Sweets strategy

I found it kawaii  (in this case it means lovely + funny) that the Japanese government recently decided to extensively promote Japanese sweets along with other cultural products in overseas markets. To begin with, they are planning to hold a large scale Japanese sweets fair or something similar in Taipei this autumn. After that the fair will travel to other countries.

wisteria blossom-shaped wagashi cake

Imagine that: politicians and government officials in dark suits seriously discussing the potential of these funny or cute looking sweets such as maneki-neko (lucky cat) bonbons or tiny chocolate mushroom-shaped and bamboo shoot shaped snacks. The pictures made me smile, but I have no idea if Japanese sweets can gain more market share overseas.

chocolate coated bamboo shoot shaped cookies called Takenoko-no-sato

Japan imports lots of sweets from abroad. It is quite a sight every year to see many foreign confectionery makers together with Japanese ones sell chocolate products for the forthcoming Valentine’s day. As for chocolate, I suppose Japanese matcha green tea chocolate might stand a chance in foreign markets judging from the Amazon reviews on Nestle’s matcha flavored kit kats.

a variety  of matcha green tea chocolate

Many Japanese confectioneries produce matcha green tea chocolate, candies and cakes. I think each country has its own delicious sweets and I’d love to know what sweets you'd want to export to other countries if you were in charge of such a promotion.

The tea-picking season has just begun and newly picked tea will soon be available around the country. I always like to enjoy tasting the first tea of the season with spring flower shaped wagashi sweets. I sometimes hesitate to eat them, however,  because they look so delicate. I’m afraid that those edible flowers are not suited to exporting, though. 

tree peonies ↑ and peony-shaped wagashi cake ↓

Ｍｉｚｕｂａｓｈｏ

camellia 

Cat café

Some of you may think it ridiculous to pay to pet cats, however, a lot of cat fanciers in this country do not. Cat cafés, where you can spend time with what they call cat staff, have become popular in many cities recently. This phenomenon owes partly to Japanese landlords, many of who are notorious for prohibiting their tenants from keeping dogs and cats in their apartments. 

Along the Ashiya-gawa-river, there is a cat café called Neko-no-te which means cat paws. I think it is a textbook cat café where 11 cats work as staff members or to say it another way, do things as they please. After going up a red spiral staircase, opening the door, and washing our hands with disinfectant at the entrance in order to not bring germs into the café, we were instructed by a human staff member on how to behave toward the cats; what we are allowed to do and what we are not. 

The cover charge for the first 30 minutes is 500 yen (about 5$ or 4.2 €.). You can buy a soft drink if you want, read books and magazines there, and spend time leisurely while just looking at the cats or playing with them. 

While we were there, all the cats looked quite relaxed; some were lying on a sofa and on a cat tree, some were sleeping, and some were playing with toys. Many of the cats are protected ones; some were abandoned by merciless owners and some were stray kittens. I was really surprised to find out that their fur was very shiny and well-cared-for.

Before I saw what the cat café was like with my own eyes, I, a cat owner, was pretty skeptical about such cafés. I wondered if they had good animal welfare and suspected that they exploited the animals for commercial purposes. But I found out that my worries were unfounded. 

I was so happy to find out that many of the cafés, including Neko-no-te, function as shelters for poor cats, sometimes serve as an intermediary between cats and people who want to adopt them, and also offer a calm place focusing on relaxation with cats. 

Thus the employability of the animal kingdom, particularly of the cat family, has risen in this country even though the human unemployment rate has stayed almost the same as last year; 4.2% (the jobless rate for young people was 11.1% in February, 2013 though). 

I think that the funniest thing about the café is cats' working style. Unlike humans, they can take as many naps as they want during the day，can frown at customers instead of painting on a smile, and they never have to respond to any of the customers’ fussy questions like “Cute kitten, how old are you?” 

Also, it's not just their playfulness, curiosity, and sociability that makes cat fanciers smile, their laziness and dormancy do too. 

In Japan there are also dog cafés, rabbit cafés, and bird cafés. Of the animal cafés, the number of the cat café is far and away the largest. 

Sakura (cherry blossom) fantasia

Japan is now in the midst of sakura season. Over the past few weeks I have had a good time viewing sakura with my family and friends at several vantage points.

In my hometown I went to see sakura with my mother and sister. Lined with many cherry trees, the Ashiya-gawa river near my house is my favorite place to view the blossoms. Locals often have a sakura viewing party called a hanami on the riverbanks. The water is clear and the winds from the Rokko mountains are pleasant at this time of year. Yozakura or cherry blossom viewing at night is wonderful too. You can enjoy a fantastic atmosphere while strolling beneath the trees which are lit up with fairy lights.

the Ashiya-gawa river　（芦屋川）

Yozakura at Sumaura Park in Kobe

Japanese people have an odd saying about sakura: Sakura in full bloom make you crazy. This comes from the novel, In the Woods Beneath Cherry Blossoms in Full Bloom *1 by Ango Sakaguchi. Though I have no idea if the phrase is true, the blossoms in full bloom, particularly at purplish twilight, seem almost magical to me, and they make me yearn for something far beyond myself. What is this feeling? It might be a piece of "holy longing"*2.

Saigyo (西行：1118～1190）, a Buddhist priest-poet, has always been called the poet of sakura in this country. It is not too much to say that he lived with sakura and died with sakura. While traveling long distances and making a pilgrimage through various districts, he wrote numerous waka-poems about his beloved sakura. It seems to me that his journey and poetic endeavour were nothing other than his own spiritual quest. He must have glimpsed the heart of what is holy through sakura blossoms. Five hundred years later, Basho traveled to many of the places that Saigyo had traveled.  

Shoji-ji temple where Saigyo became a priest

If only I could

divide myself,

not miss a single tree

see the blossoms at their best

on all ten thousand mountains!     Saigyo

Shoji-ji temple ↑↓

Recently we went on a hike to Ohara-no in Kyoto and visited several temples and shrines, including Shoji-ji temple(勝持寺） where Saigyo became a priest at the age of 23. At this age he was a rich young promising samurai who guarded the court, and he renounced the world suddenly. The reason for his retreat is still a mystery and there have been lots of theories about it. The most convincing recent theory indicates that his unrequited love for the Empress Tamako（待賢門院璋子）was the very reason *3 and I think it might be right.

Unfortunately, sakura were not yet in full bloom on the grounds of the temple though Saigyo-zakura, the weeping cherry named after him (the third generation from the Heian period), welcomed us with beautiful blossoms. 

Let me die in spring 

under the blossoming trees, 

let it be around that full moon of Kisaragi month.  Saigyo

The photos you can see below were taken at other places. I have to admit that I'm pretty crazy about the blossoms. 

Yoshimine Temple （善峰寺）　↑　↓ in Kyoto

at Shoho-ji temple (正法寺） in Kyoto ↑　↓

*1 「桜の森の満開の下」　坂口安吾著

*2  Goethe

*3  角田文衛　「待賢門院璋子の生涯」　朝日選書

related post: about the Empress Tamako, Lotus pond in Kyoto - the sacred lotus is in bloom

March flowers in square shots

This morning(March 16th), the Meteorological Agency declared that sakura, cherry blossoms, had opened in Tokyo. It is an annual ritual for the agency to make this declaration when four or five blossoms of the benchmark someiyoshino cherry tree * in Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo bloom. It was reported throughout Japan as an afternoon top news item of the day.

The sakura in the photo above is Kawazu-zakura cherry blossoms(河津桜）.  

They are early bloomers and are now in full bloom in the park nearby. 

Square photos are now in fashion in Japan, particularly among young people. I assume that the high popularity of the square aspect ratio comes from mobile apps. Traditionally the realm of 6x6cm Hasselblads, many types of latest digital cameras have the square aspect ratio of 1:1 or 6:6. Though my Nikon doesn't have it, luckily my Olympus does. I’m not young but young at heart, so I took these photos using the most trendy format ( which has been around since the 1920's, though) to freeze early spring flowers in square frames.

Nostalgically or fashionably, I'm not sure, but photos taken with toy film cameras have also become popular recently in this country.

The heralds of spring, ume or plum blossoms, were in full bloom last week. They are more demure but much more fragrant than cherry blossoms. They come in a variety of shades and shapes.  These are some shades I found in parks nearby: red, white, and deep pink.  The air was filled with their lovely scents.

On the back of the mirror, 

A spring unseen, 

A flowring plum-tree

-Basho

Great moon
wrapped in plum scent
all mine

-Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828)

Some wild spring flowers have also begun to bloom. I love to see tiny field speedwells poking up out of grass. In my backyard winter daphne blossoms are lovely and fragrant.  

winter daphne

After taking some square photos with the aspect ratio 6:6, I realized that square photos need different compositions from the rectangular ones. Though you can easily produce square photos by cropping the images you’ve taken with your digital compact or SLR, I found out that it was a little different to take square photos from the beginning. Undoubtedly, the main enjoyment is composition. I'm not good at square photos, so I want to take more of them to explore what compositions, subjects, and designs will work well because it is really fun!!

Some rectangular March photos I've taken recently.

The blossoms you can see below are all ume blossoms.

*  the benchmark 'someiyoshino' cherry tree at Yasukuni Shrine. The tree is designated by the government as the official reference point for Tokyo's cherry blossom season.