Goodness gracious, great balls of... EVIL

Justin and my love for ACROS continues, as we followed up on the saki-ori and Agano pottery exhibits with a trip to the Yanagawa Sagemon embroidered ball exhibition. I don't really know what the story with these is, and Google has not availed me of further information. Basically, they're springtime decorations. Why? I don't know, except that they're cute.




No, your eyes do not deceive you. That price tag reads 315,000 yen. That's $3,150 in dollars. Handmade cute does not come cheap.

In addition to the traditional ball shape, you also have lots of funny animals, such as the bathtowel-head octopus:


the Sistine Chapel ceiling shrimp:

and the uncomfortable husband who hates pretending to look at things while I take pictures but whose mother is always disappointed when he disappears from the blog:

Also a chicken.

(That one's for my brother-in-law Ryan.)

Since we didn't stand an embroidered ball's chance in... a place inhospitable to embroidery? - of purchasing the top-notch goods for ourselves, we thought it would be a good idea to take on the DIY Sagemon rabbit display. For a mere five bucks we could take home a bunny of our very own. How cute - how kawaii, as they love to say here.

Cut out the parts:

Sew a little pouch for the body:

Sort out body fabric in preferred color order.

Get overruled by Japanese attendants and glue fabric on in their preferred order to appease them:

Apply gold trim:
Add face:
Fail spectacularly at adding ears, necessitating rescue by aforementioned attendants:

(Full disclosure: actually, I needed intervention on basically every step listed here except the cutting out. I sure can cut. If I remembered my preschool teacher's name, I'd send her a thank-you note.)

As far as I could tell, the pink shading on the ears was just blush. Maybe it was special sagemon dye with a special sagemon applicator, but really, I think it was just blush.

Add a cotton tail:
And recoil in horror at the realization of what you have wrought upon the world. I mean, look at this rabbit. Is he not the incarnation of pure evil?

I WILL EAT YOUR SOUL.

We call him Mr. Bun, because when we suggested that name to him, he let us live. Mr. Bun exists at the tragic intersection of unadulterated rage and abject powerlessness. He hates everyone and wishes to destroy everything, yet he is crippled by the realization that he is a styrofoam rabbit without limbs or a mouth. He can neither execute his own vile schemes nor recruit minions to carry out his will. Mostly, he just sits on the pantry shelf next to the peanut butter, exuding impotent loathing and hoping perhaps to fall on somebody and cause them to burn themselves on the microwave. It's not nuclear armageddon, but at this point Mr. Bun has to take what he can get.

Spring Skiing in Saga-ken

Yesterday, I went with a small school trip to a ski center in nearby Saga-ken, the next prefecture over from Fukuoka. There wasn't much snow, but frankly, I was surprised to find any snow in late February at ~33°N (roughly on a level with Atlanta, if you're keeping track back home).

The geography of Japan is interesting that way: the rugged, mountainous interiors of the main islands make for some strange weather patterns. For each of the main islands, the northern and western coasts are much colder in the winter than the southern and eastern coasts at the same latitude, because the mountains shield the southern and eastern coasts from the frigid winds blowing down from Siberia. In addition, the mountains are much colder than the cities, most of which lie at or near sea level on one of Japan's coasts.

We could actually see this phenomenon in action on our bike ride home: while the temperatures in Fukuoka hovered just around freezing for most of the winter, with little or no accumulation, we could see snow on the mountains to the south pretty much constantly since December.

This week, however, the weather definitely turned, and we were lucky to get to the mountain when we did. (I wouldn't be surprised if they were closed today--the slope was beginning to wear thin by yesterday afternoon.)

So what was it like, spring skiing in Saga-ken? First, the ski area was tiny. They were running only one lift, a two-seater, that serviced a gentle green a few hundred yards long.

Despite the small size of the place, however, there were many highlights to the day. First and foremost, the students had a blast, to the point that they're asking me to start a club for next year. The fact that the slope was so beginner-friendly was probably a major factor.

Second, the day was just breathtakingly beautiful. The first truly warm day since fall, and the sky clear and bright for the duration.

Third, the place had a goofy snow-making system of the likes I had never seen in the almost-quarter-century I've been skiing. Sure, they had the traditional hoses and water jets lining the slope, for use only when the weather was cold enough. But in addition, they had these huge ice-making machines at intervals along the run, which seemed to be making gobs of ice, chopping them up, and scooting them to the ski surface through noisy vacuum tubes.

It can't have been cheap to run them . . . and if the video below is any indication, they can't have been doing much to keep the place open.

So that's skiing in Saga-ken. Consider it a teaser for our upcoming spring break trip to Hokkaido!

Pounding Mochi at Japan Day

Mochi are Japanese rice cakes, similar to the Korean tteok. Daifuku is the most popular variety: an oblong disk of rice dough with some sweet filling, usually red bean paste. They can be a bit on the chewy side, but overall they're really tasty--great little snacks, and also great little deserts.

This past week, our school hosted a Japan Day, and one of the events was a big outdoor mochi party. We got to see mochi making firsthand, then to eat a bunch of fresh mochi topped with red bean paste and a delicious brown powder made of dried, crushed soybeans and sugar.

It turns out that the majority of the mochi making process involves whacking a pile of warm, sticky rice dough with a mallet. Fun for the whole family!

Obviously, my technique is lacking. After studying some game film, it turns out the pros use their hips and their bottom arm to lift the mallet straight up, then let gravity do most of the work. This is undoubtedly better than my "Heck, I don't really need that arm this week, do I?" approach, which left me sore after only a few minutes of work. Don't worry, coach, I'll do better next time!

(Full disclosure: Nana and I actually learned a bit about making tteok in Korea, and the process is pretty similar to making mochi. I guess there aren't a lot of different ways to hit rice goop with a hammer.)

The rest of Japan Day was a lot of fun, too--I made a little origami blow-up ball, and got to watch some really cool Japanese performances. The highlight was probably the taiko show: the only thing better than a drum so big and deep it can make your chest shake is ten drums so big they can make your chest shake.

Japanese Microbrews

Until recently, beer in Japan was a lot like that in Korea: mostly mass-produced lagers, vaguely German in style, with occasional forays into other German-inspired styles. 

But in the last 15 years or so, microbrew culture has begun to catch on in Japan. Back in August, I had the chance to witness this movement first-hand, at the Kyushu Beer Festa here in Fukuoka. 

Most of the brews on hand were still German, but there was both greater variety and higher quality than is typically available from the big Japanese brewers.

I was surprised to find one brewery offering a Rauchbier--a "smoked" beer brewed with barley that has been roasted over an open flame. I happen to like the stuff, but it wasn't a big hit with my coworkers.

In the short term, the Kyushu Beer Festa was a great success: I had no idea there were so many great craft beers being made in Japan these days.

In the longer term, though, the event was a failure, as most of the beers on hand have proven almost impossible to find elsewhere. Which leads to the actual occasion for this post (and the reason I've set the world record for lag time by reporting on an August event in February): I finally found and purchased some good craft beers from the small booze shop attached to our upscale grocery, Bon Repas.

The beers come from Coedo, a brewery on Shikoku (also known as "the other main island that isn't Honshu or Hokkaido"). I was intrigued by them because they looked more British than German: one was essentially a stout, the other a kind of amber ale.

Both were pretty good examples of their styles. Nothing spectacular, but a whole heck of a lot better than Asahi Stout, and I don't think the big brewers even make anything but light lagers and black beers.

Video reminder

To email subscribers: The post I just did about pottery probably looks as though it has a few really, really grainy pictures in it. Those are actually videos, which don't show up in email. If you want to see the video, you need to come to the post on the blog itself. You can do that by clicking on the link at the very bottom of your email, where it says "Posted by Nana to The Senseitions." Or click on this link here: Pottery post.

In which all goes to pot

Justin and I have actually had a mellow work week. The kids seem to be "in the zone" and learning really well lately, and every year we teach, things get easier. The weather's been gloomy and wet, but after a year in Scotland that doesn't faze us (gloomy and wet is only really bad when you know it will never be anything else!). So what I guess I'm saying is... I have no explanation for why I haven't written a blog post since the weekend.

On Saturday we went back to the ACROS, home of the much-enjoyed saki-ori textile exhibition, for the Agano pottery exhibition. Agano is a local pottery style noted for its Korean influence, which dates back to a Korean potter who came to teach the style in the 1600s. (Korea was regionally renowned for pottery, especially celadon ware, the manufacture of which is the topic of the recent Newbery medal winning A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park. Justin taught that book this year, and it was a great hit with his many Korean middle schoolers. In my opinion it is a rare and awesome exception to the rule that award-winning books suck, and I highly recommend it to anybody with a young reader looking for an interesting book.)

I had friends in my material cultures master's program who are really into ceramics, but it was never my thing. I was surprised to really, really like the Agano ware on display. There's something sturdy and homey about it, but it's not at all heavy. The shapes, colors, and textures are pleasantly organic. We didn't take any pictures of finished stuff, but you can see some at this web site.

No finished stuff, you ask? Then what did you photograph? Why, our goofy and tragic attempts at throwing our own Agano pots on the try-it-yourself wheel, of course!

Alas, despite this auspicious beginning, all did not go well for Justin. One slip of the finger, and the pot collapsed beyond all redemption. Much like Justin's dreams of pottery glory.

Surely I could do better?

Well, it depends on what you mean by "better." By my count, it takes me approximately 14 seconds to completely ruin that pot. Since it took Justin much longer to ruin his, I think that means I win.

I was so bad that the pottery demonstration guy let me try again. This photo is from my second attempt.

Clockwise from upper right: my second attempt, Justin's first attempt, and terrific pot made by demonstration guy.


My first pot was so bad he actually threw out the clay, which is some kind of record when you consider what Justin's looks like.If we keep going to ACROS we're going to need a survey: "Which traditional Japanese craft did Justin and Nana fail at the hardest?" Stay tuned!

Japanese Envoys on the Eve of the American Civil War

The New York Times has been running a blog series, "Disunion," on the American Civil War. It's a cool concept--they run stories chronologically, with the same timeline that they would have followed in the 1860s. (For example, the November 2010 coverage was of Lincoln's November 1860 election.)

One of the posts I stumbled across today describes the experiences of a group of Japanese envoys in the US in late 1860 (link). It's full of great tidbits--for instance, there were basically no envoys who could speak English, but many educated Japanese could speak Dutch, thanks to the long-standing Dutch trading presence here in Kyushu. As a result, communication required two layers of translation: Japanese to Dutch, then Dutch to English.

Anyway, the post is a good read (as is the blog itself). Go check it out!