Osaka and Kyoto

Since our last blog entry, Dave and I have both gotten more accustomed to the Japanese culture. We are beginning to learn how to use the public transportation better and how to figure out ways around not understanding any Japanese. We have given up on being able to read any Japanese by the time we leave Japan. They have three alphabets. The main alphabet consists of over 2,000 kanji, or letters. We don’t have much hope of learning that in four weeks. The average Japanese person only knows around 1,000 kanji.
The Japanese culture is extremely different than the American culture. The people do not have the individualistic spirit that we value so much in America. They work much more as a team. This changes a lot of things at many levels. Our hotel is across the street from the World Trade Center and Asia and Pacific Trade Center buildings and we see many people still leaving work at 10 pm. Responsibilities are taken on as a whole group rather than by one individual. This mentality works in the schools too. Japanese students spend between twelve and fifteen hours in school each day. The schools do not have a janitorial or lunch staff. The kids clean their own school and serve their own lunches. Discipline problems are rare and detention and suspension are practically unheard of. The group mentality causes the kids to behave for the behalf of the group rather than to draw attention to their individuality. The Japanese people dress similarly and you don’t see many people with unusual clothing, hairstyles, or piercings. Tattoos are still considered taboo. In fact, our guidebook warns us to watch out for people with tattoos because they are usually members or the Yakuza, similar to the mob. Tattoos and mutilated fingers (Yakuza are forced to cut their own fingers off if they screw up) are warning signs of the Yakuza. We were later told they are the ones driving Lamborghinis. We have seen two Lamborghinis parked at our hotel, but no Yakuza. Osaka is the capital for this gang.
We got the opportunity to go to Osaka Castle. The castle was originally built in 1586 and was the largest castle of the time but it has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. The last rebuilding was in 1931, but the inside is maintained only as a museum. The outside and the view from the viewing deck on the top floor of the castle were neat, but it was a little disappointing since the inside has been gutted for a museum. Leaving the castle, Dave and I found ourselves in an enormous group of about 10,000 Japanese people. After a few minutes of walking with this group, Dave pointed out that we were again in a group of only Japanese women! Sure enough, Dave was again the only man in sight (and a 6'3" Caucasian man at that). We couldn’t read any of the Japanese signs around us and didn’t have any idea what we were in the middle of. Women continued to pour out of the nearby convention center by the thousands as Dave and I found a lot of amusement in our present situation. About a quarter mile later, we saw big CD, t-shirt and poster displays featuring a young, smiling man. This is when we figured out we were leaving Osaka Castle at the same time the Koichi Domotto concert was ending. Koichi Domotto, we inferred, is the Justin Timberlake (or Keith Partridge for my Mom’s generation) of Japan. Although we were careful not to get on the Women Only subway car, we still found ourselves in the subway car with primarily women.
The next day, we went to Kyoto, a cultural mecca for the Japanese. We ended up meeting a group of men a little younger than us from New Jersey who were living in Japan to teach English (hence my understanding of the Japanese school system). We tagged along with the group for a bit since one of the men had lived in Kyoto for a while. Yet, it was hard to keep track of them because they were just as interested in inviting the Japanese girls to a Halloween party at Osaka Castle as they were in sightseeing. Kyoto was definitely an extremely cool city to visit and we hope to return once more before we leave for Tokyo.
The first place we visited was Kiyomizu-Dera. Dera means temple. I have never seen as many temples in my life as I did in Kyoto. There was one on nearly every block. We got the opportunity to learn a little more about the Buddhist faith, although not a ton since we couldn’t ask many questions. Kiyomizu-Dera was absolutely enormous and it took us at least an hour to walk through the entire thing. We began by paying 100 yen (about 85 cents) to walk down into this pitch black room where we walked around for a while before finding a spotlight shining on this spinning cement block that we had to spin while walking around it before finding our way out of the temple. I know that sounds confusing, but I have no better way of explaining it. I don’t understand the symbolism of it at all. We then wandered through the temple which was expansive and really beautiful. Each of the temples has women who are skilled in calligraphy and will write the name of the temple along with its primary meaning in a book for you. We purchased a book and had it filled out at each of the five temples we visited. We plan to set it out at home so you will all have to come visit and see it. I didn’t understand a lot of what we saw, but one temple had English literature that explained the temple’s purpose. The temple had hundreds of hanging cloth monkeys all over. The arms and legs of the monkeys were all attached and this is how they were hanging in long strands. Each monkey represents a desire. Desires like monkeys have no conscience and only want what they want whether it is good or bad for us. People are better than monkeys and desires though because we have the will to choose not to do something. Like the monkey is bound by its arms and legs, people are instructed to bind and control their desires. People are instructed to take a cloth monkey from the temple if they are struggling to rid themselves of a desire. Every time they are tempted to act on their desire, they are to take out the monkey to remind themselves not to act out. Once they have conquered their desire, they are to bring the monkey back to the temple. I am certain there is much more I could have learned if there were more English translations. It was still neat to see though.
We have been trying a few more Japanese dishes. The fried rice is good although it is slightly different than the United States. Instead of putting fried egg in the rice, they fry an egg and place it on top. Yesterday, I had a dish of ketchup rice topped with a fried egg, melted cheese, shrimp, and bacon. It was actually pretty decent. Dave and I both enjoy the green tea ice cream. A popular dessert here is red bean paste. It sounds a little strange, but it tastes pretty good.
We have been amused at some of the English translations we run into. In addition to the smiling policeman telling us to "Stay out of here!", here are a few of our other favorites.
A paper telling us they will not accept our credit card:
"Sorry, but the credit card does not descend." (This actually makes absolutely no sense, but we got the point when they wouldn't take our card.)
A sign on a gate in Yodobashi Umeda, an electronics store that makes Best Buy look minuscule (honestly, I think you could probably fit 20 Best Buys in this enormous 13 story electronics store):
"Do not lean on gate. If you lean on gate, it will fall over. It occur, you Trouble!" ((Yes, trouble really did have a capital T.)
We definitely appreciate the translations anyway and it causes us to wonder what our translations in America look like to foreigners.
I have sent out our photos from Osaka and our first trip to Kyoto. Again, if you want to receive the photos and don’t, e-mail me at lindsayallison@cheatcc.com and I will gladly send them to you.