Tsam Folks Say...

So if you ever tell me you've been thinking, "Maybe it's time to get a master's degree," I - as a caring and concerned friend - may recommend you ask yourself a few more questions before proceeding.  This week the question is, "Did you ever get over procrastinating?"  When you've put off your assignment til the night before, and you get a headache, will you be able to push through the pain and do the work anyway?  If not, are you tech savvy enough to deal with the inevitable issues that come up when you woke up at 5:30 to finish before school on a half-asleep brain?  Because that is where I was this morning.  I still managed to get 100% from a professor that I've heard is tough but excellent, but I just take that as proof that God really does watch out for fools and children.

This week you're getting a break from the art posts courtesy of Engrish.  Although she was quick to explain that she and Blondie hadn't been to many cultural events while I was gone (because there really hadn't been any), she was even quicker to deliver one.  Danshig Naadam is the religious flavor of Mongolia's manly sports festival, first celebrated in 1639 to commemorate my old buddy Zanabazar's elevation to the Peerage (or something like that...his title was Bogd Jebtsundamba Khutuktu rather than Sir Zanabazar, but you get the gist, right?)*  This year the timing was pushed back to the beginning of September, which is good, because when I took Evil's niece in 2015 it was in August and too hot to really enjoy.

The reason why I was REALLY looking forward to it is the fact that after five previous years in Mongolia I was still trying to see Tsam dancing.  Okay, so to be fair, I'd seen it before, not only at Tumen Ekh but at an event the owner of my school invited me to attend at the National Museum of Modern Art, but...well, you know me.  If seeing something is good, seeing it in its original context is even better.  And the previous time I went to Danshig Naadam, we somehow missed the Tsam dance.

See, Tsam wasn't intended to be entertaining.  It's not some crazy booty-shaking in fancy dress just for funsies...not that there's anything wrong with that.  I personally enjoyed the hell out of exactly that during my years in Korea.  But Tsam has spiritual significance, as was pretty apparent from my first look inside the Naadam stadium on Sunday.  Across the field I could see an enormous applique thangka - a Buddhist devotional image - hung from the roof of the stadium and facing the field.  According to its very short Wikipedia entry Tsam can be seen not only as religious instruction but also a form of meditation.  Which makes sense, because the music is not exactly the rockin'-est beatz.  Tsam dance moves to the sounds of cymbals and conch horns, the latter of which have a tendency to drone a little, and while it's not the kind of sound that will drift you off to Dreamland, there is something hypnotic about it.

On the other hand, it carries very well over a distance, and as Engrish and I left for the stadium from our rendezvous at the nearby shopping center, we were reassured that we were in the right place, and hurried on our way over.

I might have been a bit concerned we were missing the action, but the dance was in progress as I went in to claim some seats for us.  Engrish joined me a few minutes later after waiting to hear from Blondie, so she got to see a little before the masked dancer left the field.  I wondered if that was it, but before long, another dancer came out and performed, and eventually Blondie joined us and got to see it all for herself.  It's possible that she may even have been a little grateful that she didn't see the entire dance, because...well.  I'm just going to come out and say it: the dance is a little repetitive.  Maybe the conch horns sound a little like butt-trumpeting.  If it's enough for you to see just a glimpse of the dance, Tumen Ekh's daily performances are a wonderful opportunity to do exactly that.

But on the other hand...even though the seats in the stadium can't be considered comfortable by ANY stretch of the imagination, and the full dance seemed to stretch on a little, I didn't for a second wish I had missed the chance to experience it.

I was sitting in the shade on a cool, Sunday morning, with two of my favorite peeps, feasting on a culture I'd been largely cut off from the last two years.  I was finally experiencing something I'd hoped to see for most of the years I lived in Mongolia.  Sadly my dumb ass left the apartment without my Big Gun - I actually realized as I was walking out to get in the taxi, but I was worried about being late and also, I was lazy, so I didn't go back for it - so my photos were shot with my iPad.  Sorry for that.  Luckily after the dancing wound down the dancers came over to the altar set up in front of the thangka, so I got some decent shots anyways.

And THEN they handed out candy, and it was like a feeding frenzy.  If you've never been to Mongolia, you have to understand that Mongolians love candy.  It's not even that good chocolatey shit like we Americans hand out every Halloween...no these are just the hard candies like everyone's grandmother except mine keeps in a glass dish in their house.  I didn't join in the battle royale, but one of the grandpas kindly shared with Engrish.  It was sweet.  The gesture, that is, not the candy...we were ready for some real food by this point, and maybe our Western culture has some deeply ingrained beliefs about accepting candy from strangers.

*Liberties taken with info reported by Montsame

Who Needs Holland?

It’s not entirely unfair to wonder how I spent my time in Toyama, since I didn’t stay up all night to watch for squid on the beach.  It isn’t all that big a town, and I’ve been here before, after all.  But what you may not know if you’ve never been to Japan is that there is ALWAYS something to discover.  You just have to find it.

My discoveries started Sunday night.  I was reading about something - I’m not even sure what it was at this point - and it mentioned Tonami, a town about an hour away on the train.  I knew because I looked at Google maps, and while I was there, I noticed they had a tulip park.  There was also a little pink date marker on the map, so I googled the next day’s date and Tonami.  The marker was undoubtedly for the ongoing tulip festival, but I also happened to discover that there might be children’s kabuki performances that day as well.  It was a little hard to tell, because I found two different dates on separate websites.  Regardless, I decided that I needed to make an excursion to Tonami.

On my way I decided I’d find out about the kabuki first.  Tulips are nice, but they weren’t something I could “miss” - they’d still be there later in the day.  Since I wasn’t entirely sure when the kabuki was taking place (or even IF it was that day) I didn’t want to miss it.  Also, it seemed like every last person who was on the train with me was going to see the tulips, so good riddance to people!  As I was about to go down the stairs on the north side of the station, I saw a poster announcing the Demachi Kodomo Kabuki Hikiyama Matsuri was the 29th and 30th of April.  I went into the information center to check the location - another thing that was sort of unclear from what I’d read online - and the oba-san pointed me in the right direction.

Now, allow me a brief interlude to admit that kabuki is not my favorite Japanese performance art.  The last time I experienced it the story was Naruto, and that still wasn’t enough to keep me awake through to the end.  That said, kabuki is unlike any other drama I’ve ever experienced.  Of course the costumes and make-up are distinctly Japanese, but even the way the actors move, using stilted movements and the kind of poses that wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, is so unique.

Likewise the voices used.  I found the young actress’ speaking particularly striking.  A little backstory for you: originally kabuki was performed entirely by women.  Then men took it over, as they do, declaring it indecent for women to be on stage (also as they do).  So for a very long time, all the female parts have been performed by men, at least in professional performances.  Children’s kabuki seems to play by a different set of rules, though, because there were girls in the play I saw, as well as depicted on the posters.  The way that she pitched her voice, though, sounded more like a man speaking in falsetto than a natural female voice, so it seems that an artistic necessity has, in this case, become the convention.

Another thing I preferred about this performance over the Naruto kabuki was the fact that I could take pictures.  The audience sat on stools in the middle of the road.  The performance took place in front of us on a small portable stage which reminded me of nothing so much as a mikoshi.  The crew mostly stayed inside the structure, hidden behind the scenery, although they were visible during costume changes and when the fox appeared early in the act.  Although everything was in Japanese - I’m pretty sure I was the only gaijin in attendance - I did catch the title: Yoshitsune Senbon-Zakura (otaku vocabulary for the win!). It seems like they were specifically doing the fourth act, based on Wikipedia’s synopsis.  It moved relatively quickly, but I decided after it finished that I was satisfied with my kabuki experience and moved on to the tulip park.

Now THAT was a completely different beast.  One regret I had after visiting the Netherlands back in 2016 was the fact that tulip season was over before I got there.  Last month Sensei visited her daughter there and her tulip pictures made me sick with envy.  So I thought I might be able to get a small taste of that experience in Tonami, and I did.  The park sprawled out, surrounding you with tulips of every color imaginable, and there were water wheels and fake windmills to give you that good Dutch feeling.  So Claude Monet never painted the garden in Tonami - I can hardly hold that against them.  However, when I saw that it was a joint project with some kind of Turkish organization...maybe I held that against them a little.  It’s not their fault that I’m a little bitter against my current employers, but after the Director teasing me that the school was following me on vacation (which I’ll explain when I’ve seen the end of the school year), I didn’t really appreciate the reminder of my indentured servitude.  

Barbie Girls

You can tell when winter is almost over.  The plum trees start to blossom, and suddenly there are hina dolls displayed everywhere.  I saw these in the middle of the train station in Shiroishi last month, and saw a similar display in Yokohama Station a week or two ago.  That doesn't mean that winter is quite over, though.  It's been raining throughout the last week, which pissed me right off and was one of the reasons I decided against going to the Nagashibina.  I loved the ritual last year but standing in the cold rain did NOT seem like a fun way to start my Sunday.

This time last year I was filled with unspeakable rage because my fellow Americans were being a bunch of lunatics.  This Hina Matsuri - a festival dedicated to the prosperity and protection of girls - I'm raging again, but you'll have to wait a few months to hear that particular rant.  Suffice it to say that the timing of a holiday concerned with those blessings of prosperity seemed somewhat ironic this year.  (As far as protection goes, nothing makes me feel as safe as toting around the bachi I use for taiko class - and hey - bonus! I can practice while I walk!)

As far as I'm concerned, there was never any question as to whether or not I was going to mark Girls' Day this year with a blog.  (Seriously, people, I make dolls for my hobby.  This was always going to happen).  That said, I did try to find new things to see.  I knew there were several displays around Tokyo, and although I passed over my first choice because I didn't have time after painting on Saturday,* my second choice, though, was just a couple of stops away in Shinjuku.  Keio Plaza Hotel had a special display of tsurushi hina, hanging decorations, along with some works of art that made me think of the paintings Maria's students always paint around this time of year.  Except, you know, better (technically, at least.  I'd argue that a lot more heart goes into the student work).

Just as hina dolls evolved from the doll floating rituals, hanging decorations are an Edo-era tradition that emerged from the desire of less affluent families hoping to participate in the holiday.  Turns out the full hina display is pretty damn pricey, and not everyone could afford them.  Instead, the women of the family would come together to craft small decorations that hung from red cords.

The ones at Keio Plaza were made of kimono silk by quilting artist Mitsuyo Matsuo and her artist group, Himawari.  I've bought a LOT of fabric scraps in the last month or so, and it made me think about how cool it would be to make my own tsurushi hina...but since I already have a backlog of sewing projects I want to make, this probably won't happen anytime soon.  Making my own display, on the other hand, seemed relatively straightforward and not too time consuming.  I've been thinking about using my nendoroids to set up a hina matsuri display ever since I read about the Hatsune Miku hina doll made by Mataro last January.**

I learned a lot about the meanings behind the dolls when I visited the Ando Doll workshop in Kyoto last fall.  I tried to keep it in mind when I made my own Hina Matsuri display, but I didn't have dolls that fit.  The top step is supposed to be the emperor and empress.  Since I didn't have any nendoroids that are couples, I just chose my favorites.  The next step is supposed to be the three court ladies, but I only have two female nendos.  Instead, I made this the warrior step and included my sword boys and Roy Mustang.  The third step is supposed to be the musicians, so I went with a general ntheme of entertainment and called it good.  You might notice that I'm lacking most of the furnishings that go along with the set, but with a move looming there was no way I was buying more crap to pack up.

The VERY sweet icing on this year's doll cake was going to the Strawberry-holic buffet at The Strings Omotesando with Sensei and the Director.  About a month ago I decided I needed to eat as many strawberry desserts as I could before the season is over, and having them all at the same time seemed like a good idea.***

Apparently these buffets have themes.  I mean, besides “strawberries.”  There were at least a couple of other strawberry buffets going on recently, one with the theme of cats and another that featured - wait for it! - Godzilla.  This one was, appropriately enough, doll-themed, with so many Barbies scattered around the buffet and tables that they must have visited every Mandarake on Honshu to round up enough to pull it off.  As far as the food goes, there was a token lunch side, with salads, curry, and the best damn mac and cheese I’ve had since I last made it in Mongolia, but I don’t think anyone wasted too much time on real food.  We were all there for the desserts, and they were excellent.  That said, at 4500 yen we were all keen to get our money’s worth, and it’s possible that all three of us ate more than we should.  I definitely wanted to just lie down and have someone roll me home with a stick; as it was, I went into hibernation mode as soon as I got to my apartment.

I was about to say that was how my Hina Matsuri ended, except that’s not quite true.  I’ve been taking a photography course for my master’s this term, and our current project is light painting.  I originally wanted to work with shrine imagery - I still do, and I’m pretty sure this is going to play into my final portfolio - but then I thought about the nagashi hina and decided - since it was just after Girls’ Day - to make my own as a subject for my photo.  This course has been much harder than I was expecting, but at the same time, I’m pretty happy with some of the photos I got.  I’m still hoping to improve on them by taking photos in the stream near my house, but for now I feel like I have a good start.  

*I'm still hoping to write about the place it was later.  I mean, I probably have to write a Shinsengumi post at some point, right???
**I think I'd have a lot of fun designing other pop culture dolls with them, but the clock is ticking.
***Time has proven otherwise.

The Otaku Report: Vol. 3

It's been about a year since my first Otaku Report, in which I tell you all about the fun weeb things I get to do because I live in Japan.  It seems apropos that I should give a shout-out to the best damn student of all time in this, the third edition of the Report. I mentioned to somebody before vacation that I was hoping to see an old student, and they thought I was being nice (no, they clearly don't know me well if they think I have nice impulses).  For me, I just thought it was sad that they'd clearly never had a student who was such a badass they'd actually want to spend time with them after graduation.

The Kawaii Kingpin and I didn't really break any new ground on the Way of the Weeb that week (there was more time spent in bookstores but that is all I'm going to say on that subject).  That didn't actually matter to me.  See, to make a Bungou Stray Dogs reference (this IS the Otaku Report, after all) I'd been feeling kind of Dazai lately.  A little too detached - you might even say no longer human.  Relating to people and interacting socially had become mendoksai.  It's probably a defense mechanism; after all, there are probably limits to how many times you can rip your still-beating heart out of your own chest, and yet that's the leaving nature of the expat lifestyle.  So I feel like I've been the lite version of my normal brew.  On the other hand, hanging out with the Kawaii Kingpin was just normal for me.  We didn't really do anything, just ate, talked, and shopped, but it was the best time I've had in a long time.

I did consider dragging him somewhere touristy with me - he left himself WIDE open when I first got into town by mentioning sightseeing - but I couldn't quite bring myself to do that to the best minion of all time.  Since he likes masses of people about as much as I do, it seemed pointlessly cruel (also, I'm still hoping he'll make it to Tokyo before he graduates and it would be nice if he actually wanted to see me).  I did drag him into Round One for a few games of big fat Space Invaders, but I don't think he actually minded that.

Speaking of Space Invaders, I first saw it at the Round One near Yokohama Station earlier this year and I've been itching to play it ever since.  Shaggy and I (but mostly Shaggy) used to play the Atari version of this game when we were kids, so it held a certain amount of nostalgia for me.  The Japanese arcade version of it is so lit, though - you actually sit in the gunner's seat and have this big ass laser thing to shoot the aliens with.  Playing with the Kawaii Kingpin revealed a fundamental difference in our approach to the game.  I was trying to keep from dying, while he was racking up points, with the end result being that he killed me on the point spread, but since he's a hardcore gamer it would have been surprising if it had ended any other way.

Back to Bungou Stray Dogs, back in September I got to go to the stage show at Sunshine Theater in Ikebukuro.  It told the story of the "black" period, or basically the first few episodes of season 2, which focus on why Dazai left the Port Mafia.  This might be disappointing if you're a fan of the Armed Detective Agency, or even of Akutagawa, who only appears in silhouette.  Since (for once) my favorite character is central to the story, I was okay with it.  Sensei had to help me buy the tickets, and she was a little worried because it wasn't in English, but I reassured her that I'd do just fine.  My Dazai plush was not quite finished because I managed to melt his bolo clip in the school's toaster oven, but since he was pretty much done I brought him with me anyways.

It may have taken me five short trips and one year of full-time living, but I finally got the chance to see a kabuki play.  After school let out in June I was messing around in Tokyo and saw an Art & Live poster in the train station.  When I looked it up it turned out to have listings of different fine arts events in Tokyo...one of which was a kabuki play that tells the story of Naruto.  After my second time watching Noh (aka, trying not to nap in public), I was questioning whether or not Japanese theater was for me, but if ever there was a kabuki for me, it would be Naruto.  For starters, some of the character designs already look like the old ukiyo-e prints of kabuki actors.  I also figured I could deal with the language gap, since (thanks to the anime's prolific flashbacks) I knew the story front and back.  I wasn't entirely sure how they'd manage to boil 700 manga chapters down into a play, but I was game to give it a chance.

Well, I should have figured that one out from something Blondie once told me.  She complained about how long the kabuki she saw was, and that she left after the first part.  I naively thought that this would be like a classic western 3-act play, with a short intermission thrown in.  As I later learned (according to Wikipedia), kabuki's concept is more than just entertainment...it's an escape from the world.  Personally I prefer to escape via a good book, but hey, to each their own.  Suffice it to say that intermission, when it came, was 45 minutes.  I went to the bathroom.  I went to buy postcards.  I drank some water and twiddled my thumbs, because I didn't bring a bento - and STILL I waited.  It was August, and in spite of the air conditioning it was hot in the theater, so I got drowsier and drowsier.  FINALLY the second act started.

The costumes were gorgeous, and I loved some of the ways they achieved special effects.  Sadly I don't remember them all that well at this point because it's been three months since then, but I remember thinking that they'd managed to tell the story while remaining true to the medium.  I was fighting to stay away to the end, but then the second, FORTY-FIVE MINUTE intermission started, and I decided it was time for me to go find the nearest Coco Curry.

Although I don't dote on my students here like I did in Mongolia, I don't hate them all.  Recently one of the girls in elementary asked if I watched Touken Ranbu, and I felt just awful, telling her shiny little face that I'd missed the opportunity to go to the Swords of Kyoto exhibit while I was on vacation.  There was a stamp rally, too, but I couldn't figure out where all the stops were and I've already written about one of those, so the final item in this Otaku Report deals with pop-up shops.  I was ecstatic to learn that one had just opened for Golden Kamuy on the 6th floor of the Marui department store at Shijo Kawaramachi (I'd be even more happy about it now...episode 20 was not precisely my kind of fanservice, but it was in the ballpark).  I didn't really care for the special design character goods - one of the things I love about those characters is their normal character designs, so putting them in different contexts didn't really work for me.  That said, anytime you can visit a shop selling ONLY goods from one of your current favorite anime, I call it a win.  Now I just have to hope that Goodsmile will get their acts together and make me a Sugimoto nendoroid.

Child's Play

Ever since moving to Japan, my adventures have involved riding the rails.  This time around I was staying in one place, and while it is a nice change from several hotels in a week (or a new one every night) I was going to miss long trips on the tracks.  And maybe I even thought I might just take a couple of day trips - there's a cat island out on Lake Biwa, and I meant to take the scenic train out to Kameoka - but it didn't happen.*  And mostly that's just fine.

I also didn't do that doll workshop I mentioned, because sadly, I ain't rich people (we get paid tomorrow and maybe I kept debating up until last night if I could scrape the funds together.  This time maturity won out over my usual impulses).  That said, Ando Doll Shop very kindly invited me to visit the shop anyway and observe.  Since I had a little time to kill before meeting the Kawaii Kingpin this afternoon, I decided to drop in on them.  

The shop was kind of exactly what I would expect a shop selling traditional dolls to be, but haven't actually seen.  They were in the middle of shipping out a huge order when I stopped in, but the lady who had emailed with me about the workshop stopped to show me around, and invited me to take pictures.  The first floor had the workshop where the craftswomen were working on creating the dressing for the dolls.  There were an assortment of different dolls at the front of the shop, but the main showroom was on the second level.  We went up to the second floor and I was blown away by all the Hina dolls, their specialty.  Not only were there different sizes and colors, there were even different styles of faces, some more traditional, others more modern.  While we looked around my guide told me how each level represents something different - the emperor and empress are a wish for a happy marriage, the angry, sad, and happy courtiers on the bottom level, hope for an expressive face, the maidens serving food and drink represent a hope to never go hungry, and the musicians a wish for refinement and culture.  She explained that they currently had a display in a nearby hotel as we stood in front of a display costing 8.8 million yen.  The quality was simply astounding, and made me realize not only why the workshop was so expensive, but also that it was undoubtedly worth every yenny.

When I have money again, I'm totally coming back to make my own doll.  Besides the fact that they were that good, my new friend asked me if I liked anime as we went down the stairs.  She'd noticed Hoozuki hanging from my bag, and we had a bonding moment.  She also told me about the swords of Kyoto exhibit at the National Museum, and if I had more energy at this point in the game I'd definitely be checking that out.

I didn't really intend to turn this into doll week, but it kind of worked out that way.  Heading back from Kuuya-no-taki on Tuesday I passed the Sagano Doll House Museum, and decided I should check it out.

They had a huge assortment of dolls, and I can't remember any of them being Hina ningyo.  Some of them were bigger than actual children.  Others were so tiny I couldn't for the life of me tell you how they put the tiny little kimono together for them.  The ojii-san who sold me my ticket actually came over and showed me their collection of automatons, little mechanical dolls that did simple tasks like tumbling down the stairs.  It was very cool.

The upstairs level had even more dolls, and almost felt like a storage room.  The Japanese have a very broad definition of what a "doll" is - everything from puppets to clay figures could be considered a doll.  The upstairs room was lined with cabinets, and another ring of them divided the outer part of the room from the inner.  Literally all of them filled with clay figures.  Not in a, "Oh look, what a nice display, I can see your collection very clearly," sort of way, but rather in a "I hope you don't intend to bring any more of these home," way.

When you really understand the evolution of Japanese dolls, I think anime figurines actually make total sense.

What I loved the most about the museum was the air it had that reminded me of my Great-Mom's house, specifically her doll room.  Inside the museum time felt as if it were standing still.  The dolls were not new, but rather were old and showed wear.  I think I was the only patron during the time I was visiting, so the silence was thick and had a tangible sound.  The outside of the building was a traditional Japanese garden and you could wander around the grounds.  The plot behind it was a graveyard, adding to that slightly spooky sense of forgotten places.  It was perfect.

I had one more run-in with dolls, also - strangely enough - in Arashiyama.  Thursday morning I decided I would take the so-called "romantic" sightseeing train to Kameoka.  After riding nearly an hour out and wading through the tourists shooting in the bamboo grove I found my way to the train station.  Which was packed and I couldn't get a ticket for another hour and a half.  I decided I had better things to do and started towards what Google Maps told me was the nearest bus stop, conveniently outside of the central tourist area.  On my way, I came across Aightowa Doll Workshop and Cafe.  They had a small gallery where you could see their work, and while the cost of admission was 300 yen, you got three postcards with your admission.  Unlike the dolls in the shop or the museum, these weren't traditional Japanese dolls.  Some appeared to be made of felted wool, others seemed to be sculpted with silk, and there may have been some porcelain ones, too - it was hard to tell.

There were two things that particularly intrigued me.  First, the clothes on the dolls appeared to be all handmade, and were an extraordinary range of styles from around the world.  The fabric the clothes were made from seemed to have been collected from all over the world.  Since I went to two different markets this week looking for either a military uniform to cannibalize or cloth that could pass for it, I had great respect for their attention to detail.  The other thing that caught my attention was the backstory of the place, which was started by the owner to become self-sufficient.  It made me think maybe starting a doll business isn't all that far fetched.  In fact, a friend from my early Mongolia days messaged as I was going into the Saga Doll House to find out if I would be interested in a free Cricut Maker.  Apparently I'm their target audience, and I expect I'll experience a huge level up once I master this most powerful new weapon.  So you'll have that to look forward to reading about this winter.

*Because I puttered around too long in the first case, and because I wasn't willing to waste an hour and a half in Arashiyama waiting for my turn to be a bloody tourist.  But in both cases, I did try.  I'm not sure that makes either better.

Rock and Mineral Show

Oni-chan, 2018.  Pigment on shikishi board.

I've been hinting at the fact that I would soon write about my current painting endeavors basically since I started taking Nihonga lessons.  I actually kind of hoped I would put it off a little later by writing about the art scene in Mongolia.  Then I tried to actually revisit the art scene here, and it wrecked me.  Sunday I went to the Union of Mongolian artists, where they were taking down a show they'd just closed.  Best Gallery, in the same building, was open, but their work failed to move me.  Tuesday I decided I should try not to spend the whole day hanging out in Engrish's office, so about lunchtime I walked down to Zaisan Square, hoping to see what Articour had.  They were gone.  Yesterday I had plans to meet Wild Ass for lunch.  When she asked to reschedule for 3:20, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to check out the downtown galleries, starting with the Mongolian National Modern Art Gallery.  Closed for renovations.  Onward I marched to Blue Moon, where they were getting ready to open a show of photographs from Pyeongchang.  So I attempted a new gallery, the UB Art Gallery.  Closed, maybe for good.  I hadn't originally planned to make it to Ongi Gallery, but at that point I was getting desperate, so I trekked even further off the beaten path,  until I had the ger district in my line of vision.  I'm still not convinced that Google maps wasn't trolling me, but I found out where it was supposed to be.  Feeling somewhat defeated, I took a taxi back downtown, looking for the new location of the 976 Gallery.  And I found it...but it too was closed.  At that point I began to think that maybe I was just cursed.

Oni-chan, 2018.  Detail.

So, right, Nihonga.  I think the first time I heard of it was in conjunction with Murakami Takashi, and I was interested in doing it, but hadn't seen anyone advertising English speaking lessons until January, when I came across an article in Tokyo Weekender about my sensei, Maria.  Since wrapping up my painting course in December I hadn't been able to get myself working again, and given that I'd been working with Japanese subject matter, this seemed like a good way to move forward.  I got in touch and booked my first set of 5 lessons for 20,000 yen.  Since my first lesson took place on Setsubun, I chose to make a demon my subject.  It went pretty smoothly for the most part - I was especially pleased with the way the hair turned out - although I did have an issue at the very end when the whites of the eyes cracked.

Just getting started and knowing a little about the process made me want to know more, so a week later I used my day off for National Foundation Day to visit the Yamatane Museum.  They specialize in Nihonga paintings, and even though the museum wasn't big, and the exhibition focused primarily on one artist, Yokoyama Taikan, I enjoyed being able to see examples beyond mine and Maria's.

I also went shopping, although it took me a while before I actually bought anything.  Maria's studio is close to Uematsu, one of the art supply stores that specialize in selling pigment.  She had mentioned there was another in Yokohama, owned by the same people but called Sankichi.  When I figured out where it was (and that I'd already been there) I went back so I could actually appreciate what I was seeing - rows upon rows of color.

See, what makes Nihonga different from the painting I've done my whole life is that you mix your paints, adding nikawa, a kind of glue made from fish, to finely ground minerals, and then thin it a little with water.  Unlike oil, watercolor, acrylic, or pretty much any other kind of paint, you can't mix colors to create new ones.  If you want to use orange, you have to buy orange pigment.  You can't blend your red and yellow.  The pigments come in different grain sizes and each mineral has a different density, something I didn't figure out until my second week, when I was wondering why the color I was using didn't mix up like the ones I used the week before.

Most famous of all these shops is PIGMENT, which I read about even before I came to Japan on This is Colossal.  When my shrine hunt (post for another day) took me close to Tennozu Isle I took the opportunity to finally check it out.  Their selection was incredible - they had seemingly everything - but I resisted the temptation to buy ALL THE COLORS!  I've decided there has to be a method to my madness, and am attempting to act accordingly.  I figure if I buy the colors I'm going to use when I need them, eventually I'll end up with a wide range of colors over time without breaking my budget in any given month.

I put this idea into practice a few weeks back when I bought grey, brown, purple, and green pigment for the branch as well as a tissue thin purple iridescent foil for the blossoms.  Although I'm still working on my ume painting it's getting much closer to being finished, and I'm really excited about the progress I've made with it.  I'm still struggling to get all of the effects that I'd like out of my new media, but by far it's the most exciting part of my week, and I've already got my next idea ready to roll out when I finally do finish this one.

Teacher of Fortune

For the past couple of years I've posted my New Years' "shrine visit" on Facebook, checking in at Omaha's Joslyn Art Museum.  I'd learned enough about Japan from anime to know this is a big deal culturally, but I wasn't here yet, so I figured an art museum was a pretty good substitute for me.  But those days are over - at 3:17 pm January 2nd I was catching the Keikyu line back to Yokohama, and the question wasn't if I would be dropping in on a shrine in the coming days...it was which shrine to visit.  The answer was actually a holdover from last Spring.  The day before Five joined me in Kyoto I got it into my head that I'd like to visit a shrine or temple for each of Japan's Seven Gods of Fortune (Noragami was my #1 anime still back then).  That didn't actually happen because I got lazy and decided I'd go to the Karuta temple instead, but the idea was still in the back of my head, so when I saw the Shichifukujin Meguri mentioned on one of my websites in December, I decided the time had finally come to pay my respects to Bishamon et al.

One of the wonderful things about Japan is its syncretic nature.  In other countries, incoming religious beliefs snuff out their predecessors, but here they just get assimilated into the whole.  This means that there are a LOT of gods running around Japan, and many of them aren't even Japanese...in fact, only one of the Seven is native.  The rest are imports from India and China.  How this idea of a lucky seven came about, I'm not sure - that hasn't been covered by any of the anime I've watched, so if you really want to know, you can look it up.  But really, if you had thousands of gods in your belief system, why wouldn't you designate 7 (shichi in Japanese, with fuku meaning luck and jin for person) to be the most lucky?

There are at least three designated courses for the Shichifukujin Meguri in Tokyo.  I went for the shortest, which coincidentally took me back to Ningyocho.  I thought that was pretty fitting since one of my contingency plans involves launching a line of cosplay plush dolls, and I also liked the fact that all the stops were at shrines, rather than temples.  The Wow-J article in which I read about it suggested starting at Koami Jinja, which was dedicated to Fukurokuju and Benzaiten.  I marked the shrines on Google maps before I went out, and set out from Ningyocho Station wending down one-way streets, so I was expecting a small shrine, and that is what I found.  What I was not expecting was the long-ass line winding around the corner and then half a block further.  It was a little past ten when I joined the queue, and it just got longer from that point.  Part of me wanted to give up - I did not want to spend all day standing in lines - but I figured I didn't have much better to do with my day, so instead I started thinking about what I should wish for at each shrine.

See, each of the Seven has a specific bailiwick, so it seemed like I should break a general wish for good luck down and ask for what I wanted with the guy or gal most likely to make it happen.  Since Benzaiten has her own shrine a little later, I focused on Fukurokuju at Koami Jinja.  As a Fukujin he has a lot of overlap with the others, and apparently at one time he was replaced by another female deity, but his domain is largely about longevity.  When I got to the front of the line and threw in my coin, I had decided I didn't really need a long life - owing to my Mormon lifestyle I'm already ridiculously healthy - but I interpreted youth as a part of longevity, and the beauty that society generally ascribes to being young, and wished for those.

I stayed long enough to pick up an ema and find out that they wouldn't put my stamps in my sketchbook - there's a stamp rally thing you can do, but you have to buy the proper shrine-approved board thing, which kind of pissed me off, but I'm trying to be all philosophical and see this as an opportunity to get artistic.  From there it took about five minutes to walk to Cha No Ki Jinja, the shrine of Hotei.  Hotei is kind of awesome - he's fat and sassy, as befitting the Fukujin responsible for children, diviners, and barmen.  His special province is popularity, and even though I spent the last few years in Mongolia saying otherwise, you really can't have too many friends, so that's what I asked him for.  I was glad the line wasn't as long here, but it was such a small shrine that they didn't have ema, so my artistic plans didn't get any help from Hotei.

Which is just as well, because my next visit was to Benzaiten, patron goddess of artists, writers, dancers, and musicians, which kind of makes me her target audience.  This was another long line, through which I occupied myself wondering about Suiten-Gu.  It was a beautiful shrine, but it looked fairly new and was on a kind of pedestal building.  Eventually I was pushed to the front and got to ring the bell and ask for support in my artistic pursuits.

Basically catty-corner from Suiten-Gu was Matsushima Jinja, abode of Daikokuten.  There was a little line for this little shrine, so it didn't take long before I was throwing in a coin to ask for wisdom in using my wealth, since he specifically watches over prosperity.  While I was waiting, I had the chance to ponder the fact that I hadn't done ablutions at any of the shrines.  This may be a mark against me (probably not as big a mark as the fact that I was unprepared and only had 1 yen coins in my wallet, when any Noragami fan can tell you 5 yen is the traditional offering...) but it.  Was.  Chilly.  Not American Midwest WTF-who-says-climate-change-is-an-urban-myth?-cold, but cold enough to be getting the fuck on with, and I had no desire to run fresh spring water over my hands, under the circumstances.

In fact, the idea left me so chilled that I decided to warm up by stopping for lunch at Coco Curry.  If you are thinking I also chose Ningyocho's Shichifukujin Meguri because I knew the closest branch of my favorite Japanese restaurant chain, well, you're not wrong.  But one thing I've taken with me from Mongolia is the belief that New Years' is not time to start a diet - if you want to be prosperous and happy all year long, don't start by counting calories.  There's always next week for that.

After my first taste of curry for 2018, I walked a couple of blocks to get to Bishamonten's place, Suehiro Jinja.  No matter how many times I see the traditional version of the God of fortune in wars and battles, with his fierce eyebrows and goatee, Bisha will always be a smokin' hot blonde badass femme fatale to me, and so it seemed apropos to me that the war I'd ask for her help with would be my battle of the bulge.

As I stood in line to make my request (photo bombing the girls taking selfies in front of me, which got a huge laugh out of one of them when she looked at the pictures) I realized there was a tengu manning the stamp table.  As I watched, he put on a hooded mask with a lion's face and proceeded to dance for us.  Even with the cold, standing there listening to the music as he did his lucky lion dance while petitioners shook the bells and clapped at the shrine made me want to stay in Japan forever.  Maybe that should have been one of my wishes.

Instead, when I arrived at Kasama Inari Jinja I asked Jurojin for good health, particularly when it comes to my feet.  He is also a God of longevity, but without good health long life would actually be a curse, so I figured it works. 

Finally I came to Ebisu, the only purely Japanese Fukujin and god of wealth in business.  As mentioned before, one of my contingency plans involves selling my plushies, so I thought if there was anyone to petition for help in that (besides my Dark Lord and Master) it would be Ebisu.  When I got to Sugimori Jinja I was surprised to see it was white - I don't think I've ever seen a white shrine, so that was kind of cool.  There was actually another shrine on the circuit, a second Ebisu shrine a few blocks away, but I was out of coins and ready to be out of the cold again, so I decided not to show favoritism...at least not to Ebisu.  Since Benzaiten is the patron of artists, I figured it just made sense to drop 10 yen at her shrine.

Although I loved spending time at these little shrines, I confess I was tempted to complete a different meguri, one that had bells to collect along with stamps...but I figure there's always next year for that, and maybe then I will make my wishes on behalf of others.  Since then 2018 has been relatively quiet.  I've spent a lot of time trying to stay warm in my apartment while watching Gintama, and a little sitting in restaurants drinking free refills and letting them keep me warm (in fact, my game plan for today involves breakfast at Denny's as soon as I finish this post).  Although normally I shun the idea of resolutions, I do want to be healthier, and I have to make better use of my money than I did the last few months...but there's always next week.  Apparently the Japanese believe in shunning housework and cooking for the first few days of the new year, and hell, when in Rome...

Art of Your...Wooorrld!

A couple of years ago I started thinking about grad school.  I'd previously never thought much about this topic besides a.) a resounding "Hell, no!" and when I was in a less rigid frame of mind, b.) that if I ever did go back to school, I'd study art, not education.  But, well, life is funny.  After teaching for 11 years I started thinking maybe there was more I needed to know, that I could become a more effective art teacher if I had more education.  So when I heard about the University of Nebraska - Kearney's MA in art education (and more to the point, saw the courses and realized they were almost all things I wanted to study), I figured the time had finally come to return to academia.

"The Floating World"

That said, academia isn't exactly my favorite thing.  When I was at UMKC, my art classes were effortless.  My education classes, on the other hand...I struggled with them.  So when I was signing up for my first class last summer, I decided to start with one of the two studio courses that were part of my program - painting.  This may seem like the kind of course that needs to be taught in a traditional setting, but our professor structured it so that each of us completed our own work each week, then uploaded it to the class blog, and provided feedback to each of our classmates about their work.  In this way, we got to know each other pretty well, and seven of us decided we wanted to keep in touch through facebook to continue working.

"Triggered"

One of the aspects of the class that was really interesting to me was that we each chose our own objectives and developed in the direction we chose.  A big one for me was exploring new media - most of my painting has been in acrylic, and didn't really experiment with layering or using mixed media, so I wanted to work with those.  Having just moved to Japan and being sort of a weeb, I decided I wanted to explore Japan's art and culture through my paintings.  I tried to be relatively mature about it and not jump straight into anime characters, but I also wanted the influence to be clear.  I started on my first piece shortly after seeing the Harajuku Super Yosakoi.  I thought it would be an interesting challenge to try to capture the energy of the day, and their expressions...but it kept falling flat.  I wanted to have more going on than just the central figure, so I started building up the background with some dancers and repetitive shapes and colors using washi paper.  It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but I guess I wasn't entirely sure of what I wanted.

My second piece was to be a tribute to the Kawaii Kingpin - not only did he get me hooked on anime (and, by extension, on the idea of living in the motherland), but when I thought I was going to be unemployed this year he still had faith that I'd not only find a job, but that I'd be in Japan.  His dragon came together pretty quickly conceptually - I've drawn enough dragons in the course of my life, and seen plenty in Japan.  Executing the damn thing, on the other hand...somebody got it into her head that it would be awesome to try and weave the painting in and out of the washi paper to try and show the depth of the water.  The length of the dragon led me to break it into a triptych, and after a first attempt, I decided that I would paint him in layers, transparently, adding layers of thin washi in between, gradually making him more solid as I came up.  It was a huge pain in the ass, and there are a few parts I still need to work out, but on the whole I'm pretty happy with it. 

When I got to my final piece, I'd restrained myself enough.  It was time to get animated.  After seeing painted ema at several different shrines, I decided to make my own.  You purchase these wooden votive tablets to write your wishes on, and so my final work would be a self-portrait expressed through my wishes - past as well as present.  I thought I might stop using the washi paper on these, but when I got the first painting done I realized I really liked what they added to the look of the work.

"May Our Fates Intertwine"

The thing about this piece is that I wanted it to be an installation - I've been interested in this kind of sculpture since I was in college looking at my first Chihulys and Skoglunds.  There's a park essentially in my backyard, Baba Kabokuen, and so for my final submission I took my (mostly) finished paintings over and hung them in a tree to kind of show the idea of what I was going for.  I'm planning to paint a lot more of these, though - I was really inspired by Shiota Chiharu's The Key in the Hand at the 2015 Biennale and would like to make it something much more immersive.  But that's in the future.  For now, I've got a 4.0 GPA (yes, this was only my first class in my master's, and I was only taking one class...nevertheless...), a drypoint plate downstairs ready to print, and the nagging feeling that maybe I should have gone back for art rather than education...I really, REALLY enjoyed taking the painting course and maybe have some dread about taking a more traditional class.

Autumn Leaves

In Mongolia, Autumn comes and goes within a week.  One Sunday you're on your way to church and you notice the trees next to the Tuul are turning gold.  By the following Sunday, there ARE no leaves.  If you count the changing of the larch, you might manage to sneak some more time into your fall, but it will be snowing before that happens.  By contrast, it seems like Japan's autumn just keeps playing the hits.

I feel like fall officially started the night I went to Sankeien with Flower Boy for tsukimi.  I mentioned a few posts back that the Japanese are the kind of people who think that sitting out at night to watch the moon is a great activity, and I can't disagree.  I like being out at night, anyways - no sun, so I don't burst into flame, and I feel like that magical feeling is stronger at night, although admittedly I like being a little closer to home than Sankeien is when things are over.  Still, the Harvest Moon only comes along once a year, so trek home or no, I made plans to visit this classical Japanese garden with him.

We finally got there around 8 o'clock.  It was kind of sad, because it had been an overcast day, and although we were thankful that it at least hadn't started raining (yet - we pushed up our visit one day because it was in the forecast), we were bummed because we didn't think we'd get to see the moon.  We paid our 700 yen and went in, and immediately started looking around for the music.  There was supposed to be a performance, but we weren't seeing it and couldn't even hear it.  We kept wandering, though, and eventually discovered that the house/museum section was open, and that night, at least, it was free.  And it turned out to be where people were sitting on the lawn, watching a woman play the biwa.

We sat and listened, and I tried to keep an eye on the sky - I still held out hope that the moon would put in an appearance, and I was not disappointed.  It managed to break through the clouds long enough to say hi, and for a few minutes, I stared up at the moon instead of the biwa player (turns out biwa isn't really my thing, anyways - no good for dancing, not much good for singing, either).  But sitting in a classical Japanese garden at night under the moon, listening to Japanese music with friends...that was my thing.

At that point, though, the leaves really hadn't begun to turn - it was Autumn in name only.  The real autumn actually kind of snuck up on me - it seems like I spend most of my time going between school and home.  One Sunday I walked past the park behind my house - I still hadn't been inside because it always seemed to be closed - and some of the trees were almost bare, and it seemed like the rest were never going to lose their leaves.  I almost went to an autumn illumination on the 24th of November, but the day before I went to Tokyo for the Hozuki cafe, and I decided I didn't want to do that two nights in a row.  Priorities, you know?  I'm sure Rikugien will light up their gardens next year, too.

It wasn't until the final day of November, when I was on a field trip with my seventh graders to an exhibit in Ueno Park that I thought, "Oh look, golden leaves!"  (There's a ton of ginko in Ueno, so it's a good place to check them out - I kind of wanted to ditch the kids and go play in the leaves.  Bad art teacher!)  That made for a good weekend, especially with the Chichibu Night Festival.

When I was stalking Tokyo for upcoming events - which, by the way, I think is a thing for me.  I feel like I spend enough time (particularly on Friday nights) reading up on what's happening in Tokyo that it qualifies as stalking.  Sorry, Tokyo - I realized I was going to miss out on some cool stuff by going back to the States (winter Comiket and a fox parade at one of the many Inari shrines around town most notably).  So when I found out I had the chance to see one more festival before I went, I jumped at the chance, even if it was far enough out of the way that it justified getting an AirBnB.

Chichibu is a fairly small town up in Saitama, but they host a night festival the first week of December.  Apparently Sunday was the day to go, but there was work the next day, and although I haven't had a rough day at school for a while, I also don't feel quite comfortable enough to pull a sickie so I can go to a festival (not that I've ever done that, but I was tempted yesterday, since I could have gone to the 47 Ronin ritual at Sengaku-ji).  Which was okay, since Saturday night still had the mikoshi parade, and still had fireworks, and street food.  The yakisoba, by the way, was delicious!

I was actually about to enter the shrine when I heard sounds floating down the street, and decided I would see what was going on.  Cutting through a parking lot I was able to get to the street a little before the first float - and it was huge.  I've been to at least a couple of festivals here at this point, and these were serious floats.  Huge crews were carrying them along, and they had lots of people on them, even on the roofs...

Although the leaves have been taking their time, the cold definitely hasn't.  It was quite chilly waiting on the platform for the train that would take me back to my AirBnB - probably because I don't have a decent winter coat.  When I bring this up in conversation, people look a little confused and say, "But...weren't you living in Mongolia last year?"

I assume most people ask rhetorically, since I almost never miss a chance to talk about Mongolia.  It's true, though, that I came without a coat - my trusty red cashmere was wearing thin long before the end of last winter, and I felt like, really, after 5 years in Mongolia, what could Japanese winters really do to me???

In fact, I remind myself often what the temperature is like back in UB, because it helps me to appreciate that Yokohama is really not that cold.  Unless it's raining.  Or dark.  Or, you know, I've just come home to my apartment.  When I first arrived in UB, I bemoaned the loss of the ondol floors in my Shanghai apartment.  Now I'd give anything to be warming my back against the radiator in the teachers' apartments at ASU.  My apartment - which I love, don't get me wrong - is none-too-well-insulated and heated by an AC unit.  It works well enough that I can't complain, but at the same time, I kind of miss sleeping with a fan year round - even when it's -40 out- because the heating system works that well. 

On the other hand, in UB I wouldn't walk more than a couple of blocks outside in winter if I could avoid it, so I guess there are trade-offs.