Kobe Biennale Oct 19, 21, and 25

I kept seeing pink posters, fliers and banners throughout Kobe. I finally decided to figure out what they were all about and discovered Kobe Biennale. According to Wikipedia a biennale is "an international manifestation of contemporary art," which pretty much describes what this was. Here's a link in English http://www.kobe-biennale.jp/about/kobe_biennale/index_e.html

We went to a park on Port Island where various sculptures and installations were set-up. The artists were supposed to make the pieces relevant to their environment. Some did, there was a statue of a life guard looking out over the bay, and a field of windsocks. We're guessing the artist who made the life guard statute is local because while we were there Craig said, "That's a real person" and I said, "No it isn't" and then gasped when the guy turned and waved to a passing boat. There was a statute which he had sitting on the bottom rung of the life guard ladder while he sat at the top and they were dressed identically. He would sit perfectly still for a really long time and then all of a sudden move - I wasn't the only one who gasped.

There is a stretch of economically depressed stores in Sannomiya and in an attempt to increase foot traffic the city gave 14 artists 14 vacant stores to build installations in. They, too, were told to make there pieces about the space they were given. Some did that, others not so much.

One of the symbols of Kobe is a shipping container - it is a very active harbor. So another set of installations were supposed to be built inside of containers but there is apparently a shortage right now because they're being used in the tsunami clean up. The solution was to build spaces the same dimensions as shipping containers and give those to artists instead.

The first set is from the vacant store section.
The artist spent time in the vacant store etching pieces of conversations he heard from passersby into glass.



This one did a good job using the space. The light bulbs are sensitive to sound so when a car drives by they flicker. You can stand under them too. As you can see they're brighter closer to where I was standing and dimmer on the edges - I shouted just as I took the picture.


This is our friend Lisa standing among man-made stones.



Inside the upside down umbrellas is paper flower petals that are supposed to slowly fall to the ground as a fan blows them out of the umbrellas - we didn't see a single one fall.



This wasn't unique to the space but pretty beautiful. The entire thing is made from buttons - silver ones tied to strings to make the rain and colored ones for ripples.





These four are from a found objects style exhibit of Buddha. The Buddha is the size of a person and made from cardboard. Straight on you can see through it but from the side is looks solid. There were also miniature cardboard Buddhas hanging from the ceiling.



This picture is for my Aunt Annie - the exhibit was a bunch of hanging broken light bulbs with the occasional functioning one tossed in. She doesn't like to throw away things she might one day use and now she can use old light bulbs to make art.



These are from the shipping containers. We don't know if it was because they were translated into English but we stopped reading the artists' intents posted outside of each container because they were even more hokey than usual.

This one was supposed to examine the universality of horizons.


This was "future" ikebana.


Yup - the monkey is trying to pee on us - classy


Fun house style mirrors.


All of those hoops are made of plastic bottles.


How many Craigs can you see?


This cow was standing on the back of a pick-up truck and has, apparently, traveled all over Japan.



Craig was very interactive.

inoshishi

While walking home from our Japanese class on Tuesday night we came face-to-snout with an Inoshishi – wild boar. There are signs all over our neighborhood with, presumably, warnings about the inoshishi because they will come down from Mt Rokko to eat garbage. When I go on early morning walks there is usually evidence of their presence in the form of poop in the middle of the road and garbage scattered on the street. Japan is really clean and old women from the neighborhood usually have the evidence cleaned up before 8am. When we almost walked into Wilbur's mountain cousin, Craig saw the pig first and grabbed my arm. I thought SPIDER and jumped back with a gasp. When he pointed out the inoshishi, I was just glad it didn't have 8 legs.

The boar went up to about my hips and we couldn't tell if it had tusks but I wasn't scared of seeing one. You know those cartoons with two guys stranded on a desert island and they start hallucinating that the other guy is a burger or hot dog – when I think of inoshishi I think of bacon cheeseburgers and pulled pork. This doesn't mean I don't respect the fact that they're wild animals. I kept my distance and didn't try rubbing any seasoning into the ribs of the one we saw, it just means I wouldn't have jumped back and gasped if I had known it was an inoshishi Craig had seen. I'm thinking I should find a recipe that uses spiders – if I discover they're tasty then maybe I won't be so irrationally afraid of them.

We crossed to the other side of the street and continued on our way. The next day Craig told some of his co-workers about our inoshishi spotting. Turns out there is a region in Japan known for its inoshishi cuisine. Guess where we went on Saturday.

I got a picture with a dude dressed up as an inoshishi.

Here is a link about the town we went to: http://archives.kansaiscene.com/2009_11/html/getaway.shtml

It took about 1.5 hours by train. This was the first small town we've visited here. The sidewalks rolled up promptly at 6pm, it took us 3 hours to get home because the buses come once an hour and the train out of town twice an hour and the two were not coordinated.

The first thing we did was buy a little bag of roasted chestnuts to snack on while walking around. There seemed to be a little festival so we stopped in for some inoshishi sausage and a black soy bean cake. The region is known for wild boar and black soybeans. The soybeans were everywhere and pretty tasty.

We walked around a castle that was built in the 1600s. It only took 6 months to build. It wasn't built as a monument to some ruler's greatness but as a strategic stronghold to besiege Osaka castle. A lot of stone was used to build the walls and, we're guessing, a lot of peasants died due to a grueling work schedule.

Inoshishi is traditionally prepared in a stew. We found a restaurant specializing in said stew and ate our fill of the inoshishi. At the table there was a gas burn and the waitress set a big pot of broth on it and waited till it was about boiling. Then she brought out a plate piled with thinly sliced inoshishi and various veggies and some noodles. She dumped everything in the broth and told us to wait 10minutes. It was really good. Not too gamey but not as mild as pork. After our meal we walked along a road with restored samurai homes that still have thatched roofs. We also went to a shrine dedicated to victory. There was a long staircase up to the shrine that had a lot of red gates over it. We decided this is where the Japanese Rocky would train. After all this it was starting to get dark and we discovered everyone was closing down for the day.


After our three hour bus/train/waiting we were walking up our hill home and saw another inoshishi. I told him how delicious I thought his cousin had been, from across the road. He didn't dignify my comment with a response.

hiking Rokko during spider season

As some of you know, I really don't like spiders. But, Monday was absolutely beautiful and Craig had the day off in honor of Health and Sports Day. Yes, there is a national holiday dedicated to doing something healthy. The US should take notice since most of our holidays seem to revolve around food. Anyway, since we were supposed to do something healthy and the weather was cooperating, we decided to go for a hike - after Craig promised to be my spider spotter/blocker.

Do you see how big that spider is? Mister Spiders-are-so-beautiful, Spiders-are-so-amazing was unwilling to get close enough to the spider for his hand to establish scale. The photo is blurry because I was holding the camera with one hand as far away from my body as I could and then pushed the button as fast as possible.
Here we are happily waiting for a group of old people to clear off the trail so we could walk at a healthy pace. Since it was Health and Sports Day Mt Rokko was also crawling with people. Interesting little tidbit, Japanese people really like neon colored hiking clothes. When we started out we had a vague idea where some trail heads were but couldn't find any. We decided to just follow the first person wearing neon and carrying walking sticks and they lead us right to one. Walking sticks are also really common. The eighty-years-olds, there were quite a few of them, were not the only ones sporting them either. Accessorizing is a sport here so it does make sense that you need the perfect walking stick to make your neon hiking outfit pop. We don't stick out just because of our blue eyes, white skin, and non-black hair, we stick out because I wore an old t-shirt and baggy jeans and Craig wore well-used cargo shorts and a t-shirt.
Here is a stone-paved hiking trail. A lot of the trails are really, really nice. In Japan nothing is done half-way. There is an attention to detail that you don't usually see in America. We also went to an India Festival this weekend. I'll write more later, but I noticed that the tents all had white boxes around them. The weights used to weigh done the tents were covered up by white boxes just to make the whole thing that much neater.
This is a photo of a reservoir up in the mountains. In America I'm used to reservoirs also being used for recreation but this one had a fence around it so you couldn't get to the water and signs in Japanese and English asking people to stay out because it was a reservoir. The dam was very scenic.
I actually asked someone, in Japanese, to take our picture!
This is tough to see but it is a picture of a spider web. It reaches from the ground to up in the tree, it is taller than I am. They were everywhere. This one is near the ground, but I could not look up because a lot of them were spanning branches above me. It was not a windy day and so many people were around I just kept telling myself that if a spider was going to fall chances are it would fall on someone else. Craig hiked in front and would say "web on your right" or "spider to your left" so I knew in advance how to avoid them. He probably said that about every 5-10min.
This waterfall was about 20min into our hike so it was a very crowded scenic overlook.
There were no accidental spider encounters, we hiked at a healthy pace for about 5 hours, saw some beautiful scenery and then headed home to get cleaned up before heading to the India Festival - a very good Monday.
Here Craig is modeling his new man-purse (it actually loops onto his belt). Just about every man here carries some kind of bag. Some of the bags are really feminine, this is far into the rugged end of the spectrum - it's what you got to do when you've got beautiful, blond, curly hair and a slender waist.


Here is a hint for anyone planning on going to the Kobe India Mela next year. Show up on the last day about an hour before it is scheduled to end. All the food vendors were cutting their prices by 50% or more. Kobe's India Festival (Mela) put Osaka's Mexican Festival to shame. Of course there are probably an order of magnitude more Indians living in Kobe then Mexicans living in all of Japan. There were tons of food vendors, both prepared and packaged. Craig bought a giant can of gulab jamum - the little fried dough balls soaked in syrup. The food was delicious. I was so deprived living in Montana for three years I may be too generous with my praise of our local restaurant because the food at the festival was just as good and a lot cheaper, even before the prices were cut. There was also a big stage full of dancers. We also went on Saturday night and it was hopping then, too.


Both nights we experienced what I can only describe as a Bollywood Japanese flash mob. The dancers on stage were performing Bollywood inspired numbers and a group of people in front would dance along. They weren't also performers, just Japanese people who knew all the steps. We suspect Indian culture is really big here right now. If you look closely, most of the women on stage in saris are actually Japanese. I tried to capture the experience - you can see the crowd in front mirroring the dancers on stage.

computers - not so much

I thought when we got here I would be overwhelmed by the technology. I heard Japanese people have fancy cell phones and love gadgets. I thought this love of technology would extend to computers and everyone would be pecking away at their lap tops. Not so. I spent a lot of time in air conditioned cafes this summer and I never saw a person with a lap top. People would be there working away in notebooks and on worksheets but not on computers. In fact, I don't think I've seen anyone anywhere public using a lap top. I also figured wi-fi would be ubiquitous but it really isn't . I don't think this is because I can't read. The Japanese borrow a lot of words from English - computer in Japanese is konpyuta, so I expect wi-fi would sound something like wi-fi.

I asked some Americans who have been in Japan for a long time and they think it is because Japanese people are not social risk takers. In the 90's when computers were all the rage in business, companies here figured they'd never used them before so why should they start now. The internet became associated with teenage girls following the latest J-pop crazy (youtube Smap if you want to see how bad music taste is here). It is starting to change, however. Presumably those same teenage girls are working at companies now and don't see computers as such a big risk.

The whole saying "there are no stupid questions" doesn't exist here either. People do not want to stick their necks out in front of their peers so they won't ask questions in class. This means they also won't ask for help learning how to use computers.

tanjoubi omedeto - happy birthday

I celebrated my first birthday in Japan on Wednesday. Craig got me a lovely necklace, took me to a nice dinner at an okonomiyaki restaurant and, the best part, I got a puppy dog cake.

It even came in a fancy dog house.
Isn't it about the cutest cake you've ever seen. In Japan bakery cakes don't have that awful super sugary frosting either so it was delicious too. We debated whether to cut the dog along the medial or sagittal axis. Since it was a roll cake we opted for sagittal. His insides were chocolate whipped cream with a vanilla pudding spinal column.

Since my work-oholic husband still has summer vacation he needs to use before October, we were going to go for a hike too. Unfortunately it started to pour rain while we were walking up to the mountain. We decided to tough it out for about 40min but the rain only got heavier and we were drenched before making it to a trail head. We figured if the roads were this slippery then the trails were probably muddy little rivers. Craig got to see lots of BIG spiders. Apparently sub tropical climates are very good at evolving big, web making spiders. I tried getting a picture of one but I couldn't bring myself to get close enough. These were spiders on webs on street signs and lamp posts, I don't want to think about what they're like in the actually forest. I keep telling myself they can't climb up 10 stories and if anyone know anything to the contrary keep it to yourself.

Why I don't go to the bank often

Yesterday I had some errands to run around Sannomiya (downtown Kobe), so I met Quinn for lunch and then set about them. A fair number of these had to take place at the bank. I always find the bank to be a confusing and frightening place, so I tend to save up my bank visits until I have four or five things to do there.

They don't really do personal checks here, and credit cards are sort of exotic. So there are basically three ways to pay for things. One is cash. The other is to wire money from a convenience store -- when we get our electric bill, for example, it comes in the mail with a barcode on it. We can take that to a convenience store (e.g. 7-11) where they scan the barcode, take a cash payment, and then give us a receipt for our electric bill payment. It seemed really weird the first time, but it's actually a fairly convenient way to do things. The third way is automatic withdrawals -- most of our bills just get taken straight out of our account, which requires filling out a form with the proper account numbers and signatures in advance.

Quinn has been taking classes at a yoga studio in Rokko, and they prefer to get their monthly tuition payment by automatic withdrawal. Twice now the form has been returned by the bank because my signature wasn't quite right. My signature tends to be on the messy side and that was never a problem before, but here they're quite particular. It has to look exactly the same every time.
Most people don't use a signature at all; they carry around a little personal stamp (called a hanko) that works in place of a signature. Almost every adult in Japan carries one of these things on their person all the time. Because the space for signatures is the size and shape of a little stamp rather than a line for a signature, my signature often turns out sort of odd-looking, which only compounds the problem. Actually, I'd registered my signature with "Craig" and "Jolley" on the same line and had mistakenly signed the forms with "Jolley" directly below "Craig", which was not deemed to be the same signature at all. One of the secretaries in our lab had ordered me a hanko to use for RIKEN paperwork, so I figured I would simplify things and register that as my signature at the bank.

After lots of stamping and signing and filling things out (and an hour of my life that I'm never getting back), things appeared to be taken care of and I headed back to work. A couple of hours later I got a phone call from someone at the bank. After my repeatedly asking her to please repeat herself and slow down and use easy words, she tried explaining things to me in her broken English. She seemed very concerned with whether my stamp was self-inking or whether I had to use an ink pad. I thought that the self-inking feature was pretty cool, actually. I spoke with Maki, the secretary who had ordered the stamp, and she confirmed that it was in fact an automatic self-inking stamp. I was informed that this was not acceptable, and I was stuck with my (often ineffective) signature. I expressed my confusion to Maki, and she figured (correctly) that she might be able to get more information out of them than I could and called back.

Apparently, the self-inking stamps are mass-produced, and two that are made for the same name will produce identical stamps, making it not sufficiently unique for a signature. I can't imagine that there are actually that many stamps with my name floating around Japan, but that's (apparently) not the point. A real hanko is hand-carved (usually from wood) and each one is slightly different. So Maki put in an order for a wooden hanko for me. As long as I don't have to use my name for anything before it shows up, I should be fine.

Mexico and China in one day

We were world travelers this past Monday. It was Respect for the Aged Day and Craig had the day off from work. Respect for the Aged Day is a national holiday dedicated to people calling their grandparents. We started the day in Kobe, Japan, swung by the Mexican Festival in Osaka for lunch, and then went to the Mid-Autumn Festival in China Town in the evening.


I went up to the guy in the photo and asked, in Japanese, if I could have a picture with him. His Mexican Festival outfit was too much for me to ignore. Of course, he might walk around with a liquor bottle in a holster and a shot glass ammunition belt every day.


Here I am showing off my new bag. It is a Cheryl original and I know you're all jealous.


I just sneaked this picture of a Japanese guy wearing an impressive sombrero.


The festival consisted of about 2 booths selling Mexican knick knacks, 4 or 5 selling food, and a stage featuring live music. Corona was the major feature for the festival.

There was a Mariachi band and we think all the musicians were Mexicans, or at least not Japanese.
We did get to enjoy some Mexican food. There were tacos, quesadillas, and Mexican fruit juice drinks. While there was a picture of chips and guacamole, no one seemed to be selling it. Here is our friend Rachel eating a chicken taco with chop sticks.


After we were all Mexican Festival-ed out, Craig and I took the train to Kobe's China Town. We were hoping to see a Dragon Dance but got tired of standing and gave up after about two hours. I think that must be the finale and next time we should show up around 7pm, not 3pm.

There were these people wearing weird and sometimes frightening masks standing in front of a shrine. I asked one of them for a picture but you actually have to buy incense and pray at the shrine before you can take pictures. I just got this one from a distance, holding the camera above the heads of the people standing in line to pray.


While we missed the Dragon dance we did get to see a concert featuring traditional Chinese instruments. There was also an extensive Tai Chi demonstration.

The highlight, of course, was the food. This time there were probably 30+ booths selling food. Craig and I enjoyed Peking duck and vegetables wrapped in rice paper.