Sleeping Jellyfish

I mentioned awhile ago that went to see some mummified Buddhist monks, but I’ve yet to give them the attention they deserve. We weren’t able to actually take pictures in the room where they were held but we could take pictures around the other buildings at the temple. So, I will include them and give you what info I know about these monks, and Japanese Buddhism in general.

First off, I wasn’t actually supposed to go on this bus trip. It was for a class that I’m not in, but what often happens is that people sleep through it/are hung over/get sick/etc. and don’t go on the trip, so if you are one of the lucky ones who can wake up on time, and you wait until everyone who signed up is on the bus, then you can usually fill an extra seat. That is what I did. And it worked. And I got to see zombies monks.

This would be my friend Nick from New Mexico throwing up fake gang signs from his hometown in front of a little shrine thing. Sacrilegious? Maybe. Him and his friends called themselves “Los Hobos” which is Spanish for…guess what… The Hobos. I think the whole purpose was to make fun of the other kids in their high school who bragged about being in gangs or thought they were tough. Los Hobos represent!

These two pictures are a little fuzzy. Sorry about that. I think I’m getting a bit better though. First one is some neat ornate architecture thing. I don’t really know what it is actually. Probably a protective spirit of some sort. The next is an alter area. Look at the big drum! I love how big the drums are here,  I love playing the Taiko drums when they have practice!

We have a nice wall scroll of an obviously wise old monk. There is a positive correlation between the size of a monk’s eyebrows and how wise they are. In fact, I’m no expert, but I heard having large eyebrows is a main tenant of Buddhism in China and Japan. On the right is another alter area. Pretty intricate, yeah? I’m not really familiar with how it works but a worship session usually goes something like: light candles, pray, pray, incense, bang on a drum, pray, give money to the gods, pray, maybe bang the drum again, then leave and buy a charm on the way out.

It was close quarters so it was difficult to get a good picture, but I like this one a lot. So we have Buddha right? Big ears, big belly, and all that, but look at what a huge hammer he has! I don’t know why anyone would need/want a hammer that big, but why not ya know? There’s the usual candles and beautiful and ornate woodwork. On the table with the candles is another good sized hammer though its a bit difficult to make it out in the picture. I dont know how to read the Kanji (Chinese characters) on the box, or how to pronounce them rather, but I know they individually stand for, from left to right, “invitation”, “good fortune”, “box”. So yeah, thats where you put the money.

Here are some statues of different monks, with their names inscribed below them. Famous monks get a sort of “saint-hood” status I believe where people will pray to them and such instead of different gods or Buddha. On the right is one of the other Buddhist deities. Indian Buddhism borrows many aspects of Hinduism including the polytheistic focus, but as Buddhism traveled East into China, Korea, and Japan it lost much of that, pulling Buddha to the fore front as the main Deity. Also in Japan, like in Korea and China, many people still participate in the native folk religions, though it is often less spiritual and more ritual. In Japan it is called Shinto and it involves a deep relationship and lots of respect for the natural world and believes spirits called Kami inhabit everything. There are both good and bad spirits, but these days it is more relegated to the world of superstition than anything. My Japanese sensei at WSU said when he coached his son’s baseball team, they would go to the local Shinto shrine before every season and pray for good pitching.

What a lovely wall partition! Yeah, I think it is interesting that contrary to the typical white shoji style sliding doors, in this temple many of the rooms had beautifully decorated walls and doors. It was very interesting. This door, however, seems trouble some. The two guys in the picture look mischievous but I bet they just read a really funny line on some scroll they were reading.

That was my bus trip to the Zombie Monks. Quite a day!

I was slammed with school last week. Tests, tests, and more tests. The tension between the Eastern, Confucius inspired education system and the Western style is ever present. In the East, memorizing facts, tables, and acquiring knowledge is emphasized over the Western ideals of critical thinking, problem solving, and seeing the “bigger picture”. Sometimes its hard to deal with.

Tonight I am playing at the Campus Café for an open mic styled event. Its not really “open” per se, because as it seems the Japanese love organization, everything has been planned out to a T. I’ve run similar things before, set up larger concerts and such, and what we usually do with about 3 guys in an hour we had over a dozen people there. We were supposed to have rehearsal after setting up, so me and Sandy were there, but we kind of felt like we were just getting in the way. Maybe it was just our big gaijin feet. At least we could lift heavy things.

So tonight at 6:45pm I will be performing a couple of songs and sing/crooning/yelling along in the only way that I know how. I’m nervous, but I think a good meal and a beer will help that. And so I’m off. I’ll put up video/photos after.

You, my family and friends, may never have realized this, but I am incredibly fashionable. Though I very rarely buy new clothes, and most things that are “new to me” come from friends, dumpster diving, or salvaged clothing, I have been told I have a cool “style”. I think that is kind of funny because I’ve dressed the same for the most part since the middle of high school: T-shirts of various bands, long underwear, zip-up hoodie sweatshirts, no socks or wool socks, and tight fitting jeans.

BUT, I’ll have you know that a Japanese fashion agency thinks that I, Jonathan Roberts, have style. The evidence can be found here, at the Praço website. Don’t worry, it shouldn’t be too hard to find me. I’m the only gaijin. Pretty cool, huh?

A few weeks ago I went with my host family, the Ichimura’s, to a Japanese Garden, Ceylon Tower, and the Akita Prefectural Museum. It was a really great day and we had a lot of fun, and began to warm up to each other I think, after feeling out each other’s personalities (and language skills).

Ceylon Tower is a 100ft Glass Tower. I don’t really know what they use it for, though in the bottom there was an auction going on and a few shops that were selling food and Akita ware and what not. Here are a couple shots from the top of the tower, where you can see the harbor, some of the outlying rice fields and such.

A little bit of a dark day, but it was still great. Cameras really don’t do the expansiveness of Japan justice and the endless rows of mountains. Especially here in the North, on the spine of Japan there are always mountains in sight. After Ceylon Tower we went to the Akita Prefectural Museum. Apparently we weren’t supposed to take pictures up stairs, and I only got one before they told us to stop, but it is this set of cute little dolls. Downstairs, however, we were able to flash away at the great skeletons and preserved creatures that they keep down there. I would imagine at night it is pretty creepy.

The upstairs part was really great though, it had different exhibits and tons of artifacts and replicas from hunter/gatherer times until present. Original town property maps from Akita’s samurai days, displays of original tools, pottery, and clothing, which was very interesting of all the Asian influences and techniques to primitive northern living. The clothing they had was just ingenious in design, using different reed weaves mixed with cotton, wool, and animal hides.

Then we went to the Japanese garden which was really cool. Just a park that you go to and walk around and feel calm and feed the fish. There were a lot of families at the beginning of it feeding the fish, and Hideo brought some bread crusts to feed the fish and handed it out liberally to the children. I have a sneaking suspicion that little Takuto doesn’t like his bread crusts.

This was early in October and the leaves had been turning colors but as you can see there is still a lot of green left. Now, however, most of the trees around campus are starting to go bare, accept for the giant Akita Cedars. We’ve even turned on our heater once. I personally like it cold, particularly cold feet, because it saves energy and makes my bed seem so much warmer and more comfortable. But, apparently compared to Minnesota, I’ve been told by a few Japanese who have studied abroad at Winona, it snows more here but doesn’t get as cold. I think that is probably a win-win situation. Also, cars are required to have snow tires past a certain time of the year, and I think that is coming up soon. So near the bike racks, there is one little shelter and it has stacks of tires chained in sets of four and I never knew why, but now it all makes sense since I keep hearing about how much it snows here.

Next weekend me and Michal are going to try to get up to Hokkaido before it begins to snow too much. Also, I have my Japanese Midterm tomorrow. Both of these events require a super human effort in Japanese proficiency, so wish me luck. がんばる！うまく行くといいな〜！