Trip to Nagasaki (2) - Lantern Festival

In Japan, there are three major Chinatowns, and Shinchi Chinatown in Nagasaki is the oldest. Nagasaki Lantern Festival is originated from celebration of Chinese New Year. After leaving Dejima, we got on the tram to go to Hamano-machi Arcade. But the arcade was crowded with people, and we found it difficult to eat at a restaurant we thought of. We went to the Chinatown and managed to find something to eat. It was hottoek filled with fried vegetables sold on the main street. 

As it was cold, it was nice to have hot hottoek. I thought it was a Korean food, but I learned later that it originated from Chinese merchants who immigrated to Korea.

The first attraction we saw was dragon dance. It originated from China and was originally performed to pray for rain. In the 18th century, people in Nagasaki learned this dance from residents of the Chinese settlement and began to perform it in Nagasaki Kunchi, a festival of Suwa Shrine. It is a very famous performance art in Nagasaki, and my mother had seen it once on TV. But it was worthy to see it on the spot! Four long dragons were moving dynamically with support of teams of people. I heard powerful sounds of musical instruments such as a gong and drum. 

At the end of a concert, the audience often shout “Encore.” For the dragon dance in Nagasaki, they shout “Mottekoi.” The hostess of the attractions taught us this word, and we repeated it several times. After the performance here, the dragon dance was continued on the street.

There was a pause of 30 minutes, so we walked around for a while. At the entrance of Minato Park where attractions were held, there were many colorful lanterns, creating a splendid atmosphere.

For Japanese people, 2019 is year of the Wild Boar. In China and many other countries, it is year of the Pig.

I saw also a typical Chinese character "福 (fortune)" for New Year's celebration.

The next performance was lion dance. Though we have lion dance also in Japan, it was Chinese lion dance. The lions were more colorful and prettier than Japanese ones.

After watching it for a while, we left the park. As we walked, we saw lanterns reflected on the surface on water. It was a dreamlike view.

We took the tram to Oura Cathedral. Before we returned to the hotel, we dropped in Confucian Shrine. It is a magnificent shrine built in 1893 by the Qing government and people of Chinese heritage in Japan. In front of the main building, there are stone statues of the 72 sages standing in a line on both sides. They were spectacular especially at night. Also In this shrine, we could see beautiful lanterns and get some food. I had corn soup to warm me up. They had a concert that attracted much audience.

Finally, we returned to the hotel, but we had still one place to go. Before we went to see Dejima and the lantern festival, we reserved a free bus ride and bought ropeway tickets at the front desk to go to the summit of Inasayama. It is a mountain with a height of 333m and located near the center of the city. The night view from there is one of the must-see views in Nagasaki. 

At 20:38, we got on the bus. It was convenient because the bus picked up passengers in front of major hotels in Nagasaki. Though it was the last bus of the day, there were still many passengers. It took less than 20 minutes to get to Inasayama from the hotel ANA Crowne Plaza and only 5 minutes to get to the summit by ropeway.It was cold, but air was clear. The night view was very beautiful with lights of countless buildings and the dark sea. 

We returned to the hotel around 22:40. Our long day was over.

Trip to Nagasaki (1) - Long way to go

Last week-end, my mother and I went to see Nagasaki Lantern Festival. It was a 2-day trip. First, we took Shinkansen Kodama that left Hamamatsu at 7:49. After arriving at Nagoya at 8:39, we changed to Shinkansen Nozomi. In the train, my mother had a box lunch she bought there, and I ate some bagels I took from Hamamatsu. We arrived at Hakata in Kyushu, the island nearest to Asian mainland, at 12:07. Hakata is a district of Fukuoka. It’s a big city with a population of more than 158 million. From there, you can go to Busan in South Korea by ferry, which takes only about 3 hours! Since the next train would leave at 12:55, we walked around in the station building, seeing souvenir shops. Hakata is famous for its traditional clay dolls called Hakata ningyo.

Because Doll’s Day on March 3 was approaching, there were also dolls for the festival.

My mother already bought her first souvenir there. After that, we went to take the local train to Nagasaki. The seats in the train were comfortable. When we arrived at Nagasaki, it was 14:50. So it took 7 hours from Hamamatsu. Beside the station building, there was a big object of the lantern festival. Later, I heard that it was used as a lantern on the festival site three years ago.

At the tourist information center in the station, we bought a one-day ticket for tram, and went to the hotel we would stay. It was ANA Crowne Plaza Nagasaki Gloverhill near Oura Cathedral. After leaving our baggage there, we took the tram again to go to Dejima, one of the historical spots in the town.

In 1633, the shogunate began to close the country to foreigners. Dejima is a small artificial island made in 1636 to accommodate Portuguese who lived in Nagasaki to prevent spread of Christianity and strictly control the trade. Next year, the Shimabara Rebellion occurred, with a young Christian Amakusa Shiro as a leader. In 1939, it was prohibited for Portuguese ships to come to Japan. After that the Dutch trading house was moved to Dejima. During the national isolation period that lasted for more than 200 years, only Holland and China were permitted to have trade with Japan. Dejima was the only place for trade between Japan and Europe, and many kinds of goods including sugar, spice, and vegetables, as well as Western culture and science were introduced to Japan through this island. After the national isolation policy ended, other ports were opened in Japan, and the center of the trade in Nagasaki was also moved to foreign settlement around the present Glover Garden. In 1951, Nagasaki started a plan to restore Dejima, and sixteen buildings have been rebuilt until now.

My mother and I got on the tram at Oura Cathedral and got off at Shinchi Chinatown. It was only a few minutes to Dejima. Its area is about 1.5ha, and you can see its miniature there.

In Dejima, you can see people in old costumes.

This is a room from Chief Factor’s Residence.

I didn’t take any more pictures in Dejima because we didn’t have much time. But warehouses were also interesting to see. One of the most memorable things was a big balance scale to weigh sugar. From Dejima in Nagasaki, sugar imported from abroad was transported all over Japan.

Hot sweet potato snacks on cold days

It has been cold recently. The other day, when I visited my relative’s house, my aunt set out a snack for me. It was dried sweet potatoes warmed up in the microwave oven. They had a beautiful color and looked fine.

Though I like dried sweet potatoes, I usually eat them straight out of the pack. So, this may have been my first time to eat warmed ones. They were soft, sweet, and suitable to eat on a cold day! Since they had a viscous texture, I thought that they were surely Annoimo, a kind of sweet potatoes known for its sweetness and viscosity. Later, I heard that they were Beniharuka, which is also a popular kind of sweet potatoes with a rich taste.

After that I felt like eating some more sweet potatoes. So, I bought annoimo today in the basement of May One in the station building. Annoimo are unique sweet potatoes originally grown in  Tanegashima Island of Kagoshima Prefecture. They have become popular in recent years, but not every supermarket has them at this time of year. So, I had a luck.

It is easy to distinguish Annoimo from other kinds of sweet potatoes without any label. Here you see a potato, Annoimo, and common sweet potato. Annoimo is bigger than a potato but much smaller and paler than other kinds of sweet potatoes.

It is said that the best way to eat Annoimo is to bake and they become even sweeter when baked. But it takes time to bake at home, so I cut them with an apple and cooked them together in a pot with a pinch of salt added. Finally, I sprinkled chai masala on top.

Maybe I cooked them too long because the apple slices fell apart. But Annoimo were sweet and warmed me up.

Visit to Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments (4)

The museum has also an excellent collection of Japanese keyboard instruments, many of which were made by Yamaha. The company was named after the surname of its founder Torakusu Yamaha.

Torakusu Yamaha was born in 1851 in Wakayama Prefecture. His father was an astronomer, and Torakusu got interested in machines as a child. Later, he learned watchmaking in Nagasaki and worked at a medical instrument store in Osaka. Then, He moved to Hamamatsu and worked as a medical instrument technician, doing some other work such as repair of watches.

In 1887, Torakusu Yamaha was asked to repair a broken reed organ of an elementary school. At that time, reed organs were very precious and expensive musical instruments because they were imported from abroad. The one in the elementary school in Hamamatsu was made in America, and no one knew how to repair it. Torakusu Yamaha found that it was easy to repair, because it was just two springs that were broken. But he took time and sketched the mechanism of the reed organ so that he could make one by himself. He expected that all the elementary schools in Japan would purchase reed organs for their music class in the future and wanted to provide Japanese reed organs at a much lower price compared with foreign ones.

With help of Kisaburo Kawai, a metallic ornament artisan, Torakusu Yamaha made his first reed organ. They carried it to an organization in Tokyo (present Tokyo University of the Arts) by themselves to have it checked, walking all the way there (about 250 km). It proved to be a failure because it was not tuned. Then, Torakusu Yamaha learned musical theory and succeeded to make a full-fledged reed organ in 1888. Next year, he established a company to manufacture reed organs. Though it was dissolved, he established Nippon Gakki Co., Ltd. in 1897 which was renamed as Yamaha Corporation in 1987. In the museum, I could see some of their old reed organs and pianos. This reed organ was made in 1909. It was well preserved.

Until now, Yamaha has been manufacturing many kinds of musical instruments. I admire the founder's strong will and efforts. Their music school is popular here, and I used to go there as a child. The museum has also a collection of modern musical instruments including synthesizers and electric guitars.

Finally, I went to the Hands-on Room to see if I could play any musical instrument. There were children and their parents playing the piano, hand bells, morin khuur from Mongolia, drums, and many other interesting musical instruments whose names I didn’t know. I tried this drum. It is klong ae from Thailand and has a deep nice sound.

Hand bells seemed to be popular in this room. Above them, there was a score of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” I thought the sound of the hand bells matches this song.

I stayed at the museum for more than two hours. If you are a music lover, I strongly recommend to visit there.

Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments
Address: 3-9-1 Chuo, Naka-ku, Hamamatsu-shi, Shizuoka
Tel: 053-451-1128
Admission fee: Adults  800 yen
                         High school students  400 yen
                         Elementary school and junior high school students, persons over 70 years old,
                         disabled persons  Free
Open hours: 9:30 - 17:00
Closed: Every 2nd and 4th Wednesday (except in August), Cleaning Day, December 29 to January 3
Access: 5-minute walk from JR Hamamatsu Station

Visit to Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments (3)

From 14:00, there was a guided tour for European musical instruments. First, we went to see the keyboard instruments. This is a clavichord.

The guide played it to let us hear the sound. It was elegant though quieter than that of the piano. After that she explained the mechanism to create the sound. But the most interesting thing I heard was that Mozart, the famous composer, used to carry his clavichord in a horse-drawn carriage. I wondered how because the clavichord in the museum was big and seemed to be heavy.

The next musical instrument was the harpsichord. While I was taking a note, a staff member of the museum came to me and said that you can’t use a pen in the exhibition rooms. She recommended me to borrow a pencil in the entrance, and I had to go upstairs to do so. It was a pity that I missed the most of the guide’s explanation of the harpsichord. This one is made in France in 1765, the age of Marie Antoinette.

 

Then, the guide took us to see the collection of wind instruments. She explained the origin of the trombone and played the sackbut (old type of the trombone) and the trombone. I was surprised that she could play both keyboard instruments and the brass instruments very well. According to her, the museum will have a concert with the suckbut and other musical instruments on March 17.

The guided tour was very interesting. On Sundays, they have two guided tours that start 11:00 and 14:00 respectively. Unfortunately, there is no guided tour in English, but self-guided audio headsets are available.

Modern European musicals instruments are familiar to Japanese people, but old instruments were exotic and very interesting to see. I liked this black harp lute made around 1825 in London. The dital harp beside it was also beautiful.

Near the harpsichords, there were old pianos. This piano made around 1860 had candlestands. I imagined how it looked great when it was played in a dark room in old days with candles lit.

 

Visit to Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments (2)

The museum has exhibition rooms also in the basement. Immediately beside the stairs, there is a big wooden object, which I had mistaken as just a sculpture. Actually, it is a tam tam slit drum from Vanuatu. It is one of the largest ones in the world and was used for rituals. The space in front of it is called “Tenku (sky) Hall” where concerts are held sometimes. The birds near the drum are sound reflecting boards to improve the acoustic of the hall. They are herons respected by people in New Guinea as a spirit or god.

In the exhibition of African musical instruments, there are many drums. The big brown drum is a Nigerian dimkedim made of two big gourds. It is no longer produced.

These are talkative drums used for communication. They can send messages with different rhythms of drums. There were also talkative flutes above them. I wanted to see how they were used. These drums and flutes were one of the most interesting items in this museum.

I saw another interesting musical instrument from Africa: a marimba from Tanzania.

I asked one of the museum staff members if the marimba originated from Africa. According to her, the marimba was spread from Africa to South America with the slave trade, and after that, the marimba was developed to become one of the musical instruments used in orchestras. As she explained, I could see marimbas from South America.

I wondered what kind of musical instruments they had in North America. I remembered an American folksong “Oh Susanna” and the banjo. According to the description in the museum, the banjo also originated from Africa. Behind the banjos displayed, there was mirrors so that we could see the beautiful design on the backside.

The America section had other interesting items such as quenas and maracas. There were so many things to see in the museum. I thought it might be interesting to learn the world history through musical instruments. If you study the background of each musical instrument, you may be able to learn quite a lot.

Visit to Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments (1)

Since long time ago, Hamamatsu has been known as a city of musical instruments because headquarters of leading musical instrument manufacturers such as Yamaha, Kawai, and Roland are located here. In 1995, the city opened Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments as a part of “Development of City of Music” policies. It is the only public museum of this kind in Japan. The museum has a collection of about 1500 items from all over the world. As I had nothing to do last Sunday, I spent some time there in the afternoon. 

As I entered the museum, I saw a gorgeous musical instrument from Myanmar. It was a hsaing waing used for Buddhist rituals, dance, and drama. 

On the right of the floor, there is a set of gamelan from Java. I think it is one of the most well-known and eye-catching musical instruments in the museum. Though musical instruments in the exhibition rooms are untouchable, you can hear the sound of many items from videos or headphones. As with the hsaing waing, I could see how it was played.

There were also some musical instruments from Korea. These are a kayagum and other similar musical instruments. They reminded me of Korean historical dramas I like. In one of such dramas, I have heard a famous folksong “Arirang” played with a kayagum. It was very impressive.

I like also some Chinese songs. Every time I visit this museum, I hear a part of “Zai Na Yaoyuan De Difang (草原情歌)” played with an erhu from the headphone. This song is widely known in Japan. While listening to the music, I took a picture of an erhu hung on the wall with its bow.

  

According to their website, this museum exhibits almost all kinds of Japanese musical instruments. These are used for gagaku or ancient court music.  

In a corner, you can try to play a Japanese song “Sakura Sakura (cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms)” with a koto, a stringed instrument. I saw some children playing it with their parents.

In addition to exhibition, the museum has often events such as concerts and workshops. Last Sunday, they had a workshop for children to make a little shakuhachi or Japanese flute. I’m not a child, but it may have been interesting to join it.