Chika
栗 – Chestnuts
From September through October is the season to harvest chestnuts in Japan. While chestnuts are not particularly popular in the U.S., they are very popular in Japan. We have many different ways to prepare chestnuts. They can be simply roasted, mixed in with rice and cooked together, baked into either European style cakes or Japanese style sweets, etc.
米 – Rice
The Rice harvest in Japan comes in the fall. Rice from the new crop (新米 or shinmai) is a bit different from rice harvested pervious year and stored (古米 or komai), although this does not mean that the new rice is necessarily better. New rice is stickier and softer though, and also looks whiter and shinier, so it is definitely more popular. If kept properly rice will remain good for more than a year, and some people actually prefer old rice over new. It depends on what you are making, some dishes taste better with older rice. The rice from two years ago is called kokomai (古古米), the rice from three years ago is kokokomai (古古古米), etc. For every year that passes, the name will have extra “ko”.
金木犀 – Kinmokusei
“Kinmokusei (金木犀)” is a tree whose blossoms have the most amazing fragrance; at least I think so. 😉 Kinmokusei blossoms are orange and bloom from the end of September through October in Tokyo area. This tree was introduced from China, and I have not seen it in the U.S. Kinmokusei is deciduous, and almost all Kinmokusei trees in Japan are male. There is another version of this tree called “Ginmokusei (銀木犀)”. Ginmokusei blossoms are white instead of orange. I have seen Ginmokusei trees in the U.S., but to me their fragrance is not as good as Kinmokusei. I wish I could attach the fragrance of Kinmokusei along with this photo for you.
シン・ゴジラ – Shin Godzilla
In December 2014, Toho announced that they are making a new Godzilla movie. Their last movie was made in 2004, and the new one will be released in Summer 2016. Last week (9/23/15) Toho introduced the cast of this new movie, and announced that the title will be “Shin Godzilla (シン・ゴジラ)” which can be translated in several ways as “New, True, or God Gozilla.”
俳句 – Haiku
“Haiku” is a type of Japanese poetry. In Japan a haiku consists of three lines that contain a total of 17 kana letters; 5 in the first line, 7 in the second line, and 5 in the last line. As you can see, a haiku is very short. But in Japanese a haiku must also include a seasonal word, kigo (季語) and a cutting word, kireji (切れ字) that interrupts the poem or draws special attention to its ending. “Senryū (川柳)” is 5-7-5-letter poetry without kigo and kireji. If you are interested in haiku, but you think it is too difficult, you may want to try senryū.
Gugure! Kokkuri-san
“Kokkuri-san (コックリさん)” is a special type of Japanese fortune telling similar to what people in the West call “table-rapping.” It involves necromancy or summoning the spirits of the dead to answer questions. In this case players summon an animal ghost (mainly fox) and ask it questions. The ghost is supposed to answer questions by moving a coin across a sheet of paper that has numbers and alphabets on it. “Gugure! Kokkuri-san ( 繰繰れ！コックリさん )” is a title of an anime. In this story a little girl plays Kokkuri-san and ends up being possessed by ghosts. It is very cute and funny, one of my favorites.
You can learn Japanese from me while we watch an anime like this one!
線香花火 – Senkō Sparkler
One type of firework that has been used in Japan since the Edo period is called “senkō sparkler”; probably the smallest sparkler in Japan. In the Tokyo area, a senkō sparkler is made out of twisted Japanese paper (washi) with a small amount of gunpowder wrapped inside at one end. Because it is made out of paper, a senkō sparkler is very fragile. You have to stay very still after you light it, otherwise, the firework will break off from the paper and die. Unlike the common image of fireworks, the senkō sparkler is tiny and fragile. Yet many Japanese people love senkō sparklers precisely because of this uniqueness.
You can watch a video of senkō sparkler here.
Illustration from http://estar.jp/.pc/_ilst_view?w=22677509
かき氷 – Snow Cone
In Japan we have snow cones just like the ones in the U.S; shaved ice and syrup . We also have snow cones with ice cream and fruit on top, and we even have snow cones with sweet red beans and sticky rice cake on top called ” Ujikintoki (宇治金時)” . Ujikintoki is usually a Matcha green tea ( 抹茶 ) flavored snow cone, often served with Matcha or vanilla ice cream.
ラムネ – Ramune
