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.

Fukuoka-Busan: The gateposts of the Asia Gateway

IT’S A CURIOUS PHENOMENON that the farther people are from Japan and South Korea, the more likely they are to think folks in the two countries get along like dogs and monkeys, as the Japanese say about dogs and cats. If the articles and snide asides that the print media offer as infotainment are to be believed, it’s taken as a given in the West that the Koreans and Japanese can’t stand each other, and it’s mostly Japan’s fault.

But that’s not the picture that emerges in the part of the world where the two countries are closest to each other. It’s a mere three-hour boat ride or 50-minute flight across the Korean Strait separating Kyushu and the southeastern part of the Korean Peninsula. Here in Kyushu, it’s no big deal to eat a leisurely breakfast while listening to a Busan radio station, and then follow that with a leisurely lunch in Busan. In fact, I’ve done it myself.

It’s not as if I’m a trend-setter, either. That trip has become an everyday occurrence for people in both countries. The sister cities of Fukuoka City and Busan know better than anyone that their bread is buttered on both sides, and they’ve been working together to whip up more tempting treats.

That’s why the two cities have embarked on their Asia Gateway campaign for encouraging people in both regions to drop by and set a spell, and in the process drop as much money as they can afford. They took the next step in the campaign today when they launched the joint Asia Gateway website. Their concept for the overall tone of the site is that the two cities are actually “neighboring towns” where people regularly travel back and forth, rather than cities in foreign countries that people visit occasionally for business or pleasure.

Considering the state of modern transportation and the real people I’ve seen traveling across the strait, that’s no exaggeration. For starters, young single women in both countries think nothing of hopping on the boat for a weekend cross-strait shopping expedition.

The website is jointly managed by the Nishinippon Shimbun and the Busan Ilbo newspapers. The homepage is in both languages, and from there visitors can access the separate Japanese- and Korean-language content. The section created in Fukuoka for Koreans contains videos of local attractions popular with Koreans, as well as blogs. There’s also a map of the Tenjin district in Fukuoka City, Kyushu’s largest commercial area, translations into Korean of Nishinippon Shimbun articles, and information on the Kurokawa Hot Springs in Kumamoto, another destination popular with Korean tourists.

The ties between the two areas aren’t PR dreamed up by the respective Chambers of Commerce. Coming soon to the site is an interview with a bi-strait married couple. The husband is Japanese and lives in Fukuoka City, while his wife is Korean and lives in Busan. Now that’s my idea of bisexuality!

Later this month, Busan plans to add more information in Japanese about their tourist attractions and Korean-style fortunetelling.

But you don’t need yuk hak to get a glimpse of the future in this part of the world, and now you’ve got more to go on than the English-language press. Just take a look at the Asia Gateway website and see for yourself.

Afterwords: The interview with the married couple is already supposed to be up there, but I couldn’t find it. Perhaps in the next day or so.

Sea of clouds

IF LIFE IN THE WORKADAY WORLD is polluting your spirit, perhaps it’s time to pay a visit to one of the ethereal mysteries of nature.

The photo here was taken early in the morning on the 9th from the summit of 1,000-meter-high Mt. Azami overlooking the Yoshino River in Miyoshi, Tokushima. When clouds fill the valley below as if they were part of a larger river flowing to the sea, it’s a sign that autumn has arrived in the area. The river of mist returns every year from September through November.

This phenomenon results from the fog created by the combination of radiational cooling at night with cool, windless mornings.

The area is somewhat well known for this—Miyoshi promotes the site as a destination for green tourism. Those for whom an autumn trip is inconvenient might consider visiting in May, when the morning fog also flows through and fills the valley.

Here’s the best part: The Japanese created a word specifically to describe this phenomenon. That’s unkai, or “cloud sea”.

And in a word, that’s poetry.

Dokdo: Your dream vacation come true!

HAVING DIFFICULTY selecting the destination for your next vacation? Can’t decide between the surfside fun at Australia’s Gold Coast, the carnival at Rio, the romance and internationalism of San Francisco, or the Grand Tour of Europe?

If you prefer the more rugged and super-cool eco-tourist hideaways, are you torn between diving in Palau, sunning on Costa Rica’s black sand beaches, sailing through the Norwegian fjords, or taking snapshots of lions, elephants, hypertrophied snails, and other exotic creatures in Kenya?

Vacation dreamland

Here’s some good news for those folks who can’t make up their mind. Now there’s another option to consider that will surely be the envy of your friends and co-workers for its sheer exoticism, if nothing else: Relax and enjoy the scenery for two days on Dokdo, and the Korea Times will foot the bill. All you have to do is be one of the lucky winners in the new contest for non-Koreans co-sponsored by the newspaper and the Northeast Asian History Foundation. To enter, write an 800-word essay on the topic, “Why is Dokdo Korean Territory?”

The odds look pretty good. It’s unlikely there will be many entries, and Grand, Golden, Silver, and Bronze prizes are being offered. Here’s what the winners will receive:

Grand Prize: Five two-day round-trip tickets to Dokdo.
Golden Prize: Four two-day round-trip tickets to Dokdo.
Silver Prize: Three two-day round-trip tickets to Dokdo.
Bronze Prize: Two two-day round-trip tickets to Dokdo.

And here’s the clincher: All the prize winners get a plaque.

The sponsors have thought of everything. The winners who live overseas will get a round-trip ticket from their home to Seoul (from the nearest airport with Korean Airlines service).

The Korea Times also says that “Applicants providing new pieces of evidence on Korea’s sovereignty over the islets, including unpublished maps, photos, and documents, will be given high marks.”

One has to wonder what the Korea Times thinks of the existing “evidence of Korea’s sovereignty” if they’re fishing for foreigners who just happen to have centuries-old maps of the Sea of Japan rolled up in a rubber band and stuck in a corner of their sock drawer.

There’s another aspect to consider: A prize is almost certainly assured for foreigners who are not ethnic Koreans, if only because it will allow the sponsors to boast of an international consensus. The stated objective of the contest is “to promote international awareness about the history of the rocky islets.” Now ask yourself how many people who are not ethnic Koreans will be entering the contest. See what I mean?

It shouldn’t be too hard to conduct research, either. Spend an hour sifting through all material the Koreans have dumped on the web over the past few years, cherry-pick the most popular and outrageous arguments (look to university professors for the latter), rework it all with some punchy prose, throw in a reference that the evidence for Korean ownership is so obvious a grade-schooler could understand it, and then mention in passing that the Japanese claim is motivated by a desire to reestablish their imperialist hegemony over the Korean Peninsula.

Really, how can you lose?

Heck, I’m tempted to write an essay myself!

You’d better hurry, though. The deadline for submission is 17 October.

Confidential to Gerry Bevers: You’re disqualified!

Here’s a link to a post about the contest from ROK Drop, which reproduces the ad in full. Thanks to Get a Job Son for passing along the info.

Ekiben: An epicure’s delight for Japanese rail travelers

EVERYONE WHO’S EVER FLOWN COACH has had the experience of eating an in-flight meal so bland it’s hard to tell the potatoes from the plastic tray. They say the food in first class is a lot better, and I promise to let you know for sure if I ever fly anywhere first class. Maybe in my next life.

Those who’ve never traveled by train in Japan might be forgiven for expecting train station food to be as unappealing as airplane food, but they’d be in for a pleasant surprise. There’s a tradition in this country of serving fine carry-on meals made with local ingredients of exceptional quality. These meals are called ekiben. That’s a portmanteau word coined by combining the word eki, which is a train station, and the first syllable of bento, which is a pre-prepared meal served in a flat box.

Bento themselves are takeout meals sold for a variety of purposes and occasions. The quality can vary depending on the intended use, ranging from meals that are inexpensive and less appetizing than airplane food, to those made with the finest ingredients and costing rather more.

Ekiben are a topic of such interest that JR Kyushu has been holding contests every year since 2005 to improve their quality and to promote travel by train. In fact, the final judging and tasting in the Fourth Kyushu Ekiben Ranking for the ekiben sold at JR Kyushu stations was held on the 14th at JR Kyushu headquarters in Fukuoka City, and the results were announced yesterday. A total of 4,900 votes were cast by JR Kyushu passengers in a preliminary ballot from October to January to select the top 15 bento from among 50 candidates. Those 15 were further evaluated by a panel of judges, who were allowed to vote only for the one they liked the best.

The judges included essayist (and former magazine editor and newspaperman) Tsutsui Gankodo (on the right in the first photo), travel journalist Kobayashi Shinobu, local television personality Muranaka Minami, and JR Kyushu President Ishihara Susumu. The standards included flavor, the incorporation of local characteristics, the size of the servings, and price.

The judges said the decision was difficult because they were all delicious, but of course judges always say that. Ms. Kobayashi added, “The Kyushu ekiben servings are generous, and they are very flavorful. The opening of the Kagoshima leg of the Kyushu Shinkansen has resulted in the creation of more modern ekiben.”

The winner this year was a bento called Hyakunen Monogatari Kareikawa (The Hundred-Year Tale Kareikawa) from the Kareikawa Station in Kirishima, Kagoshima. It was the first time this 1,050 yen ($US 9.75) bento took top honors. It is made with bamboo shoots and shiitake mushrooms cooked with rice, and also includes a tempura dish made with satsumaimo (sweet potatoes) and other local vegetables called gane. Another feature that appealed to the judges was the bento box made with bamboo bark. This ekiben finished in second place last year and in third place in 2006, so perhaps this perennial favorite has gotten even better. Here’s what it looks like.

Meanwhile, second prize went to the Ayu-ya Sandai bento from the Shin-Yatsushiro station, which costs 1,050 yen. The ayu is known as the sweetfish in English, and the Shin-Yatsushiro station in Kumamoto is the northernmost station in the partially open Kyushu Shinkansen line. The Ayu-ya Sandai bento had been the winner each of the previous three years of the competition, so it must be delectable.

Third prize went to the Saga Mitsusedori Toro Bento from Saga Station, which costs 730 yen.

Other favorites that regularly win the acclaim of riders and judges alike since the competition began include the chirashizushi bento sold in bento boxes that are actually Arita ceramics at Saga Station in Saga, and the ebimeshi bento made with local shrimp sold at Izumi Station in Kagoshima.

For those people who don’t or can’t travel to these stations to buy the ekiben (and there are people in Japan who would), JR Kyushu is clever enough to promote their sale by opening a special shop in Hakata Station in Fukuoka City (the largest train station in Kyushu) called Ekiben Stadium. Travelers passing through the station can buy these ekiben from among a rotating selection until March 31. About 11 or 12 different ekiben are sold every day, and the selections change every week.

Unfortunately, I seldom take train rides long enough to warrant the purchase of an ekiben, but Saga Station is only a 10-minute drive away. If that prize-winning Saga ekiben includes both local chicken and toro (high-quality tuna) as I suspect, I’m going to have to buy a couple and try them out for lunch at home!

And get ready for it—there is a website devoted to ekiben nationwide! (Alas, in Japanese only.) It includes a list of the boxed meals available at train stations throughout the country, recipes, and links to ekiben sold by mail (the Ayu-ya Sendai ekiben is one of those available).

Here’s the Ekiben Room, an English site for the ekiben sold in East Japan. This is the link to the convenient website for the Ekiben Stadium shop in Hakata Station (also Japanese only), with a map showing the shop’s location in the station and the schedule with the dates of sale for all the ekiben.

And here’s a photo of one more I’d love to try—an ekiben from Oita consisting entirely of mackerel sushi, for 1,300 yen.

Postscript: Mr. Tsutsui also writes a feature on a Kyushu restaurant in the free monthly magazine available on the JR Kyushu trains.

Way down yonder at the tail of Japan

Pick up any book about Japan and you’ll read that the country consists primarily of the four main islands of Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido. But even the Japanese sometimes forget about the part of the country that fans out over a large area southwest of Kyushu. This is the Ryukyu archipelago, of which the primary island is Okinawa. The islands in this archipelago comprise Okinawa Prefecture, which is remote enough from the rest of the country to have developed its own traditions and a dialect that other Japanese can’t understand.

The Ryukyus were nominally independent until 1879, when they were made an administrative unit of the Japanese government. Despite becoming a prefecture, Okinawa did not become part of the Japanese political mainstream until after the United States returned it Japan in 1972. The islands retain a strong sense of regional identity: they were independent for so long, given short shrift by the national government, burdened by heavy taxes, suffered terribly during the war, and were occupied the longest by the United States. American installations still occupy almost a fifth of Okinawa Island, and roughly three-fourths of US bases and more than half of the American troops stationed in Japan are on Okinawa, which accounts for 0.6 percent of Japanese territory. It’s no surprise that some Okinawans quietly nurse the dream of independence, but that’s unlikely to happen.

These feelings are heightened by the archipelago’s distance from the rest of Japan. The flight to Naha Airport from Tokyo is 2 1/2 hours, and about an hour from Fukuoka City in Kyushu. They are tropical islands, making them a perfect spot for a vacation in the fall, winter, and spring. (People who’ve lived there have told me it’s so hot in summer only the natives can handle it.)

But as Dr. Seuss found more letters in the alphabet in On Beyond Zebra, there is more to Japan and Okinawa Prefecture on beyond Okinawa Island. At the extreme southwest of the Okinawan chain lie the Yaeyama Islands (more here). This is the spot in Japan where people really go to get away from it all without having to use a passport.

One of these islands is Taketomi, six kilometers square, where 90% of the island’s income is derived from tourism. How far is it from the rest of Japan? Taiwan is closer than Okinawa Island and The Philippines are closer than Kyushu. Getting there requires another hour-long flight from Naha and a 10-minute ferry ride. An excellent article about Taketomi in the Japan Times explains just how remote it is:

Of all the places in this country, the Yaeyamas are the one where you feel least like you are in Japan. And this perception of otherness is certainly felt by the Taketomi islanders themselves: On the huge map in the visitor center “Japan” is written over distant Honshu in the same script and style as “China” is inscribed below Beijing, as though signifying some foreign land.

I’ve wanted to visit these islands ever since I first heard about them more than 20 years ago, and after reading this article I was ready to pack my swimming trunks and buy a plane ticket. There’s one serious obstacle, however—our household has the classic seashore/mountains split when it comes to vacation spot preferences. I could move to a beach community tomorrow and stay there forever, but my wife, who grew up on a riverbank, yearns only for the cooler mountains.

I’ll get there eventually, but there’s nothing stopping you from getting there first!