Japan Blog Matsuri – Frugalista Japan
26 Aug 2009 6 Comments
in JapanBlogMatsuri Tags: Japan, JapanBlogMatsuri, living frugally, surviving the seasons
This month’s topic for JapanSoc’s Japan Blog Matsuri is living cheap in Japan hosted by Frugalista Japan. Japan is a expensive place to live in, and for those of us living on a teacher’s salary, it’s important not to toss money out of the window! Here’s a few of my favorite tips for living cheap in Japan:
First: Utilities are expensive!
1) Unplug unnecessary electronics
It’s a know fact that most electronics, even while “off,” consume a small amount of power to keep internal clocks and those little “power off” lamps running. If you want to save money, try unplugging your unnecessary electronics (like gaming systems, computers, TVs, DVD players, stereos, NOT YOUR FRIDGE ~_^) when you’re not using them. Or you could plug them into those power strips with the power cut switches for each outlet. This could cut down your bills by a whole lot!
2) Surviving the seasons: Anyone who’s lived in Japan knows just how cold it gets (mostly because houses have minimal insulation, which means it’s just as hot/cold inside your house as out!). How do you stay warm without spending a fortune? Here’s a few ideas: first, spend as much time out of your house as possible. Use another area’s heat/cooling! That means spending time in your local coffee shop, shopping mall, etc. Second, get yourself a kotatsu, that wonderful little table with a blanket and a heater. Most people move into one room for the duration of winter because it’s easier to heat that way. Put your kotatsu there. Even if you don’t use a room heater, 90% of you will be warm if you’re under the kotatsu. Third, don’t use your aircon unit as a heater. Too much of an energy hog. Get yourself a small electric/kerosene space heater or consider a heated carpet. Also, sealing your windows with bubble wrap and tape helps reduce heat-stealing drafts and increases insulation. You can find bubble-wrap window insulation in your local home store. In the summer you can keep cool with box fans and open windows. Hang your wet laundry near a window. The evaporation that happens as the breeze from outside dries your clothes also cools the air.
Second: Food is really expensive!
1) Prepared foods (like bento, sushi, fried items) are all half-off at the end of the business day at all supermarkets/bakeries and smaller food stands. Hold off shopping until 7pm and you could run away with a pile of food for half the prince you usually pay! Also, prepared foods get “time service” throughout the day. If something hasn’t been bought 3-4 hours after it’s been prepared, it’s get a discount sticker. They’ll keep discounting until the end of the day.
2) Fruit and Veg Reject Days/Carts:
Each grocery store has a cart near the produce section for “rejects,” fruits and veg that aren’t perfect (by Japanese standards, that is ^^). The produce people cull their section every day – the selections on the cart are usually half-price or even more. Keep your eyes open for good stuff there. Also, some bigger grocery stores have a specific day a week they do the big cull. You can get heavily discounted fruits (aka, a bag of apples for Y400 instead of Y800).
3) Eat seasonally.
That means mikan in winter, watermelon/melon in summer, figs and persimmons in fall and bananas all year round. Fruits and veg are way less expensive in their season, so gorge yourself and save money in other seasons when you can’t stand the thought of eating that stuff again!
The Art of Summer Reading
25 Aug 2009 4 Comments
in Books, Food, Japan, Japanese Culture, Movies, Music, On Books & Reading, Reading, Recipes, videos Tags: ayaka, Books, dororo, manga, mark bittman, mary beard, Movies, osamu tezuka, pompeii, sing to the sky, summer reading
What’re you reading this summer? I’ve broken down and treated myself to a box of books from Amazon.co.jp (thank goodness for online English book shopping) as my part of stimulating the economy XD Here’s what should be arriving in a few days:
Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food”
Mark Bittman's cookbook - coming to me soon!
I learned of Mark Bittman through another food blog and have come to respect his straight-forward, honest, down-to-earth, passionate approach to food and life through his blog, Bitten. He’s written several cookbooks, all of which will one day be mine(!) but for the moment I’ve decided on the vegetarian cookbook to start with. Bittman makes a great statement in his later book for “part-time veganism” where he asks people to think about eating vegan for 2 meals a day as a way to reduce their impact in the environment as well as their own bodies.
“You don’t eat any, or much, in the way of animal products or processed food during the day. At night you eat what you want,” he explains. “In some ways it’s stricter than veganism in that there’s no junk allowed. In others it’s easier — milk in coffee is acceptable, and breaking the rules occasionally is okay. The basic line is this: no matter how you do it, you [and the planet] will benefit if you eat a higher proportion of plants and a lower proportion of everything else.” ~Mark Bittman, Food Matters
Since I’ve come to Japan I’ve become 90% vegetarian at home anyway, so I’m looking forward to learning some new tricks of the trade. All of his recipes have come out excellently. I’m particularly fond of his simple take on palak paneer, an Indian spinach and cheese curry, in this case made with tofu.
“Dororo Vol. 1″ by Osamu Tezuka
Dororo vol. 1
Classic manga by the writer of Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion (among many others). I saw the awesome movie that came out here in 2007 (you might have seen the trailer) and was hooked. Basically, a warlord is losing a war badly and calls up a troupe of demons for help. The demons promise to give him power to win the war, but in return they demand his body parts. Of course it would be hard to rule a country without a body, so the warlord promises the body of his unborn child. The child is born (without innards, arms, legs, ears, tongue, etc) and abandoned down a stream. He’s picked up by essentially a mad scientist who creates replacements for the parts he’s missing – including some pretty awesome katana instead of hands. The story follows him in his attempt to kill the demons who have taken his body parts and reclaim them to become fully human.
Interestingly enough, this movie/manga also introduced me to Tuvan music, a kind of folk music from Tuval region, north of Mongolia and east of Russia. It’s characterized by a kind of “throat singing” in which singers can harmonize with themselves. The opening track in the movie is performed by Huun Huur Tu, one of the only internationally performing Tuvan groups. You can see the first 2 minutes of the movie with the Tuvan song in this video:
“Pompeii: Life of a Roman Town” by Mary Beard
Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town
“Pompeii explodes a number of myths – from the very date of the eruption, probably a few months later than usually thought; the hygiene of the baths which must have been hotbeds of germs; and the legendary number of brothels, most likely only one, to the massive death count which was probably less than ten per cent of the population. Street Life, Earning a Living: Baker, Banker and Garum Maker (who ran the city), The Pleasure of the Body: Food, Wine, Sex and Baths, these chapter headings give a surprising insight into the workings of a Roman town. At the Suburban Baths we go from communal bathing to hygiene to erotica. A fast-food joint on the Via dell’Abbondanza introduces food and drink and diets and street life. These are just a few of the strands that make up an extraordinary and involving portrait of an ancient town, its life and its continuing re-discovery, by Britain’s leading classicist.“
Sounds riveting, but so often historical writers are as dry and dead as the objects they study (for example, Liza Dalby). I hope her writing lives up to her research capabilities!
Sing to the Sky by Ayaka
Sing to the Sky - by Ayaka
Awesome CD by a smooth, talented Japanese singer. A great way to ease into Japanese pop music. Ayaka’s voice is extremely flexible and her laid-back easy rock style makes her CDs great to have on in the background any time of day. Sadly she’s been recently diagnosed with Graves’ Disease (a kind of hyper-thyroidism) and her career has been put on hold for the moment. Hopefully she’ll come back in the future with more albums for her fans!
Listen to my favorite of her songs, “手をつなごう” Let’s Hold Hands:
Lyrics here.
“永遠ってコトバ あるのかな？
未来を想うと 怖くなるけど
ずっと ずっと 続く夢があるから…
手をつなごう““Is there really such a thing as words that speak of eternity’s meaning?
When I think of the future, I begin to grow frightened but
Because it has always been a continuing dream through all this time…
Let us join hands and face tomorrow together.“
~MS the Younger
Which do you prefer?
21 Aug 2009 4 Comments
in Life, Poetry, Thoughts Tags: Wallace Stevens
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes.
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird’, Wallace Stevens
The Art of Staying Cool – Japan style
18 Aug 2009 4 Comments
in Culture, Food, Japan, Japanese Culture, Recipes Tags: eel, Japan, keeping cool, natsubate, summer, windchimes
Now that the rain is finally clearing up here in Ishikawa (hellooooooo rainy season that was 3 times as long as normal) the dog days of summer are moving in… or as they say, the days of 夏ばて, natsubate, “summer exhaustion.” So what’s the best way to keep cool in Japan?
1) うなぎ – eel
Delicious unagi kaba-yaki!
Delicious and fatty, the nutrients and oil in eel fortifies people against summer heat. Try unagi, fresh-water eel, or anago, salt-water eel. Most popular is delicious kaba-yaki donburi, or roasted eel with sauce over rice. Sadly eel is on the list of badly pressured fish populations, but once a summer is ok, right? ::drooling foodie guilt::
2) 甚平- jinbei
DBZ jinbei for your favorite otaku.
Traditionally men’s gear, jinbei is essentially a pair of matching shorts and a gi top (familiar to anyone who’s practiced judo, kendo, aikido or karate). Today it’s branched out to ridiculously bright character patterns including Hello Kitty, anime, and Rirakkuma themes.
Even babies can get in on the action!
Kids love to wear them to festivals as a yukata alternative. Light fabrics and air-holes make them great pajamas in summer!
Popular character Rirakkuma makes his clothing debut.
3) 風りん – fuurin
Wind chimes are hung all over the place as soon as the heat sets in. Unlike most chimes from back home which make a series of tuned notes, many Japanese fuurin are made of glass or ceramic and make a gentle “clink clink” that is supposed to distract your mind from the heat. Surprisingly effective!
Beautiful glass fuurin distract your mind from summer suffering O.o
4) 扇子 – sensu and 団扇 – uchiwa
Flat uchiwa fans.
Sensu are fold-able fans and uchiwa are flat, round, un-foldable fans. Folding fans were invented in Japan in the 8th century and subsequently taken in China. Talk about a reversal of the normal order of things! Today they’re mass produced but in the past beautiful handmade fans helped indicate status in Heian Era courts. The more ribs your fan had, the higher up you were. Folding fans also hold very important ritual significance in Noh Theatre, Shinto religious ceremonies and for traditional dancers. Uchiwa on the other hand came straight from China. Traditionally made of bamboo and thick handmade paper, uchiwa are handed out on street corners with advertisements for shops and promotions alongside their more traditional cousins.
Folding sensu.
5) Cold foods
The best part of summer! Try your hand at soba:
Soba (buckwheat noodles) served cold with dipping sauce.
or kakigohri (shaved ice and syrup, condensed milk or sweet red beans make great toppers too!):
No red beans here...
~MS the Hotter (and stuck in rainy season)
The art of the milk bottle
14 Aug 2009 10 Comments
in Art, Craft, Creativity, Glass Tags: Found art, milk bottle, recycling
We just love this post. It touches upon our love of dairy products, art made from recycled materials, found art, toys, glass objects and whimsy. What could be more pleasing? Enjoy.
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British artist Caroline Saul’s “sculptural bulbous vessels” are quite amazing. They’re made from recycled plastics.
My passion lies with the creation of new materials from objects that might otherwise be thrown away. The development of my recycled plastics leads to the creation of sculptural bulbous vessels.
Image source
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Baldwin artist crafts faces from discarded milk jugs
It was happenstance, a discerning eye and a craving for one of his favorite meals that led Baldwin County native Vincent Hall in the early 1990s to embark on an unusual craft: From discarded milk jugs, he began sculpting faces.
Read the full story from The Macon Telegraph
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Toys made from recycled milk jugs
Green Toys are made in the USA from curbside collected recycled milk jugs. Yes, you read that right, your old milk jugs have been transformed into spectacular toys. The tea set meets FDA standards for food contact, meaning your little girl can actually serve tea instead of just pretending. This tea set is also dishwasher safe and unbelievably sturdy – definitely a toy to be reused by other children. Green Toys Tea Set includes everything your child will need to have the perfect party: tea pot, creamer, sugar bowl, four cups, four saucers and four spoons. Drink up!
Green Toys are made in the USA from curbside collected recycled milk jugs. Yes, you read that right, your old milk jugs have been transformed into spectacular toys. The tea set meets FDA standards for food contact, meaning your little girl can actually serve tea instead of just pretending. This tea set is also dishwasher safe and unbelievably sturdy – definitely a toy to be reused by other children. Green Toys Tea Set includes everything your child will need to have the perfect party: tea pot, creamer, sugar bowl, four cups, four saucers and four spoons. Drink up!
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Another British artist, Charlotte Hughes-Martin, engraves glass milk bottles and then releases them into the world to be found:
The aim of this project was firstly to have a bit of fun. To release art into “ the world” and see what would happen. If I introduced something new into the communal glass arena, being moved from one person to another, would it open peoples’ eyes to more of the everyday stuff around them? Would it make people giggle? Would I make the milkman paranoid at the graffiti, and would it get back to the dairy? I am now curious to see what will happen.
Image source
~MadSilence to&w
The Art of the Haiku
12 Aug 2009 7 Comments
in Culture, Japan, Japanese Culture, Poetry Tags: Basho, haiku, Poetry, summer, Zen
Basho (1644-1694) is considered Japan’s greatest poetry writer for composing short yet exceedingly difficult haiku. National Geographic has a beautiful photo gallery currently featuring photographs illustrating a story about a journey on foot Basho took not long before his death. He actually walked through my prefecture, Ishikawa, on his journey.
The man himself.
“A mound of summer grass
Are warriors’ heroic deeds
Only dreams that pass?”
Haiku are both extremely easy to write but difficult to master. In English most people are taught to follow the 5-7-5 rule (1 line of 5 syllables, one of 7, and another of 5). Along with this long-short-long format you also need to include 2 things: a kigo (seasonal word) and a kireji (a cut marker). The soul of haiku lies in nature, so people use insects, plants, flowers and other words to show when their poem is set. The World Kigo Database has an excellent collection of seasonal words for poem writing. They also have an easy to understand explanation of the finer points of haiku writing:
“Write about a personal experience, not a philosophical thought or idea.
Try to pay attention to the small things in life with all their details,
the seasonal changes of your daily human life.
Every moment of your life counts!
Be Here and Now!“
Photo credit kretyen.
For more on the (very Zen) philosophy of haiku writing, head over here. Or if you want to give it a try, head over to the Magnetic Poetry Virtual Refrigerator for a magnet poetry challenge! You could even join a weekly haiku challenge (Google has shown me the “Recession Haiku Challenge,” “Weight Loss Haiku Challenge” and the “Skateboard Haiku Challenge” among 19430954095 other results ^^). But here’s my challenge to you: write a haiku about where you are right now and post it in the comment! Doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, just give it a try!
Here’s mine:
“The hum of the air-con
Can’t drown out the cicadas
Summer office days”
~MS the Younger
What if your life was a work of art?
07 Aug 2009 4 Comments
I’ve always believed that art resides within the depths of the human brain, at the seat of perception. The mind interprets the colors and shapes perceived with the eyes, assigning meaning and value. This makes each of us the final arbiter of art, the ultimate artist. In much the same way we assign meaning and value to the art work that is our lives. The ultimate act of artistic creation is to create one’s own life. Our careers, relationships, children, our homes & environs, the thoughts we think, all contribute to the ultimate artistic creation.
What if your life was a work of art?
Each of us is currently painting this painting of life.
When your time is up, will your painting be complete?
Will it serve the purpose you truly want?
“The ultimate use of the human brain is to create one’s own life.”
- Ilchi Lee, Creator of Brain Education
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Addendum:
When I saw the beginning of this post, it reminded me so much of Lois McMaster Bujold, an amazing SF/F writer whose works I’ve been reading for years now. Her regular stuff is great space opera (like the Vorkosigan Series) but her newer series, “The Curse of Chalion,” is a study in spiritualism in a fantasy world. The second book of the series, Paladin of Souls, follows a spiritually scarred woman on her path to healing while saving the world from rampant packs of demons. I don’t do much justice in my description, but suffice it to say that Bujold manages to create intricate stories of people in far-away worlds that keep you riveted while exploring motherhood, spirituality and philosophy at the same time. One of my favorite quotes from the book is this:
“Your soul is your own. To make of what you will. We are all of us, our own works, we present our souls to our patrons at the end of our lives as an artisan presents the work of his hands” ~Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold
~MS the Younger
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More Best Food Blogs…
07 Aug 2009 4 Comments
in Blogging, Blogroll, cooking, Food Tags: best food blogs, Food, food blogs, Recipes
Photo credit ginnerobot.
…from the wonderful blog NotionsCapital:
Blogs with Bite is an occasional omnivorous sampling of food blogs and sites we find particularly tasty. Follow the trail of bread crumbs back to earlier editions, starting here.
The latest serving of Blogs with Bite:
The Local Beet– “Local” means Chicago, but there are well-written blogs and features to interest readers (and eaters) everywhere.
Popcorn! — Website of the nonprofit Popcorn Board. Recipes, Encyclopedia Popcornica, features foe kids and teachers. Season it with the savory history of popcorn feature at USDA’s National Agricultural Library website.
Wild Fermentation– Micro-organisms make your meals tasty and your food longer-lasting. Unique, well-written website by Sandor Ellix Katz (Sandorkraut). Recipes and tips for making sauerkraut, pickles, sourdough, alcohol, and more.
Howcast Food & Cooking Videos – Kitchen skills, techniques, and recipes in a good selection of cuisines. Excellent production values.
Table Matters– Online magazine with outstanding features, particularly in the Culinaria and DIY departments.
Other Kitchens – First-rate food photos; links to recipes.
Binnur’s Turkish Cookbook – Tasty Turkish cooking blog by Canadian author Binnur Tomay.
Seafood Selector – “Choose fish that are good for you and the ocean” through this webpage by the Environmental Defense Fund.
World’s Largest Ketchup Bottle – That may be “ketchup” to you, but this monument is in Collinsville, Illinois, former home of Brooks Catsup (now fresher!).
Beer Maps – The Beer Mapping Project. Maps of cities in the U.S.A. and a dozen other countries with locations of breweries, brewpubs, beer bars, beer stores, and homebrew stores. Beer Trip Planner function.
Burnt Lumpia – Well-written, self-aware blog about Filipino cuisine and Southern California culture. Fun.
Dairy Today – Skim the cream of milk industry news from this Farm Journal website.
Cook Eat Fret– A cooking blog by Nashville’s Claudia Young.
Food Photography Club– A Flickr photo group. 224 members, 5,644 photos, discussion and tips.
Eat Make Read – Chatty personal cooking blog by Brooklyn’s Kelly Carámbula. Excellent photography.
FoodConsumer – Informative — perhaps too informative — about possible health threats in comestibles. On the other hand, reading it may be an effective appetite suppressant for dieters.
Eat Me Daily – This group blog looks at food, culture, food in culture, and the culture of food. Recent posts: cooking in submarines, a digital Big Mac commerical, food paintings by Philadelphia artist Mike Geno, and a tribute to Gidget the Taco Bell chihuahua (1994 — 2009).
~MS the Younger
If you’re hungry for more, head over to our previous 50 Best Food Blogs post!
The art of the steal
03 Aug 2009 3 Comments
in Art, art criticism, Life, Thoughts Tags: art market, Poll
And just what goes into an artwork, anyway? A few dollars worth of canvas, some pigment & brushes, a dozen, forty, or maybe a hundred hours of creative work. What is the fruit of the creative process worth? And what happens when measures of worth (prices) change arbitrarily? ~MadSilence
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A thought provoking article from Barrons.com entitled The Art of the Steal expands on this topic, reporting that “Faced with a severe slowdown in sales, art galleries across the country are slashing their prices by as much as 30%.“
The basic problem is clear: The worldwide economic slump has sapped demand for works of art across the board — paintings, sculptures and more. What has yet to be seen is whether the price reductions will do much to improve the situation for galleries.
Some galleries are cutting the prices shown to the public. More often, they are privately negotiating discounts for their better customers. While galleries have offered such deals in past downturns, these reductions are the largest many experts can remember.
‘When the market speaks, one should listen to it,’ says Paul Gray, director of Chicago’s Richard Gray Gallery, noting he has ‘contacted all our artists about readjusting their prices. They get it, to a certain degree, but they don’t have the conversations I have with clients.’
Interestingly, “price-cutting may be more effective for selling homes and autos than it is for selling art.“ It could even reduce demand.
‘Price is a signal of quality and your commitment that this is good art,’ says Gerald Friedman, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst. ‘If you cut the price, it sends a signal that this is not a desirable product.’
For price-cutting to work, a product must have what economists call elasticity of demand — that is, demand that shrinks or expands with higher or lower prices. However, ‘demand for art is probably not elastic,’ says John Silvia, chief economist for Wachovia. He notes that lowering the price for less-expensive consumer items ‘brings people into the store, but if you have a product that is fairly unique or distinct, like art or jewelry, the answer is no, you don’t lower the price.’ Price-cutting, he says, could ‘create a doubt in the minds of future buyers about any work of art you sell. They wonder, ‘Am I being cheated now?’ ‘
“No matter the economic conditions, galleries must strive to attract new customers, and to that end, more galleries are also cutting published prices.”
~MadSilence
Searching for..the Lincoln cent
01 Aug 2009 3 Comments
in Collecting, Life, News, Thoughts Tags: Lincoln cent, numismatics, penny
As a youth I enjoyed riding my bike to the bank on a Saturday morning, eager to purchase rolls of coins. Pennies, nickels, dimes & quarters, I would break each roll open, searching for that rare Wheatie, silver dime or quarter, steel penny, and WWII nickels with the large mint mark above Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello dome. In those days I always carried an Eisenhower Dollar in my pocket. How I regretted the day when those silver coins switched to a clad composition of cupronickel. Since then new issues just haven’t inspired me, not the Susan B. Anthony dollar, nor the golden Sacagawea, nor the 50 State Quarters® Program.
I’ve been waiting patiently since February 2009 to obtain examples of the newly designed Lincoln cent with nary a penny to be found. What a coup to send a handful to Japan! The teller at the savings bank didn’t even know what I was talking about (“What new penny?”)…
Ken Hall writes in The Journal of Antiques & Collectibles that the new coins (634.8 million of the log cabin design were minted by the U.S. Mint) are languishing in the vaults of the Federal Reserve, waiting for banks to order them. Victims of the slow economy and a lower demand for coins for business transactions.
Their scarcity means that some people are selling 50-cent rolls on eBay for as much as $50. Makes more “cents” to purchase a Lincoln Cent Two-Roll Set directly from the U.S. Mint for $8.95.
We want a new Lincoln penny! MadSilence readers, should you possess a real world example (not a virtual copy as pictured above), email us immediately. We’ll respond with our U.S. mailing address. The reader whose penny we receive first in the mail will receive a suitable gift via return snail mail. So check those pockets!
Learn more about the 2009 Lincoln Cent Designs.
United States coin images from the United States Mint.
~MadSilence
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