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Published: February 3rd 2012
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Today marked the festival of Setsubun in Japan. For weeks I'd been intrigued by the displays of demon masks alongside packets of monkey nuts and roasted soybeans, and today it all became clear. Setsubun is a bean throwing ceremony, that heralds the beginning of spring (although you wouldn't know it here by the temperature!).
The spring festival was previously thought of as a new year's eve and involved a special ritual to cleanse away all the evil of the former year and drive away disease-bringing evil spirits for the year to come. The bean throwing, or "mamemaki", dates back to the eighth century. The custom was for the male head of the household to throw beans out of the front door, or at another member of the family wearing an "oni" (devil/demon) mask, whilst shouting "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" (Demons out! Luck in!). Now-a-days kids mostly wear the oni masks and also throw the beans or monkey nuts at people for fun. I was lucky it fell on a Friday this year, as I got to see the elementary kids coming into the teacher's room with their home-made masks and throw nuts at all the teachers (with us
pretending to be monsters). The other tradition is you have to eat as many beans as your age, which for some of us means eating a lot of beans!
Later, as I am the only member of my household, I dressed my toy monkey up in an Oni mask to mark the occasion, rather than throw beans at myself.
The bad luck demons have definitely been at work today in my house. When I woke up it was even colder than normal - the temperature had dropped to about -12 in the night - and pretty soon I discovered my house had transformed from the usual fridge-like chill, into my very own ice hotel. All the water taps were frozen solid, with icicles hanging down were the running water should be. The washing up I'd left from the night before was now a frozen lump. My olive oil was frozen as was my toothpaste. The front door was almost frozen shut and the shower, well that was an arctic waste. With less than an hour before I had to be at school, I pondered the problem of how to wash. Luckily I'd showered the night before at the
gym, but I still wanted to at least brush my teeth and wash my face. I was just about to sink into despair when I remembered my hot water bottle - just enough water in that to fill up my kettle and provide a small sink full of warm water.
When I got home from school I hoped there might have been a thaw. The water in the kitchen was ok, but the bathroom was still solid. I put my kerosene heater in the room on low and left it for a bit to see if I could sort the problem. The sinks defrosted ok, but the shower, which was already slightly leaky, defrosted and burst. Trying not to panic, I managed to get hold of my supervisor, who, ever helpful, came up to take a look, and within an hour I had a plumber arrive. He shut the shower off and is coming back early tomorrow to sort it out for me. I'm hoping my bean throwing session with the demon-monkey will stop the devils from wreaking havoc with my pipes tonight....
Just in case I have filled up a few pots with water and reluctantly left the taps with a steady drip (as advised by my supervisor). I can't help balking at the waste of water, but if it does the trick I'll go with the flow so to speak.
I should count my lucky stars I live in southern Nagano though - the north has been experiencing freak snow falls that have left many towns buried in over six feet walls of snow. I saw one post from an ALT in the north where the snow had reached the window on her second floor apartment. It has even killed a number of people recently. Puts my pipe freeze in perspective.
Tokyo marathon here I come
There is now just over three weeks to go before I run in the Tokyo marathon. Whilst I'm excited to be part of such a big event, I'm not nearly as fit as when I ran a marathon last year in Edinburgh. I've managed to do a few long runs, with the longest last weekend being 30km (19 miles). With the snow and ice hitting it isn't that safe running outside, so I've bitten the bullet and got myself gym membership.
Like most gyms the fee is pricy, but it is well equipped, with a huge heated pool and I can at least train in the warm. Signing up was a mission, as no one at the gym speaks English. I even had one of those gym joining fitness assessments done, and a rather complicated print out of all my vital stats, of which I could understand very little. Using the cardio equipment can sometimes be a bit of guess work - trial and error pressing buttons until I figure out what makes the thing go and how to set the time, speed etc. I'm hoping once I get Tokyo out of the way and the snows go I'll only have to keep my membership until around the end of March.
Rice mysteries
As well as discovering what the demon masks were all about this week, I also cleared up two other minor conundrums. When I've been running up the mountain to my house, I'd noticed that every so often there would be a little plastic hut on the side of the road, containing what I thought looked like a big bag of rice. I decided the most logical reason for this was if the snows got bad and we got cut off in Tomida, we'd have a store of "emergency rice" to dip into. I asked my Eikaiwa group about the mysterious rice supplies on Tuesday evening, and they were pretty tickled. Turns out the "rice" bags are actually salt for the icy roads....good job I didn't try to help myself.
I also discovered why the rice I'd been cooking the last few months always turns into a weird gloopy mess. I thought it was because I wasn't rinsing it enough, or because my old, faulty rice cooker was over-cooking it. Then I played a game at school which involved the kids putting their hand into a box with "mystery" objects, one of which was a bowl of my uncooked rice. The Japanese teacher I was working with commented on it being "mochi" rice - which is rice specifically for grinding down into a paste to create mochi-balls. It is kind of similar to risotto rice, but even stickier....so that'll teach me to at least try and read the kanji on the packets I buy at the supermarket, rather than my usual lazy guess work. There was me assuming rice was rice - I've been educated. I've now bought some bog standard rice and am pleased to say it cooks up a treat.
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