garage door to close. There was something about his face I liked; everybody gets an expression, while waiting just a few seconds for something, when they completely enter their own little world for just a moment, that I think is almost endearing.

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Japanese people call any running over about 30 seconds “marathon,” which is incredibly annoying to someone like me who prefers to assume that words mean actual things. I wouldn’t mind it if “marason” was simply a loanword from English to Japanese that came to mean “running” or something like that. But, Japanese people know that it’s supposed to mean a 42 km race; they just generally feel free to mangle meanings of words that come from English. It’s as though Americans knew the word “sushi” was supposed to mean vinnegared rice with raw fish, but felt perfectly justified using it to refer to hamburgers as well, because hey, that’s meat and starch too, and it’s just a foreign word, so who gives a shit.

Anway, Genbo and his class ran a “marason” the other day. They had been practicing for it for a long time, and he was pretty excited about it, so I went down and snapped some photos. This particular marathon was 1 km, and Genbo came in 14th place out of 59 boys in his class.

Home stretch
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Almost there!
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Here are some photos of him I snapped the other day…

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One of the things that is both so endearing and frustrating about Japan is that it is truly a culture without irony. It is a culture that can have an official Coming of Age ceremony at Disneyland and see no irony in it at all. You know all those whacky commercials Japan is famous for? These are only possible in a country without irony, and indeed those commercials are not actually ironic, which makes them all the more amazing.

This is a small shrine I came across on a recent walk through Kyoto. The large red sign says “God of Academics”, while the two vertical black and white signs on either side say, essentially, throw money in and pray here for academic success and getting into a good school. This is all perfectly normal, but I loved the fact that the same shrine would also put up the vertical wooden sign to the far right, which says “Fortune-Telling School.”

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This past weekend we went with Maki’s extended family to the Nagara river in Gifu, about 2 hours drive from here, to see u-kai, or cormorant fishing at night. This is an ancient method of fishing in which you have a bunch of cormorants on leashes, and you lead them out at night with giant bonfires on boats to let them see the ayu (“tasty river fish”) you want them to catch. They dive down and catch the fish, but cannot swallow them because of the ropes around their necks. Then you rob the poor bird of its catch and then eat it yourself. Or, give it to your feudal master, as the case may be. I’ll have a more comprehensive post on the whole experience later, but I liked these first three shots enough to post them alone.

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Some photos from my recent trip to Wakayama to visit Pierre, who was not only an expert swordsmith but a great guide.

I also have a friend who is storing some high-grade recording equipment at my house, so I used that to record myself on shakuhachi. It was fun putting this slideshow together, but even this rudimentary level of synching audio and video took a couple hours, moving things around by tenths of a second until I had it just so…

This weekend I went with my friends Stephane and Jeffrey to visit my new friend Pierre, a fellow long-time Japan resident who has been studying katana-making for the past five years. He is preparing to become an officially-licensed katana smith in a month or so, and when he passes the test he will be only the second non-Japanese to do so (and the other guy was so long ago he’s already dead).

Pierre lives in the mountains of Wakayama in a very beautiful location; about three hours by car from Kyoto. The people in the little hamlet he lives in were friendly without exception, maybe because each and every single one of them knows Pierre and the details of his life. Such is the fate of a lone gaijin in very remote Japan.

This is the view about 10 meters from his door.

“Aragijima”
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One interesting thing Pierre said was how many crazy people approach him about the Japanese swords; especially foreigners, since he’s one of the few non-Japanese to be traditionally trained in the art. Japanese swords attract a lot of crazy people who are into the more violent aspects, he says, and it’s easy to believe. He, however, is interested in the craft and technology of their making. Apparently the best swords were forged in the 13th century or so, and even though we have a molecule-by-molecule metallurgical understanding of the process now, people still can’t make swords nearly as good as those 13th century ones. (The same is true of shakuhachi, by the way. Some modern shakuhachi are nice, but they just don’t have the character and depth of the old ones.)

He made a quick little demonstration blade for us, although when he does it for real it’s anything but quick. He performs every part of the process, from forging multiple raw lumps of ore into a single bar, to shaping the bar into a katana ready to be polished. He even cuts his own charcoal into five different sizes depending on which stage of the forging it’s used for.

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I was surprised with how small the forge itself was. This is his smaller one, but he showed us the large one he uses for full-sized swords, and it wasn’t much bigger.

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He’s renting out a smithy that has been here for more than 100 years. I’ll post more photos from the inside later.

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Genbo’s been going to school for a week and a half now. He thinks it’s OK. Kinda fun sometimes, kinda boring sometimes. He recounted a disappointment in which his teacher told him they were going to go on an “adventure” (冒険) to explore the school, but it wasn’t a real adventure, because she just kept on talking the whole time. Get used to it, Genbo.

He and everybody else from the area meet in front of our building at the ungodly hour of 7:30 to walk to school. It’s almost a half-hour trip for them. And, on the way back all the Japanese moms (and I!) stand outside waiting for them. Eventually this will give way to them just coming all the way home on their own, but it’s nice to go and greet them while it’s still OK, savoring the last bits of innocence. Here he is coming walking with his best friend, Nao-kun.

Update: A comment reminded me to mention that, even though the area is safe anyway, there are volunteers (extremely nice elderly folks apparently without much else to do, for the most part) placed every 100-200 yards to make sure the little kiddies are safe.

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Today was Genbo’s first day of school. Or, technically, his 入学式, or ceremony to start the beginning of school. First day of classes is on Monday. Everybody around him has been excited about it, but Genbo has not given any indication of caring one way or another. Unfortunately it was a gray day today, and shortly after I took these pictures it started raining.

Here he is at the school gate, wearing his uniform and a randoseru. The school technically has uniforms, but you don’t really have to wear them. Lots of kids do, but anything in relatively subdued colors is fine. Basically, anything that’s not gold lame or sequined is fine. The randoseru (taken from the Dutch, according to that Wikipedia link), is a weird Japanese phenomenon. Genbo’s cost upwards of $500, which is maybe a little pricier than average, but not by much. The cheapest they go for is about $350. It’s a highly-fetishized leather object in the culture that marks a child’s entry into school. They are used for the full six years (which is how long elementary school lasts in Japan), and they are built to last 60 if need be. Does that justify the price? Not in my opinion, but since when is that relevant?

Crossing the threshold
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Now getting a little excited
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School yard and gym, flanked by Mi’i-dera, a major temple in the area
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Checking out the board to see which class he’s in
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Notice everybody with their bright, shiny new randoseru, strictly color-coded according to gender, ’cause this is Japan
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Another shot of the cherries and the temple up on the hill. Not a bad view for a playground.
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I liked this rack of unicycles, which are popular in Japan for young children.
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Now we come to his classroom, 一年生2組, or the second class (out of four) of the first-graders. His yellow hat, which only first-graders wear on the way to school, and various text books await him in his assigned seat. (I recently learned that even college students have assigned seats!)

Waiting for use
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I love this next picture. He’s been in his chair less than 30 seconds and he’s ALREADY BORED! And, in grand Braverman tradition, not bothering to hide it. Notice the hook on the desk so the randoseru doesn’t get sullied by being put on the floor.

“When’s recess?”
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These two are already friends, and he’s feeling a little left-out
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His first teacher: Nagatani-sensei
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I had to leave a little early to do some work, but everyone else went to the gym for a series of long and I’m sure excruciatingly boring speeches. Here are Genbo and his new classmates filing out of their room together for the first time.

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The school abuts the canal (疎水) which brings water from Lake Biwa to Kyoto and then down to Osaka. Here is a shot of a cherry-lined section of the canal right near his school.

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Genbo graduated from daycare on March 19. It was a much bigger deal than I can imagine occurring in the States, with local petty politicians, representatives from local schools, etc. in attendance (and taking up the best seats).

Receiving his “diploma”
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Here is mommy waiting for him to present the diploma to her and say “Thank You” (a tear-jerker moment)
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Zoe took the opportunity to get dressed up
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They grow a lot of daikon (big ol’ radishes) and hakusai (napa cabbage) near Maki’s parents’ house. These are winter veggies, and some are kept in the ground basically until spring, I think, even after they’re ready for picking. Apparently leaving them in the soil is even better than in the refrigerator, and the longer they stay in there the sweeter they get.

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