Japan Part Three – Homes, Food and School in Japan

Welcome back! Things got a bit shaken up here in Japan this week. With a couple of earthquakes in the southern region, on the island of Kyushu, things here have been a bit tense. Of course, I'm hoping the best, but as I learned when I first got here, Japan rests on an area that geologists - that's people that study how the planet Earth is built - call the "Ring of Fire", and gets a lot of earthquakes. Thankfully, Japan is very strict about how their buildings are built, which helps a lot so that earthquakes don't cause even more damage. Also, Japan's first-responders are very brave and act fast, helping to save people as quickly as possible! Next week, I'll tell you about a few ways you can help people here whose homes were damaged in the earthquake.

(Fusuma Photo By Rennett Stowe from USA (Traditional Japanese Home) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons)

Yoshiko and Akira both live far enough north that they didn't really feel the earthquake much. I visited both of their homes this week. Akira lives in a very modern home with his parents, or ryoushin. His house isn't very big and some rooms are separated by fusuma, big sliding doors that can be moved around to change the size of the rooms. The living room has a special kind of floor called tatami, a traditional floor made of rice straw that is woven all together. 

(Shoji Photo By Fg2 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

Yoshiko's house was a little more traditional. It was older than Akira's home, but very similar in a lot of ways. It had fusuma also, but some of the walls were what's called shoji, doors made from paper and wood frames. The roof was really wide though, so that protects the paper from getting wet when it rains. Yoshiko said that last year's typhoon season was strong, so they had to take extra care to set up wooden boards to protect the house. 

Both homes had a special entryway called a genkan. This is where guests can take off their shoes and put on special slippers to use indoors. I didn't have shoes to take off, but I made sure to wipe my paws really well before I put the slippers on. Sun bears are known for walking on two legs, so I only needed to borrow one pair of slippers! (Genkan Image by Fg2 [Public domain],via Wikimedia Commons). 

There's been a lot of great food here in Japan! While I was at Yoshiko's home, her mom made a dinner with vegetable tempura. That's when vegetables are fried in tempura batter, a mixture of water and flour. Their dinner was like a lot of Japanese meals, with lots of rice, some grilled fish, and soba noodles, made from buckwheat. 

(Tempura Photo By Nesnad (Own work) [CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)] via Wikimedia Commons)

Dinner at Akira's home was similar, but instead of fish we had sukiyaki, it's like a beef soup and really fun to say! Suu-key-yah-kee!They also had udon noodles, a thick noodle soup that's lots of fun to eat. Japanese kids also like a lot of foreign food, like hamburgers, omelets, and spaghetti!

(Sukiyaki Photo By Kapichu (photo from the english wikipedia [GFDL] or [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons).

Japanese desserts aren't very sweet, but they have one treat you can find almost anywhere called dango. It's a rice flour dumpling that isn't filled with anything and usually served with a sweet and savory sauce. It's a fun recipe for kids because you have to roll the dough in your hands!  Check out this recipe for dango by Just Hungry and let me know how it turns out. Here are some pictures to show you what the process looks like!

Photos Above by Joy Sun Bear, Inc.

I also got to visit Akira's school, or gakkō. It was fun to see how involved the kids were with the school. They worked together to clean the classroom, hallways, and play yards every day. They even took turns serving lunch to the other students! I got to see them practice shodo and haiku. Shodo is a special kind of calligraphy - that means fancy writing - that uses a paint brush and very special movements. Haiku is a unique kind of poetry that is about 400 years old. In a Haiku, there are three phrases that are always the same number of syllables, five, then seven, then five. A syllable is a part of a word that has only one vowel. Because haiku is so restricted, the poet has to be very thoughtful about the poem so they can share deep thoughts with just a few words. Here's a video by Where's Andrew? that you can watch to learn more!

 I'll leave you now, with a haiku of my own!

Sun Bear travels far

Over land and oceans wide

Sharing Joy with all

Why don't you try to write your own haiku and see what you come up with? You can ask your parent, guardian or teacher to email me your haiku or message it to me on my website and I'll share it on the site with all my friends!

Thanks for reading!

Sayōnara さようなら!

--Joy Sun Bear