Knit Dresses All the Rage This Winter

The Japanese have always been known for their savvy fashion sense, which is often unique and ultra modern. So its not surprising that Tokyo’s streets are one of the best places in the world to spot the latest trends.

This winter, the star of women’s fashion are knitted clothes, most especially the sexy knit dress. In the uber-trendy area of Shibuya, young fashionistas have been seen in mini-knit dresses of all colours and patterns, teamed up with knee-high boots.

Layering is an essential part of the look, with cardigans, tight sweaters and even skinny jeans or leggings added to create a unique personal look. Some other layering looks seen in the streets are sleeveless knit dresses over blouses or turtlenecks with contrasting fabrics like silk or even another knit.

Texture plays an important part as well, with a variety to choose from the smooth, silky knits to the chunky cable. The hottest colour choices are of course the traditional darks of winter like gray and black, but bolder colours like red, green, violet, mustard yellow and white are also firm favourites. Funky touches can be seen through different kinds of buttons, zips and other metallic trimmings.

As for price, heres a clipping from a local Japanese paper to give you a good idea on how much a peice of fashion for the season can set you back:

Knit dresses are a particularly popular item these days. Many of the knit dresses in the stores right now are attractively priced at around ¥10,000 to ¥20,000 (about $86 to $172 at ¥116 to the dollar), not much more expensive than a sweater or cardigan. When one also considers the fact that knit dresses combine the slightly formal air of a dress with the easy-to-wear quality of stretchy knits, it is no surprise that their popularity is spreading, mainly among women in their twenties.

[tags]Winter fashion, Shibuya, Tokyo, knits[/tags]

Canine Inbreeding and Fads

As promised in my last post, here is the article on canine inbreeding in Japan.

Rare and unique dogs are highly prized in Japan and can set buyers back more than $10,000 US. But the problem is what often arrives in the same litter: Genetically defective sister and brother puppies born with missing paws or faces lacking eyes and a nose.

There have been dogs with brain disorders so severe that they spent all day running in circles, and others with bones so frail they dissolved in their bodies. Many carry hidden diseases that crop up years later, veterinarians and breeders say.

Kiyomi Miyauchi was heartbroken to discover this after one of two Boston terriers she bought years ago suddenly collapsed last year into spasms on the living room floor and died. In March, one of its puppies died the same way; another went blind.

Miyauchi stumbled across a widespread problem here that is only starting to get attention. Rampant inbreeding has given Japanese dogs some of the highest rates of genetic defects in the world, sometimes four times higher than in the United States and Europe.

These illnesses are the tragic consequences of the national penchant in Japan for turning things cute and cuddly into social status symbols. But they also reflect the fondness for piling onto fads in Japan, a nation that always seems caught in the grip of some trend or other.

“Japanese are maniacs for booms,” said Toshiaki Kageyama, a professor of veterinary medicine specializing in genetic defects at Azabu University in Sagamihara. “But people forget here that dogs aren’t just status symbols. They are living things.”

Dogs are just one current rage. Less consequential is the big boom in the colour pink: pink digital cameras, pink portable game consoles and, yes, pink laptop computers have become must haves for young women. Last year, it was “bug king,” a computer game with battling beetles.

A number of the booms in Japan, including Tamogotchi, basically a virtual chicken that hatched and grew on a computer screen, and the fanciful cartoon characters of Pokemon, have made their way across the Pacific and swept up North American children, too.

The affection for fads in Japan reflects its group-oriented culture, a product of the conformity taught in its gruelling education system. But booms also take off because they are fuelled by big business.

Companies like Sony and Nintendo are constantly looking to create the next adorable hit, churning out cute new characters and devices. Booms help sustain an entire industrial complex, from software makers to marketers and distributors, that thrives off the pack mentality of consumers in Japan.

The same thing is happening in Japan’s fast-growing pet industry, estimated at more than $11 billion a year. Chihuahuas are the current hot breed, after one starred in the television ads of a finance company.

In the early 1990s, a TV drama featuring a Siberian husky helped send annual sales rocketing from just a few hundred dogs to 60,000 and then back down again when the fad cooled, according to the Japan Kennel Club. The breed took off despite being too large for most cramped homes in Japan.

The United States also experiences surges in sales of certain breeds, and some states have confronted “puppy mills” that churn out popular breeds by enacting “puppy lemon laws” to keep breeders from selling diseased animals.

But in Japan, the sales spikes are far more extreme. The kennel club says unethical breeders try to cash in on the booms, churning out puppies from a small number of parents. While many breeders have stuck to healthy mating practices, the lure of profits has attracted less scrupulous breeders and the proliferation of puppy mills.

Some veterinarians and other experts cite another, less obvious factor behind widespread risky inbreeding in Japan’s dog industry — the nation’s declining birth rate.

As the number of childless women and couples in Japan has increased, so has the number of dogs, which are being coddled and doted upon in place of kids, experts say.

In the last decade, the number of pet dogs in Japan has doubled to 13 million last year — outnumbering children under 12 — according to Takashi Harada, president of Yaseisha, a publisher of pet magazines.

“Households with few or no children are turning to dogs to fill the void,” he said. “For a dog to be part of the family, it has to be unique and have character, like a person.”

Indeed, many of these buyers want dogs they can show off like proud parents. They are willing to pay top yen, with rarer dogs fetching higher prices. Coveted traits like a blue-tinged coat are often the result of recessive genes, which can determine appearance only when combined with another recessive gene.

Inbreeding is a quick way to bring out recessive traits, as dogs carrying the gene are repeatedly mated with their own offspring, enhancing the trait over successive generations.

When done carefully, some types of inbreeding are safe. But in Japan, too many breeders throw aside caution in search of a quick profit, experts say. In these cases, for every dog born with prized colors, many more appear with defects, also the product of recessive genes.

“The demand is intense, and so is the temptation,” said Eiichi Kawanabe, one of the country’s top Chihuahua breeders. “There are a lot of bad breeders out there who see dogs as nothing more than an industrial product to make quick money.”

Awareness is so recent that the only comprehensive survey of genetic defects came out two years ago, looking at malformed hips in Labrador retrievers. The results showed that nearly half of all Labradors suffered from the deformity — four times more than the United States, according to Professor Kageyama at Azabu University, who conducted the survey.

Hirofumi Sasaki, a pet store owner in the western city of Hiroshima, has seen so many defective dogs that last year he converted an old bar into a hospice to care for them. So far he has taken in 32 dogs, though only 12 have survived.

One is Keika, a deaf one-year-old female dachshund with eyes that wander aimlessly in different directions. Her breeder was originally selling her for about $8,000 because she is half white, a rare trait in dachshunds. “That is an unnatural colour, like a person with blue skin,” Sasaki said.

The breeder told Sasaki he had bred a dog with three generations of offspring — in human terms, first with its daughter, then a granddaughter and then a great-granddaughter — until Keika was born. The other four puppies in the litter were so hideously deformed they were killed right after birth.

Miyauchi, the Boston terrier owner and a resident of the city of Kobe, said she was appalled to learn how common inbreeding was in Japan. After the death of her second Boston terrier, she said, she went looking for the breeder, but the phone number she got from the pet shop was invalid.

“No one’s really monitoring the industry,” she said.

The government admits that oversight is poor and passed a law in June to revoke the licences of breeders who use dogs with genetic defects for breeding. But the Environment Ministry, which has jurisdiction over pets, says it has just four officials to monitor 25,000 pet shops, kennels and breeders in Japan.

The Japan Kennel Club began adding results of DNA screening onto pedigree certificates in April. But that falls short of the American Kennel Club, which discourages risky inbreeding by listing acceptable colours for each breed.

“Japan is about 30 or 40 years behind in dealing with genetic defects,” said Takemi Nagamura, president of the Japan Kennel Club.

Ultimately, animal care professionals say, the solution is educating not just breeders but potential dog owners.

“If consumers didn’t buy these unnatural dogs,” said Chizuko Yamaguchi, a veterinarian at the Japan Animal Welfare Society, “breeders wouldn’t breed them.

[tags]pets, Animals, Breeding, Fads[/tags]

Blue Puppies Anyone?

In Japan, the search for the ultimate in “cute” is brought to new hights - and the pet business in no exception. I recently found an interesting but disturbing article on chihuahuas bred to have a distinct blue hue. The downside however, is that these unique looking pups have a propensity for health problems and its not for the faint-hearted. Think bones so brittle that they can cause the animal to crumble at the slightest pressure or worse, brain damage so severe that the poor animal spends hours on end haplessly running in circles.

As an animal lover (we have several dogs, cats and turtles in our home), I can’t help but think that is this penchant for cuteness worth it? To breeders, yes, as a minature poodle (the size of a teacup) can fetch around the region of $10,000. And maybe even for the owners, at first, who can show off their unique (but actually un-natural) pets. But once these rather frightening health problems creep in, it all seems like a very cruel business indeed. I for one think that the good old “mongrel” can make an equally wonderful pet and companion.

I’ll be posting the article in my next post for your reading pleasure.

[tags]pets, breeding, animals[/tags]

Folklore: Riki The Fool

Literally translated as Ghost Story, Kwaidan’s tales recollect the true experiences of
Greek expat Lafcadio Hearns when he lived in Japan. Through these spine-tingling tales of seemingly simple and ordinary village life, the cultural aspects of religion and superstition come in to play with some startling insight into family relationships. Subjects like reincarnation, death and spirituality are strong themes here, and the intriguing story revolving withing the gravesite make the work a powerful one.

From Lafcadio Hearn’s classic Kwaidan, 1904.

His name was Riki (力), signifying Strength; but the people called him Riki-the-Simple, or Riki-the-Fool,– “Riki-Baka,” (力ばか) — because he had been born into perpetual childhood. For the same reason they were kind to him,– even when he set a house on fire by putting a lighted match to a mosquito-curtain, and clapped his hands for joy to see the blaze.

At sixteen years he was a tall, strong lad; but in mind he remained always at the happy age of two, and therefore continued to play with very small children. The bigger children of the neighborhood, from four to seven years old, did not care to play with him, because he could not learn their songs and games. His favorite toy was a broomstick, which he used as a hobby-horse; and for hours at a time he would ride on that broomstick, up and down the slope in front of my house, with amazing peals of laughter. But at last he became troublesome by reason of his noise; and I had to tell him that he must find another playground. He bowed submissively, and then went off,– sorrowfully trailing his broomstick behind him. Gentle at all times, and perfectly harmless if allowed no chance to play with fire, he seldom gave anybody cause for complaint. His relation to the life of our street was scarcely more than that of a dog or a chicken; and when he finally disappeared, I did not miss him. Months and months passed by before anything happened to remind me of Riki.

“What has become of Riki?” I then asked the old woodcutter who supplies our neighborhood with fuel. I remembered that Riki had often helped him to carry his bundles.

“Riki-Baka?” answered the old man. “Ah, Riki is dead — poor fellow!… Yes, he died nearly a year ago, very suddenly; the doctors said that he had some disease of the brain. And there is a strange story now about that poor Riki.

“When Riki died, his mother wrote his name, ‘Riki-Baka,’ in the palm of his left hand,– putting ‘Riki’ (力) in the Chinese character, and ‘Baka’ (ばか) in kana. And she repeated many prayers for him,– prayers that he might be reborn into some more happy condition.

“Now, about three months ago, in the honorable residence of Nanigashi-Sama in Kojimachi, a boy was born with characters on the palm of his left hand; and the characters were quite plain to read,– ‘RIKI-BAKA’!

“So the people of that house knew that the birth must have happened in answer to somebody’s prayer; and they caused inquiry to be made everywhere. At least a vegetable-seller brought word to them that there used to be a simple lad, called Riki-Baka, living in the Ushigome quarter, and that he had died during the last autumn; and they sent two men-servants to look for the mother of Riki.

“Those servants found the mother of Riki, and told her what had happened; and she was glad exceedingly — for that Nanigashi house is a very rich and famous house. But the servants said that the family of Nanigashi-Sama were very angry about the word ‘Baka’ on the child’s hand. ‘And where is your Riki buried?’ the servants asked. ‘He is buried in the cemetery of Zendoji,’ she told them. ‘Please to give us some of the clay of his grave,’ they requested.

“So she went with them to the temple Zendoji, and showed them Riki’s grave; and they took some of the grave-clay away with them, wrapped up in a furoshiki…. They gave Riki’s mother some money,– ten yen.”…

“But what did they want with that clay?” I inquired.

“Well,” the old man answered, “you know that it would not do to let the child grow up with that name on his hand. And there is no other means of removing characters that come in that way upon the body of a child: you must rub the skin with clay taken from the grave of the body of the former birth.”…

[tags]Japanese Folklore,Riki the Fool[/tags]

Sanrio’s Puroland

In Japan, Sanrio’s characters - from the eponymous Hello Kitty to My Melody (the bunny with a red bow), Little Twin stars (Kiki and Lala) and Keropi the frog among others, are as well known and perhaps even more beloved than Disney’s crew of Princesses and animated film heroes. After all, you would rarely see anyone over the age of 10 in a Cinderella t-shirt or 20-something using a Peter Pan lunchbox to work in the West, while in Japan, these adored characters seem to withstand the test of puberty and oftentimes adulthood.

So when the Japanese need something other than Disney’s magic in terms of Theme Parks, they turn to Puroland, Sanrio’s answer to Disneyland. Located in Tama City on the outskirts west of the capital city, Puroland has all that you would expect of a theme park - rides, shows, gift shops, restaurants, and larger-than-life characters wandering around - all in a massive indoor area.

Theres Hello Kitty’s house for the kids to explore (although the size is large enough for grownups too!), a Hello Kitty ride, and a fantastic parade/show which caps off each day. here’s what to expect according to Sanrio:

Each day is highlighted by the main event - a singing, dancing, acrobatic story which takes place 360 degrees around Puroland’s centerpiece – the magnificent “Friendship Tree.” The entire park crowds around and buzzes with excitement as the music starts, then holds its breath as the star, Hello Kitty, floats to the stage from the star-filled sky above, wearing royal silver and gold. Sanrio characters dance as the music blasts and acrobats spring through the air in the action-pack finale.

Sanrio Puroland also boasts one of the largest Sanrio stores in Japan, certainly one of the busiest. It features just about every Sanrio product imaginable, even many, like the Hello Kitty “Plaid” or Badtz Maru “Metro” lines, that are designed exclusively for the Western hemisphere markets.

[tags]Sanrio, Puroland, Hello Kitty[/tags]

Hello Kitty In Bling

Hello Kitty makers have always been on the cutting edge to going full-on with their merchandising strategies - after all, there isnt really an animal character that comes close to the Sanrio’s White Cat in terms of sheer market variety. Apart from the usual range of things for kids, clothing and so on, there are also real, working home appliances in Kitty’s name, as well as a chain of cafes in Japan, Hong Kong and even the Phillippines. And one musnt also forget Puroland, the all-weather Tokyo theme park where Hello Kitty holds court.

Well, in time for the big-holiday-spenders is the jewel-encrusted Platinum Hello Kitty, which should make die-hard Kittyfiles drool. Heres the news clipping:

Sanrio Co., maker of the popular Hello Kitty line, will offer a platinum version of the winsome cat for about $150,000 in Japan.

The jewel-encrusted kitty will be available Tuesday at the flagship department store of Mitsukoshi in Tokyo, the Kyodo news service said Saturday.

The figure stands about 2 1/4 inches high and weighs slightly less than 21 pounds. Its seven jeweled pendants include rubies, pink sapphires and diamonds.

[tags]Holidays, Shopping, Hello Kitty, Jewelry[/tags]

Kids’ Favourite Meals: the Curry

Curry dishes are among some of the most popular dishes in Japan, and indeed a firm favourite of children. Thicker and somewhat milder in flavour than other curries found around the world, many Japanese kids are happy with just the sauce on rice, but it is often served with chicken, beef or vegetables.

Obviously, children in Japan prefer the milder varieties (as there are several spice intensities available), and Mums find this an extremely convenient family dish to prepare what with a good number of brands (like Glico and S&B) in the market which offer these curry sauces or roux ready-made and need hardly any preparation save the addition of a meat or veg.

Heres a traditional Japanese curry sauce recipe :

INGREDIENTS:

* 1 tbsp curry powder
* 2 onion
* 2 tbsps flour
* 3 cups water
* 2 cubes soup bouillon
* 1 tsp grated fresh ginger
* 1 tsp grated garlic
* 1/2 tsp garam masala
* 2 tbsps butter

PREPARATION:
Heat water in a pan and add soup bouillon to make soup. Slice onion thinly. Heat butter in a pan and saute onion slices slowly until they are brown for 15-20 minutes. Add garlic and ginger in the pan and saute well.
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Add flour and curry powder and saute over low heat. Pour soup in the pan little by little, stirring quickly. Simmer the curry roux until thickened, and add garam masala at last.

[tags]Japanese kids, Japanese Curry[/tags]

Kids’ Favourite Meals: the Hanbagu

Like their counterparts around the world, Japanese children enjoy the same kind of foods other children also would choose. Hamburger steaks, chicken with rice, spaghetti, all kinds of ramen and other noodle dishes.

Japanese children enjoy both traditional food (like tempura, sushi and teriaki) as well as those with Western origins when dining at home. Curry sauce and rice as well as the “Hanbagu” as mentioned above are popular choices, which is usually served with rice or on its own, rather in a bun Western-style.

Japanese Style Hanbagu or Hamburger Steak
(Servings: 2)

- 2 blocks freeze-dried tofu
- 1/4 onion
- 1 1/2 T cooking oil
- 40g lotus root
- 120g minced beef and pork
- (A)
1/2 T Kikkoman Soy Sauce
1 T Kikkoman Manjo Cooking Sake
Pepper
- 1 egg
- 1 T flour
- 1/2 bunch enoki mushrooms
- 2 fresh shiitake mushrooms
- 2 green onions
- (B)
1 1/2 T Kikkoman Soy Sauce
1 T Kikkoman Manjo Cooking Sake
1 T vinegar
1 t sugar
1 t dashi (bonito extract liquid)
- 2 t potato starch

Cooking time: 40 minutes

- Soak freeze-dried tofu in warm water until softened. Wrap tofu with cloth and break into small pieces. Chop onion finely, stir-fry with 1/2 T cooking oil and then cool. Roughly chop lotus root and soak in vinegar mixed with water (not included in quantities above).
- Put minced beef and pork, tofu and (A) in a bowl, and mix well. Add onion, lotus root, egg and flour, and stir well to form a sticky paste. Divide the paste in half and make two oval patties. Heat 1 T cooking oil in a frying pan and fry the patties.
- Remove tough stems of enoki mushrooms and cut mushrooms in half. Remove stems of shiitake mushrooms and cut mushrooms into thin strips. Put 2/3 C water, (B), enoki and shiitake mushrooms in a pan. Dissolve potato starch in water and add to mixture when it boils to make a thick sauce.
- Place each hamburger steak on a plate and add the sauce. Chop green onions diagonally and sprinkle on top.

[tags]Children, food and drink, Japanese hamburger[/tags]

More On Paper and Wrapping

Forgive me if I can’t seem to leave this subject, but with the holidays fast approaching and Christmas lists that need to be ticked off asap, utilizing the Japanese art of wrapping has never been more timely.

As mentioned before, the Japanese equate wrapping a gift with “wrapping the heart,” so every gift is marked by intense thoughtfulness, both for the item inside the wrapper, as well as for the person for whom the gift is for.

Harmony plays an important part in presentation— think of yin and yang. The rustic and the refined, the transient and the eternal, the earthy and the sublime: such disparities are made evident — and rendered compatible — in choices of combinations of papers and ties that both emphasize and luxuriate differences in texture as well as, perhaps differences in color or pattern. A crinkled paper lashed with knotted cord, for example, reflects that approach.

In Japan, both paper and light are considered sacred, translucent paper diffuses light and light in turn illuminates the subtle shadings and textures of paper. Screens and lanterns not only offer protection or illumination, they’re also associated spiritually with diffusion of aggression.

The opening of the package is honored — as a ritual act. Many packages enjoy the interplay of what is revealed and what is concealed, with hinges, flaps or cuts hinting at contents without disclosing them.

Here are some of the techniques used in Japanese gift wrapping:

Pleating — odd number of pleats means joy. The pleats should face directionally to the left which means celebration.

Ying & Yang — combining 2 materials is a good thing. (ie: natural materials…etc)

Printing or colors & textures — it’s creative for designs to be pre-printed on paper.

Bowing — use a simple note.

[tags]Christmas, Holidays, Gift Wrapping, Paper, Wrapping techniques[/tags]

An Oseibo FAQ

Oseibo is a wonderful Japanese tradition of giving gifts to people at the end of the year. Not dissimilar from exchanging Christmas presents with family and friends, Oseibo is an opportunity to show gratitude to those who’ve helped us during the year. In Japanese, Oseibo is literally translated as “end of the year present”. In Japan, these gifts are usually sent to the recipient straight from the store.

Who do you send it to?

Like Christmas, but totally unrelated to it, Oseibu is the time to send gifts to anybody and everybody you’d like to thank for the year past. It is only in recent years however that this practice was extended to giving from individuals as traditionally it was only for gifts given from groups of people. For instance, from the shopkeepers to the owner of the shop, the apprentices to the master, to the landlord from the tenants.

When do you send it?

There are no official dates, but the times Oseibo is given is from the 5th to the 31st of December, but most do this between the 5th and the 20th.

How much should you spend?
Obviously this depends on many things, including your financial inclination and relationship with the recipient, but typically the range is from JY3000 to JY10000.

What do you send?

Typically, people like to send food items that can be consumed by the entire household. Historically people gave rice, fish or noodles, things they themselves farmed or had business in. These days, alcoholic beverages like beer, sake, ham, fruits and gift certificates are the most popular, as are household necesseties like soap.

Where do you buy it?

During Oseibo giving time, shops are stocked with possible options, packaged beatifully according to price. You can find them at convenience stores, catalogues, and in large department stores, enitre floors are full of it.

How do you send it?

Easy. Select your gift from the shop and the cashier can help you fill out the delivery service form called “takuhaibin”.

What do you do if you get oseibo?

If you receive an Oseibo, sending a gift back is not necessary, but a simple thank you card is nice.

[tags]Oseibo, gifts, FAQ[/tags]