A Tale of Two Visits: Isshii Explains It All, Including Soy Sauce Fermentation

The Radiation Rebels took about a hundred pictures on the grounds of the "shrine" they discovered just inside the main entrance to Yokohama's Mitsuike Park when they went there to view cherry blossoms on April 7.

"Check out these totem poles! I don't think I've ever seen totem poles outside a shrine before." "Me neither. How interesting."

"These statues flanking the entrance are quite unique," noted Flat Dylan.

We could not resist entering the "shrine" compound. The entrance gate framed a lovely view of the blossoming cherry trees. We crossed a large courtyard of fine gravel to check out the octagonal gazebo in the center of a long, narrow garden that meandered along the compound's right wall. We inspected rows of pots arranged against the back wall, glanced at a few rather stark outdoor sculptures, and gave a passing nod to the wooden building on our right as we moseyed back through the entrance to see what else Mitsuike Park had to offer.

Four days later I retraced my steps, this time with Isshii-san in tow. She quickly set the record straight. "This is not a shrine! This is an example of a traditional Korean home."

There's a lot to be said for exploring museums and historical sites with someone who can actually read and translate all those intriguing little signs. Take those pots. It turns out they were used for food storage by a typical Korean family of an unknown era. Unknown to me, that is, since I'm pretty sure Isshii-san tossed a few dates around while I was busy trying to digest all the other interesting information she was sharing, like the fact that soy sauce requires a seven-year fermentation period so seven of those pots would have contained soy sauce at various stages of fermentation.

We doffed our shoes to enter the traditional Korean house. There is quite an art to this shoe-doffing procedure. Longtime readers might recall College Boy chastising his father for letting a shoe-clad foot touch a temple step on New Year's Eve. He would have cringed to see his mother wobble between her sock foot on the elevated floor and her shoe foot on the entry stone. To avoid falling flat on her face, she instinctively pulled that shoe foot level with that sock foot and broke a cultural taboo. Whoops! Sumimasen! Gomen nasai! Whichever works, that's what I meant to impart to all those nimbler tourists.  At least I didn't knock over one of those pretty screens.  This time.

The beautiful floor tainted by a gaijin's shoe

The bed used in summer months

“The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”
- Dr. Seuss, "I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!"

Everything Seems Possible After a Day with the Ikebana Ladies

Reiko and Sheryl wanted to attend the May Ikebana program. Curling my lip slightly to indicate mild distaste, I tried to warn them off. "It's a flower arranging demonstration this month."

They were undeterred so I force-marched them a half mile down Kamakura Beach under drizzling clouds to the Prince Hotel. "I would have been happy to drive," Sheryl muttered as she splashed through puddles in her whimsical rainboots.

The demonstration was surprisingly remarkable. Unlike the five other flower-arranging demonstrations I've witnessed since 2007, this one piqued my interest. And interest, as you might recall, is the first step in the direction of a hobby or career.

Was it that Mika Tsujii is a woman while her five predecessors were men? Did the presence of the elderly parents in the audience strike a primal chord that made me more receptive to the daughter's work?

Did her cool poise and utter lack of flamboyance appeal to me?

Or was it Tsujii's simple, efficient, and refreshingly rapid approach to sticking stems in containers that made me think - for a minute at least - that I, too, might be able to slap together a reasonably cohesive centerpiece in less than four hours? This could be something worth trying if I don't have to forsake my beloved books, puzzles, knitting, and the monotonous yet essential cycle of meal preparation, laundry, and housecleaning.

Or maybe it was simply that Tsujii favored hydrangeas, some of the nicest, plumpest, space-fillingest flowers in all of God's creation.

I think it was a combination of all those things but I'm awarding extra points to her parents' presence. Call me nostalgic and sentimental for that's what I am.

Reiko and the Americans toted bundles of hydrangeas home from Kamakura. Reiko carried her flowers by their stems while everyone else seemed to be acting out girlhood fantasies co-starring Bert Parks. This is a cultural difference I will ponder while Reiko and her husband are wandering around Izumo next week on a much anticipated vacation.

Chinese Theater Comes to Ikebana

Ikebana meets on the third Thursday of the month except in January when the most special program of the year is held on a Saturday, making it easier for us to bring our children, spouses, and friends. My family members were otherwise occupied this morning, so I contented myself with escorting the guests of other Ikebana members from the base to the Daibutsu priest's residence in Kamakura.

Today's program was a presentation on a form of Chinese theater called Kunqu Opera (which appears in a different color here because I've provided a link for my sister-in-law Sandy and our mutual friend Ann who are the only people I know who might want to know more about this art form than I am prepared to share).

Kunqu has been around for 600 years but had nearly disappeared by the early twentieth century and barely survived the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s when there were deliberate attempts to suppress it.

Today there are seven professional Kunqu troupes performing in Mainland China and Taipei. It was listed as one of the "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" by UNESCO in 2001. (Maybe I should try to get a job with UNESCO. I wonder how much they pay people to come up with fancy titles like that one.)

This was all explained to us in Japanese by the actor Lu (pronounced 'Lee') Hairong (33) and then translated into English by a young Australian who had to wrestle that microphone out of his hands to do her job.


Lu entered the Shanghai Academy of Performing Arts, a boarding school, at the age of 10. Students there are selected to learn and perform one of the five Kunqu roles when they are 11 years old or are sent home to (presumably) live out their days working in the rice paddies. Lu spent the next seven years, until he was 18, training for martial arts roles. He was allowed to visit his family only once a week during all those years. When he was 26, he moved to Japan where he currently attends Keio University.


We were then treated to a PowerPoint presentation about the five basic Kunqu roles and variations thereof. I will spare you the details since (a) the balding Russian lady sitting between me and the screen ruined most of my shots, and (b) my attention started wandering about 10 seconds after the overhead lights were dimmed.

The lady sitting in front of me, for instance, was wearing an interesting sweater, or perhaps it was a detachable belt . . .

. . . and the lady on her right had a net thing on her head, the likes of which I haven't seen since the mid-60s when my mother sometimes splurged on custom-designed Easter bonnets . . .

. . . and then there was the Chinese mask dangling from the rafter over my head.

"Perhaps if I attach a little camera to my makeup mirror and project a live image of myself on the screen I can recapture the attention of that gaijin in the third row," schemed Lu. We watched him apply his makeup. This normally takes 90 minutes. We breathed a collective sigh of relief when Lu said he was going to do a quick version for today's performance. (Sighs of relief are apparently universal as they sound the same in Japanese and English.)

His fellow actor, Kong Fanqi (29), helped Lu into his costume. That polka dot ball off to the side of Kong's head signifies he is playing the role of a hero (assuming the translator understood Lu correctly and assuming I heard the translator correctly, so you might not want to quote me on this one).

Lu's outfit was pretty cool and featured lots of cranes in flight. Kong's outfit was all about butterflies. I couldn't help wondering if anyone helped poor Kong get dressed.

Oh, look! Lu's playing a hero, too!

They performed a farce for us, in which two best friends mistake each other for mortal enemies in the dark and narrowly miss killing each other. It was really quite funny, and the American children in the audience were squealing in delight which made all the adults break out in laughter.

The ladies mobbed the stage at the end of the performance. The blonde kneeling in front of Kong is the Russian ambassador's wife.

Next month we're going to learn a Japanese handicraft technique called kimekome so we can make something called a goten-mari ball. I am definitely going to have to drag a guest or two along to that one. Probably not Mimi.