There is a whole industry in the newspaper world of articles about Japan. What happens is hack journalists who know nothing about the country come here, find the stupidest, weirdest thing about the country they can, then write about it as if a) they are actually knowledgeable, and b) the whacky individuals they have found are somehow representative. This article in the NYT is a prime example. When I read something like this in the NYT, I realize that much of the other reporting they do must also have little basis in reality.

I guess any untalented journalist can sell the NYT a story about how the Japanese are whacky or how the Chinese are a threat. I guess it’s a good gig. Maybe I should get in on it.

I was just going through some old photos today when I came across this one. I love Japanese roof tiles, even though you often see older houses sagging under their immense weight and every time a storm rolls through a few people seem to die from falling off their roofs while trying to keep the tiles from blowing away. Other than that, they’re great.

One of the nice things about our new place is a sizeable park very close by. Took a walk there last weekend with the family and shot some of the glories of Japanese nature.

This dragonfly Genbo thought was “scary”.

You don’t see it as much in urban areas, but out in the countryside you often see abandoned cars rusting away in the middle of fields. Come to think of it, this happened much more in Kyushu than it does anywhere around here. It costs money to dispose of old automobiles, so people will just drive their old car out into the middle of a field and leave it there, where it remains basically forever, as far as I can tell. Here we have an example this exemplary behavior in the middle of the neighborhood park.

 No, this is not a rave. This is a yearly festival at the Fujinomori shrine, a thousand-year old shrine near where were used to live. This particular festival is Setsubun, a which serves to mark the seasons and inculcate fear of the other into young Japanese minds at the same time. A real two-fer. Part of the ritual is to have these scary demons show up, at which point the kids are given little beans and encouraged to pelt the demons with the beans, shouting “Demons go outside! Health and happiness come inside!” I actually like this for its complete lack of any PC sentiment. You just don’t get 2 and 3 year olds expressing ritualized hatred towards the other in US culture, and I think we’re poorer for it.

Anyway, Fujinomori shrine puts on a big show each setsubun, with a whole staged morality play with bad demons and good angels and everything. It was pretty psychedelic.