89. Tokyo Tanuki vs. London Fox

According to some web sites, traditional rakugo stories account as many as 800.

While, only a limited number of them are being performed today.

One of my favorite program is Tanuki.

Tanuki（狸）, a raccoon dog, is a mammal indigenous to the Far East.

In Japan it frequently appears in children’s stories, fantasy novels or mythologies along with fox.

In such stories both the fox and tanuki trick people by turning their figure into people, animals or items.

Generally foxes are evil, while tanuki good-natured and humorous, otherwise, foxes frequently turn into beautiful ladies while tanuki middle aged men having a pot belly.

In both instances, their identity would be revealed as their tails appear under the clothes.

In the rakugo program of Tanuki, a kid tanuki was captured and bullied by human children. Then a man came and helped the tanuki to get away. The tanuki returned his home and reported to his parents about the kind man, then visited the man’s bachelor home at night.

He told gratitude and declared that he would serve the man as a token of thank-you.

The tanuki turned into a human boy and prepared for the breakfast, then turned into paper money and tried to help the man to pay back the debt.

However, the transformation didn’t last for long hours. It required patience for tanuki being other items.

And at last, ……

《You can find a tanuki statue here and there in Japan.》

Several years ago as I watched a TV documentary program I got to know foxes living in London.

They ate food waste at night and raised kids in the big city.

Interestingly in Tokyo and its vicinity tanuki live in the same fashion. They appear after sunset and migrate along railways. About a thousand tanuki reportedly live in the center of Tokyo and some have been witnessed even in the busy area.

I haven’t meet tanuki or observed the tanuki transformation, however, the tanuki exists close to us even now.

《Foxes live mostly in Hokkaido, the northern part in Japan.》

Do the foxes in London transform to cheat people?

《A horror? A mystery? Or a fairy tale? My favorite novel, a tale of fox》

88. Rakugo, a traditional art of story-telling

The other day I went to see rakugo performance for the first time in many years.

《Rakugo is performed here and there in Japan, and you can experience it by CDs or Apple Music App.》

Rakugo （落語）is a Japanese traditional art, in which a rakugo artist (rakugo-ka) tells a story sitting on an elevated stage called koza（高座）without co-performer.

It is a kind of monologue based on a traditional style.

The rakugo art started in Edo era, the 16th century. A number of great artists appeared and created stories, which have been handed down by word of mouth, and even now, attracts many people.

Therefore, the setting for the stories are mostly in Edo era.

It consists of mostly conversations between two or more people. A rakugo artist acts a number of people by using a variety of voices and gesture, but never stands up. The stage props are only a paper fun (sensu 🪭) and cotton cloth (tenugui).

《The sensu and tenugui are essential items for not only rakugo but all of the Japanese performing arts.》

The programs of rakugo can be classified into four categories:

comedies (kokkei-banashi), human dramas (ninjo-banashi), stories originated from theatrical play such as kabuki and noh (shibai-banashi), and horror stories (kwaidan-banashi).

Other than those, novel stories have been created and some artists like to tell ones’ original stories.

Even when the same story should be performed, the artists can alter the details and nuance, so that the impression of the program varies artists to artists.

The essential difference between the rakugo and western monologue or monodrama is that the rakugo artists always take care of response from the audience. It is said that, whether the audience are younger or older, or the response is quick or dull, excellent artists could change the way of performance, otherwise, the artist may change the program itself.

Further, as an artist becomes older, his/ her art gets matured.

Thus, if you have heard the story in the past, you can enjoy it differently from the previous one. And you can laugh, cry, or moved in a different fashion.

I think this makes the rakugo more interesting.

87. Ramen in Japan

Whenever I travel abroad I miss ramen, and the first food after come back to Japan is always ramen🍜

The ramen used to be called shina-soba, meaning Chinese noodle, and I had thought it a Chinese dish. The origin is China indeed, however, the ramen is an elaboration by Japanese people based upon the original Chinese noodle. That is to say, the ramen is a Japanese dish .

Now, Japanese ramen has become so popular worldwide that I see many foreign tourists forming long lines in front of ramen restaurants.

Overseas tourists seem to like fatty, gorgeous, and sometimes spicy ramen. Many of them are based on the soy sauce soup.

While, the ramen soup is not only the soy sauce taste but there are salt, tonkotsu, miso taste and so on.

《The standard soy sauce ramen, the image is from an website.》

Miso is fermented soy beans paste and when I feel chilly, I want to eat miso ramen. It is thick and makes me warm.

《Ramen with miso taste soup 》

The image below is soy sauce based ramen containing many kinds of spices, like yuzu peel, red pepper, sesame, which make the ramen like yakuzen.

When I feel cold I eat this ramen, then the coldness disappears instantly.

《paiko-dandan-men(排骨担々麺), topped with fried pork seasoned by various spices, is suitable for cold season.》

However, you have to be careful not to empty the bowl.

You will get serious thirst afterwards.

86. Piano lesson as a grownup

TV programs titled Street Piano, Airport Piano, Station Piano or the like have been broadcasted for more than ten years and have attracted attention.

A piano is set in a public space like an airport lounge, a station hall, a shopping moll, or a park.

Cameras are set around the piano anyone can play the piano freely.

Some of the players talk about their story on piano playing, which appears as a short caption on the TV.

Other than TV, some people take a video of playing piano and upload it to YouTube.

Many people learn to play the piano after becoming adulthood.

Last year a series of TV program was broadcasted on how to learn the piano effectively as adults and a book was published written by British pianist, James Rhodes. It is said that he had started piano lesson by himself after grownup. Further, the  book was interpreted into Japanese by a writer famous for her unique life style and affection to the piano.

《My piano textbooks, the textbook for the TV program, and the book by James Rhodes.》

My father started learning piano when he was in his seventies.

He went to a music school for adults and once or twice attended a performance, which I went to see without telling him beforehand. I remember I was surprised so many seniors played the piano merrily.

After his death the electric piano I had bought to him has been standing at the corner of the living room.

Last autumn, it occurred to me that I should play the piano. Then, I enrolled in a piano class.

It was the first time in fifty years for me to take a lesson.

Since then I have continued the lesson and now I come to play a Beethoven’s piano sonata.

It is not easy but I found that despite the age we can achieve something.

Playing music is fun♬

See you someday somewhere at a street piano🎶

85 Road to become a master

A friend of mine who lives overseas once asked me about ikebana, Japanese flower arrangement.

By seeing various web sites everyone can get detailed information about ikebana so I don’t mention it here.

I would like to write about the road of ikebana.

Ikebana is formally called kado (華道) in Japan.

Herein, the do (道) means road and is used for other arts, such as,  sado (茶道; tea ceremony), kodo (香道; incense burning), shodo (書道; calligraphy), judo (柔道), kendo (剣道), karatedo (空手道), aikido (合気道), and kyudo (弓道; archery).

The kado, sado, kodo, and shodo are fine arts and the others are martial arts.

They have long existed and developed in Japan. Each of them has a certain origin and the skills have been handed down for generations. They used to be learned by samurai family person or upper class people.

The do (道), or the road, never ends. It goes on and on.

On the road there are many steps, which are called kyu (級) meaning class, and dan (段) meaning degree. When we start learning them we have to start the lowest class and step by step go upper class. To attain the goal (if possible) requires us enormous time, effort, talent, and money💸

After reaching some degree and pass a test, the teacher’s license will be given, be called shisho (師匠) and conferred artist names.

Those who have progressed to higher level are called master of the road.

By the way, other traditional arts such as Japanese dancing (日本舞踊), musical instruments such as koto (琴), syamisen (三味線) take the similar system.

And when we learn something, found it deep and difficult to attain, we sometimes call it XX-do, such as dance-do, piano-do, manga-do, and so on. For me, English writing is almost the do.

The ikebana and Japanese tea ceremony have now become popular worldwide and many people from overseas experience them. They are also explained on YouTube and everyone can mimic them without leaving their country.

However, the essence and philosophy of them cannot be learned instantly on the internet or from a person having no license. It takes long long time to go.

84. Lafcadio Hearn and ghost stories

Asadora, NHK morning drama series, has gained popularity among Japanese for more than fifty years.

It is broadcasted five days a week from 8:00 to 8:15 a.m. and repeated in the noon.

A story continues for six months (then changes to another) and the person served as a model gets momentary popular.

The current drama describes life of a writer from Ireland, Lafcadio Hearn, and his Japanese wife, Setsu. I have mentioned Hearn and his Kwaidan, or Japanese ghost stories in my previous blog (in 2021).

He came to Japan in 1890, had worked as an English teacher in Matsue city, where he married Setsu and wrote many stories and essays which made him famous.

His works were all in English and he could not read Japanese well so Setsu had read folk tales and legends to tell him. Thus, his works are collaboration with his beloved wife.

His stories have been translated and read by many people, and made into movies or animation films.

Many of his stories are sad and beauty. Many people feel sympathy for the ghost and shed tears.

《Lafcadio Hearn’s Kwaidan contains beautiful stories, while Oxfordshire Ghosts I got 30 years ago is like a tour guide for who want to visit the haunted place.》

On the other hand, I have books of Oxfordshire Ghost and True Irish Ghost Stories, both of which I got about thirty year ago and have waited to be read in my bookshelf.

Having learned Hearn’s stories, I got interested in ghost stories in other countries and am reading them.

British and Irish people love ghost stories.

In Britain as well as Ireland, having few earthquakes, old buildings and ruins exist anywhere. We can actually find the haunted places on Google maps.

On the other hand, Japan, suffering from numerous large earthquakes, has few old buildings where ghosts like to live.

There is some difference between Japanese in particular Hearn’s stories and British ghost stories.

In my opinion, British stories try to scare the readers and are full of bloody scenes. While, the later try to describe the ghosts’ grudge or regret about leaving this world.

The absolute difference is those stories are told in winter in Britain, while in Japan mainly in summer to make us cold.

For us, the Japanese, being told the Hearn’s Yuki-onna (雪女), or Snowy woman, in winter chills us to the bone.

83. Miracle pills

I have had difficulty in falling asleep since I was very young😴

The older I get, the more serious the symptom becomes.

It seems to be inherited from my father, who had depended on sleeping pills in his later years.

Many elderly people take sleeping pills and I think it is not a bad thing. But now, and for the time being, I don’t want to count on them.

As far as I know, some kampo drugs are effective to nocturia, that is, frequent urination at night by improving the general condition, and other kampo drugs are effective for sadation. However, no kampo drugs directly induce sleep .

Whenever I went abroad I looked into drugstores and herb shops to find OTC drugs or supplements, which looked good for going asleep.

Last year I went to London, where I got some sleeping aids.

In England most drugstores are Boots, which sells mainly Boots brand products.

As I wanted to try wide range of items, I searched on the web to find out a drugstore other than Boots. The shop sold a lot of alternative medicine, supplements, food, cosmetics and so on. I spent an hour to choose supplements.

After I came back to Japan I have tried one by one.

Firstly, I tried passionflower oral drops.

《Oral sleeping drops to help get asleep. The hop and valerian preparation is quite unpalatable💧》

When I could not get asleep, some droplets were added to a small glass of water.

Surprisingly it was effective😳

After that I tried valerian pills and more surprisingly the efficacy was more remarkable. I fell asleep easily and feel refreshed the next morning.

It was like a miracle😴

As it takes pill form, it is easier to take.

The active ingredient is said to be valerenic acids.

Valerian root has long been produced and used for sedatives also in Japan. It has been stipulated in the Japanese pharmacopoeia since 1886 up to the current version.

Though its supplements are commercially available, it is not popular in Japan, and it is not included in kampo drugs.

I have written the merits of kampo drugs in my previous blog, however, western herbal drugs and folk medicine have their strong points as well.

For a long time, until the current drugs and medication became available, we had all been helped by kampo drug and western herbal medicine.