Get the number of that fish!

WHAT DO YOU GET when you combine the Japanese love of new technology and gadgets with their insistence on food freshness and concerns caused by recent incidents of falsely labeled food products, particularly those from overseas?

Maritime mug shot

Several possibilities come to mind, but one is now undergoing trials conducted by the Nagasaki Prefectural Institute of Fisheries and the Yokohama-based National Research Institute of Fisheries Science. The two groups are working with a Nagasaki fishing cooperative to test the viability of a system in which tags with QR codes are placed on individual fish to allow consumers to trace the region where it was caught, the cooperative that caught it, the network used to distribute it, and the date it was shipped. It’s the first system of this type in Japan, and one of the innovations for this particular application is that the tags don’t require a special reader.

Here’s how it works: Consumers use their cell phones to photograph the QR code on the tag attached to the fish head, connect to the Internet, access a site jointly operated by the Japan Fisheries Association (link at right sidebar) and the Fishing Boat and System Engineering Association, and get the fish story firsthand. In fact, consumers don’t need even need a cell phone camera—they can get the same information by using their PCs to input the tag number at the website.

The fish being used for the trials is a type of horse mackerel (aji in Japanese) caught in the strait between the Goto Islands and Nagasaki Prefecture. Reports say this fish was selected because it’s easier to trace from catch to shipment, though the reports didn’t say why. Each of the 150 fish in the initial trial shipment weighs at least 250 grams (8.8 ounces). They will be sold for about JPY 1,000 apiece (about $US 11.11) within four or five days at Tokyo department stores, which are about 966 kilometers (600 miles) away from the point of shipment.

The two groups conducting the trial say the system could benefit consumers because it will enable them to quickly check fish quality and freshness. That’s not always easy to determine with the naked eye, and some Japanese distribution routes are complicated. The consumer will also know just where the fish was caught.

The fishing co-ops hope it promotes this particular kind of fish and boosts slack fish prices. The trials are also being used to determine the amount of work required to tag each fish and the amount of additional distribution costs. The system will go into full-scale operation if it functions smoothly and if the producers and the consumers are comfortable with it.

Here’s the website that will be used for the system, for those who read Japanese.

Now I ask you: Did you ever think you’d see the day when you could use your own telephone while shopping at a retail outlet to check the freshness of a fish on display in a bin?

Getting boared in Japan

PICK ALMOST ANY TOPIC as a point of departure for exploring Japan, and it’s a near certainty that a fountain-full of serendipitous discoveries will emerge in short order. Even when the topic is boaring!

The Japanese have eaten inoshishi (boar) meat, sometimes known as brawn, since ancient times, most often in stews in the winter. But boars are extremely skittish around people, perhaps as an evolutionary response for staying out of boiling cauldrons of water. They usually hightail it for cover as soon as they spot a human, making them difficult to hunt.

The meat of wild animals was considered taboo at times in the past in Japan, though that taboo was often ignored in mountainous areas. The hardy mountaineers kept eating boar meat, which was also known as yamakujira, or mountain whale (not to be confused with mountain oysters), due to a similarity in taste and texture. That’s a yamakujira shop depicted in the Hiroshige print. A Kansai rakugo comic routine called Buying Boar in Ikeda, which dates from 1707, relates the story of a man with gonorrhea who travels with a hunter in search of some wild game. (No, no, not that kind of game!) Izu, Shizuoka, was once the home of the Amagi Wild Boar Theme Park, and was enough of an attraction to draw as many as 400,000 visitors in 1985. It was shut down for good last year due to declining interest and the economic turndown.

The Japanese also consider the animal a pest, both in urban and rural areas. Packs of wild boar have been known to roam city streets at night, rooting through garbage and generally being rude and ugly. Farmers dislike them because they trample, root up, and eat crops. In fact, they’ve gotten so boorish in Takeo, Saga, the municipal government established a department this April and assigned it the task of finding ways to reduce the local population.

In a classic case of making lemonade when life hands you a lemon, the city employees hit on the idea of making boar meat a special local product and marketing it nationwide. To give local hunters an added incentive to track down the animals and sell the meat, they worked with a local butcher to create food products that can be eaten year-round.

The accompanying photo was taken at a recent event in which sausage and bacon-like products made from 100% boar meat were presented to the public for tasting. The boar for the breakfast table will hit the market later this month, selling for JPY 1,000 (about $US 10.25) for a 200-gram package. Lemongrass and spices have been added to the sausage to enhance the taste. The butchers have also developed a lunchmeat product resembling smoked ham, which will sell for JPY 500 yen for 60 grams. They plan to roll out hamburger- and roast ham-like products this fall.

Though the Amagi Wild Boar Theme Park no longer exists, those people who can’t live without boar exhibits in their lives might consider a trip to the Go’o Shinto shrine near the geographical center of Kyoto. All Shinto shrines have statues of what are called koma-inu, or guardian dogs. In 1890, the Go’o shrine took the somewhat eccentric step of replacing their statues of guardian dogs with those of boars.

Since most boars are chicken and likely to run in the other direction when they sense a threat, they would not seem to be a logical candidate for selection as the guardian of anything. Ah, but the shrine had its reasons. One of the shrine’s tutelary deities is Wake-no-Kiyomaro, a Japanese government official who lived in the 8th century. He is known for his efforts to separate church (or rather, Buddhist temple) and state. After he became entangled with Imperial succession intrigues and fraudulent oracles at the Usa Shinto shrine, the ruling powers exiled him, had the sinews of his legs cut, and nearly killed him. He was later recalled from exile to serve in government again, and convinced the tenno (emperor) Kammu to build a new capital at Kyoto instead of Nagaoka.

The story goes that he was set upon by assassins as he was limping along the road on his way to exile. He was saved in the nick of time by the sudden appearance of a herd of 300 wild boars. Sometimes the cavalry arrives on something other than horseback!

The Japanese expression chototsumoshin (猪突猛進), the first kanji of which is that for boar, means a headlong rush, and also has the nuance of rashness in action. Now combine that with the boars’ providential rescue of the hobbled Wake-no-Kiyomaro. That was enough to make the shrine a destination for those seeking divine assistance to ensure sound lower limbs, regardless of their current condition. Petitioners include both those in wheelchairs or people who use canes, as well as ekiden runners and soccer players.

Given the ever-fertile Japanese imagination, it was inevitable that someone would put two and two and two together to combine boar cuisine and their straight line foot speed to come up with a new form of entertainment. The folks in Sasayama, Hyogo, have been holding Inoshishi Festivals for several years now in January that draw upwards of 20,000 people. What’s the big attraction? After dining on different dishes featuring wild boar meat, the revelers head for a nearby track to watch the boar races.

But the feast comes first, of course, and several well-known area restaurants set up a special area where they offer original cuisine, including boar meat soup, boar croquettes, and oden. The meals are reportedly so tasty that the diners form lines to enter one shop while eating the offerings of another. The restaurants usually sell out their stock every year.

Then it’s time for the main event, which features wild boars sprinting around an enclosed track. The trotters are given ear-catching names, just as if they were thoroughbreds running the Triple Crown. Can’t you almost hear the track announcer barking out the name of one contestant? “Heading into the far turn, it’s Dekan Showboy by a snout.” The reports don’t mention whether parimutuel betting is allowed.

Now I ask you–where else can you get the chance to spend a day at the races and eat the entrants!

Afterwords:
The idea of making lunchmeat out of brawn is not originally Japanese, as a look at this British website will show. They even sell boar meat salami. Note the high protein and low fat content compared to other meats.

Tokyo on tap

A CONTROVERSY HAS ERUPTED in Scotland over a new beer created by the microbrewers BrewDog that has the highest alcohol content by volume of any beer in the U.K.: 18.2%. James Watt, one of the brewery founders, said their goal was to create high-quality “progressive” beers with exceptional taste that encouraged safe alcohol consumption and kept people from drinking too much.

Scotland and the rest of the U.K. have been dealing with a serious binge drinking problem, however. As you can imagine from that staggering alcohol content, the criticism of the beer—actually an oak-aged imperial stout—has been loud and immediate.

• Alcohol Focus Scotland chief executive Jack Law:

“This company is completely deluded if they think that an 18.2% abv (alcohol by volume) beer will help solve Scotland’s alcohol problems. It is utterly irresponsible to bring out a beer which is so strong at a time when Scotland is facing unprecedented levels of alcohol-related health and social harm.”

• The British Liver Trust:

“The notion of binge-drinking is to get drunk quick, so surely this beer will help people on their way?”

• Ross Finnie, the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ health spokesman:

“I am not sure at all what place producing stronger strength beer has in a Scottish society where, across all age groups and all socio-economic categories, the medical evidence is that, as a nation, we are drinking too much alcohol.”

The brewer has its defenders as well. Zak Avery, a former UK Beer Writer of the Year:

“To claim that this type of beer is part of the alcohol abuse problem is akin to blaming Michelin-starred restaurants for the oft-reported obesity epidemic.”

Yet one aspect of this story that doesn’t seem to be piquing anyone’s interest is the name of this beer.

It’s called Tokyo* (with the asterisk).

Now what could the reason be for that?

Most people overseas would associate Japan with sake when thinking of alcoholic beverages. While there are some fine beers in Japan, the country is not known for oak-aged imperial stout. Most of the beer on the market here is no higher than 5%-5.5% alcohol by volume. In fact, one company is promoting a new brew it just released with a large number 7 on the container denoting that it has 7% alcohol by volume. (Asahi, I think, but I’m not sure.)

Tokyo* beer is made with jasmine, cranberries, malts and American hops, and is fermented with a champagne yeast to boost the alcohol content. None of those ingredients has a Japanese connection. Binge drinking is not really a problem here.

BrewDog has gotten in hot water before over the name of one of its products. They named a beer Speedball, which is a slang term for a mixture of heroin and cocaine. The brewery claimed then it was producing a quality product for responsible drinking and was educating people from misusing drugs. (Does there seem to be a pattern developing?) A local liquor watchdog group sent a non-binding letter to merchants asking them not to sell the product unless the name was changed.

There are no reports of the group thinking there was anything wrong with this name.

So the company has already produced one beer and “pushed the envelope”, as they say, by giving it a name with strong connotations of dangerous, illegal behavior and death. Is the intent the same with this product? You know, kamikaze pilots, World War II…

The spirits industry likes to promote itself this way. We’ve all heard the stories about the pictures of skulls hidden in ice cubes in magazine liquor advertisements. And really, naming a beer Speedball is blatant.

What would the Scottish reaction be if a Japanese brewery produced a new type of sake with an ABV content more than triple that of ordinary sake and named it after one of their cities? Raucous drunken laughter? Pride in the national reputation abroad?

The company also produces a beer named Trashy Blonde. Why should Japan be flattered to be included in a product lineup like that?

If I were the Japanese ambassador—or in the Foreign Ministry—I might want to have a word with someone in the Scottish government.

Afterwords:

Scotland is not known for a healthful attitude toward food and drink to begin with. They even eat deep-fried chocolate bars.

Not surprisingly, the residents have the lowest life expectancy of any developed country in the world.

UPDATE: Reader Durf sends along a link to an Internet beer merchant in York for a Cumbrian ale known as “Dent Kamikaze”, which is a mere 5% alcohol by volume. Fortunately, the illustration on the label is of a ram’s head other than something more lurid.

Boxers or briefs?

JAPANESE MEN have a reputation for disdaining household chores, but even they might think Wakata Koichi went too far—he showed up at work every day for a month straight wearing the same underpants.

Wakata Koichi

It wasn’t as bad or as malodorous as it sounds, though. None of the 12 coworkers in his office complained, which means the experiment for which Mr. Wakata served as the guinea pig was a success.

His u-trou were special–they’re called J-Wear and were designed by JAXA, the Japanese space agency. Going without an underwear change for a month was one of the duties the Japanese astronaut handled while spending the last 138 days aboard the International Space Station. The space shuttle Endeavor gave him a lift back to Earth yesterday. There was no word on whether his underpants started walking around under their own power.

That wasn’t all he did when he was in orbit. As this article in The Scotsman describes:

One had him flying through the cabin standing upright on a white sheet that performed like a surfboard. Another was to administer eye drops in space. That involved him squeezing the liquid into a tiny ball at the tip of the bottle and effectively head-butting it to get it into his eye.

Mr Wakata’s J-Wear included more than futuristic Jockey shorts. JAXA also provided him with special socks, T-shirts, and trousers. He brought all this dirty laundry back home, just as any man on a business trip might do. Instead of leaving the laundry with his wife, however, he gave it to JAXA scientists for study and testing. How’d you like to be one of their lab techs?

And give the spaceman credit, too. Would you want to wear the suit in the photo knowing that you wouldn’t be able to scratch your itchy crotch?

But this wasn’t an outer space first. Doi Takao wore the underpants on the ISS last year, though his experiment lasted for only 16 days. That means a new outer space underwear endurance record has been set!

As chance would have it, I saw part of a television program last night that featured interviews with American astronauts who went to the moon. One described how difficult it was to deal with bowel movements in a weightless environment. Since everything floats, it wasn’t easy making sure everything stayed in the bag without sailing through the cabin.

When people say space is the final frontier, they’re not kidding about the frontier part!

Incidentally, Mr. Wakata made 2,208 earth orbits and traveled for 57,000,000 miles during his more than four months on the space station. The space shuttle has now become a de facto ferryboat, providing taxi service to the station and back.

Perhaps the most newsworthy part of the story is how blasé we’ve become about all this. Mr. Wakata’s adventures didn’t even rate an article in today’s Nishinippon Shimbun.

Afterwords: Here’s what the duds look like.

UPDATE: The coverage of this story by the Japanese media came a day late. It’s on the front page of the newspaper today.

Japan’s cultural kaleidoscope (2)

BAREFOOTIN’ IN TEE-SHIRTS and short pants, all the better to deal with the 30-minute turnarounds of pouring rain and blazing sun: yeah, summer has arrived at last in Japan. During the dog days, the archipelago offers all sorts of hot-weather delights, including watermelon, shaved ice, and best of all, the transformation of even the most neo-radical of young women into traditional beauties once they exchange their jeans for yukata (a summer kimono).

What else is going on up and down the islands? Well, take a look and find out!

Firefly festivals

Once upon a time, summer nights on the East Coast of the United States came alive with a light show au naturel created by fireflies. The march of progress and suburbia seems to have ended all that, but the lightning bugs, as we used to call them, are still alive and flickering in the countryside here.

This is Japan, so take it as given that people know just when to expect their appearance every year, just how long it will last, and how to organize the viewing parties and festivals held to coincide with those dates.

Lightning bugs!

The photo shows the fireflies near the Ayu River in Tanabe, in the southern part of Wakayama. It’s one of several locations in the area known as superb firefly viewing sites from the end of May to the beginning of June.

But as with the cherry blossoms and the rainy season, the firefly front keeps marching north, and right now the folks in Yonezawa, Yamagata, are enjoying a month-long firefly festival at the Onogawa spa. The festival is sponsored by the spa’s tourism association and the Yonezawa Firefly Protection Society. The opening ceremony was held at the local memorial firefly tower to pray for the safety of the participants during the event. Those Yonezawans must really like fireflies!

It’s not a festival in Japan without liquor, so right after the prayers they perform another centuries-old ritual by knocking open the head of a sake barrel with wooden hammers and passing the hooch around. They say some people see double when they drink too much, so you can imagine the sort of visions that light up the retinas of the festival-goers when a wave of fireflies floats by.

The viewing in Yonezawa begins on the riverbank right after it gets dark at 8:00 p.m. and lasts until 9:00. The area is such a firefly mecca that three different species breed here, and who but the entomologists knew there were different types of lightning bugs? For a spot of relaxation after all this excitement, the open-air baths stay open until nine, and there’s a tea house set up temporarily next to the firefly tower. The festival fun lasts until 31 July, but some people like to time their visit for the amateur entertainment contest on the 4th and 5th.

Hatsukiri

Sliding over from zoology to botany, here’s a photo of the festival held by the Miyajidake Shinto shrine in Fukutsu, Fukuoka, for the first cutting of Edo irises in a local garden. The purpose of the event, called Hatsukiri—first cutting, appropriately enough—is to present the irises as an offering to the divinities. They’ve got plenty of flowers from which to choose, because the garden has 30,000 individual plants. While the priests grunt, bend over, and swing their scythes, two miko hold irises as they perform a dance accompanied by a flute. More than 200 people came to watch. A small turnout, you say? That’s not a bad crowd for watching two girls perform a centuries-old dance in costume in a garden in a town of 56,000 while priests cut flowers. How many people would show up where you live?

The shrine held its Iris festival on the same day. They place 70,000 irises in front of the shrine and light ‘em up until 9:00 p.m. for 10 days. The shrine has its own iris garden too, started from bulbs sent by the Meiji-jingu in Tokyo in 1965. They now have 100,000 plants in 100 varieties. That’s a heck of a lot of irises, but they need that many to go around for all of Shinto’s yaoyorozu divine ones. (Yaoyorozu is the traditional number of divinities in Shinto. It literally means eight million, but figuratively represents an infinite number, signifying that each natural object has a divine spirit.)

Seaweed cutting

Irises weren’t the only flora getting cut for a Shinto ritual. Four priests from the Futamikitama Shinto shrine in Ise, Mie, boarded a boat with some miko and sailed offshore for some seaweed cutting. They present the seaweed—fortunately an uncountable noun—to the divinities, allow it to dry out for a month, and then distribute it to their parishioners to drive out bad fortune and eradicate impurities.

At 10:30 a.m., the priests set sail on their skiff festooned with red, yellow, green, purple, and white streamers, with bamboo grass placed at bow and stern, and headed for the special seaweed site 770 meters northeast of the Futami no Meoto, sometimes called the Wedded Rocks. (The word meoto designates a pair of something, one large and one small.) Since this is a special ritual, they can’t just start cutting—first they have to circle the divine Kitama rock on the seabed three times, then they haul out a three-meter long sickle and get to work.

Sea goya

Since the subject is aquatic plants, now’s as good a time as any to report that the Fukuka Aquaculture Center in Kin-machi, Okinawa, is ramping up production of a new variety of sea grapes they hope to popularize in Japan after sales start next month. The center has dubbed the new type “sea goya”, after the knobby bitter squash for which Okinawa is famous. (Here’s a previous post about sea grapes in Okinawa and goya in general.)

Tastes as good as it looks!

The center’s director said they discovered these particular sea grapes among a batch imported in March 2008. The new variety flourished in the southern climate, and that gave people the idea to turn it into a new product, particularly as they were looking for ways to juice the market after the prices of regular sea grapes and mozuku seaweed tanked.

They decided to call the new plant sea goya because it’s more elongated than regular sea grapes and has the bitter flavor of goya. The center has already applied to register the name as a trademark, and they’re confident the application will be approved. After hearing about the new product, more than 10 companies inquired about handling the distribution.

Nara ayu

After insects, irises, seaweed, and sea grapes, here come the freshwater fish: namely the ayu, or sweetfish, which we’ve encountered before in a post about their encounters with traditional traps.

Some sweetfish just for you

These sweetfish, however, were caught by means with an even longer and exalted pedigree—trained cormorants. The birds require keepers that are somewhat analogous to falconers, all of whom ply their skills for the Imperial Household Agency because the technique is a tradition of the Japanese Imperial household. (Dig their costumes in the photo at the link.)

Six keepers were employed to catch the fish at the Imperial fishing grounds on the Nagara River in Gifu City, but the keepers can handle up to a dozen birds on the end of ropes, so they must have taken quite a haul. They go out in boats too, but at night, and they take along lighted torches. The fish are attracted to the flame like maritime moths, and the birds dive in after them. The lower part of the cormorants’ necks are collared to prevent them from swallowing the fish, and after they’ve snatched one, the keepers reel them in and make them cough it up. That’s got to be more cruel than feeding a dog peanut butter.

The fish were packed into paulownia boxes and shipped to the Kashihara-jingu, a Shinto shrine in Kashihara, Nara, as well as the Imperial Palace and the Meiji-jingu, another Shinto shrine in Tokyo. Both shrines have an Imperial connection.

The Japanese have been using cormorants to catch sweetfish since at least the 8th century—don’t you wonder who came up with that idea?–and the Nagara River event is more than a millennium old, but this shrine has been receiving the sweetfish shipments only since 1940 to offer in prayer for the safety of fishing and a good catch. (The 1940 date suggests it might have begun as part of the celebrations that year marking the 2600th anniversary of the establishment of the Japanese Imperial House.)

Contributing to the delinquency of minors

Yet another sign of summer in Japan is the yaoyorozu of rice-planting festivals held throughout the country. It’s easy to figure out why—they grow the rice in wet paddies, which are made even wetter by all the rain that falls this time of year.

But the students at Miyoshi High School in Miyoshi, Tokushima, weren’t planting this rice as part of a festival; they were getting classroom credit. The lads aren’t planning to be farmers when they grow up–rather, they’re enrolled in a course covering the brewing and fermentation of food products. They’ll harvest that rice in the fall and use it to make sake.

The rice is grown on a 3,000-square-meter paddy the school rents from area residents. The teachers do most of the planting with a machine, and then some of the second year students wade right in and plant by hand those parts the machine can’t reach. They expect to harvest 1.5 tons of the rice in mid-September, which can probably be converted into enough sake to keep the town of Miyoshi more lit than a riverbank full of fireflies until New Year’s. The school started the project last year, and this year they increased the size of the cultivated area six-fold to use only the rice grown by students.

One of those students, 16-year-old Fukuda Shinya, had planted rice before, but he said the seedlings were more difficult to handle because the size was different than that of regular table rice.

Now why couldn’t I have gone to that school!

Shochu collector

While the high school students were outdoors sweating and getting dirty as they planted the rice for the sake they will later brew, Masuyama Hiroki (73) of Izumi, Kagoshima, was relaxing with an adult beverage as he contemplated the success of his 12-year effort to collect one bottle each from all the prefecture’s shochu distillers. This is Kagoshima, where everyone drinks shochu and almost no one drinks sake, so he had his work cut out for him.

He’s so proud of his accomplishment he’s got them lined up on the wall, and hasn’t twisted the cap on a single bottle. Mr. Masuyama decided to make it is hobby after he retired from a job with the prefectural government in 1996 and started working in sales. His business trips took him throughout Kagoshima, and after he got the idea—probably in a bar during one of those business trips–he made a list and started buying while he was selling. He started with 1.8 liter (1.92 US quarts) bottles, but they were too heavy and took up too much space, so he switched to bottles half that size. He had a few difficulties completing the collection, and no, one of them wasn’t a tendency to polish off a bottle before before he could display it on the rack. For one thing, the smaller bottles were sold mainly to commercial establishments, but he applied his salesmen’s skills to get what he wanted. Another was that he didn’t have much of a chance to go to the prefecture’s many outlying islands on business. After retiring from his second job, it took two more years to finish the project.

Mr. Masuyama says he enjoys looking at his collection while having a late-night drink, but his libation doesn’t come from those shelves on the wall. He hasn’t opened any of the bottles and says it would be a waste to drink them.

Now there’s a man with discipline!

Miko class

Shinto shrine maidens, known as miko, get to do all sorts of fun stuff. In this post alone, they’ve sailed out to the Wedded Rocks to help the priests cut seaweed, carried the sacred sweetfish caught by cormorants, and danced while the priests cut Edo irises in Fukutsu. Even better, they get to handle the money at the shrine during New Year’s.

Doesn’t that sound like a great part-time job? If that’s the kind of work you’re looking for, the Kanda Myojin Shinto shrine in Chiyoda, Tokyo, is offering a beginner’s level course that provides instruction in how to become a miko. Even better, the class will last only one day, on 17 August—the middle of summer vacation!

Kanda Myojin conducts the class every year with the idea of giving young Japanese women a better idea of their traditions and culture, as well as teaching them more about the shrine. Last year, the student body consisted of 24 women who got to wear the red and white outfit for a day as they studied the shrine’s history, the daily conduct of affairs at the shrine, and its religious ceremonies.

Considering they charge only JPY 5,000 yen ($US 52.40), that sounds like a good deal. They’re looking for 20 unmarried young women this year from 16 to 22, and enrollment is open until the end of the month.

The declaration of the eisa nation

Start with a party, end with a party. This particular hoedown is the eisa dance native to Okinawa. Centuries ago, it was performed as a rite for the repose of the dead, but now it’s done for entertainment and is more likely to wake the dead than ease their way into the next world.

Okinawa City issued a proclamation declaring itself Eisa Town earlier this month, and held a Declaration Day Eisa Night event outside the city offices to lay claim to the title. Six groups made their eisadelic statement as they performed in original/trad clothing they created themselves. Eisa Night means that eisa season has officially started in the city, and summer in this city means that local youth groups will give public performances every weekend until the really big show, the Okinawa Eisa Festival in September.

During her greeting at the ceremony, Mayor Tomon Mitsuko said, “We hope you come to Okinawa City on the weekends and enjoy yourselves.” Then the dancing started and everyone proceeded to do just that.

It’s not just for the Ryukyuans, either. One of the six groups performing was the Machida-ryu of Machida, Tokyo, who started their own group in 1999 after a trip to Okinawa. They were so captivated by the dance they had to do it themselves at home. Now the troupe has more than 100 members.

There’s an idea: create your own Okinawan dance and drum ensemble and visit Eisa Town next year. If you want to learn, watching the video is a great way to start!

Water balling on Lake Biwa

ON SATURDAY we saw how the folks in Mima are having big fun by curling on a gymnasium floor with kettles, but this one looks even better: water balling on Lake Biwa.

Let's roll!

Thanks to an Italian company that is marketing a clear PVC water ball invented by Charles Jones in 1998, intrepid environmentalists, devotees of water sports, and people on the lookout for a good time can climb into the ball and roll out into the middle of the lake. Walking on water isn’t just a Bible story anymore.

The O’Pal Optics sports club in Otsu, Shiga, and the Nippon Water Walk Association have teamed up to popularize water ball use, and one of their approaches is to pitch the ball to environmental researchers. The idea is to roll out to positions on the lake they couldn’t otherwise see from shore, observe the cleanliness level of the water, and take photos from inside. The lower part of the ball also creates the same effect as a glass-bottomed boat, so waterballers can see what’s going on under the lake’s surface.

The water ball is 2.5 meters in diameter and 0.5 millimeters thick. Riders climb in through a hatchway with a fastener attached, and then use an air blower to inflate it. It has the capacity for two riders–standing room only–so you can double your waterballing fun by going for a roll with a friend. There was no mention of how long riders can stay inside before the air starts to go stale.

The people who’ve tried it say it’s just like a water bed, and no, I didn’t realize any of those were still around either. It floats gently and easily over the small waves on the lake surface, and they claim the experience transports you to another world.

Exhibiting an attitude of proper scientific detachment, the chair of the association said he hopes the ball will help foster an awareness of environmental issues and contribute to interest in Lake Biwa. But after taking a look at the association’s Japanese language website, they’re certainly aware of their new toy’s fun potential, too.

For example, here’s a video of water ball races in the inaugural competition at Lake Biwa last year. The guy in the first pair of racers who had such a hard time standing up said he had never been inside one before.

The second competition is scheduled for 30 August this year. How much longer can it be before someone comes up with an extreme sport or x-rated websites featuring water ball use?

If you’re near Lake Biwa and want to try balling on the water, give O’Pal Optics a call at their toll-free number: 0120-176-668. If you live in other parts of the country, take a look at the Water Walk Association website to see if an event is coming to a swimming pool near you soon.

And if you’re interested in buying one, you can put the search terms “water ball” and Italy into the English-language Google site and plenty of merchants will pop up!

Clarkson on the Honda Insight hybrid

HAVE YOU EVER seen or heard anyone slam a Japanese-made automobile? Apart from labor unions in North America or Europe, of course.

Honda Insight hybrid

My uncle’s opinion is typical of most of those I’ve heard about Japanese cars. Now in his late 80s, he was a young naval officer in World War II, and his adulthood coincided with the zenith of American economic and military power. If anyone might be expected to buy American, it would be him. But he doesn’t—at least not cars, anyway.

Uncle Bob has bought nothing but Toyotas for the past 30 years, and he’s very particular about the kind he buys. “I don’t want any of those Toyotas they build in the United States,” he insists. “I want the ones they make in Japan.”

But today, I read for the first time a review savaging a Japanese automobile–though I admit I spend little time following auto trends. (There are probably plenty of other negative reviews that I haven’t seen.) Jeremy Clarkson, hailed by some as Britain’s premier auto critic, had this to say about the Honda Insight 1.3 IMA SE Hybrid in the Times of London:

It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more.

It’s not that Mr. Clarkson dislikes either Hondas in particular…

Normally, Hondas feel as though they have been screwed together by eye surgeons.

…or Japanese cars in general. (Here he is talking about the Mazda 6 MPS):

“This really is a magnificent driver’s car.”

In fact, he seems to like Mazdas a lot. It’s just that he really detests this Honda:

The only hope I have is that there are enough fools and madmen out there who will buy an Insight to look sanctimonious outside the school gates. And that the cash this generates can be used to develop something a bit more constructive.

One of the factors informing his opinion of this Honda is that he doesn’t care for hybrids:

“…let me be clear that hybrid cars are designed solely to milk the guilt genes of the smug and the foolish.”

Though he does like another Honda hybrid, the Clarity:

“The car feels like a car. And, best of all, the power it produces is so enormous, it can be used by day to get you to 120mph and by night to run all the electrical appliances in your house. This is not science fiction. There is a fleet of Claritys running around California right now.”

In addition to writing articles for the Times of London, Mr. Clarkson appears on BBC TV in a show called Top Gear. At one time, it was the highest rated show on BBC Two in Great Britain. My cable package includes the BBC World Service, and I’ve seen Top Gear in Japan. It’s quite entertaining, even if you think cars are nothing more than machines to transport people and things from Point A to Point B quickly and conveniently. A friend in England named Paul (who studied kendo in Japan for two years) had this to say in an e-mail about Clarkson’s reputation at home:

Clarkson is a God to some and an arrogant, self-important wanker to others.

There’s enough ammunition for either side in his review of the Honda Insight hybrid!

Now get ready for the best part: The car, which was officially released in February in Japan, became Japan’s first best-selling hybrid ever in April. Last month, Honda sold 10,481 Insights in this country, more than any other model by any other manufacturer. The car was a hit from the minute it debuted on the Japanese market, doubling Honda’s initial target during its first month in showrooms. It went on sale in March in Europe and last month in the United States, where prices start at slightly less than $20,000.

As with the proverbial Frenchmen, can 10,000 Japanese be wrong?

Note: The model names for these vehicles are the ones used overseas. I don’t know what the corresponding models are called in Japan. (They’re not always the same.)

Wetting your whistle the Okinawan way

FOLKS WITH A THIRST TO QUENCH in Okinawa can choose among many unique local products that produce a wide range of effects. Several new beverages recently released on the market have widened that range of choice even further.

Those who are parched and looking for something stiff could try the liqueurs created by local distillers using awamori, the Okinawan form of the alcoholic beverage shochu. Awamori actually has a separate legal classification in Japan because it is made with a different kind of yeast, and some varieties still use rice from Thailand, where shochu is said to have originated. Of the many shochu distillers in the Okinawan islands, only one produces what is legally called shochu. The rest make awamori.

The Okinawa Awamori Distillers’ Association is getting antsy about declining alcohol consumption among young people, so they came up with the idea of combining the awamori with locally grown fruit and brown sugar to create the liqueurs. That not only fills up their own coffers, it also provides a fillip to agriculture in the islands. They’ve also lowered the alcohol content to make it more drinkable and appeal to the health conscious. The drinks are a relatively low 10% alcohol by volume, which means they are 20 proof by American standards and 17.5 proof by British standards. The target demographic is younger women, and the distillers hope to get the girls started on the habit of downing a glass or two as if it were a cocktail. The new liqueurs cost about 1.5 to 3 times more than awamori itself, but many customers are happy to fork over the extra cash because they like the distinctive flavors.

One example is the awamori coffee liqueur launched by the Kumesen Distillery of Naha last October. They started selling the drink exclusively in gift shops, but when they saw that initial sales were double their projections, the distillers decided to offer it through mass merchandisers and make some real money.

Zuisen Distilleries, also of Naha, have produced an awamori ume liqueur with brown sugar, and more recently developed a liqueur made with local mangoes. They’re searching for sales outlets now. Meanwhile, the Seifuku Distillery in Ishigaki makes a tropical fruit-flavored variety.

The distilleries association recommends that the liqueurs be drunk before meals or, for those posing as worldly sophisticates, at a bar. But they also suggest that serious drinkers stick with the regular awamori. It’s their bread and butter, after all.

Those looking for something more healthful might prefer Ucchin Soda, which the originator Origami promotes as the King of Okinawa Soda. It’s a carbonated soft drink made with turmeric and the shiikwasa citrus fruit and sells for 500 yen a 330-milliliter can. The Soda King has been on the Ryukyu throne since March.

The king of Okinawan soda

Turmeric, called ukon in Japanese, has become increasingly popular in various forms in this country. One of its uses in Okinawa is as a tonic, and the commercial beverage Ukon no Chikara (The Strength of Turmeric) is sold in convenience stores and supermarkets nationwide as a hangover preventive/remedy. Turmeric thrives in areas with tropical temperatures and buckets of rainfall, and that description fits Okinawa to a T. It’s used for dozens of food applications, is said to be good for the liver, solves digestive problems, and is rubbed on the skin as an antiseptic. The critical ingredient is curcumin, which is also used in sealants to stop car radiator leaks. There’s got to be a common connection there somewhere.

The beverage is made with both spring and autumn ukon from Miyakojima and the main Okinawa island. The local shiikwasa citrus fruit was added for sweetness as a contrast with the bitterness of turmeric. It incorporates both the juice and the pulp from the squeezed rinds, which means it has plenty of vegetable fiber. Where else but Okinawa could you get roughage from soda pop?

Ucchin is sold mostly in a Naha market frequented by local shoppers and tourists, and Origami projects sales of 30,000 cans or bottles this year. The company plans to market the beverage as a product for those with discriminating palates who appreciate off-the-wall refreshments in the hope it creates passionate fans and long-term sales.

They also suggest it can be used at bars as a mixer for cocktails. After that, the next question comes naturally: How well would it blend with awamori?

There’s nothing quite like those Okinawan drinks—they build you up and tear you down all at the same time!

One man’s gunk is another man’s gold mine

FOR MOST PEOPLE, seaweed is just unpleasant gunk that gets in the way of a good time. It’s the stuff everyone tries to avoid when swimming at the seashore, or that gets tangled in fishermen’s lines and stuck on the bottoms of boats.

But the Japanese, of course, love to eat it.

And now, the Okinawans are beginning to view it–as well as other aquatic plants—as a marine bioresource.

The grapes of the sea

To turn all that gunk into products that are beneficial for the user and profitable for the consumer, the Okinawa government, through the Okinawa Prefectural Fisheries and Ocean Research Center, has been working for the past three years with the University of Tokyo, the University of the Ryukyus, and bioventures and health food companies in the private sector to develop the marine bioresource industry. They’re also working to establish better control of intellectual property, primarily through the Okinawa Technology Licensing Organization, to ensure that research results and benefits flow to local enterprises. The Ministry of Education is kicking in 100 million yen (about $US 1.026 million) to help with the effort, and the prefectural government is adding another 41 million yen to the pot.

One project they’re working on is the cultivation and promotion of so-called green caviar (Caulerpa lentillifera), or sea grape, as it is known in Japanese. Usually found on sandy or muddy sea bottoms in shallow protected areas, it is eaten in salads and all sorts of other dishes, as you can see from this link. They’re also studying ways to maintain hygiene in the production of the plant as a food item, the creation of secondary products using the plant (such as shampoo), methods for increasing yield, and the development of a fertilizer specifically for the plant.

Try to imagine the fertilizer delivery mechanism for a plant that grows on the sea bed!

Another project is an examination of the efficacy of fucoidan, a substance present in such popular Japanese seaweed varieties as hijiki, kombu, and wakame, and which some think has potential for cancer treatment. In the same way that many local governments in Japan are doing with other products, the Okinawans are trying to boost its value by creating a regional brand.

Still one more project is the development of a kit for the simple and quick detection of ciguatera toxins, which are found in some subtropical fish.

One man’ s meat is another man’s poison, some say, but Okinawa is hoping that some people’s gunk turns into a treasure for all the islanders!

Taiwan’s pig bile shampoo

‘Twas a brave man that first ate an oyster.
- Jonathan Swift

WHILE LOOKING FOR something else, I stumbled across this article explaining that Taiwanese merchants have created a shampoo out of pig bile.

“Using pig bile as a shampoo is not a new invention. It had just been forgotten about for a while. In fact, it is an ingredient that the older generation is quite aware of,” said Chen Chih-hao, the manager of the meat market in Nantou.

Mr. Chen says that his grandmother would visit the home of people in the neighborhood who slaughtered a pig and ask specifically for the gall bladder.

Never underestimate the resourcefulness of women when it comes to discovering and using without hesitation new beauty aids or cosmetics, regardless of the source.

It’s not surprising that people would use something once it was shown to be safe and effective, but think about this: Who was the brave woman who had the idea to put that stuff on her head to begin with? And why did she do it?