Tower of Air

Local Food: Ise Udon, Tekone-zushi, and Akafuku

Both before and after visiting Naiku today, we had the opportunity to try local specialties. For lunch, we had 伊勢うどん (“Ise Udon”), with one of three possible side dishes. I chose てこね寿司 (“Tekone-zushi”).

Various styles of Udon noodles are eaten throughout Japan. Ise Udon (white bowl, bottom left) were described to us as “fast food of the Edo era”, because they are fairly soft and quick to prepare. Tekone-zushi is bonito sashimi (raw fish) flavored with soy sauce on top of rice (in the big wooden bowl). Tekone-zushi is a type of sushi, although it looks quite different from the common sushi roll (“maki sushi”). The soy sauce gives the usually very mild sashimi a slightly saltier taste. The side dishes in the picture are miso soup, a little sea weed based salad, and orange jelly.

After seeing Naiku, we had some 赤福 (“Akafuku”). Akafuku is mochi (sticky rice cake) covered in anko (sweet red bean paste). The kanji literally mean “red luck”. 😀

Naiku — The Inner Shrine

A wide staircase between trees, leading up to a torii gate in a tall wooden fence

This afternoon (Wednesday, February 26) it was time for our first field trip, and we started out big with visiting 内宮 (“Naiku”), the “Inner Shrine”. Dedicated to Amaterasu-omikami, the sun goddess, the Inner Shrine is the most important part of the Ise Jingu and the holiest place of Shinto faith. Historically, however, there was some rivalry over that title between Naiku and 外宮 (“Geku”), the second major shrine of Ise Jingu, which we’re scheduled to visit next week.

As it is usual for Shinto shrines, one enters the Shrine area through a torii gate, and in case of this big and important shrine there are actually multiple torii along the way to the core sanctuary. Directly after passing the first torii, one has to cross a bridge called 宇治橋 (“Ujibashi”). As you can see on the left in the next picture, we were accompanied by a small team from a local TV station.

Yesterday I wrote that the main buildings of the big shrines in Ise Jingu are rebuilt every 20 years. Today I learned that this is not limited to the main building but rather a general practice, although some parts are reused for other purposes, like pillars from former Geku building to make the torii in front of Ujibashi. The exact reason for the rebuilding tradition is not known, a leaflet we received lists theories ranging from practical (replacing decaying materials, preserving knowledge of traditional crafts) to mythical (refreshing the structures serves as refreshment for the goddess).

If I had turned my camera a little left while taking the picture above, you’d mainly see crowds making their way to and from the shrine. Enjoy the landscape! 😉

The shrine is embedded in a beautiful forest with huge trees. Judging from their size, many must be multiple centuries old.

A wide staircase provides access to the core shrine area. Taking photos (or video) is only allowed from below the staircase, so I cannot show you what lies behind the gate. However, the area accessible to the public is fairly small. A low fence separates this area from another small square, with a gate that people can approach (but not cross) to pray. The inner sanctuary is hidden behind another tall wooden fence, and only the Emperor and Empress of Japan and the shrine priests are allowed to go inside.

Despite the secrecy, Ise has a museum which supposedly shows replicas and items that have been exchanged in the rebuilding cycle. We’re scheduled to visit that next week.

This store house shows a special trait of the architecture used in this shrine: To support the heavy roof, an additional pillar is added on each side, independently of the other building parts.

This is a smaller shrine inside the Naiku grounds. It shares another property with both the core buildings and the storehouse: The entrance is on the roof side. According to this morning’s lecture, reserving this style for the shrines is why houses in Ise with a gable roof usually have their entrance on a gable wall.

Finally, shortly before leaving the Naiku grounds, I saw one of the chickens living there. They are allowed to roam the shrine grounds freely, because old myths mention them as messengers of Amaterasu-okami.

Ise — An Ancient Travel Destination

This morning (Tuesday, February 25) we had a lesson on Ise and its administration, with a focus on tourism. With approximately 132,000 inhabitants, Ise is about one fifth the size of my hometown Dortmund, and one tenth the size of Sendai, where most of my experience with life in Japan comes from. It’s not surprising that in comparison, Ise feels quite a bit like countryside to me.

About one fourth of land area in Ise city belongs to Ise Jingu, one of the most sacred places of Shinto faith, which contains 125 individual shrines over multiple sites. Drawing from the history lesson yesterday, Ise city developed mainly around the shrines, supported by visitors and the business they brought. While the exact founding date of Ise Jingu is not known (likely in the 3rd century A.D.), the existence of the two major shrines, 内宮 (Naiku, “inner shrine”) and 外宮 (geku, “outer shrine”) can be dated rather precisely thanks to a special tradition: Their core buildings are rebuilt every 20 years, each alternating between two adjacent sites. The currently standing ones, built in 2013, are the 62th iteration, thus pointing to an origin of their current form in the late 8th century.

Huge Torii spanning a road between hillsides — This Torii spans the road I use to get to Kogakkan University.

The rebuilding ceremonies and the newly rebuilt shrines attract particularly high numbers of visitors. Over the last two decades, Ise city has been working to increase attractiveness by giving the areas around the main shrines a more traditional look. The before and after pictures we were shown give a good impression, but I haven’t seen the area yet. It’s on the schedule for tomorrow, though.

Talking about tourism brought to mind a remark the professor guiding us through the Shinto history museum made yesterday about the display above and some related objects: The artifacts are not directly related to Shinto rites, but rather to entertainment visitors to the shines enjoyed during their stay in Ise, including food, dance, music, and theater performances. In the old days, most visitors would stay for at least one night after visiting the shrines, giving them time for these things. Nowadays however, most visitors leave in the afternoon, and because of this most tourism related shops close in the early evening — which, by the way, is common among sightseeing spots all over Japan. I guess modern means of travel have their disadvantages… 😉

Kogakkan University Campus Tour

This Monday, February 24th, was my first full day in Ise, and it was a day of introductions and history. In the morning, Professor Ikeda picked us up at the dorm to show us the way to campus in general and the opening ceremony of the “Ise and Japan” study program in particular. Along the way, she pointed out landmarks and possible points of interest to us.

The gate through which we entered campus (pictured above) was kind of the first sightseeing element of the day. The wooden sign roughly translates to “shrine library”, and indeed the way passes by that building and a museum on Shinto faith and history before leading to the general campus area.

The opening ceremony consisted mainly of introductions of staff and participants, and a speech on the university’s history from Professor Kiyoshi, the university’s president. I’d need more time with the books we received to give details here, but Kogakkan University can look back on a tradition starting in 1882, although it wasn’t formally a university at that point. By the way, the view from the room was fantastic, I could even see Ise Bay in the background. The sports field in the foreground belongs to a high school associated with the university.

As we left the building, we came across a large group of students practicing a dance routine, and had the opportunity to watch and take photos before starting the campus tour.

The “記念館” (memorial hall) is a beautiful building in traditional Japanese style.

Other traditional style buildings on campus are the martial arts hall, and the ceremony building for the education of future Shinto priests. Aside from documents, photos, and other artifacts from the university’s past, the memorial hall also contains the replica of a Kyoto tea house, which might be used for a tea ceremony scheduled for Friday.

The museum on Shinto faith and history is likely worth another visit, but getting good pictures was hard, because most exhibits are understandably placed behind glass, like this model showing a historic festival scene.

I really need to go to sleep soon, and I don’t have many photos from the rest of the day anyway, so here’s the short version of afternoon and evening: After a visit at a shrine in a beautiful and surprisingly green forest next to the university we had two lessons on ancient and modern history of Ise, which sadly went a little above my Japanese skills. In the evening we had a welcome party with representatives of Ise city and program staff.

Arrival in Ise

White and light blue bus parked at a roadside, labelled "皇學館大学"

This morning (Sunday, February 23) I arrived in Japan after 11 hours of flight from Frankfurt. The flight itself was uneventful, but as I had feared, I couldn’t really sleep during that time, and if you don’t count dozing off a little once in a while, I’ve been awake for about 30 hours as of this writing.

All participants were picked up at Chubu Centrair International Airport. We then took a ferry across Ise Bay to Tsu, where a Kogakkan University bus (pictured above) was waiting to take us to the dorm in Ise.

After arrival, we had an introduction to the dorm facilities, a tour to the local supermarket (really big!) and Udon dinner with the staff, the latter being a funny similarity to my first days in Sendai about three and a half years ago. Now I really need to sleep and hope the trains running just below my window will let me. 😉

I’m traveling to Ise!

On Saturday, I’ll board a plane to finally go to Japan again. This time it’s only for a little over three weeks, though. I’ll be participating in a cultural studies program at Kogakkan University in Ise, called “伊勢と日本” (“Ise and Japan”). Aside from teaching participants about culture and history of Japan in general and Ise in particular, the program also has the purpose of making Ise more known internationally, so participants are asked to write about their experiences. That means that starting next Sunday or Monday, you can expect (almost) daily posts from Japan for the following three weeks, and at least some tweets on other days. I feel that I should mention a possible conflict of interests here: Kogakkan University is paying for most expenses.

I’m really exited about the trip already and hope you’ll enjoy reading about it!

Secret Cask Structure

As you may have heard, TEPCO started removing fuel elements from the spent fuel pool of reactor 4 at Fukushima Daiichi NPP. Looking through some images of the operation TEPCO released this Friday, I noticed a peculiar note:

“These photos include information concerning physical protection, etc. and therefore include altered parts.”

Obviously, I immediately became curious as to what the secrecy was about. Looking through the images as well as some older ones, I quickly discovered that the pixelated parts covered the transport cask’s internal structure as well as the attachment points for the crane, as you can see in the images below (if they’re too small, click the images for larger versions, or visit TEPCO’s media library).

Fuel transport cask in a water filled pit, with one fuel element lifted — Photo: TEPCO, released on 2013-11-22

I understand that TEPCO “cannot make public the detailed date of fuel transfer, etc. for security reasons” as stated in the press release, but why keep the structure of the NFT-22B fuel transport cask secret? If it is designed properly, it should be able to hold up to outside scrutiny, if not, it shouldn’t be used. However, I do not know if the decision to hide it was made by TEPCO, or if it was required by Japan’s nuclear safety regulations. That they’re openly mentioning the alterations is certainly a good thing. Interestingly, a presentation (in Japanese) also released by TEPCO describing the fuel removal operation does contain a schematic diagram of the NFT-22B in section 8.

Fuel transport cask hanging on a crane inside the cover around Fukushima Daiichi reactor building 4 — Photo: TEPCO, released on 2013-11-18

Maybe it is interesting to you that the first two words in red on the banner in the background mean “Don’t fall!” and “Don’t drop!”, although the image is too blurry for me to read the rest. You can find more images in TEPCO’s media library.

Making Sure It’ll Be Published

In an interview published yesterday, NYT reporter Peter Maass asked Edward Snowden why he didn’t go to one of the big US newspapers with the NSA documents. His answer:

After 9/11, many of the most important news outlets in America abdicated their role as a check to power — the journalistic responsibility to challenge the excesses of government — for fear of being seen as unpatriotic and punished in the market during a period of heightened nationalism. From a business perspective, this was the obvious strategy, but what benefited the institutions ended up costing the public dearly. The major outlets are still only beginning to recover from this cold period.
— Edward Snowden, as published in The New York Times on August 13, 2013

Put less politely, Snowden doubted they would have the courage to actually publish something their government really didn’t want to see published. I think the reactions on Snowden’s leaks in many US media justify that concern. And it reminded me of something I blogged about more than two years ago: Thomas Jefferson’s statements on the importance of free speech and a free press.

“our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”
— Thomas Jefferson, January 28, 1786

Also, I am quite certain that Jefferson would have approved Edward Snowden’s actions, quite contrary to what Obama and many others in Washington D.C. do:

“I agree with you that it is the duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities, which occur to him, for preserving documents relating to the history of our country.”
— Thomas Jefferson, October 4, 1823

Breaking Net Neutrality Means Paying More For Less

Over the recent months, EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes has been talking about net neutralitiy a lot. Sadly, that’s the most positive thing that can be said about her involvement in the matter, as this analysis of proposed regulation from La Quadrature du Net shows:

Why the EU Commission’s True Intent is to Kill Net Neutrality

While there are some nice but vague sentences in her proposal that say users should be “free to access and distribute information and content, run applications and use services of their choice”, this is negated by allowing providers to charge extra for preferential treatment of certain data. Allowing better transmission for some kinds of data is effectively the same as permitting throttling everything else, is just doesn’t sound as bad.

Breaking net neutrality like this allows telcos to benefit from network congestion, because only if congestion occurs frequently, people and (more importantly) companies will be willing to pay for preferential treatment. Who would pay for “premium” service, if “normal” works just fine? Thus, allowing telcos to offer “priority services” means giving them an incentive not to invest in adequate network infrastructure. It’s like allowing the post office to transport mail in open horse-drawn carriages and offer closed lorries (“Protected against wind and rain!”) as a premium service. The frequent “But we need the money to pay for network upgrades!” screams from telcos are at best stupid, though I suspect they are intentionally trying to mislead both politicians and the public.

What we really need is regulation that enforces strict net neutrality, without any loopholes. Sweet-talking and doing the opposite is not going to cut it, Ms. Kroes.

I know there are legitimate uses for quality of service, but none of them apply to the public internet. Also, none of them are needed if there is simply enough network capacity for everyone. But that’s a different topic, if you’re interested in what I think about it, leave a comment and I’ll write something when I have time.

A Republic — If You Can Keep It

Yesterday, I listened to a very interesting talk by Lawrence Lessig, titeled “We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim“, in which he describes how the US political system depends on a select few rather than the People, promotes dysfunction, and how difficult it is to change that — and why he is trying anyway.

I’m not going to paraphrase the whole talk here, you can listen to it or read the transcript yourself. I just want post two quotes and add my thoughts on them. These thoughts may seem to have little to do with each other, but I think they are connected if you look at them the right way.

And so when the pundits and the politicians say that change is impossible, what this love of country says back is, “That’s just irrelevant.” We lose something dear, something everyone in this room loves and cherishes, if we lose this republic, and so we act with everything we can to prove these pundits wrong.

— Lawrence Lessig, We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim

This is precisely what Edward Snowden did: Doing whatever he could to restore that republic he loved.

When Ben Franklin was carried from the constitutional convention in September of 1787, he was stopped in the street by a woman who said, “Mr. Franklin, what have you wrought?” Franklin said, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.” A republic. A representative democracy. A government dependent upon the people alone. We have lost that republic. All of us have to act to get it back.

— Lawrence Lessig, We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim

This is not a specifically American problem. Yes, Lessig’s speech is focused on the US system, but the fundamental problem affects many other seemingly democratic countries as well, and I think we should work together, internationally, and as citizens, to defend and restore democracy. And in the end, the question shouldn’t be “Do you love this country?”, it should be “Do you love freedom?”