Thangka in "Family Thangka Workshop" Patan

Thangka

the Traditional painting

When I walked around in Patan, something caught my eyes.

They did.

The paintings are called Thangka(tangka).  A Tibetan Buddhist painting that depict usually Buddhist deity, mandala and Buddhist scene.

As you can see, they possess a unique style of their own. Most of them look painted with stable and strong lines like oil or acrylic paintings. The shop owner told me that they are painted in watercolor.
I was so amazed with the strong and bright color of them.

My eyes were caught

I stopped by the shop where the paintings drawing my attention were displayed. The shop's name is Family Thangka Workshop. Wow there were many Thangkas in the shop. I said "Namaste" to the shop clerk who was at the same time a Thangka artist.
There are many colorful Thangka paintings inside of the shop.

When he learned that I was Japanese, he sent his small boy to his brother in backyard because his wife was also Japanese.
They kindly offered some tea to us and we chatted for a while. This IS the Nepali style what made me a big fan of Nepal. People are very friendly and kind.

Looking for a nice frame for mine

Eventually I managed to choose one small painting depicting the process we transit to a god when human being are dying.

The left one is now mine !

How hard to choose one was from many pretty paintings...Now I am looking for a frame for it.
I embed a map for this on the bottom of this post.  In case that you are interested in them, I let you know their email lama_rakam82@yahoo.com.

amazing

a three-month-work

伝統的な絵

パタンをウロウロしていたとき、とあるものに目が止まりました。

これです。
Thangkaと呼ばれます。チベット仏教の絵画で、仏教の神様や曼荼羅、仏教的な描写が多いです。
ご覧になるとわかるように、独特なタッチなんです。太い力強い描画で、まるで油性やアクリルみたいです。が、水彩っていってました。
強い、明るい色を非常に気に入っちゃいました。

魅力的な

さっきの絵の飾ってあったお店に入ってみました。お店の人にナマステと挨拶しましたが、その人がアーティストでした。
わたしが日本人とわかると、お子さんの坊やを裏庭にいた弟さんを呼びいかせました。奥さんが日本人だそうで。

額縁探してます

皆さん、お茶を出してくれて、しばらくおしゃべりしました。これがわたしがネパールファンになった、 ネパールスタイルです！みんなフレンドリーで親切。
やっとのことで小さい絵を選びました・・絵は人間が死ぬときに神様に変わっていく過程を表したもの。ひとつ選ぶの難しかったー。今は額縁探し中・・！

お店情報は
これはNewachenゲストハウスの地図ですが、その前です！ lama_rakam82@yahoo.com.

Summer events in Japan

日本の夏

I am going to introduce very common things of summer in Japan today.

Obon

It is Obon season now. A lot of Japanese are on the Obon vacation and making trips or visiting their parents' houses. Obon is an annual Buddhist tradition for commemorating one's ancestors and we believe that our ancestors' spirits come back to our homes during this term. We also visit ancestors' braves. Obon is generally celebrated around Aug 15th.
Obon has another side. Japanese companies are on vacation at this season. Huge amount of Japanese people rush into sightseeing spots. Most highways are pretty busy. On the other hand, we have less rush hours when we commune.

Summer festival

We have a lot of local festivals everywhere in Japan and we generally call them "Summer festival"(Natsu matsuri). I saw a festival held in my neighborhood last week.
Main event of summer festival is that people carry around Mikoshi in their community. Mikoshi is kind of portable shrine. The spirit of a deity temporarily reposes in it.

Mikoshi is portable shriine.

Bon-odori

Odori means to dance and Bon-odori is for celebrating Obon. There are various explanation about the origin but it is performed in summer festival events cross over Japan.

Prayer Flags

祈りの旗

Colorful

You may have seen those colorful prayer flags in some pictures of Nepal and Tibet. They are found in many places in Nepal.


They say that flags seen in Tibetan Buddhism and have a long long history and root in ancient India.

As I learned that Tibet Buddhism affects Nepali traditions this much, those flags are also from Tibet.

Tarchor

They are called "Tarchor" which are in five different colors.
Each of them represents;

Blue symbolizing sky or space.
White symbolizing air or wind.
Red symbolizing fire.
Green symbolizing water.
Yellow symbolizing the earth.

In vertical displays, the yellow goes at the bottom and the blue at the top.

カラフル

色とりどりの旗、ネパールやチベットの写真で見たことがあるのではと思います。ネパールではよく見かけます。
旗は長い歴史があると言われていて、チベット仏教のものですが、ルーツはインドだそうです。
そう、チベット仏教はネパール文化にいろいろ影響してるように、旗たちもチベットから来たのね。

タルチョー

タルチョーと呼ばれるこの旗。5色あります。それぞれが意味をもっているそうで、

青は「空・天」
白は「風」
赤は「火」
緑は「水」
黄色は「地」

縦に並べるときは、黄色が一番下に来て、一番上が青です。

Sushi restaurant

お寿司

luxury food, Sushi

As you may know, Sushi is one of the representative Japanese food.
It is one of the traditional food. Since the Edo period, Japanese people have been enjoying eating it.
Sushi is kind of expensive and fancy food. If I have sushi at a "real" sushi restaurant, I would say "I treated myself for fancy dinner tonight".

But they say that Sushi used to be a fast food like Macdonald's back to the Edo period. They used to be sold in street stall.

Sushi grew cheaper and entertaining 

We have Kaiten Sushi restaurants while we have expensive fancy Sushi restaurants where the plates with the sushi are placed on a rotating conveyor belt.

At fancy Sushi restaurant, we sit at counter seat in front of Sushi chefs and order and a chef serves.

a Sushi chef

But we see chefs over a conveyor belt , even we can't see them at Kaiten Sushi restaurants. And Sushi will be conveyed on the rotating belt. We need to pick up Sushi we want to eat by myself. Sushi at Kaiten Shushi places are made by special machines, not human chef mostly. Kaiten Sushi places are kind of a fast food shop.

The first Kaiten Sushi restaurant was opened around 1960. When I just wanted to eat "Sushi like", I visited Kaiten Sushi places some times. Because they were less tasty than ones at fancy Sushi but much cheaper.

Sushi covered go around in a restaurant

However I realized recent Kaiten Sushi places are very entertaining too! Lately I visited a Kaiten place for the first time in the past 10 year to learn it.

We see no chefs there and can order what we want from the spacial device equipped with each tables, other than Sushis coming up on the rotating conveyor belt.

Desert plates are conveyed around as well.  It is fan to see them sliding forward on the belt.

Your orders are conveyed on another belt in front of you.

Have a blast on Friday nights.

花金！

The life of Salary-man

As you know, most of Japanese "salary man"(office worker) work pretty hard. I may be one of them. The regular work hour is from 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM in my company but I usually reach the office before 9 AM and leave the office after 8 pm.

after a party....?

Yes overwork is very common among Japanese office workers. Of course we want to stop working anytime to leave the office for home but are not able to do it.

Lately Japanese government is working on raising productivity of Japanese companies to boost growth. That may mean our Japanese office workers' performances at work are not good. That is why we need to work until late night.

Whatever .... working in Tokyo is kind of hard.

We need to get on the crowded trains to the office and packed in the crowded. Sometimes I feel fear to the irritating people. People say that Japanese people are polite and decent but rush-hour is exception. People are so aggressive. I can't walk without being pushed or bumped by commuting people on my way to the office every morning. We have professional pushers in the station. They help passengers to push themselves in the trains. lol

Can't wait Friday night!

Since we have hard time even to commune and long days at work, Friday night is what every Salary-men are waiting for.

What do they do on Friday nights? Mostly they hang out and drink a lot. You will see many bars and Japanese "Izakaya"(Japanese style drinking places) are buzzing with drunken salary-men.
Some will throw away in the trains or stations.... Even sleep on the streets.

Sleeping drunken salary-men in the trains are commonly seen on Friday night called "Hanakin"...
Hana means flower but it may mean blooming here and Kin is abbreviated word of Friday in Japanese, Kin-youbi. Hanakin implies that salary-men will have a huge blast on Friday night.

Japanese Otaku Culture

日本のオタク文化

What is Otaku ？

"Otaku" is a term of people who are obsessed with something.
There are two different recognition about Otaku. One is positive and another is negative.

If I say that someone is Eiga(films) Otaku, I would mean someone knows films a lot. This is a positive way.

But if I say that someone is Otaku, I would mean someone is nerd(introvert, un-socialized and obsessed with something much.).
Perhaps That person I am talking is supposed to be passionate about anime or games, Japanese idols.
（you can learn about Nard here)

shops for Otaku

I don't know why the Otaku culture grew in Japan but we see Otaku things so often.

This is a "maid cafe" where waitresses are wearing maid cloths. (I haven't visited there)

waitresses are wearing the costumes

 This is a shop where you can get cosplay costumes. There are many people to enjoy wearing costumes that characters in anime wear in Japan. They rush in this kind of shops.

you can find costumes

おたくとは？

「おたく」は何かにハマりまくってる人を指す言葉です。

日本では、「おたく」といったら2種類の解釈があります。ポジティブなのとネガティブなのと。

もし誰かを「映画おたく」と言ったら、その人は映画をよく知ってるというい意味です。

これはポジティブな方。でも、もし誰かを「おたく」と言ったら、それはその人が「ナード」(内向的で、社交性がなく、何かに取り付かてる） その人はおそらく、アニメやゲーム、日本のアイドルにご執心でしょう。

おたくのお店

おたく文化が日本で大きくなった理由はわかりませんが、オタクのものはよく見かけます。
これは「メイドカフェ」で、ウェイトレスはメイドの衣装を着てます。

このお店はコスプレ衣装を手に入れることができるとこ。日本ではアニメのキャラクターの衣装を好んで着る人たちがいます。こういうお店に殺到するわけです。

prices are surprising!! the left one is 10,000yen(100$)

"Golden Week" in Japan. Avoid to visit or not?

ゴールデンウィークはお勧めか？お勧めじゃないか？

Golden week

Days from the end of April to the first week of May is called "Golden Week" in Japanese.The reason we call it "golden" is because it is the longest vacation period of the year for most Japanese employees. Many Japanese companies get about a week off because there are four national holidays within these weeks.


fresh green leaves are fasinating in this season.

During this week, numerous Japanese make trips. So.... if you are thinking of visiting Japan, I suggest you to avoid this season to come over.Travel expenses like hotel room charge and flight ticket price get so high during this season. Before that, you may find so hard to book hotels and transportation. Additionally you will see the huge crowd everywhere.

Cats and Dogs

犬と猫

Cats in Japan

I don't know whether taking this word to express the phenomenon is right or not but I will say...

Now keeping cats is a record-breaking hit ever in Japan. As you know, cats are living creatures so I don't like to treat them as objects and say "booming".

But the surveys show number of pet cats has been increasing in the past years.
That was not our reason but we owns two cats.

Dogs in Nepal

On the other hand, Nepal is a country of dogs.

sleeping dogs in a temple

Japanese regional mascot characters

ご当地キャラ

mascot characters

As you already know, Japan is a country of 'anime' and 'manga(cartoon)' . I don't know whether it affects this phenomenon or not, but recently Japanese regional mascot characters, called "Gotochi Kyara" are growing so popular.


Kumamoto 's character, Kumamon

They are commonly playing an important roll to attract customers in the regional communities and even out of them. I am live in Tokyo and often see these characters, who are not Tokyo's one, appear live at special events. "live" means someone wearing full-size character costumes to animate them.
They are created to vitalize their own regions and they are going above and beyond. There are various products to sale, decorated by them and contests to decide which character is the most popular.
http://kumamon-official.jp/blog

Kumamon refrains

The reason I am writing about "Gotochi Kyara"(regional mascot character) today is that I saw a news article about Kumamon. Kumamon is the Kumamoto prefecture's mascot character. It says that Kumamon is refraining from twittering because his priority currently should be supporting evacuated Kumamoto residences because of the quake.

It sounds like a high profile celebrityIt sounds like a high profile celebrity....

mascot characters

よく知られているように、日本はアニメや漫画大国です。この現象にそれが影響してるのかどうかわかりませんが、最近日本の地方のマスコットキャラクター(ご当地キャラ)がすごい人気になっています。
ご当地キャラは地域内または地域の外からの集客に重要な役割を担っています。東京在住のわたしも、他県のキャラクターの着ぐるみをよく見かけます。その地域の活性化のために創られるのですが、それ以上の働きをしてます。キャラクターのついた さまざまなグッツもあり、全国のキャラクターのうち、日本一を決める大会もあります。
http://kumamon-official.jp/blog

Kumamon refrains

今日、ご当地キャラクターについて書こうと思ったのは、くまモンについての記事を見かけたからです。くまモンは熊本県のマスコットです。記事によれば、くまモンは、地震で避難している方たちなどのサポートを最優先とし、ツイットを控えているそうです。

まるで芸能人みたいな・・。

How to carry in Kathmandu

運び方

Before I mentioned Nepalease hard-workers carrying something put on their heads.

→Hard workers in Nepal Other time, I saw people carrying something their own uniq ways in Kathmandu.

on the bus

First on the top of bus.
Hmmmmm a goat?? A guy is trying to carry a goat put on the top of bus.
Be careful please !

Khata Tibetan Scarves in Nepal

チベットのスカーフ カタ

a gift for the trip

The day I left Nepal, one of my Nepali friend Ni gave me this scarf.
This is not just a scarf but "Khata" which is one of the ceremonial items. It originated in Tibetan Buddhism.

When Ni gave it to me, she told me that this was for my safe trip and draped around my neck. And this scarf is not for all of my journeys but only for the trip back to Japan. It sounds very spiritual!

Orange Flower

オレンジ色の花

Merigolds

You will see this marigold flowers so often in Nepal. This is called sayepatri in Nepal. Offering flowers　to gods and goodness is ssential to worship the deity.　It is common in Japan.
Marigold is called sayepatri in Nepal. "Saye" means a hundred and "patri" means layers.

このマリーゴールドはネパールでよく見かけます。神様にお花をお供えするのは、欠かせないことです。日本もほぼ同じですね。
マリーゴールドはネパール語でサイパトリといいます。サイは１００、パトリは重ねるという意味です。

Japanese wearing surgical masks

医療用マスク着けてます

Spring is good and bad

I love Spring but at the same time I hate it, no I am afraid of it. Because Spring is when the cypress pollen levels are their highest.
Many people are suffering from allergy to cedar pollen in Japan.
You will see a lot of people wearing surgical masks if you visit Japan in Spring, specially during February and March.

Bottles of water to share

共有水ボトル

It was really a wonder for me. On our home way from Thamel , San and I  dropped by a cafe which was not for tourists but for local people.　That was a small cafe having four or five tables. There is a show case for white sweets near the entrance.
When I sat down, I found there were a bottle of water on each tables.

you can see a bottle on the table over there and two in front 

Spring in Japan

日本の春

Official announcement of Sakura's blooming

Spring is arriving in Japan.
Today the Weather Ministry made an official announcement that the cherry trees are in bloom in Fukuoka and Nagoya today. Actually I found on tree in full bloom last week in Tokyo. But they haven't announced it for Tokyo.

I found this Sakura in the night

That is why there are some kinds of Sakura trees and when to bloom depends on them. For instance, Kawazu-sakura blooms in the middle of February but the most bloom from the middle of March to the middle of April.

Hard workers in Nepal

ネパールのがんばってる人たち

In Nepal, I saw amazing scene of wonders sometimes. ネパールでは、ときどきびっくりする光景を見ました。

On heads

One day I walked by a construction site one day in San's house's neighborhood . Guys were trying filling a big hole with sands. They didn't use any electronic machines but they were carrying sands out on their heads. Indeed I have seen people carrying something on their head in pictures but it was the first time to see such way in real. It is amazing....

Anyway they wore special caps. I hope their caps protecting their heads.

Japanese wedding parties

～日本の結婚式

Today I want to think about Japanese wedding parties. Actually I don't have experiences of hoding it but have attended friends wedding ceremonies and parties.

There are rare Christian in Japan but...

Couples have many options for places to have wedding parties like hotels and special halls for wedding parties, fancy restaurants. There are options for ceremonies too.

Shinto style and Christian style ceremonies are common options. If you hold Shinto one, ceremonies are held in temples. Bride will wear Kimonos. Shinto is a kind of traditional religion.

Only 1.3 percent of Japanese are Christian, but Christian style ceremonies account for most wedding ceremonies in Japan . That means  couples who aren't Christian hold Christian ceremonies.
 Girls admire white western wedding dresses since they are kids. And you can see small chapels in many hotels in Japan.

Wedding parties in Nepal

ネパールの結婚式

During staying in Pokhara where 200 km away from Kathmandu and the second biggest city in Nepal, I saw two weeding parties.
Nepalese weddings are much different from what we are used to in Japan.
カトマンズから200キロ離れた、ネパール第二の街ポカラに滞在していたとき、結婚式を見かけました。.
ネパールの結婚式は日本のとはずいぶん違います。.

Wedding parties are held even on weekdays!

Parties are held sometimes in open and the places look more