In Japan, you will be lucky if, on New Year's Eve, you dream of one of these three things.
Christmas Cake, a strawberry sponge-cake with whipped cream, is a British tradition the Japanese adopted. (Though many Japanese think it's American, and were astonished that I never ate Christmas Cake. I was tempted to wear a button saying "Ask me about pumpkin pie.") However, in Japan the tradition has a twist. In American Fuji, a Tokyo woman, Jiyuko, explains to Alex why she doubts she will get married (p.17-18):
The type of tangerine we call Clementines, Japanese call mikan. Shizuoka, the California of Japan, was the top mikan growing region. The classic winter treat is to eat mikan sitting on the floor with your legs under a kotatsu, a low table with an electric heater under its surface and a comforter-type blanket on top to trap the heat below. Sitting on floors was never comfortable for me, so I didn't care for kotatsu, but I loved buying mikan fresh from neighborhood orchards.
Omnipresent in Japan, especially approaching the New Year, Dharma dolls, named after the founding monk of Buddhism, are sold with blank eyes. When you set a goal, you paint one eye of the doll. When you realize your goal, you paint the other eye. Most of the dolls (just heads) are like this one: made of paper mache with brushy beards and eyebrows and painted red, but some come in the colors of their regions. I saw a lot of one-eyed Dharma dolls in Japanese homes, but I don't remember seeing any with both eyes open.
I didn't experience much snow in Shizuoka City. Winters were cold, but snow didn't accumulate. Apartments had little to no insulation and no heaters (tenants buy their own). I recall laying my long underwear between the covers of my futon in order to make it warm enough to put on in the morning. Now, back in New England, I have snow outside (on my informal Japanese rock garden) and heat inside.
Remember the early 1990s video arcade game in which you virtually drove a red car across the country as fast as you could? Believe it or not, I was one of the top ten players of Outrun in Shizuoka City. My initials remained on the scoreboard at least as long as I lived there. Closest I ever came to being a jock!
The Japanese for persimmon is kaki, which is the same word for oyster. Context is crucial for understanding Japanese and rarely would "persimmon" and "oyster" occur together. . .except on a new fusion-style restaurant menu. Ki is tree, and no is a particle that indicates an adjective. Without the photo, though, it's easy to hear kaki-no-ki as "oyster tree" and, in Japan, who knows what that might be.
Skylark is a popular family restaurant chain in Japan. I didn't go there for the best cooking, but, like Gaby, I could count on finding a clean Western style toilet inside.
Here is garbage set on the street on "wet trash" day. This is a small green tea farm in Shizuoka--you don't usually see houses with that much land. The mirrors are necessary to navigate the narrow streets. The skull and crossbones with a fedora somehow looks insouciant rather than deadly.
Please join me at the Hollis Social Library on Thursday, November 12, at 7:00 p.m. to hear about some of the experiences you've read about in this blog, and see some items mentioned in the novel you can only see in person (such as McKenzie's Japanese textbook and Gaby's sandalwood fan). Free, open to the public, open to Q&A. I hope to see you there!
In honor of International Time Travel Day (November 5) and its founder, I roll the clock back 17 years to Okinawa in 1992 and a rare glimpse of Eric Paul Shaffer, author of the just-released Burn & Learn in the middle of making sandwiches for a beach outing. Literature Sandwiches, a chapter in his brilliant and lively episodic novel, claims: "A sandwich in literature usually appears only as a structural device and hardly ever as an edible item on a menu of fiction, following the tradition of the many meals ordered in the movies and never eaten." His sandwiches, however, are not props--they are the real thing, to be chewed on, relished, and digested, same as Burn & Learn. Those of you who follow this blog know Eric as my Fuji Hiking Pal, Parking Sign Prankster, and photographer of many photos with me in them. Now, get to know him as a writer: startling, provocative, with mustard spread to the edge.
My name--and method of eating mini-Dove Bar ice cream treats--has been immortalized on the cover of The American Mathematical Monthly (Nov 09). It turns out my little system was an interesting probability problem which my boyfriend and two of his math cohorts solved and published. You see, the dark chocolate covered ones only come in a box with half chocolate, half vanilla ice cream. I prefer vanilla, so if I draw a chocolate one from the box, I give it to Dave to eat and draw another for myself, which I will eat whether it's the superior vanilla or inferior chocolate. The computation determines how many chocolate bars per box I end up eating. For the solution, turn to p.831. As Dave said, "you create problems for me." With my name in his article on the cover of AMM, we are now officially famous.
And here's my losing ticket. I bet a hundred yen on racers 2 and 5 in the 5th race. The date is written year/month/day. The year is not the Western calendar year but the Japanese calendar year. Year 1 starts with each new emperor, so this was year 5 of the current emperor Akihito's reign, also known as 1993. It was July 10th, a typical muggy summer day in Shizuoka. If you have excellent vision, you might see a watermark pattern of yellow Mt. Fujis under the printing.
Here I am at Shizuoka's race track with a good friend, displaying my bet before the race. The race featured bicycles, not motorcycles as in American Fuji, but my description in Chapters 21 and 22 is much as it was: a large tunnel of concrete to enter and exit, hot metal benches, cigarette smoke, and that "abandoned plastic cup of beer" that Alex tripped over (p. 243). The atmosphere was friendly, and another (unseen) friend taking the photo won 2,000 yen which she spent on coffee and treats for the three of us. We enjoyed being "tough" women, venturing into a decidedly male venue.
Click on the title to read my latest interview, with Liz Sheffield on her blog Motherlogue. Liz moved to Japan in 1993, the year I left, and lived in Sapporo until 1995; in 1997 she went back for another year on the island of Shikoku. She grew up in Portland, Oregon (Gaby's home town) and now lives in Seattle (Alex's home town) so she has personally experienced all the geography of American Fuji! We talked about preparing to live in Japan, meeting yakuza, the process of writing the novel, and what I miss most.
70 people came to my and David Daniel's reading on a wet and rainy afternoon in Lowell. The audience was mostly students, but also some professors and published local authors. Mega-doumo to all who came, and to the Literary Society and English Department for sponsorship and support.
Eguchi says eating takoyaki is a tourist requirement for a visit to Japan. Here is a behind-the-counter look at how deep-fried octopus balls are made. I admire the hand labor that goes into chopping, shaping, and coating the octopus tentacles, and how quickly these women worked in such a small space. I tried takoyaki more than once, but found them too tough and rubbery to chew well enough to swallow. They are about the size of golf balls, and close to what I would imagine a golf ball would taste like. Not for me.
This is one of the ponds that inspired my fictional pond at Marubatsu's temple Gizenji.
I just received a copy of the new (July 2009) Spanish edition of American Fuji pubished by Emece, an Argentinian company. I think it captures the essence of the novel well. El monte Fuji era casi invisible en el verano pero, en los dias claros, ella veia esa silueta grandiosa y gracil dominando el cielo del norte.
The long, rainy drive to Hartford, Connecticut was worth every tense moment on the turnpike. Here I am at the new Connecticut Convention Center wearing my orange author's badge. Inside the ballroom, I browsed tables full of interesting books and met book lovers who could talk about anything from Kafka to kashi. It was my first chance to meet the Penguin sales team, and I must say they made me proud to be a Penguin author. Special thanks to the folks from Worcester (my home town) who are happy to have American Fuji back in print and to Rachel for the photo. Go Indies! Go books!
This photo was taken in front of a store on Gofukucho Street in downtown Shizuoka. Lester takes Alex for a walk on Gofukucho Street after lunch at Skylark (Chapter 12). In American Fuji, Lester has his own way of remembering the street's name.
My favorite temple is Todaiji, said to be the largest wooden structure in the world. This is a postcard of the enormous Buddha that Gaby tells Alex about in Chapter 21:
More thanks to Marilyn for her die-hard support of my novel, Blanche for photographing and driving (baby, you can drive my car), and all who came and made it festive. I do indeed get by with a little help from my friends.
Here, a view of the three clashing floor patterns: tub and sink room (mustard yellow), toilet room (orange checks), and dining kitchen (red and white). The tiny Christmas tree (about 1' high) was purchased pre-decorated.
One of my favorite novels is Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen . However, the kitchen of her novel is far grander than the typical apartment kitchen which has no oven. I bought myself a deluxe three-burner hot plate with a small broiling drawer. (Appliances are not included with rentals in Japan.) The dish rack used all of the counter space!
Here I am inside my 2DK apartment. See how the ceiling, counter, and table are all lower? Everything in Japan is a smaller scale, which creates an ongoing environment of disorientation for an American. I felt like a doll a bit too big for the dollhouse. That's why I had Alex Thorn constantly bang his head entering a room due to the smaller doorways. Luckily, I was the height of a Japanese man and didn't get hurt as much. The local gym was only for men, so I bought weights to try to keep in shape at home. The postcard taped to my cupboard is of Mt. Fuji. I still miss my wooden table and chairs that I had to leave behind, but I'm glad to have a bigger kitchen, now, with an oven.
If I were a male professor, I could have lived in University housing. As a female professor (one of three in the university), I had to find my own apartment. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as I was able to find a lovely apartment with a Western toilet, while University housing had traditional Japanese squat toilets. This is the street view of my apartment building in Shizuoka named Maison Tooru. My apartment was on the second floor. Just go up the metal staircase and follow the balcony to the third and last door on the left.
Thanks to the Milford, New Hampshire Toadstool Bookshop for hosting my opening day event on September 1st. It was great to meet other people who had experienced Japan and connect with long-time and new friends. The highlight, I think, was genuine Japanese "Pocky" sticks, crunched in unison at the appropriate moment in the reading. I invite all who came to share their impressions on this blog, and return to see the real life scenes in Shizuoka that inspired many of the descriptions. Doumo arigato, mina-san.
From American Fuji, Ch. 6, p. 63: "Vending machines sold cigarettes, candy, sandwiches, batteries, and beer. Beer from a vending machine! What a temptation for minors. Cody had never mentioned this in his letters, and Alex had no trouble guessing why." (Cody, Alex's son, spent a year as an exchange student at the fictional Shizuyama University.)
Vending machines abound in Japan, even isolated in a field. This one sells vegetables from a neighborhood garden. What's different for an American is that Japan doesn't have our zoning system. In Japan, you'll find industry, agriculture, and residence all mixed up together, perhaps in the same block. You can see an apartment complex to the left behind this small commercial orchard. You'll also notice the litter around the vending machine, despite Japan's reputation for public cleanliness.
In contrast to the zany Western imitations in Japan, you'll come across pockets of ancient exquisite beauty. This was the first lotus blossom I saw in person. Took my breath away.
In Japan, I celebrated holidays by hiking a large hill in Shizuoka that is a Shinto shrine called Sengen Jinja. Yet, this statue at the top, Oshaka-sama, standing on a lotus, is Buddhist. It's a memorial for war victims.
Shizuoka is the hydrangea capital of Japan. In the U. S., you mostly see the mophead varieties in foundation plantings around houses. In Japan, lacecap varieties grow in huge wild hedges. I hadn't appreciated the beauty of hydrangea before moving to Japan but they soon became my favorite flower. In Ch. 5, I mention a hydrangea hedge on Gaby's running route: "White herons gathered in the river, upstream from laundry suds pouring out of a city grate, and hydrangeas bloomed on the banks, dropping blue and lavender petals over soda cans and bento cartons littered beside the asphalt."
Mt. Fuji is a Shinto shrine, and so is this tree. This one was just one block off my bicycle route from my apartment to the university. I would check in on it now and again, to say hello or make a wish. It's quite a bit larger than the typical tree in Japan. (Size matters?)
