See if you do, too!
Sek Loso is the front man. He’s Thai, as were the other, former members of Loso. The original band broke up and now Sek has teamed up with a couple of British guys.
Space Food Sticks March 30, 2008
I remember eating these! I wouldn’t want to relive that experience, though.
I also remember that picture of the little white boy, who seems to be enjoying his space sticks in an oddly mischievous way, and this very official-sounding television commercial, which is now on YouTube.
Funny how TV commercials used to try to appeal to one’s logic.
By the way, if there is no oxygen in space, does that mean food would never spoil? Is there a space stick floating around on the moon, still as chewy and nutritious as it was in 1969?
best quote from a samurai film March 25, 2008
“The suspicious mind conjures its own demons.”
That’s my vote for the best quote from a samurai film. It’s from the 1962 film “Harakiri,” which is one of my all-time favorite films. Tatsuya Nakadai plays the lead role as a ronin who shows up at a daimyo’s estate asking if he can use their courtyard to commit seppuku (ritual suicide, more crudely called hara-kiri). This is not your typical samurai film. The plot makes some interesting twists and turns before one discovers that this is not a film that glorifies the bushido code, but is a critical commentary of it.
The Criterion Collection release of this film includes an interview with film scholar Donald Richie, who reminds me of Joseph Campbell in that he says brilliant things as nonchalantly as if he were chatting about soup. For example, he elaborates on the symbolism of the samurai suit of armor that is repeatedly shown in the film as a metaphor for both the weight of the past and for the Tokugawa shogunate – “stern, imposing, frightening, and empty.”
My runner-up for best quote would be from “Sword of Doom” when, after slaying a band of would-be assassins, Mifune Toshiro says “Evil mind, evil sword.” True enough!
Corn tea March 24, 2008
It’s been over a week now since I stopped drinking diet sodas and Rockstars religiously. I’ve had maybe two or three sodas since then, which is less than my daily soda consumption before. I’ve returned instead to my tea-drinking habit.
Two of my favorite aspects of Korean culture are heated floors and corn tea. If you’ve never had it, you must run right over to the nearest Korean grocery to get some.
There is a very interesting article here that talks about why such things as corn and barley teas became popular in Korea. It says that some teas were seasonal while some, such as corn and barley teas, were consumed year-round. This was a means of ingesting and thereby utilizing the different chi energies of various plants. Aside from corn tea and barley tea, there are Korean teas made from pine needles, pine pollen and honey, azalea blossoms, and jujube, for example.
There is also a connection between Confucianism and the popularity of corn tea as opposed to green and black teas. Buddhism and tea made from Camellia sinensis spread together to Korea from China, and they remained associated with one another. When Confucianism became Korea’s national religion during the Choson Dynasty, black and green teas fell into decline along with Buddhism.
Yes, the winters in Sacramento are bleak. But one of the great things about living here is the variety of ethnic markets. There’s a big Korean supermarket in nearby Rancho Cordova. Next time I go there, I’m going to look for pine needle tea. I’m sure any kind of tea has better chi than diet soda.
Yukio Mishima – A Damn Interesting Story March 23, 2008
I tell my anthropology classes this story when we talk about death rituals, and it never fails to elicit gasps of horror and subsequent jaunts to the library after class to look at pictures of Mishima’s decapitated head on the internet.
Yukio Mishima, born in 1925, was a renowned Japanese novelist. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature three times in his abbreviated life. His novels include Forbidden Colors, The Sound of the Waves, and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. He was also an actor and a playwright. A stylized version of his life story was told in the 1985 film “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters.”
In his thirties Mishima’s ideals became increasingly extremist, both personally and politically. He became a sort of right-wing imperialist, and was strongly committed to the bushido code. He began to weight train and became skilled in kendo. In 1968 he formed a militia called the Tatenokai, or “Shield Society,” whose self-proclaimed duty was to protect the emperor. Then in 1970, after having apparently planned the event for at least a year, Mishima and four members of the Tatnokai marched into the Japanese Self-Defense Forces Eastern Command headquarters and took the commandant hostage. Mishima attempted to incite the soldiers to a coup d’etat, to restore political power to the emperor.
Mishima attempting to incite a coup d’etat
After being jeered by the soldiers, Mishima readied himself for seppuku, or ritual suicide. However, some believe that the attempted rebellion was only a pretext for his longstanding plan to commit seppuku, as he left his affairs in order when he died.
There were two forms of seppuku in feudal Japan. One was voluntary, practiced in order to save face and restore honor to oneself and family, and the other was as punishment for an affront to one’s lord. The latter was banned in 1873, but incidents of voluntary seppuku have occurred sporadically. Elements of the ritual included the writing of a death poem, donning of white death garments, and purification of the tanto, or short sword, used to disembowel oneself. One had a “second,” a swordsman who stood behind the subject with a long sword, who would behead him upon disembowelment in order to shorten his agony.
Mishima’s second was a member of the Tatenokai named Masakatsu Morita. Apparently, Morita was not a skilled swordsman. After Mishima disembowled himself, Morita made three attempts at the beheading but was unsuccessful each time. Finally another member of the Tatenokai, Hiroyasu Koga, stepped in to complete the task. Morita was so mortified that he too attempted seppuku, but was unsuccessful and gave the word for Koga to behead him as well.
Koga was imprisoned for seven years for assisting in seppuku. After completing his sentence, he became a Shinto priest at a shrine on the island of Shikoku.
Cherry Blossoms March 22, 2008
I took this photo at the Davis arboretum, which we visited a couple of weeks ago to enjoy the Spring-like weather. Winter in Sacramento is a big drag. I think the word “gray” best sums it up. It’s gray enough for a Charles Dickens novel. You’d think there’s a coal factory around here. So, I can honestly say that I look forward to the emergence of Spring more than any holiday. Aside from the warmer weather, my favorite thing about this time of year is the cherry blossoms.
The ritual of going out to view the cherry blossoms began in China and spread to Japan, where it continues today as the hanami, or “flower viewing,” festival. There is a cherry blossom forecast which annually predicts when the cherry trees will bloom throughout Japan.
As I learned on this site, Japanese poetry about the cherry blossom can be found even in the Kokinshu, which was the first Imperial poetry anthology, finished circa 914. The cherry blossom, beautiful but short-lived, symbolizes the ephemeral nature of existence. This tone is found in many of the poems. For example,
the radiance of cherry blossoms, their scent,
ever fresh with each passing year -
so man grows old, eternally
and
were the cherry tree totally absent from this world,
how carefree would be the heart in spring-time
It’s therefore fitting that, as the Japanese school year begins in April, the first day of school coincides with the hanami festival!
Shinsengumi March 21, 2008
Here’s what I did for Spring Break: I completely vegetated, rising only from the sofa to go to the bathroom, fetch a bag of Jelly Bellies, or go to bed. Not that this was completely unconstructive; my boyfriend and I finished a DVD series that we’d been watching for awhile – the NHK taiga drama “Shinsengumi!,” which originally aired in Japan in 2004. So, I can actually say that I learned something about Japanese history while being a couch potato. However, we did have to do some research to discriminate between fact and fiction in this series.
The Shinsengumi originally began as a sort of self-proclaimed militia to protect the Shogun and the Shogunate after dissent about Japan’s future spread with the arrival of Commodore Perry’s Black Ships. Eventually they received the official backing of the Aizu clan, and then of the Shogun himself. Whether you view them as heroes who sacrificed their lives to protect the Shogun, or as a band of thugs who killed anyone they wanted in the name of their own personal vision, they continue to be a romantic though controversial aspect of Japan’s history. There are several movies about the Shinsengumi. Among the more well-known are “Shinsengumi” starring Toshiro Mifune in the role of Kondo Isami, the group’s leader, and “Taboo,” starring Beat Takeshi. Apparently there are a number of anime about them, too. This, plus the fact that the NHK drama was incredibly popular, and the intrinsically fascinating nature of the Shinsengumi story, accounts for the incredible presence of the Shinsengumi on the web.
One of the things that makes the Shinsengumi story so interesting is that there are factual bits and pieces about some of its members. For example, apparently Kondo Isami had a big mouth and would entertain people by inserting his entire hand in it. Hijikata, the second-in-command, was a handsome fellow who received a lot of attention from the ladies.
Kondo Isami 
Hijikata Toshizo
The stars of “Shinsengumi!,” the NHK series, are largely teen idols in Japan. They are very good actors, but it’s somewhat disquieting after having watched the series and identified with them as the historical figures, to see what they “normally” look like. Case in point:
Shingo Katori as Kondo Isami 
Shingo Katori, pop idol
Yipes! Boy, how a shaved pate can change a person’s looks. At any rate, although Shingo Katori was very good in this role, he was a very different Kondo than, say, Toshiro Mifune. It’s interesting to watch the different versions of the Shinsengumi story to see how the character portrayals differ, and how the storyline, though based on a few basic facts, differs in its elaboration.
“Shinsengumi!” has a fanlisting, complete with rules which may or may not include committing seppuku should one leave the group. Good sites about the actual Shinsengumi are linked below.
The Shinsengumi on Wikipedia
This site about the history of and people in the Shinsengumi
Gamelan March 20, 2008
I used to be in a gamelan ensemble at CSU Sacramento, but was quite poor at it so I quit after the semester was up. Nonetheless, I continue to be interested in gamelan music. While recordings of gamelan are readily available, in my opinion, hearing and seeing it live is the only way to experience its complexity and trance-like effect. One of the largest and best gamelan ensembles in the U.S. is Gamelan Sekar Jaya, based in El Cerrito, California.
Gamelan is a kind of traditional musical ensemble found in Indonesia. I first heard a live gamelan when I saw one accompanying a silat (Indonesian martial art) demonstration in Indonesia. The ensembles also accompany rituals, wayang and other theatrical performances.
Most of the instruments used in a gamelan are bronze or brass, so the effect is incredibly loud. When I was in the gamelan at Sac State, I learned that if you don’t use earplugs during practice, you’ll cause yourself an awful headache. However, there is one type of gamelan, called gamelan jegog, which uses bamboo instruments. The effect is very ethereal, and the instruments resonate in your chest when you hear it in person. Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead apparently purchased the jegog instruments and “loaned” them indefinitely to Gamelan Sekar Jaya in an effort to preserve this art form.
Although it is like an orchestra in the obvious sense of having multiple musicians performing a piece of music together, it is different than a Western orchestra because gamelan doesn’t have a “conductor” in the same sense. Each instrument plays a slightly different melody, all of which interlock to create the overall musical piece. Also, the musicians don’t have any music sheets to read; rather, they memorize everything, even though one gamelan piece can be over an hour long. I know little about the technical aspects of music, so I can’t describe this in precise terms, but I hope I’ve conveyed some of the complexity of the gamelan. Some good audio/visual are below.
Suggested recordings:
“Indonesia – Jegog: The Rhythmic Power of Bamboo” (this album can be downloaded in mp3 format from Amazon)
“Java – Javanese Court Gamelan”
Suggested DVD:
Introduction March 19, 2008
When I was in high school, some of my guy-friends had a punk band called Xtortion, and they used to sing a song that went
“I need you, I need you, I need you
like I need an icepick in the forehead.”
That is also how much I need to have this blog. Like I don’t have enough distractions already. But I managed to rationalize it thusly: I’m an anthropology professor at a community college, which means that I have a #!load of grading, so a blog would be very handy indeed as yet another means of procrastination. Also, a blog is a creative outlet so that means it’s a healthy thing…right?
After some ambivalence about the theme of my blog, I’ve decided to follow a pretty general route and just make this about my interests and hobbies, and whatever happens to strike my fancy at the moment. Therefore, most of it will be about film, music, and literature of Asia.
Why “new variety rice”? Well, if you’ve ever purchased sushi rice, you’ve probably seen the phrase written on the bag. I’m amused by its connotation to the state of hapa-ness, since I’m half Asian and half White.
“U.S. #1 Extra Fancy: The Unique New Variety Rice.”
