POLESTAR HOKKAIDO
April 2019
Editor’s Note
April 2019
H Editor • Dayna Andreous Designer • Andrew Gerber Front and back cover photos • Rachel Bartholomew All photos are by the authors of the articles, unless otherwise noted. A special thanks to all of the contributors this month. You guys are the true champions behind Polestar and for that I am forever grateful.
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ello everyone and a very happy April to you all! I hope you are enjoying the change of weather, meaning not trundling through snow every day to get to work! Firstly, thank you all for the warm reception that my first edition of Polestar received last month. It made me feel so proud to have represented our Hokkaido community in such a positive and creative way. I wondered if I was just experiencing beginner’s luck and the April issue would be harder to produce; on the contrary, thanks to everyone who submitted such brilliant and colourful articles and photos this month, April’s Polestar is shining just as bright as before. I recently came back from my trip around Kansai and it really changed my perspective on things. For two weeks, I used my phone sparingly and disconnected from everything back in Hokkaido, instead choosing to embrace the beauty that was around me as I travelled through the different prefectures. It was one of the most refreshing things I have done so far and because of it, I was able to appreciate everything on my travels in a far more intense and engaging way. So, I encourage all of us here to be inspired by our surroundings, especially now that the majority of snow and cloudy skies have disappeared. Take a moment every now and then to switch off from social media and look around at the nature that is everywhere on Hokkaido island. Breathe in, appreciate your own existence. I promise you all, you will feel better for it! Peace and love in the community,
photo by Jacqueline Witwicki
In This Issue... H ajet
C ulture A genda
4 President’s Corner 6 A Letter from the First Year Rep 8 PC Retreat
HEC
A round
10 Indian Foodie Feast 11 HEC Roles
A ll
over
30 Ainu Folklore 32 The History of Hanami
H okkaido
the
‘D o
34 Otaru
P hoto G allery
12 From Nagano to Nayoro 14 How to Beat the Post-Winter Slumps 16 Hokkaido’s Hidden Sweetness 18 Snow and Sweet Fish Sausages 20 Makomanai Shrine Festival: Kids in Japan 22 Hokkaido Butoh Festival 26 Slay the JLPT
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PRESIDENT’S CORNER
PRESIDENT’S CORNER by Sonia Chand HAJET President
H
ey HAJET,
I hope you’ve come back from spring break well-rested. One of the most interesting things I did during spring break was bounce a few prefectures down and land in Gunma. Known as the eye of Japan, Gunma is a beautiful prefecture surrounded by mountains and popular for its top-quality hot springs and tasty Yaki Manju (grilled Manju and soy sauce). One of my good friends and Saibu representative for GAJET (Gunma Association for Japan and Exchange Teaching) hosted me. It was an eye opening experience to see how other AJET chapters do things and what their community looks like from the inside. I ended up helping with their annual Hanami BBQ near Takasaki’s Kannonyama Park. Braving the 5-degree temperatures and strong winds, we ended up having a good day huddled around the fire. Throughout the year, GAJET puts on a wide range of activities including annual prefectural games like Crazy Olympics but using cabbages. So, if you ever find yourself in Gunma, I encourage you to reach out to the warm community of ALTs that resides there.
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As a JET, you’ll always have that support network no matter where you go. As people living in a foreign country, we are working on a learning curve and the exchange of ideas doesn’t stop within our group. It can go across prefectures and allow us to create better opportunities for everyone in-between. I believe now more than ever that it is our time to expand and grow as a group. With that said, what’s HAJET been up to? Well, we’ve been busy organising ourselves and coordinating with HEC to bring you some exciting new events. This year we’d like to introduce the Indian Foodie Feast and Bazaar. All proceeds will go towards funding our annual Hokkaido English Camp now in its 25th year. How did this come about? As two women of Indian descent on the PC, Meghana (HAJET Treasurer) and I wanted to breathe some life into one of our community’s core mission statements: to ‘promote an international and globalized community’. What better way than to take from our ethnic backgrounds and celebrate the lesser known parts of Indian culture in Japan. We will be leading this cultural event to give you the most authentic experience we can. From rich aromatic dishes to henna body art, there are a whole range of activities to enjoy at this year’s Foodie
President’S Corner
Feast, which takes on more of an upbeat festival feel. The real inspiration came from our Punjabi and Maharashtrian roots. The recipes and festival games we have planned come from family experiences on the sub-continent. We want to share this with not only our JET family but also our local communities. I will be handing out flyers to my evening Eikawa class. I also encourage you to invite your Japanese friends and their families to this event. It not only reflects the inclusivity and diversity of Indian culture but also promotes our core message of furthering an international community within Hokkaido… and eating delicious amounts of curry! It’s a win-win. Be quick to fill out the RSVP form as only 50 spaces are up for grabs. Also check out the posters in this month’s Polestar for a timeline of HAJET and HEC events leading up to camp. By attending these events and volunteering we keep our camp strong and stable for the next generation of Hokkaido students and ALTs. Your support is paramount to each successful camp year especially as we now mark our 25th anniversary. Till next time! ■
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HIKING FROM M T. S T U P I D T O T H E VA L L E Y O F D E S PA I R A LETTER FROM THE F I R S T- Y E A R R E P by Jacqueline Witwicki
H
ello fellow Northerners! It’s been a full week since the last time I slipped and fell on ice... which tells me spring has officially sprung!! For me that means ditching my snow boots, throwing on my trusty Timberlands, and going for a hike. A pleasant hike through the mountains of Hokkaido is going to make a nice change from the marginally more strenuous trek I’ve been doing since I arrived here in Japan. Growing up in the States I never had a problem with academic confidence. I was always a good student and I never struggled to make grades. This extended to my Japanese studies in college. Through my whole course of study I only slipped below an A once...and that A- haunts me to this day. Even during my study abroad at Sophia University, hanging out mostly with other college students and folks with English ability, I was pretty darn confident in my Japanese communication skills. But then I got to my placement in Nakatombetsu. Instantly I felt myself struggling. I just couldn’t express myself the way I wanted to. Over and over again, I’d be having a conversation with someone and hit a wall. I’d run out of things to say or have no idea what the other person was talking about, so the conversation would fizzle and die. I’d be lying if I said this didn’t discourage me. I thought a lot
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A Letter from
the
First-Year Rep
High
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
Low
Confidence
Peak of Mt. Stupid You think you know, but you still don’t know what you don’t know
Plateau of Sustainability You don’t know what you don’t know
Program Termination Slope of Englightenment
Clueless You don’t know what you don’t know Know-Nothing
Valley of Despair You know what you don’t know
Wisdom
about the Modern Family quote “Do you have any idea how smart I am in (my native language)?” Even months later when coworkers would tell me how much my Japanese had improved since I arrived, I’d brush off their compliments and chalked it up to them just being nice. While on a road trip to Hakodate and Noboribetsu recently, a friend and fellow JET asked me how my Japanese was. I responded with my standard answer: “It’s kinda crappy... really not where I want it to be.” Later on that same trip, we decided to check out the restaurant/bar at the hostel we were staying at in Yunokawa . Since we were there pretty early in the afternoon and the bartender wasn’t busy, she hung out with us the whole time we ate. We talked about our trip, what we all studied in school, movies we liked, celebrities we were into, and cool stuff to check out in the area. When the bartender left I found myself getting gently yelled at by my friend. After listening to me chat comfortably with the bartender the whole time we ate, she couldn’t believe that I’d sold my Japanese ability so short. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is an awesome learning model that depicts the relationship between how much you know versus how much you think you know. Essentially, when I was in college and on
POLESTAR • APRIL 2019
Guru
my study abroad I was “Naively Confident”. I’ve seen this labeled on other models as being on “Mt. Stupid.” I thought I knew a lot, but I was really just chipping at the tip of the iceberg. Then, when I arrived in Nakaton and needed to practically apply my Japanese way more than I ever had before, I became discouragingly realistic, or fell into “The Valley of Despair.” My confidence took a major hit and all I could see was all that I didn’t know, even though, slowly but surely, my language skills were improving. I’m starting to shake myself out of my funk, and beginning to get myself on track to work my way out of “The Valley of Despair” and up the “Slope of Enlightenment”. Know that if you’re struggling, either with Japanese Language Study, becoming a better teacher, or whatever else, this phenomenon is common. I still wouldn’t describe my Japanese as great, but I’m more comfortable and confident in it now than I was before, while still being able to admit that I have a lot left to learn. Until next time, take care everybody! ■
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PC RETREAT
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PC Retreat
PC RETREAT by Annabel Baker-Sullivan HAJET Secretary
What got done at the 2019 Prefectural Council Retreat? I’m sure many are very curious about what happened at the HAJET PC Retreat. For those of you who are reading this and are thinking, “What the heck is a PC Retreat?” and “What is the PC and what do they do?”, let me do a very quick recap so we are all on the same page. The PC, short for Prefectural Council, are the group of volunteers that help make HAJET’s goals (which you can find in our constitution on the website hajet. org) a reality. This includes doing things like welcome parties, international events, volunteering in communities, fundraising for charities, keeping a bookstore, creating the Polestar, the list goes on! The PC Retreat is the first official meeting and gathering of the new PC to go over projects and goals for the year. So what projects and goals were made for the year? The meeting lasted from 9 in the morning until 6 in beautiful mountainous Higashikawa. For me, it felt a bit like a marathon, as I was taking notes on everything everyone said, but at the end of the day I felt it went by quickly. In total, 13 out of 22 PC members, including the members at large, were in attendance. For people who couldn’t make it, they read my live notes on the meeting and submitted comments through Facebook, which were read out at the meeting. In the agenda for the PC Retreat, there were about 25 topics that were discussed. The major topic that came to a vote was the 2020 Budget, which was
POLESTAR • APRIL 2019
successfully approved! Everyone who was in attendance had a chance to update the group on their needs and goals for the year. For example, the Regional Representatives came closer to a conclusion on dates and locations for their welcome parties. Other than topics related to financial things, we also had some general discussion on how some things could be updated in relation to how we do things as a PC. In my case, I discussed how the directory of HAJET members could be updated better to see who was still a JET, and found out through speaking with the PA TJ, that I could find that out through him. There was a lot of great collaboration between members and great plans for future collaboration. That greatly impressed me! I would say generally speaking, there was a lot of great discussion and internal reflection within the PC on how things have been run in the past and what could be changed. As of now, none of those conversations came to a consensus, but we had a lot of great discussion despite the schedule being tight on time for each given topic and will deliberate further on said topics. I am looking forward to a memorable and productive year with such an incredible, passionate, and lovely group of volunteers! I also am looking forward to a year of getting to know more of everyone in HAJET. I hope you are too, and until then, stay sexy. ■
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POSTERS HEC & HAJET PRESENT
INDIAN FOODIE FEAST & BAZAAR
MAY 25, 2019 | 4:30 PM TO 7:30 PM SHIROISHI KUMIN CENTER 2,500 yen
・ ⽩⽯区⺠センター
Join us for a family-friendly night of cultural exchange and good eats, getting a taste of the Indian subcontinent, with foods, fun, and music to match! All proceeds benefit the Hokkaido English Challenge (HEC) an annual 4-day English camp organized by HAJET to give students from all around Hokkaido an English immersion experience without having to leave the island.
Facebook Event
イベントページ RSVP Form
申込書
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道内の中・⾼校⽣の英語の勉強を⽀ 援している⾮営利団体「北海道イン グリッシュ・チャレンジ(HEC)」は 5⽉25⽇(⼟)に慈善⻝事会とバザー 「Indian Foodie Feast & Bazaar」 を開催いたします。 この⻝事会では本格的なインド料理 を味わうことができます！また、こ の「Indian Foodie Feast」は⻝事会 だけではないんです！⻝べたり飲ん だりしている間、バザーでゲームや 消えるヘナタトゥー（メヘンディア ート）なども楽しめます♩
・ 問い合せ先 英 英 ⽇）
CONTACT Sonia ( ) president@hajet.org Meghana ( ) treasurer@hajet.org Emily ( sapporo.rep@hajet.org
Posters
POLESTAR • APRIL 2019
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FROM
NAGANO... by Melissa Jackson
A
s all of us know, when you first arrive in Japan it can be so overwhelming. It might well be your first time living abroad, or even away from your family – not to even think of the language and cultural differences. I remember getting on the bus after a draining three days at Tokyo Orientation and thinking: ‘How on earth am I going to do this…?’ Actually, it was more like a constant screaming in my head, but I don’t know how to write that down exactly. It wasn’t helped by the fact that I had been married for 10 days and whilst I was headed to central Nagano, my husband had been placed as an ALT in Northern Hokkaido. As it turned out, my worries (and mind screaming) were pretty unfounded. A long distance relationship was and always will be difficult, but it can give you the opportunity to experience different places and meet new people. The first summer of Nagano swept by in a haze of humidity and those sawing sounds of cicadas. It was only as summer transformed into autumn that the prefecture’s beauty became apparent. The mountains that surround Suwa-lake - my newly adopted home - gradually became a rusty burnt orange, not as vivid as the colors you can see in Hokkaido, but stunning to see on mass or in the reflection of the lake. It was on a clear autumn morning that I first managed to capture a glimpse of Fuji-San, minuscule in the distance of the valley, as I ran along the lakeside. In the temperate Suwa-basin, winters are not so ferocious outside. Temperatures rarely fall below -10 degrees at night and I only dealt with a sprinkling of snow. However, they did fall low enough to see the natural phenomenon of Omiwatari across Lake Suwa. During Omiwatari, large cracks and fissures break out across the ice due to varying temperatures making the ice expand and contract. According to local legend, the cracks are the footsteps of Takeminakata as he crosses the frozen water to visit Yasakatome in her shrine. The occurrence of Omiwatari is said to signal peace for the coming year. My friends in the northern and mountainous areas were not so lucky though. Once you’re in a place like Hakuba, Iiyama and Nozawa Onsen, you’re fighting against Hokkaido levels of snow on narrow roads with deep ditches either side. However, like Hokkaido, the winter is worth it for the sports it brings. As the first year on JET came to a close, the decision had long been made that Top: Nebuta Festival in Akita. I was going to make the journey north. After the closing ceremonies, enkais and squeezing the rest of my apartment into my car it was time to head out. I was lucky enough to be sharing the journey with two friends and fellow ALTs Annie and Ami, Above: Matsumoto Castle in to share the driving and the aux chord. Nagano.
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From Nagano...
...to Nayoro
...TO
N AY O R O
On the first morning, we set out from Annie’s village, Ogawa-mura. A sprawling mountain side village with a little river running through, famous for spectacular views of the Japanese Alps and the home place of Oyaki. Then it was ‘See youuuu’ to Nagano. The drive took us along the western coastline of Japan. Niigata, with 40-degree heat, earthquake tremors and bright blue skies turned into Yamagata, where we saw more dramatic scenery with steep hills and forests stretching into the darkening skies before we made it to Akita. We used Tatami Timeshare to find somewhere to stay and our host pointed us in the direction of good food and beer. The next day we headed to Aomori and another Tatami Timeshare. Quite by chance, our stay coincided with the first night of Nebuta Festival. After a feast of grilled hotate, yakisoba, takoyaki, taiyaki and every other festival delight we could afford, we found a spot to watch the parade. We were passed by dancers, drummers and the ever increasingly intricate lanterns that make the festival so famous. After the excitement of the previous night, it was difficult to drag ourselves up and out to make our 7am ferry to Hakodate. The water was an absolute mirror of the almost cloudless sky and we could watch Hokkaido approaching from the deck as our hair was whipped up. To our surprise (and my terrible planning) the ferry took 4 hours not 1 and we only had time for a pit stop at Lucky Piers before storming up to Atsuma. In Atsuma we stayed with fellow Hokkaido JET, Elissa. She took us to a restaurant where we ate, drank and chatted with some friendly locals. It was heartbreaking to hear that 6 weeks later, the quiet, tight-knit town we visited was devastated by the south-eastern earthquake towards the end of the summer. We realized how lucky we were to see the town before that. After enjoying the tourist delights of Sapporo, it was time for my friends to return to Nagano and for me to make the final drive to Nayoro and face the dreaded unpacking. Spending time as an ALT in two different prefectures, as well as the long journey between them, has been a real privilege. Sometimes it can be difficult to not feel torn between places, especially when you are missing people you care about. Above: the author on the ferry But if that year in Nagano taught me anything, it’s that time passes quickly. Make to Hakodate the most of these experiences and have adventures, because soon enough they’ll just Below: Two views of Nagano’s be a story for you to tell. ■ Lake Suwa. Left: fronzen in winter; Right: at sunset
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H O W T O B E A T T H E P O S T- W I N T E R SLUMPS by Christophe Murdock
S
o, you have survived the winter and are now crawling out of the rooms you could keep heated and reacquainting yourself with parts of your apartment or house. The sun is staying up longer and the air temperature is finally rising but you don`t know why your mood and energy are not following. Welcome to the new financial year blues! Don`t worry, you are definitely not alone and here are a few specific ways to help yourself and even your friends out of it. First, start with your home! Open up the curtains and let some sunshine in and as the temperature comes up, open your windows. It`s easy to have your home turn into a cave. Spread out everything and slowly figure out what you can store in boxes or in the shed, if you have one, to give yourself mental and physical distance from the season. Start taking bubble wrap off the windows and everywhere except for your front door insulation. The foam insulation around the edges of your door also works as a barrier to newly awakened bugs.. Second, hit up your local supermarket for all the new seasonal goodies, such as asparagus, that will be everywhere. Also, get ready to enjoy all the fresh fruits that haven`t been flown in a plane to our beautiful northern island. This is also a great time to
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talk to your staff, not just teachers, about hidden gem restaurants or an izakaya that have specials around this time. A final thing about food is that there are several plants that will be blooming shortly that are traditionally fried up for tempura to make a delicious spring snack! Now it`s time to reacquaint yourself with all the outdoor places you could not reach because of snow. Start easy with walks along rivers and the parks that will show you exactly how far spring has come and maybe even see some cranes or foxes hanging out. Take some long walks around your town to have chances for conversations you wouldn`t have had. One of the things winter turns us into is homebodies, especially if a kotatsu is involved. If vertical height is your thing, places like Jozankei or Noboribetsu with easy and hard climbing paths may be your style. If you are still missing winter snow but do not want to live in it you can always go up ropeways on mountains like Asahidake to plunge yourself, temporarily, back into the white wastes. After all of that, it is time to enjoy one of the many outside baths to relax the muscles and let go of all the anxiety that built up while you wondered
How to Beat the Post-Winter Slumps
if tonight was going to be the night the roof snow became too big to support. Enjoy nature in a slow and relaxed way and listen for all the songbirds that are starting to try to impress mates! Also, do not forget to check out the new attractions opening back up like Sapporo`s waterworks museum with tons of fountains or Date`s new museum where you can ogle samurai armor and enjoy indigo dying an awesome new shirt. Of course, do not forget your local spring festivals and even some farther afield to meet new friends Spring is the time for renewal and change for most northern peoples because of how it interacts with winter. It was the reason the Celts had Beltane and the Christians followed with Easter. If you have had a bad winter this is the perfect time to contact your Block Adviser or give the Peer Support Group a call. Winter is amazing but it`s length here can throw even the best of us (Alaskans included) for a bit of a loop. Start making plans with friends and set definite dates because schedules can fill up faster than you would expect and having fun things to look forward to improves your mood and ability to deal with low level stress (like from work). So go out there and carpe diem this spring and leave the darkness of winter behind! â–
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TAPPING MAPLE AND BIRCH SYRUP
THE HIDDEN SWEETNESS OF HOKKAIDO by Andrew Gerber
H
okkaido has trees beyond my ability to count. Millions of red maples light up the fall woods, and the leaf patterns are celebrated in many artistic forms, such as printed kimonos and the designs on Edo-period lacquerware. We also have an abdunance of graceful white birches, with dark lenticels that vaguely remind me of eyes. My town has maples lining the street by the cultural center, and white birch by the shrine. And yet, hardly a drop of syrup comes out of the entire region. To be fair, Hokkaido does produce syrup, in Bihoro and Shimukappu, yet I’ve never seen it. The syrup I’ve seen is small, sparse, and imported from Canada - if the shop even carries any. It need not be so. The Ainu cooked with sap from maple, birch, and walnut, according to a report from the Hokkaido University. But the custom was never picked up by the Wajin, and instead of becoming an industry, it withered away. But while the practice doesn’t thrive, a few people continue to do it, as I discovered during my own saptapping taiken in Shibetsu, Nemuro Subprefecture. Yukino, a dairy farm worker, spent over a year in Canada and the U.S. thanks to WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms), including several months on a maple plantation in Vermont,
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and has brought her lessons back to Japan. Last autumn, she ID’ed the trees around her farm. In early February, she prepared her tools: bending leftover fencing wire into hooks, drilling holes in the rims of old plant-food buckets, and soaking taps in alcohol. In mid-February, we set out to the woods, following a way marked by hot pink plastic ribbons. She drills a hole about two centimeters deep into the trees: too shallow, it won’t draw sap; too deep, it might kill the tree. If it drips, it’s ready to tap. She threads the tap through one of the metal hooks, hammers it into the hole, hangs a bucket on the hook and snaps the lid back on. Then she waits. Yukino goes out almost every day to check the buckets. Some days there’s a lot, and some days none. Cold weather causes sap to sink into the roots, while warm weather causes it to rise again. On other occasions, the wind batters the buckets, spilling sap or yanking off the lids. One of the buckets got visited by an Ezomomonga, or Siberian flying squirrel – who soiled it. After a month, Yukino has filled dozens of giant PET bottles with sap. To save time and heat, she leaves them outside and lets the water freeze out, leaving behind sap with a higher concentration
The Hidden Sweetness of Hokkaido
Clockwise from left: 1. tapping tools (drill, hammer, tube, scissors, buckets); 2. metal taps and bucket hooks; 3. a plastic tap and hook, with a pink ribbon; 4. removing foam from boiling sap; 5. frozen sap; 6. a bucket with lid and snow; 7. Safety first - always wear a helmet when drilling in the woods.
of sugar. Known as freeze distillation, the same technique was used by indigenous North Americans, and is still used by Mongolians to turned fermented horsemilk into moonshine. Yukino filters the concentrated sap into a large pot, almost like a witch’s cauldron, to boil it. Periodically, she skims the scum off the boiling liquid, and tests it with a spectrometer. She’s aiming for 70% sugar, which will be concentrated enough that microbes cannot grow. It takes 40 liters of sap to make 1 liter of syrup, so in the end, she only has a few liters of syrup. Tapping depends on the alternation of freeze and thaw to pump the sap out, so it is possible only during a limited temporal (and temperature) range. By April 7th, the mercury hardly dipped below zero anymore, and the maples had stopped dripping, so Yukino declared maple season over. Now we get to sample it! Hokkaido’s itaya-kaede are a different species from the Acer saccharum sugar maples prevalent in northern North America, so the flavor is a bit different, although still good, and assuredly beats fenugreek-infused fake maple. Yukino is now making plans to bottle and label the syrup for sale at fairs this summer. However, no sooner had we wrenched the taps out
POLESTAR • APRIL 2019
of the maples, than she discovered that the shirakaba had begun flowing. Time for birch syrup! Birch is a different flavor altogether, and hard to describe more savory and less sweet than maple, even though the sugar content is the same. I think it tastes just a little bit like cherry cough syrup (in a good way, I swear), which Yukino denies. But it tastes just as good on pancakes, in the form of birch butter. The next task is to test out birch syrup as a salmon marinade – apparently a well-established use in Alaska. And so the tapping will go on. ■
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SNOW AND SWEET FISH SAUSAGES Japan? This country is at such a point on the map, it seems unlikely you’d get here by chance. Islands on the edge of the world. From almost every point of departure you need to fly on an airplane, to cross half the world through countries and over oceans. There is a strange culture, an unusual mentality, atypical food and prices that can break your budget. Here, technologies make life easier, and stereotypes complicate it. Here, much is tied to the culture of consumption, albeit fairly conscious. Here is a complex language that changes the worldview, simplifying and at the same time complicating life. Here it is possible to have time for everything, because public transport runs on schedule with cosmic accuracy. Here you may not have time to do anything if your question to a person does not fit into his system of competence even by a millimeter. The solution of the problem will drag on for a long time, because no one can help you with anything. This is a country that is very hard to get into, although it has not been isolated for a long time. This is a country in which you fall in love as a tourist, but in which you are disappointed when you have to stay here for a long time. Here you can feel really lonely among millions of people and really happy all alone. This is a place where people do not find themselves by chance. But I did. I first came to Japan in December 2016. I escaped from the nasty Russian winter. And this was the first winter in my life which I liked. I remember my impressions of Tokyo, already preparing for Christmas, but without wet snow and wind. From the queues in the shops and people buying gifts; from sellers, elegantly and deftly packing goods: it all looked charming. Everything from the cashier’s smile in the store to the vending machines with drinks on every corner. But two years later I saw this country from a completely different side. What happened? I went to study there. In January 2018, I was offered a long-term internship at Hokkaido University. Frankly, I never considered Japan as a place to live long term. Not because I did not like it, but simply because there was no feeling of myself in this place. I did not like anime, did not know the language, did not understand the mentality of the Japanese. This is one of the reasons why I say that I was here by chance. The second reason can be called the circumstances under which I received this internship. For a long time I wanted to study abroad and there were no other alternatives. And I got my IELTS certificate not so long before the interview and I wanted to apply it somewhere. This is how I decided to go for an interview. Just like that, and I suddenly got lucky. The interview lasted only 5 minutes and I was the first who was approved for the internship. The other candidates for the place
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Snow
and
Sweet Fish Sausages
M Y S T O RY O F M Y R E L A T I O N S H I P W I T H J A PA N
by Svetlana Bogdanovskaia
were Orientalists, Japanese Studies students and other professionals, clearly eager to get into this country; I was an average student who was just looking for a way not to stay in their homeland for an extra year. As one of my new friends from Japan would say later: it was not I who chose this country, this country chose me. My impressions of Sapporo changed as did the weather in my hometown. Every few hours and in an absolutely unexpected way. I was thrown from a state of admiration to hysterical tears. There were days when I was sad, I just wanted to talk to someone. In the student office, on any organizational issues beyond the protocol, everyone shrugged and no one could help me. The Japanese language was extremely difficult. All the restaurants had endless queues. And the food turned out to be extremely monotonous, or insanely expensive. Fish sausages were generally sweet. Because of the food, I did not cry for a long time. And earthquakes occurred; snow was constantly falling in winter, and bills for gas and light came to astronomical sums. During the day, the snow crust melted from the warm air and I had to constantly walk through the puddles. I was always cold and could not do anything except to sleep under two blankets and on an electric mattress. Scholarships were only enough to pay bills and dinners. A grocery hike made me hysterical, and the cost of a small piece of French cheese made me want to faint. Not to mention the cost of fresh meat and vegetables. But there were other moments, too. Moments of beautiful sunsets and sunrises. The moments when you taste the freshest fish and feel the sweet taste of the sea in your mouth. When you climb a mountain and look at the city from the height of birds in flight. When you find true friends. When you begin to understand the local language on an intuitive level. When you are given a birthday box full of cheese! And the next day, you sit in your room wrapped in two blankets, watch the beautiful snowfall outside the window and pick up pieces of cheese and honey. When you can paint your day to the minute, because the metro and buses go well on schedule. The moments when you say goodbye to people in the hope of seeing them again. Moments, when suddenly you cease to be fascinated by the city, but you begin to love it in your own way. For the people and impressions that it gave you. Moments when you stop feeling like a random person. Japan gave me the opportunity to feel independent. To understand myself and the world. It taught me to be calm and appreciate all the goods moment. It taught me how to schedule and long-term planning. This country painted life in a new way and created memories that noone would want to refuse. It has given me many reasons to return. And now it will be absolutely not by chance. â–
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M A K O M A N A I S H R I N E F E S T I VA L :
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here were crowds around the floats, but they weren’t watching the street; they were facing us. Someone had noticed the two small girls I had with me, then someone else had, and suddenly there was an interested ring surrounding us. Some of them were my students, stopping to talk, to meet my family, to ask to touch my daughters’ golden curly hair. Some were strangers, wanting to chat, asking about the girls, asking for pictures. And even a coworker, stopping presumably to meet the girls too but really, I’d learn later, to check that we were okay. We were. Everyone was kind, and pleasantly curious. At some point my oldest had started collecting glowing bracelets. Someone got us all drinks. They pointed out the food vendors and where to get drinks and snacks for free. Then it was time for the performances to start on the floats, and as enough people had dissipated we were able to make our way to the front to watch. People danced, and played flutes, and my oldest lost all interest in poufy princess clothes and wanted a dress just like these “princesses” instead. We ate and drank and, eventually, wandered home. The next day was the real celebration we learned, when first thing in the morning another coworker arrived at my door, two tiny happi in-hand. They were for my daughters, so they could represent our neighborhood, since each neighborhood had their own color. They squealed, and had to try them on right now. We tried to run errands, and ended up
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MakomanaiShrineFestival: KidsinJapan
K I D S I N J A PA N running across all the young men carrying a shrine, with all the older ones chanting behind them. We wove around floats getting pulled through the streets. They would all meet together tonight, they said. Make sure you come back tonight! We did. The five floats were facing each other and fighting for dominance. Lines of boys and girls waited in front of the drums, quick to jump in as soon as one person got tired. Somehow they knew who was next, even though spectators crowded the space. The drums reverberated through town, the lanterns were bright, and the one-year-old in my arms stared and stared. And my oldest, she didn’t like loud noises, I thought. But she was bouncing in her grandma’s arms, waving to the people in the floats, chanting that she wanted to try too. People with large, expensive-looking cameras asked if she’d wave again, they wanted to take pictures for the town newspaper, and she was happy to accommodate them. When the drums slowed, the rest didn’t. People were giving out food and drinks. As groups pulled their neighborhoods’ floats down the street, people danced and drummed. Satisfied, we went back to the stroller that we had left tucked away on the sidewalk. You could just do that here, knowing nothing would happen. But when we tried to go home (it was bed time!) the kids begged and begged to stay. They could still hear the drums! They could still hear the drums! The drums!
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by Heather Rand We walked up and down the streets, instead. How many steps, I have no idea. The floats kept performing. Sometimes they were dancing, sometimes they were playing the flute, sometimes they were drumming again. My students showed me their hands, raw and bandaged, before they rushed off to drum again. People kept giving us food and drinks. Then the bags of snacks started appearing. I don’t know where they came from, but they appeared in peoples’ hands and they were handing them to the kids. So many snacks. The stroller was full of snacks. My youngest, we learned that night, could eat five mochi back-to-back. We stayed until the floats were done. It was far past the kids’ bedtime. It was far past my bedtime. ‘Can we go back now? The drums have stopped.’ Only then would my kids, eyes drooping and yawns near-constant, consent to returning home. Who knows how much we drank. Who knows how much we ate. Who knows how many bracelets the kids collected. ‘Will you participate next year? Your oldest will be able to play the drums!’ Everyone was asking about next year. It hadn’t even been two months at the time, since we’d moved here. Next year? Not bothering to ask me, my oldest insisted she’d play the drums, and they were satisfied. That’s when I first realized that I had no choice in whether I stayed here or not. My kids had already decided, and gradually, I’d realize that the community had, too. ■
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THE 2019 INTERNATIONAL
HOKKAIDO B by J. Brad Breiten
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Hokkaido Butoh Festival
U T O H F E S T I VA L
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t’s that time of year again! The dates for the 3rd annual International Hokkaido Butoh Festival have been posted: April 19th to June 14th. Very likely coming to a city near you! The Hokkaido Butoh Festival, first organized in 2017, takes place in various cities and venues around Hokkaido where locally and internationally known butoh artists present their work and push the boundaries of our understanding of dance and performance art. Butoh is a dance style born of the Avant Garde performance art movements of the post-war period in Japan, with its inceptive performance being Kinshiki (禁色, “Forbidden Colors”) performed by Hijikata Tatsumi and Ono Yoshito in Tokyo in 1951. Since then, butoh has persisted as a somewhat underground dance form in Japan, but has received widespread acclaim around the world with major hubs of activity in countries as far spread as Taiwan, Mexico, Germany, France, and the United States of America. Butoh is a particularly anomalous piece of Japanese culture, and is quite a standalone style in the world of dance. It was developed in direct opposition to Western style dances (i.e. classical ballet and modern) and also attempted to break with the codification of meaning imbued in traditional Japanese dance vocabularies (i.e. Noh and Kabuki). The resultant butoh is a dance often characterized by slow, deliberate movements, rooted in a connection to the earth (as opposed to the seemingly weightless and fluid motions standard in classical ballet). Performances are often starkly lit which provide a dramatic effect; either giving the performance an air of darkness or ethereality. The subject matter of butoh performances, in my experience, has never failed to inspire awe, introspection, and intense conversation. Many artists draw inspiration from personal struggles and experiences, and performances I have seen personally have dealt with topics of identity crisis, mental illness, sexuality, death, and the afterlife. The movements, inspiration,
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and setting all coalesce into a performance art style that has, on more than one occasion, left me utterly speechless. One of the organizers of the festival, Morishima Hiroshi, commented that “classical ballet has had particular influence on dance throughout world history, and more recently hip-hop and street dance have permeated dance cultures around the world, but butoh is something completely different from both of them. Because of this, I think it is incredibly important work to promote butoh around the country where it was created…” As I prepare to enjoy this year’s performances all around Hokkaido, I decided to take a moment to speak with the primary movers of the festival – Morishima Hiroshi and Hal Tanaka – to get their take on the festival and to understand the history of butoh on the island. Morishima is the owner of Conte-Sapporo and the manager behind the magic who deals with venue bookings, finances, and staffing events. Hal Tanaka is a leading expert and the most established performer of butoh in Hokkaido. He is also a locally and internationally recognized and respected performance artist. Both men are driven to expand the influence and recognition of butoh as an art form not only within Japan, but around the world. According to Tanaka, “butoh was born in Japan, but there are still many people who don’t know about it. I would like for Japanese people to know this cultural treasure of Japan.” Both Tanaka and Morishima see the butoh festival as a means of spreading butoh. Tanaka likens the festival to a “flying spark” (飛び火) that could catch in other countries, and Morishima expresses that the festival could be the “fuse that ignites [butoh] around Japan” (日本国内での起爆剤). The International Hokkaido Butoh Festival is the culmination of a short, but rich history of butoh in Hokkaido. Butoh first took root in Otaru, Hokkaido in 1975 with the establishment of the Hoppo Butoh-
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ha (北方舞踏派) headquarters there. They were active in Hokkaido for seven years before relocating their headquarters to Tokyo. When Hoppo Butoh-ha moved to Tokyo, one member, Kojima Ichiro, stayed behind and took over management of the training center in Otaru. In 1986 he formed the Kobusoku Arutai (古舞族アルタイ) butoh company, and until the mid-90’s Otaru was the clear cultural center of butoh in Hokkaido. Around that time Kojima moved his butoh company to Tokyo and one of Arutai’s performers, Hata Kanoko, broke off and continued to practice and perform in Sapporo. In the mid-1990’s she moved to Taiwan and as Tanaka describes it “butoh disappeared from the island for 10 years.” It wasn’t until 2006 that Tanaka returned to Hokkaido and, through a number of solo public performances as well as collaborations with other artists and musicians, breathed new life into the embers of Hokkaido butoh. Seven years ago he started his specialist butoh lessons at Conte-Sapporo, and through sponsored performances, his Butoh BAR (opportunities to practice and discuss butoh
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freely with other butoh artists and enthusiasts) and workshops enriched by invited artists and others – as well as the Hokkaido Butoh Festival – butoh has gradually become better known by the people of Hokkaido. This year’s Hokkaido Butoh Festival represents the artistic efforts of a thriving sub-culture based on the island. Through the efforts of Hal Tanaka and Morishima Hiroshi, as well as the backing and support of the community they have worked to build, artists from around Japan and the world will gather to share their art and culture with Hokkaido. As Hal Tanaka said to me, the thing he looks forward to most at the festival is “being seen by even just one person who didn’t know about butoh.” ■
Hokkaido Butoh Festival
In addition to numerous performances, the festival schedule includes roundtable discussions of butoh, and movement workshops led by butoh movement instructors from around the world. For a full schedule of events please visit sapporo-butoh. com or the group’s official Facebook page at Hokkaido Butoh Festival/北海道舞踏フェスティバル (https://www.facebook.com/hokkaidobutohfestival/). Venues are often small and require reservation, but if you are worried about making reservations in Japanese, fear not. They have employed a number of English speaking individuals to assist with translation and bookings if need be. You can also make bookings through Facebook messages to their official account. I hope many of you can find time during the less busy summer months to come out and enjoy this wild and wonderful performance art!
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S L AY T H E J L P T ! By Jordan Bauzon As an ALT, there may come a time (or many times) when you find yourself at your desk at a loss, having just finished your daily rituals of browsing Reddit, reading BBC news articles, planning the following days’ lessons and what have you. “Might as well study some Japanese.” you say in a resigned fashion. With two test dates every year, the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) finds hundreds of hopeful combatants flocking to test centers nationwide, willingly doing battle with the nearly three hour kaiju of a test that is the JLPT, with some honing their knowledge of all things kanji each day while others come in just winging it. No matter where you find yourself, maybe this year you’ve finally steeled yourself: “This year, I will pass the N2 (or any of the other ranks).” To give some context, the JLPT is a marathon of a test divided into two main sections; language knowledge (vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension) and listening. Depending on the level, the language knowledge section can be anywhere from 75 minutes (N5) to 110 minutes (N1) while the listening section ranges from 30 minutes (N5) to 60 minutes (N1). The following guide will be broken up according to these two sections, with a final section dedicated to holistic reviews/mock exams thereafter. Each main section will further be comprised of recommended texts and recommended resources. Whether you find yourself aiming to pass the N3 or N2, or perhaps even the N1, read on for some recommended tools, texts, and techniques to better be equipped for emerging victorious after doing battle with the JLPT. (Author’s note: This guide focuses on my experience on successfully tackling the N2, though all of the resources recommended are relevant no matter what level you plan on taking.)-
Final Thoughts The JLPT is really long. If you are like me and get extreme test anxiety, it’s great to be prepared for this exam since it’s really a marathon and not a sprint. After the short break between the two sections, you are more likely than not burned out, exhausted, and really not in the mindset for the listening section. On test day, eat a good breakfast and bring plenty of snacks! Of course, there’s no right way to study, so develop your own daily study schedule as you know yourself the best. Feel free to contact me anytime at jordanbauzon@nevada.unr.edu if you would like more advice, tips, or personal anecdotes about the JLPT.
tl;dr Start studying early, eat properly on test day, and
be prepared for the marathon that is the JLPT! ■ 26
Slay
the
JLPT!
Sou-Matome: Grammar
Kanzen Master
readthekanji.com
memrise.com
Sou-Matome: Listening
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Hatsuka de Goukaku
Goukaku Dekiru
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Language Knowledge
(Vocabulary, Grammar, Reading) Title
Target
Comments
総まとめ (sou-matome)
vocabulary, grammar (separate books per category)
総まとめ was one of my favourites, as it’s laid out in an eight week, seven lessons per week style that’s easy to follow and takes 30 minutes or so to complete each lesson.
完全マスター (kanzen master)
vocabulary, grammar (separate books per category)
新完全マスター is highly recommended by JLPT hopefuls as its very structured, very specific, and likes to lay out the nuances of grammar structures in 30 lessons that are very text heavy (all Japanese in N2 version).
vocabulary, grammar
20日で合格 is laid out exactly like you’ll see this section in the JLPT, with the same amount of question types/formats as the JLPT. It’s a wonderful drill to get used to the structure of the JLPT, see how you would have done on this section in the JLPT (after you scale your score from 54 to JLPT’s total 60), and also gauge whether or not you are ready for the test.
vocabulary, kanji
Wanikani is absolutely the best kanji learning resource as it allows you to learn not only the readings, but also gives you helpful mnemonics and breaks down the kanji by giving you knowledge into radicals, the shapes used to construct the kanji. You learn the 2000 joyo kanji and you also get to learn around 6000 vocab along the way, in around two years. However, since it’s an SRS based learning system, it takes some time to get into and will take at least a year to get into N2 kanji/ vocabulary.
vocabulary, kanji
Memrise is fantastic for vocabulary learning since it is also SRS, but you get to focus on specific study decks and learn at your own pace. I used the courses, “JLPT N2 from Memrise Beta,” “JLPT N2 vocab,” “N2 kanji,” Japanese Grammar N2 Somatsume,” and “Shin kanzen master N2 - Bunpou” study decks (the latter two supplementing the above recommended texts).
vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension
readthekanji.com is a really great tool that gives you a Japanese sentence and one word that you have to provide the reading for. It’s great since you can see the context, turn on/off the English, and practice at your own pace. It’s $5 a month and it’s a great supplement if all you have learned is vocabulary through rote memorization since you see the usage of the words, greatly supplementing Wanikani and Anki SRS learning.
vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension
Although a bit pricey at almost 9,000 yen/month, every person I’ve recommended Kumon to have found the method extremely helpful in their studies and Japanese comprehension at large. There are of course in-person schools and an online correspondence courses available, with “Japanese for English Speakers” and “Kokugo” lessons that will prove valuable no matter what level you are at.
20日で合格 (hatsuka de goukaku)
Wanikani
Memrise
ReadtheKanji
Kumon
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Slay
the
JLPT!
Listening Title
Target
Comments
総まとめ (sou-matome)
listening practice, question types
総まとめ is great in getting you prepared (very basically) for the question types in the section, helping you pick out the nuances in conversations, and what to look out for/what to be careful for.
完全マスター (kanzen master)
listening practice
新完全マスター was a great review for the listening section and approached the section from a different angle than 総まとめ, which helped supplement the former.
JapanesePod101
listening practice, listening comprehension
JapanesePod101 has over 3,000 lessons online available in podcasts for every type of learner, with lesson notes, transcripts, and community forums ready to supplement these lessons (some features only for premium members).
Holistic Reviews/Mock Exams Title
Target
Comments
合格できる (goukaku dekiru)
question types, review
合格できる allows you to see the types of questions/structure of the test w/ a ton of review exercises and questions for each part while also helping you to get into the testing mindset.
ゼッタイ合格 (zettai goukaku)
question types, review
ゼッタイ合格 includes three complete mock exams. I would recommend taking the first mock exam before you start studying to gauge where you are and take it again a couple weeks before the exam, and the last week before the exam.
NihongoShark
review
nihongoshark.com has lessons tailored to nearly every facet of the JLPT covering a wide breadth of subjects. The daily JLPT grammar a day series proved invaluable in my own studies.
Living that JET ALT Life
everything but the kitchen シンク
This one may seem obvious, but don’t be afraid to approach your coworkers and ask for clarification for grammar, vocab, reading, listening, or really anything.
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AINU FOLKLORE
by Steffanie Craig
W
ait...who are the Ainu? Everyone here is experiencing or has experienced Japanese culture, but on the big island the Ainu, one of Japan’s aboriginal groups, have lived here for thousands of years. The Ainu, for the majority of history, was completely separate from the Japanese in that their cultures did not overlap in customs and traditions. The relationship between them has been equated to the Native Americans and the colonizing settlers of the United States. I specifically asked for Hokkaido when applying to the JET Program because of the Ainu tribes living here. We all have the opportunity to live in Japanese society and to also be close to Ainu culture. During my first year, I attended the Asahikawa Annual Kamuikotan Festival. I hopped a train from Iwamizawa to Asahikawa and then navigated my way to the Kamuikotan. I was afraid since I went alone and my Japanese was not that great, but everyone I met was kind and patient with me. One woman even offered to have me try on a traditional Ainu attushi or coat. It
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resembles a Japanese kimono but is made with very distinctive Ainu patterns and a different weaving style. Some of the patterns ward off bad spirits or bring good luck to the wearer. At university, I studied Ainu folklore and found that their stories are sung, nature-centric, and their culture is animist. One of their core beliefs is that everything has a kamui, spirit or god, within. Each animal holds a kamui and is treated as such. When the Ainu people hunt there is a special ceremony for the hunted animals. They do this to respect the animal’s kamui and to thank them. Many of their stories are centered around animals and the Ainu interacting with them. At the Asahikawa Kamuikotan Festival, I had the opportunity to hear one of their stories sung by an Ainu elder. The elder sang a story about the most treasured kamui, the bear. When he sang, it felt as if I was intruding on an intimate moment; his voice carried thousands of years of tradition, it was slow and deep. He sang the story from memory, never faulting in
Ainu Folklore
Ainu elder and Professor at the Hokkaido University Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies
his words. The song told the story of how the bear can transform into a human. The son of a tribe that had been wiped out by famine came across a bear-goddess and a dragon god. He saw her, the bear-goddess, but she said nothing as he passed. Later that night she came to him and explained that her husband was a jealous dragon god and if she had said anything to him that her husband would have killed him. She told him that her dragon husband planned to make fake jewels to trade him for the treasures that he held from his fallen tribe. She said to him, “Tell him that you do not want to trade your treasures, but that you would like to pay for the woman, for me. He will be enraged, leave, and then we will be free to be together.” She left him and the next day the dragon god came to him. He offered the jewels that the man knew were fake. He told the dragon god what the bear-goddess had said to him, “I do not want your jewels, but I would like to buy the bear-goddess.” Lightning hit and the dragon god disappeared; the man and the
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bear-goddess were left alone and allowed to be together. Since the man married the beargoddess, their children could take the form of a bear or a man. In later stories the bear kamui almost always comes as a messenger to the Ainu in the form of a man. We’re lucky enough that we live in Hokkaido and are close to many Kamuikotans to go and visit. There is only so much that we can learn in a classroom: first-hand experiences are priceless. Experiencing both Japanese culture and Ainu culture validates their existence and can open our minds to coexisting cultures. Their relationship isn’t perfect and there are still many steps that need to be taken for equality between the two, but we can advocate for it. I encourage all of you to go to an Ainu festival this year, you’ll never know who you’ll meet! ■
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photo by Rachel Bartholomew
T H E H I S T O RY O F HANAMI
by Dayna Andreous Polestar Editor-In-Chief
O
ne of the biggest tourist attractions in Japan is the cherry blossoms. In fact, it could be argued that it is one of the most recognisable things to foreigners outside of Japan. Hanami 「花見」 – literally meaning to look at flowers – is the celebration of the cherry blossom in all its beauty and simplicity. If you are traveling during hanami season, it is guaranteed that your visits will be peppered with clusters of international tourists, many of them sporting their thick Nikon cameras and carrying their tripods, forcing themselves through the crowds to get the best and most glamorous shots of the pinkish cherry blossoms. It has become a must-do for both Japanese and foreigners alike to watch the sakura in bloom, often accompanied by alcohol. In fact, many prime cherry blossom viewing sites – such as Osaka Castle, which has the breath-taking Nishinomaru Garden - have extended opening times to accommodate the masses of people wanting to see the beautiful flowers. Often, in the evening, the viewing turns into an informal party with people drinking beneath the swathes of pink and enjoying the warmer weather that accompanies this Japanese tradition. Although hanami is something that has become synonymous with Japan, the origins of this annual custom remain relatively unknown by many; in
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fact, the beginnings of hanami are a rich part of Japanese history. The roots of cherry blossom viewing can be traced back to the Nara Period (710-794) but the favoured flower at that time was not the instantly recognisable pink sakura that we today are familiar with, but instead ume blossoms, or plum blossoms. Like many ancient Japanese customs, this is linked with Japan’s cultural relationship with China, as ume originated in China. However, due to Japan ceasing its kentoshi in the year 894 (meaning formal missions to China to deal with things such as trade and to learn the culture and customs of the Chinese) the Japanese began to explore their own culture and thus, their own natural flora and fauna. As a result, the cherry blossom replaced the plum blossom in its popularity. Nowadays, hanami parties are casual and involve drinking and eating beneath the trees, but the tradition was not always like this. In fact, during the Heian Period (794 – 1185) hanami was associated exclusively with the Japanese aristocracy. It did not involve lying languidly with alcohol under the cherry blossoms, but was a refined and elite celebration for the well-educated. The popularity of hanami did not increase with the lower classes until the Edo Period (1603 – 1868) when the poorer people experienced freedom from warfare for more
The History of Hanami
than two hundred years. This time allowed them to realise and cultivate their own culture, leading to a more widespread practice of hanami. It was also encouraged as a practice when the eighth shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, planted sakura trees in Tokyo and established places specifically for cherry blossom viewing for the lower classes. Some of the places set up by Yoshimune are still popular today – such as Gotenyama Garden and Koganei Park in western Tokyo. There is a symbolism in the sakura that permeates Japanese life. The start of the hanami season coincides with the spring rice planting season in Japan, leading many farmers in ancient times to draw a link between the flower and the rice paddy gods. This is woven even with the word sakura – ‘sa’ meaning god and ‘kura’ meaning ‘seat for god’. The sakura itself is a sacred place for the rice paddy gods to dwell. Thus, many years ago the blossoming of the cherry blossoms was a sign of a good harvest to come. For Japanese people, the cherry blossom represents the transience and impermanence of life. They appear in each prefecture for only
about two weeks before dying, only to reappear the following year with as much brilliance and colour as before. This coincides with the Buddhist concept of the impermanence of things, the sakura encompassing both life and death in its small petals. It seems to imply that although things can change, life, in itself, is eternal. As such, it has become the symbol of Japan. Some of the most popular hanami spots are Shinjuku Park in Tokyo, the Osaka Castle grounds in Osaka and along the Fuji Five Lakes. However, each prefecture has places where the most beautiful cherry blossoms can be viewed, including our own prefecture, Hokkaido, such as Matsumae Park and Maruyama Park. Please get lost beneath the sakura this season! ———— For more information on the history of sakura, please visit: https://japanthis.com/2017/04/04/history-ofhanami/. For more information on the best hanami spots in your area, please visit your local tourist centre.. ■
Himeji Castle photo by Kevin Nel
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Otaru
o
Aroun
D
the ’ d
小樽
by Kelly Williams
C
andlelight flickering behind panes of ice, hearing the chimes of music boxes, and romantic boat rides around a scenic canal are but a few things you can enjoy in Otaru. Otaru has a lot of charm and a deep connection to the history of Hokkaido. The older European style buildings reflect the history of the powerful economic city that can be glimpsed in the manga “Golden Kamuy.” Around the same time as the Sapporo Snow Festival, Otaru has its own Snow Light Path. You can visit both easily in one day since Otaru is only forty minutes by train from Sapporo. Buses and trains run reliably and frequently between the two cities. The Snow Light Path runs along the Unga Kaijo area and the Temiyasen Kaijo area, both of which are a short walk from Otaru Station. You can enjoy some hot cocoa while strolling through the pathways or delight in seeing the candles floating in the canal and take advantage of the many helpers to get some great photos. If you visit in the fall, take the ropeway to the top of Mt. Tengu and enjoy the fall colors during the day or visit Mt. Tengu at night and see the glittering
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gems of Otaru laid out in the inky darkness. When at the top of the mountain, appreciate the many viewing locations. Also, remember to rub the nose of the Tengu Oni and stroll through the museum that features an incredible amount of Oni masks. I recommend hiking around the top of the mountain in the fall on a nice day. During the winter, you can rent ski equipment and have a fun time. Afterwards you can eat at the mountaintop restaurant while relishing the view. Partake in the fresh seafood at one of the many excellent sushi shops along Sakaimachi Street. Otaru has a natural harbor that has provided incredibly fresh seafood that you can find for sale in the restaurants and fish markets. You can journey into one of many twisty alleyways to find where the locals eat and drink. I highly recommend eating at The Coast for excellent pizza but you do have to venture further into the city to find it. Of course, Otaru is best known for its canal. Once when the city was more prosperous the canals ran throughout the city but now only a few remain in use. The main canal offers delightful boat tours that
Otaru
take you through Otaru’s past and present. The tours are in Japanese but they do provide pamphlets with information in English. The canal tends to be rather busy but once you leave the main bridge area you can find some better photo spots. There are many scenic restaurants along the canal including Otaru Beer that - on the inside - is a German style beer hall. They bring over a German band every year for Oktoberfest. Around the end of July, come see the parades for the Ushio Wave Festival. People dance throughout the parade to thank the ocean for the gifts that it has provided to the city and country. Otaru is a great place to visit no matter the season. Even in the delayed spring of Hokkaido, there are still places to see and explore including the Music Box Museum with its steam clock out front and delight in the cuteness of Hokkaido’s first Hello Kitty Café or the nearby Snoopy Café. Please come and explore this charming town! ■
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P H O T O G A L L E RY
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Photo Gallery
Annabel Baker-Sullivan in Shikoku
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Annabel Baker-Sullivan Iya Valley, Tokushima
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Photo Gallery
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Peter Lennox Lake Shikotsu
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Photo Gallery
Peter Lennox
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