2022 年 12 月 2 日
There is so much to write about!
So: I've decided to try writing my blog in two sections. The first will reflect the weeks' happenings in Germany, whilst the second section will be the Japan retrospective.
いつも書きたいことがたくさんあるので、ブログを 2 つのセクションに分けて書いてみることにしました。 最初の部分はドイツでの数週間の出来事を反映し、2 番目の部分は日本のレトロスペクティブになります。
Germany: Frankfurt Flughafen (last Thursday). The airport is usually the first bit of Germany which hits you when you enter the country. I find it it a rather clinical and unwelcoming place, especially after the slight craziness of Tokyo Haneda, where everyone seems "isogashi" (busy-busy), helpful and co-operative. But lunch with my son and later, dinner with my Ukrainian friends soon made me feel more at home here again.
Home-made Ukrainian Borsch with Svitlana and Oleksandra....スヴィトラーナとオレクサンドラの自家製ウクライナ ボルシチ....
We had a lovely evening, but of course there was the "elephant in the room". This is what we English say about a topic or subject that is on everybody's minds, but you would rather talk about something else. It becomes too emotional. But how can you not? One of their friends has been living in a hotel for months, others end up with Russian-speaking hosts who are hardly hospitable. And an opinion of Russia? "they still think that they are some sort of grand imperial power, they think themselves great" This last opinion chimed in with a piece I had recently read in the Guardian from a respected American professor of history. He writes ".......Russia has to first properly lose this war before it can become a "post-imperial power" - a transition that European countries have already made....." Hmm, easy for a historian to say, but the reality? ".....I have a friend who is a teacher in Lviv...her teaching schedule is in tatters...she is like a mother to the children, hurrying to the bunker...."...."...so-and-so runs a start-up business in Kyiv.....sales are hit drastically when you are reliant on a power bank....they don't last forever...."
Some are lucky and have found a home in Frankfurt. 幸運にもフランクフルトに家を見つけた人もいますAnd I have new friends. Who would have thought it?
The Borsch was delicious - a real Ukrainian recipe with loads of sour cream. Yummy 😋! Thank you Svitlana and Oleksandra.
Another "pick-me-up" was going to a student recital🎵🎵 at the music college in Frankfurt - the HfMDK. Jan Ickert's Cello class to be precise, with friend Tomoko as Korrepetitorin 🎹 (the programme was so full that other pianists also stepped in). With a mixture of 1st-yr Bachelor, final year MA students and lots in between, you get to listen to the repertoire which they are studying at the moment. Which is great, because you hear pieces not common in the regular concert hall. So here is Paul Winter playing some movements from Poulenc's Cello Sonata - a piece which I didn't know at all!
別の素晴らしい経験。 フランクフルト音楽大学での学生チェロリサイタル
The heating had been turned down in the hall, so I left early, seeking refuge in a nearby Italian restaurant. This meant that I missed Piazzolla's Gran Tango at the end - which Tomoko later described as "mega". I obviously missed something there. Pity. Apparently the piano keys were pretty cold as well. Is this the new normal then? Will we soon be seeing performers come on stage wrapped up in an overcoat and wearing a woolly hat? Maybe some clever Japanese piano manufacturer will come up with heated keys......😉. ホールは寒かった（省エネ）。 日本の技術者がピアノの加熱鍵盤を発明するかもしれない😄
My third consolation on returning to Germany was my Book Group meeting this week. We met in a nice restaurant at Böllenfalltor in Darmstadt, and had a lively discussion about.....wait for it, yes, a Japanese novel!
今週の 3 回目の素敵な体験 - 本のグループ
Rather strange minimalist writing, but all the more effective for it. Almost poetic in its description of the life of a homeless man living in Ueno Park......told from the point of view of the man, who has already passed on.......An interesting and provocative read. Hard labour, Imperial luxury and Buddhist rituals.....
Japan 日本：The first evening I arrived at Shonenji Temple in Kyushu, Junsho's wife Victoria showed me how to ring the temple bell. This hangs in its own bell "tower" at the entrance. I took this photo on a magical misty morning when low cloud lingered in the valley. They have their own word for it, this "sea of clouds" ........ 雲海 うんかい....
The bell"tower"at Shonenji 九州・正念寺の梵鐘（宮崎県）
The bell is massive. To ring it you pull back a beam of wood, which hangs on chains in front of the bell. Then you let go. The wood hits the bell.....and the sound hits you. And what a sound. The reverberations hit you in pulsating waves.....You have to ring it 6 times, and between each stroke wait for the reverberations to quieten down. The one time I was allowed to ring it I had to grab the ear protectors hanging nearby. Victoria claims that most Buddhist priests are half deaf because of ringing these bells all their life.....
Nigel the bell ringer....
The sound rings out over the valley, saying "we are here, the temple is here for you...". The bell is rung every day early in the morning and in early evening.
And it was this bell which woke me up a few days later.
It was nice and cosy under the duvet. 羽毛布団の下は気持ちよかったです. The morning sun had not quite reached my room and it was chilly. But chilly with a promise. Because I knew that the midday temperature would rise to 19°c at least - that's November in Japan. Dry sunny days and chilly nights. But at the moment there was a disturbing factor at work. The dogs in the yard were whinging and barking incessantly. So to the dilemma. きゅうち窮地. Do I :
a) stay under the duvet and try and ignore them? or,
b) emerge from my comfort zone, grab a lead and go for an early morning walk with one of them? Well it will not kill me I thought. So, dragging on some clothes I emerged out of my temple outhouse and approached the two beasts. Grief, dogs are so obvious - they thought I was going to take them both. No way. I value my arm joints thank you very much. I took Sora (空 which means "sky" in Japanese) the border collie, who immediately nearly ripped my arm out of its socket, so strong was her pull on the lead. We soon got out of the temple precincts and onto the open road.....
With Sora
Not a soul in sight. I took the left hand fork up the valley, noting that only the tips of the mountains were lit by the rising sun. This is good, I thought. I let Sora sniff away where she wanted, only dragging her away when it looked like she wanted to pee on a wayside shrine.....
To pee or not to pee, that is the question.....
Heavens, what would the deities think? As the sun rose up over the hills behind us......
sharpening the contours of the rice fields, I thought "yes, this fits. It is literally only in the next valley that Japanese mythology has a sacred place - the cave of the sun goddess Amaterasu." 日本神話の聖地である次の谷、太陽の女神アマテラスの洞窟です。
More of her anon. In the meantime I was reminded of a useful question which I had learned before coming here. 犬は どこに ぷんをすればいいですか (where should the dogs poo?). Definitely not in a rice field anyway........But maybe Sora was not thinking of bodily functions, rather, she was turning her head to acknowledge the mythical deity rising over the horizon.....
This is one of my favourite pictures of her.....
一番好きなソラの写真
Last week I talked about crows. 先週、カラスについて話しました. And on these daily dog walks I was delighted to see other birds which I had hitherto only seen in the books of my childhood - in the "foreign" section: Bright yellow wagtails せきれい鶺鴒 of a colour you would only see on a kimono; superb russet-coloured redstarts じょうびたき尉鶲 and pure white egrets.だいさぎ大鷺. It was amazing. And not only the birds. In many a quiet corner I discovered wonderful colourful spiders......素晴らしいカラフルなクモ。
They are not poisonous by the way. 有毒ではありません. I spotted this one in an overlooked corner of the temple.........
Are they not wonderful? 素晴らしいではありませんか??? Apparently not everybody shares my opinion.😅. My Asian friends in particular seem to freak out at the smallest insect. Well, let's move on to safer ground. On turning one corner I came across a typical sight- a camelia bush - just randomly growing wild.......
In the course of my stay at Shonenji I was to see many flowers which I thought only belonged in gardens.......fruits as well.....
But how, you may wonder, did I manage to take these photos with a wild border collie tugging at her lead? 犬の散歩中に写真を撮る方法..........Ah, well, I soon discovered a trick. Find some post or piece of farm machinery and just slip the lead around it. Sora was intelligent enough to realise that this was a break, and would calm down and wait for me!
Waiting patiently.....note the K-truck with sunshield parked in the background. All the farmers drive them around here. It's very common mode of transport, and they come in all sizes......
There were always interesting smells somewhere.......面白い匂い?
...not the farmer's coffee I'm sure......
Discovering all this different flora and fauna is an unexpected bonus of being in Japan. And I haven't even started with the seabirds and fishes. Some of it ends up on your plate of course, and the farmers produce very healthy-looking vegetables.....
My temple family were passionate about cooking. Amane-san, the daughter-in-law, would roll up in her clean Japanese car (I never saw a dirty car, even in Tokyo......here is a clean Japanese car - her sister's I think),（東京でも汚れた車を見たことがありません……ここにきれいな日本の車があります-彼女の妹のものだと思います).
.....laden with bags of shopping. The kitchen would then be filled with the sound of vegetables being chopped and diced - sharp knives in full swing. Everyone would lend a hand. Would it be shabu shabu? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabu-shabu or okonomiyaki? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okonomiyaki . I was never sure. Here is Junsho-san in full swing with the latter....
😋
😋 お好み焼き
All washed down with copius amounts of beer and schochu (Kyushu's answer to Sake). I was to be treated with much delicious home cooking during my stay in Japan, in addition to the fare offered by Izakayas in Tokyo or Kumamoto. More of that later.
Thank you for reading. I send out this blog pretty randomly to whoever I think might be interested. Some of you have subscribed (if you are on your mobile then open the menu at the start), which means you get a deluxe notification via email. Thank you! Some of you though have not been receiving the notification emails. Could be they have ended up in your spam folder. If you don't want to be sent this blog, don't hesitate to tell me and I shall take you off the list (well, there is no list as such!). No problem.
この投稿を読んでいただきありがとうございます。 新しい投稿のお知らせを受け取りたい場合は、上部の購読フォームに記入してください。 ありがとう！Nigel.😊
Let's frighten away any evil spirits before we close the blog for today....
THE END
🌘
終わり
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