Yuhoho-no-ho’s not a bottle of rum

A DEVOTEE OF KENDO, in this country on a cultural visa to improve his skills in the martial art of beating up people with stout bamboo sticks, used to ask me about unfamiliar words that he encountered in his daily life and managed to remember. He was here for the martial arts action and wasn’t interested in learning a lot of the language.

One day he asked me about the word shinhatsubai. “You can’t turn on the television without hearing it at least once every commercial break,” he observed. I explained that it meant “newly released on the market” and referred to products that have just been offered for sale by companies.

After that, he became fond of telling the Japanese he met in drinking establishments that he had concluded Japan was the land of shinhatsubai, particularly for food and beverage products. Everybody in Japan has a theory about Japan, including the short-term residents. Especially the short-term residents.

I’ve never seen comparative statistics for new product releases broken down by country, but he does have a point. Television commercials trumpet a cornucopia of shinhatsubai every day of the year. And the sheer quantity of new products means that each one has to have a unique aspect to give it a hope of survival. Here’s an example.

The local newspaper last week had a short article about the new sake—shinhatsubai!—offered for sale by Muta Shuzo, a brewer in Takeo, Saga Prefecture. Takeo is known for its hot springs, and the company’s new variety of the grog, called Yuhoho-no-Ho, is made with cooled spa water rather than regular water. Other than the water used in its production, it is brewed the same way as other sake varieties. (The article made no mention of whether it is sweet or dry.)

A company spokesman claimed it has a mature, full-bodied flavor despite being a “young” sake. (Nihonshu lovers can sound a lot like oenophiles.) He attributed this to the brewers’ policy of allowing the spa water to cool before using it and their insistence that no sugars be added. He recommended Yuhoho-no-ho as a beverage to be drunk after leaving the evening bath, when one can relax and unwind (hotto suru). That’s the origin of the final “ho” in the name. I’m not sure about the Yuhoho, other than the yu, which means “hot water”, except that it is probably not what Japanese pirates chanted while in their cups.

The spokesman said the idea behind the product was to use the Yuhoho brand name of other spa water products to sell sake and promote the local hot spring resorts. Those other products include a spray-on cosmetic liquid and soap.

It’s natural for companies here to cop some cachet by employing hot springs—the Japanese have been skinny dipping in spas for centuries. The first recorded mention of a hot spring in Japan is in the Izumo Fudoki, which dates from 733. It refers to the Tamatsukuri Hot Spring in what is today Shimane Prefecture with the comment, “its effectiveness has been obvious since of old”. That means the site, which still exists, was an established institution more than a millennium ago.

The primary retail sales outlets for Yuhoho-no-ho will be liquor stores in Takeo. I’m not sure how that will promote the spas—their customers live in the area, so they already know about them. The recommended retail price is 1,800 yen (US$16.35) for an 1,800 milliliter bottle and half that for a 720 milliliter bottle. Those of you in Japan who want to know what rice wine made from spa water tastes like can order some by calling 0954-26-2001.

The company is already planning its next shinhatsubai—shochu distilled with Takeo spa water.

If a product’s novelty doesn’t get your attention, another time-honored Japanese advertising technique will. Shinhatsubai items are usually promoted with photographs of attractive young women holding the product, just as in the photo accompanying this post.

The company spokesman didn’t say whether it was best drunk chilled or heated, but if the lady in the photo shared a glass or two with me, I’d be willing to go along with her taste in the matter!

Kidsbeer: The full story

Japan Probe has a post about “Japan’s 10 Weirdest Drinks” that includes a photo of two pint-sized carousers toasting with one of the beverages, called Kidsbeer.

I wrote a post about Kidsbeer a while back for another site that includes the full story. Here it is, in an encore performance!

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This article from Kyodo has novelty and tut-tut value that conceals some poor journalism and incompetent research. It’s about the growing popularity in Japan of a guarana-based soft drink called Kidsbeer. The brewer, a small Saga Prefecture company named Tomomasu, is now shipping 75,000 bottles of the beverage nationwide. They are marketing it for use at events and celebrations attended by children, as well as a gift item. Their advertising slogan? “Even kids cannot stand life unless they have a drink.”

Here’s how Kyodo describes the beverage’s origin:

The drink originated from a cola-like beverage that used to be sold at the Shitamachi-ya restaurant in Fukuoka, run by 39-year-old Yuichi Asaba.

Asaba renamed the sweet carbonated drink “Kidsbeer” from “Guarana,” a move that made it an instant hit.

Asaba outsourced its manufacturing to Tomomasu, a beverage maker based in Ogi, Saga Prefecture.

Tomomasu tinkered with the drink by decreasing its sweetness and increasing its frothiness, the company said. It began shipping the transformed drink in late 2003.

That raised my suspicions. Here’s why: I live in Saga Prefecture and had been served a local guarana-based drink that looked like beer long before Asaba came up with his idea (which was around 2000, according to the manufacturer’s website).

The first time was at a banquet following a Buddhist memorial service on the anniversary of my sister-in-law’s death. On these occasions, family members gather for a meal after the temple service. This can be either at someone’s home, or at a banquet hall. This time, everyone met at a banquet hall near the home of my father- and mother-in-law.

I make it a rule never to drink during the day, and not being in the mood for an orange soda or a cola, I was wondering what to order. (This was before chilled oolong tea became popular in Japan.) Someone in my wife’s family knew that this particular banquet hall stocked guarana and suggested I try some. I had never heard of it before, so I was game.

It was served in a brown bottle designed to look like a beer bottle, with a label that vaguely resembled one that might be used for European champagne. It was the same color as beer and poured out just like beer, with a frothy head. I even liked the taste—it wasn’t anything like beer, but it didn’t taste as sweet or artificial as a soft drink, either. In fact, I ordered a second one, and have had it on the two or three occasions I’ve been back to that same hall.

The reason for serving it is obvious. The Japanese are known for emphasizing group activity rather than individual activity. One aspect of this tendency is that people tend to behave in similar ways in the same situation. Whether this is because everyone is expected to behave that way, or because people do not wish to attract attention to themselves for behaving differently, or a combination of both, is a bit of a chicken-and-egg question.

So, a guarana beverage that looks like beer gave men a way to appear to the casual observer they were drinking beer without actually drinking anything alcoholic.

I’ve never seen the drink anywhere else, however, whether in a store, on a restaurant menu, or served by other banquet halls. That’s why my suspicions were raised when I read the Kyodo report that it was the brainchild of a Fukuoka restaurateur. I took a look at the website of Tomomasu, the Kidsbeer manufacturer (all in Japanese) and read the section on the history and origin of the drink.

Kyodo Gets Lazy

It soon became apparent that Kyodo left out a large chunk of the story. It turns out that one of Asaba’s suppliers brought him a guarana-based soft drink in a beer-like bottle one day. A lightbulb went on over his head, and Asaba decided to turn the soft drink into Kidsbeer. He designed his own label, had them printed up, peeled the labels off the existing product, pasted on his own, and sold the drink at his restaurant.

Piracy? Highly illegal? You bet, but he got away with it, probably because he was only offering it in his restaurant.

Kidsbeer became a hit among his patrons. Two more ideas probably hit him simultaneously: one, I’ve got a moneymaker here, and two, if I don’t find another way to do this, I’m looking at a jail term.

That’s when he went to Tomomasu, who claim they dialed back the sweetness and increased the suds. They are a Saga-based company that already made a cider drink and another guarana-based drink that doesn’t look like beer, so it’s possible they manufactured the drink I had at the Saga banquet hall, or were the original producers of the drink Asaba pirated, or both.

The Kyodo article says Asaba “outsourced” production to Tomomasu. That’s a funny way to describe Asaba’s proposal for selling a drink he had no legal right to outsource to begin with. The professional journalists at Kyodo couldn’t spend an extra 15 minutes on research to discover this? Makes you wonder what else the average journalist can’t be bothered to do.

The guarana jolt

This article piqued my curiosity about guarana, and a Google search turned up plenty of interesting information. Here, for example, is the site of Guarana.com, which provides basic info on guarana drinks, which are popular in Brazil and other parts of South America. Efforts are now underway to market them worldwide, and Pepsi has gotten into the act. Guarana has a caffeine jolt—it’s dubbed “the rain forest energy secret”—and people can buy guarana tabs for an energy boost. There are also claims it can be used as an aphrodisiac. Some companies produce beverages that combine guarana with ginseng; one also contains bee pollen. That sounds like it would be a big winner in markets throughout Asia.

And the second photo above of a guarana soft drink looks like it could pass for a whiskey and water at a Japanese banquet hall. What versatility!

Snake soju headed for US!

BEAT-ERA NOVELIST William S. Burroughs used a technique he called “cut-out” to write Naked Lunch, his best-known work. He typed out the sentences on a sheet of paper, cut them up, and rearranged them at random.

After reading this story in the Daily NK about Pyongyang soju, don’t be surprised if you find yourself wondering whether the reporter used the same writing technique. It’s not often one sees this combination of nouns and noun phrases in the same place at the same time: snake venom, potency, prison camps, soju, used bottles from China, and exports to the U.S.

Here’s the story in brief: Pak Il-U, a Korean immigrant to the United States, has formed the Chosun Pyongyang Trading Company with the permission of the North Korean government to export Pyongyang soju, an alcoholic beverage, for sale in the United States. (Read this previous report for some details about soju.)

Pak explains his inspiration:

“When people drink Pyongyang Liquor, a traditional liquor of Korea, they will think of Korea and chat about the history and traditions of the nation. That’s why I made this decision.”

That’s perfectly understandable. Whenever Americans sit around and drink beer, a traditional liquor of Germany, the conversation naturally veers toward Bach, Goethe, and Otto von Bismarck.

The potential exists for plenty of other subjects to arise, too. One of the ingredients in the liquor is poisonous snakes. After the snakes are caught, they’re starved to force the poison to rise to the top. Then they are immersed in alcohol, and the drink is allowed to age in the traditional way 170 meters underground. The Russians in particular like this drink because it is “known to be good for male stamina and hip aches”.

Catching those snakes is dangerous work, however, and in other societies they might find it difficult to hire a snake crew. But according to the Daily NT, Pyongyang has no problem rustling up the manpower for the job—they just use the inmates of their political prison camps. This has several advantages: there’s never a personnel shortage, the workers don’t file grievances, and the government doesn’t have to worry about liability insurance or disability payments.

Still, the article does raise more questions than it answers. For example, who is actually going to drink this, other than Korean immigrants or college students looking for an exotic buzz? Assuming for the sake of discussion that the snake venom does boost “male stamina”, why would anyone (other than Russians) choose liquor as the delivery mechanism? Isn’t that like staggering one step forward and falling five steps back?

The biggest question of all is what Americans will think. Some activists already are upset at foie gras consumption because the product is created by force feeding geese and ducks to enlarge their livers to their maximum size. Those poor serpents are starved before being pickled in the soju brine. Then there are the activists who rail against Nike and other companies for the salaries they pay employees in Third World factories. Would those activists think Pyongyang’s political prisoners are getting satisfactory remuneration? And of course, catching deadly snakes raises concerns about job safety.

The Chicago Tribune is also running an AP article with the news, describing the hoops Park jumped through to import a product from North Korea. But here again AP’s credibility problems come to the forefront. Take the first sentence:

A traditional North Korean liquor that is clear and tastes smoother and sweeter than vodka is reportedly expected to hit the U.S. market as early as next month.

Soju smoother and sweeter than vodka? That doesn’t sound like any soju I’ve ever had.

It must be all that snake venom.

Easier than a koto: The Do-re-mi Popcorn!

Have you ever wanted to play a traditional Japanese koto, but been put off because:

• You’d have to learn to read Japanese and to decipher the instrument’s unique notational system?
• It’s not possible to play a koto in the diatonic (do-re-mi) system?
• You’d be stuck learning to play such tunes as Kojo no Tsuki and Sakura, Sakura, when you’d rather open up your repertoire to include pop hits, jazz, and samba?
• The instrument is too big to lug to somebody’s party and jam in the living room with the guitarists?
• You’d have to wear formal kimono and sit on the floor when you play?

Well, now your problems have been solved, because here’s the Do-Re-Mi Popcorn!

Yes! You can learn how to play the new Do-Re-Mi Popcorn using traditional staff notation! It’s two-thirds the size of a traditional koto, and you can put it on a stand and play, making it easy to take to friends’ homes or really shred with a band on stage! The Do and So strings are colored green and yellow, allowing beginners to jump right in! And, it comes in a wide array of pastel colors!

There’s even a website!

You can see photos of a command performance for Prince Albert of Monaco! You can order a CD to hear a band led by Do-Re-Mi Popcorn inventor Masako Naito perform such songs as The Beatles’ Yesterday and And I Love Her, Dave Brubeck’s Take Five, Duke Ellington’s Satin Doll, Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Agua De Bebel, and the well-known surf guitar instrumentals, Diamond Head and Pipe Line!

You also can see videos and hear sound clips of the Do-Re-Mi Popcorn in performance!

As the website states,

“Doremi Pop-corn is the poptaste koto flapping to the world. It’s the newest koto with a poptaste breaking the image of frodition. Now, let’s create a sensation Doremi Pop-corn in Japanese music world!”

If you become proficient enough, you can go to Japan and become a licensed Do-Re-Mi Popcorn instructor!

You can even order one from Lark in the Morning in the U.S. for only $1,125!

Get one today and astonish your family and friends with:

The Do-Re-Mi Popcorn!

Nagasaki entrepreneur develops shark jerky

When life hands you a lemon, they say, make lemonade. Well, what do you do when life hands you have a surplus of sharks?

If you’re Kikukawa Suisan of Isahaya, Nagasaki Prefecture, you make shark meat jerky. The company is a microenterprise whose primary business is processing mackerel. But Ryuta Kikukawa wanted to find a way to use shark meat to create a niche in the market. The maritime predator is plentiful in the waters off Nagasaki, but its meat is seldom used for food because of its unpleasant, ammonia-like odor.

This drawback has its benefits, however—shark meat is dirt cheap. So Kikukawa went to work three or four days a week on his own time to come up with a way to neutralize the smell.

As the Nishinippon Shimbun reports (article not online), he tried nearly 100 different methods for six months before he finally succeeded. His task was complicated by other problems. Drying the meat for too long makes it brittle and crumbly like a cracker, but insufficient drying leaves too much moisture, and that will stew the meat when it’s heated for sterilization.

Kikukawa boasts that competitors won’t have an easy time of it if they want to copy his product. The youthful entrepreneur claims you’d think it was beef jerky if you didn’t know what you were eating. He plans to build a small factory and offer 20-gram bags of shark jerky for a suggested retail price of 250 yen (about $US 2.15). He’ll pitch the product to liquor stores and other commercial establishments, and promote it by touting it as the perfect snack to have with a beer.

Heck, I’d try it once. Wouldn’t you?

Chindogu: Unuseless inventions

WE’VE ALL GOT PROBLEMS, but Kenji Kawakami has solutions for problems we never knew we had.

For example, suppose you’re getting ready to prepare a fish for sashimi—particularly one that’s still alive—and you get unnerved by that fish eye staring back at you.

Kawakami’s solution? A fish face cover that slides over the fish head so you can slice in serenity.

Suppose you’re a Japanese housewife whose husband has to get up at 5:00 a.m. Sunday morning to tee off with some customers at a golf course that’s two hours away by car. Kawakami lets you fulfill your wifely duty to see him off in the morning, yet remain comfortably asleep, by providing an automated waving hand that can be attached to the alarm clock.

These and dozens of other problem solvers are inventions that Kawakami calls chindogu, which means “unusual tools”. A self-described “designer, anarchist, and pathological mail-order enthusiast”, Kawakami is the founder of the International Chindogu Society, which claims 10,000 members.

Another Kawakami term for chindogu is “unuseless inventions”, and I think several circuits in my brain have shut down permanently just by reading it.

Take the plunge and start with this review of Kawakami’s “Bumper Book of Unuseless Japanese Inventions” that appeared in The Scotsman. (Ignore their claim that chindogu literally means “distorted tools”.)

If you have the nerve to keep going, try the website of the International Chindogu Society in English. It has photos of some of these marvels, a few of which were actually shown on TV. If you read Japanese, you can visit the official Chindogu site in Japan here. Kawakami claims on the site that chindogu are the pastime of the nobility–though he doesn’t tell us which country those nobility were thrown out of!

If you’re ready for more, you can try this site featuring the Chindogu Manifesto. Number 2 is, “A chindogu must exist”, and declares, “You are not allowed to use a chindogu, but it must be made.”

If you’ve seen the light and want to commune directly with the source, Kawakami’s books in English are sold by the usual Internet merchants.

Don’t be surprised if people cross over to the other side of the street when they see you coming, however.

“Basically, chindogu is the same as the Industrial Revolution in Britain.” - Kenji Kawakami

UPDATE: The New York Times beclowns itself by falling for a chindogu prankster and writing a serious story about how they are used as crime-prevention devices. No, I am not making this up. You can read more here.

Wavy hand rails the wave of the future?

We’ve all seen the articles on wacky patents that beggar belief—the ones that make you wonder why someone would go to the trouble to invent such a device, and why the Patent Office would bother issuing a patent.

Some items that have actually been patented include a fetal speaker system and support belt for maternal wear (in other words, a Walkman ® for unborn children), a sound muffler for covering the mouth (“a device into which a person may yell or scream without disturbing others, allowing him to vent built-up anger and frustration”), and a method of preserving the dead, “whereby a corpse may be hermetically encased within a block of transparent glass”. For those of you who prefer combinations, there are the combination trumpet and flamethrower and the combination plow and rifle. (Take a look at this if you doubt the items on the list.)

That’s what first crossed my mind when I read about the wavy handrail patented in Japan by the Qunetto Japan Co., shown in the accompanying photo. What could possibly be the problem with conventional handrails, and why would the Japanese Patent Office issue a patent for a wavy one?

The more I began to think about it, the more it began to make sense, especially after reading Qunetto’s explanation. They help weaker people and the elderly support their weight on stairways. People can more naturally grip the rails when ascending to help pull themselves up, and the curves prevent hands from slipping on the rails when descending. These rails also can be installed next to toilets or bathtubs.

I’ve never actually seen or used one, but a recent article in the Japanese version of the Nishinippon Shimbun reported that these rails have been installed in the stairways leading from the street to the underground shopping mall in the Tenjin district of Fukuoka City. I’ve been there frequently, and the stairways there, like many in public facilities in Japan, are steeper than those in the West. I suspect the wavy rails would be helpful for people of all ages at that location, and not just the elderly.

Here’s the Qunetto English website, with photos of suggested applications. The English wasn’t written by a native speaker, but you’ll get the idea. And this page has a photo of the Tenjin underground shopping mall, which has about 100 stores.