Ishiganto, show them the way

Who would have thought that evil spirits can move only in straight lines. This is, anyway, according to Chinese folklore that was imported to Okinawa during the course of history.

Ishiganto Figurine

The consequence is that if you build a house on a Y- or T-intersections and those evil spirits run into your house they can’t leave. Bad indeed. To show those spirits a way out, all over Okinawa you can see stone tablets mounted on house walls. The three Kanji written on the tablets are: 石　= ishi meaning stone, 敢　= gan, which issues a challenge to outsiders, and 當　= tou, meaning hit.

According to http://okinawa0.tripod.com/cgi-bin/ishiganto.html, the word Ishiganto could also come from the name of the powerful god Taishan Shigandang who helps protect from evil. The other version is that it comes from a spirit exterminator named Shi Gan Dang. Writing the name of either on a tablet is enough to frighten the evil spirits away.

Here are some more pictures from around Onna-son.

Japanese Language Classes

OIST has been offering language classes again since September last year. There are a set of more advanced English classes – everybody at OIST is expected to speak some English – and a number of Japanese classes. The Japanese classes started from absolute beginner to quite advanced. Denise took “Japanese Basic 1” and I took “Survival Japanese”.

The “Survival” class was a lot of fun. We learned a number of very useful and practical phrases; quite a few nouns, adjectives and verbs; and basic grammar to talk and understand simple sentences or questions. We learned how to ask for and give/listen to directions (“Where is the post office?”) or time of the day. We did not bother to learn to read or write. This class was using the very nice textbook “Nihongo Fun & Easy“. Our class started with about 10 people but the number dwindled down to maybe 4 regulars in the end. I had two classes one-on-one because no one else showed up. I learned a lot.

The “Japanese Basic 1” class, on the other hand, did not learn that many things but learned to read and write Hiragana and Katakana instead.

With the start of the new quarter, these two classes have been combined into “Basic Japanese 2” which means I now have to catch up with reading and writing – something I really had no intention to learn. Here is why: Japanese is using 3 different sets of symbols to write. The first set of 48 base symbols is Hiragana. Each symbol represents a sound. Example: “ta” is written as た Here is a picture from Wikimedia of the entire set of Hiragana, with symbol pronunciation and stroke order, i.e. the way to write each symbol:

Hiragana Table

Then there are “umlauts” called “ten-ten” which soften a sound from, e.g., “ta” (た) to “da” (だ) by adding two little ticks to the upper right of the character. Essentially everything that can be expressed in Japanese can be written in Hiragana but it typically isn’t. Japanese is using Kanji symbols from the Chinese language to write things as well. Example: The word “mountain” can be written as や ま (“ya-ma”) or as Kanji 山. Each of these 5000+ Kanji is a pictogram that simply has to be memorized. In everyday writing, Hiragana and Kanji are happily mixed making reading virtually impossible not knowing any Kanji.

Then there are the loan words Japanese has imported from other languages, mostly English. Those are not written in Hiragana but Katakana. Foreign names are written in Katakana as well. The set of sounds that can be expressed in Katakana is exactly the same as with Hiragana. “ta” in Katakana is タ. The amount of loan words is unbelievable and being able to read them is very useful for shopping because a lot of the products have loan word names or the list of ingredients contains a lot of loan words. Example: ストロベリー (“sutoroberii” = strawberry). Denise has gotten pretty good at this already.

Hand writing the three different sets of symbols is rather tricky because each symbol needs to be written in a certain way like you can see in the Hiragana chart above. Kanji is particularly bad because changing the stroke order can also change the meaning. Fortunately, writing on a computer is very easy because to get the character た (“ta”) all I have to do is switch the keyboard setting and literally type t a and the computer changes it to the correct Hiragana or Katakana symbol. When the computer recognizes a set of Hiragana, it even suggests the Kanji for them.

Anyway, now that the two language classes have been combined, the teacher gave all Survival class people a month to learn to read Hiragana. Currently she is writing everything in Hiragana and Romaji on the white board. Romaji is the way of writing Japanese by sound, like writing “ta” for た. I am now through the set of 48 Hiragana but I am far from recalling them with any kind of speed making reading a pre-first grade experience. I really don’t want to know Hiragana, I just want to talk and listen but, I guess, I don’t have a choice if I want to continue the language class.

That all said, the very first lesson of the new class was Calligraphy which is like Schönschreiben in German or Penmanship in English. It was really fun to write with a brush on these larger than A4 or letter size and very thin sheets of paper with very black and stain-y ink. Like with art works of your children, Denise pinned one of my pieces on our fridge:

Mizu (Water) on Fridge

I don’t know what most of the other symbols are but here is the rest of my production. I quite like how they look.

Japanese Calligraphy

Japanese Driver’s License

I have been driving our car here in Okinawa with only the official translation of my German driver’s license. That is good for only one year and my year is up at the end of February. So it was time to get the Japanese Driver’s License. OIST’s administration pointed me at this very detailed and daunting description of the process. Fortunately for me, all I needed to do is to change my German license over to the Japanese one without a written or practical driving test. Denise with her Californian license will have to do the tests.

So I drove to this brand new facility of the Japanese equivalent of the DMV near the airport in Naha – a drive of an hour – and followed the description and waited at counter #10 for the clerk. After he sifted through my paperwork he told me that my old passports are not good enough to proof that I actually lived in Germany for at least 3 months after I made my license there. Germany, as many, many other countries, do not put exit and entry stamps in citizen’s passports. The clerk told me that no stamps in the passport does not equate to proof that I was in Germany. He told me that tax returns or graduation certificates would be proof. None of which I had with me. So, no luck getting the license. Three hours wasted and 100 km driving for nothing.

So, how do I proof that I actually lived in Germany? I don’t have any tax documents from Germany because I left more than 10 years ago and all the statutes of limitations expired and I have thrown away everything during the various moves. I have my German retirement account summary which is, of course, all in German and I have no idea whether that would have counted. Fortunately, my diploma and my Ph.D. graduations happened after my driver’s license, so, I hoped, I was fine.

Going back to Naha the next week for another try, the clerk at counter #10 recognized me and immediately asked whether I did what he said, to bring graduation documents. I did and he started to collect all the other documents I needed to bring by: passport, alien registration card, certificate of residence obtained from the Onna-son city hall, German driver’s license, official translation of that license, two photos. All there but the photos were the wrong size! US passport photos are too big for the Japanese Driver’s License transfer process. I was afraid that I was sent away yet again just to get two photos made but they anticipated these kind of problems and the clerk sent me to the little photo shop in the back of the building. Here, for 500 Yen (~$5.50), I got photos made on the spot that had the correct size. Back to counter #10 and the clerk finally went away with all my stuff and I had to wait a little. Have a look at the brand new and very spiffy building of the Japanese DMV. After about half an hour, the clerk reappeared with a big folder of paperwork and, instead of just sending me there, he escorted me to counter #6 where I had to pay the 4500 Yen fee for the whole process. He then escorted me to the eye test translating everything for me. It was a really great and helpful service – instead of sending me alone. See a picture of the line waiting for the eye test here. All very orderly. He then finally sent me alone to counter #13 for some final paper work validation (I guess) from where I was sent to counter #16 to pick up the paperwork and I was sent to the photo booth to take the official photo for the license. I was surprised that they needed yet another picture. After that I was sent upstairs for a 30 minute lecture – all in Japanese – to finish the process. I was early enough to attend the 9:45am lecture. I sat through the talk just looking at the slides and not understanding a word. From the pictures on the slides I could gather that it was about not drinking and driving, wear your seat belt, pay your parking tickets, bicycles and cars, and accident statistics. Once he was done with the talk, the woman from counter #16 appeared with a pile of new driver’s licenses. She explained something about the paper slip that I received at counter #16 about which lecture to attend and everybody started writing something on that slip. No idea what. The free field on the slip looked like my name would fit in nicely, so I wrote that – no idea whether that was correct or not. She then called numbers or letters and groups of people got up, walked up front and collected their new license. Since I had no idea what was going on, I waited to the very end and finally received my brand new Japanese Driver’s License:

My new Japanese Driver's License

Note the color of the stripe on the license. It is green because I am a beginner 😉 After one year (I think) I will get another license with a (I think) blue color stripe for the regular license. After 5 years (I think) of driving without accidents the color changes again.

After exactly two hours everything was done and I started driving back to work. I took the Express Way and thinking all the time that it would be ironic to get stopped for speeding the very day I received my new license. I was stopped for speeding there before but got off with just a verbal warning. So I tried very hard to just go with the flow and speed not more than everybody else. Exiting the Express Way in Ishikawa onto Route 73, I was stuck behind a truck on one lane and a K-ei car on the other lane which both drove exactly the 50 km/h speed limit. No one ever does that and I was starting to get quite upset until it dawned on me that they knew more than I and I kept my distance and calmed down. Sure enough. On my side of the road was a tripod with a mobile radar trap. Two older guys in plain clothes were sitting next to it on camping chairs. At first it looked like one of those frequent traffic counter actions but a little further down the road on a small side streets, four police cars and a bunch of police officers were ready to pull out everybody who was speeding. With luck I dodged that one.

Here is my colleagues account of getting his Japanese Driver’s License. He did it only one day after me and while I went all by myself, he asked Ms. S. from OIST to accompany him for the translation. I am very proud that I managed the whole process by myself.

Recycling

Since we move into our house/apartment in Okinawa, we are having trouble with our recycling being picked up. The city gave us a large poster in English describing in great detail how garbage and recycling is supposed to work. Garbage we figured out quite quickly what they take and what not. Use the right bags and put it at the curb twice a week sorted by burnable and non-burnable and that was that. Recycling was a whole different story. Firstly, it is picked up only every other week the 1st and 3rd Saturday of a month. So, when you miss one pick-up, you have to wait for two weeks while accumulating more bottles and cans somewhere in the apartment. For 6 months now, Denise and I were separating the recycling from our garbage as a good German and Californian would do and we put things in the right city recycling bags out on the curb but it was very hit and miss – mostly miss – whether things got picked up or not. When we do something wrong with garbage, there is always a somewhat helpful message (in Japanese) attached telling us what was wrong when it was left behind. With recycling we had that luck only once and the message – after being translated by a co-worker – was not helpful at all. Asking around at work, no one could help. More trail and error after that (again, mostly error). Then we had our big christmas party and the number of bottles, cans, etc. stored in our apartment simply got too large to ignore the problem any longer. I ask a Japanese speaking co-worker, the always very helpful Ms. C., to call the city of Onna and ask how recycling works. They told her that there are blue bins on the street that we need to put stuff into. We had never seen any of these bins. Now, yesterday evening, driving home from work – there they are! Blue bins on the sidewalk that are apparently put out by the city the night before recycling pick-up day. The closest set of bins to our apartment was some 60-100m down the street and it took me four trips carrying all our bags and crates down there. When we came back from Yoga at noon today: SUCCESS!! The bins were gone and nothing was left behind. What a relief. After 6 month (mid-May until now), we have finally understood how recycling works. Makes me wonder why the city poster does not explain how that works.

Christmas and New Year in Okinawa

Our first Christmas and New Year after moving to Okinawa! We decided to stay put at home after having just traveled to the US. Christmas day fell on a Sunday in 2011 but I would have had to go to work otherwise. Christmas is just not a thing in Japan. Of course, that does not mean there is not an opportunity for merchants to make a Yen or two. At the end of October, we started to see Christmas stuff to appear in the stores.

Christmas Merchandise

And no reason not to have a little fun with it either 😉

There was a little decoration here and there like this poor, lonely reindeer in front of an Okinawan restaurant.

Reindeer

But by and large, not much of an event. Our little expat community at OIST had a small gathering on Christmas Day at Ms. P. house for a potluck dinner. That was a very cosy, low key but very international affair: German, US, Russian, French, Japanese, and possibly more nationalities were present.

We had, before Christmas a little party in our house where we made Feuerzangenbowle which is always a very spectacular event:

Feuerzangenbowle

(No one got insured and nothing got burned, btw.)

New Year, on the other hand, is a very traditional Japanese holiday. There were some fireworks from the hotels around us on New Years eve. But the real holiday is New Years day. Everything you do for the first time in a new year has some significance. So what most Japanese do is go to a Shinto shrine nearby and pray. Okinawans are not very religious so I don’t know how prevalent this ritual is here but all stores were definitely closed that day. Many houses and business have some special decoration in front of their entrance.

Three bamboo stems cut at an angle; salt, incense, and rice in front of each pot. A wreath above the door.

Here is the decoration from our downstairs neighbors, a business:

New Years decoration

We have no real idea about the exact symbolism here but I am sure it has to do with good luck, fertility, and warding off bad spirits. There are a number of official holidays around New Year so that I got a nice little vacation off work.

Shaken and stirred

A few days after the flat tire, our car had to go to its biannual mandatory inspection called Shaken. This is very much like the German TÜV. (Side note: In California everybody can drive whatever vehicle they want – street-worthy or not. The only legal requirement is that it passes the SMOG test. You can image what kind of vehicles you can see on California’s streets.) I appreciate the Japanese (or German) mandatory inspections every other year. The cars and trucks here in Okinawa are all well kept and look very nice. The big surprise, however, is the cost of the shaken. It depends on the size of the car’s engine. Ours is a medium size car and the prize for the inspection is 72,000 Yen. That is roughly $920! The interesting part of this huge prize tag is how it breaks down. About half (30,000 Yen) is government tax. 11,730 Yen is for the test itself. And then there are miscellaneous fees for currier, registration, etc. etc. In our case, it all added up to 53,330 Yen. In addition, we have to pay the repair shop for taking in the car, giving us a loaner car for ~24 hours (yes, this is not like in Germany where you are done in an hour or two). And then there are all the potential repairs to actually pass the test (in our case nothing to do). The whole procedure looks like a big money-making machine to me. The government earns money for essentially nothing to do. I can only hope the fees end up being used for street maintenance (highways are still toll roads in Japan!). And the car repair shops get their share of indirect subsidies for providing this service. At least you don’t see old clunkers on the road.

Flat Tire

I have just returned from two weeks in the US – one week at SC11 in Seattle and one week in California to visit friends and family – and three days in Tokyo – one day at the Japanese Lustre User Group and two days of sight-seeing. I have forgotten all my Japanese in those three weeks without any Japanese lessons.
Yesterday, after working a little late, I got in the car in the OIST parking lot and started driving but something did not feel right. After some more yards I realized that one of the tires is flat, so I pull over, still on OIST property but close to a construction zone. The always present construction worker for directing traffic waved me to a safe spot and I looked at the damage. It was not good to drive these couple of hundred yards on a completely deflated tire. The rim seem to have taken some damage. I got the spare tire out and was very surprised to not see a set of tools with it in the trunk. Where are the tools? I looked in various places inside the trunk but no luck. At this time the construction worker got really interested in my misfortune and started to help digging around in the trunk. Clearly no tools here. So I got out the car’s manual from the glove compartment – written all in Japanese with some tiny pictures which became harder to read as it grew darker and darker now. The construction worker darted off and came back with a magnifying glass (he apparently wears glasses for reading) that also had a little light built in. He studied the manual for a while but could not really see where the tools are. At this point, I called Mr. D. at work who usually knows his stuff and asked for him to come down with his car so that I could use his tools. Meanwhile, the construction worker had left me with the manual and started to look on the floor in front of the back seat. He seem to indicate that his car has the tools there. After a while he proclaimed success. Indeed, on the floor is a little compartment – under the floor mat! – with the jack and everything else. So, finally, after about 15 minutes, I was equipped to put the spare tire on. Just now Mr. D. arrived but I could send him home. After I was at work a little bit, the very helpful construction worker took over. He was much less timid loosening the nuts. He did not let me work for the rest of the job and finished it very efficiently with me just standing there and watching him. All done – yeah! I would have been really flustered instead of just annoyed if I would not have known where to get the flat tire patched. Fortunately, I knew just the place. Down the street from our apartment is a little shop that does nothing but tires. I visited it this morning since it was already closed when I came home yesterday evening. The guy immediately understood my miming. He, just like the construction worker yesterday, did not understand or speak English. The cause of the flat tire: the valve stem was leaking air. He looked at the slightly damaged rim but replace the stem and ¥1500 later everything was done and fixed. Now, standing there and waiting, a torrential downpour started. If that would have happened yesterday evening I would have been drenched to the bones. Waiting there gave me the opportunity, though, to look at the tire treat on our used car – I never looked at that before, I know, I should have – and I noticed that all four tires are pretty much done and driving those couple of hundred yards on that flat tire damaged it quite badly. So tire guy looked in his store but did not have the right size, so I asked him to order two to replace at least the front tires for now. He understood and got on the phone while waiting out the worst of the rain. The new tires will arrive tomorrow, just in time before I have to drive to the Naha airport to pick up Denise coming back from her sister’s in North Carolina. An adventure I would have liked to miss. An adventure I would have liked at least some of my Japanese words and sentences ready for – well, next time.

Ordering new tires in torrential rain

 

Statue of Shinran Shonin in Yomitan

To get to our Saturday morning Yoga class, we have been driving along Route 6 for a while now without noticing this pretty place. Only yesterday, on a bicycle ride did I notice a statue and pagoda to which we returned in the afternoon to have a closer look. This is what we found:

Statue of Shinran Shonin in Yomitan

The inscription says:

Background of this Statue of Shinran Shonin
The aspirant and donor of this traveling image of Shinran Shonin was Mr. Yehan Numata
the founder of Mitutoyo Corporation which is the world’s largest manufacturer and sales of
precision measuring tools and instruments and also the founder of Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai which
provides the book “The Teaching of Buddha” to hotels throughout the world.

I have seen this book in a hotel room and was wondering who was distributing them. Now I know.

Shinran Shonin

Pagoda with bell

Close-up of Shinran Shonin

Bell close-up

Inscription

I am not sure what “Churaumi” means. It might be the name of the entire middle section of west coast of Okinawa which is kind of a bay from Yomitan all the way to Nago. Here is a small section of the view you have from the bell pagoda towards the west, the East China Sea:

View towards the East China Sea

Here is a link to Google Maps with a marker for this place. Zoom out and you get an idea about the geography.

Life as usual

I have not posted in a while – I guess BLOG comes from Back-LOG. So here a little update on what is going on with us.

The summer is here and plenty of tourists around. We are participating in the expat community at OIST by getting invited to BBQs, potlucks, and a cheese party. Apparently, there is a tradition at OIST that when you go home to Europe or the US, you bring back a bunch of good cheese and then invite everybody over to eat it. Japan is not a dairy country and the “cheese” that is available in regular grocery stores here is horrible. There is a real cheese shop in Naha where they charge an arm and a leg for it. It was nice to eat Stilton and other British varieties. The BBQs and potlucks are very meat-heavy – just like the local diet. We found a local produce delivery service (https://www.facebook.com/okinawaislandproduce) for mostly organic veggies and fruits so at least at home we are now back to a more healthy diet.

We attended a Japanese-Okinawan wedding of a co-worker. It was a very formal affair. We were expected to give money as a wedding gift but the way it is stylized made it really complicated. First we needed the right envelope. Then we needed a new, unfolded and un-crinkled bill. The number of bills per envelope must not be divisible by 2 (“can be separated”). Then the bill needs to be put it the envelope the right way (“face forward”). The envelope needs to be folded close correctly (“upper flap last” or it would be the fold for a funeral). Then a little strip of paper needs to have our name on it – written vertically. At lease we could write in Roman letters. Then the strip needed to be glued to the envelope correctly – that one I couldn’t figure out but it must have been good enough because they kept the money 😉 The celebration was quite elaborate and the food was  very good. They had an announcer that also spoke in English – just for us! The wedding favors were 2 glasses of Okinawa glass ware and a package of German style cakes – just because of me!

Bride and Groom

Denise is now going to various Yoga classes four times a week. I am going once a week. We have been going snorkeling and diving and discovered more good bakeries. At work, my first big project (400 computers and 1 PB of storage) will be delivered in two weeks.

Right now, I am sitting at home sick – someone came to work last week sick and now I have that heavy cold.

Anyway, as you can see, we are making very good progress in settling in, finding friends and things to do.

Local Fruits

Coming from Germany, local fruit means to me: apples, plums, cherries, etc. Living in California for a while has changed the idea of a “local fruit” already quite a bit. Now living in Okinawa means that all these exotic fruits we used to buy as a treat once in a few years are local – and all of them are in season right now.

Okinawa Pineapple

A few days ago, we ate our first Okinawa pineapple. It is much smaller than the commercially available around the world. It is juicy, sweet and with a very nice flavor – just like pineapples should be.

Passionfruit

We had the local passionfruits. They have “normal” size and, again, a texture and flavor like it should be.

Package of Okinawa Mangos

The local mangos come in a variety of sizes. Typhoon Songda earlier this year destroyed most of the mango harvest making the fruits with a size we all know extremely expensive. A box of 6, approx 1.5 kg,  cost around $40! To my surprise, however, there are smaller versions available that I did not know exist. This carton has one larger and 8 egg sized mangos in it for 600 Yen (~$7.50). I was a little apprehensive buying the smaller sized ones because I know how large the pit is in the big mangos. Turns out that the pit is relative to the smaller size of the fruit even smaller. The overall proportions are like a large plum.

Local Mango

And now the highlight of this little fruit gallery: The local Dragonfruit.

Local Dragonfruit

We have gardens with these cactus like plants behind our house but so far thought these are aloe plants, but, no, those are dragonfruit plants. When they are young and “unripe”, the fruits can be cooked like an artichoke. Fully grown and ripe, however, these fruits are juicy and with a subtle, sweet flavor. Very refreshing in the heat. Here is how they look cut open:

Local Dragonfruit

Isn’t the color amazing! They also come in a variety with white flesh. For a sense of scale, I put the same knife in the picture that is in the cut-open mango picture above.

We have also had the local variety of bananas. They are much smaller than commercial bananas and have a different flavor. They are very hard to store more than a day in this heat, though, and they don’t like to be in the fridge either.

Island living 🙂