One Coin Horse Riding
Riding Club Crane is offering people a chance to try horse riding for 500 yen (plus 1250 yen for equipment and insurance) on December 23, 25, and 26. However, only the first three people to sign up will get that special offer and you have to have a copy of the little coupon they have been putting in mailboxes in order to claim this discount.
If you don't make is as one of the lucky three or if you don't have a copy of the coupon, you can still try horse riding for 2100 yen (plus 1250 yen for equipment and insurance) until December 28, 2008. You can also get a 525 yen discount if you go on a weekday.
Riding Club Crane is located in the Mizubori area of Tsukuba, which is south of Gran Stage near Banpaku Kinen Koen Station on the Tsukuba Express Line. Take the Tsukuba Express to Banpaku Kinen Koen Station (万博記念公園) and then take TsukuBus Route 9-A (Click to see the schedule. Banpaku Kinen Koen Station is number 18 and Mizubori Iriguchi is number 16 on the schedule.). After about three minutes, get off at Mizubori Iriguchi (水掘入口) and walk for five minutes.
乗馬クラブクレイン茨城 (Riding Club Crane Ibaraki)
Address: 〒300-2654茨城県つくば市水掘410 (〒300-2654 Ibaraki, Tsukuba, Mizubori 410)
Tel: 029-861-8867
Open: 10am and 6pm
Closed: Tuesdays
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Register Now for Tsukuba Marathon
The annual Tsukuba Marathon will be held on Sunday, November 30, 2008. If you want to run in one of the races (full marathon or 10km) this year, you should apply as soon as possible. The official deadline is October 14 (or 19th if you register by internet), but the registrations will close as soon as the space limits are reached. They will accept around 10,000 people for the full marathon and about 3000 people for the 10km race. Both races will probably be full by the end of September.
So, if you want to run in either of these races, please register immediately.
Tsukuba Marathon Office
Tel: 03-5166-0287
Fax: 03-6221-8809
http://www.tsukuba-marathon.com
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Snowbird Ski School
From Rick Weisburd:
My friend Tetsu Miyazaki runs Utrek International Exchange Center, a non-profit organization that fosters cultural exchange and international understanding through a variety of activities. For example they send Japanese kids to homestays abroad and welcome foreign kids for homestays here in Japan. One of their annual activities is the Snowbird Ski School, held in late March in Nagano). This year will be the 32nd time the Snowbird Ski School has been offered.
Snowbird Ski School is held in two sessions. Both are package deals including transportation from Shinjuku, accommodation and meals in the onsen hotel, and instruction. This year the first session is at Kumanoyu 22 to 25 March for 63,800 yen; the second session is at Happo One (Hakuba) 26 to 29 March for 59,800 yen. Four-day lift tickets at either ski area cost 12,000 yen. Equipment rentals are available for 8700 yen for 4 days. The chartered bus departs for Kumanoyu at 8 AM on 22 March from Shinjuku station and the return trip will be on the evening of 25 March. The ride to Hakuba is on an express train from Shinjuku at 9:15 on 26 March. Miyazaki san always assembles an enthusiastic and interesting group for both the on-slope and apres ski activities.
The mountains of the Japan Alps in Nagano get lots of snow; there should be plenty of the white stuff there well into the spring. There are always many skillful instructors on the team, including fluent English speakers. All instructors are certified by the Ski Association of Japan or their own national ski organizations. The years my family joined, we had superb lessons from Hugh and Dolly Armstrong, the
parents of an Olympic gold medalist. My only regret from those trips was that I had no more chances those seasons to practice my much improved skiing techniques. This ski camp is appropriate for everyone
who wants to ski, ranging from those who have never tried through to experts, elementary school student through to senior citizens. Kumanoyu is one of the few resorts in Japan that does not permit
snowboarders, but they are allowed at Happo One.
If you want join either of these terrific trips, please contact Snowbird Ski School (New State Manor-1130, Yoyogi 2-23-1, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 151-0053; Tel 03 3370-5335; Fax 03 3370-5365; Email
info[AT]utrek.org) for applications and more details. Reservations and payments must be received no later than 17 March.
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Sports Day in Japan Commemorates the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games- Why is it in October? ( and a bit about the Tsukuba University Festival)
1964 was a pivotal year in post-war Japanese history. With the inauguration of the first SHINKANSEN bullet train, the introduction of the first color TVs, and most importantly, the hosting of the Olympic Games, it was a year which now symbolizes Japan’s economic recovery and marks its return to the forefront of the international scene after a two decade period of frenzied rebuilding following the total devastation of WWII.
In 1966, the Japanese government designated October 10th as Taiiku no Hi (Sports Day) to commemorate the Games. If you are wondering why October was selected as a day to remember the Summer Olympics, you are not alone. The fact is, however, that in 1966, the Opening Ceremonies were held on the 10th of October! The wise decision to hold the Tokyo Summer Games in Autumn was made in deference to Japans cruelly humid summer weather (why wasn’t the same change made for Beijing?).
Since the year 2000, as part of the HAPPY MONDAY MOVEMENT (having national holidays on Monday to make a 3-day weekend), Taiiku No Hi has been moved to the second Monday of October, giving us a nice break in what is probably Japan’s best season weather-wise ( not this year, though!).
Over the Sports Day weekend you are likely to hear signal fireworks (aizu no hanabi) announcing that school and university sports festivals (UNDO KAI) are being held. For the Japanese, these events are MAJOR markers of the passage of years. It is common for grandparents to come from afar to be present, and in Tsukuba, parents often go out in the middle of the night to stake out a good place to put down their plastic sheet for the next morning’s festivities. You can get a glimpse of what goes on at an UNDOKAI on YouTube.
If you turn on the TV on a Sports Day morning, you will most probably see some of Japan’s Olympic medalists and other celebrated athletes giving workshops for schoolchildren. Two years ago I remember watching scenes of little Aiko (the daughter of the Crown Prince and Princess) running (victoriously, of course) in her first Sports Festival.
Many Tsukubans set aside time every year during the second weekend in October to attend Tsukuba University’s three day Culture Festival. All of those who do have their own favorite attractions. For me, there is the music, especially the jazz cafe and the Andean Folk Music Troupe. With a wide range of cheap and delicious foods, live music in all genres, arcade games, scientific displays, and technological exhibitions all served up with youthful enthusiasm, for me the GAKUEN-SAI is the true TSUKUBA FESTIVAL (Tsukuba Matsuri).
As I have written before, one noticeable thing for many graduates of foreign universities is the lack of any political or INTELLECTUAL presence in the Tsukuba University festival. In recent years, however, environmental awareness has started to be felt with several booths selling organic produce or showing data from research on GREENER LIVING. Still walking the length of the campus this weekend, I felt pessimistic about recent calls to lower the voting age in Japan to 18.
For LOTS OF INTERESTING DETAILS ON THE TOKYO OLYMPICS SEE THIS PAGE and THIS ONE. (You should read more about this event!)
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TACHI AOI (立葵) and why the Mito Hollyhock Soccer team is INCORRECTLY named ! ( Tsukublog exclusive)
By Avi Landau
In the summer months, you cannot help but notice clusters of tachi-aoi (hollyhock) growing wild on the sides of country roads or beside vegetable patches. You can’t miss them because of their height. As tall as sunflowers but not as heavy looking, they are graceful yet imposing and come in red, white and pink blossoms which bloom up and down their long, lean stems.
It is my interest in these very common, uncelebrated flowers that led me to the discovery of a curious state of affairs in the world of Japanese-English translation — especially in regard to the names of certain plants.
Knowing these roadside flowers to be tachi-aoi (立葵) and confirming that the same flowers were called hollyhock in English, I tried to learn more about their history and cultural associations. At first I was surprised that the ancient Aoi Matsuri Festival (葵祭), one of the most famous in all of Japan, was often referred to in English language guidebooks and textbooks as the HOLLYHOCK FESTIVAL.
I also discovered that the J-League 2 soccer club, which represents the capital of Ibaraki Prefecture, was called The Mito Hollyhock. This name was chosen because the crest of the great Tokugawa Family which ruled the Mito Domain for centuries consisted of 3 futaba-aoi leaves. This crest has been made extremely famous by the classic TV series Mito Komon. The Wikipedia article on hollyhock also said that that flower ( the hollyhock) was the symbol of the Mito Clan.
At first I was excited. These flowers that I ALONE seemed to be interested in, appeared to have highly distinguished historical and cultural associations. I wanted to write about this.
Luckily , before I commited anything to paper, I started to dig further.
I did this because I still had lingering doubts about the connection between aoi ( of the ancient festival and of the Mito Clan) and tachi-aoi ( the common roadside flower). I had been to the Aoi Matsuri and seen that the Aoi associated with that festival was a leaf of some sort. I had even taken one as a souvenir and kept it in my wallet., Also the seal of the Mito Clan consisted of 3 leaves (representing the 3 branches of the Tokugawa Family).
After comparing them, I found that the leaves on the Mito Crest and the aoi leaf in my wallet looked NOTHING like the leaves of the hollyhock (tachi-aoi).Photos in field guides also showed me that tachi-aoi was the roadside flower, but I could find no pictures of aoi in any bookstore flower guide.
To make a long story short, I became slightly obsessed with getting to the bottom of this mystery. At the library I was able to confirm that the scientific name of tachi-aoi(hollyhock) was Althaae rosea , and that the symbol of the Mito Tokugawa and of the Aoi Matsuri was a plant with NO COMMON ENGLISH NAME but known as Asarum caulescens among botanists, and as futaba-aoi among the Japanese (see photo. These two plants have NO CONNECTION other than being PLANTS and having the character aoi (葵)in their names.
Finally, I went to the Tsukuba Botanical Garden to consult with Dr. Tadamu Matsumoto. He was also astonished that the Mito Soccer team had been called Hollyhock, as there was no botanical connection between futaba-aoi (the highly esteemed leaves on Mito Komon’s emblem) and the common roadside tachi-aoi (hollyhock).
There is obviously a big problem with translation when dealing with the names of plants which are not familiar to the translators. These types of errors occur not only in Wikipedia and blogs but also in respected journals, dictionaries and encyclopedias. I fell victim to such a mistaken translation when writing about the Boy’s Day (Tango No Sekku) traditions in Japan (Tango no Sekku over the Ages).
In my article I mistakenly wrote that the Japanese put irises(the Japanese term is shobu 菖蒲） in their baths and on their roofs on that day. I had gotten this translation from very respectable source books. However, I later realized that the shobu used is NOT an iris (hana-shobu) at all but a completely unrelated plant called CALAMUS (related to taro) by botanists and which was believed by the ancient Chinese and Japanese to have the power to expel evil and bad luck.
For me hollyhocks are amazing flowers and are worthy of having a soccer team named after them. But I’m sure that the citizens of Mito would not be pleased to learn that their team is named after the TACHI-AOI and NOT the revered FUTABA-AOI.
It’s like calling the Seibu Baseball club The Azarashi (sea lions) instead of The Lions. Why not? They are both mammals!
Hollyhock (tachi-aoi) in front of a home in Tsukuba`s Hanamuro neighborhood
Postscript:
The day after I wrote and posted this piece, I chanced upon what might be the actual source (or very near it) of the misuse of the English flower name hollyhock as used to represent futaba-aoi leaves used in the Aoi Matsuri Festival and in the crest of the Mito Tokugawa. I had a few minutes to spare before heading out for the day and I settled in a chair and browsed the books nearest to me.
There was Ivan Morris’ translation of the Makura no soshi (枕草子) in the Columbia University edition. Leafing through the text, I found Chapter 17, with the heading “Things That Arouse A Fine Memory Of the Past” on page 51. The first item listed was dried hollyhock. There it was. But could anyone understand this translation? I hurriedly looked for my Japanese version and found that the original text read “kareta aoi”, something quite different, even if the aoi referred to were hollyhock.
Morris’ translation implies something purposely dried, for medicine, or as an ingredient for food. What Sei Shonagon is referring to however is the discovery of the aoi leaves of some past festival which had been stashed away in somewhere as a keepsake and are discovered all dried out and withered bringing back memories of festivals past.
Morris actually made a footnote for his hollyhock translation on page 284 which reads from the sixth line: I am grateful to professor Cranston for pointing out (Harvard Journal Of Asiatic Studies vol.xxix p. 260) that the aoi used in the Kamo Festival is not althea rosa (hollyhock) but asarum caulescens, which is a form of snake weed or bistort with paired, flesh-colored flowers. A more accurate translation of Aoi Matsuri would therefore be Bistort Festival, BUT I TRUST BOTANISTS WILL NOT BE OFFENDED IF I CALL IT HOLLYHOCK FESTIVAL (emphasis mine)!
One of the legends of Japanese-English translation, can thus be found guilty in my opinion of being flippant about the simple naming of things. I guess he felt that hollyhock sounded nice. But since that actual flower (tachi aoi) is so common Morris’ legacy in this case can lead to embarrassing mistakes, such as hearing that the roadside flowers are hollyhock and then saying “Oh,those are the flowers used in the Aoi Matsuri”, or “That is the symbol of the Tokugawa Family!”
I am a great admirer of Morris’ work, but in this case I think he was WRONG. Let’s be more careful, everyone, and verify the plants and animals we are translating!
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