Burichan Explains Japan

Thirsty Thursday: Moisturate Tea!

2010-05-20T22:11:00.000+09:00

Hey Look! It's a new feature of everyone's favorite blog, Burichan Explains Japan, jam-packed with delicious Japanese explanatory goodness!

Thirsty Thursdays!!

Thirsty Thursdays is when I take a bottle or can of something I want to imbibe, drink it, and tell you about it!

There are more crazy/wonderful/weird/superfluous drinks in Nihon than I could shake a kendo stick at, so I thought I'd exploit the beverage market for our mutual edification, yo!

You can tell a lot about a culture from what it drinks, or at least that sounds like something that should be true. What I know for sure is that I love finding and trying new stuff, so I figure Thirsty Thursdays are a great way to keep me hydrated and writing, and you all (because there are soooo many of you (^-~)<--Japanese winky face!) maybe, possibly, somewhat, entertained.

Today we have "潤る茶" or うるるちゃ or Ururu-cha or Moisturate Tea. Yes, I know "moisturate" is not a word, but neither, apparently, is "ururu." So, I took it upon my little self to make up an English word to stand in for a made-up Japanese word it probably took a whole room of people to decide on. (I'm sure I'm missing a whole lot of subtlety, nuance, and marketability, but if your wondering about my fake-translating process, I just figured "ru" is kind of indicative of a verb, so I gave the beginning part (moisture) a random verb ending. Isn't that fascinating.)

Anyhoo, here is a visual aid:

Right off the bat, you probably noticed that this lovely tea is brought to me by our good friends at Kirin. Yes, Kirin the beer. In Japan, what we Westerners know as beer companies are, almost without exception, little subsidies of huge conglomerates known as keiretsu, or "a set of companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholdings." In this case, Ururu-cha was made by Kirin Beverage, which is part of Kirin Brewery, which in turn is part of the Mitsubishi keiretsu. To give you an idea of how huge a thing we're talking about, there are over 500 companies under the Mitsubishi umbrella, including Mitsubishi Motors, Nikon (of camera and Paul Simon lyric fame), a major system of banks, life insurance companies, plastics, glass, paper mills, a research institute, and Nippon Oil Corporation. So the people who made my tea are the same people who made the bottle it came in, researched the benefits of said tea, made the car I drove to get to the store to buy the tea, drilled for the oil I put in that car, and kept the money I used to pay for the tea and the oil. I'm just glad I'm not writing this on Mitsubishi paper.

Back to drinkage! Here's a close-up:

What it says there next to the name is "13 Moisture-filled Healthy Materials," and those "materials" are as follows (going clock-wise from the very top to cover the first 10, and then straight down for the middle 3):

Corn, Job's Tear's, yuzu peel, collagen, ocean water from a depth of 2000 to 4000 feet (I AM NOT JOKING), coffee senna, vitamin C, aloe arborescens, barley, black sesame seeds, dried rose hips, brown rice, and black soy beans. I think that's 13. I am too tired from looking shit up to count.

On the back of the bottle, it says this about its many and sundry ingredients:

"Kirin's Ururu Tea is a moisture-filled, healthy blended tea which helps you regain components lost during daily life." It highlights the inclusion of collagen and vitamin C, and then suddenly adds potassium to the list. To be honest, I'm not sure if that's coming from the rose hips or the DEEP SEA WATER.

And the taste? It's almost like someone took a mug with a tiny little bit of coffee left in it, added tap water, then soaked toasted corn flakes in it overnight. In the morning, they strained that concoction, and added a bit of dew from a grassy meadow.

Me likey!

The Japanese Soundscape

2010-05-17T00:31:00.004+09:00

Every evening at 5:45 in the warmer months, and 4:45 in the cooler months, the city of Kashima plays a song on its　防災行政無線チャイム, or Disaster Prevention Administration Radio Chime. (I just call them the outdoor loudspeakers.)

It's a song about going home at the end of the day, and it serves as a friendly (albeit slightly Big Brother-ish) reminder of what your mother said about street lights coming on and where you should be in relation to home when that happens.

Have a listen:

Nice, right?

They played a similar version of the same song when I lived in Tokyo, but apparently there are different songs played all over Japan. No matter where you are in Nihon, though, you can be sure of this: there is always a song, and it is always pleasing.

Nice sounds are a big part of life here. I remember when I first came to Japan, way back in 2001, getting my first cell phone, or keitai. I'd never had one in the U.S. (you remember when that wasn't so crazy, right?), so I can't say I was very knowledgeable about the kind of sound effects and ring tones that were available at the time. I do remember that the infamous whiny Nokia midi thing was what came to mind when I thought of phones ringing back then.

But man, my Japanese cell phone was a revelation. Not only was the screen in color (whoa!), but every little function had a cute sound to go with it. There was a breezy little wake up noise when you turned the phone on, and a slightly sad-sounding goodbye twinkle when you turned it off. (I think there may even been a graphic that said goodbye in English.) I could choose from literally tens of sounds for my ring tone and my alarm, which was super exciting. I think my first night with the thing was spent not calling people, but lying in my futon listening to all the sounds and choosing which ones expressed who I was most effectively. I felt it was vitally important.

My current cell phone still makes cool noises. Alas, I must admit I am no longer excited by them. Why? I'm spoiled for cool noises. Everything around me chirps, whistles, and dings, and it's become completely and utterly normal.

There are songs that sing you across city streets (say that six times fast), songs for when your space heater is running out of kerosene (mine plays Love Me Tender), and songs that come floating over the rooftops from the little truck selling baked sweet potatoes in the winter.

(Here's a really cool video I can't help throwing in of an annoyingly fluent British kid buying a potato from the yaki-imo man)

But back to the wealth of sound around moi, not school uniform man.

There are songs played over the PA system during lunch time and cleaning time at elementary school. There are songs played in drug stores and shoe stores and clothing stores, and especially, most annoyingly, grocery stores. There you get songs about how delicious and good for you everything in the fish section is, and the produce section, and the prepared section. Those songs get stuck in your head worse than Vanilla Ice lyrics if you let them in, but by now I'm an old pro at blocking out the sound coming at me from everywhere. I almost never go home with more than one "koro koro koro koro korokke!"

While the excessive kiddie j-pop and advertising jingles are aggravating from time to time, there's a lot to appreciate aurally. One of the coolest things in the world of Japanese sound is the train melody. I'll refrain from throwing in yet another wiki-link (oh how I love them), but I have to quote what some lovely person has written in the train melody article.

"...a train melody includes a parade of single notes organized to follow each other rhythmically to form a lilting, singular musical thought. In Japan, departing train melodies are arranged to invoke a relief feeling in a train passenger after sitting down and moving with the departing train. In contrast, arriving train melodies are configured to cause alertness, such as to help travelers shake off sleepiness experienced by morning commuter."

Adorable. Almost as adorable as the melodies themselves. Someone has quite thoughtfully gathered some videos of trains and melodies together in a rather user-friendly way here, but if you really start enjoying them and can click your way through the link-field of this page, it's totally worth it. It doesn't have melodies for every station, but it has a lot of the ones from Tokyo.

I think the last time I was startled by a sound here, it was a train melody. It was around New Year's 2007(?), and I was on a short trip to Osaka with a couple of my adult students at the time. We were getting on a subway train on the (I think) Nagahori Tsurumi Ryokuchi Line (can they not shorten that?), and here's what I heard (and saw):

Being used to the simpler, two-dimensional melodies of Tokyo, I was not prepared for the Choirs of Seraphim and Cherubim that were happening under the streets of Osaka. The song doesn't seem so amazing in the video, but I am not exaggerating when I say that for a tiny moment I thought a shaft of divine light would shoot down from above and some kind of miracle would occur.

It was freaky and wonderful, and remains one of my favorite sounds ever, should James Lipton ever ask.

Ichiban on my list of favorites, though, Mr. Lipton, has to be the first one I mentioned, the song they play at the end of the day. It's called 夕焼け小焼け, Yuyake Koyake, or Sunset Glow. Oh, let's have another video, to end this entry properly. Just promise me you'll be back at your homepage by the time it finishes. ;)

Hanami

2010-04-15T23:33:00.004+09:00

It's just getting to the end of Hanami (or cherry blossom viewing) Season in Kashima, and I thought I should attempt to explain a little bit about it since it's one of the most iconic things about good ol' Nihon. Then I found this video, and realized (with the glee only fantastically lazy people can muster when presented with seemingly ordinary conveniences), that it does most of the explaining for me!

Please do your best to ignore the creepy-ass British zombie they got to narrate. He pronounces everything wrong. Zombies should be required to put all functioning and non-functioning anatomy on their resumés, in my opinion, 'cuz this one's tongue is done decomposed and broke. (Actually, I think they just got a speaking electronic dictionary to say a bunch of words and then edited them together. Apparently it was waaaay too much to ask a real foreigner to narrate a video being made especially for foreigners.)

Ahh, didn't that make you want to go out and look at some pink trees? And drink? And run away from green-faced chicks hiding behind pink trees? And stroll? Yeah, me neither. But, hanami really is fun. I swear.

All these folks think so.

Yes, that is "fun" in Japan. Daytime fun, at least.

My peeps also love the hanami.

We also like food and beverages.

And no Hanami Celebration would be complete without a visit from the mythical, mystical HORSEMAN.

After chatting and smiling politely while HORSEMAN burps and tries to look demure, it is customary to make him lay down and play cards with himself while exchanging grocery bags.

Then, it's time to go on a drunk garu or gyaru hunt!

That didn't take long.

By this time, the sun is setting

And the lanterns strung around the park are starting to glow and make the fun-iki, or atmosphere.

And you get all ambitious in your drunkenness and take tons of photos you think are so artistic at the time, but are really mostly just blurry and off-center.

Surprisingly, you managed to have gotten a fairly decent shot earlier in the day,

So you are happy to head off to karaoke, warm and fuzzy in the knowledge that you will easily be able to bring your grand total of consecutive alcohol-influenced hours for the day to a respectable 10 by the time you fall into bed, stinking of nihonshu and with lovely pink petals still stuck to the shoes you kicked off in the genkan.

Wine and Kitties

2010-04-09T00:44:00.002+09:00

This is a perfect illustration of why I am qualified to explain this lovely little archipelago I have been calling "where I live" for so long. The following story does not seem the least little bit strange to me:

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Tip/Wag - Hello Kitty Wine & Pig's Blood Filters

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Reform

But Burichan, you say, how is wine with Hello Kitty on it NOT crazy?

Okay,

*laces fingers and pushes hands out away from chest* (What is that move, anyway?)

Here goes:

Dear America:

Sure, using children's characters to sell age-restricted products, a la Smokey Joe the Camel, is something we can all agree is ethically questionable. But, I have a revelation for you: In the land of the rising sun, there is no such thing as a children's character.

What?! you say incredulously, But I can think of so many manga/anime/cartoon characters from Japan, way more than this lady!

Yes, I can, too. That woman sucks, even if she was trying to show a bunch of library-computer-using grade-schoolers the wonders of another culture.

Buuuuuuuuuut, just like how PB&J, bubbles, and picking your nose are not only for the under 12 crowd in America, so animated characters are not only for wee J-tots. They are enjoyed by the entire citizenry of Japan.

I've seen grown men with Anpanman pencil cases, school teachers with Stitch t-shirts under their work shirts, and we all have heard of the crazies with the figure collections.

The thing is, it's not actually crazy for adults to like this stuff here. It's just not.

Here's why:

Cute things = good = must be liked = popular = liked even more

Kids follow this circle of life of Cute, and it never ends, not even when they grow up. I went to Tokyo Disney Sea a couple weeks ago with fellow elementary teachers, all of us in our 30s, and 50% of those present brought Disney character merchandise with them to the park. We all bought more when we got there. We felt no shame. There is no shame in the Cult of Cute. There is only the ever-expanding Wave of Cute, and it is Good.

So, even though alcohol is no more marketed to children in Japan than it is in America (there are signs on the beer vending machines preventing all sales of fermented barley to those under 20), Hello Kitty is now on wine bottles. Because she is cute, and everyone likes cute, and the makers of whatever wine is floating around behind that image of Kitty-chan in a slinky black dress (very adult, I might add) and their Sanrio partners want you to like cute wine and buy it. Simple.

I can't explain why the stuff is being marketed in the US, though. That is indeed screwed up. We have weird Puritanical hang-ups about alcohol that the Japanese don't (thank goodness). Somebody needs to explain that craziness to the folks at Sanrio.