Sorry-ology

Dear YC , Thank you for the beautiful Christmas card which arrived at my flat in Tokyo in time for the holiday. I was absolutely amazed at the image of the books when the card was unfolded. It certainly felt so privileged to be remembered. Thank you. I felt as if I could smell these old books and touched their leather covers just like I did while I was browsing through stacks of antique books in the Minster Library in York. (Well, my imagination cannot reach to Cambridge, but I believe it is probably even more fascinating.) Now the card is sitting in front of my desk to make up for a missing bookcase, which I would love to have but couldn't. I have been busy with teaching, but everything has been going well in general . How about yourself? I hope you have felt less stressed by now being surrounded by the warmth and love of your family. After the last class this year, I have been remembering the time when we were colleagues back in 2003. It was the first year of teaching for both o...

Teaching: Lesson One A couple of months ago in the office, Mr. T asked me what I was about to teach on that day. 'Globalisation', I replied. He must have seen through my anxiety about teaching that subject, so that he had an expression of 'ah ha, that topic!' to tease me. I then talked to him about my indecisiveness about what information to 'teach' or to 'share with' students on that day. I was very much troubled, since my own position became very strong when talking about issues like this. There were so many to say about the subject, and I didn't feel justified if only one type of views was emphasized. So it turned out that I had too many materials to go through within the sapce of 90 minutes. Mr. T asked about the level of the class. A few minutes later, he came back with a set of cards with vocabulary items on each of them, and, of course, every word was related to globalisation. He then talked about what he did when he had a class on globalis...

Just Another Interesting Anecdote, Isn't It? A couple of weeks ago, O. visited Tokyo, or technically the East, for the first time. I was very relieved when he told me that the journey was immensely enjoyable. O. is a very optimistic, adventurous, and out-going person by nature, so perhaps the horror of being surrounded by a graphic language like Japanese could be overcome easily. On the night before he flew back to Europe, we had dinner together. He told us an interesting anecdote that happened to him during his stay. On his first day in Japan, he was stopped by two policemen in Ueno station, who asked him for his passport. According to the immigration law in Japan, visitors to this country are obliged to take their passports or any other identification certificate that is legally equivalent. He said he had left it in the hostel. Then the policemen made some questions concerning about his visit and where he was going at the time. Then they realized O. was a traveler and his nationa...

Green Curtain Since the early summer, the city council started growing trailing plant outside its main building. First, they set up a net hanging down from the top of the building to the ground floor; a week or so after, vines started climbing upwards along the net; then it didn't take too long before the foliage covered up the entire wall. It was quite amazing to see such a massive green curtain in the city especially when its purpose was still unknown to me. The buckets in the bottom, one day when I got a chance to have a peek, explained that it's an effort to fight against global warming. The natural shade that the vines provided to the concrete building would efficiently shut out burning sunlight and thereby reduce room temperature significantly. In this way, the use of air-conditioners would be economized. Afterwards, I noticed that the ideas had been put into practice in many households throughout the neighborhood. In addition to the environmentally friendly economy that...

鯛焼き（taiyaki） This afternoon I posted replies to friends who had kindly sent us warm greetings for the wedding. K took the chance to take a walk around the neighborhood. It has become a pleasure for us to promenade and explore unseen places near the house. We stopped by a taiyaki shop and bought two fish for our afternoon tea, custard and red bean paste. In the snack shop, while we were checking menu, figuring out prices, and talking in English as if we were all alone, the young owner of the shop kindly interrupted us explaining to us in English! That was quite unexpected to me. Immediately I was embarrassed. I hope he wasn't laughing at me in private when I was telling K how I was amazed at a gigantic shredding machine that was sitting in the shop. It is the kind of machine that people used to make shredded ice when I was little. Shredded ice with a scoop of syrup rocked! 'How nostalgic it is!' I said. On our way home, K wondered why the shop owner opened his taiyaki shop...

My Domestic Goddess Project: Light Eats and the Rainy Season We had a short break from the non-stop rain of the season yesterday. It was breezy and sunny. Shadows of laundry trotted across the curtain like running horses. It provided a wonderful atmosphere for light and simple eats in this suffocating season of humidity. We had tomato flower cum plum pickles and cold plain noodle for lunch. Both were refreshing and very appetizing! I love beautiful presentation of food than the food itself, to be frank. The tomato was cut in a vertical direction so that it was able to bloom. Plain noodle dipped in dashi (だし) sauce (1 dashi: 2 water) was simply tasty. It tasted clam, cold, and pleasant. It felt as if pores, eyes and ears were temporarily immue from the heat and humidity in the air. The Japanese vocabulary that I just picked up, 素直な, might describe the taste well, or perhaps 'rustic'. I admit that the description sounds rather pretentious or exaggerating, but I really liked ...

Hydrangea (あじさい, Azisai) 紫陽花 Hydrangea has been dominating the landscape of our neighborhood since a month ago. They are definitely showy and daring in posing for their beauty. A couple of weeks ago when I visited the house of my aunt-in-law, she had a hydrangea standing on her dinning table. I was astonished at the close look at the flowers and was amazed at the vivid traces of veins on its petals and leaves. To me the net of veins manifested the vigor and power of their life. It was pouring on that day, but, I remembered, all the hydrangeas stood stubbornly and bloomed extravagantly despite the torrential rain. It was as if they had no fear at all of braving the weight of the rain but enjoyed the down-pouring water as, perhaps, their name denoted. My aunt-in-law must have told me that it is called 'azisai' (あじさい), but my command of Japanese language is too shallow to make it memorable. Then in my textbook I came to know that Azisai, or hydrangea, is the flower of the rainy se...

My Domestic Goddess Project: Pork steak and Komatsuna (こまつな（小松菜）) Ever since I started cooking Japanese food, the Chinese characters of Komatsuna, 小松菜, has intrigued me. The characters, according to Wanchen's dictionary of free translation, were literally interpreted as "the vegetable of Little Pine". Of course, it was partly because I didn't know how to pronounce it in Japanese. Yet, the pastoral image that my literal translation projected, 'the vegetable of Little Pine', had been quite satisfactory to me. I imagined that it was a kind of vegetable that was initially grown by a little boy called Little Pine. Every morning, he would jump out of the bed and hurry to his small allotment in order to see how the little veggies had been. Dews on the leafy komatsuna were shining like pearls and mirroring Little Pine's happy face. Then I found an easy recipe to try komatsuna. (Imagine how I was excited in the supermarket when I picked up a bag of this romantic ve...

My Domestic Goddess Project: Putting the sun in the pocket! French Crepe, I think, for today's breakfast. It is quite substantial for a breakfast but absolutely yummy. Well, I enjoyed making it as I felt I was doing an artwork when I tried to locate ingredients to their right positions on the canvas of the crepe. A slice of yellow cheese as the background, a slice of pink ham as a cloud at dawn, and finally golden egg sitting at the center of the picture as the sun. A morning full of energy! お元気で！ The recipe is here .

My Domestic Goddess Project I have been exploring the beautiful cookbooks that I found on K's bookshelf. Tofu in Pizza Style is a very easy-to-make appetizer! Basically, you just pile up bacon, sliced pepper, cheese and ketchup on the top of tofu and bake it! We don't have oven in the house, but it proved that toaster also worked! The tofu chunks taste chewy and denty ! It is called はんぺんのピザ風, on p. 78 in ひとり暮らしの簡単ごはん：Let's Enjoy Cooking. (オレンジペ−ジ) I love the tips and recipes of small vegetable dishes that this book offers.

My Domestic Goddess Project After I left York, my baking project has discontinued due to the lack of ovens available to me. Life goes on, however. The project continues in the line of Asian cuisine. The Lawson cookbook is now perching on the shelf for a rest. Instead, I am now experimenting with Japanese appetite. I cooked ginger pork (しょうが焼き) a couple of days ago, a recipe found on p. 18 in いちばんわかりやすい基本の料理 . Ginger is definitely one of the most welcomed spices on our dinner table.

A Desk of One's Own

About the Engagement (II): Some Technical Facts I started feeling that it will be a long journey before I can actually finish writing everything that I want to write about the engagement. At the same time, I am feeling the pressure of writing as the preparation for the wedding reception in September is now taking place. I didn't organize every bit of the engagement reception on my own, and the entire event was a final presentation of many people's professional assistance. It is not a commercial entry, but I do owe a big thank you to the professionals who were involved in the organization and preparation. At the very early stage of the preparation, I resisted some nuptial conventions that have been commercialized and over-emphasized in the last few decades. However, in the end, I followed some of the ' chessy ' fashions. (The term ' chessy ' reflects nothing but my snobbery, I confess.) Although I still feel quite ambivalent about the significance of these nupt...

Death of a Cockroach K was shocked when seeing a cockroach in the living room. The amount of poison that he sprayed on that evil insect probably explained the unmeasurable astonishment that he was thrown in. After clearing away the remains of the cockroach, K determined to chase out all of the possible members of the cockroach family remaining in the house. He showed to me his lethal weapon: cockroach houses. This time, I was the one who was in astonishment. Products of cockroach house across the world, I believe, shared the same design and adopted the same method no matter how culturally distinctive their appearances might be. I thought that the design was usually made as unnoticeable as possible, for instance, small size and simple color prevailed. After all they were kind of embarrassing witnesses to the hygienic standard of a house, weren't they? (of course, this statement can be challenged in many ways especially in the context of Asian countries where this creature never seem...

About the Engagement (1): About Writing the Engagement SSS_8118.jpg Originally uploaded by Wanchen Tai It has been more than 2 months by now since the engagement between I and K in the end of March in 2009. I have been thinking about writing about it but have been either kept busy with other tasks or indecisive about how the event can be represented. It felt like a dilemma of writing, which I never could avoid ever since the moment when I learned to write. The writing school that I attended in my childhood taught us to be always committed to a good opening, an opening that would surprise readers and that would tantalize their anticipation. This principle, however, has made every writing difficult. Of course, it is also true that I am yet far from good at 'writing' after all. Hurdles are always there not to be overcome. So an entry about the engagement has been postponed. Yet I found the 'non-writing' of the engagement quite a serious problem for me since my settlement i...

DSCF1275.JPG Originally uploaded by Wanchen Tai After the buzzing noises of the efforts to fulfil the household duties in the morning, the room calmed down in the end. K was away at work, and I was enjoying typing and working by the window. Yes, literally, by the window. The grey luminescence in the room in the afternoon was very soothing. The sun slid in leaving traces on the cool surface of a clean floor.

DSCF 1238 Originally uploaded by Wanchen Tai A bonsai is placed above an artificial pool in the garden with its branch flowing downwards towards the water. It resembles a mini green waterfall pouring into the pool a stream of freshness. The leaves have an extraordinary texture, thick and rich, substantial but weightless.

DSCF1205.jpg Originally uploaded by Wanchen Tai Since last week, the small tree of bell fruit has been laden with red bells in our front garden. Dad is extremely proud of his efforts and have been counting the rubies everyday. Although 'wax apple' or 'java apple' seems to be more true to its texture, its alias-- bell fruit-- is certainly more accurate in visual terms. As a popular nickname 'bell fruit' is always preferable to me. Such a poetic alternative projects a romantic imagination about summer! They would be ringing delicious melody between leaves in an orchard, if its heavenly taste and smell could be translated into audial patterns. These bells on our small tree are just miniatures in comparison with those sold in the market. Unsellable though they are surely jewels, the apples of Dad's eye. I love looking at them, especially their fat bottoms. It's always amazing to see how the shape is formed and the pattern created. Hanging upsdie down, they...

DSCF 1188. JPG Originally uploaded by Wanchen Tai Between the end of spring and the commencement of summer, we found a mother Chinese bulbul and its three babies nesting in the Azalea bushes at the garden. These small lives have brought excitement to my parents, who have attentively watched them and faithfully reported their progress since the day the nest took shape. Two pumpkin-shaped calamondins were found among their plump comrades. The orange skin shone like the beaming sun. I was amazed at the visual effect that was produced when they were rested on an old rattan chair. The stripy pattern that was shared between them made a wonderful tapestry of simplicity. The time that I have spent at home since January has been an ongoing observation of different moments of lives: living and dying. While I was celebrating the tender lives of the 3 chicks and the vibrant color that signaled summer's approach, a life faded out in that same afternoon. After several months' illness, lit...

Engagement in March, 2009 Kunio and Wanchen are getting engaged.