By: Eric Parra

On the thirteenth day of our trip, we had a full schedule to visit Hiroshima and Miyajima island before heading back to Kyoto. Hiroshima was an amazing experience of tolerance, suffering, and regret. We learned stories of survivors from the atomic bomb, deaths and consequences, and the new-found hope it provided to those who visited. One of the biggest impacts the trip had on me was how much inspiration the Hiroshima Peace Memorial park aimed to give to the people who visited it. There were three main memorials to look at before we went into the peace park: the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Preservation Dome that survived the atomic explosion and is still standing; the Peace Flame, which was a statue shaped like two hands holding up a small fire that has been burning since 1964 and is meant to burn until nuclear weapons are gone; and the Memorial Centograph that has the names of all of the victims written on an arch in a way that you could see the A-Bomb dome and the Peace Flame through it.

Our class sitting in front of all of the Hiroshima Peace Park landmarks

Inside the gift shop for the Hiroshima Peace Museum were a bunch of items to support and remember the stories from the wartime and atomic explosion. A specific anime was playing called Hadashi no Gen that was a graphic retelling of the event as it happened. I bought a comic book that was an English translation of one child’s reaction to his parents dying in the atomic explosion.

A well-known manga that should be more well-known.

I remember asking a Japanese student on the trip about what anime and manga is like in perspective to children and adults, and he told me that anime and manga are for everyone. There are some stories for kids and then there are some stories for adults, but anyone can read anything without much of a label. The anime and comic book iterations of the atomic explosion in Hiroshima made me think about how this subject does not seem like it’s for children, but it is still a learning tool for anyone who is interested and can serve both adult and child alike if they want to know about the tragedy Hiroshima suffered.

Comic books in the U.S. are mostly for entertaining value, but comic books like this one served as both entertaining and educational. They did not censor the imagery of people melting when the radiation and destruction hit the people, nor did they try to soften the consequences it had on the people who suffered through the event. There are not many comic books at this level in the United States, but I believe that is because no one is willing to believe or put any worth to comic books as educational tools. It is a sign of unacceptance that I think is holding people back from learning and retaining information that should not be forgotten.

After that, we went for an Okonomiyaki lunch. It was very tasty.

It’s a seafood/pizza/pancake hybridization that we all thoroughly enjoyed.

For the rest of the day, we took a ferry to Miyajima island. It was an amazing trip and possibly one of the most rural areas that we were able to see of Japan. Almost nothing was written in English and deer were rampant everywhere. I spent the trip hiking the mountain areas and looking at the shops. It was amazing to me how much of an influence anime and specifically One Piece had. There were even the shops on this island with souvenirs you could only find there, like of the One Piece characters feeding deer.

The people loved the deer running around. They even tried to franchise it.

If anything can be said about this day, it’s that there’s a lot to learn from our Japanese counterparts. No one enjoys losing important things or people, and suffering is a universal tragedy that is relatable. It’s best to remember our mistakes and the mistakes of others so that we don’t fall prey to them again.

And also that deer are very cute.

One of the hundreds of deer pictures I took.

By: Jennie Lam

3:45am on June 8, the day had finally come. Excited, I woke up two hours before the meeting time without any help from my many alarms, which is very unusual for me. We were saying our temporary goodbyes to Tokyo and heading to Kyoto, one of the prefectures on my Top 5 places to go see in Japan. We checked out of Sakura Hotel and took the shinkansen (bullet train) to the former capital with the use of our new Japan Rail passes, which allowed us to take unlimited rides on any JR transportation for a week.

Shinkansen (Bullet Train) to Kyoto

After approximately two hours, we arrived at Kyoto Station and met our tour guide for the day. We quickly checked into Ibis Hotel, dropped off our luggage and got onto the tour bus. First on our schedule was the Zen meditation at Kounji Temple, an unconventional “tourist” activity. It was a first experience for everyone. We were led by a scholarly monk who told us about the history of the temple and how it was supported by the local empress. He continued with teaching us the techniques for clearing our minds and meditating. We began our 15 minutes of silence, counting our exhales and inhales and drawing circles in our minds. Once the session was over, my legs were numb and I realized how hard it was to concentrate and think of nothing. I kept thinking about how the day was going to play out, financial issues, and of course I was worried about my research question.

One of the Zen monks greeting us at the entrance of Kounji Temple

Although going to Kounji Temple (as well as seeing other sites such as Nijo Castle) was intriguing, I didn’t really see the connection to my research topic of the adaptations of Chinese food in Japan. I thought the day was going to be empty of findings until we had dinner at Tokasaikan, a Chinese restaurant that our TA used to work at.

Tokasaikan – Chinese Restaurant in Kyoto

We were fortunate enough to meet and talk to the manager of the restaurant, Mr. U Shuchu, whose grandfather came to Japan from Shandong, China about 90 years ago. His grandfather started the family business in Kyoto to avoid the competition of other Chinese immigrants who settled in the different Chinatowns of Japan. Although Mr. U stated that the restaurant serves “real mandarin style cuisines,”  later he provided a more nuanced explanation of his restaurant’s food when I asked whether or not the dishes had changed over the past 90 years to accommodate for Japanese tastes. He did mention that he wanted to keep the food served as traditional as possible. So although there have been changes such as having milder dishes and using Japanese soy sauce, he has the desire to preserve the traditional dishes as much as possible. Despite this, the restaurant is more popular among Japanese than Chinese, but that may be because Japan is an ethnically homogeneous country with 98% being Japanese and 2% being all the other minorities. It was a great opportunity to be able to have a discussion with the manager about the food and then sampling some of the dishes right after. Getting to try the food for myself was a great hands-on experience.

U Shuchu (Manager of Tokasaikan) giving a brief history and information about himself and the family busines

Many of the dishes we had such as the fried spring rolls and the fried rice tasted really similar to dishes I’ve had back home, but there were also some dishes I’ve never tried such as the shrimp with chili sauce. Even those dishes that tasted similar weren’t prepared exactly the same. The soup, for instance, was a different version from the ones in Los Angeles. This restaurant added in crab meat and blended the corn with the soup while the same soup back home had the actual corn pieces without the crab. I also noticed that a lot of the dishes had bamboo shoots in it, which isn’t as abundant in dishes from China or America. According to my observations bamboo shoots are used in many Japanese dishes such as ramen, yakitori, and bento boxes. Perhaps the addition of the bamboo shoots in many of the dishes was one adaption that he mentioned before our dinner. Even the dessert wasn’t what I think was traditionally Chinese. We were served fried mochi balls with red bean paste and powdered sugar. Although mochi with red bean paste is common, fried mochi is not familiar to me, let alone served with powdered sugar. The Chinese mochi desserts I know are smaller and served with a sweetening soup, which sometimes include sesame seeds. It would be better to say that the dessert was a combination of mochi and a doughnut.

Chili sauce shrimp

Fried mochi balls stuffed with red bean paste

The mix of both cultures within the dishes helps support the claim that the dominant culture, the Japanese culture, definitely has an affect on the minority cultures, in this case Chinese cuisine.

By Charlsie Hoffman

I first ran into yukatas at Disney Sea. Being the foreigner that I am, I yelled out, “Look at the cute kimonos!” The Meiji students I was with, however, immediately corrected me, informing me that what we were seeing were not kimonos, but actually yukatas. Sounding very similar to the past tense conjugation of the adjective good (yokatta), I was deeply confused by this word until it was written out for me. Throughout the rest of my stay in Japan, though, I didn’t regularly see women in yukatas, but it wasn’t unusual to see one occasionally.

To the inexperienced eye, yukatas and kimonos are hard to differentiate. In layman’s terms, a yukata is a light summer kimono. Both decorative robes with long sleeves and a sash, a yukata can be distinguished from a kimono by a few characteristics: the cotton material, a single collar as opposed to the kimono’s double collar, and sock-less footwear, as opposed to socks always being worn with a kimono. (Disclaimer: There are always exceptions, but these are some of the most noticeable differences, according to my experience. When in doubt, if it’s summer, then it’s most likely a yukata!)

Unlike Tokyo, Kyoto is well known for its geishas, which make the city an alluring destination for people, like myself and Natasha, who wish to dress up and walk around in more traditional clothing. With enormous help from our TA, we made an appointment to get the whole shebang (yukata, shoes, purse, and hair). At first, I was apprehensive that my enthusiasm to experience and be a part of the culture through dressing up would be misconstrued as racist, but I was reassured by my Japanese acquaintances and classmates alike that no one interprets it that way. Reassured, I practically skipped all the way to the yukata store from sheer excitement.

The building was modern and unassuming, with the only indication that we were in the right spot being girls dressed in yukatas going in and out of the entry area. We had already been warned that the process would take about an hour, but it became real when we walked in, took our shoes off, and then were offered a bag to carry our shoes around in; I immediately thought, oh man, we are going to be here awhile. Natasha, the only other brave soul to experience getting dressed up, and I were then ushered to the second floor for our first step: picking your yukata.

Choosing a yukata is not as easy as it may sound. If you are an indecisive person, I recommend you never go through this experience. With all the elaborate, colorful, and diverse patterns available, it was excruciating having to pick only one robe. Then, after choosing a robe, we had to pick a sash, then shoes, then a purse, and then a rope belt. My head was swimming from all the decisions and options. Natasha was having an equally difficult time, and we relied on each other and the women working there to come to our conclusions. After about 45 minutes of second-guessing, we made our final decisions and were ushered to the fourth floor for our dressing.

Continue reading →