Hearing now!

This is my FAVOURITE band of all time! Pizzicato five.
They were very famous in the nineties, but their music is so Avantgarde that if you don't know that fact you'll think this group formed just now!


Enjoy the admiration of Japan for India which already started with Buddhism entering Japan some 1400 years ago till today!

Otori

I was last weekend at my friends house in Otori, a countryside small city to the south of Osaka.
Arriving there I was surprised by how nice the houses and the streets looked. Old countryside Osaka at it's best!
My friends are the official notes keeper of the priest in their eleventh generation.
Well this should mean something..


The house of my friends was also a very traditional house, a "farmers house" as they called it which is characterized by the fact that it is REALLY big compared to city houses.
Well if you know (or remember) till Edo period the farmers were after the Samurai the second highest class in the Japanese Cast system!
So it makes perfect sense that their houses were so big and beautiful. Simply put the farmers of Japan were rich AND they had status.


hmm, Japanese cherries.. ;)


And some nice "Tanbou"s (rice fields) giving the city it's countryside charm!



We ended the night in a Japanese restaurant, as all of my friends know that I am a Japanese food otaku! =)
It was very delicious except for the Sashimi which was too expensive for the quantity we got.

Web 2.0

Everything started with this blog and google calendar, now I am discovering that we live in the Web 2.0 age..

Entsuji

Entsuji is a very fine temple in the north of Kyoto. Founded in 1629 by the Emperor Gomizuno, it became a Zen monastery later.


The Temple displays the gardening style of Shakkei (lit. borrowed scenery), The main element being Mount Hiei one of the many Meccas of Japanese Buddhism.


Mount Hiei looks really beautiful. In Japan Mountains play a central role in the religious life of the people.
Mount Fuji is the most prominent example, Mount Koya is very famous too and many other mountains. The tradition of reverence to Mountains and nature continued through the religious development of the country.


Last but not least the "window of enlightenment" of entsuji. Enlightenment "IS" buddhism. It is the goal of every buddhist believer to get enlightened.
The form of the window shows symbolically Enlightenment.

Le depart de Bebs!

Comme certains d'entre vous le savent, Bebs est parti aujourd'hui vers la france.
Und tres bon ami que je vais regretter.
Mais on va se revoir en France! :)
Ca serait ma premiere fois de visiter vraiment la france apres des annees de francais et de culture francaise..

So Bebs went today back to France!
I wish you good luck, and a bright future!

Japanese design, continued!

I was with Yumi in a very cool cafe called efish in Kyoto! A trendy Cafe showcasing very well youth culture in Japan and especially in the Kansai region!
The first floor was already a blast, with a very nice and clear design and some fish..
But this will be the topic of the next post ;)
On the second floor there was a gallery displaying all sorts of small things.


Japanese design borrows heavily elements from old Japanese culture.
Simplicity of the form,
Symmetry and asymmetry used respectively to achieve an overall sensation of unobstrusiveness and clarity.


Japanese love "playing with forms" and with objects.
Explaining this to my friends costed me nearly one hour! ;) So I'll not delve too much on to this point in this post..

So as you can see Japanese design has many elements which make it unique and very fresh to the outsider! Take a look at your walkman and let your fantasy play with its design ;)

Perspectives

Usually I take the monorail to go from the place where I live, near "Yamada" station, to "Shibahara" a station 5 minutes away from the main gate.
Using The Monorail I see everything everyday from a birds perspective. After some time you get used to that! houses are small, big fields undefinable.. And the Skyline of Osaka your everyday companion against the not so interesting passengers..Suits and top notch dressing..

So today I had a radical change of perspective when taking the "shuttle bus" a bus relating The Toyonaka Campus to the Suita Campus. The bus takes the same route but instead of seeing the area from above you are in it actually.
You see BIG houses, apartments, people, streets, cars, life around you and the tiny objects become suddenly so big!



Your perspective changes radically!
Feelings of security of control and of distance are lost! it's the same place but you have a totally different relationship to it!



I thought WOW we use Airplanes for travelling through the world! It's exactly the same as with the monorail we see the same regions but with an unconnected feeling.
Flying over India has no relation whatsoever with being in India!
Isn't this shoking?

Genuine Japanese design

This very popular motorcycle illustrates for me the essence of one very popular trend in modern Japanese design, or better, one of the many characteristics that give Japan it's cultural identity.

The Motorcycle looks at first sight very clumsy! But if you take a nearer look it is very symmetric.

This feeling of #big# and debording like a Sumo wrestler is very characteristic of Japanese design.
Many things are made to look big and debording..

Then the colours! As you can see some white with a very strong and shiny green!
Here in Osaka we are at the same level as south Italy or north Africa, so strong shiny colours are very very popular and are part of the culture.

Las but not least the motorcycle itself which looks like American motorcycles, long and heavy. Which shows clearly the strong American influence on modern Japanese culture.

I like this design it's for me genuine Japanese.

Hanami and Physics

So today I wanted to combine the love of the Japanese for flowers, which is apparent in every corner in the city! With my department: The Department of Physics at the Univeristy of Osaka. I am in the 7th floor, so the highest of the building.



From the main entrance facing the "chuugoku" highway till the center of the Campus could you see flowers embellishing the road.

From the main entrance...



Far into the campus...



Japanese have an obsession for "Hanami" literally meaning "seeing flowers" but which I would translate to "enjoying flowers"! They do not only do Hanami in the time of cherry blossoming, but starting from spring with plum blossoming then cherry, through summer with differnet kinds of floral plants, till automn where the leafs start to change to red!
Every flower is a possible target for Hanami! Reasoning about it's beauty, it's smell and it's relation with the current weather. So you could say Hanami is not only looking at flowers, but feeling the flower in relation with the current environment.
Relating ones own inner feelings to the nature surrounding one.
Very Japanese indeed..

Fruits in Japan!

The variety of fruits in Japan is nearly the same as in the medeterranian!
With some differences in form and colour!



Incredible but real! I found figs in a garden near the place were I live.



A RED sunflower!! Never saw that before.. On the background what you see are neither oranges nor grapefruits! Some Japanese citrus fruit which even my friend didn't know it's name.. Citrus fruits are found here in an endless variety..



The last fruit the Loquat
is in Tunisia incredibly popular!! I thought it is a native to the south Mediterranean until I read the link! Well my world views changed already some times..
So the shock was far milder this time.. ;)

I even saw Pomegranates..WoW!

Japanese culture, lesson 2: Honne and Tatemae

The Author writes (with some reordering to make things clearer):

"There is the way things are and the way we'd like them to be.
The reality and the facade.
The real reason and the pretext.
The substance and the form.
Being direct and being diplomatic.
And the truth and the white lie.
In short, that is honne and tatemae, respectively.

Since avoiding conflict and trouble is extremely important in Japan, using diplomatic language is often used rather than the direct approach.
It's said that in formal situations a direct "No" is avoided and there are a thousand nicer alternatives -- which can be true, but it depends a lot on the situation and social status of the parties involved.
Japanese may say things very politely and vaguely, but if the meaning is not clear it's perfectly acceptable to ask for clarification."

Nothing more to add here..

One thing I can say from my experience is that if you don't understand Honne and Tatemae after sometime you'll get completely lost in Japan, and I really mean lost..

Hearing now!

Some music for the ears! :)



Mr. Children, for more then two years the most famous rock band in Japan.