asazuke

Life in Japan, food, music, whatever…

The end of Sumo? 4 February, 2011

Filed under: customs,news — johnraff @ 2:56 pm
Tags: , , , ,

…could be. The TV news yesterday was full of revelations about what police investigating illegal gambling had found on sumo wrestlers cell phone records. Very incriminating stuff suggesting bout-fixing was rife. This comes after a series of scandals over the last couple of years – dope-smoking Russians, the Bad Boy Asashoryu from Mongolia, a baseball betting ring and a young trainee beaten to death – very serious and after the baseball thing last year NHK dropped their live broadcast for a season. This, however, could be the worst yet, in terms of the future of this quintessentially Japanese “sport”.

Is it a sport or a rite? It takes place under an awning like a shrine, and starts and finishes with a lot of ceremony indicating its probable origins. Whatever, these days it still has a lot of fans who expect not to know the outcome of a bout until it’s over, and hold their breath to see who’ll end up the champion this time. Will it be Hakoho yet again? That could be all over. Now it looks as if a lot of results could well have been arranged in advance, wht’s the point of watching? The TV companies will probably agree, and the Ministry of Culture might well cancel sumo’s status as a public body with tax exemptions…

What’s more, there was a lot of money moving around behind the scenes here: so who stood to gain from knowing the sumo results in advance? Presumably betting was going on, with unsuspecting punters being taken for a ride by yakuza, probably. It all looks a horrible mess, and really could be the end of the sport, at least for a while till they get things straightened out, if ever.

Yesterday was also Setsubun. “Out, demons out!”

 

for 2011 16 January, 2011

Filed under: countryside,seasons — johnraff @ 8:08 pm
Tags: , , ,

We collected some favourite pictures, mostly from round our country house, over the past few years and got a calendar made. It turned out quite nice, so I thought I’d share them with you (click the image for a full-sized version):

 

Sushi for Christmas 10 January, 2011

Filed under: city,food & drink — johnraff @ 7:29 pm
Tags: , , , ,

This goes back thirty years or so, but a couple of minutes from the English school I used to teach at was a little sushi shop in the corner of a local market. The owner was a friendly guy who made good sushi and every day he had a lunchtime special for ¥380 that used whatever was in season at the fish market that day and made a great lunch. I used to drop in quite often. At that time there were little privately owned sushi shops everywhere, just like izakaya and yakitori places, but gradually the big companies moved in; they can buy in bulk and prepare stuff in big food factories so, as our local sushi lunch guy complained one day, there was no way that people like him could compete. A lot of places went out of business, but his solution was to move up, up-market. He bought the best fish at the market every day, however much it cost, and charged prices to match. Although he was still in the corner of this scruffy little market it was now hard to leave there without spending ¥10,000 or more, and the only people who could afford to eat there were yakuza.

And that’s how things are now – there are cheap, cheap chain sushi places where you can take the kids, and really expensive places. Having tasted decent sushi you don’t feel like MacSushi, and really can’t afford to go to the good places any more… what a drag. However, the other day when we were thinking of going out for dinner at Christmas and all the French restaurants were either too expensive or booked up T found a sushi shop via the internet that didn’t look too bad, and was just a short bike ride away from our house. In fact it was really OK – one of a “chain” of two, occupying a previous coffee shop and completely lacking the sterile gleam of those shiny new chain places, and not expensive at all. Not everything was fantastic, but most of the sushi was pretty good, and the two of us ate our fill, along with drinks (beer, sake and shochu), for about ¥7,000 total which seemed quite reasonable. So those corner sushi shops haven’t completely died out after all!

 

Farmlog 28th November ~ 20th December 2010

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 6:58 pm
Tags: , , , ,

(btw Happy New Year everyone!)

Another catchup post I’m afraid, to try and get back somewhere close to Real Time while it’s still January.

28th~29th November

  • Dropped in at Kimble on the way out of town. This time we got a little plastic egg that speaks Thai for ¥70.
  • It’s cold.
  • A big grey heron in one of the roadside rice paddies.
  • Arrived to find big holes in the ground everywhere. Obviously a visit from the Pigs – the wild “inoshishi” that sometimes come round looking for roots to dig up. They’re strong animals that toss up these big rocks about the place and generally make a mess.
  • We had to empty the water system before leaving for the first time this season. It’s pumped up from our well by electricity and comes out of taps just like mains water, but if you leave it in the pipes in winter it will freeze and burst them.
  • Minimum temp. -1°C max. 9°C

5th~6th December

  • Two beautiful sunny days this week.
  • While we were gone some surveyors came round and left little red flags around marking the boundaries with the adjacent forestry plantation. I wonder who sent them? Are they planning to cut trees or something? That would be OK for us, improving sunlight and airflow round the buildings. Or maybe the land’s going to be sold?
  • Some weed cutting on Monday. Left with nothing to do, the mind gets fidgety so it’s an opportunity for a sort of meditation…
  • min. 0°C max 14°C

19th~20th December

  • Another beautiful Sunday – mild and sunny.
  • Our communicative VW Polo likes to send us little messages now and then. This time it was something about “check cooling system maintenance” or something. It was not the first time to appear, so we dropped in at a VW garage ouside Nagoya and they soon put it down to the coolant fluid being a bit low, topped it up and sent us on our way in 5 minutes or so – free! They’d never seen us before and had no way of knowing we’d ever be back again, but that’s what you have to call service.
  • Later on it was another meaasge about petrol getting low, but by then all the local garages were closed on Sunday so fingers crossed it would last till the way home on Monday…
  • Arrive to find the house freezing cold inside after being empty for a week. Everything is icy cold – the tatami floor, walls, plates in the cupboard… so we crank up the oil fan heater and sit in the kotatsu.
  • On Monday morning it’s rainy but somewhat milder. Later on it clears up and as soon as the sun goes behind the trees it gets cold again.
  • The deer had broken through the net round the Green Zone again and left lots of fresh droppings inside. Now the chillies are finished there’s nothing to eat in there though. They just do it to annoy.
  • min -3°C max 12°C
 

Enkoji 30 December, 2010

Filed under: countryside,places — johnraff @ 3:00 pm
Tags: , ,

It’s already a good month ago, but towards the end of November we had to stay in Nagoya one weekend, so that Sunday made a little local excursion. The late Autumn weather was perfect – an almost cloudless sky and no wind to detract from the warm sunshine. The Japanese railway company, JR, promote a series of “refreshing walks” where they meet you at a station, put up signs on the way, provide maps and generally look after you. We didn’t really feel like doing any of that, and sharing our walk with a whole party of other middle-aged hikers, but checked out the information they put out and chose one of their recommended routes on a different week from the organised outing, so had it to ourselves – in Gifu prefecture about an hour from Nagoya, just past Ogaki.

Beware of bears!

There was a bit too much asphalt for our tastes, but it was a nice day out anyway, and the Enkoji temple about half-way along was perfect for the Autumn red maple and yellow gingko leaves. Beautiful.

A classic empty Autumn sky.

 

Our Mayor – continued 17 December, 2010

Filed under: city,news,politics — johnraff @ 2:32 pm
Tags: , , , ,

Takashi Kawamura - mayor of Nagoya

Maybe you remember this guy? The mayor of Nagoya I wrote about last March. His attempt to force the city councillors to cut their numbers and pay by half has been simmering on since then, but recently it got more exciting. The collection of signatures for a petition went ahead in November and, after a slow start, they eventually got some 400 + thousand within the couple of weeks allowed. It was tight, but they made a big push in the last week and ended up with more than the 360,000 (1/5 of the electorate) needed to call a popular vote on dissolving the council. BUT – the Nagoya electoral commission ruled about 110,000 signatures invalid, taking the total below what was needed. Oddly enough, most of the members of that commission are ex-councillors…

It didn’t end there though. There was a chorus of complaints, and people who checked their names on the petition found they had been invalidated for some pretty poor reasons: a single mistake in the address or phone number, smudge on the paper, illegible signature… Kawamura’s supporters put in complaints on sme 35,000 of them, maybe the ones they thought had the strongest case of getting through, and after more checks – all of this costing a fortune in taxpayers’ money – eventually got another 12,000 valid signatures, enough to get over the quota!

So now there will be a popular vote here in Nagoya on whether to dissolve the council, and hold another election. It looks as if the vote will succeed, and there’s a good chance that the new council will have enought sympathetic members to pass Kawamura’s motions to cut their pay by half. They’ll still get 8 million yen (~$95,000) which is enough to get by, I’d have thought…

 

Calendar shortage 15 December, 2010

Filed under: customs,seasons — johnraff @ 1:17 pm
Tags: , , ,

Calendars aren’t something you go out and buy – you get given them, usually by companies you have some dealing with and who’d like to have their name on your wall through the next year. Unfortunately, along with cutting “entertainment” expenses, calendar budgets have been trimmed too and there’s a nationwide calendar deficit apparently.

 

70 milliseconds

Filed under: news — johnraff @ 1:11 pm
Tags: , ,

Last Thursday, along with the live broadcasts from yet another grand illumination somewhere with 500,000 LED lights twinkling in some shopping mall, was a news item about a temporary power drop in our area. Because of trouble with a transformer somewhere the voltage dropped by 40% for about 0.07 seconds… That’s right, it wasn’t a power cut, just a reduction, for less than one tenth of a second. As a result, factories all over the area came to a halt, some shut down for a day or more, and a Toshiba semiconductor plant’s output in January and February may be cut by 20~30% as a result. Hard to believe, but it’s true.

 

Farmlog 15th November 2010 10 December, 2010

Filed under: countryside,seasons — johnraff @ 1:15 am
Tags: , , , , , ,

A cricket in November.

An overcast but mild Sunday; groups of migrating birds getting ready to head out of here somewhere warmer. Later on the sun started to come out – you need a bit of blue sky to show off the red Autumn leaves that are reaching their peak around now. When we arrived at the house a pheasant was standing in front of the garage. It strolled off into the bushes in its own time… A cricket outside the house: the last one of the year?

Wild boar dropping.

Wild boar dropping.

There were big holes under the tea bushes where the wild boar had been digging for fern roots or something. They left a memento on our drive too. They’re big strong animals and can toss quite large rocks around in their search for something succulent in the ground.

deer droppings

Deer droppings.

T saw a mother and a couple of young a few years ago, but they hadn’t been around much until recently, having pretty much got everything that was going. The deer, on the other hand, have been regular visitors, as you’ll know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, and this week there were plenty of fresh droppings around. Touch wood – they haven’t got inside the net round the chilli patch this year, except for one brief break-in, and now the season’s over. Fingers crossed for next year.

half-eaten chillies

Left by our furry friend.

Monday was much colder, and later on turned into drizzle. Last week didn’t freeze after all, though it came close, and there were still a lot of chillies intact on the bushes. We won’t be here next week, so a final picking session got another kilo or so of the hot, hot little “ishigaki” chillies. A small furry animal, probably a fieldmouse, had got some of the larger, milder ones and chomped on them in a corner of the field, leaving the seeds, and some half-eaten pods. Maybe they were a bit too hot after all. Anyway, he didn’t even touch the little hot ones.

Won’t be back for two weeks, and had a last look at the red maple leaves, which will be gone next time we’re here.

Min temp. 1°C, max. 13°C

 

maple leaves in November

A maple in front of the house.

 

 

 

Farmlog 7th November 2010 22 November, 2010

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 6:03 pm
Tags: , ,

Arrived just after two on a clear but chilly afternoon. It had been quite hot just an hour ago on the way up, but once the sun goes behind the trees opposite the house it cools right down. A quiet time sitting with a cup of tea listening to the sounds – a couple of determined crickets, a distant bird, a solitary bee – or hornet – somewhere, but mostly the stream at the bottom of the garden. At this distance it has a somewhat dry sound, but closer up it’s beautiful, mellifluous and musical, something like a bamboo gamelan.

We could well have some frost next week, so this might be the last chance to pick some chillies. There are still a lot left, especially the little hot “ishigakis”. They’re really nice, with a good heat and wonderful fresh aroma, but it would be hard to turn growing them into a commercial proposition. To pick a kilo takes the best part of an hour.

Minimum temp. 0.5°C, max. 18°C