Lecture on Japanese Culture

Last Friday (5/4) I was asked by IU's EASC (East Asian Studies Center) to do a video-conference lecture on Japanese culture for middle-school students (12-13 years old) in Michigan. (My end was at the video-conference room at IU's International Program Center, and the other end was at a classroom with video-conference facilities in this middle school in Michigan.)

According to Patricia, a social studies teacher in this middle school contacted EASC to provide four 50-minute sessions (with a different set of children each time) and I did two sessions in the afternoon. From what I gradually gathered, EASC is a resource center for teachers and professors nationwide, and teachers not only in Indiana but also in any other parts of the country can contact EASC for resources or a help such as outreach workshops and video-conference lectures (like the ones I did) as a part of their teaching in East Asian cultures. I find it quite neat and was very happy to be of help to such teachers who are interested in teaching their students about East Asian cultures. IU's EASC must be one of the most excellent resources center for the teachers in the US, since I also learned that IU's East Asian Language and Culture Department, with which EASC is affiliated, has long been among the top 10 of "most excellent East Asian Studies Departments" in the U.S.

My presentation went quite well for both sessions, except for some frustration I felt due to a conflict between the teacher's views about Japan (which I found quite stereotypical) and my aim to provide the children with somthing beyond stereotypes. But I believe that both the teacher and children enjoyed my PowerPoint presentation and thus by the end of each session their views about Japanese culture were definitely broadened, even just for a little. And I found it so refreshing that these children are so curious and motivated to ask a lot of questions on their own all through the session, compared to my experience in teaching Japanese university students... Well, I guess we need to try to find a balance between the two extremes, because, to be honest, I also found that these American kids are a little too rushing in asking their questions to listen to the teacher/speaker more carefully and patiently. (Most kids were raising their hand at the moment I utter one sentence to each question ^^;)...

But overall, it was a very neat experience and I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks Patricia!

Calligraphy Workshop

Last Monday (4/23) I volunteered as a staff for a calligraphy workshop organized by IU's East Asian Studies Center (EASC).
The workshop took place in Ivy Tech college in Terre Haute, a town 1.5 hour drive away from Bloomington, and the event was scheduled from 9AM to 3PM, so six of us (EASC staff members and volunteers including me) left Bloomington together (in a van which Patricia drove) at 6:30AM (@@ ... ). But in spite of the early start, we all enjoyed the drive talking to each other and finding some common interests among us.
Margaret, the associate director of EASC, have lived in Tokyo, Japan for three years while she was working on her dissertation on Kobo Abe, a Japanese surrealistic novelist, at Tokyo University. Patricia also spent two years in Japan as AET, and Jessica, an EASC part-time staff is a graduate student in Chinese Literature and has been to China a few times. Aiying is a visiting scholar from China and her field is comparative culture between China and the US. And finally, James Min-Ching Yang, the calligraphy artist/teacher and the guest speaker of the day, is a retired professor in English and American Literature leading his retirement life here in Bloomington with his wife Jenny.
I found James's career and life experiences fascinating in many ways: He is originally from Taiwan, and he taught for more than 30 years in a university in Taiwan after graduating from English department at IU. So, he said, all through his life he has been serving as a sort of "bridge" between the East and the West: during his long years in Taiwan he was enthusiastically teaching English/American literature, language and culture to Taiwanese students, and now, here in Bloomington, he is devoted to retrieving a rich tradition and history of his own Taiwanese and Chinese cultures and teaching them to people in the US. Calligraphy and erhu (a Chinese stringed instrument) playing are apparently the two biggest among such interests of his these days.
I felt an affinity to him because I have considered myself as a kind of bridge between the two cultures too, having taught English language and culture to students in Japan for 5 years and now starting to learn and teach about Japanese culture and language to people in the U.S. And it turned out that he has wanted to learn Japanese language whereas myself wanting to learn Chinese calligrpahy, so we agreed to start exchanging lessons soon, which is great!

The calligraphy workshop was very successful. The timetable had a 1.5 hour lecture on Chinese Calligraphy and Seal making and 1 hour hands-on calligraphy workshop in the morning, and half an hour hands-on seal making workshop after lunch. James's presentation prepared by Mac's Keynote presentation software was great (he said he started using computer itself last year when his son bought him a mac for a Christmas gift, and he spent about 6 months to make this presentation on mac. I found it quite amazing that he could make it so well within only a year of computer experience).
All the 25 students (half from Terre Haute and half from Urbana-Champagne in Illinois) seem to have enjoyed both the lecture and workshop, and some of them made a really impressive piece of work for a complete beginner (you can see some of their work in the pictures below).

Strawberry Jam and Strawberry Mousse

A few days ago I bought a lot of strawberries that were on sale at a supermarket, and with them I made some strawberry jam and strawberry mousse last Sunday, which seemed to bring spring to our home.

I like homemade jam because I can make it according to my taste (not as sweet - about 70% less sugar than the commercial ones - and thus pleasantly fresh and tangy). To my relief, Amar also liked fresh homemade jam, so we enjoyed it together with a slice of my raisin-yeast loaf fresh from oven on that day.

Teaching Calligraphy at Middle School as a Volunteer

Last Saturday, I helped out at the International Fair at the Bachlor Middle School in Bloomington as a volunteer to introduce and teach Japanese calligraphy to middle school students (from 12 to 15 years of age) who visited the fair. There was another Japanese volunteer, Hagiko, and together with her we did calligraphy with perhaps around 20-30 people including several adults who also wanted to try it.

Most children wanted to write their own names, so Hagiko and I coined Chinese characters to copy the sound (and to have a nice meaning whenever possible). We wrote them together with the children, one stroke at a time. It was quite fun!
I also enjoyed talking with Hagiko and Patricia during the breaks.

Here are some photos from the event:


( The last two photos: African Gunboot Dance and Korean Drum Performance)

My Piano Teacher's Recital

Yesterday (Friday the 13th), Amar and I went to one of the Graduate Chamber Recitals at IU's Jacobs School of Music, in which my piano teacher Natsuki played as an accompaniest.

She did a really great job, and we thoroughly enjoyed the concert as well as being very proud of Natsuki.
She is a Masters student in the Jacobs School of Music (which is considered one of the best music schools in the U.S.), and I have been really enjoying learning the piano with her.

The number they played was Trio No.1 in D Minor, Op. 49 by Felix Mendelssohn, and Natsuki accompanied her fellow senior students, Shu-Ting and Yeon, two Chinese doctors in Violin and Cello, respectively.

Though I have a long way ahead of me to be able to play in a trio or ensemble, it would be my dream come true if I can play with a cellist or a violinist some day... But at the moment, I am content with practicing smaller pieces like Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier, a sonata of Mozart's, and a Prelude of Rachmaninoff's (these three are the pieces I am practicing right now). (Among all the pieces I have practiced, I feel most comfortable and relaxed when I play Bach - and he is my most favorite composer to listen to, too.)

Korean Dumplings - ISC cooking session (2)

Yesterday, at the International Spouses Circle (ISC) gathering, we had the second cooking session of this semester. (For the first cooking session, please see the March 3rd article). The dish we tried was Korean dumplings. Three Korean women (Jaesun, Myungsun, and HeeMyung) explained and demonstrated how to make a filling (I was totally surprised and impressed to know how many ingredients are put together in the filling for Korean dumplings - in Chinese and Japanese traditional dumplings/gyozas, we usually put only ground pork, mushroom and chinese cabbage (or chinese garlic chives) for the main ingredients, but in Korean dumplings, they put kimchee, mungbean sprouts, korean sweetpotato starch noodle and tofu to go along with the pork!), and then everyone put the filling into wrappers and shaped them together, which was a lot of fun.

Apart from the dumplings we made there, we also had a chicken-cucumber salad brought by Yen (from China) and daikon-radish sweet-and-sour pickles brought by Myungsun as appetizers. Both were very nice and people especially loved Myungsun's daikon pickles. We have a similar daikon-radish sweet-and-sour pickles in Japan too, but I never imagined that this dish can be so popular among people from different countries, especially among those from the Western culture. Well, I was totally wrong and am happy to find it out ;-)


(left: Three teachers of the day: Myungsun, HeeMyung and Jaesun right: Daikon-radish pickles that were so popular!)


(left: Enjoying eating and chatting... right: Sandy, the organizer of the ISC)

Handmade Tablecloth - finished!

I started working on this tablecloth two weeks ago - and I finally finished it today, together with matching placemats, napkins and a table runner! (Hooray!)

Our dining table, which we bought together at an antique/used furniture shop near our previous house in Bloomington, is a very large round table (about 75 inches =190 cm diameter), and so we couldn't find any readymade tablecloth that fits the table on the market. So I thought it would be nice to make one by myself, partly for our second wedding anniversary - according to Amar's mum, it is a tradition to exchange something with cotton for the second wedding anniversary gift. I chose the colors (navy and creamy white) as they are favorite colors of both Amar and myself.

I made the tablecloth as reversible - so I took pictures with the other side up too (the left picture below). I also tried out a table set-up with a Japanese indigo-dyed tablecloth that my mother gave me before my move to the U.S. using it as a top piece on my navy tablecloth (the right picture below). The indigo-dyed tablecloth is a very nice piece, and I'm very glad I can finally use it now that I made a bigger matching tablecloth :-)

Easter Sunday Dinner

For our Easter Sunday dinner this year, I cooked a rack of lamb. Just like making hot cross buns, cooking a rack of lamb (or any part of lamb) was the first experience for me. Living with a Kiwi husband in the U.S., gives me plenty of opportunities to try new things and I like that ;-)

I chose a fairly small rack of lamb and roasted it in the oven coated with parsley-mint-garlic-flavored bread crumbs. It turned out quite successful, and to my great relief, Amar appreciated and enjoyed it a lot too! Here is what he said: "Well, my family and friends in NZ will be totally impressed if you can cook lamb like this! If you cook Japanese food for them, it's nice..., but if you can cook NZ food just as good as they can, that's a totally different story ;-)!" ( ... ha-ha. is that so? :-)

The bottle of wine Amar chose for the Easter dinner was a Pinot Noir from Oregon - it was very nice wine too, and went along very well with both the lamb and the chocolate mousse I made for a dessert.

English Traditional Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday Morning

I made these traditional hot cross buns for Easter this year for the first time in my life, as Amar persistantly pleaded for "hot cross buns for a Good Friday breakfast treat".
I referred to three different recipes from three different bread cookbooks including two borrowed from the public library. In the end, I went for the recipe from the book that I own, with a few changes made in favor of my preferences (such as reducing the amount of sugar and butter).

These buns turned out quite well for a first try: Amar was very happy with my buns, as well as the fact that he got to have real traditional hot cross buns for a Good Friday breakfast, as he used to do every year in NZ ;-)

According to these cookbooks I referred to, hot cross buns were born in pagan England, but somehow it became a tradition in the UK and English-speaking countries to eat hot cross buns on Good Friday morning. Some people still believe, one book says, that there is a curative power when you eat these buns on Good Friday morning. (Notes: However, it seems that hot cross buns are not so common in the U.S., as all the several American friends we asked if they eat hot cross buns for Good Friday answered that they only know of the cross buns from a nursery rhyme but never actually tasted them. Of which Amar said to me, "A sad life, isnt't it..." with a sigh and a wink.)

As I was so pleased with these buns, I made them again on Easter Sunday and shared some with two family friends of ours. When I was making the second batch, Amar's mum Christine and her husband Peter happened to "call" us for a video chat on Skype, and they saw me putting the crosses on the buns before baking and brushing syrup onto them after the baking was done! At both ends of the video phone, we all found it very funny :-)

These pictures are taken by Amar while I was making the first batch of hot cross buns on Thursday night:


(Good Friday Breakfast with Hot Cross Buns)

Tea Ceremony Demonstration

Yesterday, I was invited by the "Bloomington Conversation Club", a kind of social club composed of middle-aged and senior women (mostly the wives of IU faculty and company executives) living in Bloomington, to demonstrate Japanese tea ceremony as one of their monthly lectures to learn about other cultures.

According to one of the members I talked with over the coffee and cake preceding the lecture and demonstration, the Bloomington Conversation Club has a history of more than 100 years: back then, women were not allowed to go out nor even visit friends freely by themselves, and so the club started as an excuse for women to gather and socialize with each other, since they were allowed to go out if for educational reasons - such as lectures with an invited speaker. Each monthly meeting always starts with coffee/tea and cake, always accompanied by some chocolates to nibble on, and then proceeds to the lecture - this tradition has been passed on without exception for all of these years. Their meeting places are rotated among members' private houses, it seems, and the house where today's meeting was held was a very large and handsome house with a grand piano in its lounge.

After the Chair of the club introduced me to about 25 women who had gathered that day, I started with a brief lecture on the history of the Japanese tea ceremony, its relationship with Zen philosophy, and its influence upon the Japanese way of life, and then did the demonstration. Both lecture and demonstration were quite successful, with lots of members enthusiastically taking notes and asking me questions during the lecture and assuring me that they really enjoyed the whole thing as well as the tea I served them.

It was also very nice to get to meet Patricia and Deb thanks to this occasion - Patricia is a staff member at IU East Asian Studies Center, and as the mediator for the Club and me for this particular event, she gave me a ride from my house to the place where today's event took place. It turned out that she has some personal connections both with Japan and NZ - she worked as an English teacher for 3 years in Japan and she visited NZ three times, including her honeymoon a few years(?) ago, as she loves the country. Deb is a ceramics art teacher in Brown County Highshool near Bloomington, and she has been interested in inviting me for a tea ceremony demonstration for her class sometime this year. Both Patricia and Deb are very nice and interesting to talk to, so I'm looking forward to having more opportunities to get to know them more in the future.

All the photographs uploaded on today's entry are taken by Deb - she has a talent in photography, as you can see - thanks to her beautiful pictures, I look like a real graceful tea master in these pictures, don't I??? ;-)