Bento: Japanese Lunch Box

Bento(弁当) is very popular in Japan because of its variation and portability. Most Japanese wives make bento for their children who need to bring it to school, or for their husbands who need to bring it to work. As you can see in the above photo, bento usually contains rice and bite-size portion of side dishes, and those are divided into sections according to each food type, so that the different tastes do not run into each other. The most popular type of food are fish dishes, Japanese omelets, and pickles like umeboshi(梅干) or takuan(たくあん: pickled Japanese radish), but there are unlimited number of food type which can be put in bento. Bento is one of Japanese food culture.

Japanese school children often bring bento to their schools as lunch. Quite a few mothers wake up early in the morning and make bento for their children. They make bento not only for their children but also for their husbands. Especially, the bento which are made by wives for their husbands are called Aisai Bento (愛妻弁当). It literally means “bento made by loving wives”.
Bento is one of pleasures at Hanami especially between couples. Couples often enjoy girls’ handmade bento under the cherry trees. Girls put a lot of efforts to make delicious, elaborate bento for their boyfriends. They are eager to make their boyfriends happy and they want them to say “It’s nice”. Girls are looking forward to eating bento with their boyfriends at Hanami.
People make bento to make someone happy and a person who eat it thanks a person who made it.

Makunouchi Bento from http://homepage2.nifty.com/orangecab/product01.html

Although I have been talking about handmade bento, there are now a lot of bentos which are sold at convenience stores or supermarkets. This type of bento is also popular in Japan. It is said that this type of bento originates from “Makunouchi Bento (幕の内弁当)” in Edo period. People in Edo ate Makunouchi Bento during intermission of Nou (能) or Kabuki (歌舞伎), so it is called “幕(curtain)の内(during) 弁当”. The most typical commercial bento which have rice and other kinds of food divided into each section are still well known as the name of “Makunouochi Bento”.

Ekiben (駅弁) is also one of the popular type of bento. It can be easily got at train stations’ shops, or on the trains. It is especially often found at the stations where limited express and bullet trains leave. People enjoy ekiben during the long time boarding. There are a lot of kinds of ekiben, and people can enjoy unique and own bentos which vary from place to place. You can find each place’s specialty in ekiben. Ekiben is one of pleasures of train trips for Japanese.

Links: Ekiben Museum (You can find ekiben of each area in Japan. )

Radio Exercise

I’m going to write about one of famous styles of exercise called “radio exercise”( rajio taisou: ラジオ体操) in Japan.
Now, please watch this video( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS92XkVKM0Q) from you-tube which shows three women who are demonstrating “radio exercise”.

It is famous exercise which is known and enjoyed by many Japanese citizens. It has been shown on TV or the radio for a long time, so most Japanese people of all generations are familiar with this exercise, and this background music accompanied by the exercise. They even know the exact order of each movement.

Why the exercise is so popular in Japan? It is basically devised by an insurance company(Kanpo Insurance Company) as an advertising campaign for the improvement of people’s health. After that, it began to be broadcasted on the radio. Now, it is shown four times a day on the radio and twice a day on TV.

Radio exercise usually consists of two parts; first exercise(第一体操) and second exercise(第二体操). However, first exercise is more popular than second one, so people often do only the first one. It is generally said that the first exercise is moderate and followed by the music at a normal tempo. In contrast, the second one is a little bit hard and steps up the tempo.

In Japan, people have a lot of opportunities to take radio exercise not only through radio or TV show but also through radio exercise meetings held at your community. Radio exercise meetings are often held as a part of activities of Kodomokai( 子ども会: association of children living the same area). As you watched in the film, “Natsuyasumi” of Japan Lab, most elementary school students participate in those meetings held at parks, community centers or some other public places near their house in summer vacation. Some elementary schools tell students to participate in the meetings as summer homework and give students check cards to be put stamps on it every time the students attend the meetings. Those cards are usually supposed to submit to teachers.
But today’s radio exercise meeting is changing now. There are few people who participate in the meeting, so the number of the meetings is surely decreasing. The declining birth rate is one of the causes of the change. Because of the declining birth rate, Kodomokai is not working. It becomes difficult for the radio exercise meetings to take place. Picture of morning assembly of a company: http://www.kk-iwatagumi.co.jp/kaisya/chourei.html

Picture of the opening ceremony of athletic meet in jounior high school: http://www.tym.ed.jp/sc276/2001/undoukai01/undoukai.htm

Radio exercise is so common that it is often carried out in various places and situations such as morning assembly of companies(first picture of the above) or opening ceremony of athletic meet at schools( second picture of the above). Radio exercise is of course one of good warm-ups, so it is really suitable to do at the beginning of athletic meets. Moreover, radio exercise is considered to be very good to activate people’s brain, to wake people up, or for a change of air. That’s why some companies let the workers do radio exercise every day in the morning before they start to work on something. There is also a positive effect on people of doing radio exercise. It can enhance people’s concentration, so it might prompt employees to devote their energies to their work. I have heard that there is a university teacher who gives students time to do radio exercise during a class. The teacher tried to make students refresh their mind and enable them to maintain their concentration during the 90 minutes class.

Links: Japan Radio Exercise Association(全国ラジオ体操連盟）,

Dharma: Bringers of Good Luck

http://www.rakuten.co.jp/yaocyu/330467/124872/118751/

Japanese people often have engimono( 縁起物), which can be translated “bringers of good luck”. When they go to shrines or temples, they often buy some charms ( omamori: お守り) depending on what kind of good luck they need. On New Year’s Day, they often put pine displays in front of entrances to pray for good luck of the year. Although there are many other bringers of good luck in Japan, today I’d like to talk about dharma (daruma: だるま) as one of bringers of good luck. Dharma is an ornament imitating the appearance of Daruma( 達磨), a patriarch of Zen Buddhism. The shape of dharma represtnts the figure of 達磨 practicing meditation in Zen Buddhism.


There is a custom to paint dharma’s right eye when people have something to wish for, and then paint left eye when people’s wishes come true. The most common case is that people paint right eye at the beginning of a year for their well-being of their family or good health, and they paint left eye at the end of the year if they could spend the whole year peacefully.

http://www.kawara-ban.com/news.html

I often see this custom in TV programs reporting elections. When people decide to run for some posts such as representatives, governors or mayors, they put right eye into dharma with black ink, and when they are elected as those posts, they put left eye. The above picture is the man who is elected as a mayor and raising his left hand after he finished painting dharma’s eye. You will see a brush( 筆: fude) in his right hand.
The custom of putting eyes last comes from the ritual of kaigen( 開眼). It is often performed when the statues of Buddha are newly constructed. The most famous ritual of kaigen is so-called Daibutsu kaigen kuyo( 大仏開眼供養) that was performed when the statue of Buddha of Todaiji(東大寺) in Nara was constructed. This ritual comes at the end of construction and it means allowing statues to have soul by putting eyes last.

Dharma is considered to be a symbol of 七転八起, Japanese idiom which literally means “fall seven times, get up eight times”. It generally means that “to continue to try something, no matter how often he fails it”. dharma is considered to have this positive meaning because of its thick, stumpy shape which is easy to stand up soon after it is thrown down.

Although Japanese people often say they have no religion, they in fact believe in religious things like dharma. Quite a few Japanese people are relying on such religious things to pray for their good luck. However, they are not aware that those so-called engimono are related to the religions concerned.

links: Dedication Ceremony of Great Budda(大仏開眼供養）, Creative Daruma Market: Tozuka Daruma Factory in Gumma

Origami

Can you believe that a piece of paper can become anything such as a plant, animal, or human? What made it possible is origami, one of traditional Japanese entertainments. It is popular among people of all ages. Today, some people can make very complex shapes with origami and there are several exhibitions of those works, so origami is beginning to be recognized as one of arts.

This is the most basic origami packets which have a wide variety of colors. They are aimed mainly for young children. In Japan, there are some elementary schools where how to fold origami is taught in classes. Even in kindergartens, children often enjoy origami. The kindergarteners make something by cutting and sticking origami rather than folding origami into three-dimensional world. In elementary schools, most students start to fold various shapes with a piece of origami paper. The most popular shape is crane. I don’t think there are any people who don’t know how to fold paper crane in Japan.

Turn over the packets and look at the origami instructions on the back side. It shows how to fold 'origami crane', which is the most famous form of origami. It is said to be the first step to origami making, especially for school children.

The skill of origami is applied to various things. The most familiar way for Japanese to use origami skill is trash boxes in home as shown in the first picture of the above. In fact, I make paper trash boxes with a piece of advertisement paper every day. My grandmother who was good at origami was making more elaborate trash boxes shown in the second picture of the above. This is also made with advertisement papers. You might not know that because it’s varnished into brown. I don’t know how to make it, however, I’m sure a lot of time had been spent on making the trash box and a really complex hand movement must have been needed.

Although most Japanese people haven’t noticed, origami skill is also used for noshi(熨斗), the decoration attached to gifts. In the above picture, the red and white decoration in upper right-hand corner of the envelope is so-called noshi. It is made with square paper by folding it into hexagonal shape and covering a thin long yellow piece of paper.

Tag: Nippon Origami Museum, Janan Origami Contest 2003, Nippon Origami Association Homepage, Origami Creator's Fantasia