« September 2004 | Main | November 2004 »
RAKUGO
RAKUGO is a kind of comic storytelling which has 300 years or more history. Each performance is performed by one storyteller, HANASHIKA. A HANASHIKA sits down on the stage and plays all the roles in his story by himself. Many of the stories have handed down from mouth to mouth through the generations.
Today, RAKUGO is rarely heard among Japanese young people. But I want to introduce some of jokes from RAKUGO, because I think they help to tell the styles of our humor. Sadly, the Japanese humor has recently became more simplistically and poor, though.
A storekeeper asked his employee.
"Could you borrow a hammer to nail from the next-door neighbor?"
"No, sir." The employee answered.
"When I asked him that, he asked me what our nails were made from. I said they would be steel. Then he said that he would not lend it because the head of hammer might wear down from hitting such a hard thing."
"What a stingy man!" The storekeeper said. "Okay, I'll use mine."
There was a father and his son, both were drunkards.
One day, the father came home drunk as usual but the son was still out. He said to his daughter-in-law.
"He must be drinking this late at night. Damn drunk! I'll lecture him not to drink anymore. And I'll find a nondrinker for your new husband."
He started sleeping while saying so.
Then the son came home drunk and found his father sleeping. He said to his wife.
"He must have drunk and slept. Damn drunk! I'll lecture him not to drink anymore. And I'll find a nondrinker for your new father-in-law."
After hearing the voice, the father woke up and said to his son.
"I can see your head increasing to three or four. I'll never hand over my house to such a creepy monster!"
The son said.
"I don't need a house that is turning around like this!"
Several young fellows were talking about what they were afraid of. They gave various things like ghost or snake.
But, one guy said.
"I'm not scared of nothing but MANJU."
MANJU is a kind of cake. The other guys thought strange and agreed to play a trick on him.
They locked him up in a room with a lot of MANJUs. Though they expected he would scream and run out the room, nothing could be heard from there.
When they peeped in the room wondering what was going on, he almost ate up all the MANJUs. They were surprised and one of them asked him.
"Actually what are you afraid of?"
He answered.
"I can't eat anymore. This time, I'm afraid of a cup of tea."
October 27, 2004 in Culture | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack
KYOTO #2
I felt a strange feeling when I was walking in the town of Kyoto.
Many old historical buildings which have been built over hundreds of years remain in Kyoto. Kiyomizu Temple was built about 1200 years ago. (Since its main buildings were burned down, they were rebuilt in 1633) Many other temples of Kyoto were also built about 1000-1200 years ago. Kinkakuji (Rokuon-ji) Temple was built in 1397. It was about 300 years ago that Gion became an amusement center and the geishas have come to walk around there. Many of the townhouses called "machiya" were made about 70-200 years ago. Heian Jingu commemorated the 1100th anniversary of the transfer-of-the-capital to Kyoto, and was built in 1895. Minamiza Theatre, the theater of kabuki was built in 1929, and the concert hall, Yasaka Kaikan was built in 1936.
It is too rough to describe these things made for 1000 years or more in one word "traditional", because the styles and the circumstances of birth of these buildings are all different depending on their age. But, it is difficult to recognize them clearly for me who had often dozed in history class. Realizing history for 1000 years at once is beyond my small brain, and it would cause the strange feeling over Kyoto.
Why do such many old things remain in Kyoto? In other words, why do historical buildings disappear in any places other than Kyoto?
Almost all the big cities in Japan had burned out during the Second World War. Many old houses, castles, shrines and temples were lost at that time. The Japanese people in those days did their best to remake all things newly. At the same time, the temptation of getting new things came to exceed the motivation to maintain old things. Even the old buildings which remained slightly had been destroyed in order to get the land for new buildings.
Then, why did Kyoto suffer only small losses from war? Some people are saying that the Allied Forces kept away from the historic relics not to destroy them, but it must be wrong. Kyoto was planned as a target of the third atomic bomb following Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is said that a big attack was not delivered on Kyoto in order to investigate the effect of the atomic bomb correctly.
I cannot judge whether this story is true or not. However, if Kyoto was bombed, the Japanese people might have thought little of old things and have loved new things blindly rather than now.
See also my other photos of Kyoto.
October 25, 2004 in Domestic Tourism | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack
KYOTO #1
A week or more passed from my last post. During these ten days, the typhoon No.23 inflicted serious damage on Japan and 83 persons died. 23 persons were killed in the earthquake which occurred on Saturday in Niigata Prefecture.
As for me, I caught cold and had felt sick for a week. To make worse, my dentist extracted three of my bad teeth!
OK, we've had enough of gloomy things. I went to a trip to Kyoto for a change on Friday, and it made me feel better.
Please see the photos which I have taken.
October 24, 2004 in Domestic Tourism | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack
The Shortest Festival
From Yahoo!Japan News.
The Enrei Onodachi commemoration festival, which is the shortest festival in Japan to which the city staffs only bow, was performed at the Shiojiri Peak of the boundary between the City of Shiojiri and Okaya, Nagano Prefecture, Oct 14. It was started in 1948 to commemorate the visit of Emperor Meiji and Emperor Showa, and now it is also popular as an opportunity of exchange of both cities . The MC called "Bow everyone", all the members made a bow to the monument, and it finished in only 5 seconds. There was also a time that the people argued about the border between both cities since it had not been fixed. The administration staffs who participated the event bowed and agreed each other to associate with for a long time.
I wonder how the 5 seconds bow can be called a "festival".
Here is a movie clip of the event, but its length is 2 minutes and 54 seconds (why is it necessary?) and a bit boring.
October 14, 2004 in Customs | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Are You Richer Than Japanese People?
Foreign visitors always say "Everything is expensive in Japan". I agree them but it does not mean that I think we are rich. The point that should be considered is the ratio of the prices of things to our income. I think the Japanese personnel is most expensive in the world, and it makes the price of things higher. So we need much money to live and the personnel goes up...it goes around in circles.
I happened on the list of the prices of BigMac in the world, and made the program below. Select your country from the list box then the price of BigMac and average yearly income of your country will be displayed. The amount of income is based on the GDP per capita of each country. (These are not equal though)
And the percentage of BigMac price in your income will be also displayed. This is important. As for Japan, this ratio was 0.0083. The ratio of this number to the Japanese one will be indicated at the rightest column. If this number is larger than 1.0, relatively, the BigMac of your country is more expensive than Japan. And if you are happy with the price, probably you are richer than the average Japanese people.
However, man shall not live by BigMac alone. So I also made the next table. This shows the ratio of the prices of various things to our income. (Oh my god, it takes 11 years or more for us to buy a house even if we didn't buy anything else!)
Japanese average yearly income (GDP per capita) 3,102,000 yen| item | price (yen) | price/yearly income(%) | price/monthly income(%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| indipendent house | 35,000,000 | 1128.3043 | 13539.6518 |
| room rent per month (1 room plus kitchen) | 70,000 | 2.2566 | 27.0793 |
| room rent per month (2 rooms plus dining room and kitchen) | 108,000 | 3.4816 | 41.7795 |
| beer (330ml bottle) | 190 | 0.0061 | 0.0735 |
| coffee | 300 | 0.0097 | 0.1161 |
| coca-cola (350ml can) | 120 | 0.0039 | 0.0464 |
| t-shirt (plain white) | 1,000 | 0.0322 | 0.3868 |
| TV (32inch) | 150,000 | 4.8356 | 58.0271 |
| the lowest rail fare | 130 | 0.0042 | 0.0503 |
| postage (letter) | 80 | 0.0026 | 0.0309 |
| movie ticket | 1,800 | 0.0580 | 0.6963 |
| gas (1 liter) | 110 | 0.0035 | 0.0426 |
