Dangly bits

The dangly is a hallowed Japanese art form. It encapsulates one`s personality and flaunts one`s sense of style to the world. Everyone has a dangly, from the tiny tot, the schoolgirl and schoolboy, the company employee to the elderly. They range from the kawaii-kitsch of plastic figurines or soft toys - Kitty-chan, Snoopy, Elmo, Pokemon - to simple wooden carvings or traditional-style ornaments depicting the seasonal motif - the cherryblossom, the summer dragonfly, the branch of maples or Mount Fuji in snow. There are also the upmarket danglies - made of silver and gold and set with precious stones; plus the bling-bling danglies: big gold crosses and playboy bunnies and tiny stiletto-shoe danglies.

My danglies are pictured, and include my handbag dangly - a wooden fox with bell, purchased at Fushimi Inari near Kyoto (where all the local shoppes sell foxy trinkets); and my cellphone dangly - a leaping rabbit against a full moon (white from the back) or a rising sun (red from the front).

Sir S and I have debated long on the history of the dangly. At the Peace Memorial Museum, where the tragic debris of the atomic blast is displayed, including scraps of clothes, lunchboxes and crumpled bikes - there is a purse which has still attached to it a painted, colourful wooden dangly. During my wander through Kyoto earlier this month, I visited an artwork museum that featured cloisonne and ceramic work, and in a glass cabinet there were detailed keepsake-boxes that used to be tied around one`s neck, and on the lid of such boxes was strung a dangly. The dangly was an extension of the artwork on the main object, so a box decorated with the sea and a raging koi carp would feature a wooden dangly carved with fishing baskets and nets, or in the shapes of fishermen. These dated from the early 1800s. I wonder if the dangly existed centuries before then? Most curious ...

Hitting the Dance Halls

On the weekend I painted the Nagarakawa night district in psychedlic hue, attending the latest psytrance event at the local dance hall for local people. Donning cat`s ears and pinstripe attire, I first visited gaijin haunt G`s Bar and snaffled up various beverages and nectars with fellow scholars with the help of scholarly barman Sir A(whereupon this neon pink photo was snapped by a squiffilated colleague).

Then onto Gataka, where trance tunes bleeped and oozed from the skilful hands of local and gaijin djs alike. I practised my feeble Nihon-go on the friendly Japanese punters, such as "What is your favourite movie?"; "What sports do you like?" and "Where is the lav?", plus the most important question, "O-genki des ka?" - "genki" meaning happy/healthy/cheerful/supersonic &c. Watashi wa genki des!

The usually reserved Japanese boys were more forward at this club, asking me questions and offering me assorted confectionary and drinkies, and introducing me to their circle of friends &c - without any trace of sleaze-a-rama. It was rather rewarding to natter to the locals in Japanese and receive a warm welcome. Yay!

Danced about until the wee hours and then met up with Sir A for breakfast, when we indulged in udon okonomiyaki - with cheese - at 6.30 in the morning. Better than a veggie fry-up in Newtown! And I got home at SEVEN forty-five in the morning. Now that`s what I call anarchy!

Meet the locals

Here are some extrememly belated photos from the Miyajima Full Moon Festival that I have recently obtained from a fellow scholar. Some of the festivalgoers had some sand-bogging issues with their automobile, while the lead singer of the band above is a prime example of eye-sushi, or soy sauce, and has a spiff tattoo.

Fox, flame, rice

Here is one of the many stone foxes that flank the myriad shrines at Fushimi Inari, Kyoto. Many are green with lichen and are weathered with age. Here on New Year`s Day, the corridors of red torii gates were congested with hundreds of visitors to the shrine. Sir S and I enjoyed walking among the crooked laneways of foxes and stone, breathing in the heavily incensed air and listening to the chants of old couples praying before candle-lit shrines and offering rice to Inari-san. For a late lunch we rested in a delightful wooden teahouse upon raised tatami platforms and blue-white cushions. We sat by a thickly-paned window and looked out upon a steep hillside of straggling maples, gold and brown. I slurped on kitsune udon, supposedly a favourite food of the fox, and we warmed our bellies with amazake - almost like drinking hot rice pudding! Fushimi Inari is definitley one of my favourite places in Japan and I could while away many days wandering here.

Year of the Dachshund

Happy New Year to fellow bloggers and lurkers alike! Miss Ember, accompanied by the gallavanting Sir S, omnibussed to Ol` Kyoto Town for the New Year festivities. Here we rendezvoused with Australien travellers Miss S and Sir P and merged with the Kyoto hordes for a temple visit and a frenzy of bell-ringing.

New Year`s Eve in Kyoto is famous for the tolling of many copper temple bells before and at midnight, in order to dispell the 108 sins of humankind (surely Miss Ember hasn`t committed all of these?). We ventured forth into the night in the direction of Chion-in Temple, where a copper bell of gargantuan proportions - and said to be the biggest in Japan - is tolled by 17 monks in an arresting performance of strength, dexterity and complicated abdominal-pelvic manoeuvres. We joined a queue and were eventually ushered by this absolute marvel of bourdon craftsmanship, which was so big it could be worn by the BFG as an interesting, special occasion headpiece. It had a timeworn, green appearance and a deep timbre that boomed across the templegrounds. Most impressive!

Then we greeted midnight in a shivering queue at the Shoren-in temple, where visitors could pray before a smaller version of aforementioned bell and ring it one-by-one. The four of us agreed heartily to participate in giving the ropes a jolly swing, however Miss S and I could not control our nerves and we fidgetted in line, unnerved by the horrid vision that we would (a) ring the bell too weakly so that the huge wooden, log of a donger - suspended by many ropes - merely tapped the copper surface pathetically like a wooden spoon against a bowl; or (b) ring the bell too forcefully so that it was double-donged by the striking wooden pole and toll so loudly that birds would awaken with irritated twitters from overhead, dogs would howl and children would scream and pelt us with dangling accessories so that we`d blush crimson into our scarves; or (c) hit one`s head on the donger or bell whilst bowing to the priest or bowing to the bell, in front of hundreds of solemn Japanese. Fortunately, Operation Belfry was a success, and our dongs resounded through the dark with a satisfying boom. Marvellous!

On New Year`s Day, Sir S and I traversed to my fave foxy shrine, Fushimi Inari (previously posted about in August 2005 Tales). The shrine heaved with New Year visitors and its front entrance was decked out in fairground style with stalls selling takoyaki (octopus balls), Hello Kitty Cake Heads, Kansai okonomiyaki (noodle-less) and shops were a-glitter with gaudy festoons of koi carp, dogs and tinsel and Ebisuko rakes decorated with white vixens with glinting gold eyes. Many a visitor brought their pet dog along, in keeping with the Year of the Dog decorations and, among the lolloping labradors and white bear-like shaggy dogs trying to snitch an octopus ball from an unwitting child, there was many a dachshund dressed up in a wintery knit, slung over their owner`s shoulder and slobbering at the sight of unidentifiable fishy objects sizzling on the hotplates all around. Woof woof!