Monday saw the Aoi Matsuri festival here in Kyoto.
“Aoi Matsuri” is 葵祭 — Aoi means “hollyhock” (a kind of flower), and matsuri means both “source of great traffic congestion” and “festival”.
This particular festival, held on May 15th ever year, dates back about 1,000 years, making it the oldest festival still held today. It's a “festival”, though, only in the sense of the hoopla surrounding it is festive — it's really more of an “event”.
People dressed in period costumes leave the imperial palace and walk a path to some shrines a few kilometers away. People line the path to see the costumes and such.
For example, this gentleman is a security guard:
These people are, uh, carrying something.
Looking at this satellite map of the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, it's centered on the main processionway within the palace grounds. They walk south, out onto the street, following the street east and then north up the right side of the palace grounds, then on north somewhere to some shrines
As each small group walks down the initial wide processionway, they stop in front of big grandstands set up, and some old guy talks about them a bit. It's very slow. The acoustics aren't great, nor, apparently, is my Japanese, so the only thing I understood the whole time was the bit about the security guards (shown above). Still, it was a pleasant day and enjoyable just to watch them and the hubbub for a while.
This kid had a great view of the proceedings:
There were all kinds of different costumes, and various “things” of unknown (to me) function. As one example, here's something that looks like a big umbrella, although I doubt that's what it actually is:
This cart, obviously for someone very important (the emperor?):
The cart was drawn by a dozen men. They're out of the picture to the left, but you can see some more — I like this view of it because of the group of yellow-hat-wearing preschoolers watching on the right, which I thought were cute. Although you can't see the cart-pulling men, you can see a few of the buzzing important-looking attendants (priests?) following (one of whom is holding a walkie-talkie, which the Japanese apparently had working at the time).
The flowers surrounding the cart, I was told, are the hollyhock. At the time, I assumed they were the violet-colored ones hanging around the edge, but now I wonder if they're the yellow ones. Not that it really matters — I don't know much about flowers (except that they're pretty, which is sufficient for me).
Here's a closeup:
On my way home, I passed them walking north on Kawaramachi Street (the right side of the palace grounds). I thought it was nicer to see them within the grounds, rather than on the street amongst the traffic. But the juxtaposition of modern and ancient can be interesting as well. Here's a picture Nils took while they passed on a street further on north.
The Japan Times (English-language daily in Japan) has an article today about a plan to photograph and fingerprint foreigners entering Japan. It had been in the works for some time, and has been a topic of some debate, but now it's law.
Here are some excerpts:
Diet passes bill to take foreigners' prints, pics
By Masami Ito
A bill requiring fingerprinting and photographing of foreigners upon entry to Japan was passed Wednesday as a way to prevent terrorism.
An estimated 6 million to 7 million foreigners entering Japan every year will be obliged to have their fingerprints and photographs taken, along with other personal identification information.
“By targeting only foreigners, the Immigration Bureau is encouraging discrimination against foreigners,” said Makoto Teranaka, secretary general of Amnesty International Japan. “(This law) is a violation of a person's right to privacy.”
The measure exempts people under age 16, [and some others, like diplomats]
Other than that, all foreigners will be targeted. For people already living here and regardless of having a permanent, work or spouse visa, all will be obliged to be fingerprinted and photographed when re-entering the country.
Teranaka pointed out that foreign spouses of Japanese will now be treated differently than their partners.
To be clear, I'm one of the “foreign spouses” that will be treated differently than my partner. I will be fingerprinted and photographed.
With this law, I will require special permission to enter the country (I will have no basic right to be here). I will be allowed to remain only so long as the government (and my wife) allow. Now, I will not be allowed to vote in Japanese elections. I will have to have special state-issued identification on my person at all times. I will not be allowed to hold public office.
To sum it up, with the passage of this law, I will be treated like I'm not a Japanese citizen.
Oh, wait. I'm not a Japanese citizen. I'm already not allowed to vote or hold public office, and I already require a visa to be here, and already am at the whim of the country. I already have to carry around an “alien registration card” at all times. I'm already treated as if I'm not a Japanese citizen.... because I'm not.
I just don't understand all the hoopla around this whole thing. The person quoted in the article complains that it will encourage discrimination against foreigners, but since this law centers around the procedures required to enter the country, it's about a subject which intrinsically treats nationals differently than foreigners.
You do need to be photographed for a driver's licence, but not to walk across the street, and no one complains about the discrepancy — such a complaint would seem comparably silly to me.
Here's the aforementioned “state-issued identification” that I have to carry around with me at all times. Informally called a “gaijin (foreigner) card” in English, in Japanese it's 外国人登 録証明書 — gaikokujin touroku shoumeishou — “proof of foregnier registration”
Years ago these cards had a fingerprint on them (right hand index finger, if I recall), and that was always a hubbub for some. I was here and was fingerprinted for it three times (the original, and two renewals over the years), and the fingerprint requirement didn't bother me in the least.
The last time I renewed the card, the guy was really sheepish about getting my fingerprint, and they provided a sticker I could put on the card's protective sleeve to cover the exposed fingerprint, should I feel sheepsih about it as well.
I don't really believe the “anti-terrorist” arguments the proponents of the law are using to grease its skids (in what country have we seen that approach before?), but at the same time, I think it's well within reason for a country to want to do if they want. It's their money and their time to waste, but it's also their country to do with as they see fit.
I'm a guest here. If I don't like it, I can always go to America where none of this will apply.... to me, at least.
So, I got email from my sister letting me know that my blog's comment-submit process was broken. This must be what my mystery fan referred to in his kind message to me this morning.
It turns out that I'd introduced a bug into my comment-processing mechanism the other day. It's fixed now, but I really can't apologize enough. The poor guy tried to submit his “you're a jackass” comment 11 times, and after it failing through no fault of his own, you certainly can't begrudge him the subsequent “you suck” he tacked on.
My sister tried to submit a comment a few times, after which she sent the email. The comment was about the “you're a jackass” post, and was to the effect that “Well, I guess Mom has an email account now....”. Ouch! 🙂
Otherwise, the failed-comment log had only spam comments, all of which were rejected due to the bug, but would have been rejected anyway due to my anti-spam stuff. There were about 120 per day. Ugh. It's so easy to stop spambots, if everyone did then they'd go away. I should post about it...
This by far is the most funny email message I have ever received:
Date: Tue, 9 May 2006 13:48:22 -0700 From: hidden To: jfriedl@yahoo.com Subject: Saw your book. It's tripe. I learned more from man pages and googling. I feel bad for any schmuck who wasted their money on that garbage. I hear you are a real jackass. Not surprised. Your picture looks like a typical jackass. Fortunately your kids don't look like their dad, yikes. Your lame blog form doesn't even work right. Anyway, you suck and you've done all that you can. May as well hide out in Japan with your internet mail order wife. Cheers
The lack of a subject line almost got this message blocked by my spam filter, but luckily it got through.
I think it's a great testament to my writing skills that someone who knows me only from my various writings can so well and truly know me. The only part of the message that gives me pause is the comment about the “blog form” not working -- which form, and what's not working? I need more details...
(I've elided the name and email address of the sender, as I suspect it's fake, although I've never heard the name before.)
The sun rose at 4:49 this morning here in Kyoto. Ugh.
It was the first time so far this year that the sun rose before 5:00am. Unfortunately, it won't be the last -- the sunrise gets steadily earlier until it hits 4:42am and stays there for most of June. It won't rise during the 5:00 hour again until late July.
The picture to the right is from my GPS unit, which can compute the theoretical sunrise/sunset data for any point on earth. The point in question today is my apartment.
All this early sunrise stuff is unfortunate because Anthony tends to rise with the sun, and (now here's the unfortunate part) I tend to rise with my son. I'm on morning duty, so when he does his doody, it's me he wakes up to clean things up (change diaper, or wipe butt).
This early waking-up stuff goes on despite my best attempts to hermetically seal his room from all photons. His body just seems to know it's light outside.
On the left, we have the young man himself.
After having been up for three hours, he's about to head out to preschool. He's got his backpack, a bento lunch Fumie made for him this morning (in the red Curious George bag), and his as-of-late most-prized possession, a thermos full of tea.
He's very excited about “bento days” like today. Starting next week he'll bring his lunch every day, but so far the days have generally been short (ending before noon), with only a few days like today that run long enough to need to have lunch there. The whole point is that they're starting slowly, since many kids aren't used to being away from Mom.
When he got home (Fumie took him and picked him up), we talked at length about the bento. As part of his lunchbox he has spoon, fork, and chopsticks, but he said that he used only the chopsticks. That's hard to believe, but the clean cutlery bore that out. (He did mention later that he'd used his fingers for the mushrooms.) He enjoyed it very much, and as such, we enjoyed hearing about it.
Fumie puts a lot of work into the planning and execution of these lunches, because she knows that'll make or break the whole school experience for him. I think she's hit a home run.