Where the stardust twinkles online

Kira kira means "twinkle" in Japanese, as stardust does, and KiraKira Waypoints is your own personal canvas where colorful stardust dances as you direct it — perfect for a green tea break.



You drag the small circles to redirect the flow of stardust.


—Mellow Monk

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One of my favorite do-enka songs

This enka song, Roukyoku Komori Uta, was a hit for Hitofushi Taro in 1963. I love the rough, folksy feel created by the old-fashioned instruments (including what sounds like a shochu bottle being tapped with a stick):





(The "do" in do-enka, by the way, means something like "seriously," "hard-core," or "old-school.")


The song inspired a Sonny Chiba movie of the same name. Lyrics [in Japanese] here. Video of Hitofushi belting out the tune a couple of decades later on live TV here.


I can’t wait to sing this on karaoke in Japan!


Although undoubtedly many people can wait.


—Mellow Monk

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Kit Kat = certain victory

According to one theory, the popularity of Kit Kat in Japan is due partly to its name, whose Japanese pronunciation bears a phonetic resemblance to the phrase kitto katsu, or "You will surely win."



Available in green tea flavor, of course. In Japan, that is, of course.


—Mellow Monk

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Undokai time lapse

From Rocking in Hakata comes a two-minute time-lapse video of an undokai (sports festival) in Japan.


Note also the movement of the ocean in the background.





—Mellow Monk

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Green tea made with spring water

The residents of Aso (whence Mellow Monk tea hails) are so proud of their deliciously health natural spring water that the city installed public drinking fountains dispensing this natural spring water, free for locals and visitors alike.


In the picture below, we made some cold-brewed matcha using this water, an empty soda bottle, and some of our powdered green tea.


It was, needless to say, delectable . . . and so easy to make: Just add matcha powder and water, then put on the cap, shake vigorously and—voilà—a bottle of delicious, healthy, thirst-quenchingly cool matcha.



This fountain is named "Katarai no Shizuku," which can mean "murmuring drops" (a reference to the water's sound) but can also mean "water for talking" (referring to how a drinking fountain brings people together) or even "lover's vow water" (which would play well with honeymooners visiting the town).


—Mellow Monk

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A Japan twofer: names and neolithic idols

The writers at the Japan Times enlighten us on Japanese names and neolithic Japanese idols known as dogu.



A dogu nicknamed the Tanabatake Venus.


—Mellow Monk

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Japan’s hip new generation of family farmers

In the Japanese countryside, parents often lament about grown children who balk at taking over the family farm, turning away from what they see as a lifestyle defined by the dreaded "three K's"—kitsui, kitanai, and kiken (demanding, dirty, and dangerous).


But no longer: A new generation of young farmers is striving to preserve the traditional family farm by revamping farm life so that the three K's now stand for kakko yokute, kando ga atte, and kasegeru—cool, exciting, and profitable.


Part of the transformation lies in taking a different approach to farm management. But like all such transformations, a big part is simply taking a different attitude.


And besides, who wouldn't want to work in an environment like this:



A screen capture from one of our "Stringing Tea" documentary videos.


—Mellow Monk

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Beautiful sisters

The Japanese word for today is bijin shimai (美人姉妹)—beautiful sisters.


As an example, here are the Nagata Sisters. Miho, on the left, and her husband own, work, and run the Nagata Chaen (Tea Plantation). They are good enough to share their wonderful tamaryokucha-style green tea (guricha) with Mellow Monk.


Thanks so much, ladies!



Cheers!


—Mellow Monk

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The lessons of Japan's rural woodland villages

Satyoyama isn't a specific place; it's a generic term for Japan's rural woodland farming villages.


Anne McDonald has been studying these villages for decades and has been working to promote to the rest of the world the ecological lessons we can learn from them.





—Mellow Monk

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Hungry for Japanese

Are you hungry for Japanese—the language, that is?


If so, you should check out Hungry for (Mostly Japanese) Words, which bills itself as offering "mini-lessons in Japanese daily," such as this one:

'Proper' employees vs. バイト and others

In Japanese working society, a 正社員 （せいしゃいん　seisha-in) is a full time employee, literally translated as a 'real' or 'proper' company member. Being a 正社員 means that one gets full benefits, a year-end bonus, and historically (though not since the early '90s) lifetime employment.

An amazing sunset at Borneo's Sutera Harbor. Click for the spectacular full-size version.


—Mellow Monk

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Two cool sites for students of Japanese

It sure is a brave new world today.


In the old days, if you wanted to look up the meaning of a Japanese word, you had plod through a paper dictionary.


But no more.


Now, not only are there online dictionaries like Goo, but there's even the super-fast dictionary Nihongodict.com: Type in an English or Japanese word, and its other-language equivalent appears almost instantaneously.


Another cool resource: clickable kanji lookup by radical at Denshi Jisho (Electronic Dictionary).



This has nothing to do with learning Japanese. Instead, it's just a mellow photograph of a circumhorizon arc, also known as a summertime halo.


—Mellow Monk

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Learn Japanese online

Many online resources for learning Japanese exist, but here is a list of ten exceptionally good ones.



After brushing up on your Japanese, you can practice it at Itsuku Island, known for its famous torii (gate).


—Mellow Monk

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One-minute Japanese

One minute isn't quite long enough for a green tea break, but it is long enough to take a one-minute lesson in Japanese at OneMinute Languages.


—Mellow Monk

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Japanese cathouse — the world's most cat-friendly home?

Modern Cat magazine has done a writeup of what could be the most cat-friendly house in the world — Japan's Plus-Nyan home, one of the models offered by builder Asahi Kasei Homes.


("Nyan," by the way, is the Japanese language's equivalent of "meow.")



This could also be the worst house in the world for a mouse. (Cue the song "Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide.")


—Mellow Monk

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Japanese emoticons

Here is a fairly comprehensive list of Japanese emoticons, known in Japanese as kaomoji ("face letters").


In the world of computers, Japanese is a double-byte language. That's one reason Japanese text more difficult to implement electronically than single-byte languages like English were. But then two bytes means more possibility for creating things like kaomoji.



Kaomoji keychains!


—Mellow Monk

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Lovers passing on the what's-your-name bridge

From Mellow Monk's Department of Obscure Japanese Movie Trivia comes some trivia so old that I've also labeled this post under "Japanese history."


Released in 1952 and 1953, the movie trilogy “Kimi no Na Wa” (What’s Your Name?) broke all previous box office records in Japan. This success was helped by the fact that the films were based on a long-running smash-hit radio series. The films proved so successful that they are said to have financed the modernization of Shochiku, the studio that produced them.


The story concerns a young man and women who meet by chance, fall in love at first sight (hitomebore), but are then kept apart by the circumstances around them. (Such stories about lovers kept apart by fate even constitute their own genre, known as surechigai, which means "passing," as in two ships passing in the night.)


The film was so popular that the unconventional way that lead actress Keiko Kishi wore her scarf (see the photo below) started a new fashion trend known as Machiko-maki (a "Machiko wrap," after the character's name).


A famous scene take place in the beginning of the trilogy at Tokyo's
Sukiya Bridge, where Machiko first meets her would-be beau, Haruki, during an air raid. (It is as they rush from the bridge to go their separate ways that Haruki utters the famous phrase, "Kimi no na ha?"—Oh, by the way, what's your name?)


In 1957, the Sukiya Bridge was demolished by the frenetic wave of development that preceded the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Today at that spot stands a monument that reads "Former site of the Sukiya Bridge." The words carved into the monument were actually written with a calligraphy brush wielded by Kazuo Kikuta (1908–1973), who authored the original story and after whom a TV screenwriting award was named.



A poster from the movie Kimi no Na Wa (What's Your Name?), showing actress Keiko Kishi sporting the scarf style that sparked a nationwide fashion trend waaaay back in the mid-1950s.


—Mellow Monk

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Top 60 Japanese buzzwords of 2007

PinkTentacle.com has put up a fascinating list of the Top 60 Japanese buzzwords of 2007.





Japan's 2nd—and thus far shortest-serving—minister of defense, Yuriko Koike, a.k.a. "Madame Sushi" (buzzword #9 on PinkTentacle's list).


—Mellow Monk

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Do you speak girlie Japanese?

If you're a guy who has picked up some Japanese, you should know whether you talk like a girl.



"Omigod, your, like, Japanese is so awesome, you know?"


—Mellow Monk

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Learn Japanese with Akira Kurosawa

Here is a page where you can learn Japanese by watching clips from the films of Japan's most renowned director, Akira Kurosawa.



The late, great director in action.


—Mellow Monk

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The Red Sox learn Japanese

Now that they're going to have Japanese pitching sensation Daisuke Matsuzaka as a teammate, Red Sox starter Curt Schilling and pitching coach John Farrell are learning Japanese.


—Mellow Monk

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Japanese "sushi shop" term for tea: agari

Just like the American restaurant business has its own jargon ("cow" for milk), the world of sushi has its own terms for things. Green tea is called agari, which is actually a shortened form of agaribana, which means freshly brewed tea. (The -bana part is a variant of hana, or flower.) So, agaribana literally means "fresh flowers."

So, if you really want to impress your local sushi chef, say "Agaribana wo kudasai" (I'll have some tea, please). If he gives you a quizzical look (which happens a lot when a Japanese is addressed in Japanese by a foreigner), just say, "Agari" while making a drinking gesture with your hand. Once he gets your meaning, if you want to kid him even more, say, "Tadashii Nihongo deshou?" (That's correct Japanese, right?).

—Mellow Monk

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Animal onomatopoeia

A cat says "Meow" in English but "Nyan" in Japanese. A list of these and other animal sounds in various languages can be found here.

—Mellow Monk

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A fascinating Japanese word: "mayutsubamono"

Translated literally, the word mayutsubamono (眉唾物) means "eyebrow spit thing," or "something (mono) that calls for spit (tsuba) on the eyebrows (mayu)." The phrase traces its roots back to the belief in old Japan that rubbing spit on one's eyebrows would protect a person from being deceived by a fox or raccoon dog (tanuki). By extension, mayutsubamono came to mean a dubious claim to be regarded with suspicion.

Incidentally, in the Japan of yore, all sorts of magical powers were ascribed to foxes and other animals deemed crafty. Nowadays such beliefs have all but faded away and exist only in animated films or as the sort of statement that gets an old grandpa laughed at by his grandkids. ("Don't go out at night, or a fox will deceive you!" "Oh, grandpa, give me a break." Or maybe the kid should say, "Grandpa, that's a real mayutsubamono."

—Mellow Monk

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Japanese "sushi shop" term for tea: agari.

Just like the American restaurant business has its own jargon ("cow" for milk), the world of sushi has its own terms for things. Green tea is called agari, which is actually a shortened form of agaribana, which means freshly brewed tea. (The -bana part is a variant of hana, or flower.) So, agaribana literally means "fresh flowers."

So, if you really want to impress your local sushi chef, say, Agaribana wo kudasai (I'll have some tea, please.). If he gives you a quizzical look (which happens a lot when a Japanese is addressed in Japanese by a foreigner), just say, "Agari" while making a drinking gesture with your hand. Once he gets your meaning, if you want to kid him even more, say, "Tadashii Nihongo deshou?" (That's correct Japanese, right?).

—Mellow Monk

Click here to return to the Mellow Monk tea page

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