Rocking in Hakata

Well, it’s that time of year again, folks. When the insects not only outnumber, but outshine the people in volume too. They get mighty talkative in the summer months, you see. Many of the chirp or sing or warble or otherwise make noise as proudly as possible at this time. Here’s a happy bug outside on my balcony, just as loud as can be. He was singing alone, but usually you hear them in choruses. Hundreds making the same patterns over and over. If you look carefully, you can see that the undulations of his body match the pitches you hear. Good vibrations? I’m not an entomologist, but I’d wager that those vibrations are the bug version of “How you doin’?” Anyway, thought I’d share. Sorry about the hand held camera shot.

Deas Customary Drivel, Media, Video

Short one today. Obviously, from this week’s Batman post, I’m hoping to catch The Dark Knight here in Japan. But what would really rule is if I could find an IMAX theater somewhere. I did some poking around online and I came up with….squat. I found some site that claimed that X percentage of the digital projectors leased to theaters were in Japan, another one that looked like it was built by me 13 years ago in Microsoft Frontpage and basically had the word Osaka in red and then a bunch of images that don’t load (though it lacked background music), and I even struck out on the official IMAX site. It lists no theaters in Japan. What gives? Is there not an IMAX anywhere in this country? I mean, sure, I’ll settle for a smaller screen, but I’d love to see films that were meant for the big big screen on the BIG BIG screen. Know what I mean?

Deas Customary Drivel

I am insanely addicted to this type of banana soy milk. How addicted you ask? Addicted enough to buy 12 small ones at a time because I cannot buy them on my island. Addicted enough to go to the websites I found mentioned in small print on the packaging to try and find out whether a larger container of it is available for purchase. It is really, really good. I hit these two sites: Tamabijin, the Honda Trading page about soy cultivation and importation, and Kibun Food Chemifa [sic], the folks who make the banana soy milk drinks with said soy – though they are apparently not proud enough to actually list the glorious banana drink on their products page. What gives?

Well, guess what I discovered? This beloved banana soy milk concoction is made with American soybeans. Beans from southern Michigan and Ohio, to be precise. Japan’s a huge soybean producer, right? I mean, the number one condiment associated with Japanese food is soy sauce, right? And tofu is a huge deal here too, right? So Japan’s gotta be big in the soybean market, right? WRONG. Surprisingly wrong. While Brazil comes in at a very close second place, America dominates the field. (U.S.A.! U.S.A.!) I was really bewildered when I discovered this fact. Granted, I’m from South Carolina – our agriculture tends to gravitate around corn, cotton and tobacco cultivation. (Though chicken, turkey, and cattle pull in gobs of money for us – the majority, actually. I’m discussing crops, so I’m ignoring them.) So maybe my soy ignorance is forgivable.

According to this animation put together by a consulting group, in 1961 America had a 69% share in the global soybean market. That’s nuts. (Soy nuts, even.) In 1972 it topped out at 74% of the market, and as of 2005, it sits at 40% of the global market. Wow. I had no idea. And according to the most recent data available, America produces 66,780,000 metric tons of the total 184,560,000 metric tons produced globally. Not bad. Japan, number 17 on the list of producers, contributes 230,000 tons. I guess that means that it would be way cheaper to buy American soy for banana drink purposes than domestic soy. (And I have no idea about governmental price controls for soybeans here, but I know that they do it with rice. In my opinions that hurts Japan’s agriculture and just makes the farmers dependent on government. But I digress.) Interesting stuff.

By the way, there are no large sizes that I can find. I went to the Kibun Soy Milk Lineup page, too, but they only offer the banana delight in 200 ml singles or 3 packs. However, it seems you CAN buy cases of 18 small ones online for delivery from retailers. (Yay for the Kibun-approved link to Rakuten!) Hmmmm…

Deas Culinary, Customary Drivel

Remember the Animatrix? Well, a similar tie-in has been developed for Batman. It’s called Batman: Gotham Knight, and it features 6 animated shorts by prominent anime directors. I am very pleased with the outcome, though that may be because I expect slightly weird interpretations. And I’m cool with it. It doesn’t threaten my image of Batman. (Though…let’s face it…Robin does.) Here are some still shots I pulled of each Batman – feel free to click on any of the thumbnails for larger versions. There are obviously corresponding Bruce Wayne characters too, but I’ve left them out. I’ll post my favorites at the bottom.

“Have I Got a Story For You”
directed by Shojiro Nishimi

“Crossfire”
directed by Futoshi Higashide

“Field Test”
directed by Hiroshi Morioka

“In Darkness Dwells”
directed by Yasuhiro Aoki

“Working Through the Pain”
directed by Toshiyuki Kubooka

“Deadshot”
directed by Jong-Sik Nam

My favorite Batman design: Jong-Sik Nam
My favorite Bruce Wayne design: Toshiyuki Kubooka
My favorite short: “Field Test”

Opinions? Thoughts? Your reactions are welcome in the comments. Watching this was a great way to get stoked for the upcoming Dark Knight film. Especially because the actual content of the set of shorts was…lacking. Definitely leaves you hankering for something more satiating. I guess for overall content I like the Christopher Nolan reinterpretation of the Batman franchise. But this little outing was fun for what it was. Give it a shake if you’re up for it, and let me know what you think.

Deas Customary Drivel, Media, Unsolicited Commentary, Video

So, ATMs in Japan are wonderful and all. It’s true. They automatically balance your account book, printing everything carefully and even turning the pages for itself. They accept cash deposits. They can make bank transfers. They’re really convenient. Except that they have ridiculous open / close times on occasion. Some banks even consider ATMs to be employees of the bank, having them operational only during actual banking hours. Luckily, my bank isn’t one of these. My bank, Iyo Ginko, does have weird hours though. ATMs generally open at 9 am and close at 5 or 7 pm, depending on their location. In any event, it’s a far cry from my instant banking 24 hours a day ATM availability all over the city back home in America. So once in a while I forget about a necessary run to the ATM, and it bites me in the butt. Today I had to borrow ¥2000 from a fellow English teacher because of this situation. I had a special day yesterday, which I hadn’t accounted for in my normal withdrawals. I bought a sack of mikan oranges for a student who forgot his for show and tell (without being reimbursed) first. Then we had a surprise lunch at the most expensive restaurant on the island for some visitors. I knew about the lunch – the surprise came when they asked me for money…because I had been told it was on the school. Anyway, I then accompanied the visitors on to Yuge High School, which is one of my schools. I hadn’t planned on that either, so the ferry cost me ¥1280 for a return trip. And since it wasn’t on a scheduled visitation day, that’s on my tab too. Ha ha. All in all, I spent about ¥5000 yesterday that I hadn’t planned on spending. That’s life here, really. But I neglected to hit an ATM before retiring for the evening. This resulted in my arriving at Yuge Port this morning with a total of ¥43 left in my pocket. After consulting with some teachers, I learned that there is an Ehime Ginko ATM (not within walking distance, though), and a post office (also not within walking distance), but no Iyo Ginko ATM. I was out of luck. I sighed, accepted my fate, and borrowed the money from my JTE. Thank goodness I work with cool people who have my back, huh? Anyway, the moral of the story is: DO NOT forget that Japan is still a hugely cash-based country, and make sure you have plenty of cash on you at all times.

Deas Customary Drivel

Here are the two kinds of breakfast syrup available at my local supermarket. (I say breakfast because I’m sure you can get some simple syrups flavored for snowcones right about now. Or Monin type syrups for drinks. Maybe.) Anyway, I’m hugely disappointed. The “(Hot/Pan)cake Syrup” on the left runs about 300 yen per bottle. The bottle contains about 200 grams of syrup. Oof. But worse yet, the “Maple Syrup” on the right costs about 600 yen for about 150 grams. (And it’s not even the good stuff!) Needless to say, the volume of both of these is reeeeally small. Both bottles fit in your palm. The diameter of the cap is about half that of a normal PET bottle. That means I can get about 4 pancakes very sparsely covered with half a bottle of syrup. Unreal. My toothpaste tube has more volume to it. I think I have a little capsule of super glue that has about one third the volume. The syrup is simply too small. And pricey. But I wanted to try pancakes again. (It was the first time in about 2 years.) They were pretty dry. Sigh. Sadness.

200 grams of “cake syrup” = ~ 9 Tablespoons (US) @ 33 cents per tbsp

150 grams of “maple syrup” = ~ 6.8 Tablespoons (US) @ 88 cents per tbsp

1 gallon of gasoline = ~ 256 Tablespoons (US) @ 2.3 cents per tbsp*

Forget oil. This stuff is the new liquid gold. Sheesh.

*Calculated using the slightly dated figure of $5.90 / gallon in Japan. Thanks Ken Y-N for fixing my math problem!

Deas Culinary, Customary Drivel