busy busy busy

hello all

its been a while since i last posted anything here- main reason is cos im so busy and want to limit my time spent on the computer. and im tiiiired prob cos of a mixture of my brain becoming japaneseified and doing a lot of housework which is surprisingly tiring. i suddenly have a newfound respect for women from the 1950s!

the other day i went with ando-san to a place called Aji which used to be a separate town but then recently became part of Takamatsu. a famous Japanese movie, called "Sekai no chuushin de, ai wo sakebu" of which the English title is "Socrates in Love", was filmed in Aji. we had lunch at the bay where the film was shot, it was incredibly beautiful- unfortunately i didnt bring my camera but were going again next week so hopefully ill get a chance then.
the main reason we went to Aji was for a study circle with a woman whose children used to go to childrens classes in Aji until they were stopped last year. we had lunch with this woman on the bay and she and Ando-san ate "yaki soba-pan" which is a white bread roll with fried noodles in the middle. apparently the main character of that movie liked yaki soba-pan so its now really popular in Aji.

after that, we went to a local Buddhist temple to see the monk there whos friends with the Takamatsu Bahais. the monk, who seemed to be in his late 30s, had studied psychology in Chicago and had suffered a lot of prejudice there from some religious people there who told him he was going to Hell for being Buddhist. but there was a Bahai man there who was the only one who was nice to him so he holds the Bahai Faith in high esteem. he seemed so nice and i asked him some questions about Buddhism there. apparently Japanese Buddhist are not vegetarian and can marry and are not monks for their entire lives, its more like an occupation. he said the Meiji dynasty (the one which opened Japan to the West) were responsible for making the change to allow Buddhist monks to eat meet and marry. He belongs to the Pure-Land School of Buddhism, which is really popular in Japan. The main Buddha of this school is called Amitabha, or Amida in Japanese. Amit (wikipedia tells me) means infinite and Abha means splendour or light in Sanskrit, so it means Infinite Light. Amitabha says that anyone at all who wishes to be reborn into his Pure Land just has to say his name as little as 10 times. very interesting i think.

yesterday we went out to lunch with ando-san, her daughter haruna and a group of women who are participating in study circles at the moment and are friends with cathy and ando-san to celebrate an award cathy recently received. Cathy is a Japanese to English translator and she recently translated a book called Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit. its really big in japan and is part of a series of more than 10 written by a Japanese woman who is an assistant professor in anthropology and main area is Australian Aborigines. but yeah the award cathy one is called the Mildred Batcheldor Award and is an American award for the best translated childrens literature each year. its not a money award, but it means the book will get more attention from non-japanese speakers and is good for japaneseliterature generally as most of the books which win that prize are european cos its cheaper and easier to translate european languages.

but yeah the restaurant we went to was posh! it was french cuisine and was on the top of this mini-mountain outside takamatsu. we arrived there at about 12.00 and were there till after 3! it was interesting cos it was french but mixed with japanese cuisine like one thing i got served was battered little skinny fish, but they were whole. it was horrible cos u could see their eyes and tail and you had to eat them anyway- to be honest they didnt taste bad but it was a little offputting. i decided after that that im not really made for fine dining, esp when the table conversation is all in japanese!

yuichis gone to tokyo for the weekend, so its just me and cathy here at the moment. yuichis on the National Spiritual Assembly of the Japanese Bahais, which is the national administrative body of the bahais of each country, so he has to go to tokyo once a month for its meetings. its insane though- the bus trip takes 9 hours and then he has to concentrate at meetings and stuff immediately after that! wow

cathys host parents from when she first came to japan 31? years ago are visiting over the weekend, so i spent the day today doing a lot of housework so im pretty tired. cathys best friend from school in canada was japanese-canadian and when they were 20, her best friends dad got offered a job at Kyoto University which he accepted. her best friend didnt want to go to japan alone (shed never been before) so she asked cathy to go with her, which cathy said she would. anyway the best friend ended up not wanting to come, and did a homestay with cathy's parents, while cathy did a homestay with her best friends parents and ended up never leaving japan!

xoxo