The rest of the morning

After the museum, we drove to the Hokkaido International Foundation (HIF) building where my older sister studied as an exchange student while staying with this host family for two months. I met the coordinator of the program, who remembered Emily well, and we talked for a little while.

Then, we went to the pier area where there is an old beer factory that has been renovated into a souvenir shopping mall. We walked around there for a short time, then we went to lunch at Lucky Pierrot’s, a Hakodate burger joint that is very popular. I ate their special Chinese Chicken burger (on Momo’s suggestion), which was very good. After lunch we drove to the airport, where I said goodbye and got on my return flight to Nagoya.

Just a little more research

Today was my last day in Hokkaido. This morning after breakfast, I went to the Hakodate Northern People’s Museum with my host mother and her two children (who had the day off of school). Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take pictures of this beautiful collection of artifacts as they had some particularly nice specimens of carved-wood ritual ornaments and tools and woven elm-fiber clothing. We were also able to watch a short, but very interesting and informative movie about the efforts going on today to preserve and spread Ainu culture (as there are no longer any Ainu remaining that live in the traditional way of life – all have assimilated to mainstream, modern Japanese lifestyles).

A pleasant evening

I spent the evening with the Ishida family at home. We ate dinner (lamb meat and vegetables in a Hokkaido special marinade) together while watching video camera footage from the morning’s Undou-kai, reliving the events. We then sang karaoke for a while before turning into bed early (because the children were still tired from the long day in the sun). I sang The Star-Spangled Banner for the parents after the kids went to bed as my final song (upon request) and then Ikumi sang the Japanese national anthem (which is the shortest national anthem in the world). It was a fun way to end the day with a small exchange of culture.

Hakodate sightseeing

After the Undou-kai, Ikumi (Emily’s former host mother) stayed at home to prepare dinner while Ryousuke (the father) took me and the children in the car to the top of Hakodate Mountain, so I could see the view of the city and the bay/port. We then drove along the coastline (by this time both Momo and Hanako were fast asleep in the car, tired out by the long day in the sun).

We next went through the city to look at the many preserved church buildings and foreigner cemeteries. After a long time being closed to foreigners during the Tokugawa Period, Japan initially opened 5 ports for use by the United States after the intimidating appearance of Mathew Perry. Hakodate was one of these original 5 ports and was particularly sought after by the US as a place for Pacific whaling ships to dock and get supplies. It was later opened up to trade with foreign countries besides the US. This means that Hakodate has a fairly rich history when it comes to the mixing of cultures, and therefore a lot of foreign architecture and European influence can be seen throughout the city.

Undou-kai (Sports Festival)

I got up with the Ishida family very early this morning to prepare for Momo’s Elementary School Sports Festival. This event has become a large part of Japanese culture and is a very grand affair. The events run from 9:00 in the morning until around 2:00 in the afternoon, and include relays and other games. The families of the students, often not only parents and siblings but aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents, all come together to watch the event and cheer. The students’ mothers make incredible picnic lunches (Ishida-san included) that the whole family eats together during the lunch break. I helped to make some rice balls for the event, but otherwise just enjoyed the atmosphere and the beautiful sunny weather.

To Hakodate

I said goodbye to Seino-san and Yokoyama-san, thanking them for all their help, and got on the train for Hakodate. This time the train was right on schedule and I didn’t run into any problems. Emily’s former host family, the Ishida family, met me at the train station and we went back to their house where we had a wonderful dinner of grilled chicken, crab, and make-your-own sushi.

Momo found out that I was doing research on the Ainu and gave me his small textbook about Northern Peoples that he had used the previous year in elementary school. It is very simple and easy to read, and although it does not have much in-depth information, it is very interesting to see what Hokkaido children learn about Ainu in public schools (it is not very much).  

I then played with the children, Momo and Hanako, doing origami before calling it an early night.

Readings

I took the morning (after my walk) easy, using the time I had left in Noboribetsu to read and take notes on the books that Seino-san had prepared for me before my arrival (which I had to return before leaving). This was time well spent gathering background knowledge about Ainu traditional beliefs and way of life. I read about many subjects including clothing, the separation of men’s and women’s roles, marriage, birth, and naming.

My morning walk…

Today I chose to walk, not along the coastal features as I had done for the past two days, but into town to the Noboribetsu River. By the river stands a memorial monument to one of Chiri Yukie’s brothers, who after her death also made great contributions to Ainu research.

After then deliberated about whether or not to visit her grave. Chiri Yukie died on her return home from Tokyo, so never actually made it back to Noboribetsu and was not originally buried here. But a few years ago, an effort was made to have her interred by her mother’s grave in Noboribetsu, which is now where she rests. So this is not her original grave site nor is it near the site of her actual death. Furthermore, in traditional Ainu culture, relatives and friends do not go back to visit a grave after the burial ritual is complete. In fact, if one should approach the resting place of a deceased person too closely, among the Ainu it is a matter of course that some bad consequence should follow unless a purification ceremony, which involves the washing of hands with water and the brushing down of the body with dry grasses, is held. However, I decided to go anyway. I wonder what evil will befall me for not only having visited, but for having taken a picture...

Poroto-kotan Ainu Museum

Seino-san picked me up promptly at 12:30 and we drove to Shiraoi where he treated me to a delicious Japanese lunch. We then headed to the Poroto-kotan Ainu Museum. There I got to see and read about the various implements used by Ainu in hunting, daily life, ritual, etc. After seeing the main museum exhibits, I went into the replica Ainu house also on the museum grounds. The style and construction of Ainu houses has both practical and spiritual bases, so most details of the home, including window and hearth placement, were pre-determined. For example, the east-window of the house was the Window of the Gods, and was used to pass food into the house (to venerate the spirit of the killed beast and thank it for giving its flesh to the Ainu) and to offer food to the Gods outside of the home.

The hearth, facing east toward the Window of the Gods

At the museum, I also had the pleasure of seeing a traditional Ainu performance and listening to a lengthy explanation about the structure of the traditional Ainu village (kotan) and home. The performance included songs and the dance performed at when sending a Bear’s spirit back to the world of the Gods after receiving its body in the hunt. I have seen the Ainu language transcribed in romanji many times, but this was my first time hearing it in its original spoken form. I was deeply moved by how beautiful the language sounds, something that you cannot judge from seeing it put into print. I have a new-found appreciation for the kamui yukar (chanted legends) that I am researching, because I now have a sense not only of their meaning (from the translated texts that I have been studying) but also of their aural impact upon delivery.

My morning walk…

Again I decided to get up early and leave after breakfast to do some nature sightseeing. I found a path that led down to the seashore and so walked at the bottom of the bluffs that I had walked on top of the day before. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it all the way to the Osorokochi low-lying beach because it was high tide, but I did manage to climb halfway up a nearby bluff and take some nice pictures of the mouth of the feature.

I then turned and looked down the coast towards Noboribetsu harbor to take some pictures of Humpe-sapa (which in Ainu means “whale-head”). What was once a bold rock formation that jutted out to sea has been diminished by many years of quarrying its light red volcanic rock (Strong S. 2011, 49).

I returned to my hotel where I did some reading for 2 hours before Seino-san came to pick me up and take me to the neighboring town of Shiraoi.

Muroran Sightseeing

Because the weather was so nice and I had found the books that I wanted to borrow from the library, Seino-san graciously offered to take me on a guided tour of some of the Ainu geographic features further along the coast towards the town of Muroran. This whole area used to be inhabited by different Ainu kotan (villages) and the Ainu history is still reflected in the many area names. For example, there is an small bay/inlet along the coast of Muroran called itanki, which is the Ainu word for rice/tea bowl. The inlet is so named because the clams in the area form bowl-shaped burrows from packed sand which sometimes wash up onto the beach.

On the way back, we drove inland from the coast a little ways to a spot that is likely to have been the area where Chiri Yukie lived with her grandmother (a story teller) and aunt. This is where she mastered her native language and heard most of the chants, nursery rhymes, and other oral traditions that she later recorded.

I went to Seino-san's house where his wife cooked a splendid meal (and I picked up some more reference books to read).

The Noboribetsu Library

After lunch, Seino-san brought me to the Noboribetsu library so that I could look at their collection of books on Northern Peoples. He had prepared some books for me, upon my email request, before I got there (mostly about local area geography and its relationship with the Ainu of Noboribetsu), which proved very interesting and I had been reading them at my leisure in the hotel room since the night before. But I did find two books written in English that I added to my stack of reading materials – one being the landmark Ainu study by John Batchelor, an English missionary who lived among the Ainu people and was one of the first to publish about their language (including an Ainu-Japanese-English Dictionary) and culture. The other was a collection of Ainu legends that I read mostly for pleasure but also to gain a greater sense of the general structure and moral teachings of Ainu stories.

The Chiri Yukie Memorial Museum

After my walk along the cliffs this morning, I walked into town to the Chiri Yukie Memorial Museum, where I had been briefly introduced to Yokoyama-san the day before. I spent a pleasant rest of the morning going through the two display rooms in the museum. First, I went through the downstairs, which is a timeline of Chiri Yukie’s brief life with many primary documents, including school transcripts and many letters. Yokoyama-san guided me through the exhibit, and then I went through again more slowly, reading and taking notes on the descriptions. The upstairs contained displays of books, written both by and about Chiri Yukie and her work transcribing and translating Ainu oral tradition. It was inspiring to hear how she was the only Ainu female to graduate from the Noboribetsu area mandated Japanese elementary and middle schools. And to learn how her biographic circumstances allowed her to become fluent in both her native Ainu language and Japanese. 

I was most moved by how much of an impact this girl managed to make on Ainu research, not only through her published and unpublished contributions, but also through her inspiration to future researchers (including two of her brothers who have prolifically published about Ainu oral tradition and Ainu names of geographic features in Hokkaido). And she managed to make such an impact before dying at the mere age of 18. She was younger than I upon her death, but had already made a significant contribution to not only her disappearing people and their culture, but to academia in Japan (whereas I am yet just a student and have yet to make my mark on society). 

My morning walk…

The hotel spa where I am staying is located up on some cliffs overlooking the seashore. They have a beautiful walking trail that goes among the grasses of the plains and along the edge of the bluffs. Along these cliffs are many geographic features that were revered by the local Ainu and it is partially to see these natural promontories first-hand that I came to Noboribetsu.

Today, I chose to walk along the top of Osorokochi (Osorokot), meaning “indentation of the buttocks” (Yamada H. 1986, 170–171). This geographic feature is a U-shaped indentation in the cliff face that creates a pocket of low-lying land near the beach. It is said to have been created by accident when the culture hero (Kotan-kar-kamui) was grilling a whale over a fire using a huge skewer, which gave a loud snap and the hero fell backwards in surprise (Strong S. 2011, 49).

Earthquake!

Around midnight I was awoken by a very uncomfortable feeling in my chest. As soon as my mind was fully conscious I realized that the whole room was swaying in a rather unnatural manner. My groggy mind finally grasped the fact that this was my first experience of an earthquake. The lights were out in my room and I did not have on my glasses, so I could not see the movement of the objects around me, but I could feel my own movement clearly. Although I have lived in Nagoya, Japan for a year and there have been some very small tremors during that time, I have always been in buildings that have absorbed the shocks when they occurred.

I got up early and went to the bath at the hotel. There I chatted with some old ladies about the earthquake and learned that it had measured 3.2. This is fairly large, but not large enough to cause any major harm (except maybe with freak falling-object accidents). I have to admit, that this was what I had been hoping for my whole time in Japan. I wanted to experience an earthquake first-hand, but did not want to endanger others or myself by hoping for too large or scary a quake. Therefore, this was, to me, a perfect experience.

Introduction to Noboribetsu

Seino-san picked me up from the bus station and as I yet had time before needing to check into my hotel, we drove to the Noboribetsu onsen (hot-spring) area and around the mountains there. The area is famous for natural hot springs created by volcanic activity. In particular, there is a beautiful valley where hot water warmed by lava underground bubbles to the surface over black sand, geysers used to shoot up (although not anymore since the source has been tapped for hotel spas), and steam rises above the red cliffs and trees. This valley is called Jigokutani, or “hell valley” and the mascot of Noboribetsu Onsen had become the king of hell, a little red cartoon demon.

Afterwards, I went to meet Yokoyama-san, the curator of the Chiri Yukie Memorial Museum (my other contact through Professor Strong’s connections) and to check into my hotel spa (where I enjoyed a long, hot bath before turning in for the night).

A small bump in the plan

I then walked very quickly to the train station to catch an express train (that I had looked-up ahead of time) to Noboribetsu. However, I got to the station only to find that there had been an accident on that JR line and there were no trains running in the Noboribetsu direction. (This is a very rare occurrence in Japan. It is a rare thing for even a train to be late over a minute from its directed time). Furthermore, they could not give an estimate of how long it would be until the trains were up and running again. I was very flustered, so I called Seino-san, the former head librarian of the Noboribetsu Public Library who I had been in contact with via email (thanks to Professor Strong’s gracious introduction). He was kind enough to get on his computer and search alternate transportation. He told me there was a 1:00 bus from the station. I looked at the clock and realizing that I had 10 minutes to find the bus terminal, buy a ticket, and get on the bus I quickly thanked him and ran to an information desk. I managed to board the bus (which ended up being a little cheaper than the train) just in time and Seino-san met me at the bus stop without any further incident.

A library-filled morning…

I got up, ate breakfast, and checked out of my Sapporo business hotel early enough to make the 30 minute walk to the Hokkaido University main library, where I had on the previous day asked to have Chiri Yukie’s notebooks (volumes 1 and 3) prepared for me by 9:00. I got there on time, received my requested books without incident, and spent until 12:00 making copies, taking notes, and taking pictures of the necessary materials.

Unfortunately, the two kamui yukar that I was particularly interested did not seem to be in these books as I had previously been informed. However, I did find other Ainu chants, nursery rhymes, and songs. I think that these pages will still be very useful to my thesis.

Afternoon sightseeing

So I still had some time left today so I went to Nijo Market (a fish market about two blocks square that is open from early in the morning until 6:00pm). It is a good place to sample Hokkaido sea-food, if you have lots of money to burn on a meal or a place to prepare freshly bought fish. Unfortunately, I do not have the luxury of either of these. And the market's famous dish, sea urchin and fish roe donburi (rice bowl) does not sound particularly appetizing to me either. But I did get to enjoy the local market flare as I walked up and down the stalls and I got to touch a giant crab. One more Sapporo must-see checked off my list.

Beginning my research...

So I first walked to the North Library at Hokkaido University and got my hands on volumes 2, 4, and 5 of the Chiri Yukie Notebooks. Volumes 4 and 5 contain some long epic-like yukar (or chants). Volume 2 contained some interesting Ainu riddles, so I made copies of this book. I then headed to the main library building to get volumes 1 and 3 (this is the book that contains the two kamui yukar myths I am most interested in). However, these two volumes are not available for immediate use and I had to order them to be prepared for me by tomorrow morning. So I will be back to the library tomorrow wen it opens at 9:00!

Because I could not immediately finish my research, I decided to do some more study/sightseeing this afternoon, to leave the whole morning free tomorrow for the library. So I ate a late lunch and headed to the Hokkaido University Botanical Gardens, where they have not only a small Ainu Museum, but also a section of the gardens dedicated to plant life used by Northern Aboriginal Peoples. I took my time photographing both of these, then enjoyed the rest of the gardens.

I would like to take some time now to note my impressions of both the Ainu Museum and the Northern Peoples Ethnobotanical Garden. The museum, although small, contained clothing, musical instruments, farming and hunting tools, goods used in daily living, personal and ritual ornament, and replica offering stands. This was the first time that I have seen first-hand things such as spring traps, ornamental carved offering sticks, etc. that feature prominently not only in accounts of Ainu culture and daily living practices, but also in their myths.

Being able to see these varied specimens first-hand really helped me solidify my understanding of the connection between the Ainu people, their way of life, their oral traditions, and the nature surrounding them.

Continuing on to the Ethnobotanical Garden, my first impression was that most of these plants just seemed like any other type of grass or tree. Many did not seem to have any distinguishing characteristics that would make them easily identifiable. I was then also impressed with the varied usage of the plants: as food, medicine, housing and furniture, material for weapons or tools, etc. In fact, some plants were used for multiple purposes (such as the leaves being used for food while the stalks or stems were used for tools or clothing). The Ainu were truly a hunting and gathering culture that relied heavily on the indigenous plant life (which I got to sample at the gardens).

Morning sightseeing

Today I got up early, ate breakfast at my business hotel and headed for some early sightseeing before the Hokkaido University Library opened at 9:00am. I ended up spending a lot of time walking the length of Odori Park, taking pictures of the many monuments and enjoying the crisp morning.

After reaching the Hokkaido Archive Museum (at one end of the park), I made my way to the former Hokkaido Government Building, which is apparently a great tourist attraction. While there I got to see some beautiful Sakura blossoms (the cherry trees bloom late in Hokkaido, so I got to see them twice having already seen them in Nagoya in April!).

From there I walked to the Hokkaido University campus to start my research...

Taking it slow today...

Made my flight and arrived safely at Chitose Airport around 12:00pm, where I hopped on an express train to Sapporo Station. From there, I made my way to my business hotel to check in and drop off my luggage.

I went out to do a little sight-seeing in the afternoon. However, I am coming off of a hectic weekend and recovering from a cold with medicine that makes me drowsy, so I plan to call it an early night and did not get to as many sightseeing places as I might otherwise have had time for. Despite being tired, I did get to see the Sapporo Clock Tower, Odori Park, and the Sapporo TV Tower today. I am planning to see a few more sights before heading to Noboribetsu in the afternoon on the 23rd.

The rest of the evening will be spent relaxing, planning the next few days of my trip, and preparing for my day of research tomorrow at the Hokkaido University Library Northern Studies Collection. There is one book in particular, containing two Ainu chants transcribed into romanji by Chiri Yukie and translated into Japanese by Haginaka Mie, that I would like to get my hands on. If I can get copies of these two translated myths (narrated by a sea eagle and a red-capped crane), I hope to make them the focus of my thesis. Other than that, I am just looking for any good background texts on local Ainu culture, geography, customs, etc.

Well that's all for tonight. Off to do some library catalogue searching.

And so it begins...

I left my dorm at Nanzan University, Nagoya Japan this morning around 7:00 to make my way to Central Japan (Chubu) International Airport. As I walked to the subway station, the start of my trip was heralded by a morning eclipse. I have heard of many superstitious omens, foretelling either good luck or bad luck during ones travels. I do not, however, know what this rather rare omen might foretell. I will hope that it means success in all my endeavors this week.

The blog introduction

はじめまして。

My name is Joanna Moody. I have just completed a year of study abroad at Nanzan University in Nagoya Japan on a Japanese government MEXT scholarship. I will soon return to the United States and my studies at Bates College. However, before doing so, having received funding from my American university, I have the wonderful opportunity to travel to Hokkaido Japan. I have created this blog to document my impressions and travels during my week-long (May 21 to May 28, 2012), with the purpose of gaining a deeper cultural understanding of the northern island of Japan to inform my undergraduate thesis on Ainu chants (kamui yukar).

Although this is my first time maintaining a serious blog (or journal for that matter), I will do my best so that this blog can 1) inform my family in the United States of my whereabouts, health, and progress, 2) serve as an account of my trip to be presented to the Tanaka Fellowship committee at Bates College upon my return, and 3) provide a reference of my immediate emotional and cognitive response to the culture and geography surrounding the Ainu texts of my research, which will hopefully prove helpful when I sit down to write my thesis.

よろしくお願いします。