Delightful ‘fake food’

The display outside the restaurant looks delicious. Under the glass lunch sets of rice, meat, and soup stand cheek and jowl besides bowls of omelettes and hand-rolled sushi. On second glance you realize these plates are tilted at an angle, yet the food doesn’t slide off. How can that be? That’s because these are plastic food models, made to entice customers with a visual menu of what a restaurant offers.

The earliest fake food models were made from wax. The hot melted wax was poured into molds and set before being hand-painted. These days they use plastic because it is durable, resistant to fading, and look more convincing after painting. A plastic food model begins with a client sending a sample of the item. It is then placed in a casting box and silicon is poured on it, creating a mold. Once the silicon has hardened, the food is removed and thrown away. Plastic is then poured into the mold and heated in an oven to harden. After, it is taken out of the mold and colored by hand or airbrush, and extra garnishings like plastic “sauce” and chopped vegetables are added. The process is repeated for multiple orders. And anything can be turned into models. Tall beer glasses with a frothy top, ice cream that don’t melt in the summer, delicate hand-molded Japanese sweets, and mouth-watering pizza are but a few of the items these fake food model specialists can make.

Some sample manufacturers have gone beyond functionality to make artistic creations like gravity-defying ramen caught between a pair of chopsticks hovering in mid-air, and larger than life hotdog sandwiches as a restaurant signboard. Some enterprising model makers have made cellphone accessories, keychains, and kitchen magnets with luscious fruits and sushi. If you want to find a few fake food souvenirs to take home with you, Kappabashi in Tokyo is the place to go. Here you can find shops devoted to fake plastic models just like those seen in restaurants.

From paper to the big screen

Hollywood movies have gone the way of comic adaptations with last summer’s Superman Returns and X-men: the Last Stand. A similar trend of comic to live-action movie adaptations is occurring in Japan. A few years ago most of these screen adaptations were animated, because it was difficult to portray the story’s setting and action sequences realistically. But with improvements in computer graphics technology, combined with superb makeup techniques and careful casting, even the depictions of a grotesque death god hovering by a live actor (just as in this year’s release Death Note) is possible.

Japanese manga offers readers a varied set of worlds and storylines. Audiences can relate to the conflicted, emotionally-charged relationships that predominates shoujo, or girls’ comics, and be intrigued with shounen manga’s daring concepts of the world and humanity’s role in it. Manga adaptations are aimed to the same demographics as the original series. This year has already seen the release of movies based on Saishu heiki kanojo (often shortened to SaiKano), Hachimitsu to Kuroba (Honey and Clover), Prince of Tennis, Death Note and Nana. The last two movies are special, because they were made in two parts, and their concluding movies are to be released in the last quarter of this year.

Mushishi, adapted by Akira animator Katsuhiro Otomo from a manga of the same name, was previewed in the recently concluded Venice Film Festival. The trend doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon, as Dororo, by the legendary Osamu Tezuka, is already slated for a January 2007 release. Manga is now licensed abroad and read internationally, and interest in these live-action adaptations are sure to grow.

Japan’s new Prime Minister

Shinzo Abe, newly-elected president of the ruling Liberal Democratic party, won against foreign minister Taro Aso, and the finance minister, Sadakazu Tanigaki, to become Japan’s new Prime Minister. He was elected during a session of both Houses of the Diet, and replaced former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who stepped down after five years in office.

Abe has also formed a new coalition cabinet Tuesday afternoon after meeting with Komeito leader Takenori Kanzaki. He named former Economic Planning Agency chief Koji Omi as finance minister and retained Foreign Minister Taro Aso. Hiroko Ota. appointed as minister of Economic and Fiscal Policy. is a non-legislator who served as director for economic affairs at the Cabinet Office. Tetsuzo Fuyushiba. minister of land, infrastructure and transport, is the only Cabinet member from Komeito, LDP’s coalition partner.

Political Career

Shinzo Abe began his political career in 1991 when he successfully ran to for the House of Representatives. He became the Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary from 2000–2003, and after that was appointed as Secretary General to the Liberal Democratic party. He rose to national prominence in 2002 for his uncompromising stand as the chief negotiator for the families of Japanese abductees taken to North Korea.

Abe is the youngest Prime Minister to be elected in the postwar period at the age of 52. He comes from a line of politicians. His father, Shintaro Abe, served as Japan’s Foreign Minister under Yasuhiro Nakasone, and his grandfather was former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi. On assuming his office, Abe will have to deal with mending diplomatic relations with nearby countries and ensuring Japan’s economic recovery. Abe has pushed for revisions to Japan’s pacifist constitution.

Delicious packed lunches

These days lunch can be a short break in between long office hours, and going out to a crowded restaurants for a hurried meal just doesn’t appeal to many. A simple solution would be to bring bento, or packed lunch. Nothing can relieve stress like a delicious, aesthetically pleasing meal. In Japan where such lunches can now be bought in stores, housewives still make them for their family for that personal touch. Children’s bento are often cute with animal-shaped onigiri and bright vegetables to encourage them to eat well. Bento are a staple of festivals and long train trips, where you can buy ekiben in train stations to sample regional delicacies.

These Japanese packed lunches are both nutritious and beautiful to look at. Bento often comprise of rice, a main dish of meat or fish, a side dish of vegetables, and occasionally dessert. For those who aren’t used to having rice, you can substitute sandwiches or noodles. The nice thing about making these lunches is you know what goes into the meal.

Here’s a few tips in making and eating bento

• Wait for the rice to cool before closing the lid. The steam from the rice can make the rest of the bento soggy.
• If you don’t have a lot of time in the morning, prepare your ingredients or dishes the night before.
• Store your bento in a cool and dry place to avoid spoiling.
• Bento is often eaten cold, unless there’s a handy microwave for reheating. Choose dishes that would still taste good without reheating.

There are many ways to pack your bento. You can use a simple lacquer bento box, or a stackable lunch set with the bowls containing different dishes. If you’re not comfortable with using chopsticks, bring along a set of cutlery, especially if you have a soup dish. A furoshiki or large patterned handkerchief keeps everything together and can serve as your napkin while you’re eating.

Make your own Okonomiyaki

Okonomiyaki is a filling pan-fried batter cake said to have originated from Osaka. The name can be split into two words. “Okonomi” is generally translated to “as you like”, and yaki means “grilled” or “cooked”. Okonomiyaki can be cooked as you want it, because you can choose the toppings you add to this delicious dish. In okonomiyaki restaurants you choose what ingredients you want and you cook it on a grill set on the table. This simple recipe can be cooked at home on an iron skillet or a frying pan.

Batter

• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 cup dashi (Japanese stock) or water if unavailable
• 1 egg
• 1/8-1/4 of a cabbage, shredded into thin strips

Toppings
All of your toppings should be sliced or cut into bite-sized pieces.

• Chicken
• Roast pork or beef
• Squid, Octopus, other seafood
• Corn
• Mushrooms
• Onion

Garnishing

• Katsuo-bushi (dried bonito flakes)
• Sakura-ebi (dried shrimps)
• Beni-shoga (red ginger)
• Ao-nori (green seaweed)

Sauces

• Okonomiyaki sauce (or tonkatsu sauce)
• Mayonnaise

1. Place the egg, water and flour in a bowl and mix well.
2. Add the shredded cabbage to the batter.
3. Heat a small amount of oil in a frying pan and stir-fry the toppings you chose until almost cooked.
4. Pour the flour mixture over the toppings in the pan.
5. Cook for a few minutes, then flip the pancakes and cook the other side for a few more minutes.
6. Place the pancake on a plate and top with the sauce and garnishes.

This recipe will only produce one or two servings, depending on how large you make the okonomiyaki. Some recipes suggest you to lightly cook the toppings and add them in the batter before you fry. The toppings added to okonomiyaki vary from region to region - those made in Kyoto use darker greens, and in Hiroshima the toppings are layered rather than mixed together. It’s best eaten piping hot with friends and family, so why not try making some over the weekend?

Kinkaku-ji, a sight for any season

Kyoto has many beautiful tourist spots seeped in history. One of the best-known is the Kinkanku-ji, also called the Golden Pavilion due to the gold-leaf adorning the second and third tier of the pagoda. It is part of the grounds of Rokuon-ji Temple. Each floor is representative of a different architectural style. The first floor, called Hosui-in (Chamber of Dharma Waters), is built in the Heian style. The second floor, Cho-on-do (Hall of Roaring Waves), reflects the samurai aesthetic. This floor has an icon of the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, Kannon. The top floor is Kukyocho (Firmament Top), is smaller and designed for intimate meetings and tea ceremonies. This floor holds the Amida triad and a set of twenty-five Bodhisattva.

A brief history

The land was originally owned by Kitsune Saionji, but in the Muromachi period Ashikaga Yoshimitsu claimed the lands and built the pavilion in 1398. It was intended to serve as his retirement villa in 1398. A decade later his grandson rebuilt the pavilion to be a Buddhist temple for the Rinzai sect. The temple survived centuries of earthquakes and fires, only to be targeted by an act of arson. A 20-year old student set fire to the temple on July 2, 1950. He had intended to die within the flaming temple. This event became the central theme for Yukio Mishima’s fictional novel of the same name. It was rebuilt in 1955 and underwent rehabilitation in 1987.

Kinkanku-ji is situated right beside the Kyoko-chi pond, and its beauty is illuminated at night by floodlights set discreetly within the temple. Kinkanku-ji was designated a UNESCO heritage site in 1994. Tourists can visit everyday for a nominal entrance fee, and the area is open from 9am to 5pm. If you’re in Kyoto you must definitely put Kinkanku-ji in your itinerary. Whatever the season, the view is something worth visiting.

The general’s game

Shogi is sometimes called Japanese chess, or the general’s game. This game uses forty ranked pieces on a nine by nine board, and to win in the game you must either capture the king or put him in checkmate. The game begins with the two players’ pieces arranged in three rows on opposite sides of the board. Black begins and play alternates between the two players. The game differs from Western chess in two ways: all pieces besides the king and the gold general can be promoted once they reach the so-called promotion zone on the opposite side, and any captured opposing piece can be used in your army. Because of these differences the board remains crowded even in endgame.

Shogi uses five-sided pieces with its name written in Japanese characters on its back. On the reverse side a different set of characters are usually written in red; this is the promoted name of the piece. The different pieces have a set range of motion similar to chess, and all of these can capture an opposing piece – this is called a drop. Dropped pieces are not allowed to capture, but they can be promoted. Shogi requires a different sort of strategy from Chess, due to the extra set of rules. Defense is an integral part of play, and in the beginning a badly-realized attack can lead to your pieces being used against you. But in mid-game the focus shifts to attacking your opponent, trading pieces, and attempting to win by checkmate or concession.

Shogi is believed to have originated as a variant of the Indian chaturanga, though the date of its arrival in Japan is disputed. It is known that in the Heian period (794-1185 AD) a text on calligraphy, the Kirinshô, describes how to write the characters on shogi pieces. It was then refined to its present form during the Tokugawa era, when it was played before the shogun. Today shogi is played by millions of amateurs, and interest is growing each year. Shogi can now be played online through different sites and servers.

The Fighting Festival of Kishiwada

Osaka has many colorful and dramatic festivals, and one of them is the danjiri festival of Kishiwada City. The danjiri are large, moveable shrines carved out of the wood from the Japanese zelkova. In the middle of September, these shrines are gathered before Kishiki shrine and drawn by young and old alike with the use of towropes. All through August neighborhoods in the Kishiwada area practice to achieve the rhythm needed to pull these floats at breakneck speeds through the town until they reach the steep slope leading to Kishiwada castle. The practice began hundreds of years ago as a dedication to Inari, the fox god of the harvest.

If a danjiri procession encounters one from another neighborhood near an intersection, the two groups will race to see which one can take the corner fastest. These corners are the most dangerous part of the festival. It is a matter of team pride to never slow down before the corner, else the crowd would boo their performance. But a speeding danjiri can veer out of control and ram into a nearby building or telephone pole, crushing spectators and throwing the daikugata – the brave men who coordinate the movements of the float with fans from the shrine’s roof – to their deaths. Through the years the police and festival organizers have taken steps to ensure the safety of the participants and onlookers, and the number of accidents have steadily decreased.

The danjiri shrines are exquisive examples of artistry and craftsmanship. Making, carving, and decorating a shrine could take up to years even in the hands of skilled carpenters. But the final result can outlast generations of danjiri participants, if they survive their dangerous trip around the city each year. The survivng danjiri are displayed in the Kishiwada Danjiri Hall, where visitors can visit to see the festival’s history and exhibits. This year the festival is scheduled for the 16th and 17th of this month.

Washi - beautiful and practical

Handmade Japanese paper, or washi, is used in many of the traditional handicrafts of the country. Washi paper is famous for its strength, absorbency and colorful decoration that lend itself well to artistic creations. Traditional Washi production usually do not use acid or bleach, and thus documents and paintings made over five hundred years ago remain in perfect condition.

Washi is primarily made from the bark fibers of three shrubs and each impart a different quality to the material. Kozo, or Japanese mulberry, has strong and long fibers that give the paper strength, ideal for making washi for practical, everyday objects like fans and screens. Washi made from the delicate and short Gampi fibers are noted for its smooth and glossy surface suitable for calligraphy and painting. Mitsumata fibers are shorter and thinner than the earlier two, and create richly-textured, high-density washi that was used for some of Japan’s paper currency. All of these plants are indigenous to Japan. Other fibers like hemp and abaca, are also used.

Washi production begins with collecting the branches from the different shrubs. The weathered outer bark is removed to reveal the pliant inner bark. This is then laboriously separated, cleaned, and whitened, before being pounded into small pieces. The newly-pounded fibers are then added to a liquid solution and combined with fermented hibiscus root that serves as the glue keeping the fibers together. Afterwards, the resulting paste-like substance is agitated on a bamboo mesh screen until paper of the desired thickness is made. The wet sheets are gathered and piled on top of one another to remove any excess water, and later laid out to dry either under the sun or indoors on a heated dryer.

Washi is often used in many handicrafts like origami and ukiyo-e, a genre of traditional woodblock prints. These arts showcase the paper’s delicate beauty and slightly textured surface. Washi are also used to create practical objects like umbrellas, fans, and screens. Washi, shaped over bamboo frames and lacquered, can be formed to make objects like bento boxes and tableware. Particularly strong sheets have been used to make durable clothing. Even today people are rediscovering washi and coming up with more innovative ways to use it.

Karakuri: the robots of yesteryear

Robots greatly fascinate the Japanese - witness the popularity of Asimo, the recent development of a robot sommelier, and the yearly robot tournaments where amateurs and robot specialists pit their creations against each others’. You can see this love for all things mechanical in the karakuri, the wooden automata popular in the Edo period.

Karakuri are mechanized puppets constructed from wood and other materials. With gears, string, and springs, the masters of this art created delicate mechanisms that powered these to do a variety of tasks. The butai karakuri are created for use in the theater. In the 16th and 17th centuries artfully-designed karakuri would act out scenes as a chanter tells the story to the samisen accompaniment. Because of the limits to what they can do, artisans developed the human-manipulated puppets for use in what then became Bunraku theater.

Sometimes you can catch a glimpse of karakuri on different levels of the festival floats, performing scenes from mythology or legends. These are called Dashi karakuri. The Aichi and Gifu prefectures are noted for their preservation of this kind of automatons. One can see them in Gifu’s Takayama Festival which is held twice a year.

The most intricate karakuri are the zashiki karakuri and are meant for household use. The Chahakobi ningyo, or tea-serving doll, is dressed in a silken kimono and lovingly made to bear a serene visage. It will receive a cup of tea from its owner and serve it to a guest. Once the cup is emptied and placed on the tray in the puppet’s hands it turns, returning to the owner. Other zashiki like the arrow-shooting boy are purely for entertainment.